The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina handed down a second-instance verdict sentencing Dusan Sladojevic, Slavko Aleksic and Risto Lecic to five months in prison each for inciting national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance in and around Visegrad in March 2019.
According to BIRN, in an invalid verdict handed down today by Judge Azra Miletic, the Appellate Chamber found that Sladojevic, Aleksic and Lecic glorified the Chetnik movement and Draza Mihailovic with their activities at a gathering of “equals” in Visegrad, and called for threats and violence, commit the crime of “inciting national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance”.
Their trial began in July 2021, and in a first-instance verdict from December last year, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina acquitted them of the charges that they gathered in the morning of March 10, 2019 at the Square of Fallen Soldiers in Visegrad, organized by the Visegrad Municipal Board Ravnogorski pokret ”, which included members of the movement from Serbia and Montenegro, in uniforms and with flags, who later drove to the Dobrunska rijeka site, known as“ Drazevin ”.
Sladojevic was then acquitted of the charges that, as the president of the “Ravnogorski pokret Republike Srpske”, he addressed the audience after the line-up and handed over the report to the accused Aleksic, while a song with verses that provoke fear was played in the background.
According to an earlier verdict, Aleksic was acquitted of the accusation that, after Sladojevic handed him a report at the “Drazevina” site, he addressed the audience with the words “Brothers from Ravna Gora, Chetnik brothers”, while those present used fearful terminology played the song “Get ready, get ready, Chetniks”.
Lecic was acquitted of the accusation that in front of the Visegrad Hotel he started singing a fiddle song glorifying the Chetnik movement, which in his text expresses threat or violence, and caused anxiety and fear of the population, especially returnees and citizens of Visegrad and surrounding towns.
There is a possibility of appealing the second instance verdict to the Third Instance Chamber of the Court of BiH, Detektor reports.