The appellate panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina reduced by two years the sentence of Momčilo Tešić for his participation in the shooting of 17 men from the Srebrenica area on July 13-14, 1995 in Mršići near Vlasenica, and ultimately sentenced him to 18 years in prison.
“The Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected the appeal of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina as unfounded, while the appeals of the accused Tešić and his lawyer were partially accepted, and the first-instance verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was changed in the decision on criminal sanctions in such a way that the accused was sentenced to 18 years in prison , while the rest of the appeals were rejected as unfounded and the first-instance verdict was confirmed,” the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced.
Accused Momčilo Tešić was found guilty of having during the wide and systematic attack, which was carried out in the period from July 6 to 19, 1995, by the Army of the Republika Srpska and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska, directed against the civilian Bosniak population of the ‘UN protected zone’ a’ Srebrenica, knowing about such an attack and that his actions were part of that attack, committed the persecution of the Bosniak civilian population on political, national, cultural, ethnic and religious grounds by murder.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced Momčilo Tešić to 20 years in prison for his participation in the shooting of 17 men from the Srebrenica area on July 13-14, 1995 in Mršići near Vlasenica.
In that verdict, it was stated that members of the Vlasenica Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) shot a group of 17 men, one of whom managed to escape, and during its reasoning, the Council recalled the testimony of a witness that he was separated from a group of 22 men in Luka and that after being abused at the school were taken to the location where the soldiers, turning on the lights and opening the side of the truck, transferred the men and killed them, and that other witnesses confirmed the participation of the accused.
Tešić was accused as a member of the Military Police Platoon of the Vlasenica Brigade for aiding in the genocide, but the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced him for a crime against humanity in a first-instance verdict. The council then assessed that it was not proven that Tešić had genocidal intent, but that he was aware of a wide and systematic attack on the Bosniak civilian population of the protected enclave of Srebrenica.
Appealing the first-instance verdict, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested a long prison sentence, while the Defense requested acquittal or a sentence below the legal minimum.
Prosecutor Predrag Tomić, explaining the appeal, said that the actions for which Momčilo Tešić is accused were carried out in an extremely brutal and cold-blooded manner and that the accused did not express disagreement or hesitation when shooting the men.
Rade Golić, Tešić’s defense attorney, when presenting the appeal against the first-instance verdict, said that it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Tešić was taking the prisoners out, nor that he was present.
The former commander of the Vlasenica Brigade, Mile Kosorić, was also tried with Tešić, but the proceedings against him were separated in May 2022 due to illness. Borislav Stojišić and Rajko Drakulić were accused in this case at the end of 2017, and they are not available to the judicial authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
There is no possibility of appealing this verdict, reports BIRN BiH.
