Having held a hearing to rule on the motion filed by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to order custody of suspect Dušan Spasojević, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina partly granted the motion, and on 20 November 2018 issued a decision ordering the suspect Dušan Spasojević into custody, which may last for a maximum of one month, running from the day of arrest, which means until 19 December 2018 or pending a new decision by the Court.
Pre-trail custody was ordered on the custody grounds set forth in Article 132(1)a) of the Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CPC BiH), which is the existence of flight risk.
Dušan Spasojević is suspected of the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians under Article 173(1)e) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CC BiH).
On 20th November, members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH’s) State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) arrested one person suspected of war crimes during the country’s war.
Acting on the orders of BiH’s Prosecutor’s Office, SIPA members located and arrested the suspect in Zvornik, a city some 125 kilometers northeast of the capital Sarajevo.
“Dusan Spasojevic, 64, born in Zvornik, is charged with a criminal offense, namely a war crime against a civilian population,” BiH Prosecutor’s Office said on Monday in a statement.
“Being a member of the Territorial Defense of the Serbian Municipality of Zvornik, the suspect committed war crimes against the victim of Bosniak nationality in May 1992 in Jusici village,” it said.
On Monday, the suspect will be handed over to the acting prosecutor for examination before a decision is made on the case.
An ethnically rooted war that took place from 1992 to 1995 in BiH was fought between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, resulting in 100,000 people killed and over 2 million displaced worldwide. After years of bitter fighting, Western countries with backing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imposed a final ceasefire negotiated at Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in 1995.
