A prosecutor of the Special Department for War Crimes filed an indictment against Rade Macura, born in 1963 in Bistrica, Bosanska Gradiska,
The charges against the accused are that in June 1992 he, as commander of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) (Commander of the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Light Gradiska Brigade), acted contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
The indictment alleges that on 23 June 1992 the accused, as commander of the VRS forces, together with his subordinate soldiers, carried out a military action of search of the terrain where a group of Bosniak civilians from Kozarac, Prijedor municipality, was located trying to cross the border with the Republic of Croatia on the Sava River while fleeing from war conflicts.
After the civilians, including three women, had surrendered, the soldiers commanded by the accused acted inhumanely towards the captured civilians and tortured them, after which they shot from their firearms and killed the said civilians whose bodies were found in 2003, exhumed and identified.
The accused Rade Macura is charged with directly commanding and being physically present at the scene during the said military action, directly participating in the action with his subordinate soldiers and failing to take necessary and reasonable measures to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of this crime, whereby he committed the criminal offence of War Crimes against Civilians under Article 173 (1) (c) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Prosecutor’s Office will prove the allegations of the indictment by calling 41 witnesses, as well as military experts, and tendering and presenting 125 pieces of material evidence.
The indictment was forwarded to the Court of BiH.
