The Supreme Court of Republika Srpska confirmed the first-instance verdict acquitting Stevo Mumović of having committed war crimes against the civilian population in Vlasenica in May 1992, his lawyer Goran Dragović confirmed for Detektor.
At the beginning of February this year, the District Court in East Sarajevo acquitted Mumović of responsibility for the crimes committed in Vlasenica, and the District Public Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal against that verdict, which the Supreme Court rejected as unfounded.
The Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal due to a significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure and the wrongly or incompletely established factual situation, with a proposal to cancel the first-instance verdict, return the case for a new decision or to change the verdict to a conviction. In response to the appeal, the defense counsel of the accused suggested that it be rejected in its entirety as unfounded and the first-instance verdict be confirmed.
Mumović was acquitted of charges that in Vlasenica in May 1992, together with four members of the Vlasenica Public Security Station, he came to the detention room located on the ground floor of the police building, where at least 12 civilians of Bosniak nationality were illegally imprisoned, and two of began to beat them, causing them physical and mental suffering.
He was absolved of responsibility and that on May 2, 1992, together with another policeman, he came to a house in Vlasenica and ordered the owner to go with them in order to give a statement, then they beat him with rubber batons, butts of automatic rifles and hands, and two more members of the police reserve team joined in the beating.
In the explanation of the first-instance verdict, it was stated that the District Public Prosecutor’s Office did not prove the existence of an armed conflict between the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) in May 1992, since the VRS was formed on May 12 of that year, and that the specific criminal offense must be committed during wartime.
The Supreme Court panel, after considering the appeal, found that the decisive facts concerning the armed conflict and the actions of the accused in physical abuse in connection with that conflict were not proven, so that Mumović committed the criminal offense of “war crime against the civilian population”.
“The court correctly assumes that the prosecution did not prove the existence of an armed conflict in the area of Vlasenica at the time the criminal offense was committed. The possibility of establishing a cause-and-effect relationship with the actions that the defendant is charged with depends on this question, and finally, if it is determined that he has taken them, the legal assessment of the criminal offense,” it is stated in the second-instance verdict, which Detektor journalists had access to.
