The Appellate Division of the State Court acquitted Radomir Pantic and four others accused of the murders of at least 57 civilians committed on May 16th, 1992 in the village of Zaklopaca in the municipality of Milici, as it was confirmed to the Balkan Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH).
All the accused were acquitted, confirmed the defense attorney of the first accused Pantic, Radivoje Lazarevic.
“I received the verdict of the Court of BiH, which rejected the appeal of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office and confirmed the first-instance verdict,” Lazarevic told BIRN BiH.
At the end of March this year, the Court of BiH passed a first-instance verdict acquitting Pantic, Nenad Vukotic, Branko Jolovic, Milomir Milosevic and Nikola Losic of the murders of at least 57 Bosniak civilians in the village of Zaklopaca near Milici.
Namely, the First Instance Court Council then concluded that it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the murders of civilians in Zaklopaca on May 16th, 1992.
Mira Smajlovic, the Chairperson of the Council, noted at the time that during the trial a large number of Prosecution and Defense witnesses were heard, and a lot of material evidence was presented, but that guilt could not be determined based on it.
“None of the direct eyewitnesses were consistent in their statements when it came to the perpetrators of this terrible crime, which the Defense did not dispute,” Smajlovic said at the first-instance verdict.
Pantic was accused as the commander of the Public Security Station (SJB) Milici, Milosevic as an active policeman, while the other accused were members of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS).
In October of this year, during the presentation of appeals, the Prosecution requested the annulment of the first-instance verdict, stating that the testimony of the witnesses was not properly evaluated.
The trial of Pantic et al began in May 2017. Blagoje Vojvodic andCedo Bogicevic were also accused with them, but the proceedings were separated before the start of the trial because they were unavailable, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
