The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has upheld the first-instance verdict acquitting Miladin Trifunović of charges of crimes against humanity in the Vogošća area, his defense attorneys Rade Golić and Aleksandar Lazarević confirmed.
Golić said that the Appellate Chamber had rejected the State Prosecutor’s appeal as unfounded.
Trifunović was acquitted in the first-instance trial of charges that, as commander of the Vogošća Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), he had given consent to the commanders of units subordinate to him to issue orders to the administration of the “Planjina kuća” prison in Vogošća to take and use imprisoned civilians for work on the front lines of combat operations, and that he personally issued such orders at least five times even though he knew that fighting was taking place in those locations and that it was not safe for civilians.
According to Golić, the reasoning for the second-instance verdict considered two orders for the security of prisoners of war, which were graphologically examined.
The defense attorney says that the defense expert stated in his findings and opinion that the two orders in question were not signed by the accused in his own handwriting, while the prosecution expert stated that the copies could not be expertly authenticated, but did not exclude Trifunović as the signatory of the orders in question. The Court of BiH, according to Golić, pointed out that the prosecution did not present other evidence on the basis of which it would be established that Trifunović was the signatory of the orders.
The prosecution filed an appeal against the acquittal verdict, due to essential violations of the provisions of criminal procedure, violations of the Criminal Code of BiH, and erroneously or incompletely established facts, which was ultimately rejected.
This verdict is not subject to appeal, Detektor writes.
