Mirko Vrucinic, charged with crimes against humanity committed in Sanski Most in 1992, informed the court of Bosnia and Herzegovina through his lawyer that he was leaving for Serbia.
Branko Gudalo, Vrucinic’s defense counsel, said at the hearing where the closing arguments of the defense were planned, that the accused visited him in his office and told him that he would not come to the hearing and he will go to Serbia, BIRN writes.
“Your Honor, on Saturday at nine o’clock in the morning, he came to my office and told me: ‘Tell the Court that I should go to Serbia, because I did not have a fair trial,'” Gudalo told Vrucinic.
Defense counsel said that he did not know whether the accused went to Serbia.
Eldina Biuk, Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, said that the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH had repeatedly asked Serbia and Interpol for information on whether Vrucinic had dual citizenship and whether he had applied for Serbian citizenship, but did not want to answer.
“We have no information whether he has dual citizenship,” Biuk said. Mira Smajlovic, chairwoman of the Council of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that the Court was issuing an order for the forced arrest of the indictee on September 2nd.
Biuk suggested that the Court issue an order to the Border Police banning the accused from crossing the state border in case he is still in BiH.
Vrucinic, a former chief of the Public Security Station (SJB) and a member of the Sanski Most Crisis Staff, is charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise involving killings, forced relocations, illegal detentions and enforced disappearances. The trial of Vrucinic began on April 22, 2015 and lasted for five years, and before the end of the proceedings, the defense of the accused should have given its closing arguments.
