Eurasia Press & News
The Bosnian state court rejected a request for the retrial of Mendeljev Djuric, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison for assisting the commission of genocide in Srebrenica.
The court on Friday turned down the plea for a retrial by Djuric, who was convicted in August 2013 of participating in the killings of 1,000 Bosniak prisoners in Kravica in July 1995 and the forced relocation of the civilian population in the Srebrenica area.
The former commander of a platoon from the Bosnian Serb police training centre in Jahorina, Djuric was convicted along with Dusko Jevic, the former commander of the centre, who was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
His lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic has said that he filed the motion for a retrial and an appeal before the constitutional court because he believed that the wrong criminal code was used at his client’s trial.
The constitutional court has already overturned verdicts and jail terms for 15 people who were convicted of genocide and other wartime crimes because of the wrong implementation of criminal code.
Bosnian law allows for a retrial after the final verdict is handed down if there is an evidence that the verdict was based on false testimony or was made due to the criminal acts of a judge or another person in charge of the investigation, and in the event that new facts or evidence are presented.
