Bosnian state court

The Bosnian state court on Tuesday sentenced former Bosnian Serb Army soldiers Bratislav Bilbija and Djuro Adamovic to two and three years in prison respectively for committing a war crime against civilians in the hamlet of Bukvik, near Prijedor, in August 1992.

The court acquitted Bilbija and Adamovic, and third defendant Ranko Babic, of murder, torture and forced disappearances.

A year after an investigation was opened into the disclosure by several media outlets of the identity of a protected witness in the trial of five ex-policemen accused of involvement in the Srebrenica genocide, the prosecution has not announced any progress in the case.

The Bosnian state court has given BIRN a list of 41 people who are wanted for trial and are the subjects of international arrest warrants, many of whom are living in neighbouring Serbia.

On the list are several suspects accused of involvement in the 1995 genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces, including former Bosnian Serb Interior Minister Tomislav Kovac.

Mourners laid wreaths at a memorial to Croats killed during wartime and attended a Catholic mass on Thursday in Grabovica, near the town of Jablanica, to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the massacre in the village.

Boro Milojica's defence lawyer Ranko Dakic told BIRN that an appeal to reduce the former Bosnian Serb Army soldier's 20-year sentence has been rejected by the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court.

The Bosnian state court announced on Thursday that its appeals chamber has sentenced Srecko Acimovic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army Zvornik Brigade's Second Battalion, to seven years in prison for aiding and abetting the genocide of Bosniak men from Srebrenica in July 1995.

Ljubisa Vasiljevic, a wartime Serb paramilitary fighter who was one of five defendants in the Strpci trial at Belgrade Higher Court, has died.

Belgrade Higher Court told BIRN that Vasiljevic died on July 6 and that "due to that fact, the court adopted a decision to suspend the proceedings [against him] on August 16, 2021".

Relatives of the Bosniaks and Croats killed at the Koricani Cliffs by Bosnian Serb forces will mark the 29th anniversary of the massacre on Saturday by throwing roses into the deep mountain pit where their loved ones' bodies were dumped after they were killed in 1992.

The Bosnian state prosecution said on Monday that Ranko Cesic, Slobodan Ljubicic and Stojan Petrovic have been charged with committing a crime against humanity in the Brcko area between April and December 1992.

Cesic and Ljubicic are accused of killing four civilian Bosniaks, and of unlawfully and violently detaining female civilians, after which they raped and sexually abused them.

The Bosnian state court convicted Rade Garic on Monday of the persecution of Bosniaks from Vlasenica and Srebrenica, finding him guilty of involvement in murders, forcible disappearances, physical and psychological abuse and other inhumane acts.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison under the first-instance verdict, which can be appealed.