District Court

The District Court in Doboj has confirmed an indictment charging Ante Pavic, a former military policeman with the Croatian Defence Council, the Bosnian Croat wartime force, with war crimes against civilians.

"The Supreme Court of Republika Srpska has issued a verdict in the case of Milenko Gojgolovic, confirming the decision of the District Court in East Sarajevo," the court told BIRN.

The District Court in Plovdiv did not respect the measure "detention in custody" proposed by the prosecutor's office for Dencho Denchev. The 72-year-old driver hit a woman and a child in the Bulgarian village of Anevo. The 2-year-old died on the spot and his grandmother is in the hospital.

The District Public Prosecution in East Sarajevo has filed an appeal against the verdict clearing Milenko Gojgolovic of beating and raping a female detainee at the Susica detention camp in Vlasenica in June 1992.

Gojgolovic was a member of the Territorial Defence force in Vlasenica, which was then renamed the Vlasenica Light Infantry Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army's Drina Corps.

Ex-soldier Milenko Gojgolovic's lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic told BIRN on Wednesday that the District Court in East Sarajevo acquitted his client "due to a lack of evidence".

Gojgolovic was a member of the Territorial Defence force in Vlasenica and later became a member of the Vlasenica Light Infantry Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army's Drina Corps.

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.

Researcher Hikmet Karcic cites the Simic case in his report entitled 'Obeying Unlawful Orders: Continuity of Personnel Involved in Human Rights Violations and its Impact on Reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina'.

Karcic notes in the report that several convicted war criminals who have served their sentences have since returned to public office in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Turkish state lender Halkbank will be arraigned in a U.S. court next week to face a federal indictment for alleged evading Iran sanctions.

The bank was represented by the law firm of King & Spalding at a hearing on Feb. 25 and attorneys said it agreed to appear at the proceedings.

Halkbank was charged in October with attempts to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

A U.S. appeals court in Manhattan granted Turkish state lender Halkbank a temporary pause in its Iran sanctions evasion case.

The temporary stay in the case was granted on Feb. 3 to allow for the bank's requests to be heard by a three-judge panel.
The court said it would take up Halkbank's requests on an expedited basis.

A Cyprus court on Monday found a 19 year-old British woman guilty of fabricating claims that she was gang raped by 12 Israelis in a hotel room at a tourist resort in the east Mediterranean island nation, saying that her story lacked credibility.