Goražde

The Belgrade Higher Court has opened the trial of Lazar Mutlak, a Bosnian Serb wartime reserve policeman and member of Srpsko Gorazde Territorial Defence, for raping a Bosniak women on May 25, 1992.

According to the indictment, Mutlak entered the house of another civilian in the village of Lozje, in Gorazde municipality, where among others was a women of Bosniak nationality.

The court decision comes after Petkovic, who is now in Serbia, was due to enter his plea on June 16, but failed to appear in court. The State Court said that he had also failed to attend an earlier hearing on March 10 this year.

FeatureChapter 1The unthinkable happens

A view of the western bank of the River Drina in the centre of Gorazde. Photo: Tom Barlow-Brown.

Former police chief Ibro Merkez's defence asked the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Monday to reverse the original verdict and acquit him of unlawfully detaining Serb civilians in Gorazde and treating them inhumanely between the middle of July 1992 and August 4 the same year.

The Bosnian state court on Tuesday cleared former Bosnian Army brigade commander Ahmet Sejdic of 11 counts of inhumane treatment of Serb civilians and prisoners of war from the Bosnian Serb Army in the period between July 1992 and February 1993.

"There was a fierce attack on Gorazde from the left bank of the River Drina. There was shelling and smoke all over the place," Mirsada Causevic told BIRN, recalling a Bosnian Serb artillery assault on Gorazde in eastern Bosnia that led to the death of her eight-year-old son Haris on April 14, 1994.

Four former Bosniak fighters were charged with involvement in abusing and torturing Bosnian Serb prisoners of war in the Gorazde and Visegrad areas in 1992 and 1993.

A woman testified how her son was shot dead when Serb civilians were attacked by Bosniak forces while fleeing from the Gorazde area in 1992. 

Four former Bosnian Army servicemen have been indicted for allegedly staging an attack on Serb civilians who were fleeing the conflict in Gorazde in 1992, leaving 21 people dead.

The Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency searched the building as part of an investigation into alleged crimes against Serbs in the area during the 1990s war.