Bosnian Serb Ex-Policeman’s Persecution Acquittal Challenged

The Bosnian state prosecution launched an appeal on Tuesday calling for the verdict which cleared Slavko Milovanovic of committing crimes against humanity in the village of Resagici in May 1992 to be quashed and a retrial ordered.

Milovanovic, a wartime member of the reservist police force at the Public Security Station in the village of Skelani in the Srebrenica municipality, was acquitted in February this year.

He was found not guilty of going to Resagici on May 8, 1992, accompanied by a group of members of military, paramilitary and police formations, participating in an attack, giving an order to burn houses and forcing women and children to leave.

The court found that it was undisputed that the attack on Resagici happened, but the prosecution could not prove that the defendant was there.

As the grounds for its appeal, the prosecution claimed that there had been substantial legal violations during the trial and that the facts had been wrongly and incompletely established.

The defence argued that there were no grounds for the appeal and called for the acquittal verdict to be upheld.