Bosnian Army

Mustafa Djelilovic, a senior wartime figure in Bosnia's Hadzici municipality who was being retried for war crimes after his initial conviction was overturned, has died, his defence lawyer told BIRN on Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, he passed away on the way to hospital last night," said lawyer Edina Residovic.

Mile Pazin's defence launched an appeal on Wednesday at the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo against last September's verdict finding him guilty of the inhumane treatment of a Bosniak civilian prisoner during the war.

In closing arguments at the Bosnian state court on Tuesday, ex-soldier Adem Kostjerevac's defence said that the charges should be dismissed due to procedural errors or the defendant should be acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

Edin Gadzo's defence lawyer urged the Bosnian state court on Friday to acquit his client, arguing that he could not have issued any orders to detain anyone because he was just a driver.

On January 28, 1994, reporter Marco Luchetta, cameraman Alessandro 'Sasa' Ota and technician Dario D'Angelo, who all worked for the Italian public broadcaster RAI-TV, were on assignment in the town of Mostar filming a story about children who were growing up amid the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Defence lawyer Senad Dupovac told the Bosnian state court in his closing statement on Friday that numerous witnesses at the trial of Senad Dzananovic and Edin Gadzo had given contradictory statements, and called for an acquittal.

The Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected Tarik Sisic's appeal against the verdict sentencing him to eight years in prison for war crimes in the village of Kukavice near Rogatica in August 1992, ruling that his right to a fair trial had not been violated.

The 27th anniversary of the killings of 26 Bosnian Croats in Buhine Kuce on January 9, 1994 will be marked on Saturday with a Catholic mass and the laying of flowers at the local cemetery.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Thursday upheld an appeal from Enver Buza, former commander of the Independent Battalion Prozor of the Bosnian Army, and quashed the first-instance verdict that sentenced him to 12 years in prison for wartime crimes in Uzdol, near the town of Prozor, in 1993.

The court said that Buza should be retried.

The Ministry for Veterans' Affairs of Sarajevo Canton told BIRN that it set aside 2,680,000 Bosnian marks (1,370,000 euros) from 2013 to 2020 to help mainly Bosniak former Bosnian Army soldiers and police officers who are on trial for war crimes and their families.