Ilija Elez sentenced to eight years in prison for crime in Foča

(Patria) - The District Court in Trebinje has issued a first-instance verdict sentencing Ilija Elez to eight years in prison for a war crime committed in 1992 in the Foča area.

Elez was found guilty of participating with Neđo Golubović, who died in 1998, in the murder of four Bosniak civilians in the Miljevina area, writes Detektor.

According to the verdict, Elez, armed with an automatic rifle, drove with Golubović in a Lada Niva vehicle to the houses of the victims Ahmet Ramović, Halil Hrbinić known as Muriz, Hamdo Muhović, and Ramo Ramović. They unlawfully deprived them of their liberty, drove them to the location of Mitrino vrelo, and killed them with firearms.

Their bodies were found later and exhumed in 1999.

The explanation of the verdict states that it was established that Elez participated in the abduction of civilians and that the testimonies of witnesses who identified the accused were of particular importance.

A number of witnesses confirmed that a gunshot was heard shortly after the civilians were taken away.

The Court stated that the prosecutor from the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Trebinje did not manage to present evidence for the act of murder of the victims, but the fact that witnesses heard gunshots from the direction where the victims were taken led to the conclusion of a causal link between the two events.

The defense's thesis that no witness saw the act of murder was rejected, and Elez's participation in all events was unequivocally proven.

"For the existence of complicity, it is not even necessary to establish that both accused fired at the victims, given that all the actions undertaken by the accused Ilija Elez together with Neđo Golubović are of decisive significance in the commission of the crime, especially the circumstance that he, together with Neđo Golubović, took the victims in the direction of Mitrino vrelo, where their bodies were found," the Court's explanation states.

It was also proven that Elez was a member of the Army of Republika Srpska, and when determining the sentence, the Court considered the mitigating circumstances that he was a young adult in 1992, that he had no prior convictions, that he is a family man, and that more than 30 years have passed since the events.

Among the aggravating circumstances, the Court considered the fact that four civilians died, one of whom was a minor with developmental disabilities.

An appeal against this verdict to the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska is permitted.