ON THE WAY TO BiH AND FREEDOM Husein Mujanović released from detention in Belgrade

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Following the second-instance verdict of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, sentencing Husein Mujanović to four and a half years, he was released home today.

As confirmed for N1, Mujanović's aforementioned 4.5-year sentence was set to expire tomorrow. Given that he has been in detention in Belgrade since 2018, he was released today.

He is currently on his way to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Recall, the first-instance verdict sentenced Mujanović to ten years in prison.

“The accused Husein Mujanović was found guilty of, in the period from July 8 to October 15, 1992, as the commander of the military detention facility of the Armed Forces of the Army of BiH – Ilidža, in Hrasnica, treating imprisoned civilians inhumanely and inflicting great mental suffering on them, by failing to provide them with minimal living conditions, holding them locked in garages that were partitioned so that two cells were made from one garage, without windows, beds, or other furnishings,” the Court stated in a press release.

According to the statement, the civilians received minimal amounts of food daily, one or at most two meals, consisting of 12 or 13 spoonfuls of liquid and a piece of bread per person, due to which they were constantly hungry and thirsty, and were not provided with basic medical care.

“In the opinion of the Appellate Court, a substantive, essential, and comparative analysis of the evidence presented during these proceedings leads to the unequivocal conclusion that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused, in the period from July 8 to October 15, 1992, was the commander of the military detention facility in Hrasnica, and that he treated imprisoned civilians inhumanely because he did not provide them with elementary living conditions,” the Court states.

The Appellate Court, by partially upholding the appeals of the accused and his defense attorneys, omitted unlawful detention from the factual description of the indictment, finding that in this specific case there is no evidence that the accused, in the incriminated period as commander of the military detention facility in Hrasnica, undertook the act of unlawfully detaining around 30 Serbian civilians.

Furthermore, the Appellate Court also found that the evidence presented during these criminal proceedings could not unequivocally conclude that Mujanović issued an order for prisoners to be beaten and tortured, or that he inflicted bodily injuries on victims M. V. and S. P.

The Higher Court in Belgrade, in May 2022, in a retrial, sentenced Mujanović to ten years in prison for mistreating prisoners of Serbian nationality in the military prison of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Hrasnica near Sarajevo.

In the previous proceeding, in July 2020, Mujanović was also given the same sentence of ten years in prison. However, the Appellate Court in Belgrade, in February 2021, overturned that verdict and ordered a retrial. Mujanović's lawyer, Dušan Ignjatović, argued in the appeals process that the first-instance proceeding was not fair, because the Higher Court in Belgrade did not accept all the witnesses proposed by the Defense.

Mujanović was arrested in July 2018 at the border crossing between BiH and Serbia. He has been in detention in Serbia since then, BIRN BiH reported.