Indictment Raised Against 10 Persons for War Crimes Against Bosniaks in Zvornik

The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has raised an indictment against ten persons charged with the criminal offense of crimes against humanity in the Zvornik area during 1992, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria.

As announced by this institution, the indictment was raised against Goran Maksimović from Tešanj, Ljiljan Mitrović from Zabrđe, and Radivoje Đorđić, Slavko Perić, Milo Vujević, Vukašin Drašković, Gojko Stevanović, Cvjetko Popadić, Rajko Lazarević, Mićo Manojlović, all from Zvornik. 

They are accused that during July 1992, as part of a widespread and systematic attack by the army and police directed against the Bosniak civilian population (Goran Maksimović as commander and Ljiljan Mitrović as deputy commander of the intervention unit of the SJB Ugljevik, and Slavko Perić as commander of the Lokanj Company of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), and the other accused as members of military forces and high-ranking officials of police and military structures) they planned, directed and supervised operations and activities, and together with other members of military forces participated in the mass persecution of the population of Bosniak nationality in the wider area of the village of Lokanj, Zvornik municipality, and neighboring municipalities, and thus committed the persecution of about one hundred and twenty civilians, among whom were children and women.

Thus, at the time of the widespread and systematic attack on civilians, the suspects, aware of that attack, on racial, ethnic, religious, cultural grounds, carried out persecution through murders, forced displacement of the population, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, infliction of physical and psychological injuries, physical abuse, terror and violence.

After the persecution, the victims were taken in columns to various locations and places of detention where they were tortured and abused in various ways, and on several occasions, by separating them into groups, mass executions of captured civilians were carried out and more than 67 victims were killed. 

After that, the victims were thrown into a pit that had been previously dug and prepared and covered, and the exhumed bodies were exchanged on June 4, 1993, and February 17, 1994, in Teočak. 

Along with the indictment, the examination of 141 witnesses and two court experts was proposed, and extensive evidentiary material was attached with more than 705 pieces of evidence and documents, including documentation on the identification of the crime victims. 

The indictment has been forwarded to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for confirmation.