Dudaković Case: Karan Listed as Expert in Indictment, Testifies as Witness(!?) Before the Court, and Exhumation Orders Missing from the File!

Written by: A. Čorbo-Zećo

Listed as an expert in the indictment, today Željko Karan testified as an expert witness in the 'Atif Dudaković et al.' case! Objections from the defense were not enough for the Trial Chamber, presided over by Judge Željka Marenić, to prohibit this type of hearing, which is contrary to the Criminal Procedure Code (ZKP).

Attorney Ifet Feraget filed a comprehensive objection to the legality of someone proposed as a court expert in the indictment being heard as a witness.

“The guarantees for witnesses are completely different from those for experts. A witness cannot present opinions in the courtroom, while an expert must present an opinion. Documents do not have to be presented to a witness, if they were an expert, as is the case today. The condition is that the expert prepares a finding and opinion.


Ifet Feraget: Chain of legality called into question

Here, the chain of legality has definitely been called into question, from the first order regarding whether it was an exhumation or an autopsy, depending on which is in question, the order is issued by the court or the prosecutor, then the link between the samples given for identification and the results of that identification is missing.

And then there is a rule that court decisions cannot be based on illegally obtained evidence. That was precisely the point of our objections; the court has not yet decided on the mass of these objections. The ZKP does not prescribe a time for deciding on an objection, but they are very significant because the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not submit the exhumation orders, and even where we have them, we cannot say it was a recovery operation, because the ZKP does not recognize it, and if it was, then a forensic medicine expert had to be present, otherwise you could take some bones, no offense to any victim, because here we are talking about legality, to another place, and attribute the victim to someone who was not even at that location.

These are very dangerous things, and there are more objections to legality that we will raise in cross-examination, when a picture can be created that a huge number of evidence presented by the Prosecutor's Office falls under illegal evidence,” said Feraget.

Attorney Mirna Avdibegović objected several times and stated after the hearing that these objections were aimed at the claim that illegal evidence cannot be evidence in the case file.

“There is no sequence of orders and actions pursuant to those orders that would be followed in the documentation presented today by the number and date of the order of the authorized body. That is the basis of any court proceeding, so that we can follow how a certain action came about, how it was carried out, and what the result of that action was, all connected,” Avdibegović emphasized.

The Trial Chamber thus ordered the Prosecutor's Office to submit the orders, which are currently not in the case file, in order to determine, but nevertheless allowed prosecutors Vedrana Mijović and Marijana Čobović to begin presenting photo documentation of the identification of the remains to Karan.

It can already be inferred that the orders of the competent authorities were deliberately omitted, because it is obvious that the Prosecutor's Office attributed every victim it managed to add to the 'Dudaković et al.' case by using documentation from other cases as well, which could be proven in the continuation of Karan's testimony.

Given that it should be determined for 160 sets of remains, his testimony will last several hearings, after which cross-examination will follow.

Incidentally, Željko Karan is a leading pathologist in the Republika Srpska and a forensic medicine expert, and as the media previously reported, Željko Karan extorted money for reports, was convicted, and later pardoned, but this did not hinder his career much!

The trial continues on February 12, 2024.