Stojan Petrović Confirmed Seven Years in Prison for Rape in Brčko

The Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed the first-instance verdict by which Stojan Petrović was sentenced to seven years in prison for rape in Brčko in the summer of 1992.

The State Court stated in its response to Detektor that the second-instance verdict has been dispatched, by which the appeals of the BiH Prosecutor's Office and the defendant's defense counsel were rejected as unfounded, and Petrović's sentence of seven years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population was confirmed.

Petrović, as stated in the first-instance verdict from December last year, was found guilty of raping the victim CR-3 in July 1992, in his capacity as a de facto police officer in Brčko. It is further stated that he committed the rape in a house used by members of the Intervention Unit of the Public Security Station in Brčko, where CR-3 was held captive.

According to the verdict, the victim had previously been held in another house, where Petrović approached her from behind on one occasion and put a knife to her throat.

In its appeal, the Prosecutor's Office requested that the legal qualification of the verdict be changed for Petrović, as he was originally charged with crimes against humanity, but the First-Instance Panel reclassified the act as "war crimes against the civilian population," while the Defense proposed its annulment and a retrial. Both appeals were rejected.

Petrović was originally indicted along with Ranko Češić and Slobodan Ljubičić. The proceedings against Češić, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal for crimes in Brčko, were stayed due to his death, while the proceedings against Ljubičić, who is not available to the BiH judiciary, were separated.

No appeal is allowed against this verdict, reports Birn.