Court of BiH rejects judge Curović's request to merge 'Lučarević' and 'Ganić and others' cases

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected as unfounded the proposal to merge the criminal proceedings in the case against the accused Kerim Lučarević with the case against the accused Ejup Ganić and others, commonly known as the 'Dobrovoljačka case'.

This proposal came from judge Tanja Curović, who is the president of the trial panel in the case against Kerim Lučarević, and also a member of the panel in the case of Ejup Ganić and others.

This proposal, deemed unfounded, was also supported by the acting prosecutor Mladen Vukojičić, but the defense teams expressed explicit opposition to merging these two cases.
Lejla Čović, the lawyer for Ejup Ganić, stated that she opposes the proposal to merge the proceedings, as it is contrary to the accused's right to an efficient and economical criminal procedure. In this regard, the defense attorney pointed out that the criminal proceedings in the case against Ejup Ganić et al. are difficult to conduct, that only 4 witnesses have been heard since the main trial began in October 2022, and that merging with the Lučarević case would lead to further delays.

The defense teams stated in their submissions that experts estimated that the accused Lučarević can only attend court for one hour at a time, and at that rate, the proceedings would last at least 10 years.

Incidentally, this Dobrovoljačka case is a product of Serbia's request, which did not abandon the process for years, despite the fact that the case was concluded in The Hague with the conclusion that the JNA column in Dobrovoljačka was a legitimate military target!

The accused in the Dobrovoljačka case officially sent a request to the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council for protection against the arbitrary actions of the BiH Prosecutor's Office on June 3, 2022, and to this day, no concrete action has been taken regarding this complaint, other than receiving the complaints.

In this specific case, the HJPC is asked to investigate the actions of the prosecutors who filed the indictment in this case, despite numerous decisions by international courts (courts in London and Vienna when deciding on the extradition of individuals accused of offenses related to this case) and other international bodies (Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), and despite numerous collected evidence based on which the BiH Prosecutor's Office itself (international prosecutors) decided not to conduct an investigation (elements of a criminal offense were not met and there is no evidence that the then-suspects committed criminal offenses).

“Perhaps the actions of individual prosecutors would not be questionable if they had not completely disregarded previously collected evidence, and obviously expert testimonies, and ordered completely new, very questionable and debatable expert testimonies, we will be free to say even 'commissioned' expert testimonies from which tendentious actions arise, without basis in regulations and evidence.

And precisely based on such expert testimonies, completely disregarding previously collected evidence, the prosecutors led by Milanko Kajganić decided to file an indictment in this case, even against individuals who had never been suspected for 30 years. All of this was carried out without any concrete explanation,” it is stated, among other things, in the complaint.

Incidentally, the Prosecutor's Office in this case claims, or rather proves, that Alija Izetbegović was not captured and that the JNA column moving through Dobrovoljačka was not a legitimate military target!