Belgrade Court Upholds Sentence for 'Red Berets' Member for Rape in Brčko

(Patria) - The Court of Appeal in Belgrade has upheld the verdict sentencing Nikola Vida Lujić, a former member of the "Red Berets", to eight years in prison for a rape committed in 1992 in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nikola Vida Lujić, a former member of the Special Operations Unit (JSO), more commonly known as the "Red Berets", has had his eight-year prison sentence confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Belgrade for raping a Bosniak woman in Brčko on June 20, 1992.

In its reasoning, the court stated that the eight-year prison sentence is "necessary, but also sufficient to achieve the purpose of punishment".

The Court of Appeal cited a part of the first-instance verdict against Vida Lujić, condemning his "particularly offensive and humiliating treatment of the victim".

The verdict also emphasizes the "intensity of psychological injuries and the continuous suffering experienced by the victim", as well as "psychological trauma from which she is still being treated today".

As determined by the court, on the specified date, Vida Lujić, along with two other unidentified soldiers, entered a house in Brčko in uniform and armed.

Upon entering, he took out a pistol, loaded it, and put it back in his pocket.

When the woman handed over her money and jewelry, Vida Lujić took her to the bathroom and locked the door. There, he raped her twice, then took her to the bedroom and raped her again.

According to the first-instance verdict, during the assault, the victim asked Lujić to kill her, to which he replied that he was "not assigned to that".

While he was raping her, the other two were smashing things around the house.

The Court of Appeal issued its verdict on January 31, and it was published on the Court's website on March 4.

When the first-instance verdict was delivered in September 2019, Judge Dejan Terzić stated that Vida Lujić had been previously convicted of a similar criminal offense.

"He exploited his dominance over the victim and her helplessness, given that she was already sufficiently frightened because her husband had already been arrested," Terzić said.

The indictment was initially filed by the Prosecutor's Office of Brčko District in January 2018, but since Vida Lujić is a Serbian citizen, the District Court in Doboj transferred the case to the Higher Court in Belgrade.