Tribunal Declines Bosnia Court Case Retrial
Bosnian Serb says he was convicted on charges "outside scope" of tribunal indictment.
Tribunal Declines Bosnia Court Case Retrial
Bosnian Serb says he was convicted on charges "outside scope" of tribunal indictment.
Judges at the The Hague tribunal have declined to retry a case that was previously transferred to Bosnian courts, resulting in a guilty conviction and a 34-year prison sentence for the accused.
In 2005, Gojko Jankovic was transferred to the Hague tribunal, charged with torturing and raping Bosniak woman and girls in the eastern Bosnian town of Foca, where he was sub-commander of the Bosnian Serb military police.
Later that year, judges decided to transfer his case back to Bosnian courts, where he was found guilty in 2007 of seven counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and rape, and sentenced to 34 years in prison. The verdict was upheld on appeal in November 2007.
On April 12, Jankovic submitted a motion to judges in The Hague making a number of claims, including that the Bosnian court was biased and that he was convicted on charges that were “outside the scope” of the tribunal indictment.
In addition, he asked that his case be sent back to The Hague, or that tribunal judges order the Bosnian court to retry him on the basis of the original indictment, which did not include murder charges.
In their decision, tribunal judges noted that they do not have jurisdiction to review “general claims” regarding cases where a defendant was convicted in a national court after being transferred from the tribunal.
They further state that if a national court amends an indictment confirmed by the tribunal, “it does not constitute a violation of due process and the right to a fair trial if there is a proper legal and factual basis for the amendment…”
The judges say that Jankovic has “failed to show” that this basis was lacking. They also note that he submitted the current motion more than two years after his conviction was upheld in Bosnian courts on appeal.
“In sum, the referral bench denies [Jankovic’s] request to … return his case to the tribunal, as well as his request to order the [Bosnian] state court to re-try him on the basis of the tribunal’s original indictment,” the judges state.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
