High Court Podgorica (Illustration), Photo: Supreme Court
The trial of Zoran Gašović from Nikšić, who is suspected of committing crimes against humanity, is scheduled to begin on November 27 before a special panel presided over by judge Simo Rašović at the Higher Court in Podgorica, Ivana Vukmirović, an independent public relations advisor at the court, told “Vijesti”.
The pre-trial chamber of the Higher Court in Podgorica confirmed the indictment of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office, charging the defendant Gašović with committing the criminal offense of crimes against humanity under Article 427 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro in connection with Article 16, paragraph 2, of the Constitution of the FRY.
“From the evidence collected during the investigation, there is a reasonable suspicion that the defendant Zoran Gašović committed the criminal offense charged against him in the indictment of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office Kt-S.br. 438/23 of 19.06.2024. Namely, the reasonable suspicion that the defendant committed the criminal offense arises from the personal and material evidence collected during the investigation, primarily from the testimony of witness MM, who stated that he was locked up in the garage for several days and was interrogated by ZG, BB and MK, and that he was asked about weapons supplies and smuggling, from the testimony of the protected witness, from which it follows that at approximately the end of June 1992, the defendant took prisoners AB, AK and RH out of the garage under the Hadžići Municipality, and that he beat AB while taking him out, and took away three prisoners who were later determined to have been killed.
“Therefore, according to the findings of this court, there is currently sufficient evidence in the case files, on which there is a reasonable suspicion that the defendant committed the criminal offense charged against him, to a degree sufficient to confirm the indictment in question. The assessment of contradictory evidence at this stage of the proceedings is not possible, but will be carried out at the main hearing, while at this stage of the proceedings the court had to deal with the defense’s objection regarding the legal validity of the evidence from which the reasonable suspicion arises, i.e. in order to examine it to the degree required at the stage of reviewing the indictment, which was done in this specific case,” the Higher Court’s decision reads.
The subject of the indictment is that the accused, as a member of the Bosnian Serb civilian police, during the non-international armed conflict between the Army of Republika Srpska and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the period from early May to mid-December 1992, in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Hadžići, in violation of the rules of international law, as part of a wider and systematic attack directed against the civilian population, participated in the commission of murders and carried out enslavement, forced relocation, torture, persecution on religious and ethnic grounds, unlawful imprisonment of persons and other similar inhumane acts, which caused them severe suffering and seriously endangered their health,” the SDT statement stated earlier.
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