Bosnia Constitutional Court rejects appeal by man convicted of war crimes News
© WikiMedia (anjči)
Bosnia Constitutional Court rejects appeal by man convicted of war crimes

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Monday rejected an appeal by 66-year-old former Serb fighter Radomir Šušnjar of his conviction and 20-year sentence for committing war crimes 29 years ago during the Bosnian War, which resulted in dozens of civilian deaths.

Deciding against his appeal, the Constitutional Court found that Šušnjar’s right to a fair trial had not been violated. The court found that the trial court had not discriminated against him during the proceedings, misused evidential procedure nor “treated him differently than other individuals in the same situation.” It held the trial court had substantiated its decision with clear reasoning in light of the evidence presented.

Šušnjar was charged with participating in the Pionirska Street incident on June 14, 1992. His indictment, confirmed by the Constitutional Court of BiH in 2017, found that Šušnjar, along with Milan Lukić and Sredoje Lukić, all armed with rifles, forced over 60 unarmed Bosniak civilianswomen, children and elderly peopleinto a house in Višegrad. Šušnjar strip-searched several of them in a “particularly cruel and humiliating manner.”

Later that evening, the civilians were shifted to and locked in a single room in a nearby house. Milan Lukić then threw an incendiary explosive device into the room, causing a fire that killed 26, including a 2-day-old infant. All three men fired at the house to prevent the victims from fleeing. 

Šušnjar was arrested in France in 2014 and extradited to BiH in 2018 to stand trial. The Court of BiH, Section I for War Crimes, awarded the first-instance verdict against Šušnjar in 2019, finding him guilty of committing war crimes against civilians under Article 142 in conjunction with Article 22 of the Yugoslavian Criminal Code and sentencing him to 20 years in prison, a verdict upheld by the Appellate Panel in March 2020.

Milan Lukić was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2009 on 18 counts under Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute. Sredoje Lukić was convicted of 5 counts and sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment. While Šušnjar was not charged in the same ICTY case, the witness evidence presented makes references to “Lalco”—Šušnjar’s nickname. Milan Lukić’s request for a review on grounds that Šušnjar’s 2019 conviction for 26 deaths reduces his own culpability was dismissed by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in 2020. 

The decision of the Constitutional Court is final and cannot be challenged.