The trial of Slobodan Peković, a citizen of Montenegrin accused of war crimes against civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, continued yesterday at the High Court in Podgorica. Peković is charged with killing Mujo and Emina Šabanović in the village of Hum near Foča and raping a woman of Bosniak nationality in 1992, while he was a soldier of the Army of the Republic of Srpska. This is the first trial in Montenegro that also includes the charge of sexual violence committed during a war. The victim and another witness to this act of violence have the status of protected witnesses.

Due to technical difficulties the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was experiencing, it was not possible to establish a video conference connection yesterday and hear the two expected witnesses. Consequently, Judge Nada Rabrenović postponed their testimony until the next hearing.

The court proceeded to decide on defendant Peković’s defence proposals. Defence proposals regarding the e-mail communication between the defence attorney Ratko Pantović and Ratko Mladić’s attorney, Branko Lukić, about the murders that took place in the village of Hum were rejected. The document that was published on the academia.edu website, which was compiled based on “known information” and included the names of alleged killers of Mujo and Emina Šabanović, was rejected as well because the court concluded that said information was not substantiated in any way. The court also rejected proposals to introduce as evidence the medical reports of the protected witnesses concerning their mental state, because the court had directly heard the witnesses and was not doubting their ability to testify. It also rejected defendant Peković’s medical documentation, which was compiled after the events in question, as irrelevant to the proceedings.

The court accepted the defence attorney’s proposal to hear four new witnesses regarding Peković’s claim that, during the attack on the village of Hum, he was in fact having a fistfight in a tavern with one of the witnesses, Obren Gojković, and that therefore he could not have committed the murders he is being accused of.

As the trial continued, the court rejected the defence attorney’s proposal to terminate Peković’s detention due to his poor health.

The proxy of the injured party, attorney Dalibor Tomović, demanded that the Court also decide on his proposal to have a neuropsychiatrist from Bosnia and Herzegovina conduct an expert examination of the physical and mental pain and reduced general life activity of the injured party. The court will decide on this request at a later date, even though this finding represents the basis for deciding on the injured party’s property claim.

Three more hearings will be held until 21 October, which is when Peković will be released from custody. They are scheduled for 27 September, and 8 and 10 October 2024.

Attorney Dalibor Tomović is representing the injured party as part of the project of the NGO Human Rights Action entitled “Together to Justice – Legal, Psychological and Social Support for Victims of War Crimes”, which is supported by the European Union through the regional project “EU Support for Building Trust in the Western Balkans” and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).