here - Humanitarian Law Center/Fond za humanitarno pravo

The trial of this case commenced on 7 October 2010 at the Higher Court in Belgrade 169 . After six
hearing days and with 10 witnesses questioned, the court delivered a judgment on 23 September
2011 finding the accused guilty as charged and sentencing him to 12 years in prison. 170
Marić’s defense counsel appealed against the judgment on grounds of serious procedural errors
i.e. the court failed to offer reasons concerning its decisions on decisive facts and consequently it
was not possible to assess the lawfulness and correctness of the decision. The appeal also cited
erroneous and incomplete establishment of the facts, violation of CC provisions and violation of
Article 6 of the ECHR (right to a fair trial).
On 5 March 2012, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade handed down a judgment dismissing the
appeal as unfounded and confirming the first-instance judgment. 171
Analysis of proceedings
As stipulated by the Law on Organisation and Jurisdiction of Government Bodies in War Crimes
Proceedings, The Higher Court in Belgrade has jurisdiction to try criminal offences committed on
the territory of the former SFR of Yugoslavia, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators and
victims, including, among others, crimes against humanity and international law referred to in
Chapter XVI of the CC of the SFRY and grave braches of international humanitarian law
committed on the territory of the former SFRJ since 1 January 1991, as set forth in the ICTY
Statute. It is therefore not clear why the Republic of Serbia did not transfer the Rastovac case to
the Republic of Croatia as the incident in question occurred in Croatia, the late Petar Slijepčević
was a citizen of the Republic of Croatia, and was resident in the Republic of Croatia, just like the
indictee, Veljko Marić, and relevant witnesses. The Republic of Serbia should have, for reasons
of efficiency and fairness and in order to strengthen confidence in judicial cooperation between
the two states, extradited Veljko Marić to Croatia and transferred his case to the Office of the
Attorney General of the Republic of Croatia, along with all the evidence available to it, in
keeping with the Agreement on Cooperation that these two states have signed 172 .
The 12-year prison sentence imposed on the indictee is a penalty commensurate with the severity
of the offence and the degree of indictee’s responsibility.
169 Members of the trial chamber: judge Rastko Popović (presiding), judge Vinka Beraha Nikićević and judge
Snežana Nikolić Garotić.
170 For an analysis of this judgment, see the Report on War Crimes Trials in Serbia in 2011, HLC, p. 56.
171 Decisions by the Court of Appeal and Higher Court in Belgrade are available at www.hlc-rdc.org.
172 Agreement on Mutual Cooperation in the Prosecution of Perpetrators of War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity
and Genocide, signed by the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of the RS and the Office of the Attorney General
of the RH on 13 October 2006.
73