here - Humanitarian Law Center/Fond za humanitarno pravo

long. Testifying before the Higher Court in Belgrade in 2010, Medunić said he did not remember
who exactly had hit him on the soles and who had sat on him, adding that he had not suffered as a
result of it. The defense further argued that even if the court accepted that the accused had done
this, the act would not amount to the offence he was charged with, adding that the ICTY held the
same opinion on this matter.
The Court of Appeals’ chamber trying this case in the third-instance, accepted the appeal on 26
October 2012 198 and modified the second-instance judgment of the Court of Appeal in Belgrade
acquitting Perica Đaković of criminal liability. The Court of Appeal in its third-instance
proceedings found that “blows to the injured parties’ soles did not cause severe humiliation and
degradation on him nor did they in any other way severely violate his human dignity, particularly
given the fact that not every behavior that contravenes the international conventions and customs
can be characterized as amounting to a war crime, because for an act to qualify as a war crime its
seriousness and consequences must be found to be such as to justify such a severe legal
characterization, which was not the case in this criminal matter.” 199
Analysis of proceedings
Analysing the judgments of the Court of Appeal delivered in this case during 2012, the FHP
holds that the judgment convicting Perica Đaković is appropriate in terms of law and justice
alike. Although at the time of writing the HLC did not have access to the judgments in writing,
summary explanations of both judgments, posted on the Court of Appeal’s website, suffice to
draw some substantive conclusions.
What was a stumbling block in determining the guilt of the defendant Perica Đaković, had to do
with the characterization of the acts of the defendant and their consequences. The legal norm
defining the criminal offence Đaković was charged with reads that “anyone who in violation of
international law orders or commits killing, torture, inhuman treatment of, biological, medical or
other research experiments on, harvesting of tissues or body organs for transplantation or
inflicting grave suffering or violation of bodily integrity or health against prisoners of war, or
compels prisoners of war to service in armed forces of a hostile power or deprives them of the
right to have a proper and fair trial shall be punished.” 200
Analysing the cited norm, it is clear that this offence can be committed by anyone, that is to say,
a perpetrator of this offence does not have to act in any particular capacity. Each of the acts stand
198 Kž3 Po2 1/12.
199 http://www.bg.ap.sud.rs/lt/articles/sluzba-za-odnose-sa-javnoscu/aktuelni-predmeti/ratni-zlocini/rz-doneteodluke/.
200 Article 144 of the CC of the FRY.
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