INDICTMENT ISSUED AGAINST SVETOZAR KOSORIĆ FOR THE CRIMINAL OFFENCE OF GENOCIDE

Prosecutor of the Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued an Indictment against Svetozar Kosorić, born on 22 May 1953 in the village of Kusače, in the Municipality of Han Pijesak, who resides permanently in Belgrade, in the Republic of Serbia, and has the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This accused person is charged, as a Chief of the Intelligence Department and as one of the members of the Staff of the Drina Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, with knowingly aiding and abetting the execution of the common goal of joint criminal enterprise, the participants of which were high-ranking military officers and police officials of the Army of Republika Srpska, in the period from 11 of July to 19 of July 1995. They acted in accordance with the plan and intention of the Army of Republika Srpska to partially exterminate a group of Bosniak people from the Srebrenica enclave, by killing and forcibly transferring members of the group and inflicting serious physical and mental injuries upon them.

The Indictment alleges that Kosorić was acting upon the order, instructions and guidelines of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska and participating in meetings in which decisions were made regarding the separation of men aged 16 to 60 years from their families, and those men were supposed to be temporarily imprisoned and then killed, whereas the women and children were to be removed from the area of the protected zone of Srebrenica.  Kosorić was finding locations for the temporary imprisonment of those Bosniak men who would be caught and separated from their families; he was also finding the locations for their execution and he participated in the organization of the transport of the civilian population by leading a larger column of buses and trucks who were transporting the women and children towards the territory controlled by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This accused person is charged with the commission of the criminal offense of Genocide, as referred to in Article 171, items a) and b) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH CC), all in conjunction with Article 180, paragraph 1 and Article 31 of the same Code.  

The Indictment has been forwarded to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for confirmation.