INDICTMENT ISSUED AGAINST NEDŽAD ĆEHIĆ (1972) FOR WAR CRIME AGAINST PRISONERS OF WAR

A prosecutor from the Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued an Indictment against Nedžad Ćehić, aka "Ćeha", born in 1972 in Bosanska Krupa, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is currently remanded in custody. 

This accused person is charged with acting contrary to the rules of international humanitarian law and violating the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, during the war and armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while he was a member of the Military Police Platoon of the 511th Glorious Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 
As alleged in the Indictment, the accused is charged with participating on several occasions, personally and together with other persons, in the taking away of prisoners and in their killings at three locations, when some of the prisoners were shot dead at the locations of Perna-Padež and Perna - Military Economy, and other prisoners were beaten to death with wooden stakes and other objects in front of the military prison, all of which happened from the second half of May 1995 until the middle of July 1995, during the attack of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the positions of the Republika Srpska Army in Kobiljnjak, Osmača and Ćojluk in the area of Bosanska Krupa, after at least 25 members of the Republika Srpska Army had been captured and put out of combat action, four of whom were immediately killed, and the remaining 21 of them were taken prisoner and kept under the supervision of the Military Police of the 511th Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 
At least 25 captured members of the Republika Srpska Army were killed in the aforementioned manner. The bodies of the killed prisoners were exchanged and found during 1995 and 1996, and the body of one victim was found in 2004.
 
The accused is charged with the commission of a criminal offence of a War Crime against Prisoners of War, referred to in Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in conjunction with Articles 180 and 29 of the same Code.
 
The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina will prove the allegations in the Indictment by calling 115 witnesses and 3 expert witnesses, as well as by submitting more than 137 pieces of evidence.

For the aforementioned events, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina had previously issued an Indictment against seven (7) persons in the case of Senad Bužimkić et al., and the accused Ćehić had been unavailable to the judicial institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In June of this year, the accused was extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina by partner and judicial institutions of Austria, with which institutions we worked together in finding and locating the accused.

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