CUSTODY PROPOSED AND ORDERED AGAINST THE PERSON SUSPECTED OF A WAR CRIME COMMITTED IN THE ZVORNIK AREA

A prosecutor of the Special Department for War Crimes, after interrogating the suspect, submitted a motion that a custody measure be ordered against the suspect Zdravko Čvorić, born in 1967 in Tuzla, citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands who is residing in the Netherlands.

The pre-trial custody was proposed due to the risk that, if at large, the suspect might flee and obstruct the investigation, conceal evidence and exert influence on witnesses or accomplices, which is in compliance with Article 132 (1) (a) and (b) of the Criminal Procedure Code of BiH.

The suspect is under investigation and it is alleged against him that during the war and armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina he, as a member of the Zvornik Public Security Station (SJB), acted contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War. The charges against him are that in late July 1992, while performing his duties as a guard in the prison established in the building of the soccer club FK ‘Divič’ in Zvornik in which Bosniak civilians from the area of Zvornik and the surrounding areas were unlawfully detained, he, being armed, forcibly took out the injured victim, a woman of Bosniak ethnicity, whom he raped in a nearby building at gunpoint, after which he ordered the victim to return to the premises together with the other detainees.

The suspect is charged with having committed the criminal offence of War crimes against civilians set out in Article 142 of the Criminal Code of the SFRY.

The custody motion had been sent to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which the prosecutor gave a detailed explanation of the reasons for the pre-trial custody at the court hearing and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered the suspect into custody.