prijava
SARAJEVO, November 30 (FENA) - Former Bosnian Territorial Defense force member Jasmin Erović was cleared of charges of raping a Serb woman in an apartment in Sarajevo in 1992.
The Bosnian state court on Friday acquitted Erović of taking a woman from a basement where she was being held with other Bosnian Serbs to an abandoned apartment in Sarajevo and raping her.
Presiding judge Halil Lagumdžija said that the court “thoroughly analyzed all the evidence” and found that the prosecution failed to prove Erović’s guilt, BIRN reports.
According to Lagumdžija, the key piece of evidence for the prosecution was a statement given by the woman in 2015, in which she recognized a photograph of Erović and said he was one of the men that raped her.
But the defense produced a statement given by the same witness in 2001 in Belgrade in which she mentioned Erović but did not say that he raped her, Lagumdžija noted.
The woman, whose identity was protected and was codenamed Witness A, did not testify in court during Erović’s trial because she is too ill.
“The chamber took into consideration that a conviction cannot be based on witnesses who are not able to testify in court,” said Lagumdžija.
“The only way this can be done is if there are other pieces of evidence which corroborate the statement, which was not the case in this trial, since the two statements given by witness A are contradictory,” the judge added.
Erović was previously charged alongside Senad Džananović and Edin Gadžo, also members of Territorial Defense units in Sarajevo, but his case was separated from the others.
The case against Džananovic and Gadžo is still ongoing.
The prosecution can appeal against Erović’s acquittal.
(FENA) S. R.
