Move to Expand Delic Charges Dismissed

Delic is charged with responsibility for murder, rape and cruel treatment by soldiers under his command.



In their decision, the judges say the “the inclusion of three entirely new factual situations - Grabovica, Uzdol and Bugojno – in support of the existing counts, results in the inclusion of new charges”.



They point out that the prosecution waited until judgements were rendered against three other Bosnian army officers with regard to the same incidents before trying to insert these new locations. By doing so, say judges, the prosecution has delayed trial preparations by some four months, and has “not contributed to the benefit of the overall proceedings”.



Allowing these amendments, they say, would cause delays to the pre-trial proceedings which would push back the start of the trial and mean it would take longer.



Prosecutors also wanted to expand their indictment by accusing Delic not only of command responsibility for crimes by failing to prevent them or punish the perpetrators, but also of individual responsibility.



This too has been refused.



However, the judges also dismissed all the other defence challenges to the prosecution’s proposed indictment.



Judges recently gave themselves new powers to order the prosecution to cut specific counts of an indictment – a move which the prosecutor’s office has objected to fiercely.