Bosnian Commanders' Jail Terms Cut

Tribunal judges this week partially upheld the appeals of two former senior Bosnian army officials, cutting the prison sentences handed down to them in 2006.



Enver Hadzihasanovic, commander of the Bosnian Army, ABiH, 3rd corps, and Amir Kubura, leader of the division’s 7th Muslim mountain brigade were both found guilty of failing to prevent or punish crimes committed against Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs by troops under their control in Bosnia between January 1993 and March 1994.



Hadzihasanovic, whose sentence was cut from five to three-and-a-half years, was originally found guilty of failing to prevent murder and prisoner mistreatment in the Bugojno and Zenica regions, as well as in the Orasac prison camp in Travnik.



However, the appeal chamber ruled that Hadzihasanovic did not have control over a group of foreign Muslim fighters known as the El Mujahed detachment that fought alongside the ABiH 3rd corps. It therefore overturned the ruling that he was responsible for crimes committed by the detachment at the Orasac prison camp.



While appeals judges accepted that the El Mujahed detachment took part in combat operations alongside the 3rd corps, Judge Fausto Pocar said this did not “necessarily provide sufficient support for the conclusion that Hadzihasanovic had effective control over the El Mujahed detachment in the sense of having material ability to prevent or punish its members should they commit crimes”.



Judge Pocar said that while there was cooperation between the 3rd corps and the El Mujahed detachment, there was evidence the latter maintained “a significant degree of independence from the units it fought alongside”.



“[The] relationship between the El Mujahed detachment and the 3rd corps was not one of subordination,” said Judge Pocar.



“Instead, it was close to overt hostility since the only way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distant enemy force.”



The appeals chamber also reversed the trial chamber’s decision to convict Hadzihasanovic for failing to punish troops under his command for the murder of Croat soldier Mladen Havranek and the cruel treatment of six prisoners at the Slavonija furniture salon detention facility in Bugojno on August 5, 1993.



It found that it could not be established beyond reasonable doubt that the 3rd corps failed to initiate an investigation into murder and cruel treatment committed there.



Judge Pocar noted that a commander need not administer punishments personally, but could instead hand over that duty “to the competent authorities”.



The appeal chamber found that Hadzihasanovic’s reporting of the crimes to the Bugojno municipal public prosecutor, as well as disciplinary measures taken by the military office in Bugojno, constituted “necessary and reasonable measures to punish the perpetrators”.



The former commander was also acquitted of the mistreatment of prisoners in detention facilities in Bugojno on August 18, 1993, although judges rejected the appeal against his conviction for failure to prevent or punish the cruel treatment of prisoners detained at the Zenica music school from May to September 1993.



Meanwhile, Kubura’s two-and-half-year prison sentence was cut by six months.



He was originally convicted in relation to his troops’ plundering of public and private property in the Ovnak and Vares areas of central Bosnia.



The appeals chamber reversed the ruling by trial judges that he had failed to prevent plunder by his 7th brigade in the Vares region in November 1993.



It pointed to the fact that Kubura followed orders in withdrawing his troops from Vares “the very same day” and then “forbade the members of the 7th brigade from entering or staying in Vares on 5 November 1993”.



However, the appeals chamber upheld the finding of trial judges that Kubura failed to take reasonable measures to punish further acts of plunder committed by troops under his command in Ovnak and Vares in the same year.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.