Delic Trial Temporarily Moves to Sarajevo
Ex-mujahedin expected to testify on role of foreign Muslim fighters in the war.
Friday, 8 February, 2008
Delic Trial Temporarily Moves to Sarajevo
Ex-mujahedin expected to testify on role of foreign Muslim fighters in the war.
Friday, 8 February, 2008
From February 8-11, a special hearing will be held at the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber.
Hague judges, who will travel to Sarajevo for the proceedings, are to hear the testimony of Aiman Awad, former member of the El Mujahed unit, which comprised mainly foreign Muslim fighters, or mujahedin, who fought against Bosnian Serbs and Croats during the 1992-95 war.
The proceedings have been temporarily transferred to Sarajevo at the request of the prosecution, in order to accommodate the witness, whose circumstances have not been made public.
Awad, a citizen of Syria who lives in Bosnia, is expected to testify about the role mujahedin had in the Bosnian war.
Delic is charged on the basis of command responsibility for the actions of members of the El Mujahed unit in the Travnik and Zavidovici municipalities of Central Bosnia in 1993 and 1995. They are accused of the murder, cruel treatment and rape of captured Croat and Serb soldiers and civilians. His trial started on July 9, 2007.
This is the second evidentiary hearing to be conducted by the tribunal outside of its Hague courtrooms. The first was also held in Sarajevo in September last year, when a former member of the El Mujahed unit - currently serving sentence in a Bosnian prison - testified against Delic.
Awad is the last prosecution witness in the case against Delic.
Merdijana Sadovic is IWPR’s Hague programme manager.
