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Nenad Malić Convicted of a War Crime Committed in Stari Majdan

The Belgrade District Court War Crimes Chamber, presided by Judge Vesko Krstajić, rendered a judgement on December 7th 2009, sentencing Nenad Malić to thirteen (13) years in prison for committing a war crime against the civilian population in Stari Majdan, in the municipality of Sanski Most. The Bihać Cantonal Court (BiH) indicted Nenad Malić in absentia for the same event in 2002. Upon the request of this court, the BiH Ministry of Justice forwarded the case to the Republic of Serbia judicial authorities asking them to take over the criminal prosecution of this case.

The Humanitarian Law Center thinks that the judgement, which established that the criminal offence was committed in a state of diminished capacity, is founded in law and it matches the gravity of the crime. Nonetheless, HLC believes that it is not appropriate for a court to call upon mitigating circumstances such as family affairs, assets or status of a defendant, when rendering a sentence for the commission of a war crime. If the circumstances and the manner in which the crime was committed are considered, and the fact that the motive for the killing was national hatred and revenge, the time Nenad Malić was sentenced to does not bring satisfaction to the victims’ families and the victim.

On the basis of the evidence presented, the court established that Malić, who was a member of the Sixth Krajina Brigade of the Republika Srspka Army, killed two Muslim men, Husein Grbić and Refik Velić, and attempted to murder Džemal Hadžalić, in diminished capacity, in the evening of December 21st 1992 in Stari Majdan. After a verbal clash with Grbić and Velić regarding their request that Malić take them to the territory of the Republic of Croatia, Malić took Husein Grbić out of the Fontana Bar and murdered him by stabbing him with a sharp object in the right side of his neck and by firing a shot to his chest. Immediately before the murder, Malić said to Grbić that what he was going to do was because of his killed uncle. After the event Malić returned inside the Bar and took Refik Velić out and killed him with a shot to the head. Malić took Džemal Hadžalić to the backyard of the Bar where the bodies of Grbić and Velić were on the ground in the shape of the letter L and ordered him to lay down and form a Cyrillic letter U [for Ustashas]. When Hadžalić refused to do so, the defendant hit him in the head trying to throw him on the ground and smashed his head against the wall of the Bar building. After this, the defendant started unbuttoning the upper part of his clothes in order to take the gun out, but Hadžalić managed to flee.

In the factual findings of the judgement the court stated that it did not believe Malić that he had killed two civilians in self-defence. The court established this on the basis of the statement given by the accused before the investigation judge in Sanski Most three days after the event, the documents composed after the investigation conducted, and on the basis of the testimony given by witness Momir Mršić and the victim-witness Džemal Hadžalić. In their report the investigation team established that there was a wound in Grbić’s neck which had been inflicted by a sharp object. The court rejected the possibility that Malić had used two weapons in self-defence, a firearm and a cold steel weapon. The court accepted the findings and opinion of court expert Ratko Kovačević that the defendant had committed the act in a state of diminished capacity, which influenced the sentencing. The following mitigating circumstances were taken into consideration: complicated family affairs, property issues and the status of the defendant. On the other hand, the following aggravating circumstances were also stated: the accused was a member of the local authorities and, as such, he killed Muslim civilians using two types of weapons.

The main hearing began on September 18th 2009. Nine days of trial were held during which three court experts and nine witnesses, two of whom were victims, were examined. Thanks to the good cooperation with the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina, five witnesses from Bosnia and Herzegovina testified. One victim-witness testified via video link from the premises of the court in Norrköping, in Sweden.


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