The Bosnian state court gave seven-year sentences to two men for raping a Croat woman at a prison during the 1990s conflict.
Muhidin Basic, chief of the state security service section in Olovo, and Mirsad Sijak, a military policeman in the Bosnian Army, were found guilty on Friday of raping the woman at a prison in the town of Vares on January 25, 1994.
The court concluded that Basic and Sijak, along with another two people, raped the victim, only identified as Witness A, when she came to visit her brother in prison.
“After visiting her brother, A found herself in a room, which was first entered by two
persons unknown, one carrying a knife and the other army blankets, and after that the two defendants entered and they all raped her,” said the verdict.
After the event, the judges said, Basic met the woman in the street in Vares and told her: “Don’t you dare tell anyone about it, you’re smart.”
“Witness A described the persons who raped her convincingly and resolutely, as well as the event itself,” said Mira Smajlovic, the presiding judge.
She added that the court did not accept the claim put forward by the defence that the woman’s motive was to get civilian war victim’s pension and revenge for the imprisonment of her brother.
Basic and Sijak can appeal against the verdict.