Attorney Željko Ostoja has filed an appeal against the endless extension of pre-trial detention for General Borislav Đukić, convicted of war crimes in the Šibenik area and the mining of the Peruća Dam.
After the County Court in Split, about ten days ago, issued a verdict sentencing seven members of the JNA and paramilitary units of the SAO Krajina to a total of 94 years in prison, a legal response from the defense has arrived. However, for now, it does not pertain to the 16-year prison sentence imposed on the first defendant, JNA General Borislav Đukić, but rather to the conditions in which he has been held for over a decade.
General Đukić's defense attorney, Željko Ostoja, has filed a four-page appeal focusing on the fact that his client has been continuously behind bars since July 18, 2015. Specifically, this amounts to 11 years and 21 days spent in pre-trial detention in Bilice without a final verdict. Ostoja is clear in his submission: such treatment "is not based on law and constitutes the most severe violation of the defendant's fundamental human rights."
The attorney specifically points to the practice of shifting the legal basis for detention from one proceeding to another. Namely, in addition to the conviction for war crimes against the civilian population, Đukić was also sentenced on March 19, 2024, to ten years in prison for the mining of the Peruća Dam. In this second case, Ostoja notes, more than two years have passed, and no decision has yet been made on the appeals.
"In that case, no decision has been made on the appeals against either the verdict or the decision to extend pre-trial detention, even though more than two years have passed!"
The core objection of the defense lies in the way, in their opinion, legal limits on the duration of pre-trial detention are circumvented. Although formally lifted in one proceeding, it is ordered on the same day in another, and the defendant remains physically in the same cell the entire time, without a single day of freedom.
Ostoja warns in the appeal of the danger of such practice: "If it were accepted that it is sufficient to formally lift pre-trial detention in one proceeding and order it on the same day in another so that the deadlines could start running anew, the legal limits on pre-trial detention would lose their purpose, and the protection of the right to personal freedom would become illusory."
Let us recall, the Split court's verdict pertains to war crimes committed between 1991 and 1995, which were determined to have been committed through direct command or omission in command responsibility. In several separate cases in the area around Drniš and towards Šibenik, at least 118 civilians of Croatian nationality were killed, five women were raped, and numerous families were robbed and expelled from the Šibenik hinterland.
Attorney Ostoja believes that his client, given the length of time spent in pre-trial detention without a final verdict, has become an absolute world record holder.
