Borislav Herak

In February 2000 the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered a retrial of Sretko Damjanović, who was acquitted. Requests for Herak's retrial were rejected, leaving Herak the only person convicted of genocide by a local court before the establishment of the state Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the first person to be convicted of the crime of genocide since the Second World War. His death penalty was altered to 20 years' imprisonment.

Judge Fahrudin Teftedarija, who had tried and sentenced Herak and Damjanović, insisted in 1997 that the reappearance of the Blekić brothers and the indictment of other suspects for the murder of Ramiz Kršo did not challenge the degree of Damjanović's guilt—he had committed other murders, rapes and expulsions.

Herak recanted his testimony in January 1996, claiming that his testimony before the Bosnian court was beaten out of him. He maintained that he had witnessed killings and heard about rapes but had not done anything himself. In the meanwhile, two Muslim brothers, Kasim and Asim Blekić, whose supposed murders were used as evidence in the trial of Herak and Damjanović had been found living in a Sarajevo suburb.

On 7 February 1993 the District Military Prosecutor's Office in Sarajevo filed an indictment with the District Military Court in Sarajevo against Herak for genocide, war crimes against a civilian population and war crimes against prisoners of war, committed while he was a member of "Bioča Company" and "Kremeš Company". Borislav Herak was charged with 32 murders and 16 rapes, including 12 in which the victims were murdered. Sretko Damjanović, indicted with him for genocide and war crimes against a civilian population, was charged with five murders and two rapes, and Nada Tomić was charged with concealment of crime for hiding fugitives (Herak and Damjanović) and stolen goods.

The trial of Damjanović and Herak in March 1993 was the first attempt by the Sarajevo legal system to try Bosnian Serbs for genocide and other war crimes. During his trial Herak said he was sent with some soldiers from Serbia to the village of Ahatovići, near Sarajevo, with orders "to kill everybody and burn everything down." About 150 villagers, including children, were herded together and machine-gunned before being dumped, some still alive, in a mass grave. Herak also confessed to rapes and murders of detainees at the Cafe Sonya/Kod Sonje rape camp run by Miro Vuković near the United Nations headquarters in Sarajevo.

In March 1993, by a judgment of the District Military Court, Herak and Damjanović were found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death. The two were sentenced to death by firing squad. Herak said that he deserved the death penalty.

In July 1993, the second instance court upheld the findings of guilt and the penalties imposed. The third-instance court hearing in December 1993 confirmed the judgment of the second-instance court. It was claimed that the trial was a showcase and the accused had not had a fair hearing. However, the court rejected the call for a retrial of Damjanović, saying that "there was plenty of other evidence sufficient for a verdict."

John F. Burns was awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, citing "his courageous and thorough coverage of the destruction of Sarajevo and the barbarous killings in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Borislav Herak (born 18 January 1971 in Sarajevo, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia) is a Bosnian Serb soldier who fought with the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in the early days of the Bosnian War. In March 1993, after falling in the hands of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), he was put on trial at the Sarajevo Military District Court, becoming the first person to be convicted of genocide on the basis of his own testimony in which he admitted guilt for crimes charged against him—32 murders and 16 rapes.