The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, sitting on the Panel of the Appellate Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, delivered on 12 May 2023 a second instance judgment in the case of Đorđe Ristanić dismissing as ill-founded the appeal filed by the Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and upholding the Trial Judgment. No appeal lies from this judgment.

The Trial Judgment acquitted the accused Đorđe Ristanić of the charges that, by the acts described in the operative part of the judgment, he committed the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity under Article 172(1) h), as read with Article 180(1) of the CC BiH.

The accused Đorđe Ristanić is acquitted of the charges because it was not proved that, in the capacity of the President of the War Presidency of the Brčko municipality, during the April-December 1992 period, within a widespread and systematic attack directed against the Bosniak and Croat population in the territory of the Brčko municipality, being aware of such an attack and knowing that his acts formed a part of the attack, with the discriminatory intent, as a participant in a joint criminal enterprise, he persecuted the population by way of murder, imprisonment and other severe deprivations of physical liberty, forcible relocation, torture and other inhuman acts of similar nature, committed with the intent to inflict serious suffering or severe physical or mental injury, by deprivation of the right to a fair and impartial trial, and destruction of cultural, historical and religious monuments particularly protected by international law as the cultural and spiritual heritage of the nations.