Court targets early 2016 for war-crimes retrial

The case of a Bosnian war-crimes suspect accused of lying on his U.S. citizenship application is gearing up for a second trial early in 2016.

Lawyers handling proceedings for suspect Edin Sakoc of Burlington met Monday in U.S. District Court to discuss scheduling. Sakoc had been found guilty of knowingly lying on his naturalization application following a jury trial in January, but he won a retrial after appealing the verdict.

The court is targeting February or March for the retrial, but lawyers have yet to agree on a date.

Defense attorney Steven Barth said he needs to confer with possible witnesses before setting a firm trial date.

Federal prosecutors said in court they would be submitting a new indictment within 30 days and are working to draft the charges. In an interview, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia Cowles declined to go into about the charges that might be brought against Sakoc, or if the allegations might differ from those brought during the first trial.

In an order granting the retrial, U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III said government prosecutors had overstepped what they were allowed to speak about in court during the first trial.

Sakoc was accused of lying on his citizenship application about his involvement in a rape and two killings that occurred one night during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovenia in 1992. But at trial, prosecutors spoke about new theories and other incidents that broadened the reasons a jury could convict Sakoc, the judge determined.

Sessions wrote that the government's indictment could have been broader from the outset.

"Any superseding indictment will take into consideration concerns that Judge Sessions raised in his decision regarding the last trial, but we'll certainly charge the case in the most appropriate way based on the evidence and the facts," Cowles said.

Sakoc, a Bosnian Muslim who arrived in the United States in 2001, was charged with lying when he applied for citizenship in 2007 about his role in war crimes committed in July 1992 in the town of Pocitelj. Federal prosecutors say he raped a Serbian woman and aided in the killing of two elderly people for whom she was caring.

Defense attorneys have said jurors rejected the government's argument that Sakoc lied about his participation in the crimes.

During an eight-day trial in January, Sakoc's attorneys argued the war crimes were committed by a powerful Bosnian Croat army commander, and Sakoc could not be held accountable even though he was aware of the killings afterward.

Contact Elizabeth Murray at 651-4835 or emurray@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LizMurraySMC.