Trial date set for Vermonter in war crimes case
Federal prosecutors said Thursday they won't charge Bosnian war crimes suspect Edin Sakoc with trying to bribe witnesses in his homeland connected to his case, clearing the way for a January trial in Burlington that could lead to his deportation.
"No such charge will be brought," Jay Bauer, an assistant U.S. Attorney with the Justice Department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, told U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions III during a hearing last week at federal court in Burlington.
The government, in papers filed with the court in June, accused Sakoc of tampering with witnesses by offering bribes to the witnesses in exchange for testimony favorable to him.
The disclosure came as prosecutors and a defense lawyer were preparing to travel to Bosnia to interview witnesses about claims Sakoc allegedly raped a Bosnian Serb woman in 1992, aided in the murders of two elderly men who were under her care and set fire to their family home.
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One of the witnesses scheduled to be interviewed is the woman Sakoc allegedly raped.
The government, in a court filing, asked that the trip be delayed while the claims were investigated.
At a Thursday hearing before Sessions, attended by Sakoc, federal public defender Steven Barth said the tampering claim had no merit.
"Government agents investigated the claims," Barth said. "I understand they turned up no such evidence."
Bauer then acknowledged the government would not be amending the indictment against Sakoc to include a witness tampering charge.
Both lawyers then agreed that the interviews, or depositions, would go forward in Bosnia in October. The questioning will be monitored by Sessions in Burlington via closed-circuit television. Sakoc will remain in Vermont but will also be able to observe the questioning via closed-circuit television.
Sakoc's trial, which Sessions has scheduled to begin in mid-January, will focus on charges he lied to immigration officials when he entered the United States in 2001 as a refugee by telling them he had not committed any crimes in Bosnia.
He is also charged with lying a second time to immigration officials in 2007 when he applied to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.
He has pleaded not guilty to both charges and, after being briefly jailed for five months following his arraignment, was freed on conditions while he awaits his trial.
Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or shemingway@freepressmedia.com. Follow Sam on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SamuelHemingway.