Hearing of police officers for burning US Embassy eleven and half years ago delayed

Hearing of police officers for burning US Embassy eleven and half years ago delayed

At this rally held in 2008, the US Embassy in Belgrade was set on fire.

The preparatory hearing to be held at the High Court in Belgrade was postponed for October 7 due to the absence of one defendant and one defense counsel.

The preparatory hearing should have been closed to the public and it will be determined which evidence would be produced during the trial, while the accused will make brief statement on the indictment. After that, the court will schedule the beginning of the trial, which will be public and defendants will be able to detail their defense.

In this case, Mladen Kuribak, Slobodan Vukolic, Stevan Bjelic, Zorana Raskovic and Bojan Markovic are charged with the "serious crime against general safety".

In addition to this criminal offense, they were charged with "abuse of office", but the court concluded earlier that there was "no foundation for prosecution" for that criminal offense and did not confirm the indictment in that part.

The prosecution hasn't disclosed details of the indictment.

After the retrial in winter, the court acquitted seven persons accused of throwing stones at the US embassy, charged for the criminal act of "causing general danger".

They were not accused of burning the Embassy, but this indictment is being charged on unidentified persons who threw inflamed torches through the broken embassy glass.

The damage to the US embassy, according to the official note of the embassy sent to the court, amounts to around USD 900,000, but the embassy did not seek compensation.

As for the death of Zoran Vujovic, who got burned down in the fire in the embassy building, the court considers that seven accused young men had nothing to do with the tragedy.