The trial of Boban Simsic was the first to open before the State Court, which was founded early this year in order to try war crimes cases and help the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to complete its work.
A three-judge panel in the case is presided over by a Bosnian judge and includes two international judges.
The trial started with the reading of the indictment, which charges Simsic with five counts of persecution on political, ethnic and religious grounds and involvement in the forcible transfer, confinement, torture, rape and humiliation of Bosnian Muslims in the Visegrad area.
The indictment says that Simsic committed the alleged crimes from April to June 1992 as a member of a paramilitary unit led by Hague tribunal indictee Milan Lukic, who was recently arrested in Argentina.
What makes this case particularly interesting is the fact that Simsic worked as a police officer in Visegrad up until 2002 and that he obtained the necessary clearance for the job from the former UN police mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The accused went into hiding in April 2003 when a court in the eastern town of Gorazde issued a warrant for his arrest. He surrendered in January this year and has been in the custody of the State Court since.
At a pre-trial hearing before the State Court in July, Simsic pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Defence attorney Veljko Civsa requested today that the trial be delayed for at least six months to allow the defence time to prepare its case.
Prosecutor Ibro Bulic resolutely opposed the motion, and announced that in the course of the trial he would submit 86 exhibits of evidence and call 27 witnesses to corroborate all allegations from the indictment.