On the eve of closing arguments, federal prosecutors this afternoon dropped one of two charges against a Burlington man on trial for allegedly concealing violent acts he committed during the Bosnian War to gain U.S. citizenship.

The decision came after U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III persistently questioned whether prosecutors had supplied enough evidence to support their two charges, which were very similar, against Edin Sakoc, who obtained refugee status in 2001 and settled in Vermont. The judge said the charges seemed to be for the same alleged conduct and were repetitive. Authorities say Sakoc, a 55-year-old father, participated in two murders and raped a woman during the 1990s conflict, and hid those acts from immigration officials.

Jay Bauer, a prosecutor from the Justice Department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, tried to fend off Sessions’ criticisms.

The first charge against Sakoc, Bauer said, was for checking “no” to questions on immigration forms that asked whether he had committed crimes or other acts of “moral turpitude,” in Bosnia. The second charge, Bauer said, was for proceeding with his quest for citizenship knowing his application was falsified.

Bauer previously characterized the differences between the charges as a “subtle, but simple,” distinction.

But Sessions called Bauer’s argument “extraordinarily confusing.” The judge said that bringing two similar charges to a jury might prompt an appeals court to overturn a verdict and grant Sakoc a new trial.

“You’re basically saying they’re identical crimes,” Sessions said. “In light of the facts in this case, it’s a significant concern that the defendant is being prejudiced by the multiplicity of charges.”

Prosecutors this morning began their final day of presenting evidence against a Burlington man charged with concealing his involvement in a rape and two murders in Bosnia when he applied for U.S. citizenship.

Prosecutors played video testimony from another Bosnian who claims to have witnessed a kidnapping and two murders in 1992, when brutal ethnic fighting roiled Bosnia. Authorities say that Edin Sakoc, who settled in Vermont more than a decade ago, and a fellow soldier identified only as "Boban" stormed a home where a family was sheltering three Serbian women.

The men kidnapped a woman whom Sakoc later raped, prosecutors allege, and then Boban fatally shot the other two women.

Nilokina Ljubic, who lived with her parents in the home, recalled that Boban was more aggressive, while Sakoc consoled her.

Updated at 5:53 p.m. with additional testimony.

A Bosnian Serb woman testified via a pre-taped video in federal court today, saying that she was raped in 1992 by a masked man during an ethnic conflict. 

Prosecutors allege that man is Edin Sakoc, a Burlington resident who is on trial this week on charges he lied about his actions in wartime Bosnia when he applied for American citizenship.

The woman, 49 years old at the time she says she was assaulted, was one of a few ethnic Serbs who remained in her tiny village of Pocitelj as brutal fighting broke out across Bosnia. Other Serbs, fearing violence from ethnic Croats and Muslims, had fled, but the woman's mother didn't want to leave.

In July 1992, she said, two armed men stormed the house where they were staying. They took the woman, saying they would interrogate her and bring her back. Instead, they took her to a prison camp.

One of the men raped her twice, once inside a home where they stopped, and again in the backseat.

"He cursed my mother, pushed me down, and raped me," the woman testified. "Did whatever he wanted, and that's it."

After the first assault, she said, the man kicked her, leaving a scar below her right knee that she showed to the attorneys.

As a general practice, Seven Days does not identify the victims of alleged sexual assaults.