Bosnian Serb Soldier Tried for Killing Rogatica Prisoners

2. February 2017.17:25
Former Bosnian Serb Army serviceman Brane Planojevic went on trial for the murder and torture of civilians and prisoners of war at a detention facility in Rogatica from 1992 to 1995. The trial of Brane Planojevic opened on Thursday at the state court in Sarajevo with the reading of the indictment charging the ex-soldier with murdering, torturing and assisting in the rape of prisoners held at a detention centre at the Rasadnik farm in Rogatica.

Planojevic killed four civilians in March 1993, according to the charges. Two of the victims’ bodies have never been found.

The indictment further alleges that in May 1993, he helped Vinko Bojic, the manager of the detention centre, who is on the run, rape a female detainee by bringing her to the room where she was sexually assaulted.

Planojevic is also charged with having taken a prisoner of war, a member of the Bosnian Army, to Bojic’s office in late April 1994. Cries and a shotgun blast were then heard in the room, and the victim’s dead body was dumped into a sewer.

He is further accused of beating up two detainees.

According to the charges, Planojevic was a Bosnian Serb Army serviceman and the de facto deputy manager of the detention centre when he committed the crimes.

“The prosecution will prove the defendant’s actions and participation through witnesses’ testimonies…. They will describe having been deprived of food, subjected to physical and mental abuse, and taken out in order to be examined and killed,” said prosecutor Seid Marusic.

In another hearing at the state court on Thursday, at the trial for wartime crimes against Bosniaks in Janja in the Bijeljina municipality, a prosecution witness said he fled after one of the defendants, Mico Djokic, asked him to report to the police station.

“I knew police commander Mico Djokic. I was told to bring a radio transmitter I had at home,” said witness Omer Durgutovic.

He said he told Djokic that he did not know where it was.

“He persistently requested me to bring it. It was a sign for me to disappear,” Durgutovic said.

The witness said he left Janja on December 24, 1992, and six months later he found out that his mother and brother were missing. He said that they have not been found since.

Milan Djokic, Zoran Bogdanovic, Ljubisa Ikic, Branislav Trisic, Zoran Tanasic, Zarko Milanovic, Mladen Krajisnik, Savo Mrsic, Milivoj Cobic and Milan Markovic are charged with participating in the persecution, unlawful arrests, mistreatment, beating and murder of Bosniak civilians in the Janja area.

The defendants were police commanders, police officers and reservist policemen in Janja.