Former SDS member testifies against Kovacevic

The one-time head of Sanski Most police station appeared before Bosnia’s State Court today as a prosecution witness in the trial of Nikola Kovacevic, a former Bosnian Serb soldier charged with war crimes committed in the area.

Dragan Majkic, a former member of the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, confirmed accounts by previous witnesses about how the town was taken over by Serb forces in 1992.

“They put up a Serb flag on the Centre for Public Security [CJB] formed their own police and in that way forcefully took over the police station building in Sanski Most,” said Majkic, who was in charge of the police station when all this occurred.

Kovacevic is charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the alleged forced detention, abuse and torture of civilians, and their transfer to the Betonirka and Manjaca detention camps.

As a member of the SDS, Majkic said he attended a meeting to discuss the Serb take-over of police activities in the area. Members of an armed unit known as the Serb Defence Forces, SOS, were also present at the meeting. They asked the SDS members to speak with representatives of the predominantly Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, about surrendering the city and local government institutions to Serb forces.

According to the indictment against him, Kovacevic was a member of the SOS during the war.
After negotiations fell through, Majkic claims that he told Sanski Most police officers to leave the CJB building.

“I called the chief of police and explained to him what would happen and that it is best for the CJB staff to leave the building so that they don’t become the victims of someone’s politics,” he told the court.

Majkic was one of three prosecution witnesses to appear today in the Kovacevic trial.

The second witness, Suad Sabic, a Bosniak who was also a policeman in Sanski Most at the time, confirmed his story. He said that after the Serbs took over the municipality building, the SOS and the local Crisis Staff asked CJB members to sign a statement of loyalty to the Serb municipality of Sanski Most. Most rejected the proposal, he said.

“We withdrew from the building so that we would not be victims of SOS members. Then we left the town and went to the village of Sehovici,” he said. He added that on May 25, 1992 he was arrested and detained at the Betonirka detention.

Many Muslims were held in garages at the Betonirka factory complex in Sanski Most, where they are said to have suffered daily beatings, in which Kovacevic allegedly participated.

The third witness, Zikrija Bahtic, another Bosniak ex-policeman, was taken to the Betonirka site on June 16, 1992. “They beat us every day, especially at night, and I was once beaten by Daniluško Kajtez,” he told the court.Prosecutors say Danilusko Kajtez was Kovacevic’s name up until 1996.

Both Sabic and Bahtic were transferred from Betonirka to the Manjaca detention camp on August 28, 1992, where they spent the next few months. Both men identified Kajtez, or Kovacevic, from a photograph from 1992, which was shown to them in the courtroom.

Three more witnesses are set to appear when the trial continues on May 11.