Ljubinac: Exhumation of victims from Rogatica

Amor Masovic of the FBiH Missing Persons Committee has appeared as an expert witness at the trial of Radisav “Pjano” Ljubinac.

The fifth count of the indictment charges Ljubinac that from the end of June to October 1992, he regularly beat civilians held in the Rasadnik detention camp near Rogatica.

Ljubinac is also charged with the murder of a group of detainees from Rasadnik whose remains were found in a mass grave in Seljani village, very close to the house where the indictee lived.

Masovic headed the team that was responsible for the exhumations.

“678 missing persons were registeredon the territory of Rogatica municipality. Six mass graves have been found until now from which 337 bodies were exhumed, of which 226 were identified based on DNA analysis,”he told the court.

Two mass graves were found in Seljani,from which 29 bodies were exhumed.

“Mass graves were located on the so-called Dizdareva njiva location,” Masovic said, mentioning location that is, by indictment, close to the indictee’s house.

“Victims were burnt in the mass grave marked as Seljani II, based on remains of wood with which the bodies were covered,” the witness noted.

Witness Semso Vatres was arrested on October 20, 1992 and taken with other Bosniaks from Rogatica to Lukavica near Sarajevo. After Serb soldiers separated women and children and detained them in Kula detention camp, the men were returned to Rogatica and detained in the Rasadnik camp. Vatres was held there for two years and 14 days.

“Ljubinac was the first one who beat me in the detention camp. He leaned me against the wall and beat me with his legs and fists,” the witness said.

He also claims that Ljubinac and other soldiers beat him one more time, ten days later, when they took him to the police station in Rogatica.

“They beat me with chains on my back. They drew crosses with knives all over my body,” Vatres said.

The next hearing is scheduled for December 19, 2006.