Kovac: Taken to another room

Prosecution witness Senad Hidic claims that indictee Anto Kovac “came to my apartment, accompanied by witness B”. He said that, after having had a cup of coffee, he took the witness to another room. An hour later they came back. The indictee left. Hidic could not remember whether witness B stayed there or left.

“Policemen in the Public Accounting Service building in Vitez allowed me to go home and have a bath. Twenty minutes later the indictee and witness B came to my place. She took a shower, and we had coffee together. The indictee said that he would go with her to another room, to have a talk,” Hibic said.

The State Prosecution charges Ante Kovac, known as Zabac, as commander of the Military Police Squad with the Vitez Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, with having raped witnesses A and B in the course of 1993.

The indictment alleges that Kovac took witness B out of the Public Accounting Service, PAS, premises, took her to an apartment, pushed her on a sofa and told her: “Now, you will see who Zabac is”. The indictment further alleges that, when she refused to take her clothes off, he hit her on her head and, using force, took her trousers and underwear off in order to have sexual intercourse with her.

The witness said that, when they came out of the room the indictee and witness B behaved “in a normal way”, adding that there was no forcible pushing. He said that he never spoke to witness B about what had happened in the room.

Hidic explained that he was detained in the PAS premises in Vitez, where he saw Kovac, after having returned from trenches digging. On this occasion he asked him if he could go home to have a bath. He told him to ask the policemen, who guarded him, for permission. They let him go home that evening, but he had to return by 7 a.m., before another guard shift started.

“Kovac helped me get out of the PAS premises and go to Novi Travnik. He provided me with transportation and driver. He did not ask for anything in return,” the witness said.

Second Prosecution witness Nedzija Pekmic said that soldiers did not let her leave Vitez, together with witness A, due to her bad health.

“I had two heart attacks. Doctors asked for a permission to transfer me to a hospital in Zenica, because they were afraid that I might not survive the third attack. A car came to pick me up. Witness A, a man and a French woman were in the car,” Pekmic said, adding that some soldiers in black uniforms stopped the car a short time later and directed it towards the Cultural House in Vitez, where they were “examined by soldiers, dressed in camouflage uniforms”.

“I had my 500 Deutch marks and another 500, given to me by my neighbour, who wanted me to give the money to his wife in Zenica. A woman searched us. After that they took everything away, including my suitcase,” the witness said.

She said that she used to see the indictee in the Cultural House. He would greet her, as they were neighbours. She claims that the indictee escorted her when she was driven to a hospital in Bila.

“After the examination, doctors said I was really sick. Then they drove us to the Ambulance, which was situated in the former furniture factory. I fainted. When I woke up, I was lying on a bed in the corridor. A person named Dragan Calic guarded me,” the witness said.

She claims to have been transferred to Zenica two weeks later. Pekmic said that the indictee “did not come to the hospital in which she stayed”.

The State Prosecution examined witness A, but the public was excluded during the course of her testimony due to “protection of her personal life”.

According to the official timetable of the State Court the trial is due to continue on September 26.