Bastah et al: Dread and fear

Protected witness 7 testified how on the early morning of 13 September 1992 she saw Predrag Bastah, also known as Tsar, together with company of other soldiers ”killing and taking away” her neighbours from Vlasenica.

”That happened during the night and it was a horrible sight. I was sitting by the window and I saw it all, Bastah also known as Tsar was the main person in the group, he was giving the orders. He was standing by the car and there was a tractor there as well.They went into the houses of Zena Ambeskovic, Dzemila Hasanbegovic and Ahmo and Tifa Hadziomerovic. They killed them all. They were covered with blood when they carried them out and threw them to tractor”, the witness stated.

The accused Bastah was”dread and fear for the Vlasenica Bosniaks,’’ claimed witness 7 adding that he was ”the main person for expelling and taking away men and women in Susica camp”.

The Prosecution holds responsible Predrag Bastah known as Tsar and Goran Viskovic know as Vjetar for participating in the disappearances of civilians from the Vlasenica area during 1992 as well as for the murders, psychological mistreatment and torture of Bosniaks during the war period.

During the cross-examination, indictee Bastah denied the fact that he had his own unit during the war, adding that he is ”absolutely not guilty” for the crime committed on 13 September 1992 because he was not in Vlasenica but away taking food for the winter .”

In the courtroom, the witness stated that ”her hell and Vlasenica Bosniaks hell” started in May 1992 when ”the Novi Sad Corps left and local Serbs start taking the Bosniaks away and spread fear among them”.

”Bosniaks could notwork anymore and had to report and that is how they gathered people to murder. My brother went on 2 June to report to his working place. He left his son with me. He kissed both of us and turned back three times to see us. I did not see him again,” stated 7.

She remembered that the Serb soldiers often visited her house.

”When they arrive I hid my brother’s son, he was not 20 yet. They hit me in my head, dragged me by my hair, and kicked me with boots and rifle butt-ends. I become paraplegic because of that,” stated the witness.

One of them, she claims, told her of the fate of her brother.

”He arrived drunk and wanted to rape me and my mother, and I told him just to leave my mother alone.After that he told me that he knew who I was and that he was personally present in the honorary guard squad when my brother was killed and that was on Goran Viskovic’s order”, the protected witness stated.

She left Vlasenica on 13 September 1992 in buses that were transporting women and children to territory under BiH Army control. She was separated from her brother’s son who was”transported in Susica camp and has still not been found”.

Upon the question of Rade Golic, a defence attorney for the indictee, on whether she had testified earlier in another case, the witness stated that she did ”in the case against Bastah and Viskovic in front of the Hague Tribunal”.

The continuation of the trial is set for 20 October 2008.