Karajic: Losing Control

On the second day of his testimony, indictee Suljo Karajic denied most counts contained in the indictment, which charges him with crimes committed in the Velika Kladusa area, but he admitted that he beat up protected witness D in Todorovo village in December 1994, after she had refused to provide medical assistance to a wounded Bosnian Army soldier.

“After I had returned from the front line and came to Todorovo to fetch some food, I met a wounded man, who started crying. He told me that doctor D refused to treat him. We went to her together, but she started yelling at us, telling us to go outside because it was a civilian clinic and it was not her job to do that. I lost control and I grabbed the first thing that I saw, a broomstick, and started hitting her,” Karajic said during his testimony, adding that he regretted having done this.

The Prosecution charges Karajic, as a member of the Military Police Squad with the Fifth Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with committing war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war in Bihac County in late 1994 and early 1995.

One count alleges that the indictee beat up witness D in late December 1994, asking her to hand over her radio station to him.

In the course of his testimony Karajic said that, as of November 16, 1994, when Velika Kladusa was attacked by members of the National Defence of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region, ND WBAR, he went to the front lines together with other neighbours “who had not been recruited by any army”, in Alatusa village.

“Others asked me to be their commander. They trusted me and they wanted me to be their leader. I realized that my presence was important in order to boost their morale,” Karajic said, adding that he stayed at the front lines in Alatusa, Trnovi and Dzaferovica brdo until mid January 1995.

One count charges Karajic with having “started cutting off” a wounded ND WBAR member’s head “using a saw” in Trnovi village at the end of December 1994. After that he allegedly separated the head from the body using an axe, and attached it to a stick, which he then stuck in the ground.

The indictee told the Court that, during the fighting taking place on Dzaferovica brdo after they had been surrounded, he “saw a headless body”, but he denied that he or any other members of his unit had cut the head off, claiming that this was caused by shrapnel.

“Somebody brought it later on and said: ‘This guy literally lost his head defending the autonomy’. I told them to place the head in front of the trench, so that others could see what could happen to them,” the indictee said.

Karajic denied allegations that he killed one person in Vrnograc village on December 6, 1994, saying that he did not go to that village during this period of time.

“It was only after the investigation had started that I found out that I was charged with that. The statements given by witnesses are absolutely untrue and fictional.

They must have mixed me up with somebody else. Or, someone could have introduced himself as me. After the incident involving Kolac, I was accused of all incidents, including the ones I committed as well the ones I did not commit,” said Karajic, who admitted, at the last hearing, having killed Amir ‘Kolac’ Karajic, a former member of the ND WBAR.

Although the State Prosecution charges him with having killed two prisoners and mistreated others in front of captured witnesses L, J, K and F, in the vicinity of Latica Glavica village in December 1994, Karajic denied these allegations, claiming that they “contradict common sense”.

“These are false statements, as if somebody would kill two detainees and leave five eyewitnesses alive,” the indictee said.

At the next hearing, scheduled for March 5, the Defence intends to complete its examination of the indictee.