Bastah et al: Guilt admission negotiations

Nearly nine months after the trial for crimes committed in Vlasenica in 1992 began, the Defence of Predrag Bastah announced that its client “has expressed a wish” to enter into negotiations with the Prosecution “with the aim of reaching an eventual guilt admission agreement”.

The Trial Chamber approved the Defence’s proposal, allowing the indictee to go to the Prosecution premises after the hearing, instead of returning to the prison, in order to discuss this issue.

The State Prosecution charges Predrag Bastah and Goran Viskovic with actions which “contributed to and strengthened the functioning of an abuse and persecution system” in Susica detention camp and other prisons in Vlasenica, as well as “persecuting, killing, torturing and raping” Bosniaks in the course of 1992.

Two witnesses for the second indictee’s Defence were examined at this hearing. Mira Minic and Desanka Tomic spoke about Viskovic’s personality and the support he offered to them in Vlasenica in 1992.

Minic and Tomic told the Trial Chamber that they were married to brothers Amir and Jakub Alihodzic in 1992, adding that their husbands told them to leave Vlasenica with their children “until the situation in the town calms down”.

“A few days later Mira came and told me that my husband and brother-in-law were detained in Susica detention camp. I returned to Vlasenica. Then I found out that he was among other detainees who performed some labour in the city. This is how I managed to see him as of that day,” Tomic said.

This witness claims that Goran Viskovic was a good neighbour, adding that he was “like a brother” to her husband Jakub.

“On one occasion my daughter was playing in front of the building and she fell off a truck. I took her to the casualty department at the clinic. My husband was there, cleaning the area in front of the clinic. However, we were referred from there to a hospital. Goran came by and took us all to the hospital. He also took my husband with us, after having asked the guards to let him go for a short period of time,” Tomic said.

Witness Minic told the Court that she returned to Vlasenica after having been told that her husband had been detained. She said she used to meet him “in all parts of the town, while he was working at construction sites”.

“Goran and I were next-door neighbours. I have known him for years. Goran used to help me and my child. I never heard anyone say that he had beaten anybody. He drove me and my son to my parents’ a few times in those difficult times,” Minic said.

The two witnesses told the Court that they saw their husbands for the last time in September 1992, “prior to the murder of some Serb civilians or soldiers at Rogosija”, adding that all detainees “disappeared” from Susica detention camp after this incident.

The next hearing is due to take place on March 16, 2009.BN