Koricanske stijene: Awareness of Security

Radovan Martic, testifying for the Defence of Milorad Skrbic, has been an expert advisor on investigating international humanitarian law violations with the Intelligence-Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1999. He said he worked on “investigation of the event that happened at Koricanske stijene in August 1992” in 2005.

“In July 2005 I spoke to Skrbic, because I had known him from before and I thought he had an awareness of security. Prijedor is a small town. Our Agency’s work is confidential. It would therefore not be a good idea to disclose the details of our investigations. Skrbic told me he escorted the convoy transporting Bosniaks to the division line on August 21, 1992, but he did not have any data about the murder of people at Koricanske stijene,” Martic said.

The State Prosecution charges Skrbic, Zoran Babic, Milorad Radakovic, Ljubisa Cetic, Dusan Jankovic and Zeljko Stojnic, former members of the Interventions Squad with the Public Safety Station in Prijedor, with crimes committed at Koricanske stijene on August 21, 1992, when about 200 civilians, who had been separated from the convoy of people traveling from Prijedor to Travnik, were killed.

Martic said Skrbic told him during their conversation that the bus he escorted “broke down in the vicinity of Knezevo”.

“He said he tried to establish contact via walkie-talkie, but nobody responded to his calls. They stayed in the woods the whole night and he did not know what was happening with the rest of the convoy. He was not in touch with the others. The next morning trucks arrived and drove the people away. He even told me that there were some problems in the woods, as members of the Serb Army wanted to mistreat the civilians. He said he faced problems because he did not let them do it,” Martic said.

The witness said that Skrbic found out about the murder of civilians at Koricanske stijene “only after he had returned to Prijedor”.

“He said he did not know that anything would happen and had he known, he would have tried to prevent it by all means. I remember him saying that had he participated in the murder, he would have fled somewhere and would not have stayed in Prijedor. It seemed to me that he was honest,” Martic said.

The second witness, Radenko Stanic, a former storekeeper at the Public Safety Station in Prijedor, said his wife Hajrija told him about the convoy in the morning on August 21, 1992.

“My wife’s sister and her husband stayed with us. They had considered leaving Prijedor for a long time. On that day my wife called me, asking me to check the convoy, as they wanted to join it. As I found out that then convoy had already left, I went home by car to pick them up. We tried to catch up with the convoy,” the witness said.

He said they reached the convoy in the vicinity of Banja Luka and stopped a bus escorted by “Police Officer Milorad Skrbic”.

“As I knew him, I asked him to take care of them, telling him they were my sister-in-law and her husband. So they left. However, we did not have any news from them for a long time. My wife was scared because we heard something happened that was not supposed to happen. She contacted Skrbic, but he told her not to worry because everything went well. And he was right. They contacted us six months later,” the witness recalled.

The next hearing is due to take place on February 15, 2010.