Kovac: Witnesses Defend Indictee

Kovac, former Commander of the Military Police Squad of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), was found guilty in July 2009 of war crimes in the Vitez municipality, and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment.

His counsel appealed the verdict on the basis of substantial violations of procedure, in particular that the court allowed trial proceedings to lapse for 30 days without renewing them. The court agreed that this affected the proper pronouncement of the verdict.

The first witness was Vlado Alilovic, now the mayor of Vitez. He spoke of crisis meetings held in Vitez before the outbreak of Croat-Muslim hostilities, where town leaders discussed how they would react if war came. “Kovac was not present at any meetings, as far as I know,”
said Alilovic. “I know he worked in the police though.”

The second witness, Bruno Busuk, agreed. “Ante Kovac never attended any meeting that I did,” he said. “He never had anything to do with the arrests by the civilian police.”

According to Busuk, Kovac was never in a position to order the detention of civilians. “His rank was the lowest rank,” he said. “He had no power to make decisions.”

Busuk did describe seeing the captive civilians. “They were mostly men, civilian men. They were free to come and go… There were some women, but they were the women that came to bring them food.”

The third witness, Sulejman Kavazovic, was one of the prisoners who had been held by the HVO in Vitez. “I was arrested and held in the SDK,” Kavazovic said. “Though I was in the TO [Territorial Defence], I was arrested as a civilian, I was not in uniform.”

Kavazovic, who could only testify briefly because of health problems, said that he was not aware of prisoners being mistreated at the hands of Kovac. “I never heard about Ante Kovac beating anyone,” he said.

The trial continues on July 23 then will take a break for the summer.