Zivkovic and Tadic: First Indictee’s Orders

Sulejmen Homoras recognised Milorad Zivkovic and Dusko Tadic in the courtroom and said the two of them participated in the arrests of Bosniaks.

“I was arrested three times in May 1992, as per an order given by Police Chief Milorad Zivkovic. Tadic was not involved in those arrests, but he was involved in the arrest of my brother-in-law,” the witness said, adding that his father-in-law was arrested two days after him, on May 6, 1992, and Zivkovic was among the four policemen who arrested him.

“My father-in-law was brutally beaten. He lost all his teeth,” the witness said.

Zivkovic and Tadic are charged with having participated, from April to the end of May 1992, in a broad and systematic attack against the non-Serb population in Cajnice municipality and the detention, torture, murder and forcible resettlement of civilians from that area.

The indictment alleges that Zivkovic was Chief of the Public Safety Station in Cajnice and a member of the Crisis Committee in that town and Tadic was a member of the Plavi orlovi (Blue Eagles) paramilitary unit.

The Prosecution charges them with having participated in the murder of 11 civilians who were detained in a hunters’ house in Mostina in May 1992 by shooting with automatic guns and throwing hand grenades.

Homoras said that after being arrested for the third time, on May 17, 1992, he spent a night in the hunters’ house.

“There were between 50 and 70 people in that room. My colleague Dragisa Katana rescued me from the house. I left Cajnice with my family on May 20. I first went to Pljevlje. Upon arrival, I heard that some people had been killed at Mostina. I found out that only one man survived the shooting, but he went missing,” the witness said.

His brother-in-law and uncle were in the hunters’ house. Their remains have still not been found.

The trial is due to continue on January 31, 2011, when the Prosecution will examine a new witness.

A.S.