Lalovic: On Duty with Indictee

Obren Djorem confirmed that he was on duty, together with the indictee, when a group of soldiers came to the school building in Kalinovik. The soldiers said they were members of “Seselj’s forces”. As he said, despite the fact they did not allow them go inside the building, one of the soldiers managed to get inside. Indictee Lalovic followed him.

“Slavko and the soldier stayed with the prisoners for about twenty minutes. Then they came back. The soldier left and Slavko said that a rape had occured. He said they had gone to the teachers’ room and the soldier had told a young woman to go out. Her mother-in-law or mother asked him not to take her out because she was pregnant,” Djorem said, adding that the soldier took the woman and raped her.

The witness told the Court that the soldier then threatened indictee Lalovic by telling him not to speak about what happened or else he would kill him. As he explained, the guards mentioned the rape in their report to the Police Commander.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Slavko ‘Ustasa’ Lalovic, a former member of reserve police forces with the Public Safety Station in Kalinovik and guard in the Miladin Radojevic school prison, with having allowed soldiers to enter the building and commit violence against unlawfully detained civilians.

Witness Djorem recalled having been on duty with the indictee when four prisoners were killed in that school building in Kalinovik.

“We begged the soldiers not to go in, but they threatened us by saying they would kill us. We asked for back-up from the Police Station, but we heard shooting inside the school building before they arrived.

“Later on I saw blood on the wall and floor in one classroom. I did not go in as I was afraid and in panic,” the witness said, explaining the soldiers put the corpses in bags a short time later and drove them in an unknown direction.

Second Prosecution witness Rukija Rogoj said that she was detained, together with 40 other people, in a classroom in the school building in Kalinovik, adding that indictee Lalovic “mistreated the detainees”.

“Slavko cursed and shouted all the time…One night he nailed some boards on the door so we could not get out,” Rogoj said, adding they did not get food for four days.

Witness Rogoj said that a few prisoners were killed and a protected witness was raped in the school building in Kalinovik.

“We were in the same corner of the classroom. She was taken out one night, after having been told that a Dado was looking for her. She went out and took her younger girl with her, but she came back soon and left the girl in the room.

“She went out again. She was away for about two hours. When she came back she looked sad. She had injuries on her head,” said Rogoj, adding that other people told her later on that the woman had been raped.

This witness told the Court that two unknown persons took a 13-year old boy and two twin sisters, whose last name was Pervan, out of the classroom. Rogoj said that none of them returned alive.

The trial is due to continue on February 24.

 E.M.