Kornjaca et al: Ill-spoken Mostina

Arifa Pita told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that, at the beginning of May 1992 she left Cajnice with her son and went to Pljevlja, while her husband stayed behind, because he heard that “they detained men in ill-spoken Mostina”.
 
“After having spent a month in Pljevlja, I went to Macedonia. While I was there, a woman told me that her husband had been killed in Mostina. She said that he had been arrested while walking towards Pljevlja through the woods. He was taken back and killed in Mostina,” witness Pita said.
 
The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Milun Kornjaca; Milorad Zivkovic, known as Zika, and Dusko Tadic, known as Rus, with the persecution of Bosniaks in the Cajnice area and the murder of 11 civilians in Mostina on May 19, 1992.
 
The indictment alleges that Kornjaca was the Commander of the “Plavi orlovi” (“Blue Eagles”) paramilitary unit, Tadic was a member of that Unit and Zivkovic was Chief of the Public Safety Station in Cajnice. Kornjaca on one hand and Zivkovic and Tadic on the other are being tried separately before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but joint witnesses are examined at the same time due to better efficiency of the proceedings.
 
Witness Pita said that she had known the indictees from before the war, but she particularly remembered them because they were “the most notorious people” in Cajnice during the course of the war.
 
“While I was in Pljevlja, I heard on the radio that Muslims had killed themselves in Cajnice. Later on I heard that Milun Kornjaca had killed people in Mostina. There was an eyewitness who saw that. I think it was a male member of the Colak family, who was killed later on,” Pita said.
 
Second Prosecution witness Ramiza Bakal said that she lived with her family in Brdo village, near Cajnice at the beginning of May 1992, when she was told that she could leave the area.
 
“My daughter-in-law, her children and I got passing permits allowing us to leave Cajnice. Our bus was stopped in Mostina, but they eventually let us go on. I was in Macedonia when I found out that my son had been killed,” Bakal said.
 
Witness Bakal said that he son and other men, who tried to run away through the woods were killed in Mostina, adding that “Milun Kornjaca and the others, who ruled Cajnice at the time”, had got information about the murder of those men.
 
“Milun, you are the only one who knows who killed those men, so, do not ask me anything else. You know that, because you and your brother ruled Cajnice. You know who killed my son and the other men,” witness Bakal said, addressing indictee Kornjaca.
 
The trial is due to continue on July 11, 2011.

S.U.