Krsmanovic: Indictee at the Crime Scenes

“A Passat car showed up, Milan and Oliver get out, and Oliver than went to the joinery. Milan told the manager to get ready and that he will soon be back. (…) Later, he came back and six, seven men went out. Milan led them to the Drina river. First, he shot separately, and then with the bursts of gunfire”, recalled OK-7.

She said the she could not see the joinery where the indictee went, but that she assumes that he was taking out men of Bosniak ethnicity whom Lukic killed on the banks of the river Drina.

Milan Lukic was as commander of the “White Eagles” paramilitary unit and was sentenced by a first instance verdict of The Hague Tribunal to life imprisonment.

According to the indictment of the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Krsmanovic, former member of the Second Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, is charged with having participated and assisted in the commission of murders, rape and forcible disappearances of non-Serb civilians from Visegrad in the period from 1992 to 1995 The indictment specifies that on June 7, 1992, he assisted in the murder of six people, who were taken from the “Varda“ factory and executed on the Drina river bank. He is also charged that on June 27, together with Milan Lukic and others burned about 70 civilians in the house of Meho Aljic in Bikavac.

The witness said that after the killings on the river Drina a group of her neighbours from Dusce was taken away, and that in the next 20 days or so, “the indulgence continued”. OK-7 said that she and her neighbor were raped during that period. In an attempt to find salvation, she and her neighbour with children came to the house of Meho Aljic, where they saw some of the Bosniaks they knew, who told her that Lukic want to “exchange their money” and that he mentioned to them some convoy.

“Lukic was sitting and drinking coffee. He crossed his legs and said: ‘I drink coffee as your Turks do’. Oliver, Jovisa Planincic and Zeljko Lelek were also present. They were all armed. They were carrying some iron door,” said OK-7.

Stating that the situation was looking suspicious to her, she went to a neighbouring house with her neighbor and the children. “Around 3 a.m. Zehra came, who was burned all over her face and hands. She said: ‘All the people are burnt’, added the witness.

She also described the meeting with Krsmanovic which followed few days later, when she and her neighbour were arrested near the barracks.
“I asked him what he is thinking, if I will stay alive, how we should look in each other’s eyes, and he sid: “Nicely, just like this’”, she said, showing how the indictee approached her.

The trial is due to continue on Tuesday, April 3, when the Defence will examine this witness.