Peric et al: Active Persecution or Doing Nothing Illegal
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During the trial of Milan Peric, Spasoje Doder, Predrag Terzic and Aleksandar Cerovina, which began last January, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina tried to prove that they knowingly and with discriminatory intent persecuted Bosniaks [Muslims] from the Kalinovik area in the summer of 1992.
The defence challenged the indictment, saying that the indictees, then police officers from the Public Security Station, SJB, in Kalinovik, were carrying out orders in which nothing was illegal.
Peric was arrested in May 2010, but was released to defend himself after less than a year. The other indictees defended themselves while at liberty from the start of the trial.
The Trial Chamber, which consists of Chairman Davorin Jukic and members Darko Samardzic and Jasmina Kosovic, will pronounce the first-instance verdict on March 27.
Prosecutor Munib Halilovic called 34 witnesses who testified regarding the arrests of Bosniaks from the villages of Jelasca and Vihovici in the Kalinovik area, and who were taken to the Miladin Radojevic school building and Barutni magacin, (gunpowder depot) detention centre, where nearly all of them were killed.
Fourteen witnesses and one expert on the police testified in favour of the defence.
The prosecutor said there was a pattern of persecution of Bosniaks from Kalinovik and the perpetrators knew all about the attack.
The Public Security Station was the backbone of all activities – arrests, arsons, imprisonments. They accepted orders as a model of behaviour. It was not only about implementation of orders but about identification with the order, Halilovic said in the closing arguments.
The defence said the prosecution had failed to prove that the indictees planned this persecution or that they acted with discriminatory intent, adding that they only carried out orders that did not go beyond the framework of the Law on Internal Affairs.
Taken from the town hall:
Fejzija Hadzic, a witness for the prosecution, said the arrests began on June 25, 1992, when about 40 Bosniak men were brought in front of the town hall. Witnesses said these men had been arrested.
Milan Peric came with a military truck and Spasoje Doder was also there. He ordered us to climb into the vehicle and said we would be transferred to the Miladin Radojevic school building, Hadzic said, emphasizing that he knew the indictees very well.
The school was guarded by the police, and on our arrival Predrag Terzic and Aleksandar Cerovina searched us, he added.
Witness Dragan Cerovina was transporting the civilians together with Peric, after, he says, Doder gave them the order. According to him, Peric told the civilians to climb on the trucks.
Two witnesses in Perics defence confirmed that the indictee only transported the civilians to the school. According to Tihomir Regoje, for the defence, the Bosniaks were put in the school for security reasons, after paramilitary units had appeared in Kalinovik.
During the evidence procedure, the defence tried to prove that the search of the civilians was a legitimate police job.
Mile Matijevic, an expert on police matters, said the indictees were executing the orders of their superiors, which were also obliged to do.
According to the indictment, Peric, Doder, Terzic and Cerovina, acting on Dodiks orders, as police commander, and together with other members of the police, surrounded the Bosniaks in front of the town hall, forced them into the military trucks and then unlawfully detained them in the Miladin Radojevic school.
The indictment alleges that Terzic and Cerovina searched civilians before their entry in the school and took away any sharp objects.
The prosecution says that hours after these events, the indictees attacked the villages of Jelasca and Vihovici, arrested all remaining men who had not escaped and imprisoned them in the school.
Witness Hasna Custo said Cerovina and Terzic arrested her 16-year-old son, Almir, in Jelasca, who was later killed. Sh
