Saric: Husband and neighbours incinerated

Fadila Pandzic said that the attack on Nahorevo began on June 12, 1992, when the Serb army started shelling the houses, after which the Bosniak population surrendered, and the soldiers entered the settlement, asking men to hand over their weapons.

Three days later, she said, she saw her husband Djulaga for the last time, surrounded by Serb soldiers. She added that soon afterwards she learnt from the witness S2 that her husband was locked up in cabins near the Jagomir hospital, where on June 19 other men were taken to as well.

“Djulaga and others were held at Jagomir. We found eight of them at a location near Skakavac. They were on a heap, killed and incinerated,” witness Pandzic said.

She recalled that on June 18 or 19 in front of the local community centre she saw a man in uniform with a dog, and she learnt from other women that this was Goran Saric.

“He said: ‘Thank dear God you were assigned to me. If you had been assigned to Tintor, you would have been in Sonja’. When he said that I realised he was an important person and that he was calling the shots,” explained the witness.

Saric, former police commander in the Serb municipality Centre in Sarajevo, is accused of taking part in the attack on the non Serb civilians in Nahorevo, Poljine and other Sarajevo neighbourhoods.

He is charged with issuing an order on June 19, 1992, to all the men from the neighbourhood of Nahorevo to come to the local community centre, and around 100 Bosniaks were led from there and locked up in the Jagomir hospital building.

On the same day, the indictment specified, Saric ordered the rest of the non-Serb population to surrender, after which around 200 women, children and elderly were moved by force to the territory controlled by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Protected witness S3 testified too, saying that together with other men from Nahorevo he was taken to Jagomir on June 19, after they responded to the call and reported to the local community centre. Serb representatives in the local community centre, the witness said, told them that they were going to Jagomir for questioning.

“At the entrance they took our watches, rings, money, we had to take off our belts too,” said witness S3.

The next day, protected witness and several other men were released and allowed to return to Sarajevo with an explanation that they were ill.

The trial was scheduled to resume on August 24.