Jukic: Prisoner Cut with Glass

Witness S7 told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that, while he was hiding between tables and chairs in the corridor of the Secondary School Centre, he watched the indictee “cut” his neighbour Ibro Pilav, who went missing after having been taken away, along with a few other people, later on.

“Zeljko entered the toilet and broke a glass bottle. I could hear all that. He approached Ibro and started cutting him. Then I saw Zeljko from his waist up,” the witness recalled, adding that the indictee asked Ibro about the witness and Ibro said that he had been transferred to Dretelj.

The witness said that, when the indictee left, Ibro told him what had happened to him, because he could not have seen everything while hiding.

“Ibro’s last words were that Zeljko was coming to take him away. Ibro told me to tell his brothers who cut and took him away, if I survived. (…) Zeljko came back and took Ibro Pilav, Vahid Beric and Mirsad Pilav away. I have not seen those people since,” the witness said, adding that he watched them being taken away from the same place from which he watched Pilav “being cut”.

Zeljko Jukic is charged with having participated, along with other members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO and Croatian Army, HV, in the persecution of Bosniak civilians, murders and forcible disappearances of people from Prozor from July to September 1993.

The witness told the Court that, during the same night when Ibro, Mirsad and Vahid were taken away indictee Zeljko Jukic came back to the Secondary School Centre with Vinko Papak and “looked for me”.

“Vinko Papak walked through the Centre with a flashlight. He came to me and stopped. The flashlight was pointed to my head. I almost fainted. He then said: “Let’s go, Zeljko. He is not here”. Then they left,” the witness said.

Papak is charged with crimes committed in Prozor, but he is not available to the prosecution bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Witness S7 said that he recognised Zeljko’s voice during an attack on Lapsunj village, when somebody opened fire at him while he was running through the woods. He was wounded in the shooting.

“I have known Zeljko Jukic since our childhood. We went to elementary school together. We played football. We used to hang out together. I have an agricultural field behind his house,” the witness explained.

During this hearing court expert Hamza Zujo presented his findings and opinion about an injury on Uzeir Sabitovic’s thigh that was caused by a bullet. Zujo determined that Uzeir Sabitovic could have died due to the injury to his thigh.

“Such an injury can be life-threatening,” Zujo said.

The trial is due to continue on August 30.
A.S.