Local Justice – Banja Luka: Keeping Quiet Out of Fear

Stojanovic told the Court that, in August 1992 the Commander of the Police Station in Kotor Varos told him to escort a convoy of non-Serbs, who were moving out of the town.

“After we had departed, a policeman said that we should hand a person over at a check-point,” Stojanovic said.

He said that, on their way from Kotor Varos to Travnik, he got on the first bus and told a person, whose name he did not know, who was shown to him by the policeman, to come out of the bus and go into a police vehicle.

“There were no problems. The person did it in a correct manner. I did not know who he was at the time. When we came to the checkpoint, the policeman told the people, who were there, that we were supposed to hand over a person to them. They said we should take the person to the Command,” Stojanovic said.

Stojanovic told the Court that they went to the Military Command building and that some soldiers then told them to go back to Knezevo.

“While we were driving towards Knezevo, the policeman told the man, whom we escorted: ‘Ustasha, why do I have to drive you around?’ When the man said that he was not an Ustasha, the policeman stopped. He forced him to leave the vehicle and fired several bullets on his back. When he returned to the vehicle, we asked him what he had just done. He said: ‘Nobody must know about this, or else you will end up like this man’,” Stojanovic said.

According to the charges, Stojanovic and another person killed Ilija Antunovic from Orahova, near Kotor-Varos on August 9, 1992.

It is alleged that Stojanovic took Antunovic out of a bus which was evicting Croats from Orahova to Travnik.

Stojanovic said that he found out, later on, that the killed man’s name was Ilija Antunovic, adding that he had kept quiet about the murder out of fear. He told the Court that the policeman, who had shot Antunovic, was later killed.

The date of the next hearing will be announced at a later stage.