Jukic: Irreversibly Taken Away

Enisa Pilav and other women from the neighbourhood used to take food to their husbands every day while they were being detained in the “high school centre” in Prozor. When she came with food at the beginning of August 1993, however, Mirsad Pilav was no longer there.She found out from the guards that police had taken her husband and others to dig trenches. The witness claims that, in the guard’s notebook, she saw that the prisoners had left at 22:30 and hadn’t returned. Ten days later the witness finally reconvened with her husband. He told her then about the shooting ad how he had survived.The witness stated: “When he regained consciousness he said that, on the evening of August 3, the lights were turned off. They entered with a flashlight and told him to come out. Once he stepped into the hallway he said he saw Vinko Papak, Zeljko Jukic, and another man. Papak told him that he was being taken to a shooting.”The witness testified that she saw in the guard’s notebook that other prisoners, among them Edis Omanovic, were also taken out.Pilav told his wife that the prisoners were driven to the dumpyard at Duska Kosa, from where he managed to escape. She mentioned that she didn’t know how that her husband, who was later killed in the war, knew Jukic.Jukic, who was a former soldier in the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), is charged for involvement, together with Vinko Papak – who is still in hiding – and another soldier, in the disappearance of five prisoners on the night of August 3 in Duska Kosa.Another witness, Zlata Omanovic, said that she has been searching for her son Edi’s bones for over 20 years. She learned about his death from her husband Mehmed, who was released in September 1993 from Dretelj, a concentration camp close to Capljina.“He told me that Edis was taken out and killed. That was a shock for me, and only when I pulled myself together we continued talking. He told me that I must accept the truth and confirmed that he had been asking around about his death,” said the witness.Omanovic’s husband was held in high school centre in Prozor before he was taken to Dretelj. He told his wife that he saw their son Edis only shortly.Omanovic also said that her husband, who died in 2007, told her that Jukic, Papak, and a bus conductor from the village of Rumboci, next to Prozor, took the prisoners out of high school centre.When the witness asked others about her son’s fate she noted “I was never at peace. I always got the same response – Zeljko Jukic participated in Edis’s taking.”The trial will resume on 10 January.