Jukic: Deportation and Mistreatment of Local Residents

Mujo Perviz confirmed that members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, including Zeljko Jukic, unexpectedly entered Lapsunj village on August 28, 1993 and expelled all Bosniak and Serb residents from their houses.

“We were given 15 minutes to come to the shop. All of us. Women and children and the elderly included. There were no men capable of serving the military in the village. I did stay in the village, but, given the fact that I was disabled, I had never had a rifle in my life,” the witness explained.

He said that Jukic mistreated the local population in front of the shop in Lapsunj, forcing them to sing “Croatian combat songs”. As he said, whoever did not know the words was beaten up.

“All of us were beaten up at that place. They cursed our balija [derogatory name for Bosnian Muslims] mothers, hit us with their fists and rifles. Some old women fainted. It continued until some buses came. They loaded us onto them, drove us to Prozor and detained us in the secondary school centre,” Perviz said.

Zeljko Jukic, former HVO member, is charged with having participated in the forcible resettlement of the Bosniak population from Prozor municipality on August 28, 1993.

Witness Perviz told the Court that Zeljko Jukic arrived in a luxury car in front of the shop in Lapsunj on August 28, 1993, bragging that he had caught a pig. According to the witness, he opened the car trunk, where he saw an unknown young man, whose hands and legs were tied.

“He was tied, but he was alive. A person named Cela was in the car with Zeljko. I did not know the young man in the trunk, but I saw that Zeljko drove away in the same car towards the lake. I did not see what happened there, but I heard gunfire,” the witness said, explaining that he found out, after the war, that the man in the car was Kerim, son of a local Imam, who was killed during the war.

Djula Beric, who testified at the hearing today, was expelled from Lapsunj village on August 28, 1993 as well.

“Zeljko Jukic was one of the soldiers, who forced us to leave our houses. I have known him my whole life. It was not difficult for me to recognise him. I heard that he mistreated other residents. As we were getting onto a truck, he even hit me on my knee with his rifle,” witness Beric said.

During the cross-examination the two witnesses confirmed that they had known Jukic and his family before the war and that they heard that the indictee was a member of “a Kinder Squad” of the HVO.

The trial is due to continue on January 24.
D.E.