Kidnappers’ Faces Covered with Stockings

“Uniformed persons stopped the bus. The driver opened the door. They got on the bus and asked all passengers to show their ID cards. They had some stockings pulled over their faces. They took some of the passengers out. Later on they signalled to the driver to close the door,” said Biljana Bojovic.

She worked as a bus conductor with the Raketa company from Priboj. As she said, the bus passengers included workers, who got on the Rudo-Priboj bus in order to get to work.

According to the charges, on October 22, 1992 Krsmanovic participated in the kidnapping of 16 Bosniak civilians from Sjeverin, Serbia. The civilians were then taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel in Visegrad and killed after having been beaten up.
Bojovic said that she could not remember all the details, because she too was scared and under stress.

“We continued towards Priboj. I was scared. I asked my boss to have somebody replace me, but he said that nobody was available, so I continued working. When I came back from another route, I found out that those people were kidnapped and that they had disappeared,” the witness said.

Testifying at this hearing, Zekija Dzekic confirmed that her brother Zafer was one of the civilians who was taken from that bus. She said that he had still not been found.

Other people told her that the civilians were taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel.

Krsmanovic, former member of the Second Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade with the Republika Srpska Army, is also charged with other murders, rape and abuse of the Bosniak population in Visegrad.

The trial is due to continue on April 23.