A Cry for a Dead Son
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“After the shooting I came to the mosque with my mother. I spotted my brother’s dead body. His legs were on fire. My mother was howling and crying for him, holding his head in her arms. Then I saw my husband, who was dead too. I heard a hissing sound of his stomach burning,” Ismeta Causevic said.
The witness, her husband and children were at her parents’ in Carakovo village on July 23, 1992. She said that they heard shooting in the morning hours. Some armed people came to their house.
“It all happened so quickly. My brother Kemal was in front of the house. At that moment my husband Emir came out of the house as well. They forced them to walk towards the mosque. When I could no longer see them, I went back into the house,” Causevic said.
After a certain period of time neighbours started coming out of their houses, saying that a shooting had happened in front of the mosque.
According to the charges, on July 23, 1992 Zoran Babic and Velemir Djuric, who were accompanied by some people known to them, took male residents from their houses in Carakovo village, acting on an order issued by Dragomir Soldat. They allegedly took the men to the local mosque and shot them in front of it.
The indictment alleges that some of the men, who survived the shooting, died after indictees Djuric and Babic had set the mosque on fire, as burning parts of the mosque fell down on their bodies.
Witness Causevic has still not found her husband’s remains. Nermina Bljakaj said that her grandfather was killed in front of the mosque and that her uncle Sead Susic and witness S-1 survived the shooting.
“I saw my dead grandfather’s body, as well as his brother’s body. His legs were burning. The local Imam’s body was there too. His bowels and intestines were next to his body,” the witness said.
As she said, on her way back home she saw witness S-1, who was wounded. She carried him behind their house with the help from her aunt and neighbour.
Her uncle Sead Susic, who survived the shooting, came home that night and left for the woods soon after that.
The trial is due to continue on May 31.
