Recognising Neighbour Tasic

Ibrahim Karaman said that, a few days prior to leaving the village, his neighbour Ljupko Tasic visited him and informed him that all local residents had to leave their houses, “because the situation is not safe and nobody could protect them.”

He said that he headed towards Bosanska Jagodina with his wife and three sons on the following morning, because it was said that all Bosniak residents from the surrounding villages should gather there.

“Many people were present there that day. Six buses, many children and women, and even men. Ljupko Tasic was there as well. He told us that we would go to the free territories in the direction of Kladanj and Olovo,” Karaman explained.

As he said, the convoy stopped in Visegrad, where more buses joined it.

“We arrived to a location near Olovo in the vicinity of some forest. Later on I heard that the place was called Iseric Brdo. The convoy stopped. One of the Serb soldiers got on each of the buses. He told us that women, children and the elderly should get out. At that moment I realised that I would run away. I sneaked out of the bus and hid between other people,” Karaman said.

As he explained, Ibrahim’s three sons stayed in the buses. All three of them were killed.

“All three of them have been found. I do not know who killed them, but I know that I heard that Ljupko Tasic did it. I personally saw him at those locations. I recognised him. He was our closest neighbour,” the witness said.

During the cross-examination witness Ibrahimovic did not recognise indictee Ljupko Tasic in the courtroom.

Tasic is charged, along with Predrag Milisavljevic and Milos Pantelic, with having participated in the murders, forcible resettlement, detention, torture and forced disappearances from April to June 1992.

They are charged with having participated in the murder of several tens of Bosniaks near the Paklenik pit, as well as in the forced resettlement of more than 500 Bosniak civilians from the Visegrad area.

The indictment alleges that Milisavljevic and Pantelic were members of the reserve police forces in Visegrad, while Tasic was a member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.

The Prosecutor read statements given by late witnesses Jusuf Karaman and Fatima Ahmetspahia in 2001 and 2012.

According to their statements, both Karaman and Ahmetspahic were in the convoy and saw Ljupko Tasic at Iseric Brdo, when men were separated from women.

Jusuf Karaman’s son was killed in the convoy, while Fatima Ahmetspahic lost two sons, whose remains she found in Paklenik pit, near Sokolac after the war.

The trial is due to continue on June 18.