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British forensics expert John Clark testified before the Bosnian state court on Tuesday and said that in 1999 he worked on the autopsy of the remains of bodies of Bosniaks found in the Paklenik pit near the town of Sokolac, on orders from the Hague Tribunal’s chief prosecutor.
“We received 80 bags with mortal remains. We managed to complete 73 bodies. These were all male civilians,” said Clark.
Former Bosnian Serb fighters Predrag Milisavljevic, Milos Pantelic and Ljubomir Tasic are charged with participating in murders, the forced transfer and imprisonment of people, torture, disappearances and other inhumane acts committed in Visegrad in 1992.
According to the indictment, Milisavljevic and Pantelic were involved in the murders of several dozen Bosniak civilians at the Paklenik pit, where Milisavljevic was the first to start executing the prisoners.
Clark said that with 54 of the bodies, it was established that death was caused by shooting; some others were killed with a blunt object.
“On third of the bodies we found a wire tied around the wrists, which means their hands were tied. With some we know that their hands were tied on their backs,” said Clark.
He added it was established that the victims were shot in the backs of their heads or in the back. The youngest victim was aged between 15 and 18, while the majority were aged between 30 and 50.
Since the bodies were thrown from the height of 18 metres, the possibility that some of the injuries were caused by the fall could not be ruled out.
“In one of the cases we were able to establish that the victim was alive before falling into the pit, but we could not establish the exact cause of death,” said Clark, adding that the possible causes of death were bleeding out, dehydration or starvation.
The trial will resume on July 23.
