People Set On Fire At Bikavac

Witnesses OK-10 and OK-9 declined to testify before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which the Trial Chamber, taking into consideration their health condition and trauma, decided that lawyer Slavisa Prodanovic should read out depositions they gave to members of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) in 2011.

In her deposition, witness OK-10 said that in the summer of 1992 she was staying at Bikavac. One day she saw soldiers call out to people to gather around, but she did not go.

“Soon afterwards the shooting started, and then we saw flames coming from the direction of the house of Meho Aljic. That’s when I told my mother: ‘By God, they set everything on fire.’ Around midnight there was a silent knock on the door. It was Zehra Turjacanin. She told me that in the house of Meho Aljic 75 women and children were set on fire,” said in the deposition.

Oliver Krsmanovic is charged with taking part in setting the house at Bikavac on fire on June 27, 1992, in which they previously locked up around 70 civilians.

As a member of the Second Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska, he is being tried for other murders, rapes and forced disappearances of the Bosniak population in Visegrad as well.

Witness OK-10 in her deposition said that on that night Zehra Turjacanin suffered from burns all over her body and was going to turn herself in to the headquarters at Bikavac because she could not take the pain any more.
OK-10 added that she knew Oliver Krsmanovic, because he was a classmate of her friend, but that she did not meet him during the war.

The other witness, OK-9, told the investigators that one night someone knocked on the door of the house she was in. When she opened, she saw Zehra Turjacanin “all burned up”.

“She told us to run, but that she would go to surrender. She listed the names of all the people who died in fire. I heard her say that Milan Lukic and his people set the house on fire. We fled from there,” said in the deposition.

Milan Lukic was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to a life-long imprisonment for the crime committed in Visegrad, including the murder of around 70 women, children and elderly at Bikavac.
 
“While we were going we smelled smoke. Some people said they saw bodies smoking,” said OK-9.
The trial will resume on September 24 with the examination of another protected witness for the defence.