Beginning of Conflicts in Prozor

Witness Jozo Mestrovic said that he was Commander of military police in Prozor in 1992 and that both Muslim and Croat members of police were treated in the same manner at that time.

“We separated in October 1992, when Muslims left the forces,” Mestrovic explained.

The witness said that an incident happened during a meeting held on October 23, 1992 at which a solution for the emerging situation between Croats and Muslims was sought. Franjo Zadro was the killed on that occasion and the conflicts in Prozor began.

“Several Muslim houses and other buildings were burnt on that day,” the witness said.

He said that he used to see indictee Jukic during the war, but he had never heard from anybody that he committed war crimes.

“He has always been a hard-working man. While he was young, he built a house on his own and got married,” the witness said.

Zeljko Jukic is charged with having participated, in collaboration with other members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, and Croatian Army, HV, in the persecution of Bosniak civilians, murders and forced disappearances in Prozor from July to September 1993.

Witness Radovan Vidovic told the Court that he joined the “Rama” Brigade in Prozor as a sixteen-year old boy, because “some people, who were dear to him, was killed on October 24, 1992”.

“On the following day an attack on Jurici village, where we lived, began. We fled to the woods. While we were in the woods, we could hear people shouting Allahu Akbar. They asked us where Ustashas were,” the witness said.

The witness said that members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, killed his closest family members in June 1993.

“They were killed, because they were Croats,” Vidovic said.

He said that he had never heard that the indictee committed any crimes.