Witness Saw Decomposing Bodies in Blace
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The witness, Muharem Ahmetovic, said that, as an undertaker, on orders from his superiors, he went with several colleagues to Blace in the summer of 1992. They were ordered, the witness said, to bury the bodies of killed Serbs.
“First we found a decomposing male body and buried it in the meadow. Then we found two crouching bodies, which we did not manage to bury, so we covered them with soil and rocks,” said Ahmetovic, adding that Jasminka Dzumhur was with them. He said that then they entered a house at the end of the village, where they found several decomposing bodies. The witness said that all of them may have been elderly women in a semi-lying position.
“I stormed out and threw up, the excrement smelled pleasant compared to what it smelled like inside. I said I won’t go back inside again,” recalled Ahmetovic, adding that Jasna Dzumhur then told him to go to the “water storages”. He said he did not know what happened to the bodies from the house at the end of the village.
Osman Brkan and Ibro Macic, former members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are charged with the murder of four elderly Serb women in the village of Blance committed in June 1992. According to the indictment, first Macic opened fire, and then Brkan joined him. The bodies of the killed still haven’t been found.
The second witness for the prosecution, Dragan Matic, former member of the Intervention Platoon of the Croatian Defence Council, said he also went to Blace in June 1992.
“We went there on orders from Goran Blazevic, also known as ‘Garo’. Our assignment was to protect the Serbs. We found a group of soldiers there. All of them had green ribbons with Arabic letters,” said Matic, adding that there was an exchange of fire when they met.
The witness said that they learnt it was “Midko’s team”. In the village, there were no living civilians, said the witness. He saw four bodies in a house, but he did not know whether they were “fresh or not”. On their return, they met a surviving civilians, whom they safely escorted out of the village.
The trial will resume on November 1, when three new witness for the Prosecution are scheduled to appear.
