Civilian Beaten and then Killed in Plandiste

Alickovic said that he was in a group of policemen and soldiers, together with indictees Hadrovic and Dajic, who were tasked with searching houses in Plandiste village, near Kakanj in order to find arms and soldiers of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO.

“The man was at the door. He invited us to come inside and search the house. He was sitting at the table, eating. One of the group members, Safet Silajdzic, overturned a milk pan and fired several bullets. There was a hustle. All of us ran outside. I was afraid of a ricochet,” Alickovic said.

As he said, he noticed that a man was bent over and that Vahid Hadrovic cursed his Chetnik mother and hit him on his head with a rifle butt.

“The man staggered towards the garden. Hadrovic said: ‘Kill him, Dedo.’ While the man was getting up, Fadil Dajic, also known as Dedo, fired several bullets at him. Hadrovic then said: ‘The fool just killed the man.’ I got sick, so I began vomiting. All of us were shocked. Nobody reacted. Dedo said that it was nothing and that he was getting even for killed Muslims,” Alickovic said.

He said that, later on that day he saw a few people, who had business agendas in their hands, standing next to the bodies and that a colleague of his told him that the killed man’s name was Sekula Poletan, who was his neighbour.
 
When asked by indictee Dajic if he was sure that he had a gun, considering the fact that police members did not have that type of arms at the time, the witness repeated several times that he was absolutely sure about that.

The Prosecution charges Dajic, former member of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, and Hadrovic, former member of police, with having killed a Serb civilian while searching houses in order to collect illegal weapons in Plandiste village.

Biljana Poletan, wife of the killed man, told the Court that she went to her parents’ because of the shooting on June 9, 1993. She said that, when she came back, she found her husband’s dead body in front of the house.

“He was covered with blood. He had a large cut on the right side of his face. Religious icons were scattered around. The house door was broken,” Polutan said.

She told the Court that she went to police with her parents later on and that the then Commander, whom she knew by nickname Sera, told them to manage on their own and that he could not help them, although he had “previously convinced us that we had no reason to worry”.

The killed man’s brother Sreto Poletan said that he found out about his sibling’s murder on June 24, when he went from his village to the Cement Factory in Kakanj, where his brother used to work. He said that Jasmin Mehinagic, Jozo Jozanovic and Zlatan Omic told him who had killed his brother and how.

Crying in the courtroom, he said that he was very sorry because Vahid Hadrovic had done that, considering the fact that he, his brother and his sister-in-law grew up with him and attended the same school.

“We were in good relations with everybody. I had to leave my home and job because of the two of them,” Sreto Poletan said.

The trial is due to continue on November 19.

Indictee Dajic previously announced that he might conclude a guilt admission agreement with the Prosecution, but it did not happen, because he did not agree with the proposed sentence.