A Man with a Glass Eye
As the trial for crimes in Zenica continues, a State Prosecution witness says that she was detained in a house together with other civilians and that men were called out, taken away and killed, adding that indictee Vehid Subotic was there as well.
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Witness Milica Kegelj said that she left Dusina village after a massacre in which she lost her family members, including two brothers, had happened on January 21, 1993.
She said that she hid, along with her mother, aunts and their children, in uncle Niko’s basement, where soldiers appeared some time later.
“They shot at the basement door in order to open it. They were members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They told us: ‘Do not be afraid. We are neither Chetniks nor Ustashas. We shall not kill or rape’,” Kegelj said.
According to the witness’ testimony, all of them were taken from that house, as well as other houses, to another uncle Stipe’s house. While they were walking to that house, a man called Edin Hakanovic singled out a few civilians, who were then used as human shields at military positions facing the Croatian Defence Council, HVO.
The witness said that the soldiers, including some Bosniak neighbours, had a list from which they read names of able-bodied men. She said that she remembered two soldiers, including the indictee, but she did not know which one of them read the names from the list.
“I remember one man. He had some problems with his eye. I shall never forget him. He was tall and skinny. Another one was dark-skinned and had a rosary around his neck,” Kegelj said.
Trial Chamber member Mira Smajlovic asked the indictee to take his glasses off and asked the witness if she could recognise the person. Kegelj said that “this is the eye problem I noticed”, adding that his physiognomy matched the physiognomy of the person she saw, but she was not able to say with certainty that it was the same person considering that so many years had passed since.
The indictment charges Vehid Subotic, former member of the Second Battalion with the Seventh Muslim Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, with having entered Dusina village, together with other members of his Battalion, and gave an order to capture about 40 civilians and a few disarmed HVO soldiers. After that he separated eight Croat civilians, escorted them to a house and ordered members of his Company to kill them.
The witness said that the men, whose names were called out, left accompanied by soldiers and disappeared. None of them returned except for neighbour Milenko Rajic. Kegelj said that she did not remember whether the indictee was in the house or outside, when those people were taken out.
She said that she found out the identity of “the man with a glass eye”, as she called the indictee, after having left the village and met her father in Bugojno.
“Everybody said their own stories and conveyed what they had noticed. We put the puzzle pieces together. When my dad heard everything, she said that the person with the glass eye was the son of a cleaning lady, who used to work at the bus station, just like him. He was a problematic child. That was how Subotic’s mother described him to my father,” the witness said.
One of her brothers was killed at the doorstep, while her father was not able to recognise her second brother, whose body was brought to Busovaca, because the body was mutilated.
Second witness Asim Tutnjic told the Court that, just like him, indictee Vehid Subotic was a member of the Seventh Muslim Brigade of ABiH. However, he said that they were not members of the same squad. He claims to have seen Subotic one day prior to the attack on Dusina village.
“I did not see him on the following day, January 26, when the attack was conducted. However, I was wounded in the attack, so they drove me to the ambulance in Zenica,” the witness said.
The trial is due to continue on November 8.
