Pantelic was not with Armed Soldiers
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Witness Nenad Mirkovic recalled the arrival of a truck, bringing unknown soldiers to Kabernik village in late May 1992. He said that the soldiers stopped in front of Junuz Tufekcic’s house. The witness had previously informed Tufekcic that he had heard that soldiers would come to the village.
“I saw them entering the house. In less than half an hour the house began burning,” said the witness, testifying in defence of Pantelic.
As he said, the unknown soldiers, whose faces were “painted”, came to the witness’ house and asked him what his name was. When he told them his name, they were surprised, because they had been told earlier that this was a Muslim village. Mirkovic explained that Muslims were the majority in Kabernik.
The witness said that he did not see indictee Pantelic, whom he had known from before, among those soldiers. He said that he left the village on the following day, adding that his house was burnt down five or six days later.
He said that Muslims had hidden in a nearby village prior to the burning of houses, so he assumed that his neighbour Tufekcic was in that village as well. As he said, “there is no chance” that one could recognise persons in the village by looking through binoculars from that location.
Pantelic is on trial, along with Predrag Milisavljevic and Ljubomir Tasic, for crimes committed in Visegrad. They are charged with having committed the persecution of the Bosniak population within an attack by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, police and paramilitary formations in the period from April to the end of June 1992.
According to the charges, Milisavljevic and Pantelic were members of reserve police forces in Visegrad, while Tasic was a member of the VRS.
Testifying in defence of Pantelic, witness Rasid Tvrtkovic recalled the happenings in Kabernik in May or June 1992, when he saw armed soldiers and recognised some of them. As he said, he did not see Pantelic among those armed soldiers.
He said that he saw some Muslims from the village on the truck, which brought the soldiers, adding that he managed to flee from the village.
The trial is due to continue on Tuesday, December 10.
