Indictee in front of School Building in Orahovci

Witness Momcilo Trifkovic told the Court that, following the first shooting incidents, he and about 60 other soldiers were setting a line in the vicinity of the school building in Orahovica, when a group of male captives was brought.

According to the witness, indictee Milos Pantelic was in front of the school building as well.

“I recognised him by his voice, because he was always noisy. He was in front of the school, next to the door. However, I did not see that he beat anybody,” the witness said, adding that, “just like all the other men, who were present in front of the school”, Pantelic was armed.

Trifkovic said that about 20 Bosniaks were taken into the school building, where they spent one night before being “returned to people”.

“I brought them food in the evening. I recognised three of my neighbours. I did not notice any injuries on them or the other men,” the witness said.

Pantelic is charged, along with Predrag Milisavljevic and Ljubomir Tasic, with having participated in the persecution of the Bosniak population within an attack by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, police and paramilitary formations from April to the end of June 1992.
 
According to the State Prosecution’s charges, Milisavljevic and Pantelic were members of reserve police forces in Visegrad, while Tasic was member of VRS.

Second witness Bosko Trifkovic said that he was on the division line in the vicinity of the school building in Orahovci. 

“In the evening I heard that a group of 30 Muslim captives had been brought. I saw them being taken away on the following morning. Later on I found out that all of them were alive and that nobody was killed,” the witness said. 

Trifkovic said that his brother Momcilo told him that Momcilo Pantelic was in front of the school building that particular evening, but he did not see him.

The two witnesses said that, after they had spent one on the division line in the vicinity of the school building, one of the lines held by the Serb Army fell and five or six men were killed on that occasion. The witnesses were not able to specify the date on which the prisoners were brought to the school.

They said that, later on Muslim houses, but also all the Serb ones, including their family house, in the Donja Lijeska village, near Visegrad, were burnt down.

“After the Uzice Corps had left the village, all sorts of things happened. Various armies came to the village,” witness Trifkovic said.

The trial is due to continue on January 14.