Wounded and Young

Edib Mahmic said that he participated in the attack on Dusina, but he did not participate in that operation with him that day.  
 
“I did not know Vehid very well. I heard that there was a man named Vehid Subotic and that he was young and wounded,” Mahmic said.  
 
He said that, in 1993 he was member of “Plavi Sokolovi” (“Blue Hawks”) Special Unit, which, as far as he knew, was renamed into the Seventh Muslim Unit later on.
 
“Our task was to approach Dusina from the back. We arrived at 5 a.m… They began shooting at me. I heard noise in one of the houses. Avdo fired a grenade at the roof of that house. I came to that house. I saw people in it,” Mahmic said.  

The witness said that, while he was in Dusina, he did not hear about the murders, but he heard later on that murders happened and that “Geler committed them”.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, charges Vehid Subotic, known as Geler, former member of the Seventh Muslim Brigade of ABiH, who was allegedly accompanied by other persons, with having separated eight Croats and escorted them to a house, where he ordered soldiers to kill them, on January 26, 1993. Subotic is on trial for several other murders of Croats in Dusina.  

When asked by the Defence whether Subotic could have given orders to any members of that unit, Mahmic said that he found it ridiculous.  

“He was 19. He was wounded when he came. He was even exempt from going to the field, let alone given some command function,” Mahmic said.                   

Witness Hazim Barucija, former Deputy Commander of the Second Anti-Commando Squad with the Territorial Defence in Zenica, said that he was not present in Dusina, when the attack was conducted, and a few days after that.  

“A delegation came four or five days after the events in Dusina in order to examine what happened. Members of HVO and UNPROFOR came in order to examine the war crime that was committed. This was the first time I heard that this was a war crime. I told them that the information available to use suggested that those men were killed in combat activities,” Barucija said.  

According to his testimony, the killed men were members of HVO.

The trial is due to continue on May 16.