Witness Recalls Failed Exchange of Prisoners

Masovic, former member of the State commission for exchange, said that he was in Kobiljaca in September 1992 when the prisoners from Silos should have been exchanged. That exchange, he said, had failed, because the other party did not bring the prisoners as it was agreed the day before.

“I went to Kobiljaca where the other party brought prisoners and I tried to get into the buses to check if the lists were all right. I was not allowed to do so, but I saw there were many women and children. That exchange failed,” Masovic said.

He said that people, who were supposed to be exchanged for people from Silos, are still missing.

“In my opinion the exchange from the Tarcin area would be faster if there was no September 8 in 1992, because then we received the list with the names of people that still remain missing,” he said.

Masovic testified at the trial for crimes committed in the Silos detention camp, the Krupa barracks and the 9th of May school in Hadzici. Becir Hujic, Halid Covic, Mustafa Djelilovic, Fadil Covic, Mirsad Sabic, Nezir Kazic, Serif Mesanovic and Nermin Kalember are on trial for those war crimes.

According to the indictment, Hujic was the warden of the Silos camp, as was Halid Covic at a later date. Mesanovic was one of the deputy wardens at the detention centre and also camp warden in the Krupa military barracks, Kalember was a guard, while the others worked for the civilian, military or police authorities.

The witness said that municipal commissions for exchange, under the regulations, were not allowed to carry out the exchange without the approval of the state commission, but he said that it still happened.

When asked whether there were such exchanges in the Hadzici area, Masovic said that he knows that two such exchanges took place.

“The exchange from Tarcin run from the beginning of the war, in that half legal way, as well as legal [way],” he said adding that all the prisoners from Silos were released by the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords.

Prosecutor Zorica Djurdjevic read out the statement of the late witness Vukasin Varagic. In a statement from 2007, witness said that he was taken to Silos in the middle of 1992, and that there were already more people, and some of them had injuries.

“The guard was Buba Kalember who beat my father and contributed to his death,” said Varagic in the statement, adding that his father died shortly after his release from the Silos.

Kalember’s defence read out the statement witness gave shortly after he was released from the camp, when he did not mention torture or beatings.

The Defence of Djelilovic and Fadil Covic said that they would ask the witness, if that was an option, about the arming of the population in the Hadzici area, about military formations from that area, as well as the process against him.

The trial continues on May 22.