Testifying at the trial for crimes in Kladanj, a State Prosecution witness says that Ladimir Dragic was found dead in the educational workers’ buildings in Stupari, where Serbs were brought after having been arrested.
Pero Marjanovic said that Dragic came to the police premises in Stupari in order to surrender and that he was then examined and beaten.
The witness mentioned that he spoke to Dragic on June 9, 1992 and that, the following day he was found dead in an apartment in one of the educational workers’ buildings.
He said that he did not see his body but he heard that Dragic hanged himself on the larder door.
“He had bruises all over his body,” Marjanovic said.
Marjanovic told the Court that he was taken from his apartment in Stupari to the school building, where he worked as a teacher, in June 1992. As he said, about 60 Serbs were present in the school building. Indictee Safet Mujcinovic informed them that they had to be under police custody, while indictee Zijad Hamzic said something in a sense that they should be killed.
“All those, who were present, could hear that,” the witness said, adding that a policeman told him that Hamzic was “the Battalion Commander”.
According to the charges, police unlawfully arrested the Serb population in the educational workers’ buildings in Stupari from May to mid-July 1992.
Mujcinovic and Hamzic are on trial, along with Selman Busnov, Nusret Muhic, Ramiz Halilovic, Nedzad Hodzic, Hariz Habibovic, Osman Gogic and Kahro Vejzovic, former members of the Territorial Defence and military and civil police, for crimes committed in the Kladanj area.
Witness Marjanovic said that, considering the fact that conditions in the school building were bad, they were transferred to the educational workers’ buildings, adding that he came to his own apartment, because he had lived in one of those buildings anyway. As he said, a total of about 100 Serbs were arrested and detained.
Marjanovic told the Court that policemen used to take them for examinations and that he was once examined by Mujcinovic.
“He asked us about weapons, he asked us where our families were, he asked if we were members of any parties. He behaved in an appropriate manner,” he explained.
As he said, during those examinations some Serbs were beaten. He then said that he watched Mujcinovic hitting Miroslav Markovic in the school building. The witness said that he watched that from a window of his apartment located across the street from the school building.
“I saw that he examined him, that he hit him with his hands,” the witness said.
The Defence mentioned that there were plants between the building and school, but the witness said that he could see that, because the plants were short in 1992.
The witness said that it was known to him that most of the detained persons possessed weapons and that he got a gun from an activist of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS. He did not accept the Defence’s allegation that police found that gun during the search of his apartment, saying that he took it to the Station voluntarily.
Marjanovic said that the Court Martial in Tuzla sentenced him, in 1993, to three years in prison for the illegal possession of weapons.
The trial is due to continue on June 13.
