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Zijada Hatic said that, on August 5, 1992 she was taken, along with her father-in-law Hasim Hatic and other people, to the school building in Kalinovik, where they were put into one of the classrooms. As she said, seven days after their arrival, some soldiers entered the classroom and took her father-in-law away.
“They examined us. One of them grabbed my father-in-law by his neck and said: ‘Where are your sons?’ They forced Pervan to lie down… Then they said: ‘You have lived long enough. Come with us’,” the witness recalled, adding that she had never seen her father-in-law since.
She said that some more men were taken away from the classroom, but, when asked if all of them were taken away on the same day, she first said yes, but then she said that she did not know for sure. She said that a woman told her later on that the men were taken away by “Elez’ men”.
Marinko and Zoran Bjelica, as well as Novica Tripkovic, who were armed with automatic guns, are charged with having separated prisoners Suad Hasanbegovic, Edin Bico, Seid Keso and Hasim Hatic from the school building on August 1, 1992 or approximately on that date.
The indictment alleges that, during that night they beat them up. After that Keso died. The other three detainees were killed the following day. Hasim Hatic’s body has never been found, while the bodies of the three remaining persons were exhumed and identified in 2009.
The witness said that Seido Keso was beaten up in the school building and that she heard that Edin Bico was put into a concrete trough. When asked when the event involving Bico happened, she was not able to specify the date.
She said that, during her stay in the school building she once heard a burst of fire.
“Shooting was all we heard. We realised it was close, but we did not know where,” she said, adding that a woman told her that she saw two or three corpses being carried out of the school building.
She mentioned that she saw traces of blood in one room.
“The door was opened a bit, so we went inside. I saw blood and holes on the wall and bullets on the floor. There was blood on the wooden floor as well. I could see that they wiped the floor, but one could see that somebody was killed in that room,” Hatic said.
The trial is due to continue on August 18.
