Wounded Man Killed next to a Pit

Veselko Ozegovic said that a certain Petar Babic came to his house in Bravsko village on June 28, 1992 and ordered him to come with him, because Obrad Ozegovic had killed a person and that the person had to be buried. 

“All village residents gathered next to the post office. Two unknown young men, who held their hands up, were standing there, while another man was lying dead. Slavko came out of the post office and ordered the two men to load the killed man onto a tractor cart. He ordered me to escort the convoy. I thought that we were driving him to the cemetery, but he said that we would not bury them, but dump them into the Dervis pit,” Ozegovic said.

According to Ozegovic’s testimony, the two captives took the corpse from the tractor cart, while Slavko Stricevic fired two bursts of bullets at them. 

“One of them, the youngest one with curly hair, was still showing signs of life, but Milutin Babic approached him and fired a bullet to his head. After that Slavko, Milutin and Obrad dumped them into the pit,” Ozegovic said.

Babic, former member of the Republika Srpska Army, is charged with having killed captives  Mustafa Cikota, Emsud Smailovic and Sadko Burnic, acting in collaboration with Obrad Ozegovic and Slavko Strisevic, in the second half of June 1992.

Testifying at this hearing, witness Ermin Selman said that, after having hidden in various houses and in the forest, he decided to head towards Bihac together with Mustafa Cikota, Emsud Smailovic and Sadko Burnic.

“In saw them for the last time on that day, June 27.We left from Adem Cikota’s house, in which we were hiding most of the time. We were armed. We stopped in Dolac, because we saw an old man herding cattle. Also, we saw two soldiers. There was no way we could pass without being spotted, so I proposed that we gave up and go back. However, the three of them did not want to do it. They moved on, while I went back to the house. That was the last time I saw them,” Selman said.

Married couple Slavko and Dusanka Sobot said that they attended the physical mistreatment of captives Cikota, Smailovic and Burnic in front of the post office, adding that Branko Babic and Stricevic mistreated them more than anybody else.

They said that Obrad Ozegovic killed one of the captives in front of all of the village residents. 

“The captives looked very exhausted, tired and very young. One of them even had a baby face. When I saw that Obrad shot at one of them, blasting his brain out, I began crying and asked my husband to go home with me,” Dusanka Sobot said.  

The trial is due to continue on October 8.