Defendant Guarded Cattle

Tadic, who was a commissioner in the Croatian Defence Council for Gornja Lovnica (municipality of Zepcce), said that in early July in 1993 he was assigned with systematising the records of all citizens in Lovnica.
 
In the log he kept, he wrote beside the name of the defendant “mobilisation of cattle”, which, in witness’s words, meant that with another 14 guards he had to take care of cows, sheep and other cattle in the village of Ristici.
 
“Assignments for all the people on the list were written in pencil so that possible changes could be made, but I did not enter them, because when the cattle was gone in late 1993, their duty ceased with it,” explained Tadic.
 
The witness added that he could not have mobilised anyone for military purposes and that his records as commissioner were kept more for civilians needs.
 
Martic is charged, as a member of the Croatian Defence Council, with taking a group of imprisoned members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the school in Perkovici in July 1993 to an army position, where he abused them and hit them with a rifle butt on various body parts and shot at two of them.
 
Tadic said he recalled the day of July 9, 1993, specified in the indictment, because Niko Tadic was wounded then and that he knew that the defendant was on that day in Ristici guarding the cattle.
 
The defence presented a notebook from the witness’ documentation, establishing it was bound at a later date, and the prosecution objected to not being able to look into the log before the testimony.
 
The Prosecution announced it would enter into material evidence a document from the records which proves that the defendant was mobilised and that at the time the crimes were committed had been a member of the Croatian Defence Council.
 
The witness said that he was certain the defendant had not been mobilised, because at the time the rule was that a man who had three or four mobilised family members could not go near a combat zone.
 
The trial will resume on November 13.