Bosnia Opens First Trnovo Wartime Crimes Trial

Edhem Godinjak, Madaris Saric and Mirko Bunoza went on trial in Sarajevo on Tuesday, accused of participating in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at killing and jailing Serbs and destroying their property.

According to the indictment presented in the prosecutor’s opening statement, police officers, Croatian Defence Forces and Territorial Defence fighters and Bosnian Army troops killed more than 90 people, most of them elderly. The majority of the victims were women, and one was a young child.

They were killed with firearms, decapitated, hanged or strangled. Several were burned, the indictment alleges.

According to the indictment, Godinjak was chief of the police’s Public Safety Station building in Trnovo, Saric was staff commander of the local Territorial Defence force and Bunoza was the commander of Croatian Defence Forces units.

The indictment alleges that in June 1992, a group of civilians tried to cross Mount Treskavica to reach territory under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army, but were killed.

Meanwhile Serb civilians who couldn’t leave their homes because of their age were killed in the period from June to November 1992, and then their houses set on fire.

Godinjak and Saric, the prosecutor claims, participated in the establishing of detention facilities in the Trnovo area in which civilians, captured police officers and members of the Bosnian Serb Army were killed, tortured and beaten.

The defendants’ defence lawyers did not present any opening statement.

The first prosecution witness will be called on November 18.