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Witness Milan Zecevic said that he was deployed to Zaglavak Hill at the beginning of June 1992 and that indictee Rackovic was among the soldiers, who held the positions at that location.
“The Command deployed us to that place to hold the elevation point. None of us went home from that place. I know that the Commander asked for replacements to be sent, but they did not approve the request. We returned home in mid-July, or, more precisely, on St Peter’s Day on July 12. I remember the date of our return, because of the mentioned religious holiday,” the witness said.
Rackovic, former member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with having participated in attacks on Bosniak villages, detention, torture, forced disappearances of persons from the Visegrad area, as well as rape, in the period from May 1992 to the end of August.
The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, alleges that some of the unlawfully arrested persons have never been found, while bodies of some civilians were exhumed at “Slap” in Zepa in 2000.
Momir Ninkovic, the second Defence witness, who testified at this hearing, confirmed that he used to see Rackovic on Zaglavak. Ninkovic said that he saw the indictee at that locality in May, June and the first half of July 1992.
Witness Ninkovic, who was recruited by military police at the beginning of the war, said that he accompanied the Commander to a school building in Orahovci village, where, as he heard, some people were detained, in order to release those people.
“When we came in front of the school, we saw a group of young people. They did not look like proper soldiers at all. They looked like criminals. They were painted with colours and had some bands and kerchiefs. They began quarrelling with our Commander, who told them that they had to release those people,” the witness said.
As he said, after having entered the school, the Commander told the detainees that they would be released home. They told him that they had not been mistreated. When asked by the Defence whether he saw Rackovic while he was in front of the school, the witness answered negatively.
“I used to see him during my visits to Zaglavak, but I did not see him at that place,” he said, adding that it was known to him that Rackovic was wounded in July 1992.
The trial is due to continue on November 26.
