Witness Bozic’s Different Allegations

Mirko Bozic told the Court that Ostoja and Bosiljko Markovic, as well as Cicmanovic, were on their way to save his brother from detention.

As he said, they went to Grabovica village by a red and white minivan, which they took from the Command, in order to inform his parents that his brother was alive. Upon their return from Grabovica, Cicmanovic told him, as he said, to stop the minivan in Orahovo village, threatening him with a rifle.

“We waited for Pedjo for five minutes. He returned, accompanied by a person, who is probably the injured party at this trial, and said: ‘This is mine’. He told me to drive. (…) He apparently raped her on the floor of the minivan,” the witness recalled.

When asked by the Trial Chamber whether he heard resistance, the witness answered negatively. He gave the same answer, when asked whether he heard reactions by the others.

Prosecutor Dragan Corlija said that, in his statement from February 2014 Bozic said: “I heard crying and Predrag, Ostoja and Bosiljko shouting.”

The witness said that one of the Markovics was sitting next to him, while the other one was behind him, while the woman was raped in the rear part of the minivan.

Bozic said that he drove slowly to Dabovci village, where Cicmanovic ordered him to stop. The witness said that he then went out of the minivan and that he could not remember whether the rape had already been finished, when he was leaving.

“A couple of minutes later I saw Bosiljko outside, but I cannot say whether Ostoja too was thee, because other soldiers were present as well,” Bozic said.

Prosecutor Corlija said that, in his statement given to police in Banja Luka in 2011 the witness said that he heard noise from the minivan and that it lasted about half an hour, adding that all three of them then went out of the vehicle and that Pedja ordered him to drive back to Vrbanjci.

“I think that we misunderstood each other in Banja Luka,” Bozic said.

The witness said that he did not see what the female person in the minivan looked like. After that the Prosecutor said that, in an earlier statement Bozic said that he “saw a female person behind the rear seats. She did not move, moan or cry.”

Bozic said that he and the Markovics confronted Cicmanovic in front of the Command and that he then returned the female to Orahova.

“She said that she was able to get out of the vehicle,” the witness recalled. In an earlier statement he said that, at that moment he noticed that she was a young person.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, charges Bosiljko and Ostoja Markovic, former members of the Kotor-Varos Brigade with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, with having raped a minor in Kotor-Varos municipality. The indictment alleges that the indictee and another person raped her in a moving minivan several times.

Witness Bozic confirmed that a process against him was underway in Koto-Varos for the rape of another person on that same day.

The Prosecution presented the witness with several video and audio recordings, as well as intercepted telephone conversations, which were introduced as evidence at a hearing held on October 28.

Bozic said that those conversations were about the money, which the Markovics owed to him, and not about paying him to testify in their favour.

When asked by the Defence how he was treated while being questions by the investigation bodies, the witness said that “the prosecutors in Banja Luka offered me everything to admit rape, at least for one of the Markovic’s” and that they instigated him to give certain answers. Also, he said that Prosecutor Corlija told him that he was spineless and that he was lying.

The continuation of the trial will be scheduled at a later stage.