Bosnian Serb Soldier Labelled Murderer by Brother

A Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency investigator told Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Petar Kovacevic’s trial that the defendant’s brother told him that the indictee murdered a man in 1992.

Sulejman Selimovic, an investigator with the State Investigation and Protection Agency’s war crimes department, told the Sarajevo court on Monday that Budimir Kovacevic said that his brother had killed the man in the village of Dobrun in the Visegrad area in 1992.

Selimovic said that in late 2010, he received information that Budimir Kovacevic wanted to talk with someone from the State Investigation and Protection Agency or the Bosnian prosecution about the escape of former Serb fighter Momir Savic, who went on the run after being convicted of wartime crimes in Visegrad.

“At the meeting, he didn’t say anything about Savic that we didn’t already know,” Selimovic recalled.

“He also mentioned his brother Petar Kovacevic and said that in Dobrun, he killed Mujo Gacko. My co-worker Ivica Vlahovic said to him that he doesn’t have to speak about his brother, but Budimir said: ‘That’s how it was and everyone knows that,’” he testified.

Former Bosnian Serb soldier Petar Kovacevic is charged with participating in the detention, murders and rapes of Bosniak civilians in the Visegrad municipality from May to August 1992.

He is accused of killing Mujo Gacko in Dobrun in August 1992 and then ordering two local women to bury him. Kovacevic is also on trial for raping the two women.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Petko Pavlovic asked the witness whether he was aware that the brothers had repeatedly quarrelled and that they had reported each other to the police on several occasions.

The investigator said he was not, but he did know that Budimir Kovacevic was also investigated for war crimes in the Visegrad area. He also told the court that Budimir Kovacevic died last year or at the beginning of this year.

The trial continues on January 12.