A Hole on the Right Side of Blouse

Court medicine expert Sabiha Silajdzic-Brkic said, presenting her findings and opinion before the Cantonal Court in Zenica, said that, after having examined the remains of Zuhra Husanovic, she determined that her death was “violent and caused by a projectile fired from personal firearms or an explosive device.”

“The examination of the exhumed skeletal remains revealed multiple rib and thoracic vertebrae fractures, which were made while the victim was still alive and could also have been caused by one projectile,” the court expert said.

According to Silajdzic-Brkic, by examining the clothes, she noticed a rounded hole on the right side of Zuhra Hasanovic’s blouse.

The court expert said that she also had got information about the event from the killed person’s family, but she prepared her findings on the basis of the examination. She said that it was possible to differentiate between injuries made before and after death on the victim’s skeleton 21 years after death.

Ranko and Zeljko Rakic, as well as Stanko Markovic, former members of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, are charged with having come in front of Husanovic family house in Kucice village, Zavidovici municipality, in the summer of 1992, and, after having beaten one man, took his wife, daughter and granddaughter towards a hill and set the house on fire.

The indictment alleges that a short time after their departure, a gunshot was heard. The wife’s body was found at that place later on.

At this hearing the Trial Chamber decided to examine witness Dragomir Kostadinovic again.

The trial is due to continue on February 11.