Arrested Because of Rape
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The Bosnian state prosecution has charged Bosiljko and Ostoja Markovic, former members of the Kotor-Varos Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska, with the rape of a minor in the municipality of Kotor-Varos on June 28, 1992. The indictment alleges that the defendants and one more person raped the victim several times in a moving minivan.
Petko Zupljanin, a former member of the military police of the Army of Republika Srpska said he accompanied a wounded soldier in June 1992 to a health center in Kotor-Varos. While there, he met a woman and her daughter. The mother told him that her daughter had been raped, and that she had brought her to the health center for a medical examination.
“They took her away by minivan last night. They brought her back just before dusk,” Zupljanin said, conveying what the mother had told him.
Zupljanin said that on the following day he received an arrest warrant for three persons, but only two were arrested.
“I cannot remember who the third person was. I remember Pedja Cicmanovic and Ostoja Markovic. They did not offer resistance. We took them to the command,” Zupljanin said.
He said that before leaving the command, he was told that they should be brought in due to an incident of rape.
Zupljanin said he went to the house where the mother and victim lived, fifteen or twenty days later. During his visit they described the incident to him.
“The minivan came and they took her away. Just before dusk she was brought back to a bridge about 200 or 300 meters away. Then she walked home. They said she was raped. Her father said that he would have given them everything, had they asked for it, in turn for not doing that to his child,” Zupljanin said.
At this hearing Ostoja Markovic’s defense presented a few pieces of material evidence referring to the wounds and health condition of the defendant. The defense confirmed that those documents referred to mitigating circumstances.
The prosecution presented material evidence, which they said referred to credibility of one of the witnesses.
The trial will continue on March 17.
