Maric Claims Prisoner Entered Prozor Detention Facility Voluntarily

Nikola Maric, a member of the Croatian Defense Council, has been charged with participating in acts of persecution, murder, torture and other inhumane acts from November 1992 to October 1993.

According to the indictment, in July 1993 he allegedly forced Bosniak men in the village of Lug to surrender to Croat forces by threatening to kill their wives and children. The men were held in detention at the secondary school in Prozor. Maric allegedly expelled the remaining civilians from the village the same month.

State prosecution witness Adis Cica said Nikola Maric, nicknamed Nidzo, came to Lug and told his father Sefik that he had to go with him for a time, for his own protection. This took place on July 17 or 18, 1993. Adis Cica was fifteen years old at the time.

“When we saw Nikola Maric coming towards the house, my father told me to hide. I crawled to the hallway and watched as Nikola escorted him to the car,” Cica said. He said a few other neighbours were also taken away with his father.

Nikola Maric asked Cica whether he remembered that he came at his father’s request. Cica said he was unaware of this request.

“I admit I took him away, but that’s what he told me to do. He said it was better to be at the school with his own people, than alone in the village,” Maric said.

According to Cica, his mother visited his father every day of his detention at the Prozor secondary school, where he was detained until August 4, 1993. After that date, she was told that she should no longer come to visit him. Cica said he found out from former prisoner Mirso Pilav that he and his father had been taken out of the school in order to be shot.

“We [Cica and Pilav] met in the woods. He survived the shooting and fled. He was wounded all over, and later his wounds became infected with maggots. He said Vinko Papak, Zeljko Jukic and another person called him up in the school,” Cica said.

Cica said he was hiding in the woods at the time. He said by the end of August 1993, he was expelled to unoccupied territory in the municipality of Konjic, along with the rest of the Bosniak population.

When asked whether he wanted to lodge a property claim, Cica said he just wanted to know where his father was. His father’s body has yet to be found.

The testimony of deceased witness S-12 was also read at this hearing. According to S-12’s statement, he was detained in a police station in Prozor, and then in the town’s secondary school.

In the statement, S-12 said he saw Maric in Lug on July 17, 1993, when men from the village were captured.

S-12 said in his statement that he was used as a human shield on Crni Vrh on July 31, 1993. At Crni Vrh he said he saw Maric’s brother. According to S-12, many prisoners were murdered on that occasion, but he managed to escape to unoccupied territory.

The trial continues on April 23.