Witness Describes Arrest and Detention of Husband at Maric Trial
Testifying at the Nikola Maric trial, a state prosecution witness said Maric was present when her husband was taken to a detention camp. Maric has been charged with war crimes in Prozor.
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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.
In July 1993, Maric allegedly forced Bosniak men in the village of Gornji Lug to surrender to Croat forces by threatening to kill their wives and children. The men were then held in detention at a secondary school in Prozor. Maric allegedly expelled the remaining civilians from the village the same month.
State prosecution witness Hanka Sljivo said she lived in Gornji Lug in the municipality of Prozor. On July 17, 1993, Sljivo said Azemina Becirovic told her that Maric had ordered the men from the village to surrender.
Sljivo said she escorted her husband to Gornji Lug’s bus station, where a truck was waiting to pick up the men. She said Maric was present, along with two other soldiers. She said Maric silently listed the names of the men getting onto the truck.
Sljivo said she identified Maric on sight, and knew his parents well.
“The neighbours Selim Purgic, Omer, Salko Becirovic, Ekrem and Ibro were there…Saha Purgic begged Nikola Maric not to take her son Selim, because they had already taken Salko,” Sljivo said.
She said her husband and the other men were taken to a secondary school in Prozor. She was reunited with her husband three years later, in Germany.
During her testimony, Sljivo said that she also saw Maric in Gornji Lug on August 9, 1993, when he told the remaining inhabitants that they had to go to the village of Duge.
“He brought me back, in order to show him what I was hiding in the corn fields. I hid photos of my children there,” Sljivo said. She said Maric treated her correctly.
Sljivo said she went to the village of Duge, and then to Borovnice. She said was expelled from Borovnice, with the rest of the civilian population, to the municipality of Konjic.
In response to questions by the defense, Sljivo said she couldn’t remember what Maric was wearing when she saw him in Gornji Lug.
Prosecutor Sanja Jukic announced she would question 22 more witnesses and court experts in the case.
“So far, 76 witnesses were interrogated. We gave up on 14 witnesses,” Jukic said.
The trial continues on May 7.
