Witness in Fundup Trial Describes Seeing Wounded Woman

Tihomir Vidovic said he transported food to the frontlines in the vicinity of Foca in 1992 and one day he saw a group of women in front of a house in Cohodar Mahala.

“They said there had been some shooting. I entered the room and saw the C-1 person sitting in the room. She was moaning. We took a blanket and covered her. There was some bleeding as well. She was lying in a fetus position on the floor … I had to go to the front lines, but Pedja Kunarac drove her to hospital,” Vidovic recalled.

Radoman Fundup, a former member of the Focanska Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with murders and abuse of civilians. According to the charges, he participated, together with two others, in the murders of two children and five persons, as well as the wounding of one woman, in Cohodar Mahala.

The state prosecution examined protected witness C-4, who said he left Cohodar Mahala at the beginning of April 1992 out of fear and went to his sister’s house in the village of Gornje Polje.

“My wife and the younger son stayed in Mahala. She told me that Tuta and Radoman came one day. They banged on the door, but she did not want to open. Radoman told her he would shoot unless she opened. He entered the house with a pistol. He was looking for a rifle. He searched the whole place,” C-4 said.

The witness explained that his wife did not know Fundup, but she complained to neighbour Vojo Drakula after the soldiers had come to her house. When she described the soldiers, the neighbour told her it was Fundup.

The protected witness also recalled having seen two soldiers take two Salem Bico’s sons and another person out of a residential building in Gornje Polje. They pointed their rifles toward them afterwards.

“An old lady lived one floor above. She began shouting, so we went out to the balcony. She was yelling: ‘Radoman, don’t do it’. The two Bico sons and a man named Ferid were in front of the building. Tuta and that man called Radoman stood in front of them with their guns pointed towards them as if they were going to kill them. The old woman cursed them. They put their guns down and left,” C-4 said.

During the cross-examination the protected witness said he did not know defendant Fundup and that he could not see from the balcony whether the other soldier was really the person nicknamed “Tuta,” but he “assumed” so.

“The two of them accompanied each other. They were like military policemen,” C-4 said.

Fundup is charged with abusing three civilians, including two children. The indictment alleges that he came accompanied by another person, to Gornje Polje, where they lined the civilians up and cocked their rifles, so the civilians would think they were going to be shot.

The trial will continue on June 17.