Witness Confirms Arrest and Release of Injured Party at Cobic Trial
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A district prosecution witness testifying at the Dragan Cobic trial said the defendant told him he’d arrested Mustafa Salkovic, who’d been released following questioning at the police station in Bijeljina.
The district prosecution of Bijeljina has charged Dragan Cobic, a former member of the Interventions Squad with the Bijeljina police station, with arresting Mustafa Salkovic and Faruk Bilalic on September 11, 1992. Cobic was allegedly accompanied by four other unidentified persons. According to the indictment, they drove Salkovic and Bilalic to an unknown location and killed them.
Srecko Manojlovic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, testified at today’s hearing. Manojlovic said he was based in the military barracks in Bijeljina at the beginning of the war. He said that Mustafa Salkovic’s parents approached him for help following their son’s arrest.
“I was very surprised when they told me Mustafic had been taken away. They asked me to help them. I called Dragan [Cobic] immediately. He told me he was one of the people who took him away, but he released him following an informative interview. This is what I told Mustafa’s parents,” Manojlovic said.
Manojlovic said he was redeployed to Lopare a few days after this event, and no longer followed what happened to Salkovic.
Testifying as the second district prosecution witness, Dragoljub Lazic said he worked as a crime inspector with the Bijeljina police in 1992. He said a day or two after Salkovic’s arrest, his parents approached him, asking for help. He told them he had no information about the matter and couldn’t tell them anything else.
The defense asked Lazic what the situation in the Bijeljina police station was like in 1992. Lazic said many new people appeared all of a sudden and that members of Arkan’s guards were among them, in addition to others.
He said it wasn’t clear what roles and responsibilities everyone had and that they didn’t inquire too much about certain happenings.
The trial will continue on June 19.
