Mice Paramilitary Formation Ravaged Teslic, Witness Says

The state prosecution has charged Dragan Marjanovic, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic, Zoran Sljuk, Dragomir Kezunovic and Dario Slavuljica with participating in an attack against the Bosniak and Croat population and detaining them at the Teslic police station, on Teritorial Defense premises and in a military prison from June 1992 to 30 June 1993.

The defendants have been accused of taking 28 detained civilians from a Teslic police station and the nearby Pribinic prison to Mount Borje on the night of June 17 and 18, 1992. There, the defendants allegedly killed them.

According to the indictment, at the time Marjanovic was the commander of the First Squad of the military police of the Teslicka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army. The other defendants were members of that squad and also members of the Mice paramilitary formation.

Goran Dolic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army’s First Battalion, testified at today’s hearing. He said he heard about the Mice paramilitary formation for the first time while he was on the frontlines above Teslic, before encountering them directly.

“I heard that a special unit had come from Doboj and that they were ravaging the town,” Dolic said.

He said members of the Mice paramilitary formation changed his schedule, and ordered him to serve as a guard for a military police company located in a school in Djulici. He said he officially arrived on June 14, 1992.

Dolic said his task was to secure the gate and entrance to the facility. He said there were three squads in the company he served with. He said he believed Dragan Marjanovic was the commander of the First Squad.

Dolic said Dragan Marjanovic entered the school premises one night, although he couldn’t specify the date. He said Marjanovic told him and two others to get into a car with him. They drove to a plateau in Babe and were instructed to walk down a slope.

“At a certain moment, there was a hole in front of us, and someone said it needed covering,” Dolic said. He said he couldn’t see what he was covering because the hole had a depth of one meter and a half. Dolic said someone told him he was “covering Turks.”

According to Dolic, Marjanovic didn’t descend from the plateau.

When he returned to his unit, Dolic said he understood that the burial of the bodies should not be talked about. He said rumours began circulating that people had been killed in Babe.

Dolic said that there were five of six regular members of Mice paramilitary formation but they did not slept with the unit. He recited some of names he remembered from Djulici.

“I remember Ranko Sljuk and his brother Zoran, Devic, a certain Slavuljica, Sasa…” Dolic said. Dolid said Ranko Sljuk was superior to the Mice formation, and that the two of them worked independently.

He said the ravaging of Teslic continued until the arrest of members of the Mice paramilitary formation.

The trial continues on July 9.