Protected Witness in Stanarevic Trial Claims to Have Witnessed Murder

The state prosecution has charged Stanarevic, a former military policeman with the 15th Bihacka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, with participating in the murder of 11 prisoners from a facility in Ripac, in the Bihac area. The killings allegedly took place between June 24 and the first half of July 1992 at the Bezdan Pit. According to the indictment, Stanarevic and other members of the Bosnian Serb Army drove the prisoners to the pit. The prosecution alleges that Stanarevic participated in the killings and dumped the bodies into the pit.

Protected witness S-1, a former member of the military police with the Bosnian Serb Army, testified at today’s hearing. S-1 said he went to the civil police station in Ripac once in the summer of 1992. There, he saw military police officers, members of a reconnaissance unit, as well as 20 or 30 captured civilians surrounded by a net fence.

S-1 said a truck approached the area where the civilians were held, and a soldier named Ratko Mihajlovic read the names of 10 to 15 people. They were ordered to get on a TAM 110 military truck. S-1 said Stanarevic was sitting in the truck.

S-1 said the prisoners were ordered to lie face down in the truck, and were covered by an awning. He said two soldiers named Pigo and Curguz stood over them, while the truck travelled towards Bosanski Petrovac. S-1 said they were approaching a grove with the truck, when he heard a burst of gunfire.

“I heard shots and noise. Sasa and Pigo were shouting… I think Zeljko said…‘I didn’t kill you,” S-1 said. He said Sasa and Pigo were arguing with Stanarevic, while two or three men lay dead on their stomachs behind the truck. S-1 said they looked like they’d been shot.

S-1 said he didn’t see who shot at them, but said the perpetrators could have been “Goran or Zeljko [Stanarevic].” He said he was then ordered to carry a few bodies to a nearby lake.

“Sasa and Pigo said to Zeljko, ‘Bring over the ones from the truck. He said no,” S-1 said. He said everyone who was on the truck ended up in the pit, and that Sasi and Pigo killed them.

S-1 pointed said the defendant stood next to the truck and didn’t approach the -pit.

Police officer Orhan Ceric also testified at today’s hearing. He said a man named Sasa Curguz offered to sell him a mass grave for 50,000 Marks while they were at a private party in Banja Luka in 2000.

Ceric said he had known the defendant from before the war and had never heard negative rumours about him. He said that according to his knowledge, Stanarevic saved a person who was trying to flee from Orasac.

The trial will continue on July 13.