Witness Describes Mass Layoffs of Non-Serb Police Officers at Vrucinic Trial

Vrucinic, the former chief of the public safety station and a member of the crisis committee in Sanski Most, has been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise with the aim of persecuting the non-Serb population from April to December 1992.

Vrucinic has been charged with acts of murder, forcible resettlement, unlawful detention and enforced disappearances.

State prosecution witness Dragan Majkic said he was appointed chief of the public safety station in Sanski Most in 1991, as per a proposal by the Serbian Democratic Party. However, he was removed from office at the beginning of May 1992 and was replaced by Vrucinic.

Majkic said police officers were asked to sign a statement which called on them to respect the law. The header read “The Republic of the Serbian People.”

He said all the Serb officers and one Croat signed the statement, while the other Bosniak and Croat police officers left the police station in Sanski Most.

“You could, of course, not work there unless you signed the statement,” Majkic said.

Majkic said that while he was the head of the Sanski Most police forces, Stojan Zupljanin gave him berets and camouflage police uniforms with Serbian emblems on them. Majkic said he hid the berets and uniforms in the trunk of his car, because Zupljanin had told him to distribute them in case the police forces were ethnically divided.

Zupljanin, the former head of the public safety station in Banja Luka, faced trial at the Hague for war crimes. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison under a second instance verdict.

When representatives of the Party of Democratic Action, Croatian Democratic Community and non-Serb police officers were housed in the Sanski Most municipality building, Majkic said they were given an ultimatum to leave the building. Majkic said once they left the building, a hand grenade was thrown and exploded after hitting a tree.

“Some celebrations took place, bullets flew into the air. There were bullets shot at the municipality building as well,” Majkic said.

Majkic said he was still the chief of police when the municipality building was attacked. He was replaced shortly thereafter.

“I was the first deposed Serb in Sanski Most,” Majkic said, claiming the crisis committee had planned to remove him from office. He was then told he would be killed unless he left his position.

Majkic said members of the Sixth Krajiski Corps shelled the Mahala neighbourhood, as well as other neighbourhoods inhabited by Bosniak Muslims, on May 25, 1992.

He said he occasionally visited the police premises and saw that people were being apprehended and interrogated.

“Many of them were apprehended, interrogated,” Majkic said. he said they were often taken to Betonirka, Krings and other buildings.

Majkic said Drago Vujanic, who worked with the police, was appointed the manager of a few prison facilities.

He said people who were taken to the Manjaca prison facility never came back alive. Former police commander Enver Burnic, whose remains were found along with the remains of four or five other people in 2002, was one of them.

He said police officers escorted the detainees to Manjaca, although he thought members of the Serbian Defense Forces were there as well.

He said he was a duty officer when two police officers gave him a list of 27 or 28 detainees who suffocated to death on their way to Manjaca. He said he told them to call the chief of police and commanders, because he couldn’t make decisions on that.

The trial will continue on September 11, when Majkic’s cross-examination will be continued.