Witnesses Describe Search of Villages in Konjic Area at Petrovic Trial

Petrovic, a former member of the Croatian Defense Council, has been charged with arresting a Serb civilian with another soldier in late May or early June 1992. They beat the civilian up and forcibly took him to the Sudareva cave, where they killed him.

State prosecution witness Rosa Magazin said her husband Nikola Magazin went to take a horse to Zvonko Tipuric. When she found out her husband was not there, she went to Tipuric’s houaw.

“He told me Iso Duvnjak and two soldiers, whom he didn’t know, had taken Nikola in the direction of Sudareva cave. Iso knows where they took him. That is what he told me, when I visited him,” Magazin said.

Magazin said Ibro Maslesa told her that a protected witness known as A told him that Nikola was killed by Marinko Petrovic. He said he saw Petrovic take Magazin’s watch, and told him “he will no longer need it.”

Magazin said Maslesa and her son went to search for her husband twice. She said they found a jaw bone underneath some rocks in the cave. A commission later determined that the bones belonged to her husband.

She said people told her that Iso Duvnjak, Mladen Petrovic and Marinko Petrovic took her husband away on the day he was killed.

Five defense witnesses described a search that was conducted in the vicinity of Vrdolje, Djeba, Stanina, Radobolje and Zelene Njive in June 1992.

Fehim Ljevo, who was a member of the Territorial Defense, said he left Podorasac to conduct a search of Djeba and Zelene Njive “in order to find Serbs.”

“Witness A was with me. We went out to some location, I don’t know where, since I don’t know the area. I had never been there before. I heard shooting, but I didn’t fire a single bullet. I don’t know who ordered us to go or where we were supposed to go. I don’t remember who was with me during the search,” Ljevo said.

Ljevo said he hadn’t heard that anyone was killed during the search, but he heard two months later that a man named Sako had been killed.

Zoran Azinovic, a former member of the Croatian Defense Council, said he was accompanied by Mladenko and Marinko Petrovic when they began the search. He said the aim of the search was to find weapons.

“We were driving towards the village of Vrdolje. I got off the truck, while Mladen and Marinko proceeded…We participated in the search, which lasted about two hours. No gunfire was heard…I heard about Nikola later on. Rumours said he was killed in some confrontation because of some sheep,” Azinovic said.

Defense attorney Irena Pehar said that in a previous statement Azinovic said he heard a Serb had been killed by a Bosniak man named Islam Duvnjak. Azinovic said hadn’t said that, and that the person who examined him mentioned the name of Islam Duvnjak.

Osman Novalic said his unit searched the vicinity of Stanina, where they searched for weapons. He said a few days later people said that “Sako had been killed and left somewhere on some field.”

Zdravko Petrovic said he participated in the search, as the commander of the Fourth Company, along with Mladen and Marinko Petrovic.

“We got off the truck at some plateau. We walked in the same direction at a certain distance from each other. The soldiers were not within my sight all the time. We walked for an hour, an hour and a half, before we met the other group. I didn’t see Marinko at that moment. After that grenades began falling. I only saw Mladen when the shelling stopped. I did not hear gunfire during the search,” Petrovic said.

Petrovic said he hadn’t heard that anyone was killed during the operation, but heard rumours about it about ten days later. Nusret Djiver said he didn’t participate in the search and did not know Magazin.

A statement given by Janja Kaleb, the wife of the deceased Zvonko Tipuric, was read at the hearing. Kaleb said Magazin had been taken away from their house in Radobolja.

“Iso Duvnjak came on that day. He was looking for his horse, which had run away. Later on Nikola came. It wasn’t unusual for him to visit us. We were sitting there, having coffee, when two soldiers knocked on the door…They asked in raised voices who was in the house. When Nikola said what his name was, they took him with them. Iso reacted and told them to let him go, because he hadn’t done anything wrong, but the two soldiers told him to shut up and yelled at Nikola to come with them and that was all,” Kaleb said.

The presentation of closing statements is scheduled for September 28.