Witness Says She Heard Mitar and Rade Vlasenko Killed her Sons

Rade Vlasenko, Mitar Vlasenko and Drago Koncar, all former members of the Bosnian Serb Army, have been charged with participating in the persecution of the non-Serb population from the Kozarac area and the surrounding villages in the municipality of Prijedor from May 24 to mid-August 1992. The indictment alleges that the defendants committed acts of murder and enforced disappearances.

State prosecution witness Sehrija Besic testified at today’s hearing. She said Mitar Vlasenko was her neighbour in Kozarusa. She said the shooting in her village started in the direction of his house. She said she couldn’t remember the exact date of the attack.

“A neighbour came and told us to run away since we were surrounded. We had no weapons. We moved towards Kozarac. They told us women and children could go. I last saw my sons Ermin and Safet in front of our house…The army probably took them away, I don’t know,” Besic said.

Besic said soldiers took her to the Trnopolje detention camp. She said she spent a few days there before being taken to a detention facility in Doboj.

“We spent the night in some hall in Doboj. My neighbour Radifa Mujkic came by on the following morning and told me my sons had been killed…She said they had been killed by Mitar Vlasenko, our neighbour. Radifa told me that Avdo and S-1 watched the murders from a forest. I then fainted and woke up in a hospital,” Besic said.

Responding to questions from the defense, she said that when she returned to Kozarac she heard that Rade Vlasenko had also participated in the murder of her sons.

The trial will continue on September 29.