Teslic Families Describe Finding Bodies of Loved Ones in Mass Graves

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 Territorial 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.

Saliha Sacirovic was the first witness to testify at today’s hearing. Sacirovic said she lost three sons and her husband during the war. She said they were abducted in Teslic at the beginning of June 1992. Their remains were found in mass graves.

“They were taken to the police station and beaten…I saw them hitting them in front of the station,” Sacirovic said.

She said the police came to her house on the day of their arrest. She said twelve members of the Mice paramilitary formation from Banja Luka were present when her family members were taken away.

Hajrija Botic, the second state prosecution witness to testify at today’s hearing, said the police, military police and army came to her house in Gomjenica in the municipality of Teslic. She said she saw them knocking down her son and several other people. She said she then heard a gunshot and fainted.

“When I woke up, there was nobody, no child, nothing,” Botic said. Botic said she searched for her son at the Territorial Defense, the police premises and the prison in Pribinic, but was unsuccessful. She said she found his remains in Beba after the war.

State prosecution witness Hanka Pasic said she searched for her two sons, Sedad and Miro, who she heard had been taken away by a patrol. She said she went to the Territorial Defense and the Internal Affairs Services to look for them because she’d heard that men were detained there.

“My son ended up in Beba, while little Miro ended up in Vlajic,” Pasic said.

“The situation was the worst when the so-called Mice entered the town,” she said.

State prosecution witness Sadika Botic said her husband Fehim was taken away on June 7, 1992. She said she knew nothing about his fate until his body was exhumed from Beba in Borje in 1999.

State prosecution witness Senija Salkicevic said her son Nihad’s body was also found in Beba. She said her brother told her he had been abducted from the village of Gornji Rankovic in a red minivan.

State prosecution witness Safija Botic said her husband Tahir and several others were taken away. She said his body was found in a mass grave in Stenjak.

State prosecution witness Samira Tatarevic said her husband was taken away after an attack on Rankovic. She said his body was found in a mass grave after the war.

The trial will continue on October 29.