Witness Describes Father’s Abduction in Visegrad at Popovic Trial

Jovan Popovic has been charged with abducting civilians in Rodica Brdo in the Visegrad area in mid-June 1992 and taking them to a police station. The civilians have remained missing since. He has also been charged with pillaging houses in Rodica Brdo and other villages.

Popovic allegedly acted in collaboration with a group of soldiers led by Milan Lukic, a Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hague Tribunal for war crimes in Visegrad.

A protected witness known as S-4 testified at today’s hearing. She said she saw her father for the last time on May 29, 1992. She said Milan Lukic’s group of soldiers appeared at the family home in a red car on the day of her father’s abduction.

“Milan introduced himself. The second one was someone with the last name Obrenovic from Serbia. A girl, a blonde girl, was with them…They banged on the door. My father went out…Then they took me and my mother out,” S-4 said.

S-4 said they asked for his father with his first and last name, although they didn’t know him personally. She said her neighbour, defendant Jovan Popovic, came with Lukic and stood in front of the house. She said he spoke to her parents and then to Milan Lukic.

“He [Popovic] kind of comforted us. He spoke to Lukic in a very quiet voice, so I couldn’t hear him…They took my father away, to be interrogated, they said. My mother fell down and started crying right away. I was shocked,” S-4 said.

She said her father was a civilian and not a member of any political party.

“Popovic entered our house with us. He called his wife Slavojka on the phone and told her she could sleep peacefully now, now that my father was gone,” S-4 said.

During cross-examination, S-4 said she had never seen the defendant armed and never heard that he mistreated or hit anyone.

S-4 said her neighbours told her other residents of Rodica Brdo had been taken away in June 1992.

“When I spoke to the victims, all of them said Jovan Popovic was present when those men were taken away. I also heard he pillaged houses,” S-4 said.

She said she left Visegrad with her mother in June 1992, and said she never found out what happened to her father.

“After the war I spoke to a neighbour, who said she met Popovic, he told her he would tell my brother where my father’s bones were if he paid him 10,000 Euros,” S-4 said.

The defense asked S-4 why her testimony at the state court differed from a statement she had given to State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) investigators in March 2008. She said she couldn’t remember all of the details at that time, because it was mentally difficult to do so.

A new prosecution witness will be examined at the next hearing, scheduled for December 2.