Witness Describes Brother’s Murder at Mirko Vrucinic Trial
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Mirko Vrucinic, the former chief of the public safety station and a former member of the crisis committee in Sanski Most, has been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise from April to December 1992. Murders, forcible resettlement, unlawful detention and forcible disappearances were committed as part of the enterprise.
Prosecution witness Esrefa Sadic testified at today’s hearing. Sadic said her brother, Feriz Sabanovic, was hiding in the woods with other men from May to October 1992. She said she supplied him and others with food and clothes, which she left at a location they specified in a written note.
Sadic said that prior to the murder of her brother in late May 1992, she heard an announcement on the radio that the army would enter Trnova and that weapons would have to be handed over. She said the military searched houses in her area but found nothing in her home.
Sadic said her brother and the other men were hiding in the woods until October 1992, when they were captured and her brother was killed.
She said a woman informed her of her brother’s murder. Sadic said she saw the body of her other brother, Edin Dzafic, and two more persons in October 1992.
“I would just like to know who killed my Feriz. I shall do nothing to that person,” Sadic said.
Witness Husein Supuk was the second witness to testify at today’s hearing. Supuk said the local residents of Trnova were brought in front of the school building after the military had entered the village.
“They went from one house to another, selecting prominent ones, looking for money and eventually weapons. Both the army and police came,” Supuk said. He also said that Trnova was shelled for several days.
He said he was taken to the police, and was detained in the Betonirka factory and then in the Hasan Kikic school. He said he was released by a man known as Dzo Banana.
Supuk said he knew that his cousin Edin Dzafic from Trnova and Feriz Sabanovic were in the woods and that they were killed. He said Hamid Ramic told him he participated in burial of Edo and Feriz and that Edo had handcuffs on his hands.
The witness said he left Trnova with a convoy escorted by the police on December 22, 1992.
The trial will continue on March 11.
