Popovic Family Protected Visegrad Bosniaks, Witnesses Say

Popovic has been charged with taking a few civilians in the village of Rodica Brdo to the Visegrad police station in June 1992. The civilians went missing without a trace since then. Popovic was allegedly accompanied by a group of soldiers led by Milan Lukic. The indictment has also charged them with theft in several villages in the Visegrad area. The Hague Tribunal sentenced Milan Lukic to life imprisonment for war crimes in Visegrad.
 
Testifying at today’s hearing, Slavojka Popovic, Popovic’s wife, said her husband wasn’t a member of any paramilitary formations in 1992 and never harmed his Bosniak neighbours.
 
“On the contrary. We were a Serb family helping our Muslim neighbours in Rodica Brdo, Visegrad. Things became tough for all the people up there following the departure of the Uzicki Corps. This applied to both Serbs and Muslims,” Popovic said.
 
Popovic she and her husband hid Bosniak neighbours in their house. She said Milan Lukic took one of them away.
 
“They were unknown people. They came to us and asked Suada to find Aziz and bring him. He was hiding in the vicinity of the house, but he surrendered eventually. Then they took him away. We never saw him again,” Popovic said.
 
Slobodan Stojcic, a former member of the Uzicki Corps of the Yugoslav National Army, also testified at today’s hearing. Stojcic said he was in Rodica Brdo from May to July 1992. He said he met his wife Hasa during that time. As he said they got married in Visegrad later that summer and went to Serbia together.

He said he returned to Visegrad after the wedding in order to collect his wife’s documents and visit her sister Suada.
 
“When I came to Suada’s place, they told me her husband Aziz had been taken away and that she was at Jovan Popovic’s house with her kids. I found them there sitting at the table, eating dinner. Suada told me they felt safer in that house and that they would spend some more time there,” Stojcic said.
 
He said he decided to relocate Suada and her two children to Serbia that night, and did so on the following day.

“There were some problems at the Serbian border, but I took them to my place, so they could be with me and Hasa. I never heard Suada or anybody else say that the Popovics mistreated them. I heard later on that Suada’s husband had been killed on the Drinski Bridge,” Stojcic said.
 
The presentation of evidence at the trial of Jovan Popovic was completed with the examination of these witnesses.

At the next hearing, scheduled for March 30, the state prosecution will present its closing statement.