Former Bosnian Presidency Member Goes on Trial

Paravac’s trial opened on Tuesday at the Bosnian state court, where he is accused of having participated in a joint criminal enterprise targeting the Bosniak and Croat civilian population in Doboj from the beginning of May 1992 to the end of 1993.

Three other defendants – Milan Ninkovic, Borislav Andrija Bjelosevic and Milan Savic – went on trial alongside him.

The defendants have been charged with responsibility for attacks by the army, police and paramilitary groups in which civilians were killed and captured and taken to detention camps at several locations in the Doboj area.

“Several thousand people were detained in detention camps, where they were tortured, abused and beaten. This has left permanent consequences for the health of many of the survivors. During the persecution, several hundred people were killed,” prosecutor Mirza Hukeljic said in his opening remarks.

At that time defendant Paravac was the president of the crisis committee in the Doboj municipality and Ninkovic a member of the crisis committee, Bjelosevic was the chief of the public security centre in Doboj and Savic was his deputy.

Paravac was subsequently a member of the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2003 to 2006.

The defence teams did not present introductory statements.

The first prosecution witness will be examined on April 26.

Also on Tuesday, the first witness at the trial of former Bosnian Serb soldier Dragoja Zmijanjac for wartime crimes in Prijedor said a neighbour told him that the defendant killed his father, adding that he found out later that he wanted to kill him as well.

Witness Halid Dedic said he was at home in Prijedor in mid-July 1992, when a neighbour came to his door and told him Zmijanjac had killed his father Halil.

The witness said that five minutes later, Zmijanjac, who was armed, appeared in front of his house.

“He came and said: ‘Let’s have a cup of coffee together.’ I told him to go and I would come later,” the witness said, pointing out that he knew Zmijanjac from before the war.

Dedic said that when the defendant left, he hid in a house next door. When he realised that Dedic would not come for “a cup of coffee”, Zmijanjac began searching for him.

The witness said Goran Babic, the owner of the house in which he hid, drove him to the police station in Prijedor. Some time later he was transported from the police station to the Trnopolje detention camp.

He said that upon his return from the detention camp, the driver informed him that Zmijanjac wanted to kill him and his father, because a man called Milan Lakic had paid him 600 Deutschmarks to do it, but because Zmijanjac did not manage to kill both of them, he had to return 300 Deutschmarks.

During the cross-examination he suggested that Milan Lakic probably ordered the murders, because his brother Mustafa “once slapped him in the face”.

Zmijanjac has been charged with taking Halil Dedic from his house on July 24, 1992 and killing him with an automatic rifle.

According to the indictment, one person came running up to the defendant and asked why he had killed their neighbour. Zmijanjac allegedly responded by saying: “All Turks should be killed.”