Brcko Prisoner ‘Saved From Death’ by Defendant

Prosecution witness Huso Sabovic told the state court in Sarajevo on Tuesday that he was detained in the Luka detention camp in Brcko but his life was saved by the defendant, Djordje Ristanic, who was the president of the wartime presidency in the town at the time.

Sabovic said he was taken away from his home on May 3, 1992, and after having been detained at other locations, he was transferred to Luka.

He said that while he was there, a man called Goran Jelisic, who was accompanied by another called Ranko Cesic, used to take detainees out and kill them.

He said he personally saw five or six murders.

“[One day] Goran Jelisic came to the door, looked at us and all of a sudden said my name… I was so afraid I could not stand up,” Sabovic said.

He said he then saw Ristanic, who approached them and spoke to Jelisic.

Sabovic told the court he knew the defendant very well, adding they used to be good friends.

Sabovic said Ristanic stood up for, adding that the defendant saved 15 or 20 other people on that occasion.

He said that Ristanic gave them passes so they could leave and that he personally stayed at the defendant’s father’s house.

Jelisic was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to 40 years in prison and Cesic to 18 years.

Ristanic is charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at persecuting Bosniaks and Croats by means of murders, detention, torture and other crimes in the period from April to December 1992.

Also on Tuesday, at the trial of Enver Buza for crimes in the Prozor area, a prosecution witness recalled the murder of his mother, brother and sister in the hamlet of Zelenike on September 14, 1993.

Witness Marko Zelic said he was 15 years old in September 1993, when gunfire woke him and his mother, brother and sister one morning.

His mother told them to jump out of a window and run away.

“We began running through the woods towards the crossroads… I managed to run over a brook and hide in shrubs. At that moment soldiers caught my mum, brother and sister,” he said.

“There were three soldiers. I heard my mum telling them to let them go, while the soldiers talked to each other about what to do with the woman and the kids. A soldier said Enver Buza had given an order to kill everyone. A short time later I heard gunfire and saw my relatives fall down. I saw they had been shot from close range,” he added.

He said his brother Stjepan was ten and sister Marija 12 years when they were killed.

“When I heard the soldiers leave, I saw them lying on the ground, dead,” the witness said.
Buza, the former commander of the Prozor Independent Battalion of the Bosnian Army, is charged with committing crimes against the civilian population.

The indictment alleges that in September 1993, members of the Independent Battalion under the defendant’s control carried out an attack on the residents of the village of Uzdol and the hamlets of Krize, Zelenika and Raici, killing 27 Croat civilians.