Bosnian Police Officials’ War Crimes Trial Opens

Reading the indictment, Prosecutor Vesna Ilic said that on April 22, 1992, eight Yugoslav National Army reservists who had been placed under the command of the Bosnian Serb Army were captured after their transporter got a flat tyre in the Dobrinja neighbourhood in Sarajevo.

The captive troops were then taken to the police station in Dobrinja, where they were mistreated, the prosecution alleges.

They were then transferred to the police’s Public Security Station in Novi Grad, where they were mistreated again.

For their own safety, they were moved to police headquarters, where the interior ministry’s special police unit under Vikic’s command was based.

The indictment alleges that, with Vikic’s knowledge, the captives were then escorted to Sarajevo’s Great Park, after having been mistreated yet again.

In the park, the eight captives were shot dead by defendants Uzunovic and Covcic, accompanied by others, the indictment says.

The prosecution further alleges that on Vikic’s orders, of which defendant Pusina was aware, the bodies were transported to the Dariva area of Sarajevo and dumped in the river Miljacka.

The prosecutor said that the following day, the bodies were doused with petrol and set on fire.

She said that, as a superior officer, Vikic failed to undertake the necessary measures to prevent the crime and report or punish the perpetrators, while Pusina agreed to remove the bodies and failed to do all he could to have the perpetrators punished.

Ilic said that she would prove that “the defendants knew all about the actions and that the third and fourth defendants [Uzunovic and Covcic] were direct perpetrators”.

The partial remains of only two of the dead captives have been found so far.

All the defendants pleaded not guilty last month.

Vikic insisted in December that they were innocent.

“My hands and those of people whom I commanded are clean,” he said.