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Courtroom of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Foto: BIRN
The trial of Dusan Culibrk opened at the Bosnian state court on Wednesday with the reading of the indictment charging him with involvement in taking 44 civilians out of the Omarska detention camp in the Bosanska Krupa municipality in the second half of July 1992, and then killing them.
Prosecutor Ahmed Mesic said that the civilian detainees were tied up with wire and shot dead at the Lisac pit site, where their remains were exhumed and then identified in 2000.
The second count of the indictment accuses Culibrk of involvement in intercepting seven civilians in the village of Donji Dubovik in early August 1992, taking them to the Lisac pit and then shooting them dead. Their remains were also found in 2000.
Culibrk was charged as a member of the reservist police force at the Public Security Station in Bosanska Krupa.
Defence lawyer Drazen Zubak said that Culibrk has an alibi as he was seriously wounded on June 18, 1992 and then treated until mid-October that year.
A second defendant in the case, Milorad Kotur, did not appear for a plea hearing in November, and a warrant is being issued for his arrest. The state prosecution has said that he lives in the Serbian city of Novi Sad and is a citizen of Serbia.
The state court issued a decision separating the proceedings against Kotur from those against Culibrk.
The trial of Culibrk is due to continue on January 10.
