Testimony Over in Visegrad Trial

Judges at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina have finished hearing evidence from 22 witnesses in proceedings against Nenad Tanaskovic, the Bosnian Serb policeman accused of taking part in crimes including torture, beatings, rapes and murders of civilians in the Visegrad area between April and June 1992.

Tanaskovic, who was arrested in Slavonska Pozega on July 11, 2006, has pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with seven counts of crimes against humanity. The trial got underway on February 2, having been postponed due to Tanaskovic’s participation in a hunger strike by indictees demanding that they be tried according toYugoslav law rather than the contemporary Bosnian criminal code, which provides for longer sentences for war crimes. Their request was rejected.

State prosecutors, headed by David Schwendimen, examined a total of 12 witnesses, while defence attorney Radmila Radisavljevic called ten people to the stand, including Tanaskovic. While most Prosecution witnesses identified Tanaskovic as having been involved in crimes in Visegrad during the period in question, Defence witnesses placed him elsewhere at key times.

Rahima Zukic, a Bosniak resident of the village of Dobrun who appeared for the Prosecution, testified that Tanaskovic was present in June 1992 when the population of that village was being deported. She recalled that he told her, “Today I am slaughtering and killing, everyone including children and young and old people.”

Two witnesses called by the Defence– Bosnian Serb policeman Momcilo Trifkovic and another individual who appeared anonymously under the pseudonym Witness M – claimed that Tanaskovic had in fact been delivering food aid to villages in the Visegrad area during the period that Zukic was discussing and could not possibly have been in Dobrun.

Two more Prosecution witnesses – Suad Dolovac and Islam Cero, Bosniak residents of the village of Osojnica – said Tanaskovic had also been involved in deportations from their village in May 1992. Dolovac recalled seeing Tanaskovic, armed and in uniform, on the occasion when he was arrested along with his brother Kemal. He told the Court that Kemal had not been seen since.

Answering these allegations, Tanaskovic admitted driving the Dolovac brothers to the Visegrad police station. But he said he was only following orders and had no other contact with the two men.

Witness B, who appeared anonymously for the Prosecution, said Tanaskovic – who she knew prior to the events in question – had also been in a group of three men who took her son away on May 25, 1992. She told the Court that, addressing Tanaskovic by a nickname, she had pleaded, “Neso, don’t do it, he is only my son just like you are your mother’s.” In response, she said, Tanaskovic had made it perfectly clear that her son was condemned to die, telling her, “He will miss nothing, except his head.”

Another Prosecution witness, Mula Kustura, said Tanaskovic had also taken away her son Enver, whose remains she identified ten years later after they were found in a mass grave.

Defence lawyer Radisavljevic sought permission tohave Enver Kustura’s remains exhumed again so that she could prove that he had died as a soldier in Gorazde and notas a civilian in Visegrad. But the Court denied the request, ruling that the types of examination that she proposed to carry out would be of no significant value in the case.

The Trial Chamber also heard from the Prosecution’s Witness C, who the indictment alleges was maltreated by Tanaskovic on June 16, 1992. The witness confirmed in court that Tanaskovic had beaten him and forced him to clear corpses from near a bridge and throw them into the river.

Tanaskovic testified that he was actually in Serbia collecting humanitarian aid on June 16, 1992 and the defence sought to enter into evidence a document which they said could prove that their client was telling the truth. Public observers of the trial were not informed whether this document was accepted into evidence or not. Prosecutors asked for permission to call more witnesses to counter Tanaskovic’s claims about his whereabouts, but their request was denied.

The Prosecution and Defence are due to present their closing arguments on August 21, after which the Trial Chamber will issue its verdict.

Erna Mackic ([email protected]) and Merima Husejnovic ([email protected]) are BIRN – Justice Report journalists.