Kondic et al: Begging for sons

As she tried to leave Kljuc with a convoy in September 1992, two sons of Prosecution witness Devla Halep-Pehadzic were taken to the police station in Kljuc. The witness said that they were supposedly taken for an examination but they never came back.

“On my arrival at the Police Station I saw Mamer and Samir in the corridor. Mamer told me that a person named Lazo, a policeman from Sanica, had told him that he would kill him. I cried and I begged them to release at least one of them, but they said that the Chief from Banja Luka, who was to examine them, was not around,” Halep-Pehadzic explained.

The witness said that she left the Police Station briefly. On her return her sons were no longer there.

“I always hoped that they had stayed alive. I could never even think …” Halep-Pehadzic said, crying in the courtroom. She added that Mamer was 23 and Samir was 19 at the time.

This witness was testifying at the trial of Vinko Kondic, Bosko Lukic and Marko Adamovic, who are charged with having participated in organizing a group of people and abetting them to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Kljuc area in the course of 1991 and 1992.

The indictment alleges that in September 1992 members of the police arrested two civilians, brothers, and unlawfully detained them in the premises of the Public Safety Station in Kljuc. The Prosecution contends that two policemen took the two persons to Sanica on September 29, 1992. They have been missing since then.

The witness said that as they tried to escape from Kljuc her youngest son Alija joined some village residents who moved on through the woods, but he was captured. He was detained in Bosanski Petrovac and Kamenica for some time prior to being exchanged. Halep-Pehadzic and her husband and daughter left Kljuc in late September 1992.

The second Prosecution witness, Mirsad Puskar, said that members of the reserve police forces took his brother Ismet and some other neighbours from Humici village in early August 1992.

“I remember that they were dressed in blue uniforms. One of them carried a piece of paper with their names written on it. My brother Ismet was among those whose names were called out by the reserve policeman. They were taken in a minivan for an examination in Kljuc,” Puskar said.

This witness said that the list also contained the names of some people from Velecevo, who had been taken away previously.

“I saw Daut and Bajazit Hadzic, Alija Lemes and Kemal on that list. We heard that those people had already been taken away. The remains of my brother and others, who were taken away on the same day, were found in a grave in Sitnica. My father was found at the same location. He was taken away in March 1993,” Puskar said.

This witness and his family left Kljuc on October 21, 1992.

Puskar said that he saw Marko Adamovic, in May 1992, among the soldiers who, as he found out later, attacked Pudin Han.

The indictment alleges that Adamovic was Commander of the Town Defence of Kljuc and that the military and police searched the villages, including Pudin Han, and captured and took away civilians.

The trial is due to continue on Monday, May 25.