Klickovic at al: Suspect Testifies as Defense Witness
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Miroslav Vjestica, testifying in defense of Gojko Klickovic and Mladen Drljaca, stated that ”Muslim forces” had caused the conflict in Krupa.
Klickovic, Drljaca and Ostojic are charged with committing crimes against humanity during 1992 in the Bosanska Krupa area. The BH prosecution suspects Vjestica is also responsible for taking part in these crimes.
The indictment accuses the three of participating in a joint criminal enterprise that started in the summer of 1991 and which had the goal of creating a ”separate state of Bosnian Serbs”. The indictment states that Vjestica and others are believed to have shared in this plan.
”Due to the unfortunate incident in Arapusa, when members of the Patriotic League riddled a car with bullets and killed our boys, the conflict started in Krupa. That was the fuse that led to general disorder which was hard to control,” Vjestica said.
Vjestica described how on the afternoon of 21 April 1992 an attack on Krupa was conducted during which ”a huge number of Serbs were kept under blockade.”
”We did not have any plans for war and we were horribly surprised. The dreadfully tense situation in Krupa was created by the Arapusa incident. I know that on 23 April 1992 negotiations between Muslims and Serbs started and that Gojko did not participate in them,” he said.
He said he did not recall a temporary military court being formed in Krupa and said he had never heard about the trials and decisions of this court.
According to the indictment, Drljaca was the presiding judge of the temporary military court. Klickovic was, among other roles, Commander of the Crisis Headquarters of the Serb municipality of Krupa, and Ostojic was a Commander of the 11th Krupa Light Infantry Brigade.
”I know that you did not have anything with the army but you were in charge of the functioning of the municipality. All the misunderstandings in Krupa come from the hardened organizing of life because everybody was mobilized,” Vjestica said when discussing Gojko Klickovic’s place in the in the civilian structures of government.
Vjestica also said that civilian authorities did not issue orders on forming the Territorial Defense forces in the Serb municipality of Krupa but he had heard that this decision was made on 15 April 1992, by Biljana Plavsic.
In February 2003, Plavsic was sentenced by the International Crime Tribunal for former Yugoslavia to 11 years in prison for crimes committed in BiH.
Vjestica said the initiative on forming a Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa began in 1991 and was ”economical in nature”.
”We wanted to use natural resources so that the Serb population could finally come to life. We tried to do this sincerely, honestly and cleanly and we did not have any evil intentions against anybody,” he said.
With the agreement of the court, Vjestica did not testify under oath.
Continuation of the examination of this witness is set for 9 June, but prior to this, a hearing will be conducted on 3 June at which another witness will be examined.
