Kovac: Another Was to Blame for Vitez Crimes

The Defence of Ante Kovac, in little over eight months of presenting evidence, has tried to dismiss those counts of the indictment that charge him with committing war crimes in the Vitez area.

Some witnesses claimed that responsibility for the crimes with which Kovac, [52] is charged lies with Mario Cerkez, who has already served six years in jail after being found guilty by the Hague tribunal in 2004.

Cerkez, now reportedly living in Croatia, was called to testify but did not respond.

The closing arguments will commence on July 1, when the Prosecution for Bosnia and Herzegovina will address the trial chamber; the Defence and the defendant himself will do the same five days later.

The Prosecution maintains that Kovac, then commander of the Brigade Military Police of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in 1993 in Vitez, issued orders for, and approved of, the imprisonment of Bosniak civilians on the premises of the Workers’ University, the cinema and the Public Auditing Service. He is also charged with the rape of two women who testified as protected witnesses A and B.

Kovac denies the charges. “I did not issue orders, nor did I take civilians to dig trenches,” he said. “It is possible that the Military Police sometimes escorted civilians to the place where they dug trenches, though,” he added.

Kovac also denied having raped the two women, saying that he “brought witness A to a Muslim family in order to save her”.

Kovac accepted that she might have been raped but said he had nothing to do with it.

He also claimed that during the period when the civilians were detained in Vitez in April 1993, he did not command the Military Police of the Vitez Brigade of the HVO but had a lower function, as “squadron leader in the Military Police”, which meant he commanded a squad “of seven soldiers.

“The Brigade Police had four squads in April [1993] and the commander of the Brigade Police was one Ivo Petrovic,” said Kovac.

He said that in May 1993 he went on sick leave for a month and was not appointed commander of the Brigade Military Police until he got back.

The Defence also examined Kovac’s son, Dejan, who said he could not imagine why his father had been arrested, because “he was always fair to and protective of Bosniaks”. Dejan Kovac said that “the whole of Vitez” was shocked by his father’s arrest.

In 1993, when the crimes treated by the indictment were committed, he was then 14.

The son of the defendant recalled that his father was drafted into the HVO at the start of the war and had worked in “some kind of military police” from a site in front of the cinema in Vitez.

According to his testimony, when the clashes erupted between the HVO and the mainly Bosniak Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1993, many Bosniaks hid in the homes of the local Bosnian Croats.

“Even in our house we had a couple of Bosniak families,” he said. “As children, we did not recognize differences among us and we all played together. A couple of houses down from ours, there were even more of those families.

“My father was always fair to them and protected them, because there were groups that harassed those people,” Dejan Kovac added.

According to another witness, Mario Raic, after the conflict started on April 16, 1993, “total chaos ensued. Lots of people came from the nearby villages – Croats whose houses were burnt down. They were frustrated and angry with Bosniaks.

“Some of the commanders then made a decision to hide a certain number of Bosniaks and they were taken to the House of Culture, the Public Auditing Service, and some of them to the veterinarian station. They were guarded by the Military Police there,” Raic said.

The Prosecution says more than 250 civilians were held in inhumane conditions, and many were taken to the demarcation line, where they were forced to dig trenches.

Among the Defence witnesses were some of these former detainees, including Mahmut Tuco.

He said that after his arrest he was held for 12 days in the House of Culture in Vitez. Tuco said he was “great friends” with the defendant, describing him as “a good man”. He was surprised to hear that he had been arrested.

Slavko Vidovic, a former member of the Brigade Military Police, said he did not know who ordered the civilians to be brought to the offices of the Workers’ University.

“I did not see the defendant Kovac issue the orders. We only brought them there, telling them which room to enter,” he said.

Vidovic said those who had escorted the detainees to the cinema or Workers’ University had been the ones that had forced them to perform forced labour.

Witness Ivica Rajic also claimed that the Brigade Military Police had no jurisdiction over the prisoners and its members only “guarded the headquarters or went to the front line”.

“What we did in the Brigade Police was decided upon by Mario Cerkez, then commander of the Vitez Brigade, and no one else,” Rajic said.

“The commander of the Brigade Police in April 1993 was Ivo Petrovic, and sometime in July of the same year we elected Ante Kovac,” recalled Rajic.

Similar testimony came from Vladimir Santic, sentenced to 18 years’ by The Hague over crimes committed in the Lasva valley but released early, in February.

Santic said that the civilians in Vitez were apprehended in 1993 on orders that “could only have come from Tihomir Blaskic or Mario Cerkez.

“About Ante Kovac, I know that he was a member of the Brigade Military Police, and after a while its commander, but I don’t know in which period,” he went on. “I was a commander of one of the Military Police units, but I could not have issued orders to Kovac.”

Blaskic, former commander of the HVO in Central Bosnia, was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to nine years for crimes committed in the Lasva valley.

At the beginning of his testimony, Santic signed a statement saying he would not testify until Cerkez appeared before the court. However, following a warning from the Trial Chamber, Santic replied to several questions.

“Between April 16 and May 9, 1993, the civilians could have been apprehended only by the Military Police but under the command of brigade commander Cerkez,” Santic said.

The witness said he only saw Kovac once, in August 1993, when some Croatian soldiers attacked a wounded Bosniak who was being held in the wartime health centre in Vitez. Santic recalled that Kovac had helped him drive away the soldiers after which they took the wounded man, who was receiving a blood infusion, to a prison hospital in Kaonik.

Pasko Ljubicic also gave a statement. He was transferred from the Hague Tribunal for further processing to Bosnia, where, after pleading guilty and making a plea bargain, he received a sentence of ten years.
Ljubicic said members of the Vitez Brigade Military Police did everything they were told by commander Cerkez.

Another witness for the Defence, Stipo Ceko, a former assistant to the commander for logistics of the Vitez Brigade, said that he recalled “seeing Muslim civilians in the rooms of the cinema”, but “did not see who brought them in.

“I think the civilians were brought to the cinema by members of the Active Military Police, civilian police and some other units. I know that the Brigade Military Police did not take part in the arrests,” Ceko said.

Witness Ankica Pranjkovic, who in 1993 worked as secretary to the commander of the Vitez Brigade, claimed she had typed up the report that said that three persons had been apprehended after a Red Cross vehicle was detained.

“The report was to be signed by brigade commander Cerkez or his deputy, but they were not present, so I asked Kovac to sign it,” Pranjkovic said.

According to the indictment, on August 28, 1993, Kovac ordered that “three sick people”, whom the Red Cross was supposed to transport to Zenica, be detained and brought to the Military Police command.

Bosko Pavlic, the doctor who examined the three, said that Kovac was in the “escort of the military medical vehicle which brought them to the war hospital”.

Among them was the protected witness whom the prosecution claims the defendant raped.

Testimonies regarding the rape went on behind closed doors.

Kovac was arrested by members of the State Agency for Investigation and Protection on January 30, 2008 and has been in custody since. The defence started presenting its evidence on November 17, 2008.

While the Defence presented its evidence, Kovac dismissed his lawyer, and another one was appointed, who also defended him ex officio.

The trial itself was delayed on several occasions by Kovac’s complaints of ill health. At one point during the presentation of evidence, the defence requested that the process be returned to the beginning because over 30 days had elapsed between the last two hearings.

The Trial Chamber dismissed this request, saying that the court was not responsible for the delay, “since it happened due to the poor health of the defendant”.

The Chamber instructed doctors to examine the defendant. They concluded he was fit to face trial. Jowever, Kovac said he still did not feel well and was suffering from dizziness and headaches. “His problem is more psychosomatic in nature,” one of the doctors who examined him claimed.

During the trial, the Defence requested that Kovac be released on parole, offering bail of 700,000 Convertible Marks, this being estimated worth of the property owned by the defendant’s son and daughter.

The Chamber dismissed the request, saying it could not accept the value of the offered property, “because it was not backed up by relevant evidence”.

Erna Mackic is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected] Justice Report is BIRN weekly online publication.