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Lukic said he became Commander of the Territorial Defence, TD, Headquarters in January 1992, but he told the Trial Chamber that the TD Headquarters did not have “a single recruit”, so it therefore could not have participated in “the operations conducted in that municipality”.
“The TD Headquarters did not have the same role as before. We were not asked to form units, but to be on duty and that was all,” Lukic explained. He began his testimony on October 25 this year.
Indictee Lukic denied having been a member of the Town Defence Command and Crisis Committee in Kljuc in 1992.
“They used the term ‘town defence command’, but the command was never established nor did it perform any activities. It was used at the beginning of June only, but we never sat together or held a session or anything like that,” Lukic said.
Lukic and Marko Adamovic are charged with organising a group of people and abetting their commission of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Kljuc municipality.
The indictment alleges that Lukic and Adamovic were members of the Town Defence Command and “active and proven” members of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, who participated, in collaboration with military and civil authorities in Kljuc municipality, in a joint criminal enterprise by committing crimes against the non-Serb population.
Answering the State Prosecution’s questions during the course of cross-examination, Lukic denied having been a member of the SDS in Kljuc.
“I was a member of the Communist Party because this Party cherished certain values. On the other hand, all people – both good and bad ones, could join the new parties. This is why the nationalist parties did not suit me,” Lukic explained.
Lukic recalled having heard about “a murder of a large number of people in Prhovo village”, at the beginning of June 1992, but he said he did not know who was responsible for those murders.
The indictment alleges that, on June 1, 1992, Serb soldiers came to unprotected Prhovo village, forced its residents to leave their houses and killed more than 30 civilians, whose bodies were later exhumed from a mass grave in Prhovo.
The next hearing is due to take place on November 8, when Lukic’s Defence will examine a new witness.
