Koricanske stijene: Crawling Through Cliffs

In his statement given to the State Prosecution on April 6, 2006, protected witness A said that he got on one of the four buses which came to pick up detainees from the Trnopolje detention camp up on August 21, 1992, adding he was transported towards Travnik.

He said that men were taken to Koricanske stijene and ordered to line up alongside the edge of the chasm.

“We were told to kneel down, as if we were praying to God. Then they started shooting. I briefly turned around and I saw a policeman, dressed in a blue uniform, shooting at me.

“I jumped down and I started crawling over the cliffs. I stopped at a small pine tree. I stayed there, stuck in the tree,” witness A said in his statement, adding the shooting lasted for between 10 and 15 minutes and he then heard a bomb explosion.

Sasa Zecevic, Radoslav Knezevic, Petar Civcic, Branko Topola and Marinko Ljepoja are charged with escorting a convoy of more than 1,200 civilians from Prijedor towards Travnik on August 21, 1992.

The indictees allegedly separated about 200 men from other convoy passengers and shot them at Koricanske stijene. The indictment alleges that they robbed the civilians before killing them.

Zecevic, Knezevic, Civcic and Ljepoja were members of the Interventions Squad with the Public Safety Station in Prijedor and Topola was a guard in Trnopolje detention camp at that time, according to the indictment.

In his statement, protected witness A said he stayed in the pine tree until nightfall, adding that some policemen went down to the chasm looking for survivors.

“I had horrible scratches all over my body. When it got dark, I moved towards Vlasic. I walked on the Vlasic road the whole night until I arrived in Babanovac village. I stayed in that area for the next 19 days, before I could go to the territory controlled by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the witness said in his statement.

The trial is due to continue on December 23, when the Prosecution will examine protected witness KO18.

A.S.