Koricanske stijene: Standing in Line for Shooting

Protected witness KO18, who managed to survive the shooting at Koricanske stijene although he was severely wounded, said that he “knew he was going to be killed” when policemen took him and two other men from a bus and ordered them to stand at the edge of a pit.
 
“Three men dressed in blue uniforms (A/N: policemen) were standing in front of us. We were turned towards them at first. I watched the man who was going to shoot me in his face. They cursed us and said: ‘We do not want to look at your faces. Turn around’. When we turned to the other side, they shot me on my shoulder. I fell down on my back on some fir tree. I stayed on it,” the protected witness said.
 
He said that the man who shot him looked nice to him, adding he hoped he might not shoot after all, but “I was wrong”.
 
When asked by Trial Chamber Chairwoman Vesna Jasenkovic if the person whom he saw at the time was present in the courtroom, the witness said that the fourth person in the first row looked like that person. He pointed to indictee Radoslav Knezevic.
 
The State Prosecution charges Knezevic, Sasa Zecevic, Petar Civcic, Marinko Ljepoja and Branko Topola with the shooting of Prijedor residents at Koricanske stijene on August 21, 1992.
 
The four indictees, former members of the Interventions Squad with the Public Safety Station in Prijedor, and Topola, former guard in Trnopolje detention camp, are charged with having escorted a convoy of more than 1,200 civilians who were traveling from Prijedor to Travnik and separated about 200 men from other convoy passengers. They allegedly shot those men at Koricanske stijene.
 
The witness said he knew indictee Topola, whom he saw in Trnopolje detention camp in which he was detained for about two months. He was taken from that detention camp to Koricanske stijene.
 
The witness told the Court that “the guys in blue uniforms” organised the crime at Koricanske stijene, adding he saw them in Trnopolje for the first time and he heard one of them say: “Guys, as of now we shall do as we agreed”. The witness said that they said the same thing at the location at which the men were separated from women and children.
 
“After having separated us from the others, they ordered us to stand in line. There were more than 200 of us. Then they loaded us into two buses and told us to look down and keep our heads between our knees. We were like sardines in a can. We drove for some time and then the bus stopped. We heard shooting that lasted for a long time. When it stopped, they started taking us in groups of three and shot us. And then it was my turn…” the witness recalled.
 
He said in the courtroom that his suffering lasted for a few days before he was found by members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, who offered him help.
 
“My leg got infected. I crawled through the woods. I let the river carry me… I managed to reach the other side of the river and then I fainted. Later on I found out that I was in Dobretici village when HVO members found me. They dressed my wounds and transferred me to a hospital in Jajce,” the witness said.
 
The trial is due to continue on January 18, 2011, when the Prosecution will continue presenting evidence.