Tripkovic: Watching From the Window

Witness Salem Causevic said that he heard the indictee shouting and saw him, through his window, approach injured party A1, who was trying to run away from him and tell her: “You cannot run away from me”.

The witness said that he wore a military jacket and had a cartridge belt and a grenade.
 
“He had rather long hair and a beard. He came to the street and started calling Vejsil’s name out. He shouted at him and said: ‘I shall kill you. Why are you hiding her?!’. He told him he was not hiding her. He started waving with his revolver. One bullet flew by Vejsil’s head, while the second bullet hit him in the neck,” Causevic said. He explained that he watched the event through a window on the second floor of his house.  
 
Novica Tripkovic, former member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with the killing of Vejsil Delic in Donje polje, Foca municipality in June 1992. In addition, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges him with having raped and mentally and physically abused injured party A1 from April to June 1992.
 
The witness said that he then went to another window and saw Tripkovic going down the street. After that, Vejsil’s wife Hasnija and her son came out of their courtyard.
 
Causevic said that he had never personally met Tripkovic, but he said that the indictee came to his coffee shop before the war and bragged by saying that “he can attract snakes by whistling”. Also, he said that others told him that Tripkovic “spent a long time in jail”.  
 
During the course of cross-examination, Causevic said that the indictee had come to his courtyard to get some cigarettes before the event and he told him that he had been to injured party A1’s house.  
 
“He told me that he went to her house and put nylon sheets on her windows,” said Causevic, who left Foca and went to Macedonia in August 1992.
 
Witness Rukija Dikonja testified at this hearing too. She said that she was at Becir Dikonja’s when children started shouting: “Here comes Novica!”. She said that they fled from the house after that. The witness said she hid, together with her daughter, in the basement of the house located across the street from Vejsil’s house.
 
“I started crying and saying that they had killed my man. Vejsil and Hasnija went out of the basement. (…)After that she came running and said: ‘Vejsil was killed’,” the witness recalled.
 
The trial is due to continue on April 6, when the Prosecution will examine three witnesses.