Peric et al: Recalling Detention of Father and Father-in-Law

Witness Fatima Keso said that she would never forget June 25, 1992, when her father-in-law Avdo was taken from Jelasac village, Kalinovik municipality and her husband Ramiz went to the police station in Kalinovik after having received an invitation to do so.

“My husband received an invitation asking him to come to the police station in Kalinovik in order to perform civil duties. He went there, together with our neighbours. He never returned,” witness Keso said.

The witness told the Court that in June 1992, three trucks and one transporter brought about 30 Serb policemen and soldiers, including indictee Spasoje Doder, to Jelasac village. She explained that those policemen and soldiers arrested men, including Avdo Keso, and took them to the Miladin Radojevic school building.

The State Prosecution charges Doder, Milan Peric, Predrag Terzic and Aleksandar Cerovina with crimes committed in Kalinovik.

The indictment alleges that in 1992 the former members of the Public Safety Station in Kalinovik participated in the unlawful arrest of civilians, whom they then took to the Miladin Radojevic school building and Barutni Magacin (Gunpowder Depot) detention camp, where most of them were killed.

The witness said that indictees Terzic and Cerovina, whose first name she could not remember, guarded the school building twice and they did not let her go inside the building and visit her husband and father-in-law. She said that her husband and father-in-law were transferred to Barutni Magacin later on.

“They were killed. Their bodies were found in Miljevina,” the witness said, without specifying where they had been killed.

Danilo Djorem also testified for the Prosecution at this hearing. He said that he was a reserve policeman with the Public Safety Station in Kalinovik in 1992. The witness said that he and a few other soldiers, including indictee Cerovina, got on a truck, which was driven by indictee Peric, and went to Jelasac village in order to bring women to the Miladin Radojevic school building.

“Upon our arrival, Peric distributed tasks to us and told us which houses we should go to and gather the women. All of the policemen participated in taking the women away,” witness Djorem said, adding that he told one women to come to the gathering location, but she managed to flee together with her children.

Witness Djorem said that he was a guard in the Miladin Radojevic school building, adding that he heard that some of the women did not survive the detention and one of them was raped in that building.

Third Prosecution witness Cedomir Okuka said that he was recruited by an anti aircraft unit of the Serbian Army in the summer of 1992, adding that he was ordered to mount a three-pipe cannon on a nearby hill and open fire with the aim of defending Jelasac village.

“We were ordered to expect an attack on the village from the woods. From the place where the cannon was mounted, I could see the edge of the forest and some of the village houses. I launched projectiles at the edge of the woods, which caught fire because we used flammable ammunition,” witness Okuka said, adding that the houses in that village were not set on fire on that day.

The trial is due to continue on May 17, when the Prosecution will invite three new witnesses.

A.J.