Bogdanovic: Giving an Alibi

Mario Cvitkovic, former member of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, said that indictee Bogdanovic reconnoitered the terrain on Mount Boksevica, located between Konjic and Jablanica, with him in May 1993, adding that he could not have gone to Mostar.

“We reconnoitered the terrain for more than a month. I kept the keys of the military vehicle. Had Bogdanovic gone to Mostar, I would have known it. I know that he could not have done it. We were in the field together all the time. We slept in the same apartment,” Cvitkovic said.

The State Prosecution charges Velibor Bogdanovic, who was accompanied with five members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, with coming to a Bosniak couple’s apartment in Mostar at night on May 25/26, 1993 and raping a woman. After that he and the other soldiers allegedly took the woman’s husband to Heliodrom detention camp, where he stayed for 30 days.

Emil Coric, who also testified in defence of Bogdanovic, said that the indictee was on Mount Boksevica in May 1993.

“I was a member of the same unit as Bogadanovic and Cvitkovic, but I was wounded on May 11, 1993. I was at a hospital until May 18 and then at home for two more days. After that I went to Heliodrom, where our Unit’s base was located. I was told that Bogdanovic, Cvitkovic and other members of the ‘Baja Kraljevic’ Anti-terrorist Unit had gone to Boksevica to reconnoiter the terrain,” Coric said.

Coric agreed with Prosecutor Remzija Smailagic and said that he did not know if Bogdanovic was on Mount Boksevica every day of May 1993, conceding that he could have gone to Mostar and come back to the front line.

Witness Damir Rozic, former Director of the “Slobodna i Globus” Company, said that the injured party worked at the company in 1994, adding that she had medical insurance.

“I do not know if the injured party worked at ‘Slobodna I Globus’ Company in 1993. If she did, she must have had medical insurance,” Rozic said.

Nada Dalipagic, Defence attorney for the indictee, told the court that the injured party said in her statement that she did not work in 1993 and 1994 and she did not have medical insurance, so she did not ask for medical assistance after having been raped.

The trial is scheduled to continue on May 24, when the Defence will present its material evidence.

A.S.