Planincic et al: Participation in Murders

State Prosecution witness Milos Serdar said that he was in Maslovare village with his family, when Serdari village, where his parents lived, was attacked. As he said, after having heard about the attack, he went to Serdari and saw that his parents’ house was on fire. He met his mother in front of the house.

“She was coming out of the stable. She had burns on her head and chest. When I asked her where my father was, she said that he was around,” the witness said, adding that he saw corpses of his cousins, uncles and aunts, who were killed next to their burnt houses.

He said that he then went back to his parents’ house. When the fire was extinguished, he found his father’s bones inside the house. “I found the bigger bones, the ones that were not burnt, in the bedroom. I collected them into a bag and took them to the Dispensary, to which all dead people were taken,” the witness said.

Serdar’s mother told him that, when soldiers came into the house, she hid in the bathroom with her sister. She heard that the soldiers climbed upstairs, where his father was. Some time later she heard shooting.

“My mother said that the soldiers went downstairs and said: ‘Set the house on fire, room by room’,” the witness said.

According to the charges, 16 Serb civilians were killed in an attack on Serdari village on September 17, 1992. Fikret Planincic, Rasim Lisancic, Sead Menzil and Mirsad Vatrac, who were allegedly members of the Territorial Defence in Kotor-Varos, are on trial for participating in this attack.

Witness Serdar said that twelve years after the event protected witness M1 came to his cafe and told him that he knew everything about the attack on Serdari in 1992.

“When he started talking, I was speechless. He told me that indictee Mirsad Vatrac and two other soldiers attacked my parents’ house and killed my father,” he said.

Also, witness M1 informed him that indictees Fikret Planincic and Sead Menzil, as well as seven other soldiers, participated in the attack on the village.

Calling on a statement the witness gave to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2010, State Prosecutor Dragan Corlija asked the witness why he said earlier that indictee Rasim Lisancic participated in the attack, but he did not say that at this hearing. “Rasim Lisancic was there on the day of the attack,” the witness said.

The next hearing is due to be held on March 6, 2012.M.B.