Saric: Brother Taken Away

Salko Pandzic said that in 1992 he was taken by Bosnian Serb forces together with other Bosniaks from Nahorevo to the Jagomir hospital building. Upon leaving the hospital, the witness saw Goran Saric.

“One day names of around 20 persons were called out. After that, it was said that those who were not called out should go out in front of the hospital. We were lined up there and Goran Saric, a member of the Serb police came. He walked in front of us and told us we were going to be exchanged,” said Pandzic.

Goran Saric is charged, as head of the police station in the Serb municipality of Centar in Sarajevo, with ordering all men from Nahorevo to come to the community centre on June 19, 1992, after which around 100 Bosniaks were taken and imprisoned in the Jagomir hospital building.

According to the indictment, on June 21, 1992, Saric separated the prisoners into three groups. Sixty were taken by force to Sarajevo, 26 in the second group were transferred to the Bunker camp in Vogosca, while 11 from the third group were later killed at Skakavac in Sarajevo.

Witness Pandzic said that he saw Saric once before leaving the Jagomir hospital, when he took away a rifle from the person who threatened to kill a group of prisoners.

“While we were waiting for the truck which was supposed to take us somewhere, Gedora came and wanted to kill us all. He was drunk. Then Saric came and told him he would have to kill him first,” said witness Pandzic.

Ramiza Smajlovic, another witness at the trial, said that her brother Ramiz was taken to Jagomir with other men from Nahorevo in 1992.

“When men were called for a meeting, my brother did not go. Then two men came and took him away. They just told him that he had to go with them. After that, the rest of us were told to gather up. We were put on trucks and released to go towards the town,” said Smajlovic.

Ramiz’s bones were exhumed, as she said, on the “road to Skakavac”, together with those of another seven people.
She added that she learnt from witness S-1 that her brother was in Jagomir.

The trial was scheduled to resume on October 29, when the prosecution plans to examine another two witnesses.