Krsmanovic: Memories of Oliver Draped with Flag

Witnesses Mesud Gibovic and Dzemila Kadic said that the bus from Sjeverin, a small town in Serbia, was on its way to Priboj and that it was stopped on the part of the road going through Bosnia and Herzegovina in Mioce village, where 16 Bosniaks were taken off the bus.

“My father Idriz was on his way to work that morning. We were told that they were taken out of the bus in Mioca. Edin Dzihic, who was going to school and who was not taken off the bus, informed us about it around noon,” Gibovic said.

After that local residents went to the local community building, where, as Gibovic said, Milan Lukic and Oliver Krsmanovic, as well as another bearded man, appeared.

“We came out of the minivan. Oliver was draped with a flag. Someone from that group said: ‘Run away, as we shall kill you too!’ I did not know any of them at that moment, but, after having been shown their pictures at the Prosecution in Belgrade, my memories came back,” Gibovic said.

Responding to a Defence’s question, the witness said that he did not give the same statement during a court proceeding previously conducted in Belgrade.

The indictment alleges that Krsmanovic participated, along with Milan Lukic, Dragutin Dragicevic and Djordje Sevic, in the kidnapping of 16 Bosniak civilians, whom they took to the Vilina Vlas hotel in Visegrad and then killed them on the banks of the River Drina.

Lukic and Krsmanovic were sentenced for this crime before a Belgrade court. The Hague Tribunal pronounced a first instance verdict sentencing Lukic to life imprisonment for crimes committed in Visegrad.

Witness Dzemila Kadic said that her brother Mustafa Bajramovic was kidnapped from that bus and that she found out during a trial in Belgrade that the kidnapped people were tortured in the Vilina Vlas and then killed.

“Milan and Oliver were arrested two days after the kidnapping. Special policemen took them to Uzice, but they were released because Lukic’s uncle was a police chief,” Kadic said.

The Defence said that police did not arrest Krsmanovic, but Dragutin Dragicevic on that occasion and that, in her previous statement the witness only mentioned Lukic.

The two witnesses said that their family members were not members of any military formations and that they had still not found their bodies.

The trial of Krsmanovic, former member of the Second Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, who is charged with other murders, disappearances and rape in Visegrad, is due to continue on Tuesday, December 4.