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Testifying in his own defence, Mensur Memic said he was never in Trusina near Konjic in northern Herzegovina, where Croatian civilians and soldiers were killed in the Bosnian Army attack on April 16, 1993.
Memic, who served with Bosnian Armys Zulfikar detachment, said that he spent that day at the Mraziste hotel at Igman in central Bosnia, where the detachments headquarters was based.
Honourable court, I am not afraid of the truth. Never in his life did Mensur Memic go to Trusina, said Memic, whose testimony on Monday marked the opening of the defences case.
He is charged with participating in the execution of several civilians and Croatian Defence Council soldiers during the attack on the village.
Alongside Memic, the prosecution also accuses former members of the Zulfikar brigade Dzevad Salcin, Nedzad Hodzic, Nihad Bojadzic and Zulfikar Alispago, and former member of the Neretvica brigade Senad Hakalovic, of being involved in the killings.
Memic said he did not know anything about the attack before he was arrested in September 2009. After that, he said, the prosecution offered him a plea bargain for a five-year prison sentence, and later offered him immunity from prosecution so that he could testify.
The defendant said he joined the Zulfikar detachment on April 7, 1993, together with another man called Sead Fikic.
He said that he was with Fikic and a woman called Sena Corbo at Igman on the day of the Trusina attack, and recalled the body of a soldier being brought there that evening after being wounded in the military operation.
Fikic was killed in the summer of 1993. When asked by the prosecutor if Corbo would confirm his alibi, Memic replied that it depends on her conscience.
He said that he didnt trust the witnesses who incriminated him at the trial.
They hate me 100 per cent… What they did to me, I would not have done to my mortal enemy, he said.
The cross-examination of the defendant resumes on March 25.
