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Testifying via video-link from the District Court in Osijek, Croatia, Josip Bilic said that in mid-March 1992 he was wounded in Bosanski Brod, but that on the 28th he left hospital in order to attend the meeting with the then member of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Biljana Plavsic about the incident in Sijekovac.
“I heard there were two factions in Sijekovac, one moderate and other extremist – the families Zecevic and Milosevic. As I heard, there was an incident among those people and that the Croatian Army intervened. I was told there were victims on both sides,” said Bilic.
Zemir Kovacevic, the former member of the Intervention Platoon of the First Bosanski Brod Brigade, is charged with taking part in the armed attack on March 26 1992 on the village of Sijekovac, where, together with unidentified members of the Croatian Defence Forces and Croatian Army, he committed crimes against Serb civilians.
He is charged with taking 15 people and four children from the houses out to the yard, some of whom were killed.
The Hague Tribunal in 2003 sentenced Biljana Plavsic to 11 years of prison for participation in crimes against Bosniaks and Croats across Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bilic – who on March 30, 1992, upon leaving the hospital, was appointed commander of Bosanski Brod’s defence – said he knew Zemir Kovacevic as “commander of the Sijekovac company” with the First Bosanski Brod Brigade, which, according to the witness, was an “independent unit”.
Asked whether Kovacevic was a member of the Intervention Platoon, witness Bilic replied he did not know, and added that the Intervention Platoon was formed only in April 1992, after the Croatian Defence Council was formed in Bosanski Brod.
The prosecutor, Dika Omerovic, presented Bilic with the deposition he gave last year during investigation in which he said that Zemir Kovacevic was a member of the First Intervention Platoon, but the witness denied it, saying that during investigation his statements were “taken out of context.”
“The Intervention Platoon was formed only after the founding of Croatian Defence Council and the first Bosanski Brod Brigade did not have that platoon. There was a Sijekovac company, whose commander was Kovacevic. He was appointed there on recommendation from the local community as a courageous, ethical man,” said Bilic.
The trial will resume on July 10.
