Breaking into House and Killing Old Women

Salko Macic told the Court that he was recruited by a unit, which was commanded by a Midhat Pirkic, also known as Midke. He formed a team, consisting of 17 soldiers, and appointed a Mirsad Fisic, known as Kolumbo, as its leader. He ordered them to conduct a “terrain cleaning” in Rakitnica river canyon.

Witness Macic, who was appointed Fisic’s Deputy, said that indictees Osman Brkan, his cousin Ibro Macic and witness’ brother Seho Macic were members of that unit too.

“We arrived in Blace. The village had been burnt. We were hungry and thirsty, so we sat down next to a well in order to drink some water. Late Halil Macic walked across the village and said: ‘There are Chetniks here’,” the witness said.

As he said, he, Ibro Macic, Seho Macic, Halil Macic and Mirsad Fisic entered one of the houses.

“We saw three ladies with handkerchiefs on their heads. Ibro Macic shot at them first. Halil then did the same. Kolumbo shouted at them, because he wanted to question the old women,” Macic said, adding that the women’s handkerchiefs shook on their heads and that they drooped afterwords.

When they came out of the house, they met members of “the Blackshirts”, so-called “Garo’s tea m”.

“I then spotted Ibro and Halil approaching me from the house and smoke coming from it,” Macic said, adding that he did not see whether the two men set the house and old women on fire.

The witness said that indictee Osman Brkan kept one cow, but he did not see him inside the house, where the old women had been killed.

Brkan and Macic, former members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, are charged with having killed four Serb old women in Blace village in June 1992. The bodies of the killed women have still not been found.

Besides that, Macic is charged with having participated in the torture and sexual abuse of prisoners in the “Musala” school building in Konjic from April to October 1993.

When asked by Prosecutor Sanja Jukic why he said, in his statement given to the Security Service of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in 1992, that members of his unit had killed six old women, the witness said that he was forced to write that down and say that HVO had nothing to do with it in order to be admitted to “Garo’s unit”.

Responding to a question by Fadil Abaz, Defence attorney of indictee Macic, the witness said that the indictee had “an M-48 rifle” and not an automatic gun, as he had said before.

The trial is due to continue on September 5.