Houses on Fire

Zora and Drago Vukadinovic lived, as refugees, in a summer house in Juriceve Bare village in 1993 They knew Zoran Marinic, who lived in a summer house next to theirs.

“I sometimes saw Marinic in a civil suit and sometimes in uniform,” said Zora Vukadinovic.

When asked by Prosecutor Slavica Terzic whether she remembered some unpleasant events from that period, Vukadinovic said that two houses were set on fire one night in 1993.

“I was in the house with my child. I pulled the blinds down, but I heard some strange sounds from outside, like crunching and crackling. I did not hear shooting,” Vukadinovic said, adding that she saw smoke coming from a house 250 metres away the following morning.

She did not know who the owners of those houses were. She did not inquire about it afterwards.

Drago Vukadinovic was not in the house that night. He was at another location performing his civil duties. He first said that neither the burning of houses nor the killing of people happened, but he specified, later on, that he heard that some houses were set on fire. He said that he knew nothing about it and that he did not ask anybody.

When asked by Trial Chamber Chairman Saban Maksumic whether he would normally speak to his wife and ask her if there were any news upon his return home, the witness answered negatively.

Zoran Marinic and Zoran Milic, former members of the HVO, are on trial for having participated in the murder of four Bosniaks in the Busovaca area in 1993, causing of bodily injuries and unlawful and arbitrary destruction of property.

Although Zora Vukadinovic said at the hearing today that she used to see Marinic, whose leg was immobilised with a fixator, but she did not remember when it happened, she changed her statement later on, saying that what she told to the State Prosecution during the investigation was true. Vukadinovic said, during the investigation, that Marinic did not wear the fixator in the period when the houses were set on fire.

The trial is due to continue on September 19.