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Marinic told the court on Thursday that on the night of the killings on April 26, 1993, he drank around half a litre of brandy with his co-defendant Milic at his summer house in Busovaca.
The two men then agreed to go to the house of one of the protected witnesses in the trial, code-named B-1, in order to check whether he had a field radio transmitter or a walkie-talkie.
“Zoran Milic carried a Kalashnikov, I left my rifle in the car. We knocked on the door and said we were the army. B-4 opened the door and said B-1 was not there. I went in to search the room in candle light, because the power was out,” said Marinic.
He said that he heard children crying and then shots, and asked Milic why he had opened fire, and talked him into leaving the house. He claimed that in the meantime, the candle had set the house on fire.
Then, Marinic said, they went to the house of another witness, code-named B-2.
“An elderly member of the Topalovic family opened the door. Several of them were under a blanket and one of them in a wheelchair. I started searching for field radio transmitter or a walkie-talkie. I didn’t find anything and I told Milic we should leave the house,” said Marinic.
Marinic said that while they were leaving someone said something or cursed and Milic cocked the rifle and fired a shot.
“We went to my summer house. I did not know till the day after that they had been killed,” said Marinic.
He added that the house burnt down “probably because a blanket or coverlet caught on fire from the ammunition spark”.
Marinic and Milic, former members of the Croatian Defence Council, are on trial for allegedly participating in the murders of four Bosniak civilians in Busovaca – all members of the Topalovic family.
Marinic denied suggestions by Milic’s lawyer that he had promised his former Croatian Defence Council commander that he would blame the other defendant for the deaths.
The trial will resume on October 31.
