Proceedings against Osman Brkan Separated

Stoja Vukosav and her family lived in Blace until May 13, 1992, when their village was attacked by “the Bosnia and Herzegovina Army”. All those who were able-bodied ran away, while mostly old men stayed in the village.

“We ran away though the Rakitnica canyon towards Kalinovik. My mother was hiding in the woods along with some other local residents,” Vukosav said, adding that her mother used to visit the immobile old ladies in the village.

As she said, her mother Goja Vukosav told her that she came to the village in order to visit the immobile women one day, but she found them killed in Milutin Kuljanin’s house.

“People said that some guys from Grusca had killed them,” Vukosav said, adding that she had never heard that it was done by Osman Brkan and Ibro Macic.

Osman Brkan and Ibro Macic, former members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, are charged with having killed four old Serb ladies in Blace village in June 1992.

Second State Prosecution witness Milosav Vukosav said that he too ran away from Blace, while his father Lazar was captured and beaten up.

“They broke his teeth with a Kalashnikov rifle,” witness Vukosav said.

He told the Court that his father told him that the four women had been killed in a house and that they had not been set on fire on that occasion.

Lazar Vukosav confirmed having told Jasminka Dzumhur who the killed old women were.

The witness heard, later on, that the old women were set on fire, but he did not know who did it. Also, he heard that they were killed by residents of Grusca.

Prosecutor Sanja Jukic said that those were the last two witnesses for the first count in the indictment, referring to the murder of four old women in Blace, and that the presentation of evidence against Osman Brkan was completed with those testimonies.

The Prosecution proposed that the cases against Osman Brkan and Ibro Macic be separated and that the proceedings against Macic continue and verdict against Brkan be pronounced.

The court of Bosnia and Herzegovina accepted the proposal for the sake of cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

Ibro Macic is charged, under seven counts, with inhumane treatment and mistreatment of prisoners in “Musala” school building in Konjic from April to October 1993.
 
His trial is due to continue on November 15.