Witness Confirms Murder of Neighbour

Testifying at the trial for crimes in Prozor, a State Court’s witness says that indictee Zeljko Jukic killed Uzeir Sabitovic in the summer of 1993.

Witness Zejnil Grcic was invited to appear before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina again in order to respond to the Court’s questions about the murder of Uzeir Sabitovic.
 
This witness testified for the State Prosecution in the summer of last year. During his testimony he said that, after a Croatian Defence Council, HVO, unit had entered Duge village, Prozor municipality, he saw indictee Zeljko Jukic kill Uzeir Sabitovic, who was trying to run away.

When asked by the Court why he did not mention the name of the killed person in his statement given in 1995, the witness said that he was “a hundred percent sure that it was Uzeir Sabitovic and a hundred percent sure that he saw Zeljko Jukic doing it”.

Responding to a question by Trial Chamber Chairwoman Jasmina Kosovic if members of the Sabitovic family saw the murder, Grcic first said that nobody else saw the murder. Later on, when Trial Chamber member Darko Samardzic asked him the same question, Grcic said that he “allowed the possibility that members of Sabitovic family saw that”.

He explained that Galib and Sejo, Uzeir Sabitovic’s sons, were taken to the school building along with him and that they were released on the following day in order to bury their father.

Jukic, former member of “Rama” Brigade of HVO, is charged with having persecuted the Bosniak population in Prozor from July to the end of September 1993.  

He is charged with having participated in an attack against the population, murder and forced disappearances.

Grcic also said that, for the sake of his own security, he did not tell members of Sabitovic family who had killed Uzeir Sabitovic.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is due to present its closing statement on December 12.