Indictee at an Observation Post

Witness Drasko Djenadija said that he worked with the Information Sharing Centre of the National Defence Secretariat during the war. As he said, indictee Velemir Djuric too was member of that Centre. He said that Djuric worked with the Section for Visual Observation of Territory.

According to Djenadija’s testimony, the nearest observation post was located in Berikovac, about 20 kilometres away from Prijedor.

“Velemir Djuric and two other men were present at that station 24 hours a day from July 1 to the beginning of August 1992. They slept there. They did not have a vehicle and they were not allowed to leave the place,” the witness said.

When asked by Ranko Dakic, Defence attorney of indictee Djuric, if they had any weapons, the witness said that, due to the fact that the place was surrounded by forests and that the war was going on, they had “a Russian automatic rifle”.

The witness said that they left Berikovac at the beginning of August, when the 43rd Motorised Brigade requested that members of the Centre be put at their disposal.

According to the State Prosecution’s charges, male residents of Carakovo village were taken from their houses and shot in front of the local mosque on July 23, 1992. Besides Velemir Djuric, Dragomir Soldat and Zoran Babic are also on trial for this crime. 

The Defence of indictee Dragomir Soldat introduced about 100 pieces of material evidence, including, among others, some documents with which the Defence wanted to discredit certain State Prosecution witnesses.

“Witness Sefik Karupovic had not incriminated Soldat for the event in Carakovo until he met witness Sead Susic. He used the information obtained from him in a malicious way. This happened in the period, when Soldat and Karupovic quarrelled over the sale of property in Zagreb,” Zec explained.  

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina objected to the relevance of most pieces of evidence. 

The trial is due to continue on December 9.