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Military expert Mesud Sadinlija told the Sarajevo court on Wednesday that after he reviewed the evidence from the indictment against Kovacevic and witness testimonies, he had concluded that the armed attacks and deaths of civilians in Sijekovac in the Bosanski Brod area of northern Bosnia in March 1992 did not take place during a state of war.
He also argued that the First Bosanski Brod Brigade, which is accused of the killings and of which Kovacevic was a member, did not yet exist at the time.
Armed units active in that time were under control of ethnic parties. They did not have the organisational, technical or staff capacity to act long-term and systematically. Therefore they did not participate in an armed conflict, but individual incidents, argued Sadinlija.
He said that representatives of leading political parties the Serb Democratic Party, the Party of Democratic Action and the Croatian Democratic Union were engaged in peace negotiations in late March 1992 and were not ready for war.
After the incident in Sijekovac, a delegation from the Bosnian presidency visited the municipality of Bosanski Brod, and from their conclusions we see that the goals of the parties were still political, and there was no talk of a broad armed conflict, said Sadinlija.
He testified that the transition to war in Bosanski Brod happened on April 4, 1992, when Yugoslav Peoples Armys units began to get involved.
After that period we see more serious destruction, said the expert.
Kovacevic is accused of participating in the attack on Sijekovac, where, together with other soldiers, he led 15 Serb adults and four children from their houses into their yards, where some of whom were killed.
He is charged as a member of the Intervention Platoon of the First Bosanski Brod Brigade, which later became 101st Bosanski Brod Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council.
But Sadinlija said that after studying the evidence, he had concluded that the First Bosanski Brod Brigade and its Intervention Platoon were formed only on March 31, after the attack on the village.
The trial of Kovacevic will resume on December 18.
