Someone Opened Fire from a Group

Protected witness U-4 said that one woman was in the group of soldiers, adding that he heard local residents addressing her by her nickname Zolja. He recalled that Ilija was killed first and that his wife was then killed as well after having “begun wailing and saying something like that they should kill her too”.

“I was not able to see who fired the bullets,” the witness said.

The Defence read a part of an official note made by the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, in 2010, indicating that he saw that the woman, who was in the group of soldiers, killed Ilija and that his wife Andja was killed after that.

“I may have said that, but I do not remember,” the witness said, adding that he allowed for the possibility that he said that.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Dzeko, former member of the “Zulfikar” Unit with the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, with having killed a married couple in Trusina on April 16, 1993.

Besides that, he is charged with having killed an old lady and participated, following the end of the ABiH’s attack on Trusina, in the shooting of three civilians and three members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in collaboration with other comrades.

Prosecutor Vesna Ilic said that the witness said, in two statements given to the Sate Prosecution in 2012 and 2013, that he did not see which one from the group of soldiers killed the married couple.

“I am telling you that I heard that Zolja killed them,” the witness said, adding that he got the information from local residents in Trusina.

Testifying against Dzeko, Rasema Handanovic, also known as Zolja, said that Dzeko had killed an elderly married couple.

After having admitted guilt for participating in the shooting of three civilians and three HVO members, Handanovic, former member of “Zulfikar” Unit, was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.

The trial is due to continue on February 4.