Witnesses Recall Relatives’ Deaths in Lozje Attack

Witness Sejdo Mocevic told the Sarajevo court on Monday that his wife and brother were killed in the Bosnian Serb attack on the village of Lozje in the Goradze municipality on May 22, 1992, while his sister died of her wounds afterwards.

“My wife stayed in a field that day and she was shot there. They took her to the hospital and she died. A total of 31 people were killed in the village,” said Mocevic.

Mocevic said that he knew the defendant Dragan Sekaric before the war, and that he was “good with everyone”. He added that he did not hear whether or not Sekaric participated in the attack.

When asked why he said in his statement in December last year that he did hear that Sekaric participated in the attack, and that he called out to him and was singing Chetnik songs, the witness replied that he was “forgetful”.

“Don’t reproach me, I was shot in the head and I forget things. I do not remember that statement,” said Mocevic.

The witness said that he asked Sekaric after the war about where was he during the attack, and the defendant told him that his uncle came and took him to Visegrad.

Sekaric, a former member of the Territorial Defence forces and the ‘Osvetnik’ (‘Avenger’) paramilitary group, is charged with participating in the attack on the village of Lozje and with the murders, torture, rape and physical abuse of non-Serbs in Visegrad.

Villager Zinata Pleh also testified as a prosecution witness on Monday, saying that her son Edib was killed in the attack on Lozje.

“There were more than 40 of us. There was the whole village, men, women and children. My son was the first to die,” the witness recalled.

She said that she heard Serbian fighters singing offensive songs during the attack.

The defendant Sekaric then told the court that he felt ‘really sorry’ for the death of her son.

“I want the court to find out who was responsible for that,” said Sekaric.

The trial continues on April 7.