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Bosnian Serb Soldier ‘Killed My Father’, Says Witness

27. October 2014.00:00
A prosecution witness told Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Petar Kovacevic’s trial that she found out from her neighbours that the defendant shot her father dead near Visegrad in 1992.

This post is also available in: Bosnian

Witness Kadesa Kasapovic told the Sarajevo-based court on Monday that Serb forces started to “shoot, burn houses and force people out” in the Visegrad area in 1992, and that she left her village of Dobrun on June 16 that year, first moving to Visegrad itself and then to Gorazde.

After about 40 days her husband came too, but her father stayed, she said.

“My husband told me that he was saying to father to come with him, but father didn’t want to. He didn’t believe what would happen,” Kasapovic testified.

She found out from her neighbours in 1993 that her father had been killed.

A protected witness in the trial, codenamed S1, then told her in 1996 exactly how he died, she testified.

“She said that father was hiding in the religious school in Dobrun. Petar Kovacevic was looking for him and sent S1 to search for him. She came to the religious school, but it was locked. At the moment when she turned to go, father peered out, Petar saw him, fired from a rifle and killed him. After that he ordered S1 and one other neighbour to bury him,” the witness said.

She added that another neighbour confirmed this in 1998.

Former Bosnian Serb soldier Kovacevic is charged with participating the detention, murders and rapes of Bosniak civilians in the Visegrad municipality from May until August 1992.

Responding to questions from Kovacevic’s defence, the witness said that she knew the accused well, but that before leaving the village she hadn’t seen him persecute Bosniaks in the municipality.

The trial continues on November 3.

Denis Džidić


This post is also available in: Bosnian