Nobody Left Combat Lines
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According to their testimonies, as members of the Fourth Company, they were present there all the time without interruption.
“The conditions were bad, but we were ordered to hold the line considering the fact that conflict was taking place on the whole territory of the municipality and that nobody was available to replace us,” witness Vojo Cebic said.
He mentioned that several members of his unit were killed during their stay on Zaglavak Hill, but they were forbidden from going to their funeral.
Rackovic, former member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with having participated in attacks on Bosniak villages, detention, torture, forced disappearances and rape in the Visegrad area from May to late August 1992.
Novak Milicevic said that water and food was transported to Zaglavak by truck, but he did not notice that Rackovic was the one driving the small truck.
“I am telling you that nobody could leave that place. We could not even leave in order to take a bath,” the witness said.
When asked how he managed to remember that he arrived at Zaglavak on June 1 and left on July 12, Milicevic said that he remembered his stay by “suffering and fearing.”
The witnesses said that, after they had withdrawn from Zaglavak, the indictee was wounded.
“Vito was wounded in Donja Lijeska. He was absent for a month or two,” witness Milos Makljenovic said.
When asked whether he was sure that he used to see Rackovic on Zaglavak Hill every day, he explained that the soldiers saw each other in the background area, where they rested, adding that they also went from one trench to another.
Witness Slavisa Markovic, who guarded a road towards Zaglavak in Kocarim village, said that the Fourth Company was in charge of a huge area – between Visegrad and Zaglavak.
Speaking about the situation in Visegrad prior and after the breakout of the conflict, the witnesses said that the situation was tense and that Muslim extremists caused a few incidents, like setting a flag on fire, destroying a monument erected in honour of Ivo Andric and a tunnel leading to Serbia. They said that beatings, murders and arrests took place after that.
As they said, Serbs left Visegrad out of fear and returned with the arrival of the Uzice Corps, which was followed by departure of the Bosniak population.
“They beat my father up back in September 1991, while he was on his way to the ‘Varda’ furniture factory in order to take a car part. He came across a Muslim barricade. They beat him up,” witness Cebic said.
The trial is due to continue on November 12.
