“I Might Have Slapped Someone”

Ibro Macic, who is on trial for crimes in Konjic, testified in his own defence and told the court that he might have slapped a prisoner in the school Musala, but that he didn’t commit the crimes for which he is accused.

Macic said that he was a guard in the school for a month and a half in 1993, after he enlisted in Military Police of the Bosnian Army (ABIH).

“I might have slapped a person. I wanted it to be tidy and clean. Someone said something. We were outside, I don’t remember, but it seems to me that he said that the bread was dry,” Macic said.

He pointed out that he didn’t do what he is accused for. He stated that he had not seen injuries on prisoners.

According to him, prisoners in the Musala had food like the guards and family members brought them food, also.

“Food was brought by parents, siblings, they had breakfast, lunch and dinner. They didn’t eat that food because they had food from the side. There was one a man who shared them food,” Macic said.

The Bosnian Prosecution charges Macic that he participated in the torture and sexual abuse of prisoners in the Elementary School “Musala” in Konjic from April to October 1993.

Macic said in his testimony that he left Musla in mid-July and that he didn’t return.

“I don’t remember that I returned again”, the accused said.

Macic is also charged for murders of four old Serbian women in the village of Blace in the beginning of June in 1992.

The accused said that before coming to Musala, he and 16 soldiers, were transferred to clean the field in Rakitnici in 1992. After that, they left to the village Blace, where, as he said, he accidentally fired a shot from a rifle by one house. After that other soldiers entered in that house and from where he heard a burst of gunfire.

“The door creaked, I flinched and shot a bullet,” Macic said.

Answering a question whether he heard that an elderly women were killed in Blace, Macic said that 20 days after that he heard “from Halil that there were some old ladies”.

Answering Prosecutor Sanja Jukic’s questions, Macic confirmed that he fired a shot outside the door of the house, but he said that he never saw a dead person behind the door.

Trial continues on November 21.