Witness Denies Having Participated in War with Indictee

Branislav Cubrilovic, known as Cubro, said that indictee Oliver Krsmanovic read him a certain document, indicating that he “had something to do with taking Hamid Oprasic’s away from his house”.
 
Cubrilovic said that, in that way he found out that Mujesira Oprasic, the wife of Oprasic, who was taken away, suspected him of having killed her husband in collaboration with Krsmanovic and Milan Lukic, as well as other persons, and threatened her child.
 
“I do not know where Hamed’s house is. I did not know his wife. (…) While we were in the field, people said that he was killed in a hotel in Visegrad,” Cubrilovic said.
 
He said that, in May 1992 he was on the frontline on the left bank of River Drina towards Sjemec and Rogatica, “which can be proved in my Commander’s archives”.
 
The indictment charges Krsmanovic with having participated, along with Milan Lukic and other members of the Republika Srpska Army, in the forced disappearance of Hamed Oprasic on May 25, 1992.
 
The former member of the Second Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade of VRS is charged with having participated in the murders, rape, torture and other inhumane acts against Bosniak civilians in Visegrad in 1992.  
Witness Cubrilovic said that he did not know Milan Lukic, who was sentenced, before The Hague Tribunal, to life imprisonment for having committed crimes in Visegrad.
 
“I know Oliver Krsmanovic. I knew his late father as well. We were not friends, but we greeted each other in the street. We never participated in the war together,” the witness said.
 
Also, he mentioned that he did not know whether Krsmanovic had any military engagement, but he had never seen him wearing uniform, but “only transporting some things by truck”.
 
Cubrilovic said that he did not know whether there was an indictment against him, but newspapers wrote about him as well.
 
Second Defence witness Srdjan Vucicevic said that he was mobilised as a guard in the “Uzamnica” military barracks, where Bosniak civilians were brought, in June 1992.
 
“They were brought by police. We had nothing to do with them. We kept guard about 100 metres away from their hangar,” the witness said, adding that there were about 20 security guards, who worked in shifts.
 
He said that he did not see Krsmanovic visiting “Uzamnica”.
 
“I did not know Milan Lukic, but I used to see him come to the military barracks with his unit, whose members were not from Visegrad. In the end I left the building, because they mistreated those people,” the witness said.
 
The trial is due to continue on December 9.