News about Rackovic’s Wounding

Witness Zeljko Rosic went to Zagalavak Hill in mid-June 1992 as a member of the Reconnaissance Group.

“We stayed there for a few days. We joined a group, which had already been there. We then returned to Crvenka,” the witness said, adding that he went to Zaglavak again later on and that he saw indictee Rackovic there.

The witness said that it was known to him that Rackovic was wounded during the war.

“I think he was wounded three times. His first wounding happened in mid-June. He was on sick leave after that,” he said.

Rackovic, a former member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with having participated in attacks on Bosniak villages, detention, torture and forced disappearances of people from the Visegrad area, as well as rape, from May to the end of August 1992.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, alleges that some of the unlawfully arrested persons have never been found, while bodies of some of the civilians were exhumed from Slap location in Zepa in 2000.

Second Defence witness Vlajko Mirkovic told the Court that he heard that Rackovic was wounded in Kopito village.

“I was not present, because I was on a military line in Kocari, but I heard about it. The news about Rackovic’s wounding was spread,” he said.

Mirkovic said that he joined the Fourth Company in mid-June, but that a part of the unit had already been on Zaglavak Hill, adding that he thought that the indictee was at that location as well.

He said that Murat and Avdija Sabanovic, as well as some other people, “caused trouble” for Serbs in that town at the beginning of the war.

The last Defence witnesses are due to be examined at the next hearing scheduled for December 24.