Witness Asks Not to Testify at Condric Trial

A state prosecution witness at the Mato Condric trial has asked the court to allow him not to testify. He said he has had severe mental health problems since his wartime detention, and as a result didn’t feel capable of testifying. Mato Condric has been charged with war crimes in the Bosanksi Brod area in 1992.

“I am not capable of testifying. I will do it if I have to, but I could get sick at any moment,” the witness said. He said he’d been in therapy since his release from detention.

Trial chamber chairman Saban Maksumic postponed the examination of the witness, pending a decision on his mental health. He asked the state prosecution to provide the court with the witness’s medical documentation.

Condric, a former member of the military police with the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), has been charged with allowing two unidentified HVO members rape a woman in the boiler room of the Polet football stadium in Bosanski Brod in late July or early August 1992.

According to the charges, Condric pointed his pistol at the injured party. After the HVO members had raped her, he humiliated and sexually abused her.

Condric has been charged with participating in the mental and physical abuse of a person on the premises of an old public safety station. He has also been charged with beating one person, along with another HVO member, in a prison located in the Beograd department store.

The next hearing will be held on April 8.