Criminal Report Against Defendants Dismissed

A witness at the Nebojsa Loncarevic and Boran Makivic trial said that a criminal report against the defendants was filed during the war, but wasn’t pursued.

The witness, Zdravko Samardzija, said he was a member of the special police unit Banja Luka in 1992. He said the unit “functioned according to very strict rules.”

According to Samardzija, the defendants were members of the special police unit. He said he filed a criminal report against him.

Loncarevic and Makivic, former members of the Special Purposes Police Squad with the safety service center in Banja Luka, have been charged with killing a civilian on July 8, 1992.

“Someone reported that two members of the special unit committed some crime. That was why all the members were gathered at the military barracks at Rakovacke Bare in Banja Luka. The report indicated that the crime was committed by Loncarevic and Makivic. They were present at the gathering. The injured parties walked past them three times, but they didn’t recognize them, so the report was dismissed,” Samardzija said.

Samardzija said the situation in the unit was difficult during June and July 1992, because seven members of the unit had been killed in an operation in the village of Vecici near Kotor-Varos.

Testifying as a witness for the defense, Danko Kajkut, Loncarevic and Makivic’s former commander, said the defendants were in Kotor-Varos in July 1992, due to the death of their comrades.

“In that period we were in a state of alarm and readiness. We planned an operation in order to evacuate the bodies of our killed members. I am saying that Loncarevic and Makivic were in Kotor-Varos the whole time and that no members of the unit could have been absent from the unit,” Kajkut said.

He said an operation was planned for July 9, 1992 and that the unit replenished their stocks of ammunition and other resources needed for the next day’s operation on July 8.

Witness Nenad Stevandic said he worked for the state security during 1992 and went to Kotor-Varos on St. Vitus Day and on another occasion, when the operations were conducted.

He told the court he knew Loncarevic and Makivic, who were members of the Special Police Unit in Banja Luka at that time.

“This unit was very well organized. It functioned according to military principles, so it was deployed to the most dangerous battlefields. All its members had to respect the rules or else they would be expelled from the unit,” Stevandic said.

The trial resumes on April 23.