Witness Describes Search and Killing of Civilians in Irice by Bosnian Serb Forces

The witness, known as S-1, testified from a separate cabin. He described how soldiers and policemen came to the village and searched people’s homes, claiming they were looking for weapons.

They beat people, mistreated them, and removed them from their homes. We had to bring flour and oil out,” S-1 said. He said he didn’t remember when the search took place, but said that it happened “sometime around the beginning of the war.”

S-1 said six people were separated from their families and taken to a road in the village. He identified the six people by name. He said their bodies were found and buried later on.

“I was also taken to the checkpoint, but policeman Zivkovic, who knew me, came by. He tapped me on the shoulder and took me into the house. If he hadn’t come by, I probably wouldn’t be here right now,” said S-1.

The Bosnian state prosecution has charged Dragan Marjanovic, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic, Zoran Sljuka, Dragomir Kezunovic and Dario Slavuljica with participating in an attack against the Bosniak and Croat population in Teslic, detaining them on police premises, as well as on the premises of the Territorial Defense and a military prison, from June 1992 to June 30, 1993.

The defendants have also been charged with taking 28 civilians, who were detained at the Teslic police station and the Pribinic prison, to Mount Borje and killing them on the night of June 17 or 18, 1992.

According to the charges, at the time Marjanovic was the commander of the First Squad of the military police of the Teslicka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, while the other defendants were members of that squad and also members of a paramilitary formation known as “Mice.”

S-1 said that during the search of Irice he saw several policemen from Teslic. He said he didn’t notice the markings on the uniforms of the other policemen.

He said he heard some of the policemen call each other “Mice, or by their last names.”

Defense attorney Slavko Asceric asked S-1 why he failed to mention the Mice paramilitary formation in a statement he had given in 2006. S-1 said, “maybe no one asked him that.”

S-1 said he was arrested by military police later on, because he failed to respond to a call for military service.

The trial will continue on April 23.