Witness Describes Persecution and Detention of Serb Civilians in Livno

Zdenko Andabak, Muamir Jasarevic and Sead Velagic have been charged with the detention, torture and murder of Serb civilians who were detained in the Ivan Goran Kovacic school building in Livno in 1992. The indictment charges them with 29 counts of detention, torture and murder.

Andabak was the commander of military police with the Croatian Defense Council for the operational zone of North-Western Herzegovina. Jasarevic was Andabak’s deputy. Velagic was a member the Croatian Defense Council’s military police in Livno.

They have been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise from April to September 1992, with the aim of forcibly and permanently removing the Serb population from the Livno area.

State prosecution witness Vitko Duvnjak testified at today’s hearing. He said the Croatian Democratic Party took over Livno during the beginning of the war, although Serbs and Bosniaks made up the majority of the town. According to Duvnjak, most Serbs left Livno in March and April 1992 out of fear.

Duvnjak said he was held in detention at the Ivan Goran Kovacic school building in Livno for five or six days in June or July 1992.

“I reported to the police in the morning. We were obliged to report at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m…Police came to our apartment and said we had to report to the school building, not just me and my wife, but all Serbs,” Duvnjak said. He said he and his wife, as well as the neighbouring Bulovic family, went to the school building with the police.

Duvnjak said he and other civilians were held in the school building. He said most of the Serbs who hadn’t left Livno were held there.

“To me, personally, the conditions weren’t bad, because nobody mistreated me. There were five men with shaved heads who had been brought from Split. They were from Tuzla. As far as I heard, they ended up in the worst possible way. Bajilo was also brutally mistreated,” Duvnjak said. He said his wife was released from the school earlier, and would come to visit him and bring him coffee.

Duvnjak said he didn’t know defendant Zdenko Andabak, but he heard he saved his friends Milos and Bosko in Veliki Guber from imprisonment. He said he knew Andabak’s father, a waiter named Pavo Andabak, very well.

Duvnjak said that prior to his detention in the school building he was held in police garages in Livno. He said he was detained until he gave a statement and handed over two semi-automatic rifles and some ammunition that had been given to him by the Serbian Democratic Party in late 1991.

Responding to a question by Andabak, Duvnjak said his name was included in a Red Cross list which allowed him to leave Livno in the summer of 1993.

The trial will continue on September 30.