Witness Said He Heard About “Problematic” Arrests at Cobic Trial
A prosecution witness testifying at the trial of Dragan Cobic told the district court of Bijeljina that he heard about problematic arrests in 1992.
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The district prosecution of Bijeljina has charged Dragan Cobic, a former member of the Interventions Squad of the Bijeljina police station, with arresting Mustafa Salkovic and Faruk Bilalic on September 11, 1992. Cobic and four other unknown perpetrators allegedly drove them in an unknown direction and killed them.
Witness Zoran Novakovic, the former leader of a police interventions team, said he visited police forces in Bijeljina to submit a report to his commander on September 12, 1992.
“When I came, Dragan Cobic was already there. He said it was his day off. When I asked what Cobic was doing there, the commander told me there had been certain problems with arrests on the previous day, and that was it,” Novakovic said.
Novakovic said he found out from his colleagues a few days later that some of the people arrested had disappeared and that their parents asked what had happened to them. He said he didn’t inquire further.
Novakovic, who was in charge of writing daily reports, was also questioned regarding a patrol warrant dated from September 11, 1992.
He said he was sure the warrant contained the daily report as well, although the prosecutor’s copy didn’t contain such a report.
Novakovic said he saw the report when inspector Radomir Eric invited him to an informative interview regarding the disappearance of Salkovic and Bilalic. He said he didn’t read the report, which was signed by Zdravko Djuric.
Defense attorney Dejan Bogdanovic asked Novakovic whether he could confirm that the patrol warrant shown to him by Radomir Eric and the warrant presented to him by the prosecutor were the same. Novakovic said he could not confirm that.
Radomir Gajic, the former deputy commander of the Bijeljina police station, also testified at today’s hearing. Gajic’s signature was on the patrol warrant dated for September 11, 1992. After looking at the document, Gajic said his initials were written at the end of the warrant and that the warrant “was declared negative, because no daily report was typed on the back of the document.”
When asked by the defense whether it was possible that the original patrol warrant contained the daily report signed by Zdravko Djuric, Gajic was unable to give a definitive answer.
The trial will continue on December 25.
