Witnesses Describe Killing of Serb Family in Trnovo Area by Croatian Defense Forces

Edhem Godinjak, Medaris Saric and Mirko Bunoza have been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at killing and detaining Serbs in villages in the Trnovo area.

According to the charges, Godinjak was the chief of the public safety station in Trnovo, Saric was the commander of the Territorial Defense Headquarters in Trnovo, while Bunoza was the commander of Croatian Defense Forces units.

Testifying at today’s hearing, state prosecution witness and former Territorial Defense member Arif Koso said he participated in an operation aimed at clearing the village of Presjenica and freeing the road towards Igman and Bjelasnica. He said he saw police officer Hamdija Krupalija, who organized the transportation of captured Serb civilians.

The state prosecution said that in an earlier statement Koso said defendant Edhem Godinjak participated in organizing the transport of Serb captives to Dejcici. Koso said he assumed that was the case and said Godinjak wasn’t physically present.

Koso said the captured Serb civilians were not mistreated. Koso said after the area was cleared, the Cvjetic family was the only Serb family that remained in the area because they didn’t want to leave.

Koso said members of the Croatian Defense Forces and three electric technicians went to the hydroelectric plant in Bogatici in late May or early June 1992. He said his apartment was near the plant, and he was told the soldiers and technicians were reconstructing a transmission line towards the mountains. He said the soldiers asked him where Serb families lived in the area.

“I didn’t know the names of the HOS members. Sok, Rebro, Zijo, who talked the most, they were there. They told me to accompany them on the following morning in order to show them the terrain and the location of trenches,” Koso said.

He said he showed Rebro a trench the next day and killed an old woman named Dragica Cvjetic.

“I saw he told her something and then took a kitchen knife and slaughtered her. I heard gurgling. I asked him why he had done that and he said, ‘You do what you’re supposed to do and I’ll do what I’m supposed to do,’” Koso said. He said he then heard banging noises coming from the direction of other houses inhabited by the Cvjetic family.

Koso said a group of Croatian Defense Forces forced other members of the Cvjetic family into houses and liquidated them.

“Had I tried anything, they would have killed me,” Koso said. He said he didn’t file an official report regarding the killings.

He said he also knew about the killing of three Serbs in Kijevo. Responding to questions from the defense, Koso said he didn’t exclude the possibility that the three Serbs were killed accidentally and weren’t murdered.

Also testifying at this hearing, a protected witness known as V said he was sent to repair a transmission line leading to Igman and Bjelasnica with members of Croatian Defense Forces and two electricity technicians.

He said the soldiers walked towards houses inhabited by the Cvjetic family, adding that he heard gunshots coming from that direction. He said he heard on the following day that members of the Croatian Defense Forces had killed members of the Cvjetic family.

He said he didn’t know and couldn’t remember whether Arif Koso accompanied them on their way back from the hydroelectric plant on that day.

Danilo Bjelica was the last witness to testify at today’s hearing. Bjelica said a captive named Ferid Zagorac told him in Kalinovik that his uncle and aunt, Vaso and Bosa Bjelica, had been killed in Trnovo. Bjelica said Zagorac told him a man named Sabahudin Karacic tied them to a car with a cable and drove the car around.

“Their bodies were found in 1993, when Serbs occupied Trnovo. They also found the cable and ropes around their ankles,” he said.

The trial will continue on January 12, 2016.