Defense Witness Claims No Knowledge of Mitar Vlasenko’s Alleged Crimes

The state prosecution has charged Mitar Vlasenko, Rade Vlasenko and Drago Koncar with participating in the persecution of the non-Serb civilian population from the Prijedor area from May 24 to mid-August 1992. The indictment alleges that forcible disappearances happened as part of the persecution.

State prosecution witness Rade Kostic said he knew Mitar Vlasenko from before the war.

“Nobody has ever told me anything bad about Mitar,” Kostic said.

Kostic said he noticed that checkpoints and watches were formed on a road leading to his village of Jaruge in the municipality of Prijedor at the beginning of May 1992. He described relations between ethnic groups as good before then.

He said he heard that an incident occurred in the village of Kozarusa, leading to a number of killings in June 1992. He said the day of the Kozarusa killings the defendant drove up to his house on a motorbike. He said Vlasenko told him he had just come from Prijedor and wasn’t aware of what happened in Kozarusa.

Kostic said he then went to the center in Jaruge, where he met the defendant again.

“Judging by what they were saying, we realized that on their way home they had come across an ambush set by some army in the hamlet of Cirkini,” Kostic said. He said he heard the attack was carried out by Bosniak forces.

The prosecution asked Kostic if he knew what happened to the local population of Kozarusa and Kozarac. Kostic said he believed residents of the villages left the area, but he didn’t know where they went.

Also testifying at this hearing, Branko Vukadinovic said he saw the bodies of people named Baltic, Bucalo and Lukic in front of the youth center in Jaruge at the beginning of June 1992. He said defendant Mitar Vlasenko was there, among a group of people.

Vukadinovic said while returning from Prijedor the day before, he found out there was a “conflict resulting in both Serb and Muslim casualties.”

He said he heard that the three victims were found and killed in “some hamlet.” He said he heard rumours that a person named Cirkin had set an ambush for them.

Responding to questions from the prosecution, Vukadinovic said the Bosnian Serb Army transported the local population of Kozarusa and Kozarac to detention camps. He said property was destroyed and pillaged in Kozarac, but he didn’t know who was responsible.

The trial will continue on January 26.