Witnesses Describe Killing of Trnovo Civilians in May 1992

The defendants have been charged with committing crimes against Serb civilians and prisoners of war in the Trnovo area. They are on trial for allegedly 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, while Bunoza was the commander of Croatian Defense Forces units.

Testifying at today’s hearing, state prosecution witness Milorad Staka said local residents of Ledici tried to defend themselves when the village was attacked, but were overwhelmed and fled. They hid in forests near Trnovo for three days before fleeing to the village of Krupac.

About twenty elderly civilians stayed behind in the village. Staka’s stepfather and stepmother, as well as a few cousins, were among them. Staka said he didn’t know what happened to his stepfather for months until a pre-war friend told him. Staka said his friend told him his stepfather was in the village until, one day, he went to a local store to buy cigarettes.

“I was a member of the Bosnian Serb Army at the time. I asked them to let me know if there were any captives from Trnovo. When my friend Omer Djozo was brought to the Kula prison, I visited him. He told me that three soldiers had taken my stepfather away from the local store. When they returned, one of them said, ‘The grandpa got cigarettes,’” Staka said.

Staka said Djozo told him that his stepfather’s body had been burned, because his body began decomposing.

“When the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army] took over Trnovo, I went there and dug his body out in the vicinity of a brook. I only found bigger bones. The rest had been burnt. We found my stepmother’s body in a house that had been burned down. Another woman’s body was found under sand at a nearby location,” Staka said.

State prosecution witness Krsto Miovcic was the second witness to testify at today’s hearing. Miovcic described attacks on Ledici in July 1992. He said after a battle that lasted the entire night, most of the soldiers and civilians fled the village. He said a few elderly civilians stayed behind.

“Five old women and a married couple were killed. Later on I heard they were killed by HOS [Croatian Defense Forces] members,” Miovcic said. He said he saved a few Bosniaks when he came across them during the evacuation of the village.

He said he had never seen defendant Edhem Godinjak in Ledici.

State prosecution witness Milorad Vasic said he found the mortal remains of his mother, Savka, a year after her murder. He said his mother was killed in a house in Ledici. After the Bosnian Serb Army took over the municipality of Trnovo in 1993, Vasic and his brother returned to Ledici to bury his mother.

“I knew she had been killed, because refugees from Ledici who’d come to Vojkovici via Mount Igman a year before, told me about it…We found my mother buried at a dump site. I would have never found her, had it not been for Hamdija Krupalija. He gave the order to bury her. We recognized her from her clothes. We never found her head,” Vasic said.

He said he visited Ledici five years ago and went to a local cafe. While he was there, he was told, in confidence, that Hamdo Ramic from the village of Trebecaj could possibly be his mother’s murderer.

The trial will continue on February 2.