Witness Describes Exhumation of Parents Killed in Karacici Attack

Vasvija Vrazalica said she fled Karacici and went to Gorazde with her family at the beginning of August. She said her parents, Salko and Latifa Pinjo, stayed in the village.

She said her father had difficulties walking and used a cane. She said her mother could move although her spine was broken, but couldn’t leave her father alone.

“We heard they set Karacici on fire and killed them,” Vrazalica said. She said she heard this while she was in Gorazde, but she could not specify who told her about the killings.

She said she heard the perpetrators killed her parents in a garage. She also said she heard that Behija Dobraca and Zahida Pinjo were with her parents and also killed.

Vrazalica said she attended their exhumation. She said the bones of her parents as well as the remains of Dobraca and Pinjo were found in a stable, along with part of her father’s vest, a belt buckle, golden jewellery, a key and “big capsules.”

Defendants Radomir Markovic, Mile Kusic, Dragan Bozovic, Sasa Perkovic, Radomir Gluhovic, Pero Radovic, Ilija Vukasinovic and Milos Vukasinovic have been charged with the killings in Karacici. According to the charges, they found about 20 Bosniak civilians hiding in a garage in the village on September 18, 1992. They allegedly beat the civilians with rifle butts, pushed them into a nearby building, killed them and set the building on fire.

They have also been charged with searching and pillaging houses in the villages of Karacici, Vragolovi and Golubovici.

According to the charges, Markovic was the commander of the Socicka Company of the Rogaticka Brigade of the Bosniak Serb Army, while the others were members of that unit.

The trial will continue on March 29.