Bosnian Serb Officer Urges Rogatica Crimes Acquittal

“The prosecution has not specified any concrete punishable action committed by my client in the indictment,” Carkic said.

Radomir Markovic, Mile Kusic, Dragan Bozovic, Sasa Perkovic, Radomir Gluhovic, Pero Radovic and Ilija and Milos Vukasinovic have been charged with searching and pillaging houses in the villages of Karacici, Vragolovi and Golubovici on September 18, 1992, acting in collaboration with a other unidentified persons.

It is alleged that they found about 20 Bosniaks in a garage in Karacici, hit them with rifle butts, pushed them into a nearby building, killed them and set the building on fire. According to the charges, Markovic was the commander of the Socicka Company of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Rogaticka Brigade, while the other defendants were members of the unit.

Also on Tuesday, while testifying at the trial of Naser Oric and Sabahudin Muhic for crimes in the villages of Zalazje, Lolici and Kunjerac in Srebrenica, a prosecution witness described how she found out about the death of her husband, Slobodan Ilic.

Jelica Ilic said she saw her husband, who used to work as a judge in Srebrenica and later on in Bratunac, for the last time in mid-June 1992. She said that she had left to live in Serbia with her two sons, but visited Bratunac briefly in order to meet her husband, who had been jailed by the Bosnian Army.

“He seemed exhausted. He was unshaven. The hygienic conditions were non-existent,” Ilic said.

She said that after having returned to Serbia, the woman with whom she was staying in Serbia told her that a massacre had happened and people been killed, and that there was no information about her husband Slobodan’s fate. The witness and her son went to the health centre in Bratunac, where they had brought the people who were killed, but her husband was not among them.

“Rumours circulated that he was transported to Srebrenica,” the witness said, adding that his remains were later exhumed from a waste depot in Zalazje.

Oric and Muhic, former members of the Territorial Defence forces of the Bosnian Army, have been charged with participating in the murder of captive Slobodan Ilic in the village of Zalazje. They have also been charged with killing two more members of the Bosnian Serb Army. The indictment alleges that Oric was the commander of the Territorial Defence Headquarters of the Bosnian Army, while Muhic was a member of the Territorial Defence force.