Trial Witness ‘Thought Bosnian Ukraine Fighter was Monk’

Igor Krunic told the trial of Gavrilo Stevic at the Bosnian state court on January 28 said he met Stevic in late 2014 when they travelled to Montenegro together and got the impression that he was a very religious man.

“At first I thought he was a monk, because he spoke about faith and visits to monasteries. He spoke about faith most of the time,” the witness said, adding that Stevic introduced himself as “a lawyer and writer”.

Krunic said the defendant also spoke about Ukraine and Russia.

“He is a very strong believer and he was sorry to see two Orthodox peoples confront each other. He said he was in Russia in 2014 and he held literary evenings with some Russian writers and monks,” he said.

Responding to a question from defence lawyer Veljko Civsa, he said he had not heard that the defendant went to Ukraine.
The witness said he went on the two-day trip to Montenegro from Foca with no special purpose, and he did not discuss the fighting in Ukraine with Stevic during the trip.

He said he did not know why the others travelled to Montenegro, but he assumed they went “to attend the establishment of the Balkan Cossack Army [an unarmed pro-Russian organisation with links to the Kremlin]”.

Responding to questions from prosecutor Suada Pasic, the witness said he did not stay in the same room with the defendant during his stay in Montenegro and that he had known Slavenko Kuzmanovic, one of the three people who travelled with him, from before.
Kuzmanovic has testified in the Stevic trial as a prosecution witness.

Responding to a question from presiding judge Branko Peric, the witness said Kuzmanovic’s son was his best man at his wedding recently.

“He is a fierce guy, he likes to fight… I knew he was involved in some warfare, he told me that,” Krunic said of Slavenko Kuzmanovic.
Stevic is charged with having gone to the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk via Belgrade and Moscow in 2014 and joined the Jovan Sevic military unit. According to the charges, Stevic was assigned with a gun and uniform and carried out various military tasks, such as patrolling at checkpoints, until the end of September 2014.

At the hearing, both the prosecution and defence introduced material evidence. The defence presented an order to conduct an investigation and an extract from criminal records on Slavenko Kuzmanovic.

Prosecutor Pasic requested that “new articles published after the confirmation of the indictment” be included with the rest of the evidence.

She said that in the articles, Stevic “comments on [his] motives and does not deny having gone [to Ukraine], but says he went to Ukraine and was assigned a gun, which he did not use”.

The chamber will respond to the proposal to admit the new pieces of evidence at the next hearing after the defence has read the articles.

The trial is set to continue on February 11.