In the continuation of the trial of Ilija Elez, accused of a crime committed in the area of Foca, the witness of the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Trebinje, Hajra Aljukic, said that she heard about the murders in Miljevina from her neighbor Vojka Tesevic.
The witness told the Trebinje District Court that she heard from Vojka Tesevic that two men “killed Hrbinic and Ramovic and that they were driving them in a forklift” and that the same neighbor told her that it was done by Ilija Elez and a certain Nedjo, whose last name she does not know.
Defense attorney Slavisa Prodanovic presented the witness with an earlier statement she gave to the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), in which she said that it was the first time she heard from the SIPA investigator that Elez was mentioned in connection with these murders.
The lawyer asked why she did not tell the investigators then that she had heard from her neighbor Vojka that Ilija Elez was being linked to the murders, the witness said that she could not remember everything at that moment.
The indictment accuses Ilija Elez that he, together with another person in June 1992 in Miljevina, in the municipality of Foca, as a member of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS), took four civilians away and, by firing a firearm, killed four civilians – Ahmet and Ramo Ramovic, Hamdo Muhovic and Halil Hrbinic aka Muriz.
Prosecution witness Branko Elez said that he heard that civilians were killed by Nedjo Golubovic, who admitted it to him after the war.
“I was the commander of the fire department in the mine and then they accepted him to be a fireman. That man was always under the influence of alcohol. Then we were sitting and I asked him: ‘Nedjo, what happened to you to kill all those Muslims?’, and he said to me like this: ‘Shut up, before I kill you too!’ And he started to attack me. I grabbed him and beat him,” said the witness and added that since then it has been difficult for him to enter the building because he lived on the second floor and Golubovic lived on the third floor.
The continuation of the trial is scheduled for May 12th, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
