A witness of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) recounted being in a convoy stopped on Dobrovoljacka Street on May 3rd, 1992, and being taken to a gym where he was beaten several times.
Zdeno Milincic said that in May 1992, he was in the command of the Second Military District in Sarajevo as a member of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), which was fired upon on May 2nd, however, he said that events began earlier in April.
“We experienced hell. We were under fire all night. We barely survived; there were wounded,” said the witness in response to Prosecutor Mladen Vukojicic’s question about the start of the attack on the JNA barracks.
He recounted that an order came from the command in Lukavica to vacate the barracks, and on May 3rd in the morning, they were loading things into trucks. He said they were supposed to leave earlier through Skenderija to Lukavica, but the departure was delayed. The convoy left around 5-6 p.m., he said.
Milincic stated that he was in a truck with two other soldiers and that a white transporter with United Nations (UN) markings was at the front.
“I didn’t see who was in it. We were informed that Kukanjac was there and that Alija would come,” said the witness.
As the convoy moved, he heard gunfire and was ordered to exit the vehicle. He saw uniformed individuals, people in blue uniforms, armed civilians, and green berets, which he described as “green caps with lilies.”
They were ordered to lie on the asphalt, and he was beaten several times with a rifle stock.
“Suddenly, someone said we were moving. They led us across the Miljacka, cursing… We arrived there, I didn’t even know what it was called at the time; I was 18. They took us to some gym,” said Milincic.
In the gym, according to his account, there was a lot of beating and mistreatment, and he was hit twice when he asked to go to the bathroom. He recounted that officers and non-commissioned officers were taken away and returned beaten and bloody. He was transferred to Lukavica on May 5th.
He stated that he was filing a property claim because he had trauma from this event.
Ejup Ganic, Zaim Backovic, Hamid Bahto, Hasan Efendic, Fikret Muslimovic, Jusuf Pusina, Bakir Alispahic, Enes Bezdrob, Ismet Dahic, and Mahir Zisko, who held high political, military, and police positions, are accused of the attack on the convoy, killing, wounding, and mistreating JNA members and civilians.
Backovic’s defense attorney, Jesenka Residovic, asked the witness if he remembered that the shelling of Sarajevo began from JNA positions on April 6th and that shots were fired from the Bistrik barracks on April 26th, killing Senad Secerovic and his driver. Milincic said he knew nothing of this.
In a statement he gave in 2011, Residovic said the witness did not mention any military insignia of the attackers on the convoy, only mentioning paramilitary formations. The witness confirmed this and stated that for him, the JNA was “the only army and everything else were paramilitary formations.”
He confirmed that he was transferred from the gym to Lukavica on May 5th, then to Han Pijesak, and was a member of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) until the end of the war.
Attorney Senad Pizovic, who represented Muslimovic and Pusina, asked if it was true that the gym where they were taken was on Bascarsija, which the witness confirmed.
Alispahic’s defense attorney, Mirna Avdibegovic, asked the witness if he was armed and if he fired from the Bistrik barracks, to which he responded that “everyone has to defend themselves” and that he did not fire before May 2nd.
The trial continues on September 18th, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
