Bosnia Witness Recalls Prisoner Convoy Killings

The protected witness ‘M3’ said one of the defendants, Ljubomir Tasic, ordered him to leave the village of Cengici near Visegrad in eastern Bosnia on June 13, 1992.

The next day, M3 said, a truck came and villagers were “put on the truck and taken to Bosanska Jagodina, and then to Visegrad”, where they were ordered onto buses.

“We did not know then where we were going,” said the witness, who added that his son was also taken away in the convoy.

He said that the soldier who was guarding the convoy told him to leave the bus near the village of Kolakovici together with other older men, women and children, while the younger men were ordered to remain.

“When we got out, the people who stayed on the buses were driven back. We started counting how many of them were missing. Fifty-four men who were returned by buses were missing, among them my son,” said the witness.

He said that he later learned that his son was murdered alongside the other Bosniaks.

The prosecution has charged Predrag Milisavljevic, Milos Pantelic and Ljubomir Tasic, also known as ‘Ljupko’, with involvement in murders, the forced transfer of people and other crimes.

According to the prosecution, the Bosniak men who were separated from the convoy were murdered near the Paklenik pit, not far from the eastern Bosnian town of Sokolac.

Only one man managed to flee the executions, the prosecution says.

Defendants Milisavljevic and Pantelic are charged with participating in the murder of several dozen Bosniaks near the pit.

The two of them, together with Tasic, are also charged with participating in the forced transfer of over 500 Bosniak civilians from Visegrad.

The indictment says that Milisavljevic and Pantelic committed the offences while they were police reservists in Visegrad, while Tasic was serving with the Bosnian Serb Army.

The trial is set to resume on February 5.