Saric Escorted Bosniak Prisoners from Jagomir

The witness, Ismet Pandzic,  said that he was in a group of around 60 men who were released from the Jagomir hospital in June 1992.

“Saric told us: ‘While you’re with me, don’t be afraid, no one will shoot you!’” said the witness.

Pandzic, who was held captive in the Jagomir hospital building for several days in June 1992, said that the defendant addressed them in the hospital yard telling them they were going to be released and then escorted them to a point on the road, after which they went on their own.

“I did not know Saric, but the people from the group told me his name,” said Pandzic.

Goran Saric is charged, as head of the police station in the Serb municipality Centre in Sarajevo, with ordering all men from Nahorevo to come to the community centre on June 19, 1992, after which around 100 Bosniaks were taken and imprisoned in the Jagomir hospital building.

According to the indictment, on June 21, 1992, Saric separated the prisoners into three groups. Sixty were taken by force to Sarajevo, 26 in the second group were transferred to the Bunker camp in Vogosca, while 11 from the third group were later killed at Skakavac in Sarajevo.

The protected witness S5 also testified at the trial, saying that in 1992 he was a guard in the Jagomir hospital, where imprisoned Bosniak men from Nahorevo were held. S5 said that one day when he came to work he saw the men in a column.

“Goran Saric and another two men were there as the prisoners were entering the truck. One group left for Vogosca, while the other was released, but I don’t know who decided who will go where,” said S5. 

The prosecutor, Munib Halilovic, told the witness S5 that other witnesses said he helped them be transferred to the group slated for the town, and asked the witness whether that was true.

“I helped no one, why would I not tell you if I had done it?” said the witness S5.

The witness said that even before the Bosniaks were separated into groups at the Jagomir hospital he received an order to take the men from the hospital to Pale, Bosnian Serb de facto capital during the Bosnian war.

 “When we arrived to Pale, I asked what we would do with the men, and one policeman said: ‘We will kill them’.  I requested another option, so we returned them to Jagomir,” said the witness.

He claimed that upon returning to the hospital he saw Saric. “He told me: ‘Why did you bring them to me?’, but I left the people there and went home,” said S5.

The trial resumes on October 1, 2012.