Three Bosnian Serb fighters went on trial in Sarajevo for war crimes against civilians who were killed at a village mosque in the north-west of the country in 1992.
Dragomir Soldat, Zoran Babic and Velemir Djuric went on trial on Thursday, charged with participating in the expulsion and murder of non-Serb civilians and other inhuman acts in the village of Carakovo in the north-western Bosnian municipality of Prijedor between late April and late September 1992.
“In the morning of July 23, 1992, Babic and Djuric, together with persons known only to them, under orders from Soldat, led men out of houses in Carakovo and took them to the local mosque, where they executed them,” said the prosecutor, Slavica Terzic.
Some of the men survived the execution, she added, but died after defendants Djuric and Babic, along with some other people, set the mosque on fire.
On the same day, the indictment specified, Soldat went with another person to the house of villager Mirzan Mujadzic and told the soldier to take him out of the house with the intention of killing him, which he did.
Prosecutor Terzic told the court that eyewitnesses would describe the roles of the defendants at the time, and confirm the actions defined in the indictment.
According to the indictment, Soldat was a military policeman in the 43rd Motorised Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, Djuric a member of the Intelligence Centre, and Babic a reservist policeman, a member of the First Intervention Platoon at the police station in Prijedor.
In her opening argument, Babic’s lawyer Slavica Bajic said that the defendant was not guilty and that the prosecution could not prove the allegations against him. The other two defendants’ lawyers did not present opening arguments.
The first prosecution witness will be called on March 28.
Timeline of events in the case against 13 former Serb fighters charged with committing war crimes in the villages of Cuska, Zahac, Ljubenic and Pavlac in Kosovo in 1999.