At the trial for war crimes in Sanski Most, a prosecution witness claimed that he saw the defendant Predrag Prosic leaving the yard of a house in which he saw dead bodies.
The witness, Huse Trozic, said he saw three soldiers leaving the house of Hilmo Hegic in May 1992. He said that soldiers Mico and Sergij were not armed, while Prosic carried an automatic rifle, but he hadn’t heard any shots.
He added that he left the scene soon afterwards but he got suspicious and returned an hour and a half later.
“Through the window I saw bodies lying under the stairs leading to the upper floor. The house next door was on fire. Hegic’s house was not on fire yet at the time,” recalled the witness.
The Bosnian State Prosecution charged Prosic, former soldier of the Sixth Sana Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) with going to Hegic’s house on May 27, 1992, killing eight civilians there, setting the house on fire and leaving.
Prosic’s defence confronted the witness with a statement he gave in 2003.
The lawyer, Svetozar Davidovic, pointed out to the witness the inconsistencies with his testimony in court – that all three soldiers were armed and that he did not mention looking at the dead bodies through the window.
Trozic replied that the claims from the earlier statement were not true, adding added that the attack on the settlements of Muhici and Mahala, near Sanski Most, in which over 7,000 Bosniaks lived, began in late May 1992.
“The first grenade fell into my yard,” the witness recalled, adding that on the day after there was an announcement on the radio that all Bosniaks should put up white bed sheets on their houses.
The witness said that “ethnic cleansing” started soon afterwards, and that he and other Bosniak men were locked up in the sports hall in Sanski Most. After a while he was moved from Sanski Most to the Manjaca camp, where he was held for six months.
Prosic is also charged with taking part in the expulsion of Bosniaks in late May 1992 from Sanski Most.
A testimony was also heard from Miroslav Mudrinic, a member of Prosic’s unit, who said that in late May 1992 he saw houses burning in the settlements of Muhici and Mahala.
The trial will resume on August 31.
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.