News in English     | 29.01.2020. 09:26 |

Tensions flare as Bosnian Serb accuses fellow ex-fighters of Štrpci massacre

FENA Internet

BELGRADE/SARAJEVO, January 29 (FENA) - Former Bosnian Serb fighter Mićo Jovičić became the first witness to testify that five fellow Serb ex-fighters were involved in the kidnapping and killing of 20 passengers from a train at Štrpci in Bosnia in 1993.

Mićo Jovičić, a wartime volunteer fighter for Bosnian Serb forces, told Belgrade Higher Court that all five defendants on trial for the kidnapping and killing of 20 passengers from a train at Štrpci station in Bosnia and Herzegovina were at the crime scenes when the offenses were committed.

The testimony on Monday and Tuesday from Jovičić, who is currently serving a five-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to the same crime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sparked anger from the defendants and disputes flared in the courtroom, BIRN reports.

Jovičić named defendants Gojko Lukić, Duško and Gojko Vasiljević, Jovan Lipovac and Dragana Đekić as being present when the crimes were committed. Apart from Lipovac, who was a Bosnian Serb Army soldier, they were all members of the Avengers paramilitary unit.

According to the indictment, on February 27, 1993, a group of fighters came to the train station at Štrpci, near the Bosnia-Serbia border, and forced the train dispatcher to stop a train from Belgrade that was passing by on its way to Montenegro.

Some of them entered the carriages, started identifying passengers by their identity documents, and took 20 non-Serbs off the train. All of them were subsequently killed.

Jovičić told the court how he and his co-fighter Nebojša Ranisavljević were ordered by Avengers leader Milan Lukić and fellow fighter Boban Inđić to go to Štrpci station. Jovičić said he did not go into the train but put seized passengers into a truck.

The truck took the passengers to a primary school in Prelovo. Jovičić said he stayed in front of the school to smoke a cigarette but went in when he heard screams.

In the school gym, he said he saw Milan Lukić beating one civilian, while the other passengers were lined up and hit with a rifle butt if they said anything.

“I saw that people were tied up, some with wire and some with rope. Some were half naked, some were wearing vests, and most of them were barefoot. Someone was asking for a blanket and someone from the mass of soldiers said: ‘Where you are going, you will not need a blanket,’” Jovičić testified.

He said that truck then took the passengers to a burned-out house in the village of Musići, where Milan Lukić and Boban Inđić killed them.

Milan Lukić, the leader of the Avengers, was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2014 by the Hague Tribunal for wartime crimes, but not for the Štrpci massacre. The Bosnian prosecutor’s office indicted him for Štrpci in December 2019.

Boban Inđić is one of the defendants in an ongoing trial in Bosnia for the Štrpci crimes.

The trial hearings in Belgrade on Monday and Tuesday were marred by flare-ups between the prosecutor and defense lawyers, as well as between lawyers, defendants and the witness.

When Duško Vasiljević’s lawyer asked Jovičić to point out the defendant, Vasiljević jumped from his seat, moved towards the witness and said: “Do not lie!” Court security guards prevented the incident from escalating further.

All the defendants insisted that they were not present at the crime scene, accusing Jovičić of lying and yelling that he should be ashamed of himself.

(FENA) S. R.

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