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Analysis: Vlasenica Indictees’s Defence Teams Trade Blame

Denis Dzidic

Bastah i Viskovic

02 December 2009  The lawyers for Predrag Bastah and Goran Viskovic ended up transferring responsibility for the crimes committed in this part of eastern Bosnia in 1992 to each other’s clients.

The defence teams of Predrag Bastah and Goran Viskovic are due to present their closing arguments on December 14 and 17 having examined more than 40 witnesses over the past 10 months. Beforehand, the prosecution is due to do the same on December 7.

The prosecution considers the two men responsible for capturing, beating and killing civilians in the detention camp at Susica and at other locations in Vlasenica, eastern Bosnia, between April and September 1992.

The indictment alleges that Bastah committed these crimes while a member of the reserve forces with the Public Safety Station in Vlasenica while Viskovic was a member of the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

Trading blame for responsibility for the crimes, Bastah’s defence in August accused Viskovic’s defence of “putting pressure on the Bastah family”.

Viskovic’s defence, meanwhile, at one point asked for the cases to be separated. The Trial Chamber rejected the request, saying there were no reasons to do so.

The evidence presentation by Bastah’s defence included examining more than 25 witnesses, including protected witness O1, who said that Viskovic had beaten him and his brother.

“He beat me, my brother and detainee Alihodzic,” witness 01 said. “He kicked me with his legs and put a revolver into my mouth. It was even worse watching him beat my brother and listening to his moaning,” the former detainee in the prison located behind the courthouse in Vlasenica added.
 
Bastah’s defence invited many former members of the Public Safety Station in Vlasenica to testify, and they spoke about police competencies during 1992 and what their former colleague did in that period.

Most denied the allegations in the indictment, charging Bastah with having captured civilians. They spoke about the confused situation in the town at the beginning of the war.

Mane Djuric, former head of the Public Safety Station in Vlasenica, said that for the most part Bastah was tasked with transportation.

“I can’t remember him capturing anybody, but if it happened he must have just accompanied some active policemen,” Djuric said, adding that reserve police had “fewer competencies” than active policemen.

Djuric went on to describe the situation in Vlasenica between April and August 1992 as “completely chaotic”, adding that “the police did not even exist [then] and all actions were carried out by military and paramilitary forces”.  

The former commander of the police in Vlasenica, Radenko Stanic, was invited to testify but refused, acting on the advice of his lawyer who was present in court. Stanic is suspected of having committed the same crimes as the indictees.  

Three former reserve police, Vojislav Nikolic, Luka Stupar and Rade Milic, testified and maintained they did not have the authority to capture civilians and take them to the police station.  

“Nobody gave me any orders to arrest people [as] I was a member of reserve police and we did not have the authority to do that,” Nikolic said. “I didn’t even see the detainees. There were always many policemen around. This may be the reason why I wasn’t able to see them.”

Ljuboje Stanisic, former active policemen with the Public Safety Station in Vlasenica, recalled the arrests but said he could not remember who had carried them out. “I know some people were arrested, some Muslims, but don’t know who did that, or why,” Stanisic said.

Ognjen Ostojic, former member of the Bosnian Serb interior ministry’s National Security Service in Vlasenica, confirmed that some people were arrested, saying the arrests were conducted by “active and reserve policemen.

“I don’t think this was done arbitrarily because they must have received an order from an authorized officer,” Ostojic said. “In those days there were so many people in the Police Station in Vlasenica that I didn’t pay much attention to who was bringing people in there,” he added. “I never saw Bastah mistreating anybody.”

Three Bosniaks from Vlasenica testified for Bastah’s defence, saying he helped them during the war.

Sabrija Gluhic, one of them, said he was grateful to Bastah that he was not taken to the detention camp. “Friday April 25 [1992] was a market day in Vlasenica and I came to the town to buy supplies,” Gluhic said.

“As I was about to go back to my village two policemen approached me and took me to the police station. They took me upstairs and asked me what I was doing there,” he added.

“Bastah then came and told those people I was a creditable householder asking them to let me go.” Gluhic continued that Bastah then took him to his ownhouse before escorting him to his home village.  

“Had he not rescued me, they would have taken me to the detention camp. After the war some people told me that Bastah had helped many people in Vlasenica,” the same witness said.  

During the trial, Bastah said several times that the Crisis Committee was the highest authority in Vlasenica and invited as witnesses Milenko Stanic, former president of the Crisis Committee, and Bozo Milic, president of the board of Vlasenica municipal assembly.

Stanic said the Crisis Committee had functioned “only for about a month during May [1992]”, but never assumed real authority in the town “owing to functional and personnel deficiencies”.

Milic, meanwhile, said the Crisis Committee was established in April 1992 with the purpose of “organizing the civil sector so it could function normally.

“The Crisis Committee was formed very late, after the military had come to Vlasenica,” Milic said.

“You could see total disorder in the streets. People wearing stockings or hats on their hands appeared [on the streets] who were certainly not guys from Vlasenica but members of some paramilitary unit. Everybody was afraid of them,” Milic added.

Bastah’s defence also offered an alibi for him for the count charging him with having taken a minor named Huso Kicic from his house, “by his hair” on June 2, 1992 and taking him to the police station, where he “strongly hit him on his chest with a gun butt”.

Witness Denka Bogosavljevic maintained she spent the entire day with Bastah and his family attending Predrag’s daughter’s birthday party.  

“The party was convened at Bastah’s parent’s place in the village. We left our home at about 7pm. We came back late at night. We were together all the time,” she said.

The defence also tried to prove that Bastah was not entirely accountable for his actions in this period, for which purposes it invited Senadin Ljubovic, a psychiatrist, to testify as an expert witness.

Ljubovic said the indictee’s accountability was “reduced, though not significantly”, in the period up to September 1992. “On the basis of medical documents, including a report from the psychiatric clinic in Sokolac where the indictee stayed on three occasions, and from my discussion with the indictee, I conclude that he suffers from a form of post-traumatic syndrome with signs of regressions and crisis,” the expert witness said. “But he does not show any signs of permanent mental disease,” Ljubovic added.

Viskovic’s defence took another tactic, inviting witnesses to speak about the crimes committed by Muslims against the Bosnian Serbs in Vlasenica.

Zoran Jovanovic, a former TV reporter, maintained that the Bosniaks [Muslims] of Vlasenica had been arming and preparing an “attack” on the Serbs from mid-1991 onwards. During his testimony, the court watched four video recordings allegedly filmed “after an attack conducted by Muslim forces” on various villages near Vlasenica. “From these recordings I wanted to show what really happened. Many Serbs were tortured, slaughtered and mistreated,” Jovanovic said.

Radovan Radinovic, a military court expert, presented an “Analysis of Security Situation in Vlasenica Municipality”, also claiming there was “clear evidence that Muslims were preparing for war”.

Radinovic said that from April to September 1992 a number of Muslims had been “temporarily detained” in the public safety station in Vlasenica courthouse and “Susica collection centre” for their own good.

Prisoners of war were held by the military police while the Bosniak civilians were detained by the Public Safety Station in Vlasenica.

“The Vlasenica authorities had two potential models for protecting Muslims. One was to ensure their protection in their homes, but there were no capacities for doing that,” Radinovic said.

“The second option was gathering all citizens in a collection centre, thus ensuring their safety. As far as I can see the authorities took the only possible option by forming the Susica collection centre,” Radinovic added.

Viskovic’s defence also invited witnesses to testify who said he had helped them during the war and spoke about his good character.  

Salko Dzamdzic described Viskovic as “a fine man, not inclined to conflicts”, for example.

Nada Gavric, who said her name prior to 1992 had been Nadja Kurtagic, said Viskovic “frequently visited her to ask how her kids were doing and offer help” during the war. Gavric admitted “some Muslims from Vlasenica” had experienced problems during that time but not her or her family.  

“As we decided to stay in the town, I decided to file a name change request for me and my kids with the police station in September 1992,” she said. “We did this on our own, with no pressure being put on us.” Gavric said she had never heard anyone accuse Viskovic of participating in the crimes committed in Vlasenica during the war.

During its evidence presentation, the defence for Viskovic introduced more than a hundred pieces of material evidence, most of which referred to “the activities undertaken by the [mainly Bosniak] Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina” in Vlasenica. These included the “Islamic Declaration”, a book authored by Alija Izetbegovic and published in 1970. Izetbegovic, first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, died in 2003. The defence stated that the contents of the book had contributed to “spreading an atmosphere of fear”.  

Denis Dzidic is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. denis@birn.eu.com. Justice Report is BIRN online weekly publication.