Witness switches sides in Haradinaj trial

Witness switches sides in Haradinaj trial

In this statement, he speaks about the 1998 murders of Slobodan Radošević and Miloš Radunović, Kosovo Serbs.

Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj are charged with the crime. Less than half an hour into his examination-in-chief, the prosecutor asked that Sadikaj be declared a “hostile witness”.

This would allow the prosecution to cross-examine Sadikaj and confront him with his previous statement.

The Trial Chamber, however, did not allow it.

Sadikaj gave evasive answers when the prosecutor asked him about the circumstances in which he had last seen his Serb neighbors Radošević and Radunović, and about his knowledge of the circumstances of their deaths.

Sadikaj said that in April 1998 he had seen Milos Radunović heading towards the house of Slobodan Radošević in the company of several armed men in Yugoslav Army uniforms.

A while later, he heard an “exchange of fire” from that direction. According to the indictment, the shooting lasted half an hour and then the KLA members captured Radunović and Radošević and took them away.

Their bodies were found in September 1998 on a nearby country road.

After arduous attempts to refresh Sadikaj’s memory, he said that “rumors spread” that several days after the incident a passerby saw two bodies by the road leading out of Dasinovac.

He denied the portion of the statement he gave in 2005 where he said that he then learned that the bodies were those of Radunović and Radošević and that “this passerby” had seen gunshot wounds on the bodies.

Unlike the examination-in chief, the cross-examination went on smoothly as the witness kept confirming the arguments put to him by Haradinaj’s defense counsel and giving answers that the defense counsel wanted to hear.

He said that Radunović and Radošević had been in the police reserve force and that they had been walking around the village in uniforms and armed in the months leading up to their disappearance.

They would threaten their Albanian neighbors, saying they would kill all those who had anything to do with the KLA, if they learned of such links, the witness told the court.

Contrary to the evidence given by Stanisa Radošević, Slobodan Radošević’s son, who said that his father had had only two hunting rifles, Sadikaj said that the Radošević house had been for all intents and purposes “a military base”.

In his words, Slobodan Radošević had two light machine guns, two automatic rifles and two sniper rifles and had built bunkers in front and in the back of his house.

Sadikaj is a former police officer. After graduating from the police school in Belgrade, he worked as a shift commander in the Dubrava prison until his retirement in 1991.

He testified via video link from an undisclosed location.