Witness recalls carnage in Medak Pocket trial

A protected witness in the trial against Croatian generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac testified yesterday.

Izvor: Tanjug

Thursday, 31.01.2008.

13:15

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A protected witness in the trial against Croatian generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac testified yesterday. The witness said that the Croatian military had kidnapped people from the villages of Divoselo in Medak Pocket, whose bodies were later found in a septic ditch in Gospic. Witness recalls carnage in Medak Pocket trial The witness had been wounded and had hid near the village when the Croatian army entered, and saw from his hiding place soldiers leading a Serb couple away, whose bodies were found in Gospic several years later. The witness hid some 150 meters from his own home, and watched the soldiers take livestock away and set fire to and destroy new and old houses alike, adding that most damage had been done as the soldiers were leaving the village. When gunfire broke out on September 9, 1993, there were five or six families left in the village and some ten people living alone. There was no Serb military presence in the village. Even though the families had some guns, most had run off into the woods to hide. The witness said that he had hidden and had been able to reach safe Serb territory 13 days later. Along the way, he had been wounded and captured as well, adding that Croatian soldiers had tortured him and a friend he had been hiding with. He said he had managed to escape by falling into the pit and playing dead when he was hit in the head by a Croatian soldier. He said that the friend he had been traveling with had not been so lucky, and that his body had later been found in another village. Norac’s lawyer Zeljko Olujic complained that, in a statement to Hague investigators, the witness had used the term “Ustasha”, clearly demonstrating his hatred for the Croats, he claimed. The witness denied this, stating that he had grown up with people who were victims of the Second World War, but that he did not hate the Croatian people. Norac also remarked that there had been a significant military presence in the village, and that they had had guns and mortars. Ademi and Norac are accused, on the grounds of command responsibility, of the murder of 28 civilians and the torture of five prisoners, as well as the destruction of hundreds of homes in villages where ten people live now, compared to the 400 that had lived there before the war. Rahim Ademi (FoNet, archive)

Witness recalls carnage in Medak Pocket trial

The witness had been wounded and had hid near the village when the Croatian army entered, and saw from his hiding place soldiers leading a Serb couple away, whose bodies were found in Gospić several years later.

The witness hid some 150 meters from his own home, and watched the soldiers take livestock away and set fire to and destroy new and old houses alike, adding that most damage had been done as the soldiers were leaving the village.

When gunfire broke out on September 9, 1993, there were five or six families left in the village and some ten people living alone. There was no Serb military presence in the village.

Even though the families had some guns, most had run off into the woods to hide. The witness said that he had hidden and had been able to reach safe Serb territory 13 days later.

Along the way, he had been wounded and captured as well, adding that Croatian soldiers had tortured him and a friend he had been hiding with. He said he had managed to escape by falling into the pit and playing dead when he was hit in the head by a Croatian soldier.

He said that the friend he had been traveling with had not been so lucky, and that his body had later been found in another village.

Norac’s lawyer Željko Olujić complained that, in a statement to Hague investigators, the witness had used the term “Ustasha”, clearly demonstrating his hatred for the Croats, he claimed.

The witness denied this, stating that he had grown up with people who were victims of the Second World War, but that he did not hate the Croatian people.

Norac also remarked that there had been a significant military presence in the village, and that they had had guns and mortars.

Ademi and Norac are accused, on the grounds of command responsibility, of the murder of 28 civilians and the torture of five prisoners, as well as the destruction of hundreds of homes in villages where ten people live now, compared to the 400 that had lived there before the war.

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