The former Director of the Agricultural Cooperative in Kravica, Jovan Nikolic, appears as a Prosecution witness at the trial of Zeljko Ivanovic, known as Arkan, and recalls the day he went to the hangar in Kravica and found out about “the incident”.
Nikolic told the Court what he was told upon his arrival at Kravica.
“After having heard, on July 13, 1995, that some prisoners were being held in the hangar in Kravica, as the Director of the Agricultural Cooperative, I decided to go there and check whether this was true. After all, I was the Director and Kravica was my village! Although I was not a member of the Army, I could not believe anything could be happening in the hangar without me having been informed or having allowed it,” the witness said.
The indictment filed by the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, alleges that on July 13, 1995 Zeljko Ivanovic, known as Arkan, who was a member of the Second Special Police Squad with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, participated in a joint criminal enterprise “with an aim of exterminating” and escorting more than 1,000 Bosniaks to the Kravica Agricultural Cooperative in Bratunac Municipality. The men were allegedly shot in the evening hours.
Nikolic said he was met by a person named Zoran Eric when he arrived in Kravica.
“Eric approached me. When I asked him ‘What is going on?’, he said that “an incident” had happened in the hangar, when a prisoner grabbed a rifle from the commander. I did not go inside the hangar. It was dark and there were no soldiers in the cooperative yard,” he said.
“At some stage, an unknown man dressed in a blue camouflage uniform appeared. He did not ask me anything. It all looked suspicion to me. Ten minutes later I headed towards Bratunac. All I heard was sporadic shooting, with short bursts, coming from the hangar,” Nikolic said, adding that he went to the Bratunac Municipality building the following morning and reported “the incident” in Kravica.
“Nobody knew what I was talking about in the municipality. I shouted telling them there were dead people in the hangar. After that, my colleague Dragan Nikolic went to Kravica with me. We arrived at the cooperative at about 10 a.m. When we arrived I saw dead people. I had to go out and take some fresh air,” said Nikolic, visibly anxious.
“When I got out of the hangar, a group of civilians was coming from the direction of Sandici. They shot all those people. Everybody was watching them do it. I could also be killed, as I rose up. It was not a right thing to do! This was a crime. I feel horrible because something like that happened in my village! After that, Dragan and me just sat in the car and drove back to Bratunac,” he said at the end of the direct examination.
During the course of additional examination Nikolic said that what he had told the court was all he could remember.
“On July 16 I was informed that my brother had been killed. Believe me I could not think about anything else as of that date. I was not interested in what was going on any more,” he said.
During cross-examination the witness said he did not know indictee Ivanovic personally, adding that “the more I look at him” the more he thought he knew him. However, during the course of the examination he said he was sure that he had not seen the indictee in front of the Kravica Cooperative hangar on July 13.
The trial is due to continue on September 24, 2009, when one more Prosecution witness will be examined.