RISTO KRAJIŠNIK TESTIFIES ABOUT KILLING OF COLONELS SOKIĆ AND RADULOVIĆ

SARAJEVO, SEPTEMBER 23 /SRNA/ - Prosecution witness Risto Krajišnik said today, continuing the trial of Ejup Ganić and others charged with the crime in Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo on May 3, 1992, that the attack on the Yugoslav People's Army /JNA/ convoy was well organised and that the attackers in an ambulance killed Colonels Miro Sokić and Budimir Radulović, as well as a civilian woman working for the JNA.

Krajišnik testified that in April 1992 he was a contract soldier, or military police officer, at the barracks of the command of the JNA Second Military District in Bistrik.

The witness said that during the attack on May 2, soldier Goran Divović was wounded when he delivered a food vehicle, a TAM van known as the "bakery," to the garrison, and that he later died of his injuries.

"On May 3, Colonel Miro Sokić told us that trucks were coming from Lukavica and that we should pack our things because an agreement had been reached on the peaceful withdrawal from the barracks. We loaded onto the trucks what we had been ordered to and the convoy was formed," the witness said.

Krajišnik testified that Colonel Sokić advised the soldiers to remove and conceal their personal weapons so as not to provoke the other side.

The Prosecution witness said that he was towards the rear of the convoy in a grey-olive Zastava 101 vehicle, which travelled only a short distance along Dobrovoljačka Street before members of the "Patriotic League", "Green Berets" and Territorial Defense stopped it. They forced the people in the convoy out of the vehicles while swearing and insulting them, and began disarming them.

He said that a TAM vehicle was in front of him in the convoy, while a Mercedes ambulance was behind him.

"Those who were disarming us opened the rear doors of the ambulance, fired a burst, and that was when Colonels Radulović and Sokić were killed, along with a woman who worked for the JNA as a civilian. They laid me on the ground and hit me in the forehead and ribs with a rifle stock," the witness recalled.

He stressed that the entire attack had been well organized, noting that the attackers quickly moved the vehicles off the road, lined up the members of the convoy along the banks of the Miljacka River and escorted them to the Secretariat of Internal Affairs /SUP/ and the FIS sports hall.

The witness also said that he saw one of the attackers "dancing a kolo on the back" of Đorđe Krstić, who was in the vehicle ahead of his military Zastava 101.

Krajišnik said that a woman named Sneža, who worked in the Command's accounting department, was taken across the Drvenija Bridge and that he never saw her again.

"We were in the street for about 20 minutes and they escorted us towards the Miljacka, where they took off our uniforms and, while swearing at us, escorted us to the SUP building. They were the same people who had attacked us. In front of the SUP, they separated the officers, while we were told to take everything out of our pockets, including documents and other items, and then they took us to the FIS sports hall, where there were between 180 and 200 of us," Krajišnik recalled.

He said that the prisoners were offered several options and that between 15 and 20 soldiers chose to remain, while the others asked to be exchanged.

According to the witness, most of those soldiers were from Serbia. They remained in Sarajevo for a month, and he later saw them when they were brought to Crna Rijeka, emaciated and starving.

Krajišnik said that he personally spent day and night at FIS and that some of the prisoners were beaten, citing Goran Vuković as an example.

The witness said that after the exchange, which was attended by JNA General Milan Aksentijević, Stjepan Šiber and UNPROFOR members, he was transported by bus to Lukavica together with other captured JNA members, where he remained in the Army of Republika Srpska as a professional military officer.

Ejup Ganić, Zaim Backović, Hamid Bahto, Fikret Muslimović, Jusuf Pušina, Bakir Alispahić, Enes Bezdrob and Ismet Dahić, who held senior political, military and police positions, have been charged with the attack on the convoy in Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo on May 3, 1992, including the killing, wounding and mistreatment of JNA members and civilians.

The next hearing has been scheduled for October 14.