ŠTRBAC: PROSECUTOR MUST QUESTION THOMPSON AND HIS BROTHER OVER CRIMES AGAINST SERBS IN UZDOL

BELGRADE, JULY 8 /SRNA/ - The prosecutor of the County State Attorney's Office in Split responsible for investigating the killing of seven Serbian civilians in Uzdolje near Knin during the Storm military operation of August 6, 1995, must question controversial Croatian singer Marko Perković Thompson and his brother Dražen about the war crime, said Savo Štrbac, director of the Documentation and Information Centre "Veritas".

In a statement to SRNA, Štrbac explained that this follows from an order by the Constitutional Court of Croatia, which recently found that the investigation into the crime in Uzdolje, opened 31 years ago, had been ineffective, as well as from the testimonies of Bosa Šare and Mira Berić, who survived the massacre near Knin.

According to him, their testimonies directly linked the Perković brothers to the crime.

Štrbac said that Bosa Šare, who was wounded on August 6, 1995, testified that a group of Uzdolje residents who were trying to reach the UNPROFOR camp in Knin were intercepted and captured by three soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms.

According to the witnesses, one of them stood out because he had long black hair, bloodshot eyes, a T-shirt bearing the inscription "For the Homeland Ready", and was the most aggressive of them all.


HE KILLED CIVILIANS BECAUSE HE WAS RUSHING TO A LAMB ROAST

According to Bosa Šare's testimony, it was he who remained with eight elderly people from Uzdolje who had been captured, under an oak tree where the prisoners were sitting, because the other two decided to take Professor Mira Berić and her younger sister, who was a university student at the time, to safety.

The two men took Mira's sister to a nearby factory, where soldiers from their unit were stationed, and Mira was taken in a van to the UNPROFOR camp in Knin, where her sister later also arrived, meaning that both of them were saved.

However, Štrbac pointed out that the soldier wearing a shirt with a Ustashe slogan, left alone with the eight elderly people, decided to deal with the innocent civilians ruthlessly.

According to Bosa Šare's testimony, he looked at his watch and said: "There is nothing more to wait for, the lamb will get cold," referring to the lamb that soldiers were roasting on a spit at the nearby gypsum factory, which served as their base.

Then, according to Šare's testimony, he cold-bloodedly shot the eight civilians with an automatic weapon. They were sitting about 20 metres from the road, at the spot where they had been ordered to gather.

"Bosa Šare was seriously wounded but managed to survive because her husband Krstan, who was in his final moments and gasping for breath, shouted to her to try to run as far as possible into the forest. She did so by pulling herself out from underneath the bodies and finding safety in the woods," Štrbac said.


THOMPSON'S BROTHER CALLED OUT BY A FORMER COMRADE

Bosa Šare and Mira Berić testified about the massacre in Uzdolje before Serbian, Croatian and Hague judicial authorities.

In a statement given to Croatian investigators in 2011, Mira Berić said that the soldier who rescued her and introduced himself as "a man from Zagreb" explicitly told her that the person who killed the seven elderly Serbs in Uzdolje was the brother of singer Marko Perković Thompson.

"Do you see that shaggy-haired one? Have you heard of Thompson? The singer who sings our Ustashe songs? That is his brother," Berić recounted.

As Štrbac pointed out, it took Croatian authorities a full 10 years to dare to ask Thompson's brother Dražen where he was on August 6, 1995, to which he replied that he was not in Uzdolje.

That, it seemed, was where the matter ended, although it is known that both Thompson and his brother were members of the unit that was deployed at the time on the Drniš-Knin road, where Uzdolje is also located.


SHE WAS PETRIFIED WHEN SHE SAW THOMPSON'S PHOTO

However, that is not the only thing linking Thompson to the crime, as Štrbac says he learned another important detail during a recent conversation with Mira Berić.

"She told me that, while she was at the UNPROFOR camp in Knin in August 1995, she saw an announcement in Croatian newspapers about Franjo Tuđman’s arrival at the Knin Fortress, which stated that Thompson would also perform, and his photograph was published as well.

When she saw Thompson's picture, Mira froze, because the singer who performs Ustashe songs looked remarkably similar to the soldier who had shot the elderly men under the oak tree in Uzdolje," Štrbac said.

When he told her, as he says, that Dražen Perković had an alibi in the investigation and had stated that he was not there, she replied that either he or his brother Thompson had been under the oak tree in Uzdolje and had shot her relatives and neighbours, but that she was not certain which of the two it was because they looked remarkably alike.

Štrbac claims that this is why it is necessary to question both Thompson and his brother, and that, pursuant to the order of the Constitutional Court of Croatia, this must be done by the prosecutor.

"The Constitutional Court of Croatia found the investigation, which was opened long ago, to be ineffective precisely because neither of the Perković brothers was questioned. So far, they have been content with asking Thompson's brother through the police whether he was there, and he said: `No, no, I wasn't.` The singer who has been mentioned was not questioned at all," Štrbac said.


CONSTITUTIONAL COURT ACCEPTS LAWSUIT BY SONS OF THOSE KILLED

Štrbac stressed that the order of the Constitutional Court of Croatia must be complied with and cannot be denied, which means that the prosecutor directly in charge of the investigation is obliged to officially question both Marko and Dražen Perković.

He explained that the Constitutional Court of Croatia ordered the competent prosecutor's office in Split to conduct an effective investigation based on the complaint filed by brothers Slobodan and Milan Berić, whose parents were killed in Uzdolje.

They complained to the Constitutional Court that the ordinary courts and the Croatian state had not made sufficient efforts to identify and punish the perpetrators of the crimes against their parents, which the Constitutional Court accepted and ordered the prosecutor's office in Split to conduct an effective investigation.

Štrbac says this also includes questioning the Perković brothers, as well as some other people, including a Croatian officer who drove Mira Berić from the UNPROFOR camp in Knin to Uzdolje to look for her sister, after she saw that her sister was not in Knin and thought she had gone back to search for the captured neighbours, who had been shot in the meantime.

"Mira Berić returned from Knin to Uzdolje with the Croatian officer and saw bodies lying on the road. She saw Krstan Šare rising from that pile of bodies; he was in terrible condition at the time and looked like a ghost before he died. This Croatian officer from Varaždin did not allow Mira to get out of the car when he saw what she looked like and how she reacted to those scenes," Štrbac recounted.


FOOTAGE FROM THE GATE OF THE UNPROFOR CAMP

According to Štrbac, when they returned to Knin, Mira found her sister at the UNPROFOR camp, who had arrived half an hour before Mira returned from Uzdolje.

Štrbac added that the officer also drove Mira to Uzdolje the following day, where she went to collect money, documents and some clothes for herself and her sister, as they had been left with nothing.

"That officer saw the dead civilians on the road. He was young at the time, and I believe he is still alive, so he could know everything, including which unit was in Uzdolje at the time, because the Croatian Ministry of Defense claims that it does not know, justifying this with the alleged explanation that many units were operating along the Šibenik–Drniš–Knin route at the time," Štrbac said.

He added that the officer is important because there is footage recorded in front of the gate of the UNPROFOR camp in Knin showing him and Mira Berić when he visited her to ask whether she had found her sister.

"It was recorded by a Croat, and the footage can also be seen on YouTube. Everything is clearly visible. Perhaps the Croats did not even know about it, but I am now sending them a message that they have this new piece of evidence and that they should ask this officer which unit was there," Štrbac said.

Members of Croatian forces killed Stevo, Janja and Đurđija Berić, Miloš Ćosić, Milica, Jandrija and Krstan Šare in Uzdolje on August 6, 1995, while Sava Šare was burned to death in her house, which had been set on fire.

The only survivor of the massacre was Bosa Šare, who was seriously wounded but escaped into the woods, where she hid with two Serbs until she managed to reach the UNPROFOR camp in Knin.