SPLIT, July 12 (Hina) - During the Lora trial of eight former Croatian military policemen, another three witnesses testified on Friday. Those were Antonio Lekic, Nikola Kristo and Zdravko Galic, a former commander of the 72nd
battalion of military police.
SPLIT, July 12 (Hina) - During the Lora trial of eight former
Croatian military policemen, another three witnesses testified on
Friday. Those were Antonio Lekic, Nikola Kristo and Zdravko Galic,
a former commander of the 72nd battalion of military police. #L#
A key witness, Mario Barisic, who testified on Thursday, accused
Lekic and Kristo, who were workers of the SIS intelligence service,
of concealing crimes committed in the Lora prison in Split in 1992.
Kristo said his job in the SIS administration did not include the
Split operational zone, and all he knew about the events in the Lora
prison was what he read in the media.
Kristo told the trial chamber that he knew two defendants - Tomislav
Dujic and Miljenko Bajic but not very well. He heard of tortures in
Lora and he knew that a commission of enquiry had been set up after
some papers published articles about allegations, but he thinks
that nothing was proved.
The witness Kristo said he had not seen a report on findings of the
commission. He does not know Barisic or reasons why he accuses him
of the torture of war and other prisoners.
Witness Antonio Lekic worked in the SIS administration in Zagreb in
1992 and has no knowledge about the events in Lora, except of the
death of two prisoners.
"I think that at the time an investigation was launched in the death
of two prisoners, members of paramilitary units. They were
terrorists, although the press claimed they were civilians," Lekic
said.
He asserted that the investigation undoubtedly confirmed that
Nenad Knezevic and Gojko Bulovic had been escaping and that
policemen had used force and that the two died of the consequences
(of the use of force).
Lekic added this could be easily checked as there is a file on the
case.
Asked by prosecution lawyers how he had failed to remember this
event while giving his statement to an investigating judge, Lekic
responded he had subsequently remembered it while reading press
articles on it.
The legal representative of the Knezevic family asked him how he
could know that Knezevic was a terrorist and a member of
paramilitary units, and the witness replied that the report read
that Knezevic had worked for a counter-intelligence service of an
enemy country and the army-aggressor.
Asked once again which were concrete actions on the a basis of which
he called Knezevic terrorist, Lekic could not answer but added that
nothing could be more concrete than collaboration.
Asked why Barisic pointed to him as a responsible person for crimes,
Lekic replied that he had never talked with that witness.
"I am sorry for him, he (Barisic) is being treated in a psychiatric
hospital for making up people and events. He is not guilty but those
who relay his statements in public," Lekic added.
After that lawyers of the defendants and prosecution reacted too
loudly, and the Judge Slavko Lozina, presiding over the trial
chamber, had to discontinue the main hearing. Resuming the trial,
Judge Lozina gave the final admonishment to defence lawyers Zeljko
Olujic and Josko Ceh, criticising them for preventing witnesses to
answer.
The third witness on Friday, Zdravko Galic, said the Lora military
prison had been formed for Croatian soldiers who committed some
crimes.
He has no knowledge of torturers committed in the jail.
According to him, some ethnic Serb civilians were transferred to
this prison as jails for civilians were full. A large group of such
detainees included Knezevic and Bulovic.
Galic remembered an event from June 1992 when he was informed that
one prisoner had tried to run away and that he clashed with a guard
and was wounded in that incident. In the morning of the other day he
was informed that another detainee, Bulovic, had died during the
night.
Galic said he had never met Mario Barisic.
The trial resumes on Monday.
(hina) ms