SPLIT, July 18 (Hina) - A former military policeman, Zvonko Giljanovic, took the witness stand on Thursday in the trial of the eight former military policemen accused of war crimes in the military prison of Lora in 1992.
SPLIT, July 18 (Hina) - A former military policeman, Zvonko
Giljanovic, took the witness stand on Thursday in the trial of the
eight former military policemen accused of war crimes in the
military prison of Lora in 1992. #L#
On Thursday, the main hearing lasted only 15 minutes during which
the trial chamber's president, Judge Slavko Lozina, read out a
statement Giljanovic had given to an investigating judge 15 January
this year about this case.
Giljanovic, a retired police officer of the 72nd battalion of the
Croatian military police who joined the unit in summer 1991,
confirmed the statement.
During today's hearing he said he did not know very well or knew
nothing about the defendants, except Davor Banic, whom he had
trained in boxing before the war. During the war they met a few times
but were not in the same group.
Giljanovic said he had seldom gone to Lora, and when he had been
there he only visited the battalion's command offices, while he had
never entered the prison itself. He added he had never been engaged
in the transfer of detainees to that jail.
Asked by the prosecution about the murder of two detainees - Bulovic
and Knezevic - the witness answered that he had heard of it for the
first time in the dailies several months before he had been
interrogated by the investigating judge.
The trial will continue on Friday when another two witnesses should
testimony.
The trial will be held on still Monday as the last day before a
summer break, and is to resume in September.
(hina) ms