ZAGREB, Apr 8 (Hina) - The main hearing in war crimes suspect Dinko Sakic's trial at the Zagreb County Court resumed on Thursday with the interrogation of the witness who the day before directly accused Sakic of killing Mile Boskovic,
as well as of numerous executions at the time the defendant commanded Jasenovac, a Croatian concentration camp during World War Two. Responding to a question by deputy county state attorney Janjko Grlic, witness Dervis Sarac, 74, said he saw Jasenovac inmates closed inside the fenced Vukic house, near the Gradina site, on several occasions. "That was where they detained them before taking them for executions at the 'cemetery field' called Tiha on the banks of the Sava (river), and in a grove along the Sava," the witness said. Sarac stressed he did not see corpses at those sites. They were buried by imprisoned Romany from the village of Ustica who had survived the "great" exec
ZAGREB, Apr 8 (Hina) - The main hearing in war crimes suspect Dinko
Sakic's trial at the Zagreb County Court resumed on Thursday with
the interrogation of the witness who the day before directly
accused Sakic of killing Mile Boskovic, as well as of numerous
executions at the time the defendant commanded Jasenovac, a
Croatian concentration camp during World War Two.
Responding to a question by deputy county state attorney Janjko
Grlic, witness Dervis Sarac, 74, said he saw Jasenovac inmates
closed inside the fenced Vukic house, near the Gradina site, on
several occasions. "That was where they detained them before taking
them for executions at the 'cemetery field' called Tiha on the banks
of the Sava (river), and in a grove along the Sava," the witness
said.
Sarac stressed he did not see corpses at those sites. They were
buried by imprisoned Romany from the village of Ustica who had
survived the "great" execution of the Romany of 1942. The Romany
gravediggers were executed immediately after the "Boskovic case".
The witness did not see the execution first-hand, but heard shots
and later never saw the Romany gravediggers again.
Asked by defence attorney Ivan Kern how he found out that Sakic
commanded the Jasenovac camp, Sarac said he had been told by
logornik (inmate in charge of the camp section) Romeo Vlah, Nikola
Pejnovic and "old" inmate Sulejman who, upon Sarac's arrival at the
camp, acquainted him with the camp and the Ustashi officials'
names.
Asking for precise answers, the defence attorney insisted the
witness be precise in recalling when exactly certain events he
spoke about yesterday took place, and to be precise in
differentiating between what he saw first-hand and what he learned
afterwards from other inmates.
The witness described the preparations for the arrival of a Red
Cross commission to the Stara Gradiska camp. "On that occasion the
camp was 'tidied up', two rooms were specially decorated, special
food was cooked, and a performance group was established which had
to stage the 'Mrs Minister' play." The witness attended the
performance, but did not see when the commission toured the camp.
Red Cross representatives did not come to the Jasenovac camp during
his imprisonment there, Sarac said.
He heard subsequently that after the war, Yugoslav federal
authorities criminally persecuted some inmates who acted in the
mentioned play.
The witness had also heard that up to 1943, masses were served for
inmates, and that "many" inmates who used to go to confession
"disappeared." "We Muslims would go to a building in (the town of )
Jasenovac, where we prayed together with Ustashi Muslims."
Asked by the defence attorney whether he possessed the photograph
from the passport he received before being sent to labour to Germany
in February of 1945, Sarac said he had given it to an official of the
OZNE, a Yugoslav secret police, while the passport was destroyed by
his younger brother.
The authorised agent of Mile Boskovic's brother, attorney Cedo
Prodanovic, was interested in the text of the court-martial ruling
read prior to the execution of the "Boskovic group". Sarac said they
were sentenced for "enemy activity", but could not remember for
which act exactly.
Answering how he knew defendant Sakic was the commander of the
Jasenovac camp, the witness said, "By the Ustashi officials'
behaviour and Sakic's attitude to them, I knew he was their
commander." He added it was evident Sakic had also led a "ceremony"
at which 50 inmates were selected and later executed in retaliation
for one inmate's escape.
The contradictions in Sarac's testimony on which defence attorney
Kern insisted mainly referred to events the witness had not seen
first-hand, but had heard of.
Towards the end of today's main hearing, the witness said he had
never experienced the defendant as some sort of "real criminal" and
had even wondered what he was doing at the camp.
"There was a significant difference between him and the other
Ustashi officials, who were scum and horrible criminals. Sakic
always smiled and was well-groomed. Even women had a good opinion of
him. I didn't think of him as a criminal after the war either. I
think he was a zealous, perhaps over-ambitious young clerk who, had
Luburic not dragged him to Zagreb, couldn't have carried out what
his successors at the camp did," Sarac said.
At these words the defendant laughed.
An incident occurred in the courtroom at the beginning of Sarac's
interrogation. An older man who regularly sits among the audience
at one moment loudly commented the witness' words and was
reprimanded by Judge Tripalo. The man got up and swearing started
yelling Sarac was lying. He was then taken out of court.
The main hearing against Sakic, accused of war crimes against
humanity, will resume on April 12.
(hina) ha jn