DVOR NA UNI, Aug 1 (Hina) - If Dragan Vranesevic, accused of committing war crime against civilians, massacring nine (9) Croat police officers and a few civilians in the 26 July 1991 attack of the Serb aggressors on Struga Banska in
the Una river valley, is to be tried, I am ready to testify in the process about Vranesevic's personal liability for those crimes, said a returnee to the village of Zamlaca near Dvor,(80 kilometres south of Zagreb) on Sunday.
DVOR NA UNI, Aug 1 (Hina) - If Dragan Vranesevic, accused of
committing war crime against civilians, massacring nine (9) Croat
police officers and a few civilians in the 26 July 1991 attack of the
Serb aggressors on Struga Banska in the Una river valley, is to be
tried, I am ready to testify in the process about Vranesevic's
personal liability for those crimes, said a returnee to the village
of Zamlaca near Dvor,(80 kilometres south of Zagreb) on Sunday.#L#
The returnee, Tomislav Bekic, told a HINA correspondent that during
Serb attacks on the Una river valley and on the border with Bosnia he
had been a member of the local branch of the Croatian Democratic
Union (HDZ), and a member of Croatia's reservist police units when
Serb rebels arrested and tortured him.
He was arrested during an attack on the village of Struga Banska.
Dragan Vranesevic, who was then the superintendent of the Dvor
police station of the so-called Martic's police, commanded (his
men) to launch attacks against Zamlaca and Struga Banska. During
the assault on Zamlaca on July 26, 1991, they first arrested old
men, our families and relatives and then caught us, Croatian police
reservists, by threatening to kill them, Bekic said.
"Immediately upon my apprehension they punched my head and body
with rifle butts, kicked me with boots. My head was bleeding," he
added.
Bekic claimed that Vranesevic, whom he personally knew, told his
troops "Let him lie! He will bleed to death."
As Bekic remained alive insurgents took him in a human shield along
with about other 50 residents and pushed them in front of an
armoured carrier toward Banska Struga, opening fire at defenders of
that village, Bekic said.
He also claimed that he had seen with his own eyes when Serb rebels
caught three policemen deployed at the entrance to Banska Struga,
stripped them, beat with every means and forced them naked to flee
toward Una and after that they killed them from firearms, and shot
bullets from pistols to their heads.
"Upon that Vranesevic yelled at 50 of us in the human shield: The
same (fate) awaits you on Mutnica (Una)!" Bekic added.
Bekic and others, however, managed to flee after a Croatian
policeman threw a mine at the Serb rebel armoured vehicle.
After the events in his home village of Zamlaca, local Serbs killed
his father Nikola (aged 70), and Bekic believed the reason for his
father's killing was the fact that his son Tomislav was a member of
the HDZ municipal committee and police.
Vranesevic's apprehension proves that Serbs war criminals will
answer for crimes committed against Croats in the Homeland War and
that victims did not die in vain.
(hina) ms