The witness said he had been assigned by UN peacekeepers to guide a group of Croatian soldiers to the railway so they could provide security during the passage of the Freedom Train after Operation Storm. He said that the group he led did not commit the crime, and that on his way back he saw another group of about 20-30 soldiers.
Grubor said that he had visited villages in the area to tell their residents to go to Plavno for further talks with the UN peacekeeping force. He said that many people in Grubori and Perici stayed at home and did not go to the meeting in Plavno, adding that most people were killed in the two villages. The witness recognised victims on footage of the crime scene.
The accused are former members of a Croatian special police unit, Franjo Drljo and Bozo Krajina.
Another witness, Damir Cvetko, said he had worked as an intelligence agent at the time, preparing maps. When asked if he had heard about the crime in Grubori, he said he had heard on the radio transmitter that a unit had had contact with the enemy while on a terrain search mission.
The witness Marijan Sosa, who had taken part in the terrain search, said he had seen nothing because of fog and rain. He said he did not know who their superior officer was, but added that between 30 and 60 soldiers were involved in the terrain search, which lasted between three and six hours.
At the end of the hearing, the accused Drljo was interrupted by his defence counsel Ljubo Pavasovic Viskovic when he tried to comment on the growing speculation that his comrade in arms Igor Beneta had not committed suicide but had been killed so that he would not testify against him and Krajina.
Beneta was accused together with Drljo and Krajina, but disappeared before being remanded in custody. He was found dead last April, hanging from a tree in a forest in the Zadar area.
The next hearing was set for May 2.
Meanwhile, lawyer Ljubo Pavasovic Viskovic announced he would press charges against the Jutarnji List daily for implicating him in the death of Igor Beneta. The newspaper said that Pavasovic Viskovic was the last person Beneta was with before his disappearance, claiming that Beneta was murdered.
"I dismiss all the speculations," Pavasovic Viskovic said, adding that he had met Beneta only once, to discuss the defence strategy in his case.
Media reports say that the police have opened an investigation into police conduct in determining the circumstances surrounding Beneta's death.
The Grubori case is one of the counts of the indictment against Croatian General Mladen Markac who is on trial in The Hague, together with General Ante Gotovina, for war crimes committed against Serb civilians during and in the wake of Operation Storm in the summer of 1995.