The two witnesses, who testified after a six-week court recess, said that civilians were not imprisoned in Lora and that there was no abuse of the prisoners.
At the beginning of his testimony, Pasalic said he regretted the "painful fact that the court was summonsing as relevant witnesses Chetniks who have been sentenced to long prison sentences". He particularly referred to the case of Vojkan Zivkovic, leader of a group of Yugoslav People's Army members who shot dead a wounded Croatian soldier, for which he received a final sentence of 22 years in prison and was later exchanged.
Presiding Judge Spomenka Tonkovic said this was irrelevant for the trial, adding that she understood the witness considering his role in the Homeland War.
Pasalic stuck to his statement given during the investigation and original trial in 2002. He said that he had visited Lora in his capacity as deputy commander of the Military Police 72nd Battalion, a post he held until June 1991, and that he had seen uniformed persons in the prison cells, but that he had not seen any women or children. He said that he had also organised visits by representatives of the Red Cross, adding that the accused were "model soldiers".
Speaking about the killing of Nenad Knezevic and Gojko Bulovic, for which the accused are indicted among other things, Pasalic said that he had no other information about the cases except for what he had learned from the press. He said that he knew that Bulovic had been taken to Lora because he was a KOS (Counter-Intelligence Service) collaborator, providing the enemy with information and monitoring the movement of Split residents.
"The people imprisoned in Lora were not civilians, they were terrorists who were tried for the criminal act of armed rebellion against Croatia," Pasalic said.
Witness Zvonimir Cigic, who took up the post of deputy commander of the 72nd Battalion in August 1992, said he had heard about the torture of prisoners at Lora, which was why he and Battalion commander Mihael Budimir carried out an inspection. They found at Lora a dozen POWs and asked them to strip to the waist, but saw no injuries on them. There were no traces of blood in the cells either, the witness said.
The first indictee, Tomislav Duic, at the time governor of the prison, was dismissed because of numerous irregularities, such as breaches of prison discipline, failure to appear for duty, etc. Duic's replacement had nothing to do with reports of abuse, the witness said, adding that such reports were fabrications.
The trial continues on Wednesday.