Goran Macar, defence witness of Mico Stanisic

At the trial of former Bosnian Serb police officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, the last witness of Stanisic’s defense began his evidence. During the war, Goran Macar was the chief of the Criminal Investigations Division in the RS MUP headquarters. Macar had previously served as inspector in the BH police for 15 years.

The examination today focused mostly on the historical context and the events preceding the outbreak of the conflict and the creation of the Serb MUP in the spring of 1992.

After the national parties rose to power, there was a ‘quiet purge’ of the staff in the police and many professionals were transferred to other posts or were made to retire early, the witness recounted. MUP started ‘breaking up along ethnic fault lines’ and the situation was ‘extremely complex with visible ethnic tensions’. A large number of Muslims from Sandzak and persons with a criminal record were a part of the reserve police, and ‘the disregard for rules that escalated’ was the most striking in the Stari Grad police station, Macar said. The Serb personnel were removed from office, the police in the stations with a Serb majority were disarmed and the weapons were distributed to the police stations where the Muslims were in the majority.

The ‘daily visits by the criminals and the paramilitaries’ to the senior officers in the Stari Grad public security station led the Serb personnel to write a letter to the MUP leaders about the problems they were facing, Macar added. There was no response from the minister’s office.

On 30 March 1992, the witness was present when Mico Stanisic reviewed the newly formed Serb police force in Sokolac and declared that the Serb MUP had been established. After the review, Stanisic told Macar that the Serb police headquarters would be in the BH MUP building, and that negotiations on how to coordinate the work of the national police were underway. Some time earlier, Jozo Leotar had told the witness that Croats in the MUP were working on establishing their own police force to be headquartered in Mostar, because ‘there was an attempt by the Muslim personnel to establish their domination’.

On 3 April 1992, Leotar told the witness that Muslim employees had held a meeting and decided to arrest 14 Serb senior officers. Macar then left Sarajevo and went to Sokolac. After he left, the witness heard from his neighbor that the police had broken into his apartment. This led the witness to conclude that he had been on the arrest list too. In mid-April 1992, the witness joined the Serb MUP in Pale.

Because of the witness’s ill health, the hearing today ended a bit earlier. The witness will complete his evidence tomorrow.

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