Stojan Zupljanin in the cortroom

The prosecution today continued the cross-examination of a retired employee of the Banja Luka Security Services Center who is testifying under the pseudonym SZ 003. The prosecutor focused on the ties between the special police and the Security Services Center in 1992 when the accused Stojan Zupljanin was the Center chief. Stojan Zupljanin is on trial together with Mico Stanisic, the first Bosnian Serb interior minister, for crimes against Croats and Muslims throughout BH in 1992.

The prosecutor tried to prove that Zupljanin took part in the Serbian MUP’s preparations for the secession from the BH state administration. In the cross-examination, the prosecutor showed the witness some newspaper articles, including an article published in March 1992, in which Zupljanin was asked if the Banja Luka CSB would comply with the orders of the BH MUP. Zupljanin said the Center he headed ‘will not comply with the orders of the BH MUP which would run contrary to the interests of the Serb people’.

The witness vigorously denied several times that the special unit members were part of the Banja Luka Security Services Center, CSB. As he said, he ‘heard’ that Ljuban Ecim and Zdravko Samardzija, who worked in the National Security Service, moved to the ‘special unit’. The prosecutor showed the witness a number of documents. One was a complaint against the behavior of the special unit sent by the police chief in Bosanski Novi to the CSB in Banja Luka. The fact that the complaint was sent to the Security Services Center ‘doesn’t prove’ that the ‘special unit’ was part of the Center, the witness insisted.

Another document shown by the prosecutor was a protest of the police chief in Banja Luka, Vladimir Tutus: he complained to Zupljanin about the behavior of the special police personnel and reminded him of earlier complaints. When the prosecutor put it to the witness that this document apparently indicates those were police personnel, the witness said that he ‘can neither confirm nor contest’ the document, adding, ‘I didn’t participate in the events and I don’t know the names of those in the special unit’.

Judge Harhoff insisted that the witness explain why he claimed the special unit wasn’t part of the CSB. A ‘special unit’ could belong both to the army and the police, the witness replied. He never saw its members in the police building, and on one occasion he was told that they took part in a police parade in May 1992. If they had been part of the CSB, the witness said, he would probably have ‘heard’ this from other employees. The former Banja Luka police officer allowed that the specials may have been sent to the frontline. When the judge put it to him that their involvement in combat didn’t rule out the possibility that they were part of the CSB, the witness said, ‘I don’t know that’.

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