A pathologist who established the causes of deaths of victims from the Herzegovinian village of Uzdol testifies at trial of Sefer Halilovic. Ramiz Delalic aka Celo, wartime Deputy Commander of the Ninth Motorized Brigade, whose soldiers are suspected of massacring 33 civilians in the village of Grabovica on 8 and 9 September 1993, is scheduled to give testimony next week

After a two-week break, the prosecution in the trial of Sefer Halilovic, former Chief of Staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, continued presenting its case with the testimony of Dr Simun Andjelinovic, a pathologist from the Croatian coastal city of Split. On 17 September 1993 in the Firule Clinical Centre in Split, Dr Andjelinovic examined and performed autopsies on the bodies of 27 Croatian civilians who had been killed three days before in the Herzegovinian village of Uzdol.

The witness said that his team had not had enough time for detailed autopsies, but that in his opinion an external examination was enough to establish that violent deaths had been caused by automatic weapons. A certain number of victims suffered wounds inflicted by knife or axe. The witness also said that the doctors were given the names of victims, dates of birth and times of death by persons who brought the bodies. According to the indictment, the dead bodies were brought to the hospital by members of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO).

During the cross-examination, Halilovic's defense counsel, Peter Morrissey, claimed that the autopsy results were "not reliable" because they had been "done in haste" three days after the massacre. Morrissey also cited a possibility that Herceg-Bosna authorities had tried to use the crimes committed in Uzdol for propaganda purposes, suggesting that the witness had been ordered to complete the autopsies quickly "because Herceg-Bosna officials wanted to hold a press conference in connection with these issues". The witness denied this, saying that he had not known about the press conference. "We were confined in the autopsy room all day and we only took a break some time in the afternoon for something that could be called a lunch."

Ramiz Delalic aka Celo, former Deputy Commander of the Ninth Motorized Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is scheduled to appear in the courtroom next week as a witness for the prosecution. According to the indictment and prosecution witnesses, members of that brigade massacred 33 civilians in the village of Grabovica in the Neretva Valley on 8 and 9 September 1993. A boy who has testified as a protected witness, whose whole family was killed in Grabovica, has cited "a soldier in civilian clothes nicknamed Celo" as a person who questioned him after the massacre, asking him to identify the soldiers who had killed five members of his family. Several other witnesses for the prosecution have said that Delalic was present in Grabovica immediately after the crime.

The indictment against Sefer Halilovic alleges that he is responsible as a commander for failing to prevent or punish the perpetrators of the killings in Grabovica and Uzdol.

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