COURTSIDE: Sarajevo Trial
Bosnian Serbs "targeted" football match in suburb of the capital
COURTSIDE: Sarajevo Trial
Bosnian Serbs "targeted" football match in suburb of the capital
The prosecution in the trial of the former Bosnian Serb commander Stanislav Galic presented new accounts of his force's attacks on Sarajevo civilians.
The court heard that some of the shelling was random and some deliberately targeted.
The prosecution said two mortar shells killed 12 and wounded more than 100 on June 1, 1993 at a football match in the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja.
Witnesses said the attacks on Dobrinja came from Bosnian Serb army positions, under Galic, commander of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps.
"The first grenade hit the centre of the parking lot ground during the
match," said Nedim Gavranovic, who ran from the stadium when the second shell hit a few seconds later. "I saw people on the ground, some were wounded, others passed out."
Another witness, Omer Hadziabdic, took shelter in a nearby building. While helping a wounded man, Hadziabdic realised he was also wounded, in the leg.
"They targeted everybody regardless of age," he said of the Bosnian Serb army. "It did not matter if it was a civilian, an adult or a kid... They targeted everything that was alive." Both witnesses were 12 years old at the time. The trial continues.
Vjera Bogati is an IWPR special correspondent at The Hague and a journalist with SENSE News Agency.
