Halilovic is charged with responsibility for the massacre of 62 Croat civilians in the villages of Uzdol and Grabovica during the so-called Neretva-93 Operation to relieve the blockade on Mostar.
The prosecution says that after the massacres at Grabovica on September 8 and 9, Halilovic was ordered by his superiors to reconsider the operation and prevent such events happening in the future.
Nevertheless, Halilovic detached a member of his staff to the Bosnian Prozor Independent Battalion, which was under the command of Enver Buza, to ensure that the attack on the village of Uzdol was carried out on September 14.
Recollections of the attack on Uzdol came from villager Marko Zelic, who was 15-years-old at the time. Marko, now 26, told the court how early that morning, he and his family awoke to the sounds of shooting near his home. They left the house through a window and ran towards the nearby elementary school, where Bosnian Croat forces, or HVO, were stationed.
On the way he saw a neighbour, Ivan Zelenika, standing outside – his cow shed was on fire and there was an unfamiliar armed soldier next to him. Marko and his family headed for the woods, because, he said, “I thought something was wrong… That would not have been done by Croatian soldiers, but by the enemy.”
With his family running behind him, Marko told the court he heard soldiers yelling “Allahu Akbar”, which identified them as Muslims. He continued to run, he said, as the soldiers caught up with his mother, brother and sister. Marko hid nearby. He could hear his mother begging the soldiers to let them go and not to kill them.
Then he heard the soldiers discussing what should be done with the women and children. He supposed they had walkie-talkies, because it seemed they weren’t talking amongst themselves but rather asking somebody else.
Two names were mentioned, according to the witness – those of Enes Hujdur, a Bosnian schoolmate of Marko, and Enver Buza, the commander of the Prozor Independent Battalion.
“Next thing I heard, there was an order to kill anyone they captured,” Marko recounted.
Holding back tears, Marko said after hearing the order there were bursts of gunfire as well as individual shots. He said after the gunfire, “I did not hear [my family’s] voices anymore.”
The witness later went to the road and saw his 10-year-old brother Stjepan, his 13-year-old sister Marija, and his mother Ruza lying dead. All of them are listed in the indictment.
When the prosecutor asked his next question regarding the bullet wounds on the side of his brother’s head, it took some time for Marko to recover. Before he answered, the defence suggested it would not challenge the details of the deaths, a judge intervened, and the prosecution moved on.
The witness then described how he spent the rest of the day waiting for the gunfire to die down. He met Bosnian Croat soldiers on the road who took him to Prozor.
The defence asked Marko whether there had been weapons in his home. Marko testified that his late brother, an HVO soldier killed in January 1993, had two grenades and two hunting rifles from their late father, who was a hunter.
Another witness, Uzdol resident and HVO soldier, Janko Stojanovic, described before the court how his neighbours were shot at point- blank range by Muslim soldiers that same morning.
“There were five soldiers,” Stojanovic recalled, identifying them as Muslims by their uniforms, with a smaller camouflage pattern and their green berets.
“I heard a woman’s voice cry out...It was Anica Stojanovic [no relation]...There was a soldier standing next to her and he shot her, point-blank range ... he shot her in the head,” said Stojanovic.
The witness then tried to save his elderly mother by shooting into the air to create a diversion. He told her to run for cover, while he jumped over a fence into an abandoned garden.
After a while, he went to find his mother. “I heard, ‘Stop, Grandma. We won’t harm you.’ Soon after I heard several shots,” said Stojanovic.
He found his mother was lying on her stomach in the street. She survived and testified at the Hague last week.
He also found his neighbour Anto Stojanovic, 70, lying dead near his home.
Stojanovic later found a group of Croat civilians and soldiers and travelled to the nearby woods. He was wounded that day by gunfire.
It is not disputed that the Croat army, the HVO, had a base at a school in the village of Uzdol. During cross-examination, the defence tried to depict Uzdol as a legitimate military target, and the inhabitants as armed and ready to fight.
Defence counsel asked Stojanovic whether the older civilian men of Uzdol were members of the Home Guard. The witness did not respond directly, but described how civilians had been ordered to leave the village because an attack was imminent. Most of the children were evacuated but old people stayed behind.
Two members of the Prozor Independent Battalion also testified this week under protective measures. According to the indictment, it was this battalion which attacked Uzdol. They testified that they saw Halilovic address their battalion the day before the attack.
The trial continues next week, when BBC correspondent Kate Adie is expected to testify.
Samira Puskar is an IWPR intern in The Hague.
