Sister Recalls Murdered Bosnian Brothers’ Disappearance in Serbia

Witness Alija Handzic told the war crimes trial of Dalibor Maksimovic at Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday how her three brothers were taken away from a house in Sabac, a city in north-western Serbia, in 1992, and never seen alive again.

Defendant Maksimovic was a member of the Serb-led Territorial Defence force in the village of Milici, near Zvornik, and is accused of killing four Bosniak civilians, including the three brothers, in a building where the Territorial Defence force was based in the small town of Karakaj, which is also near Zvornik.

Witness Handzic said her family was living in Sabac after escaping from Zvornik in Bosnia and Herzegovina before it fell to Bosnian Serb forces.

In Sabac, people who Handzic described as civilians came to ask for her brother Nijaz Karaosmanovic. As he was not in the house, they said he should come to Sabac police station when he got back, which he eventually did.

"Meanwhile, the same two people came and ask for Ilijaz and Nedzad Karaosmanovic [the other two brothers] to go with them to the police station. My brothers went to the police station. I have never seen them again," Handzic testified.

Handzic said that she and her family received information that the three brothers were taken to Karakaj and killed there.

She said that one man, who also had been in custody in Karakaj, described to her how two of her brothers were killed, and that another man told her that the killer was "Dalibor from Milici".

Another former member of the Territorial Defence unit from Milici, Bozo Drmonjic, also testified on Thursday.

The case was originally heard in Bosnia and Herzegovina before being transferred to Serbia, where the defendant lives.

The prosecutor questioned Drmonjic about...