Bosnia Train Massacre Trial Witness ‘Not Mentally Ill’

Ratko Kovacevic, a medical expert commissioned by the court to analyse the psychological condition of witness Mitrasin Glisic, told the trial of four Serb ex-fighters at Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday that the witness does not have any mental illnesses.

Glisic had testified that he knew all of the defendants and saw them participating in the beating of the victims at one of the crime scenes in 1993.

A first report on Glisic's psychological condition initially said he had no serious mental disorders and did not show a tendency towards pathological lying, but a second report was commissioned after the court obtained his medical record from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which said he had been diagnosed as a chronic alcoholic.

Kovacevic, a medical expert from the court experts' commission, said that alcoholism is a psychological condition, but that Glisic's diagnosis was not properly confirmed.

"From the case history and available documentation, it is not clear that he had this diagnosis and the commission considers that this was the working diagnosis of an occupational physician, which was not confirmed by a psychiatrist," Kovacevic told the court.

Defence lawyers had pointed out that Glisic's statements about events and people differed on various occasions.

But Kovacevic said that Glisic "has no dementia and no tendency to confabulation" and that the varying statements "will be assessed by the court".

According to the indictment, Serb fighters Gojko Lukic, Ljubisa and Dusko Vasiljevic, Jovan Lipovac and Dragana Djekic participated in the abductions and killings of 20 non-Serb civilian passengers who were seized at Strpci station from a train that was on its way from Belgrade to Bar in Montenegro in February 1993.