Simo Drljaca’s body was pierced with four bullets. On the other hand, according to the Investigation Report, four bullet shells were found at the sight, three 9mm shells and one 5.56mm shell but, only two 9mm bullets were found, even though the Investigative Judge stated that all material traces at the sight had been preserved.

All things considered, it was decided to do a reconstruction of events on March 10^th, 1998. Pictures 1 and 2 show the exact place where Simo Drljaca’s son and brother-in-law were forced to the ground by a group of soldiers. In Pictures 3 and 4, Simo’s son, Sinisa, is shown pointing to the spot where his father was killed.

Fig.1	Fig. 2
Fig.3	Fig.4

A computer animation was made based on what Simo Drljaca’s son and brother-in-law had indicated, and on the reconstruction of events. The animation shows how these eyewitnesses saw Simo Drljaca being murdered. Simo, his son and brother-in-law were sitting on tree stumps eating breakfast. Simo was dressed in a shirt and shorts with slippers on his feet and with a revolver ("22 Magnum") tucked at his waist. Suddenly, two groups of soldiers appeared, armed with rifles and automatic handguns. One group came from the direction of the road while the other group came from the clearing on the right side of the fence placed in a vertical position leading down towards the lake. The soldiers immediately started to shout, in local dialect, "Simo, lie down!". Since they didn’t know which soldiers were in question and considering the fact that they were near the border with the Muslims and the Croats, Sinisa thinks that his father started running towards the lake to draw attention to himself, thus protecting his son and brother-in-law. The group of soldiers coming from the direction of the road then caught and threw Sinisa and Spiro to the ground, stepping on their necks and pointing rifles to their backs. However, Spiro and Sinisa were facing the lake and they were able to see what further happened to Simo. Also, during this entire time, a third witness was watching all this from a nearby cabin. While running towards the lake, Simo lost one of his slippers. When he reached the sand, the soldiers who were running from the direction of the wooden fence were only one to 2 metres away from him, they then opened fire wounding Drljaca in the back and righ lateral side of his chest. By then, the soldiers reached Simo, who had not yet fallen, and threw him face-down to the ground. During this commotion, Simo fired his gun wounding one of the soldiers in the leg. While two soldiers held Simo, who was already wounded, pressed to the ground, another soldier approached him and kneeled on his back, pointing his gun to the right lateral side of Simo’s chest. He then pulled the trigger and gave Simo Drljaca a fierce blow to the head with the butt of the gun. After this, Drljaca "became still". The soldiers proceeded to bandage their mate’s wound while Simo remained motionless. The other group of soldiers, at the same time, cuffed Sinisa and Spiro. Two helicopters soon landed on the nearby clearing. A dead Simo Drljaca was thrown into one of the helicopters, while the other transported his son and brother-in-law to Tuzla.

THE CLAIMS OF THESE EYEWITNESSES SHOULD HAVE BEEN EITHER CONFIRMED OR DISMISSED. BUT HOW?

<  home