Mercep Trial: Documentary Aired as Evidence :: Balkan Insight

At the trial, which was continuing after the summer break, Mercep's 1991 interview with a Serbian TV was shown as were several Croatian television 1991 news items from the Pakrac and Gospic area, where Mercep's unit operated.

Pavilion 22, a 55-minute film from 2002, was made by Croatian documentary maker Nenad Puhovski through his independent production firm, Factum. Croatia's state television bought the film but never aired it.

In the film, several former members of the "mercepovci", their victims, politicians, judicial experts and NGO activists, testified about the unit's activities, saying they illegaly arrested people in Zagreb and collected them in pavilion 22 of the Zagreb International Fair before transferring them to Pakracka Poljana.

The then Croatian minister, Zivko Juzbasic, who is to testify in the trial, said in the documentary that the pavilion was a private detention camp, calling it "a black stain in the history of the Croatian capital, Zagreb".

Miro Bajramovic, another former member of the "mercepovci",? also testified in documentary. In 1997, he told the Croatian weekly Feral Tribune that he had personally killed 70 people while working with the mercepovci.

He later stood trial and was jailed for four years following that admission but nobody else was charged over the crimes.

Bajramovic confirmed in the film that the civilian detainees, mostly ethnic Serbs, were imprisoned and tortured in the pavilion before transfer to Pakracka Poljana.

Mercep is charged, as a commander of the unit, with having personally ordered the?unlawful arrest, torture and killing of civilians from October 8, 1991 until mid-December 1991 in?and around Zagreb and in the towns of Kutina and Pakrac in central Croatia.

He was captured in December 2010. The trial started in February this year. Mercep was released from custody this July due to health considerations.

The trial continues on September 11.

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/mercep-trial-documentary-aired-as-proof

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