In Pakracka Poljana, Rimac saw a prisoner, Milan, who "came looking for his brother who had been mobilized; he thought that he had found a chetnik headquarters." Rimac beat up another three prisoners in military uniforms on one occasion. He also knew about a few more cases in which Guardsmen and people from his unit had brought people from Kutina or from the Novska area [towns near Pakrac]. Rimac hasn't spent a lot of time in Poljana (he was coming from and going to Zagreb, Kutina and on one occasion he traveled to Osijek planning to go with 400 volunteers as a reinforcement to Vukovar), but he has heard that 11 people had been found in the village of Bujavica; some of them were Chetniks. "He heard that they had been thrown in a cellar and killed."
Sasa Antic seemed suspicious to Rimac, because "he had some lists with photos and resumes; he could get hold of everything he needed and no one knew where he was getting it from. As far as Sinisa knows, Sasa was abducting people, interrogating prisoners, driving a different car every few days and doing a bit of everything; Tomica thought that Sasa should be sent to Serbia to carry out bombings and sow panic among people." Rimac became suspicious of Sasa "after a young man was abducted and beaten up and the result of his interrogation was the abduction of a director of a company from Kutina who wasn't guilty of anything. After that Sinisa talked to the beaten youngster and he told Sinisa that he had made up the story about the director in order to save himself." In connection with Antic's execution, Rimac also stated that he had asked Sasa, when they had been standing next to the grave, whether he had worked for the Yugoslav counterintelligence service and about sixty reserve police identification cards which had disappeared from Mercep's car. Sasa replied that he had nothing to do with the documents.
To the question about Marina's execution, Rimac replied that Mercep ordered her arrest. He has heard that she was supposed to kill Mercep. When she appeared at Mlinaric's funeral, Rimac, Mikola, Suljic and Hodak caught her, took away the documents she had with her, among which were at least 500 addresses, HOS [Croatian fascist paramilitary organization] badge, a gun and a pen. She was interrogated at the Zagreb fairgrounds by Demo (Palos), Rimac, Hodak and Suljic, after which Demo said that Tomica (Mercep) had ordered to take her to Poljana where "this should be sorted out". Three prisoners dug out a grave on a meadow, " and then Tonci asked Sinisa to do it himself; Sinisa let him carry out the execution and Tonci shot and killed Marina from an automatic rifle. Sinisa remembers that Tonci said after the execution: 'thank you, Rimac for letting me shoot.' Because the execution was carried out at night, Sinisa doesn't know the exact place where Marina was killed, but knows that this happened on a meadow surrounded by forest, about 300 meters from the jail in Poljana."
He didn't remember the exact date, but Rimac knew that a reserve soldier and a civilian on crutches were brought to Poljana on one occasion. "Sinisa and Sasa went to pick up that man and brought him to the jail in Poljana where he was interrogated after which someone said that they should execute the man. He doesn't know whether someone issued orders saying which persons should be killed, but on this occasion Sinisa, Nikola and Brisevac carried out this execution; they took a truck and also brought along two other prisoners. They carried out this execution during the day in a forest far away from the prison; the prisoners dug a hole and then the man with a crutch was killed from a small caliber rifle while Sinisa killed the man in the military uniform (he was a reserve soldier, about 30 to 32 years old) from a hand gun. After the execution, the prisoners filled in the grave and then returned to the prison." All this was recorded on 12/31/1991 in the Zagreb PD Department for suppression of common crime and signed by Nikola Jambrek, the authorized official.
Hodak said that, after spending maybe two months on barricades, i.e. sentry duty, he and Mikola on their own accord arrested his neighbor Milenko Cukanovic, in whose apartment they allegedly found a Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) membership card, a hat with a nationalist insignia [kokarda] and several bottles with molotov cocktail. Cukanovic was interrogated and killed by Mlinaric and a certain Zagorac [a man from Zagorje, an area near Zagreb]. Cukanovic's corpse was found in Danube several days later, near Novi Sad... Since Cukanovic's mother Tonka inquired with Mercep about her son, Hodak, following a Mercep's order, had to write a report about the arrest, in which he stated that he had brought Cukanovic to the Territorial Defense headquarters and that he didn't know what happened to him after that. That report was signed by Mercep and Hodak, and Hodak gave one copy to Cukanovic's mother, Tonka.
As far as Hodak knew, 5-6 persons were brought for interrogation from Borovo. Executions were carried out by Mlinaric, Amerikanac and Zagorac. Mlinaric was a member of an active National Guard unit, and before his arrival to Vukovar, he was in a jail in Slavonska Pozega. He was supposed to serve 4 months but was "pulled out" by a certain Mr. Babic from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "Mlinaric has," it says in the official police report, "shown a lot of courage in actions of that sort ( executions, Feral's remark) and, besides that, he terribly hated Chetniks , but not Serbs; at least not all of them since his wife was originally from Kolasin [town in Montenegro]. Mlinaric was very difficult when he drank a lot; he would behave as if he were mad."
Hodak stated in the interrogation that he didn't know who had put Mlinaric in charge; "he only knows that Mlinaric was interrogating prisoners in the cellar of the Territorial Defense building and that no one from other units was allowed to be there during interrogations." During an interrogation, "with use of beatings and electric shocks (from an inductive telephone set)," Mlinaric was "in charge," and his collaborators were Jozo Smuk, Zagorac from Zabok and "a young man from Chicago, whom they called Amerikanac [an American], and who is now (December 1991, Feral's remark) in Kumrovec undergoing training in a special forces unit." Hodak met that man, over 6 feet tall, with tattoos on both arms, black hair, and about 20 years old, in a disco in Zagreb, immediately before the interrogation in Zagreb PD. Amerikanac, who also has a brother undergoing training in Kumrovec, told Hodak that he would like to return to the Mercep's unit.
Hodak who, after two months spent on barricades, became a member of a group whose duty was terrain cleansing (persons who were members of SDS or for whom they had information that they had taken part in operations against the Republic of Croatia were brought to the Territorial Defense building), left with the friends for Gospic where their task to remove barricades from streets, hunt snipers etc. He personally took part in the capture of a warehouse in which some twenty soldiers were taken prisoner. After that, Hodak fought in Ceric, Nustar and Marinci and when he and his group arrived to Pakracka Poljana, a group of four prisoners was already there.
One of them was called Milan; supposedly he had come from abroad looking for a brother who had been mobilized to a Territorial Defense unit. "That guy said that he was a thief and that he had been stealing everywhere, in Italy and Switzerland; he had been arrested about ten days before they arrived to Poljana and after their departure, Pavo led him around everywhere dressed in a sajkaca [traditional Serbian hat] and wrapped in a Yugoslav flag." Hodak didn't know why the other three men had been arrested; supposedly, one of them, a veterinary from Pakracka Poljana, had had on himself artillery coordinates. The painter Milan, also known as Rus [a Russian], trained the prisoners to jump on their feet and shout "Za dom spremni" [greeting used by fascist Croatian regime during the WWII, roughly equivalent to "heil Hitler"; literal translation is 'ready for homeland'] every time he opened a door. Hodak stated:" these four prisoners were killed and it is known that Tonci killed Milan; Mikola and Rimac and also others told me about that; Tonci had to kill Milan because Pavo couldn't; he had become friends with Milan." The other three were killed by "Svabo" [a German], twenty year old man who hardly knew any Croatian. Hodak also remembered that "Svabo" during an interrogation pierced an ear of a prisoner and pushed a bullet through the wound.
Later, in the village of Kukunjevci, they caught a man who had two hand grenades and a PAP rifle. He told them that he had received the arms from the JNA; after that Hodak, Mikola and Miro drove the man in a van to a corn field and there all three of them shot at him: Hodak from a "scorpio", Mikola from an "uzi" and Miro from a "pumperica". Hodak remembered that the man had been wearing a grey jacket and grey trousers. Here's more from Hodak, from the report:" Quite a lot of people were brought in by 'Pop', that is Nikola Rukavina who had been in Pakracka Poljana before their arrival; he would bring people in for executions, and as he himself said, sometimes he wouldn't bother to bring them to Pakracka Poljana, but would execute them somewhere else. 'Pop' was acting alone and was visiting villages in the area with his people; Hodak remembers that Pop has brought in the veterinarian. Suljo was also bringing people, but only from Pakracka Poljana. All those brought in by 'Pop' and 'Suljo' were executed later; during 15 days which Hodak spent in Pakracka Poljana, about 10 people were executed." The names of new prisoners were obtained during interrogations in the prison in Pakracka Poljana. Hodak said that the prisoners were not immediately killed, but were kept around for several days to clean, wash, unload ammunition etc.
The official report, signed by Esad Paratusic also mentions that Hodak has heard from Rimac that Mercep and Zvonko had ordered Rimac and Mikola to kill Sasa; Rimac was against this and only wanted to drive Sasa away from Poljana. In the end it says: "Anyone 'working' in Pakracka Poljana, had to write reports during interrogation, and these reports were submitted to Mercep and Zvonko, who owned the cafe 'Stil'; the two of them were sitting in the headquarters, reading those reports and deciding what would happen to the prisoners."
Suljic stated that he didn't know anything about the abductions of people from the Zagreb area, and added that "all orders in connection with apartment checks, confiscation of arms and abductions of people from apartments in the Zagreb area were issued by Zvonko Trusic; he would leave peaces of paper with data in an office inside pavilion number 22 at the Zagreb fairgrounds; whoever was first to arrive to the office would get that piece of paper and had to carry out the checks that were demanded by Trusic." Suljic emphasized that he never went alone to carry out checks and apartment searches, but that everything was done based on the orders of Trusic, Mercep, or Stjepan Mandarelo. On one occasion Suljic received from Trusic a business card belonging to Borislav Ostojic, from Rijeka. He was told to bring that man to Zagreb together with general Uzelac's brother. Suljic also said that, according to a Mercep's order, Sinisa Rimac, Igor Mikola, Nebojsa Hodak, Castimir Maric, Zeljko Basic and Suljic himself were supposed to travel abroad "in order to carry out checks of people on a certain list of people working against the Croatian authorities."
He also witnessed Sasa's (Aleksandar Antic) murder. Mikola and Rimac had told him that several id's disappeared from Mercep's BMW and that Sasa was a suspect. He remembered that before they left the Zagreb fairground, Mikola had had a private conversation with Tusic; hence he supposed that during that conversation Tusic had told Mikola what to do with Sasa.
Mercep and Tusic issued an order to arrest Marina from Rijeka, provided she turned up at Pavo Mlinaric's funeral. She came to the funeral; Mikola and Rimac caught her, disarmed her and drove her to the Zagreb fairgrounds where she was interrogated by Demal Palos. After interrogation, Palos said in front of everyone: "Daddy (Mercep) has ordered - straight for Poljana." Suljic stated that he had later heard that Marina had been killed from a machine gun by Tonci. "He doesn't know why Marina was executed, but he stated that he had heard rumors that Marina's father was a member of KOS [Yugoslav couterintelligence service] and that because of that it was necessary to kill her." This was written at the end of the Suljic's interrogation at the Zagreb PD.
"First Tonci and Bego led two of them towards the cellar; as Brisevac was standing next to the van, he heard that a lot of shots were fired from a 'scorpio' and 'pumperica' as well as a hand gun. Next, Sasa and Miljenko Zadro led away another two prisoners and again he heard shooting and a few cries, while the prisoners in the van were quiet. He doesn't remember how exactly it went from there, but about half way through it he went together with Zadro to the cellar door; two persons were already there - the prisoners; he shot one of them from a 'TT', caliber 7.62mm; three or four bullets; the man he shot had his back towards Brisevac. Immediately after the two men fell in the cellar, he went back to the courtyard because he sensed a strange smell and was feeling sick. At the very end, when there was no one left in the van, he went with Zadro and Bego back to the cellar door, where another three prisoners were standing and shot at them. He was shooting from a 'TT', Zadro from a machine gun and Bego, as far as Brisevac remembers, from a hand gun. After the shooting and after these three men fell in the cellar, Miljenko Zadro fired into the cellar, at the bodies, about 30-40 bullets from a machine gun; Brisevac warned him not to do it, since one of the bullets could ricochet and hurt them.
After all this shooting, Sasa threw a hand grenade into the cellar, and immediately afterwards, Bego asked him if he could throw in another one and, since Sasa said that he could, Bego threw another grenade into the cellar."
After that, the house was destroyed with plastic explosives. Brisevac, in his statement said that " he does not know who the victims were; he claims that he doesn't know their identities and says that he didn't look at their faces; however, since they were in jail, he supposes that they were Chetniks." He also said that at the spot nobody issued a specific order to execute the prisoners: "it was presumed; he saw what the others were doing and joined in in order not to be left out; he believes that if he stayed on the side that might have been bad for his life."
According to the official report, Miroslav Brisevac admitted being an accomplice to the murders of two prisoners ("who were, before the execution, interrogated with the help of an inductive telephone set") at the time while the so-called Mercep's unit was in the Gospic area:
"After the interrogation, the two prisoners were placed in a van and all of us (Jozo, Igor, 'Ceno', Zadro, Madarevic, Scmuch and Brisevac) went with them on the road between Gospic and Ostarje; about half way between Gospic and Ostarje we stopped the van at a rest stop; an abyss was on the other side of the road. At the mentioned rest stop, they took out the younger prisoner, led him to the other side of the road and, all together, shot at him; as he fell down at the edge of the abyss, they had to push him over the edge. After that they carried the older prisoner out of the van, because he was unable to walk due to the beating he had received earlier; they shot him and pushed him into the abyss."
The report also contains the following description of the execution of two prisoners in the village of Janja Lipa, near Pakracka Poljana; the execution was carried out at the edge of a grave dug out by another three prisoners. Besides Brisevac, Igor Mikola and Sinisa Rimac also took part in the execution.
"After the shooting was finished, Igor Mikola ordered the other three prisoners, whom he called 'official personnel' to drag the corpse to the grave; they obeyed his order.
After that the 'official personnel' stepped aside and Rimac said not to shoot at the other prisoner, because he was 'his'. Rimac pulled him out of a truck and led him to the grave; while he was doing that he was also swearing at the prisoner saying 'why are you limping, you mother fucker?'.
At the grave, the prisoner was made to face the already dead victim and then Rimac took out a hand gun and shot the prisoner in the back of the head; the victim fell next to the grave, beside a tree; then Mikola and Brusevac came closer and both fired several bullets into the body; he remembers that he fired 2-3 bullets. After that, the 'official personnel' dragged the other victim to the grave and Mikola told them to cover the bodies. While the prisoners were covering the bodies the three of them (Mikola, Brisevac and Rimac) were standing next to the grave. He thinks that the prisoner with a ski hat lost the hat, so that someone picked it up and threw it in the grave."
He didn't know that they had been executing people and stealing their money, "but even if he were to find out that they killed a Chetnik or two, he wouldn't blame them, but would try to protect them." Mercep took part in the interrogation of five-six officers captured during the take over of the barracks "Stanko Opsenica"; he beat up a certain Dotlic and hit the officer Strpac but he didn't know what happened to those two and the rest of them afterwards.
In October, Mercep's unit liberated Kukunjevac, Toranj and other villages in the Pakrac area; Mercep was wounded in fighting near Lovska. Nikola Rukavina a.k.a. "Pop" who imposed himself, Zvonko Trusic and Branko Saric Kosa (Mercep emphasized that he had appointed only Saric) took over the command of the unit; finally, Demo Palos took over the command; "he is the person who knows the most about the events in Pakracka Poljana."
After the unit's arrival to Pakracka Poljana, continued Mercep, he heard that a certain Sasa (Aleksandar Antic) was there; "an amiable man who knew how to get under everyone's skin." Mercep didn't like the fact that Sasa was in the headquarters: a Serb should not be more than a soldier. But, once he heard that Sasa was competent and capable of everything, he thought about sending him to Serbia to carry out terrorist attacks. Sasa accepted that task. Mercep had Sasa take his car to a wash on one occasion; several days later he noticed that some 50-60 reserve police identification cards were missing. Sasa denied any connection with their disappearance; Mercep told him to stay out of Poljana and wait to be sent to Serbia. After that, according to Mercep's version, Sasa simply disappeared. Only later, Mercep found out that Demo had become suspicious of Sasa; Demo ordered that Sasa be caught, interrogated and executed; Mercep didn't know who had carried out the execution.
To the question whether he knew anything about the executions in the village of Bujavica, Mercep replied that he had seen the action of cleansing of that village, but that he didn't know anything about executions of Chetniks or any other persons. His answer regarding Stipe Mandarelo, was similar; Mercep had met Mandarelo on the Zagreb fairgrounds; Mandarelo had been a commander of one of the units in Poljana. Mercep had heard that Mandarelo, in order to settle some old accounts, was abducting customs officers and detaining them in Pakracka Poljana. Later, Mercep heard that Mandarelo was some kind of a buffoon, "that's how he looked too," and that he joined the whole thing for his own interest and personal profit.
Mercep depicted Marina, i.e. Ina Zoricic as a sick person who had an affair with Nikola Rukavina. Marina's husband Sanjin even demanded through Mercep that Rukavina, a.k.a. Pop returns his wife. Pop, who like the other boys from Vukovar "has gone nuts", on one occasion brought to Mercep, to a hospital, a hand gun and said that Marina was supposed to kill Mercep with that hand gun. Mercep didn't take that seriously. At the funeral of Pavo Mlinaric, a man he had known from Vukovar and for whom he could say that he had been a good fighter, Mercep saw Marina for the first time.
In the police report, signed by Nikola Jambrek, we can read:" On that occasion he didn't order anything regarding Marina to anyone of the present men; several days after the funeral, Rimac and the others told him that Marina had 'swam away'; he was revolted by that and told them everything, because he was of the opinion that it was a sin to kill such a sick person and that she was harmless; she only talked a lot because she was sick and a female. Although he knew what happened and that the culprits were the boys from Vukovar, Tomislav didn't do anything in particular trying to justify their act and decided not to betray them. He later found out from the same boys that the order for Marina's execution was given by Demo."
Mercep was very angry when he realized that Poljana was actually "a brothel" (he had said a long time ago that women should be chased away from there) and that things "were not done properly", but he didn't want to stress too much about that. By the way, it is stated in the official report "he doesn't know that there was a jail in Poljana nor that some people were keeping detained there for a long time; he only knows that three men were imprisoned there according to the orders of Vlada Delac; one of them had a big head. When he found out about those people, Tomo reacted immediately and demanded that those men be released, if they were not guilty, and if they were, that they be moved somewhere else because there was no reason to keep them and feed them in Pakracka Poljana."
Here is the end of the report made after the interrogation in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic of Croatia, where Mercep is an adviser:" Tomislav adds that he realizes his responsibility for the actions of the group of people from Vukovar, but that their actions and behavior can be explained by all the traumas they have been trough since the beginning of this war as well as the loss of their dearest. Because each one of them has lost someone from the closest family and because they were essentially good people, Tomislav was always ready to back them up and protect them, although he has heard that they were doing stupid and illegal things. All of them, except for Rimac, yearned for an easy and luxurious life, which they were unable to achieve; because of that, carried away by events, they probably did things which were not in order. He tried to keep them together and protect them because they didn't have anyone else who would take care of them. However, because of his obligations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and on the front, he lost control of a good deal of things. It is possible that certain events mentioned in this conversation have occured, but he certainly was not in the position to prevent them since, because of other obligations, he failed to control people with whom he worked and, mostly, trusted. He also mentions that he has heard for the butcher Zec only after his murder and that he is bothered in that whole case by the fact that the boys had killed a child, although one should suspend the final judgment until the motive for the act is known."