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Man vowed to kill hostages, trial told
Serbs threatened to murder UN observers
if air strikes continued, captain testifies
By KIM LUNMAN
Thursday, October 10, 2002 - Page A10
OTTAWA -- A Serbian Canadian accused of taking a Canadian soldier
hostage in Bosnia in 1995 threatened to kill a United Nations military
observer for "every bomb" dropped on Serb territory, his trial heard
yesterday.
Captain Patrick Rechner testified that Nicholas Ribic of Edmonton
uttered the threats to UN officials after abducting him and two other
military observers from their office near Sarajevo after two NATO air
strikes on Serbian ammunition sites on May 26, 1995.
"He said if the air strikes were not stopped, we would be killed," Mr.
Rechner testified. "He said for every bomb that falls from now on, one
of the military observers would be killed."
He identified a voice of one of the hostage-takers on a radio broadcast
as belonging to Mr. Ribic. "This is a BSA [Bosnia Serb Army] soldier," a
man said in the tape, which was broadcast after the hostage-taking and
played in the Ottawa courtroom yesterday. "Three UN observers are at the
site of the warehouse. Any more bombing, they'll be the first to go.
Understood?"
Mr. Ribic recognized his own voice the next day when CNN played the tape
with images of Capt. Rechner and the two other hostages chained and
handcuffed in a Serbian ammunition dump, Capt. Rechner testified.
"He remarked that he may as well tear up his Canadian passport," said
Capt. Rechner, who was watching television while detained with other
military observers in a Serb military barracks.
Capt. Rechner said he tried to reassure Mr. Ribic. "I told him not to be
too concerned. I was hoping to convince him it was in his own personal
interests that I not be harmed."
The bespectacled 39-year-old army captain calmly detailed his three
weeks in captivity to the jury in his second day of testimony. His
captors kept him blindfolded, handcuffed and afraid for his life at some
points, but also treated him to a hotel meal and took him home to do his
laundry.
Mr. Ribic, 28, is the first Canadian ever to be charged under
10-year-old Criminal Code provisions for prosecuting international
hostage-taking. He faces four counts of hostage-taking and a maximum
penalty of life imprisonment.
He is accused of abducting Capt. Rechner and a Czech Republic military
observer at gunpoint on May 26 and holding them hostage until June 18,
1995. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Ribic was arrested in 1999 after he was extradited from Germany. He
was released on bail and lives in Edmonton.
"There is very much more to the story than what we've heard, and
hopefully that story will come out as the evidence unfolds," Mr. Ribic's
lawyer, D'Arcy DePoe, said outside court.
Capt. Rechner testified that he met Mr. Ribic in January, 1995, at his
office in Pale, near Sarajevo, after Mr. Ribic was referred to him by
another Canadian expatriate. Mr. Ribic told him he was from Edmonton and
a translator for the Serbian army. He seemed "a very decent fellow,"
Capt. Rechner recalled. Mr. Ribic visited his office briefly again about
a month before the hostage-taking.
The next time the two men met on May 26, Mr. Ribic was wearing a Serb
soldier's camouflage uniform and carrying an AK-47 rifle. He was
accompanied by another man carrying an AK-47, and the two demanded Capt.
Rechner and two others leave with them.
They were driven to the Serb ammunition site and met by 20 angry Serbs.
Capt. Rechner said one man punched and kicked him before aiming his
pistol at all three. Mr. Ribic disarmed the man, he said. The three were
handcuffed at the ammunition bunker and videotaped by a Serb soldier.
Mr. Rechner said he was forced to radio the United Nations office with
the
message: "If bombing starts again, I've been instructed to tell you that
we will die for the sake of NATO." The call was replayed in the
courtroom.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
