> PRINT EDITION
>
> 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/
