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Humanitarian Law CenterThe defendant was told, pursuant to Article 218 Paragraph 2 of the CPCthat he is not obliged to present his defence or to answer the questionsasked, and when asked what he had to say in his defence, the defendantgave the following statement:The defendant was informed that the Prokuplje Public Prosecutor’s Officerequested investigation to be initiated against him, and submitted a detentionrequest (KT 25/99) on 24 May 1999 because of the act of murder pursuantto Article 47 Paragraph 2 Item 6 of the RS CC.The court assigned him Živorad Šubaranović, an attorney from Prokuplje,as an ex officio defence counsellor.The defendant stated that he understood the district prosecutor’s public request,and gave the following statement in his defence:“I live in Beška. Two days after the NATO bombing started, I was calledinto the SAJ reserve unit - the Scorpions - under the command of SlobodanMedić, aka Boca. We were issued with a uniform in Belgrade and withweapons in Prolom Banja after we arrived there from Novi Sad. Two dayslater, we were told that we were going to Podujevo to cleanse the area. Onemorning, the whole unit comprised of 125 members arrived to Podujevowhere we were turned over to the SAJ command. Upon our arrival, peoplestarted getting off the bus without any control, while I stayed on the buswith other people for another half an hour. I asked one of the SAJ membersto find one old colleague of mine, Dejan Latnik. One of the SAJ commanderstold us to find ourselves accommodation and we asked him to let someof his men come with us.One older man with a beard came out of the second house I passed, and hetold me, “Where is my son, I paid for freedom”. One guy previously askedhim, “Where is the money?” My colleague Miloš from Sremska Mitrovicatook over this man and I went with another three colleagues inside anotherhouse in the same yard. Several women and children came out of thathouse, along with an old man carrying luggage. We stopped them. Theyleft their things beside the wall and we searched them and found no weaponson them.18