in his narcissism. Innocent Serbs had died, too.
It was only ten in the morning when the courtroom’s attention shifted to the witnesses against Petrović. They would be called in alphabetical order and sworn to tell the truth on the religious book of their choice, or on their honor. They were required to keep their testimony to five minutes, with a thirty-second warning from Mr. Weiss.
For the next four hours the spectators in the gallery and the participants in the courtroom heard victim accounts of murder and destruction, of loss, hope, love, and faith that could have broken even the hearts of sociopaths.
But not his.
I watched Petrović as the testimonies were given. He folded his hands on the counsel table, and sometimes he took notes.
Anna was the last witness to be called and Petrović did give her his attention.
She stepped across the polished floor to the witness area, took an oath to tell the truth, and addressed the tribunal.
“My name is Anna Sotovina, but I am speaking today for all of those who were killed in Djoba, and all of the ones who survived but who have lost everything and everyone they loved.
“When Petrović came into Djoba with military weapons, I was twenty, a housewife with a small baby. My husband told me to stay inside, and he took his rifle into the streets, where he was killed immediately. Soldiers broke down my door, took my little son from my arms, and threw me to the floorboards, where they ripped off my clothes and took turns defiling me.
“The first man to rape me was him, Petrović.
“I listened for the sound of my son and heard his cries out in the street. And they were cut short. I must have screamed for him, but Petrović told me to stop. Then he lit his lighter and did this.”
Anna showed the scar on her face to the utterly silent room.
“The same day I’m telling about, the women of the town were rounded up, corralled into the school auditorium. They were stripped naked, and those who were pregnant were taken out and shot. We were told that we were to bear the children of our enemies and only when we were pregnant would we get rest.
“We were fed. We had to clean the school, and we slept on the floors of the classrooms. We were raped repeatedly and beaten, and we did not complain or even talk to each other for fear of our lives.”
Anna paused. I could see that she was keeping a tight hold on her composure. I was glad when she was able to go on.
She said, “Women with children were told that they could have more. ‘You will give us little Chetniks,’ the soldiers said. They put blades to the children’s throats, used them as hostages to make their mothers comply. Sometimes we were gang-raped by two, four, or as many as seven revolting and cruel soldiers. He—Petrović—frequented the rape hotel.
“Sometimes a woman fought back. It was a suicide wish that was often granted by pistol or the leg of a chair. My aunts and sisters and cousins and friends were all raped and killed in the schoolrooms.
“I did become pregnant. I was brought to a doctor who said so. But before I could retire to a closet and sleep, a fight broke out and I was beaten with everyone else. I lost the baby I did not know and didn’t yet love.
“Later I learned that I could not ever again bear a child.
“When the war ended, I came to the USA and found, to my horror, that he, Petrović, was living a half mile away from my door. I know that his crimes outside of Bosnia are not the purview of this court, but I say this with your permission. Petrović was not fighting his father’s war or any war when he raped and beat me, and when he did the same to other women and killed them with his hands in the sunny state of California. There was no war in California. It was about him, and his love of power. His love of power over life and death.
“Please. Keep him here. Do not release him. Please.”
CHAPTER 119
There was an attenuated silence as Anna returned to her seat, and then the crying started in the observation room and the witness section. Even some of the judges put handkerchiefs to their eyes.
I sobbed into my husband’s jacket and I couldn’t stop. But I was forced to look up when I