Damjanovic charged with war crimes in Vogosca

Indictment claims that former Republika Srpska Army member tortured and killed Bosniak civilian prisoners.

The Bosnian war crimes chamber has confirmed the indictment against Dragan Damjanovic, who is being charged in connection with crimes committed in Vogosca, a district in the Sarajevo municipality.

Damjanovic, 45, was a member of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) during the war. He is accused of murder, torture, rape and other crimes against humanity committed against Bosniak civilians in the period from July 1992 to the end of January 1993. The indictee is expected to enter a plea next week.

The seven-count indictment claims that, in July 1992, Damjanovic took 20 imprisoned Bosniak civilians from Vogosca to a destination in Reljevo, in the vicinity of the Zuc hill. He allegedly made the prisoners do hard physical jobs, and afterwards took them to the nearby frontline, where they were murdered.

The indictment also claims that, from August 1992 to February 1993, Damjanovic – along with the guards of the Planjina kuca camp in Semizovac near Vogosca – had physically abused, beaten and forced the imprisoned civilians to work.

The prisoners were afterwards taken to serve as a human shield, during which most of them were wounded, some died on the frontline, and others later died of their wounds.

In late August 1992, the indictment further states, Damjanovic ordered a prisoner in Planjina kuca camp “to sit next to him, after which he took out a knife from the sheaths, and started cutting the man’s face, engraving across-like shape on his nose and above the eyebrows”.

It is claimed that he then ordered the prisoner to “set a plate with food in order for the blood to drip into it, he forced him to eat all the food along with the blood”.

Also, according to the indictment, Damjanovic had tortured another prisoner from the same camp by engraving a cross on his forehead with a bayonet, after which he took the man away from the other prisoners. “The same person was found dead the next day, with a gunshot wound through the head,” the indictment states.

The indictee was arrested on December 6, 2005 in Bjeljina where he had lived after the war. He has been held in the Kula detention unit since March 3.