Inmates describe Sanski Most brutality

The State Court trial of Nikola Kovacevic, a former Bosnian Serb soldier charged with war crimes committed in Sanski Most municipality heard from a series of witnesses this week whose testimonies were intended to shore up the prosecution case.

Dragan Majkic, a former member of the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, and the one-time head of Sanski Most police station, confirmed accounts by previous witnesses about how Sanski Most was taken over by Serb forces in 1992.

“They put up a Serb flag on the Centre for Public Security [CJB] formed their own police and in that way forcefully took over the police station building in Sanski Most,” said Majkic, who was in charge of the police station when all this occurred.

As a member of the SDS, Majkic said he attended a meeting to discuss the Serb take-over of police activities in the area. Members of an armed unit known as the Serb Defence Forces, SOS, were also present at the meeting.

According to the indictment against him, Kovacevic was a member of the SOS during the war.

Also this week, the trial heard from, Suad Sabic, a Bosniak who was also a policeman in Sanski Most at the time. He said that after the Serbs took over the Sanksi Most municipality building, the SOS and the local Crisis Staff asked CJB members to sign a statement of loyalty to the Serb municipality of Sanski Most. Most rejected the proposal, he said.

“We withdrew from the building so that we would not be victims of SOS members. Then we left the town and went to the village of Sehovici,” he said. He added that on May 25, 1992 he was arrested and detained at the Betonirka detention facility.

Many Bosniaks were held in garages at the Betonirka factory complex in Sanski Most, where they are said to have suffered daily beatings, in which Kovacevic allegedly participated.

Another witness, Zikrija Bahtic, also a Bosniak ex-policeman, was taken to the Betonirka site on June 16, 1992.

“They beat us every day, especially at night, and I was once beaten by Danilusko Kajtez,”he told the court. Prosecutors say Kovacevic used this name during the war.

Both Sabic and Bahtić were transferred from Betonirka to the Manjaca detention camp on August 28, 1992, where they spent the next few months. Both men identified Kovacevic from a photograph from 1992, which was shown to them in the courtroom.

Also this week, Adil Draganovic, the former president of the Sanski Most District Court, recalled how he and other non-Serb judges and staff were expelled from the Court building on May 15 that year.

“The court building was occupied by the reserve forces of the Serb army and militia forces,” he said. “Under the threat of being killed, I left the building.”

By the end of May, Draganovic had been arrested by four armed soldiers, one of whom was named Danilusko Kajtez.

Draganovic was held at the District Court building for 24 days.

“The nine of us were put in a room of two and a half meters. When I entered, the walls were white,” he said. “A couple of days later, they became grey, black, and the condensation poured down the walls. Everything stank badly. There were no windows, only a tin with holes perforated. One by one, we approached the holes to breathe fresh air.”

By mid-June, he had been transferred together with a group of other inmates to the Manjaca detention camp, where he remained until December 14. He was released following intervention by the International Red Cross and the UNHCR, and was then transferred to Croatia.

The next witness, Ismet Kolakovic, was also a former camp inmate. After several days spent in garages at the Betonirka factory complex in Sanski Most, he was also transferred to the Manjaca camp, before being moved on to the Batkovici detention centre, near Bijeljina.

He told the court that 66 detainees were transported in one truck on July 7, 1992, from Betonirka to Manjača. During the journey, he said, 22 of them died.

The indictment against Kovacevic says that on July 7, 1992, he and other individuals took more than 60 detainees from Betonirka in a truck. The prisoners are said to have been put under a tarpaulin and prevented by armed guards from lifting it up. As a result of “hot weather, injuries and exhaustion”, at least 19 are said to have suffocated.

Another prosecution witness, Mira Mauzner, confirmed the existence of the Betonirka and Manjaca camps. She said her husband, Ventislav Mauzner, had been detained at the former facility before he disappeared on July 7, 1992.

Asked by prosecutor Dzemila Begovic whether she hoped to gain materially in any way from the trial proceedings against Kovacevic, the witness replied that the only thing she wanted was to know the whereabouts of her husband.

The trial to due to continue on May 23.