Lelek: Horror in Vilina Vlas

Protected witnesses C and D lived in Visegrad until mid-1992, when they suffered a series of traumatic events including rape, loss of family members and forced deportation.

When describing the events that they either lived through or witnessed, they both mentioned Hague indictee Milan Lukic and recognized Zeljko Lelek, the subject of this War Crimes Chamber trial.

The Court of BiH charges Lelek to have taken part, together with Milan Lukic, in a number of crimes committed in Visegrad at the beginning of May 1992, which include murders, deportations, forcible disappearances, illegal imprisonment,torturing, beating, forcible transfers, rapes and other forms of sexual violence.

Although both witnesses mentioned Milan Lukic, none could say with certainty if they had seen Lelek with him at the time of the crimes.

The indictment alleges that Lelek, in mid June 1992,forced the protected witness C “to stroke his genitals, cursing her Turkish mother, and then forced her to take his penis in her arm and stroke it, while at the same time he was slapping and beating her”.

“At first I refused to do it, but in the end I was forced to do it,” said witness C.

She also says that she was left alone in her family house in Visegrad,after the Serbian forces forcibly transferred all the other residents.

“I stayed there for two and a half months. I was taken to all kinds of places in Visegrad, I was maltreated, raped, beaten…I lived through many things,” said protected witness C, who recognized Zeljko Lelek and pointed at him.

Witness D also recognized him. She claims that he, and some others, personally raped her while she was detained in theVilina vlas detention camp for women.

According to the indictment, witness D was detained in the former spa in June 1992. She was in the same room with three other women. The accused, Lelek, came into the room and raped her.

The indictment also alleges that witness D was physically maltreated during her detention. Soldiers extinguished cigarettes on her body and cut her body, including the genital area.

“They have some kind of a hooked knife. They cut my lips with it. One of them cut off my nipples. They were cutting meas if they were hewing wood,” said witness D.

She also says that Milan Lukic personally took her from her house in Visegrad to Vilina vlas and that she saw Lelek for the first time a day after she had been brought to the camp, when he raped her.

“The worst things happened to me, but it is not nice to speak about it in public,” said witness D.

According to her testimony, she spent “ten to 15 days” in Vilina vlas and then a “neighbor” helped her escape from the camp.

During cross-examination, Lelek’s defense attorney Radmila Radisavljevic insisted that the witness should tell the court who was the neighbor who had saved her, or what his nationality was. The witness refused to answer and the trial chamber did not insist on it.

Vilina vlas,in which witness D was detained, was one of the places in Eastern Bosnia where, in 1992, women were detained and sexually abused. So far,Lelek is the only person against whom the Court of BiH has filed an indictment for war crimes committed in this former spa.

The trial continues on 15 May 2007.