Bundalo et al: Black Thursday in Kalinovik

 Holding a framed photograph of her husband, Dzemila Redjovic, Prosecution witness, recounted  ”black Thursday”, the day he was taken away.

”This is my husband and I have brought his photo so judges can see the youth they have killed. He was a wonderful father who gave me two children,” said the witness as she wept.

The State Prosecution charges Ratko Bundalo, Nedjo Zeljaja and Djordjislav Askraba with the murder, rape, torture, forceful disappearance and the destruction of property belonging to Bosniaks during 1992 and 1993 in the area around Kalinovik

”I will always remember that black Thursday because on the morning of June 25, 1992, Rasid received an invitation to report to Municipality building. I went with him. It was sunny in Kalinovik that morning and suddenly clouds had appeared and rain started. In front of the Municipality building, a lot of men gathered by the police and they were brought inside. When I returned home I told my father-in-law what happened and he replied ”my daughter, who knows when we will see Rasid again and he may never be returned”, recalled Redjovic, adding she still has not found the remains of her husband.

Redjovic said the next day, on June 26, 1992, she saw Bundalo in the Municipality together with Grujo Lalovic and asked them for information about her husband.

”Lalovic told me that my Rasid has been captured for various reasons and he pointed to Bundalo and said that he will send him to search my house,” adding that she did not see Bundalo after that.

”I cannot remember exactly when, but my father-in-law came to me and said that all men were taken by trucks towards the gunpowder warehouse. We went every day, even as it rained, in hope they will let us see our husbands, but police and soldiers kept saying that Askraba is in charge and we have to ask him,” she recounted.

The indictment states that Askraba was manager of the concentration camp known as the ”Gunpowder warehouse” from July 7 to August 5 1992, and Bundalo and Zeljaja, according to the Prosecution were participating in the ”establishing and organising” of camps and prisons in the Kalinovik area.

” I remember I came to see Rasid a second time on July 27, 1992 and they let me talk to him a bit longer that time. He asked about my son and daughter and through his tears told me that they (the detained men) will be taken to Foca to be killed. That was the last time I saw my husband and never again. Never again,” said Redjovic.

The witness testified that in August 1992 she was taken with her father-in-law to the elementary school in Kalinovik and kept there for 26 days. According to her testimony, prisoners were tortured on a ‘daily basis” by some Zaga and Zeko”.

They ripped my hair and poured hot water on my hands. She has seven puncture wounds on her body and those scars will never heal. Wounds were infected and upon my release doctors had to clean and stitch them. In that school building, was where my children completed their elementary education and we were kept imprisoned and several times soldiers asked us to undress. Once I was standing naked in front of my father-in-law and it was difficult that he saw me’,’ she said, adding she was exchanged with a group of between ”15 to 20 women” by the end of August.

Pero Elez was commander of Miljevinski battalion from Foca. He is considered to be killed during the war. Zaga is Dragoljub Kunarac who was sentenced at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague to 28 years imprisonment.

The witness said that on August 8 1992, Elez took her father-in-law. She identified his remains in 2006 after the exhumation of a mass grave in the Kalinovik area.

During cross examination, Redjovic said that she saw Zeljaja just once by the end of August 1992 ”with some soldiers in front of the school.”

The trial will continue on Friday March 14 when the Prosecution is scheduled to examine more witnesses.