Lazarevic et al: Sexual abuse of men

A Prosecution witness says two detainees were forced to have oral sex with each other at a detention camp in Zvornik.

Fahrudin Memic, who testified as Prosecution witness at the trial of the former reserve police members with the Public Safety Station in Zvornik, said that soldiers carved a cross on his and two other detainees’ foreheads in the “Novi izvor” building.

“During my detention in ‘Novi izvor’ they used to hit me in my hands and legs,and my knife was broken due as a result of the beating. On one occasion a person named Sasa came and he ordered two detainees to have oral sex with each other, while his girlfriend was watching it,” Memic said.

The indictment alleges that indictee Sreten Lazarevic was deputy manager of the detention camps, which were situated in the “Novi izvor” building and the Offence Court building in Zvornik. The Prosecution charges him with having failed to prevent the abuse of detainees and with having personally participated in it.

Besides Lazarevic, the Prosecution charges Dragan Stanojevic, Mile Markovic and Slobodan Ostojic, who are considered to have been guards in these detention camps and to have participated in the torture of detainees.

Fahrudin Memic said that the abuse of detainees in the detention camps in Zvornik were “successive,” so, sometimes they were beaten up several times in one day.

“On one occasion, during my detention in ‘Novi izvor’, I was ordered to lie down on the floor. After that three soldiers jumped on me. Probably, due tothe pressure, blood started flowing from my ear. I thought I was dead already,” the witness recalled, explaining that the detainees were not beaten by any of the guards. He said that indictee Dragan Stanojevic repeatedly instructed other persons to beat him.

The witness said that he met Sreten Lazarevic two times. The first time they met he hit him in his face.

Fahrudin Memic and second Prosecution witness Fadil Smajilovic said that Mile Markovic did not abuse anyone and that they never saw Slobodan Ostojic.

Describing the abuse of detainees, Fadil Smajilovic said that this was”always done by soldiers from Serbia, whom the guards did not dare confront. “However, he was not able to say how those persons could enter the rooms in which the detainees were held.

The indictment alleges that Sreten Lazarevic used to unlock the door to the detention rooms when a group of Serbian soldiers, known as “Gogicevci,” would come. Those soldiers then abused the detainees.

“The guards never beat the detainees. If he could not help you, guard Dragan Stanojevic did not do you any harm. He would take me home to spend sometime with my wife and children, to take a bath and to change my clothes. While I was doing that, he would wait in front of my house,” Smajilovic said.

Asked by Trial Chamber Chairwoman Mira Smajlovic how come that Dragan Stanojevic did not treat any other detainees in such a way, the witness said that they had”built trust and respect towards each other”.

The trial of the four indictees is due to continue on May 14, 2008.