Lalovic and Skiljevic: Former Detainee and Former Manager

Velimir Kenjic, who testified for the Defence of Radoje Lalovic, was serving a prison sentence in Kula until April 1992. He said that on April 6, 1992 all the prisoners were told that they were free. 

“I was supposed to stay in the prison until May, I think, and then I was to be released on conditional discharge. However, on April 6, 1992 duty officer Ranko Tesanovic came and told all the prisoners they could go home. As I did not want the time remaining until my conditional discharge to be wasted, I reported to Vlado Vasiljevic, who was an electrician. He told me I should come there to feed the chickens,” the witness said.

Kenjic stayed in the Kula prison, which the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina argues functioned as a detention camp for non-Serb civilians, in 1992. The witness recalled a group of people being brought to the locksmith workshop to perform some labour. 

“Four or five prisoners helped us out in the workshop. I know that they were given breakfast, a snack, lunch and dinner. They were given the snack while they were in the workshop. They would get salami, a can, cold meat or something like that,” Kenjic said, adding that he could not remember when the prisoners worked.

Radoje Lalovic and Soniboj Skiljevic are charged before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the forcible detention of civilians, as well as with keeping them in inhumane conditions and forcing them to perform labour. 

The indictment alleges that by the end of 1992 Lalovic was the Kula Facility Manager and Skiljevic was his Deputy. From December 1992 to the end of 1995 Skiljevic was the Manager. 

The second Defence witness, Fadil Kreho, was Manager of the Penal and Correctional Facility in Kula until April 1992.

“I went home for the weekend and I was not able to go back to Kula after that. I did not visit Kula until the end of April or in May 1992, when I went there, but they did not let me take my personal belongings,” the witness said, adding that he saw some old workers, but also some new ones, in Kula.

Kreho told the Court that he did not know what was going on in Kula or who was its manager. He said that the pre-war prisoners, while being held in Kula, used to work “in the quarry, restaurants, shops or at the chicken farm”, but they were paid for their work. 

The trial is due to continue on September 10.