Osmic: Fatal Taking of People from Bugojno Detention Camps

For more than four months the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has examined witnesses at the trial of Osmic, who was a military policeman with the 307th Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Witnesses said they were beaten by the indictee during their detention in various buildings in the Bugojno area in 1993 and 1994.

Ivan Kapetanovic, who was 16 years old at the time, was among the detainees. He said members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina captured him in the summer of 1993 and took him to a garage in Donjici village.

“Then it started. I no longer knew what they hit me with. They hit me with hands and feet and the butts of guns. I remember Alija Osmic was there. In most cases he was among the soldiers and policemen who brutally beat up those helpless detained people,” Ivan Kapetanovic said.

Osmic is charged with having participated in the detention and mistreatment of Croat civilians in garages in Donjici village in July 1993.

“I know Osmic by sight. I saw him during my detention in the garage. I think he was the most brutal man I have ever seen. This was how he treated the detainees. He would just come in like a typhoon and beat up all those who were present,” Josip Kalajica said.

Most witnesses said they were transferred to the Marxist Center – Cloister after having spent several days in the garage in Donjici. The indictment alleges that at the end of July 1993 Osmic and other members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina abused detainees in the garage by “hitting them with hands, feet and blunt objects”.

“While we were in the room they called some people out. They never came back. They called my brother Vlatko out. I then saw Alija Osmic and a person named Dudo Duvnjak waiting for him. This was the last time I saw him,” Ivan Kapetanovic said.

The indictment alleges that Osmic and another ABiH member took a prisoner from the Marxist Center, loaded him into the trunk of a black Mercedes, drove him away and killed him.

“My son Ivan saw them taking my Vlatko out. Other people saw them loading him into the trunk of a black Mercedes and driving him away in an unknown direction. About 20 of my neighbours were held in the Cloister. All of them mentioned Alija Osmic, saying he was in charge of everything in the Cloister,” Anto Kapetanovic, father of Vlatko and Ivan, said.

Witnesses Ivica Keskic and Mario Glisic, who said they were beaten by Osmic in the garage in Donjici on several occasions, spoke about the taking of Vlatko Kapetanovic from the Marxist Center.

“A few Brigade policemen came once. Alija Osmic was among them. They took me, Vlatko Kapetanovic and Marijo Glisic out and started beating us. Some time later I fell to the ground. A policeman took my legs and dragged me to the toilet,” Keskic recalled, adding that he saw Osmic and another policeman “loading Vlatko Kapetanovic into a black Mercedes”.

Many former members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, who were detained in the Marxist Center, said that some soldiers, including the indictee, used to take detainees from the building to other locations where they performed labour.

Osmic is charged with having taken a group of detainees, including Marijo Zrno, from the Marxist Center – Cloister to Vrbanja settlement where they collected corpses, while he mistreated them physically and mentally. Zrno died due to injuries caused by the beating.

Mario Franjic and Dragan Kasalo were among the witnesses who spoke about this event.

“Alija personally picked ten people. All of them except Marijo Zrno came back from work. I found out that they had been taken to Vrbanja, where they had collected corpses. I was told they had beaten him,” Kasalo said. Franjic added that this “proved to be true, as Zrno died afterwards”.

Witnesses Ivica Kajic and Zeljko Milos said they were mistreated in the BH banka premises in Bugojno in October 1993. Osmic is charged with this mistreatment under the last of the three counts in the indictment.

“They beat us every couple of hours. While military policemen were beating me, this gentleman, Alija Osmic, came in and said: ‘Here is our policeman’. He then started hitting me with all kinds of things, such as a rifle and some kind of wood from a bed,” Milos said.

These allegations were confirmed by protected witness B1, a former military policeman with the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who said that detainees were brought to the BH banka premises from the Iskra stadium.

“Osmic beat some detainees once or twice when I was present in the BH banka premises. I used to see detainees with visible injuries or broken teeth,” B1 said.

The trial of Osmic began at the end of December last year, after the indictee had pleaded not guilty to all counts contained in the indictment at the beginning of November.

Osmic was arrested in September 2009. After the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina had examined all the witnesses, he was allowed out of custody under certain prohibiting measures in late April 2010.

Denis Dzidic is a BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected] Justice Report is an online weekly BIRN publication.