Dolic: A Face to be Remembered

A witness who said she was raped by Darko Dolic told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that she “will remember his face forever”.

“I know how Darko Dolic’s face looks. I shall never forget it, never for as long as I live. I shall remember it forever,” said the witness known only as S3. “At the moment he started raping me, I pulled the stocking from his face. He pulled it over his face quickly as he did not want me to see his face. But I saw it, and I shall never forget it.”

Dolic, a former member of the Rama Brigade with the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, is charged with raping S3 at her house in the Prozor municipality at the end of July or beginning of August 1993.  

The indictment alleges that Dolic threatened the witness, saying he would slaughter her 15-month old baby. 
 
S3 had been called by the defence to testify after appearing for the prosecution in April.

The witness told investigators that Dolic was  “a rather short person with a round face and a pretty big nose”.

At the trial she said Dolic was taller than her but shorter than her husband. She said the difference in her statements was because she “could not remember every detail, because the rape was a big thing”.  

“I told my husband about the rape a long time later, because I was afraid of how he might react. I want him to be alive and be with our children. He noticed something was happening to me when he was detained in the school building in Prozor,” she said.
 
The witness said her sister told her Dolic’s name later on.
 
Ajka Gelic, the second defence witness of the day, told the court she offered help to S3 after finding out she had been raped. 
 
“When we found out what had happened in the village, we went to S3’s house. She looked as if though she had been beaten up. She looked miserable. She said she had been raped. I asked her who had done it to her and she said it was ‘Dole’. Then I took S3 and her two children to my house in Prozor,” Gelic said. 
 
The witness said that S3 showed her the person who had raped her several days later, whom he saw from the window in the corridor of her house. She said S3 identified her attacker as Dolic.
 
The defence pointed out that in earlier statements the witness described Dolic as “a rather fat blonde guy”. Gelic said the differences in her statements were caused by the fact that she “got confused” at the time.
 
The trial will continue on September 2.

 E.M.