Selimovic et al: Prisoners ‘Did Not Want to Be Exchanged’

“Those 200 prisoners were brought to the Fifth Corps military barracks. On that occasion General Dudakovic told me during an informal conversation: ‘I do not know what to do. It is not easy to feed 200 people, but they do not want to leave’.

“They did not want to leave the Fifth Corps premises until the war was over. I do not know what happened to them later on,” said Smail Klicic, former president of Bihac municipality executive board and the first joint defence witness at the trial for crimes committed in Bosnian Krajina.   
 
Atif Dudakovic was Commander of the ABiH’s Fifth Corps.
 
Mehura Selimovic, Adil Ruznic and Emir Mustafic, former ABiH members, are charged with crimes committed in Bosnian Krajina. The indictment alleges that Selimovic, Ruznic and Mustafic assisted in and abetted the detention of Serb soldiers and civilians in detention facilities in Bihac, Cazin and Bosanski Petrovac in the period from 1994 to 1996.
 
The Prosecution alleges that Selimovic was Counter-intelligence Officer, Operational Officer and Deputy Chief of the Military Security Service Section with the ABiH’s Fifth Corps, Ruznic was Assistant Commander for Security Issues and Operational Officer with that same section and Mustafic was a member of the military police with the Fifth Corps.
 
Klicic told the Court that he knew that two prisons – one civilian and one military, existed in Bihac at that time.
 
“I know about the civilian prison called Luke. As far as the military prison is concerned, I can assume it was situated in the military barracks,” Klicic said, adding that, as a representative of civilian authorities in Bihac, he did not have information about the accommodation conditions for those prisoners.
 
The indictment alleges that prisoners of war and civilians were held in inhumane conditions in detention camps in the Adil Besic military barracks and the Luke civilian prison in Bihac, as well as in the Rad car mechanic shop in Cazin and other buildings.
 
Responding to questions posed by Trial Chamber member Ljubomir Kitic, the witness said that he did not know if any prisoners were held in the Park hotel in Bihac, the Rad shop in Cazin or the plastic factory in Petrovac.  
 
The trial is due to continue on April 6, when the Defence teams will examine two witnesses.

A.S.