Selimovic et al: Exchanging Prisoners

“The detainees did not complain to me. They just asked me when they would be exchanged. I did not notice any signs of mistreatment or beating on the detainees,” Suhret Fazlic said, testifying in defence of indictees Mehura Selimovic and Adil Ruznic.

Fazlic was the wartime President of the Commission for Exchange of Prisoners of War with the Fifth Corps of the ABiH.

In addition to Selimovic and Ruznic, the State Prosecution charges Emir Mustafic with having assisted in and abetted the detention of Serb soldiers and prisoners of war in detention facilities in Bihac, Cazin and Bosanski Petrovac from 1994 to 1996.

According to the charges, Selimovic, Ruznic and Mustafic physically mistreated prisoners in those facilities while examining them.

The Prosecution alleges that Selimovic was Counter-intelligence Officer, Operational Officer and Deputy Chief of the Military Security Service Section of the Fifth Corps with ABiH, Ruznic was Assistant Commander for Security and Operational Officer with that same Section and Mustafic was member of the Military Police with the Fifth Corps.

Witness Fazlic said that indictee Selimovic attended the exchange of prisoners on several occasions, adding that he performed intelligence tasks and had no contact with the prisoners.

“I led the exchange process. I prepared the orders for exchange. When an exchange happened, nobody could speak to prisoners any more. Selimovic could not speak to them about anything,” Fazlic said.

Fazlic said that Selimovic was present during an exchange of Serb prisoners for members of the Fifth Corps on March 11, 1995.

“On that day Selimovic’s task was to stand to the side and watch. Not having to think about intelligence tasks, in addition to everything else, was important to me. I remember that the negotiations for that exchange were painstaking. Those children (members of the Fifth Corps) looked untidy and skinny. (…) Three dead ABiH members and 31 prisoners were exchanged on that day,” Fazlic said.

Responding to cross-examination questions by State Prosecutor Dubravko Campara, the witness said that he did not know whether the Serb prisoners were injured on their way to the exchange location.

“It is not known to me whether they were injured. On the contrary, they helped our guys cross to the other side,” Fazlic said.

During the course of his testimony, second Defence witness Slavko Lipic, former driver with the Morale Section with the Fifth Corps Command of ABiH, said that he drove indictee Selimovic and witness Fazlic to “meetings related to the exchange of prisoners” in 1993 and 1994, but he did not attend the meetings.

Esad Bajramovic, former leader of the Commission for Search for the Missing Persons of Bosnian Krajina, testified as the third Defence witness at Wednesday’s hearing. He said that a number of exhumations in Krajina region were conducted on the basis of information obtained by the Security Service of the ABiH Fifth Corps from prisoners of war.

“About 4,000 bodies were exhumed in the period from 1995 to 2010. 2,000 bodies were exhumed on the basis of the information obtained by the Service. Had those pieces of information not been collected, those people would still be under the ground,” Bajramovic said.

The trial is due to continue on June 1 this year.

A.S.