Mikulic: Afraid of Indictee
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Mirhet Djuheric, who was brought to Dretelj detention camp on July 1, 1993, said that indictee Mikulic and a few other members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO beat detainee Enver Grebovic.
“I saw them hitting him. He would faint, but they slapped him and poured water over him so he would wake up. He was covered with blood. He was beaten up so brutally that it was hard to believe. Drazen stood out among them as being most aggressive. I know that he drank his blood. He said: ‘I have drunk Muslim blood’,” Djuheric said.
The State Prosecution charges Mikulic, former member of military police of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, with having treated civilians, who were held in Dretelj, Capljina municipality, in an inhumane manner from the beginning of July to the end of August 1993.
The indictment alleges that, acting on his own or in collaboration with other people, Mikulic participated, several times, in the torture of detainees in an extremely cruel, brutal and humiliating way, causing civilians severe injuries and suffering, which even resulted in the death of some of them.
During his testimony witness Djuheric said that he remembered an event, when indictee Mikulic told him and two other detainees to beat three other detainees up.
“The two other guys beat them, but I said I could not do it, because they were my men. It was not nice to force someone to beat your people,” the witness said, adding that the indictee did not beat him.
Djuheric told the Court that he spent about two and a half months in Dretelj, before being transferred to Gabela detention camp, where he stay for less than a month.
Second State Prosecution witness Hasan Sose said that he did not see Mikulic beating detainees. He said that other detainees told him that he drank a detainee’s blood, but he said that they were just “gossiping”.
Sose said that he was brought to Dretelj detention camp on July 1, 1993, adding that he was transferred to Gabela detention camp a few months later. He stayed in Gabela for about two months. He said that he was not mistreated in Dretelj.
The trial is due to continue on December 13 this year, when two new State Prosecution witnesses will testify.
