Mujcinovic and Hrustic: Moaning from the other room

“I was once taken to the upper rooms, where I gave the statement. When I told what I knew, I was beaten,” recalls Todic, adding that on one occasion he was beaten with a baton.

According to his testimony, the brothers Pero and Drago Djukic, as well as Lazar Stanisic, were also tortured in Rapatnica.

“They were brought in and burnt with a soldering iron. I was in the other room and I heard them moan,” said the witness, adding that he did not know who tortured them.

Zurahid Mujcinovic and Sulejman Hrustic, former members of the 21st Mountain Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are on trial for crimes against civilians of Serb ethnicity illegally held captive in the building of the Youth Home in the village of Rapatnica in 1992.

The Prosecution claims that Mujcinovic alone “on several occasions physically and psychologically abused a prisoner”, while together with Hrustic he took part in the torture of prisoners causing them grave suffering on several occasions.

Jovo Djukic, second witness for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that in the second half of June 1992, he was captured and taken to the village of Rapatnica, where he was held in captivity in“some kind of hall”. Djukic said he was not beaten while he was held captive.

“Pero and Drago Djukic, as well as Lazar Stanisic, were burnt with a soldering iron, but I don’t know who burned them,” said the witness, emphasising that he saw their wounds after the torture.

The trial was scheduled to resume on January 11, 2012, when new witnesses for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina will give their statements.