Muderizovic et al: Beat them, execute them

Testifying in front of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Janjic said that on May 30 1992 he was taken from his apartment in the Sarajevo settlement of Dobrinja and locked up in a facility from which he was taken to the Viktor Bubanj barracks twenty days later.

“They brought eight of us before the barracks, and when we entered we were told to put our hands on the wall and face the fall. Someone said: ‘Beat them, execute them.’ After that, we were taken to a cell number six, where we met four more men,” said Janjic, adding that upon arrival to the barracks, no one beat the prisoners.

The witness said that he did not know the staff of the army prison in which he was held till late August 1992, but that he heard from other prisoners that the warden was called Besim.

“When a man was passing, people were saying there goes warden Besim. I think he was around 170 or 180 centimetres tall and blond,” said Janjic.

The State Prosecution has charged Besim Muderizovic, Ramiz Avdovic and Iliuan-Nicolae Vintila, with taking part, between late June and late November 1992, as members of the joint criminal enterprise, in the establishing and maintaining of an abuse system of Serb civilians in the Viktor Bubanj army barracks in Sarajevo.

The indictment specifies that in the Viktor Bubanj army barracks, imprisoned civilians of Serb ethnicity were subject to the deliberate infliction of severe bodily or emotional pain and forced to labour.

According to the indictment, Muderizovic was commander of the army prison in the Viktor Bubanj barracks, Avdovic was guard commander for all the buildings, and Vintila a cook and guard in former barracks.

Witness Janjic said that during his stay in the army prison he was not beaten, but that other prisoners were. Janjic added that prisoners were getting poor quality food twice a day, and that they bathed rarely, but that they had an opportunity to go to the doctor.

“Not long after we arrived to the cell, there were 13 of us in there. We had four mattresses, there were not enough blankets, but we did not need any because there was so many of us. The cell did not have a window, there was not enough room for 13 people to lie on their backs in it,” said Janjic, emphasising that the prisoners were of Serb nationality.

The trial was set to resume on April 5, when the Prosecution’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina will show footage by Radio Television Bosnia and Herzegovina entitled “Camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
S.U.