Basic and Sijak: Feeling of Guilt
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Psychiatrist Omer Cemalovic was in a team of doctors, who conducted an expert examination of protected witness A. Testifying as State Prosecution’s expert witnesses in May 2012, psychiatrist Marija Kaucic-Komsic and psychologist Mirjana Music presented their findings and opinion, while the Defence teams said that they wanted to examine Cemalovic too.
“We can say that she showed symptoms of a person, who was raped several times. She had a feeling of guilt, which is characteristic for rape victims. She felt miserable and humiliated,” the expert witness said.
The indictment alleges that Basic and Sijak, who were accompanied by two unidentified members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, forced protected witness A, who was visiting the prison in Vares on January 25, 1994, to have sexual intercourse with them.
Basic was Chief of the wartime Section of the State Security Service in Olovo and Sijak was military policeman with the 122nd Light Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Basic’s Defence attorney Kerim Celik was interested in the part of the findings, which said that protected witness A’s “professional functioning at work has been disturbed” by the symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.
“She was not able to function. She retreated to quietness,” the expert witness explained.
The Defence attorney said that, eight years after the event in January 1994 protected witness A got married and moved in with her husband, adding that she stopped working, because her job was far away from her new home. Expert witness Cemalovic said that he “does not see why this is important”.
Responding to a Defence’s question, he confirmed that, prior to the expert examination, he knew that the person claimed to have been raped.
The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has completed the presentation of its evidence. The first witnesses are due to testify in defence of Basic at the next hearing scheduled for July 2.
