Zelenika et al: Dretelj – A Camp You Won’t Forget

Protected witness C said that on August 6, 1992, he was taken to the HOS run camp in the military infirmary in Mostar. The camp’s warden, according to the witness, was Ivan Zelenika.

“When I entered the facility, Zelenika took the wedding ring and watch off my hand. In the morning, during breakfast, Zelenika poured a cup of hot tea over me. He cursed me, called me a Chetnik, and hit me twice with a baton,” said witness C.

Witness C said that after a day spent in the infirmary, he was taken to another HOS-controlled camp Dretelj, where he was kept around ten days.

Zelenika is charged along with Edib Buljubasic, Srecko Herceg, Ivan Medic and Marina Grubisic-Fejzic with crimes committed against imprisoned Serb civilians in 1992 in Dretelj.

According to the indictment, Zelenika was an officer of the Croatian Defence Forces, Herceg was a former commander of the Dretelj military prison, Buljubasic was a former member of the Croatian Defence Forces and deputy commander of the army barracks in Dretelj, while Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic were former guards in Dretelj.

The indictment specifies that all of them took part in forcing prisoners to hard labour and torturing them, and that the abuse resulted in a certain number of deaths. The Croatian Defence Forces, HOS, was a joint Croat and Bosniak paramilitary unit formed at the beginning of the Bosnian conflict. They fought Bosnian Serb forces in southern Herzegovina.

Marina Grubisic-Fejzic is one of a few women being charged with war crimes during the Bosnian war. Zelenika, Herceg, Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic have been in custody since February. Buljubasic is serving time in the Zenica prison for 4 murders committed before and after the Bosnian war, including the murder of his own father.

Protected witness C said that prisoners in Dretelj were beaten every day.

“They broke seven or eight of my ribs and I have consequences from it to this very day. They knocked a number of my teeth out. There were attempts at oral sex with men, even with me, but I managed to slip away,” said the witness.

The witness said that Dretelj was a “camp which cannot be forgotten”. Women were locked up in the facility too, he said, some of whom were sexually abused.

“The camp warden was Srecko Herceg, and Ivan Medic, Edib Buljubasic and others used to come to the camp. Ivan Zelenika was bringing along people from Mostar,“ said the witness.

During cross-examination on how he found out about the arrival of defendant Zelenika to Dretelj, the witness said that he heard about it from others. He added that he heard about Herceg and Buljubasic coming to Dretelj too, but that he cannot recognise them now.

The witness emphasised that in Dretelj there were female guards too, among them Marina Grubisic, who carried a “rifle and baton”. Asked by the defence of Grubisic-Fejzic whether she abused the witness, he said he was “kicked a couple of times with a heel”.

The trial will resume on November 6 with the examination of another witness for the prosecution.