Bojadzic: Jablanica Crimes Witness Remembers Bloodied Knife
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Brankovic, former member of the Fourth Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that on one occasion in 1993 in Jablanica he interrogated an imprisoned member of the Croatian Defence Council, and that the late Salem Dlakic was with him in the room wearing a combat vest with a knife in the back.
Nihad and Nedzad approached the prisoner and started beating him with fists and kicking him, mostly on the head and abdomen. Nihad took the knife off Salems vest and turned towards witness C. I was shocked… I only saw the bloodied knife and how he told witness C to lick the blade, said Brankovic.
He said that he saw a thigh wound on witness C and that he shouted Its enough! After that, Bojadzic and Nedzad left the room, and he called the military police to take the prisoner to doctors. Brankovic could not say where the room in which this occurred was in Jabalnica, although he described it in great detail.
Brankovic said that protected witness C was captured at the Boksevica Mountain near Jablanica during the conflict between the Bosnian Army and the Croatian Defence Council in June 1993.
Bojadzic, former deputy commander of the Zulfikar detachment of the Bosnian Army is charged, among other things, with taking part in the torture and inhumane treatment of Croat civilians and prisoners of war in Jablanica. He is already on trial before the Bosnian court for the killing of 22 Croats in Konjic municipality.
In cross-examination, witness Brankovic agreed with Bojadzics lawyer Edina Residovic that he did not make a report on this incident nor inform his superiors about it. Residovic then asked the witness if it is true that he had never been in that room, to which he replied he had been in the room and that he described the circumstances in his testimony.
The witness was examined by defendant Bojadzic too, who said he had no interest in having any contacts with protected witness C, adding that there were seven people in the room at the time of the described event, to which Brankovic said that the room could not admit seven people.
The court heard another witness, Marinko Milicevic, former member of the Croatian Defence Council, who said that he was captured in the village of Doljani near Jablanica on July 28, 1993.
He added that he was held captive in the Battle of Neretva museum in Jablanica until March 1994, where he saw protected witness C.
The witness said that he never saw Nihad Bojadzic, but that he heard he had been deputy commander of the Zulfikar detachment, whose command was stationed in Jabalnica at the time.
The trial will resume on November 29.
