Zelenika et al: Croatian Fighters’ Trial Told of Brutal Rapes

The prosecution witness codenamed ‘F’ said that on July 9, 1992, members of the Croatian Defence Forces took her to the military hospital in Mostar, where a man in uniform sexually attacked her.

“He raped me brutally, not even an animal would do it like that. After a while he told me to turn around and lie on my stomach. He put his sexual organ into my behind. I should not tell you how I felt. Then he put his sexual organ in my mouth. I started gagging,” the witness said.

After that, another, younger man assaulted her, she said.

“He raped me. Not as roughly, brutally, as the first one, but enough for me to remember it,” she recalled.

She said that she heard that the head of the army hospital was Ivan Zelenika, who is charged together with Srecko Herceg, Edib Buljubasic, Ivan Medic and Marina Grubisic-Fejzic with crimes committed against Serb prisoners in 1992 in the Dretelj camp near Mostar.

According to the indictment, they all participated in forcing prisoners into hard labour and torturing them, and that as a result of the abuse, several detainees died.

Witness F said that she was taken from the army hospital to the Dretelj camp where women were raped and men beaten and humiliated, she said.

“Men were abused viciously, in brutal ways. I watched them graze on grass, imitate animals… They performed oral sex on each other while guards were laughing,” she said.

She said that during her imprisonment in Dretelj, she saw defendants Herceg, Medic and Grubisic there.

The trial will resume on January 29.