Koler Verdict Due March 11
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Federal Prosecutor Nermina Mutevelic said that most of the examined witnesses confirmed that indictee Koler used to beat them up, mentally abuse and mistreat them and called them Chetniks, so the prisoners suffered from mental and physical trauma.
The Prosecution considers that Koler has the individual responsibility for the inhumane treatment of prisoners and that those were conceived actions that did not happen accidentally in the prison in Tuzla. The indictee was aware of the gravity of those actions, but he committed them deliberately without being forced to mistreat prisoners, the Prosecutor said.
Ivan Koler, former member of military police with the District Headquarters of the Territorial Defence in Tuzla and guard in the District Prison, is charged with having treated prisoners of war, former members of the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, in an inhumane manner and caused severe bodily injuries and suffering of those people in the period from the beginning of June to the end of August 1992.
It is alleged that the indictee hit prisoners with his fists and batons, deprived them of using the toilet, stung their wounds, threatened them by saying that he would kill them and humiliated them by forcing them to lick the lavatory and pouring urine over them.
In September 2011 the Tuzla Cantonal Court acquitted Koler of the charges for the inhumane treatment of captured members of the former Yugoslav National Army, JNA. The Supreme Court of FBiH quashed the verdict and ordered a retrial.
Suad Kumric, Defence attorney of the indictee, said, in his closing statement, that the Prosecution had not proved any legally relevant facts against his client, adding that witnesses statements were inconsistent and full of contradictions.
All of them can be summarised in one sentence the Prosecution witnesses have not agreed about anything and 95 percent of them did not tell the truth, i.e. they lied! Kumric said.
Additional Prosecution witness Stokan Markovic, who spent nearly 14 months in the District Prison in Tuzla, was examined at this hearing. As he said, during his detention he was most frequently mistreated by a guard named Ivan Koler, who used to beat prisoners more than any other guards.
He would just take you out and hit you on your head with his fist. We would fall down after having been hit by him. When we fell down, he would continue hitting us with his boots. On our heads, hands, legs My hearing was damaged more than 20 per cent due to one of those hits on my head, Markovic explained.
During the cross-examination the witness said that he was brought to the prison in Tuzla as a civilian and that, prior to being brought to the prison, he had not known that prisoners of war were held there as well.
