Girls in the Hands of Armed Men
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Rahima Covic stated that one of the two men who raided her house was well-built and tall, and that the accused reminded her of that person.
Beganovic is charged under indictment that as a former member of the of the Fourth Brigade within the National Defence of Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APZB), he inhumanely treated civilians and attempted to rape a minor.It is stated that on 13 December 1993, in the Cazin settlement of Sturlici, together with Hazim Keranovic, who has since passed away, and Amir Æoraliæ, who is unavailable to the BiH law enforcement bodies, Beganovic physically mistreated Ferid Covic because his son Enes was the member of the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Republic of BiH (ARBiH).
According to the Indictment, together with Keranovic and Coralic, Beganovic forced two minor persons out of the house and took them to the Trac settlement. The accused attempted to rape one of them, but Keranovic prevented him from doing so.
“After my father-in-law opened the door, two uniformed armed men stormed into the house. One of them hit my husband in the head with a gun and as they threw him down they both continued to kick him as if he were a football. One of them, a tall, sturdy man wearing mustache entered the room where my children were sleeping and grabbed my daughter, witness Rahima Covic recalled.
She added that the soldiers took away her husband and two daughters, while she and two other children spent a night at her neighbours.
Later on, my husband came to pick us up and told me that these soldiers took from him 50 marks and his watch, that they beat him up, kicked him out of the car and left in the direction of Trzac taking our minor daughters. Back then I did not know who these people were, but I would always be able to recognize them, especially the one wearing mustache who took the little one from the house”, Covic stated.
When asked by the Prosecutor whether any of the persons present in the courtroom reminded her of that soldier, the witness pointed at the accused Beganovic.
Upon their return, they had the girls examined by a doctor in Velika Kladusa, where she learned that one of them had been raped.
Witness Sabira Masanovic, who had worked at the Velika Kladusa Health Center at the time, corroborated that the girls were brought by their parents for medical examination where it was established that one of them M.C. had been raped.
Expert witnesses, Ivanka Jakovac and Ervesa Okanovic presented the findings on the mental condition of injured party E.C. and the consequences she suffered due to the attempted rape, which she experienced as a little girl.
“She is a person with high intellectual capacities, and to a large extent her life had a course which was mainly predetermined by this event in her past,” Jakovljevic stated, adding that it can be safely inferred that the account of the injured party is entirely true. Dz.Dz.
