Soldier Stomping on the Bosnian Croat Forces Commander
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The witness, Karlo Maric, former company commander of the Bjelo Polje Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, said he was held with other prisoners in the basement rooms when he heard steps on the stairs.
He said he heard the name of Franjo Ramljak being called out and recognised the voice of Nihad Bojadzic, former deputy commander of the Zulfikar detachment of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Maric said Bojadzic then peeked into the room through the window, and soon afterwards a soldier entered and told him to go outside into the corridor.
After he was ordered to lie down on the floor, he said, the soldier started kicking him, and he saw Bojadzic at the end of the corridor making a turn for the toilet. The witness concluded that the defendant was there with prisoner Ramljak.
I suffered a terrible kick. He was kicking me in my sides… He started stomping on my kidneys with both his feet, burying his heels into my back, described the witness, adding that the beating lasted for about 15 minutes.
Maric said the beating stopped when he heard the words: That was enough, come here. He said he recognised Bojadzics voice. The witness said he somehow managed to return to the room and that he heard Ramljaks moans there.
He said he later learnt that the nickname of the soldier who beat him up was Deba and that he was a member of the Zulfikar detachment.
Bojadzic is charged with beating, sexual abuse and rape of Croat prisoners held in the museum in 1993.
Maric said that before the museum he saw Bojadzic twice in the war hospital in Jablanica, where he was treated for being beaten up upon imprisonment on May 10, 1993, in Grabovica near Mostar.
He explained that after the first arrival of the defendant, he heard from other people in the hospital it was Nihad Bojadzic, whom he did not know from before.
The trial will resume on April 25.
