‘Bunker’ Camp Prisoner Recalls Beatings and Sexual Abuse

Asim Sehic said that Bosnian Serb fighters took him from his apartment in Vogosca near Sarajevo to Hotel Park, and from there to the Bunker detention centre, where he was detained for three months.

Sehic said he was arrested by two uniformed men, who physically abused him in the hotel’s office that evening.

“When they led me inside, Boro Radic was sitting there, and beside him was Branko Vlaco. I did not know them, but I later found out who they were. Vlaco soon left the room and the soldiers started beating me,” Sehic said.

“They accused me of planning to assassinate Boro Radic and said that I had a machine gun nest in my building. That was total nonsense,” he added.

Afterwards, Sehic was taken to the Bunker camp, where he said that prisoners barely received any food, slept on a concrete floor, and had to use a barrel in the room where 20 of them were detained as a toilet.

The witness said that some prisoners were taken to dig trenches, used as human shields, and were physically and mentally abused every day.

“In the course of three months, I was beaten three times. And I would faint every time. As I was disabled from before the war, I could not take beating well. The good thing was they never took me to dig trenches or be a human shield,” said Sehic.

He added that couple of times he heard or saw the abuse of prisoners, who were made to jump naked from a three-metre-high concrete platform onto some branches or to have sexual intercourse with each other.

The prosecution accuses Vlaco, as the warden of the Bunker, Planjina Kuca, Sonja and Nakina Garaza detention camps in Vogosca, of establishing a system to punish civilians held there from May to the end of October 1992.

According to the charges, detainees were abused, forced to perform hard labour and used as human shields on the Sarajevo frontline. Many of the prisoners were allegedly killed at the camps and dozens are still missing. The prosecution alleges that Vlaco also raped one female.

Sehic said that while imprisoned in the Bunker camp, he saw Vlaco but was never beaten by him. He said that after guards took his wallet with some money in it, Vlaco returned it to him.

“I don’t know whether they were afraid of him, but when Vlaco was around, I was under the impression they did not beat people. Although I think he knew all about it and could have prevented it,” the witness said.

The trial is set to resume on April 10.