Bosnian Serb Used Prisoners as Human Shields
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Witness Mirsad Sehic testified at the court in Sarajevo on Wednesday that he was transferred to the Planjina Kuca detention centre in Semizovac near Vogosca in May 1992 after being held in another prison camp.
Three days later, he said, he met camp warden Vlaco.
Each morning Vlaco decided who would go where to work dig trenches, cut trees and branches, clean, said the witness.
The witness said that once Vlaco selected eight men to move the dead bodies of Serb soldiers, but only two of them returned from their duty.
Sehic said he and other men were told to go to the nearby Zuc hill where the defendant said they were going to finish some work.
Only when we arrived did we realise we were going to make a human shield. I was wounded in the knee then and Vlaco the next day spared me from going to work, recalled the witness.
Fifteen days later, the defendant again chose the witness to use as a human shield, but this time the operation was cancelled and the prisoners returned uninjured.
The prosecution accuses Vlaco, as the warden of the Bunker, Planjina Kuca, Sonja and Nakina Garaza detention camps in Vogosca, of participating in a wide-ranging and systematic attack by Serb forces against Bosniak and Croat civilians from May 1992 to the end of October.
A second witness at Wednesdays hearing, Selver Sehic, said he met the defendant after being brought to Planjina Kuca in late August 1992. He described how the defendant would arrive in the morning, lined the prisoners up and decided who would be sent to work.
Sehic also recalled a day when he was taken to be used as a human shield.
A month and a half after arriving at Planjina Kuca, we were lined up. A bus arrived and a soldier came out with a list and talked to Vlaco. Then the defendant consulted the list and selected 35 men, and we went to Golo Brdo [a hill above Sarajevo on the frontline], said the witness.
When they arrived, the witness said they were lined up and ordered to stand in front of Bosnian Serb troops to act as a shield. They were told that there should be seven Balijas [pejorative for Bosnian Muslims] in front of each squad, he said.
A lot of the men got killed or wounded, he said.
The trial will resume on May 8.
