Bosnian Serb Detainees Beaten, Sexually Abused at Dretelj
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Prosecution witness Srecko Maric told the Sarajevo court on Tuesday that he lived in Capljina until June 10, 1992, when he was arrested by five members of the Croatian Defence Forces who came to his apartment and took him to the nearby Dretelj detention centre.
He said that he later learned that two of them were defendant Ivan Medic and Mirsad Repak, who is currently serving an eight-year sentence in Norway for crimes committed in Dretelj.
He recalled that on the third day after being imprisoned at the camp, he was taken for questioning.
Mirsad Repak was there, Ivan Medic and some other people. Repak gave me a piece of paper to write down the names of Serbs who started the war. Medic said he would stab me in the throat if I didnt tell the truth, but he did not do it, said Maric, testifying via video link from Belgrade.
Medic is charged alongside Srecko Herceg, Edib Buljubasic, Ivan Zelenika and Marina Grubisic-Fejzic, former members of the Croatian Defence Forces, with crimes committed against imprisoned Serb civilians in 1992 in Dretelj.
According to the indictment, Zelenika was an officer with the Croatian Defence Forces, Herceg was a former commander of the Dretelj military prison, Buljubasic was a former member of the Croatian Defence Forces and deputy commander of the Dretelj barracks, and Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic were guards at Dretelj.
The indictment alleges that they all took part in torture and in forcing prisoners to perform hard labour at the camp, where several people died as a result of the abuse.
Maric said that the prisoners were abused daily, ordered to do hard labour, and beaten in their cells at night.
He said that prisoners were also sexually abused, himself among them.
They lined us all up one time. They separated two prisoners and made them have oral sex in front of all of us. I cannot recall who gave them the order, he said.
He said that Herceg, who he identified as the commander at Dretelj, hit him on one occasion.
Herceg however retorted that he was ready to take a lie-detector test to prove that he did not touch anyone.
The witness also said that he saw defendant Grubisic-Fejzic beat up two prisoners.
The trial will resume on May 28.
