Brown Bruises on Back Caused by Beating
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Witness Jozo Covic told the Court that he was captured during the conflict between the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in June 1993. Covic said that he was taken, along with three other HVO soldiers, to a building known as MSO within the Mining Equipment Factory complex in Kakanj.
We were invited for an examination. They asked us about weapons. The indictee hit us on our backs with some cable once. We stayed there for a short time, Covic said, explaining that the indictee and a man named Rule came later on and that chaos ensued. According to the charges, Sehagic, former Manager of a detention facility in the old administrative building of the Brown Coal Mine in Kakanj, participated in the torture of Croat detainees.
They hit us with legs, hands, chairs… They stepped on my toes. They did all sorts of things. I was beaten up so brutally that my back was brown, the witness said. He said that he did not know whether the indictee was presented in the room during the beating, but he said that the others hit us more than him and that the indictee hit us the least. According to the witness testimony, Lusija put a knife on his neck and hit him on his nape with his leg.
The witness said that they drove him and another detainee to a local dispensary and then to a hospital in Zenica. After that they took them to the Penal and Correctional Facility from which he was exchanged. At some stage the witness looked at the indictee and told him: I can help you if you wish.
Second witness Amir Lusija, former member of military police with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ARBiH, said that he was detained due to disobeying orders and that he was not in a situation to see or hear that the indictee or anybody else mistreated the detainees. We heard the beating. At some stage the door opened. I heard someone say: It was not me. One person, who was covered with blood, was taken out, Lusija said.
The Court confronted these two witnesses. Covic stuck to his allegation that Lusija beat him and put a knife on his throat, while Lusija denied that it happened. The trial is due to continue on October 9.
