Findings about Father’s Death

Zeljka Malinovic, who left Sarajevo in May 1992, said that former detainees told her that her father Uros was detained as well. “I called him on June 2, 1992. An unknown voice answered the phone. I said I wanted to speak to Uros, but the man began telling ugly words to me. Then I heard my father. I knew that he was there. I heard moaning,” Malinovic said. Later on she found out that her father was taken to a butcher’s shop and beaten up on that day and that he was taken detained to the Central Prison on June 5, where he spent 24 days. “They took him from the Central Prison to ‘Viktor Bubanj’. This is where his life ended. I found that out from another detainee on January 13, 1993. He just told me: ‘Your father is dead’,” the witness said. Ramiz Avdovic and Iulian-Nicolae Vintila are on trial for crimes committed in that building and the Central Prison in Sarajevo. They are charged with having participated in the establishment and maintenance of a system for abuse of Serb civilians. According to the charges, Avdovic was Commander of Guards on the fifth floor of the District Prison in Sarajevo and former “Viktor Bubanj” military barracks, while Vintila was a cook and guard in the former barracks. Malinovic said that she found out from other detainees that her father was beaten during his detention in “Viktor Bubanj”. “My father had epilepsy. He was on medication. He visited a doctor in ‘Viktor Bubanj’ every day. One guard used to escort him to the doctor’s, while another one would wait for him and beat him. He beat him, because he asked for medication,” she said.Malinovic lived in Alipasino Polje neighbourhood with her parents and brother until May 1992. She said that, at the beginning of the war her friends began distancing themselves from her, so she decided to leave the city. “I left because I felt like a Jew in Berlin in my neighbourhood. None of my friends wanted to speak to me. Even if somebody contacted me, he or she would be warned. We were in a basement, when grenades were falling. Serbs were on one side, while Croats and Muslims were on the other,” she said.The trial is due to continue on December 27.