Tolic’s Beating Style

Witness Mirko Ninkovic said that he was detained in a school building in Odzak with about 700 other men. As he said, the conditions in the school gym were bad. He said that they had to divide one loaf of bread into 18 pieces.

“Anto Golubovic and Josip Tolic were managers of the detention camp. That’s what they told us. (…) The way guards treated the detainees made the place look like a Golgotha, a horror. We did not spend one single day or night at peace,” Ninkovic said.

The Defence said that, in his statement given in April 2013 he did not say that Tolic was the Manager of the detention camp. The witness was not able to explain the difference between his statements.

Ninkovic said that he was beaten up several times in the school in Odzak, adding that Josip Tolic and Anto Golubovic took him and a few other detainees to a classroom, where they beat them, at least three times.

“Tolic had a characteristic beating style. He would hit us on our heads with his fists and on our stomachs with his legs. He personally forced me to bang my head against the chalkboard,” witness Ninkovic said, identifying the indictee in the courtroom.

He said that he was taken from Odzak to Novi Grad and then to a construction material depot in Bosanski Brod. After that he was transferred to a secondary school centre. Detainees were taken from the centre to other locations, where they performed forced labour. Ninkovic said that the indictee was among those who sent them to those locations.

“Tolic and Golubovic took a professor from Derventa out one day, because he had given a piece of paper to journalists and an international delegation during their visit. As soon as they took him out, we heard moaning that lasted two or three hours. He never came back,” Ninkovic said.

The Defence said that, in his previous statements the witness did not mention that Tolic had taken the professor from Derventa out.

Tolic, former member of the 102nd Odzak Brigade of HVO, is charged with having participated in the abuse of Serb detainees in the Odzak and Bosanski Brod area from May to October 1992.

Testifying as the second State Prosecution witness, Jovo Miletic said that he was beaten up several times during his detention in the school building in Odzak. He said that he was not beaten up by indictee Tolic, adding that the indictee was Manager Golubovic’s Deputy.

Witness Miletic said that he too was taken from Odzak to Bosanski Brod, adding that he was taken to other locations, where he performed forced labour. However, he said that indictee Tolic neither distributed nor escorted him to those locations.

The trial is due to continue on January 16, 2014.