Indictees Took People Away and Beat Them

Atifa Besic, who lived in Ohridska Street at the beginning of the war, said that, looking through her house window, she saw indictee Bogdanovic taking Bajro Besic away and that she heard, later on, that Bajro’s son was taken away too.
 
“I did not see Suad being taken away, but I found out about it from his mother. I heard her crying and screaming, so I went out to see what was going on. She told me: ‘They have taken Suad away’,” Besic recalled.
 
When asked by Prosecutor Sead Krestalica whether indictee Goran Sladoje was present when Bajro Besic was taken away, the witness said that she did not see him, but Bajro told her that later on.
 
“Bajro told me that he was taken to the garages, where he was beaten. After that they took him and Suad to the Jewish Cemetery. They told Bajro to climb up a wall. A part of the wall broke at that moment, so he fell down into shrubs,” she said, adding that she had known the indictees from before the war, because they were her neighbours.
 
Radivoje Lazarevic, Defence attorney of indictee Bogdanovic, pointed out that, in her previous statement the witness did not mention that his client had taken Bajro Basic away.  
 
Bogdanovic and Sladoje are charged with having come to Besic’s house on June 13, 1992. They allegedly took Bajro and Suad Besic from their house to a garage, where they hit them. After that they took them to the Jewish Cemetery, where they used them as human shields. Suad was killed on that occasion.
 
According to the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution’s charges, Bogdanovic and Sladoje detained civilians and caused bodily injuries to them from mid-June to the end of 1992.
 
Atifa Besic said that she saw Bogdanovic, Sladoje and a Golijanin beating Rajko Simic in the vicinity of Bajro Besic’s house.
 
“Goran was beating him, hitting him with his boots and fists. Bogdanovic too approached him from time to time and hit him,” she said.
 
Defence attorney Lazarevic asked the witness why she failed to mention, in her previous statements, that indictee Bogdanovic participated in that as well. She said that she stood by her words, confirming that the indictee did participate in that.
 
She told the Court that her husband was taken away in order to perform labour on September 29, 1992 and that she left that part of the city a short time after that. She found and buried her husband’s remains in 1999.
 
The trial is due to continue on January 24.