Living Corpse

“When we met, he had burns all over his body. Cigarettes were extinguished on his genitals, his right ear was cut off, he weighed 40 kilograms only and his skin peeled off when touched,” Vesna Vukovic said.

She said that her husband Dragan was member of the Serbian Army and that he went missing on August 24, 1992.

She said that he was first taken away and detained in Silos, Hadzici, adding that he sent her a letter from Silos, saying that he was alive.

According to her testimony, he got most of the injuries in Silos and his ear was cut off at Mraziste, Mount Igman.

“My husband told me that he once poured fuel from one tank into another at Mraziste and that Salcin took his knife and cut a part of his ear,” she explained, adding that she found out, later, that the man’s name was Dzevad Salcin, known as Struja.

Dzevad Salcin and Nedzad Hodzic, former members of “Zulfikar” Special Purposes Squad with the Main Command Headquarters of ABiH, are charged with having tortured, beat and sexually abused prisoners, cut parts of their bodies off, intimidated them and participated in other inhumane acts on Mount Igman.

Witness Vesna Vukovic said that her husband told her that “Nedzad, Salcin and Zuka beat him the most”.

“My husband was not the same man again. Out life and marriage were not the same either. However, love existed between us, so I would have never left him. (…) However, his death took us apart in 2010,” she said.

Witness Ljiljana Glavas said that her father was taken from their house in Pazaric for an interview in June 1992, adding that uniformed people came in order to pick her and her brother Jadranko up in the following month.

“I was released after an interview, but my brother stayed. He was taken to the school building in Pazaric and then to some hangar in Krupa and finally to Silos,” she said.

The witness told the Court that people told her various stories about her brother having been taken to Mount Igman, where he was tortured in the cruelest way. He died afterwards.

“Prior to his death my father gave me a piece of paper with some names and messages written on it. Nedzad Hodzic’s name was written down. Also, there was a note, saying that he told my brother, while he was getting on a truck, that he would not come back alive. The name of Nada Tomanic, who beat him the most, was there as well. The note contained names of Zulfikar Alispago and Kokic too,” she explained.

Indictee Dzevad Salcin cross-examined witness Mustafa Andelija, who testified about events on Mount Igman last week, when he said that indictee Dzevad Salcin cut Dragan Vukovic’s ear off.

The witness said that Vukovic told him that “Struja cut his ear off”, but he could not remember whether he mentioned his first and last name.

The trial is due to continue on January 30.