Bosniak Prisoners Recall Vogosca Jail Camp Abuse

Mirsad Prutina, a former police officer from Vogosca, told the Sarajevo court on Wednesday that while he was detained by the Bosnian Serbs in the ‘Bunker’ camp in May 1992, he saw guards beating and humiliating prisoners.

“One guard made one prisoner kiss [the walls of the camp] and say ‘This is Serbia’ all day long,” Prutina recalled.

He said that another guard took two police officers who were being detained at the camp away and sexually abused them.

Meanwhile another threw tear gas into the camp during the Muslim festival of Bayram, but the defendant Branco Vlaco opened the door to let air in.

Vlaco is on trial for war crimes at the Bunker, Planjina Kuca, Sonja and Nakina Garaza detention camps in Vogosca, where he allegedly established a system to abuse imprisoned civilians.

Prisoners were murdered, tortured and abused, forced to do hard labour and used as human shields, it is alleged. Many of them were killed and dozens are still considered missing.

Another witness on Wednesday, Safet Borcak, who was detained at the Planjina kuca camp, testified that he learned that the commander of the camp was Vlaco and that he was giving all the orders for people to be sent to do hard labour or to be used as human shields on the frontline.

Borcak said that the guards beat him for five days after two prisoners with whom he was digging tranches managed to escape, while Vlaco told him that he would get a bullet in the head if he tried to get away.

The trial resumes on February 12.