Witness Recalls School Beatings by Bosnian Croat Fighter

Witness Slavko Cajic, a former Yugoslav People’s Army reservist, told the Sarajevo court on Thursday that in the spring of 1992, he fled from the village of Trnjak in the Bosanski Brod area of northern Bosnia to another village, Novi Grad, in order to avoid shelling by Croat forces.

“There was a deal between the [local Serb and Croat] crisis headquarters [in the area] that we were to go to free Serbian territory and surrender weapons,” recalled Cajic.

But he said the deal was not fulfilled and that instead, Serb locals were detained at the primary school in Odzak by Croatian Defence Council fighters.

The witness said that he was repeatedly beaten while held at the school and that the defendant Tolic assaulted him twice.

“They took me to the classroom. He beat me with his hands and with a stick and kicked me with his leg like karate,” said Cajic.

Tolic, a former member of the 102nd Odzak Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, is charged with having participated in the abuse of Serb prisoners in the Odzak and Bosanski Brod area of northern Bosnia from May to October 1992.

Another witness at the trial on Thursday, Boro Lesic, said he was also held at the school in Odzak, where he saw Tolic assault another prisoner.

“Once [prisoner] Slavko Topic was holding a bottle and he [Tolic] stopped him and asked, ‘Where [are you going]?’ He then hit him with the bottle, with his palm and with his foot. He [the prisoner] collapsed,” Lesic recalled.

The defence said the witness did not mention Tolic at all in his first statement in 2007, and did not mention the bottle incident in his second statement in 2013.

“I remembered it when I saw the man in the courtroom,” the witness responded.

The trial is due to continue on March 14.