Bosnian Serbs Beat Prisoners at Visegrad Village School
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Prosecution witness Salko Sabanovic told the Sarajevo court on Wednesday that he was among a group of men who were taken to a school in the village of Orahovci in 1992 and beaten under interrogation by Serb fighters.
[A man called] Pantelic started beating me. I am not going to tell who else was hitting me. I am grateful that I survived. And several men were beating me. And they were ordered to do so, said the witness.
Prosecutor Dzevad Muratbegovic read out part of the witnesss previous testimony, given during the initial investigation, in which he said that Pantelic first hit him with the palm of his hand and that Nenad and Vito then started beating him.
He asked Sabanovic whether Vitomir Vito Rackovic had taken part in the assault, but the witness replied that he would not say.
I do not blame anybody who hit me. If I wanted revenge, I would take revenge, but I do not requires that someone lies [in prison] because of it, he said.
Rackovic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with participating in attacks on Bosniak villages, taking part in illegal detentions, torture, forced disappearances and rapes in the Visegrad area from May to August in 1992. The bodies of some of those who were detained have never been found.
Sabanovic said that he was taken from his home in the village of Kabernik to Orahovci and that during the trip, he saw Rackovic, who was in the same truck. He was ordered to shoot [at Bosniaks] in the woods, and he did it, said the witness.
Another witness on Wednesday, Rasid Mameldzija, said that he was in Sarajevo in July 1992 when he heard that two of his brothers had disappeared and that his father had been killed.
I heard that Rackovic and the others came to the village by truck and called my brother. He got in the truck. He was the first they picked up, and then [they picked up] others, said Mameldzija adding that he knew Rackovic because they were neighbours.
He said that his brother has not been seen since.
The trial continues on March 19.
