Prisoner Accuses Bosnian Croat Fighter of Wartime Beating

Prosecution witness Zlatko Borojevic testified at the state court in Sarajevo on Friday that before the war, he lived in Donja Dubica near Odzak in northern Bosnia, where locals were arming themselves.

“I belonged to the Serb Crisis Committee in Odzak. We discussed giving up our weapons with our Croat counterparts. They promised us we would be taken to safety,” Borojevic recalled.

But he said that the Croats tricked the Serbs and detained them at a school in Odzak after they surrendered their weapons.

He said he was held in a small changing room in the school gym for several days.

“My neighbor Svetozar, whose nickname was Cedo, was taken while we were sleeping. The day after, they took the rest of us [prisoners] to the Strolit factory [in Odzak]. A few days, later they brought Cedo there, he was beaten up bad, he just said seven men beat him up,” said Borojevic, adding that Cedo died a few days afterwards.

Borojevic said saw the defendant Tolic when he was brought to the factory.

“Together with [another Croat fighter called] Anto Golubovic and some other men, he called out men by their names in the gym and then beat them with baseball bats and chairs,” the witness said.

He recalled that Tolic and another man came to the Odzak school and took him to the Slavonski Brod police station, beating him up during the drive. He said he recognised Tolic in the courtroom.

Borojevic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council, is charged with abusing Serb prisoners in Odzak and Bosanski Brod between May and October 1992.

His trial continues on March 21.