Female Bosnian Croat Fighter ‘Never Abused Prisoners’

Witness Dejan Danac, a former member of the Croatian Defence Forces, told the court on Tuesday that he had heard that there was torture and abuse of the Serb prisoners held at the Dretelj barracks near Capljina in 1992, but that the defendant Grubisic-Fejzic did not participate in it.

“I had a chance to meet her while she worked as a waitress [before the war], and after that as well,” Danac recalled.

“Marina was never nationalistic or demonstrated hatred towards others. We went to [war] out of patriotism, our heart was telling us to defend our own,” the witness said.

Grubisic-Fejzic, along with Ivan Zelenika, Srecko Herceg, Edib Buljubasic and Ivan Medic, is accused of participating in torturing Bosnian Serb prisoners at Dretelj and forcing them to do hard labour.

The indictment says that Zelenika was an officer with the Croatian Defence Forces, Herceg was commander of the Dretelj camp, Buljubasic was his deputy, while Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic were guards.

Danac said that the detainees at Dretelj were guarded by military officers, and that Grubisic-Fejzic did not oversee them because she was not a member of the military police, but a part of a combat unit.

He also said that he remembered that there were three women named Marina in the Dretelj camp, and that one of them, “Marina from Osijek”, mistreated the prisoners.

“I saw when Marina from Osijek stabbed a knife in a man’s head. I heard that she cut one [man’s] genitals, that she tortured prisoners, that she loved to hit them. I just know that she was not a good person,” said the witness.

Another witness, former Croatian Defence Forces member Muriz Elezovic, told the court that he met Grubisic-Fejzic when he arrived at Dretelj, and that he had never heard that she did anything bad to the Serb civilians held there.

“If she did commit a crime, I would not be here,” said Elezovic.

The witness said that Grubisic-Fejzic was a soldier and that he got to know her better when they met later at Mount Igman. He said that she was happy person who smiled a lot.

He also said that the people detained in the Dretelj hangar were always guarded by a male soldier at night.

The trial continues on March 25, when Grubisic-Fejzic will testify.