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Witness Bogdan Mrkaja said that he was brought to Igman from Silos in February 1993 and placed into an atomic shelter where the conditions were appalling. On the fifth or sixth night, he added, that he met defendant Hodzic who came to the cell and started beating prisoners.2
“We first heard his voice and the words ‘get up, heads down’, then the door opened and he started hitting everybody. He had a chronology of abuse, first he hit with his fists and then with a wooden stick”, said the witness.
Mrkaja added that Hodzic was 175 centimetres tall, had blond curly hair and a scar on his forehead, and was strongly built. He added that Hodzic, and a man whose nickname was Pile organized a Russian Roulette on Igman.
“Nedzad took a gun and put a bullet in it. He told prisoners to shoot at one another in the head. Luckily the gun did not fire”, said Mrkaja.
Mrkaja said that Hodzic and a man called Deba, made him fight with fellow prisoner Slobodan Krstic. “Deba was Krstic’s coach and Hodzic was mine. We tried to fake the hits, but they saw this and then they told us how to hit each other”, said the witness.
According to Mrkaja, Hodzic and Edin Dzeko came to the cell where protected witnesses B and C were staying in July 1993.
“Hodzic shot at the legs of witnesses B and C. Thos were horrific pains. After that, Dzeko stepped on the wound and turned”, said the witness.
Former Bosnian Army Zulfikar Unit members Nedzad Hodzic and Dzevad Salcin aka Struja are charged with the torture, beating and sexual abuse of prisoners held at Mount Igman in 1993. Dzeko, member of the same unit, is on trial for crimes in Konjic and Jablanica in a separate case.
Mrkaja also recalled that Dragan Vukovic was taken from his cell and returned without an ear.
“He was holding his ear. Half of it wasn’t there. He was covered in blood and said ‘Struja chopped my ear off’”, said the witness. He said that prisoners, him included, ware abused by the man whose nickname was Struja.
According to the witness, Struja took a shoe and beat everyone of the prisoners.
The trial will continue on March 27.
