Bosnian Croat Fighter ‘Involved in Fatal Beating’

Prosecution witness Slobodan Gavric told the Sarajevo court that detainee Rade Tomanovic was brought with a group of other men from Modrica to the school in Odzak in northern Bosnia, where he was imprisoned with around other 500 Serb men.The detainee was then savagely beaten by guards, and defendant Tolic was among them, Gavric said.“[The detainee] was screaming and… half-conscious. He did not know where he was, so the guards hit him to calm him down,” the witness testified.He said that the guards at the school then tied Tomanovic to a volleyball pole and that he died several hours later. 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.Gavric said that he also saw several guards including Tolic taking a prisoner called Rade Deronjic from the school gym. The prisoner, who later died, was later brought back covered in blood.The trial continues on July 4.