Died Due to Beating

Mirko Harambasic said that he lived in Novi Grad, Odzak municipality, and that he was detained in a school building in Odzak, along with other Serb men, on or approximately on May 8, 1992. As he had previously been wounded, he was taken to hospital. About a month and twenty days later he was returned to the school building.  

As he said, upon his arrival, he was examined by Ante Golubovic, who hit him. Other detainees told him that other guards’ names were Bozic, Josip Tolic and Zdeno Nikolic.

“The conditions were bad, inhumane. The food was horrible and insufficient,” the witness said.  

Harambasic recalled that unknown soldiers from Croatia came to the school one day and took Rade Deronjic away. He said that Deronjic was brought back to the room later on, but he died soon after that.

The Prosecution said that, in his previous statement, the witness said that the unknown soldiers were accompanied by Golubovic, Tolic and Bozic, but the witness said that he “cannot remember everything” and that he watched all that from the other side of the sports hall.

He said that he saw them tie Rade Tomanovic to a volleyball pole in the gym, adding that guard Ferid Halilovic beat him more brutally than the others.

Harambasic said that, at the beginning of July he was transferred, along with other detainees, to Novi Grad for a few days, adding that the detainees were beaten up at that place but Golubovic was more active in beating them than anybody else.  

The witness explained that the detainees were then transferred to a warehouse in Bosanski Brod, from which they were taken to front lines in order to dig trenches. He said that some of the detainees were killed at those locations.  

“Honestly, I cannot remember having seen Tolic, when we were taken out in order to perform labour,” Harambasic said, adding that soldiers used to escort the detainees to locations, where they performed labour.

Tolic, former member of the 102nd Odzak Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, is charged with having participated in the abuse of Serb detainees in the Odzak and Bosanski Brod area from May to October 1992.

Harambasic said that the detainees were then transferred from the warehouse to a school in Bosanski Brod, where they were held until October 1992.

He said that he heard that detainee Mirko Pajic gave a piece of paper to the Red Cross.

“After that Golubovic, Tolic, Bozic and Ahmetovic came. They formed a circle, put him into the circle and beat him up. They took him out later on and never brought him back again,” Harambasic said, adding that he heard, later on, that Pajic died, but he could not see who actually hit him while he was in the circle.

Harambasic said that he did not have any contacts with indictee Tolic and that he did not beat him. He stayed in detention until the end of December 1992.

The trial is due to continue on July 18.