No Decisions on Dismissing “Silos”

Mirko Pejanovic, former member of the Presidency of the Republic of BiH, RBiH, and President of the Council for Protection of Administrative System, said that those bodies worked on the protection of human rights in war conditions, respecting the International Humanitarian and War Laws, and that their goal was to establish war judicial institutions and joint armed forces.

According to Pejanovic’s testimony, one of the tasks of the Council and Presidency was to solve the issue of illegal “small prisons”, including “Silos” in Tarcin.

“Information from local prisons outside of Sarajevo could not easily reach us due to the difficult communication during the war,” Pejanovic said, adding that he found out about “Silos” in late 1993, when the dismissal of the prison was discussed.

As he said, “Silos” was established by local authorities, which were supposed to be responsible for it until either being taken over by military judicial bodies or dismissed.

Pejanovic said that the fact that local authorities claimed that detainees represented a danger and that their release would generate revolt among civilians, who awaited information about the missing Bosniak population from that area, which was a specific and crucially important war territory, was one of the reasons why it was difficult to dismiss “Silos”.

“We requested that prisoners be transferred to the state prison in Zenica, but local authorities did not support that proposal either,” Pejanovic said, adding that prisoners were released following the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord, “metaphorically, not by date”.

Pejanovic said that he did not have information about the conditions in “Silos”, about the treatment or exact number of prisoners. He said that the Presidency received most of the information about “Silos” from Amor Masovic, former head of the Exchange Commission.

Crimes committed in “Silos”, “Krupa” military barracks and “9. maj” school building are charged upon Mustafa Djelilovic, Fadil Covic, Mirsad Sabic, Becir Hujic, Halid Covic, Nezir Kazic, Serif Mesanovic and Nermin Kalember.

According to the charges, Hujic was Manager and Deputy Manager of “Silos”, just like Halid Covic. Mesanovic was one of the Deputy Managers of “Silos” and Manager of a detention camp in “Krupa” military barracks, while Kalember was a guard in “Silos”. The others were members of the civil, military and police authorities.

Responding to questions by the Defence of indictee Mustafa Djelilovic, Pejanovic said that civil authorities in Tarcin could not dismiss “Silos” without a decision by the Presidency due to the specific situation at the time.

Responding to a question by the Defence of Kazic, the witness said that, in his opinion, “Silos” was more a prison than a detention camp, although both terms were used for describing it. He said that he could say whether the conditions could have been improved only hypothetically, because he was not in the field and did not know what the conditions were like.

The trial is due to continue on September 11.