Bosnian Serb Police ‘Fatally Beat Kotor Varos Bosniak’

Prosecution witness Suhreta Zebic testified at the Bosnian court on Monday that her husband told her that two people in uniform took her son Edin, who was 26 years old at the time, from their house to the police station in Kotor Varos in July 1992. She said her son was later beaten to death.

“My husband went looking for him the following day. A neighbour of mine, whose husband was detained in the same place, told him that Edin died,” Zebic said.

She said that her husband told her later on that their neighbours had said that one of the defendants in the trial, Dusko Vujicic, and another person, whose name he did not know, were the men who took her son away.

She said that she heard that her son was “all smashed up by the beating”.

Vujicic is charged, along with Dusko Maksimovic, Radojko Keverovic, Savo Tepic, Dragoslav Bojic, Rado Skoric and Ilija Kurusic, with having participated in the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, as well as detentions, torture and other inhumane acts in Kotor Varos in 1992.

According to the indictment, Tepic was the chief of the police station in Kotor Varos and a member of the Crisis Staff in the municipality, Bojic was the commander of the police station, Vujicic was a police officer, Maksimovic, Skoric and Keverovic were reservist policemen, while Kurusic was a member of the Bosnian Serb Army.

They have all pleaded not guilty.

The second witness at the hearing on Monday, Husein Bilic said that he used to live in the village of Siprage in the Kotor Varos municipality, and that, being a reservist and president of the local community council, participated in negotiations with the Serb-run Kotor Varos Crisis Committee.

Bilic said that the meetings, which were attended by defendant Savo Tepic, who was the chief of police in Kotor-Varos, were aimed at preserving peace.

“Muslims were asked to hand over their weapons,” the witness said.

“They used to say that Serbs and those who wanted to be like them would live in this area in the future,” he said.

He added that Tepic threatened Muslims, telling them not to do anything to policemen.

Bilic said that he was later arrested in June 1993 and taken to the Tunjice detention camp.

Responding to a question from Tepic’s defence, he said that he was tried for armed uprising and that he sentenced to five years’ detention.

The trial is due to continue on September 22.