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Zaim Softic, a former member “Zulfikar” squad of the BIH Army (ABiH), said that he was at the Mraziste hotel on Igman Mountain, from February to April 1993, and that he saw Serbian prisoners around the hotel.
“I’ve seen them around, they looked just like members of our unit. They worked, and no one forced them in any particular way, on consuming wood inside. There where situations that you don’t know who is the prisoner and who is solider. They were situated in one additional object and they were given the same food as we were,” Softic said.
According to his words, prisoners were never publicly punished or harassed. Also, the witness claimed that he didn’t see any visible consequences of the abuse on them.
The witness said that he met Hodzic on Igman Mountain, which he described as man of “short stature, very skinny and distracted.”
“I heard that he was in camp and that he looked like that, skinny and lean. He had black hair and a short haircut. He didn’t have any scars”, Softic said explaining that Hodzic got scar by the end of 1995.
Some of the Prosecution witnesses described Hodzic as a man of “stronger built” who had a scar. On the Defence’s question that if it is possible that someone could describe the accused as a huge and blond man in 1993, Softic answered that was “obvious mistake”.
Responding to the question whether he ever heard that some prisoners were mistreated, the witness Softic said that he had never heard that Hodzic did that, but that on one occasion heard that “some strangers that were in the unit beaten Jadranko Glavas.”
Softic said that he was at battlefields in the Hercegovina area with Hodzic in May and June 1993, and that is very hard from there to get to Igman Mountain.
Nedzad Hodzic and Dzevad Salcin are on trial as members of the “Zulfikar” squad of BIH Army, for having tortured, beaten and sexually abused prisoners, cutting off their body parts, having intimidated them and participated in other inhumane acts.
At this trial hearing Hodzic’s defence attorney Nedzla Sehic presented an opening statement in which she pointed out the during evidence presentation she will attempt to prove that Hodzic was in a reduced mental capacity because of his staying at detention camp and that he is today completely mentally incompetent.
“Everyone that knows Hodzic can prove that he is not able to sit on speaking box and defend himself. That is the way it should be, and that the lawyer just serves as legal adviser. In this case, the lawyer defends a man who is not capable to answer the questions”, Sehic said.
She added that testimonies from Igman Mountain prisoners were overrated and not credible, which the Defence will prove.
The trial continues on October 30.
