Indictees Plead not Guilty of Abusing a Religious Worker

Sretko Dragic, Zoran Torbica, Dalibor Jojic and Dragan Gnjatic are charged with having abused an Islamic religious worker in March 1993.

According to the charges, in late evening hours they came to a house in Cela village, near Prijedor, knowing that Islamic religious worker S.A. was in the house.

The indictment alleges that, when they banged on the door, S.A. jumped through the window and began running away, but the indictees caught him.

“While he was lying on the ground, not offering any resistance, they hit him on his head and other parts of his body with their hands and legs. After that Dragic sit on the injured part’s chest and hit him on his head with his hands several times,” the indictment alleges.

Dragic is charged with having tried to draw a cross on the injured party’s forehead by cutting him with a knife. During that time they intimidated him, cursing him and threatening him by saying that they would kill him.

Dragic, Torbica, Jojic, Gnjatic and V.D, who has since died, took the religious worker into a house, where they forcedly held him until early morning on the following day.

“During the night they beat him, insulted and threatened him, examining him who he co-operated with and to whom he distributed humanitarian aid,” the indictment alleges.

The beginning of the trial is scheduled for December 17.