Beaten up in Police Station

Velija Mandzo said that, on June 23 policeman Nedjo Kuljic took him from his workplace, because, as he told him, he should sign something.

Kuljic was charged, under the same indictment as Miroslav Duka, Goran Vujovic and Zeljko Ilic, with having committed crimes in Bileca. The proceeding against him was discontinued because he died after the beginning of the trial.

Witness Mandzo was presented with a statement he gave to the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, in 2008 in which he indicated that Kuljic told him that Commander Duka asked him to come in order to sign something.

“He did not mention the name,” the witness said today.

He said that he saw Duka when he left the Students’ Dormitory, to which he was transferred one day after having been brought to police.

“He was reading an alphabetical list of people, who would go,” the witness said.

Mandzo said that he saw Vujovic, when he was leaving the Students’ Dormitory.

Vujovic and Duka are charged with having enabled and organised the detention of Bosniak and Croat civilians in the Public Safety Station and Students’ Dormitory in Bileca, where detainees were murders, tortured and abused.

The indictment alleges that Vujovic was Chief of the Publicc Safety Station, while Duka was Commander of the Police Station.

Witness Mandzo recalled having been taken from the Students’ Dormitory to police, where two guys beat him up following his examination.

“He hit me on my head with an arm rest that looked like a herringbone, a hard object. I took my handkerchief in order to stop the blood, but he took it away from me. The bearded guy told me to put my hands on the table. Then the same guy, who hit me on my head, began hitting me on my fingers. The bearded guy told me to get up. He hit me on my stomach with his fist, so I felt like losing air,” the witness described.

As he said, he lost a few teeth in the beating. He was then taken to a room known as isolation cell, which was about five metres away from the Police Station. A person, who, as he “assumed, was a Serb”, beat him up in that room.

“He hit me on my ear with his boot. I have lost hearing since. He continued hitting me and telling them that blood began pouring out of my mouth and nose. He hit me on my head with his boot and all sorts of objects,” the witness recalled.

He said that they then took him to a hospital, where he stayed for a month. After that he was taken back to the Students’ Dormitory. As he said, he was not beaten up at that place, but they once threw “three smoke boxes” into the room.

The trial is due to continue on January 20.