Knife on Throat

Protected witness R1 recalled that indictee Radisic came to her house in the winter of 1994 accompanied by two other men in military uniforms.

“God forgives, but Djambo does not. Where is your husband,” the witness said, recalling what the indictee told her on that occasion.

She explained that her husband had jumped from the window before Radisic and the two soldiers entered the house. They asked her about her husband and then began drinking alcohol.

“Djambo got up, put a knife on my throat and said: ‘You will either tell us where your husband is or I shall slaughter you’. The guy, who was with Radisic, begged him not to do it,” the witness said, adding that Radisic then threatened her that he would cut her finger off and then hit her father-in-law.

She said that they then took her and her father-in-law to “a house next to the mosque”, where they were kept for some time before they decided to taken to to frontlines. However, one of the soldiers asked them to release her.

“I began walking. I made ten steps, when a burst of bullets was fired. I did not dare turn around in order to see who fired it,” the witness said, adding that her father-in-law came back home two days later and that he was beaten up.

Responding to a Defence’s question, the witness explained that her husband had fled from a working squad and that this was the reason why the indictee was looking for him at home.

When asked how she realized that it was indictee Pero Radisic, the witness said that her husband knew who the chief of the working brigade was and that he told her, later on, who Djambo was.

“My husband was outside and watched what was going on,” the witness said.

The Prosecution of BiH charges Radisic, former Commander of the Working Squad with the Teslicka Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, with having participated in physical and mental abuse and inhumane treatment of Bosniak civilians and forced them to perform hard labour in the period from 1992 to 1995.

Radisic is charged with having taken several persons away in order to perform forced labour. At least six people got killed and a number were wounded at the front combat lines while performing the labour.

The trial is due to continue on February 13.