Witness Describes Mistreatment of Detainees in Bileca

At the trial of former security officials in Bileca, a state prosecution witness said his jaw and teeth were broken when he was beaten by authorities at the Bileca police station.

The defendants in the case, Goran Vujovic, Miroslav Duka and Zeljko Ilic, have been charged with war crimes in Bileca. According to the charges, at the time Vujovic was the chief of the public safety station in Bileca, Duka was the police commander and Ilic was a policeman.

Witness Rasim Murguz said members of the military came to his house in June 1992. Murguz said they beat him and then took him and a few other persons to the police station.

“They attacked me at the station and broke twelve of my teeth and my jaw,” Murguz said.

Vujovic’s defense attorney asked Murguz if he could have received the injuries in front of his house. Murguz said he was beaten in front of his house and in the police station.

Murguz said he was then transferred to a detention camp located in the town’s military barracks, along with 46 others. Seven days later, Murguz said, he was transferred again, to a prison across the street from the police station.

Murguz said no one abused him while he was in the prison, but he did witness the abuse of seven or eight other detainees. Murguz said in late August 1992, certain detainees were taken out of their cells. Those detainees said they had been beaten.

“They said Duka, Ilic and Kuljic did it,” Murguz said.

Murguz said in the beginning of September 1992, unidentified men from Gacko set a mosque in Bileca on fire. The same men banged on the door of the prison, and began shooting into the cells, setting some on fire. Murguz said some detainees were injured as a result.

Murguz said two persons named “Kuljic and Svorca” mistreated his son, who was detained in the student dormitory in Bileca.

Vujovic and Duka have been charged with enabling and organizing the detention of Bosniak and Croat civilians in the public safety station and student dormitory in Bileca, where detainees were murdered, tortured and abused. Ilic has been charged with participating in acts of physical abuse, mental abuse, torture and murder.

The trial will continue on April 21.