Arrests and Detainee Assault by Bosnian Serb Fighters in Teslic

Asim Isic testified at the trial of Dragan Marjanovic, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic, Zoran Sljuk, Dragomir Kezunovic and Dario Slavuljica, who have all been charged with participating in an attack against the Bosniak and Croat population in Teslic in June 1992. They allegedly detained and abused prisoners on police property, as well as on the premises of the Territorial Defense and military prisons.

The defendants are also charged with taking 28 civilians detained at a police station in Teslic and the nearby Pribinic prison to Mount Borje on the night of June 17 or 18, 1992. There, the defendants allegedly killed them.  

According to the indictment, at the time Marjanovic was the commander of the First Military Police Squad of the Teslicka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, while the other defendants were members of that squad and also of a paramilitary formation known as “Mice.”

Asim Isic said his village of Gornji Rankovic was primarily Muslim, and that the Bosnian Serb Army and the police came to the village to arrest people whose names they had listed. He said he watched a group of young men, whose heads were shaved, being taken away.

“They were taken away. I never saw them again,” Isic said. He said he didn’t know the names of the units which entered the village.

Isic said he began running away through the woods, where Bosnian Serb Army positions were located. He was captured and taken to a police station in Teslic, where he was examined for about two hours before being transferred to a building on the premises of the Territorial Defense.

Isic said that upon his arrival there, he saw about 120 people, half of whom were residents of his village. He said the conditions in the building were bad and the prisoners received meals once a day. He told the court he was released a month later.

Ramiz Skopljak, the second witness for the prosecution, said he was abducted from his apartment in Teslic and taken to the police station at the beginning of June 1992.

“They came to pick me up and escorted me to the police building’s basement,” said Skopljak, who didn’t mention the defendants by name.

Skopljak said he spent several days in the basement, where he and others were beaten daily. He said they were eventually transferred from the police station to the premises of the Territorial Defense, where he saw a group of young men with shaved heads.

“We were beaten at that place as well,” said Skopljak, who was released from the Territorial Defense building 14 days later. 

The trial continues on May 21.