Former Prisoner Describes Abuse in Bileca Detention Camps

Former prisoner Munib Camo said a group of uniformed and armed men broke into his house on June 11, 1992. He said they beat him and then took him to a police station. Camo said a number of Bosniak civilians from Bileca were arrested on that day.

Camo is testifying at the trial of Goran Vujovic, Miroslav Duka and Zeljko Ilic, who’ve been charged with war crimes 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 buildings in Bileca, where detainees were killed, tortured and abused. Ilic is charged with participating in acts of physical abuse, mental abuse, torture and murder.

According to the charges, at the time Vujovic was the chief of the public safety station in Bileca, Duka was the station commander, and Ilic was a police officer.

In his testimony, Camo said he was beaten brutally at the police station on the day of his arrest. Officers commanded by Goran Vujovic beat him, he said.

“They broke each of my teeth. They even took a man off the street to beat me,” Camo said.

Two days after Camo’s arrest, he and a group of detainees were transferred to the student dormitory building. Camo said the conditions there were slightly better for the detainees.

He then described an incident in which smoke bombs were thrown into rooms full of detainees.

Camo said that about 19 detainees were transferred to an old prison in Bileca in September 1992, after a group of detainees had been released from the student dormitory.

He described the conditions at the old prison as difficult and said detainees were abused there.

“The conditions were horrible. We endured a huge amount of humiliation. We slept on a concrete floor. I had a three fingers of space for myself. They took people away in the evening. They connected them to electricity,” Camo said, adding that detainees named Ferhat and Sakir Avdic died after having been beaten.

Camo said he wasn’t beaten, “because Duka didn’t allow them.”

In response to a question by trial chamber chairwoman Minka Kreho, Camo said Duka was in charge of the prison.

“I stayed in the prison until November 17, when Duka came to our rooms and said, ‘I’m dismissing this prison now,’” Camo said.

He said on the following day he left Bileca with his wife with the help from the International Red Cross. He said they went to Plav in Montenegro.

During cross-examination, Camo said he was the president of the Islamic community in Bileca just before the beginning of the war.

In response to a question by Vujovic’s defense attorney, Camo said he hadn’t heard that Vujovic had propagated the persecution of Bosniaks in the area.

The trial will continue on May 26.