Witnesses Describe Prisoner Abuse and Forced Labour at Puljic Trial

Mile Puljic, the former commander of the Second Battalion of the Second Croatian Defense Council Brigade, has been charged with allowing his subordinates to take detainees from the Heliodrom detention camp to locations where they performed forced labour and were used as human shields. He is also charged with incidents of enforced disappearances and beatings.

Rijad Leto told the trial chamber that he was arrested by the Croatian Defense Council on July 1, 1993. He was detained at the Dretelj detention camp for a brief period of time before he was transferred to Heliodrom in Mostar.

“The conditions were slightly better than in Dretelj, but we slept on blankets on the floor. The guards wore HVO uniforms. They didn’t beat me. I heard they beat some people, but I didn’t witness that,” Leto said.

Leto told the court he was taken out of the camp to work three times. Two of those times he worked on fortifying Croatian Defense Council positions on Santiceva Street in Mostar.

“We carried bags filled with sand. Combat was ongoing. We, the detainees, were between the lines…I was wounded on Santiceva Street on August 5, 1993. I put a bag of sand on the ground. A bullet hit me on my arm, my left forearm. I fell down. They evacuated me. They took me to the military hospital, they didn’t want to dress my wound because I’m a Bosniak, so they took me to the surgery ward,” Leto recalled.

Leto said he was returned to the Heliodrom detention camp after about ten days of hospitalization. He remained in Heliodrom until his exchange in December 1993.

Zulfo Humackic, the second state prosecution witness to testify, also said Croatian Defense Council soldiers took him to the Dretelj detention camp near Capljina in July 1993 and then to Heliodrom.

“While we were in Heliodrom, we were initially held in the school building and then in the hall. I think about 700 of us were held there. We slept on the floor. Some had blankets or pieces of cardboard. We had two meals. They weren’t big, but they were sufficient. It wasn’t possible to reach the windows in the hall, so it was hot during the day and cold at night,” Humackic said.

Humackic said he heard some detainees were beaten in Heliodrom.

Humackic said he was regularly taken out to Mostar and the surrounding area in order to work. He said detainees usually worked on Santiceva Street in Mostar, where the closest division line between the Bosnian Army and the Croatian Defense Council was located.

Humackic said on August 5, approximately sixty detainees were taken out of the camp. They worked the entire day.

“I think five men got killed in combat activities around us. Some were wounded. We worked until midnight. First they said it was enough, but then another group of soldiers came and ordered us to continue working. When we finished at around 2 or 3am they took us to the post office, where they provoked us. After that the whole group of detainees was brutally beaten,” Humackic said.

Humackic said he was taken out to Brkica bridge in order to perform forced labour in September 1993. Humackic said he was wounded in the back on that day and spent half a year under medical treatment.

The trial will continue on June 17.