State Prosecution Witness Accuses Curic of Prisoner Abuse in Potoci

Enes Curic, Ibrahim Demirovic, Samir Kreso, Habib Copelj and Mehmed Kaminic have been charged with participating in the detention of Croat civilians who were subjected to severe physical and mental mistreatment in the municipality of Mostar from June to December 1993.

According to the charges, Curic was a member of the 49th Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian Army and the manager of a detention facility in a school building and other buildings in Potoci, Demirovic was the commander of the 47th Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian Army, Kreso was the chief of the military medical unit of the Mountain Brigade which was active in the Bijelo Polje area, while Copelj and Kaminic were members of the Bosnian Army.

Demirovic is also charged with an incident of rape which occurred in Potoci.

State prosecution witness Anica Kolobara said she was detained in a school building in Potoci in the municipality of Mostar, and couldn’t leave without permission from Enes Curic.

“He was at the school building all the time. He was the commander of the detention camp. They had to ask him for permission,” Kolobara said.

Kolobara said she heard that a prisoner named Marko Sesar was killed while performing forced labour in September 1993. She said members of the Bosnian Army had escorted him to a work site.

According to Kolobara, every morning soldiers used to take male prisoners out of the school building to different work sites. Female prisoners were once ordered to evacuate a wounded person from the Neretva river.

“Members of the army and Curic came and decided who’d go. The men said they used to dig trenches most of the time,” Kolobara said.

Kolobara said she was taken to Bosniak houses twice in order to clean them. She said she was also taken to a dam in Vrapcici, where she was used as a human shield.

“Enes Curic came and called out our names…a day before he’d cursed my Ustasha mother. I insulted him too. He lined us up, but he didn’t tell us where we were going,” Kolobara said.

Curic asked Kolobara why he’d insulted her mother. Kolobara said she didn’t know.

“You and I were standing there and you insulted me,” she said.

Kolobara said she knew Curic from before the war.

Kolobara said a soldier with the last name Kaminic hit a mentally unwell prisoner named Marko Zovko.

According to the indictment, Kaminic punched a mentally unwell prisoner in the stomach in the Potoci school building.

Kaminic’s defense attorney asked Kolobara why she didn’t mention Zovko’s assault in a statement she had given to a court in Mostar. Kolobara said she forgot.

“Zovko cried and kept quiet,” she said.

Demirovic’s defense attorney asked Kolobara if she was a member of the Croatian Defense Council. Kolobara said she was and that she worked in a military kitchen.

The next hearing is scheduled for July 15.