Witnesses Describe Prisoner Abuse at Radisic Trial
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Radisic, a former commander with a work squad of the Teslicka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with participating in the physical and mental abuse of Bosniak civilians from 1992 to 1995. Radisic, nicknamed Django, has also been charged with taking several detainees to locations where they performed forced labour. At least six detainees were killed and several more were wounded on the frontlines as a result.
A state prosecution witness known as R-7 testified at today’s hearing from a separate location and with an altered voice. R-7 said there was no freedom of movement in Teslic at the beginning of the war. He said he first met Radisic when he came to his village armed and uniformed.
“They would take men away to dig trenches and make dugouts. Django [Radisic] used to come to the Partizan stadium and only looked for people from the village of Rankovici. He treated my brother badly. He beat and tortured him. He used to take my mother away to slap her and ask her where her sons were,” R-7 said.
R-7 said his brother was beaten with a shovel and forced to beat others during his detention.
“He had bruises under his eyes. His legs and arms were black from the bruises,” R-7 said.
The defense asked R-7 whether he personally saw someone being mistreated by Radisic. R-7 said he hadn’t.
A protected witness known as R-6 also testified from a separate room at today’s hearing. She said the Bosnian Serb Army took her father to a detention camp in the Partizan stadium.
“He spent about ten days in the stadium. He wasn’t beaten…Once they took him away, but we didn’t know where…I saw him under the terrace one day. He was beaten. He said a group of soldiers entered a house they slept in on the frontline. He mentioned the name Django. My father said the man entered the room with a group of soldiers and said, ‘God forgives, but Django does not,’” R-6 said.
She said her father didn’t specify the names of the people who beat him. She said she’d never heard Radisic’s name before.
The trial will continue on August 28.
