Hasib Cehic Beat Bosnian Army Captives in Velika Kladusa, Witnesses Say

Hasib Cehic, a former member of the National Defense of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region, has been charged with the physical abuse of two captured members of the Bosnian Army in Pecigrad in the municipality of Cazin on July 16, 1994.||Cehic has also been charged with the inhumane treatment of five captured members of the military police of the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army. He allegedly physically abused the captives in the village of Zagrad in the municipality of Velika Kladusa on June 21, 1995.||Djevad Salesevic, a former member of the Kljucko-Sanska Brigade of the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army, testified at today’s hearing. He said he knew Cehic and that he owned a cafe in Cazin.||“We spent time together, we drank together…He would give us drinks and cigarettes. He would offer them to us for free. He was a decent man. However, when we liberated Velika Kladusa in 1994, we found out that our comrades Rufad and Kemo had been held as prisoners. They were skinny, beaten, covered with bruises…When we asked them who had done that to them, they said Hasib,” Selesevic said.||Dursum Buljibasic, another former Bosnian Army soldier, was the second witness to testify at today’s hearing. He said other soldiers told him Cehic had beaten up prisoners after the liberation of Velika Kladusa.||“Everybody knew Cehic, because he owned a cafe in Cazin, which we frequented. They told me he had beaten them following their capture. My acquaintances told me that. They said he tried to strangle Kemo,” Buljubasic said.||Cehic’s defense objected to the testimony presented by Salesevic and Buljibasic, and said they were only conveying what they had heard from injured parties.||Harko Haljezovic, a former member of the National Defense of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region, was the third witness to testify at today’s hearing. Haljezovic said he and the defendant both worked together as security guards. He said they didn’t socialize much, and he didn’t know him well.||Cehic’s defense asked the court to order an expert examination of the defendant. The defense believes he suffers from post-traumatic stress and an alcohol abuse problem. The defense said Cehic couldn’t remember events that occurred during the war. The chamber will come to a decision at a later stage.||The trial will continue on November 10.