Witness Describes Abuse at Capljina Police Station at Trial of Former Bosnian Croat Police Officers

The defendants, all former members of Bosnian Croat police and military police forces, have been charged with war crimes committed against Bosniak civilians in July 1993. Krndelj was the former commander of the Capljina police station. Zovko was the former Capljina police station chief. Rajic was the commander of the military police squad of the Croatian Defense Council in Capljina. Cutura was an active police officer and the manager of a police sector in Domanovici.

The indictment alleges that members of the police station commanded by Krndelj as well as Croatian Defense Council soldiers participated in a military operation in the village of Celjevo in the municipality of Capljina on July 19, 1993. Three Bosniak civilians were killed as a result.

The indictment further alleges that during the same operation police officers took a wounded civilian to the police station in Capljina, where they beat and mentally abused him. The civilian was taken to a clinic and then to the Gabela detention camp.

Prosecution witness Alaudin Veledar, a former member of the Bosnian Army, testified at today’s hearing. Veledar he was living with his relatives in Pocitelj in 1993. Veledar said Bosniaks were captured by Bosnian Croat forces in Pocitelj while manning military positions and were taken to detention camps on July 1, 1993. He said that was when he and his three cousins, Nerman, Edin and Amel, decided to leave Pocitelj.

He said they left Pocitelj on July 17, 1993, unarmed and dressed in civil suits. He said they hid in bushes, because three civilians had been killed in the area. The civilians were Becir Boskailo, a member of the Kovac family and a 16 year old girl.

Veledar said they hid on Celjevska Ada, an island on the Neretva river, for a few days. He said his cousin Amel went to his parents’ house and came back several times.

“On the 27th or 28th Amel went to his mother’s house for the third time. He went in the evening. I heard a gunshot coming from the direction of Amel’s mother’s house at 4 a.m. I said, ‘Nermo, they’ve been caught. It looks like Amel has been caught,’” Veledar said.

Veledar said he went to the river’s edge and saw a large number of soldiers on the other side. He said hundreds of bullets were fired at him, and he was hit in the stomach and arm. He said the soldiers forced him to call his two other cousins to come out.

“I said I was alone. They said I was lying. They wanted to shoot at me…Then they took me to the police station in Capljina. I could imagine everything, but I couldn’t imagine that they would beat me. I was wounded. My intestines came out, but they didn’t take me to the health center,” Veledar said.

He said he was beaten in the police station’s corridor.

“They were wild and brutal…Ivica Krtalic, who had brought me there, and another man were the only ones who didn’t hit me…I was drowning in my blood,” Veledar said, adding that his ribs were broken from the beating.

After his assault, Veledar said he was taken to a health center where a paramedic gave him medical assistance. He said he was then taken to the Gabela detention camp, where he heard that all three of his cousins had been killed.

“I started screaming. I couldn’t believe it…All three of them were killed. They had never done any harm to anybody,” Veledar said.

Veledar will be cross-examined on December 16.