Trial for Buzim War Crimes Begins on December 22
This post is also available in: Bosnian
The defendants are Zijad Nanic, Esad Kudelic, Vahid Bajraktarevic, Senad Salkic, Hasan Mustafic, Mehmed Alesevic, Nedzad Bapic, Husein and Samir Isakovic, former members of the Bosnian Army and military police.
During a pretrial status conference, the state prosecution announced that it would examine 74 witnesses, three court experts and present material evidence during the trial.
According to the state prosecution’s charges, the eight defendants subjected prisoners of war and civilians held in the former Radoc hotel in Buzim to inhumane treatment from November 1994 to August 1995. The prisoners of war were members of the Bosnian Serb Army and National Defense of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region.
The indictment alleges that Nanic was the assistant commander for security with the 505th Buzimska Brigade of the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army. Kudelic was the commander of the Military Police Squad. Bajraktarevic, Salkic, Mustafic, Bapic and Samir Isakovic were military police officers, while Alesevic was an officer with the military police squad of the 505th Buzimska Brigade.
The indictment alleges that the defendants took the Radoc hotel prisoners out to a yard every day, where they beat them, threw concrete blocks at them, forced them to injure themselves and sexually abused them.
According to the charges, after having been abused by the defendants, eight former members of the Bosnian Serb Army were taken away and killed, while three civilians and one former member of the National Defense of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region died in detention from their injuries.
Husein Isakovic is charged with war crimes against civilians.
