Former Prisoner Describes Torture and Detention by Bosniak Military Police in Srebrenik

Ekrem Ibracevic, a former chief of military security with the municipal headquarters of the Territorial Defense in Srebrenik, has been charged with the abuse and torture of Serb civilians in Rapatnica and Luke from June to August 1992. Fikret Smajlovic and Sejdalija Covic, former members of the military police, have been charged with the same crimes.

Lazar Stanisic, one of the injured parties in the case, was unable to testify in court due to his poor health. A statement he gave to the state prosecution was presented at today’s hearing instead. Stanisic said he was transferred from the Yugoslav National Army to the Bosnian Serb Army in Ugljevik on May 16, 1992.

Stanisic said he took sick leave immediately after his transfer and began searching for his family. He said he was arrested by Bosniak forces shortly afterwards. He said he was interrogated and beaten in Srebrenik before he was transferred to a detention camp in the village of Rapatnica.

“When I woke up, I was covered in blood…When night fell, the door opened and the beatings continued. I spent 38 days in Rapatnica. I was alone in the basement, while others were held on the premises in the community. They came every night to interrogate and examine me,” Stanisic said in his statement.

He said that during one night of his detention, he was burned with a soldetron, a welding tool, in a room next to his cell in the basement.

“All kinds of mechanical tools were there, starting from a soldetron to an ordinary wrench…They ordered me to strip down to the waist. I didn’t answer their questions, so they started burning me,” Stanisic’s statement read.

He said after his torture with the soldetron, a former captain he knew at the Yugoslav National Army named Fikret Ibracevic approached him.

“First he allowed his soldiers to beat me and then asked me how I was feeling. He examined my wounds and sent for a paramedic,” Stanisic said in his statement.

Ekrem Ibracevic’s defense said it would haved asked Stanisic why he’d failed to manage in previous statements that Fikret Ibracevic had looked at his wounds and called for a paramedic.

After the presentation of Stanisic’s statement, Ibracevic’s defense presented material evidence. The evidence included decisions issued by Serb authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 on action for Bosnian Serbs to take in “extraordinary situations,” the establishment a Serb assembly and strategic wartime goals.

The trial will continue on January 12, when a defense witnesses will be examined.