Bosnian Serb Ex-Soldier Denies Foca Rape

4. July 2016.16:51
Former Bosnian Serb Army soldier Krsto Dostic denied raping a pregnant woman in Foca in 1992 and said he was ready to take a lie-detector test.

Dostic told the state court on Monday that he did not know the victim and had never seen her prior to her testimony at his trial, and was willing to take a lie-detector test to prove his innocence.

The indictment alleges that Dostic came to the woman’s house in the village of Ljubovici in the Foca municipality on an undetermined date between April and August 1992, ordered her to come out with him and then raped her.

According to the charges, he took her into a shed and ordered her to take her clothes off. When she told him she was pregnant, he began undressing her, pushed her down to the ground and raped her.
He then threatened her, saying she must not tell anyone about it.

It is further alleged that Dostic came to her house again and raped her once or twice more.

The court will re-examine the victim at the next hearing scheduled for July 11.

Also on Monday, at the trial of five Bosnian Serbs for crimes in Kotor-Varos continued, a prosecution witness said he was sexually abused and beaten at a police station.
He also alleged that defendant Dusko Vujicic beat him in a prison behind the court building.

Witness Esad Hrnjic said he was arrested in Donja Varos in the municipality of Kotor-Varos on June 11, 1992 and taken to the police station, where he saw other Bosniak and Croat civilians.
“Two uniformed men used to enter the premises on a regular basis. One of them was nicknamed Dzaja. They had emblems of the Banja Luka Public Security Centre,” Hrnjic said.

“What they did was an act of cruelty. They told me to take my trousers off and ordered [a protected witness at the trial codenamed] KV-5 to sit on my lap. Then they forced her to perform oral sex on me and then I had to do the same,” he added.

He said that KV-5 was “in a very bad condition” when she was brought to the isolation cell, adding she was “dressed in overalls and her hair was untidy”.

He added that other prisoners were forced to have sex with her and with each other.

After having spent between three and five days at the police station, he was transferred to a prison behind the court building in Kotor-Varos, where he and other prisoners were beaten up by what he described as “special policemen” from Banja Luka.

“[Defendant] Dusko Vujicic also used to come. He was the most brutal of all. He personally beat me up once for sure,” the witness said.

“[Defemdant] Dusko Maksimovic also entered. We used to be good friends prior to the war. He grabbed me by my hair and asked me if I knew that my brother Zoka was wounded. I said I did not know that. He left me alone, but he was involved in beating others on that occasion,” he added.

Maksimovic and Vujicic are on trial, along with Savo Tepic, Ilija Kurusic and Radojko Keverovic, for detaining, torturing and committing other inhumane acts against Bosniaks and Croats in Kotor-Varos.

According to the charges, Tepic was the chief of the Public Security Station, Vujicic was a policemen, Maksimovic and Keverovic were reservist policemen, while Kurusic was a soldier with the Bosnian Serb Army.

Marija Taušan