Vogosca Serb Chief ‘Assaulted Detainees at Police Station’

Prosecution witness Ferid Cutura told the state court in Sarajevo on Monday that Jovan Tintor, who was head of the Serb Crisis Committee in Vogosca, assaulted him in May 1992.

Cutura said that he and a colleague drove in a police car from Svrake in the municipality of Vogosca to Sarajevo on May 1, 1992 in order to fetch some food.

On his return, he said he was stopped at the Vogoscanska Petlja crossroads, where soldiers told him that commander Jovan Tintor had ordered them to be searched.

He said that a few grenades and an automatic rifle were in the vehicle.

“A man named Pena began searching the car. He found the grenades and hit me in the head with his fist. Then they tied us up with wire. We sat there for half an hour before being driven to the police station,” the witness said.

“We were taken to [a man called] Stanko Blagovcanin, who took a pen out and told us to write a statement regarding the weapons found in the vehicle. In the meantime, Tintor came, hit me in the chest with his fist and cursed my Ustasa mother,” he added.

He said he was then taken to the basement and after a while Tintor came and “placed a knife on my throat”.

Witness Cutura said he was then taken to the basement of the military barracks in Rajlovac, then back to the police station in Vogosca after order issued by “the commander”.

“They beat me up that day. I stayed there for 13 days. Later on they insulted us… They ordered us to slap each other in the face,” he said.

Responding to cross-examination questions, the witness said he was commander of the Territorial Defence force in Svrake.

The indictment charges Tintor with participating in a widespread and systematic attack against the non-Serb population in the Vogosca municipality from April 1992 to the end of July.

He is charged with unlawful detention, torture, beating, forcing people to do hard labour and the murder of Bosniaks and Croats at several locations, including detention camps.

In a separate trial at the state court on Monday, a witness testified that defendant Mehmed Alesevic guarded him and other prisoners at the former Radoc hotel in Buzim in 1995.

Witness Husein Rizvic said Alesevic treated the detainees “in a poor manner”.

He also said he was beaten by Alesevic.

Alesevic is charged with having treated prisoners of war and civilians detained at the former Radoc hotel in Buzim in 1994 and 1995 in an inhumane manner.

According to the charges, Alesevic was a clerk with the Military Police Squad of the 505th Buzim Brigade of the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army.