Six Bosnians Face Trial for Abuse and Torture of Serb Prisoners

The Bosnian prosecution told BIRN that the state court has confirmed an indictment charging Zijad Kadric, Hajrudin Halilovic, Asim Hamzic, Miralem Cengic, Samir Selimovic and Amir Murtic with committing 109 individual crimes against dozens of Serb civilians who were held at a former Yugsolav Army military barracks in 1992.

The six men were members of the Municipal Headquarters of the Territorial Defence force in Visoko, the Bosnian Army and its military police force, and the police’s Public Security Station in Visoko, according to prosecutors.

The indictment accuses the men of systematically and continuously torturing, robbing, physically and mentally abusing Serb civilians from the Visoko area, among them women, children and elderly people, from May 1992 to the end of the year, at a detention facility located in the Ahmet Fetahagic barracks.

“According to the indictment, several hundred civilians from Visoko and the surrounding area were detained and abused in the said camp for a period of about eight months; they were kept without enough food, basic hygiene conditions, in unconditioned and overcrowded rooms, where they were subjected to daily abuse, beatings, torture, inhumane treatment, various forms of mental and physical abuse, and especially humiliating actions towards female prisoners and minors,” the prosecution said in a statement in September.

The prosecution further alleged that Kadric, did not avt in accordance with his duties as a senior official at the detention facility and did not act to prevent the torture and inhumane treatment, which he knew about, thus allowing the systematic abuses to continue.