This post is also available in: Bosnian
Ismet Imsirovic, the witness, said that in 2011 he listed the names of people who went to the Rapatnica detention facility at night to abuse prisoners. He said that afterwards he began receiving “horrible” threats.
Ekrem Ibracevic, the former chief of military security with the municipal headquarters of the Territorial Defense in Srebrenik, and Fikret Smajlovic and Sejdalija Covic, former members of the military police, are on trial for crimes committed against Serb civilians in Rapatnica in 1992.
Imsirovic said he gave a statement to the State Investigation and Protection Agency on June 16, 2011, and said he received his first threat over the phone four or five days later.
“Unless I stopped interfering…horrible threats, which I can’t repeat…they said they were following my children. I visited the SIPA inspector and asked who else knew about my statement. He said a Bosnian state prosecutor,” Imsirovic said.
Imsirovic said the inspector told him that the prosecutor had commented on the threats he received, by saying “What can I do? I receive threats every day too.”
The defense asked Imsirovic questions about the injuries inflicted upon prisoners in Rapatanica. Imsirovic had said in a previous hearing that he heard the prisoners had been burned.
As per a proposal by Emir Suljagic, Fikret Smajlovic’s defense attorney, portions of an audio recording of testimony Imsirovic gave at the trial of Zurahid Mujcinovic in 2012 were played in the courtroom. In his 2012 testimony, Imsirovic hadn’t mentioned the names of people who abused the Rapatnica prisoners at night.
Imsirovic said he gave the names of all the perpetrators to SIPA in 2011, but began receiving threats afterwards.
Imsirovic repeated that Fikret Smajlovic, Huso Hodzic, Samir Mujkanovic and a man named Jasmin came to the military prison in Rapatnica one night, and that Mustafa Covic was already there.
Suljagic wanted to know whether Imsirovic had met a witness named Drago Djukic and whether the purpose of them meeting was to acquit Zurahid Mujcinovic, whom the Bosnian state court sentenced to eight years in prison for crimes in Srebrenik.
Imsirovic said that Drago Djukic told him he was in Srebrenik in 2006 and said Zurahid Mujcinovic had tortured him with a soldetron.
Imsirovic tried to convince Djukic that this wasn’t true, because he believed that Mujcinovic had never been to Rapatnica. According to Imsirovic, Samir Mujkanovic and Mujcinovic were drummers.
Nijaz Bajraktarevic, who worked as an assistant with the Headquarters for Planning and Training, testified about the structure and members of the municipal headquarters of the Territorial Defense. He said that Ekrem Ibracevic took over the security sector at some stage, and said there was a detention unit in Rapatnica and Luke.
The trial will continue on June 30.
