Andrun witness confusion

The court police summoned former Alija Suta to testify against Nikola Andrun, after the witness failed to appear at previous hearings.

During his testimony, Suta – a former detainee of the Gabela camp where the indictee allegedly served as deputy warden – changed several aspects of the testimony previously given to prosecution investigators.

He told the Trial Chamber that Andrun had”never picked a hair off of anybody’s head”. The witness added that he found it strange that Andrun was mentioned as deputy warden of the detention camp, stating that he knows him as a very honest man.

However, this testimony contradicts the statement Suta gave to the prosecution at the end of 2005.

Prosecutor Vesna Tancica read the disputed parts of the statement to the court.

“During the hearing you told me that you were not surprised that Andrun was deputy warden because his grandfather was warden of the detention camp in Domanovici,” the prosecutor said, and asked the witness to state which one was the truth.

“What I said at the end of last year is true,” the witness responded. He explained that he had a car accident three months ago, which had left him with memory problems.

On Wednesday, Suta told the court that there had been nobody in the room where he was brought with other detainees in July of 1993 except for a soldier who took their money and gold.

However, in the earlier statement given to the prosecution, Suta had said that indictee Andrun was in that room cursing the detainees’ “balija (derogatory name for Muslim) mothers”, while the soldier took their valuables.

In court, when challenged, the witness said that the indictee had been there, adding again that he has severe headaches from the car accident.

On Wednesday, when asked by the prosecutor who had ordered the removal and torture of detainees in Gabela camp,Suta said that he did not know. He added that at one stage he had heard the indictee fighting with some soldiers in front of the camp, forbidding them to come in and torture the detainees.

In the statement given to the prosecution in 2005, Suta said that he is certain that indictee Andrun issued the orders for torturing.

“Well okay, it is logical that nobody except Bosko Previsic, warden of the camp, and Andrun, his deputy, could issue orders,” the witness responded on Wednesday.

Another prosecution witness, Selim Gagula, described an incident that took place in Gabela camp in August 1993,when Andrun took him out of the building and brought him to the gate by the administration building, where a group of members of the Croat Defence Council(HVO) was present.

Andrun sat on a bench and watched the soldiers hit Gagula with their rifle buts until he lost consciousness.

“Andrun was sitting on the bench and watching. I don’t know what had happened when I lost consciousness. Some say that I survived clinical death,” Gagula said.

The prosecution charged Andrun with this act in the 12-count indictment.

Meho Zele, the third witness, spoke of allegations in the indictment that Andrun had prevented employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to register detainees in Gabela camp by hiding a group of Bosniaks in the Silos detention camp near Capljina.

Zele was in a group of 51 men who were transferred at the end of August 1993 from a storage shed in Gabela camp to the Silos camp.

“Andrun transferred us, before which he ordered us to wear uniforms of the Army of former Yugoslavia,” this witness claimed.

Continuation of the trial is scheduled for October 25, 2006.