Nikacevic: Witnesses under pressure

Although the Prosecution said at the status conference that only three out of nine witnesses, would testify under protection measures, Prosecutor Behaija Krnjic said that he supposed that all witnesses would now ask for protection after having been allegedly “pressured” by indictee Miodrag Nikacevic’s family.

The Prosecution considers that, in April and July 1992 Nikacevic, who was uniformed and armed, used force and raped two women from Foca. He is also charged with having taken one person to Foca Correctional Facility, where the person was killed later.

“Over the past few days all witnesses were exposed to pressure by the indictee’s wife and other family members, who called them and asked them to alter their statements. The witnesses are upset and they are very afraid,” said Krnjic.

The Defence did not object the motion requesting protection of witnesses, but it asked the Prosecution to submit the data concerning the alleged attempts to influence the witnesses.

The details on who and how pressured the witnesses were discussed at a closed session, in presence of a witness who testified at this hearing.

The first Prosecution witness testified at an open session but her personal data are not to be publicly disclosed. She told the Trial Chamber that, on April 11 or 12, 1992 Miodrag Nikacevic took her from her neighbour’s apartment, where she and her daughter were hiding, to her apartment claiming that he wanted to “safeguard her appliances” from the paramilitary groups which pillaged apartments in Foca.

“I gave him the key and told him to go there alone, but he did not want to. I went to my place with him, as I thought that nothing bad could happen. When we got to my apartment, he grabbed me and I realized that he was interested in me, and not in the household appliances. He dragged me to the bathroom, undressed and raped me. I begged and I dreaded and dreaded….Nobody can understand that. It is something you cannot explain,” the witness said, adding that she had seen the indictee before and that he was a policeman.

She could not remember what happened afterwards, except that she returned to the neighbour’s, but she was “too ashamed” to tell anybody what had happened.

“Such humiliation is very,” said the first witness, adding that she is still ashamed of what happened to her.

The witness then said that it was Nikacevic who drove her from Foca to Montenegro after her friends had asked him to do it. She was then transferred to Trebinje. She said that she returned to Foca on May 13 and stayed there until August 13, 1992.

“Until August 13 they used to come to my place and abuse me every single day. I tried to find some way to protect my daughter. My only concern was to protect her, as they had killed me in 1992. They killed everything in me,” said the witness, adding that Miodrag Nikacevic was among the soldiers who used to come to her apartment, but he never raped her again because, as she said, “he did not have a chance.”

The first Prosecution witness told the Trial Chamber that Nikacevic raped her neighbour’s daughter in July 1992. She said that the neighbour had told her that.

“She was a very pretty girl. After that she cut her hair in order to punish herself for what had happened to her. She did not want to be pretty any more,” said the witness, adding that, after having been raped, the girl got pregnant, but she had an abortion when she left Foca.

The trial is due to continue on May 20, when two Prosecution witnesses will be examined.