Savic and Mucibabic: Sixty days of torture

Sacir Kljako, Prosecution witness at the trial of Krsto Savic and Milko Mucibabic, claims to have been arrested, on June 19, 1992, by “policeman Milko Mucibabic,” who then took him to the police station in Nevesinje. “As per Krsto Savic’s order,” two days later he was transferred to Bileca.

The indictment alleges that Savic, chief of the Public Safety Center in Trebinje, and Mucibabic, policeman, participated in the persecution, disappearances, murder, rape and detention of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from Nevesinje, Gacko, Kalinovik and Bileca municipalities in 1992. The indictment further alleges that the civilians were detained in the police station and the “Student’s House.”

“Nobody registered our names. They took us, like we were cattle, and placed us into a cell, which was situated in the basement of the police station. Other neighbours had already been there. The following day one of them, Hamo Zolj, was released, and the guard told us that Kico Savic had issued the order for his release,” Kljako said, describing what happened after the arrest. Asked by Trial Chamber Chairwoman Minka Kreho how it was possible for Savic to release a prisoner, the witness said that “Kico was the law.”

According to this witness, two days later the detainees were taken to Bileca. As they were leaving the basement, policeman Zeljko Pasajlic roped their hands behind their back.

“On that day they took Rasid Toporan out of the basement. Krsto Savic told them to bring him back. His destiny is still unknown,” the witness recalled, adding that Savic sent the detainees to Bileca.

“I would have rather been killed, then go through the 60 days of torture in Bileca. I lost 40 kg during my
stay there. We slept on the floor like sardines in a can,” Kljako said, adding that he was released from Bileca on August 18, 1992, when he was exchanged.

Witness Behidza Custovic told the Court that some unknown soldiers, “accompanied by policemen from Nevesinje”, took her husband Mirza to the police station and then to the Yugoslav National Army House in mid June 1992.

“He is still missing. I looked for him everywhere, I begged, I gave money, but I have not found him,” Custovic said.

Custovic left Nevesinje on June 27, 1992, in a police car, which, according to her, was driven by Milko Mucibabic. As indicated by the witness, when they came to the checkpoints on their way to Trebinje, Mucibabic told the guards that he was “driving them to a detention camp” or he said that they were ‘Serbs from Mostar.”

The trial is due to continue on June 19, when the Prosecution will examine two new witnesses.