Bastah et al: Covered with blood and half dead

Prosecution witness Ramiza Handzic claims that, on July 11, 1992 Goran Viskovic, “acting together with a few other Serb soldiers, who had stockings pulled over their heads,” captured protected witness 16 and took him, together with other civilians, to Susica detention camp.

“Viskovic entered my house and started beating my husband Bego. When I asked him why he was doing it, he hit me on my spine with his leg and pushed me down the stairs. I broke my knees, elbow and two teeth,” Handzic said.

The Prosecution charges Predrag Bastah, known as Tsar, and Goran Viskovic, known as Vjetar, former members of police and military structured of the Republika Srpska, with the murder, mental abuse and torture of Bosniaks in the Vlasenica area in 1992.

On that day Ramiza Handzic was also taken to Susica detention camp, where she stayed for eight days. One day her husband was taken from the detention camp “to Pelemis”.

“Some unknown people came. There were 10 or 12 of them. Besides my husband, they took witness 16’s brother. Shortly after that I was exchanged. I have not found my husband alive,” the witness said.

While testifying in the courtroom, she said that she had seen indictee Bastah twice. She saw him for the first time when he “forcibly took neighbours” Atif Smajic, Ismet Kavaz and Dzemal Ambeskovic away. The next time she saw him when she was taken to an exchange.

“They drove us, by buses and trucks, from Susica. Bastah ‘Tsar’ was driving the truck. When we arrived to Luke, soldiers started separating young girls and women from the others, while Bastah was standing there, telling them ‘Separate, separate as many as you can and then you sow our semen’. Those women never came back alive” the witness added.

In the course of cross-examination Todor Todorovic, the Defence attorney of Viskovic, asked the witness if she knew anything about the plans to arm Bosniaks and about the existence of the Patriotic League in Vlasenica, whose members allegedly held their meetings in “Lipa” coffee shop in the basement of her house. The witness said that she “was not informed about it”.

Protected witness 16 said that, on July 11 “Goran Viskovic and a few other soldiers” came to pick him up.

“They hit me so hard, that my ribs broke. I started spitting blood. Then they dragged me away and forced me to perform a Muslim prayer on the concrete floor. They put thistles and sand in my mouth. I do not know who did all this, as I was covered with blood and half dead,” witness 16 said.

The witness was taken to Susica detention camp, together with his three brothers, who were taken to “Pelemis to perform forced labour”, but they never came back. He was exchanged on August 1, 1992.

The trial is due to continue on October 31, 2008.