Bastah et al: Difficult-to-pronounce name

Nedim Salaharevic, who was less than 14 years old in 1992, said indictee Bastah was “a monster”, accusing him of “killing and suffering of Bosniaks in Vlasenica and destroying my family”.

“I used to see the monster in my street. He personally created a house of torture and rape in Smail Durakovic’s house, in which young Bosniak girls were held. He brought the two Ferhatovic sisters and Lela Timo, who went to school with me, which means that she was 13 years old. At night we could hear screams, which were so loud that we could not sleep,” Salaharevic said.

The State Prosecution charges Predrag Bastah, known as Tsar, and Goran Viskovic, known as Vjetar, with having participated in “the rape, murder, mental abuse, torture and disappearances of civilians” in Vlasenica area in the course of 1992.

Witness Salaharevic refused to pronounce indictee Bastah’s name. However,after the Trial Chamber had intervened, he pointed to him in the courtroom, saying: “This is Predrag Bastah, known as Tsar, but he is not a human. Judge,I am sorry, but I find it difficult to pronounce his name”.

The witness told the Court that he saw Bastah “a few times” during the summer of 1992.”He once came to my house to register Bosniaks. He told my brother, who was 19, that he would not leave Vlasenica alive. I remember seeing him one day after the Vlasenica mosque had been destroyed. He was forcing some detainees from Susica detention camp to plant little pine trees at the location where the mosque had been,” Salaharevic recalled.

Salaharevic said that he saw the indictee for the last time on September 13,1992, when he and his family members were forced to leave their house and go to Susica detention camp.”The indictee was standing by the entrance. He immediately took my brother and father to the detention camp. Me and my mother were pushed towards the buses, but the indictee suddenly appeared there and started dragging me into the detention camp. I cried and begged him not to take me to my brother. Aman then approached us and prevented him from taking me away. They loaded me onto the bus. I never saw my brother or father again,” Salaharevic said.

In the course of cross-examination the witness asked the Chamber to ban indictee Bastah from “addressing him directly”.

After that the indictee made his questions through his Defence attorney, Refik Serdarevic. Second Prosecution witness Hajrudin Meric said he was taken to Susica detention camp on June 2, 1992, claiming that, when he arrived, about “300 men, women and children” had already been there.

He said he witnessed “beating, taking away and killing” of detainees. “I remember that, on June 27, Goran Vjetar came and loaded us onto a meat cooler truck and took us somewhere to do some work. When we arrived, he told us to dig potatoes. However, he ordered postman Alihodzic to dig a half-metre-deep hole. When he finished he told Dzemo and Hasim Ferhatovic to shoot at Alihodzic. When they refused to do it, he got angry and he loaded us back on the truck,” Meric recalled.

In the course of cross-examination Viskovic’s Defence attorney Todor Todorovic asked the witness if he knew that Viskovic and Alihodzic were “friends at that time and they still are.”

The witness responded by saying that he “did not know”.

The trial is due to continue on November 6, 2008.