Mikulic: Admission After Torture

During his testimony before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, protected witness SH1 said that members of military police with the Croatian Defence Council, HVO brought him to Dretelj detention camp in August 1993, adding that he was 17 years old at the time. SH1 said that he saw a soldier named Drazen Mikulic putting telephone wires on a prisoner’s ears and the prisoner falling down due to an electricity shock.

“Upon his arrival to the detention camp, military policemen kept saying that Emir was not under the age of 18. Somebody said: ‘Mikulic – the electrical shock’. After that a soldier came, bringing a phone. He then put telephone wires on his ears. He started shaking due to the electricity and fell down. They forced him to admit that he was not a minor,” SH1 said.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Mikulic, former member of HVO Military Police, with having treated civilians, who were held in Dretelj, Capljina municipality, in an inhumane manner from the beginning of July to the end of August 1993.

The indictment alleges that, acting on his own or in collaboration with other persons, Mikulic participated, several times, in the torture of prisoners in a cruel, brutal and humiliating manner causing severe bodily injuries and suffering of those civilians, some of whom even died.

Witness SH1 explained that he knew that the name of the soldier, who abused the prisoner, was Drazen Mikulic, because, as he said, soldiers called his name out several times.

“Some soldiers called him Drazen, while others called him Mikulic. I realised that it was the same person,” SH1 said, adding that he did not see Mikulic in Dretelj.

Mustafa Repak, who testified as second witness at this hearing, said that he found out that his son was killed in Dretelj.

“I found out that some guards took my son out of the isolation cell. Drazen Mikulic was among them. They encouraged a man called Trebinjac to attack my son,” Repak said, explaining that Ahmet Isakovic told him that Drazen Mikulic was one of those guards.

Isakovic, who testified before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina at this hearing, said that he saw that Emir Repak and Trebinjac were forced to fight with each other, adding that Trebinjac then took a stick and hit Repak with it. He said that Repak then fell down.

“I did not see Mikulic during the fight between Repak and Trebinjac. I did not see Mikulic mistreating anybody, but I once heard him telling some detainees: ‘My name is Drazen Mikulic. You’ll see what is going to happen to you’,” Isakovic said.

When asked by the Defence if he had spoken to Mustafa Repak about the death of his son, witness Isakovic said that he only spoke to Repak about it earlier today and that he told him the same thing he said before the Trial Chamber.

The next hearing is due to be held on February 2 this year.S.U.