Prisoner Recalls Violence at Serb Prison Camp
This post is also available in: Bosnian
The Bosniak prosecution witness, Muhamed Ruhotina, told the court on Wednesday that after he was taken to the Bunker detention camp in Vogosca in April 1992, he was immediately beaten up by a soldier who cursed his “Balija [insult against Muslims] mother”.
He said he spent two and a half months imprisoned at the Bunker camp and was later sent to the Planjina Kuca camp, spending a total of nine months in detention.
“It was horrible, a disaster,” Ruhotina said.
“A woman was with us, Hata Balesic, with her husband and son. We urinated into a 60-litre barrel, which was emptied only when full. The woman had it worst, her husband and son had to cover her with a blanket while she was emptying herself. It was embarrassing for us too,” he recalled.
Ruhotina said that Bunker’s warden was the defendant in the trial, Branko Vlaco. “He was deciding who goes to do hard labour,” he said.
The prosecution accuses Vlaco, as the warden of the Serb-run Bunker, Planjina Kuca, Sonja and Nakina Garaza detention camps in Vogosca, of establishing a system to abuse prisoners from May 1992 to the end of October.
Prisoners were murdered, tortured and abused, forced to do hard labour and used as human shields. Dozens of them are still missing. Vlaco is also alleged to have raped one woman.
At the Planjina Kuca camp, he was sent to dig trenches and canals, pick up dead soldiers, cut wood and other tasks.
He said he also had to work for civilians, including Vlaco’s father.
Detainees were beaten daily by the guards, he said, as well as by Serb troops who came from the battlefield to “let off steam by abusing prisoners”.
“I saw at least 30 times how they beat prisoners,” said Ruhotina, adding that no one prevented it.
He said he was wounded once while digging trenches and also survived being used as a human shield at Zuc Hill above Sarajevo, where, as he put it, he was “a reserve bulletproof vest” for the soldiers.
He was freed in March 1993 as part of a prisoner exchange.
The trial is scheduled to resume on June 26.
