Beaten Up for a Machine-gun

The witness, Mirce Martinovic, said he was beaten in the presence of defendants Safet Mujcinovic and Nusret Muhic. He explained that they asked him and his father Velibor for a machine-gun they did not have, although the police list said otherwise.
 
According to the indictment, Mujcinovic, as commander of the Stupari police station, failed to prevent Hodzic, a reserve policeman, from participating in the beating. Although the witness said during investigation that the interrogation happened in June, as is specified in the indictment, at the trial he stuck to the claim it was in July.
 
Martinovic said they were taken to interrogation every day in July from the teachers’ building in Stupari, to which Serb civilians were being brought. They were persistent in their claim they did not have the gun.
 
The witness said that the interrogations stopped after his cousin, who worked in the criminal police, told Muhic they did not have the machine-gun.
 
According to the indictment, Muhic was chief of the group for preventing and stopping crimes in Kladanj.
 
Before being taken for interrogation, Martinovic said, he handed over two rifles, for which he and his father did not have a license, to defendant Ramiz Halilovic. They got them from Tanasije Jovicic, then member of the Serb Democratic Party, and took them for their own personal safety.
 
Together with Mujcinovic, Muhic, Halilovic and Hodzic, crimes committed in Kladanj are also charged upon Selman Busnov, Zijad Hamzic, Hariz Habibovic, Osman Gogic and Kahro Vejzovic.
 
According to the witness, Mujcinovic and Hodzic took his father in November 1992 to the small house in their yard to show them where the weapon was concealed, but they could not find it.
 
His father told him Hodzic tied him to a tree and beat him up.
 
The indictment specifies that Mujcinovic ordered Hodzic to tie Velibor to a tree, which he did, and then beat him up with a police baton on his own. Mujcinovic is charged with failing to prevent Hodzic, but agreeing to Hodzic’s decision.
 
Defendant Hodzic at one point shouted that the witness lied, and the Trial Chamber warned him he cannot behave like that, but is allowed to ask questions.
 
The trial will resume on September 27.