Prisoner Recalls Beating in Bosnian Serb Jail Camp

Witness Hajrudin Sehic told the court in Sarajevo on Wednesday that he was beaten by the soldier after he was wounded while being used as a human shield by Bosnian Serb troops on the frontline.

Sehic said he was detained in early June 1992 and later taken to the Bosnian Serbs’ Planjina Kuca detention centre.

He said that prisoners were sent to do hard labour, digging trenches, clearing land and working on roads. They often fainted from hunger during this work, he added.

“One day [defendant] Vlaco said that 50 people were needed to go to the [nearby] Zuc hill. We were taken there to be human shields, some of us were wounded and some killed,” said Sehic, adding that he was wounded in the leg.

He said was moved to a medical vehicle, where a nurse tried to give him first aid.

“Then a soldier hit me and said: ‘Why are you bandaging him, this Balija [pejorative for Muslim], can’t you see that our guy is dead?’ He started beating me, while Vlaco stood ten metres from us and watched it all. I lied to them that I was a Serb and they put me inside the vehicle,” recalled Sehic.

The witness said that then the doors of the vehicle opened and the soldier told him he would be put in jail for lying to him. The next day he was beaten up by an unknown soldier at Planjina Kuca.

According to the prosecution, Vlaco was the warden of the Bunker, Planjina Kuca, Sonja and Nakina Garaza detention camps in Vogosca, where he established a system to abuse imprisoned civilians.

Prisoners were murdered, tortured and abused, forced to do hard labour and used as human shields. Many of them were killed and dozens are still considered missing.

Another witness who testified on Wednesday, Ifet Handzic, was also detained and taken to Planjina Kuca, where, he said, the warden was Vlaco.

Vlaco used to line the prisoners up in the mornings before they were taken to do labou, which Handzic said was “great” for him because he got to eat with the soldiers and guards who took them there.

“One morning they needed a lot of people to go to the Zuc hill. The day before Hajrudin Sehic was wounded and my cousin got scared, so he hid under the bed. The guards took him outside and then Branko Vlaco hit him with a fist on the chin,” recalled Handzic.

The trial will resume on November 6.