Sehagic Says He Did not Beat up Detainees

Sehagic said that, following the breakout of the conflict between the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in 1993, “Croats, including both civilians and soldiers”, were brought to the old administrative building of the Brown Coal Mine in Kakanj.

“A military police battalion from Zenica then came and arrested many Muslims soldiers and civilians. Everybody was there. I was not able to control that. I neither examined anybody nor attended anybody’s examination. I did not see people being beaten up,” Sehagic said.
 
According to the indictee’s testimony, a man named Mladen was once brought to the Mine administrative building. He was beaten up and then taken to the Dispensary.

“I would like you to examine Rudi Belfic, whom some unknown soldiers grabbed through the prison bars, dragged him to the bars and threatened him that they would cut him open with a knife. In order to protect him, I yelled at them and got my pistol ready for shooting. They yelled at me too and prepared their rifle. They could have killed me,” Sehagic said.

Sehagic said that, following the mentioned incident, he complained to the military police commander, chief of security and chief of headquarters, but nobody reacted.

“As there was nobody else to whom I could complain, I went to the Command building and yelled at commanders, asking them if they knew what the Army was doing. After that Commander Hikmet Bajtal sent an order, saying that they should act according to the Geneva Convention,” indictee Sehagic said.

According to the charges, Sehagic, former Manager of a detention facility in the old administrative building of the Brown Coal Mine in Kakanj, participated in the torture of Croat detainees.

The Cantonal Prosecution in Zenica alleges that Sehagic failed to undertake the necessary and reasonable measures in order to prevent the torture and report the torture perpetrators to his superiors in order to make sure that they would be punished.
During his testimony Sehagic said that he had never heard about the abuse in the administrative building of the Brown Coal Mine in Kakanj.  

“I completed seven grades of elementary school, but I was raised in a family that taught me not to hate anybody. I do not even know why those people were brought to that place. They said that some of them were brought for security reasons, that they would be safe in that building until the situation calmed down… I neither examined nor tortured anyone. Nobody was allowed to do it in my presence,” Sehagic said.

The indictee said that he had found the document, appointing him Manager of the military detention unit, on a pile of dumped documents, copied it and showed it to the Prosecution during the investigation.

“I provided food for those people. I ate with them. They received visitors. A delegation of the International Red Cross visited them once,” Sehagic said, showing small pieces of paper on which senior officers instructed him to release people from detention.

The trial is due to continue on November 28.