Meetings with Indictee
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Protected witness A, who previously appeared as a Prosecution witness, said that, one evening during her detention the indictee came to the hangar, in which she was held.
“You brought a group of women from Mostar and asked where they would be accommodated. You walked towards the rear of the hangar, where I was, and asked if they could be accommodated in that part. You asked: ‘Can I lie down here?’ I said: ‘You can do whatever you want’,” witness A said, adding that the indictee then began shouting.
She said that, on another occasion indictee Buljubasic told her that he was taking some medication and that he could do whatever he wanted, because he would not stand a trial. In November 2012 witness A testified for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, saying that several persons raped her during her detention in Dretelj.
When asked by Buljubasic if he participated in that, the witness answered negatively.
Buljubasic is charged, along with Ivan Zelenika, Srecko Herceg, Ivan Medic and Edib Buljubasic, with having committed crimes in Dretelj. According to the charges, the former members of the Croatian Defence Forces, HOS, participated in forcing detainees to perform hard labour and having tortured them.
The State Prosecution alleges that Zelenika was a HOS officer, Herceg was Commander of Dretelj, Buljubasic was Deputy Commander of the military barracks in Dretelj, while Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic were guards.
Testifying at this hearing, protected witness F said that indictee Buljubasic did not harm her during her detention in Dretelj. F said that she spent about 40 days in Dretelj and that her entire family was detained in that facility.
Witness F testified for the Prosecution in January this year. At that time she described having been raped by two persons in the military dispensary premises in Mostar in 1992.
When asked by the indictee whether she knew if he had raped any female detainees, the witness said that she did not know.
At the end of the examination Buljubasic apologised to the witness for all the things she experienced in Dretelj. Witness F responded by saying: “I am a human being, so I shall forgive you”.
The trial is due to continue on April 22.
