Beating in Fallout Shelter

Witness Rajko Mrkaja said that he was in his house in Hadzici at the beginning of the war. As he said, he was arrested on May 29, 1992 and taken to “Silos” detention camp and then to Krupa. As he said, in February 1993 he was taken, along with about ten other detainees, to Mount Igman.

“A truck on which ‘Alahhu Akbar Zulfikar Alispago’ was written, came. We were transferred to Mount Igman. We were accommodated in a fallout shelter. I spent two months on Mount Igman,” the witness said, testifying via video link from Las Vegas, USA.

As he said, two days later “Nedzad, who was accompanied by two soldiers and two girls, one of whom was Sabina,” broke into the fallout shelter.

“He told us to spread our legs. They hit us one after the other… the beating went on and on. They forced us to bow down as if we were performing a Muslim prayer. They extinguished cigarettes on us. Nedzad was beating us with a table leg. Most of us were not even able to get up afterwards,” the witness recalled.

When asked by Prosecutor Vladimir Simovic who Nedzad was, the witness said that it was Nedzad Hodzic, “son of Zulifakar’s sister”, who was in his twenties at the time. He said that he was rather short and that he had a scar above his right eye.

Nedzad Hodzic and Dzevad Salcin, also known as Struja, former members of “Zulfikar” Unit with the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, are on trial for crimes committed on Mount Igman in 1993.

Zulfikar Alispago, known as Zuka, is on a separate trial for crimes committed in Truisna, Konjic.

Witness Mrkaja recalled having been beaten while he and a few other detainees were carrying fire wood into the “Mraziste” hotel, where “Nedzad, Nihad and Mesar” beat him.

“I was unaware of my surroundings. Fifteen days passed until I came to myself again. My back is full of scars. I have had back problems since coming out of there,” the witness said.

 

The trial is due to continue on June 16.