‘Everyday Abuse, Constant Rapes’ at Bosnia’s Dretelj Camp

Testifying in his own defence at the Sarajevo court on Tuesday, Buljubasic said that he joined the Croatian Defence Forces in mid-July 1992, and in August that year was appointed deputy commander at the Buno Busic barracks in Dretelj, where Serb men and women were imprisoned.

Defence lawyer Dzema Hasanagic asked whether there were abuses at Dretelj, and Buljubasic said they happened every day, and that Serb women were constantly raped.

“I used to come to the hangar at night and I would see the padlock unlocked and two or three women missing. I knew there were rapes, but I could not confront… They would come in the morning exhausted, dirty, stinking,” the defendant said.

Buljubasic is on trial for crimes against prisoners at the Dretelj camp, along with Ivan Zelenika, Srecko Herceg, Ivan Medic and Marina Grubisic-Fejzic. They are accused of torturing detainees and forcing them to do hard labour. Several died as a consequence, it is alleged.

Buljubasic recalled how Ivan Petrusic, his commander at Dretelj at the time, once ordered him to discipline a prisoner called Bozo Balaban. Buljubasic said he commanded soldiers to beat Balaban.

“Soldiers told me that he [Balaban] was cursing… As Petrusic ordered me to solve that problem, I told them to beat him. I was hitting him, too,” he said.

He said that the next morning, Balaban was dead.

Speaking about conditions in the camp, Buljubasic said that hygiene was bad and prisoners did not have enough food.

According to the indictment, Zelenika was an officer with the Croatian Defence Forces, Herceg was commander of the Dretelj camp, Buljubasic was his deputy, while Medic and Grubisic-Fejzic were guards.

Buljubasic is serving time in the Zenica prison for 4 murders committed before and after the Bosnian war, including the murder of his own father.

Buljubasic noted that none of the accused set up the camp, and testified that he never saw any of them beating or abusing anyone.

He said that Petrusic, a military police commander, was “the Alpha and the Omega at Dretelj” and told him what to do.

Buljubasic is currently serving a prison sentence in Zenica for four murders committed before and after the Bosnian war, including the killing of his own father.

The trial continues on October 7.