Detention in Sawmill and Police Station

Kerim Mehmedovic said that, in his capacity as reserve policeman, he was engaged as shift leader of the police in Kotor-Varos in 1992.  E mentioned that Savo Tepic was Chief of Police, while Nedjeljko Maric was Commander.
 
The witness said that reserve soldiers very often provoked people and opened fire in the town upon their return from Croatian battlefields.
 
“One night prior to Eid I kept guard in my street. At around 4 a.m. I saw soldiers crawling towards the town. I knew that they were trying to occupy the town,” Mehmedovic said, adding that he then entered the house and fell asleep.
 
As he said, at around 9 a.m. an armed special policeman woke him up, holding a rifle pointed towards his stomach. The man then took him to a sawmill workers restaurant. Upon his arrival, he saw about twenty persons. Others were brought later on.
 
“A friar, Muradif Hodzic and KV-7 were sitting next to me. Later on I was surprised to see that they brought Sejdo Tatar. (…) They soon began examining people, but they did not take me out,” Mehmedovic said, adding that, following the examinations, he noticed that some of those men were beaten up.
 
The witness said that he was then transferred, along with about fifteen other people, to the Police Station, where a minor boy and was beaten-up and his father were detained as well, adding that this touched him deeply. While he was there, he also saw a man named Viktor lying on the ground, beaten up, as well as KV-5’s husband, who too was beaten up.
 
“We spent six days in the office. People urinated and defecated into their underpants,” the witness said, adding that he was forced to read a notice, saying that “the situation is good”, in front of a camera.
 
He mentioned that a man named Samardzija drove him home by car, adding that he stayed in home detention until he managed to leave Kotor-Varos with a convoy.
 
Savo Tepic, Dusko Vujicic, Dragoslav Bojic, Dusko Maksimovic, Radojko Keverovic, Rade Skoric and Ilija Kurusic are on trial for crimes committed in Kotor-Varos. They are charged with having participated in detention, torture and other inhumane acts against Bosniaks and Croats in 1992.
 
According to the charges, Bojic was Commander of the Police Station in Kotor-Varos, Tepic was Chief of the Public Safety Station, Vujicic was an active policeman, Maksimovic, Skoric and Keverovic were reserve policeman, while Kurusic was a member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.
 
Witness Senko Lozic, who used to work as Director of a school in Siprage, Kotor-Varos municipality, said that, from May to the end of 1992 several meetings were held in that local community, adding that the meeting were attended by representatives of local authorities, police and the Army and that Tepic was among them.
 
Lozic said that the Crisis Committee of Kotor-Varos issued a decision, releasing him from his duty as school director in July 1992, because he failed to sign a loyalty statement.
 
The Prosecution questioned this witness about his detention and court process, to which he was subjected, but the Defence objected to the relevance of the time frame, because the events happened in 1993. The Chamber upheld the objection.
 
The trial is due to continue on November 3.