Hit by Cigo, Muce and Sejdo

The witness said that he was detained after having left his village of Jasenica along with other local residents. As he said, they were first taken to Straza village, where men were separated from women and children, and then, four days later, to Rapatnica.

“Mustafa, known as Muce, came by truck and drove us to Rapatnica. They took us into a hall. Some people had already been there, at the platform. It was dark inside,” the witness recalled.

He said that Mustafa, his brother Sejdo and a Cigo beat detainees in that facility. According to Blagojevic’s testimony, Mustafa and Cigo beat people in the hall, while Sejdo did it while examining them on the first floor.

“Ilija Gasic left the room the first. He was absent for half an hour or an hour … I heard him moaning. When he came back, he said that he was hit on his back … We went up there one by one,” the witness said, specifying that Mustafa escorted them to the examinations.

Blagojevic said that, when he was brought for the examination, a captain and Sejdo were present in the room and that they asked him questions about weapons.

“The captain stopped, while the other guy grabbed me by my jacket and said: ‘Why are you lying, you Chetnik bastard’. He knocked me down from the chair and continued hitting me on my back with a baton, cable or piece of wood. The captain then told him to stop,” the witness recalled, adding that he suffered severe pain.

Ekrem Ibracevic, Faruk Smajlovic and Sejdalija Covic are on trial for having tortured and abused Serb civilians in the local community in Rapatnica and football club premises from June to August 1992.

The indictment alleges that Ibracevic was Chief of the Military Security with the Municipal Headquarters of the Territorial Defence in Srebrenik, Smajlovic was Commander of the Military Police Squad with the Municipal Headquarters, while Covic was a member of the military police. According to the charges, Sjedalija Covic’s nickname was Sejdo and Cova, while Faruk Smajlovic was called Puka.

Responding to Defence’s questions, witness Blagojevic confirmed that a man named Zoran Papic distributed weapons to them in Jasenica, but he did not want to say that immediately during the examination in Rapatnica.

Defence attorney Emir Suljagic presented the witness with his statement given in 2008 in which he said that nobody examined him in Rapatnica.

The witness explained that the policeman, who examined him, misunderstood him and that he said that he was not examined in the Tuzla prison, to which he was taken from Rapatnica.

In his statement from 2008 the witness did not mention Mustafa Muce, Sejdo and Cigo. The Defence attorneys and members of the Trial Chamber were most interested in finding out how and when he found out what their names were.

He said that other detainees told him their names after they had been exchanged from Tuzla in July 1992. As he said, he would not be able to recognise those people now.

He said that he heard about Mustafa ‘Muce’ while they were on their way to Tuzla, but he was not able to specify how he found out that the man, who hit him in the Captain’s office, was known as Sejdo.

The trial is due to continue on January 20.