Brutal Beating in Uzamnica

Ilijas Cuprija said that, besides him, other detainees were also brutally beaten up during the course of his three-month detention and that he heard that men and women were sexually abused.

Cuprija said that he was detained in Uzamnica, along with his father, brother and sister, on September 13, 1992. He said that Goran Popovic was among the guards, who guarded the detainees in the camp.

“They were rough, arrogant, pretentious, bold. During the course of my stay we were beaten by Milan and Sredoje Lukic,” Cuprija said.

The Hague Tribunal sentenced Milan Lukic to life imprisonment for crimes committed in Visegrad, while Sredoje Lukic was sentenced to 27 years.

The witness said that detainees were beaten with wooden and steel sticks.

“They hit us on our heads, backs, legs. (…) We licked wounds like animals. There was no medication nor medical assistance at all,” Cuprija said.

The witness mentioned that all guards, including Goran Popovic, took detainees out of the detention camp and that those detainees were then beaten up.

According to the charges, Popovic, former guard in Uzamnica, participated in the abuse, beating, torture and sexual abuse of Bosniak men and women in that detention camp in 1992.

When asked by judge Saban Maksumic if he had known Goran Popovic from before, the witness said that he met him in Uzamnica and that his brother told him that they were the same class in the same school. The witness recognised Popovic in the courtroom.

The witness said that it was common for guards to force detainees to sing “Chetnik songs” and that Popovic ordered him to do it once or twice.

Cuprija said that he did not witness the sexual abuse of men and women, adding that he heard that those things happened on some meadows.

The trial is due to continue on January 28.