Former HVO Soldier Charged with Arrests and Deportations from Duge
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According to prosecution witnesses Muris Mustajbegovic and Salih Corbadzic, Croatian Defence Council (HVO) forces came to Duge on July 6, 1993 and took all the able-bodied men in the village to the Secondary School Center in Prozor.
“We were in the field, helping our neighbour Nedzad Sabitovic collect hay, when we spotted two luxurious cars and a truck approaching our village…They shot at us, so we hid,” Mustajbegovic said.
Mustajbegovic said that they had to go back to the village and surrender, due to threats to their families. He added that the men were lined up in the village.
“I saw Nikola Maric, whom I knew by sight. One of the soldiers called him Nidzo,” Mustajbegovic said.
Salih Corbadzic said that he also saw defendant Nikola Maric, and that he had known him well before the war.
“I saw him on Safet Dautbegovic’s balcony. The man [Safet] was crying , since they took his three sons away,” Corbadzic said.
According to the charges, in 1993 Maric came to Duge with several other HVO members and deprived several men of their liberty. The men were then transported and detained in a detention camp.
Maric is also accused of forcing Bosnian men in hiding to surrender at the Secondary School Center in Prozor by threatening to kill their wives and children.
Maric is also charged with having participated in murders, persecution, torture and other inhumane acts in the Prozor area from November 1992-October 1993.
At the same hearing, prosecution witness Adisa Grcic said that her husband Zejnil was taken from Duge on July 6, 1993. She said that three unknown soldiers beat her husband during his arrest and that she did not see defendant Maric beat anyone.
“I saw Nikola Maric in front of my house. A neighbour told me his name. She also said that I should not be afraid of him,” Grcic said.
Grcic told the court that she was deported to Jablanica, along with other women, children, and elderly people. Grcic said that Maric had told them that they had to go. In her testimony, Grcic said that she walked across a mountain carrying her one-month old baby.
The trial is scheduled to continue on February 12. Three new prosecution witnesses will be examined.
