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The Bosnian state prosecutor’s office has charged Ekrem Ibracevic, Faruk Smajlovic and Sejdalija Covic with the torture and abuse of Serb civilians in a community building and football club in Rapatnica between June-August 1992.
During today’s hearing, prosecution witness Simo Gasic said that his father, brother, and other residents of the village of Brezje were beaten during their detention in Rapatnica in 1992.
At the beginning of his testimony, Gasic said that he was member of the Crisis Committee in Brezje. He also said that he had been given two boxes of guns from the Territorial Defence, and that residents in two neighbouring Bosniak villages had previously been supplied with the same amount of weapons.
Gasic said that during his detainment in Rapatnica, he was beaten in an interrogation room. An investigator and two policemen were allegedly present.
“This gentleman, the investigator, raised my hopes that they would finally say that we were not at all guilty. He asked me whether any heavy weapons were situated at certain elevated points. Out of the blue, I was hit on my head with the butt of a rifle,” Gasic recalled.
Gasic said that at this point he started bleeding and briefly lost consciousness, and that afterwards he was returned to the hall where his father and brother were detained. When he was interrogated a second time, Gasic said, he started answering questions.
“I gave quick answers. I said that there were three barrel weapons…I made things up. How could I have known what was located in any of the hills. Armed forces were everywhere,” Gasic said.
According to Gasic, he did not receive any further beatings in Rapatnica. His father was beaten, said Gasic, because he “did not cooperate.” Gasic added that his father knew Ilija Kurusic, the investigator who questioned him.
When asked by the defense as to why he failed to mention his beating in Rapatnica in a statement he had given in 2006, Gasic said that at the time his beating had seemed insignificant in comparison to what had happened to his father and others.
After eight days in Rapatnica, Gasic was transferred to a prison in Tuzla. There he was sentenced to four years in prison for having called for an armed rebellion.
“While I was in Tuzla, the Djukics told me that they were tortured with a blowtorch and that salt was then poured on their wounds, but they were held at some other location in Rapatnica,” Gasic said.
When asked by prosecutor Zorica Djurdjevic who was in charge at Rapatnica, Gasic said “a man named Ekrem was mentioned.”
At the same hearing, Smajlovic’s defense attorney Emir Suljagic presented Gasic with a statement he had given during his detention in the Tuzla prison on June 28, 1992. In that statement, Gasic had said that in Brezje “they were assigned weapons which were not registered anywhere.”
“What I said today is definitely true. At that time I had to say that, I had to find a way out…because of the circumstances,” Gasic said.
The trial will on February 17.
