Witness Describes Prisoner Abuse in Bileca at Miroslav Duka Trial

Witness A-3 said he was part of the first group of Bosniaks who were arrested and brought to the Bileca police station on June 10, 1992. The arrests, according to A-3 were done by uniformed men he didn’t recognize.
 
“After we were brought in, someone else was also brought in every five minutes. I think it was being done by me from Gacko and Nevesinje. They hit us with their fists, knives, and bayonets…Hasan Arnautovic had a knife stuck in his throat,” A-3 said. He said Miroslav Duka and Krsto Savic abused Asim Djapo and his brother.

According to A-3, one night about forty prisoners were taken to a barracks in Bileca. Eight days later, they were brought to a prison known as the “old Austrian prison,” which was located across from the police station.
 
A-3 claimed that prisoners were regularly beaten in the prison.
 
“I know they said, ‘Duka says hello and then beats you,’” A-3 said.
 
Duka is chargedwith Goran Vujovic and Zeljko Ilic for crimes in Bileca in 1992. According to the charges, Vujovic was the chief of the Bileca police station, Duka was a police commander, and Ilic a police officer.
 
Vujovic and Duka are charged with enabling and organising the detention of Bosniak and Croat civilians at the police station and student dormitory in Bileca, where they were killed, tortured and abused prisoners, and Ilic is charged with participating in the physical and mental abuse, torture and killings of Bosniaks and Croats.
 
Witness A-3 said that until mid-July the guards in the prison were reserves and later on active police officers. He recognized Zeljko Ilic as one of the guards. The witness said that Ilic treated prisoners fairly.

“People were brought to the prison every day. In the end there were about 90 of us. We slept on the concrete at first, and then on planks. They didn’t give us food, but our relatives brought us some,” said A-3.
 
A-3 recounted a day when two smoke grenades were thrown into the prison and someone shot at the prisoners.
 
“I will never forget that August 25. I heard Duka’s voice. Someone wanted to come inside, but they didn’t have the key…They threw tear gas inside or something like that. I saw purple flame and screams. No one came to help. Then there was a burst of gunfire,” said A-3.
 
The gunfire, which according to A-3 injured about a dozen prisoners, lasted for more than four hours.

Judge Minka Kreho asked A-3 if remembered what Duka said in front of the room where the prisoners were held. A-3 said Duka threatened to “kill everyone if they didn’t open the door.”

Witness A-3 was in the prison until October 5, 1992, when a group of approximately 120 prisoners was transferred to Montenegro.
 
“We weren’t all released. Around 600 or 700 Bosniaks stayed behind. They weren’t released until December,” A-3 said.
 
The trial resumes on March 24.