Testimony from Deceased Witnesses Describe Systematic Rape at Polet Stadium

At today’s hearing of the Mato Condric trial, the state prosecution read statements given by three deceased female witnesses who described the rape of women in detention camps at the Polet football stadium and the Tulek settlement in the in Bosanski Brod area.

In a statement given in 2007, Koviljka Stojkovic said she was detained in the female section of the Polet stadium detention camp at the beginning of July 1992. She said there were more female detainees there, and all of them were raped, assaulted, and sexually abused.

She said soldiers from the Croatian Defense Council took the women out at night and raped them. She said that she herself was raped at least ten times at the stadium.

“Mato came to our premises, and took away the women. I think he was from Sijekovac,” she had said in her statement.

Two statements from a deceased witness called Stana Vidic were also presented in court. In 1994, Vidic had described how she was repeatedly raped in a bathroom. She said women were also raped in a bedroom and were abused in different ways. She said that during her detention at the Polet football stadium, younger women were raped. She said that she herself was also raped and sexually abused.

Defense attorney Davor Silic said he was sorry that Stojkovic had since died, because he believed there was a case of mistaken identity with regards to his client. He said the confusion arose from the fact that Stojkovic said that she knew Mate Condric and mentioned a Mato from Sijekovac in her previous statements.

Silic said he would examine the circumstances in which Vidic and Zivkovic had been detained, as well as whether they had seen the defendant.

A statement from a deceased witness named Sofia Vidic was also read at this hearing. She had said that up until July 20, 1992, Croat soldiers repeatedly raped her and other women on a daily basis in the detention camp at the stadium, and also swore at them and threatened them.

Mato Condric has been charged with allowing two unidentified Croatian Defense Council soldiers rape a woman in the boiler room of the Polet football stadium in Bosanski Brod at the end of July or beginning of August, 1992.

The indictment alleges that Condric pointed a gun at the victim, and after her rape, he sexually abused and humiliated her.

Condric has also been charged with participating in the physical and mental abuse of a woman on the premises of an old public safety station building. He is also charged, along with another member of the Croatian Defense Council, of beating one person in a prison located in the Beograd department store.

The trial will continue on May 7.