Witnesses Took Statements from Bosniak Prisoners in Bileca

Miroslav Duka, the former Bileca police commander, Goran Vujovic, the former chief of the Bileca public safety station, and Zeljko Ilic, a former police officer, have been charged with war crimes in Bileca. Nedjeljko Kuljic, since deceased, was also charged under the same indictment.

Vujovic and Duka have been charged with enabling and organizing the detention of Bosniak and Croat civilians in Bileca, where detainees were killed, tortured and abused. Ilic has been charged with participating in their abuse.

Lazar Sudzum, a former sector head with the Bileca police station, testified at today’s hearing. Sudzum said he was on the battlefield with Miroslav Duka from May to mid-June 1992, when Bosniaks were being brought and detained in the student dormitory and old prison building in Bileca.

Sudzum said that after they returned from the battlefield, he interrogated Bosniaks at the police station. He said he questioned them about illegal arms possession after a duty officer brought them to his office.

Responding to questions by Duka’s defense attorney, Sudzum confirmed that officers acted on the basis of information obtained through these interrogations. He said they found weapons in some cases.

When asked by the prosecution whether there was any legal basis for detaining the Bosniak civilians brought to the police station, Sudzum said they were detained for their own safety, “because [Serb] refugees from the Neretva valley were in Bileca.”

“I considered then and now that this was the only way to help those people,” Sudzum said.

Sudzum denied that the prisoners had been beaten or mistreated, and said he went to the battlefield with Duka again in mid-August 1992.

Responding to questions by Ilic’s defense attorney, Sudzum said three men with the last name of Ilic worked at the Bileca police station. He said he also knew a Zeljko Ilic, nicknamed Kosir, who used serve as a military police officer.

Slavko Vucinic, a former fire and explosion protection inspector in Bileca, also said he took statements on arms possession from Bosniaks detained in the old prison and student dormitory.

“No criminal actions were present in the statements I took,” Vucinic said.

Vucinic said he spent an hour or two per day at the police station and didn’t notice that the detainees were being beaten.

The trial will continue on September 1.