Former Livno Detainees Describe Abuse Inflicted by HVO Military Police

Defendants Zdenko Andabak, Muamir Jasarevic and Sead Velagic are on trial for the detention, torture and murder of Serb civilians in the Ivan Goran Kovacic school in 1992. The indictment against them contains 29 counts.

According to the charges, Andabak was the commander of Croatian Defense Council (HVO) military police for the North-western Herzegovina Operational Zone, Jasarevic was his deputy, while Velagic was a member of the crimes section of the Croatian Defense Council’s military police.

State prosecution witness Slobodan Vujicic said he was arrested and taken to the Ivan Goran Kovacic school in July 1992. He said all the detainees held in the school gym were Serbs.

“Jasarevic took me to some office, a classroom actually. He was very unpleasant, strict. He didn’t speak much. He told me to write down all I knew about the SDS [Serbian Democratic Party],” Vujicic said.

He said Jasarevic punched him when he said he didn’t know the answers to his questions.

Vujicic said Jasarevic wasn’t from Livno, adding that he thought he identified him in photos while giving a statement in Banja Luka.

Vujicic also recalled having been beaten when going to a prisoner exchange. He said he was ordered to sit down “like a cowboy” while being examined and was “physically processed.”

“They beat me up brutally with batons, with their fists…They knocked me down,” Vujicic said. He said he believed “everyone had their turn” beating him that day. He said he continued to be kept under house arrest after he was released from the school.

Vujicic said he didn’t know Zdenko Andabak personally. He said he saw him in the school corridor, but had no contact with him.

“I don’t know what his job was. I know he was one of the commanding staff,” Vujicic said. He said he didn’t know who was the commander in the school, but as far as he was concerned, he considered Jasarevic the man in charge as he often visited the site.

Responding to questions from the defense, Vujicic said, “most of the time people were taken out at night, when the people in charge were absent.”

Also testifying at today’s hearing, state prosecution witness Jovo Erceg said he was held in the school on two occasions. He said during his first period of detention he was apprehended for about 15 days in August 1992. Erceg said he was beaten by a man named Svabo.

Erceg said he received an invitation to report to the school for questioning in September 1992. He said during his questioning a man named Sead Velagic gave him a strong blow to his right cheek and buttocks.

“I see him in the courtroom. I think he is sitting in the last row,” Erceg said.

The trial will continue on February 3.