Mujahideen Fighters ‘Cut off Bosnian Serb Soldiers’ Heads’
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A witness told the trial of former Bosnian Army Third Corps commander Sakib Mahmuljin that the El Mujahideen unit, which was fighting on the Bosniak side, decapitated three captured Serb soldiers.
Prosecution witness Velibor Trivicevic, a former member of the medical service with the Third Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Light Prnjavorska Brigade, told the state court in Sarajevo on Wednesday that he saw the severed heads of three of his fellow soldiers while he was being detained by the El Mujahideen unit.
Trivicevic said he was captured on July 21, 1995 by members of the El Mujahideen unit, which was made up of foreign fighters and attached to the Third Corps of the Bosnian Army, and taken to the village of Livade in northern Bosnia.
At one point, he said he heard someone shouting “Allahu Akbar” and a Mujahideen from Ethiopia came running up, bringing a severed head.
“The head had recently been cut off. Blood was dripping on us, on our legs,” the witness said.
He said he then saw another severed head and recognised that both of them belonged to members of his unit, Momir Mitrovic and Predrag Knezevic.
Former Bosnian Army Third Corps commander Sakib Mahmuljin is being tried for having failed to prevent murders and inhumane treatment by members of the El Mujahideen unit in the Vozuca and Zavidovici areas.
According to the charges, members of the El Mujahideen unit killed Momir Mitrovic and Predrag Knezevic, cutting their heads off and showing them to other prisoners, in the villages of Livade.
They also decapitated a man called Gojko Vujicic in the village of Kamenica, the indictment alleges.
Witness Trivicevic said he was transported along with a few other captured Bosnian Serb Army troops members to the El Mujahideen camp, which he said was in “Kamenica or Gostovici”, on July 23, 1995.
While he was there, he said he saw the murder and decapitation Gojko Vujicic.
The indictment also alleges that members of the El Mujahideen unit abused and tortured the captives, cut their ears off, stabbed them all over their bodies, tied them up and beat them.
They also kept the captives tied up in foetus-like positions for several hours with ropes around their necks, it claims.
The trial continues.
