A witness told the trial for war crimes committed in the Hadzici suburb of Sarajevo that he was detained in a school gym and forced to dig other prisoners’ graves.
Prosecution witness Slavko Cerovina said he was imprisoned in the gym of the 9th of May primary school in Hadzici on June 29, 1992, where he saw Serb detainees being beaten up as soon as he arrived.
“I stayed in the school gym until August 1992. Hunger was the most difficult thing to cope with. They would distribute five or six bottles of water for 100 of us. Six of us would eat one portion of food, ” Cerovina told the trial in Sarajevo.
“At the same time, we used to work. I was a grave-digger. I buried members of my family,” he said.
He said that policemen used to guard prisoners in the school building.
The Bosnian prosecution charges Becir Hujic, Halid Covic, Mustafa Djelilovic, Fadil Covic, Mirsad Sabic, Nezir Kazic, Serif Mesanovic and Nermin Kalember with crimes committed in the Silos camp, the Krupa barracks and the 9th of May school.
According to the indictment, Hujic was the warden of the Silos camp, as was Halid Covic at a later date. Mesanovic was one of the deputy wardens in the Silos and also camp warden in the Krupa military barracks, while the others were members of the civilian, military or police authorities.
Cerovina said that at the beginning of August 1992, the detainees were transferred from the school building to the Krupa barracks.
“They did not allow us to use the toilet. They said that three of us could use it each day, but there were 50 of us. Some guards mistreated us,” he said.
According to Cerovina, a man known as Sera was the manager of the barracks. He said that Sera once saved one of the detainees.
The witness told the court that he remained at the barracks until December 25, 1992, when he was taken to the Silos prison camp.
He said that the defendant Hujic ran the camp.
“Becir Hujic is my schoolmate, but I will bear a grudge against him for leaving his office so [Bosniak commander Zulfikar Alispago] Zuka’s soldiers could enter the prison cells... They would enter the cells, curse and beat people for an hour or an hour and a half,” Cerovina said.
The cross-examination of the witness is due to continue on Thursday.
Timeline of events in the case against 13 former Serb fighters charged with committing war crimes in the villages of Cuska, Zahac, Ljubenic and Pavlac in Kosovo in 1999.