The former commander and wartime members of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik Brigade went on trial in Sarajevo for the unlawful detainment and inhumane treatment of Bosniak men and boys, some of whom were killed.
Marija Tausan, October 7, 2024
The Bosnian state court and prosecution building. Photo: BIRN.
The trial opened at the Bosnian state court on Monday of Vidoje Blagojevic, Ivan Arapovic, Milan Arapovic, Kosta Pejic, Bozo Radic, Mile Savic, Mile Blagojevic, Ljubisa Pejic, Branko Pejic and Verica Radovic, who are accused of committing crimes against humanity against Bosniak civilian detainees in June 1992 during the Bosnian war.
According to the indictment, from June 1 to 5, 1992, around 400 Bosniak men were illegally imprisoned at the Technical School in the town of Karakaj, near Zvornik, after being taken from the village of Bijeli Potok.
“Immediately, on the first day, 20 people died from suffocation and heat, because they were locked in a small room,” prosecutor Mersudin Pruzhan said in his opening statement to the court.
The indictment says that Ivan Arapovic, Milan Arapovic, Kosta Pejic, Branko Pejic, Ljubisa Pejic, Radic, Savic, Mile Blagojevic and Vasiljevic were guards at the Technical School and participated in the unlawful detention and inhumane treatment of the civilians. They are accused of beating and abusing the detainees.
“Although they were obliged to protect the lives of the civilians, they did not do so,” said Pruzhan.
According to the indictment, the guards did not prevent other soldiers entering the premises and beating prisoners. They also did not stop other soldiers from taking detainees away from the Technical School to their homes to steal their valuables and weapons, after which many disappeared without trace.
“From June 1 to 5, more than 150 civilians were taken out [of the detention site] and all traces of them were lost, or they were killed,” the indictment states.
All of the accused, except Verica Radovic and Vidoje Blagojevic, were members of the Karakaj Company of the Territorial Defence force in Zvornik, and later the Zvornik Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army.
Vidoje Blagojevic was charged as commander of the Zvornik Brigade. The indictment claims he failed to undertake necessary and reasonable measures as a superior officer to prevent the unlawful detention, inhumane treatment, forcible disappearances and murders of the detained Bosniak civilians, or to punish the perpetrators.
Blagojevic was previously sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to 18 years in prison for crimes committed during the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995. He was released in 2015.
Verica Radovic is charged with shooting two detainees dead on June 1, 1992 using a gun given to her by a guard. It is alleged that she murdered them out of revenge because her husband was killed in April that year.
So far, about 420 victims taken from Bijeli Potok have been found and identified at the Crni Vrh mass grave site. The search for 240 more victims is still ongoing.
Another ex-soldier, Stevo Vasiljevic, was also charged in the original indictment, but the proceedings against him were subsequently separated from the case against the others.
Copyright BIRN 2015