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Witness Places Dusan Tadic At Omarska Prison Camp
By Keiron Henderson
Speaking slowly through an interpretor, 42-year-old Ferid Mujcic told the court that he had known Tadic casually for years and saw him frequently because he lived just outside Tadic's hometown of Kozarac, in northwest Bosnia. Asked by the prosecution to identify Tadic, Mujcic stretched his arm out towards the defendant and said: "Yes, he is sitting between two policemen and he's dressed in a greenish coloured suit, he has a tie and he is looking directly at me."
Mujcic said he had been among a column of refugees forced from their homes in late May 1992, after Serb forces attacked Kozarac. He saw Tadic, a former cafe owner and police reservist, heavily armed and wearing a camouflage uniform standing next to five men who had been separated from the column. Mujcic did not testify as to what happened next to the men.
Four of the five men are named on the tribunal's indictment as having been shot and killed by Tadic and another Bosnian Serb, Goran Borovnica. Mujcic, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt and with a clearly broken nose, said he was separated from his family and taken to the Omarska camp, set up in a mining complex to contain non-Serbs, where he beaten during interrogations.
Mujcic told the court he and others had been housed in a hangar used to store heavy equipment at the mine. He said he had glimpsed Tadic, again armed and wearing a camouflage uniform as guards opened and shut the door to the hangar after calling out a number of prisoners one by one.
Rejecting defence assertions that he might be mistaken Mujcic said: "I said that I had seen him and I give you my guarantee on my life that in 10 years or 15 years I shall give the same answer." Mujcic identified three of the prisoners called out of the hanger as Jasmin Hrnic, Enver (Eno) Alic and Emir Karabasic -- all named on the tribunal's indictment as having been beaten to death by Tadic at Omarska.
As the doors shut a terrified silence fell upon the remaining prisoners only to be shattered by shouts and obscenities referring to rape and oral sex, he said. "After that there were very loud screams and they were saying pull, pull harder and even now I can hear those words sounding in my ears," Mujcic said in a level tone. "The screams reflected great pain, there were deathly moans but I did not know what was happening,'' he said, adding that when he briefly left the building a day later he had seen blood on the walls and a shoe belonging to one of the men.
Tadic, is accused of beating prisoners to death and rape as well as forcing prisoners at Omarska to have oral sex with and sexually mutilate each other.
The tribunal, set up in May 1993 and the first international warcrimes body since the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials after World War Two, hears testimony from a new eyewitness on Wednesday. So far the tribunal has indicted 58 suspects -- 46 Serbs, nine Croats and three Muslims -- seven of whom including Tadic being held at the tribunal's detention centre in The Hague.
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Berserkistan, June 14 · Friend Watched as Tadic Slit Muslim Police Throats
Berserkistan, June 11 · First Eyewitness Testifies Against Dusan Tadic
Berserkistan, June 7 · Tadic Defense Won’t Challenge Serb-Yugoslavia Caused War
Berserkistan, May 9 · Historian Disclaims Civil War Defence in Tadic Trial
Berserkistan, May 8 · Historian Sets Context for Atrocities in Day 2 of Tadic Trial
Berserkistan, May 8 · Muslims in Sarajevo React to Tribunal Trial
Berserkistan, May 7 · Defense: Tadic Had No Role in Murder, Torture
Berserkistan, May 7 · On Trial's Eve, Tadic Claims Innocence
Berserkistan, May 7 · Childhood Friend Says Tadic was Cruel, Artistic
Key Facts about the War Crimes Tribunal
War Crimes Profile: Dusan Tadic
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia from the United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Reports concerning human rights abuses in Bosnia published by Intac Access
Major War Criminals/Suspects from CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia from CalTech's Bosnia Site
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