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Tales of Beatings and Torture in Testimony Against Dusan Tadic  THE HAGUE, May 15 (Reuters) — Groups of militiamen regularly entered a prison camp in northern Bosnia to beat, torture and kill inmates, a Bosnian Muslim witness told the U.N. criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia on Wednesday. Former electrician Isak Gasi testified on the seventh day of the trial of Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, accused of atrocities at prison camps in north western Bosnia. He told how irregular soldiers would enter the Luka camp at Brcko in 1992.
Gasi, a former athlete and member of the Yugoslav army in the late 1970s, said he saw beatings and killings at the camp, mostly carried out by paramilitaries. During spring of 1992 prisoners, mainly Muslims with a scattering of Croats, were forced to stay on the concrete floor of a hangar at the Luka camp with no bedding and scant food or medical care. "The guards were outside the building, they never abused any one, only those in the multi-coloured uniforms, they were the ones that abused us," Gasi said under prosecution questioning. He described how a Muslim camp inmate was mutilated by a man who identified himself as a Serb nationalist. "One came with a camouflage uniform, grabbed him by the neck and cut a cross into his forehead with a knife," Gasi said. "He was one of the more prominent (attackers), who was very fond of hitting and beating the prisoners. He was fond of introducing himself as a member of the (Serb) radical party." Gasi was testifying on behalf of the prosecution as a "special facts" witness, called to show that the crimes of which Tadic is accused were widespread and part of a general pattern of "ethnic cleansing" and crimes against humanity by Serbs. The witness repeatedly referred to the types of uniforms worn by attackers at the camp, saying the regular Yugoslav Army (JNA) soldiers mainly wore plain greyish green uniforms, rather than multi-coloured camouflage fatigues. Some attackers wore the tiger's head insignia of the Serb paramilitary group led by Zeljko Raznatovic or "Arkan." Tadic, a former cafe owner and reserve policeman, is specifically accused of involvement in Serb nationalist politics and moving around three camps in north-western Bosnia killing, raping and torturing at will. Gasi, dressed in a grey sweatshirt and dark blue trousers, told the court through an interpretor how he had been beaten with a wrench by a group of men in camouflage uniforms before being put through a mock execution by one. "(He) took a pistol out, cocked it and put it in my mouth," Gasi told the tribunal. "Then he pulled the trigger but the gun did not go off. He said I was lucky because on this occasion he did not have a bullet for me but would another time." Gasi told how before the outbreak of war in Brcko in April/May 1992 the JNA had distributed weapons to Serb civilians, meticulously noting down serial numbers as they went. "I moved about a great deal around the villages in the Brcko municipality and believe me I never saw JNA weapons distributed to Muslims, that was an exclusive right given to the Serbs," Gasi told the tribunal. Another Bosnian Muslim witness Fadil Redzic, a former JNA army reservist also from Brcko, told how weaponry from his brigade was taken from military warehouses and distributed to Serbs during the spring of 1992. The trial has so far heard six witnesses and continues on Monday. The first eyewitnesses to Tadic's alleged crimes are not expected to appear until late next week. The tribunal was set up by the U.N. Security Council in May 1993 and is the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following World War Two. It has so far indicted 57 suspected war criminals and holds five of them, including Tadic, in its 24-cell detention unit in the Hague. |
Berserkistan, May 15 · Girlfriend Listens as Muslim Leader is Beaten
Berserkistan, May 10 · First Muslim Before Tribunal Pleads Not Guilty
Berserkistan, May 9 · Historian Takes Stand for Second Day In Trial of Dusan Tadic
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
Berserkistan, May 7 · Tribunal Judge Heavy on Texas Style
Key Facts about the War Crimes Tribunal
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
The United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Major War Criminals/Suspects
CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia
CalTech's Bosnia Site
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