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Serb Camps were ‘Open House’ for Torture Says War Crimes Tribunal Witness
by Ian Geoghegan
Elvir Pasic, 28, a former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) traffic policeman from Rogatica in eastern Bosnia, was giving evidence on the eighth day of the trial of Dusan Tadic, a Serb accused of atrocities at prison camps in northwest Bosnia. Pasic told the three U.N. judges he was arrested and imprisoned at Batkovic camp in northeast Bosnia after JNA forces captured Rogatica in May 1992. "Any one of them (Serbs) could come into the camps and beat prisoners," he said.
Tadic, 40, a former bar owner and police reservist, is accused of being a Serb nationalist thug who moved between camps killing, raping and torturing at will. The prosecution's strategy has been to call "special fact" witnesses who, without specifically mentioning Tadic's alleged crimes, try to show that they were part of a widespread and systematic Serb policy of "ethnic cleansing."
Pasic earlier told the court how Serbs found him and other Muslims hiding in a cellar in Rogatica. When one young boy refused to come out, a masked Serb lobbed a grenade inside. "The boy came out screaming and covered in blood," he said.
The Muslims were moved to a school in Rogatica used by Serb irregulars to snipe at the town's Muslim quarter. They were later taken to Batkovic camp where conditions were "appalling." Pasic told the court how one night 10 camp guards took away a Muslim man known as "The Professor." "He was beaten all night and in the morning I saw that he was dead. Two elderly men died in the same way. Another was shot."
Prisoners were taken to the battle front and forced to dig trenches under fire while singing Serb nationalist songs. When representatives of the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited Batkovic, inmates were forced to lie about conditions at the camp, he said. "We were told to say everthing was fine, that the food was great, we had cigarettes, there were no beatings and that we were free to move about. None of this was true. If we didn't say this we were battered."
Tadic's defence objected to another witness, Hanne Sophie Greve, a Norwegian judge who sat on a U.N. Commission of Experts on Bosnia, claiming that her evidence was "hearsay based on second, third and even fourth-hand testimony." Countering, prosecution lawyer Alan Tieger said that Greve, who admitted she had never been to Prijedor but had read extensively and interviewed refugees and experts, would help build a picture of widespread Serb brutality in Bosnia.
"Prijedor was roughly 35 km by 25 km (20 miles by 15 miles). Over 50,000 Muslims and Croats were killed or forcibly expelled by a coordinated attack by Serb political, military, paramilitary and police forces in furtherance of the goal of creating a unified Serbian entity," Tieger said, adding that Greve was "the very person tasked by the community of nations to find out what happened."
Greve told the court how Prijedor's Muslim population fell sharply in 1992 as a result of "forced population transfers," with women, children and elderly men deported and men of fighting age held in prison camps. The trial, which began on May 7 and is expected to last several months, continues on Tuesday. The first eyewitnesses to Tadic's alleged crimes may appear later this week.
The tribunal, set up by the U.N. Security Council in May 1993, has indicted 57 suspected war criminals, one of whom, Bosnian Serb General Djordje Djukic, died from cancer at the weekend. It holds five suspects, including Tadic, in The Hague. The tribunal is the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following World War Two.
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Berserkistan, May 16 · Beatings and Torture in Luka Camp Told at Tribunal
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
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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