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Forced Rape at Omasrka Prison Camp Is Focus of Tribunal Testimony
Middle-Aged Prisoner Forced to Rape Girl
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, May 24 (AP) — Guards at a Serb-run prison camp forced an inmate to rape a young girl, laughing over the girl’s screams and the inmate’s pleas to let him stop, a Bosnian journalist testified Thursday. Gulping for breath, Muharem Nezirevic recounted the scene at the Serb-run prison camp in 1992. He testified at a war crimes trial that he overheard the episode from a nearby room. Nezirevic, 52, said the inmate was an acquaintance of his, a middle-aged engineer. He did not know how young the girl was.
“They stripped her naked, that girl. They stripped him. ... They wanted him to rape her,” he said. “He was begging, imploring, saying, ‘She could be my child.’ ... She was screaming.” The guards were shouting and laughing, he said. Later he saw the man’s body at the camp. He had been beaten to death, Nezirevic said.
Nezirevic said the scene occurred at the Omarska camp, a former mine complex and the scene of some of the worst torture of Bosnia’s war. Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, 40, a former bar owner, is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes for killing and torturing non-Serbs in northwest Bosnia in 1992. Prosecutors say he visited Omarska and two other camps to torture and kill non-Serb inmates. He has pleaded innocent, claiming he was not in the area at the time.
Nezirevic did not mention seeing Tadic at the camp.
The prosecution used his testimony to cast light on the terror that prisoners suffered at the camp. Tadic’s defense team declined the opportunity to cross-examine Nezirevic.
Tadic is the first person to face trial at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Of the 57 suspects the tribunal has indicted, just five are in custody in The Hague awaiting trial. The two top Bosnian Serb leaders during the war — Radovan Karadzic and hi military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic — have been indicted for genocide, but neither has been apprehended. The failure to arrest them is a serious threat to the implementation of a peace accord for Bosnia, which calls for their arrest.
Chief war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone said Thursday that he believed the two leaders would be arrested “sooner rather than later.”
Goldstone noted that the Bosnian government had arrested and agreed to hand over two Muslim war crimes suspects, and that Croatia had changed its constitution to allow it to do the same. Yugoslavia itself will amend its laws as early as next week to allow extradition as well, Studio B television reported Thursday in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade.
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Berserkistan, May 21 · Tribunal Hears More Omarska Prison Camp Testimony
Berserkistan, May 15 · Beatings and Torture in Luka Camp Told at Tribunal
Berserkistan, May 20 · Serb Camps were 'Open House' for Torture
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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