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Father Tells Tribunal of Delivering Son to Tadic for Fatal Beating
‘Dule, how have I hurt you...why are you beating me?’
By Lien van der Leij
Mehmed Alic, a 73-year-old farmer, broke down and wept as he told a hearing into the case of Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic how he had fetched his son Enver from his cell and brought him to Serb soldiers waiting downstairs. "They grabbed him and he said to me "father, take care of my children, look after my children'...I never saw him again," he told the court, struggling to contain his emotions.
Alic, who earlier said his two sons used to drink with Tadic before the war, told the court in broken tones that as he was dragged away from the scene he heard shouting "Dule how have I hurt you...why are you beating me?" Tadic is also known by the nicknames of Dule and Dusko.
A native of Tadic's home region of Kozarac in northern Bosnia, Alic is one of a string of witnesses who have placed Tadic at the Serb-run Omarska camp in the summer of 1992. Tadic maintains he never went to the camp and is a victim of mistaken identity.
Alic was the second witness on Tuesday to link Tadic with a series of fatal beatings and sexual mutilation of Omarska prisoners. Earlier a former Bosnian police reservist told the court how he had seen Tadic just half an hour to an hour before his cell mate and friend was called out with several others and tortured to death on June 18, 1992. Asked whether he was sure it was Tadic he had seen, Armin Kenjar, a native of Kozarac who as a boy had "idolized" Tadic for his karate prowess, replied, "Absolutely I am certain."
Armin Kenjar told the hearing he had shared a cell with Jasmin (Jasko) Hrnic, summoned by Serb soldiers along with Emir Karabasic and Enver Alic, all of whom are named in the indictment as among Tadic's victims. Speaking through an interpreter, Kenjar told the court that after Hrnic was taken out he heard "screams, blows with some blunt instrument, cries of pain and horrible obscene expressions" that went on for "what seemed like an eternity."
Kenjar said he heard raised voices exhorting one of the participants to bite off someone's testicles. "It was like a nightmare," he said.
An early version of the indictment told how Tadic forced two unnamed prisoners at Omarska (H and G) to mutilate the genitals of a fellow prisoner who later died from his injuries. "H covered Fikret Harambasic's mouth to silence his screams and G bit off one of Fikret Harambasic's testicles." Kenjar said some time after the screaming had stopped he was told to go to the toilets with cleaning materials, where he found prisoner G and asked him what had happened.
"He answered, "don't ask', he was scared stiff, he looked terrible," Kenjar recalled.
Kenjar said conditions at the Omarska Camp had been "disastrous." "They were not for living -- they treated us like animals there...we did not have drinking water, there were lice, there was a lot of abuse...Not one day passed that someone was not taken out (for interrogation and beatings)."
Tadic, flanked by two U.N. security guards, sat stoney-faced throughout the grisly testimony, occasionally taking notes. Tadic, 40, denies charges of killing and torturing non-Serbs in the Prijedor region of northwest Bosnia. The trial has heard scores of prosecution witnesses build a picture of a widespread and systematic Serb campaign to "ethnically cleanse" areas of Bosnia of non-Serbs. |
THE DUSAN TADIC TRIAL
Berserkistan, July 19 · Witness Tells Tadic Trial of Horrors Imposed on Women at Omarska
Berserkistan, July 18 · Former Omarska Prisoner Says He was Beaten by Dusan Tadic
Berserkistan, July 17 · Defence Accuses Muslims of Lying in Tadic Trial
Berserkistan, June 21 · Tribunal Heads of Horrors at Trnopolje Prison Camp
Berserkistan, June 18 · Eyewitness Places Dusan Tadic at Omarska Prison Camp
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 Defense 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 Start of Tadic 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
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