by Esad HECIMOVIC
The court in Travnik was asked to initiate a war crimes investigation against individuals residing in the Bugojno, Novi Travnik and Fojnica regions. The Zenica prosecutor's office was passed on the Zenica "music school" case, in which there are five suspects. The Zenica Prosecutor's Office, in which the election of the cantonal prosecutor and his seven deputies is still awaited, was also passed on a number of other cases, including those that were classified by the Hague Prosecutor's Office in different categories.
Hague ABC: According to the "Rome Rules of the Road", local authorities cannot on their own initiate investigations for war crimes, until the Hague Prosecutor's Office evaluates evidence for every concrete charge against any individual. The Hague Prosecutor's Office, after the evaluation of the evidence, sends back the file marked by A, B, or C. If the file is marked by A that means that there is sufficient evidence for criminal prosecution of the suspects. In this case the local authorities are obliged to arrest the suspects and keep them in custody until the end of the trial. In cases marked by B, the Hague Tribunal assesses that there is not enough evidence for a war crime and international law violation investigation. The local authorities are obliged to investigate whether other crimes, such as "ordinary" murders and other acts punishable according to the local criminal law, were committed. Thus, for example, charges for alleged war crimes against eight individuals were rejected. These individuals were accused of committing war crimes during the entry of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina in Vares, but are now undergoing checks to make sure that other crimes were not committed. For the cases marked by C additional evidence is requested and should be sent to the Hague Prosecutor's Office.
Even questions forbidden: Cantonal courts in Zenica and Travnik are expected to initiate a series of investigations and trials, in cases that were placed by the Hague prosecutors in the A category, because of war crimes committed against civilian population in the regions of Zepce, Vares, Bugojno, Travnik, Fojnica and Zenica. The Cantonal Prosecutor in Travnik delivered to the local court a request for the initiation of an investigation against 11 persons from three cities in central Bosnia. The prosecutor requested that the court initiate investigations against Edin Vrban, Safet Velagic, Mustafa Karadza, Muhko Velagic, and Sacir Durakovic from Bugojno, Mensur Brko, also known as Duh [ghost], Mirza Delvic and Zijad Dzemalija from Fojnica, and Hamdija Patak, Ejub Haskic, and Ismet Zec from Novi Travnik. While the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office in Travnik confirmed that the request for investigation against the mentioned individuals was submitted in April, the Cantonal Court refused to comment. "In accordance with the Criminal Law, I have no obligation to provide any information at this stage of the prosecution," says Zuhdija Cosic, the president of the Cantonal Court in Travnik. Judge Cosic denies that any judge of the Cantonal Court justified the fact the investigations haven't been initiated to date by the lack of judges experienced in criminal cases. The president of the Travnik Court did not want to either confirm or deny the existence of the request for investigation against the mentioned individuals. He also refused to tell us whether he had passed the case files to any of the court judges, and, if so, to which ones specifically. He assessed the questions of this journalist as leading and impermissible. For now it is not known to which concrete events the requested investigations are related. These crimes do not include the best known case from Bugojno, in which ethnic Croats are victims - the disappearance of 21 Croats from Bugojno, even though they had previously been registered as prisoners of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina," claims a legal source knowledgeable about the content of requests for investigations related to Bugojno. This source refused to clarify whether that was the reason that this list did not include some better known, expected names, saying that that was a provocative question and advising the journalist to ask Croats in central Bosnia about their reasons for dissatisfaction with the list.
Painting did not help: Prosecutors and judges in Travnik and Zenica not only refuse to discuss the investigations about war crimes but also criticize journalists for making any inquiries about this topic. Investigative magistrate of the Cantonal Court in Zenica Hilmo Ahmetovic, who is in charge of the investigation of Perica Jukic, Ivo Lozancic and other 14 officials of the HVO in Zepce in connection with war crimes against civilian population, refused to reveal all the names on this list. The Cantonal Prosecutor's Office in Zenica, due to the end of mandate of the prosecutor and his deputies, was also unable to provide any information about the names on the list, nor why the list is still a secret. Until the appointment of the new cantonal prosecutor and his deputies it is impossible to find out in Zenica which cases have received a go ahead from the Hague Tribunal. The Travnik Prosecutor's Office claims that they passed on to their colleagues in Zenica the request for an investigation of five "interrogators" from the Music School in Zenica - Jasmin Isic, Vahid Karamujo, Smajo Osmanovic, Sejad Osmanovic and Edin Hakanovic. Local sources are refusing to reveal the exact object of investigation in this case. Although the Music School building is in the very center of Zenica, across the road from the Municipal Court building and the Prosecutor's Office, and near the Cantonal Court, Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs office and the local police station, between the buildings housing local organizations of the SDP and the SDA, an investigation has never been conducted about this "camp in the very center of the city", nor did these two political parties demand that one be conducted. Only the president of the local HDZ in Zenica Josip Pojavnik allegedly said, after the post-war reconstruction and painting of the Music School building: "You can paint it as much as you like, but you won't hide what happened here". Numerous Serb, Croat and international sources describe what happened in this building during the war, and a lot of that has been told to the judges of the Hague Tribunal.
"Limited access": In his report from November 17, 1993 Tadeusz Mazowiecki, special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission stated that until then "international agencies" had very limited access to the Music School.
A Bosnian Croat who was held there between April and September 1993, together with another 46 captives (none of them registered with the Red Cross), claims that they were not fed during the first few weeks of captivity; were held in the basement without light during all 45 days; and that during questioning they were hit by telephone cables, batons and shovel handles on the legs and kidneys.
Danish major Lars Borhoj Baggesen was one of the few investigators who gained access to the Music School. He led the joint humanitarian commission of the HVO and the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina in a visit of prisoner camps as an official of the European Community Monitoring Mission. "Actually I was the only person that was allowed to visit the premises in the Music School. The local members of the commission were not allowed to enter, including the HVO members, so that only I gained access," Major Baggesen said in his testimony to the Hague Tribunal on August 25, 1997. Major Baggesen testified about an exchange of 13 volunteers and humanitarians from Isalmic countries captured by the HVO for five HVO officers captured in Zenica and Travnik by the mujahedeen. According to Beggesen, about 100 mujahedeen witnessed the exchange in front of Zenica hotel "Internacional" where the offices of the ECMM were.
Jorda asked about Music school: Judge Claude Jorda, the current president of the Hague Court, showed interest in sorting out these suspicions about the relations between mujahedeen and the Seventh Muslim Brigade. During the questioning of three commanders of the Seventh Muslim Brigade, during the trial of Blaskic, judge Jorda showed interest in the Music School. During the questioning of Asim Koricic, the first wartime commander of the Seventh Muslim Brigade, judge Jorda said the following: "We've heard that the Seventh Muslim Brigade took Croat captives. How were they treated? How were they held in captivity? Were the international norms respected? Can you describe for us the situation before March 1993 and especially in the Music School?" Koricic responded that he "was confident that the Music School could not have been used as a prison as it does not even have a fence around it. I do not know whether people were taken there and interrogated. I've never heard of anything similar. I had no idea what happened there, simply because there were no conditions to use that object as a prison, so that I have no idea what the charges are."
Blaskic's defense attorneys Anto Nobilo and Russell Hayman questioned Colonel Korcic about who was in the Music School and what were the links between the unit El Mujaheed, the Seventh Muslim Brigade and the Command of the Third Corps. Korcic gave several different replies, first claiming that he had no idea who was housed in the Music School, then he said that a company of the Second Battalion of the Seventh Muslim brigade was housed there, and then that some Muslim forces were there and that he had no idea how their transformation had been carried out. To the question whether a part of his unit was housed in the Music School, Korcic answered that he did not know because "prior to that we had Muslim forces and I am not sure how they had been transformed".
"But you've just said that a part of the Second Battalion of the Seventh Muslim Brigade was housed in the Music School," Blaskic's defense attorneys persisted. Colonel Korcic repeated his statement, but then stated that he had never visited this particular unit. Korcic was then shown a statement of a Croat from the Zenica village of Cajdrasi about murders in this village, capture of the inhabitants and their transport to the Music School, but Korcic denied that the Seventh Muslim Brigade was ever active anywhere near Cajdrasi. On June 10, 1999, besides Korcic, commanders of the Seventh Muslim Brigade Asim Kubura and Serif Patkovic also testified in front of the Hague Tribunal. These two commanders of the Seventh Muslim Brigade did not make any comments related to the Music School and the Hague judges mostly wanted to hear from them what they knew about the connections between the Seventh Muslim Brigade and the Islamic Center for Assistance to the People of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the Seventh Muslim Brigade and the El Mujaheed unit, and about specific events during the clashes between the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the HVO. Judge Jorda cautioned Nobilo that this was not a trial of Colonel Patkovic, explaining that the commanders had come to the Hague at judges request and with permission of the Government of Bosnia-Hercegovina, which thereby supported the efforts of the Hague tribunal to shed light on this aspect of the conflict between the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the HVO.
Basement testimony: The Croat sources and testimonies about the Music School mention the names of Jasmin Isic, described as a teacher from Busovaca, and brothers Smajo and Sejad Osmanovic, who are described as Muslim policemen. Soldiers who took captives to the Music School next to the city park are described as members of the Muslim Intelligence Service (MOS). Different testimonies of Croat captives held in the Music School in the period between February and April 1993 state that they were taken to the building next to the city park in a red van with MOS soldiers escort. "They said they were taking me to a questioning. In the Music School they took me to the basement. There I met professor of the Mechanical Engineering College in Zenica and vice-president of the HVO in Zenica Ivan Bosnjak and member of the HVO Vlatko Ivanovic. I was not questioned that day. The next day they took Vlatko Ivanovic. After ten to twenty minutes they brought him back. He was covered with blood. We immediately asked him what they had done with him and he said: 'They tortured me, hit me with a wooden baton (shovel handle) on the head and everywhere on the body'. That night they took him away again and held him for two to three hours. When he came he was soaked in sweat. He said that he had dug a grave for himself and that they did not allow him to take a break," stated a testimony of N.N., a Croat from Zenica who was aged 32 at the time. According to this testimony, he was accused of "without doubt preparing the poisoning of the water in order to poison the Seventh Muslim Brigade in Bilmiste with Violeta Ilic, who is a technician for the analysis of water, in whose apartment he was arrested".
"The questioning and beating, as usual, went on for thirty minutes. After that they took me to the basement, beating me on the way with a shovel handle. They beat me on the whole body, because I tried to protect my head. The blows every time shoved me down the stairs and I suffered additional injuries in those falls. Other persons were already in the basement: Franjo Strbac, Anto Strbac, and five HVO policemen Damir Galic, Dragan Galic, Mario Strbac and Zoran Totic. In captivity I met professor Ivan Bosnjak, Vlatko Ivankovic, Franjo and Anto Strbac, Anto Vrvilo, Kruno and Milenko Rajic his father, brother and two relatives, Zvonko Rajic, Marijo Strbac, Dragan and Damir Galic, Zoran Totic, Dragan Jerkovic, Nedjeljko Sestic, Ivica Badrov, Jasenko Badrov, Ivan Bahutinski, Jasenko Petrovic, Sandro Hamer, Kresimir Cosic, Anto Viskovic, Anto Markovic, Pero Letic, and his father Jozo Juretic junior, Franjo Jandric and Bosko Gutic," stated this former captive held in the Music School (between April 17 and June 13, 1993). This witness claims that he was transferred from the Music School to a garage in the village of Tetovo and then to the prison in Zenica.
Courts waiting for prosecutors: Several witnesses state that during their captivity in the Music School they had religious discussion with the interrogators. One of the captives described how a "hodza" asked him first whether he believed in God. When he said he did "hodza" asked him whether he believed in Allah. "Then I asked him why I was being beaten if both God and Allah existed," this witness says.
The Serb sources claim that Serbs were held in the Music School in late 1992 and early in 1993, and were then transferred to the prison in Zenica. The Croat sources state that during 1993 "12 HVO soldiers were killed" in the Music School, but there is no official confirmation of that, nor are the names of the victims listed. The request for the opening of an investigation about the crimes in the Music School, sent from the Travnik Prosecutor's Office to Zenica, after an approval from the Hague, is for now closed for the public.
Besides these investigations and trials in Travnik and Zenica, it is expected that after the end of the Sarajevo trial in the assassination of Jozo Leutar, Dominik Ilijasevic Como, the commander of the HVO special forces unit in Kiseljak, will face the judges and jurors of the Cantonal Court in Zenica. He is charged with numerous crimes in the region between Kiseljak and the village of Stupni Dol near Vares. By then the Cantonal Assemblies in Zenica and Travnik should elect the new cantonal prosecutors and their deputies, who are expected to travel back to year 1993.
Translated on November 15, 2001