Radovan Karadzic's death squad told me to dig my grave

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

A Bosnian Muslim has described how he watched men dig their graves before Serb killers slashed their throats as he came face-to-face for the first time with the warlord Radovan Karadzic in a UN war crimes court. The former Bosnian Serb leader, who is on trial for genocide and war crimes, was confronted by a victim of the ethnic cleansing and killings he is accused of unleashing during the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992.

Karadzic, who is defending himself, was repeatedly reprimanded by the UN judge for hectoring, trying to browbeat and interrupting Ahmet Zulic, a Muslim survivor of Serbian executions and detention camps, as he cross-examined him.

As Mr Zulic, 62, entered The Hague court with his head bowed, Karadzic subjected him to a baleful stare over his reading glasses before the prosecution's first witness began his, often, harrowing testimony.

The former mineworker described to the court how Serbs shelled Muslim houses in Sanski Most, in north west Bosnia, before he and many others were rounded up in June 1992 and held in horrific conditions, where they were regularly beaten or taken off to be killed.

"Two men would kick us in one part of the body and another would use a baton to beat you over the head until you became unconscious," he said.

I had fractures, broken ribs - six or seven vertebrae were affected. My arm was broken when they told me to make a sign of the cross, which I refused to do," he said.

"When the young kids were there, the policemen put handcuffs on me and the kids practised karate on me."

In written testimony, Mr Zulic has also described how he was taken to Kriva Cesta on June 22 1992 where he and 20 other men were given spades and hoes as a groups of senior Serb military were nearby "sitting at a picnic table, drinking and laughing".
"They gave me a hoe and said I have to dig my own grave," he said. "Then I heard people screaming and shouting. I saw Ibro Eminic when his throat was cut."

A local butcher, named in prosecution documents and described as "not mentally healthy" slashed the throats of prisoners, those that tried to flee were gunned down, alleged Mr Zulic.

"When it was my turn, he put the knife under my chin and held it there. He was moving it a little bit in order to cut my skin. I began to bleed."

Mr Zulic was saved at the final moment by an intervention from his former school teacher, a Serb was present. He was beaten, a shot fired over his head and his family threatened with rape before taken back to a detention centre in Sanski Most.

"Three of us survived and all the others were slaughtered. I still have a scar where they tried to cut my throat," he said.

The Bosnian Muslim also recounted how prisoners died during transports to the Manjaca detention camp, where he was nearly beaten to death after allowing the Red Cross to examine him.

When his turn came for cross examination, Karadzic immediately tested the patience of O-Gon Kwon, the presiding UN judge by asking the witness if he knew a string of Muslim activists in Sanski Most - even asking if there were people he did not know.

"How can he answer this question as to people he doesn't know?," the judge. "Move on please."

Mr Zulic protested that the Bosnian Serb was trying to link him to armed Muslim militants, known as the "green berets", active in the region before he was arrested. "He is trying to set me up," he said.

Karadzic was also told off after he imperiously hectored the witness: "I would be grateful if you could answer yes or no."

As the trial session moved to a close, the UN judge warned him that he could lose his right to self defence after Karadzic identified a protected witness in open court.

In the weeks ahead, prosecutors have 300 hours to present their case. It details Karadzic's alleged role as "supreme commander" of a brutal Bosnian Serb campaign to drive Muslims and Croats out of large parts of Bosnia.

Telegraph