A VOJNO CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVOR TESTIFIED BEFORE BOSNIAN STATE COURT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (November 1,2007) – Testifying about the nine months he spent in three different concentration camps run by the Croatian aggressor near the southern Bosnian city of Mostar.

The witness told the Bosnian State Court that the concentration camp in Vojno village was the worst of them. He claims to have been beaten by Croatian war criminal Dragan Sunjic in that concentration camp.

Croatian war criminals Dragan Sunjic, Marko Radic, Damir Brekalo and Mirko Vracevic are charged with having committed numerous crimes against the Bosnian civilians detained in Vojno concentration camp near the southern Bosnian city of Mostar in the course of 1993 and 1994,during the Croatian aggression against Bosnia.

The indictment alleges that Croatian war criminal Dragan Sunjic was deputy concentration camp commander.

The witness said that the Croatian aggressor arrested him on June 30, 1993. He was first taken to Dretelj concentration camp near the southern Bosnian town of Capljina and then to Heliodrom near Mostar, in which thousands of Bosnian civilians had already been detained by the Croatian aggressor. On November 17, he was transferred to the Vojno concentration camp,

"We were met by Mario Mihalj and Dragan Sunjic. We were detained in a boiler house, in which a young man, aged 15 or 16, had already been detained for a long time. He looked terrible. He had scars caused by extinguishing of cigarettes all over his body," the witness recalled.

The indictment, filed by the Bosnian State Prosecutor, alleges that Croatian war criminal Mario Mihalj was an accessory in certain crimes committed in the Vojno concentration camp.

The witnesses claim that, the first day after their arrival, Mihalj told them that he was the detention camp commander and that Sunjic was his deputy.

The witness said that the two Croatian war criminals,Mihalj and Sunjic, maltreated all Bosnian civilians detained in the Vojno concentration camp and that he, personally, was also tortured.

"On one occasion they put a plastic canister on my head and then they started shooting at it. After that, they hit me with rifle butts and kicked me, and then the shooting continued. The torture lasted for more than half an hour," the witness said adding that, despite his injuries, he had to perform forced labour on a daily basis.

"The Vojno concentration camp was the worst of the three concentration camps in which I was held. There was no place where we could wash ourselves or do our needs. There was just work and beating every day," said the witness, who was transferred by the Croatian aggressor back from the Vojno concentration camp to the Heliodrom concentration camp on January 28, 1994 and released in March the same year.

The witness also said that, when he was going out of the camp to perform forced labour, he noticed that many Bosnian women and children were being held captive by the Croatian aggressor in surrounding buildings. He could hear the children crying. He also claims to have been told by others that Croatian war criminal Marko Radic was the commander of the concentration camp.

The indictment, which charges Croatian war criminal Marko Radic on the basis of individual and command responsibility, alleges that he was the commander of the Croatian aggressor's "Ivan Stanic-Cico" commandos squad during the Croatian aggression against Bosnia in the early 1990's and that he was "responsible" for the Bijelo Polje area, including the Bosnian village of Vojno in which a concentration camp was established.

The trial before the bosnian state Court of Croatian war criminals Dragan Sunjic, Marko Radic, Damir Brekalo and Mirko Vracevic is due to continue on November 7, 2007.