Idriz Merdzanic, witness at the Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin trial

‘Die Balijas, we will kill you anyway’, the Serb troops said when Dr Idriz Merdzanic sent an appeal for an evacuation of the injured from Kozarac on 25 May 1992, amid a Serb attack. Today at the trial of Bosnian Serb police officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, Dr. Merdzanic testified about the attack on Kozarac and his detention in the Trnopolje prison camp.

The doctor sent his appeal from a house where the health center staff was evacuated the day after the attack started. The local police also moved to that house. The witness used the radio equipment the police had used to negotiate the surrender of Kozarac to call in vain for an evacuation of the injured, including two children.

The next day, when Kozarac surrendered, the witness was taken to the Trnopolje prison camp together with the rest of the staff from the clinic. Ambulance driver Nihad Bakonjic was separated from the rest of the group and was never seen again. The witness asked the Serb troops what would happen to Nihad and they told him they would ‘take care’ of him.

More and more Bosniaks were brought in to Trnopolje every day, mostly women and children but also some men, the witness recounted. When the prison camp was filled beyond capacity, the first convoy was organized to move women and children in stock cars to Sarajevo. Until early August, when the International Red Cross and foreign news teams came, nobody was allowed to leave the prison camp. At first, the local population brought food and when they too were expelled or detained in the prison camp, the Serb Red Cross charged prisoners for food and delivered it only to those who paid.

The witness contends that women were often raped in Trnopolje. A group of soldiers calling themselves El Manijakosi was particularly active. By night, the witness watched them from the infirmary window taking out women and brining them back in the morning. Many women were reluctant to talk about their ordeals because of fear and shame. Nevertheless, with the help of his Serb colleague, Dr. Ilic, the witness was able to arrange for some of them to be examined by a gynecologist in Prijedor. The doctor confirmed that they had been raped.

Men were beaten up in a special room. Some were taken out and killed outside of the prison camp. The witness and the infirmary personnel were able to record the injuries the prisoners sustained in the beatings using a hidden camera. They were able to hand the camera and the film inside it to foreign journalists. Some of those photos were shown in court but they were not tendered into evidence as the prosecution had failed to notify the defense on time it intended to use them.

The defense lawyer representing the Banja Luka region police chief Stojan Zupljanin put it to the witness that the Muslims living around Prijedor were armed, bringing up various incidents in which Serb soldiers were killed. As the witness said, guards were set up in some places ‘because people were afraid’. When drunken Serb soldiers fired on the village guards in Hambarine, they returned fire and killed a soldier.

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