Bosnian Fighter ‘Threatened Five-Year-Old Child’ at School

A witness accused former Croatian Defence Council fighter Perica Adzic, on trial for mistreating prisoners of war at a school in Zepce, of threatening him and the child with a pistol.

Prosecution witness Jasmin Malicbegovic told the court in Zenica on Tuesday that he was wounded at the beginning of the conflict between the Bosnian Army and the Croatian Defence Council in 1993.

He said he was then detained along with other injured people at a school building in Zepce, and that the wounded were subjected to mental and sometimes physical mistreatment as well.

“Wounded men Nezim Grabus and Nermin Purak were getting their infusion therapy [from a saline drip]. Perica and [another fighter called] Veljko Adzic, who I knew from before, entered the room. They yelled at us and forced us to come out of the classroom, where we sat on benches. Using his pistol, Perica broke Grabus’ infusion bottle,” Malicbegovic recalled.

“Through the closed door we heard someone talking and a few gunshots. The door was then opened. Perica Adzic came out and put the hot barrel of a pistol on my forehead. After that he put the pistol on a five-year old child’s forehead. The child was staying there with his wounded mother,” he said.

Veljko Adzic then told him that he would come back in the afternoon and “push me into River Bosnia unless I gave him 5,000 German marks”, he continued.

“This meant that he would kill me and push me into the river. Veljko thought that I had money, because my family had a brick factory, in which his brothers worked. He worked in it too from time to time,” he explained.

When he went back into the classroom, he said, “Purak and Grabus were in a state of shock. Purak had an injury caused by a bullet penetrating through his neck.”

But he said that Veljko Adzic never returned for the money he had demanded.

“Veljko got killed on the frontline on that day, so he did not come to pick me up. Perica did not come either,” Malicbegovic testified.

Former Croatian Defence Council member Perica Adzic is charged with participating in the mistreatment of prisoners of war who were held in the school building in Zepce in July 1993.

The trial is due to continue on June 3.