FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
COMMITTEE FOR GATHERING DATA ON
CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST HUMANITY
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
B E L G R A D E
CRIME OF GENOCIDE
AGAINST SERBS
IN THE PRISON CAMP "LORA" IN SPLIT
IN THE PERIOD 1991-1997
October, 1998
1
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
From July 1991 to August 1995 in the territory of the Republic of Croatia (republic within the composition of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) a cruel and merciless civil inter-national and inter-ethnic war was wagged. Further to the war actions, atrocities and destruction which are the imminent and unavoidable side effects of conducted war operations, by their character, importance, nature and consequences, especially outstanding were the genocidal actions of the Croat military authorities, individuals and groups against the Serbian population (civilians, wounded, sick and prisoners of war).
It is about such actions and behavior which had acquired a massive character that this report is speaking. Namely, ever since the beginning of the war actions in the territory of the Republic of Croatia, in Split, in the area of the former military naval zone – the compound of the former Yugoslav People’s Army "Lora", after the withdrawal of the Army, in the part of the military investigation penitentiary of the JNA, a prison camp was formed in which from 1992 to 1997 Serbs were detained, both the civilian population, wounded, sick and the prisoners of war, who were arrested and captured throughout, not only Croatia, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, in this prison camp Serbs were detained from Gabela, Duvno (Tomislavgrad), Kupres, Bjelovar, Split, Livno, Dubica, Benkovac, Capljine, Trebinje, Nevesinje, Mostar, Teslic, Klepac, Odzak, Karlovac…
The prison camp for Serbs imprisoned in "Lora" is practically continuously in operation since the beginning of war in the territory of the Republic of Croatia until this day. The prison inmates (detainees) whose statements are contained in this report, have been released only in the year 1997 under a strong pressure of the international community, most of all of the International Committee of the Red Cross. During the entire time of its existence the prison camp was characterized by the most cruel, bestial treatment of the detained Serbs, systematically continued over a long period of time. The conditions of accommodation in the prison camp were unsupportable and atrocious, failing to satisfy even the most elementary needs of the inmates.
Namely, the prisoners were placed in cells without anything in them, without any furniture, they were forced to sleep on bare concrete or floor, and even if they did have some beds (iron beds with wires and rods) it was only in a few cases. They had irregular, insufficient and poor nutrition, and it used to happen that for three or more days in a row they would not be given any food at all. It was frequently happening that the inmates during or after the meals would be beaten up by the guards. When they would be given some food, it was either boiling hot or excessively salty, and the inmates were forced to eat quickly, at an in advance scheduled time ( which was impossible). The meals consisted of a piece of bread and some paste or jam, so that the prisoners for several days on end (sometimes even twenty days) could not have a bowl movement or physiological relieve. Furthermore, the prisoners did not have any or some but inadequate medical care, although they were being kicked, beaten up from head to toe, covered with wounds, bruises, cuts, swellings, all of them bloody and deformed.
Not only were the conditions of living extremely inhumane, intolerable and cruel, but on the basis of an extensive documentation – most of all from personal sources of the evidence (depositions of eye-witnesses – inmates and victims themselves) and material sources of evidence (medical and other documents) – it has been established beyond any doubt that against the members of the Serbian people, and for the sole reason that they were the members of this national group and of the Serbian Orthodox faith, massive, continuous, systematic, over a long period of time, war crimes were committed against civilian population, war crimes against sick and wounded, war crimes against the prisoners of war, i.e. a crime of genocide having only one and the same aim – to totally eradicate (destroy and erase) Serbs as a national group in the territory of the Republic of Croatia, where they have had their centuries old homes and were the members of the Serbian Orthodox faith.
It is clear that this material speaks only of one segment of such genocidal behavior of the Croat soldiers and political structures towards the Serbian population in these areas, but this is, through a number of the so far collected and treated cases, more than sufficient to draw such an indicative conclusion. This even more so since "Lora" camp was under the direct command of the military police of the Croat Army, and it is logical to assume that everything that was being carried out there was the will and the political decision of Zagreb. The crimes of such proportion, scale, dynamics, type, severity, and cruelty indicate that their perpetrators were undertaking their actions not only with the full knowledge but under a direct supervision and at the orders of the political and military top echelons of the new Croat government.
This text is based on only one of the so far collected and treated number of cases of the tragedy of Serbs, and wherever it was possible, it is stated who the direct perpetrator was, i.e. who was the one that gave the orders, and who was the victim or the eye-witness to the crime. All of the crimes described hereinafter are supported with evidence. But it would be presumptious to say that this report contains all the examples of torture, atrocities, cruel and inhuman behavior, inflicting of lethal injuries or sever bodily injuries or sever disorders to the health of the persons imprisoned. It is certain that the darkness of the prison camp walls still hides many secrets of bestialities and atrocities committed.
Genocidal crimes against Serbs perpetrated in the prison camp of "Lora" in the period 1992 – 1997 may be systematized as follows:
At the end of this report, names together with the relevant evidence, of persons issuing the orders are given, as well as the names of direct perpetrators of the crimes (prison camp commanders, their deputies or assistants, prison guards, members of the military police, etc.).
2
WILFUL KILLING OF SERB INMATES
During the time it was in existence and in operation, in the prison camp "Lora" in Split in the period 1992 – 1997, it was established beyond any doubt that a large number of Serbs were killed there – both civilians and the prisoners of war, and that they were killed either from fire arms or side and cutting arms, or that they have died from the consequences of the inflicted serious body injuries or from sever treatment detrimental to their health. According to the available data it may be concluded that over twenty five persons were killed in this manner.
About his killing the following statements of witnesses are testifying:
About his murder the following witnesses are testifying:
About their killing the following witnesses testify:
About their assassination the following witnesses are testifying:
3) Witness 182/95-2 in the prison camp of "Lora" was detained from April 26 to May 2, and from May 20 to August 10, 1992 and he states the following: "In this camp was also killed Savic Vlado, reserve soldier, born in Nevesinje. I saw him several times and on many occasions they were beating us together, and he was of a completely distorted face and swollen from the beatings. His head was covered with wounds. On one occasion he was, allegedly, taken to the hospital and since then no one had even seen him again. I heard from C. and Z. that they had seen his body".
About their killing the following witnesses are testifying:
About their killing the following witnesses testify:
About their killings the following witnesses are testifying:
About the killings of a large number of unidentified Serb inmates – civilians and prisoners of war, testify the following witnesses:
After several days, during the night, I was taken out again with another nine men, to the same place of the slaying. That night Dujic was not there, but the present ones were: Andjelko who was even more cruel than Dujic, one that they called "Artist" because of his artistic skills in slaughtering, and another one called for the same reason "Doctor". From among those people brought for the slaying I noticed that one had his ear cut off. Before the slaughter itself they did not torture us. They carried out the slaughtering in the manner that with the knives in their hands they would approach the victim, some would be caught by the arms and shoulders, one was catching the victim by the hair with one hand and with the other hand holding the knife he would cut off the head. On this occasion eight people were slaughtered. In each of these cases the head would be severed from the body. Just by chance, on this occasion again, the arrival of one Ustashi saved my life. When the turn came of one man who I think was by origin from Kupres or the vicinity, and he was a high power current engineer, one Ustashi came in and prevented further slaughter by saying that it was enough for that day. Since it was almost dawn, it was time to remove the blood and take away the corpses, so I think that this was the reason why the slaughtering was stopped".
*
On the basis of the available evidence on the tragedy of Serbs – civilians, prisoners of war, wounded and sick in the prison camp "Lora" in Split, during the time it was in operation from 1991 to 1997, it may be concluded beyond any doubt that over twenty identified persons have been killed there, and these victims are the following persons:
Further to the persons identified, there is evidence and data in the prison camp of the beating up, torture, body and psychological harassment of a large number of unidentified persons also died: notably civilians from Kupres and others. Therefore, a conclusion may be drawn that at least thirty Serbs were liquidated during the operation of this prison camp and that they all died in terrible pain from consequences of injuries inflicted by beating up, inhuman treatment and torture. It may also be concluded that in such treatment of prisoners by the Croat military and civilian police authorities there was no difference in treatment of Serbs – civilians (elderly, women) and Serbs – prisoners of war and wounded, regardless of the fact whether these persons were from the territory of Croatia or from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
3
CRIMES AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATION
In the prison camp "Lora" located within the composition and under the supervision of the military police authorities of the Republic of Croatia throughout the period of war actions in the territory of the Republic of Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, starting from the year 1991 and up to the year 1997, the imprisoned Serbs – civilians, non-fighting population (both men and women) were continuously, systematically exposed to various kinds of torture, inhuman, cruel, humiliating treatment, when they were inflicted with serious body injuries, severe detriment to their health, physical and psychological suffering of a lasting character, with life-long consequences.
The prison camp authorities had, practically, devised an entire system of measures and treatments for the destruction (physical and psychological) and eradication of the Serbian people, which system in this prison camp obtained various forms and types of its demonstration and manifestation.
All the manners and procedures of torture, abuse, bestial, almost animal, inhuman treatment of the imprisoned Serbs practically show how inexhaustible is the imagination when it is in the function of hatred for another people and members of a different faith. Through the killings, torture, bodily injury, inflicting of physical and psychological sufferings and trauma, beatings inflicted on all the parts of the body, the Ustashi specters are appearing again from the times of World War Two and the ideas of the Ustashi ideology in these lands.
The crimes against the civilian population – members of the Serbian people and the Serbian Orthodox faith, undertaken actually with the intention in this manner to annihilate the Serbian people and eradicate its presence in the area of the Republic of Croatia but also in certain parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, were manifested in the following manners:
About certain types of inflicting body injuries and serious detriment to health, torture, abuse, bestial, cruel and animal treatment of prisoners by the prison guards and the management of the prison camp "Lora" against the imprisoned Serbs – civilians, testimony of the following witnesses are bearing proof. But it is clear, first of all, that these were not all of the forms of torture and humiliation to which the imprisoned Serbs were subjected during their detention in this cruel prison camp, and that neither the stated testimonies of witnesses, supported with corresponding medical documentation, are the only ones. It is certain that through this notorious Croat military camp many other Serbs have passed who are either still inaccessible to the official authorities in charge of gathering and study of data on the crimes committed in our areas during the time of war conflicts in the period 1991 – 1995, or are not in the position to testify about the period of their detention in these "factories of death and humiliation", thinking that time will bring oblivion, escaping from opening the old and sore wounds again.
In "Lora" they were torturing us all the time in such a manner that the guards would rush into the cell and would beat us up. They were taking us also outside, one by one, or in groups for the beating. They were beating us either in the corridor or in the prison camp circle throughout the day, but mostly at night when it was dark. That was happening every day while we were imprisoned in this camp. Their specialty was to take us into one room where they would pour water over us and then would place the clams connected with a cable of the inductor telephone on our ear, and the other one on the sexual organ and by turning the handle would let the electricity through our bodies. They were doing this to me, and I also know that they were doing this to the others. This would cause very strong pain, and I would faint, so it would happen that I could not regain consciousness for a long time. They were taking out some of my friends telling them that they will be shot by a firing squad. They would ask them what is their last wish. Then they would shoot over their heads in order to frighten them. They wanted to slaughter some of them and would pass the knife across their neck. They were constantly keeping us in fear. Further to many injuries that I received, I think that the most serious one was inflicted on me during the beating at the polygon in Split. At that time I was hit with some ball over the head and I had a large wound from which blood was pouring, so that I lost a lot of blood".
In "Lora" they were beating us up from the very first day. After two or three days I was taken for interrogation and was questioned by a large man, over 100 kg in weight, who told me that he was from Rama. He was some 30 years old and was rather tall and strong. He was beating me with a baton all over the body and legs. Then he threw me on the floor and while I was flat on my stomach he was jumping on my back. They were one of the most horrible beatings that I have received. After the interrogation I was returned to the cell, and in the evening that man from Rama came again, with another smaller, dark man, and they took me out into the corridor, and the other one started beating me with a wooden stick so I fainted. There was also a third man there he was pulling me by the ears.
After the beating I was in a very serious crisis, so my friends from the cell called the guards asking them to take me to the hospital. There the doctors made some X-rays and asked to keep me in the hospital because I was in a very difficult state, but those who brought me from the prison did not want to leave me in the hospital, and returned me back again to "Lora", this time to the cell number 1, where there were already many of those who were beaten up. Until then I was in the cell number 4. There were some rags over there on which I could not sleep because I was all covered with wounds and was aching all over. I could not lie down but could only sit. I could not sleep from the pains".
In "Lora" we were placed in cells of four in the block "C". I was being transferred from time to time from one cell to another. From the very first day of our arrival in "Lora" they were torturing us in different ways. They were beating us incessantly, cursing us, calling us names. When one of them would enter our cell, we had to stand up at attention with our head down and look down to the ground, our hands kept at the back. Further to every day beatings they were extinguishing their cigarettes on my head, forcing me to do the push-ups until I would faint from exhaustion, they were kicking me, stepping on my back, crushing my fingers and toes with their boots. They tried to humiliate us in every way and at any cost. They forced us to dig holes, for what purpose I do not know, because when once the prison warden came and saw us do it, he prohibited this. They were forcing us for hours on end, sometimes for an entire day and night, to sing their national songs, which was very exhausting.
We were given three meals a day, but the time for eating was limited. We had to eat the soup in only one minute, and it was boiling hot. For the main course we had one and a half minute or two minutes, so we would mostly go hungry, because we could not eat anything in such a short time. We could not keep the hygiene regularly, we had difficulties with physiological needs, because there was only one WC toiler seat, and we had to stand in queue and wait and suffer. Washing was with cold water, and we would be given a bath sometimes by pouring strong jets of water over us, and this was not for cleanliness but for torture. From time to time they would prevent us from having a bowl movement on regular and normal basis because they would not allow us into the toilet, so we had to relieve ourselves in the cell, into a Coca Cola bottle or into a towel. When they would find this out, they would beat us all.
They were often keeping us without water, not giving us any to drink, and neither would they give us food. This was usually happening after some hard labor. A special type of torture was the work in the quarry where we were forced to crush stone and transport it, which was very trying because it was hot summer, and we had to do the work without any necessary tools. We were crushing stone with metal rods and with several picks, which was an almost impossible job.
We were not given any medical care at all. On one occasion when I had strong pain in my chest, and I suspected that my ribs were broken after the beating, I asked to see a doctor, but I was not allowed to do that. I was very often hit on the sexual organs, so my testicles were very much swollen.
We were beaten the most by Tadija Bokanovic and Grujica Niksa – members of the anti-terrorist military police, Tomo Dujic – a former warden of the prison camp "Lora", Ivica Baban – who was beating me up and torturing me the most and who broke several of my ribs, and was extinguishing cigarettes on my head, was jumping on my back and arms, Zdenko Jovic – a guard, military policeman who was beating us the most for the Catholic Christmas, when we were most severely beaten. They are the people who were beating us the most, but there were also some others. Everyone who came was free to beat us. Some were coming and were driving in their cars so we had to wash them, and then they would beat us. One of them was from Polje, they called him "Bosko", and also an elderly man with moustaches whom they called "Dabro", who was kicking us with riffle butt. Furthermore, they were forcing us to slap each other on the face and we had to do it hard. If someone would not be slapping hard his friend, they would beat him up. That is why C.M. received 180 slaps. We were recorded by the International Red Cross, but two of us – D.V. and M.C. were always hidden when the members of the Red Cross were coming and would be transferred to some other prison".
On the next day the officer on duty was Zoran Sulejmanovic, who was also beating me and the other prisoners. On one occasion he forced me to put a helmet on my head which was not fastened, and then from a squatting position he ordered me to clean the prison latrines. He was threatening to beat me up if only the helmet would fall off my head. Together with him in the same shift was Zoran Culina who was beating me once, so that I could not stand, so he forced me to get up and stand alone at attention the entire day. During that time he would come from time to time to the cell and would beat me up again. This bestiality of his lasted for seven hours. After he handed over his shift duty, that evening I had terrible pain in my legs and one leg started to swell so I asked for some medical assistance. They took me to the Hospital Firule. During the drive there the driver would suddenly step on the brakes and was intentionally cutting the curves, so that I was all bruised from the falling around in the vehicle. I was given an injection in the hospital. After that I was taken out into the corridor and at that moment appeared the military policemen Sevic and Covic, and as soon as they saw me, they started telling the other patients that I am a Chetnick, so the patients started spitting on me and insulting me. I was never given the medicaments that the doctor prescribed for me.
On the next morning one guard entered the cell together with a dog. He was pushing the barking dog on me. I was also taken every day to "telephone" where they would let the electricity on me. The guards were also threatening us that they will kill us and throw us into the Kevina pit near Split, in the mountain of Kozjak. When they were taking me to the military tribunal for interrogation, the judge told the guard to take me to doctor Ivancevic at the clinical medical center of Firule, who then examined me and gave his find and opinion that I was inflicted with serious body injuries. Then I was taken to the prison of Bilice where I was detained from August 26th to November 4th. From Bilice on November 4th I was returned to "Lora" where I remained until the exchange. In "Lora" I was beaten again and tortured".
In "Lora" I remained for two months. During that time I was sleeping on bare floor without any cover or blanket. We were receiving food only once per day, a piece of bread not bigger than 50 grams and most often some liver paste. In this prison camp the imprisoned Serbs were tortured in different ways. They would force us to bark like dogs, to run while squatting, to carry each other, to hit each other. They were also telling us all the time that we will all be killed, that they will throw us into the sea to be eaten by the fishes. They would force us to sing the songs: "We will cross the Drina, we will set Serbia on fire", and the other songs insulting the Serbian people".
The guards by night, when we were in the bed, would raid our cell and command us to stand up. They would give us picks and spades, would take us out into the courtyard where we had to dig our own graves. When the digging was finished, each one for himself, they would force us to go down into the graves and the guards would take aim with pistols at us. Some Serbs were not given the tools for digging of graves, but had to do the digging with their bare hands, without any tools. In this prison camp one guard made a tattoo of the chess-flag on my body with a knife. I was forbidden in "Lora" any contact with the other imprisoned Serbs".
I would be taken out for a walk and they would beat me up, saying that I resemble Radovan Karadzic. They would beat me up until I fainted. When I regained consciousness they told me that I look like Momcilo Krajisnik, so they beat me up again. One of the most humiliating situations happened to us in the prison camp "Lora". There some of us were forced to perverse actions. We had to take the sexual organ of the other one into our mouth or were forced to have an intercourse with each other. That happened to the deceased Milo Spremo, to the priest P.Z., S.L., Z.B. and the others. They did not give us any food or drinking water throughout the three days that we had spent in "Lora".
In "Lora" I would be taken out by Musa from Siroki Brijeg near Listice. He would place a knife on my throat and would threaten to slaughter me. He said that he will have me shot by a firing squad, and before I was taken for execution, the priest Z.P. had to read me the final rites. It was extremely uncertain what would happen to us at any moment, both during the day and at night. After 17 days they tied our hands and covered our eyes, loaded us on board a truck and took us to Zadar".
The guards were beating up every day the men in the adjacent cells. They would open our door and would force us to watch them torturing and beating the men. In the prison camp they were beating the most B.L. They took him out three times saying that they will slaughter him. We could hear his screaming and the kicks and cries and I thought that they were really slaying him. Some of the guards would be coming with blood on their hands saying that they had slaughtered him. They were especially torturing his wife who was detained in the same cell with me".
From "Lora" I was taken to a place called Arzana and detained in some sort of a warehouse where there were another ten arrested Serbs with whom I was not allowed any contact. They were also interrogating me there and beating me, and then after 7 days, they returned me back to "Lora". In "Lora" they continued with interrogation and I was taken there into some room in which from all the sides under a great pressure the wind was blowing. I do not know what it was, but I know that it was causing a terrible pressure on the respiratory organs and on the ears. I was imprisoned in "Lora" again for 4 days, afterwards they took me to Turjance near Sinj. In "Lora" they would order me to stand by the wall with my arms up in the air and they would kick me until I would fall on the floor, then while I was on the floor, they would kick me with boots".
21) Witness 249/97-3, born in 1941, was imprisoned in "Lora" prison camp from May 14, 1995 to April 1, 1996, and states the following: "At the very entrance into "Lora" prison camp we were awaited by the line of the Croat police, and while passing, they would kick us terribly all over the body with the wooden and rubber batons, pieces of electrical conductors some 3 cm thick, with some chains, legs and fists. Almost every evening the Croat policemen would ask us whether we had a bath, and would then order us all, completely naked, to go out of the cells, when they would for several hours on end pour over us from the hose cold water under a very high jet pressure. Members of the Croat police who were securing the prison camp were taking us very often from the cells into the corridor and would order us to move on all four. They would sit on our backs and we would have to carry them around the corridor in this manner.
Also, mostly at night, they would take us out into the prison camp circle where we had to enter the dog-houses and bark from them. They would force us to run barefooted five circles around the prison camp building, although the building was a huge one. If some one would lag behind during the run, they would fiercely beat him all over the body, most often with fists and boots. I saw some of the prisoners with many scars on the hands and arms from extinguishing of cigarettes, and I also know that some of the imprisoned Serbs were forced to eat the feathers of the killed birds and to swallow live worms and maggots.
I was taken together with the other prisoners detained in "Lora" every day in the morning for physical labor which consisted in taking out the stones and building of some houses. We would be working at times over 12 hours per day, so that we were exhausted from hard labor. The food was very poor and scarce. The policemen who were guarding us would force us to finish the meal in five minutes, and before the meal every prisoner had to cross himself according to the Catholic faith. On one occasion, I think it was in August 1995, after the fall of Knin, they showed us an arrested Serb whose name was Milos, who was terribly beaten. They ordered Milos to take off his underwear and we saw that his body was all blue and that there were traces of hits with some objects. Milos was completely immobile, swollen and covered with blood. Members of the Croat police forced us to get up every night at midnight and sing the Croat national anthem, then in a single voice to exclaim "We are Ustashi!". They were also forcing us to sing various Ustashi songs""
In "Lora" they would force us every day to enter the dog-houses and to bark at certain times, and afterwards they would expel us out of the dog-houses forcing us to sing the Croat national anthem and the Ustashi songs. Croat policemen would force us to run around the circle and when completely hot and covered with sweat, they would pour over us cold water directly from the hydrant and under a strong pressure. Every day they would force us to kneel and hold ourselves on our hands on the concrete, and the Croat policemen would ride us forcing us to run like horses on all four. They would also force us to hit each other with open hands and fists, and to kick each other with feet as hard as we can. I also remember that they forced us to eat live snails and clams, to eat some worms and maggots. I wish to especially emphasize that the Croat policemen were forcing me to kiss and lick the Croat soil, and were forcing the others to lick the toilet bowl and to masturbate. Throughout my detention in "Lora" from the other premises there were constant screams and cries of the imprisoned Serbs, especially after the fall of Knin".
From the room in which I was detained, the other imprisoned Serbs were also taken out to the basement room where electricity was connected to various parts of their bodies and then the indictor plugged in. They did not do that to me, but the other prisoners who were in the same cell with me were telling me about it. Members of the Croat police who were securing the prison camp were hanging me by the arms in such a way that they would place one cuff-link on the left arm and one on the right arm and then would lift me some ten centimeters off the floor and would hang the cuff-links on the metal bars on the door, so that I was suspended by the arms. While I was hanging there they would hit me with batons over the back and some other parts of the body. Croat policemen had the practice in "Lora" in the night hours to raid the cells with the imprisoned Serbs and to beat us terribly with anything and everything over all the parts of the body, mostly in the area of kidneys and the chest. I wish to underline that the Croat policemen were forcing myself and the other prisoners in "Lora" to drink urine and mutually hit each other until we would faint.
Croat policemen were especially torturing us with food and water. They would give us only every third or fourth day some water and this only 1.5 liters of water for 50 prisoners. At the time of my detention in "Lora" we would be given only once per day a few spoonfuls of warm water and a small slice of bread, not bigger than a box of matches. We had to eat that food in two minutes, and if some one would fail to do so, he was terribly beaten. They would take us out every day for two hours to spend in the dog-houses and from those houses we had to bark all the time".
First they would hit us with different objects, and then would plug us on to electrical current, by placing one end of the conductor on the sexual organ, and the other on the hand or ear, and then they would let the electricity in which caused terrible pain.. Afterwards they would give us half a kilogram of salt which we had to swallow, but they did not give us even a droop of water. The life in "Lora" was insufferable. In the room in which we were detained Croat soldiers would enter every night with knives in their hands, threatening to slaughter us all. On such occasions they would ask for volunteers and after taking them out shots could be heard. I also heard that they were taking people out and were slaughtering them. I could hear their creams and cries, the noises like when the throat is being cut. They were telling us all the time that they will kill us all. They would take us out into the circle of the prison camp, and would force us to move on our knees over the crushed stone, ordering us to enter the dog-houses and to bark from there like dogs. During that three days of detention in "Lora" they did not give us any food to eat, and neither did they give us any water to drink, but we were subjected all the time to terrible torture. After three days of detention in "Lora" a group of some 70 of us arrested Serbs from Kupres was tied up and loaded on the truck and taken in the direction of Duvno".
The girl-fiend of Tomo Dujic, called Tanja, was coming every day to the prison camp and was presenting herself as a medical nurse. We had to kiss her boots and to beg her for medical assistance. All those who would ask her for help were taken into some room from where they would return all beaten up and mutilated. During the time of my detention in the cell I never had any peace, either during the day or at night. There would always be some of the guards opening the door and beating me up until I would faint. The greatest torture and beatings were suffered by P.G., Dj.. N., L.J., P.M. and B.D. They were plugged to the electrical current and beaten with baseball bats. Dj.N. had both his legs broken three times, P.G. had his ribs broken. A.L. had his beard pulled out and was forced to eat it. B.D. was beaten on the spine, K.M. and P.M. had their jaws fractured".
With the same pipes they broke my right arm in three places, and the left arm in two places in the upper arm and the shoulder bone. This beating lasted some two hours and when I fell down from the beating, policemen started kicking me with their boots. On that occasion they broke all the teeth that I had".
In the beatings the outstanding one was Giljanovic Zvonko and a certain Perisic called "Rambo". These two especially enjoyed beating of the prisoners. They would kick us with fists, boots and baseball bats. They would force the prisoners to turn and face the wall, to place their hands above their heads on the wall, to put the feet away from the wall so that the body would be in an inclined position towards the wall, and then they would beat us on the kidneys and flanks. This was most often done by Dujic. They would also beat us on the stomach and the chest and would force us to stand at attention, with the hand up in the air and we would have to breath hard. While exhaling they would kick us in the stomach. From such beating three of my ribs were broken on both sides of the chest, so they had to take me for medical care to the Firule hospital. My colleague P. had 11 of his ribs broken and one rib pierced the pulmonary pleura. Giljanovic had special ways of torture. During his inspection of the prisoners in cells he would force us to report and the report was that every time we had to pronounce that we were the members of the Chetnick occupying army that was killing the innocent Croats and Muslims, and if someone would not repeat this without a mistake he would be beaten up.
During the visit of the members of the International Red Cross we had to learn a text prepared in advance which we would speak in front of them, and if we would change something and complain in some way, after the departure of the Red Cross delegates there was a lot of beating. The warden Tomo Dujic was the initiator and the perpetrator of many bestialities and tortures of the prisoners. He was most often applying the torture by electrical current. I was subjected four times to this torture. It consisted mostly in them taking me out of my cell blindfolded and taking me to Dujic’s office. Then they would tie me with cuff-links to the chair and Dujic would place on my ear-lobes the electrodes and by aid of some transformer set he would let the high voltage current so that I had the feeling that my eyes are going to pop out and the feeling as if someone was cutting me up with the saw. From the electric shocks I felt dazed but would not faint and I suppose that the electrical current was so adjusted that we would remain conscious. One of the funs of the prison guards was to force the imprisoned Serbs to enter the dog-houses and from there bark like dogs. They forced P.G. to run around the circle with his spread arms and imitate an aircraft while bombarding, and the other prisoners had to imitate shooting at him. L. had to collect with his mouth the garbage from the courtyard".
The most serious beating I have received was on May 1, 1992 when Giljanovic entered my cell with another two men, known by their nicknames "Bane" and "Pepi", who beat me up and Dj.N. They forced me to face the wall with hands up in the air and then they hit me with fists and batons on my back. My back was completely blue from bruises and they broke several of my ribs one of them having pierced my pleura. Dj fell into a coma so the prison doctor had to come to intervene. On the next day I was transferred to the Firule hospital where I stayed until May 20th under the false name of Jurcevic Ante. Upon my return to the prison camp the torture was continued. Further to the physical torture, there were also other types of torture, especially the psychological one. Thus, every time when the guards would enter our cell they would force us to give a Ustashi salute, to sing the Ustashi songs and in various ways humiliating us and degrading us as men. We would be taken for staged executions. I remained in "Lora" until August 12, 1992 when I was transferred to the collection center of Kerestinac near Zagreb. From there on August 14, 1992 I was taken for the exchange."
I was first placed in the block "B", then in the block "C". Treatment towards me was very bad and from the injuries my ribs were broken again and my kidneys damaged, and my left side of body was paralyzed. Because of this, after the release from this prison by exchange – I was treated in hospital for three weeks. In this prison camp they were forcing us prisoners to beat each other all the time, for 5 to 6 ours every day and to stand in the sun until we would faint. Because of all this from 86 kilograms that I had at the time of arrest, I came down to only 50 kilograms of body weight""
They were applying in "Lora" special kinds of torture. They would tie up the prisoner in the sun and would leave him for the entire day without any food or water, and while passing him by the Ustashi would kick him with boots, fists and other objects. They would force the prisoner to place hands in boiling hot water and he would have the blisters causing terrible pain. After every beating the Ustashi would threaten us that if anyone would ask about our injuries we must never say that they were from the beatings, but from the fall out of bed or that the blisters were because from washing laundry or hands and not knowing that the water was boiling hot".
They were teaching us here how to behave and every one when asked, had to present himself after having in a certain way addressed the one who is asking with "Sir" or in some other corresponding manner, and then would have to give his identification, to say where he was arrested and why, so I always had to say that I was captured as an armed member of the irregular Chetnick organization, although that was not true, because I was a civilian and unarmed when I was arrested.
For entire days on end we would have to sing the Ustashi songs which would glorify their leaders, and also the songs insulting for Serbs. They appointed me as the oldest in the cell, when an Ustashi would enter, and after we would all stand up, to raise my hand first and salute in the Ustashi manner with "For Home Ready", and the others would have to respond in a unison manner "Ready!".
While we were detained there they were beatings us all the time so that they would enter the cells and beat all of us, and they would take out some prisoners outside into the corridor and would finish them up. I was personally not taken out but they were taking out very often G.T. and D.T. I also know that they tortured terribly P.Z. a priest from Kupres, who was in the cell across the corridor from ours. The three of them were often plugged on the electrical current and this in a room close to our cell, but I did not see this personally, they were only telling me how this was done. During the lunch they would force us to run around the circle, and after lunch would take us to the cells and would hit and kick us mostly with boots.
Very often, when they would be returning us from the circle into the cells, the one that they would call out, they would say that he should take his leave from his comrades because he is taken before the firing squad, and they would order him to lie down and would bring the pistol to his head, as if they would kill him. Besides the guards, those Ustashi returning from the front lines would also be entering our cells, lighting our faces with flash lights and would beat us all. We were especially hardly beaten by those who had lost in fight one of their own. On these occasions everyone would be beaten up and I was beaten up with the others. Most often we were kicked with boots.
While we were in the prison camp "Lora" the food was terrible of awful quality and very scarce, and the meals were more or less regular, but in view of the quality and the quantity all was scarce for normal survival. There was neither sufficient drinking water, and there were guard commanders in whose shifts we were not receiving any water at all, and also could not relieve ourselves and have a bowl movement. In this respect I remember that on several occasions D.T. wanted to go to the toilet but they did not let him, so he had to urinate into his shoe and was then spilling urine through the window. He also could not contain himself several times without water and he urinated into a shoe and would drink his own urine. He probably had a greater need for water because he was tortured the most.
On April 26, 1992 they took us by truck to Zadar".
In "Lora" we were placed in cells of ten prisoners. After we were placed in cells, Croat policemen started individually taking us out into another room, for alleged interrogation. They ordered me to lie down over the table and the policemen, one of them with the rubber baton in his hand, and the other a piece of wood some 60-80 cm in length, were standing on one and the other side of the table, and without any interrogation they started hitting me. They were beating me until I fainted, and when I would come to, they would order me to stand by the wall, and then one of them would take my head and would hit it against the wall until the blood would start pouring down my head. Afterwards they would return me to my cell and would take out the other ones. I looked very bad, just like every other one from my group, when I would return from the alleged interrogation. I was all swollen, covered with blood and bruised from the hits inflicted upon me.
I was detained in "Lora" for some seven days. During all the time of my stay there I was taken out several times per day and beaten up. They were threatening that we will all be killed in the most cruel way, they were cursing our Serbian and Chetnick mother. They were taking us out and were placing us beside the wall, and then they were shooting over our heads. In the night hours they were taking out one by one of us, and then they were telling that particular one that they are taking him to be slaughtered and would return him into another cell, and we really did not know what was happening with the one who was taken out. They were forcing us to sing the Ustashi song "Here comes the dawn, here comes the day", to salute the picture of Ante Pavelic. Some were subjected to electro-shocks and the phases were linked to their hands or some other parts of their body, but I was not inflicted with this treatment.
During all the time I was detained in "Lora" we were receiving only a small slice of bread and a bit of liver paste and we were not given any drinking water. One small liver paste would be divided on 20 prisoners, and the piece of bread was some 50 grams".
On that same day they transferred us to the "C" block. As soon as they placed us in cells, ever two hours the HDZ members would come and were beating us with everything: fists, boots, shelves, and they placed electricity on me. I had bruises all over my body, but they are now healed. They were plugging me into the electrical current, and I was jumping up and after they unplugged me I was almost dead.
In "Lora" we were given little food and this just one can of 100 grams for two persons and a small slice of bread".
I have spent there two nights and two days and during that time, every day the guards and the Croat soldiers were entering the cell – black-shirt ones and were beating us non-stop with the batons. I was especially exposed to the beating and torture. I received hundreds of hits, and when I would faint they would drag me around the corridors of the prison.
In "Lora" I was exposed every day to the beating, torture, humiliation and various other forms of inhuman behavior. On one occasion they took me to some room, they blindfolded me and placed me to sit on a chair, and then they placed on the temples some wires and poured water over me and at the same time let the electric current. After this torture they would take me again to the cell where I was beaten, and on one occasion they kept me crucified for three days on the bars of the prison cell. After these tortures they would apply electricity on me again, by placing the wires of the field telephone on my fingers and would then turn the telephone and cause the electrical current to pass. In this manner they were also torturing the other prisoners. I know that they were placing these wires on the testicles of one Serb from Capljine.
The guards were having their fun with us also by forcing us to fight among ourselves, by forcing us to unnatural sex with each other, and they were forcing me to have a sexual intercourse with one captured Serb woman from Kupres. I could not do it so I was exposed to even greater beatings. After this the Croat soldiers ordered that Serbian woman to play a horse and they ordered me to ride her. They forced us to scratch the walls with our nails and to clean the writing on the walls. On several occasions they would take us out for execution by a firing squad but would then shoot above our heads.
During the first five days of stay in "Lora" I did not receive any food or water, but later on they would give us food twice per day in the manner that 12 of us would receive one plate and one loaf of bread.
According to my estimates there were some 150 persons detained in the prison camp, but that number was often changing, there used to be more and then less prisoners. Among the prisoners there were simple soldiers of the former JNA, military commanders, civilians and five women. I was brought to "Lora" on April 7, 1992 and I left the camp after 20 days".
Immediately after placing us in cells, Croat policemen started taking us into other rooms and without any interrogation were beating us mercilessly. When we would be taken to another room, in it would be several Croat soldiers, ordering us to stand by the wall with our hands high up in the air, and then they would start with the beating. They were hitting me mostly with the baton in the area of chest and back, and would kick me with boots in the stomach and sides. During the beating I would faint and fall on the ground, and they would continue to beat me with boots and fists, and would then take me out and return me to the same room. While beating me they would ask: "Where are now your Karadzic and Mladic?".
In the prison camp "Lora" they placed some ten of us into one cell. There were ceramic tiles on the floor and there was no furniture whatsoever. After placing us in the cells the Croat police started taking us out. While taking us out they would inform the one who was being taken out that he is taken for the slaughter, and after terrible torture, by plugging the electricity on both hands and infliction of hits in all possible ways, he would be returned into another room, so we did not know whether that one was really slaughtered or not. Only later we saw that it was only a trick for purpose of introducing an even greater fear among us.
I was with a group of arrested persons, detained in "Lora" for 4-5 days and during all that time I was taken out for interrogation and every time I was beaten up until I fainted. They were asking me in which Chetnick unit I was a member, who was the commander, what armament did we have, how many Croats did I slaughter, who were our leaders, to which party do I belong. They were accusing me that I was slaughtering Croats, although I did no such thing, and neither was I ever a soldier. They were forcing us to sing the Ustashi songs: "Here comes the dawn, here comes the day", then to salute the picture of Pavelic, to salute their policemen with our raised hands and the words: "For home, ready!".
From "Lora" I was transferred with another 45 detained Serbs to Zadar".
After we entered the circle of "Lora" compound, they lined us up against the wall and ordered us to raise our hands in the air, and they would approach each one of us and ask him since when he is in the Chetnick units, then they would hit him. They were kicking us with boots, fists, batons, pieces of metal pipes etc. Most of us could not support this and stand on our feet so we fell down and the policemen kicked us with boots and stepped on us. They placed us in some cells per groups, and previously they searched us all and confiscated all our belongings.
During the night the Croat policemen would enter the rooms in which we were detained, and would order us to hit each other, to curse each other, and then they would take some of us out of the room and would beat them up there. We were all swollen, bruised and bloody from the beatings inflicted upon us. They were insulting us all the time and were threatening that we shall all be killed".
In the cell in which I was detained there were another three women and during the night the masked Croat soldiers would come and curse our Serbian and Chetnick mother, they would place knives on our throats and threaten to slain us all. We were begging the soldiers to kill us from the fire arms, but not to slaughter us. However, they did not listen to our appeals. They were kicking us with fists, but would first blindfold us, claiming that we will be killed at any moment. I would like especially to underline that they were taking myself and the women from my cell to the other cells in which they were beating the imprisoned Serbs from Kupres, Duvno and the other places, and especially they were doing this when they were beating some one that we knew. They forced us to watch while they were beating the husband of M.B.
While I was imprisoned in the prison camp "Lora" during the first 4-5 days they did not give any food to us women. Soldiers who were coming to our cell were saying that they will keep us like that until we die of starvation. Only after five days they gave us a piece of bread and a small slice of cheese, and since then and until the end of my stay in this prison camp they were giving us every second or third day a slice of bread and a bit of some cooked food. By the end of my detention in this camp I know that the Croat soldiers cut off the ear of the prisoner D, a Serb from Mostar. Every time when the soldiers would enter our cell we had to salute with "For home, ready!", and they would, holding the knives in their hands, place the knives on our throats threatening to slaughter us all. We were convinced that we will never leave this prison camp alive, because they were frightening us every day. Soldiers while entering our cell were of terrible appearance, because they were masked, and their very presence, with the knives in their hands, cause a great fright in all of us".
52) Witness 547/96-40, arrested in April 1992 in Kupres, states the following: "I was brought in a group of 65 arrested Serbs from Kupres and the adjacent villages and detained in the prison camp "Lora", cell number 1. In the camp circle we found a group of arrested Serbs from Kupres which was lined in a circle, and in the middle of that circle was the priest Z.P. to whom one Croat solider was pulling the beard. The priest was screaming from pain, and the other present Croat soldiers were laughing. Before we were taken to the cells, soldiers ordered us to stand by the wall with our hands in the air. Then they searched us and confiscated everything: our bill-folds, rings, watches. They cursed our Serbian mother and claimed that not one of us will leave the camp alive. They were kicking us with feet clad in boots, with fists, riffle butts, weapon barrels, pieces of metal pipes, batons, pieces of wood in the form of the axe handle and spade, wood boards and other objects that they had in their hands. They were hitting us all over the body, especially on the kidneys, back, spine and flanks.
One of the Croat soldiers was forcing me to drink something muddy from a flask some quarter of a liter big. Since I refused, he went away. I do not know what was in that flask, but it was certainly some kind of poison.
After the placement in the cells, Croat soldiers started taking out one by one the prisoners from every cell. I did not know where they were taking them. From my cell N.D. was taken out and after some time he was returned all bruised and blue, covered with blood and beaten up. I understood that they were taking him for interrogation and that they were beating him mercilessly. They took me out into a room in which there was a man on the floor covered with a blanket, and under the blanket only the feet were protruding. Croat solider immediately after I entered that room, told me pointing at that man on the floor, probably dead, "This is what will happen also to you if you do not tell me everything that I ask you". He was asking me who was the leader of the SDS in Kupres, who were the leaders in Donji and Gornji Malovan and the other villages, who were the members of the SDS by names, who was organizing and collecting the armament, how many guns do I have and where they are. Since I did not have any weapons, and neither did I know who the leaders of the SDS were, I was giving all the answers in the negative. Then the soldier ordered me to lie down on the concrete floor. He came up to me and stood with his feet over mine, and then kneeled on my chest and placed a knife over my throat. He was pressing the knife. I do not know how long it lasted. The foam started coming out of my mouth, and that soldier stood up and ordered me also to stand up. Then he ordered me to kneel down, and took some kind of handle some 80 cm long and 5-6 cm thick, and started hitting me over my back with it. From the first blow I most probably fainted and fell, and afterwards when I came to I was all wet, and the Croat soldier was holding me by the lapels. He was probably pouring water over me, and then he lifted me from the floor. He dragged me to my cell by holding on to my jacket, and then he kicked me with the boot in the back and I fell on the cell concrete floor.
Every one in that cell was beaten up so much that they could not stand. We were helping each other to stand up. We remained there for 5-6 days and then we were tied up and transferred to Zadar".
4
CRIMES AGAINST PRISONERS OF WAR
In the prison camp "Lora" during the time of war not only Serb civilian, non-fighting population was imprisoned, but also a certain number of the prisoners of war was detained there. They were, actually, the soldiers serving their regular military duty, soldiers from the reserve units, pilots or soldiers of the Army of Serbian Krajina or Republic of Srpska Army, who were captured and arrested on the battle fronts throughout the Republic of Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were also not spared the continuous, permanent, systematic torture, inhuman, cruel beating, inflicting of physical and psychological injuries and pain. For the Croat guards in the prison camp or the military policemen it was completely the same whom they were having in their hands as the subject or object of their devious pleasure – whether it was a civilian (man or woman), a wounded person, a sick person or a prisoner of war. It was only important for them to have a Serb in their hands, therefore, the representative or the member of the Serbian nationality and of the Serbian Orthodox faith, so that they could start with their cruelty and bestiality, which only a sick mind can conceive and execute.
The crimes against the prisoners of war – Serbian soldiers and officers – during the operation of the prison camp "Lora" in the period 1991 to 1997 were perpetrated in the following manners:
About some of the forms of the criminal and genocidal behavior of the Ustashoid new Croat authorities towards the captured Serbs – prisoners of war, their perdition and torture in the prison camp, speak the testimonies of the following witnesses – both victims themselves and the eye-witnesses.
We were placed in cells. In the cells there was no furniture, nothing, we were sleeping on bare concrete. During both the day and at night anyone was free to enter our cell and beat us up. The least I was beaten was when I was beaten only three times during the day, and one day during 24 hours I was beaten 14 times. Most often they would beat us with boots, batons, and on several occasions they used the baseball bats and rubber hoses. In this prison camp there were some 50 of us, imprisoned Serbs. From this number 13 were soldiers who were captured in Gabela, together with the captain Dusan Gidic, who later joined the Croats and took part in the torture of the prisoners.
On one occasion they took me and M. into the courtyard of the prison, they took away all our clothes and we were naked forced to drink each a glass of salty water, then they kept us in the sun for the entire day so we had burns all over our bodies. After that they beat us up and in all the places where I was hit the skin had peeled off. We were given food only when the guards would be willing. So it would happen that for three days on end we would not be given any food. They would miss to give us some meal every day. When we would be given the food, we would always be beaten before eating or after the meal, and on several occasions even during the meal itself.
Besides the physical torture, we were also exposed to the psychological harassment. They would play on the loudspeaker all day long the Ustashi songs. They were forcing us to salute with the Ustashi salute. A commission of the International Red Cross was visiting the prison camp, and was talking with the prisoners and sometimes they would give us cigarettes. The five of us they were hiding for one month and a half, and only afterwards we made contact with the representatives of the Red Cross. While we were imprisoned in "Lora" the guards would bring civilians, among them also women, to beat us and humiliate us. I was taken three times to the hospital for examination, but in the hospital they refused to examine me because I was a "Chetnick" and said that they were not treating Chetnicks. Further to the prisoners in "Lora" there were also civilians who were presenting themselves as soldiers or sniper shooters. They were forcing me during every beating to confess that I was throwing babies into the concrete mixing machine. After 50 days of imprisonment in "Lora" they took us for the exchange".
On another occasion I was interrogated by Miljenko Drazic, who beat me up with some wooden stick. He injured the ankle of my right leg and when I asked for medical help it was not given to me. Even today I have a swelling and I can not walk properly. It was probably a fracture which had wrongly healed. Once when we were digging the ground in the courtyard Bokanovic came and ordered me in 30 seconds to run around the prison. Since I was not able to run around the prison in that time, he ordered me to stretch my hands and by the broom stick he was hitting me over them, then again ordered me to run, and since I failed to circumvent the prison building in 30 seconds he started beating me again. After the third run he took out a pistol and hit me over the head, so that I was injured and bleeding. He had a special grudge against me and was torturing and beating me more than the others. Further to the beatings they would order us for hours to sing their songs. They would order us to lick the toilet with the tongue. Stipe Lekic was the one ordering me to do that, and then we had to lick their boots which we were mostly forced to do by Grujica Nisev and Jerko Males. One day in June 1995, after lunch, the guard Robert Bjelokapic took one group of us prisoners and took us to the part of the circle of the prison camp where there was some cracked concrete and ordered us to dig the ground under that concrete. He told us that the bones of our people were there, and that we shall see them and that the same will also happen to us. We were digging, and he was beating us all the time. Then the warden Buzov came and ordered us to stop that job and told us that we must not tell anyone about this. Later they had a barbecue grill built over there.
In "Lora" prison camp we were given three meals per day, but we had to eat very quickly, and would mostly go hungry. On one occasion the guard Grbesa placed a lighted cigarette on the hand of H.M. and the prisoner was not allowed to move until the cigarette was extinguished, burning his skin. Then the guard extinguished a cigarette in his ear. He was also burning him with his lighter. V. and M. were hidden from the Red Cross and were not registered. I do not know what was their fate".
The room in which I was detained when I was not being interrogated was located in the basement of this building. That room had the bars on the window, and there was a stench and smell of dogs. The cell was full of dog hair. On several occasions I heard barking of dogs and scratching on the doors the dog trying to enter my cell because obviously he was staying there before. For interrogation I was taken to a room on the first floor. All the walks out for interrogation were accompanied with the beating, threats of liquidation of both myself and my family. They threatened to bring me the cut off fingers or the head of my child. On one occasion they threatened to let a trained wolf dog on me so he would "interrogate" me. On the fourth day of my detention in this prison camp I heard the screams, shots, a commotion and a comment "Look at this Chetnick, for ten minutes he is refusing to die, but is moving". In this prison camp I remained until December 3, 1991".
I remember lieutenant colonel L. who was in block "C" and was then transferred into my block. He was beaten with the baseball bat all over the body. His ears and head were all swollen. Especially bestial treatment towards him had the drunken guards of the HVO when they would be returning from the city. I saw them forcing him to lick the WC floor and to eat the orange peels, and they were beating him mercilessly all the time. The reserve soldier Savic Vlado was beaten and tortured every day. Later I heard that he died and that he was buried right there, beside the prison camp.
I also remember one reserve soldier from Kragujevac who was arrested while wounded. He was beaten on the wounds and he succumbed to the injured inflicted. I have personally buried him close to the prison camp wire towards the sea. I took part in the burial of three Montenegrins who also died in the prison camp, but I do not know their names".
I was exchanged on August 14, 1992. In the group for exchange in which there should have been us six pilots, pilot Medic was not exchanged. I heard that he was returned from the exchange because his ears and nose were cut off. Later I heard from one Serb, who overheard by chance a conversation in a café of some Croat soldiers, that one of them was boasting that they had killed one pilot in the manner that they roasted him alive in Siroki Brijeg. I suppose that it was Medic because he was the only pilot who remained unexchanged".
During the first 15 days they were beating me every day several times and not only the guards, but also the soldiers who were coming from the outside and some civilians. During the night they were playing Ustashi songs and were kicking the cell doors so that we could not sleep. During those 15 days I lost 18 kilograms of body weight. After that they were beating me slightly less, because the prison camp physician draw their attention to the fact that they will kill me if they are to continue. Since then they were beating me on the good parts of my body where I did not have the injuries. During the beatings especially outstanding were the guards Botic Andjelko, Gudic Ante, Bungur Emilio and Sulimanovic Zoran called "Sule". During the visit of the International Red Cross delegation P.G. complained that he was eaten up and after that we were beaten even more. P. was beaten so much with the baseball bats that he was shaking all the time from the beating. After this they ordered us during the next visit of the International Red Cross to explain our bruises on the body by the fall from the bed or down the stairs, and not to mention any beatings. The hardest beating P. and myself received on May 1, 1992. Then Giljanovic came into our cell and he beat me up so much that I fell into a coma. The prison camp physician intervened who with great difficulty made me regain consciousness. That Giljanovic was coming often to the camp and was torturing the prisoners. He was enjoying torturing me in the courtyard so that he would step on my toes with his boots, the toes of my broken leg which were protruding from the plaster cast until all my toes would be bleeding.
They were also torturing me in different ways. On one occasion the guards Bungur Emilio and Botic Andjelko took me to Dujic’s office, where they placed the wires of the field telephone on the fingers and then they started turning the inductor which created electricity which caused me to suffer unbearable pain. They were placing wires on the sexual organs of some prisoners and would then let the electricity flow. They were piercing the ears of Z.B. and while letting the electricity he would start shaking and all his earlobes would be thorn. On two occasions the guards organized public torture with electricity in the prison camp courtyard and the initiator was Botic Andjelko. He would single out 10-12 prisoners and would order them to hold each other’s hands, the hands of the first and of the last one would be connected with the cable and would then let the electricity flow. If one of the prisoners would break the circle, he would be punished by beating or would be forced to carry another prisoner on his back and run in circles. This form of torture the guards were calling "dancing the kolo folk dance".
Other methods of torture were also applied. They would force us to slap each other’s faces and the guards would beat us up if they would think that our slapping was not hard enough. The outstanding in this torture was Dzevad Mekic called "Brzi" who was before the war an non-commissioned officer in the JNA and in the prison camp had the status of a prisoner, but quickly defected to the Croat side. The ones also harassing us were Gidic Dusko and Hodzic Resid who also had the status of prisoners. Whenever the guards would enter our cell we had to salute them with the Ustashi salute "For home, ready!". I was forced to recite the text that they gave me to memorize and which pertained to my personal identification, to which I had to add that I was the member of the Serbian Chetnick, Communist, aggressor army which is killing the innocent Croat and Muslim people, helpless old men, women and children. We were also forced to sing the Ustashi songs.
Some prisoners were forced to enter dog-houses and bark in there, and L. was forced to imitate a cat while the others would be barking at him. They forced P.G. to run with his outstretched arms and imitate an aircraft and I was to imitate with my crutches shooting at him as an anti-aircraft defense. When, in the opinion of the guards, I would shoot him down, P. had to fall down and then the guards would torture him and beat him up. They were taking us for a bath and under a very strong jet of water we were having insufferable pain because of the injuries inflicted by beating. Then they would force the prisoners to run for hours on end around the circle, to race each other by crawling on the concrete until their knees and elbows were all bloody, to collect garbage in the courtyard with their mouth and then swallow the garbage.
The prisoners were divided into three categories and their treatment was different. The best treatment had the simple soldiers who were serving their military conscription and the hardest one the volunteers. The worst treatment was towards us, the pilots. Towards the captured superior officers the torture was in the manner that they would order them to place each other’s sexual organ in the mouth and have homosexual intercourse with each other. I was interrogated for the first time only after one and a half month of detention in the prison camp, and even then I was not given any decree, and neither was I told what I was being charged with.
Amongst the prisoners especially tortured, that I wish to emphasize, was T.G. who looked like an old man after the torture. A.L. had his ears completely swollen from the beatings and they looked like two balls, and his head was cut in two places, they also forced him to eat his own beard which they previously shaved off him without any water. R.D. was beaten so many times that the buttock part of his right leg, the muscle tissue started to rot, so this part was surgically removed from him. P.M. had his jaw broken from the beating in three places and could not speak, and his arm was cut with a knife. Z.S. had his ribs broken and they pierces his pleura and was operated upon without any anesthetics. C.N. had his arm broken, L.J. and P.M. were kept stark naked for eight hours on end in the position on attention in the hottest sun, for as long as L. did not faint and both of them had sun burns.
I was exchanged on August 14, 1992".
We were sleeping on the floor six of us in the cell. Every day they would enter our cell and we would have to stand up and stand at attention and salute in the Fascist manner: with the right arm lifted and the salute: "For home, ready!". Then they would insult and humiliate us. They would hit us with batons all over the body, they would tie us up with the cuff-links to the bed. A special form of torture was forcing the prisoners to dance "the Serbian kolo dance" so that they would fix on some a wire to the fingers, and would force us to hold each other’s hand to form a circle, then they would let the electrical current which caused electric shocks so we were jumping like dancing kolo.
They would bring in their citizens to look at us and see "what the Chetnicks" look like, and there were people there who would spit on us and curse our Chetnick mother. The prison camp warden would wake us up at night forcing us to run for hours on end around the prison camp circle and to sing the Ustashi songs until we would faint from exhaustion. Once fallen down, they would beat us up. During the day they were taking us to dig the trenches and to perform other hard physical labor. They were also torturing us by not giving us any food for several days on end, and when we would receive some it was in very small quantities. We would be given some water only while we were working and never in the cells. During the visit of the representatives of the Red Cross we were given cigarettes and some other gifts. However, the prison camp staff immediately after the departure of the delegation would confiscated everything that we have received from the Red Cross".
In this prison camp all the time was coming a certain "Giljo" who was in a police uniform and who was beating me and the other prisoners in the office, in the cell and in the prison camp circle, using a baton. He was kicking me many times with the boots on the fingers and other parts of my body. From that I was very much swollen, and when asked by the guards of the cause for the swelling, I had to answer that "I have a tooth ache". I was not allowed to say the truth because then they would beat me again. They forced us to dig or cut the grass in the prison camp circle which was covered with mines and to perform other hard labor.
Prisoners were tortured with electricity. They would give us the telephone handle allegedly to phone our families and then they would let the electricity flow which would cause electric shocks. This was a specialty of the prison guard I think his name was Gudic. He was often joined by the sergeant major Mehic and captain Gidic. In this prison camp there were also their deserters of Croat nationality who were also allowed to torture us. They would take us out to the prison camp circle and would force us to run until we would fall. We were carrying each other, and the one who would fall down would be beaten with the baton over the back. We also had to sing the Ustashi songs and to salute in the Fascist fashion. For a certain time I was detained with the pilots of Serbian nationality who were tortured even more.
In the prison camp circle there was a dog-house and it used to happen that they would expel us from the cells into the circle and would order some prisoners to enter that dog-house and bark from there like dogs. Every second or third day drunken citizens would come to the camp and would beat us all with anything and everything: fists, feet, baseball bats and other objects. They were bathing us in such a way that they would line us up stark naked along the wall and would let on us a strong water jet under pressure, aimed at the area of our sexual organs which would cause very acute pain. Salute was obligatory with the raised hand and the shout "For home, ready!".
We were tortured by the prison warden Tomo and his wife. Torture was inflicted on all the prisoners. In the torture of us prisoners prison guards also took part. Certain Giljo and Gudic. We were also beaten by Mekic Dzevad. There were cases of faked executions by a firing squad. They would line up the prisoners along the wall and would point empty pistols. The foremost in this was the prison warden Tomo Dujic, guard Gudic, policeman Giljo, sergeant major Mehic and captain Gidic. Further to the prisoners of war in the prison camp were also detained the civilians – elderly men, women and children.
We were divided into several categories. I was in the block "A" where my soldiers were placed, pilots and reserve soldiers. In the block "C" there was an extremely cruel treatment because the volunteers were there and the reserve soldiers of the former JNA. Prisoners from this block were not shown to the representatives of the International Red Cross. When the team of the International Red Cross was coming, prisoners from the block "C" who were beaten the most would be hidden in special bunkers situated in front of the prison and close to the sea. We were shown to the Red Cross some twenty days after my arrival to this camp, but were not allowed to say that we were beaten in the prison camp, tortured and how inhuman our treatment was. The food was very bad. Most often we were given a slice of bread and a bit of jam for the entire day. There was no meat at all. The food was of poor quality and was given in small quantities. From such food during the first twenty days I could not have bowl movement. We did not have any medical care. In fact, we were not allowed to report and go to see a doctor because from the other prisoners we learnt that some who asked for medical examination were given beatings and were pierced with needles. In this prison camp I remained until August 14, 1992 when we were transferred to Kerestinac from where on August 16, 1992 we were taken for the exchange. From the consequences of the tortures I have impaired hearing".
We were placed in the cells of four persons each. In my cell was sergeant major Dzevad Mekic from Busovaca who joined the Croats and took part in the torture of prisoners, especially when they would make him drunk. Captain Dusko Gidic, a Serb, married to a Muslim lady, also joined the Croats and harassed the other prisoners, except the soldiers from our unit. Resid Hodzic, a soldier from our unit, was appointed the cook in prison, he was distributing food and being on good terms with the guards, also took part in the beating of the prisoners. Croats were trying to convince the other ones also to defect to their side with the threat that they will kill us the next time they catch us. Croat soldiers were entering our cell day and night, having black knitted mask-caps on their heads with the openings for eyes, nose and mouth. They had camouflage uniforms and some were in civilian suits.
We were sleeping on bare concrete floor and whenever a Croat would enter the cell we had to stand up and salute in the Fascist fashion: with the raised right arm and the shout: "For home, ready!". The prison warden was Tomo Dujic from Travnik and he was beating the prisoners with the rubber baton and the stick. His deputy was Tonci Vrkic who was even worse than him. He was beating the prisoners until they would faint, and especially after 22::00 hours in the evening. Through the walls we could hear the screams of the beaten prisoners. At times that would happen also during the day. I was mostly beaten by Gudic Ante, I think he is from Split, a tall and skinny man. He was slapping my face, cursing and threatening me in many ways. They used various types of torture, and the prisoners were also tortured with electricity.
They were bringing into this prison camp also the persons from the other prisons telling them that they will be exchanged, while in fact they were beating them up and shifting them from one prison to the other. The food was very bad. At times we would not be given any food, and what we wold get were the leftovers from the Croat army. During my detention in this prison camp we were visited 4-5 times by the representatives of the International Red Cross. Prior to their arrival Croats would clean up the prison camp because they knew in advance when the visit will take place. Members of the Red Cross did not visit the block "C" and it was the worst".
I have forgotten the names of these people who were torturing me but I can still see their faces every night in my nightmares. I know that some of them were from Herzegovina. While I was detained in "Lora" many things were happening to me. I can not describe those tortures to any one. I succeeded in escaping from the camp by asking one night to go to the toilet and when the guard took me out I succeeded in jumping over the wall and swimming up to the UNPROFOR unit, which took a deposition from me and then returned me to "Lora" again. Then it became unimportant for me whether they will kill me or not. In "Lora" from 85 kilograms I came down to 37 kilograms. I was psychologically completely destroyed".
19) Witness 124/96, captured as a soldier of the former JNA near Karlovac in August (or September) 1991, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "After three months I was transferred during the night from Karlovac to Split, to the prison camp "Lora". I was detained there in a basement for a total of 38 days. Every day I was exposed to beating and torture. I know personally many of the guards who were beating me, because they were mostly the Croats from Ogulin and Gospic in whose houses I was myself installing the wooden wall lining. They were beating me in this prison in the manner that five or six of them would enter the room in which I was detained, and would beat me with fists, boots, riffle butts, baseball bats and women’s nylon stockings filled with sand.
They did not take me out of this basement at all, except to go to the toilet, and regarding the conditions of living, they were the same as in Karlovac. From the beatings inflicted on me I was fainting several times".
20)Witness 84/98-5, soldier of the Republic of Srpska, captured in Glamoc battle front on July 28, 1995, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In "Lora" we were placed in prison cells but for a very short time. During all the time of my imprisonment I was exposed to terrible beatings and torture and even today I feel the consequences. I have fractured ribs on the right side and I feel pain in my chest, in the back and head. My eye sight is impaired from the hits on the head and I have often blood in my stools".
21) Witness 548/96-5, mother of the solider in the military police of Mostar, who in the company of Colonel Tomo Pusara was arrested, missing in armed operations, but also seen in the prison camp "Lora", states the following: "During the year 1993 P.I., a teacher from the vicinity of Foca, was telling me that he was captured and that for a certain time who was detained in the prison camp "Lora" in Split, and that over there he saw my son in June 1992.
When P. was exchanged I learnt that in the meantime his wife and children have been killed. Until now I was addressing all the possible organizations through which I was expecting to learn something about my son, but I have never received any reply, so that I do not know anything, although I believe that he is still alive. Later on the body of Colonel Pusara was delivered, which was found in the place where they were attacked, but the body of my son was not exchanged so I still believe that he is alive".
22)Witness 288/94-9, captured on April 24, 1992 as a reserve soldier of the JNA by the HVO in Mostar, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In August or September 1992, I can not remember exactly, I was completely exhausted and from 90 kilograms of body weight came down to 43 kilograms, with a group of prisoners was transferred to the former military investigative prison "Lora" in Split, allegedly for some recuperation. However, the torture was continued there just like in Ljubusko. They were beating me with batons, cables, fists, boots and most often were torturing me with the electricity letting it pass through my body by fixing the cables on my earlobes and genitals. I know that they were piercing the ears of some prisoners and were inserting the cables there. The electricity was circulated of different intensity, its intensity adjusted by the inductor telephone. I was given food every fifth day, while some of the other prisoners were receiving it more often, and some of them only every eighth day. In "Lora" I remained for some 10-15 days. I know that myself and the other prisoners were tortured by Tomo Dujic, warden of the prison, then by the guards called "Dugi", "Tonci" and the others that I do not remember their names. Then I was returned from "Lora" to Ljubusko".
23)Witness 445/94-27, captured on May 27, 1992 as a reserve soldier in the JNA in Velja Medja, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Upon our arrival to "Lora" we were lined up facing the wall and with our hands above our heads and then we were all systematically beaten up. After the beating they searched us, but they did not take anything away because everything that we had was already previously confiscated, except that they took away my military booklet. Then they cut our hair and they were beating us during all that time. They took me immediately into some room and connected me on to the inductor telephone and let the electricity pass through me, connecting the wires on the hands, ears and nose. While I was in spasms from the pain and shaken by the electricity, they were pushing the pistol barrel down my throat, threatening to kill me. When they were pushing the pistol barrel down my throat they broke a toot on the right side of my upper jaw.
After the torture that day they placed us in cells, and I was placed in the cell number three in the block "A". During all the time of my detention in the prison camp "Lora" they were beating us continuously, and it is impossible to describe all this in some order. They were beating us also in the manner that they would enter our cell and beat us, then they would take us out individually and beat us in front of the cell in the corridor, or would take us outside and beat us there. They were taking off all of our clothes and were beating us stark naked. I was certainly being taken out every day and every night for three or even four times for the beating, and together with me they were beating the pilot P. While they were beating me they were asking me where is my Sloba, will he not help me, etc.
Most often they would beat me with the baseball bat which is heavy so that after every two or three hits I would faint, and they would pour water over me and would continue to beat me. Further to the men, we were also beaten by a woman, allegedly from the police force, a brown haired, skinny, young, with a mini-skirt and once she threw a bit of bread then asking me to look for it with my face on the concrete and look for the grain until I find it. This took about an hour and a half and I did not find that bread crumb, and she was all the time hitting me with the bat on the ribs and other parts of the body, she was spitting on me, insulting and cursing me.
They were taking me several times to a real bathroom with the WC and were beating me over there until I would fall, and then would pour the water over me and would continue with the beating. I remember well that they took me to that WC one night at some 3 hours in the morning, saying that they learnt that I was a commander in the army and they were beating me because of that. Further to the everyday beatings, they were also torturing us by forcing us to run for hours on end and to carry each other on our backs, and to run in the circle and imitate an aircraft flying, to imitate a dog and a cat, and were inventing many other things, beating us all the time. For hours on end we would be forced to sing the Ustashi songs and the songs insulting the Serbs.
They were forcing us to look continuously up at the sun for an hour or two and we would loose the eyesight from that, and we would stand for hours in the sun and they would force us to drink salty water or something else that would increase our sufferings and would destroy our already very frail bodies. In "Lora" food was very bad and it used to happen that for days on end they would not give us anything to eat. We did not have any hygiene except for them pouring water over us several times with the fire extinguishing hose, returning us wet to the cells. We could not go to the WC when we wanted and it used to happen that for a long time they would not allow us to use the WC, which was very tedious.
From "Lora" all tied up they took us in a refrigerating truck to Kerestinac".
24)Witness 499/95-2, soldier serving his military conscription was arrested in April 1992 in Gabela, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Immediately upon my arrival to "Lora" after the night spent in the cells in which we were placed six in each, without any food or water we were sleeping on bare concrete with only one blanket, when the morning came our sufferings started. That morning we were lined up in the courtyard of this prison where the prison warden called us out individually for interrogation. They were also forcing us to work in the barracks on all sorts of jobs. We were cleaning the corridors, washing the cars, attending to the grass. When Tomo Dujic called me he asked me what am I doing in Bosnia because I am a Serb, and whether my father was with the Chetnicks, telling me that all of us Serbs should be killed and on that occasion he hit me two times with the fist into the stomach. Immediately after that, without any reason, he pulled out a pistol, started it and placed it in my mouth saying that he will now kill me. On that occasion he hurt me with the pistol because he cut my lips and the blood was pouring. He was keeping me in suspense for five minutes and then ordered me to return to work. I heard from the other soldiers that warden Dujic is the most cruel man in the entire prison camp and that he is personally torturing and beating prisoners, and I also heard that many of them were killed in the prison and that Dujic took part in many of these killings. I was told this by the reserve soldiers who were detained in the camp.
After one month of detention in "Lora" the JNA pilots were brought and they were P.G., major H.M., captain D. and lieutenant colonel Dj. I can say that during the arrival of these pilots I noticed because by passing through the prison corridors I could see them through the bars on the doors, that they were in a very poor state. They were beaten and tortured, and pilot P. had his ribs broken, which he confirmed to me later. He was especially beaten and tortured. They were doing it in such a way that they would connect the installation of a field telephone inductor on to the ears, hands of a prisoner and then they would let the electrical current flow. After such torture he would faint. I could heard every day from my cell the screams coming from the office or "the room for interrogation" of the warden Dujic as the consequence of the electric shocks and beatings. After such tortures pilot P. had to go, or better was taken to the hospital because he probably had serious injuries. We were continuing to do all the work in the prison camp circle and were on the regime of very poor and scarce food.
They were beating the most the reserve soldiers and those arrested at the Trebinje battle front and the pilots. I was seeing with my own eyes when in the circle of the prison camp they were beating with batons, baseball bats the prisoners for as long as they would be giving any signs of life. I can especially say that the captured JNA officers were forced to run around the circle and that the military policemen were shooting from the pistol close to them. I also heard that the reserve soldiers during the night, after the beating, were taken out by the guards for alleged execution by a firing squad, and would afterwards be returned again to the cells and beaten up.
In the prison camp "Lora" I was detained until August 12, 1992 when we were transferred by buses to Zagreb".
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27) Witness 164/95-1, a lieutenant colonel in the former JNA, arrested on June 16, 1992, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we were brought to the main building of the naval center which I recognized because earlier the military naval academy was stationed there, we were lined up and the person standing at the head of the line told us: "Well, now you are in a Ustashi state. Here the authorities are the Ustashi ones although we all belong to the Croat Army, but we are mostly of the Ustashi orientation and we are 80% of us of a rightist orientation". Then they would come, some five or six of them, and they would start to beat us. They kicked us with boots, fists, they kicked us for as long as the "main officer" did not come who said that we were in the state of Ante Pavelic. After him some dozen men in uniforms came and they started to beat us also. They were beating us with everything, and then they were throwing us down the stairs, some thirty stairs there were, and then they would order us to come up again and would kick us some more, and again would throw us down the same staircase. Then they would order us to line up against the wall and to take off all of our clothes.
We would be ordered then to raise our hand up in the air and they told us that the one to let any sound would be slaughtered, and then the torture started. They were beating us all through the night and then the dawn came and the sun was coming up, they were kicking us with boots, with fists, with wooden sticks. The blows were very cruel so we had almost all of us fainted. After one hour of the beating they brought about the water jet and under strong water pressure from that jet they started pouring water over us for about half an hour, and then they ordered us to dress up. We dressed up and since I was the first one on the right side, the guard asked me whether I was the colonel L. I said that I am, but not a colonel only a lieutenant colonel. He then cursed my mother and told me that I got my rank from the Chetnicks and then they started beating me and calling me "Puki". They asked me where my wife was. I told them that she was in Zagreb and they asked me whether I would like to phone her, so they took me to a small house and I saw the telephone M 63, a field telephone. They fixed a cable on my finger, and another cable on another finger, and then they started dialing the telephone. The electricity started hitting me, up to my brain, they were doing this for some fifteen minutes and with horrible pain I fainted. This induced electricity produced by the field telephone can act on a man in the manner destroying his brain, destroying his nervous system. Even now I have the scars on the fingers as the effects from the torture by electricity.
Afterwards they placed five of us in one cell in which we had spent the entire day. At some 14:00 hours on that day they came and opened the door of the cell. They asked us to go out and since we were requesting to be given some water they gave us some dirty canister to drink water from it, and they did not even allow us to wash that canister. The water from that canister lasted us for three days, and we were drinking it in the cell. They left us alone for about half of the night. But after midnight four of them came and asked us to go out into the corridor. There they beat us up for about an hour. They were beating us with the batons, with some iron objects, baseball bats hitting us on the head, on the legs, fingers and stomach, and with some wooden objects they were hitting us on the spine, then they would turn us up front and from the run would hit us with the boots in the lungs. I counted 170 kicks that I received and I almost fainted when they returned us again to the cell in which I could not even sleep. I know very well that I did not sleep properly for two months. I lost my sleep, I lost any feeling for food. I could not eat anything. I was only thirsty and was drinking the water all the time from that dirty canister. I think that daily I was losing about half a kilogram of body weight. I felt myself slowly disappearing, melting away. When I came to the prison I had 86 kilograms, and I lost there some 30 kilograms of body weight.
On the next day, at some 11:00 hours they opened the cell door again. Four of them came in. The one who came after them gave us one piece of bread each. We were hungry so we ate it. They did not touch us until 19.-20:00 hours. Then they opened the cell door and we saw a mass of them in the corridor. I saw three in the black suits. They told us that the main commanding officer has come to visit us, the Ustashi grand-son of Ante Pavelic. I saw that he was having on his cap the Ustashi flag, Croat coat—of-arms and over the coat-of-arms the letter "U". All of those belonging to the HOS were wearing the coat-of-arms with the letter "U" and the black suits. They told us that they are all acting together and that they re all having one and the same target, as they were saying, to create the Croat state and the Croat regime. After this story, the beating started. They were beating us for two hours. There is no object that they did not use to beat us with, and then we were returned to the cells, and for the entire month we would be getting every day our portion of the beating, and that would happen even 14 times during one single day, but certainly in an average during the time of my imprisonment in "Lora" we were beaten 9-10 times per day. They were doing all this while giving us only one meal per day, a bit of bread in the morning, and sometimes they would give, sometimes they would not.
In the beginning they would starve us out for three days on end. They would not give us any food, and after three days they would bring some food, three meals, sometimes two meals, and it would all depend on the people who were on guard duty estimating themselves whether we should eat or not. Later on we understood that the worst block was the block "C" and we felt this on our own skin because everyone was coming there to beat us. Members of different armies were coming over there to beat us up, civilians also, there were persons in the HOS uniforms, HVO, their policemen and there were rumors among prisoners that in this block four persons died from the beatings. In the block "C" further to the men coming to beat us, were also coming the women. I remember one night when five, six women from Mostar came, cursing me that I destroyed their house, that I destroyed their families, and then the women started to beat me, terrible blows with the women’s high heels. They were hitting me with high heels for about one hour and I can say that the flanks are terribly painful from the blows of the women’s high heels. Then these women, all of them the smokers, were extinguishing their cigarettes throwing them into my boots. In the cell I counted 40 lighted cigarettes which were in my boots, and all my legs were burnt out with the terrible blisters.
Afterwards, they were hitting me with the batons from the feet upwards, towards the head, and the batons were made with a lot of iron, then they were plugging the field telephone on me and after the torture with the inductor current they were taking me back to my cell. In the cells of the block "C" I remained for some one month. After the intervention of one man from the security forces in Metkovic, I was transferred to the block "B". The accommodation was better there than in the block "C", but the methods of torture were here the same. Every day there were beatings, every night the beatings, but the difference was that at least here we were given food to eat. In this block we did no hard labor, we were only eating and staying in our cells awaiting them to come and to beat us up. I remained there for seven days. We were six in one cell. I remember well one man with moustaches called Tonci Giljanovic. He was forcing me to confess that I was throwing the live Croat and Muslim children in Mostar into the concrete mixing machine. I could not confess to any such thing, and he gave me fifty hits on both legs with his own feet clad in boots and from the kicks my legs were swollen and blue, both legs. I had terrible wounds on my legs and I am still today having the scars. After this torture they called me "the concrete mixer’ because they were charging me with killing the children in the concrete mixing machine. After block "B" I was returned again to the block "C".
One nights in the block "C" four guards arrived, and told me that they were given some other assignment and asked me to spend some time with them. They were beating me for the entire hour, I do not know any more what they were beating me with, and finally they let again the induced current, and were turning the telephone for some half hour so I almost fainted from the pain. Then they took me back to the cell. After this shift of the guards, a new shift came and it was more lenient than the previous one. They were beating us two or three times per day and once during the night. I remember that once I was taken for interrogation by the warden Tomo Dujic. He was asking me to give the information as to how many tanks and what weaponry had the unit in which I was stationed, and then he opened some kind of a safe, plugged the machine into the electric current of 220 V. He tied one wire on one of my ears and the other one on the other ear. He pressed the button and there was a storm in my head. It was a terrible thing. He was keeping me like that for some five minutes and I could see in front of my eyes only two colors – the black and the white. Then he continued to interrogate me how many tanks do we have and at the end when he was satisfied with some random number which I said, he told me that he will not torture me any more, but that I am to pay today.
The warden Tomo Dujic took me out into the prison camp circle together with captain P.M. at 09:00 hours in the morning in the hot sun and on the boiling hot asphalt, he took off all of our clothes and kept us in the sun for full 18 hours. He was holding us like that until the sundown. During that time we were practically burnt out, perhaps twice we were sprinkled with some water and he gave us to drink one liter of water with the salt added to it and we were forced to drink that salty water. In that sun we were inflicted with the burns of the second degree. I remember that I succeeded in putting some clothes on when the sun came down, and then the warden Tomo Dujic ordered me to take the pick and to go dig something. I know that I walked for some 15 meters and then I fainted. The next day, at dawn, when I came back to my senses, I was wrapped up in a white sheet and I heard the guards discussing whether I was still alive or not. They were afraid that I died because two days earlier the International Red Cross had recorded us as prisoners, and I gave them the card with my personal identification and the number under which we were recorded. I did not succeed in bring out with me this card so I do not know under which number I was recorded.
When they saw that I was still alive, the next day they took that captain and myself to the hospital. While we were waiting in the hospital for the doctors, everybody passing by was beating us, some with their hands, some with their feet. The doctors were of the view that my state is poor and I remained for five days in the hospital, where I had an operation on the chest done by the surgeon Stambuk Vlado. After the operation I remained for five days and during that time the attitude of the doctors and medical staff was rather correct. After a few days I was returned again to the "Lora" prison camp. Since I was in a hospital uniform they did not beat me for an entire week, but the next week they started beating me again two or three time per day, and at some 23:00 hours at night everybody was beaten up. They spared me the hits in the area of the chest and were beating me on the flanks and the stomach. I remember during that week the visit of four guards who asked me if I have some family, and when I told them that I have two daughters, they told me that they will give me such a treatment that I will never again in my life have any sexual desires. They turned me towards the wall and asked me whether I know from where the sperm is coming out. When I told them that I did not know, they told me that it is coming out of the spine and that I will not be having any spine any longer. They continued to beat me with the batons along the flanks and buttocks. I suffered 150 blows and they told me that I have to endure 300 blows and that after that I will never have an intercourse with a woman. They were hitting me until they counted 300 blows, and then they blindfolded me with a scarf, I had to spread my legs and they started hitting me with the batons on my legs, on the chest, on the stomach, and then on the sexual organ. After four blows on the sexual organ I fainted. I lost consciousness and so lost they threw me into the cell. For the entire night I could neither turn left nor right and was in terrible pain. Four guards who were beating me were all employed in the prison camp and they were Gudic Ivica, Hodzic Resid, Sulejmanovic Zlatko and the guard named Ivica from the village of Skrbinja near Zadar, I think that his family name is Ivkovic.
Especially in the "Lora" prison camp I remember Dozer Zoran. He was, together with a sergeant, a Muslim, the specialist for hits on the head, especially on the ears. On one occasion he was beating me on the ears, mostly with the hands flat on the ears and from those hits my head was swollen, my ears were full of blood and after this torture I finished in the hospital where I had an operation on both ears, and my head was wrapped for several days in white bandages, which saved me in the camp from further beatings on the head.
After this, in a day or two, that sergeant, a Muslim, was forcing me to hold my head in the WC bowl for an entire half an hour, and my head was immersed in the human feces. Further to everything that they were doing to us in the prison camp "Lora" they were doing some other things as well. I remember that they were forcing the prisoners to have a sexual intercourse with each other, to lick the anus of each other and the sexual organs, they were terrible things, things that are killing all that is human in a man. I was seeing with my own eyes the other prisoners having bottles forced up their anus and batons as well. We were forced every day to drink water from the bottles with the cigarette buts inside, I was forced to drink the urine, and the other were forced to eat their own cut off hair, their shaved beard and feces. We had to march in the legionnaire fashion with such a step until we would faint from exhaustion, and all that time we had to sing their Ustashi songs, we had to bark, growl, they were forcing us into the dog-houses. We had to slap each other’s faces until we would faint. I saw them hang one Montenegrins in the cell until he fainted, I saw they forcing the other prisoners to hit the wall with their heads stronger and stronger until they would faint. They took me once, together with another three prisoners, for the execution by a firing squad. Seven of them shot at us using the maneuvering ammunition. I would like to forget everything that I endured in the "Lora" prison camp, but it is engraved in my mind and certainly I shall never be able to forget such terrible torture".
28) Witness 445/94-42 was captured as the member of the former JNA on April 11, 1992 in the area of the municipality of Stolac, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "From the beatings inflicted upon me in the prison camp "Lora" I still have scars on the back, because those wounds got infected so that the shirt was stuck on my back, and I had nothing to bandage them with. Those wounds were giving a terrible odor and before the arrival of the Red Cross commission they took me to some hospital for treatment, I do not know the name of the hospital. They actually presented me to the Red Cross only one month after I arrived to the prison camp, although this commission was coming before, but they did not show me to them. In fact they were taking us away before the arrival of the Red Cross into some other premises and were hiding us over there.
One day the prison warden Tomo Dujic came to our cell during the night. He was drunk and he brought another three persons with him. He ordered us to take off all of our clothes and then ordered us to suck each other’s sexual organ. Then he took out of our cell V.D. and ordered him to lie down on the ground and he urinated over him, then took out the pistol and fired beside the man".
29) Witness 67/94, captured as a reserve soldier of the former JNA on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "First they search us naked, interrogated for a short time, and then they lined us against the wall so that we were touching the wall with the nose and toes while holding the hands up in the air, and then one policeman by the name of Andjelko Botic with the baton would hit us on the head and down to the waist, and the other one, named Gudic, from the waist down. They were hitting us in a very cruel manner so that they broke two batons, and one was broken on me. When the two of them became exhausted, another one would join them, and he was a fat, dark policeman and he would continue hitting us and stepping on us with his boots. They would let the music play very loud in order to hide our screams, but in spite of this the whole building was echoing with our screams because the pain was terrible. They were all dressed in the Ustashi uniforms bearing the Ustashi insignia. That is how the torture in the prison camp "Lora" started and was continued every day because the beatings, torture and harassment were happening at all times of both the day and the night.
They would take us out one by one and would beat us up, the civilians from the town would be coming without any control and with the approval of the guards and they were also beating us mercilessly with everything and anything The guards were torturing us in such a manner that we had to make in only one minute 60 proper push-ups, and if someone would make a mistake he would be hit on the back often with the baseball bats, and the push-ups had to be started from the beginning. They would force us to run around the circle singing the Ustashi songs at the temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, until we would almost faint and then they would take off all our clothing and with the fire extinguishing hose diameter 110 mm would pour the water over us and it was very painful because our bodies were entirely covered with wounds and blisters, and they would throw us naked in the cells which were cold and drafty.
Sometimes we would not be given any food for five days on end, and what they would bring was terrible. They would not give us any water, only the beating and torture were every day on the menu. They were forcing us to enter the dog-houses and to bark, and they would tie us up. They were often beating us in the WC and we had to lean on our hands against the wall with the spread legs as far from the wall as possible and in that inclined position they were hitting us with the baseball bats until we would faint and then they would pour the water from the bucket and as soon as we would recover we had to jump on our feet. If we would fail to do that, they would kick us with the boots until we would faint again. After such tortures the WC would all be covered with blood and then we would be forced to eat such coagulated blood. If on the way to our cells even a drop of blood would fall from one of us, he had to return and lick the blood off the floor. They were often bringing in the women from the city who were insulting and beating us. I remember one woman who had the custom to fire a round of fire close to the ear itself or to fire a round of ammunition directly at us without hitting us, but aiming at the immediate range.
On the eighth day of my arrival to "Lora" we were registered by the International Red Cross, and previously they lined us up and warned us that we must not complain that we are tortured, and for the bruises to say that we fell off the bed and similar, or that we shall disappear in the worst possible pain, so no one dared say the truth to those from the Red Cross. I was inflicted during the imprisonment with the injuries in the form of fracture of 9 ribs and these injuries were inflicted on me by Ante Gudic with boots and with baseball bats, and I also had an injury to my right arm and the elbow joint, I also have scars all over my body, I suffer from headaches all the time, and a psychological and physical syndrome was diagnosed and I was proclaimed a permanent invalid with the 60% percent incapacitation".
30) Witness 445/94-3, captured as a reserve soldier of the former JNA in the vicinity of Trebinje on May 27, 1992, about his imprisonment in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we came to "Lora" they lined us up in the prison camp circle, we had to take off all of our clothes and they searched us and took away all of our documents and recorded our data. They asked me here again for whom did I vote, and when I said it was for the SDS, after they searched us all, they started beating us one by one, asking every one for whom did he vote. I noticed that many were now saying a different thing than before to avoid the beating, but no one was saved, because regardless of the answer, they were all beaten up. They also asked me for whom did I vote and I again said as before, because I thought that they have the information from Metkovic. However, regardless of my sincerity they beat me up very much and it was the worst beating that I received. When we arrived here it was the shift in which were Ante (without any front teeth), Mali Andjelko, because he was small and they all beat us up.
After my statement that I voted for the SDS, Mali Andjelko singled me out from the others, took me to one vessel and ordered me to wash the stockings. I was washing the stockings, and he was hitting me with full force on the elbows and especially on the back and kidneys and under the neck and was also hitting me with the boots on the chest and ribs, and he had strong marine boots one which are well known as the coarsest and strongest footwear in the army. When they beat us up they placed us in one cell, me with another six men. The other prisoners were placed in two rooms. These cells were in the block "A". In this cell there were beds one above the other, but there were six beds and two men had to sleep in the same bed.
In "Lora" there were four shifts of the guards and in every shift there were three guards working 8 hours per day, and the fourth shift would be resting. When a new shift came they took us all outside, took off all our clothes and told us that they will give us a bath. Then they started pouring over us the water from two strong fire extinguishing jets, I think that the water pressure was at least 8 atmospheres. The jets were so strong that they would push us down. They were giving us some soap and we had a bath, and then we had to put on our wet uniforms and were returned to our cells. During our detention here the food was very poor, water was insufficient, and with all our other troubles, it was making our position very difficult and was a great detriment to our health. During the last six days we were given only 2 cans of liver paste of 100 grams, two jam cans of 50 grams, 4 cedevita candies and 12 boxes of 'petite beure' biscuits, and that was all for all of us for the entire six days.
They were torturing us here in different ways and I shall enumerate only the most important ones, because it is impossible to describe them all, and everything was aimed at ruining our health, everything human in us and to disable us for our entire lives never again to be men and to be able to live our normal lives. They would force us for hours on end to sing the songs praising the Ustashi, and whoever would refuse to sing would be beaten. We would be doing gymnastics in the way that we had to run and carry each other on our backs, and I remember well on one such occasion that I was carrying on my back for the entire four hours a pilot P., and he was complaining that he can not hold me around the neck because he was all beaten us and exhausted. I think that at that time he did not have more than 30 kilograms of body weight. In such occasions we would usually exchange places, and when his turn came to come down and for me to ride on his back, he could not do it, and Andjelko, whose shift was then on duty, said: "You cook, you go on", so I was carrying him all the time.
We were forced to dig the trenches, to dig the grass in the garden, in the courtyard and to perform other work, to scrub the corridors, and during all that time they were beating us. They were often, in the situations like that, interrogating me about Trebinje and certain people in this town. I remember well on one occasion when they forced me in the WC to push with my hands two WC bowls, and in this position down they were beating me with their feet and batons, especially Ante and Andjelko, until I fainted, so I do not know what they were doing to me afterwards, because I came to my senses only when I was back in the cell with the other prisoners.
Especially cruel was the warden Tomo because he was personally torturing the prisoners in different ways, and especially was beating them with the baseball bat. I heard that he was connecting some prisoners to the electricity, and on one occasion when I was interrogated by him he was connecting some wires to my ears and was letting the electrical current run so I experienced several successive electric shocks".
31) Witness 481/95, a soldier serving his regular military service in the JNA, was captured on April 20, 1992 and about his imprisonment in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Then we were taken to the prison camp "Lora" where I have spent one month in the block "B". In this block were detained the soldiers who were registered with the Red Cross and the pilots. Further to this block there was also a block "C" where the soldiers and other persons were detained who were not registered with the Red Cross. All of us were subjected to various types of torture and harassment, but in view of the fact that I was placed in the block "B" these tortures were rather bearable because the Red Cross had us on their records. Conversely, the persons detained in block "C" were tortured in various ways and cruelly harassed because there was no record about them at all.
In the prison camp "Lora" we were all placed in cells and usually there were six of us in one cell. Every day we were beaten by the soldiers and civilians, both with fists, boots, various batons and baseball bats. We were given some food and water, but not regularly, and everything was in minimal quantities just for bare survival".
32) Witness 67/94-4, captured as a reserve soldier in the former JNA on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In the prison camp "Lora" we were placed in the block "A" and immediately upon admission they started to beat us and that is what was happening throughout our detention in this prison . There were various manners of our torture. Further to the beatings which were happening every day, they were also torturing us in different manners. Thus they would give us often a bath by taking off all of our clothes and under pressure pouring over us water from the fire extinguishing hoses which was very painful because we were all very much beaten up previously. They would force us to run incessantly for 2 or 3 hours and then we had to carry each other on our backs, and if someone would stop running or would fall down, he would be especially beaten up.
In the building the guard would take us prisoners very often to the WC and would order us to hold the urinal with our hands and bend our bodies, and then would hit us with all the force with the baseball bat on the body. Such torture, beatings and humiliation were taking place every day, but as far as I could notice they were avoiding to hit us on the head or face in order not to leave any traces. I did not visit the block "C" but I heard of its existence because every day during all day long and during the night from that block we could hear the screams and the beatings.
The food was terrible and scarce so that we all lost from 15 to 20 kilogram of body weight".
33) Witness 67/94-5, captured on May 30, 1992 as a member of the JNA in the municipality of Trebinje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When they took me to the block "C" I was barely giving any signs of life. In the morning they took me out and forced me to have a dry shave and then the interrogation started. In fact it was not an interrogation at all, but their bestiality. They were kicking me with boots, riffle butts, fists, batons, and were torturing me with electricity by connecting the cables of the inductor telephone on my thumbs and then ears, and then they would turn on the handle of the telephone, and after such torture would return me to the cell in which there was no bed but I only had one blanket and the floor was made of tiles. Regarding the guards in the prison camp we could not say who was the worst and who was hitting us and abusing us more.
They were beating me every day and all day long. Tonci was bringing in some women and was giving them the baton to hit me with, and after every blow I had to say: "Thank you, madam, please come again". They would take me out into the courtyard circle where for two or three hours the prisoners had to slap each others faces, and if in their opinion the slaps were not hard enough, the prisoners would receive extra beating. They would force us to enter dog-houses and bark, to bite each other and if the bites were not hard enough to let the blood flow, they would hit us again and again.
There were criminal charges filed against me before the military tribunal in Split for the alleged killing of some old women in Kojev Do and that trial was not completed. But the existence of that trial was used for new tortures and endless amount of times they would take me out of my cell for execution by a firing squad. They would read me the verdict with my particulars, and in the verdict it was stated that I am sentenced to death by a firing squad for the crime of genocide. Then the firing squad would open fire but with the blanks and they would order me to pretend that I am dead and would cover me with a blanket.
Especially outstanding in this type of torture was Gudic who was, among other things, forcing us prisoners to place a sexual organ in the mouth of the other prisoners. He was forcing us all day long to "pick grapes"’ in the courtyard circle, i.e. to behave as if we were picking grapes, to crawl between chairs, they would bring the civilians from the city who were also beating and torturing us, they were bathing us with the fire extinguishing water jets during the night. In summer during the greatest heat they would force us to lie down naked on the concrete and our bodies would be all covered with blisters. We had to sing the Ustashi songs, they were giving us some weights to carry them around the circle, and at night would wake us up every now and then and would beat us up. The food was very poor and given were rarely, and it also used to happen that the guard would throw the food in the garbage and would not give us any".
34) Witness 67/94-2, member of the Territorial Defense, captured near Stolac on May 13, 1992 about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In this prison camp I was placed in the block "C". It is hard to describe what they did to us while we were detained in this prison camp. The International Red Cross came to visit us and recorded us only in mid-June when we were transferred to a normal pavilion, which was an enormous progress for us, because over there we were given food, there were beds, and the beating was not taking place every day. Regarding block "C" we were tortured over there every day and without any pause during the day and at night. I do not know who was entering there and was beating us. Civilians were coming, women from the town and were beating us with the batons, with feet, with everything. We were tortured by the guards in special ways and the worst one was the torture with electricity by aid of an inductor telephone when the wires would be tied to our ears.
Even the imprisoned Croats would be coming, the criminals who were serving their sentences in a regular penitentiary building, and they would bring them over to beat us. During the imprisonment I was inflicted with the injuries of the femur bone from the boot kicks, I have an enormous injury on my back, I had an operation because there was an infection of the tissue under the wound. My ribs were broken".
35) Witness 67/94-6, member of the reserve units of the former JNA captured on May 26, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When they brought us to the military barracks "Lora" they lined us up and immediately they started with hitting us with the batons endlessly, and as soon as some one would fall they would go up to him and kick him with the boots for as long as he does not stand up. So beaten up they placed us in the building "B" in the cells where I found two pilots, A.G. and G., I do not know his family name. They were beaten up and G. had his ribs broken. They were especially beaten and always there would be someone coming to beat them up, probably because they were pilots.
There were various and incredible methods with which they were torturing us. Simple beating with anything and everything, with batons, baseball bats, fists, boots was happening every day, i.e. every minute, at all times of day and night. Anyone was free to enter our cells and to hit us as much as he liked and could. Soldiers were coming from the battle front, civilians were coming from the city, girls, they were doing anything that they wanted, they were doing all the bestialities like the most blood-thirsty animals. They also had some other methods, so during the first days of imprisonment one evening we were running for 4 hours on end without stopping in the circle, afterwards they took off all our clothes and with the water jet from the hydrant they poured water over us which was extremely painful in view of the injuries inflicted previously upon us, and then they would force us back to the cells which were drafty. They would throw a piece of bread in the circle forcing us to fight on all four like dogs over it, they were forcing us to enter the dog-house and to bark, they were extinguishing cigarettes on our bodies, plugging our bodies to the inductor telephone. We were forced to carry each other and to run and to slap each other’s faces, and if some one was unable to do so, he would be extra beaten until he fainted.
They were forcing us to sing the Ustashi songs, they were taking us out for execution, one by one, and the one over whose head the shots were fired in the air had to fall down as if dead, and when the other one was taken out he would think that the execution was real. What kind of torture I have endured can best be seen from the fact that during the first 15 days of detention from 115 kilograms I came down to 80 kilograms and I was, as all the others, all blue from the bruises from head to toe".
36) Witness 445/94-34, captured as the member of the Herzegovina Corps, on September 12, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, about his imprisonment in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "After having spent some time in the hospital, they took me out and in some park gave me a beating and then they took me to "Lora" and placed me in the block "C". They isolated me in the solitary where I remained for three months. While I was detained there they were beating me up in the solitary, in the corridor in front of the solitary cell and outside, they were connecting me to the current several times, they were bringing also some women to beat me up and they were beating me with the batons, they did not give me any food or drink for a long time, so that they broke me down. While they were taking others outside for work, they were keeping me in the cell and were beating me up".
37) Witness 445/94-28, as a reserve soldier of the former JNA captured on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Upon our arrival in "Lora" they took us all out, lined us against the wall and systematically beat us up. Further to the guards there was also a large number of civilians there so they were beating us up together with the guards. After the beating, they searched up and took away what was left after the search in Metkovic and they took away our money and the watches, they confiscate from me the Swiss currency and a considerable amount of dinars, I think in the value of some 100 DEM. Then they shaved our heads off, and some had a bath and I was among them. Immediately afterwards they took us to a room. There I saw N.P. who was standing blindfolded and the two of them told me to take off the blindfold from his eyes, and when I started doing it, they began beating me with boots, fists, batons and everything else in their reach so I fainted several times, and they would pour some water over my feet to revive me, and were mostly beating me on the chest and the legs. After the beating we were forced to run in a circle and they were beating us there again, and were forcing us to sing the Ustashi songs, and who would make a mistake would again be beaten. I remember that instead of saying "ajme meni" I shouted "lele meni" and the guard Andjelko singled me out and was beating me until I could stand no longer. During the beating they were asking me and the others what armament did we have.
This was lasting until 2-3 hours after midnight and then they placed us in cells. I was placed in the cell number 4 in the block "A". Our cell was a punitive one, so inside they were placing the ones that they were beating the most. During the detention in this prison they were beating us every day, during the day and at night, and they were beating us with baseball bats. They were beating us in the cells, they were taking us out in the corridor in front of the cells, and outside into the circle of the prison, and were beating us also there. They were forcing us to run around all day long and during that time were also beating us, not giving us any food or water. Once this lasted continuously for five days on end, and we were not given any food at all. I was among the ones that they were beating the most and I remember well that one night at some 23;00 hours they took me and B.M. into the WC and there Andjelko and Ante beat us up with anything and everything so that on that occasion they broke my ribs and this happened while I was lying on the floor and when the guard was picking me us he hit me strongly with the baseball bat on the chest, and was hitting me also while I was on the ground so I think that my ribs were broken then.
During the beating, when I could no longer stand up, the guard tied my hands with the rope to the pipes of the urinal so that I would not fall while he is beating me and continued with the beating. Both of the guards were drunk. Further to the beating they were often taking us out into the circle and would force us to take off all our clothes and would pour the cold water over us from the fire extinguishing water hoses and would return us so wet to the cells. They were forcing us to beat each other until we would fall down. Several times they were shooting between us to frighten us, and this was also done by some women and girls who were brought to the camp. They were taking us out into the corridor and would be placing bayonets under our throats and they wanted to slaughter us. I remember well that on one occasion they took me out and K.S., and then one man, whose son was killed, placed the knife under our throats, and the guards allowed him to do it. He was only holding the knife under my throat, but he cut up K. They were forcing us for several hours on end to sing the Ustashi songs and the songs insulting for Serbs. They were throwing the tear gas into our cells and were closing windows and doors so that we were suffocating and the tear gas was burning our eyes and was causing strong coughing.
One of the hardest tortures was that we, so injured and beaten us, had to run around the circle and carry each other on our backs, and we did not have the strength to do that so they were beating us again because we could not do it. They were also connecting me, as they did the others, on several occasion, to the wires of the inductor telephone and would let the electricity run trough me, and they would tie the wires to my hands and ears, and this was done by the warden Tomo, and I also heard that they were tying the wires on to the sexual organs. They would tell us that it is a lie detector machine and that they want to learn the truth from us. The electrical shocks were so strong that the body would be in the spasm and I was feeling terrible pain. They did not do it to me but I have seen them force the others to imitate the dog and the cat and run after each other, having to enter the dog-house and during all this they were beating them and pouring water over them.
The food was poor in the prison, and I already mentioned that they were starving us our which made more difficult our sufferings. In order to go to the WC we had to ask the permission from the guards, and they would not give us permission for a long time".
38) Witness 445/94-32, as a reserve soldier of the former JNA captured on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we arrived in "Lora" immediately after leaving the bus they systematically beat us up one by one. After the beating they searched us again and then they beat me up again in the WC where I was forced to hold some lead pipes and the two guards were beating me with boots and some sticks. One of them was the prison warden Tomo Dujic, and the other was a guard, Gudic Ante. Afterwards they returned me to the circle with the others and then they beat us up again, and only then they placed us in cells. I was in the cell number 5 in the block "A". Afterwards they transferred me to the cell number 3.
During all that time while I was detained in this prison camp they were beating us up all day and night, and would take us out into the circle so we had to lean against the wall and go down on our knees or lie down while they were beating us bestially with various objects and especially with the baseball bats. They were beating us in the corridor and in the other places and whoever was willing was free to beat us. Several times they were taking me out alone and were beating me up, and it was always the warden Tomo and one of the guards. Further to the regular beatings we were exposed to electrical shocks, but I did not experience this just by chance. On one occasion Tomo Dujic found some broken picks and with the iron part of the pick hit me on my forehead so from that injury I still have today a distinctive scar on my forehead.
I remember yet another occasion when one woman, yellowish, skinny, young, having a uniform, took me out into the circle and there were several guards and civilians there and one of them, who was stuttering said that his son was killed on a certain hill which was held by the Serbs, so they all together beat me up hitting me with anything and everything all over the body. During the beating, many of the prisoners were fainting and then they would stop beating them, so I tried to pretend that I had also fainted, but they knew exactly by the eyes who really fainted and when they saw that I was trying to fool them they would continue to beat me even more. They were also forcing us to run for hours in circles and to carry each other and were beating us during all that time, and it was hard to carry someone on the back because we were all exhausted from the constant beatings and the lack of food.
They would force us to sing for hours on end the Ustashi songs which was very tiring and we had to take off our stockings and put the boots on bare feet and run this way and since the boots were coarse this would cause wounds on our feet. There were prisoners who were forced to imitate a cat or a dog, to bark at each other and enter the dog-house which was in the prison camp circle. The pilots which I found there were in a very poor state, beaten up from before, before we arrived, and during the time of my detention they were not tortured much, but before our departure to Zagreb they started beating them again.
The food was bad and it used to happen that for several days, once even for six days on end, we were not given any food to eat at all. During the last week they gave us very little food to eat".
39) Video-recording of the testimony of several prisoners who were detained in the prison camp "Lora".
40) Witness 445/94-17, captured as a volunteer of the former JNA on March 22, 1992 near Gornja Hrasna, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "They took me to "Lora" where I was interrogated by Levaja Ivica. During this interrogation they were asking me about the same things and they started beating me immediately. After the beating they placed me in one cell in the block "A" where I have spent the first ten days alone, and it is there that the guards were giving me the instructions how to behave in the prison camp, and whenever one of them was to enter the cell I had to get up and salute with the Ustashi salute "For home, ready!", then to identify myself with full name and surname and say that I was captured as an illegally armed Serbian Chetnick. The moment I would utter the word Chetnick, they would start beating me and cursing me. This was the way that every prisoner had to identify himself.
While I was detained alone in the cell the guards were coming every day in the cell and were bestially beating me. They were hitting me with boots, batons, baseball bats, and the kicks with the boots were the worst so that I was very much beaten up and the palms of my hands were completely swollen, my fingers stiff, and the feet swollen, toes crushed, and I had bruises all over my body. In this period several of my ribs were broken. During this time Giljanovic was entering my cell and was training boxing on me so he would hit me with his fists for hours all over the body. Because of this beating I could not stand up and neither could I move, and during all that time I had no food and neither could I from the pain and the inflicted injuries eat anything. Such beatings were the most frequent and an everyday form of torture so it is hard to list all the tortures and to describe every case separately.
Further to this they were on regular basis connecting the prisoners to the electrical current and they were also doing this to me on the first day, when they brought me in and beat me up. Giljanovic and Levaja connected me to the electricity in the manner that they placed the ends of wires to my ears and they pierced my ears, and then they would turn on the handle of the inductor telephone and would let the electricity in, so I was all shaken up. During the electrical shocks I was shaking and the earlobe of my left ear was broken so this scar is still visible. Later on, on several occasions, they were subjecting me to electrical shocks, and I remember the second time they did it they placed me completely naked on the wet concrete and then they connected the wires to all the parts of my body and on my sexual organ. Since my eyes were mostly blindfolded, I did not see exactly who was present, but they were many and on that occasion they were also beating me. Many prisoners were subjected to the torture with electricity.
We had to sing every day for hours the Ustashi songs praising the Ustashi and insulting Serbs. M.C. and myself at their order had to make a small house for the dog from the wood boards and some of the prisoners were tortured in such a way that they were forcing them to imitate the dogs, the other ones a cat and would be ordered to chase each other in the circle, so the one who was imitating the dog, at a given command, had to enter the dog-house. During all that time they were beating the prisoners. They would expose us to the sun and would take us out and place us naked for a long time to the sun, and when we were thirsty and exhausted they would not give us any water. They would take us out during the night and would pour water into our boots forcing us to run for several hours until we would faint from exhaustion. Afterwards they would line us up against the wall and they would start beating us. They were beating us in this way also on other occasions, not only after running.
I saw them force the pilots to run for hours around the circle with their outstretched arms imitating the flight of an airplane, and while they would be running, the guards would be beating them. At the command that they are hit, they had to fall on the concrete. They would often line us up in two lines, one facing the other and they would force us to hit each other until we would faint senseless. Every prisoner was beaten many times in the manner that he would be forced to stand on his toes and stretch his hands and move his fingers as if picking something, and the request was "to pick grapes" and then they would be beaten the most. This was the specialty of Tonci. We had to swallow many times burning cigarettes, and I had to open my mouth many times while another prisoner would be extinguishing the cigarette on my tongue and then I had to swallow it. Furthermore, there were other forms of torture, harassment, psychological and physical abuse, but I can not remember everything and explain in detail.
They were torturing us also by not giving us sufficient food, and there were periods when there would be food available but they would throw it away and not give us any to eat. There were also cases when they would beat us during the meals. They did not force me to drink urine but I heard from the others that they were forced to do so. G.T. and D.T. and my cousin S. while he was in the hospital in Split and while he was bed-ridden was forced to drink from the bed-pan his own urine. On one occasion in the prison camp circle I saw four prisoners for whom I knew that they were Montenegrins. They were all covered with blood and swollen from the beatings and I noticed particularly that two of them had their ears cut off".
41) Witness 14/95-8, captured as a reserve officer on June 16, 1992 in Podvelezje, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we arrived to the camp "Lora" they lined us up in a corridor and there, the policemen for whom they said that they were boxers, started to hit us with their bare hands all over the body while we fainted. The beating lasted for an entire hour, and they would pour cold water over us all the time. Then they took us out into the polygon and the guards were beating us there every two or three hours with batons, baseball bats, wooden sticks, and would turn on the water jets on us. Then we were placed in the block "C", the notorious block were treatment of people was very brutal and bestial and in this block interrogation was taking place and the most brutal of tortures. We suffered here psychological and physical torture, the tortures that the human mind can not conceive. We were beaten every hour, and at times five hours would pass and they would not beat us.. It would all depend on the mood of the guards who were then on duty. These guards would bring people from the outside, civilians also, and they would come to beat us up. We were forced to confess during the interrogation how many Croats and Muslims did we slaughter, rape, and when ordered we would have to look at one point and if we would move our eyes we would be beaten. There were people with me, like L.J. and P.M. we were losing daily even up to 6 kilograms of body weight, because the temperature in the cells was 50 degrees Celsius, and when they would take us out into the sun the temperature would be 60 degrees Celsius and people would be inflicted with the second degree burns, at least I had such burns, and we were crucified on the doors of our cells with the outstretched arms and legs, and this would last for some 30 minutes until we would faint.
In the prison they were showing us the devices for gauging of the eyes, for suffocation, hanging, for extraction of teeth.. They were telling us that Trebinje had fallen, that everyone in Gacko was slaughtered, that they will cross Drina River in 3 or 4 days. We had to crawl for 2-3 hours on end, to place our hands on the iron bars and legs and the policemen would hit us with the batons. I am a professor by profession and I had to hold lectures for the prisoners called "Greater Serbia" and to draw the frontiers on the wall, I also had to call out certain persons to test their knowledge, and we had to slap each other and hit each other, and if we would not do so we would be beaten by the guards who were watching and were doing this with the great pleasure, some of them seeming to me to be abnormal personalities, sadists and psychopaths.
We were forced for several hours on end to do the gymnastics, we would be taken to watch television, they would be showing us what the Croats are doing, then they would beat us up, we had to keep our hands in the air pretending to pick up grapes, while the policemen were beating us, we had to bark like dogs, to march with the legionnaire step and do their exercises for several hours, singing all the time the Ustashi songs like "Here comes the dawn, here comes the day", then "Oh, Kupresko plain field, what has eaten Montenegrins, from one thousand and fifty, only ten of them remains and these ten were caught and impaled". Then they were reading us some lists of those who will be executed, who will be sent for the alleged exchange, and when they would read our name we had to identify ourselves. I was identifying myself as a slaughterer of the first class. My tortures especially started from July 21, 1992 when the newspaper "Slobodna Dalmacija" published the names of the criminals from Gacko, and among them was also my name. I had to confess that I was slaughtering people in Luka Fazlagica and had to sign the confession.. They were forcing me and the others to drink from special vessels, they were setting our hair on fire with a lighter, they were forcing the prisoners to eat their own hair and beard, but I was not forced to eat my hair, but like all the others I had to eat the human excrements and to drink urine, because they were forcing us to urinate in each other’s mouth.
They were sticking their fingers into our eyes and it seemed to me, while they were doing that, that my eyes were completely taken out and even today I can not understand how is it possible that the fingers can penetrate so deeply into the eye socker. They were pouring urine in a bottle, cigarette butts and other garbage forcing us to drink it. They were kicking us with batons on the groin and were saying that they will keep on beating until "Chetnick gets hernia". They were extinguishing cigarette butts on our bodies, and we had to swallow the cigarette butts. They were pushing bottles and batons up our anus, then were sticking a garbage can on our heads, forcing us to hit the wall with the head stronger and stronger until we would faint, then they were pulling out our hair and beards.
They were especially bestial when they were forcing us to sexual perversities, they would bring over the prostitutes demanding us to have intercourse with them and since we were not capable of doing that, those women would start beating us, forcing us to have a sexual intercourse with each other, and if someone was not able to do it, he would be beaten the entire day without and pause. We were forced to lick the anus of each other. They were especially enjoying forcing us prisoners to hit each other, demanding the hitting to be so hard that we were kicking the teeth out of each other. They were putting the rope around my neck in the manner that they were tightening it up all day long – calling this the choking. The prison warden had an electric chair. I was taken to that chair but it was not plugged in. This was one of the ways to frighten us and force us to make various confessions of our alleged crimes.
I remember well that once I was beaten continuously for fifty hours at the polygon and I endured all that, but I do not know how. Special torture was by the induced electrical current, which they called "telephoning". Namely, they would tie the wire on the fingers, then would let the electricity in and the person would be shaking so much that the body was lifted from the ground, I was having so much spasms that I was almost floating in the air. All this was destroying my nervous system. There were people who had the wires tied to their ears or the sexual organ, toes, and then they would confess to anything and sign anything. I was also tortured by the induced electrical shocks at least thirty times, and I have the scars on my fingers from the torture. They were demanding that I talk in front of the cameras, and they were also filming the others, forcing various confessions about the alleged slaughters, killings of women, children, Croats, and Muslims. They demanded from me to hold a lecture in history "Serbs, the worst possible people". They were bringing over the Croat officials from the country and abroad to lecture us and they would humiliate Serbian people saying that this people has no right to Krajina, saying that we Serbs are self-baptized people, so we had to learn their prayers and they were forcing us to cross ourselves using five fingers, saying that they have taken our blood away and that we are now almost Catholic.
I tried in "Lora" to commit suicide with the razor blade by cutting my wrists, but the pilot P.D. prevented me. Everything that I have told here is only a drop in the sea in respect to what was done to me and to the other prisoners. The food in the prison camp was given three times a day, and sometimes twice per day, and it would all depend on the guard who was on duty. It used to happen that for two days on end we were not given any food, and once for five days I did not have any food at all. I lost there 20 kilograms of body weight:.
42) Witness 510/96-12, captured as a member of the Podgorica Corps of the former JNA on March 22, 1992 in the municipality of Neum, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "After the release from the hospital I was transferred to the prison camp "Lora" in Split. I was abused in the camp physically in the manner that although I was operated upon, I was beaten up and forced to sing the Ustashi songs and to salute. As was the case with the other prisoners, there was also a story launched about me that I had to repeat every time while identifying myself, and its contents were as follows: "I am S.Z., born on …., of father…. and mother…, captured as an illegally armed Serbian Chetnick who is killing, torturing and beating the innocent Croat people".
The other prisoners also had to tell of the forced upon them crimes, and as a drastic example I would like to state the case of lieutenant colonel L.Z. who was forced in front of all of us to tell how he was throwing children into the concrete mixing machine, This story had to be told in detail and would include setting on of the mixer for concrete, pouring of water, then cement, up to the manner of taking the child and placing the child into the concrete mixing machine. All of these and similar stories were making the guards even more furious and also the other visitors, and were helping an even worse torture of the prisoners. Thus, one day, the lieutenant colonel L. and captain P. were made completely naked and with the cuff-links on their hands at the back, placed on some metal door at the temperature of about 36 degrees Celsius where they wre left for 9-12 hours without any water or food, with announcements from time to time that they will exnperience a shock after which announcement the cold water was poured over them. Then L. fainted and in such a state was transferred to the hospital".
43) Witness 445/94-33, as a reserve soldier in the former JNA was captured on April 8, 1992 in the village of Muminovaca, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Upon my arrival to "Lora" I was placed alone in one of the four cells of the block "C". They beat me up in the cell, they were also taking me outside and were beating me there all day long and at night. Further to these continuous beatings they were plugging me on to the electricity on the inductor telephone and were subjecting me to electric shocks, and one wire they would place on my ear by piercing the ear and then putting the wire through, and the other end of the wire on the sexual organ and then they would turn the handle. They were doing this to me every now and then so I can not say how many times they did it. They were forcing us to slap each other’s faces for as long as one would not faint. They were forcing us for hours on end to stand in the sun and look at the sun until we would faint, so I fainted many times because of exhaustion. They were forcing us to carry each other around the circle and were beating us during the running. We also had to sing all the time the Ustashi songs.
I remember well while I was still in the cell, one handsome blond woman came and showed me her naked breasts saying that she liked me, but since I was already all beaten up I was bent in one corner of the cell and did not wish to talk to her at all, so she shouted that I was trying to rape her. Then Tomo, the prison warden, rushed into the cell with the guards and they beat me again until I fainted in the cell, then took me outside and continued with the beatings. I remember well on one occasion when we were walking around the circle, we always had to look down at the ground, but somehow I noticed three Montenegrins and in front of me, one of the guards cut off the ear of the other one with the knife and gauged the eye of the third one. They were completely deformed, bloody and in a terrible state. They were taking me out and were shooting at me, and I think it was one evening, and perhaps on several occasions, I can not remember, from the hunting riffle they fired into the muscle of my left upper arm immediately below the shoulder and in the left buttock immediately under the navel on the left side, and from the pistol into my right arm immediately under the shoulder.
Further to this, there were also other methods of torture, everyday harassment, insults, but it is hard for me to describe all that now, and I wish to forget as much as possible because the though itself of what I have endured is a shock to me. Now I remember that they had an iron chair with the back removed which was probably from wood and only some rods were protruding, so they would force me to hold on to this chair and bend above these rods, and would force me to imitate driving a car, and then would push me from the back on these rods which were hitting me on the chest and would brake my skin. They were also forcing us to imitate a dog and a cat, a cat and a mouse, to run after each other, to enter the dog-house.
Food in "Lora" was very poor and they were starving us out, and it used to happen that for a long time we would not be given any food to eat at all.
They were forcing me and the priest P.Z. on several occasions to suck the sexual organ of each other. We would be doing that while connected to the electricity so they were letting the electricity through us and were beating us at the same time. There was always there the warden Tomo who was the worst of them all and was participating in all our tortures. During the beating 9 of my ribs were broken on both sides, but when my ribs were broken I do not know because there were so many beatings that I can not describe each particular case.
We were forced to salute them with the Ustashi salute "For home, ready!" and every one of us had to introduce himself in a different manner. I had to say my particulars and that I was captured as an illegally armed Chetnick, and they called me "Duke" and according to the name by which they were calling the prisoner, there was the indication as to how much they were torturing him, so probably because I was called a duke I was tortured so terribly. During all of these beatings I was fainting many times and they were pouring water over me and would regularly afterwards continue to beat me. When I was completely destroyed because of everything that was happening to me, one evening they took me to the hospital and the doctor examined me and said that I must have medical treatment, but they did not agree and returned me back to the camp".
44) Witness 445/94-26, as a reserve soldier of the former JNA was captured on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "As soon as we arrived in "Lora" they systematically beat us all up, and afterwards they searched us and after further beatings during the night they placed us in cells in the block "A". I remember having been placed in the cell number 7 where I have spent 14 days. They were beating us there every day and would rush into our cells and in the cells were beating us day and night, and then would take us individually in front of the cell door or into the prison camp circle and would beat us up there, and then would take us to the lavatories where they would beat us some more. They were taking me over there some ten times and I had to lean on my hands on the urinals and they would beat me. Further to the guards, we were also beaten by the civilians. I remember well one woman who said that she was training judo, some 25 years old, of short blond hair, some 165 cm tall, and she was beating us together with the warden Tomo and the guard Ante. On that occasion they forced me with the rope for cleaning of riffles to tie I. around his neck and he had to stand on a chair and they were playing with the chair and if it was pulled away he would be hanged because I had tied the other end of the rope to the window bars of the cell. When I did that they accused me of wanting to hang my own friend and he came down from the chair, they took away the wedding ring from his finger, they threw it away and he had to search for the wedding ring on all four.
After this beating just when we were returned to our cell, some people came that I had not previously seen and they threw among us the tear gas so our eyes were burning and we were suffocating. On another occasion, I do not remember the date, at some 23:00 hours, the warden Tomo took me out into the corridor and demanded that I tell him whether I.Dj. is a sergeant, and I would not tell him, so he beat me up with the baseball bat and hit me 37 times. After this he took away my friend C.S. who was also a prisoner, and he ordered him to beat us, and he was forced to do that so both of them were beating me, hitting me very strongly and after each blow I would fall on the ground. On that same night after this, Tomo and Ante took me out of the cell into the prison camp circle and told me that they will throw me into the sea, but they did not do that because soon they returned me to my cell.
The usual torture was with electricity and they took me three times and twice they placed the wires on my ears, and once on the nose and the ear and by turning the handle of the inductor telephone they were conducting electricity through me which was extremely painful. I would be shaking all over and wound suffer terrible pain. They would take us out in the night into the prison camp circle stark naked and would pour jets of cold water over us. Then we had to dress up so wet and would be returned to our cells. They would force us to run around the circle for hours on end, and we would be running with our bare feet inside the boots which were not tied with shoestrings, which would be hurting our feet, causing blisters to appear and cause terrible pain. We also had to run while carrying each other on our backs, until we would fall down. No matter how much we ran they would still beat us with the batons. They were forcing us for hours to sing their songs and the songs insulting Serbs.
We also had to run for hours around the circle imitating the flight of an airplane, and were beaten in the procedure. The ones mostly forced to do this were the captured pilots. They would be taking us outside forcing us to pick the grass and then to eat it. We had to imitate cats and dogs, to run after each other, to scratch each other and bite each other, and the one who would fall down would have to enter the dog house which was there. I was doing this many times. On one occasion they kicked M.K. with the pick over his body and he was all covered with blood, and on that occasion they were cutting the lines with the knife into his forehead, while before all this we were given a severe beating.
The food was very poor and scarce, and it would happen that for several days on end they would not give us anything to eat, so once for seven days we did not see even bread, and twice they kept us during the entire day in the boiling hot sun so that all this, together with the tortures, was making even more difficult our already very poor state and was destroying us both physically and psychologically. Furthermore, they would prevent us for extended periods from going to the WC, which was increasing our sufferings".
45) Witness 445/94-25, as a soldier of the former JNA was captured on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we arrived in "Lora" they were untying us one by one and were placing us along the wall with the hands above our heads leaning against the wall, and they systematically beat us up. They were beating us with the police batons and other objects. After the beating they searched us. During the search they did not find anything but only some documents or insignificant objects, but they confiscated everything, and they took my watch and the money in the value of two salaries. After the search they took us one by one to the room, where I was also taken, and I had to kneel down and give my particulars and they beat me up. After this they returned us again into the prison camp circle and continued with the systematic beating, and then they took us to have a bath and to dress the clothes on our wet bodies. After the bath they again lined us up against the wall and then at least 20-30 of them came and they beat us up with the batons in the manner that one would go after the other and would hit in the following manner - first the one under the neck, then the next one on the back, the one after him on the kidneys and so on, and in my estimate this beating took some two hours. After this they placed us in cells and after half an hour they took us out again, lined us up against the wall, and then with fire extinguishing hoses poured water over us, beat us up with the water jets, then they threw on us some pieces of wood which were serving as the boards for placement on the floor of the cars when its wheels are taken off, and with some other objects. This lasted until three o’clock in the morning when they returned us to the cells.
The next morning they took us out again and systematical beat us up, and then they forced us to run around the circle until we were exhausted, and during that time they were standing in the circle and during the running were beating us. During all the time of my detention in "Lora" we were beaten continuously, and for the first three days it was all the time and systematically, and every one of us was totally beaten up. Further to the beating in the circle they were also beating us individually by taking us out of the cells, bringing us to the lavatory and beating us up there. I was taken there three times. They were forcing me to lean on my hands on the urinals, with the outstretched legs as much as possible, and then they would beat me all over the body, and I never knew when and where they will hit me. On one occasion I was forced to wash one plastic vessel and then they suddenly grabbed me and took me to a room where there was a large wooden table so they placed me on that table, they placed the vessel under my head and one of them started cutting my throat very slowly, and then they told me to stay there until all the blood was poured in the vessel. Soon some new commotion started so they ordered me to return to the cell. Thus, I saved myself because one of their inspections came to visit the prison.
One of their favorite forms of torture was exposure to electricity, tying up of the wires of the inductor telephone and turning on of the handle. They tortured me like this twice and linked the wires to my ears and were turning the handle letting the electric shocks and so I was hit hard and my entire body was shaking. They were forcing us, after lining us up, ones facing the others, to hit each other fiercely until one would fall down. They were also forcing us in the courtyard to pick up grass and then eat it. They were taking us to the garbage where the food leftovers were thrown already covered with maggots and were forcing us to eat this. I was also forced to do all this. Furthermore, they were forcing us for hours to sing the Ustashi songs or the songs insulting Serbs and this was very exhausting. They were also insulting us every day, and so harassed, we were ordered never to say that we were beaten but we had to invent some story as to how we were hurt. There was a strictly prescribed manner in which we were to introduce ourselves, to salute in the Ustashi fashion.
We were forced to run around the circle, and to carry each other and during all that time to sing while they were beating us. We were also forced to imitate a cat and a dog, to scratch and bite each other, to enter a dog-house, to play some of their games "trule kobile" in the manner that one would be standing by the wall and the other one would start running and would jump on his back. This was very humiliating. We were receiving very little food, and it used to happen that for several days we would not be given any food at all. They were exposing us to the sun for hours and would give us salty water to drink and who knows what they were putting into that water, but we had to drink it because they were forcing us. It used to happen that for several days some persons did not have a bowl movement and then suddenly we would all be afflicted with a diarrhea which means that they were, probably, putting something into our food".
46) Witness 445/94-21, as a reserve soldier of the former JNA was captured on May 27, 1992 in the municipality of Trebinje and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we arrived in "Lora" they lined us up, but before the lining up they searched us and confiscated all the money and other valuables, and they took from me 150 DEM in money and the watch "Seiko" and a gold chain with a pendant. I did not have any documents because I burned them before I was captured. While they were searching me and taking my particulars, they were systematically beating the other prisoners and every one had to stand by the wall facing the wall with the hands above his head and leaning against the wall, and they were fiercely hitting with the batons, with the feet clad in boots and that is how they treated all of us. After that we had a bath, they placed us in cells and then again took us out and again were beating us up and beating us up again and again, insulting us all the time. Then they returned us to the cells. From the very first day the terrible tortures started, and they were mostly beating and hitting us. They would at times enter our cells and would hit us or would take us out outside of the cells and were beating us there, but the most horrible beating was when they would take us outside and would beat us there. They were taking me out on regular basis three times every night while I was detained in "Lora" and were beating me up in a systematic manner, and they were beating me so much because in the army I was a sniper fighter. During the day there were no systematic beatings but we were beaten by anyone and everyone whoever was willing. They were also bringing civilians to beat us and on one occasion they brought a man whose son was killed and that man was beating me and was crying during all that time.
Further to the beatings they were also torturing us with electricity and they were torturing me in that way also, as far as I can remember, three times, by putting the inductor telephone, its wires on my fingers and then they would turn the handle of the telephone to let the electricity in. The others had the wires tied to some other parts of their body and the ears, sexual organs and other places. Regarding the beating I think that I was inflicted there with the harshest beating of all. They were forcing us to run for hours around the circle until we would fall down from exhaustion, and were forcing us while running around the circle to imitate airplanes or automobiles, and were beating us all the time. We had to imitate cats and dogs, one would be a dog, the other one a cat. Thus we had to chase each other, the dog would have to enter the dog-house which was situated there. I personally was not doing this, but I have seen them do this to the others. Such bestialities were watched by all those who would be present there, and not only the prison camp staff. On one occasion while we were running around the circle one of the guards fired his pistol immediately above our heads into the wall and we though that he will kill us all.
The prison camp warden Tomo Dujic had the custom every day to place the barrel of his pistol into my mouth and to get the pistol ready saying that he will kill me. Further to this psychological and physical torture, they did not give us sufficient food and were not giving us also water, and we could not drink when we wanted, but having been running in the hot sun and dressed up in our uniforms, we were very exhausted and thirsty. During the last days of my detention in "Lora" they gave us 3-4 cans of 50 grams of liver paste, fish paste or jam and one army toast which was not enough even for a single day, let alone for the entire seven days.
Before the arrival of the International Red Cross we were intimidated and ordered not to say that we were beaten and tortured and so, among others, I said that I was all bruised all over the body because I hurt myself while falling".
47) Witness 67/94-1, captured as the member of the Territorial Defense of Trebinje on May 13, 1992, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In "Lora" they took us to the place for which I later learnt that it was the block "C" with four cells, a corridor and the WC, and with an auxiliary entrance. They placed us in cells and then the real torture started. I do not know any more how long it lasted, who was hitting me with what, I only know that it lasted for days on end. They would enter the cell, start beating, kicking with boots, fists, batons. I remember that the worst was when they were torturing us with electricity by using the inductor telephone and with the wires tied to our ears they would turn on the handle of the telephone, and the electric shocks were such that I thought I would go out of my mind. For the first several days we were not given any food. I noticed later that also the civilians from the city were coming to beat us, and some uniformed people were coming, I do not know who was not coming. The harshest beatings we received during the night, when only the cell door would open and inside would enter one or several of them and would start hitting anywhere and in any way. Several days after our arrival they took us one night for a bath, and this was a bath with the fire extinguishing hose and the jets of cold water from the hydrant under great pressure, which jets were very painful because of our previous injuries, and they would return us back to the cells all wet.
There are no words that can describe all the tortures inflicted upon us and all the bestialities. Further to the bestial beatings they were also enjoying very much when they forced us to slap each other’s faces, and if it would not be hard enough then the punishment was terrible beatings. Instead of the inductor telephone later they introduced the rectifier of 110 V which would also be plugged in and they would order us during the electric shocks not to move, and if someone would move there were beatings, and the shocks were such that they were throwing the entire body so the beatings were unavoidable. I also remember when they ordered me to cut the grass from the lawn in the prison camp circle which was neglected, and they ordered me to do it because they were expecting that the former JNA had placed the mines in the surrounding area. If I would catch something with the scythe, an empty can or an unknown object, they would order me to stop so they could check whether it was a mine.
Regarding the food, at the beginning we were not receiving any, and later they were giving us a little food but it was very bad. During the first 15 days of my detention in this prison camp we were on the very edge between life and death, without any orientation in time and space and I though that we had no chances at all of remaining alive".
48) Witness 67/94-3, as a member of the Serbian army captured on May 14, 1992 above Stolac, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "I was placed in "Lora" in the block "C" where I found my friends from Trebinje who were captured before me. In this block from the very arrival the beating and torture were very diversified. I remember once immediately upon my arrival, the prison warden Tomo Dujic asked us whether some one would like to make a phone call, so without having any doubts, I said that I would and he took me into another room where I noticed an inductor telephone. At first I had no suspicions, but later I saw that the telephone cables were loose, that they were not plugged in the wall. Then Tomo tied the cables around my fingers and started dialing the telephone, and the electric shock was so strong that I jumped as if on fire and threw away the wires away from my body, after which act Tomo started to beat me and ordered me to sit down again and tied the telephone wires to my ears threatening me not to move, and then he was turning the telephone and was hitting me with his boot in the chest. Since I was still new, I was receiving most of the beating these days because all those coming to inflict the beatings were looking for a new victim, for me.
Thus on the first night of my detention two men came, a young man and an older one in uniforms, and started beating me until I could no longer stand, and when I fell down the older one started jumping on my leg and injured me severely. Such beatings and kicks continued and became regular. We were beaten by the prison staff, by the guards, by the civilians who were coming to the prison camp, women, their prisoners who were in the penitentiary for some other crimes. They were beating us with the batons, electric batons, baseball bats. They would force us for all night long to sing the Ustashi songs, and whenever one would stop, they wound start merciless beating. We were given food only every third day. They were forcing us to slap each other’s faces and if they were not satisfied with the force of the slaps they would beat both the one doing the slapping and the one receiving the blows. They were forcing us to carry each other on our back and to hit each other, they were bathing us with the water jets, usually around 2-3 hours in the morning, they were taking us out for ‘execution’ several times and were shooting at us with the blanks, they were forcing us to shave without any water with the razor blades".
49) Witness 445/94-18, as a reserve officer of the former JNA was captured on June 16, 1992 in Podvelezje, and about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Upon our arrival to "Lora" first we were taken to the command building where they lined us up according to our rank and their commander came whom we were forced to salute with the Ustashi salute. While we were standing there one of their guards came by and kicked so fiercely B.R. in the face that he was covered with blood. After this the warden took me out in front of the door of the building, into the courtyard with one escort, and he pretended to hug me, while the other one started hitting me with the karate kicks. He was saying in Japanese the names of these blows and was asking me to repeat them.
Then they took us to the courtyard, they took off the cuff-links from our hands, they took off also all of our clothes and lined us up facing the wall and started beating us with the batons, baseball bats, some thick cable which we called "the five-layered’ swing which would bend while hitting the body and would leave the bruises both on one and on the other side. Whenever someone would fall down from exhaustion by the wall, he would be taken to the corner where the inductor telephone was located, and would be connected by wires to that telephone and by turning the handle the electric shocks would be induced. When I had fallen down I was also connected to that telephone and had the electric shocks induced through me, so that my entire body was shaking and jumping from the electric shocks and I was jumping from the ground. They would be telling me then that I should telephone Mladic. Afterwards they would pour water over us, so tired and beaten up, the water would be from the fire extinguishing hoses and then they would return us to the cell which was 2.5 x 2.5 meters where we were stationed in the beginning. The tortures started immediately, they were rushing into our cell and were beating us all. They would also bring the civilians and women to beat us and I remember well on one occasion three women from Mostar giving me very hard beating. They would also be taking us out into the corridor to beat us there, and they were also taking us into one room on the same side as our cell, and it was the room for torture and they were beating us there as well. It is there that they would tie that inductor telephone to our bodies, but also to the 220 V electricity where there was a rectifier with the regulator of the electricity strength so they were increasing or decreasing the electricity while torturing us. They were doing this to me so many times that I became so much afraid of the electricity that even later for therapy purposes I did not allow any wires connected to the current to be placed on my body. These beatings and tortures were so frequent that one day I counted 14 eruptions into our cell and beating until we fainted.
We were forced for hours to sing the Ustashi songs in which they were praised and the songs insulting the Serbs. They would take us out into the courtyard and would force us for hours to march by a legionnaire step which is very tiring because with an uneven force one has to step on both feet and during all that time we had to sing the songs. Many times they were exposing us to the sun from 10:00 to 16:00 hours when the sun is at its brightest, and they would let the water fall beside us but would force us to drink the sea water, although we were terribly suffering from thirst. In the cell close to our own there were four pilots, so they forced P.G. to give us a lecture and tell us how he was flying and how he was shot down and then he had to imitate the flight of an airplane, and we would have to repeat this and if someone would not know it well would be beaten up. Several times they would take us to watch television showing the news and we saw Trebinje, and the Ustashi kissing and rejoicing because Trebinje had fallen, i.e. they had conquered it. This would be devastating for us and would be killing in us even the little strength that we had left. After a certain time they would show us similar scenes from Nevesinje which was even more awful for us and many cities in this manner. They were organizing several times alleged executions and would be taking us out in front of the firing squad and then all lined up they would shoot over our heads. They were taking me for such executions several times.
Further to this and a series of physical and psychological tortures, they were also torturing us with hunger and thirst by withholding food and water which made even more difficult our position and was killing everything human in us. There was practically no hygiene at all, we could go to the WC only when the guard would so allow, and they would forbid us often so it used to happen that for two days on end they would forbid us from visiting the WC.
I do not remember the exact date but I think that it was end of July 1992 when I suffered one of the hardest beatings when my left side of the face was broken and zygomatic bone (cheekbone) fractured, two of my teeth kicked out and the left lower jaw broken, with the fractured arcade above the left eye. After this I was transferred to a hospital in Firule where I was examined, X-rayed but they told me that it was nothing much, and they gave me some aspirin and told me to put cold compresses, but instead of compresses a guard in the elevator hit me in the sexual organ.
Before the departure from "Lora" the guards entered my cell during the day and took me to the torture room where they were beating me by telling me to stand up straight, to close my eyes and put my hands above the head, and they were hitting me from all the sides, which is a terrible experience because the blows are inflicted suddenly and from the side that a person is not expecting, and the victim always thinks that if he could only see, at least he would be able psychologically to prepare for the blow. They were beating me until I fell down and fainted, and continued to kick me with their feet while I was down on the floor. I came to my senses in the cell and was feeling very acute pain in the right side of the chest.
They were forcing me to enter the dog-house and imitate a dog, and my colleague would imitate the cat and would climb on that dog-house trying to scratch me, and I would be trying to bite his hand. Afterwards we would shift the roles, so I was a cat and he was a dog. I wish to add that on one occasion they lined up all the prisoners in the courtyard in two lines facing each other and forced us to slap the faces of the other one for as long as one of us would not fall down. The motive was to hit as hard as possible and to push your friend opposite you to the ground, because they said that whoever would fall they will beat him themselves, and the one remaining on his feet will be spared. Facing me was one builder from Omis and he hit me with his enormous hands like spades, so he crushed me fast to the ground, and then the guards started to beat me. After this beating I became deaf on both ears".
50) Witness 470/95-3, a soldier serving regular military duty in the former JNA in Gabela, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In the morning hours they took us to "Lora". Immediately they placed us in cells six of us in each. The classification was done there as to our nationalities. That evening no one was beating me, but they were beating my friends. Since our capture and until our deportation to "Lora" we were not given any food. In "Lora" we found two prisoners C. and Z. who were civilians. When they dressed him in a uniform Z. was forced to say: "I am Z. and I was illegally arming myself, I am a Chetnick commander, I was raping women and children". He was forced to say all that also to us and to express his remorse. Then he would be returned to the cell.
The regime in the prison camp was the following: when the guard Gudic was on duty he was coming to the cell with the curse "Your Chetnick mother", and we had to stand up from the beds all of us and to raise our right arm in the air and shout loudly: "For home, ready!". If anyone would fail to do so he was beaten. He would then put the gloves on, and take the baseball bat or a baton and would start beating us all over the body. He was expelling us out from the cell at night forcing us to run through the hall of the building which was surrounded with wire, until we would fall, and all that time we had to sing the Ustashi songs.
Soon after our arrival to the prison camp "Lora" four pilots were brought in. Their destiny was the worst. They were beating them so much, almost every five minutes, that they were literally all broken up. They were not able even to take the food themselves so we had to feed them and bring them some water. They were mostly beaten by the prison warden and the guard Gudic. Gudic in my presence was torturing them : he would tie the wires and let the electrical current run on their sexual organs and fingers or would tie the wire to their fingers at the same time giving the victim the telephone receiver as if to phone home. At that moment the victim experiences an electric shock and starts shaking and the guards start laughing and enjoying themselves. One prisoner some 60 years old was forced to have oral sex with a priest who was also a prisoner. They were forcing us to work all the time in the prison camp circle and outside of the camp. We were digging and cleaning the grass loans and were arranging their offices. We were
transporting and packing their ammunition stores. While we were working various civilians would come to beat us and spit on us".
51) Witness 164/95-6, captured as a reserve soldier of the former JNA above Stolac, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "In the prison camp "Lora" in Split they were beating me with the rubber batons, baseball bats, thick sets of cables, fists, boots, manhole iron covers, wooden planks 15x15x100 cm size, then they were torturing me with the field telephone, i.e. with the induced electric current produced by this telephone and with some special device which was transforming the electricity from the city network into a 100 V tension and by aid of some cables and holders were torturing the prisoners by putting the holders usually on their ears and by means of a plug were putting on and off the electrical current, and these were terrible pains when the entire body is in a spasm and is shaking. We were beaten the worst by the civilians who were returning from the city in the late night hours, after having drunk a lot of alcohol, and also the members of the HVO, HOS and ZNG were coming to beat us.
In this prison camp they broke first four and then another one of my ribs, and from the fierce blows my left shoulder was dislocated. In the prison camp "Lora" we were beaten several times per day, and at any time of day and night. One day they beat me up fourteen times. In this prison at any moment one could hear the screams and cries of the prisoners. I was watching once the prisoner B.D. being connected on to the inductor telephone and they were turning the handle until the blood started pouring from his ears. Lieutenant colonel L. and captain P, were forced to drink one liter of water in which previously 25 decagrams of salt was diluted, then they stripped them naked, tied them up with their hands on their back and kept them like this in a hot summer sun from 11:00 to 18:00 hours, without any water, only they were pouring some water over their chest from time to time. From this torture lieutenant colonel suffered a nervous breakdown, and both of them had extremely acute burns all over their bodies and ended up in a hospital. They were forcing all of us prisoners to crawl on all four between the lined up guards and to imitate cats, rosters, dogs and other animals, while the guards would be kicking us with their feet and with anything they would find handy. There was a lot of physical torture inflicted upon us that I shall never forget and also psychological torture aimed at killing any will in a man, so we had to do the cock-o-roo-cooes, to bark like dogs, to walk with our outstretched arms saying "we are the black birds". In this prison camp they did not allow us to sleep. They were forcing us to various sexual perversions. I know the officers whom they were forcing to place their sexual organ into the mouth of each other and I was also forced to do that".
52) Witness 164/95-2, captured as a volunteer in the former JNA on April 20, 1992 in Sehovina, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "As soon as I was brought to the prison camp "Lora" after my operation, Gidic Dusko, a former officer in the JNA who defected to the Croat side, hit me with the fist in the eye and with the boot in the stomach. Then they took me to a solitary cell in the block "C" and I was terribly beaten there, they did not give me anything to eat or drink. They were beating me here with everything, mostly with the batons, and over the kidneys, and I was hit by the guards of the Croat army, by the members of HVO who were also detained here because of some crimes. On May 2, 1992 I was taken outside, into the prison camp circle where there was a crew of the Croat television and the journalists of the Croat newspapers. They brought a plastic doll and a plastic knife, and they put a wig on me – a long beard and hair and a fur cap with the kokarda, asking me to show how I was slaughtering Muslims in Fazlagic Kula. I had to introduce myself in the following way: "I am J.K. – a Chetnick from Gacko", and they would continue with the comment, "a slaughterer from Gacko", and I would show the manner in which I was slaughtering and killing Croats and Muslims, and all this was being filmed by their television.
I remember having been returned to my cell after this and there came Bane, a former boxer, the warden Tomo Dujic and Tonci, they took me to the other room and were beating me with boots, fists, with everything, for at least one hour and a half, and when I could no longer stand, two of them were holding me and the third one was hitting me with the baton over the back and kidneys until I fainted. They poured water over me and left me to lie there in the bathroom. Later a guard came with two prisoners and placed me under a cold shower, and then they dressed me up in a wet suit and took me to the cell until morning. Then they transferred me to another cell which had a bed, and in the morning took me to the hospital where the X-ray showed 12 broken ribs. That same day I was returned from the hospital and transferred to the block "B", into a common cell.
Gudic Ivica was torturing me so much that the tattoo which I had on the left underarm saying "JNA" he burnt it with the cigarette until he destroyed it completely, and then took me to the bathroom, tied me with the cuff-links to the window and with the wooden baton was beating me for half an hour all over the body, so I was all bruised and swollen. After the beating he ordered me to whip clean the bathroom which was full of my blood, and ordered me to drink that bloody and soapy water which I had collected from the floor, and he also cut the fingers of my right hand so that I still have the scars from the cuttings.
After this beating I was tied again to the bars in the bathroom where they were beating me with the baseball bats, and I fainted, so they poured cold water over me, and the other prisoners were telling me that I was left in that water for one hour and a half.
In the prison camp "Lora" the guards and civilians who were admitted into the camp and the members of the HOS were inflicting upon me and the other prisoners the greatest tortures, by hitting us with the batons, with the wooden poles, baseball bats, water jets, by keeping us in the burning hot sun until we would be all in blisters, and I remember that lieutenant colonel J.L. was terribly injured by burns. They would also tie us to hang in the cell from the bars up to 30 minutes. We were forced to hit each other. We had to do the gymnastics until the total exhaustion and to march with the legionnaire marching step, we had to bark and sing the Ustashi songs, I remember that we were singing "Here comes the dawn, here comes the day, here come Jure and Boban", then "Sarajevo under Trebevic, you will belong again to Ante Pavelic". They would force us to sing our songs saying that we are singing the Chetnick songs. They were forcing us to eat our own hair and beards, they pulled a bit of my hair once and forced me to eat it. I remember that they forced L.H. from Niksic to eat his own beard which was long and which they shaved off. The prisoners were forced to eat their own excrement and drink urine, and I was also forced to do so, the guards were forcing us to drink water from a bottle with various garbage inside. For hours on end they would push the bottles and batons up our anus, and were especially hitting us with the batons on the groin. While we were working in the circle they would stick our heads into the garbage cans, and would force us to hit the wall with our heads, stronger and stronger, until we wold faint.
They were forcing us to various perversities, we had to hold in our mouth the sexual organ of the other, to lick the anus. The guards would by tying a rope around our necks and would be strangling us. Especially terrible torture was with the electricity produced by a field telephone, with the wires tied to our ears, fingers, and sometimes to the sexual organ. They were forcing us to cross ourselves like the Roman Catholics do".
53) Witness 340/94-3 captured as a reserve soldier of the former JNA on April 8, 1992 about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When we arrived in Split they took off the cuff-links and blindfolds, and placed us in a common lavatory where they forced us to have a shower and to shave. When I looked at myself in the mirror I simply could not believe how much I have decayed, and my friends were also looking terribly bad. Afterwards they confiscated all our documents and valuables that we had on us. Then they placed us in cells in the block "C" where they were detaining those they proclaimed as the most dangerous prisoners, so the prisoners were tortured the most here. I was in the first cell. In "Lora" they were torturing us every day and continuously. One of the frequent tortures inflicted upon us was connecting us to the electrical current, so on several occasion myself and Lj.B. they tied together with the cuff-links to some metal door in the corridor, with the hands tied above our heads while our bare feet were in the water on the floor of the corridor. Then they connected the electrical conductors to our ears, toes, sexual organs, and let the electricity through the inductor telephone. The electricity shocked me so much that my jaw was completely stiff, my eyes rolling like marbles and I had the feeling that they will pop out of the sockets. During all that time they were asking us questions, but no matter how much I tried I could not open my mouth. While one guard would be turning the telephone letting the electricity run, the other ones would be beating me with everything – fists, cables, riffle butts and various other objects. After this they would force us to wash to floor with our shirts and then put them on again and so wet they would return us to the cells. The treatment of the other prisoners was the same.
They would line us up in the corridor and would force us to stand on our toes, to lift the arms above our heads, to move the fingers as if we were picking something, telling us that we are picking fruit, and in that position they would beat us. They were forcing us to crawl until we would have the skin of our knees all broken, they were rushing into our cells during the day and at night and were beating us in the cells. In the prison camp there was a special regime, so whenever one of them would enter, every prisoner had to stand up and with the raised hand to salute "For home, ready!". When asked, every prisoner had to say his name and surname and to say the following words: that he is "illegally armed Serbian Chetnick who was captured on the Croat land". They were forcing us for hours to sing the Ustashi songs, and the ones not singing would be beaten up. We were not allowed to say that any one was beating us in prison, but everyone had to invent some story how we were injured, for example that he fell and hit the head on some object, etc.
Further to the every day beatings, there were other forms of torture, but I was in a very poor state and I can not describe all the details now. Food in the prison camp "Lora" was very bad, we did not have any hygiene. We were going to the WC but only when they would allow us to go to the WC, which depended on the guards".
54) Witness 467/94-8, an officer in the former JNA, captured in Mostar, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "Upon our arrival to "Lora" they took us to a corridor and we had to face the wall. Our hands were still tied. We were standing like that, waiting one beside the other for a while, and then Dugonjce appeared. I recognized his voice because I could not see him. He started hitting with something F., with the curses and threats. He was telling him that he will pay because as a Muslim he was in the Chetnick ranks and because he had married a Serbian woman. While hitting him he was saying that "Serbian …." will be the death of him. Then he started with me. I felt the first blows on my elbows. I felt strong pain, yet I do not think that he was hitting me very hard. Later I concluded that it was an electric baton. Until then I did not even know what it is and what is its action, because I never came in conflict with the law. The arms became heavy and could not be controlled. Then he started with the hands and fingers, hitting quickly and frequently from the shoulder to the thumb. Then he started on the back. He was hitting me on the ribs and on the kidneys. In one flash I saw him holding this baton – a white, short, wide as a palm of the hand. When he finished with the back he started on the buttock muscles and under the knees, on the calves. My legs started to shake I could not feel them any more. He was working on me until he got tired and happy. From time to time he was returning to F. and then he took me to an office to take my particulars. I do not know who was sitting at the desk and I could not see because the escort Ivan told me to go down on my knees and place the forehead on the desk.
The data were few. I was only asked my name and surname and whether I am in good health, and the place of my birth. When this was written down and underlined that I was in good health, I thought that he might use me for the sale of the body organs. I have already heard that they were doing this. Then I felt the baton on the back. This time it was long and black, the one they used during the rallies. He was swinging it fiercely, panting all the time as if he was chopping wood. He asked how old I was. Then started counting one to 34. The rest until forty he explained by saying that one blow was from Pavelic, one from Artukovic, one from Ludvig Pavlovic, one from Tudjman, one from Tito and the last one from him personally. During that time F. fell down in the corridor and he went to force him with blows to get up. After this first Split lesson, he took us with another guard to the cell. We were taking some round-about way. During that time Ivan was urging us to run up to the fence. We could not do that because our muscles were all shaken from the electric baton, we could hardly control our legs while walking. He took out a pistol and disclosed his intention to shoot us with the excuse that we have tried to escape through the fence where there was a large hole.
We arrived to the block "C" down some small stairs, through a corridor, the cell to the end on the right. The second guard opened the door. The cell was empty. On the doorstep Dugonjce started beating us again, first one then the other, with fists and boots in the stomach. He was using his martial art skills without caring where he will hit. He was not satisfied at the reception office, so he continued here or was having a little rest from the beating. He was hitting us again until he got tired and breathing hard. Some white foam was appearing in his mouth, like with the mad dog. He was also as if sorry to leave us. We had already fallen down on the floor. With the salute he hit us again several times with the boot into the stomach and back. We were almost dying. Then he finally left us alone. It seems that he was not completely satisfied because he opened the adjacent cell and started to hit someone over there.
Then there was a deadly silence. In one corner F, in the other corner myself. Looking desperately at each other, neither one able to help the other . We were trying to get up, but can not do it. With great effort we succeeded in sitting up and we were looking at each other with sadness for a long time. We were weeping without tears, we were screaming without sound. We did not talk long, and were not yet rested from the beatings, when the lock was heard in the door. Four men came in. Out of some politeness we stood up and at attention. They immediately announced their rules of behavior as follows: when some one enters the cell we are to stand up and at attention, with the raised right hand in the salute "For home, ready!". Then we are to introduce ourselves as war criminals with all the data. After giving the data we are to turn facing the corner, raise the hands up in the air and spread the legs. That rule was to apply immediately and for the duration of our stay, no matter who would be entering into the cell or how many times. When we have practiced this several times, they started practicing the beating. The bodies were already so much beaten up that the shirt was even producing pain. And the new blows were falling on the old wounds and we were suffering multiple pain. I was beaten by two of them, and the other two were beating F. The batons were falling on our backs, legs, feet, arms and hands. When we would slip on the floor, they would start shouting ordering us to stand straight in the initial position. I saw that it is better to endure. We did not have a chance to rest and again someone was at our door. The order was for us to go out. They took us to the adjacent room. It was a dinning room with one table. In two plates there were already some spaghetti and the policemen ordered us to have dinner. I was feeling hunger, but my jaws could not move. There was no water and I could not swallow, my body was already burning with high fever. While we were eating our guards were hitting us with a baton with every mouthful over the back, shoulders and head. We had to eat everything.
After the dinner was finished, F. was taken to the cell and one policeman ordered me to sit in a chair which was place in front of a table. He was preparing something behind my back. I felt him tying my hands to the chair. Then he tied something to my thumbs. I thought it was a cloth or a nylon of some kind, that he wishes to burn my hands. The other policeman was seated facing me and said that the two of them will now interrogate me and that I must tell everything about myself, from the day of birth until that day. I started with my story and suddenly I felt the burning of electricity. I immediately understood what he had tied up on my hands, but I learned about that device with the field telephone only afterwards, and suffered its tortures many times. The faster the handle was turned, the stronger was the electricity, and the maximum is 110 V. At the first glance one would say that it is not so strong in comparison with the tension in the households, where the shock is instantaneous, but here they were holding me on that tension for as long as they wanted, and in that way it is very destructive to the body. At the beginning I felt some tickling from time to time and it seemed to me that I can endure it, but when it started lasting longer and stronger it became unbearable. The electricity is shaking the body, the eyes are turning in the sockets, I am almost fainting. The head will burst and the screams uncontrollably are uttered from the mouth. And they will not allow any noise. For shutting me up, a handful of salt in the mouth. And you are not allowed even to spit it out, and must not swallow the bitterness. It immediately attacks the thirsty throat, it is driving you crazy, and later the blood starts pouring from your mouth. They were interrogating me thus for several minutes and then they returned me to the cell.
These tortures, beatings, "interrogations", electrical shocks, were occurring every day during all the time of my detention in this prison camp".
55) Witness 259/96-6, captured on April 8, 1992 in Capljina, about his detention in the prison camp "Lora" states the following: "When the vehicle entered "Lora" into the circle of the prison camp, while coming out of the vehicle we were awaited by a number of people and they immediately started beating us. This must have been people trained in martial arts, and I noticed by their white belts that they belonged to the military police. They were hitting us with fists, tips of fingers, with the hands like a blade on the neck, so that we were right away beaten up. The blows were very fast, but also very strong and painful, so I suppose that they were people who knew how to beat the others. Among the first ones who were beating us I succeeded in noticing one whom they called Musa. After this beating they took us to one room and took off our blindfolds and stripped us naked, then they confiscated all our valuables that we had and our documents. They took away from me my wrist watch "Seiko" which was a souvenir from my brother, some 450 DEM and some 20 million of our dinars, which amounted to 2-3 salaries. When they were confiscating the DEM they were cursing my Serbian and Chetnick mother and one of them said: "Look in what currency the Chetnicks are paying him". The objects that they were taking from me they were putting into their own pockets and right there in front of us. When I saw this I was afraid that I will never leave this place alive since they were destroying my documents.
After the confiscation of our valuables they placed us stark naked into one room and started pouring cold water over us saying that we are "lousy Chetnicks". After the pouring they forced us to stand in front of the wall and lean on the wall with our hands and then they started hitting us with baseball bats, then they took us to our cells. They placed me first into a cell in the block "C".
Since I was captured I was not given any food, and the same was with the others. Here they gave us a bit of some cooking but it was totally tasteless and very scarce. They were feeding us poorly all the time, and we were not given food every day. They would divide one loaf of bread into 20 slices so that every one would be getting one slice for the entire day. From such food we were all exhausted and I remember one day when I was terribly starved that I said out loud that I could eat an entire soldier boot if given. This was overheard by two Ustashi who were passing through the corridor, they entered the cell, I remember, one of them was Andjelko, and I do not know who the other one was, and at their question I said that I was asking for a boot to eat it up because I was hungry. They left and they brought me four steaks and an entire bread loaf and forced me to eat all that, threatening if I should not do so or if I should give some food to the others with me in the cell, that they will slaughter me. I ate everything and then yet another loaf of bread. Since for days my stomach was empty and starved, such sudden consumption of a large quantity of food created some trouble so I was suffering much pain, and they were enjoying it. We were given water very rarely, usually every 5th or 7th day. They were giving us one plastic bottle of 1.5 liters for the five of us in the cell. In this they were saying that the water is costly and that they are good because they are giving us any at all. We were urinating by asking to go to the WC and sometimes they would take us there, and sometimes not, so we had to do it in the cell. It used to happen that because of the lack of water we were drinking our own urine. Regarding the bowl movement they were taking us to the WC, however, because of the poor nutrition we seldom had any need to go there. I had a bowl movement for the first time after 19 days and when they took me to the WC they demanded that I finish it in one minute. Since I could not do that, I started eating soap and only the next day I had the bowl movement. Otherwise, there were prisoners who for 40 days on end did not have a bowl movement.
On one occasion when they were taking us outside into a prison camp circle for a walk and that would happen once in 7 or 10 days, one Ustashi ordered me to eat an orange peels saying that I needed some vitamins. In the prison camp "Lora" they were beating us and torturing us all the time, and were giving us our due, which meant heavy beating us with all sorts of objects and all over the body. They were beating us in the cells or outside, both individually and in groups, and for the beating and torture they were using various objects and devices. When they would be tired from beating us they would be forcing us to hit each other by ordering us to stand facing each other usually in two lines and look at each other’s faces. Then they would order us to beat each other. If some one would not be hitting hard enough then they would beat him, so the prisoners were forced to strike with full force their own friends.
They were forcing us to have sodomite intercourse and to suck each other’s sexual organs. Especially sever case was the one to which they forced the Serbian Orthodox priest Z.P. from Kupres. They were saying about him that he is the devil and not a priest. One day they brought him to our cell and stripped him naked. Then they ordered us also to take off all of our clothes and he was lying on the floor, and we had to lie over him one above the other. This was very painful and humiliating. On several occasions they would connect this priest on to the electrical current and would order him to go down on his knees and they would bring me in, stark naked, and they would force him to take into his mouth my sexual organ. They were forcing him to bite my sexual organ, and if he would not be doing that strongly enough they would increase the electricity. In such situations I was also connected to the electricity and we would always faint. This was done also several times with me and Z. but it was also done with the other prisoners who were detained in the block "C", so that I was also tortured like that many times, and not only with Z. This torture was done in an auxiliary room with the concrete floor, and the floor would be covered with water so that the electricity would shake us immediately upon entering this room and when we would be connected on to these wires. The electricity was generated by aid of an inductor telephone by turning of the handle. The faster the handle was turned, the stronger the electricity was.
In this manner they were torturing the prisoners, the most Andjelko and his fiend with whom he was together all the time, and this was especially appreciated by the warden Tomo Dujic. Special enjoyment in this type of torture was having the wife of Tomo Dujic. Furthermore, she was also enjoying asking the prisoners "Do you want some ….", and would then strongly hit him on the sexual organ, after having forced us to spread our legs. On one occasion she took me out of the cell and ordered me to "pick grapes". I did not understand what she wants, then she shouted that I should catch the fog. I did not understand that either. Then she forced me to spread my arms and pretend that I was picking something, and during that time she was hitting me with the baton all over the body, but especially on the ribs and behind the neck. As far as I can remember, I had three such contacts when she was torturing me, and I know that she was doing that also with the other prisoners.
Very tedious and perhaps the most horrible torture for me was the one called "searching for a Chetnick". One day the warden Tomo Dujic took me out of the cell and told me that he must search for Chetnicks – Seselj and Milosevic, because they had entered my body. He ordered me to lie down and he placed on his hand a red glove up to his elbow. Then he inserted his hand up my anus and started squeezing my internal organs. He was causing me terrible pains that I can not describe and there was a lot of bleeding. He was doing that until I fainted. Dujic personally repeated this torture with me many times and most often this was done in the auxiliary room which was close to our cell.
One night at midnight, Tomo Dujic, who seemed to have a special grudge on me, took me out of my cell and took me to another room. Over there I found five men dressed in standard JNA uniforms so I concluded that they were the members of the JNA. According to their talk I understood that they are Montenegrins. These men were so much tortured, with broken arms and legs, that all this left a very strong impression on me, and I shall never forget that sight. They all had their ears cut off, and it seems to me that only one of them had one ear left. They were lined up down on the floor, some were leaning against the wall, and some were in the semi-reclining position. Some of these men have had their eyes gauged out, and in front of me they were gauging the eyes of the other ones. I remember one of the torturers having stabbed the knife into the tongue of one of them, then pulling the knife, cutting off his tongue. They did not gauge the eyes of one of the Montenegrins so that he could see what was happening, and then they started slaughtering them, one by one. They were slaughtering them in such a way that they would hold them by the hair, and with the knife would cut them on the throat. On that occasion every one of them had his head severed from the body. If one would try to defend himself, he would be fast overcome because there were five torturers, and they were all beaten up and in a very terrible state. At the end, the only one that remained alive was the one still having his eyes, and then one of the torturers lined up three knives, one beside the others, and told him to chose the knife with which we will be slaughtered. This poor man who had enough of the tortures and humiliation, pointed his hand at one of the knives. I am not sure, but I think that the slaughterer was the one who demanded for the knife to be chosen, and he went completely mad with anger and was resembling much more a beast than a man, and with the lightening speed he grabbed that knife and in a split second came up to the Montenegrin and in one slash severed his head from the trunk of the body. The lifeless body turned over, and the head remained in the air because it was held with the other hand of the slaughterer by the hair. It was a terrible sight that can hardly be described, because while the Ustashi was holding the head, the eyes of the victim were still opened, and also the mouth, and in such a state they were still opening and closing several times. From this scene even the criminals became frightened. So after a certain time the one who was still holding the head came to his senses and with all his strength he slashed it against the wall and it simply fell apart and one could see the brain still sizzling. I was in a pitiful state and even now I can not understand how I could endure all this and suffer all this, because I was expecting that they will slaughter me also any minute. At that moment one man came, probably belonging to the superior ranks, and he was obviously appalled at that sight and told them that there was enough slaughter, and as if it was not enough for them, in view of how many they slaughtered the previous night. He addressed me and asked me from which cell I was and ordered them to return me there. That is how I have escaped a certain death, because I am sure that I was taken to that room to be slaughtered. Otherwise, that room was all covered with blood even when I came so that with everything that I have seen and the events that I have witnessed left on me a terrible and horrible impression. All this was done by Tomo Dujic with another four men from the prison camp guard, one of them called Musa.
After a few days, also during the night, they took me out again with another nine men for the slaughter to that same place. That night Dujic was not present, but Andjelko was there who was even more cruel than Dujic, and his friend was also present there, the person whom they called the "Artist" or the "Doctor". From amongst the people brought for the slaughter I noticed that one had his ear cut off. Because of the slaughter itself they did not torture us. The slaughter was done in such a way that with the knives in their hands they would approach the victim, would catch some by the hands and shoulders, and one would catch the victim’s hair with one hand and in the other hand with the knife, he would cut off the head. On that occasion eight persons were slaughtered. In each of these cases the head was severed from the body. Just by chance this time again, by the arrival of one Ustashi, my life was saved. When the turn came for one prisoner I think he was from Kupres, engineer of high power, one Ustashi entered the room and prevented further slaughter by saying that it was enough for that day. Since it was almost dawn and the blood had to be removed and the corpses taken away, I concluded that this was the reason for the termination of the slaughter.
In order to humiliate us they were bringing young people to our cells, people from 10-12 years of age, dressed in Ustashi uniforms and adorned with the chess-board flags. We had to show them all the honors and to shout the slogans such as "For home, ready, for Ante Pavelic!". We also had to sing the Ustashi songs which we had to memorize in all the prison camps through which we had passed. The singing of the songs was taking place during most of the occasions and on different occasions.
Several times at night they would be bringing in the Serbian girls. According to their appearance it seemed that they were abused and frightened. When they would bring them in we would be lined up and they asked who wished to have a sexual intercourse with them. No matter what we did or said, we would be given a terrible beating. If one would say that he wishes to have a sexual intercourse with them, he would be terribly beaten just like the one who said that he would not, and every one had to give his opinion. On one such occasion I received a lot of beatings, but it seems to me that it was less than the other ones received, because I told them that I have a daughter about the age of those girls and that even when I was a young man I was not appreciating such kind of life. Probably they accepted me in some way, because they were beating me less than the others.
The second time I was detained in "Lora" in the prison warden’s office an electric chair was erected on which we were placed to sit.. We would be tied with the wire and a metal holder to the ear, as they did to me, and some would have their ears pierced and a naked wire passed through the ear. The other wire would be fastened to the sexual organ, and then they would let the electricity flow by aid of a button and they wold increase or decrease the intensity of the electricity. This was mostly done by Tomo Dujic and when he was rather drunk, and perhaps he was not even drunk but only in a good mood, because he would always be singing the Ustashi songs while coming, and then the torture was to follow. The other ones were doing this as well. Tomo Dujic called this device the "SDS" because he would call upon the prisoner whom he wanted to torture by saying that the SDS is on the phone, and then he would take the prisoner to his office and would torture him there. While he was placing me on the electric chair and letting the electric shocks, he would be seated at the table, drinking brandy. He was seldom doing this alone but usually had the others with him. When they would let the electric shocks, my entire body would be shaking and all the nerves in the body would be tense, and also the muscles and I though that my eyes would pop out of my sockets. My teeth were shattering and the electricity would be kept on until I would faint.
They were forcing some prisoners to eat the excrements which they would put in some sort of a bag. This was experienced by my brother D. and they forced him to collect in the corridors the cigarette butts and matches and then eat them. They were forcing him every day to eat the crushed stone telling him that he needed some vitamins.
Furthermore, I remember the torture of two senior officers of the JNA, the lieutenant colonel J. and captain P. They were forced to confess to the crimes which they did not commit, with the intention of shaming the JNA. They would be taken in front of a firing squad and in front of all of us they had to confess to the alleged crimes and insult us all. But we knew that all this was not true".
V
THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE
Killing, serious body injury, infliction of body and psychological injuries to health and sufferings, i.e. subjecting civilians, wounded, sick or prisoners of war to especially harsh, cruel and inhuman living conditions, with systematic and continuous starvation and dehydration, keeping them in unhygienic conditions of living, is a crime of genocide committed against the members of the Serbian people.
All these illicit procedures of the prison camp management, guards, sentries or policemen, as well as members of the regular military and police forces of the Republic of Croatia were manifested in the prison camp for Serbs "Lora" in Split throughout the duration of this prison camp operation, practically from the very beginning of the war actions in the territory of the Republic of Croatia in the year 1991 and up to the year 1997, when this prison camp was abandoned by the prisoners whose statements are given hereinabove, and are contained in this material primarily through the testimonies of the victims themselves and the eye-witnesses. According to the available data, however, it may be concluded that in this prison camp there are still imprisoned Serbs.
All of these behaviors of the Croat military, police and civilian authorities in the prison camp "Lora" were undertaken with the intention of exterminating members of Serbian nationality and of the Serbian Orthodox faith, of removing them from these areas in which, throughout history and for many centuries they were living, and not only from the regions which are at present within the composition of the Republic of Croatia, but also from the regions belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the implementation of this target, Croat authorities did not chose the ways, means and methods of procedure, but have in a brutal and inhuman way attacked women, aged, civilians, prisoners of war, regardless of whether they were in good health, sick, wounded or injured, without at all taking into consideration whether these persons were the citizens of the Republic of Croatia or were originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
6
CHARACTER AND NATURE OF BODY INJURIES
AND DESTRUCTION OF HEALTH AS A CONSEQUENCE
OF COMMITTED CRIMES
The finds and opinion of physicians – experts in forensic medicine speak of the type, character, nature and degree of detriment caused to the body integrity and injury to the physical and psychological health of the imprisoned Serbs, civilians, wounded, sick and prisoners of war, that they have suffered during the detention in the Croat prison camp "Lora" in Split, and which were a direct consequence of the applied certain forms of activities, manifesting war crimes and the crime of genocide. These finds are practically supporting the statements of the witnesses – both victims and eye-witnesses to the cruel, inhuman and bestial behavior of the Croat military, civilian and police authorities towards the captured Serbs.
This is, of course, only one and a small part of the material from the testimony and finds of the forensic experts on the physical and psychological health of Serbs who have spent some time in the detention in the prison camp "Lora". But even these data sufficiently illustrate the cruel treatment by the prison camp administration and the prison camp guards and the conditions and atmosphere which was reigning in this prison camp, the consequences of which are manifested in the inflicted body injuries and other forms of detriment and impairment to the physical and psychological health of the victims of these crimes.
The established also are the bone scars – calluses on the 8th and the 9th rib on the right side, in the same line with the areas of fracture of the ribs with a slight dislocation. These fractures were caused by at least one single active action – blow with the blunt part of a mechanical object (including fists, knee, foot, boot, riffle butt, etc.) and these fractures in themselves represented, at the time they were inflicted, a severe body injury.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the time spent in captivity, a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with the picture of an anxious depressive and neurotic reaction".
The established bone scars – calluses on the 5th metacarpal bone of the right hand were created in the spot of the fractures of this bone. This fracture was caused by at least one active action – a blow, with the blunt side of a mechanical object (including fists, knees, foot, kick with the boot, with the riffle butt, etc.) and this fracture itself represented at the time it was inflicted, a severe body injury.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the time of captivity, a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with a predominant depressive picture of a neurotic character".
The established line-shaped scar on the left lower arm was formed at the place of injury, and on the basis of the appearance of the scar and the anamnesis data – on the place of a possible cut caused by a sharp edge of a mechanical object.
The present examination has established that there is a reduced mobility of the left shoulder joint with the swelling above the left shoulder, as a consequence of the inflicted injury – dislocation of the left shoulder joint. This injury could have been caused by the twisting of the arm and at the time it was inflicted in itself it represented a severe body injury, At the time of infliction of this injury the victim was suffering pain of a very high intensity accompanied with fear of great intensity.
On the basis of the medical documentation and the present examination it is established that the upper left teeth II, III, VI and VII, and the upper right teeth II, III, IV, V and VI, and lower left V teeth were loosened through the action – blow with the blunt part of a mechanical object, and had to be extracted..
Bone scars – calluses were established on the 5th and the 6th rib on the right side in the line with the shoulder blade, formed at the places of the fracture of these ribs without dislocation. These fractures were caused by at least a single active action – blow with the blunt part of a mechanical object (including the fist, knee, foot, kick with the boot, riffle butt, etc.) and the fractures themselves have represented at the time they were inflicted the lighter body injury.
The established bone scars – calluses on the 7th rib on the right side in the part of the back arm-pit line were formed at the place of fracture of this rib, without dislocation. This fracture was caused by at least a single active action –a blow with the blunt mechanical object (including fist, knee, foot, kick with the boot, riffle butt, etc.) and this fracture in itself represented at the time it was inflicted a lighter body injury.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the time of captivity a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with the picture of depressive reaction of a neurotic type".
The established lateral scar on the left wrist on the back of the hand was formed on the place of inflicted injury. On the basis of the location, the appearance of the scar and the anamnesis data it is possible that this scar was formed on the place of "cutting" of the cuff-links into the skin".
The established scar in the area of the left eye-brow was formed at the place of injury. On the basis of the appearance of the scar and the anamnesis data it is probable that it was formed in the place of the inflicted cut made by a blow of a blunt part of a mechanical object (including fists, feet, boot, baton, etc.).
On the basis of the medical documentation it is seen that the victim suffered fractures of the 6th, 8th and 9th right ribs. These fractures were caused by the bunt part of a mechanical object.
The established numerous small scars on the skin of the right lower leg are located on a total area of some 15 x 5 cm and with their characteristics point out that they were formed most probably on the spot of the inflicted cuts, these cuts caused by multiple direct action – blows with the blunt part of a mechanical object of a small size.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during captivity, a post-traumatic stress syndrome was developed with the picture of an anxious-depressive reaction of a neurotic type".
The established scar on the skin of the left upper arm on the basis of its appearance and characteristics and the anamnesis data shows that it could have been formed on the spot of the entrance wound caused by the projectile fired by the hand fire arm. This injury in itself at the time it was inflicted represented a severe body injury.
The established scar on the palm of the right hand was formed on the spot of the inflicted injury and on the basis of its characteristics and the anamnesis data could have been caused by the tangential action of a sharp blade of a mechanical object.
The established scars on the skin of the left groin, sub-groin and hip area were formed on the spots of entrance of the fire wounds caused by the buckshot jet fired from the hand fire arm at close range, further confirmed by the distribution of buckshot in the soft tissue of this part visible on the x-ray. At the time this fire arm injury was inflicted it represented a severe and lethal body injury.
Semi-contracted 4th and 5th fingers of the left and right hand without the ability for active and passive movement represent a direct consequence of the inflicted fire wounds in the area of both upper arms (where the present examination has established the scars on the skin), but there is also a possibility that in part this is a consequence of the injuries suffered by direct action of the blunt edge of the mechanical object – a blow on the fingers of the hands.
Because of the suffered injuries in the form of contraction of the fingers on the two hands and a large number of large and irregular scars on the body, mutilation is established.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the captivity a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with the picture of an anxious-depressive reaction and a suicidal contemplation".
The bone scars – calluses were established on the 7th and the 8th rib on the left side in the same line with the place of fracture of these ribs, with the slight dislocation. These fractures were inflicted with at least a single active action – blow with the blunt part of a mechanical object (including fists, knee, foot, kick with the boot, riffle butt, etc.) and these fractures in themselves represented at the time they were inflicted a severe body injury.
The established scars on the head and in the area of the right lower leg were formed on the places of inflicted injuries, and on the basis of the appearance of the scars and the anamnesis data it is possible that they were formed on the places of cuts inflicted with the blow of a blunt part of a mechanical object (including a boot, baton, riffle butt etc.)."
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the time of captivity a reactive depressive reaction has developed."
The established scars in the area of the right ankle with the thin and scaled skin surrounding them, were formed on the place of the surface wounds and on the basis of the appearance of these scars and the anamnesis data it is possible that these surface wounds were caused by a long wearing of the footwear like boots without socks ("on the bare skin").
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the captivity a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with the picture of the anxious-depressive reaction and a paranoid interpretation. Epi symptomatica suspecta per anamnestica."
The established scars on the left leg were formed on the places of the inflicted injuries and on the basis of the appearance of the scars and the anamnesis data it is possible that they were formed on the place of cuts inflicted with the blunt edge of a mechanical object (including boots, riffle butts, batons, etc.).
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during captivity a post-traumatic stress syndrome has developed with the picture of an anxious-depressive reaction".
The established scars on the upper lip and in the right cheekbone area were formed on the places of the inflicted injuries, and on the basis of the appearance of the scars and the anamnesis data probably were formed on the places of the cuts caused by the bow of a blunt edge of the mechanical object (including boots, riffle butts, batons, etc.).
The established bone scars – calluses on the 7th and the 8th rib on the right side in the same line were formed on the places of the fractures of these ribs with the same slight dislocation. These fractures were inflicted by at least a single active action - blow with the blunt edge of a mechanical object (including fists, knee, foot, kick with the boot, riffle butt, etc.), and these fractures in themselves represented at the times they were inflicted a severe body injury.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the time of captivity, a post-traumatic syndrome has developed with the picture of a depressive reaction".
On the basis of the examination and the established find, the age of the victim and the anamnesis data it is probable that the surgical removal of the testicle was indicated by the previous severe injury to this testicle. In view of the absence of the changes on the skin of the scrotum in the form of scars it may be concluded that the injury of the testicle was caused by a direct action of the blunt part – a strong blow, of a mechanical object ("stepping with boots, "kicking with feet").
The severe injury of the testicle because of which the surgical removal of the same had to be performed – a "semi-castration", at the time it was inflicted caused an extremely acute pain which could have caused a neurogenic shock and the loss of consciousness. Therefore, such a severe injury of the testicle is qualified as a severe and lethal body injury.
The established scars on the lower leg were formed at the place of injuries inflicted, and on the basis of the appearance of the scars and the anamnesis data it is possible that they were formed at the place of cuts caused by the blow of a blunt mechanical object (including the stepping on and kicking with boots, kicks with the riffle butts, batons, etc.).
The established bone scars – calluses on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th rib on the right side in the same line were formed at the place of fracture of these ribs without dislocation. These fractures were inflicted with at least a single action – a blow with the blunt side of a mechanical object of a broad surface (including a foot, kick with a boot, riffle butt, etc.) and these fractures in themselves represented at the time they were inflicted a severe body injury.
The established bone scars – calluses on the 5th and the 6th rib on the right side in the same line were formed at the place of fracture of these ribs, without dislocation. These fractures were caused by at least a single active action – a blow, with the blunt side of a mechanical object (including a fist, foot, kick with a boot, a riffle butt, etc.) and these fractures in themselves represented at the time they were inflicted a lighter body injury.
The established bone scars – calluses on the 6th and the 7th rib on the left side in the same line were formed at the place of the fracture of these ribs, with a significant dislocation. These fractures were inflicted with at least a single active action – a blow with the blunt part of a mechanical object (including a fist, a knee, a foot, kick with a boot, riffle butt, etc.) and all of these fractures in themselves at the time they were inflicted represented a severe body injury.
As a consequence of the experienced trauma during the captivity a post traumatic stress syndrome developed with the anxious-depressive reaction and a suicidal consideration".
As a direct consequence of the injuries suffered there is a complete immobility of the left arm in the left shoulder joint with the atrophy of the muscles of the left arm and the signs of traumatic damage to the bronchial plexus, which has all together caused a mutilation and a decreased general life and work capabilities to a significant degree.
The established scar on the forehead formed at the place of inflicted injury in this part ,on the basis of the appearance of the scar and the anamnesis data probably was formed at the place of the inflicted cut caused by a blow with the blunt edge of a mechanical object (including feet, baton, riffle butt, boot, etc.)."
According to the shape, diameter and location, the scars on the head i.e. the wounds on the head were most probably inflicted by the blow with the blunt edge of a mechanical object (breaking of the skin), on the right side of the chest with the tip of a mechanical object (stab) and the sharp edge of a mechanical object (cut), on the right lower leg most probably with the blunt edge of a mechanical object (cut) and the palm of the left hand by multiple action of the tips of a mechanical object (stabs).
All of the wounds from which were formed the above stated scars, both individually and collectively, represent a lighter body injury.
The fractures of the ribs on the left side of the rib cage (6-8) were caused by the action – blow with the blunt edge of a mechanical object and represented a severe body injury at the moment of infliction, and the fractures of the ribs (6-9) with the deformity of the wall of the right side of the rib cage and the hemorrhage into the thoracic cavity were caused by the action – blow with the blunt edge of a mechanical object and represented a severe and lethal body injury at the time they were inflicted.
Contusion of the body and of both hands with the deformity of the left hand were caused by the action – blow with the blunt edge of the mechanical object and represent together a lighter body injury, as well as the fractures of the I and the II tooth on the upper right.
On the basis of the find and opinion of the physician administering the treatment and the psychologist, all the injuries established on the body of the victim under the circumstances in which they were inflicted, have left lasting effects both in the psychological sphere (depression, auto-destructive tendencies, psychometric inhibition, loss of self-esteem, emotional lability, difficult social adaptation, etc.) and in the neurological sphere (damage to the peripheral nerves of arms and legs, parenthesis and strong pain all over the body, disability of distal muscles of arms and legs, etc.)."
7
PERPETRATORS OF COMMITTED CRIMES
All the genocidal crimes in the prison camp "Lora" in Split were committed by or order to be committed, by the members of the military, police and civilian authorities of the Republic of Croatia. There is evidence beyond any doubt is support of this – testimonies of prisoners themselves – eye-witnesses and victims, who were personally subjected to individual or group actions of genocidal crimes. The list of persons giving orders, prison camp wardens, their assistants, direct perpetrators of certain crimes in the person of prison guards, military policemen etc. given in this document is neither a complete nor a final list.
Namely, the responsibility for the crimes committed in the prison camp "Lora" in the period 1991 – 1997 against Serbs, and only because they were members of the Serbian nationality and because they were of a Serbian Orthodox faith, must not be brought down to only the direct perpetrators. It would be a great and almost unforgivable sin towards all those victims who have died or were inflicted with injuries through the application of an unprecedented terror against them during their detention in this prison camp. The identities of the perpetrators and persons giving orders for the crimes to be committed in the prison camp "Lora" were determined on the basis of the testimonies of the victims themselves – the former prison camp inmates.
7.1. PERSON GIVING THE ORDERS
7.2. PRISON CAMP WARDENS
They were forcing the prisoners to face the wall, to place on the wall the hands above their heads, and to distance the feet from the wall so that the body would be in an inclined position, and then they would start beating on the kidneys and the flanks. This was most often done by Tomo Dujic. They were beating us on the stomach and the chest. The prison camp warden Tomo Dujic was the initiator and perpetrator of many bestialities and tortures of the prisoners. He was the one to apply most often the torture by electricity. I was subjected four times to this torture. It consisted in them taking me out of the cell and blindfolded taking me to the office of Tomo Dujic. Over there, they would tie me up with the cuff-links to a chair, and then Dujic would place on my ear lobes the electrodes and by aid of some transformer he would let the electrical current of high tension so that I had the feeling that some one was cutting me up with a saw."
One evening, I do not remember the date, around midnight, Tomo Dujic, who seemed to have had a special grudge on me, took me out of the cell and into another room. I found there five men dressed in standard uniforms of the JNA, so I concluded that they were members of the JNA. According to their speech I understood that they were Montenegrin. These people were so much tortured, with broken legs and arms, that it all left a terrible impression on me, and an impression that I will never be able to forget. All of them had their ears cut off, as far as I remember, but it seems to me that only one of them had one ear left. They were lined down on the floor, and some were leaning against the wall, and some were in a semi-reclining position. Some of these men had their eyes gauged out, and some had their eyes gauged out in front of me. I remember that one of the torturers stabbed a knife into the tongue of one of them and then drew the knife so that the tongue was cut off. They did not gauge the eyes of one of the Montenegrins, so that he could see everything that was happening and then they started with the slaughtering, slaughtering them one by one. They were slaughtering in such a way that they would hold the hair in one hand and would cut the throat with the knife in the other. On that occasion the head of every victim was severed from the body. If any one would try to defend himself, he would be fast overcome because there were five torturers and the victims were all beaten up and in a very terrible state. At the end only one of them remained alive, the one who did not have his eyes gauged out. One of the torturers lined up three knives, one beside the others and told him to chose the knife with which he will slaughter him. This martyr who really had enough of the sufferings and tortures, pointed his hand to one of the knives. I am not quite certain, but I think that it was done by the one who demanded for the knife to be chosen, and he became completely enraged and was resembling more a beast than a man and with the speed of a lightening he grabbed the knife and in a split second he came up to that Montenegrin and with one blow severed the head from his body. The lifeless body turned over, and the head remained in the air because he was holding it with the other hand by the hair. This was a terrible sight that can hardly be described. All this was being done by Tomo Dujic with another four men from the prison camp guards, and one of them was Musa.
The second time I was detained in the prison camp "Lora" in the prison camp warden’s office an electric chair was erected on which they would place us to sit, and would tie us up with the wires by putting a wire by aid of a metal connection on to the ear, as they were doing to me, and some would have their ears pierced and the naked wire pierced through the ear. The other wire would be fastened on to the sexual organ, and then they would switch on the electricity and by aid of a certain button they would increase or decrease the intensity of the electricity. This was mostly done by Tomo Dujic and mostly while he was drunk, and he was always in a good mood and would be singing the Ustashi songs while coming and then the torture was to follow. They were doing this also to the others but there was much less torture with the electric chair while Dujic was not present. He was calling this device an "SDS" because when he wanted to torture a prisoner on that chair he would call him out of his cell by saying that the "SDS is calling him on the telephone".
7.3. DIRECT PERPETRATORS OF CRIMES
22. GRBESA, whose name is not known, born in 1974 or 1975, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
23. GRUJO NIKSA, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
24. GUDIC ANTE, from Split, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of a number of witnesses:
25. "DABRO", nickname of a guard of unknown name and surname, an elderly man with the moustaches about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
26. DOZDER or DODZER ZORAN, from Split, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
27. DRAZIC MILJENKO, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
28. "DUGI", the nickname of the guard of unknown name and surname, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
29. EMIR, of unknown family name, from Zvornik, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
30. JASKO, of unknown name and surname, a guard in the prison camp, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
31. JOVIC ZDENKO, a military policeman about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
32. LEKIC STIPE, a guard, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
33. LIVAJA or LEVAJA IVICA, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
34. MALES JERKO, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
35. MEKIC or MEHIC DZEVAD, called "BRZI", a former sergeant major in the JNA from Busovaca, who joined the Croat side and about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
36. MUSA TOMISLAV, a former soldier in the JNA, by birth from Kocerin near Siroki Brijeg, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
37. ‘NACISTA’ ("NAZI"), whose name and surname are not known, and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
38. NIKSA or NISEV GRUJICA, a member of the anti-terrorist military police, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
39. OBRADOVIC ZELJKO, called "LACA", by birth from Bajrovac near Svitava (Capljina), about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
40. OSANIC LUKA, a military policeman from Metkovic, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
41. PARAGA, whose name and surname are not known and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
42. PASALIC TVRTKO, deputy of Galic Zdravko, commander of the 72nd unit of military police for Central Dalmatia, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
43. "PEPI", whose name and surname are not known, and about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
1) Witness 182/95-2 states the following: "I received the hardest beating on May 1, 1992 when into my cell rushed Giljanovic with another two whom I know by the nicknames of "Bane" and "Pepi", and who beat me us as well as Dj.N. They forced me to face the wall with the hands in the air and they were beating me with the fists and batons on the back. My back was all in bruises, and they broke several of my ribs, one of the ribs having pierced the pleura. Dj. fell into a coma so the prison camp doctor had to come to intervene."
44. Brothers PERISIC, DAMIR called "RAMBO" and DAVOR from Sinj, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
45. "POBRO", whose name and surname are not known, and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
46. RAKIC EDIN, a soldier in the former JNA, who defected to the Croat side and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
47. RESIC ALMAZ, from Rudo, a solder in the former JNA, who defected to the Croat side and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
48. ROGOSIC TONCI, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
49. "SAKE", whose name and surname are not known, and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
50. SEVIC, whose name and surname are not known and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
51. SLAVKO, whose family name is not known and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
52. SULEJMANOVIC or SULIMANOVIC ZORAN, called "SULE", about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
53. TANJA, whose family name is not known, the girl-friend of Tomo Dujic, warden of the prison camp "Lora", about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
55. TOLUSIC MLADEN, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
56. FILIPOVIC, of unknown name, by origin from Vir near Posusje, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
57. FRANIC MARIO, commander of the military police for Omis, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
58. HODZIC RESID or RESAD, a soldier of the former JNA, serving his military service in Gabela, by origin from Srebrenica, about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
59. COVIC, a military policeman about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
60. COP, a guard about whose crimes speak the testimonies of the following witnesses:
61. CULINA ZORAN, about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
62. SIMIC, whose name is not known, and about whose crimes speaks the testimony of the following witness:
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The data on direct perpetrators, instigators, assistants to and persons ordering tortures in the prison camp "Lora" given by the witnesses, eye-witnesses and victims themselves of their bestial, cruel and inhuman bestialities, are not complete and available only in part. This is understandable in view of the fact that the criminals themselves were communicating with each other mostly by using the nicknames. Victims were subjected to terrible, daily and nocturnal physical and psychological exhaustion, torture, bestial beating, so that between the reality and the dream, often in a senseless state, they could not notice much about their torturers, and neither remember them later and recall all details at a later date. Because the memory itself would open up those painful wounds caused by the tortures suffered in the prison camp.
8
CONCLUSION
On the basis of this material, authentic and based primarily on the testimonies of witness – both eye-witnesses and victims themselves of bestial, animal, cruel and inhuman orgies and treatments to which they were subjected permanently, systematically and continuously during all the time of their captivity in the prison camp for Serbs "Lora" in Split, and on the basis of the forensic medical documents, a firm conclusion may be drawn that the Croat Army, police and civilian authorities from the very beginning of the war actions in the territory of the Republic of Croatia, therefore, from the year 1991, have established the prison camp for Serbs (civilian population, men, women, both aged and young, sick, wounded i.e. prisoners of war) and only because they were of the Serbian Orthodox faith, regardless of whether they were captured or arrested in the territory of this Republic or in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that during all the time this prison camp was in operation, with the full knowledge and blessings of the official authorities in Zagreb, they were conducting a system of measures aimed at killing, inflicting bodily injury, destruction of physical integrity and health of people, cruel, inhuman behavior, infliction of physical and psychological sufferings, subjecting the members of the Serbian national group to such living conditions that had only one aim – to cleanse these areas promptly and immediately and lastingly from the Serbian people, creating an ethnically pure Croat land.
In this text only one part of the testimonies of prisoners was presented, the part that was available and accessible and until now treated. But certainly these are not the only tragic destinies of people who in the turmoil of war were arrested and imprisoned in the prison camp "Lora". The said material offers a series of examples of bestial acts of the prison camp management and of the prison camp guards, but also of the others (for example, civilians from Split), which practically means a manifestation of certain forms or manners of the crime of genocide. Wherever possible it was stated who were the direct and immediate perpetrators committing or persons ordering such crimes..
The above stated manner, means and procedures of torture of the imprisoned Serbs point out at an inexhaustible imagination in the function of hatred towards another people and towards another religion. Through the killings, infliction of severe body and psychological injuries, sufferings, pain and trauma, beating almost to death of the victims over all parts of body, tortures, harassment, the specters of the Ustashi are being resurrected from the period of World War Two and the concept of the Ustashi ideology which was embodied in the genocide against Serbs in the so-called Independent State of Croatia, having at that time within its composition Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
C O N T E N T S
1
INTRODUCTION
2
WILLFUL KILLING OF SERBIAN INMATES
3
CRIMES AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATION
4
CRIMES AGAINST PRISONERS OF WAR
5
THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE
6
CHARACTER AND NATURE OF BODY INJURIES AND
DESTRUCTION OF HEALTH AS A CONSEQUENCE OF PERPETRATED CRIMES
7
PERPETRATORS OF COMMITTED CRIMES
7.1. PERSONS ORDERING CRIMES
7.2. PRISON CAMP WARDENS
7.3. DIRECT PERPETRATORS OF CRIMES
8
CONCLUSION
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