Sarajevo, October 5 – In a trial for the crimes committed against Serb women in Odzak, witness Milica Djekic confirmed she had been raped by the accused Ilija Juric.
At the invitation of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ms Djekic testified again and repeated that she had been raped by Juric and that among the soldiers who were present when she was raped in a house in Posavska Mahala in the Odzak municipality, there were Pavo Glavas, Ilija Glavas, Marijan Brnjic and Martin Barukcic.
“They tore me up, there was blood all over me. It lasted half a night. Pain and suffering. At the end they threw me out, I was unable to move, I was kicked about. Two women helped me up and I went home,” recounted Djekic.
She said that all the soldiers had been wearing camouflage uniforms with the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) emblems and that they had been carrying rifles, reports the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN.
Djekic said she could not recall how many times she had given statements about what she had gone through.
“To the HVO I gave statements when they were supposed to take me to a doctor. I didn’t say then what had happened to me, because I didn’t want to. In 1994, I gave a statement to the Women’s Association, they made the minutes. That’s when I described what had happened to me,” Djekic said.
Juric is charged with raping and sexually abusing a Serb female in a house in Posavska Mahala in the night of June 4/5, 1995, when he was a member of the HVO 102nd Brigade.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina also charges Juric with ambushing in July 1992, together with other soldiers, and abusing two women of Serb ethnicity who were on their way, together with their children, to see their husbands incarcerated in the Elementary School in Odzak visit.
Martin Barukcic, Pavo Glavas, Ilija Glavas and Marijan Brnjic are charged with crimes committed in Odzak in a separate case.
The trial will resume on October 12, when the Prosecutor’s Office is expected to present its closing arguments.
Source: SRNA
