The Celebic Camp

Camp commander Zdravko Mucic Pavo (51), coordinator of Moslem and Croat troops in the region Zejnil Delalic (48), deputy camp commander Hazim Delic (31) and guard Esad Landzo Zenga (23) were indicted. Under the charges Mucic, Delalic and Delic held ranking command posts in the May-September 1992 period and were in command of all guards and anyone who came to the camp and tortured prisoners. They are charged with at least 14 murders, at least seven cases of torture and two rapes, and five cases of causing suffering and bodily harm, at least three cases of inhumane behavior including forcing prisoners to perform felatio, and illegally imprisoning people in inhumane conditions. Also, Mucic is personally responsible for five cases of torture and two cases of rape and Landzo for five murders, four cases of torture.

Mucic and Delalic were arrested in Vienna and Munich on March 18. Delic and Landzo are still at large somewhere in the Konjic area. The Bosnian presidency said "all criminals should be tried: and added that that is the stand of the "legal Bosnia-Herzegovina bodies". The Bosnian authorities also offered the tribunal its assurances that the two men would be arrested.

"These are the first but not the last indictments for crimes against the Bosnian Serbs," tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said. "Charges could not have been raised earlier since the authorities in Belgrade and Pale refused to cooperate and witnesses had to be interrogated in third countries."

The authorities in Belgrade knew what happened in the Celebic camp and press reports testify to that. The seventh report by the federal government's war crimes committee said that camp, a former JNA fuel depot, consisted of two metal hangars and a tunnel leading to a bomb shelter. The report said some 400 people were brought into Celebic. The temperature inside the hangars was over 40 degrees Centigrade in summer and there were another 42 prisoners in the tunnels with no ventilation or light. The report said 18 people were killed in Celebic and there were numerous witness accounts of torture and abuse.

By not accepting cooperation with the tribunal, Belgrade and Pale were prepared to disregard the crimes committed in Celebic to protect the Serbs who the tribunal has charged with war crimes.

A statement by the tribunal said some non-governmental organizations in Belgrade and the US had helped bring witnesses to third countries for questioning.

The Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade passed its information on Celebic to the tribunal. It served as relevant information for the investigation. VREME has decided to publish two accounts from the Fund's documents. The names of the prisoners in the tunnel and the hangar are being kept secret to protect them.

The Tunnel

When the war broke out in Sarajevo, I took my wife and children to the village of Brdjani near Konjic. It was peaceful there at the time. Nine men in uniforms broke into my father-in-law's house on June 24 at 10:00. They had green berets on their heads and said they were Bosnian territorial defence police. They took my wedding ring and watch, handcuffed and blindfolded me and pushed me into the van they had arrived in. The van left and we were in the centre of the village soon. Two men got in and beat me with a metal bar.

They questioned me about several people: who the SDS leader was in the village, who the military commanders were, which army we belonged to. They wanted to know if I was an SDS member, if I knew Konjic Mayor Zivko Strahinjic, why I didn't bring my car to hand it over to them. All the time I kept saying: I don't know anything about your neighbours.

The van stopped frequently and other "green berets" (Moslem troops) got in. They all beat me and M.S. who had also been arrested. They knocked out a few of my teeth. They hit me with their hands and feet and anything else they had. I was covered in blood.

At about 14:30 we arrived at the Celebic camp, a former JNA base. They leaned the two of us against the wall of the command building. Deputy commander Hazim Delic took over then. He wanted to know our names. He kicked both of us in the ribs several times. The guards took off our blindfolds and pushed us into a manhole. They put the cover on and pissed on us and threw stones. We spent 24 hours there.

We were taken from the manhole into the underground tunnel for the bomb shelter. There were 39 prisoners there all civilians from the village of Bradine which they told me was burned to the ground on May 27-31, 1992. They were exhausted and had been beaten. I knew four of the men from that village but we barely recognized each other. I was covered in blood, I had to take my underwear off and thrown them away they were so bloody. Including the two of us there were 41 men in the tunnel. It is about 140 cm wide and 24 meters long. It's all concrete with a slight downwards slope. It's flat at the bottom and that flat part is about 150 cm long. A plastic bucket was there for us to use as a latrine and the flat part was flooded with piss and crawling with worms. The feeling you get when you come into the tunnel is that you're in an outhouse pit. Since I had just got there I sat with M.S. next to the latrine bucket on the concrete. It was very cold and we weren't given anything to cover ourselves or sit on. The only light came from a hole on the door.

They beat us every evening. The guards beat us along with anyone else they brought back from the bar. They took anyone they knew out of the tunnel because there wasn't enough space there. All the walls were bloody. They grabbed us by the hair and beat our heads against the wall. We were afraid to look at them. They made us drink piss and told us we were drinking juice. They issued 700 grams of bread for every 15 men. We ate three slices a day. They didn't let us wash and sometimes they wouldn't give us water to drink.

After me, they brought in professor Slavko Susic. His house was just 100 meters from the camp. They beat him all the time: they took him out in front of the door, burned his tongue, stuck hot nails in his fingers, beat him... we listened to it all. They brought him in on June 27 and he died on July 4 from torture and a beating with a baseball bat. The guards refused to take his body out of the tunnel all day. They said that was waiting for all of us.

They made us face the wall, raise our arms and they beat us with bats. Sometimes in the tunnel, sometimes outside. The guards beat us as well as territorial defence troops coming back from the front. Whoever wanted to beat us. There wasn't one moment without screams and the sound of beating.

On July 19, Zeljko Milosevic was killed (he was born in 1961). They found documents that he had been trained as a sniper in the JNA. That's why they killed him. They beat him, pulled his tongue out and hit it, stuck hot nails in his fingers, pinned an SDS badge to his forehead. When they killed him with torture and beating, they left his body above the tunnel for 23 days. They took us out several times to see the body and told us we'd end up like that.

I'd dream of bread for days. They wouldn't let us eat, we were just skin and bones. Exhausted, we'd fall unconscious several times a day from the beatings and hunger. Sometimes they took us outside to piss, four men at a time. They wouldn't let us finish but would hit our kidneys with baseball bats.

The Red Cross came to the camp on August 12. We told them everything, that we were being tortured and who had been killed. They were shocked. They left two days later. Then they took us all out, beat us and told us that they would close the tunnel the next time the Red Cross comes. While the ICRC delegation was in the hangars seeing the prisoners, they beat us in the tunnel and vice versa, to show us they could do anything.

Twice, once in July and once in August, Arab journalists came in posing as CNN. They wore green berets. They took us out and showed us as Chetniks. They beat us in front of the cameras; a guard would go into a tunnel and beat us and the cameraman would stand at the entrance. Sometimes they took us out, leaned our heads against the wall and fired blanks at our heads or live ammo above us.

Everyone in the camp beat us. The worst were deputy commander Hazim Delic and Esad Landzo called Zenga. Commander Mucic was called Pavo.

I was in the tunnel at Celebic from June 24 to August 21 1992. Then I was taken to the sports hall in Konjic where 160 people were imprisoned. There was some abuse but not much. I could shave, bathe in cold water. They fed us better: we ate boiled rice. Also they allowed five minute visits and families brought us food. I was exchanged on December 23.

The Hangar

The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) armed some 400 Serbs in the Konjic area in April 1992. We were told to hold the barricades in the Bradina village until the army came. But on May 5, the JNA was evacuated from Konjic by helicopter. We were left on our own.

The Moslems and Croats attacked Bradina on May 25 and surrounded us. The fighters surrendered a day later since most families were in the village. Fifteen were killed immediately. They burned houses and barns.

The women and children were shut into the school and released the next day. Novica Kuljanin and I managed to hide under a concrete slab. We stayed there for four days and then went towards the village. We got to the village two days later and registered with the Moslem authorities. We were there until June 15. On that day Nedzad Spargo delivered a summons to the police station. When I got there, there were 40 Serb men in front of the building. We were crammed into a truck and taken to the Celebic camp.

While we were getting off the truck, the soldiers hit us and cursed at us. They took away our money and ID papers and told us we wouldn't need them any more. Then about 20 of us were put into a concrete shaft about five meters deep with pipes running through it. After two hours there was hardly any air in the shaft. Mirko and Danilo Zivak fainted. After repeated pleas, the guards opened the shaft lid. We spent about five hours there and then we were moved into a tin hangar which was used by the JNA to store fuel. There were about 200 people there, most from Bradina. They looked like ghosts. Most of them were missing part of their hair. They all had bruises. They told us 20 men had been killed before we got there.

In the first seven days of my imprisonment they killed: Simo Jovanovic, Scepan Gotovac, Nedjo Milosevic, Bosko Samoukovic and Zeljko Klimenta. They beat them in front of the hangar. I looked through the door as they hit them with baseball bats, pieces of wood, pipes, gun butts and boots. When they fainted, guard Zijo Landzo would finish them off by beating them with a hard rubber ball on the heart.

We had to bring the dead back into the hangar. The guards pinned SDS badges on their foreheads. They left the bodies with us all night and in the morning we loaded them onto trucks. They told us they were being taken to the medical centre to establish the cause of death. Every night they took out about 10 people. They beat them unconscious. Landzo was the worst. On night he hit Jovo Draganic 250 times with a bat on the back and legs. He couldn't get up for 10 days.

Landzo would come into the hangar and make prisoners do 10 push-ups. Since they couldn't do them he would kick them in the stomach ten times and people would faint. Landzo wrapped a cable around Risto Kabalo's body and set it on fire. He was burned badly. He pushed a hot needle through Mirko Djordjic's tongue. He hit Bosko Samoukovic in the ribs with a rifle butt and killed him. His specialty was spilling gunpowder on prisoners' bodies and setting it on fire. He put a red hot knife in Moma Kuljanin's hand.

One night, deputy camp commander Hazim Delic took five of us out and lined us up for execution. He stood us in the headlights of a car and talked to someone in the dark for a long time. He asked us if we had a last wish and called the guards. He ordered them to load their rifles, aim and fire. They fired over our heads. Nedeljko Gligorevic fainted. Then Delic told us we had to stand there for two hours. In the meantime they fired several shots over our heads.

Camp commander Pavo Mucic came into the hangar one day and ordered several men to turn towards the wall and raise their arms. Then he kicked their kidneys. The guards were mainly young men from Konjic from the lowest parts of society. I remembered some of them: Kemo Mrndzic, Salko, Kravar, Edo, Nermin Zelic.

For a month and a half we were given a slice of bread three times a day. At times we went without food for over 50 hours. People could not turn over let alone stand. We got water when they felt we might be thirsty. Ten prisoners had to share 1.5 liters of water. There was a channel full of garbage with rats in it in the hangar. We slept on concrete for several days and later on army shirts. We weren't allowed to wash. I scraped the dirt off my body.

They brought in Verica and Mira twice. They are now mentally handicapped girls from Konjic. They stripped and beat them in front of us.

Zejnil Delalic who gave a lot of money for the Moslem army and Hazim Delic brought Arab journalists to the camp. There was a journalist from Sarajevo TV with them. They taped us being beaten by the guards. We had to say on camera that we had raped and killed. Zoran Mrkajic didn't say all they forced him to say and he was beaten for three days.

In August, an ICRC delegation came to see us three times. After they left the first time, 10 guards and Delic rushed into the hangar. They kicked every prisoner. After that we boycotted cooperation with the Red Cross. I think they understood. They visited us again 20 days later. They beat us less after that. They improved the food and gave us something warm that was supposed to resemble soup. Only five spoons were issued for all the prisoners. They allowed our families to bring us food. Since the guards stole that food, I was selected to inspect the parcels. But despite that they took what they liked. That was the first time that I bathed in water that came from the river through a fuel pipe. We drank that water as well.

The Red Cross intervened and the prisoners from the tunnel were brought into the hangar. Many of them got sick because of the sudden change in temperature since it was cold underground. They let Doctors Relja Mrkajic and Petko Grubac tend to the sick. They went to the medical centre and brought back pills. A hospital was made from one of the sheds and men with broken bones were put there. They started taking us out for air every half hour. We sat on the ground facing the hangar wall. They kept asking: who's the greatest, and we had to reply: Allah.

The ICRC got the camp commander to release all prisoners over the age of 60. They released two groups of 15 men. I was released on November 30. They called 22 prisoners and released us with papers that said we had been captured because of involvement with terrorist organizations and that we were released after an investigation but with limited movement allowed.