How Mr. Popovic Was Beheaded

How Mr. Popovic was beheaded Sense News Agency - February 5, 2004 At the trial of Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir Kubura, two witnesses of the prosecution, have testified that prisoners in the mujahedin prison camp near Travnik were present at the "ritual beheading" of their acquaintance. Ivo Fisic, witness at the trial of Hadzihasanovic and Kubura THE HAGUE February 5, 2004 (SENSE) - Two eyewitnesses testified that in October 1993 near Travnik they were witnesses to the ritual beheading of another prisoner in the presence of some 50 soldiers belonging to the unit El-Mujahedin. The prosecutor is charging Enver Hadzihasanovic, the commander of the Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina Army's Third Corps at the time, with the abuse of prisoners in Travnik and the activities of the El-Mujahedin unit. Hadzihasanovic is being tried together with Amir Kubura, the former commander of the Seventh Muslim Mountain Brigade. Dalibor Adzaib, a witness in the Hadzihasanovic and Kubura trial, Ivo Fisic and Dalibor Adzaib were arrested in Travnik on October 18, 1993 and taken to the mujahedin camp near Mehurica. "It was the El-Mujahedin prison camp. There were foreigner and local soldiers there," said Fisic. Prisoners were beaten up and humiliated. Prisoner Dragan Popovic was subjected to the greatest abuse. "Drago Popovic was an economist from Travnik, half Serb and half Croat, he was arrested on the job," testified Fisic, who does not know why he and Popovic were even arrested. The next day four prisoners, including Dragan Popovic and witnesses Fisic and Adzaib, were taken to a nearby field where about 50 soldiers stood in a semi-circle around an open grave. "An Arab wearing a uniform translated the ceremony, which began with cries of 'Allah Akhbar' [God is great] and others I did not understand," said the witness. The prisoner Popovic was brought to the middle and pushed to the ground. "A man named Hasan was ordered to begin slitting his throat; however, another Arab finished the beheading, then forced us prisoners to kiss the slain man's head," said Fisic. He and other prisoners were then forced to fill the grave in which the body and head of the victim were thrown using only their hands and feet. When he was later transferred to the barracks in Travnik, Fisic told officers of the Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina Army in detail "how Mr. Popovic was beheaded" in the mujahedin prison camp. One of the officers, a Major Cuskic, said that "we cannot go on working with some of the units in this region, that he did not wish to remain here any longer, and that he would inform president [Alija] Izetbegovic of everything. The prosecutor is proving that the unit El-Mujahedin was under the command of the Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina Army's Third Corps and that the accused Hadzihasanovic is, therefore, responsible because he did not prevent or punish their crimes

Translated by D. Tomasevich (Feb. 5, 2004) Edited by SIB

SOURCE: Sense News Agency, Sarajevo, B-H Federation - February 5, 2004 SECTION: Tribunal news

LINK TO ORIGINAL: http://www.sense-agency.com/portal/flash/index.php?sta=3&pid=4866