Sarajevo – The former commander of the 5th Battalion of the 328th Mountainous Brigade of the so-called Army of BiH, Ahmet Sehic, said that the El Mujaheed Division in July 1995 trained about 100 members of this Battalion, after which a military offensive called “Farz” against Vozuca was carried out.
“They provided both physical and religious training since they considered that people here do not practice religion in a proper way,” said Sehic, testifying at the trial of the former commander of the 3rd Corps of the so-called Army of BiH, Sakib Mahmuljan, for crimes against imprisoned Serbian civilians and soldiers in the area of Zavidovicic and Vozuca in 1995.
He said that the El Mujaheed unit kidnapped about 60 prisoners of war, members of the Republika Srpska Army, on September 11, 1995, in the village of Kesten.
“They forcibly took them. They pointed firearms at battalion commanders, which was a situation on the verge of a conflict, after which they took them, and there were only a few of our commanders there. This happened during the armed conflicts near Vozuca,” Sehic said.
He said that he has no information about what happened to these prisoners of war, except that they were taken in the direction of the village of Krsevina.
“They /mujahideen/ considered them as their war trophy,” Sehic said.
The former commander of the 5th Battalion of the 328th Mountainous Brigade of the so-called Army of BiH said that the El Mujaheed Unit was not under the command of this Battalion, that it did not submit any reports to it and that it was completely out of control.
Sehic said that there was no any communication with them, that he asked that they leave the area in April 1995 after they desecrated the Serbian cemetery and made many troubles.
He claims that members of his Battalion were always only helping after the operations of this unit – they were helping in keeping the front line and providing logistic support in carrying the wounded soldiers – and that the cooperation ended with this.
“I had many problems because of them, we could not command them. They launched operations whenever they wanted, passed through a zone of responsibility without any clearance and there was much arbitrariness,” Sehic said.
The trial of Mahmuljan is set to resume on September 21 at 13:00 when two witnesses will be heard.
The last session was held on July 13 without the presence of the public because BiH prosecutor Sedin Idrizovic asked for protective measures for his witness, which means protection of his identity and the content of his testimony.
Mahmuljan is charged with crimes against prisoners of war, wounded soldiers and Serbian civilians since he, in the capacity of the commander of the 3rd Corps which included the El Mujaheed Division, did nothing to prevent crimes of members of this Division against prisoners of war and Serbian civilians during a military operation in the wider area of Zavidovici and Vozuca in 1995.