Bosnian Genocide / International Tribunals

Serbs Carved Cross into My Chest, Muslim Tells Radovan Karadzic War Crimes Trial
Agence France-Presse dispatch in The Telegraph, April 14, 2010
"A Muslim witness in war crimes trial opened his shirt and showed his scars to former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.. The man told the court that he was haunted by nightmares of fellow Muslim prisoners dying beside him. Under cross-examination by Mr. Karadzic, who accused him of lying, Ahmet Zulic pulled open his shirt on the witness stand, pointed to his chest and told the bench: 'Right here I have a cross carved in my skin. You can see the cross carved on my chest.' Mr. Karadzic's genocide trial had resumed today after a six-week delay with the evidence of Mr. Zulic, the prosecution's first witness, in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The former president of the self-declared Bosnian Serb state is acting as his own defence lawyer. Mr. Zulic, now 62, claims he was arrested in a Serb clampdown on his village, Mahala, a predominantly Muslim part of Sanski Most town in northwestern Bosnia in June 1992. He was held by Serb forces at two detention camps for five months, during which time he said he was severely beaten, starved and forced to witness the executions of fellow detainees.
He lost 35kg in weight. Answering Mr. Karadzic with his eyes downcast, Mr. Zulic told the court he had suffered permanent disabilities from having had seven vertebrae damaged, all his ribs fractured and a finger broken during the abuse. He also has false teeth, having had his own knocked out when Serb soldiers put a gun in his mouth at a prisoner execution scene. 'I have nightmares very often,' the witness told the court. 'I very frequently dream of people who were killed beside me or were dying beside me. I had one last night.' Mr. Karadzic, 64, faces 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide charges arising from Bosnia's 1992-95 war in which 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million left homeless. [...]"