PEGGY: Witness, do you see your name?
WITNESS: Yes
PEGGY: Next to your name, do you see a number?
PEGGY: The witnesses all opted for the protection, where their faces would not be seen and their names
would not be used. Throughout these proceedings you will be referred to by that number. Do you
understand?
PEGGY: Inside the courtroom everybody could see everything. We could see the expressions. We could
hear the voice intonations. But outside, you can’t see that at all.
WITNESS 75: He forced all three of us to strip, always with this knife in his hand, he always had this
knife.
PEGGY: So this case is a case that really lacks a face.
WITNESS 75: And then he said “you’re now going to go naked down to the Drina River” and that he
would slit our throats and throw us into the river.
PEGGY: You can’t see how young the witnesses are. You don’t hear the anger in their voices.
DEFENSE LAWYER: Didn't anyone try to protect you?
WITNESS 75: Oh, really. They were ridiculing us, the people who were watching. Who do you think
would protect us?
REFIK: I remember a woman who was talking about being led by Kovac through the streets of Foca
naked and nobody coming to her help. Through this scrambled voice that was coming through, which
took every emotion out of what she was saying. That is what made me --froze.
WITNESS 75: And then he brought us to where the Cehotina and Drina rivers meet. And I just looked
back at him because I wasn’t able to go forward, but I always thought, you’re not going to slit my throat.
You’re not going to slaughter me alive.” And the tide was high, and I thought that I’d just throw myself
into the Drina, that I’d rather drown than have my throat slit by him.
WITNESS 75: And I kept saying to myself ‘I won’t let him slaughter me, I won’t.’ That was the one
thought that I had.
PEGGY: Sometimes people will talk about how the women were humiliated. But I always try to turn that
around and say, "The perpetrators tried to humiliate them, and they tried to take away their human
dignity, but the people who came and testified were able to maintain their dignity. And they didn't let
the perpetrators take their humanity away from them." So, yes, in one sense, they were victims, but in
another sense-- they were the strong ones. They survived.
NARRATOR: The Serb forces controlling Foca kept dozens of women imprisoned in Partizan Sports Hall, a
recreation center right in the middle of town, just a stone’s throw from the police station.
NARRATOR: Witness 99 spent a month captive in Partizan.
WITNESS 99: We weren’t treated like human beings. We were treated more like cattle, like animals. I
watched women being taken away. I didn’t know if they would come back.
NARRATOR: Seventeen days into the trial, Witness 99 took the stand to tell the world what had
happened inside of Partizan.
COURT: …the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
WITNESS 99: I wasn’t ashamed. I was actually proud and full of strength. I looked him in the eye. How
come he’s not the one who’s ashamed? I wanted to prove what I had survived and what had happened.
PEGGY: Did soldiers also come to Partizan and take out women and girls?
WITNESS 99: Yes.
PEGGY: How often?
WITNESS 99: Very often. Every day, every night.
PEGGY: Which women and girls were taken out during the time when you were at Partizan?
WITNESS 99: 75 … 87 … 50…51..95..88..105..48...
WITNESS CHORUS
Witness 95: They would come in and just say “you, you and you.” Those that were pointed at had to get
up and follow them …
Witness A.S.: I cried and pleaded with them to let me go. They all laughed.
Witness 48: They kept egging him on and telling him, “You have to learn how to rape Muslim women
like we are doing”.
Witness 75: I just counted up to ten and I don’t know how many there were after that. There could have
been about twenty of them. I don’t know.
Witness 95: He said “take your clothes off, “And I said, “I won’t,” and he slapped me.
Witness 127: They wanted to take my daughter. She was crying and I said, “She’s only 12. How can you
take my child?”
WITNESS 99: I felt very bad seeing how they would come in helpless, and we shared this sorrow and the
tragedy with them.
PEGGY: Did you recognize the soldiers who took them out?
WITNESS 99: I knew Janko Janjic, Tuta,… Zaga.
PEGGY: Do you know Zaga’s full name?
WITNESS 99: Dragoljub Kunarac. That one there.
NARRATOR: Dragoljub Kunarac was well known by everyone around his hometown of Foca as “Zaga,”
the carpenter’s son. The file on Zaga lists him as a married man with three children, and an expert at
rigging explosives. He was a commander in the Serb army, the most senior officer of the three accused,
and the only one to take the stand in his own defense.
NARRATOR: In his testimony, he argued that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, and even
claimed that one of the prosecution’s witnesses had in fact made advances at him.
JUDGE MUMBA: Is it your position, accused, that uh, DB seduced you?
DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC: Not at a single moment did I give any reason – I, I did not give her a pretext for
having sexual intercourse. I didn't say I wanted it. At that moment, I had sexual intercourse with her
against my will. I mean without having the desire for sex.
HILDEGARD: Mr. Kunarac, let’s put things straight …
NARRATOR : It was up to prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff to unravel his story.
HILDEGARD: Taking all these circumstances of her fear, of her not knowing you, of you being the enemy,
of being in a house with a pack of soldiers, you knew that she didn't want to have sex with you, didn't
you?
DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC: That is precisely why I was as confused as I was.
HILDEGARD: Let me cite from your previous statement, "Somebody said, 'Just pick anyone and take
advantage of her.'"
DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC: … well, literally, yes, he said that not only I, but anybody could do whatever he
wanted to do and he can choose any one of them and take advantage of them.
HILDEGARD: Mr. Kunarac, you understand, when someone says, "Pick anyone and take advantage," you
understood that it was an invitation for rape; right?
DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC: Yes.
HILDEGARD: And you know that rape was a crime even during wartime, isn’t it?
DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC: Absolutely. I can agree with you there.
HILDEGARD: No more questions.