A federal prosecutor told a Chattanooga jury on Tuesday that "sadistic guards brutally tortured prisoners of war in Bosnia 30 years ago."
Elizabeth Nielsen said the jury would hear from two men who she said were singled out for abuse by Sead Miljkovic, who came to the U.S. in 1999 and has been living in East Ridge under an assumed last name.
Defense attorney Bryan Hoss asked jurors to decide "if this rises to the level of torture." He said the two men had changed their stories often through the years.
One of them, he said, had mentioned several times wanting compensation. "He wants money," the attorney said.
Prosecutor Nielsen said in one instance that one of the men was taken into a small building, beaten and then Miljkovic pushed him down toward a raised bayonet. She said, "He was almost impaled." On another occasion, Miljkovic hurled an industrial tire down a hill that hit the man, she said.
She said in the case of the other man that Miljkovic beat him at least 15 times, with rifles, shovels, metal pipes and other items.
The prosecutor said the second man was forced to fight a much stronger man "for Miljkovic's amusement."
She said the case was being tried in Chattanooga "because he chose to come here" while using a false ID with the name Sead Dukic. She said he was turned down on a petition to go to the U.S. once, then withdrew a second request. She said he was only able to get in by changing his last name.
The prosecutor said Miljkovic lived in a mostly Muslim section of northwest Bosnia that formed the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APZB) at the time that Yugoslavia was breaking up. She said there was a civil war between the APZB and the Bosnian army, and Miljkovic was on the APZB side.
She said he was involved in security at a former castle in his hometown and that is where the alleged torture took place. She said the civil war involved "brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor." She said many of those he fought "were people he grew up with and went to school with."
Prosecutor Nielsen said, acting on a tip, Homeland Security learned that the man going under the name Sead Dukic was actually Sead Miljkovic. She said at the time of his arrest officers noticed a photo of the castle was framed on one of his walls - "the place where he carried out his tortures."
Attorney Hoss said jurors would not hear any evidence of water boarding, electrocution or other similar extreme forms of torture.
He said Miljkovic had lived here peaceably for 25 years and held down a job at a body shop. He said Miljkovic has been living with his common law wife and their daughter.
The attorney said Miljkovic's sister lives in Fort Oglethorpe and is married to a man named Dukic, which is where he got the name.
He said the Bosnian civil war created "deep prejudices and biases. There are many axes to grind in that place 5,600 miles away from here." He said Miljkovic came out of the war "on the losing side."
A government witness was called to give details about the civil war in Bosnia.
Judge Charles Atchley is conducting the trial in which Miljkovic is charged with three counts of inflicting torture on prisoners under his supervision. He is also charged with passport fraud for allegedly making false statements relating to his true name and date of birth.
If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count.
The government initially said of the case:
The indictment says Miljkovic, aka Sead Dukic, was allegedly a member of the Obezbjedenje objekata i lica (OBL), a police force of the so-called Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APZB).
The OBL was responsible for guarding APZB headquarters at the Old Fort, a castle overlooking the town of Velika Kladuša, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Between December 1994 and August 1995, soldiers of the former Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina who had been captured in fighting against APZB armed forces were transported from detention camps to perform forced labor at the Old Fort under Miljkovic’s and other OBL members’ supervision and control."
“Sead Miljkovic allegedly tortured prisoners and then decades later lied about his identity to obtain a U.S. passport,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division at the time of the indictment. “Neither the passage of time nor a defendant’s concealment efforts will prevent us from bringing human rights violators to justice and ensuring that perpetrators of torture cannot seek refuge in the United States.”
“The superseding indictment’s torture charges are serious human rights abuses that cannot go unpunished,” said U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III for the Eastern District of Tennessee. “We thank our investigative partners on this case for their outstanding efforts to gather evidence required for these charges.”
Miljkovic and other OBL members allegedly inflicted severe and sustained beatings on the prisoners, using a metal pipe, rifle butt, and shovel handle, causing the victims to lose consciousness or suffer other injuries.
Miljkovic and other OBL members also allegedly threatened prisoners with death, intentionally withheld water even while forcing the prisoners to perform hard physical labor, forced the prisoners to fight one another, and pushed one victim’s head down on a knife or bayonet as if to impale his throat on the blade.
HSI Chattanooga investigated the case, with support from HSI Vienna, HSI Newark, and HSI’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, and assistance from the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service Houston Field Office, Chattanooga Police Department Special Victims Unit, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, and Tennessee Highway Patrol. The Justice Department thanks the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which were instrumental in furthering the investigation.
Trial Attorneys Elizabeth Nielsen and Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section (HRSP) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Woods for the Eastern District of Tennessee are prosecuting the case, with assistance from HSRP historians. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided assistance.
Prosecutor Woods told potential jurors that Miljkovic "came here under a false identity."
He said the charges related to "committing torture during a civil war. We all know terrible things happen in wartime. Does anybody believe war should have no rules?"
One potential juror said he had taken part in two wars and had been involved in the capture of prisoners. He said they were treated humanely.
There is an interpreter for Miljkovic, and one will also be furnished many of the witnesses, who have been brought from Bosnia to Chattanooga.
The defendant is represented by attorneys Hoss and Logan Davis.