His hands clenched, his voice taut, Nedzad Jakupovic recounted in agonizing detail how he endured the beatings inflicted upon him in Bosnia almost a quarter-century ago.
A Serbian soldier, whom Jakupovic identified as a local man named “Mladen,” forced him into a torture chamber inside a makeshift prison camp in the small town of Trnopolje. Serbian soldiers then jumped on his head, kicked him in the groin, pushed a burning cigarette into an open wound and beat him until he lost consciousness, Jakupovic testified.
One of those soldiers, prosecutors say, was Mladen Mitrovic, who has lived in the metro area for the past two decades, working at the DeKalb Farmers Market and as a machine operator. This week, Mitrovic, 54, sits at the defense table in U.S. District Court, charged with obtaining his U.S. citizenship by fraud. His federal public defenders insist he is innocent.
Prosecutors are accusing Mitrovic of war-time atrocities — part of the ethnic cleansing of Roman Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks at the hands of Orthodox Christian Serbian forces in the former Yugoslavia.
“This is a case about a man who beat and tortured prisoners,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Traynor told jurors during opening statements on Tuesday. “This case is about the lies and misleading information the defendant made to become a U.S. citizen.”
Mitrovic is not on trial for alleged war crimes. Specifically, he’s accused of giving false answers in 2002 on his naturalization application form. Among them: Mitrovic said he had never persecuted anyone because of race, religion or national origin. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and deportation after serving the sentence.
Government witnesses say Mitrovic once worked as a waiter in a Trnopolje tavern in northwest Bosnia. The pub was close to the Serbian camp where hundreds of Croatians and Bosniaks were detained under deplorable, desperate conditions in the summer of 1992. At the camp, Mitrovic was often seen carrying an M70 assault rifle and wearing an olive green uniform with a bayonet strapped to his chest, prosecutors said.
In court, the bespectacled, paunchy Mitrovic, who now has gray hair and a goatee, listens through headphones as an interpreter translates what’s being said into a microphone headset.
Molly Parmer, one of Mitrovic’s lawyers, said prosecutors are charging the wrong guy. “It makes absolutely no sense that he did any of this,” Parmer told jurors.
The Serbs wanted an ethnically pure population, but Mitrovic is a Roman Catholic Croat who even baptized his two sons as Catholic, Parmer said. For these reasons, the Serbs would never have let him be a part of their operation, she said.
“He’s a refugee who came to America seeking asylum from the very persecution he’s accused of,” Parmer said. “He’s unquestionably not guilty.”
Parmer blamed the charges on a sloppy investigation that included suggestive interviewing techniques and unreliable eyewitness identification.
Jakupovic, a truck driver who now lives in Des Moines, Iowa, said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from the beatings he endured at Trnopolje. One guard took out a knife and slowly carved a cross into his skin, Jakupovic said. Another kicked him so hard in his head while he lay on the floor that his head slammed into the wall.
“After that I don’t remember much,” Jakupovic testified in a thick accent. “Actually, after that, I don’t remember anything until the morning.”
The next morning he was transferred from the torture room to a boiler room and beaten again, he said.
At no time while Jakupovic was on the witness stand was he asked whether he could identify Mitrovic in the courtroom.
Another government witness, Azra Blazebic, a local veterinarian, testified that she was forced by Serbian soldiers to provide medical care to the thousands of prisoners at the Trnopolje camp.
From her medical office, Blazebic said she saw Mitrovic herding prisoners toward the nearby torture room where she then heard cursing, screams and punches being thrown. Mitrovic and other guards would then walk outside into the courtyard sweating and angry. On one occasion, Mitrovic asked her to treat his hand, which was badly bruised, she said.
Prosecutors introduced into evidence a photo of the empty torture room taken by a doctor who worked with Blazebic. It showed blood-stained walls and floors.
Again, while Blazebic was on the witness stand, prosecutors did not ask her to identify Mitrovic in the courtroom.
But Mirsad Hodzic, yet another government witness, testified Wednesday that he recalled Mitrovic pointing his assault rifle at him while Hodzic was detained in the camp. When asked by Traynor whether he could identify Mitrovic in the courtroom, Hodzic didn’t hesitate before pointing at the defendant and describing what he was wearing.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg let the record reflect that Hodzic had identified the defendant. The trial is expected to conclude next week.
About the Author
