The Lora Military Investigation Centre was a military prison in Split, located in the eastern part of the Lora naval military base. It was a building surrounded by barbed wire, housing military police offices, with cells on the northern side where both military and civilian detainees were held.
Period: From 1992 to 1997
Description of the crime: In 1992, within the premises of the former JNA military investigation prison at the Lora naval base, a camp was established where a large number of civilian detainees — mostly Serbs — were held without any legal basis, suspected of participating in hostile activities against the Republic of Croatia. Prisoners were arrested and captured throughout Croatia, and some (captured soldiers from Serbia and Montenegro) were also brought from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Lora, detainees were subjected daily to insults, humiliation, physical and psychological abuse, torture, and corporal punishment, resulting in the death of some of them. Here are statements from some witnesses:
After three days in Lora, a group of about 70 arrested Serbs from Kupres was tied up and loaded onto a truck that drove us towards Duvno. Near Drniš, the truck stopped and nearby, by the road, a large pit was dug with a bulldozer working beside it. There were people standing there holding chainsaws. Croatian soldiers who had brought us off the truck took eight or nine Serbs from our group: brothers Ratko and Ljubo Milić, Dušan Nikić, Slavko Dragoljević, and Čivčić, who was deaf-mute, while I don’t remember the names of the others. They took them to that pit and killed them.
I also remember a young man named Bojan, nicknamed White Eagle or Orlić. He was alone in one cell. They tortured him especially harshly. He was completely naked, incredibly thin, a real skeleton. He was the most mistreated, beaten, and tortured. One morning, when the guards brought breakfast, I noticed he was lying on his back in his cell. His body was completely yellow. They immediately put us back into our cells. I heard a coffin being made and guards whispering in the corridor. I never saw him again.
In Split, we were taken to the naval area compound where the Croatian military police centre was located. There, as in Gornji Brišnik, we were taken off the truck one by one. Croatian police officers greeted us and beat us. In front of me, about three metres away, was Petar Spremo. One Croatian soldier hit him hard on the head with the butt of a pistol; he fell and hit his head on the curb, after which he lay motionless. I never saw him again. The same soldier hit me hard on the head with the pistol butt, fracturing my skull in four places, and I was covered in blood.
The exact number of people who passed through the Lora camp has never been precisely established, but some sources speak of more than 1,100 people. The same applies to the number of people killed in Lora. While indictments before the Croatian judiciary name two deceased detainees (Gojko Bulović and Nenad Knežević), some sources report a much higher number of victims. For example, the Committee for Collecting Data on Crimes Against Humanity and International Law of the SFRY mentions more than 20 killed, and some survivors of Lora speak of around 60 people who disappeared without trace there. Tonči Majić from the Dalmatian Committee for Human Rights speaks of several dozen people who lost their lives in Lora.
Victims confirmed to have been killed in Lora:
- Bulović, Gojko (Bojan), born 1 June 1944
- Knežević, Nenad (Ćiro), born 18 February 1957
- Vesović, Bojan (Miroslav), born 22 June 1973 (citizen of SFR Yugoslavia)
Judicial consequences: By the verdict of the Judicial Panel of the County Court in Split, chaired by Judge Slavko Lozina, on 20 November 2002, eight defendants accused of the crime in Lora were acquitted. By a decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia on 5 March 2004, the acquittal was overturned, and the case was returned for retrial. On 2 March 2006, the President of the War Crimes Council of the County Court in Split, Judge Spomenka Tonković, delivered a verdict in which the defendants Tomislav Duić, Tonči Vrkić, Davor Banić, Miljenko Bajić, Josip Bikić, Emilio Bungur, Ante Godić, and Anđelko Botić were found guilty and sentenced, with the verdict not yet final, to prison terms of six to eight years for the criminal offence of war crimes against civilians. On 6 February 2007, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia issued a ruling rejecting the appeals of the accused Tomislav Duić, Tonči Vrkić, Miljenko Bajić, Josip Bikić, Davor Banić, Emilio Bungur, Ante Godić, and Anđelko Botić, as well as the public prosecutor’s appeal, as unfounded, thereby confirming the first-instance court’s verdict. The appeal of Anita Bikić, wife of the accused Josip Bikić, was rejected as untimely. After the surrender of Josip Bikić, who had been lawfully sentenced in absentia to six years’ imprisonment, his case was reopened. On 29 December 2009, the main hearing was conducted and the verdict announced. The earlier verdict was partially overturned in regard to the sentence, and defendant Bikić was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. Miljenko Bajić was arrested in September 2010. He was granted a retrial. Following the renewed trial, the earlier verdict remained in force, although the sentence was reduced. By the new verdict, he was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment. Judicial proceedings in the Lora case have from the outset been marked by various obstructions caused by judicial bodies. Publicist Darko Petričić and journalist Domagoj Margetić reported Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajić to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, citing his alleged co-responsibility for war crimes in Split’s Lora in the 1990s because, according to their report, detainees were arrested and interrogated under his orders. Tonči Majić of the Dalmatian Committee for Human Rights confirms that Bajić, then a military prosecutor in Split, participated in interrogations in Lora and adds that there are indications he was present when detainees were tortured. Moreover, as if the years-long delay in bringing charges was not enough, the case was assigned to Slavko Lozina, a judge at the Split County Court, who at the time had the highest number of overturned verdicts and who turned the trial into a kind of circus, ultimately acquitting all the accused. On 9 September 2015, proceedings began before the War Crimes Council of the County Court in Split in the criminal case against Tomislav Duić and others for the criminal offence of war crimes against prisoners of war. Defence counsel for Emilio Bungur requested on 11 September 2015 the disqualification of the president and members of the Council, as well as the president of the County Court. Consequently, the proceedings are suspended until the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia rules on the request. The hearing in the continuation of the Lora 2 trial, which was scheduled at the County Court in Split for 3 January, was postponed until 6 April 2016 pending a decision on the joining of the renewed Lora 1 proceedings with the Lora 2 proceedings, a move previously requested by the defence of Emilio Bungur. Meanwhile, Tomislav Duić and Emilio Bungur were arrested; both had been lawfully sentenced in absentia to eight and six years’ imprisonment respectively and have requested retrials. As they are also charged with crimes against prisoners of war, since 31 January 2017 they have been tried in a consolidated criminal proceeding for crimes committed in Lora against both civilians and prisoners of war. For more than ten years, prosecution has been ongoing concerning crimes against 14 captured soldiers belonging to the Nikšić-Šavnik group from Montenegro.