"Halalosum": The Last Words of Mustafa Kuloglija from a Cell in KPD Foča

KPD Foča in 1992

From April 1992, Serb forces held Bosniak men from the Foča municipality detained in the Kazneno-popravni dom (KPD) Foča. In the summer of that year, between 500 and 600 detainees were held in the prison. Between June and December 1992, Serb forces killed more than 200 detainees in KPD Foča. Many were taken away for so-called "exchanges" and were never seen alive again.

One of the people from Foča who have been listed as missing since that summer is Mustafa Kuloglija, whom everyone called Kula. He was born in 1945 in Foča, and on the list of Foča victims he is recorded as missing in Foča in June 1992.

The Night in the Cell

His fellow detainee Š. Z. testified about his last moments. According to this testimony, Mustafa Kuloglija was with him in a room in which almost seventy men were locked up. It was around midnight, and there was no electricity in the prison, when, according to the witness, three guards entered the room and called out Kula's name. The names of the guards are not given in the testimony.

Before he left, Mustafa Kuloglija turned to the other detainees and asked them for forgiveness: "Halalosum." According to the testimony, fellow detainee Fehim, a well-known house painter from Foča, answered him loudly that he forgave him. Fehim, too, was later taken away and beaten, as the witness states.

Š. Z. recalls that moment with the words: "There goes our Kula."

Disappearance

According to the testimony, nobody saw Mustafa Kuloglija alive after that night. The witness also states that detainees on the upper floors listened at night as people were thrown into the Drina.

Mustafa Kuloglija is one of many Bosniaks who disappeared from the Foča prison. According to data from the Missing Persons Institute of BiH, almost 500 people from Foča are still being searched for today, while the victims' association states that there are more than 600.

Verdict against the KP Dom Guards

On 28 February 2008, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced KP Dom Foča guards Mitar Rašević to 8.5 years and Savo Todović to 12.5 years in prison.