Account of an event · Hotel Vilina Vlas · April 1992 – October 1992
Vilina Vlas: the spa that became a place of detention and rape in 1992
In 1992 the Vilina Vlas hotel in Višegradska banja near Višegrad was turned into a place where Bosniak women and girls were detained, systematically abused and raped, as established by the Court of BiH and the ICTY. The hotel also appears in other crimes committed against Bosniak civilians that year. After the war it reopened to guests, and to this day there is no marker on the building commemorating the victims.
A spa above Višegrad
The Vilina Vlas hotel is a spa and rehabilitation centre in Višegradska banja, not far from Višegrad in eastern Bosnia. Set among pine trees, with a pool and thermal water, it is today visited by guests seeking rest and treatment. In the war year of 1992, its rooms served as a prison.
Spring 1992: persecution of the non-Serb population
In April 1992, disappearances and killings of non-Serb civilians began in Višegrad. According to the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), hundreds of Bosniaks were killed in the following months.
During that period the Vilina Vlas hotel was turned into a place of detention for women and girls. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina established that they were systematically abused and raped there, and the ICTY found that non-Serb civilians in the hotel were raped, beaten and otherwise mistreated and humiliated. According to the court findings, the hotel was used for this purpose from April until the second half of October 1992.
The exact number of detained women has not been established by a court. According to Al Jazeera, at least 200 Bosniak girls and women were detained and raped in Vilina Vlas, and the portal genocid.ba states that there were more than 200. According to genocid.ba, women were arrested in the street, brought to the hotel and locked in rooms; some returned to their families, but most of them were never seen again.
According to Al Jazeera and genocid.ba, in 1992 the hotel was the headquarters of Milan Lukić, commander of the paramilitary group Beli orlovi (Osvetnici).
The verdict against Željko Lelek
One of the perpetrators whose responsibility for the crimes in Vilina Vlas has been established by a final judgement is the policeman Željko Lelek, a member of the Stanica javne bezbjednosti Višegrad. According to the final judgement of the Court of BiH, in April 1992 Lelek repeatedly raped a detained Bosniak woman in the hotel, and in June 1992 he forced another woman detained in Vilina Vlas into sexual intercourse.
On 23 May 2008 the Court of BiH sentenced him at first instance to 13 years in prison for crimes against humanity in Višegrad. On 12 January 2009 the Appeals Chamber of the same court increased his sentence to 16 years in prison.
Other crimes connected with the hotel
The hotel appears in other crimes from 1992 as well. According to ICTY findings, on 7 June 1992 an armed group took seven Bosniak civilians past the Vilina Vlas hotel to the bank of the Drina, where they killed five of them; two managed to escape.
In the second half of October 1992, sixteen Bosniak passengers were taken off a bus on the Priboj–Rudo line, near Mioče (Sjeverin). According to the findings of the Court of BiH, they were brought to the hotel, tortured and killed on the bank of the Drina. The remains of only one of them have been found.