Bosnia charges couple for enslaving German teenager

Bosnian prosecutors have charged a local couple with holding captive for more than six years a young German woman, rescued by police in May, a spokesman said Wednesday. The county prosecutor's office in the northeastern town of Tuzla "indicted Milenko and Slavojka Marinkovic for illegally detaining in a cruel way" Bettina Siegner, now 19, the prosecutors' spokesman told AFP. "They were charged for detaining this girl ... inflicting her injuries, treating her in an inhuman way, exposing her to starvation and forcing her to do hard agriculture labour," spokesman Admir Arnautovic said. "They did not allow her to have any contact with other people and go to school." Siegner was rescued by police in the village of Karavlasi, in Tuzla region, where she had been held captive, according to the prosecutors, since late 2005. The couple were arrested on May 17 and she was placed in a safe house. Police were alerted by a villager who said he saw Siegner being forced to eat pig food and pull a cart in which Milenko and Slavojka Marinkovic were sitting. The victim's mother, Christine Siegner, left Bettina in 2005, when she was 12, with the Marinkovic couple, whom she met in Germany, where they had fled during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. According to Marinkovic family members, Christine Siegner is Milenko's second wife, which they said was not unusual within Roma communities. For the time being, she is a witness in the case, but local authorities have seized her documents so she can not leave Bosnia. "We are doing some verifications and it is possible that Bettina's mother will be also indicted," the spokesman said. The Marinkovic family and Siegner's mother have denied all accusations. If found guilty the two, who have been detained since police rescued the young woman, face between two and eight years in jail. When the teenager was found in a forest near the house where she was held, she had traces of old and fresh injuries on her body. "She is much better," the spokesman said. "She underwent psychological expertise that established that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. However, her both mental and physical recovery is on the right track." According to investigators, quoted by local press, Bettina wishes to return to Germany where her father Alfred Siegner, a pensioner who has health problems, lives. But she has to stay in Bosnia until judicial proceedings in her case are over as she is the key witness, the prosecutors said.