PARIS (Reuter) - One of two French airmen shot down on a NATO bombing mission over Bosnia in August and freed this week was quoted Friday as saying they had been treated brutally at first after ejecting from their plane.
Lieutenant Jose Souvignet said he and Captain Frederic Chiffot had each broken a leg on landing in mountains near the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale. Unable to move, they had waited with their hands on their heads until a farmer with a hunting gun captured them.
``Very soon, armed men in uniform arrived to take us away. We were first taken to a building when people telephoned to get orders,'' Souvignet told the daily Est Republicain.
Asked whether they had been beaten before being taken to a dispensary in Pale, he said: ``We can't talk about it too much but you can say...that the welcome was brutal.''
They received rudimentary treatment before being questioned by Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, he said.
``The seriousness of our injuries made it necessary to transfer us to a more approapriate hospital where we had to undergo surgery,'' Souvignet said.
``That is where we saw General Maldic again. He was present during our operations, both mine and Captain Chiffot's.''
They were transferred to another hospital the following night, then taken one day later to a prison and then to another place where they were regularly treated by doctors who changed the dressing on their wounds.
They were later separated, which was the most difficult period psychologically, he said.
Souvignet said several times that he could not answer some questions, including one about ``ficticious releases.'' The interviewer, apparently briefed, said they had been blindfolded for long periods.
Souvignet said they had been dressed only in hospital pyjamas throughout their imprisonment. Asked whether they had suffered from the cold, he said: ``It wasn't easy every day.''
Mladic personally released the airmen Wednesday, 104 days after they were captured, handing them over to the French armed forces chief of staff on the eve of the signing of a Bosnian peace treaty in Paris.