Former soldier testify in Kravica genocide case

Following a near month-long break, witness Zoran Eric finished his testimony in the trial of 11 men accused of genocide in Kravica.

Eric was serving his military duty on July 13, 1995, – the day the massacre on Kravica farm took place. He told the court that he heard screams from the storage shed during the executions and that, with the help of other soldiers, he covered “around 200” dead bodies with hay the following day.

The bodies were in front of the storage shed and were hidden so that UNPROFOR soldiers would not notice them, the witness said.

“I saw that they were dead,” Eric said, adding that he did not seethe shootings, or any of the indictees taking part in the murders while he was on the farm.

The second witness to appear on Tuesday was Miladin Jovanovic, a former member of the Army of Republika Srpska. He also said that Bosniaks were detained on the farm in Kravica and that they were guarded by members of “the police from Skelani”.

In July 1995, Jovanovic was a member of a special detachment called the Modified Unit of Launchers within the Bratunac brigade where, as he said, he was an “ordinary soldier”.

Jovanovic said that he visited Kravica once in July 1995 in order to”check” what was going on there.

“I heard shots, cursing and screams coming from all over the place,” Jovanovic said, but added that he did not see any of the indictees on the farm.

Milos Stupar, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brano Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Branislav Medan and Milovan Matic are on trial accused of genocide. The prosecution is trying to rove that they played an active part in the shooting of around a thousand Bosniak men and boys in Kravica in July 1995.

The trial will continue on July 5.