Kravica: Stupar linked to crime scene

Tomislav Dukic, a prosecution witness in the case against 11 persons accused of killing around a thousand Bosniaks in Kravica in July 1995, testified that the principal defendant Milos Stupar was seen in the vicinity of the farm on 13 July 1995, the day of the massacre.

Dukic said that he personally did not see Stupar, but had “learned from colleagues guarding the Kravica-Konjevic Polje road” that Stupar had visited them on that day.

Witness Dukic is a former member of the Armored Platoon of the Second Squad of the Sekovici Special Police, which was deployed along the road near Kravica during the attack on Srebrenica in July 1995.

Several prosecution witnesses who testified earlier claimed that Stupar was a commander of the Second Squad of the Sekovici Special Police until mid-July 1995. The witnesses, without specifying the exact date, claimed that Rade Cuturic, who was killed in late 1995, replaced Stupar in mid-July.

Stupar’s defence claims that he was not the commander of the second squad at the time of the massacre.

Dukic told the court that Stupar had been in the vicinity of the crime scene but had not been in uniform.

“I know that his wife gave birth and that he was in Serbia. Colleagues, however, told me that he visited them on 13 July 1995 in civilian clothes,” Dukic told the court.

The witness explained that he himself had been in Bratunac with another two soldiers on 13 July 1995, on the orders of Commander Cuturic.

“We were in a state of readiness in a tank in the centre of Bratunac, and we communicated via radio with our colleagues in the area of Konjevic Polje-Bratunac,” the witness said.

Dukic said that he had learned about the murders committed in the afternoon hours of 13 July 1995 from Zarko Stupar, the commander of the armoured platoon,who was in the tank with him.

“I was 15 metres away from the tank when the news came via radio that soldier Krle got killed in the hangar in Kravica, and that Commander Cuturic was wounded,” Dukic said.

The witness stated that he did not know about the events that happened the following day, 14 July, as on that day he, together with other members of his platoon, was transferred to Konjevic Polje.

Dukic, in common with some of the previous witnesses in this trial, denied the allegations in statements given to officials of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA).

After the prosecutor read a part of Dukic’s 19 October 2005 statement given to SIPA officials in Zvornik – in which he said that he had seen members of one of the platoons of the Sekovici Special Police’s Second Squad at the Bratunac-Konjevic Polje junction on 14 July – Dukic responded by saying that these allegations were not true.

On Wednesday the witness stated that he “just saw the Serb Republic Army deployed along the Kravica-Konjevic Polje road”, and that he saw around 30 buses with civilians in Bratunac on 14 July.

“I subsequently learned that these civilians were going from Srebrenica to Kladanj,” Dukic said.

The main hearing will continue on 20 July, when Predrag Celic is scheduled to appear as witness.