Todorovic and Radic: Witness Speaks of Sister’s Death
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Amer Ramic, a Prosecution witness at the trial of Mirko Todorovic and Milos Radic, survived a May 1992 shooting in Borkovac village. He identified the indictees in the courtroom and said they took part in this crime.
Ramic told the Court how his sister was murdered.
“She sighted and that was the last thing she done. They shot at her head. When she fell her head was above mine. I felt her blood pouring over my face and eyes,” the witness said.
The indictment alleges that Todorovic and Radic, and four more members of the Serbian Army, attacked a group of 14 Bosniak civilians in the village of Borkovac near Bratunac on May 20, 1992. After that, the soldiers shot the civilians at a slope near the local brook.
In May 1992, Amer Ramic and his sister Hamida were captured in the forest where they were hiding after the Serbian Army had entered their village. Amer was aged 18 at the time.
“We were hiding there until May 20, 1992, when we were captured. In the group of six soldiers I recognised Mirko Todorovic and I was relieved. I expected him to save us, as I had known that man my whole life,” said Ramic, adding that Todorovic and Radic were his neighbours.
“When they lined us up, I was facing Milos Radic. I tried to give him a sign to help us. He did not react at all. He looked at me as if he had never seen me before. I understood that we could not expect any help,” the witness recalled.
Ramic said that “a man with curly hair who was about 40 years old” shot at the civilians. After the first bullet was fired, he slipped and fell into the brook. Other bodies started falling over him. In the end, the soldiers brought his sister, who had previously been singled out from a group of people, and killed her.
The Prosecution also invited Sadeta Hasanovic, Ruseta Sulejmanovic and Zejneba Avdic to testify. Their husbands were also shot dead in Borkovac on May 20, 1992. All three said that the surviving neighbours told them about the murder of their husbands.
The trial is due to continue on November 19, when the Prosecution intends to examine two more witnesses.
