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Muharem Salkic, an additional Prosecution witness, told the Trial Chamber how Milos Radic took him and a group of his neighbours from Bratunac for shooting in Borkovac in May 1992.
Salkic testified at the trial of Mirko Todorovic and Milos Radic, who are charged by the Prosecution with having participated in the detention, abuse and shooting of fourteen Bosniak civilians in Borkovac village, Bratunac municipality, on May 20, 1992.
The witness said he and his neighbours were hiding in a forest, after “Serbs had started taking Bosniaks to the stadium in Bratunac.” According to him, Mirko Todorovic came “at about 6.00” on May 19, 1992, “together with one more man” and ordered them to surrender.
“We formed a line and they took us away. I approached Mirko and asked him to help us, to save us. He said: ‘I cannot help you in any way. You should have surrendered,'” Salkic recalled, adding that six armed persons, including a man with a stocking pulled over his face, gathered there afterwards.
Salkic also said that the soldiers took their “money, gold, watches” away and then they hit them “with all kinds of objects.” According to this witness, the soldiers took a girl named Hamedina Ramic, who was in the group together with them, to a nearby house and raped her.
“They took us towards the hill. The solider with the stocking over his head headed the column. When he took the stocking off, I saw it was Milos Radic. An unknown man told us to pray to God and he started shooting. All other men fell down on the ground. I fell too,” the witness said, adding that he and five other survivors headed towards Srebrenica after having lain on the ground for several hours.
Answering the Defence attorneys’ questions in the course of cross-examination, Salkic said he did not see Milos Radic shooting at anyone, but he repeatedly said that he “took him for the shooting.”
The Prosecution had to give up the examination of Ljubisa Todorovic, a relative of the indictees, and another additional witness, after Prosecutor Adnan Gulamovic concluded that his statement given in the courtroom was “a hundred percent different” from the statement he gave to the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) on June 12, 2007.
“I do not want to ask the witness any further questions, as it is obvious that he does not remember anything today. I am trying to establish some contact with him, but it is not working,” Gulamovic said, after having asked the witness a few questions concerning night guards organised by Repovac village residents and the killing of Bosniaks from Glogova village.
Todorovic claims that he gave his statement to SIPA under pressure and threats, as the investigator told him he would “put him in jail in Sarajevo.”
When asked by Trial Chamber Chairwoman Minka Kreho which of the two statements, the one given to SIPA or the one given in the courtroom, were correct, the witness said that he “was now telling the truth and nothing but the truth.”
“The notes do not contain the full truth, but I did not lie. There are many things I did not say. Many things were turned around, as he (the SIPA investigator) wrote them down differently,” Todorovic claims.
The Prosecution proposed that Bajro Kulovac, SIPA investigator who took his statement, be examined as a witness at the next hearing, which is scheduled for April 18. After that, the Trial Chamber will arrange for the facing of Kulovac and Ljubisa Todorovic, which will be introduced as court evidence.
