Jevic et al: Mladic Ordered Killings

Dragomir Vasic, a former chief of the Public Safety Center, CJB, in Zvornik, was testifying at the trial of Dusko Jevic, Mendeljev Djuric, Goran Markovic and Nedjo Ikonic. They are charged with murder and the forcible resettlement of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.

“I visited Miroslav Deronjic. This was the first time I saw Beara. He said he came there to execute an order to liquidate all prisoners, saying the order was given to him by his boss General Mladic,” Vasic said. 
 
The witness said that Ljubomir Borovcanin, who was the head of a special police unit in Srebrenica at the time, told him the following day about the murder of about 1,000 Bosniak men in Kravica on July 13.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, sentenced Ljubisa Beara, chief of security with the VRS Main Headquarters, to life imprisonment and Ljubomir Borovcanin to 17 years in prison for crimes committed in Srebrenica. Miroslav Deronjic, the former President of the Crisis Committee in Bratunac, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Mladic is still on the run.

The indictment alleges that Jevic was commander of a training center on Mount Jahorina, Djuric and Ikonic were company commanders and Markovic was a squad commander. 

Vasic said that a special police unit from Zvornik, the Second Special Police Squad from Sekovici and the Jahorina Training Center was involved in the operations in Srebrenica as of July 11. He said he was not a member of the special unit but was tasked with informing his superiors about the happenings in the field on a daily basis.
 
“In the morning hours on July 12 they said that some men should stay in Potocari because of the big hustle. I heard that Dusko Jevic stayed there. The rest of the men went to the road leading from Sandici to Konjevic polje,” Vasic said.
 
The witness explained they went to the road because of information that a huge number of armed men capable of military service were moving through the woods in that area.
 
Prosecutor Ibro Bulic asked the witness to explain the allegations contained in one of his reports about the evacuation of people to Kladanj and the “liquidation of about 8,000 armed members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina who were blocked in the woods”.
 
“I did not write about physical liquidation of prisoners but neutralisation of the threat. Nobody was even captured in the morning the report was submitted,” Vasic said.

The witness confirmed the authenticity of the reports, saying that two squads with the Ministry of Internal Affairs from Jahorina were deployed on the road from Konjevic polje to Kasaba and participated in the search of the Pobudje locality. 

Responding to defence team questions, the witness said the military police were tasked with separating men capable of military service from other people in Potocari.
 
The trial continues on August 30.

M.T.