Karadzic: Shelling of Residential Buildings
A United Nations Observers Mission Major who was in Sarajevo in 1993 and 1994 says the Bosnian Serb Army fired artillery projectiles, randomly targeting residential buildings, which caused a large number of victims.
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Testifying for the Hague Prosecution at the trial of the former Republika Srpska President, Francis Roy Thomas said the role of the Observer Units was to count the projectiles that hit Sarajevo and determine the positions from which they had been fired, as well as try to establish the exact number of victims.
“The reports reflect the shelling witnessed by my observers. We were not able to see everything. We had limitations. We could not observe the situation at night, but we identified the locations from which the projectiles had been fired on the basis of sound or flare, if we could see it,” Major Thomas said.
Radovan Karadzic, former Supreme Commander of the Republika Srpska armed forces, is on trial before the Hague Tribunal on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity and contribution to spreading terror among the civilian population of Sarajevo through a sniper and shelling campaign conducted from 1992 to 1995.
“Bosnian forces had a certain number of tanks, which were never used, but they were stored in a tunnel. They drove two tanks out of the tunnel in June 1994, provoking your revenge. I am surprised by the fact that you did not block the tunnel,” Major Thomas said, answering Karadzic’s questions.
Thomas said that the Bosnian Serb Army had cannons that enabled it to hit any location in Sarajevo.
During the course of cross-examination Thomas said that the observers checked hospitals and morgues in Sarajevo in order to count victims, adding they were not able to do the same on the territories controlled by the Serbian Army.
“We examined the corpses by checking whether any limbs were missing, whether there were any shrapnel pieces or injuries caused by bullets. It is not difficult to determine the cause of death if a projectile had exploded or the person had been hit by a bullet,” Thomas said, adding there were as many as 600 corpses in a single day.
As far as the parts of Sarajevo controlled by the Serb Army are concerned, Thomas claimed the authorities there did not allow the observers to count corpses in hospitals or morgues.
Indictee Karadzic read an order issued by General Stanislav Galic, former Commander of Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, SRC, of the VRS, who was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to life imprisonment, which says, among other things, that support should be provided to UNRPOFOR forces.
The witness retorted by saying that “actions say more than words”, adding that Galic did not want to meet with him in order to discuss the possibility of the Observers Mission members coming to the Serbian territories.
“The reports reflect the shelling witnessed by my observers. We were not able to see everything. We had limitations. We could not observe the situation at night, but we identified the locations from which the projectiles had been fired on the basis of sound or flare, if we could see it,” Major Thomas said.
Radovan Karadzic, former Supreme Commander of the Republika Srpska armed forces, is on trial before the Hague Tribunal on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity and contribution to spreading terror among the civilian population of Sarajevo through a sniper and shelling campaign conducted from 1992 to 1995.
“Bosnian forces had a certain number of tanks, which were never used, but they were stored in a tunnel. They drove two tanks out of the tunnel in June 1994, provoking your revenge. I am surprised by the fact that you did not block the tunnel,” Major Thomas said, answering Karadzic’s questions.
Thomas said that the Bosnian Serb Army had cannons that enabled it to hit any location in Sarajevo.
During the course of cross-examination Thomas said that the observers checked hospitals and morgues in Sarajevo in order to count victims, adding they were not able to do the same on the territories controlled by the Serbian Army.
“We examined the corpses by checking whether any limbs were missing, whether there were any shrapnel pieces or injuries caused by bullets. It is not difficult to determine the cause of death if a projectile had exploded or the person had been hit by a bullet,” Thomas said, adding there were as many as 600 corpses in a single day.
As far as the parts of Sarajevo controlled by the Serb Army are concerned, Thomas claimed the authorities there did not allow the observers to count corpses in hospitals or morgues.
Indictee Karadzic read an order issued by General Stanislav Galic, former Commander of Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, SRC, of the VRS, who was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to life imprisonment, which says, among other things, that support should be provided to UNRPOFOR forces.
The witness retorted by saying that “actions say more than words”, adding that Galic did not want to meet with him in order to discuss the possibility of the Observers Mission members coming to the Serbian territories.
“A major cannot meet a general. You are spreading a total bias. You did everything but determine who had fired projectiles on Sarajevo,” Karadzic said, asking the Trial Chamber to allow him to have additional time for examination of the witness.
The Trial Chamber will render a decision concerning the request at a later stage.
At this hearing Karadzic cross-examined witness Alma Cehajic-Mulaosmanovic, who was wounded by a sniper bullet while riding in a tram in 1995. Her examination before the Hague Tribunal began on September 14, 2010.
Karadzic tried to prove that the sniper bullet came as a result of military actions taking place on Vrbanja bridge, but the witness said she did not hear loud shooting before she was wounded, stressing she was wounded in the vicinity of the School of Economics in Pofalici.
The witness explained she was on her way to the Faculty of Dentistry to get a tooth x-ray, adding she did not notice any soldiers, despite Karadzic’s allegations that the Independent Battalion of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina was based in the Faculty building.
The trial is due to continue on September 16, when cross-examination of Major Thomas will continue.
E.M.
