Jevic et al: Provoking Prisoners

Answering the Defence’s questions during the cross-examination, protected witness S-102, former member of the Jahorina Training Centre, said that on the day male captives were executed, soldiers started arriving at the building in the early morning hours, adding he concluded that some members of paramilitary units were among them as well.
 
“The soldiers who came knew the detainees who were held in the hangar. They provoked them. I got the impression that they knew they could kill them and that was why they came,” the protected witness said.
 
The witness started testifying on February 28 this year, when he said that indictee Dusko Jevic lined up a squad of about 30 members of “the unit from Jahorina” and a few other soldiers, who then executed the male captives from Srebrenica. Although he was among those soldiers, protected witness S-102 said he did not shoot.
 
Jevic, who was allegedly Commander of the “Jahorina” Training Centre with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, MUP RS, along with Mendeljev Djuric, Goran Markovic and Nedjo Ikonic, are charged with having participated in the shooting of more than 1,000 captives from Srebrenica in Kravica in July 1995.
 
The indictment alleges that Djuric and Ikonic were company commanders with that Unit and Markovic was a squad commander.
 
Witness S-102 said that he sometimes saw Djuric in the Potocari and Bratunac area, but he did not see him when the captives were shot.
 
“While performing my work tasks, I would meet Mane Djuric. My opinion about him is good,” the witness said.
 
The protected witness recognised indictee Markovic in the courtroom, adding that he saw him after 1995. He agreed with the Defence of indictee Ikonic that he was not the person whom he had previously identified on photographs shown to him as “Nedjo, who passed in front of the lined-up soldiers”.
 
Indictee Jevic addressed the Trial Chamber at this hearing, arguing that he “has been convicted in advance”.
 
“The situation is absolutely clear in advance. My conscience is clear. I have never participated in any crime. I have a feeling that the process has been completed in advance and I have already been convicted,” Jevic said.
 
The trial is due to continue on March 10 this year.