Pelemis and Peric: A Cable about Executions

At the trial of Momir Pelemis and Slavko Peric, who are charged with genocide committed in Srebrenica, a Prosecution witness says that in mid July 1995 he got a cable, saying that he was supposed to “select a squad of soldiers for the execution of prisoners”, who were held in the school building in Rocevici, Zvornik municipality.

Srecko Acimovic, former Commander of the Second Battalion with Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, explained that the cable was sent by the Brigade Command, adding that, after he refused to carry out the order, he was subjected to pressure and threats and told that he had to do it.

The witness said that they told him that “the order came from the top”, so he concluded that the order came from the Main Headquarters of the VRS.

“Past midnight I received a call from Drago Nikolic, who told me to take those things seriously, adding that the order had to be carried out. He said I should find the squad by seven o’clock in the morning and act in line with the cable. I quarreled with him, but he said that if I didn’t do it, I might be arrested,” witness Acimovic said.

The witness said that Nikolic called him again at about seven o’clock in the morning and asked him if he had got the soldiers who would execute Srebrenica residents. The witness responded by saying that he “neither has got the squad nor will I provide soldiers for that purpose, because I consider it an inhumane act”.

Nikolic then told him to meet him in front of the school building in Rocevici. The witness said that, upon his arrival, he was met by Vujadin Popovic, former Assistant Commander for Security with the Drina Corps of VRS. The witness said that Popovic cursed him and said: “Do you know that they burnt Serb villages in towns surrounding Srebrenica and killed their residents”.

“I told him he could not speak about that to me. Then I went back to the Battalion Command,” the witness recalled.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Pelemis, former Deputy Commander of the First Battalion with VRS Zvornik Brigade, and Peric, former Assistant Commander for Security, with having participated in the murder of about 1,200 Srebrenica residents on Branjevo military farm and about 600 men in the Pilica Center, Zvornik municipality, on July 15 and 16, 1995.

In 2010 the Hague Tribunal sentenced Vujadin Popovic to life imprisonment for genocide committed in Srebrenica and Drago Nikolic, former Chief of Security with the Zvornik Brigade, to 35 years in prison.

Witness Acimovic said that he saw a few dead bodies of captives from Srebrenica in the school yard in Rocevici, adding that, in his opinion, “the mentally unaccountable” soldiers who guarded them killed those men and one local resident.

“Later on I found out that prisoners were taken to Kozluk, Zvornik municipality, where they were executed on the banks of the river Drina,” Acimovic said.

The trial is due to continue on April 28 this year.

A.J.