Jevic et al: Voluntary Departure

He said that a meeting held in the Fontana hotel on July 12 was attended by general Ratko Mladic, the then Commander of the Main Headquarters with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.

Representatives of the Dutch UNPROFOR Battalion, local civilian authorities from Bratunac and Ibro Nuhanovic, Nesib Mandzic and a woman named Camila, all representatives of the Muslim population from Srebrenica, also took part in the meeting.

“Mladic asked them what their decision was. I think that Camila said that they wanted to leave Srebrenica. He told them several times that they could stay and be safe, provided that they surrendered their weapons. Also, he said that those who had committed crimes would be criminally processed,” Davidovic said, adding that the Muslim representatives explicitly said that they would like to leave.

The Hague Tribunal has charged Mladic with genocide and other crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but he is on the run.

Jevic, Mendeljev Djuric, Goran Markovic and Nedjo Ikonic are on trial for having participated in the forcible resettlement of the Bosniak population from the Srebrenica area and the execution of more than 1,000 men at the Kravica Agricultural Cooperative.

According to the charges, Jevic was Commander of the Training Centre on Mount Jahorina with the Special Brigade of RS police, Djuric and Ikonic were company commanders with that unit and Markovic was a squad commander.

At the meeting with Mladic, the witness said that the local authorities were tasked with providing food and drinks for the Bosniaks in Potocari. Davidovic said that, according to his estimates, there were about 30,000 of them.

“We randomly distributed aid to them. It was certainly not enough…I noticed that no young men were among those people. It somehow seemed odd, but I did not think about it much, because I was shocked when I saw so many people,” the witness said.

The witness said that when he returned from Potocari he went to Bratunac municipality building in the early evening. He said he saw three buses parked there at about 9 p.m.

“We went downstairs and we saw that the buses were full of people. A policeman told us that those were Muslim men,” Davidovic said, adding that he saw three more buses nearby and he heard “about 20 more buses arriving at the playground”.

The witness heard that the men would be transferred to a detention camp for prisoners in Batkovic, Bijeljina municipality, and later exchanged.

“I got the impression that the transport of those men would be done in the best possible way. I could not have imagined what would happen later on,” Davidovic said, adding that “a massacre was committed” at the Agricultural Cooperative and “who knows how many people” were killed on the following day.

Responding to the Prosecutor’s questions, the witness said that he thought that Mladic was telling the truth at the meeting held in Fontana hotel, but he now knew that “it was not the case”.

The trial is due to continue on Thursday, April 21.