Pelemis and Peric: Indictee not Responsible for Prisoners

Expert witness Radovan Radinovic said that indictee Pelemis, in his capacity as Commander of the First Battalion with Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, was not responsible for prisoners, who were held in Pilica, Zvornik municipality and then executed on Branjevo farm in mid-July 1995.
 
The Defence of indictee Pelemis invited expert witness Radinovic, who presented his findings and opinion at this trial in December, to deny the findings and opinion of Richard Butler, court expert in military issues, who testified for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina on April 14 this year.
 
At that hearing Butler said that Pelemis was responsible because the prisoners, who were held in the school building and Cultural Centre in Pilica, were not protected, adding that, in the absence of the Battalion Commander, his deputy bore the biggest responsibility.
 
“The Battalion could not have had a zone of responsibility, as said by Butler, but a zone of defence. The Kula school building and Cultural Centre in Pilica, as well as Branjevo farm, were not situated in the zone of defence of the First Battalion with Zvornik Brigade,” expert witness Radinovic said.
 
Radinovic mentioned that the First Battalion Command could not have been responsible for Srebrenica residents in Pilica because it did not participated in their capture. According to expert witness Radinovic, the Drina Corps of VRS was responsible for the prisoners, who were brought to Zvornik.
 
The indictment alleges that Pelemis and Peric, former Assistant Commander for Security with the First Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade, are charged with having participated in the murder of about 1,200 Srebrenica residents on Branjevo military farm and about 600 men in the Cultural Centre in Pilica on July 15 and 16, 1995.
 
According to the charges, the prisoners had first been held in the Kula school building in Pilica. It is further alleges that Peric, with the knowledge of Pelemis and under his command, found members of the First Battalion and deployed them to the area in order to guard it.
 
Expert witness Radinovic said that the Commander, or in this case Deputy Commander, of the First Battalion was not responsible for members of his unit when they were outside the zone of defence of his Battalion.
 
“Butler’s thesis that the responsibility of the Battalion Command spread to the places of residents of Battalion members is not correct. Even if Pelemis deployed soldiers to a location controlled by some other unit, that unit was responsible for those soldiers,” Radinovic said.
 
The trial is due to continue on September 6, when the Prosecution will begin presenting its closing statement.