Jevic et al: Death Squad

“They said that Jevic asked for that…I heard that the squad was tasked with that. I did not see anything. I do not know that it existed or who its members were, but people were saying that it committed shootings,” the witness said.

Dusko Jevic, Mendeljev Djuric, Goran Markovic and Nedjo Ikonic are on trial for participating in the forcible resettlement of the Bosniak population from the Srebrenica area and murder of about 1,000 men in Kravica.

The indictment alleges that Jevic was Commander of the Jahorina Training Centre with the Special Brigade of Republika Srpska police, Djuric and Ikonic were Company Commanders and Markovic was a Squad Commander.

State Prosecutor Ibro Bulic reminded the protected witness of an earlier statement in which he said that “Jevic walked from one position to another, looking for people, who would transport ammunition with him”, and that he came to him as well. The witness did not deny these allegations, but he said that Jevic did not address him personally.

The Prosecutor reminded him of another statement in which he said that he believed that they were talking about the transport of ammunition at that time, but he found out, later on, that they asked for volunteers for the death squad. In that statement he said that about 60 members of his unit volunteered for that.

“I am not sure if any members of our unit joined it. Members of various police and army forces were there,” the witness explained during the hearing, confirming that most of the volunteers were “old policemen”.

Although witness S-124 recognised Jevic in the courtroom at the beginning of the hearing and said that he was his superior officer on Mount Jahorina, at the end of the examination he said that he was not sure about that and that he “assumed” that the indictee, whom he saw in the courtroom, was the person, whom he mentioned in relation to the events that took place in July 1995.

“I am not sure if that is related to this Dusko Jevic…there are two of them,” the witness said.

Responding to a question made by Jevic’s Defence, the witness confirmed having said earlier that the indictee weighed between 100 and 120 kilograms, but, during this hearing he said that he had said that because he “was not sure”. He was not able to identify Jevic on photographs.

S-124 said that he heard that a uniformed man, who, as he said, was blonde and big, killed two Bosniak men, who had come out of the woods and surrendered.

“We informed Dusko about the murder of those two men on the following day. I was there with my brother. Jevic said that he would take care of it and solve the problem,” the witness said.

He said that, while they were standing on the side of the road one day, Jevic told them that they must not speak about the murders.

The trial is due to continue on Thursday, November 24.