Kos et al: Crime on Branjevo

During the cross-examination before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, military expert witness Slobodan Kosovac said that he determined that members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad of the VRS Main Headquarters had not known what task they would have to execute on Branjevo military farm, until they arrived on the farm.

“After having read the documents, I came to a conclusion that members of the Squad were invited to help execute a task. At that time they did not know what the task was. They only found out when they arrived at the location in order to execute it,” Kosovac said. He began presenting his findings and opinion before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 21 this year.

Expert witness Kosovac prepared his findings and opinion about the responsibilities and commanding lines of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad as per a request by the Defence of indictee Stanko Kojic.

Besides Kojic, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Franc Kos, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja with genocide in Srebrenica and participating in the murder of more than 800 men and boys on Branjevo military farm in July 1995. According to the charges, Kos, Commander of the First Unit with the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad of VRS, Kojic, Golijan and Goronja, former members of the Squad, jointly shot prisoners.

Expert witness Kosovac explained that, according to military hierarchy, each order had to be executed unless it constituted a crime, adding that, in such cases, one was supposed to inform his superior officers about it. He said that the order carried out on Branjevo was a crime.

When asked by Milan Romanic, Defence attorney of indictee Kojic, whether he said that members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad were “volunteers”, because one part of the unit went on leave after July 11, 1995, the expert witness said that the Squad was not functional at that moment.

“It was not an organised unit. At that moment the Squad did not function as a unit. Those were members of VRS, the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad in the zone of responsibility of the Drina Corps. They were not volunteers, because one can see that they carried out the order from the beginning to the end,” Kosovac said.

Dusko Tomic, Defence attorney of indictee Kos, said that the Defence of the first indictee got an impression that expert witness Kosovac’s expertise was targeted against Kos, adding that the expert witness confirmed the thesis that members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad voluntarily applied to execute the task.

“You confirmed Petar Salapura’s thesis that those men voluntarily applied to carry out the task. Radovan Karadzic is defending the same thesis at The Hague these days,” Defence attorney Tomic said.

Petar Salapura, former Chief of the Intelligence Administration with the VRS Main Headquarters, testified at the trial of Kos, Kojic, Golijan and Goronja in May 2011. Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, RS, is on trial before The Hague Tribunal for genocide in Srebrenica.

According to the official schedule of trials held before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the next hearing in this case is due to be held on March 2 this year. S.U.