Kos et al: Defendant Admits Killing 177 Bosniaks

Testifying in his own defence, Kojic stated that after the events at Branjevo in July 1995, he told Momir Gavrilovic, the then head of the Serbian State Security, that Bosnian Serb soldiers had murdered 177 people.

“After the events at Branjevo I could not sleep. When I slept, I saw heads, I heard loud voices… I told Gavrilovic all about it and he did not believe me. He asked me if I was still on medication. He said that if everything I had told him were true, all of us would be arrested,” said Kojic.

The prosecution charged Kojic, together with Franc Kos, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja, with involvement in the murders of over 800 men and boys in July 1995 at the Branjevo farm in eastern Bosnia, in the aftermath of the fall of the UN ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica.

According to the indictment, Kos was the commander of the First Platoon of the Commando Squad of the Bosnian Serb army, while Kojic, Golijan and Goronja were members of the unit.

Following the massacre, Kojic was shot, and while he was being treated in Serbia, he said that the Serbian State Security service questioned him about the events at the Branjevo farm.

Kojic said that at Branjevo he counted 177 dead bodies, but that there were some other unknown soldiers who were also killing, and that he did not count the people those soldiers had killed.

“These are people, one must count them. When chickens are slaughtered, they are counted, and so must people. I constantly walked and counted. I may have made a mistake of one or two people,” said Kojic in response to Dusko Tomic, lawyer of the defendant Kos, who asked him why he counted the dead.

Kojic’s testimony marked the end of the evidence hearing. The prosecution is scheduled to present their closing arguments on May 11.
S.U.