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She said that he was detained in the school building in Kalinovik, along with her three children and sister, as well as other women and girls, from July to September 1992.
As she said, uniformed Serbs used to come to the school building on a regular basis and took girls and women away in order to rape them. She said that some of them never came back.
Sexual violence is covered by a part of the indictment against Mladic, the then Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, who is charged with the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Besides that, he is charged with genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage in the period from 1992 to 1995.
The witness said that the girls, who never came back, were taken away by a member of the Serb forces, known as Zaga, on August 2, 1992, adding that she found out, later on, that his name was Dragan Kunarac.
“I asked him when he would bring the girls back, but he said that they were not coming back. I asked him what would happen to us. Zaga said: ‘We shall kill you… just like I killed 20 people in the gunpowder depot the other night’,” said RM-032.
In 2002 the Hague Tribunal sentenced Dragoljub Kunarac, known as Zaga or Dragan, to 28 years in prison for crimes committed in the broader area of Foca municipality.
During the cross-examination the Defence suggested and RM-032 confirmed that the people who abused women and girls in the school building, did not belong to “regular” Serb forces.
When asked whether Kunarac belonged to paramilitary formations, the witness said that he once introduced himself as a member of the “Beli orlovi” (“White Eagles”).
Also, RM-032 said that it was true that “soldiers and policemen”, who worked as guards in the school building, did not harm the detainees in any way.
As she said, the guards once prevented “a Serb paramilitary soldier” from taking women out for the second night in a row, after one of them, “who had two children”, had complained to them.
The witness confirmed that local Serb officials from Kalinovik, Mladic’s hometown, visited the women in the school building.
“When we complained that they came and took women away and harassed us, they said that they could do nothing about it,” said RM-032.
The trial of Mladic is due to continue on September 17, following a break previously ordered by the Trial Chamber.
R.M.
