Karadzic: Defence Witness Claims Markale Hit Impossible

Stevan Veljovic, the then operative officer for the First Romanija Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska at the positions around Sarajevo, said that “a mortar shell cannot fall on Markale” and that it was one hundred per cent certain it “could not have hit that exact spot”.

“I can bet that on my life, I am willing to stand on that spot and let them try to hit me,” said Veljovic.

He said that a 120 millimetre mortar battery from his brigade at the said time was not even around Sarajevo, but in the vicinity of Trebinje.

“We did not even have a mortar at Trebevic, because it is a wooded area and there are very few spots appropriate for that weapon,” said Veljovic.

According to the indictment which charges Karadzic with terrorising civilians in Sarajevo with a campaign of artillery and sniping attacks, it says that the grenade which killed 43 people and wounded 45 on August 28 at Markale was fired from the position of the Army of Republika Srpska.

Veljovic said he believed that the grenade at Markale was planted and activated from a distance by the “Muslim side” in order to provoke foreign military intervention against Serbs.

In the courtroom, Karadzic read the summary of Veljovic’s statement, in which, just like previous witnesses for the defence, he claimed that the Army of Republika Srpska around Sarajevo did not carry out offensive, but only defensive actions, as well as that his brigade never targeted civilians.

Veljovic also said that the Army of Republika Srpska never responded with fire if the enemy position was inside a civilian facility, “although it had all the right.” That, in his words, was strictly forbidden because the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina would “immediately accuse the Chetniks of destruction.”

Prosecutor Caroline Edgerton suggested in the cross-examination that in his testimony at the Hague trial of commander of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps Dragomir Milosevic, Veljovic “did not deny that Markale was shelled”, but only provided an alibi for General Milosevic.

Veljovic denied that, claiming that Milosevic’s lawyers did not ask him anything about the incident itself. The prosecutor referred to the second explosion at the Markale as “the most controversial incident in the history of war in Bosnia”.

The first instance Trial Chamber found Milosevic guilty of shelling Markale, but the Appellate Chamber acquitted him of that charge, taking into account his alibi that at the time he was being treated in Belgrade. Milosevic was sentenced by the final verdict to 29 years in prison.

Witness Veljovic also denied that the Army of Republika Srpska fired modified aircraft missiles, although prosecutor Edgerton showed him the reports from the Sarajevo Romanija Corps and the main headquarters of the Army of Republika Srpska that downtown Hrasnica was targeted with a 250 kg bomb.

The witness said that UNPROFOR did not file a report about it at all, although the detonation would have been heard from “60 kilometres away”. He, however, confirmed that modified airplane bombs were extremely non-precise.

The witness recalled UNPROFOR’s report that on a day in October 1993 “500 shells fell” on Sarajevo’s old town a “monstrous lie”, claiming that, had that been true, the area would have been “leveled to the ground” and “thousands of civilians would have died”.

After Veljovic, Karadzic called a former officer of the Igman Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska Sinisa Maksimovic, who reiterated that the army opened fire only at military targets.

By claiming that his unit did not have trained snipers, Maksimovic in a brief statement denied responsibility of the Army of Republika Srpska for several sniper incidents from the indictment committed in the settlement of Sedrenik.

Because of the upcoming holidays, the trail of Karadzic will resume next week.