Stanisic et al: Commandant Offers the Killing
This post is also available in: Bosnian
The witness code-named SM-110, former member of the Sixth Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska, said that the old man, who lost his son in the war, said this in front of many people.
He sometimes sat in the infirmary. He told me that, if he wanted to get revenge, he could shoot. He told me he was offered this by commander Ostoja. He, however, declined the offer, said the protected witness.
The witness recalled the arrival of imprisoned men in civilian clothing in mid-July 1995 and the incident he had with a soldier who secured their voyage in two buses.
When they already got out, these people stood three to four metres from me, and some of them asked for water from me. I brought a gallon and offered it to the group. A soldier from the security saw me and cursed me and said that he would kill me if I tried something like that again, said the witness, adding that after that he went to the infirmary.
The protected witness said that he saw Stanisic, former commander of the Sixth Battalion, and Marko Milosevic, whom he described as the security officer in the brigade, standing by the bus and talking.
The prisoners, the witness said, were then taken to the new school in the village.
I heard occasional shots during the stay of prisoners. (…) I also heard they were being taken to the dam and killed there, said the witness.
According to the indictment, Stanisic was commander of the Sixth Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Milosevic was his deputy. They are charged with taking part in the crimes committed at the Petkovci dam, where around 1,000 Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica were executed. The Prosecution believes that the defendants knew about the planned execution and that putting the prisoners into vehicles and transporting them to the dam was supervised under their command.
The witness said that the soldier passed onto him Stanisics order to take part in the sweeping of the school in which prisoners were held, and that upon arriving he saw in the auxiliary building dead people piled up a metre high.
The witness gave his testimony via video-link from a foreign country, and a cover was pulled down between the courtroom and the public room so that his face could not be seen.
The trial will resume on December 5.
