Stanisic and Milosevic: Rumors about volunteers

Witness Radenko Basic, former assistant commander for security in the Sixth Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) stated during direct questioning that he did not know whether or not he had previously told investigators that volunteers had reported to Stanisic.“I don’t know whether they had to report to Stanisic, but they did report to the school,” the witness stated when probed by prosecutor Erik Larson.In cross-examination Basic said that he had heard the story about the volunteers in a coffee bar 20 days after the prisoners were killed. He said he discussed the rumour with Stanisic, his former commander, who told him that the rumour was false.The witness said that many men bragged about reporting as volunteers to Ostoja Stanisic for the killings, but that he doubts the truthfulness of these stories: “In the rumours overheard in coffee bars,” he stated, “there is very little truth.”The prosecutor asked the witness whether the first time he mentioned the conversation with Stanisic, was during the trial. Basic responded that it was possible, but that he couldn’t remember clearly.Stanisic and Milosevic are charged with participating in the slaying of about 1,000 Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica on a dam in Petkovci. The prosecution alleges that Stanisic and Milosevic knew about the planned execution and that they supervised the loading and escorting of prisoners to the dam. Stanisic was Commander of the Sixth Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade with the VRS and Milosevic was his Deputy.During his testimony Basic said that prisoners were brought to the village of Petkovci in mid-July 1995, and placed at the new school there – a facility surrounded by 100 soldiers without military tags that were unknown to him.He stated, “Nobody was allowed to enter the school. You couldn’t talk to them, those people were monsters.” He added that even Stanisic couldn’t give them orders.Basic said that, at the time, he didn’t know that the school was full of prisoners from Srebrenica.The prosecutor presented Basic with a document from the investigation, dated November 2011, that records Stanisic saying that a few people from the battalion should be sent to the “new school” because the prisoners represented a danger. The witness, in response, denied that Stanisic sent people to secure the area.According to the witness, upon his return to the school he saw murdered people in the schoolyard. A soldier explained to Basic that the murdered were killed while trying to escape the school.When asked whether he felt uncomfortable testifying against his former colleagues, the witness said he only felt uncomfortable that innocent people were killed.The trial will resume on 16 January.
A.J.