Mladic: Disappearance of Bosniaks from Foca

The witness, who testified under the pseudonym of RM-046, said that detainees in the Foca Facility, where he was held from April 1992 to July 1993, were “mistreated” and “physically attacked” and that “many people were taken away and nobody saw them alive again”. Others died in the facility due to abuse and illness.

According to the charges against Mladic, the then Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, Foca was one of the seven municipalities, where the persecution of Muslims and Croats by forces under Mladic’s command reached the scale of genocide.

Witness RM-046, who is a doctor, judging by his statement, participated in the exhumations from five graves after the war. He said that remains of prisoners from Foca were found at those locations.

Describing the taking of 45 Muslim detainees on September 17, 1992, the witness said that “all of them were killed”, although a document issued by Serb authorities, which was presented in the courtroom, indicated that they were “released, because it was determined that they had not committed war crimes against Serbs”.

“Many of them were exhumed. They were not thrown into the same mass grave, but several ones,” witness RM-046 said, adding that River Drina was the biggest mass grave.

The witness suggested that Muslim prisoners were taken away and killed “in revenge” for VRS losses on battlefields.

He said that “Dr. Dragovic”, who treated prisoners, warned him that “between three and five Muslims” would be killed in the Foca facility in revenge for each Serb soldier, who was killed during an offensive on Gorazde.
“And it really happened,” witness RM-046 said.

During the cross-examination Mladic’s Defence attorney Miodrag Stojanovic suggested to the witness that he was arrested due to his political involvement with the Party of Democratic Action.

“No, I was arrested because I was a Muslim and because I advocated for the other option,” the witness said, adding that the option was opposed to the Serbian Democratic Party’s stand that Serb and Muslims could no longer live together.

RM-046 denied that members of “Green Berets” and the Patriotic League were among the prisoners, saying that all people in the facility were civilians.

Responding to a question by the Defence attorney, the witness confirmed that the prison was guarded by members of the RS Ministry of Justice, not by members of the Army.

Indictee Mladic was absent from the most part of the hearing today, because he wanted to meet Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic, who was visiting Serbs who were indicted and sentenced under first instance verdicts for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, in the Detention Unit in Scheveningen. He returned to the courtroom only at the end of the session.

The trial of Mladic, who is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage, is due to continue on Monday.