Karadzic: No Deportations from Foca

“Nobody was deported. I feel bad, when someone claims to have been deported from Foca,” said Pljevaljcic, former Commander of a company with the Serbian Territorial Defence.

The indictment charges Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, with the persecution of Muslims and Croats in 20 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Foca.

Witness Pljevaljcic said that, “during the cleaning of predominantly Muslim villages”, all men, who were capable of serving the Army, whom he called “paramilitary gangs”, “ran away towards Gorazde”.

“Only those who were armed were deported,” the witness said.

According to Pljevaljcic, women, children and the elderly were transferred to several “shelters” in Foca in order to be “protected” from Serbian paramilitaries, who “caused big problems” for the local authorities.

He further said that the Muslims civilians “asked to be allowed” to go to Montenegro or Serbia and that Serb authorities enabled them to do it, by providing them with transportation means.

“Those who did not want to go stayed in the town. (…) Serb authorities made an appeal to people to stay, but they helped people leave – they enabled all those who wanted it to leave,” the witness said.

While saying that Muslims, who had been armed prior to the war, caused the conflicts in Foca, Pljevaljcic said that their interntion was to “dominate in Foca and make it a Muslim town”.

“Muslims attacked Foca, while Serb patriots successfully defended it,” the witness said.

During the cross-examination Prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff presented the witness with the fact that The Hague Tribunal had sentenced several Serb officials for having raped Muslim women in “shelters” and committed crimes against prisoners in the Penal and Correctional Facility in Foca.

Pljevaljcic responded by saying that he “had never heard” of those crimes before. He accepted a Prosecutor’s suggestion that he did not know anything about it, because he was in Belgrade from mid July-1992 to 1993 for the medical treatment of wounds he received during the conflict.

The Prosecutor presented a statement by the then President of the Serbian Democratic Party in Foca Miroslav Stanic, who said that a “battalion” was formed in the town as early as in June 1991. Pljevaljcic responded by saying that it “was not known” to him.

Following the examination of Pljevaljcic, Defence witness Slavko Mijanovic denied that, in the spring of 1992 Serb authorities confiscated apartments in Ilidza that belonged to Muslims, “who left the place voluntarily”.

Mijanovic, who was in charge of housing issues in the Serb municipality of Ilidza, said that Serb refugees were allowed to use empty apartments, but they did not become owners of those apartments.

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