This post is also available in: Bosnian
In 2003 Nikolic, the then Chief of Security with the Bratunac Brigade of VRS, admitted guilt for crimes against humanity in Srebrenica before the International Tribunal at The Hague. He was sentenced to 20 years.
He said that, on July 12, 1995 he asked Popovic, the then Chief of Security of the Drina Corps of VRS, what would happen to the Bosniak population from Srebrenica, who had sought shelter in the vicinity of the UNPROFOR Compound in Potocari while fleeing from the Serb Army the previous day.
“Popovic told me that women and children would be transferred to territories controlled by Muslim forces in Kladanj or Tuzla. He said that able-bodied men would be separated from others…When I asked him: ‘Mr. Lieutenant Colonel, what will happen with the able-bodied men?’, Popovic said in an arrogant way, as always: “All Muslims should be killed’,” Nikolic said.
According to the witness, the conversation took place in front of the Fontana hotel in Bratunac right before General Mladic’s meeting with officers of the Dutch Battalion of UNPROFOR and representatives of Srebrenica Muslims.
Under a first instance verdict, Popovic was sentenced to life imprisonment for committing genocide in Srebrenica. Mladic, former Commander of the VRS, is on trial for genocide, which included the murder of about 7,000 Bosniak men and deportation of thousands of women and children.
Witness Nikolic said that he proposed, to Lieutenant Colonel Popovic, several locations in Bratunac where the captured men could be “temporarily detained”.
“After that we mentioned two locations, where those people should eventually be executed – Sase mine and the brick factory…I must say that, in the end nobody was executed at those locations,” Nikolic said.
Following the meeting in Fontana, Colonel Radislav Jankovic of the VRS Main Headquarters ordered Nikolic to start transferring tens of thousands of Srebrenica Muslims from Potocari.
“I considered it the forcible relocation of population. None of the local residents from Srebrenica would have left voluntarily,” the witness said.
On that same day Nikolic was in Potocari several times. He saw numerous senior VRS officers, led by General Mladic, in Potocari.
As Nikolic said, the way VRS soldiers treated Muslim men, whom they separated from their families in Potocari and escorted to nearby houses, was “the first signal, indicating that something was wrong”.
“They confiscated their personal belongings and threw them on a large pile…They threatened them, spitted on them, mistreated them and told all sorts of things to them. I personally saw that,” Nikolic said.
According to Nikolic’s estimates, there were between 1,500 and 2,000 able-bodied men among 35,000 or 40,000 Muslims in Potocari, but “it did not mean that they were engaged in military forces”.
Between 600 and 700 men had been separated by July 12, when he was present there. As he said, nobody looked for war-crime suspects among them.
“On July 13 VRS transferred the separated men from Potocari to Bratunac, where they were held in an elementary school, hangar, school gym, and, when there was no room for them elsewhere, in buses,” Nikolic said.
Nikolic is due to continue testifying next week. The cross-examination of previous Prosecution witness, who testified under the pseudonym of RM-322, is due to be completed at Ratko Mladic’s trial on May 31.
