Guarding Srebrenica Residents before Executions
This post is also available in: Bosnian
Protected witness RM-269 said that he was present when small trucks took Bosniak captives away from the school buildings in Orahovac and Rocevic villages on July 14 and 15, 1995.
“The small truck would transport a few people and come back soon… This was a repetitive activity. I think that everybody knew that it was the execution… It was obvious to me and other people, who were present there,” witness RM-269 said.
Mladic, former Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica in the days that followed its occupation of the United Nations’ protected zone in Eastern Bosnia on July 11, 1995.
According to the charges against Mladic and previous Hague Tribunal verdicts, on July 14, 1995 Serb forces killed about 1,000 Bosniaks in the vicinity of the school building in Orahovac. About 500 men were taken from the school building in Rocevic to Kozluk, where they were then shot.
Responding to questions by Mladic’s Defence attorney Miodrag Stojanovic, RM-269 said that he and other VRS soldiers were tasked with “guarding” the captives. This included preventing local Serb residents, who “openly showed their animosity”, from approaching them.
As he said, the witness “noticed five or six dead bodies around the school building” in Rocevic.
“We heard that some local men, including a man who had lost his son, took a couple of them out and executed them,” the witness said.
When asked who transported the captives by truck later on, RM-269 said: “People dressed in VRS uniforms, whom I did not know”.
RM-269 agreed with a suggestion by Mladic’s Defence attorney, who said that the witness “did not go to the place, where the captives were tied and killed”, so he “does not know who did that”.
The trial of Mladic, who is also charged with persecuting Bosniaks and Croats, terrorising civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage, is due to continue on Monday, June 17.
