Captives not Spoken about

Bajagic said that when he met Karadzic in Pale three days after the fall of Srebrenica, Karadzic did not know that Muslims captives were being, or would be killed.

According to Bajagic, a “background officer” with the Drina Corps of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, Karadzic would never approve the killing of captives.

Karadzic, the then President of RS and supreme Commander of its armed forces, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica in the days that followed the occupation of the enclave by VRS on July 11, 1995.

Bajagic, who testified with a Serbian national hat on his head, confirmed that he was in Srebrenica on July 13, 1995 and that he saw the loading of Muslim people onto buses in nearby Potocari. However, he said that he did not see the separation of men from their families.

After the Prosecutors had shown him a recording, Bajagic confirmed that he had met VRS Commander Ratko Mladic in Srebrenica. On that same day Mladic met Tomo Kovac, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of RS, in Bajagic’s house in Vlasenica.

“I did not want to sit at the table with them, as I did not considered it decent… I moved away from them while they were talking about something. I do not know what they spoke about,” the witness said.

Responding to a Prosecutor’s suggestion that they must have discussed captives from Srebrenica, Bajagic repeated that he did not know that.

The witness said that, on the following day he found out about the mass murder of Muslims in Kravica, which happened on July 13, 1995. While being additionally examined by Karadzic, Bajagic said that he found out about those murders “one day after” their meeting, not one day after the commission of the crime.

When the Prosecutor said that, when giving his statement to the Defence, he had omitted some events in order to demonstrate that Karadzic knew nothing about them, when they met in Pale on July 14, the witness denied the allegation, adding that the Defence did not ask him about them at all.

Bajagic said that he asked Karadzic, whom he knew as “an honest god-fearing man”, what would happen to the Muslim population from Srebrenica, whose taking away he had witnessed. Karadzic was “somewhat nervous” and told him to “mind his own business.”

“I felt sorry due to the suffering of those people, who were passing by my house… I differentiated between the civilian population, which suffered, just like the Serb population, and their soldiers, who were villains,” Bajagic said.

Responding to a suggestion by prosecutors that, during their meeting in Pale he told Karadzic all he knew about the captives, murders in Kravica and taking away of people, Bajagic stuck to his statement that he only asked the RS President about the fate of the civilians, who had been taken away.

Although an itinerary of Karadzic’s Office, which was presented in the courtroom, contained a note saying that Bajagic was present in the Office until early morning on July 15, 1995, the witness said that he met Karadzic briefly and that the meeting might have taken place on July 13.

The trial of Karadzic, who is also charged with persecuting Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage, is due to continue on July 11.