Bosnian Serbs ‘Killed Prisoners in School Gym’

The protected prosecution witness codenamed ‘S-18’ told Babic’s trial on Monday that around 200 people were killed by their Bosnian Serb captors in the school’s gymnasium and that he personally witnessed three of the murders.

S-18 told the Sarajevo court that he was taken with other men from the village of Hranca to the municipal building in Bratunac on May 11, 1992, after several days of shooting, burning of houses, murders and detentions.

“Along the way I saw several dead bodies which I recognised,” said the witness, adding that the corpses had visible wounds from automatic weapons.

From the municipal building, the witness and other men were taken to the Bratunac primary school. He was locked in there with 500 people, he said.

“On arrival a man beat us with a baton,” said S-18, adding that later the same man killed a prisoner who was sitting 20 centimetres away from him with a bullet to the forehead.

S-18 said he also saw another two murders, and estimated that around 200 people were killed inside and outside the school.

He said that he saw the defendant Babic in the school’s gymnasium, announcing a prisoner exchange.

“Savo entered and said we would be exchanged in Kladanj,” recalled S-18, adding that Babic wore an officer’s uniform and a cap.

However S-18 could not explain why he did not mention Babic in his first deposition given in 1992.

The prosecution charges Babic, as the commander of the Bosnian Army’s military police in Bratunac, with ordering, carrying out and failing to prevent the imprisonment of non-Serb civilians in the school in May 1992.

Around 400 detained civilians were beaten and tortured every day, and several dozen were killed or died as a result of the conditions at the school, the indictment alleges.

The next hearing is scheduled for October 21.