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“I am absolutely innocent,” said Cvetkovic at the hearing on Thursday.
Cvetkovic, a former member of the 10the Saboteur Squad at the Bosnian Serb Army’s main headquarters, is indicted for taking part in the murders of several hundred Bosniaks from Srebrenica who were executed at the Branjevo farm near Zvornik after the UN-protected enclave fell in July 1995.
The indictment says that during the killings, Cvetkovic issued an order to one of the squad members to start shooting from a machine gun at the prisoners so that the execution could pick up speed.
It says that in late June 1995, Cvetkovic participated in the first Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica and the UN peacekeepers’ base there in order to unsettle the Bosniak population so that they would leave.
It also accuses Cvetkovic of being involved in the second and final attack on Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.
Cvetkovic is the seventh member of the Tenth Saboteur Squad to be prosecuted over the Branjevo farm massacre. Another six members of the firing squad were sentenced to a total of 127 years in prison.
An international warrant has been issued for the arrest of the last wanted Srebrenica suspect, Brano Gojkovic.
