Destruction of Mosques and Churches

The expert for Islamic and Catholic religious and cultural heritage said that places of worship were blown up or burnt down in order to expel the non-Serb population.

He pointed out that police chief in Prijedor Simo Drljaca said in an interview for the New York Times in August 1992 that it was not enough to destroy minarets, but that the mosques’ foundations had to be destroyed too.

“When you do that, they will leave by themselves,” the witness quoted the words of Drljaca, who was killed in 1996 during his arrest by the international forces on orders from The Hague Tribunal.

Mladic, former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, is charged with expulsion of Muslims and Croats across Bosnia, as well as the Srebrenica genocide, terrorising Sarajevo civilians and taking international peacekeepers hostages.

Riedlmayer emphasised that no mosque remained whole in Serb territory.

In his report he covered 535 mosques and Catholic churches that were damaged or destroyed, half of which he visited personally. The total number of “attacked” mosques is estimated at 900.

Presenting several photographs of mosques and churches in the municipalities of Foca, Sanski Most, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Prijedor, Sokolac and Srebrenica, before and after their destruction, Riedlmayer testified that temples’ locations were often used as garbage dumps.

“In the heap of garbage where the Kukavica mosque was destroyed in Foca, a pig skull was found. Pig skulls were found in other locations of destroyed mosques as well,” said the witness, suggesting that Serb forces deliberately threw them at those places because in Islam the pig is considered a “filthy animal”.

To the suggestion by Mladic’s lawyer Branko Lukic that he did not differentiate civilian buildings and military targets, Riedlmayer responded that he knew of no temples used to military purposes.

Asked whether he covered the destroyed Serb churches as well, he responded that he did, but that that was not the topic of his report.

Asked how he concluded that mosques were destroyed in territories under Serb control at times when there were no combat activities, Riedlmayer said that no one could claim that in 1993, when five mosques were destroyed in Bijeljina, the town was not under Serb control. The same applied to Srebrenica in July 1995, the witness claimed.

Riedlmayer accepted the suggestion by the defence that in Foca, Rogatica and other municipalities in the spring and summer of 1992. – when, in his opinion, most of the mosques were destroyed – there were some combat activities going on.

Mladic’s defence will continue cross-examining Riedlmayer on October 17.