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While not denying that he knew about some shooting of Muslims who were captured by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, Kovac denied having spoken about it with Karadzic in detail, although they met several times during the Srebrenica crisis.
Kovac said that VRS Colonel Ljubisa Beara, the then Chief of the Security Sector with the Main Headquarters and close associate of VRS Commander Ratko Mladic, was the “ideologist” of the shooting.
Karadzic, former Supreme Commander of the RS armed forces, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Srebrenica Muslims in the days that followed the occupation of the UN protected zone on July 11, 1995. The indictment also charged him with the persecution of thousands of women, children and the elderly from that enclave.
During the cross-examination Prosecutor Jullian Nicholls told Kovac that some of the policemen, whom he sent to Srebrenica, were sentenced, after the war, for genocide and shooting of about 1,000 Muslims in Kravica village on July 13, 1995.
“The order did not instruct them to do that, but some other concrete task,” said Kovac, confirming that he received a report on a mass murder in Kravica on the following day.
The witness said that police units were subordinated to VRS during the offensive on Srebrenica.
While claiming that he did not discuss the crime in Kravica with Karadzic during their meeting on July 14, 1995, Kovac said that he believed that the Supreme Commander had already been informed about it by “the military security service” and Civil Envoy for Srebrenica.
Responding to questions by the Prosecutor, who quoted previous witness’ testimonies and statements in detail, Kovac confirmed that he undertook “an unofficial” investigation about Srebrenica in September 1995, when he was Minister of Internal Affairs of RS.
“You found out that Mladic and Beara allowed the shooting of the captives,” the Prosecutor said, calling on one of previous Kovac’s statements.
The witness responded by saying that he “had unconfirmed information that Beara was the operational officer and chief ideologist of the shooting of prisoners”.
