Prijedor Detention Camps under Police Watch

As the trial of Ratko Mladic continues, the Defence tries to deny the indictee’s responsibility for crimes in detention camps in the vicinity of Prijedor, where thousands of Bosniaks were held in the spring and summer of 1992.

During the cross-examination attorney Branko Lukic asked The Hague Prosecution’s military expert Ewan Brown if he had ever seen a direct report by the commands of Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps to the Main Headquarters of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, led by Mladic.

Brown answered negatively, adding that he did not expect to see such a report, considering the fact that, according to the chain of command, any report from the detention camp should have been sent to a security body of the First Krajina Corps of VRS, which would then forward it to the VRS Main Headquarters.

Responding to Lukic’s suggestion that the detention camps were “under police watch”, Brown said that it was true as far as Omarska was concerned, but “the Army helped by laying mines”.

Mladic’s Defence attorney said that the VRS “was not responsible” for the murder of detainees from Omarska detention camp, who were brought in front of the gates of Manjaca military detention camp on August 6, 1992.

Brown confirmed that the Bosniaks were “brought by police”, whose members were responsible for the murders committed right in front of the Manjaca gate during the night on August 6/7. However, he said that, although they knew who the perpetrators were, the detention camp military command did not try to arrest them immediately or conduct an investigation.

The indictment, which charges Mladic with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, says that Serb forces committed grave crimes in Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps, including tortures and mass murders. Prijedor was one of the seven municipalities, where, according to the charges, the persecution of non-Serbs reached the scale of genocide.
 
Besides that, Mladic is charged with genocide in Srebrenica, terror against civilians in Sarajevo through long-lasting shelling and sniping and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Brown said that, according to one of the reports sent to the Command of the First Krajina Corps of VRS, “a large number of people, who did not deserve it, because they were not soldiers”, were brought to the detention camps.

One of the questions made by Mladic’s Defence attorney was: “Did you know that a nutritionist checked the caloric value of the food in Manjaca?”

“I did not know that, but, judging by a report issued by the International Red Cross, if a nutritionist was there, he obviously did not perform his job in a proper manner,” Brown said.  

The prosecutors will present the judges with their next witness on Monday, November 25. According to a previously announced list of witnesses, only one military expert – Reynaud Theunens, is due to be examined before the end of the Prosecution’s evidence presentation.