Fear of War

Testifying at Radovan Karadzic’s trial, witnesses Marko Adamovic and Mikan Davidovic deny that Serb forces deported the Bosniak and Croat population from Kljuc and Sanski Most municipalities.

According to the witness’ testimony, they left wilfully due to fear of the war and difficult living conditions.

Adamovic, the then Assistant Commander of the Kljuc Battalion with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, said that everybody could decide whether they would leave or stay.

While not denying that Serb forces killed more than 100 Muslims in Prhovo and Velagici villages on June 1, 1992, Adamovic said that the murder happened after an attack by Muslim extremists on military convoys. Also, he claimed that the perpetrators of the crime in Velagici were arrested immediately. 

Adamovic was on trial in Sarajevo for charges alleging that he committed crimes in Kljuc. He was acquitted of the charges under a first instance verdict. A second instance verdict is due to be pronounced on December 12. 

During the cross-examination Prosecutor Caroline Edgerton said that Adamovic was in Prhovo and Velagici villages on the day, when the crimes were committed, but the witness denied the allegation.

When the Prosecutor presented him with several VRS’ documents, according to which his battalion participated in “the cleaning” of the area surrounding those villages, Adamovic insisted on saying that his unit had never participated in combat activities, but it just “held territories”.

When faced with statements by survivors, who said that he ordered, as alleged under the indictment, the murder of 38 people in Prhovo, Adamovic said:

“No, I am saying that I did not do what the witnesses said I did. It was a military police squad with the First Krajina Corps. They were attacked by paramilitary formations. After that conflicts broke out. Many people were killed. I do not want to be held responsible for other people’s actions”.

Commenting on the murder of 77 Muslim men in the school building in Velagici on June 1, 1992, the Prosecutor presented the witness with the fact that only two perpetrators, members of the VRS, were detained, and that the Court discontinued the process against them in 1993.

Adamovic stuck to his allegation that the Kljuc local authorities immediately arrested 12 perpetrators, former members of the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, whose units were withdrawing, and handed them over to the Court in Banja Luka.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is charged with the persecution of Muslim and Croat civilians in Kljuc and Sanski Most municipalities, as well as other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Testifying about the happenings in Sanski Most, Mikan Davidovic said that the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, did not conduct the policy of ethnic cleansing and persecution, but the non-Serb “population was transferred due to the war”.

Davidovic confirmed that he was a member of “the Commission for unobstructed departure” of Muslims and Croats, which offered them help by organizing transportation, among other things.

“Nobody forced non-Serbs to leave,” Davidovic pointed out.

Karadzic is due to continue presenting his defence before The Hague Tribunal tomorrow, December 5.