Disappearance of Muslims – Truth or not

This was said by Prosecution witness KDZ – 051 from Rogatica. He said that Sveto Veselinovic, an official of the local Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, conveyed that message to him after his conversation with Karadzic in September 1992. According to the witness’ testimony, Veselinovic said that “a decision has been made that Muslims will disappear” from the Serbian territories.

Karadzic presented the judges with Veselinovic, who completely denied witness KDZ–051’s testimony, claiming that he did not know the witness and that he had never spoken to him.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, RS, and supreme Commander of its armed forces, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Muslims from Srebrenica. The Prosecution charges him with the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, terror against civilians in Sarajevo by shelling and sniping, and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Veselinovic said that he had neither met Karadzic nor spoken to him from January 1992 to the autumn of 1993.

Also, Veselinovic said that he had never noticed any indications that Karadzic advocated for the destruction of Bosnian Muslims as an ethnic group.

According to Veselinovic’s testimony, the statement, which KDZ-051 attributed to the Serb leadership and himself, was never a part of Karadzic’s views.

Prosecutor Catrina Gustafson did not even mention KDZ-051’s statement during the cross-examination. Karadzic’s legal advisor Peter Robinson commented that as Prosecution’s tacit admission that the statement was not credible.

Judge Theodor Meron, President of the Tribunal, called on the mentioned statement by witness KDZ-051 in July this year, when he explained an Appellate Chamber’s decision to return the count, charging Karadzic with genocide against Muslims and Croats in seven Bosnian municipalities, in addition to Srebrenica, to the indictment against him. Prior to that, at the end of the first half of the trial the Trial Chamber acquitted Karadzic of that count, saying that the Prosecutors had not proved it.

Explaining his decision to return the charges for genocide in the municipalities to the indictment, judge Meron mentioned, as one of the pieces of evidence that Karadzic had a genocidal intention, the witness’ statement that “a decision was made to kill one third of Muslims, convert one third to Orthodox religion and let the last third leave, so all of them will disappear from Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

As said by Karadzic’s counselor Robinson, Rogatica, about which KDZ-051 testified, was not one of the seven municipalities to which the genocide charges referred. Those charges refer to Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik.

Robinson announced that the indictee would testify in his defence at the end of the evidence presentation in late February or at the beginning of March. The Defence requested the Trial Chamber to allow Karadzic’s testimony to be “in the form of a narration” that would last 16 working hours.

Milomir Stakic, former President of Prijedor Municipal Assembly, whom the Hague Tribunal sentenced to 40 years in prison for having committed persecution and other crimes against non-Serbs in that municipality, testified at this hearing. Stakic’s written statement was included in the case file. He will continue testifying on Tuesday, December 17.