Bosnian Serbs ‘Did Not Attack Sarajevo Market’

Defence witness Prvoslav Davinic, former chief of the UN’s Global Disarmament Section, said he had a private meeting with Karadzic in his stronghold of Pale in June 1996 and was assured that the Bosnian Serb Army was not responsible for the attack that killed 43 people and wounded 75 citizens in front of the Markale market in Sarajevo on August 28, 1995.

Davinic testified that Karadzic told him that he had been convinced by Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic that his forces did not fire the mortar at the market.

He also said that a Greek colleague at the UN’s headquarters told him that, “due to political reasons”, the UN Protection Force investigation was seeking to prove that the Bosnian Serb Army was responsible for the attack.

Karadzic, the wartime president of Republika Srpska and the supreme commander of its armed forces, is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. Mladic is also on trial, in a separate case, for the same alleged crimes.

The indictment against Karadzic claims that a mortar fired from Bosnian Serb positions caused the deaths at the Markale market.

Responding to questions during cross-examination, Davinic confirmed that he held another meeting with Karadzic in Pale in September 1996, but did not want to announce it publicly because Karadzic was a fugitive from international justice from 1995 onwards, when he was indicted for alleged war crimes.

The witness said that he called on Karadzic to surrender, adding that the former Bosnian Serb leader said that he “was considering all the possibilities”. Davinic said he informed his superiors at the UN about the meeting.

When asked if he knew that the grenade which fell in front of Markale was produced at the Krusik factory in Valjevo in Serbia, Davinic said he did not.

After working for the UN, Davinic served as defence minister of Serbia and Montenegro between 2004 and 2005.

He went on to testify that, after a request by the Hague Tribunal’s then chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, an operation aimed at arresting Mladic was conducted in Serbia in September 1994, but the bid to detain him failed.

“Del Ponte informed the authorities that Mladic would cross the border between Republika Srpska and Serbia and meet his family in a monastery near the border. Although we did all we could, the arrest attempt was unsuccessful,” Davinic said.

Karadzic’s trial continues on Friday.