Witness Refused an Order to Shoot Srebrenica Residents

Acimovic, former Commander of the Second Battalion with the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, said that he faced pressure after having refused to execute the order.

He testified at the trial of Ostoja Stanisic and Marko Milosevic, who are charged with having participated in crimes on a dam, near Petkovci village, Zvornik municipality, where about 1,000 captives from Srebrenica were executed in mid-July. The indictment alleges that Stanisic was Commander of the Sixth Battalion with Zvornik Brigade, while Milosevic was his Deputy.

Acimovic said that it was not known to him what happened in the Sixth Battalion, adding that he heard about a grave on the dam, near Petkovci, later on.

He told the Court that he visited his parents in Rocevici village, near Zvornik, in mid-July and that a local priest and president of the local community informed him that captives were held in the school building.

As he said, he thought that order should be established in the village, so he went to the school building, where he saw about ten killed captives and unknown soldiers. He said that the soldiers did not respond, when he asked them why the captives were held in the school and who had issued the order. He said that one of them pointed a rifle towards him, telling him not to ask such questions.

“I concluded that they were mentally sound,” he said, adding that he decided to inform the Zvornik Brigade Command about everything.

Acimovic said that he called the Command and spoke to Vujadin Popovic, former Assistant Commander for Security with the Drina Corps of VRS, who told him that the captives would be exchanged on the following day. The Hague Tribunal sentenced Popovic, under a first instance verdict, to life imprisonment for genocide in Srebrenica.

Acimovic said that a coded cable was received by the Battalion Command in the evening hours.

“It contained an order to select a squad of soldiers, who would be used for execution of captives,” the witness said.

Acimovic and his associates decided not to carry out the order. They informed the Zvornik Brigade Command about it. A few hours later he received a phone call from Drago Nikolic, Assistant Commander for Security with the Brigade.

The witness said that Nikolic, whom The Hague Tribunal sentenced, under a first instance verdict, to 35 years in prison for assisting in the commission of genocide, told him to act according to the order or else he would bear the consequences.

“He told me to take it seriously, as the order came from above,” he said, adding that “above” could refer to the Main Headquarters of VRS.

He spoke to Nikolic again the following morning. As he said, Nikolic told him to meet him in front of the school building soon. According to Acimovic’s testimony, instead of Nikolic, he met Popovic. They went to the school building and spoke. As he said, when he explained to him that he did not have a squad of soldiers for executions, Popovic began talking to him in a raised voice.

“He said: ‘What games are you playing? Do you know what happened in Serb villages in the Srebrenica surroundings?’,” Acimovic said, adding that Popovic told him, uttering curses, that he would stand trial for that.

The witness said that he then got into his car and drove to the Battalion Command in Malesic village.

He said that he had not been tried for having refused to carry out the order, adding that he found out from the media that the captives, who were held in the school building in Rocevici, were killed on River Drina banks, near Kozluk.

The trial is due to continue on January 29.