Hundreds of Srebrenica Corpses ‘Lying in Meadow’

Zoran Gajic, a former soldier with the First Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik Brigade, told the court in Sarajevo on Tuesday that in July 1995, he received a command from a security officer called Slavko Peric to secure prisoners from Srebrenica at a school in Pilica.

Some 500 to 1,000 civilians were held in the school, and on the ground floor, one fighter “made them sing Chetnik [Serb nationalist] songs”, he said.

Peric, who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for aiding the genocide in Srebrenica, told him a few days later that the prisoners would be exchanged.

They were then taken away in several buses in blindfolds and with their hands bound, he said.

Gajic said he was ordered to get on board one of the buses, in order to secure the prisoners before the exchange.

“We came to the Branjevo farm. We saw some unknown soldiers there. I saw many people killed on the meadow. Around 500 to 600 people were executed,” said Gajic.

He said that he then realised that the prisoners who were transported with him on the buses would be killed too.

However he told the prosecutor that he would not be able to recognise any of the soldiers from Branjevo now.

Cvetkovic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army’s 10th Saboteur Squad, is on trial for allegedly taking part in the murders of at least 900 Bosniaks from Srebrenica who were executed at the Branjevo farm.

The trial will continue on February 3.