Bosnian Serb Police Chief Wasnt Near Bratunac Massacre
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Slobodan Stjepanovic, a former member of a Bosnian Serb special police brigade in Sekovici, told the Sarajevo court on Monday that he spent two days on the ground in the area around Bratunac in July 1995.
While securing the Bratunac-Konjevic Polje road, he said that he saw a convoy of Bosniak men, and added that he later heard that was some kind of incident in nearby Kravica.
Defendant Saric is accused of assisting a joint criminal enterprise responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, in which 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed and 40,000 people were forcibly removed. According to the indictment, 1,000 Bosniaks were killed in a warehouse in Kravica.
Stjepanovic said that he did not know Saric in July 1995 and only met him later, but said he thought that he did not see him in the Bratunac area that summer.
The indictment also alleges that Saric was the commander of the Bosnian Serb interior ministrys special police brigade, which participated in the raids to take over the positions of the United Nations troops and the forcible transfer of women, children and the elderly, as well as taking away men and boys who would later be executed.
Another former policeman, Stanislav Vukajlovic, also told the court on Monday that he was in the Bratunac area for two or three days in July 1995. He said that he was securing the road and carried out a search in the nearby woods.
“During the search we went to Sandici. On the hill at Sandici there were more army troops, and maybe police as well,” he said.
However Vukajlovic said that he did not see the accused in the area at the time.
The trial continues on March 24.
