Bosnian Serb Commando Chosen to Shoot Srebrenica Captives
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Witness Drazen Erdemovic said in a statement read out to the Sarajevo court on Tuesday that Cvetkovic was one of the members of the Bosnian Serb Armys Tenth Reconnaissance Squad chosen to shoot the prisoners in July 1995.
In 1998, the Hague Tribunal sentenced Erdemovic to five years in prison after he admitted he was guilty of participating in the mass executions of Srebrenica captives at Branjevo farm near Zvornik.
Erdemovic refused to testify at the trial of his former comrade Cvetkovic, who is accused of participating in the execution of at least 900 captives, so statements that he gave to Hague investigators and while testifying at the international court were read out in the Sarajevo courtroom on Tuesday instead.
In the statements, Erdemovic said that between 30 and 40 members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad entered Srebrenica on July 11, 1995 and that eight of them including Cvetkovic were selected to kill the prisoners at Branjevo farm on July 16.
Brano [Gojkovic, another member of the squad] and the lieutenant colonel said that buses would bring people from Srebrenica, that civilians should be killed We began quarreling. Brano told me: If you think that they will not shoot at you, give me your rifle and stand in line with them, Erdemovic said.
He said that after the first bus containing prisoners had arrived, Gojkovic and another fighter, Vlastimir Golijan, took ten civilians out and escorted them to the firing squad, who shot them in the back.
Brano gave us the order to shoot. There were eight of us. They continued bringing groups of ten people. It lasted from 10 am to 3 or 4 pm Cvetkovic said that it was going slowly and that they would begin using a machine gun. The machine gun only mutilated those people. They begged us to kill them, Erdemovic recalled.
According to Erdemovics estimates, between 1,000 and 2,000 captives were killed that day.
The trial is due to continue on March 25.
