Thursday, 18 september 2025.
Prijavite se na sedmični newsletter Detektora
Newsletter
Novinari Detektora svake sedmice pišu newslettere o protekloj i sedmici koja nas očekuje. Donose detalje iz redakcije, iskrene reakcije na priče i kontekst o događajima koji oblikuju našu stvarnost.

This post is also available in: Bosnian

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 Army’s 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 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 Erdemovic’s estimates, between 1,000 and 2,000 captives were killed that day.

The trial is due to continue on March 25.

Najčitanije
Saznajte više
Bosnians Lay Flowers, Marking Three Decades Since Sarajevo Market Blast
Relatives commemorated the 30th anniversary of the wartime massacre at the Markale market in Sarajevo, where 43 people were killed by a shell fired from Bosnian Serb positions during the siege of the city.
Moldova Arrests Three Over Russian-Led Training Camps in Bosnia
Three more people have been arrested in Moldova on suspicion of involvement in plotting to cause unrest in the country after allegedly being trained at Russian-run camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnia Jails Man for Planning Terror Attack on Mosque