Escorting Captives towards Kravica

Witness Marko Aleksic, former Commander of the First Unit of the Second Squad with Sekovici Special Police, told the Court that he was deployed to the road between Bratunac and Konjevic Polje in July 1995 and that he

heard that men, who were moving through the woods, started to surrender.

“I had not seen those men until a group of people passed by me on their way to Kravica. The group consisted of about 500 men,” he said.

The witness said that Commander Rade Cuturic informed him that the group of men would be transferred towards Bratunac and that they would be escorted by “guys from Skelani”.

“Later on I heard sporadic shooting and detonations of what I thought were hand bombs from the direction of Kravica,” said Aleksic, adding that he heard, the following day, that there was a conflict and that one person from Skelani had been killed.

Also, he said that Goran Saric was Commander of the Brigade, but he neither saw him in the Srebrenica area in July that year nor heard that he visited the area.

Saric, former Commander of the Special Police Brigade, is charged with having issued an order to police members to guard the road between Bratunac and Konjevic Polje and capture the Srebrenica residents, who were walking through the woods in an attempt to reach the territories controlled by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The indictment alleges that members of the Special Police Brigade then participated in escorting several hundreds of captives to the Agricultural Co-operative in Kravica, where they killed them.

Aleksic said that, in July 1995 he received an order to go to the Srebrenica area. When asked by the Defence whether his unit received a concrete task only after having arrived in Bratunac, the witness answered affirmatively.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina previously granted immunity to this witness for the events that happened on July 13, 1995. 

The trial is due to continue on May 26.