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Ratko Adzic, one of wartime Serb leaders from Ilijas, says at Ratko Mladic’s trial that Bosniaks and Croats were not deported from Ilijas municipality during the Bosnian war.
Defence witness Adzic, former President of the Serb municipality of Ilijas, said that there was no plan for the deportation of Bosniaks and Croats, describing the departure of the non-Serb population as a result of their voluntary decision to “leave the crisis area and consequences of the conflict”.
Adzic testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, who is charged with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities. Mladic is also on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, terror against the local population in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.
During the cross-examination Prosecutor Camille Bibles said that Bosniaks “had to” obtain a permit from Adzic to leave the territory of the municipality.
The witness denied those allegations, saying that the civilians informed the Red Cross, which was organising their departure, of their intentions to leave. When the Prosecutor presented him with a list of Bosniaks, who were leaving in July 1992, which was signed by him, Adzic said that it was “an extraordinary situation”, because other Serb authorities had previously refused civilians’ requests to be allowed to leave.
“I supported the efforts to allow people the freedom of movement and let them go wherever they wanted…” Adzic said, explaining that Serb forces “captured” the Bosniak population, whom they found in “the combat zones” and that, “as per their own wish”, those people were then exchanged.
The Prosecutor suggested that Adzic commanded military units in Ilijas, supporting her statements with documents, which he signed in his capacity as “Commander of the Ilijas Brigade” of the VRS.
Denying that he had ever performed that function, the witness accepted the allegation that he only had the authority over the Territorial Defence units prior to the establishment of VRS in May 1992.
When asked to name the source of the allegation, contained in his written statement, that “6,000 Serbs” died violent death in Sarajevo, Adzic said that the Sarajevo media said that after the end of the war.
When Prosecutor Bibles said that, according to extensive research by Hague Prosecution’s demographic experts, “minimally several hundreds of Serbs” were killed in Sarajevo, Mladic’s Defence attorney Lukic objected, saying that “the allegation represented an offence” and that it was “Muslim propaganda”.
Witness Adzic also said that Sarajevo was not under VRS siege, but it “was first closed by Muslim forces from the inside and then we set up our defence positions around the city”.
The trial is due to continue on Wednesday, August 27.
