False Accusations

Colonel Indjic, the then VRS Officer for Liaison with UNPROFOR, said that artillery radars of “blue helmets” once determined that grenades that fell in the vicinity of the Hygienic Institute in Sarajevo were fired from Muslim positions.

According to his testimony, Michael Rose, the then Commander of “blue helmets”, sent a sharp letter of protest to Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic.

Indjic said that 200 command places of ABiH were located in Sarajevo and that the majority of them were situated in civilian buildings.

“Concretely, I visited ABiH Commander Sefer Halilovic in his command building in August 1992 in order to have coffee with him. The war was already going on. So, I personally know that his command was located in the basement of a civilian building that belonged to the City Assembly in Centar municipality,” the witness said.

The indictment alleges that Mladic, former Commander of VRS, is charged with non-selective and long-lasting artillery and sniper attacks in Sarajevo, as well as genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout BiH, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Indjic explained the capture of UNPROFOR members in the spring of 1995, as per an order by the Main Headquarters of VRS, by the fact that the international forces exceeded their mandate by conducting NATO strikes against VRS.

The witness said that “blue helmets’” information about the number of grenades that hit Sarajevo on a daily basis was incorrect, suggesting that they came from Muslim forces and that they were “used for media manipulation”.
Also, Indjic confirmed that, for this reason, he conveyed a number of UNPROFOR protests to VRS commands, including the Main Headquarters and General Mladic.

Indjic, who participated in many negotiations between conflicting parties, said that the local authorities in Sarajevo always violated the agreed cease fires.

Responding to prosecutor’s questions, Indjic said that he had never received oral instructions from General Mladic on how to respond to UNPROFOR’s protests, but those instructions were sent by the Main Headquarters in writing.

The trial of Mladic is due to continue tomorrow, September 3.