Mladic Witness Says Sarajevo Market Massacre ‘Staged’

The protected witness code named GRM-246 told Mladic’s war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that an attack on Sarajevo’s open-air Markale market that killed around 70 people during wartime was staged.

“One counter-sabotage expert is seen in the video footage [of the aftermath of the attack] coming into one of the halls [of the market],” said the witness, explaining why he believed that the attack that caused widespread outrage was not genuine.

“The fact that there were no broken [market stall] tables and no blood suggested that [it was faked],” he added.

He said that there was also intelligence that corpses were brought in using refrigerator trucks, explaining that this information was gathered from Serbs who fled Sarajevo and from the international community.

The witness also testified that Muslim snipers were deployed in parts of Sarajevo which were under the control of the Bosnian Army.

However most of the protected witness’s testimony was closed to the public.

Mladic is charged with having terrorised the population of Sarajevo with artillery and sniper attacks against civilians during the 1992-95 siege of the city.

The indictment alleges that the Markale market was hit twice by shells fired from Bosnian Serb Army positions. More than 60 people died in the first attack in February 1994, and 43 in the second strike, in August 1995.

Mladic is also on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

His trial resumes on Friday.