Muslims Planned ‘Slaughter’ in Vlasenica

Tomislav Savkic, the Serb former president of the Vlasenica municipal assembly, testified in Mladic’s defence at the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday that a local Bosniak official called Izet Redzic’s journal from April 1992 contained a list of Serbs from the area with the words: “Herd for Slaughter.”

Savkic told the UN-backed court that the journal “clearly explains what was being prepared”.

He explained that it said that “main headquarters controls all operations”, mentioned an electrical inductor and warned that “Muslim children should be removed from the high school” in Vlasenica.

He said that inductors were used in demolition explosions.

Savkic testified that Serb and Bosniak officials in the municipality “respected each other”. But, he continued, “Redzic felt threatened and at one point he armed his accomplices, all 21 of them”.

Under cross-examination, Savkic said that Redzic’s journal had been published in a local newspaper called the Birch Voice, and that he learned about what it said from others.

According to several Hague Tribunal verdicts, Bosnian Serb forces took control of Vlasenica in April 1992. As a result of the attacks and shelling by Serb forces, many Muslims and other non-Serbs fled from the area and those who remained were either deported or arrested.

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is charged with persecution of Bosniaks and Croats from municipalities under his forces’ control, including Vlasenica. He is also on trial for genocide, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The trial continues on Thursday.