Mladic Witness ‘Didn’t Know of Prison Killings’

“That is not familiar to me… I never received or sent such information,” Pereula told prosecutor Adam Weber when asked whether he knew that prisoners were dying in prison in Kula.

The witness claimed that he didn’t know that non-Serb civilians were held in Kula, because he never went there.

“My job was to exchange soldiers, others had jobs to exchange other people,” Pereula said, excepting a little later that there were civilians in those prisons.

Despite the documents that prosecutor presented to him, the witness said that in Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), where he worked, he didn’t have information about prisoners.

He sought to represent his role in the exchange Committee as not significant, claiming that, while he was a member, no prisoner was exchanged and that nothing was resolved in his presence.

Asked whether because of that he resigned he answered: “Not in written… but verbally yes”. He specified that Bosnian Serb government dismissed him only at the end of war.

Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats which reached genocide proportions in several municipalities, for terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Prosecutor Weber suggested that witness was a participant in the ethnic cleansing of Gorazde in 1995, quoting in the courtroom calls for Muslims to leave that enclave, which was signed by Pereula.

The witness denied it, saying that call was for soldiers of the Bosnian Army and not civilians.

“Propaganda is permitted in war in order to ensure victory… This was all related to soldiers in order to create their insecurity, and not on civilians,” the witness said.

Pereula, who before the war worked at the headquarters of the Territorial Defence (TO) BIH, accused commander from that time Hasan Efendic for the division of that organization by ethnical line. He testified that his colleague from that time Jovan Divjak, distributed weapons to the Muslim part of the TO and Ministry of internal affair “without orders”.

Witness said that his own brother was kidnapped and “savagely tortured” in custody at café “Sun” in Dobrinje settlement in Sarajevo.

Mladic’s defence, with testimony of next witness, will continue on Monday, November 17.