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Bosko Mandic, a former member of the Serb Crisis Staff in Prijedor, testified at Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday that the conflict in Prijedor was started by a Muslim armed assault on a police checkpoint and Yugoslav People’s Army recruits near the village of Hembarine on May 22, 1992, after which Serb forces attacked the village.
The witness also said that Muslim paramilitary forces attacked Prijedor itself eight days later.
According to the witness, the Serb authorities, with the assistance of international organisations, helped non-Serb civilians leave if they “hadn’t broken the law and taken up weapons”.
Mladic is trial for genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, one of which is Prijedor. He is also charged with the persecution of Muslims and Croats, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
Witness Mandic confirmed that non-Serb villages were shelled and that many locals ended up in nearby detention centres in Trnopolje, Omarska and Keraterm.
The prosecutor said that about 7,000 Muslims and Croats were detained in camps near Prijedor.
“I don’t know the number, maybe there were…. several thousand,” the witness replied.
Mandic claimed that in Trnopolje, non-Serbs had “freedom of movement”, while in Omarska and Karaterm, people who had taken part in fighting were detained and questioned.
But when the prosecutor suggested that all of the detainees were civilians who had nothing to do with the fighting, the witness responded that it was “possible” and that he didn’t really know who was detained.
Asked whether he knew about crimes committed against prisoners in the camps near Prijedor, Mandic answered: “I heard that non-Serbs in Omarska and Karaterm were tortured, that there were murders also, but I didn’t see anything.”
He added that he had heard about the murder of 150 Muslim prisoners in Karaterm on July 25, 1992.
“I agree that it was a massacre,” the witness said.
The trial continues on Thursday.
