Mladic ‘a Connoisseur of Military Rules’

The protected defence witness codenamed GRM-130 told the UN-backed court in The Hague on Thursday that Mladic was a tough commander but a “genuine officer”.

Character witness GRM-130 described meetings with Mladic as “unpleasant and educational” because the general was “a great connoisseur of military regulations” and “he insisted that we commanders and leaders must know them well”.

Mladic “couldn’t stand unshaven soldiers” and insisted that they had their weapons and equipment correctly prepared, the witness testified.

“He insisted on order and work,” GRM-130 said.

The witness arrived in Bosnia as a Yugoslav People’s Army officer in late 1991 with his unit and later joined the Bosnian Serb Army’s General Staff in Crna Rijeka near Han Pijesak, where Mladic was in charge

He met Mladic in 1993 and said that he had a powerful impact on his troops’ morale.

“His appearance and talk with the soldiers was like a transfusion for a sick man,” he testified.

Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The trial continues on Monday.