Muslims Caused Conflict in Kljuc
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Former officer Velimir Kevac told Mladics trial at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that Bosniak units in Kljuc ambushed a Yugoslav Peoples Armys convoy which was retreating from Croatia on May 27, 1992, sparking the conflict in the western Bosnian municipality.
Kevac said that Muslims and Serbs started leaving Kljuc after that, while the Yugoslav Peoples Army disarmed Bosniak villages.
He testified that Bosniak municipal official Omer Filipovic did not submit to the Yugoslav Peoples Armys demand for disarmament, but changed his stance after many warnings.
According to the indictment and the testimonies of other witnesses, Filipovic was later killed in a prison camp run by Bosnian Serb forces in Manjaca.
Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is on trial for genocide in several municipalities in 1992, including Kljuc. He is also accused of genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats across the country, as well as terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
Asked by the prosecutor about civilian victims of the shelling of the Kljuc municipality village of Pudin Han by Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav Peoples Army forces on May 28, 1992, the witness replied that he did not hear about it and that he was not in the area at the time.
Asked about an attack by Bosnian Serb forces on the village of Velagici on June 1, 1992, when according to the indictment, 77 men were killed at the local school, Kevac said that he heard that military police conducted an investigation and that the perpetrators were arrested and transferred to the Banja Luka jail.
The prosecutor said that there were mass arrests of non-Serbs during operations in the Kljuc area, but Kevac said that it was not widespread practice and that only armed men were detained.
The trial continues on Friday.
