Witness Does not Recall Previous Statement

Milorad Kucalovic said that, while going to the front line from his house in Trisca village, he passed through Djulici and Petkovci, where there the dam was located.

He confirmed that his father-in-law’s house was situated in the vicinity of the dam, but he was not able to say whether he visited him in July 1995. When asked by Prosecutor Predrag Tomic whether, while passing by, he saw anything next to the dam, the witness said that he did not know.

The Prosecutor read a part of his previous statement in which the witness said that, while walking towards the dam, he saw something happening and that he then met a man, who told him that “Muslims were being killed”. The witness confirmed having heard about the murder of Muslims from that man.

When asked by the Prosecutor whether he remembered having described the murder of a boy on the dam, while giving his statement, the witness answered negatively.

“I was totally lost when you brought me. I did not even know where I was. I was lost,” he said, adding that he did not know what he said on that occasion and that, after having given those statements, he visited the Prosecutor in order to deny all the things he had said in the past.

The Prosecutor asked him why he wanted to deny his statement and whether anybody threatened him prior to his appearance in court. The witness said that nobody threatened him and that he had never wanted to be a witness.

When asked whether he drew something, while giving his statement to the Prosecutor, the witness said that he could not remember that either.

“I was a lost man. I do not remember having drawn anything, but my signature is on the drawing,” he said.

He said that he was on the front line on Nisici Plateau in July 1995 and that he did not know the exact date of occupation of Srebrenica. As he said, upon return from this front line, he was deployed to a front line in the Zvornik area.

At this hearing the Prosecution presented a statement he gave to the Prosecution of BiH, but the public was excluded from that part of the hearing.

Kucalovic testified at the trial of Srecko Boskovic, a former member of the Republika Srpska Army. Boskovic is charged with having approached a boy in Djulici village, where Serb soldiers committed shootings of Bosniaks following the fall of Srebrenica in mid-July 1995, and told the boy that he was free to go. When the boy walked away, he killed him by shooting at him from an automatic gun.

Although he was supposed to testify under protection measures, Kucalovic gave up those measures prior to his testimony, saying that he neither wanted to be a protected nor unprotected witness.

The trial is due to continue on February 6.