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Kotor-Varos is one of the seven municipalities where the persecution of the non-Serb population reached the scale of genocide during the Bosnian War. Kotor-Varos is featured in the indictment against Mladic, who was the Commander of the Army of Republika Srpska during the war.
Zupljanin, a former Captain in the Army of Republika Srpska, confirmed that about 150 Bosnian Muslims, who had surrendered to Serb forces, were killed in the village of Grabovica on November 4, 1992.
Zupljanin said he informed his supervisor about the killings in Grabovica.
“I do not know if I mentioned the number, but I know that I wrote down that those idiots committed a massacre…I called it a massacre,” he added.
Zupljanin said he convinced his supervisor that members of his brigade were not involved in the crime. When asked by prosecutor Camille Bibles whether the Grabovica incident was investigated at all, he said he did not know.
When asked who committed the Grabovica killings, Zupljanin said that officers who were present in the field, informed him that “the participants in the horrible incident were mostly civilians and that his security was not able to prevent them.”
Bibles then confronted him with a statement he had later given to a newspaper that the victims of the Grabovica killings had received a “deserved punishment.”
In response, Zupljanin said that he was referring “to extremists…who were a legitimate military target”, and not civilians.
Judge Bakone Moloto then asked him what a “deserved punishment” meant.
“Both the liquidation and the capture,” Zupljanin responded.
Another judge asked Zupljanin if according to his interpretation of international conventions, he was allowed to liquidate extremists.
“No, but, when I said deserved punishment, I meant being liquidated during combat and capture, not afterwards,” said Zupljanin.
Zupljanin confirmed that he knew of another massacre committed against Muslim captives at Koricanske Stijene in August 1992. Koricanske Stijene fell within his brigade’s zone of responsibility.
Similar to previous defense witnesses, Zupljanin blamed Muslim and Croat “extremists” for the war in Kotor-Varos, saying that the Serbian Army was forced to disarm non-Serb villages because of them.
He also said that his unit transferred hundreds of surrendered Muslim and Croat soldiers to Croatia.
Mladic’s next witness, Davor Kolenda, began testifying today. Kolenda will finish his testimony tomorrow, February 3.
The indictment also charges general Mladic with ordering the Srebrenica massacre, terrorizing the local population in Sarajevo by constant shelling and sniping, and taking UNPROFOR peacekeeping forces hostage.
