Bosniak War Deaths Exaggerated, Says Mladic Witness
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Testifying in the defence of Ratko Mladic at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday, Bosnian Serb official Goran Krcmar blamed both the Sarajevo authorities and the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) for overstating the number of Bosniak deaths.
Krcmar, who has been involved in finding the remains of people who went missing during the war, claimed that so far no list of missing Muslims has been published. Without this, he said, it was pointless to make a list of bodies of victims.
He alleged that the Bosnian prosecution and the ICMP were engaged in a dangerous and perfect manipulation by finding part of a body of an already-buried victim and claiming it to be that of an unknown person, thus increasing the death toll.
Former Bosnian Serb military commander Mladic is charged with the genocide of some 7,000 Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica. Prosecution experts have previously testified that about 6,500 Srebrenica victims have been identified so far.
Mladic is also on trial for the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
During Krcmars testimony, Mladics defence screened video recordings of Mujahedin fighters who fought for the Bosnian army, which showed the severed heads of some Serb victims.
A recording of a visit by former Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to the El Mujahid unit in Gostovici was also played. The witness said that in the autumn of 1995, in Ozren, the Mujahedin captured 180 Serbs, of whom only eight survived.
Judge Alphons Orie warned the defence that this was not relevant, since the Hague prosecutors do not deny that all sides in Bosnia and Herzegovina committed crimes during the war.
Krcmar will continue testifying when Mladics trial resumes on Monday.
