Mladic Witness Blames Criminals for Sanski Most Killings
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Witness Tomislav Delic, a former Bosnian Serb soldier, told the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday that mass killings in the villages of Hrustovo and Vrhpolje in the Sanski Most municipality were carried out by people from outside Sanski Most.
He added that Bosniak homes in the village of Mahala were looted by criminals who wore the uniforms of the Serb Defence Forces.
He also suggested that the crimes against Bosniaks were committed in revenge for crimes against Serbs in World War II.
Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladicis on trial for the persecution of Muslims and Croats, which reached the scale of genocide in several municipalities, Sanski Most among them.
According to the indictment against Mladic, Serb forces killed 22 civilians in a garage in Hrustovo in May 1992 and several civilians in nearby Vrhpolje on the same day.
Mladic is also on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
The prosecutor suggested that Delic was involved in ordering the killing of seven Croats in the village of Skrljevita in November 1992, saying that the killer, Danilusko Kajtez, had accused him.
But Delic denied this: It is not true I could not give orders Kajtez would do anything to get out of prison, he said.
Asked if he used the crime to expel terrified Croats from their village and loot their property, Delic said this was also not true, and that he actually defended a Croat from Kajtez.
Asked if Croats did leave their homes, he replied: Almost all of them.
Kajtez was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Bosnian court for crimes in Sanski Most.
The trial continues on Thursday.
