Keraterm Massacre ‘Done for Revenge’, Mladic Witness Says

Miso Rodic, a former intelligence officer of the 43rd Bosnian Serb army brigade, on Thursday said he knew that 150 Muslims were killed in the Keraterm detention camp near Prijedor in July 1995.

He said that officers had told him that “the motive was revenge and that our members weren’t involved”, adding that Keraterm was guarded by civilian police.

During cross examination, Rodic admitted that no investigation into this massacre was carried out.

“The first information was that this was done by police officers”, after a Serbian policeman was killed, he said. “I know they were killed, out of revenge,” Rodic added.

The witness added that he heard of other crimes being committed in Keraterm but never witnessed them personally.

The former Bosnian Serb military chief is on trial for persecution of Muslims and Croats in Bosnia, which reached the scale of genocide in several municipalities, Prijedor included.

Mladic is also charged with genocide in 1995 in Srebrenica, with crimes in Sarajevo and with taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Rodic said he knew about crimes carried out by a group surrounding Zoran Zigic in Prijedor, adding that he had personally arrested Zigic for looting during the war. However, Zigic was not a member of the Bosnian Serb Army, he noted.

The witness said he could not answer for why Zigic was never prosecuted during the war, as his brigade had initiated cases against Zigic and others before the courts.

When the prosecutor suggested that Bosnian Serb policy was “to not punish soldiers for war crimes”, Rodic disagreed. “I did not think so, and I don’t have that information”, Rodic replied.

Zigic was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2005 by the Hague war-crimes tribunal, ICTY, for crimes committed in the Prijedor area. He was released last year after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Mladic – who did not attend this hearing because of a family visit – will continue his defence on Monday, March 16.