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A former Bosnian Serb Army commander told Ratko Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal that he received no order for the mass killings of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.
Defence witness Vidoje Blagojevic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Bratunac brigade, said in a written statement to the UN-backed war crimes court on Monday that he “never received or issued an order for illegal actions” in the Srebrenica area in July 1995.
Blagojevic said that he “had no knowledge about any plan for the commission of crimes” or the execution of Bosniak prisoners.
In 2007, the Hague Tribunal sentenced Blagojevic to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting the killings and forced relocation of Bosniaks from Srebrenica. After he served two-thirds of his sentence in Norway, he was released in 2013.
Blagojevic said that his sentence was illegal. When asked by the prosecutor if he accepted responsibility for the crimes of which he was convicted, he replied: “I do not accept it.”
Asked if he was responsible for the fate of Bosniaks detained in the zone controlled by his brigade, he responded: “I did not have prisoners in the defence zone of the Bratunac brigade, and if I did, I would have been responsible for them.”
Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, is on trial for alleged genocide against about 7,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica after the fall of the UN-protected enclave on July 11, 1995.
Blagojevic dismissed a statement by key prosecution witness Momir Nikolic, who said that Blagojevic informed him on July 12, 1995 that all the prisoners from Srebrenica would be executed. Blagojevic,said he did not see Nikolic that day.
In 2003, Nikolic pleaded guilty to participating in the Srebrenica crimes and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Mladic is also on trial for the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats across the country, which allegedly reached the scale of genocide in several municipalities, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
The trial continues.
