Mladic Witness Recalls Shooting of Srebrenica Prisoners

A former Bosnian Serb military policeman told Ratko Mladic’s trial in The Hague that he witnessed the killings of Bosniak prisoners after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Defence witness Nedjo Jovicic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army’s special police brigade, told the UN-backed court on Thursday that he saw two members his brigade shooting at prisoners who were being held in an agricultural warehouse in Kravica between Bratunac and Srebrenica on July 13, 1995.

When the prosecutor suggested that what he saw was an execution, the witness agreed.

Jovicic said that they were shooting “towards the building” where prisoners were. When asked if he saw someone throwing hand grenades into the warehouse, he said he did not.

According to the indictment charging Mladic with genocide against 7,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica, about 1,000 prisoners were killed in the warehouse in Kravica on July 13, 1995.

Jovicic, who was the driver for the commander of the special police brigade, Ljubomir Borovcanin, confirmed that he passed by the warehouse in Kravica in the car along with Borovcanin and a journalist from Belgrade, Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac, earlier that day, and saw pile of bodies in the yard near the entrance.

The prosecutor showed a video to the court that Petrovic Pirocanac made at the time. It shows about 20 to 30 bodies, with Serbian forces are walking around as the sound of gunshots is heard.

Jovicic explained that Borovcanin had been informed via radio that “something had happened in Kravica”, so they headed to the warehouse.

“We did not know what happened, at first I didn’t see it, and then Borovcanin said: ‘Mother of God, what is this?’ I turned my head and saw those bodies,” said the witness.

After they stopped further along the road, Jovicic said they learned that prisoners first took weapons from the guards and wounded two men. They escorted one wounded man to a health centre in Bratunac, then Borovcanin ordered Jovicic to go back to Kravica and see what was going on.

When Jovicic went back, he saw that the killings of prisoners were continuing, he said.

Borovcanin was sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal for aiding and abetting the mass killings in Kravica.

Mladic is also being tried 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 on Monday.