Seselj to Testify in Mladic’s Defence Soon

Mladic’s lawyer Branko Lukic said on Wednesday that the defence has filed a motion calling for Seselj – who is also on trial in The Hague – to be questioned via video link since he is on temporary leave in Serbia because of illness.

But after the UN-backed court’s appeals chamber ordered Seselj to return to the Tribunal’s detention unit two days ago because he violated the terms of his release, prosecutor Alan Tieger asked the defence to withdraw the motion.

However the defence said it would not withdraw the request until Seselj is back in custody. The Serbian Radical Party leader has so far refused to return voluntarily for the verdict in his trial.

Former Bosnian Serb military leader Mladic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, most of which were in the Bosnian Krajina region, as well as terrorising civilians in Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Mladic’s defence called Nikola Erceg, an official with the Bosnian Krajina Serb authorities in 1992, who said that the authorities in Banja Luka did not “violently persecute or expel non-Serbs”.

Erceg suggested that most Bosniaks and Croats voluntarily left the Bosnian Krajina in 1992. He claimed that their property was only “temporarily given” to Serb refugees.

Asked whether he knew of “violent expulsion” of Bosniaks and Croats, Erceg replied: “Yes, but not from official documents… Neighbours expelled neighbours for who knows what reasons.”

Erceg also denied the prosecution’s claims that the local Serb authorities in Krajina discriminated against non-Serbs.

He confirmed however that the authorities’ wartime goals were the division of Serbs from other peoples, connecting Serb territories and removing the River Drina as a border between Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia.

“The first goal was to stay in Yugoslavia and we did everything to do it. When that could not be done, then we went on from there,” said Erceg.

He added that the Bosnian Serb Army was in charge of implementing these goals.

The trial continues on Thursday.