Witness Describes Execution of Bosniak Captives at Boskovic Trial

The witness, known as SB5, said he was 17 when the Bosnian Serb Army attacked Srebrenica in July 1995. He said he and other men from the village of Susnjari tried to reach Tuzla through the woods.

According to SB5, after the Bosnian Serb Army shelled the forest near Konjevic Polje on July 11, 1995, he surrendered to Serb soldiers. He was taken to a field near the village of Sandici.

“A Serb soldier told us we were going to be taken to some hangars in Bratunac. There was shouting, slogans, lots of people on the field and lots of shooting going on. At some point I saw soldiers shooting at a burning house…Later on they started beating us and forced us to get on the trucks, which transported us to Bratunac,” SB5 said.

After having spent a night on the truck, the captives were taken to a school building in the municipality of Zvornik. They were detained there for a time.

“They took people out during the night. After they took them, we heard bursts of gunfire…At around midnight they came, tied us and loaded us onto trucks. I saw dead people in front of the school building…When the truck stopped, we heard bursts of gunfire. They told us to come out in groups of five. When my turn came, I went out. They told us to find a free space. I saw rows of dead people,” SB5 said.

SB5 said when Serb soldiers began shooting at him, he fainted briefly. When he woke up, he realized he was wounded on his stomach and shoulder.

“When they’d finished with the killing, someone said, ‘You should fire a bullet in the head of each warm body,’ but they didn’t. I was waiting for death…Then the soldiers left. I saw a man moving in front of me. He helped me untie my hands. Then we crawled over other bodies to a ditch,” SB5 said.

According to SB5, on the following day he and other survivors climbed to a nearby hill and saw “a digger loading the bodies and driving them away from the dam.”

Srecko Boskovic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with murdering a boy in July 1995, while Serb soldiers were killing Bosniak civilians at the Red Dam plateau in Zvornik after the fall of Srebrenica. Boskovic allegedly told the boy that he was free to leave, and then shot him with an automatic weapon.

SB5 said he and other survivors walked through the woods for four days prior to reaching territory controlled by the Bosnian Army.

The trial will continue on April 24.