Mladic Witness Denies Knowledge of Srebrenica Crimes
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Nedeljko Trkulja, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army Main Headquarters, testified before the Hague tribunal. He said he was in the Zvornik area near Srebrenica on July 17 and 18, 1995. He claimed that after heavy fighting, the Zvornik Brigade was forced to open a corridor and allow the passage of Bosniak civilians and fighters from Srebrenica.
According to Trkulja, major Dragan Obrenovic from the Zvornik Brigade told him that an agreement had been made to allow for the safe passage of 5000 Bosniaks. He said this conversation took place on July 17, 1995, in the village of Crni Vrh near Zvornik.
“He only mentioned casualties from the fighting…there was no word about prisoners, we didn’t have any,” Trkulja said.
Obrenovic plead guilty to war crimes in Srebrenica in 2003. The Hague tribunal sentenced him to 17 years in prison.
During cross examination, prosecutor Margaret Hassan suggested that the Bosnian Serb Army opened the corridor for Bosniak civilians on July 16, 1995. However, Trkulja stuck to his claim that it was opened on July 18, 1995.
Hassan also asked Trkulja whether his aim in Zvornik was to determine why the corridor had been opened “so easily,” but Trkulja denied this.
Trkulja, who sent reports to the Bosnian Serb Army’s Supreme Commander Radovan Karadzic, denied that Mladic could access his reports.
He stuck to this claim, even when Hassan presented him with a statement from Mladic’s deputy Manojlo Milovanovic, who’d said that he had left “all significant reports on Mladic’s desk.”
Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with orchestrating and executing the Srebrenica genocide, in which approximately 7000 Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica were killed. The killings took place following the occupation of Srebrenica, a UN protected enclave, by the Bosnian Serb Army on July 11, 1995.
Mladic has also been charged with persecution of Bosniaks and Croats (which reached the scale of genocide in some municipalities), terrorizing the local population of Sarajevo, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
