Protected Witness Describes Prisoner Abuse at Saric Trial

Saric has been charged with commanding police forces which participated in the search, disarmament and forcible relocation of women, children and the elderly, as well as separating men and boys, who were executed in the Srebrenica area later on.

The prosecution alleges he ordered members of the police to guard the road between Bratunac and Konjevic Polje and capture men who were trying to leave the protected zone of Srebrenica through the woods.

A protected witness known as SG-2, who was granted immunity from criminal prosecution, told the court he was at the Training Center on Jahorina in July 1995, when he was sent to Srebrenica to perform police tasks.

According to SG-2, they were accommodated in a school building in Bratunac. On the following day they searched Potocari in order to find out if anybody stayed in the area after the local population had left.

SG-2 said the search lasted for approximately an hour, after which buses arrived. He said they were tasked with separating men and escorting women and children to the buses.

SG-2 said the men were taken to a house. He said they had to put their belongings in a pile in front of the house.

The prosecution asked SG-2 whether he knew why the men had been separated.

“At that moment I didn’t know. I figured it out on the basis of what happened afterwards…When we were in Kravica the next day, murders were taking place,” SG-2 said.

SG-2 said they stopped in some building, warehouse or agricultural cooperative in Kravica during the night. They were told to guard the people inside the building.

SG-2 said he was behind the building, and heard cries and the occasional shooting and explosion.

“I saw corpses in front of the warehouse. I don’t know the exact number,” SG-2 said. He said a colleague of his from the squad was among the bodies and shot at those who were still alive.

SG-2 said he spent the whole day next to a house, and said no one ordered him to shoot. During the day he saw groups of captured Bosniaks being brought from the direction of Konjevic Polje.

“They were tied up with wire. They were brought in front of the building. Then the members of our unit shot them,” SG-2 said, adding that a dredger then loaded the corpses onto trucks.

When asked by the defense whether he was among the 40 soldiers in old olive-gray uniforms in front of the hangar, SG-2 said he couldn’t remember.

The trial will continue on June 8.