Evidence on Tomasica Mass Grave Completed at Mladic Trial

Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, terrorizing the local population of Sarajevo, taking UNPROFOR members hostage and persecuting Bosniaks and Croats in municipalities under Serb control.

Following the cross-examination of the last prosecution witness, demographic expert Ewa Tabeau, Mladic’s defense examined Milutin Misic, a member on the board of directors of the Institute for Missing Persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Misic criticized the early postwar verification of lists of missing persons produced by the Institute for Missing Persons.

“We didn’t conform to the task of finding out the real truth on each missing person…therefore, there’s a possibility for manipulation,” Misic said.

Misic said there were many mistakes in databases on missing persons created by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons, as well as other missing persons organizations in the Bosnian Federation and Republika Srpska.

Misic said the Institute for Missing Persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina didn’t act in accordance to its own rulebook and violated legal provisions, since its initial verification of approximately 10,200 missing persons was not conducted “on the basis of regulatory documentation.”

Misic said in order to confirm that a person is missing, one is legally required to have a minimum set of data, including the place, time, and circumstances of the disappearance, as well as the person’s name, date of birth, place of birth, and the names of their parents.

Misic claimed that instead of gathering this data, the Institute for Missing Persons confirmed the status of missing persons on the basis of identification reports and failed to collect information on the presumed place, time and circumstances of the disappearances.

Misic said the Institute for Missing Persons was the only institution with the legal competency to determine the time, place and circumstances of a disappearance, and to confirm the authenticity of such claims.

Misic said the International Commission for Missing Persons’ database contained many inaccuracies which can create a false image on missing persons.

Misic said a member of the 28th Division of the Bosnian Army was killed on the day of the fall of Srebrenica, July 11, 1995, or the day after, according to Red Cross documentation. It was later determined that the victim was killed by a fellow soldier accidentally in December 1995, when the war was already over.

Misic said it didn’t make sense that the victim could have been found in a mass grave in Snagovo, as indicated by Red Cross documents. He said he could have only been found at the location in which he was killed.

“According to our findings, this person is neither missing nor did he die under those circumstances,” Misci said. He said particular person wasn’t classified as a missing person as a result of an improved process of verification established at the Institute for Missing Persons in 2013.

Misic said the Institute for Missing Persons has verified the status of approximately 7000 missing persons since the improvement of their verification process.

Presiding judge Alphons Orie told Mladic’s defense attorney that it wasn’t clear to what extent Misic’s testimony was relevant to the trial, particularly since the prosecution indicated that it relied on databases which Misic said contained a limited amount of errors.

The trial will continue on Thursday, July 9.