Misic Questions Veracity of Data on Srebrenica Missing Persons at Mladic Trial

Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, persecution which reached the scale of genocide in several municipalities, terrorizing the local population of Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Misic presented a series of contradictory information on missing persons based on documentation from the Institute for Missing Persons, the International Commission for Missing Persons and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The names of the missing persons presented by Misic weren’t specified in the courtroom to protect confidentiality measures. Misic claimed certain individuals were classified as missing in 1993, while other sources claimed they went missing after the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.

During a discussion on the relevance of Misic’s testimony, prosecutors said they only used 193 death certificates to confirm that individuals went missing, and said they included 30 more documents confirming the same claim in the case file.

Misic said courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina issued death registry certificates as requested by family members, without confirming the date, place and circumstances of death. As a result, Misic claimed, the official list on missing persons also included those who died natural deaths as well people who are still alive.

“Nothing can be done about it now, because the courts included their names in death registries on the basis of family reports without proper documentation. This is carved in stone, because we aren’t stronger than the courts,” Misic said.

Misic questioned whether there was any cooperation between the Institute for Missing Persons and the Hague Tribunal, and claimed that he has never seen any requests from the Hague for documents or reports since 2011, when he became a board member.

“According to our regulations, I would have to have known and signed off on that,” he said.

At the beginning of Misic’s cross-examination prosecutor Edward Jeremy tried to undermine his credibility, by stating that Misic was the former commander of the Ozrenska Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army during the Bosnian war. Misic confirmed that he was a Bosnian Serb Army soldier, and said he left the military after having been severely wounded in May 1995.

When asked by Jeremy whether he was in the field on May 25, 1995, when a grenade was fired from positions held by the Ozren Tactical Group, killing 71 persons in Tuzla, Misic answered affirmatively. However, he said he didn’t get any information about the attack at the time, because he was positioned approximately 25 or 30 meters away.

Jeremy suggested that he might be politically biased, since he was the leader of the Party of Independent Social Democrats in Doboj. Misic said he had temporarily ceased all of his political activities since the beginning of his engagement with the Institute for Missing Persons in 2011.

The prosecution will complete Misic’s cross-examination on Friday, July 10.