Mladic Witness: Mosques ‘Brought Down During Fighting’

Gojkovic told the UN-backed court in The Hague on Tuesday claimed that ten mosques were destroyed during fighting, and 84 in areas previously abandoned by the Bosnian Serb Army in the summer of 1992.

“Those were uncontrolled actions,” he said during cross-examination.

Gojkovic begain his testimony on Monday, claiming that mosques weren’t blown up using military methods during the war, suggesting that Bosnian Serb Army chiefs were not responsible for their destruction.

Former Bosnian Serb army commander Mladic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, the persecution of non-Serbs across the country, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The destruction of Muslim and Catholic religious buildings by Bosnian Serb forces was part of the persecution of non-Serbs, according to the indictment.

The prosecution and Hague Tribunal judges asked Gojkovic several times which individual mosques were destroyed and when, but he could not give a reply. He repeated that he based his findings on the report of Hague Tribunal expert Andras Riedlmayer.

After being presented with a Bosnian Serb Army document which said that at the time when mosques were destroyed in the Bosanska Krajina area, the army was conducting operations in that region, Gojkovic said that Bosnian Serb forces “had other priorities”.

“Parts of units stayed in that region all through the war, in bases, but the area was free, there were no Muslims, so what would soldiers do there, in the villages?” he asked.

“There were some groups of savages there who did all these things… Now, I can’t say if they wore uniforms,” he added.

He said there was no organised destruction of religious buildings and that the police and civilian authorities had responsibility in areas “liberated” by the army.

As proof that the Bosnian Serb leadership ordered the destruction of mosques, prosecutor Arthur Traldi quoted a wartime statement by the defendant Mladic in which he said that a mosque with two minarets in the town of Tesanj could be allowed to stand.

“I don’t know about that and I don’t care,” responded Gojkovic.

The trial continues on Wednesday.