Mladic Expert Denies Missile Caused Markale Massacre

Zorica Subotic told the Hague tribunal on Tuesday that the a missile could not have fallen on the Markale market in Sarajevo in 1994 at the angle listed in the reports by Sarajevo police and UNPROFOR investigators without first hitting the roof.

“The number of dead and injured does not correlate to the fire power of a 120 millimeter missile,” she said.

She called the investigation into the Markale massacre “unprofessional, incorrect and with mistakes”.

She said it was “practically impossible” for the stabilizer – the tail of the missile – to remain buried in asphalt, covered with dirt after an explosion, as investigators claimed.

Subotic said that during an explosion, stabilizers “push” the ground out and cannot be covered.

She said that the tail of the missile at Markale, which she examined in the court, does not have scratches that would show that it had hit the ground.

After Judge Christoph Flugge removed part of the tail, which Subotic said was impossible, Mladic’s lawyer, Branko Lukic, said this was “proof that evidence is being manipulated”.

Subotic also said that prosecution expert Berko Zecevic drew the shops in the market incorrectly, with angled and not flat roofs, in order to show that the missile could have dropped onto the site of the explosion without hitting the roof.

“We concluded that this was a static explosion, which was not activated after the missile flew, but by remote… A hole was dug and a stabilizer was placed inside, which was then covered with earth. A mine was then placed inside and remote activated,” Subotic said.

She said that Zecevic had told her that traces of another explosion were uncovered in Markale, but were not part of the official report.

Mladic is charged as commander of Bosnian Serb forces with terrorising the population of Sarajevo through shelling and sniping, and with two attacks on the Markale market in which around 100 persons were killed. He is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica and other municipalities, with the persecution of non-Serbs across the country and with taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Subotic said it was also impossible for a mortar missile to have caused the second massacre in Markale in August 1995 without it being recorded by UNPROFOR radars, which is what the Hague prosecution alleges.

She said that claims by Hague prosecutors that the missile “flew under the radar” were nonsense.

The ballistic expert said that two stabilizers were found at the explosion site.

Commenting on the images made after the blast, Subotic said that the image of a victim thrown over a fence and whose body is almost entirely destroyed “was not made by a mortar or artillery weapon”.

Subotic will resume her testimony on Wednesday.