Bosnian Serb Army ‘Didn’t Shoot Mother and Son’

Defence witness Mile Poparic told the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that a sniper bullet that wounded mother Dzenana Sokolovic in downtown Sarajevo on November 18, 1994 and then killed her son Nermin Divovic was not fired by the Bosnian Serb Army, as Mladic’s indictment says.

Poparic said it had not been properly determined from which side the bullet came, because police reports indicated the victims were hit from the right, while medical documentation suggested they were hit from the left.

“The boy could not have been hit with the same bullet as his mother, if the bullet came from the right side, ie. from a building in [the Sarajevo neighbourhood of] Grbavica, where [Bosnian Serb Army] positions were located, as alleged in the indictment,” he said.

He argued that the same bullet could have hit the boy in his head and then the mother in her stomach, as the doctors said, if it came from their left side – from territory controlled by the Bosnian Army.

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is charged with terrorising the population of Sarajevo with shelling and sniper attacks. The indictment lists 17 sniper attacks in which civilians were killed and wounded in the city.

Popovic also said Serb forces could not have staged on an attack on a tram near the former Marshal Tito military barracks on November 23, 1994, in which two women were wounded.

He further testified that 14-year-old Tarik Zunic, who was wounded in the Sedrenik neighbourhood on March 6, 1995, was most probably hit by a stray bullet during an exchange of fire between the Bosnian Army and Serb forces.

At the beginning of cross-examination, prosecutor Caroline Edgerton questioned Poparic’s credibility as an expert, claiming he did not visit some of the locations of the incidents he testified about, that he was not a trained investigator, nor a court pathologist or lawyer, and that he used the wrong maps.

Edgerton also alleged he was not a credible witness because he was “a member of a tank crew” with the Bosnian Serb Army, which Poparic confirmed was correct.

The trial continues on Monday.