Ex-Policeman Recalls Konjevic Polje Warehouse Massacre

17. January 2017.16:13
Testifying at the trial of five ex-policemen for the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, a prosecution witness said a Bosnian Serb soldier killed around ten men in a warehouse in Konjevic Polje in July 1995. Prosecution witness Rodoljub Milanovic told the state court in Sarajevo on Tuesday that a uniformed soldier shot the Bosniaks dead in Konjevic Polje on July 12, 1995.

Milanovic said that as a policeman in Bratunac, he was responsible for dealing with traffic and excise on goods at a checkpoint in Konjevic at the time.
He said the Bosnian Serb Army escorted some men on July 12, 1995.

“About ten people were brought to a warehouse across the street. At some stage we heard shooting from the warehouse. A uniformed soldier entered it and killed those ten men,” witness Milanovic said.

When asked if the police did anything about the killings, Milanovic said that a row with the soldier erupted.

“He asked if he should kill us as well,” the witness said.

He said that Ljubomir Borovcanin, who was the deputy commander of the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry’s Special Police Brigade, gthen arrived and was told what happened.

Borovcanin was sentenced to 17 years for assisting in the murder of Bosniaks in Srebrenica.

According to Milanovic, a mechanical digger arrived in i the and transported the corpses towards the town of Milici.

Milanovic was testifying at the trial of Miodrag Josipovic, Branimir Tesic, Dragomir Vasic, Danilo Zoljic and Radomir Pantic, who have been charged with genocide in Srebrenica.

According to the charges, Josipovic was the chief of the police Public Security Station and Tesic was the deputy commander of the police station in Bratunac.

The indictment says that Vasic was the commander of the police headquarters forces in Zvornik and chief of the Public Security Centre in Zvornik, Zoljic was the commander of the Public Security Centre special units and Pantic was the commander of the First Company with the Special Police Unit.

At the hearing, the defense also cross-examined witness Bozo Jovanovic, who said he did not see any corpses or murders, and that had not heard of any members of the Sixth Company of the Special Police Unit mistreating people who had surrendered.

Also on Tuesday, at the trial of Djordje Ristanic, the former president of the wartime presidency in Brcko, a prosecution witness said he was taken from his house in Brcko along with his family members and detained at several locations in the spring of 1992.

Witness Esad Sejdic said that during his detention, people were beaten up and taken away, and never came back.

Ristanic is charged with participating, from April to December 1992, in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at persecuting Bosniaks and Croats through a series of crimes including murders, detention and torture.

Marija Taušan