Kravica: Defence Wants 100 Witnesses

A status conference has been held at which the defence teams presented their plan of evidence presentation. They have suggested inviting more than 100 witnesses and the Trial Chamber announced that the first witness would be examined on 11 July.

The Defence will try to deny allegations made by the Prosecution that the 11 indictees took part in the shooting of about 1,000 Bosniaks in the village of Kravica on 13 July 1995, after the fall of the UN protected enclave of Srebrenica.

Ozrenka Jaksic, defence attorney of main indictee Milos Stupar, has announced that the attorneys have agreed to jointly invite eight witnesses and six court experts.

“Joint witnesses will speak about roles that the indictees had in the happenings in Kravica. Each witness will be examined by no more than two defence teams,” Jaksic explained.

Some of the eight joint witnesses are Srbislav Davidovic, former president of municipal government in Bratunac; Ljubislav Simic, president of the Municipal Executive Board in Bratunac and Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac, a journalist who was with members of Republika Srpska Army on the date of conquest of Srebrenica when he made a video recording showing soldiers entering the city.

Rade Golic, defence attorney of Milenko Trifunovic, has added that seven defence teams will invite 16 joint witnesses.

Petar Mitrovic’s defence will base their strategy on proving that their client was unaware of his actions. The team has therefore suggested inviting five witnesses and a neuro-psychiatric expert.

Eight witnesses will testify in favour of Brano Djinic. They will speak about his “model character”, as pointed out by defence attorney Borisa Ilic. They will also provide an alibi for Djinic for the date when the crime in Kravica was committed.

Attorney Ilic has also said that he wants to invite “supporters who used to come to football games of the team in which Djinic used to play” to speak about his character.

The defence team of Aleksandar Radovanovic intends to invite four witnesses, while Slobodan Jakovljevic’s defence team intends to invite three witnesses who will talk about their characters.

Slavko Asceric, Jakovljevic’s attorney, has announced inviting court expert Zoran Pajic to talk about the “governmental structure in Republika Srpska at the critical time”.

Five witnesses will provide an alibi for Miladin Stevanovic. The defence of Velibor Maksimovic has pointed out that it intends to examine 11 witnesses who should provide an alibi for the defendant.

Ratko Gengo, defence attorney of Dragisa Zivanovic, will invite the most witnesses. He has announced listening to 40 testimonies.

“We have decided to invite so many witnesses because the indictment is very serious, but the number can be reduced during the trial,” Gengo has explained.

Defence of Branislav Medan intends to invite seven witnesses, and the defence of Milovan Matic wants five.

Prosecutor Ibro Bulic has said that he considers the proposed number of witnesses to be too high.

“The defence teams have to choose a smaller number of witnesses because of the total duration of this trial. It is inadmissible to invite so many witnesses,” Bulic has said.

Trial Chamber chairman Hilmo Vucinic has said that the Chamber cannot, “at this moment”, make a final decision on all evidences proposed by the Defence, but said that the Chamber is ready to accept the first eight “joint” witnesses.

At a hearing held on 26 April, the Prosecution suggested that the indictment be divided into three parts because two indictees, allegedly, had pleaded guilty during the investigation. The Defence team objected to such a proposal and the Chamber has still not passed a decision, but it has announced that it will “try” to make a decision by the next hearing.