Jevic et al: Order to Kill

Witness S-104, who was arrested in Serbia in June 1995 and sent back to the battlefield in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a member of the the Jahorina Training Center with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, MUP RS, told the Court he was deployed to Kravica, Bratunac municipality in July 1995.

“There were some people who had been killed in front of the warehouse in Kravica. (…) I saw Zoran Ilic standing next to a pile of corpses. He was firing individual bullets at the pile from an automatic rifle.

“We did not ask anything when we saw what was going on. We wanted to go back, but Commander Neskovic called us and said: ‘Take these two men with you and kill them there’,” the witness said, adding he did “not even think of refusing to carry out the order”. He said that he and his colleague killed two male civilians, adding he did not tell anyone about it later on.

Witness S-104 testified at the trial of Dusko Jevic, Mendeljev Djuric, Goran Markovic and Nedjo Ikonic, who are charged with having participated in the murder of more than 1,000 Bosniak men in Kravica Agricultural Cooperative premises and the forcible resettlement of the population from the Srebrenica area.

According to the charges Jevic was Commander of the Training Center on Jahorina, Djuric and Ikonic were company commanders and Markovic was a squad commander.

The trial of Dragan Neskovic and Zoran Ilic, former members of the Centre charged with crimes against humanity committed in Srebrenica, is expected to begin before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly.

Witness S-104 said that he was member of a squad whose instructor and commander was indictee Goran Markovic, adding that Dragan Neskovic was commander of the group of deserters with that same Squad.

“As far as chieftains are concerned, I remember that Commander Dragan Neskovic was there, but I am not sure about Goran. I saw him the following day,” the witness said, saying the indictee visited them on the road some 200 metres away from the hangar, where they were deployed.

Speaking about the activities conducted in Potocari, S-104 said he saw two members of the Training Center separating men from other people, while others, including him, were helping women get on the buses.

“The men were sent to a house on the side of the road…Later on I saw them leaving. At that time I did not think about the reasons why the men had been separated,” the protected witness said.

The trial is due to continue on Thursday, January 13.