Pelemis and Peric: Indictment as a Trap

The Srebrenica genocide indictment against Momir Pelemis is too widely formulated and represents a trap, aimed at assigning as much guilt as possible to the accused, said Pelemis’s defense in their closing arguments.

Milos Peric, Pelemis’s attorney, said the Prosecution has not proven the accused was present in any of the locations mentioned in the indictment, nor that he took any action toward the Bosniak prisoners who were held in July 1995 in Pilica, in Zvornik municipality.
 
“Pelemis did not get a written or oral order regarding the prisoners. He just had information that they would spend the night in the school prior to being exchanged. Witnesses confirmed that unknown soldiers guarded the prisoners”, said Peric.   
 
According to the indictment, Pelemis as the deputy commander of the First battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) is responsible or the murders of around 1000 prisoners in Branjevo military farm and 600 men in the Cultural house in Pilica.
 
Pelemis is charged with Slavko Peric, former assistant to the commander for security in the First battalion of the Zvornik Brigade. The indictment alleges that Peric, under orders from Pelemis, sent soldiers to guard prisoners in the school in Kula and the Cultural house.
 
“None of the witnesses said he received an order or assignment from Momir Pelemis to guard prisoners. They were near the school to guard the village… the arrival of a large number of prisoners represented a risk for local population”, said attorney Peric.
 
Peric added that Pelemis did not order members of the First battalion to guard prisoners, because that would jeopardise the front line during the “Srebrenica operation”, at a critical time when there was the “presence of the 28th Division of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina army”.
 
“Allegedly there was an instruction by telegram regarding the arrival of prisoners. Only witness Rajko Babic said he saw the text in the diary, and he said that page was later torn out”, said Peric, who also named all the members of the First battalion who knew nothing about this page.
 
The Defense also rejected Pelemis’s connection to co-ordinating the burial of persons killed in Branjevo and the Cultural house, claiming there was no evidence to support this claim.
 
Peric noted that there were higher officers from the Main headquarters and Drina corps of the VRS present at the scene, and who – according to evidence and verdicts in other cases – planned the “criminal enterprise”.
 
“There is no evidence that any of the higher officers contacted with Pelemis and told him about the plan to kill prisoners… They did not meet, or contact each other by phone, courier or letter”, said the defence attorney and added the Prosecution claims alleging a Joint criminal enterprise are unsubstantiated in regard to his client.
 
Pelemis’s defense will continue presenting its final arguments on Tuesday, September 13.