Stanisic and Milosevic: Reconnaissance in Petkovci

Witness Milorad Bircakovic, former military police driver of the Zvornik Brigade with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, said that he drove Nikolic, when he visited the school building in Petkovci, and Trbic to the dam.

Nikolic, former Chief of Security with the Zvornik Brigade, was sentenced by The Hague Tribunal to 35 years in prison. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced his assistant Trbic to 30 years in prison for participating in genocide.

Bircakovic testified at the trial of Ostoja Stanisic and Marko Milosevic, who are charged with committing murders of Srebrenica residents in Petkovci, where prisoners were first brought to the school building and then escorted to the dam and shot.
The Prosecution alleges that Stanisic, former Commander of the Sixth Battalion of Zvornik Brigade, and Milosevic, former Deputy Commander, knew about the planned execution of prisoners and that, under their command, the prisoners were escorted to the dam and shot.
The witness said that he first saw the prisoners from Srebrenica in Divic village on July 14, 1995, when he drove Nikolic to the village after a meeting at the Brigade’s Command building. As he said, they then went to Orahovac village.

“Prisoners were getting onto a small truck. I think that they were surrounded by military policemen. The prisoners were blindfolded and tied,” Bircakovic said.

He told the Court that the truck transported the prisoners in several tours to a location about a kilometre away from the school building, adding that he saw a few dead bodies there in the early evening.

Bircakovic said that he visited villages near Zvornik on July 15 and that he saw a dead captive and soldiers in front of the school building in Pilica, as well as prisoners in a school building in Rocevici. He said that he heard that those prisoners were killed.
Responding to the Defence attorney’s questions, the witness said that at that moment he did not know what would happen to the prisoners. As he said, he assumed that they would be exchanged.

Bircakovic said that he did not hear that the Sixth Battalion Command had any tasks related to the prisoners.

The trial is due to continue on March 13. A.J.