Hague Expert Informed State Security Service Chief

Dragan Kijac, wartime Chief of the State Security Service, SDB, of Republika Srpska, testifies at Radovan Karadzic’s and denies having had any pieces of information about mass murders of Muslim men from Srebrenica in July 1995.

The Defence witness specifies that he found out about the murder of thousands of Muslims from Srebrenica in more details after having read a report made by a Hague Tribunal expert in 2003 or 2004.

In his written statement Kijac said that he attended a wedding in Montenegro from July 14 to 18, 1995.
When he returned to Pale, he met Karadzic on July 19, but he neither knew about the executions nor had seen any reports about them.

According to the witness’ testimony, Karadzic did not give any indications that he knew about those crimes. Kijac said that, had he known about it, Karadzic would have undertaken actions in order to prevent the crimes and punish the perpetrators.

However, the witness confirmed that, acting on his warrant, the SDB of Republika Srpska singled out pre-war assembly representatives Ibran Mustafic from the mass of Muslim captives on July 12, 1995 and transferred him to Bijeljina for an examination.

“Mustafic is still alive,” Kijac pointed out.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Muslims from Srebrenica in the days that followed the occupation of the UN protected enclave by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, on July 11, 1995. 

During the cross-examination Prosecutor Melissa Pak said that Kijac saved Mustafic, as a person of interest to the Service, because he knew that the other captives were going to be killed. 

“Why would I save him? From whom? … That is not true. Honourable Court, we did not save anybody… I had no plan or findings about the liquidation, as you are trying to impute to me,” Kijac said. 

When asked if he was really series, when he said that he had not got any pieces of information about the mass murder of Srebrenica Muslims until 2000, Kijac said:

“Exactly… As I said, I had known nothing until 2000. No document about it had arrived”. 

The witness did not deny that two of his operational staff members were present in Potocari one day after the fall of Srebrenica, but he said that they did not examine Muslim captives. According to Kijac’s testimony, the SDB knew about a maximum of 500 captives from the enclave.

When the Prosecutor insisted that he must have known about the crimes from the media already on July 17, Kijac said that the media, even the Serbian media, were not available to him. 

Kijac did not deny the allegations that, in 1996 in his capacity as Minister of Internal Affairs of RS, he issued false personal identification documents to members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad of the Main Headquarters of VRS, who participated in the murder of more than 1,000 Muslims on Branjevo farm on July 16, 1995.  However, he did deny that this represented concealing of criminals.

Testifying in defence of Karadzic, Boro Tadic denied the persecution and other crimes against non-Serbs in Sanski Most.

The continuation of the trial of Karadzic, who is also charged with the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage, is scheduled for tomorrow, December 4.