Army Responsible for Detention Camps

As he continues testifying at Radovan Karadzic’s trial, Mico Stanisic says that detention camps for Bosniaks and Croats were not under the responsibility of police, but the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, and municipal crisis committees, in the summer of 1992.

When asked why he had never ordered dismissal of those detention camps, former Minister of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska Stanisic said: “Because I did not issue a decision for establishment of any of them…Those who formed them should have dismissed them”.

He specified that those were VRS and crisis committees, adding that “the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) separated itself from that, as per my order.”

Stanisic said that he received the first detailed information, saying that there “were problems” in the detention camp, only in mid-July 1992, adding that he then undertook measures to “eliminate those centres and lawless detention camps”. He said that he gave several orders to policemen, who guarded those detention camps, “not to interact with detainees” and to treat them in accordance with the law.
“All these pressures resulted in the dismissal of the detention camps,” Stanisic said.

Last year The Hague Tribunal pronounced a first instance verdict, sentencing Stanisic to 22 years in prison for the persecution, murder and other crimes against the non-Serb population in 1992, including crimes committed in Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps, near Prijedor.

The indictment charges Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska and supreme Commander of VRS, with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prijedor is one of the seven municipalities, where the persecution reached the scale of genocide, as alleged under the indictment. Besides that, Karadzic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, terror against citizens in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

The prosecutors presented Stanisic with an official letter sent to him by Stojan Zupljanin, Police Chief in Banja Luka, in July 1992. The letter says that “many people, who are not interesting from the security aspect and can be treated as hostages” are among the large number of captured Bosniaks. It further says that those people were “guarded by reserve and regular police forces”.

However, Stanisic said that, by the mentioned letter, Zupljanin sent a message that the captives “cannot be treated as hostages”. The Tribunal sentenced Zupljanin to 22 years in prison for the same crimes as Stanisic.

The witness did not deny that police units included “thieves and criminals” too, but he said that this was a consequence of uncontrolled admission to reserve police forces, adding that municipal crisis committees were responsible for that.

“There were all sorts of things in the beginning, during the establishment of MUP… That is why we had to clean what we encountered,” Stanisic said.

When asked whether those reserve policemen, criminals, were used for forced collection and movement of the non-Serb population, Stanisic said that such things “probably happened”, but he “did not know that at that moment”.

The Hague Prosecution is due to complete the cross-examination of Stanisic on Wednesday, February 5.