Everybody Knows Who Participated in Murders
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SM-105 said that, upon his return to Djulici village after the war, he found out from a friend of his what had happened in that area in 1995. He said that she told him that, while standing in front of her house, which was about 600 metres from a dam, she watched bodies being transported away from that location.
“She was in front of her house and watched the bodies being transported. Also, she saw buses going towards Petkovci… She told me that about 500 people were brought by them. She did not see where those buses were unloaded, but she heard that from others. The buses were unloaded near the Centre and school building in Petkovci,” the witness said.
SM-105 testified at the trial of Ostoja Stanisic and Marko Milosevic, who are charged with having participated in crimes on the dam in Petkovci, near Djulici village, Zvornik municipality, where about 1,000 captives from Srebrenica were shot.
The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Stanisic, former Commander of the Sixth Battalion of Zvornik Brigade with the Republika Srpska Army, and Milosevic, former Deputy Commander, with having known about the planned execution of captives. It alleges that they were escorted to the dam under their command.
A part of witness SM-105’s testimony was not comprehensible due to poor sound in the courtroom.
“She told me that they covered the killed people with whitewash, so the bodies would not stink… As she said, they took watches from those men’s wrists,” the protected witness said, adding that he also found out that cisterns washed blood from the road.
He listed some people, who, as his friend told him, had participated in those happenings. When asked by the Defence teams why he failed to mention some of those names in his previous statement, the witness said that he “did not dare”.
“All of the Petkovci residents know who killed those people. This person told me that,” said the witness, who testified in a separate cabin with his face and voice being altered.
The trial is due to continue on February 12.
