Bosnian Serb Witness Recalls Women and Children Bussed from Srebrenica

Radovan Sladoje said he had been a commander of a platoon of the Bosnian Serb police Training Center in Jahorina and recalled travelling to the village of Konjevic Polje near Srebrenica.

Upon arriving at the school there, he said, he heard something had happened around Srebrenica.

“In the morning we heard shooting and we went to secure part of the road,” Sladoje told a court in Sarajevo. He added that his platoon captured five or six Bosniaks, who were later taken to the town of Bratunac.

“We were told that busses would pick up the captives. The bus came from Konjevic Polje and I saw people inside,” he said.

He said he spent several days in the field, during which time he saw buses transporting Bosniak women and children from Srebrenica.

Asked whether he knew the defendant, the witness said Saric was “commander of the Bosnian Serb special police brigade”. He said Saric once visited the Jahorina training center to train young soldiers in 1995.

Saric, as the commander of Bosnian Serb special police units, is charged with helping the Bosnian Serb army “to commit genocide in Srebrenica”, where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in July 1995.

Saric’s units took part in expelling Srebrenica Muslims, disarming UN peacekeepers protecting the eastern Bosnian town, and separating men and boys from the rest of population before they were taken to execution sites, according to the charges.

It is also alleged that his units were involved in arresting thousands of Muslim men and boys who had tried to escape and bringing them back to the execution sites.

The trial resumes on April 28.