Unperformed Orders

Dragomir Vasic said that he was chief of the Center for Public Safety
(CJB) in Zvornik in July 1995, when he learned that Srebrenica was overrun. He added that Interior Ministry had no role in that operation.
 
“Our task started with the minister’s dispatch, which said that Ljubisa Borovcanin should contact general Krstic for subordination to the army,” the witness said adding that he reported to Interior Ministry and police forces’ headquarters about the events in the CJB Zvornik in the following days.
 
Borovcanin, the former deputy commander of the Bosnian Serb interior ministry special police brigade, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2010 for crimes committed in Srebrenica in 1995.
 
Prosecutor Ibro Bulic presented the order from July 17 in 1995 for urgent establishment of units which should search the area, and which was signed by commander Goran Saric and sent to CJB Zvornik.
 
Vasic said that he only saw that command in 2002 or 2003 and that he did not know whether something from that order was performed.
 
“This dispatch of Mr. Saric was not obligatory for me by any kind, and he could not order me to establish the units,” the witness said adding that he knew that the search of the area was under the army’s control.
 
Saric, a former commander of the special police brigade, is accused of giving orders to the police officers to secure the Bratunac-Konjevic Polje road and detain several thousand people who were fleeing that way through the woods from Srebrenica.
 
According to the indictment, special police officers helped to escort the convoy of several hundred prisoners to an agricultural warehouse in Kravica, where they were killed.
 
Prosecutor presented Vasic with several dispatches from July 1995, including the dispatch about six wounded members of the special police that was sent to Saric. Witness said that it was common to inform police or commander on those things. Vasic said that he had information that Saric was on the battle field in Sarajevo in July 1995.
 
“I confirm that I did not see him in Srebrenica at that time and that I did not speak to him by phone. Apart from dispatches from the Centre, there was no other way of communication,” he said.
 
The trial continues on August 25.