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A defence witness told Ratko Mladic’s trial that the Bosnian Serb Army put civilians of all ethnicities in a school in Rogatica in 1992 to protect them from the fighting in the area.
Mile Ujic, the former president of the executive board of Rogatica municipality, told Mladic’s war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that there was no organised expulsion of Bosniaks from the area in 1992, but that the civilians were placed in temporary accommodation together in order to “save lives”.
“There were collective centres, but this was a kind of a safe house. We simply wanted to separate civilians from the armed people, in order that they not get killed as collateral damage, so we put civilians under army control in the Veljko Vlahovic school,” Ujic said.
He said there were civilians of all ethnicities in the school and they were fed three meals a day.
When asked whether he knew that some Bosniaks were taken away from the school, Ujic replied that he had heard that.
“The aim was to keep civilians alive, but I know, I heard that some group was taken, and I was deeply moved, because I do not know whose confused mind could do that. I cannot believe that one individual could do that without an order. It is still beyond understanding,” the witness said.
Mladic is being tried for the persecution and expulsion of Bosniaks and Croats from 15 municipalities controlled by Bosnian Serb forces, including Rogatica.
He is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
Ujic also said that there was “unease among the people” in Rogatica at the beginning of 1992 and that large number of them left voluntarily – Bosniaks to Sarajevo, and Serbs to the villages near the town or to Serbia.
“So it just happened, but there was no organized expulsion,” Ujic said.
He said he said he knew that a mosque was destroyed in Rogatica, but that he never saw burned or dead bodies decomposing in the town in 1992.
Mladic’s trial continues on October 20.
