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A witness at Ratko Mladic’s war crimes trial said that some Bosniaks and Croats voluntarily joined the Bosnian Serb military chief’s armed forces in the town of Prijedor in 1992.
Defence witness Cedo Sipovac, a former official with the Bosnian National Defence Secretariat in Prijedor, told Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday said that “all Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats” received mobilisation invitations at the beginning of the conflict in Prijedor in 1992 and that people from all ethnic groups responded.
“It is known to me that the Ljubija Battalion was mobilised from a multi-ethnic area. As far as I know, neither Croats, Bosniaks nor Serbs had any objections in terms of being given different tasks. It was a homogenous group,” Sipovac said.
However, he said that there were problems with the mobilisation in some Bosniak and Croat villages in the Prijedor area before the conflict broke out.
“People who hand-delivered the invitation in the field faced problems, because political leaders of the Muslim and Croat peoples gave instructions to people not to respond. Such calls were reflected in the field, so couriers faced problems. For instance, a Bosniak courier was killed in Sanski Most. Interceptions and threats happened in Prijedor,” Sipovac said.
During cross-examination, prosecutors asked Sipovac if he knew what happened to the men who were detained in the notorious Omarska detention camp in 1992. Sipovac responded by saying that, according to his findings, Omarska was “an investigation centre, not a detention camp”.
He also said that he did not know that “defence forces” participated in the murders and persecution of the non-Serb population in the Prijedor area.
“I am claiming that I do not know who did that. I am not the type of person who would inquire about things. Therefore I did not know anything about it then. I know nothing about it now. I have no reason to lie,” Sipovac said.
Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is charged with genocide in several municipalities, including Prijedor, in 1992, as well as genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats from areas under Serb control, terrorisng the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
