Mladic Witness Claims Serb Troops Innocent of Massacre

Defence witness Vojislav Krsic, a former officer in the Kotor-Varos Light Infantry Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, testified at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that local Serbs were responsible for the mass killings in Grabovica.

Around 150 men who were being held captive in a school in the village are said to have been murdered in November 1992 – a crime listed in the indictment against Mladic.

Krsic said that a security officer notified him about the crime, saying: “There is a problem. The population in Grabovica has screwed things up.”

The witness said that he wasn’t in the village at the time of the killings, but when he was there, the detainees were not tied up and that “there were no actions against their dignity”.

During cross-examination, prosecutor Camille Bibles quoted an order from the Bosnian Serb Army to “cleanse” the territory around Kotor-Varos. The witness responded that order did not apply to the civilian population.

Krsic gave a similar response when the prosecutor asked about an order to Serb forces to shell the Stari Grad district in Kotor-Varos. He said that the order meant that enemy forces, not civilian homes, should be shelled.

The prosecutor argued that men captured and killed in the village of Grabovica were the responsibility of the Kotor-Varos Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army.

“Well, in a certain way, yes,” Krsic replied.

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is on trial for the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats from municipalities under Serbian control, one of which was Kotor-Varos. He is also accused of genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The trial continues on Monday.