Army Respected Rules of War
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Sanski Most is one of the seven Bosnian municipalities in which, as alleged in the indictment against Mladic, the persecution of the non-Serb population reached the scale of genocide.
While being cross-examined by the Prosecutor, Predojevic dissociated himself from the events that happened prior to his arrival in the town in late June 1992, claiming that he did not know what role the VRS had played in that period.
Also, he said that he had never received any orders that contradicted the laws and customs of war, which would order actions against civilians. As he said, there was an order to treat prisoners in accordance with the regulations.
The witness said that a criminal report was filed against the members of his Brigade, who killed Croat civilians in late 1992.
However, he said that one of the perpetrators soon returned to his unit, because it “was considered that being with his unit on the battlefield would be a more strict punishment for him than being held in prison”.
A Prosecution representative presented the witness with a court decision, according to which the perpetrators of that crime were released to liberty after having spent one month in detention, among other things, “because they said they wanted to go back to their unit.”
When asked about the crimes committed by members of that Brigade against Muslims in Vrhpolje village on May 25, 1992, the witness said that he only heard about it, considering the fact that he arrived in Sanski Most a month later.
He said that it was “not known” to him whether the Unit Commander undertook any measures against the perpetrators.
One of the perpetrators was sentenced for that and other crimes as late as in 2008, when the State Court of BiH sentenced him to 28 years’ imprisonment, the Prosecutor specified. Predojevic responded by saying that he did not know about it either, because he was “redeployed to Novi Sad in 1999”.
The trial is due to continue tomorrow, January 29.
Mladic is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica, terror against the local population in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.
