Protected Witness Describes Petkovci Killings

Srecko Boskovic, a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with murdering a boy in July 1995, while Serb soldiers were killing Bosniaks at the Red Dam plateau in Zvornik after the fall of Srebrenica. Boskovic allegedly told the boy that he was free to leave, and then shot him with an automatic weapon.

Protected witness SB-6 said he left Srebrenica along with other male residents and headed towards Tuzla on July 11, 1995. He said that after having walked through the woods for two days, he joined a group of men who decided to surrender.

He told the court they were held at several locations and that he was taken to a school building in Petkovci in the municipality of Zvornik on July 14 or 15, 1995. According to his testimony, approximately 200 men and three or four young boys were held in one classroom.

SB-6 said they were ordered to come out in groups of four and take off their clothes. He said their hands were then tied together with strong rope.

“When they tied us up, I knew it was the end. I knew they would kill us,” SB-6 said, testifying from a separate room with his face and voice altered.

He said as he was exiting the school building he saw blood and 10-15 bodies on the ground floor. He said they were transported by truck to a plateau on the dam.

“I saw an entire field of people. They were lying dead with their faces turned toward the ground,” SB-6 said, specifying that he saw this in the area of the dam plateau.

He said soldiers began shooting at their backs and that he was “lightly wounded on his head and legs.” Afterwards, he crawled through dead bodies.

SB-6 said he came across a wounded young man, and the two of them decided to run away together when they heard the sound of vehicles approaching. He said they went down a canal. While they were in the canal, they heard shooting and machines at work.

SB-6 said they then headed towards a nearby village and saw bodies being loaded onto a tractor, which were then transported to a location unknown to them.

The trial chamber told prosecutor Predrag Tomic that SB-6’s testimony wasn’t questionable, but that he had to acquire evidence related to the case at hand.

Tomic responded by saying that this testimony was relevant, because a witness who had been assigned the pseudonym of SB-5, would testify about new circumstances.

The trial will continue on April 17.