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“I never received an order which was illegal and which was given by General Mladic. Never,” Grujo Boric, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Second Krajina Corps in Drvar in the west of the country, told Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday.
Boric also told the UN-backed court that the Second Krajina Corps never expelled Bosniaks and Croats from the area under its control.
“I never received a report about this. This never happened. If it had, I would have known and I would have taken steps to stop it,” said Boric.
Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, which allegedly reached the scale of genocide in some municipalities. Mladic is also on trial for the Srebrenica genocide, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
Boric testified that in the spring of 1992, when the Bosnian Serb Army Second Corps was formed, “most Muslims had left” the unit’s territory.
The fact that Bosniaks left and Serbs from other regions arrived was “not an issue for the military”, the witness said.
“This was an issue for the municipal authorities, the local ones and those from where Serbs came. We did nothing about this,” said Boric.
He explained that the police was in charge of operations within the Drvar area, while the Bosnian Serb Army only dealt with the frontlines.
Boric also said he had no knowledge that some of his subordinates inhumanely treated prisoners of war.
“I did not know of a single case. Maybe it happened – I do not know. Prisoners were under the care of the security organs and I was never told that something like that happened,” said the witness.
Mladic’s trial continues on Thursday.
