Mladic Witness Recalls Bosnian Army Attack on Prijedor

Goran Dragojevic said that on the morning of May 30, 1992, he drove from the Prijedor hospital to a local hotel to pick up wounded individuals.

He said he drove an ambulance with rotation lights and wore a white coat with a Red Cross sign on it. After being attacked by unknown assailants, he was transferred to Belgrade, where he resided until 1994.

Dragojevic told the Hague Tribunal that before his attack, he helped Bosniak civilians evacuate the village of Kozorac, after Bosnian Serb forces attacked local Bosniak forces there.

He said many civilians were evacuated and were all transferred to a local football field.

“It was open. They could leave. If they had friends they stayed with them and those who stayed I think were waiting to go to Croatia,” Dragojevic said.

Dragojevic said Bosniak forces started the war in Prijedor with an attack on a police car and on Yugoslav Army forces in May 1992.

During cross examination, prosecutor Amir Zec said a large amount of of civilians were killed in an attack by Bosnian Serb forces on the village of Hambarine near Prijedor. Dragojevic said the attack hadn’t happened and that he hadn’t personally witnessed it.

Zec also stated that Bosniak doctors Dragojevic worked with were killed in Omarska. Dragojevic said he heard about their deaths after coming back from Belgrade in 1994, but didn’t know the details.

Dragojevic also denied knowledge of Bosniaks being detained at the Keraterm camp.

Prosecutor Zec presented a document which showed that Dragojevic was mobilized in May 1992, to which Dragojevic responded that he was only called upon for “working duty.”

Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with the persecution of Bosniaks, which reached the scale of genocide in several municipalities, among them Prijedor. He is also on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, crimes in Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

A new witness will testify for the defense on Monday.