Sixth Battalion Command on the Frontline, Says Defense Witness at Stanisic and Milosevic Trial

Two defense witnesses testifying at the trial of Ostoja Stanisic and Marko Milosevic said the Sixth Battalion of the Zvornicka Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army had no involvement with Srebrenica prisoners.

Stanisic and Milosevic have been charged with the mass killing of approximately 1,000 Srebrenica civilians on a dam near Petkovci in mid July 1995. The indictment alleges that Stanisic was the commander of the Sixth Battalion, while Milosevic was his deputy.

According to the charges, the prisoners were held in a new school building in Petkovci prior to being taken to the dam.

Momcilo Stevanovic testified in Milosevic’s defense. Stevanovic said he was tasked with acquiring food supplies for the Sixth Battalion. He said he wasn’t at the battalion’s base every day.

“Sometimes I was there for two or three days, and on some occasions I was gone for five or six days,” Stevanovic said.

Stevanovic wasn’t able to specify on which dates in July 1995 he visited the Sixth Battalion Command, which was located in the village of Petkovci, near Zvornik. Stevanovic said when he was there he didn’t see senior officers visiting the command.

Stevanovic said he didn’t know if any members of the Battalion Command announced the arrival of prisoners from Srebrenica in Petkovci. He said he found out that prisoners had been brought to Petkovci later on, and that they’d been brought by some people who weren’t from the area.

Stevanovic said members of the Sixth Battalion were on the frontline at the time.

Dragan Acimovic, who also testified in Milosevic’s defense, told the court he used some days off in order to travel from his unit’s base in Kozluk in the municipality of Zvornik to his home in Petkovci.

He said he visited Petkovci after July 12, 1995, when he heard stories about captives who were brought to the town.

He said local residents told him they didn’t know the men who had brought the captives to Petkovci. When asked whether any members of the command called on them to guard the captives, Acimovic said they weren’t.

“The command was situated on the frontline with the soldiers,” Acimovic said. When asked by prosecutor Predrag Tomic how he knew that, Acimovic said he heard about it from the residents of Petkovci.

Acimovic said his acquaintance Milan Radovic told him he heard gunfire from the direction of the new school. Radovic said he smelled an unpleasant odor and asked him for a cistern.

Responding to questions by the prosecution, Acimovic said he didn’t ask Radovic what the source of the unpleasant odor was or what he wanted to wash with the cistern water. The prosecutor expressed disbelief that Acimovic didn’t know this information, but knew that the command was situated on the frontline.

The trial will continue on July 15.