Hague Prosecutors Dispute Mladic’s Ballistic Expert

During cross examination, prosecutor Adam Weber on Thursday suggested that Subotic did not possess the right expertise to dispute allegations in the indictment that Bosnian Serb forces fired the mortar missiles that killed dozens of Sarajevo citizens in the war.

Weber said that Subotic was not a forensic expert or a military or explosives expert. Subotic confirmed she was none of the above, but added that she had “learnt a lot about explosives”.

She also accepted the prosecutors’ claim that she never analyzed a crater from a missile within the context of an investigation.

Discussing Subotic’s claim that the killings in the Markale marketplace in 1994 were not caused by a mortar missile but by a stationary explosive, Weber asked whether an additional explosive device would have had to have been used to detonate the stationary device.

The ballistic expert accepted this, and added that after the explosion, the remains of the second device could have been found. Subotic said that the remains “would have been minimal” if an electric device was used.

“If those remains weren’t found, you cannot claim they were there?”, the prosecutor asked, to which Subotic replied: “Of course I cannot”.

Mladic is charged as commander of Bosnian Serb forces with terrorising the population of Sarajevo through shelling and sniping, and with two attacks on Sarajevo Markale market in which around 100 persons were killed.

He is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica and other municipalities, with the persecution of non-Serbs across the country and with taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The prosecutor also suggested that Subotic electronically modified an image of a crater from tha blast on May 27, 1992 in Sarajevo’s Vase Miskina Street, which killed 28 people who stood in line waiting for bread.

“This is not true, of course. Those photographs are in the documentation,” said Subotic.

The Hague prosecutors will continue cross-examining Subotic on Monday.