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Testifying in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Kijac said he had no knowledge of the mass killings of Srebrenica men that took place in July 1995. He told the judges that between July 14-18, 1995, the dates when most of the victims were killed, he was in Montenegro where his subordinate deputy was getting married.
The indictment has charged Mladic, the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, with orchestrating the genocide of approximately 7000 Srebrenica Bosniaks following the occupation of the town on July 11, 1995.
During cross-examination, prosecutor Arthur Traldi reminded Kijac that Studio B, a Belgrade-based TV station, aired footage on July 15, 1995, which showed the bodies of dozens of Bosniak victims. The footage was reported on by the Independent, a British newspaper, two days later.
“I didn’t have this information…I heard that Studio B reported on this and the footage was taken…Studio B was only watched in Belgrade,” Kijac said.
Traldi showed Kijac a document he signed in 1996, which reported that two witnesses came to the Hague to testify about war crimes in Srebrenica. Asked if the document indicated that he knew about Srebrenica war crimes, Kijac confirmed that he “reported this information to the Bosnian Serb justice ministry.”
He added, however, that “the information was not verified,” but were rumors. He said the report was sent to help the defense.
“People spoke of Srebrenica, the first information came, the first exhumations…It was normal that we had an interest to deny it,” Kijac said.
Prosecutors also concluded the cross-examination of GRM-097, a former British UN peacekeeping officer who said that the UNPROFOR command in Sarajevo believed that the Bosnian Serb Army wasn’t responsible for the mortar attack on the Markale Market in Sarajevo in February 1994.
Prosecutors disputed GRM-097’s testimony by stating that he had never analyzed an explosive crater, had no knowledge of other Bosnian Serb attacks on the day of the Markale attack and couldn’t read targeting manuals. GRM-097 confirmed these claims.
Mladic is also charged with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which allegedly reached the scale of genocide in six other municipalities, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
The trial continues on Thursday, October 22.
