Serbian Red Berets ‘Expelled, Tortured and Killed Bosniaks’

The witness, who was a member of the Red Berets, said the order for the expulsion of the Bosniaks was issued by the unit’s commander, Radojica Bozovic.

The prosecutors made a link between Bozovic and the Serbian State Security Service by introducing as evidence a video recording made during a parade of Red Berets veterans in 1997.

The video showed Bozovic being introduced to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic as a colonel with the Special Operations Unit of the Serbian State Security Service.

Milosevic then told him: “Hello Bozovic, I read your reports.”

Stanisic, the former chief of the Serbian State Security Service, and his former assistant Simatovic are on trial for persecution, murders and deportations during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to the charges, the Red Berets were under the control of the Serbian State Security Service.

The indictment alleges that Stanisic and Simatovic committed their crimes as part of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at forcibly and permanently removing Croats and Bosniaks from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would then be incorporated into a unified Serb state. The enterprise was allegedly led by Milosevic.

The protected witness, codenamed RFJ-165, a Serb from Doboj, described having been trained at a Red Berets camp on Mount Ozren, which was commanded by Bozovic, in April 1992.

He said policemen from Doboj informed him that Bozovic and instructors at the camp were members of the Serbian State Security Service.

Prior to an attack on Doboj on May 7, 1992, Bozovic and other instructors ordered members of Red Berets to expel the Muslim population, witness RFJ-165 said.

“They told us that all Muslims had to be removed from that area,” the witness said

He added that “there was no significant organised resistance by the Muslims”.

Bosniak men, particularly influential and wealthy ones, were then detained, tortured and killed, while women and children were forcibly relocated, witness RFJ-165 said.

“Those were doctors, influential people, who were not even devoted to the Muslim religion… A doctor, who saved lives, was beaten just because his name was Amir,” he told the court.

During his testimony via video link, witness RFJ-165 also said he was an eyewitness to the burial of bodies of people killed on Mount Ozren.

“While I was on Ozren, I saw them put bodies into graves, I cannot tell you the exact number. I know that a number of Muslims of great influence and financial power went missing at that time,” witness RFJ-165 said, adding that Bozovic also attended the burial.

The witness further testified that a group of Red Berets members was tasked with “killing civilians”.

“One disabled woman was alone in Jahovac. There was nothing they could take away from her, so they entered her house, came out and threw a bomb into the house over their shoulder,” RFJ-165 recalled.

When asked by prosecutor Edward Russo how he knew that the group tasked with committing murders consisted of Red Berets members, the witness said: “They had the same markings and berets as us… we knew each other.”

Stanisic and Simatovic both pleaded not guilty in December 2015 after the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia overturned their acquittal in their first trial.

The appeals chamber ruled that there were serious legal and factual errors when Stanisic and Simatovic were initially acquitted of war crimes in 2013, and ordered the case to be retried and all the evidence and witnesses reheard in full by new judges.

The trial continues on Wednesday.