Bosnian Witness Accuses Naser Oric of Shooting Prisoner

A protected prosecution witness told the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo on Monday that he saw Bosniak commander Naser Oric shoot a Serb prisoner of war in June 1992.

The protected witness codenamed O-1 told the court that Oric was his commander in the Bosnian Army and he was standing nearby when the defendant opened fire.

He said that during a military operation in the village of Zalazje, he saw captives in front of one of the houses, some of them uniformed and some in civilian clothes. According to the witness’s testimony, Oric interrogated and beat one of the captives.

“He certainly hit him two or three times… He hit him with the blade of a knife. You could see blood pouring from that part immediately,” O-1 said, adding that the captive’s hands were tied behind his back.

He said he also encouraged Oric to hit the captive.

“A lot of blood was pouring out of his eye. The commander interrogated him again. It turned out later on that he had no eye. He was killed later. The commander took a rifle and fired a round at him in front of the house where we were standing,” the witness said.

Oric and his Bosnian Army subordinate Sabahudin Muhic are being retried for the killings of three Serb prisoners in the villages of Zalazje, Lolici and Kunjerac in the Bratunac and Srebrenica areas in 1992.

The retrial is being held after the state court’s appeals chamber quashed the original acquittal of Oric and Muhic in June this year. They deny the charges.

The original trial was highly controversial because Oric is seen as a hero by many Bosniaks for his role in defending Srebrenica in the years before the 1995 massacres, while some Serbs have claimed that the charges against him should have been more severe.

The defence will cross-examine witness O-1 on Tuesday.