The Srebrenica Genocide in the Words of its Perpetrators

Part one: Planning

The year 1992

In order to achieve the strategic goal adopted at the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina to erase the Drina River as a border separating the Serbian people, the then general and commander of the VRS Main Headquarters Ratko Mladic signed Directive 4. This stated that “as many losses as possible should be inflicted and [the enemy] forced to leave the areas of Birac, Zepa and Gorazde together with the Muslim population”.

Ratko Mladic

The Hague Prosecutor’s Office introduced the document Directive 4 as evidence, upon the basis of which he would later be convicted under a final judgment of genocide and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Because of this order, a large number of refugees from eastern Bosnia took refuge in Srebrenica. Mladic refused to testify about this in The Hague, or about other events in the summer of 1995.

Directive 4

“To inflict as many losses as possible [on the enemy] and force them to leave the Birac, Zepa and Gorazde areas together with the Muslim population.”

Ratko Mladic, Chief of the Main Headquarters of the Republika Srpska Army, November 11, 1992

The year 1995

In March 1995, the then President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, issued Directive 7, which many lawyers and other experts call an introduction to the genocide, to separate Srebrenica from Zepa.

Directive 7

“With combat operations that are planned from day to day and well thought-out, create conditions of total insecurity, intolerability and hopelessness for the further survival and life of residents in Srebrenica.”

Directive 7, which was subsequently supplemented by Mladic (Directive 7.1), ordered the Drina Corps of the VRS to undertake “active combat operations around the enclave”.

Part two: Preparation and inducement of panic

The VRS decided to block humanitarian aid and limit the logistical support for UN peacekeeping forces, as Momir Nikolic, head of security of the Bratunac Brigade testified before the Hague Tribunal. Answering questions about the months before the ‘Krivaja 95’ operation, the code name for the Srebrenica operation, Nikolic said that civilians were put at risk with daily sniper attacks, and that they limited convoys with aid and supplies for the UN Dutch Battalion. At that time, the UN Security Council had already adopted Resolution 819, declaring Srebrenica the first “protected zone” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Momir Nikolic

“I had justified objections about sniping targets that were not military targets, about shooting at people who were in front of the lines, and in most cases, they were civilians who were ploughing land and mowing and so on. ... I personally attempted to prevent that. I didn’t succeed to a great extent, because there was simply no cooperation from many parts over the fact that civilians should not be sniped at and shot at.”

June 1995

In June 1995, members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad entered Srebrenica through the Sase mine tunnel. Franc Kos, a Slovenian by origin, admitted when he testified before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that he also participated in this operation around June 20.

“It was an operation on the orders of Petar Salapura. Going through the tunnel to enter Srebrenica (...) where we fired a few shoulder-launched rockets, grenades, and fired a few rounds down there, and then we went back,” said Kos, who estimated that the operation lasted about five minutes.

The goal was to induce panic among the population, he admitted, adding that the operation was commanded by Momir Pelemis, who the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina acquitted of genocide charges in 2013.

“To induce panic, as if they were fighting among themselves. That was our task,” Kos said of the night’s action.

Nikolic knew Kos and other members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad. He said that, at one point, they were carrying out tasks in the Bratunac Brigade’s zone of responsibility, a brigade to which he himself belonged.

Testifying in the Popovic et al case in The Hague, he also confirmed their “incursion” into the enclave before the Srebrenica operation, together with members of the Bratunac Brigade.

One tunnel of the old Sase mine led to Srebrenica, Nikolic said, describing where the soldiers went.

“Automatic weapons were used, a Zolja was used, I am not sure about an Osa, these are rocket launchers, but I am sure about the Zolja ... According to reports by members of the Dutch Battalion, there were civilians who were killed as a result of this attack.”

Nikolic could not specify the exact number of civilian casualties.

Initially, the Dutch Battalion did not know who carried out the attack, he said, because the word was that those gathered around [Bosnian Army officer] Naser Oric and, on the other side, those around the chief of the [police] Public Security Station were conflicting each other within Srebrenica. Later on, they determined that these were not conflicts within the enclave. Of course, no one admitted it was an attack by a Serb unit, Nikolic stated.

Oric was acquitted of charges of committing crimes in Srebrenica and Bratunac under final judgments handed down in The Hague and by the Bosnian State Court.

Franc Kos before the Court of BiH and Momir Nikolic in The Hague testify about the attack through the Sase tunnel

July 1995

On July 2, Milenko Zivanovic, commander of the Drina Corps, issued an order for the operation called Krivaja 95, which was intended to completely separate Srebrenica from Zepa.

The order stated that the Drina Corps Command had “the task of carrying out offensive activities” and staging “a surprise attack ... to create conditions for the elimination of the enclaves”.

Zivanovic said he did not write the part of the order calling for the “elimination of the enclaves”, but that it was written by the headquarters.

“They criticise me for attacking the [UN-]protected zone. What protected zone? I attacked the protected division, the Muslims, the 28^th [division of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina], which was at its command post in Srebrenica,” Zivanovic told a trial in Belgrade.

Part three: Taking Srebrenica

July 9 – 11, 1995

Late on July 9, 1995, Karadzic issued a new order, giving the VRS Drina Corps the green light to take the town of Srebrenica. Houses were burned and buildings destroyed.

Former Republika Srpska Army officer Vinko Pandurevic, who had served his 13-year prison sentence by 2015 for aiding the Srebrenica genocide, testified on behalf of Zivanovic at the Belgrade court.

Pandurevic, whose brigade was part of the Drina Corps, said that on July 11, Zivanovic was “formally still the commander, but de facto he did not interfere in the conduct of Krivaja 95” because he was replaced by Radislav Krstic as the commander of the Drina Corps. Krstic was sentenced in The Hague to 35 years in prison.

In at least three verdicts, the Hague Tribunal determined that the shelling of Srebrenica on July 10 and 11, 1995 was intended to intimidate the Bosniak population and run them out of town.

In one of the cases in The Hague, Pandurevic spoke about the attacks on July 10 and 11, and the taking of elevated that were important to the assaults.

“East of the town itself, combat group Two, i.e. two companies made up from the Battalion, took over the closest buildings above the town in a firing formation; part of the Podrinje Detachment passed through the town, while part took a building to the west of the town, literally above the street,” Pandurevic said, adding that he was moving along the main road that led directly to the town of Srebrenica.

Ratko Mladic gives a statement to the media after entering Srebrenica.

Pandurevic testified that when he entered the town in the afternoon of July 11, he saw members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad and other units, which should not have been there at all, he said, as well as general Ratko Mladic, whose triumphant entry into Srebrenica became one of the most publicly shown recordings from the scene.

“Here we are, in Serb Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. On the eve of another great Serbian holy day, we are giving this town to the Serbian people. The time has finally come to settle scores with the Turks for the first time since the uprising against Ottoman rule,” Mladic said.

Franc Kos also confirmed that he was in Srebrenica that day, and that he saw one man slaughtered.

“The order was to assemble all the civilians in one place. There were old women, disabled people ... we escorted them and left them to the military police,” Kos said.

In the evening, Pandurevic left for Bratunac to meet Mladic and other officers at the Bratunac Brigade Command, where they would determine the fate of the people from Srebrenica, and passed through Potocari, where more than 6,750 genocide victims have been buried to date.

“I would call it struggling through the crowd of people, rather than passing. I regretted having gone that way, because there was a huge number of people on the road and around the road, and it was difficult to get by,” Pandurevic said.

Thousands of Srebrenica residents had fled to Potocari seeking protection in the UN’s compound. By the evening of July 11, around 20,000 to 25,000 refugees had gathered, and several thousand of them entered the UN compound itself, while others settled in nearby factories and fields, as the Hague Tribunal concluded.

According to Momir Nikolic, civilians who were moving from the direction of Srebrenica towards Potocari that afternoon were targeted with a B1 cannon from positions held by the Second Infantry Battalion. These civilians were later taken care of by members of the Dutch Battalion, he said.

Part four: Separating the men from the others

July 12

After taking Srebrenica in July 1995, Serb forces came up with and carried out a plan to execute as many able-bodied Bosniak men in the enclave as possible, judges in The Hague said. On July 11 and 12, 1995, three meetings were held between VRS officers, UNPROFOR, and representatives of Srebrenica residents at the Fontana Hotel in Bratunac, at which the thousands of people in Potocari were discussed, as evidenced by recordings and by Momir Nikolic, who said that at the time they also had information about the withdrawal of men through the forests in the Jaglic and Susnjari area.

As he told the court, he knew from two previous meetings what was being planned, and after talking to colonel Vujadin Popovic and Kosoric before the third meeting in front of the Fontana Hotel on the morning of July 12, and to one of them after the meeting as well, he was told that the civilians and those unfit for military service would be transferred to Kladanj, while men suspected of “war crimes” would be separated. Popovic was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Svetozar Kosoric, an officer in the Drina Crops of VRS, is unavailable to judicial authorities.

“However, they did not only separate able-bodied men [from the others], which was partly the case in the first convoy ... but simply, all men in the area of Potocari were separated [from the others],” he recalled.

He asked Popovic what would happen to those men, and he told him that “all the Balis [derogatory term for Muslims] should be killed”. Nikolic suggested to Popovic that the men be locked in the Vuk Karadzic school, an old school and a hangar in Bratunac.

“I am obliged to explain that what happened in front of the Fontana was no meeting, that is the thing I want to point out.

So, on that day, on the 12th, the third meeting between the Dutch Battalion forces, representatives of the Muslim side, the civil authorities of Bratunac, and representatives of the Interior Ministry, the police and the VRS, was scheduled at 10 o’clock. You have the participants in that meeting, but I think there is no need for me to list them.

Right before the meeting, we saw each other - Mr. Popovic was supposed to be and was a participant in the third meeting, we saw each other in front of the Fontana Hotel, and very briefly – for five, seven minutes, not longer than ten. We did not stick around in front of the Fontana Hotel.

The conversation went something like this. I asked what would happen next.

I was aware of the entire conversation, I knew from the previous two meetings what was planned, what the mood was, but I asked what would happen next.

Mr. Popovic said that probably, Muslim forces - that is civilians, women, children and those unfit for military service; the complete civilian structure - would be transferred to territory under Muslim control, which meant the town of Kladanj.

He then said that a so-called triage would be carried out to see and separate able-bodied men, to separate those who committed war crimes, or those suspected of war crimes. However, I am obliged to provide one more explanation.

After all this, something happened that was absolutely not planned, nor did I understand from the conversation with Popovic that this would happen. This means that, except in the first convoy and that happened only partially, not all the men were separated in a few buses and a few trucks, but rather, all men who were present in the Potocari area at the time and intended to get on the buses were simply singled out, they were separated from their families and detained in Potocari.”

“So, I asked Mr. Popovic what would happen to these people, because, to be honest, it was not clear to me even then why these people were being separated [from the others], and what the goal was. Basically, I was told, i.e. Popovic said, in his own way: ‘All the Balijas [derogatory term for Muslims] should be killed.’ And that was his answer to my question about what the goal was concerning these people. That was, in short, the conversation between me and Popovic.”

“Given the circumstances and the situation - that those people would be separated from the others, I then said that the only space in Bratunac where the separated Muslims could be detained were facilities located in Bratunac, namely the Vuk Karadzic school, the hangar, and facilities located within a radius of 70 to 100 metres in that part of the town, which later ... meaning, all those who were separated from the others were transferred to the Vuk Karadzic primary school, the hangar, the old school in Bratunac. That is what happened.

After the meeting, I had the same conversation, with similar content, with Mr. Kosoric, who also said that all the Muslims would be deported, transferred to the Kladanj area, that a military triage would be carried out and able-bodied men separated from the others, which means it was exactly the same conversation as with Mr. Kosoric.”

Part of Momir Nikolic's testimony in The Hague.

At the same time, a huge number of residents who were at the compound on July 12 experienced torture, while soldiers took some of them away and executed them, and girls and women were raped. In fear, some even committed suicide, although Mladic told them that everything would be fine while visiting them that day, and he said the same to other prisoners at several more locations.

On July 12 and 13, 1995, women, children and elderly people were loaded onto buses and transported, under the control of VRS forces, from Potocari to the Bosnian Army’s territory near Kladanj.

Satellite image of the stream during July 13, 1995

As stated in verdicts in the trials of Radislav Krstic, thousands of captured Bosniaks were executed, almost to the last man. Some were killed individually or in small groups, and some were killed at locations where they were temporarily detained. Most of them were killed in carefully-planned mass executions, starting in the Bratunac area and Zvornik on July 13, 1995, until July 17, 1995.

It has been established that a third of people in the convoy that set out from the Srebrenica area towards territory controlled by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina was armed, but, once the convoy was broken up into several parts and thousands of men and boys were captured, not the slightest effort was made to separate civilians from soldiers, and also, members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina who were captured were not actively participating in combat when they were killed.

Part five: Mass killings

July 13 - Sandici

Two days after the capture of Srebrenica, on July 13, most of the men in the convoy were captured. Several thousand of them were assembled in a meadow near Sandici, or near it. In the meadow, Ramo Osmanovic called out to his son Nermin, because they were promised no harm would be done to them. A video, which VRS soldiers filmed at the time, was used in The Hague as evidence. Both were killed, and their bodies were found buried.

Ramo Osmanovic calls his son Nermin

"Nermin, come all of you freely. To the Serbs"

Nikolic, who was the chief of the intelligence and security affairs authority of the First Light Bratunac Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army in July 1995, recounted having passed several times along “the route” between Bratunac and Konjevic Polje, where he saw captured Bosniaks, on July 13, 1995.

“About 30 captured people were in the meadow in Sandici. I did not stop, nor did I talk to anyone. Later, I went along that route and there were many captured people moving in columns, and calls for surrender were also being made,” he said, adding that he passed along that route on the evening of the same day when he went to Zvornik.

Dragan Crnogorac, who was sentenced to 13 years, admitted to the shooting in Sandici before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“I genuinely repent, despite not being able to prevent anything at that moment. I feel responsible and I would give anything to not have had to do it,” Crnogorac said.

July 13 - Kravica

A footage the distance between Sandici and the warehouse in Kravica

About 1,500 men were taken from the meadow in Sandici to a warehouse in Kravica. They were pushed into the warehouse, after they were shot at and bombs were thrown. Years later, traces have remained on the walls.

Towards the evening of the 13th, Franc Kos went from the Command in Vlasenica towards Konjevic-Polje, and then to Bratunac. They stopped in Kravica, because some officers were there, he said. They were told that some people had been killed.

Momir Nikolić

“I saw a parked bus and dead people lying in front of the hangar,” Kos said while testifying before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also saying that there were perhaps about 20 bodies in front of the hangar.

He said that from the entrance, he saw people moaning and crying out inside.

While cross-examining the prosecution’s investigator Dusan Janc during the trial in 2012, Radovan Karadzic admitted that there were prisoners in Kravica, but played down the number. He said that, according to his information, there were only about 150 prisoners in Kravica. He also claimed that “there was no planned and prepared execution” in Kravica, but that the prisoners were killed following an incident in which a Bosniak had grabbed a rifle from a Serb guard and killed him.

Petar Mitrovic, who was convicted of genocide, said before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that, in liner with order to secure the road, he spent two days in the vicinity of the hangar in Kravica with the Second Special Police Detachment from Sekovici.

He said there were no killings in that period, but after an incident, he saw dead people in front of the hangar.

“The lives of police officers were endangered. I did not see the incident. I heard later that someone had taken a rifle and that 15 to 20 people had been killed. They were members of the 28th Bosniak Division, not civilians,” Mitrovic said.

And while many others called the Kravica crime an incident, justified it or diminished it in other ways, Vaso Todorovic, a former member of a Special Police Detachment from Sekovici, signed a plea agreement before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and admitted that, on July 13, 1995, he participated in the capture and murders of more than 1,000 Bosniaks in the hangar in Kravica.

Milivoje Cirkovic admitted that on the following day, July 14, 1995, in his capacity as member of the Jahorina Training Centre of the Interior Ministry of Republika Srpska, acting on the order of his commander, he killed one civilian by shooting him in the back, in the vicinity of the Kravica Agricultural Cooperative (Bratunac municipality).

July 13 - Nova Kasaba, Zvornik and Bratunac

On July 13, the captured men were also taken to Konjevic-Polje, and to a football field in Nova Kasaba.

During the night, a large number of prisoners were held in the Vuk Karadzic school, from where they were taken out and beaten up, while some were taken away and killed, as well as on the Jadar River, where 17 men were shot dead. On the same day, a number of men were killed in Cerska, and a mass grave containing about 150 bodies was found nearby.

Many were transferred to Zvornik and the area around it, where numerous crimes were committed.

Momir Nikolić

July 14

A large group of prisoners who were held in Bratunac overnight were taken in a convoy of buses to a school in Grbavci, near Orahovac, in the early morning of July 14, 1995. Between 1,000 and 2,500 people were executed.

Nikolic confirmed that, in the morning of July 14, the escorting of “Muslim refugees in a convoy going to Zvornik” was organised.

Drago Nikolic i Vinko Pandurevic

During his testimony in The Hague, Nikolic was shown a daily report by the Military Police Unit of the First Bratunac Light Infantry Brigade (on screen 49:52). The page referring to July 14 and 15 states that the police were engaged in escorting Muslim refugees. Nikolic said that, on the morning of the 14th, the Bratunac Brigade Police, or parts of it, participated in escorting Muslim refugees in a convoy going to Zvornik. When asked who this referred to, he said: “These were Muslims who had been separated in Potocari on July 12 and 13, and Muslims who had been captured on the Bratunac-Kravica-Konjevic-Polje route during those days, and transferred to Bratunac, which means that all the Muslims who had been captured on that route and placed in Vuk Karadzic school and other facilities were transported by buses and trucks to Zvornik on the 14th.”

He said that Miroslav Deronjic insisted that the prisoners be taken to Zvornik. Deronjic, the president of the Crisis Staff in Bratunac, who was sentenced to ten years in prison, has since died.

“All the officers knew about the killings in the Zvornik area,” Nikolic claimed during one of his testimonies.

Dragan Obrenovic said that, in the evening of the 13th, he learned that the prisoners would be brought to the Zvornik area, which was conveyed to him over the phone by Drago Nikolic on the orders of Popovic, he testified. Nikolic was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He has since died.

“The order was to not take these prisoners to the Batkovic detention camp, because the Red Cross and UNPROFOR knew about it, but to bring them to Zvornik and shoot them there,” he said, adding that Drago Nikolic conveyed to him that he should provide support.

“I said we could not accept such obligation without the knowledge of our commander and superior command, to which he replied that Mladic personally had ordered it, that everyone knew about it, including Lieutenant-Colonel Pandurevic, and that Beara and Popovic personally would carry it out,” Obrenovic, deputy commander of the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, said.

Obrenovic was asked to put the military police company at his disposal.

“I told him I had deployed them to an ambush ... Then he asked for at least the company commander, Miomir Jasikovac, with at least one military police squad, to which I said I would see what I could do,” Obrenovic said, adding that, by agreeing to put part of the military police at his disposal, he practically approved their participation in these operations.

July 15

A large group of prisoners was taken to a school in Petkovci on July 14. On July 15, about 800 people were taken to the dam in Petkovci and killed. More prisoners from Bratunac were transported by buses to a school in the village of Pilica, north of Zvornik, where several men died due to heat and dehydration in the school gym, while some were taken out, after which gunfire was heard. They did not return.

Entrance to the school in Petkovci

Testifying in The Hague on October 1, 2003, Obrenovic said that the commander of the Sixth Battalion, Ostoja Stanisic, whose command post was in Petkovci, two kilometres away from the dam, said that prisoners were brought to the school in Petkovci on the 14th.

Dragan Obrenovic on shootings

Did he mention any names?

He mentioned Colonel Beara, that Beara had brought that group of prisoners, that they had organised the shooting there.

Did he tell you which units carried out that execution?

He did not tell me that at the time.

I found out later that members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad from Vlasenica had been involved there.

Does this change your responsibility regarding those killings near Petkovci? No, it does not.

Stanisic was sentenced to five years in Bosnia and Herzegovina for aiding the genocide.

“He mentioned to me that a group of soldiers had been shot in the new school in Petkovci the day before, right inside the school and in the facilities around the school, that he had engaged his rear detachment to drive the people away, and to clean up later on ... he was annoyed,” Obrenovic said.

July 16

“When the bus arrived at the farm, as I said, Brano Gojkovic, the group commander, told us how to set up a firing squad, and two military policemen took groups of ten Muslims from Srebrenica out of the bus, and Brano Gojkovic and Vlastimir Golijan then brought them to the firing squad.”

This is what Drazen Erdemovic said in November 1996, describing the shooting at the Branjevo farm on July 16, 1995, in which he participated alongside other members of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad.

He used a Kalashnikov, and, as the perpetrators themselves confirmed, on that day they also killed people from Srebrenica with a light machine gun (M84 machine gun).

“They took half of the bus out, and took them there, to the field, near the machine gun ... The lad fired … We stood there,” Franc Kos said, claiming that Zoran Goronja operated the machine gun.

Goronja told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the Slovenian (Franc Kos) told him that someone should be on duty at the machine gun, to which he agreed, thinking that there was no need to use it. In the end, he said he was shooting.

“The execution of those people started normally,” Goronja said.

But people did not die immediately, so they shot at them again.

“I personally shot people in the head,” Kos said, and the buses kept coming until between 1,000 and 1,500 people were killed on the farm.

“It was like in a movie; I felt completely terrified. … Franc took a rifle, went up to these people - I am now telling the real truth, not the one he told - and Isaid: ‘A lot of ammunition is being wasted, from now on we we’ll do it like this: one man, one bullet to the back of the head,’” Stanko Kojic told the State Court, also saying that when he heard Erdemovic protest, he protested too.

Pripadnici 10. Diverzantskog voda o strijeljanjima na Branjevu

Many of the participants said they had to carry out this task, so as not to be killed themselves, and Erdemovic stated that they were subsequently sought for the murders in Pilica, at the Cultural Centre, which he refused to carry out. About 500 captives were killed at the Cultural Centre in Pilica, while some of the accessories to the killings at Branjevo were having drinks in Ljubo’s Cafe across the street to cool off.

MR. HARMON: Mr. Erdemovic, you said that the Lieutenant-Colonel you had seen earlier that morning returned to the farm during the shooting. Is this correct?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes, at the end.

In your opinion, did he see the dead bodies that were lying there?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes, of course, he saw them.

Did he comment when seeing these corpses?

ERDEMOVIC: He did not say anything, but he said that about 500 more Muslims from Srebrenica were in the village of Pilica, and he said to go there and to finish that job as well. I then said loudly that I would not do it, I did not want to kill anymore, I was no one’s robot for the destruction of people. Then other individuals from my unit supported me, and we didn’t go, but a group from Bratunac went.

HARMON: Allow me to ask you, can you name the other members of your detachment who supported you in refusing to continue the killing in Pilica?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes: Franc Kos, Marko Boskic and Zoran Goronja.

Erdemovic, why did you refuse to execute the additional task?

ERDEMOVIC: Well, because I could no longer take it.

HARMON: You said, Mr. Erdemovic, that other soldiers agreed to carry out that order. Is that true?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes. The soldiers from Bratunac left straight away with the Lieutenant-Colonel.

HARMON: Do you know where they went?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes, I heard the Lieutenant-Colonel say that there were 500 Muslims in the village of Pilica, in the [Cultural] Centre, and allegedly they wanted to break down the door and get out of the Centre.

HARMON: Did you eventually, that same day, go to Pilica?

ERDEMOVIC: Yes. Brano then said that the Lieutenant-Colonel told him to come, that he should hold a meeting in the village of Pilica later on. We went to the place the Lieutenant-Colonel told us, and that place was located not far from that Centre, in fact across the street from the Centre. When we arrived at the place where the Lieutenant-Colonel told us to report, I heard gunshots and, how shall I put it, hand grenades exploding inside that building.

HARMON: How far were you from that building, Mr. Erdemovic?

ERDEMOVIC: I think about 70 to 100 metres.

HARMON: Do you know if people were being killed inside that building?

ERDEMOVIC: Well, they were probably being killed since there were gunshots and explosions.

"Erdemovic's testimony in The Hague"

“We had a drink, and headed towards Dragasevac,” said Vlastimir Golijan, who also said that, before arriving in Branjevo, members of his squad went to the Standard military barracks in Karakaj.

Numerous judgements in The Hague and before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina have established that this was not the end of the killings. On undetermined dates, murders were committed in Rocevic and 800 people were killed in a gravel pit in Kozluk. After the fall of Srebrenica, six Bosniaks were killed in Godinjske Bare, near Trnovo, and on July 23, at least 39 Bosniaks were killed in Bisina after having been captured in the Vlasenica area, transported to the site by truck and executed.

School in Rocevicu

Srecko Acimovic, who was convicted under a final verdict delivered by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina of aiding the detention of Bosniak men brought from the area of Srebrenica in a school in the village of Rocevic, near Zvornik, and assisting in their killing on the banks of Drina near Kozluk, testified in several cases.

“I knew - that is, I found out - that there were prisoners in the village of Rocevic. Later on, the wider public was able to find out what was happening, it could be learned from the media that there were prisoners at several locations - Branjevo, Orahovac, Petkovci, Rocevic,” he stated during his testimony, adding that he personally saw the bodies of those who were killed next to the school toilets.

He also testified that he would find out later that the Main Headquarters had asked him to deploy a squad of soldiers for an execution.

Srecko Acimovic about the transfer of bodies

“We received an encrypted cable, which ordered us to engage one squad of soldiers who would be used to execute the captives.”

“First of all, this had a shocking effect on me, on my associates, as we had never been in such a situation, we could not believe someone was giving us orders like that…”

Part six: Hiding bodies in graves

After the genocide, other orders were issued to dig up the primary graves.

Dragan Obrenovic recounted that, in September, he conveyed to Lieutenant-Colonel Pandurevic the information delivered to him by Popovic, that Trbic should collect five tons of oil.

“That day, Pandurevic went to the Corps Command. We spoke the next day, and he conveyed to me that Popovic would dig up those primary graves again and relocate them,” Obrenovic said.

A document signed by Ratko Mladic

He stated that he remembered having seen Pandurevic with a topographic map. Later on, he went to Krajina, and on his return, around October 20, 1995, he learned that the digging had taken place in that period and that the bodies had been carried from the places where the captives from Srebrenica had been shot and buried at some other locations under the control of Ljubisa Beara and Vujadin Popovic, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide.

Dragan Obrenovic about the transfer of bodies

Captain Trbic handled and disposed of that oil, which they put into the mechanical diggers and trucks transporting the bodies of the people who had been shot.

Nikolic said that the term “sanitisation” was used, and it was carried out by order of the VRS’s Main Headquarters.

“That was the information I heard from Popovic and Vidoje Blagojevic,” Nikolic said.

What is meant by ‘sanitisation’ is relocation, digging up a grave in the village of Glogova and relocating it to the Srebrenica area into secondary graves, he said in The Hague.

Slavko Peric, who the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced to 11 years in prison, said he heard about the relocation of graves later, in October 1995.

“The relocation of corpses was carried out on the Branjevo farm,” he said, adding that he did not know more details.

The bodies of people killed at Branjevo were dug up and transferred to secondary graves at Cancarski Put, while those killed in Kravica were buried in Glogova and Ravnice, at a site that was classified as a primary grave, and then transferred to secondary graves in Zeleni Jadar, Bljeceva, Budak and Zalazje. The bodies of those killed in Petkovci were dug up and buried in secondary graves in Liplje. The bodies from Kozluk were dug up and buried in secondary graves at Cancarski Put.

After the executions, genocide victims were buried in primary graves, and later dug up and reburied in secondary graves during September and October 1995

The bodies of about 1,000 people who were killed in the Srebrenica genocide are still being searched for.

Many courts have accepted that between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in July 1995.

A total of 54 people have been convicted of genocide and other crimes in Srebrenica.

In June 2021, former VRS Commander Mladic was sentenced by the International Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals to life imprisonment for the genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, terrorising the citizens of Sarajevo, and taking UNPROFOR members hostage

In March 2019, the Mechanism sentenced Karadzic to life imprisonment for the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising the population of Sarajevo during the siege of the city, and holding UNPROFOR members hostage.

Part seven: Reflections

Ljubisa Beara, who died in prison in Germany, was sentenced to life imprisonment. As a witness at the Hague Tribunal, he stated that at the time of the events in Srebrenica, he knew nothing about them, although he was then the Chief of Security of the Main Headquarters of the Army of Republika Srpska.

“What happened was a curse, horrifying, but all that has been pinned on three men from the VRS security service,” Beara said at Karadzic’s trial.

Momir Nikolic is one of three Hague defendants who admitted to crimes in Srebrenica. Dragan Obrenovic, deputy commander of the VRS Zvornik Brigade, and Drazen Erdemovic of the Tenth Reconnaissance Squad also confessed.

“I am aware that I cannot bring back the dead, that I cannot lessen the pain of the families with my confession, but with this act, I wanted to contribute to finally uncovering the complete truth about Srebrenica and its victims.”

Nikolic called the Hague court honourable. But many others would condemn the tribunal, reject its verdicts and deny that the crimes ever happened.

Author: Dzana Brkanic

Editors: Semir Mujkic, Denis Dzidic

English Editor: Matthew Collin

Project Managers: Katarina Zrinjski, Mirza Halilcevic

Photo and Video: EPA, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, International Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, Court of BiH, BIRN BiH Archives

Design and Visualization: Olivia Solis Villaverde

Video Editing: Elvedin Zorlak and Mirza Mokrovic

Proofreading: Nadira Koric

Translation: Sunita Hasic

Development: Lampa

Detector, July 2025.