At the trial of Ratko Mladic, prosecutors tried to undermine claims by an expert witness who testified that thousands of Bosniaks were killed in fighting while escaping from Srebrenica, not in massacres.
After a one month recess, the trial of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic continued at the Hague Tribunal. At today’s hearing, prosecutors contested testimony given by a defense expert who testified on the situation of missing persons after the fall of Srebrenica in 1995.
An expert witness testifying in Ratko Mladic’s defence sought to prove that hundreds of Bosniaks from Srebrenica killed in an ambush by Bosnian Serb troops were falsely presented as victims of massacres.
Testifying in defence of Ratko Mladic, an expert witness sought to prove that hundreds of Bosniaks from Srebrenica were killed in an ambush by the Bosnian Serb Army, not in organised massacres.
A protected witness testifying at the Ratko Mladic trial said the February 1994 attack on the Markale Market was organized by Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic and Islamic religious leader Mustafa Ceric. The witness said the attack was carried out by Bosnian Army generals.
Testifying at the Ratko Mladic trial, defense expert Dusan Pavlovic claimed that thousands of Srebrenica Bosniaks were killed in combat during the breakthrough of the Bosnian Army from Srebrenica towards Tuzla in July 1995.
Testifying in defense of Ratko Mladic, a former UNPROFOR officer from Ukraine said a mortar shell explosion in Sarajevo’s Markale Market in February 1994 wasn’t fired from Bosnian Serb positions. The attack killed and wounded dozens of civilians.
Jose Cutillero, a former peace mediator during the Bosnian war, testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic. He said that Bosniak leaders initially accepted his principles on the reorganization of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spring of 1992, which were similar to the Dayton agreement, before rejecting them due to US influence.
At the trial of Ratko Mladic, the prosecution challenged Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik’s claims that the persecution of Muslims and Croats was not a Serb wartime goal.
Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, told Ratko Mladic’s war crimes trial that the Bosnian Serbs did not have an official wartime policy of ethnically cleansing Bosniaks and Croats.