THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Aug 25 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic resumed at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) on Monday with the testimony of Bosnian Serb army member Drazen Erdemovic who was
previously sentenced by the ICTY for participation in the killing of Srebrenica Muslims.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Aug 25 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic resumed at the UN war crimes tribunal
in The Hague (ICTY) on Monday with the testimony of Bosnian Serb
army member Drazen Erdemovic who was previously sentenced by the
ICTY for participation in the killing of Srebrenica Muslims. #L#
Based on his admission that he had killed more than 100 Muslim
civilians, the ICTY in 1996 sentenced Erdemovic to five years in
prison. He served his sentence in Norway and has been free since
2000.
This Bosnian Croat from Tuzla, who in the spring of 1994 joined the
Bosnian Serb army, testified before the ICTY in 2000 against
Bosnian Serb army general Radislav Krstic, who was found guilty of
genocide in Srebrenica and sentenced to 46 years in prison.
As a member of a Republika Srpska Army sabotage platoon, which he
said also included Croats, Bosniaks and a Slovene, Erdemovic took
part in the taking of Srebrenica in 1995. He said that Serb forces
found some 200 elderly civilians in the town and that they had not
encountered almost any resistance, as well as that he had seen
Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic in the town on July 11.
The prosecution then showed a video recording of Mladic's arrival
in the town. Apart from Mladic, the witness recognised on the
recording commander Milorad Pelemis and three members of his
platoon.
Five days later, together with seven other members of the platoon
the witness executed Muslims at a farm near the village of Pilice,
where the prisoners were taken by bus.
He said that he had tried to oppose officer Brano Gojkovic's order
to shoot at the prisoners. "If the order had not been issued, I would
not have harmed anyone," Erdemovic said, claiming that other
soldiers from his platoon were also against executions, except for
one soldier whose brother had been killed by Bosniaks and who on
that day, according to his own confession, killed 250 prisoners.
The witness said that the victims were men aged between 18 and 60 and
that they were all in civilian clothes. They were taken out of the
buses in groups of 10 and brought to a trench in a field near the
farm, with their back turned to the firing squad.
Erdemovic said that his platoon executed prisoners from 10 am to 3
pm, when another unit took over, and that the prisoners were
executed in the presence of a Serb lieutenant-colonel.
Between 1,000 and 1,200 people were killed at the farm and they were
later buried in a mass grave near the execution site, the witness
said.
Erdemovic said that part of his platoon had undergone special
training in Pancevo, Serbia, and had obtained weapons from Serbia.
After he was severely wounded, the witness was transferred to the
School of Military Medicine in Belgrade.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic said that "it is generally
known that Serbia and I had nothing to do with Srebrenica".
He challenged the witness's credibility, describing him as a man
who had admitted to killing 100 people and who, thanks to a deal with
the prosecution, had been sentenced to only five years in prison for
breaches of the law and customs of war.
He said that Erdemovic being called to the witness stand was also
absurd because of the fact that Erdemovic had been arrested on 3
March 1996 in Yugoslavia, where an investigation had been launched
against him on suspicion of war crimes and Yugoslav authorities
later extradited him to the ICTY. Erdemovic said that he had not
seen any Yugoslav army or police forces in Srebrenica.
(hina) rml