THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 29 (Hina) - Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic ordered in July 1995 that all Bosniaks in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica be killed, witness Miroslav Deronjic told the UN war crimes tribunal in
The Hague on Tuesday during a sentencing hearing in the case of former Bosnian Serb army officer Momir Nikolic.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 29 (Hina) - Bosnian Serb wartime leader
Radovan Karadzic ordered in July 1995 that all Bosniaks in the
eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica be killed, witness Miroslav
Deronjic told the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday
during a sentencing hearing in the case of former Bosnian Serb army
officer Momir Nikolic. #L#
Nikolic, formerly in charge of security in the Bosnian Serb
Bratunac brigade, admitted to involvement in the slaughter of more
than 7,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica.
Deronjic, the wartime chairman of the Bratunac branch of the
Serbian Democratic Party, said Karadzic told him in Pale on July 8
and 9, 1995 that all Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica should be
killed.
"Everyone down there should be killed. Kill as many as you can," the
witness quoted Karadzic as telling him.
Deronjic said that on July 13, two days after Serb forces took
Srebrenica, Karadzic told him by telephone that someone would come
to Bratunac with instructions on the treatment of the large number
of prisoners from Srebrenica.
The witness went on to say that Colonel Ljubisa Beara, chief of
security at the general headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army, came
to his office soon afterwards saying that the prisoners "should be
shot on the orders from the top". Beara arranged for the prisoners
to be transported to the Zvornik area where they were executed.
Beara and four more Bosnian Serb army officers have been indicted by
the Hague tribunal for genocide as chief organisers of the
executions, but they are still at large.
Deronjic has previously pleaded guilty before the tribunal to war
crimes committed against Bosniaks in Bratunac in 1992, and the
office of the prosecutor has announced that he will also give
testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan
Milosevic.
His testimony is expected to help the prosecutors in their effort to
prove Milosevic's responsibility for genocide in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, which has encountered significant difficulties.
At the end of the hearing, the prosecutors demanded that Nikolic be
sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison.
(hina) vm