THE HAGUE, Sept 10 (Hina) - The prosecution will prove that the indicted Bosnian Serbs planned and carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosanski Samac and Odzak (north-eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina) within a wider plan to
establish an ethnically clean Serb state in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a prosecutor for the Hague war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Gramshi Di Fazio, said on Monday. That included seizing authority in Bosanski Samac and the arrests and torture of non-Serbs, as part of a system of their persecution and deportation outside the planned state, he added. Di Fazio made this statement at the beginning of the trial of Blagoje Simic, Milan Simic, Miroslav Tadic and Simo Zaric for crimes against humanity and grave violations of the Geneva Conventions committed in the form of expulsion of some 10,000 Croats and Muslims from the northern Posavina region. In Bosanski Sam
THE HAGUE, Sept 10 (Hina) - The prosecution will prove that the
indicted Bosnian Serbs planned and carried out a campaign of ethnic
cleansing in Bosanski Samac and Odzak (north-eastern Bosnia-
Herzegovina) within a wider plan to establish an ethnically clean
Serb state in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a prosecutor for the Hague war
crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Gramshi Di Fazio,
said on Monday.
That included seizing authority in Bosanski Samac and the arrests
and torture of non-Serbs, as part of a system of their persecution
and deportation outside the planned state, he added.
Di Fazio made this statement at the beginning of the trial of
Blagoje Simic, Milan Simic, Miroslav Tadic and Simo Zaric for
crimes against humanity and grave violations of the Geneva
Conventions committed in the form of expulsion of some 10,000
Croats and Muslims from the northern Posavina region.
In Bosanski Samac alone, where Croats made up 44.7 percent of a
total of 33,000 residents, slightly less than 300 non-Serbs have
remained in the town, reads the indictment.
The four Serbs formed, in cooperation with the Yugoslav army
forces, a military unit called the 4th Unit, which attacked and
seized Bosanski Samac as part of JNA units on the night between
April 16 and 17, 1992, the prosecutor said.
Linking the JNA (the former Yugoslav People's Army) with Bosnian
Serb units is of great importance for the prosecution in issuing an
indictment for war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina against the former
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
The next day the unit abolished legal bodies of authority in the
town. Authority was taken over by a crisis headquarters, with
Blagoje Simic at its head and the other three indictees as its
members.
Of the pre-war 17,000 Croats and Muslims in the town, less than 300
remained at the end of the ethnic cleansing campaign, which started
in 1992 and ended in late 1993. Almost all of the 22,500 Croats and
Muslims from nearby Odzak were expelled from their homes.
The 'new authorities' soon started arresting non-Serbs and taking
them to prison camps after which the expulsion continued in the form
of "swaps". Imprisoned Croats and Muslims were tortured in
different ways, including sexual abuse, and access to prisoners was
granted to paramilitaries who were known for cruelty, Di Fazio
said, announcing the connection between the headquarters and
paramilitary units would be established in the course of the
trial.
The trial in the "Bosanski Samac" case started almost two months
after a former police superintendent in Bosanski Samac, Stevan
Todorovic, received a ten-year prison sentence after admitting
guilt for crimes from the same indictment. Extenuating
circumstances in Todorovic's case were his significant cooperation
with the prosecution, which means that he helped the prosecution in
proving the guilt of the other indictees from the indictment. The
prosecution announced that Todorovic would testify at the end of
the presentation of evidence.
Another Bosnian Serb, Mitar Vasiljevic, aged 47, appeared before
the court on Monday. Vasiljevic is charged with having
participated, as a member of the 'Beli orlovi' (White Eagles)
paramilitary unit and together with Serb police and army units, in
the persecution of non-Serbs in the area of the eastern town of
Visegrad between 1992 and 1994. The unit Vasiljevic belonged to is
responsible for the killing of civilians, particularly Muslims,
including women, children and elderly people.
Vasiljevic is charged with taking part on two occasions in the mass
murder of around 135 Muslim civilians, who were locked in two houses
and burned alive. In one of these two cases, 46 members of one family
were killed. Vasiljevic is also charged with crimes against
humanity and violations of the law and customs of war.
These trials are the first in which so-called 'ad litem' judges are
taking part. The judges were appointed by the U.N. General Assembly
with the task of reaching the verdict in one case only. The newly-
formed trial chambers are presided over by permanent Hague judges,
with two 'ad litem' judges taking part in each trial.
(hina) rml