Witness Says Sarajevo Shells Came From Bosnian Serb Positions
Artillery expert disputes defence lawyer’s argument that mortars can’t be aimed accurately.
Witness Says Sarajevo Shells Came From Bosnian Serb Positions
Artillery expert disputes defence lawyer’s argument that mortars can’t be aimed accurately.
An artillery expert has told the trial of wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic that shelling and mortar attacks on the city of Sarajevo originated from Bosnian Serb positions.
The prosecution witness appearing this week, Richard Higgs, is a British military expert who has already prepared a number of reports on the shelling of civilian areas during the 1992-95 war for various tribunal cases, including that of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and Yugoslav army chief Momcilo Perisic.
Prosecutors allege that Mladic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb army from 1992 to 1996, planned and oversaw the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that ravaged the city and left nearly 12,000 people dead. The army is accused of deliberately sniping at and shelling the city’s civilian population in order to “spread terror” among them.
The indictment – which lists 11 counts in total – alleges that Mladic is responsible for crimes of genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and forcible transfer which "contributed to achieving the objective of the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory". He was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 after 16 years on the run.
Witness Higgs is a former sergeant instructor with the mortar division of the British Army’s Infantry Training Centre, and worked as an instructor in mortar use for 11 years.
At the outset of his testimony, Higgs said his conclusions on the origin of fire were based on reports from the United Nations peacekeeping force known as UNPROFOR, from UN military observers, and from Bosnian police in Sarajevo. Using these reports, the witness said, he analysed the origins of projectiles and other general features of artillery attacks, as well as the methods used to investigate the attacks.
Higgs concluded that the artillery projectiles were fired from Bosnian Serb positions.
Before the cross-examination, Higgs stated that the report centred on some “high-profile incidents”, including two separate attacks on the city’s Markale market, one on February 5, 1994 and another on August 28, 1995. The first attack killed 66 people and wounded over 140, while the second left 43 people dead and 75 injured.
The cross examination focused heavily on the two Markale attacks.
Mladic’s defence lawyer Branko Lukic said that he doubted that the investigative methodology used by either local police or foreign observers was objective and verifiable.
Lukic also said that there seemed to be some “uncertainties” with the expert witness himself, as he had given different calculations about the second Markale attack in an earlier report for the Karadzic trial.
The defence claims that this was done “on purpose to accommodate more easily some of the claims from the indictment against Mladic.”
Higgs admitted that he made minor changes to the report, which served to correct some “minimal mistakes [he] had made in the prior reports, but which do not influence the conclusions of the reports in any way. These are just minimal details for the sake of precision.”
On the first Markale incident, Lukic said that that photographs indicated that that the mortar shell in question exploded on the ground rather than on the covering of one of the market stands.
The witness disagreed with this, saying that “while it would not be strange for the mortar to have exploded on one of the roofs of the market stands, it is definitely not impossible that it crossed between stands without exploding and then exploded on the ground.”
Higgs said ten or twelve centimetres would be “perfectly sufficient” for that to happen, and that the photos showed that it “did happen”.
The defence also noted that Higgs’s report included the claim that “the VRS [Bosnian Serb army] campaign of artillery against Sarajevo was part of a strategy to cause as many casualties as possible, and therefore an open public market was targeted on purpose.”
Lukic questioned this conclusion, contending that it was “not technically possible, without prior tests and comparative values for the behaviour of the mortar thrower, to precisely determine a place which is to be targeted”.
Higgs disagreed, saying this was possible both now and in 1994.
“All that was needed to hit a precise target with a mortar was a precise calculation preceding the shooting,” he said.
Lukic tried to ask the witness several additional questions, but then admitted he did not quite grasp their meaning. He said they had been written by experts for the defence.
The trial continues next week.
Velma Saric is an IWPR contributor in Sarajevo.
