Bosnian Serb Officer Testifies Against Former Colleagues

A former officer in the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, who pleaded guilty to the killing of thousands of Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, this week testified against his ex-comrades on trial in The Hague.



Momir Nikolic – who was sentenced on appeal to 20 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, following his guilty plea in May 2003 – gave evidence in the trial of Vujadin Popovic and his six co-accused after being summoned to appear by judges.



Nikolic said that Popovic, the former VRS colonel and coordinator of the military police, informed him on the morning of July, 12 1995, that Bosniaks detained by Bosnian Serb forces in Potocari, about five kilometres from Srebrenica, were to be killed.



“Popovic told me – in his usual way of putting things – all the Balias have to be killed. That was, in a nutshell, my conversation with Popovic,” Nikolic told the court.



The ex-assistant chief of security in the Bratunac Brigade later explained that the name “Balias” was a derogatory term commonly used by the Bosnian Serbs to refer to Muslims.



“In that period, nearly all officers, let’s say 95 per cent of them, used to call Muslims ‘Balias’,” he said.



Nikolic went on to testify that although it was planned that only those Muslims that were suspected of committing war crimes would be separated, what actually ensued was the partitioning of all Muslim males in Potocari from their families.



“What happened was not something that was customary military practice, what happened was all the men were separated,” said Nikolic.



He also explained that it was not just able-bodied men who were separated from their families.



“I can guarantee you with my life that all the men in Srebrenica were separated, irrespective of the fact [of] whether they were able-bodied or not,” he said.



“Among those who were separated were those who were not fit for military service, who were 60 years of age or older.”



Popovic is standing trial along with six other high-ranking Bosnian Serb military and police officials – Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Vinko Pandurevic, Drago Nikolic, Radivoje Miletic and Milan Gvero.



They all face charges of expelling the Muslim population of Srebrenica and Zepa and murdering all able-bodied men captured from Srebrenica. Beara, Borovcanin, Popovic, Nikolic and Pandurevic are accused of genocide and war crimes, while Miletic and Gvero are indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.



According to the indictment, from the afternoon of July 12 through the entire day of July 13, over 1,000 Muslim able-bodied men in Potocari were separated from their friends and families and transported to Bratunac where they were murdered.



The fall of Srebrenica – situated in what is now Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska – led to the slaughter of approximately 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in an act of horror subsequently ruled to have been genocide by both the tribunal and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.



When questioned further by the prosecution this week, Nikolic also testified that he met Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the VRS, on July 13 at Konjevic Polje, and asked him what would happen to Muslims captured by Bosnian Serb forces there.



Mladic had responded with a double-handed gesture suggesting that they would be killed, Nikolic said.



“I could not draw any conclusion other than those people were going to be killed,” Nikolic said, explaining that this spelt out what would also happen to those captured in Potocari the day before.



“The way in which [Mladic] reacted made it clear that there would be no difference in the fate between those captured in Konjevic Polje and those who had been separated and detained in Potocari,” Nikolic said. “That fate was they would be put in detention and later executed.”



Prosecutor Nelson Thayer also asked Nikolic about who controlled forces stationed along the road from Sandici to Konjevic Polje, that prosecutors allege took hundreds of Muslim prisoners and transported them to detention facilities to be killed.



“The forces engaged between Sandici and Konjevic Polje were engaged, in my understanding, under the command of Mr Ljubomir Borovcanin,” he said.



Nikolic was called by judges to give evidence in the trial as a court witness.



Judges admitted into evidence a statement made by Nikolic detailing events in Srebrenica in 1995 that he gave to prosecutors as part of his guilty plea in 2003.



Judges also accepted a statement dated April 17 this year clarifying those events in the original statement. The prosecution and defence teams of all seven defendants had the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.



During his cross-examination, Popovic’s lawyer, Zoran Zivanovic, questioned Nikolic about the intentions of the VRS in Srebrenica in 1995.



He sought to shed doubt on the witness’s testimony due to inconsistencies between what Nikolic stated in his plea agreement with the prosecution in 2003 and the statement he made ahead of his testimony this week.



“I would like to ask you whether introducing the intentions of the VRS in your statement of facts, as opposed to what you put in your written statement [plea agreement], is a result of your wish to play up to the prosecution office in order to successfully conclude your plea agreement,” Zivanovic said.



Nikolic denied this was the case and repeatedly told Zivanovic that questions about his plea agreement should be put to his lawyers, as they, rather than he, had drafted that document.



In particular, Popovic’s defence lawyer noted that Nikolic had given two different accounts of what the Bosnian Serb intention was in Srebrenica in 1995. However, Nikolic said both accounts amounted to the same scenario.



“The goal of the VRS forces was to have the Srebrenica enclave empty of Muslims. Whether it was achieved this way or that does not matter,” Nikolic explained.



Zivanovic also pointed to the number of Muslim men estimated by Nikolic in his evidence to have been in Potocari in July 1995. While Nikolic had originally estimated that there were between 1,500 and 2,000 Muslim men in Potocari, he later found out that the figure was actually between 400 and 700 men. However, he had not referred to this lower number in his evidence.



“Could it be that this was left out to make OTP more willing to conclude a plea agreement with you?” Zivanovic persisted.



“My intention was not to ingratiate myself to OTP or any such thing,” Nikolic replied.



Zivanovic then sought to clarify what Nikolic meant in his statement when he referred to “military-aged men” from Srebrenica.



Popovic’s lawyer put it to the witness that by this, he had actually meant members of the Bosnian army, but had not explicitly said so in his plea agreement statement in order to cover up the fact that Srebrenica had not been demilitarised.



The United Nations Security Council had declared Srebrenica a safe area on May 6, 1993, forbidding any kind of hostility or attack in the region.



“No. I kept saying Srebrenica – as I do now – had not been demilitarized. In Srebrenica, there were armed units [of the Bosnian army],” Nikolic said.



Nikolic was subsequently cross-examined by the remaining defence teams. At the completion of his testimony, the trial will continue with evidence from two further prosecution witnesses after the OTP reopened its case following the completion of all seven defence cases on March 12.



Closing arguments of both parties are set to be heard from July 20.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.