Former top Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik cross-examined a prosecution witness himself this week, unwittingly allowing him to describe in great detail how Muslims were expelled from communities under Serbian control.
The court also heard about the chain of command in the Republika Srpska, RS, and how the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, ruling party took control of municipalities across the territories earmarked for a future Serb state during 1992.
One of the most influential members of the SDS, Krajisnik, faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in driving thousands of Muslims and Croats from the region during the early stages of the war in Bosnia.
Krajisnik faces eight counts, which include those of genocide and complicity to commit genocide, persecutions, extermination and deportation.
This is not the first time Krajisnik - who has been given permission to ask questions in court, while a decision is still to be reached on his request to be able to represent himself - has struggled with the latter role. In June, after being admonished for a variety of mistakes, he admitted to the bench that “the task that [defence] counsel has to perform is very difficult”.
The prosecution witness, Milorad Davidovic, who was in charge of security for the Bosnian Serb government, accused Krajisnik of having issued authorisations for "humane relocation" of Bosnian Muslims from Bijeljina in northeast Bosnia in 1992.
Krajisnik tried to challenge this testimony during cross-examination by showing a document titled “Petition to the International Red Cross”, which showed how Muslims were exchanged under the protection of the International Red Cross. The witness replied that the document only showed how the method of ethnic cleansing changed after the international community became involved.
Once Krajisnik recognised the implications of the prosecution witness’ answers, he tried to interrupt, but was warned by presiding judge Alphonse Orie that it was not for him to do so.
The witness went on to describe how the SDS started the campaign of ethnic cleansing by forcibly entering houses and seizing property. Muslims, especially intellectuals, were forced to take the worst jobs. Because of their fear of being taken to the prison camps, they signed documents agreeing to be exchanged, explained the witness.
The witness also described how Muslims were exploited during this period and how some Serbs were making a profit out of them. The defence team accused Davidovic of being one of the exploiters himself, but the witness responded that he tried to save people, and that he could never permit himself to do something like that.
During his first appearance this year in front of the tribunal’s judges, Davidovic described how, in spring 1992, he had witnessed “high quality weapons” and military equipment being transferred from Belgrade to RS in Yugoslav army helicopters.
According to the witness, Krajišnik’s SDS had encouraged the RS police to take part in “organised criminal activities” throughout Serb-controlled territories - particularly the looting of Muslim and Croat homes. He testified that part of this financial gain went directly to the defendant and his then close ally, the former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic.
Davidovic, during cross-examination, also described how he saw around 300 cars taken from Muslims and that they were split between the SDS members and disappeared overnight.
Left with nothing else, Krajisnik tried to introduce documents challenging the credibility of the witness, which show he was taken into some kind of state custody in connection with crimes committed when he was 17 years old.
The court went into closed session after the prosecutor raised objections because of what he termed “intimidation of the witness”. Judge Alphonse Orie concluded that when the documents were translated, it would become clear whether there were grounds for questioning the witness’ past.
Davidovic also claimed that his own government department – the interior ministry – led by Mico Stanisic, supported him in activities to disarm the paramilitary units. “But I was stopped by the crisis staff..[who] took command over the local police stations,” he said. Stanisic had already been indicted by the tribunal and is in custody.
This description of who gave orders to whom conflicted with information given by the prosecutor's next witness - possibly an indication of the level of chaos in RS in 1992.
The prosecutor called the former president of the Sokolac Crisis Staff – in eastern Bosnia – Milan Tupajic. He provided evidence that the SDS dominated the chain of command, in practice, between the various levels of local civil and military administrations within RS.
He told the court that the local SDS branch received instructions from the party’s main board - of which Krajisnik was a main member.
The prosecutor put forward a number of documents which showed that during its meetings, the Sokolac Crisis Staff discussed issues such as the distribution of weapons and the disarming of Bosnian Muslim villages. But the witness responded that after the Bosnian Serb army was established on May 12, 1992 the crisis staff no longer had any substantial influence over the military. "There were many misunderstandings between the civilian authorities and the brigade command in Sokolac," he said.
Tupajic confirmed to the prosecutor that in 1992 thousands of Bosniak refugees fleeing from the Drina basin passed through Sokolac and that, on the orders of the RS government, the authorities in the municipality took part in the organised transfer of the population.
He added that he heard that "bad things, murders, even mass murders" had taken place in the Drina basin and that he feared "the same would happen in Sokolac".
Tupajic said Krajisnik and Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic had made public references to the strategic goal of dividing the three peoples in Bosnia. He said that he was aware of these goals and plans to eliminate the border on the Drina river, which separates Bosnia from Serbia.
“These goals could not have been implemented without the forcible transfer of the non-Serb population,” Tupajic told the prosecution.
As evidence of this, the prosecution showed the court a news report from the Belgrade-based Tanjug agency from a meeting led by Tupajic on May 17, 1992 at which Krajisnik was present was entered into the court. Krajisnik is quoted as saying, “The time has come so the territory between three peoples can be divided.”
“Karadzic and Krajisnik were the most influential men in SDS and after them there was a big void,” said Tupajic to the prosecutor's question about the most powerful people in the leading Bosnian Serbian political party.
In court the next day, the witness spoke about crimes committed by the Bosnian Serb army. He described how the Second Romanian Brigade, under the command of Radislav Krstic - who has already been found guilty at The Hague of aiding and abetting genocide - started in 1992 with the burning of the village Donje Babinje and ended with the demolition of the village of Novoseoci on September 21, 1992. The soldiers entered Novoseoci and separated the women and children from the men. According to the witness' information, about 45 men were killed at the garbage dump.
After he learned of this, Tupajic said he resigned his position as crisis staff president, but he reassumed it, as he explained, “after a bomb was exploded under his car”.
When the prosecutor asked why all the five mosques were demolished in Sokolac during the war, the witness explained that “with Serbs there is a belief that where there are no mosques, there are no Muslims, and with their destruction the people will have no reason to return”.
Defence lawyer Nicholas Stewart wanted to prove that witness was cooperating as a prosecution witness in order to ensure that he himself wouldn’t end up as an accused at the tribunal.
The defence pointed out that the witness was an SDS member from the beginning of the war till today.
Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR contributor.
