Witness Tells of Vlasenica Killings
Says he survived by fleeing at night after others had been killed.
Witness Tells of Vlasenica Killings
Says he survived by fleeing at night after others had been killed.
A prosecution witness in the Hague tribunal trial of Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir told the court this week that in July 1995 he survived the execution of a group of men from Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, in the Vlasenica area.
Tolimir, the former assistant commander for military intelligence and security in the Republika Srpska, RS, army general staff, is charged with eight counts including genocide, conspiring to perpetrate genocide, extermination, murder, expulsion, forced transfer of population and deportation of Bosniaks, Bosnian Muslims, from Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995.
The indictment includes a charge that Tolimir oversaw on July 16, 1995, a VRS unit which executed more than 1,700 Bosniaks at the Branjevo military estate and the Pilica cultural centre in eastern Bosnia.
The witness, identified as protected prosecution witness PW 017, previously testified in the trial of the former chief-of-staff/deputy commander of the VRS Drina corps, Radislav Krstic, sentenced to 35 years in prison for the genocide in Srebrenica.
The transcript of that testimony was entered, with photographs, into the record this week.
PW 017 described this week how, on July 11, 1995, he came with his family to the village of Potocari and remained there in the Potocari bus company grounds, fearing that he would be executed by the Bosnian Serb army.
He said conditions he found on July 11 in Potocari were "chaotic. There was a large pile of people with no accommodation, no food or water, with children screaming and crying".
On the morning of July 12, according to the witness, people panicked, "They had heard that the men were being separated from the women." PW 017 decided he would hide with his family in a damaged bus in the compound, where they stayed all day and night.
According to the indictment, the implementation of the plan to murder Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica started on the afternoon of July 12 with the forced separation of men and boys from their families at Potocari. More than 1,000 men were taken to Bratunac where, on July 14, they were temporarily imprisoned in buildings and vehicles.
PW 017 said he decided to try to leave the bus company compound on July 13, together with his family.
Carrying his five year-old daughter, he joined a large group of people who were trying to break through to one of the parked buses, which were supposed to ferry women and children to Bosnian-controlled territory.
While Serb soldiers were not watching, he boarded one of the buses and hid on the floor.
PW 017 said that the bus stopped in a village called Luke, from which people had to continue on foot.
"After some steps I was stopped by some Serb soldiers who ordered me to give the baby to my wife and told me to come along," said the witness, adding that he was taken to the school at Luke.
The indictment against Tolimir says that on July 13, VRS and interior ministry, MUP, force members transported women and children from Srebrenica to the village of Luke, close to Tisca.
It says that some of the remaining men and boys were separated from that group by the VRS Vlasenica brigade, including some Bosnian Muslim women, while the remainder of the group had to reach Bosnian Muslim-controlled territory on foot.
At the school, the witness said he found some 20 prisoners with their hands bound behind their backs.
PW 017 said that, the same night, an attractive girl was brought in by a group of Serb soldiers. "The Serb soldiers referred to her as a 'Turk', telling her she was beautiful and then took her into a classroom. Later I heard her screaming and crying, 'Please leave me alone. Don't touch me'," said the witness, who estimated her age to be 17.
The same night, he said, 22 other prisoners were brought in and, together with the others including him, were brutally beaten.
After being beaten up, the witness said he was ordered to board a military truck which started for Vlasenica and then turned onto a dirt track.
He said the truck stopped in a meadow close to a burned house, and three Serb soldiers immediately started killing the prisoners.
"Two prisoners tried running away. They jumped off the truck and started running, managing some 20 metres before they were shot down," the witness said. It was then, he said, that he seized the opportunity to run away.
PW 017 said Serb soldiers started shooting at him but missed as it was dark and he managed to reach the woods and stay there until dawn.
He moved on and, after a week, met other Bosnian Muslims with whom, on July 27, he succeeded in reaching Bosnian territory.
Tolimir is defending himself. The first indictment against him was presented on February 25, 2005, and he was arrested on May 31, 2007. On December 16, 2009 he pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo.
