Ratko Mladic’s Allies Deny Srebrenica Massacres

At the last week of Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal before its summer recess, former Bosnian Serb Army commander Zoran Kovacevic claimed that he didn’t see any abuse of Bosniak civilians after Serb forces took over the town of Srebrenica in July 1995.

“I was an honourable officer and no one from my brigade participated in the separation of men and women and the evacuation of civilians, except Momir Nikolic,” Kovacevic said.

Nikolic was one of the Bosnian Serb Army officers who admitted to the Hague Tribunal in 2003 that killings took place in Srebrenica and became one of the key prosecution witnesses in genocide cases. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Bosnian Serb policamen Nenad Deronjic also testified in Mladic’s defence this week, claiming that he saw no killings of civilians in Srebrenica.

He also claimed that Nikolic gave false testimony about what he saw.

“As far as Momir Nikolic is concerned, it is known that he was lying about the events in Bratunac [a village near Srebrenica where large numbers of Bosniaks were murdered], so he could be cleared of the things he was accused of,” Deronjic said.

“Everything he said he saw was a lie,” he insisted.

In July 1995, Srebrenica was shelled and occupied by the Bosnian Serb forces despite having being declared a protected area by the United Nations, and more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the days that followed.

Mladic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, as well as for terrorising the population of Sarajevo, the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, and for taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The trial resumes in...