MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - DECEMBER 17, 2003: UNDERAGE AND DRAFTED INTO THE B-H ARMY
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - December 17, 2003

Two secret witnesses were heard at the “trial” of Slobodan Milosevic today; B-1619, a Muslim from Zepa and B-1401 a Muslim from Srebrenica.

B-1619 was an underage member of the B-H Army who was trained in Srebrenica and stationed in Zepa. After Zepa fell, B-1619 attempted to illegally cross the border into Serbia. B-1619 and 8 of friends constructed a raft and floated it across the Drina River.

Upon crossing into Serbian territory B-1619, while still wearing his military uniform, was arrested by the Serbian police and sent back to the nearest municipality on the Bosnian side, which was Visegrad. B-1619 claimed that he was then mistreated by the local Serbs in Visegrad.

B-1619 shed some interesting light on the situation around Zepa. B-1619 said that the major combat started in the spring of 1992 when his unit ambushed a JNA column who was bringing in food and humanitarian assistance. According to B-1619 his unit killed 45 JNA soldiers in that ambush.

B-1619’s unit was subordinated to Nasir Oric’s 28^th Division which was stationed in Srebrenica. According to B-1619 it was the UN’s responsibility to demilitarize Srebrenica and Zepa. Obviously this is something that didn’t happen.

According to B-1619 his unit in Zepa consisted of 1,200 men and roughly 10% of them were underage children who had been mobilized.

B-1619 also said that his unit seized UNPROFOR weapons and escorted UNPROFOR back to their base ahead of the combat activities in Zepa.

B-1619’s dad went to Serbia as a refugee along with a group consisting of hundreds of other Muslim refugees. His father spent 7 months in Serbia and then went on to the United States. B-1619’s dad was treated well in Serbia, he was not mistreated in any way.

B-1619, after being returned to Bosnia, was put into prison and held until he was exchanged on January 19, 1996. B-1619 told some cock-and-bull story about how Gen. Mladic would get drunk and come to the prison and mistreat him.

B-1619 said at first that he didn’t know who the drunk man was until he introduced himself as Gen. Mladic. Later on B-1619 changed his story and said that he knew who Mladic was all along because he had seen him on TV.

At any rate it is quite improbable that Gen. Mladic had nothing better to do than get drunk and harass Muslims at some prison, and according to B-1619 this didn’t only happen once. B-1619 said that Mladic came around several times.  

B-1619 claimed not to know how about the number of weapons his unit had or about the number of casualties that his unit suffered in the fighting around Zepa.

The next witness was B-1401. B-1401 has previously testified at The Hague “tribunal”. He testified as “Witness O” at the Radislav Krstic “trial” on April 13, 2000.

B-1401 was 17 years old in July of 1995 when 15,000 military aged men and boys from Srebrenica attempted to breakout of Srebrenica towards Tuzla.

They formed a column at Jaglici, the column was mixed between soldiers and civilians. The objective was for to breakthrough the Serbian lines and escape to Tuzla.  

During the course of the breakout the column was fired on by the Bosnian Serb Army. B-1401 personally saw 500 men killed himself, and he said that others began committing suicide.

B-1401 said that he surrendered to some soldiers whose unit he couldn’t identify. He says that he was loaded onto a truck and transported to a school and he claimed that people were killed at the school.

Later he claims that he was taken from the school to a place where executions were taking place. He didn’t know who was carrying out the executions, or how many people were executed. He didn’t know how many people were on the truck with him, and he didn’t know how many people had been at the school with him.

B-1401 claims that he survived the execution and escaped with one other man to B-H Army territory.

B-1401 told a sad story, but even if its true, it doesn’t have anything to do with Slobodan Milosevic. There’s just no link. The witness couldn’t identify the perpetrators of the crimes he was alleging.

At the beginning of the day some administrative matters were discussed, and we know for a fact now that portions of Wesley Clark’s testimony were redacted. We don’t know how much has been cut, or what the nature of the redacted testimony was, but portions of it have been redacted. Mr. May announced that he had been informed by the registrar that certain testimony was redacted.

At the end of the day the prosecutor introduced more 92-bis(A) statements into “evidence.” These 92-bis(A) statements are treated as evidence, but President Milosevic doesn’t have the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses whose alleged statements are being used against him and in most cases the witnesses are secret witnesses who are identified only by pseudonyms.

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