By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch, Europe
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – On April 13, 2010, ICTY prosecution brought forth its first witness in the trial against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Radovan Karadzic was arrested in July of 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia, after spending years in hiding. He faces charges for crimes committed in Bosnia Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, including eleven counts of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Karadzic was the alleged mastermind of the bloody forty-four month siege of Sarajevo, and the massacre of roughly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the UN “safe haven” of Srebrenica in 1995.
The first witness called on by the prosecution was Ahmet Zulic, who testified about his six month detention in the Manjaca camp in northern Bosnia in 1992. When the prosecution showed a video from the Manjaca camp Zulic recognized himself among the inmates who were stitting on the floor in one big room.
The notorious Manjaca camp was used by Serb forces to detain roughly 4,000 people, primarily Bosniaks and Croats, in 1992.
Zulic told of his capture in the area of Sanksi Most in June 1992. After a period of detention and torture in garages in Betonirka, Zulic was transferred in the back of a tarpaulin covered truck to the Manjaca camp. Zulic explained that some of the prisoners died on the way to the camp.
“It was hot and we could not breathe . . . I [had] to drink my own urine since I was thirsty.”
While in the Manjaca camp, Zulic was severely beaten. He remains disabled today. His injuries included seven damaged vertebrae, fractured ribs, a broken finger, and smashed-in teeth. Zulic also recounted how he was forced to watch the killing of twenty men who had been forced to dig their own graves.
He said: “I am physically invalid. But I also suffer in a different way . . . I am going through it again, and again and again.” He added: “I have nightmares very often . . . I very frequently dream of people who were killed beside me or were dying beside me. I had one last night.”
Before Zulic was questioned, Judge O-Gon Kwon apologized to Zulic for the fact that he had to come to the Hague three times before finally taking the stand. The trial was officially started in October, 2009 when the prosecution made its initial statements, but was postponed numerous times in the following months due to boycotts and appeals made by Karadzic. Karadzic did not deliver the defense’s opening statement until this past March, and his final appeal was just rejected earlier this month.
The Court also warned Karadzic to keep his questioning relevant several times during the cross-examination, and warned him about the way in which he questioned Zulic.
Karadzic sought to discredit the Zulic by referring to him as “well trained by the prosecution,” referring to the fact that Zulic had been called in by prosecution to testify in the three earlier trials, including the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.
Zulic, a Muslim, testified that Serb captors had carved a cross into his chest while they tortured him. During the cross-examination Karadzic accused Zulic of lying about the torture. At one point Zulic pulled open his shirt on the witness stand, pointed to his chest, and told the bench:
“Right here I have a cross carved in my skin. You can see the cross carved on my chest.”
The second prosecution witness to take the stand, Sulejman Crncalo, recalled his wife’s death in the Markale Massacre in Sarajevo on August 28, 1995. Crncalo testified that his wife had left their home that morning to find powdered milk for the children. When she did not return by eleven in the morning as planned, Crncalo left to look for her. He described how he came upon the bloody scene at Markale, where Serb forces under Karadzic’s command had shot missiles into the busy market.
He said: “I arrived and saw blood all over the street, pieces of bodies, clothes, shoes . . . The balustrade on the side was covered in blood, like somebody painted it red.”
Crncalo wept as he described how he later discovered that his wife had been killed in the attack, and how he found her body in the hospital mortuary.
Karadzic, who is serving as his own defense lawyer, started his cross examination of Crncalo by expressing his condolences for Crncalo’s loss, and stating that he, Karadzic, would establish who was to blame for the massacre.
Karadzic claims that the killings at the Markale market were not committed by Bosnian Serb forces. However, in its ruling in the case of Dragomir Milosevic, the ICTY confirmed that the Bosnian Serbs were, in fact, responsible for the attack on the market.
Karadzic has denied all charges, and in his opening statement to the ICTY in March he claimed that the Srebrenica massacre was a “myth” and that other atrocities were “staged” by Muslims themselves. He also described Serb efforts against the Bosnians as “just and holy.”
The prosecution’s witness list includes ten more people slated to take the stand, including victims of the Bosnian war, former UN military and civilian officials, and two protected witnesses whose names are being kept secret.
For more information, please see:
AP – Serbs carved cross on my chest: witness tells Karadzic trial – 14 April 2010
Balkan Insight – Witness Describes Markale Massacre at Karadzic Trial – 14 April 2010
Radio Netherlands Worldwide – First witness testifies against Karadzic – 14 April 2010
Balkan Insight – FirstProsecution Witness Testifies Against Karadzic – 13 April 2010
Radio Free Europe – Karadzic Trial Resumes; First Witness Called – 13 April 2010