Witnesses at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik -- former Bosnian Serb
political leader and Assembly speaker -- describe the tasks of
hired killers in the towns and villages of eastern Bosnia.

THE HAGUE, 11.2. (SENSE) -- The count in which Momcilo Krajisnik
is charged with genocide alleges that he is individually responsible
for "the widespread killing [...] which took place during and after
the attacks on towns and villages [in Bosnia and Herzegovina]."

Suad Djafic is, quite by chance, an eye-witness and a survivor of
such a crime. Having previously given a deposition to the Prosecution,
in court he answered only those questions asked by the defense, this
in accordance with Rule 92-bis.

The prosecutor read out a brief summary of his statement indicating that
on 10 May 1992, the witness saw the attack and burning of houses in the
village of Krasan Polje near Bratunac in eastern Bosnia. A few days later,
Serb forces took the village. They rounded up all men of military age and
five underage boys, put them on a bus, and took them first to Bratunac
and later to nearby Vlasenica. They spent three days in prison there.
People -- some wearing military clothes, others dressed as civilians --
entered the room from time to time and beat the 37 prisoners, including
the five boys.

Suad Djafic, who testified at the Milosevic trial about these events,
was taken to an area in front of the police building on 21 May 1992
with the other detainees. They were put on a bus that was escorted
by an armored vehicle and four cars. One of them had a drawing
of a skull and crossbones on the door. When the convoy stopped
in the village of Nova Kasaba, armed men got out of the cars. The
witness assumed they belonged to Arkan's Tigers and the White Eagles.
They took out the detainees in groups of four to five and killed them
using automatic rifles and a machine gun mounted on the armored vehicle.
The witness was in the last group. As soon as the shooting began, he
fell down, wounded. He was the only survivor in the group and, after
the killers left, he crawled out from under the bodies that had fallen
on top of him and went away.

He offered as evidence to the Trial Chamber a list of names of most
of the people who were killed there, including his father, brother and
two relatives. Among the killers, he recognized a man from his village,
Pero Mitrovic.

During cross-examination, he said that just before they were taken
out of the prison in the SUP building in Vlasenica, a man in camouflage
uniform appeared at the door of the room where they were detained.
He said, "If you live through today, you will be safe, since the men
who have been paid to do the killings are about to leave."

Another witness heard today, Nijaz Dubicic, also mentioned mercenaries in
his written statement. In cross-examination he said that in late May 1992,
about 100 of Arkan's men and Seselj's men gathered in the main square
in Bratunac. They were protesting because they had not received the
money they had been promised. According to the testimony of this witness,
who was the president of the Bratunac municipality after the first
multi-party elections in 1990, the mercenaries were brought in by
the local chapter of the SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) and were
paid with money donated by two wealthy Serbs. It was their task to
cause disturbances in the town. The goal was to use the disturbances
as pretexts for the entry of the JNA; 4,000 of its soldiers were
waiting on the other bank of the Drina River in Serbia.

After the first three witnesses, who spoke about events in Brcko
in May 1992, the Prosecution tried to use the testimony of these
two witnesses to bring to light events in Bratunac -- the second
of a total of 37 BH municipalities listed in the indictment as
places where crimes were committed for which the former Bosnian Serb
political leader and close associate of Radovan Karadzic now stands
trial.

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