The decree promoting Ratko Mladic to the rank of a four-star general, signed by the then president of the FRY on 16 June 1994 – is the only record entered in Mladic’s “personnel file” in the period from his arrival in Sarajevo in May 1992 until his removal from the records of the VJ professional military personnel in June 2001 is. Who was Mladic’s supreme commander: Zoran Lilic or Radovan Karadzic?

The OTP in The Hague filed a motion to amend the current indictment against Ratko Mladic to bring it into line with Karadzic’s indictment; ultimately, this should make it possible to join their cases should the former commander of the VRS Main Staff appear in The Hague soon

According to the proposed amended indictment filed last year, General Ratko Mladic is charged with the same crimes as Radovan Karadzic: double genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war. Since the judges have yet to decide what to do with the new indictment, the one in force is the old operative indictment issued in October 2002

In his statement for tonight’s edition of Tribunal, a TV program produced by SENSE Agency, Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz notes that the prosecution ‘is looking at a number of options’ as to how the trial of Ratko Mladic will be organized. ICTY Registrar John Hocking adds that "whatever Mladic needs in terms of medical assistance, he will receive".

Former commander of the VRS Main Staff has been transferred to the UN Detention Unit. He will be kept in isolation for the first few days, and will then be able to join the other detainees. Chief Prosecutor Brammertz will hold a press conference tomorrow. Mladic should have his initial appearance before an ICTY judge in the next two or three days

The Tribunal’s chief prosecutor insisted on the importance of Mladic’s arrest for the Tribunal, the international community and the victims of the crimes Mladic is charged with. Brammertz also spoke about various options for the upcoming trial. The Tribunal’s Registrar spent several hours with Mladic at the Rotterdam Airport and the UN Detention Unit. The Registrar described the accused as ‘very cooperative’. Mladic will have his initial appearance before a judge on Friday at 10 am

In his initial appearance before the Tribunal, the former commander of the VRS Main Staff acted as if he didn’t know what he was charged with and why he had to be in hiding for 16 years. Mladic asked to be allowed to postpone entering his plea until he familiarized himself with ‘the obnoxious charges’ and ‘monstrous words’ in the indictment. Mladic’s second appearance before the court has been slated for 4 July 2011

The prosecution has asked the Trial Chamber to ‘restrict’ the disclosure of the materials and information provided to Ratko Mladic’s defense by the prosecution in order to safeguard the privacy and protection of victims and witnesses. Mladic’s court-appointed counsel Aleksandar Aleksic has replied that the prosecution is ‘violating Ratko Mladic’s basic right to a fair and public trial’

After repeated warnings not to disrupt the hearing and interrupt the presiding judge, the accused was ejected from the courtroom. Judge Orie read the list of charges count by count concluding that the Trial Chamber would enter a plea of not guilty on Mladic’s behalf

Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS Main Staff, has signed a document authorizing Belgrade lawyer Branko Lukic to represent him in the proceedings against him before the Tribunal

The prosecution has filed a motion to sever Mladic’s indictment into two parts allowing the trial of the former Bosnian Serb army commander to proceed in two phases. The first trial would cover the genocide in Srebrenica. After it, the focus would shift to the crimes in the BH municipalities, the terror campaign in Sarajevo and taking UN staff hostage

In its reply disclosed today, the defense of the former commander of the VRS Main Staff contends that granting the prosecution motion to try Ratko Mladic in two phases – first for Srebrenica and then for ethnic cleansing, Sarajevo and hostages – would have a negative impact on the right of the accused to a fair and expeditious trial. It would also put the defense to a disadvantage

The defense demands that the prosecution amend the indictment to include the names of the victims and perpetrators of the crimes the former VRS Main Staff commander is charged with. If the prosecution cannot do this, the defense urges the judges to “dismiss the counts based on defective portions of the indictment”, including those for genocide in Srebrenica and terror campaign against citizens of Sarajevo

At the second status conference, the accused Ratko Mladic took 20 minutes to complain about his ‘serious health problems’ and to indicate that ‘even in my condition’ it was his intention to defend Republika Srpska, Serbia and the entire nation. This prompted Judge Orie to remind Mladic that ‘nobody else is in the dock but you’ and that therefore Mladic should defend himself and not ‘any other persons, organizations or entities’

The Trial Chamber rejected the prosecution motion to sever the case against Ratko Mladic into two trials, the first for genocide in Srebrenica, followed by the second trial for ethnic cleansing, terror campaign in Sarajevo and hostage-taking. The prosecution’s motion to amend the indictment to include the crime in Bisina was granted. The defense’s interlocutory appeal against the form of the indictment was also rejected

The prosecution will not appeal against the decision of the Trial Chamber not to allow the severing of the indictment against Ratko Mladic into two parts, chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said as he met with the foreign correspondents accredited in Holland. Brammertz indicated that various options were under consideration to ‘reduce’ the case against the former commander of the VRS Main Staff

The Trial Chamber ordered the ICTY Registrar to organize a medical examination of Ratko Mladic. The medical examination should assess Mladic’s current medical condition and, if possible, list of health problems Mladic has had prior to his arrival in The Hague together with their influence on current medical status of the accused

The prosecution has filed a proposal to reduce the indictment charging Ratko Mladic with ethnic cleansing in BH municipalities, terror campaign in Sarajevo, genocide in Srebrenica and taking UN staff hostage. The prosecution has dropped almost half of the incidents listed in the existing indictment but argues that the remaining crimes reflect the criminal conduct attributed to the former VRS commander

Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel contends it is not up to the defense to present its views on the prosecution’s proposal to reduce the indictment. Mladic’s defense is concerned about the prosecution’s request to be allowed to call evidence about the incidents dropped from the indictment, when necessary to establish “mens rea of the accused”. This reduction will not reduce the time the defense will need to answer the prosecution case, the defense argues

The Trial Chamber accepted the prosecution’s proposal to reduce the indictment against former commander of the VRS Main Staff Ratko Mladic. The Trial Chamber decided that the 106 incidents for which Mladic would be tried were ‘representative’ of the accusations against the former commander of the VRS Main Staff

The trial of Ratko Mladic may start on 27 March 2012, but the date ‘is not carved in stone’ as the presiding judge noted at the status conference. When he was invited to enter his plea on a count charging him with the murder of more than 30 Bosniaks in the village of Bisina on 23 July 1995, Mladic said ‘I’m not guilty’ and ‘I don’t have anything to do with that place, that date or anything’

At the fifth status conference in Ratko Mladic’s case, the defense insisted it was ‘impossible’ for it to be ready to proceed to trial before late October 2012. To start the trial before that date would be ‘unfair’, the defense argued. Mladic today addressed the judge as ‘Comrade Orie’. The judge warned ‘Mister Mladic’ once again that he would order him to be removed from the courtroom if he disrupted the proceedings. Mladic sees himself as ‘the Serbian knight Gavrilo who sacrificed himself for his country and his people’

The prosecution has submitted the list of witnesses and exhibits it intends to call at the trial of the former commander of the VRS Main Staff for genocide and other crimes in BH. The prosecution plans to call a total of 410 witnesses, including 25 experts. About 150 witnesses are expected to appear in court; the rest will submit written statements. The prosecution needs approximately 200 hours to examine its witnesses in chief

The trial of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS Main Staff, for genocide and other crimes in BH is slated to begin on 14 May 2012. After the opening statements, the prosecution will call its first witnesses of the 410 witnesses on 29 May 2012

The sixth status conference in the case against former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic was held to expedite the preparations for the trial. Mladic demanded to be allowed to wear his general’s uniform and military cap, protested against the Tribunal calling it a ‘partial NATO court’ and expressed his concern over the fate of the planet if Iran should come under attack

Judge Orie set a number of deadlines to the prosecution and the defense, as they prepare for the Ratko Mladic’s trial, slated to begin on 14 May 2012. Ratko Mladic took the floor at the end of the hearing and presented himself as a man fighting for the truth, not trying to defend himself. Mladic denied the existence of BH adding that his wish is to be able to return free to Belgrade, ‘the capital of the Serb people’, a people that is divided by the Drina River

As the preparations for Ratko Mladic’s trial enter its final stage, the prosecution has indicated it would present its case in five segments. In the first, introductory, segment, which will start in late May and last until 13 July 2012, the prosecution will present an ‘overview of the entire case’. The other four stages will present evidence about the terror campaign in Sarajevo, taking UN staff hostage, crimes in BH municipalities in 1992 and the Srebrenica genocide

The preparations for the trial were reviewed at the pre-trial conference in the case against Ratko Mladic. The trial is due to begin on 16 May 2012 with the prosecution’s opening statement. Mladic said that he had ‘perked up’ after his arrival in The Hague, as his health has improved. He did insist that he wouldn’t be able to follow the trial if the judges decided on a full schedule of five working days per week. As Mladic said, he didn’t mind if the trial lasted ‘five or a hundred years’

In response to the prosecution’s latest motion to extend the deadline for the disclosure of potentially exculpatory materials to Ratko Mladic’s defense, his lawyers recalled that the deadline has already been extended once. They insist that the trial, slated to begin on 16 May 2012, be postponed to a date 90 days after the prosecution completes disclosure

The prosecution admitted it failed to disclose some of the documents the defense needs to prepare for the trial, without ‘good excuse’. However, at the pre-trial conference in the case against Ratko Mladic, the prosecution assured the judges and the defense that most of the documents for the first witnesses had been disclosed on time. For the time being, the prosecution case will not be delayed. Mladic claims he has problems with ‘short-term memory’ and has requested the prosecution to deliver documents he already has

Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber dismissed the fifth motion filed by the defense, in which it sought that the trial be postponed for 90 because of the disclosure delays. The opening statements have been scheduled for 16 and 17 May 2012

In the introductory segment of the prosecution case at the trial of the former Bosnian Serb army commander, the prosecution will call six survivors of mass executions, two insiders, three journalists and several international observers. The witnesses’ evidence will relate to the crimes against non-Serbs in BH from 1992 to 1995, including the terror campaign against citizens of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica genocide

Ratko Mladic’s defense has asked the Tribunal’s President to disqualify presiding judge Orie because of ‘an appearance of bias’. The defense has listed no less than 17 reasons for the Dutch judge’s disqualification: Orie’s vested ‘personal’ and ‘national interests’ and alleged favoritism toward the prosecution

Less than two days before the beginning of the trial Ratko Mladic’s defense submitted a new motion to adjourn the trial for six months. At the Tribunal, preparations are underway to open the trial on Wednesday morning, 16 May 2012

The Tribunal’s President denied an urgent motion filed by Mladic’s defense in which it sought the disqualification of presiding judge Alfons Orie and a stay of proceedings. There are no obstacles now for the trial to begin, as scheduled

In the first part of the opening statement at the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander for double genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the prosecution described Mladic’s role in the ethnic cleansing, the terror campaign in Sarajevo and taking UN staff hostage. The Trial Chamber reprimanded the prosecution for a ‘very significant disclosure error’, indicating it might decide to postpone the prosecution case

In the second part of the opening statement at the trial of former VRS Main Staff commander Ratko Mladic, the prosecution set the stage for the evidence of Mladic’s individual criminal responsibility for the genocide in Srebrenica. After the opening statement, the trial was adjourned ‘until further notice’. It remains uncertain when the prosecution will start presenting its evidence

Due to a ‘technical error’ that occurred several years ago, the prosecution ‘believed’ it disclosed all the documents on the list to the defense, whereas in fact the documents were not on the hard disk. The prosecution notes that the accused has not received 3.19 percent of the total of 155,256 documents. The error will have ‘a limited impact’ on the ability of the defense to prepare for the commencement of the evidence presentation

The Trial Chamber hearing the case against Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS Main Staff, ordered the prosecution to start calling its evidence on 25 June 2012. Mladic is charged with genocide and other crimes in BH

After the Trial Chamber granted a one-month adjournment of the trial, General Ratko Mladic has requested the judges to reconsider the decision and to postpone the prosecution’s case for six months. The prosecution has submitted an amended list with the names of 14 witnesses to be examined in the first stage of its case, from 25 June to 20 July 2012

A brief press release this evening indicates that the start of presentation of the prosecution’s evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic was ‘suspended until further notice’. The Trial Chamber’s full decision and explanation will be made public in due course

The prosecution has filed a motion to tender into evidence 22 notebooks Ratko Mladic used to write his notes during the war, from 1991 to 1996. As the prosecution contends, the notebooks could be very useful in proving the responsibility of the former Bosnian Serb army commander

The prosecution will start presenting its evidence at the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander on Monday, 9 July 2012 and will go on for two weeks until the beginning of the Tribunal’s summer recess on 21 July 2012. Mladic is on trial for double genocide and other crimes in BH

The prosecution has disclosed a revised list of witnesses who will testify in the first two weeks of the prosecution’s case at the trial of Ratko Mladic, from 9 to 20 July 2012

Lawyer Branko Lukic has asked the judges to postpone the testimony of David Harland, Richard Dannat and Joseph Kingori, or at least to postpone their cross-examination. Lukic has asked for the postponement because the prosecution was late disclosing a large volume of materials related to these witnesses and the Trial Chamber has yet to rule on the prosecution’s motion seeking admission of witness statements and associated exhibits

The Trial Chamber has denied the motion filed by General Mladic’s defense to postpone the examination of witnesses Harland, Dannat and Kingori until "a later date". Mladic’s motion to disqualify expert witness Dannat was also dismissed. The Trial Chamber decided it would evaluate Dannat’s report and expertise after he completes his evidence

In three ‘urgent motions’, Mladic’s defense has accused the Trial Chamber that it had “succumbed to the political pressure from the prosecution”. As the defense argues, the Trial Chamber has ‘drastically changed the rules of the game at the eleventh hour’, threatened the ‘integrity of the trial’ and created conditions that might ‘lead to miscarriage of justice’. The defense has therefore called for another six-month postponement of the trial

The prosecution started its case at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS Main Staff, with the evidence of Elvedin Pasic, who spoke about the ordeal of the villagers of Hrvacani and other Muslim villages in Kotor Varos municipality in 1992. Pasic’s testimony refers to the counts in the indictment about the crimes in 20 BH municipalities. These crimes, as the prosecution alleges, reached the scale of genocide in Kotor Varos

Continuing the cross-examination of Elvedin Pasic, the first prosecution witness, Ratko Mladic’s defense contested the allegation in the indictment that about 150 Muslims detained in the school in Grabovica, near Kotor Varos, were executed. ‘If something did happen’ to those people, the defense argued, the army under the command of the accused was not responsible. Mladic’s defense blames ‘local civilians’

Former chief of the civil affairs in the UN mission in BH, David Harland, described Ratko Mladic as a frustrated, combative bully. It was impossible to speak ‘rationally’ with Mladic and he ‘didn’t have any kind of a vision’ as to how to win the war despite the uncontested military supremacy he enjoyed. According to Harland, Mladic’s strategy was based on ‘terrorizing civilians’

Ratko Mladic’s defense claimed in the cross-examination that the Serb forces didn’t ‘terrorize’ Sarajevo. They imposed ‘sanctions’ to weaken the enemy side. According to Mladic’s defense counsel, UNPROFOR ‘mostly sided with Muslims’ and ‘predominantly opposed Serbs’ during the war

As David Harland’s cross-examination continued today, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel notified the Chamber that the accused was not feeling well and asked for a break. After he was examined in the Tribunal building by a nurse, Mladic was taken to see a doctor for additional exams. If his health improves, the trial will resume on Friday, 13 July, in the morning

Former VRS commander Ratko Mladic didn’t show up in court today. As presiding judge Orie said, he has been hospitalized for a 24-hour round of medical tests and observation

In the break between two sessions, Ratko Mladic did several push-ups in the dock, probably to show the public and the UN guards he was in good shape. In the final part of David Harland’s cross-examination, defense counsel Branko Lukic tried to prove that the Serb forces didn’t kill civilians in Sarajevo intentionally: they merely ‘responded’ to the BH Army’s attacks

Prosecution witness Christine Schmitz didn’t deny that in July 1995 Muslim civilians wanted to leave Potocari, but she insisted they had already been expelled from their homes in Srebrenica. According to her, this was a deportation and not evacuation. The German nurse described two meetings with Ratko Mladic in Potocari in July 1995

In July 1995, UN military observer Joseph Kingori witnessed the fall of the Srebrenica enclave. Kingori described his two meetings with General Ratko Mladic and Mladic’s conduct in Potocari. According to Kingori, when Mladic assured thousands of refugees in front of the UN base that nothing bad would happen to them, ‘he didn’t mean what he said’

Referring to a report made by the Dutch Institute for War Documentation, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to contest the credibility of UN military observer Joseph Kingori. According to the report, the Kenyan colonel and his colleagues observed the interior of bunkers where they were hiding, rather than the situation in Srebrenica and Potocari in July 1995

One of the few survivors of the Srebrenica execution sites testified at Ratko Mladic’s trial today. This is the sixth time he has given evidence before the Tribunal. The witness described why he decided to leave his house in Srebrenica together with his family on 11 July 1995

The defense lawyer asked Dutch colonel Eelco Koster if in July 1995 he had removed the top parts of the clothes worn by the nine civilians killed near the UN base in Potocari to confirm whether they had really been shot in the back and that entry wounds were two centimeters in diameter, as Koster claimed. This led General Mladic to suggest loudly to his defense counsel to ask the witness if he had also taken off the bottom parts of their clothes to see ‘if they were circumcised’ in order to verify if they really were Muslims. The judges have already cautioned the accused several times for making loud remarks, but they obviously missed this comment

The first witness at the trial of Ratko Mladic after the summer recess, is Aernout van Linden, war correspondent for the British TV network Sky News. He testified about the two meetings he had with the accused. In a TV footage, van Linden called Mladic ‘the scourge of Sarajevo’. Mladic’s army around Sarajevo would ‘turn the screw to increase pressure according to the demands of political and military situation’. Mladic smiled at the witness, but also insulted him, calling him a ‘CIA spy’ and a ‘Tomahawk rider’

Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel covered a number of topics in the cross-examination of Aernout Van Lynden: from the deployment of the BH Army infantry and artillery, technical aspects of artillery and sniper attacks to the search for the Green Berets and the Mujahideen. Van Lynden was a war correspondent for the Sky News network. The judges cautioned Mladic for making loud comments in court and warned him to refrain from insulting witnesses

Judge Moloto warned Mladic that the Trial Chamber had at its disposal measures it could take if the accused didn’t behave properly in court. The defense lawyers must react and stop their client from insulting witnesses, the judge insisted

Irish colonel Colm Doyle described at the trial of Ratko Mladic his meeting with Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade 1992. At that time, the Serb troops were shelling Sarajevo mercilessly. Doyle’s chief, Lord Carrington, ‘waited impatiently’ for Milosevic to wield his influence over General Mladic and make him stop the shelling of Sarajevo. This never happened

After Judge Moloto conveyed to Mladic’s defense counsel Branko Lukic the Trial Chamber’s view that Ratko Mladic should ‘behave’ if he wished to remain in the courtroom and follow his own trial, Lukic ‘apologized to everyone’ on behalf of his client, albeit in closed session. Irish colonel Colm Doyle completed his evidence later today

During the evidence of a protected witness, who worked in the Sarajevo hospital at the start of the war and was injured there, the prosecution played the infamous recording of an intercepted radio communication between Mladic and Colonel Vukasinovic. In the intercept, Mladic orders Colonel Vukasinovic to shell parts of the city in order to ‘roll out the minds’ of Sarajevo citizens, ‘so that they can’t sleep’. After he was reprimanded last week for insulting a witness in court, today Ratko Mladic followed the trial in silence, communicating with the defense only by passing them written notes

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, John Jordan spoke about the efforts of Sarajevo firemen and foreign volunteers to put ‘fires and arsonism’ under control and put out hundreds of fires caused by the shelling of Sarajevo. The defense put it to the witness that the international fire brigade who were armed did not protect their Sarajevo colleagues but in fact endanger both them and civilians

In a bid to prove that numerous crimes were committed against Bosnian Muslims in 1992 as part of the ethnic cleansing campaign in large parts of BH, the prosecution called two witnesses who managed to escape the execution sites after executions and live to see the end of the war

A protected prosecution witness described in the cross-examination what happened before and after the execution of about 150 Muslims in the village of Biljani near Kljuc. The witness survived the execution by a miracle. Mladic ‘conferred quietly and properly’ with his defense counsel. After the presiding judge commended Mladic, he responded by clapping

Ratko Mladic was removed from the courtroom for ‘inappropriate behavior’. During the evidence of Adil Medic from Sanski Most, Mladic kept waving some papers in a bid to attract the attention of his lawyers, the judges, visitors in the public gallery or cameras. As Judge Orie explained, this was a temporary measure. Mladic is expected back in the courtroom on Monday morning to attend the trial

Safet Taci from Prijedor described what he saw during the massacre in the notorious Room 3 in Keraterm prison camp. In late July 1992, about 150 non-Serb prisoners were killed there. Taci was detained in a room next door. Mladic finds fault with blood pressure measurement procedure

Yesterday, Rajif Begic began his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb army commander. Continuing his testimony today, Begic described in detail how 19 Muslim men were killed on the Vrhpolje bridge on 31 May 1992. Nedzad Begic, the witness’s brother, was among the victims

Sefik Hurko, former detainee of the Rasadnik prison camp in Rogatica, described his first encounter with Ratko Mladic on the frontline near Gorazde. The general told the detained Muslims they had to ‘be baptized if they wanted to remain in Republika Srpska’. The judges warned the accused to ‘refrain from all gestures denoting disagreement or agreement with what the witnesses say’ after Mladic ‘wagged his finger’ in court

Ratko Mladic’s defense contends that Mladic wasn’t informed about the conditions in the Rasadnik prison camp and wasn’t aware that detainees were physically and sexually abused. The defense asked why prisoners didn’t tell Mladic how they were treated when they encountered him in late April 1994. The former detainee replied that they all ‘shook like a leaf’ and ‘nobody dared say anything’

Ivo Atlija, a Bosnian Croat from Prijedor, is testifying at the trial of Ratko Mladic on the attack of Serb forces on the village of Brisevo and neighboring villages. In the summer of 1992 about 200 persons were killed there. 'It's a shame so many people died for no reason', said the witness. Atlija's father was killed in Brisevo

In the final part of his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, Ivo Atlija described the wounds he had seen on the bodies of victims killed in an attack of the Serb forces on the village of Brisevo and other hamlets in the Prijedor area. ‘They looked like large cuts, from 10 to 30 cm long, with cracked tissue, as if someone had hit them with pickaxes and shovels’, the witness said, unable to hold back tears

The last witness this week is testifying with protective measures at the trial of Ratko Mladic. She described how girls and women detained in the primary school in Kalinovik were taken away. The trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander will resume on 17 September 2012

'I don't want to be neutral facing a prison guard and a prisoner, a detained woman who has been raped seven times in one night and the beast that has raped her', Ed Vulliamy said at the trial of Ratko Mladic. In August 1992, Vulliamy, journalist writing for the London newspaper Guardian, was in the first group of foreign journalists that visited the Omarska and Trnopolje prison camps on Radovan Karadzic's invitation

Former detainee in the prison camps of Susica and Batkovic Ibro Osmanovic testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. Osmanovic described the abuse of Muslims and Croats in the prison camps under the control of their ‘erstwhile neighbors’. The witness lost his younger sister, two brothers and more than 30 other relatives in the war

In the cross-examination of Ed Vulliamy the defense tried to prove that the prison camp in Trnopolje was a ‘humanitarian center’. As an ‘expert and insider’, the British journalist advised the OTP how to prosecute the accused Serbs. This made him an unreliable witness, the defense alleged

Ratko Mladic’s defense contests the allegation that the army participated in the abuse and murder of Muslims in Vlasenica and that it ran the Susica prison camp. Ibro Osmanovic, former prisoner of the Susica prison camp claimed today that anybody could walk into the camp ‘as they pleased’. People in military uniforms took the detainees to the military barracks and into town where they had to do forced labor

A former member of the VRS security service described the conditions in the Manjaca prison camp at the trial of Ratko Mladic. The witness said that it was the ‘most regular' of all prison camps under the Bosnian Serb control. The camp employed a nutritionist. This is rather different from the witness’s daily reports from 1992 in which he called Manjaca the ‘house of terror’

Former JNA colonel Osman Selak has testified about General Talic’s decision to reduce the number of victims in the attack on Kozarac in May 1992 from 800 to 80. Selak also described what he saw when he visited the Manjaca prison camp

As the prosecutor re-examined a Bosnian Serb army insider at the trial of Ratko Mladic, the witness described an incident in August 1992 when ten Muslim prisoners were killed in front of the Manjaca prison camp. The witness stressed that the prison camp command was not responsible for the fate of the victims as they hadn’t gone through the intake procedure

The accused refused to attend the examination of a protected witness who testified via video link from Sarajevo. Mladic contends that such evidence ‘violates his right because he cannot participate directly in examining the witness’. After consulting with his lawyer, the accused indicated his position could be taken as ‘a voluntarily waiver of his right to attend the trial’ until the cross-examination of previous witness Osman Selak resumes

At the trial of Ratko Mladic, a witness described the events of 14 June 1992, when he and about 50 men were put on a bus. In the village of Sokolina, the bus was stopped and fire was opened at it from various weapons: anti-tank missiles, machine guns, automatic rifles and hand grenades were used. The mutilated bodies of the victims were recovered from the bus the next day. The witness tried to identify the victims ‘based on their clothes or shoes because few of them had not suffered any damage to their faces’

Ratko Mladic waved prosecution witness Osman Selak goodbye and ‘rewarded’ the presiding judge Orie with applause after the judge showed his knowledge of military terminology. The cross-examination of the former JNA colonel about the casualties of the attack in Kozarac, the responsibility of the army for prison camps in the Prijedor area and the paramilitary units, ‘the drunken revels’ of the officers and politicians in Banja Luka and Colonel Selak’s refusal to obey orders

Ratko Mladic has refused to heed previous warnings of the Trial Chamber to behave properly and has abused his right to consult with his defense in court. The Trial Chamber therefore ordered Mladic to communicate with his defense only in writing and ‘quietly’. If he fails to obey yet again, the Trial Chamber will remove him from court

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, witness Sulejman Crncalo described the persecution of Muslims in Pale in late June and early July 1992 when they were told they could no longer live there. The defense claimed that Crncalo and his family left Pale of their own free will and allowed Serb refugees to use their property

Describing the conditions in the Trnopolje prison camp, Idriz Merdzanic, a medical doctor from Prijedor, said that most of the prisoners were women, children and elderly. After a brief detention, they were moved out of the Serb territory in ‘cattle wagons and buses’. The witness explained why there were detainees on both sides of the barbed wire fence in the prison camp when the foreign journalists visited Trnopolje

Only two witnesses of the 30 witnesses heard so far at the trial of Ratko Mladic testify for the first time before the Tribunal. Both witnesses were wounded in the night of 28 May 1992. The indictment alleges that this is when the first ‘heavy shelling of Sarajevo that killed and injured many civilians’ happened

Mevludin Sejmenovic began his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the ethnic cleansing in Prijedor in 1992 and about the Trnopolje and Omarska prison camps. Sejmenovic also explained in his testimony why Vojo Kupresanin saved him from the prison camp and gave him clothes and food on Radovan Karadzic’s orders

In the final part of their cross-examination of Mevludin Sejmenovic, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to prove that the army in Prijedor obeyed the orders of the Crisis Staff, that Omarska was under the police’s jurisdiction and that Trnopolje was a transit center in which people didn’t starve

Former commander of the UNPROFOR Sarajevo Sector, General Abdel-Razek contends the commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps Stanislav Galic was a professional who obeyed the orders of his superiors. Ratko Mladic, Galic’s superior, was described by General Abdel-Razek as a ‘strong personality and a charismatic leader’ who controlled his troops and the situation in the field

Protected witness RM 81 has testifies at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the campaign of arrests, beatings, murder and rape in Rogatica; most of these incidents occurred in the Veljko Vlahovic school after the fall of Rogatica in May 1992. The witness contends that Rajko Kusic was in charge of the prison facility. Kusic was angry because the Muslims ‘refuse to cooperate’, making it impossible for him to meet his ‘deadline to cleanse Rogatica’; he was to report to Pale about the progress

In a bid to shift at least a part of the blame for artillery and sniper terror campaign in Sarajevo from Ratko Mladic to Radovan Karadzic, the defense insisted that the RS president had been the supreme commander of the army. The witness agreed, but repeated that Mladic was the immediate superior officer of the corps that held the city under fire

During the cross-examination of a protected prosecution witness, Ratko Mladic made gestures and comments and laughed out loud. This prompted the judges to have Mladic removed from court. Through his lawyers Mladic asked the judges for their understanding, explaining that he ‘is not able to control his emotions’. Mladic announced that if the Trial Chamber tried to impose other defense lawyers to him he ‘will go on hunger strike and stop taking his medication’

Former aide de camp of the UNPROFOR commander in BH Pyers Tucker contends that the purpose of artillery and sniper attacks on Sarajevo was to ‘instill fear into the people and encourage them to leave the areas’ under attack. In Eastern Bosnia and other parts of BH, a pattern of ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs could be observed, Tucker said

Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel contends that the Bosnian Serb army attacked Sarajevo following the US military doctrine called ‘shock and awe’. The doctrine calls for the army with a superior artillery element to demonstrate force as soon as possible to discourage and defeat the enemy. Prosecution witness Pyers Tucker replied that the key of the doctrine was to ‘limit civilian casualties as much as possible, and that was not the case in the VRS attacks on Sarajevo’

Australian general John Wilson testified about the superiority of the Bosnian Serb forces over the defense of Sarajevo in the spring of 1992. Wilson said that in 34 years of his military career he had never seen military force used as 'excessively, disproportionately and indiscriminately' as it was in Sarajevo, although he had served in Vietnam and Lebanon

Former head of military observers in Sarajevo John Wilson said that after the heavy shelling of Sarajevo on 28 May 1992 he listened to an intercepted conversation in which General Ratko Mladic ordered his troops to attack. The JNA officers inside the city distanced themselves from the attack, claiming that Mladic was 'out of control'. The accused again could not restrain himself and was once again removed from court for obstructing the trial

The transcript of an intercepted conversation from May 1992 in which Ratko Mladic orders his subordinates not to open fire on Sarajevo during the evacuation of the JNA troops was presented to John Wilson today. The former head of UN observers in BH said that it meant Mladic could impose a ceasefire ‘if he wanted’. The prosecution will continue its case on 29 October 2012

The trial of Ratko Mladic continued with the evidence of Grgo Stojic, one of six Bosnian Croats the Serb forces took away from the village of Skrljevita near Sanski Most to be executed on 2 November 1992. The defense contends that the perpetrators of the crime belonged to the 'irregulars' and at least two of them were 'legal minors'. The witness replied that the two of them were too young to serve in the army 'but old enough to kill'. Mladic missed the first part of the hearing because he wanted to 'finish his breakfast'

Muhamed Kapetanovic was nine years old when he was seriously wounded in the shelling of Alipasino Polje. Kapetanovic said that children had been playing in the snow because it had been a quiet day. A BH Army unit had its HQ in a nearby building, but no fire was opened from it that day, the witness claimed

Former senior UN military observer Richard Mole notes that Bosnian Serbs’ 'strategy was to block Sarajevo' and put pressure on the city in order to achieve their objectives in other battlefields. General Ratko Mladic has agreed that the trial proceed in his absence while he undergoes medical examinations

British lieutenant colonel Richard Mole was cross-examined by Mladic’s defense. He confirmed that the mobile mortars and tanks in Sarajevo were legitimate targets. He did add a caveat: only immediate response to their fire could be ‘effective’. Whatever the side under attack did in such a ‘frustrating situation’, it was bound to be wrong

The trial of Ratko Mladic continued in his absence because he was undergoing medical examinations. In 1992 and 1993, witness Elvir Pasic, former police officer from Rogatica, was detained in the Veljko Vlahovic School in Rogatica and in the prison camps in Susica and Batkovic

Ismet Svraka from Sarajevo testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. The explosion of a shell at the Markale market on 28 August 1995 left Svraka permanently disabled. Svraka’s left leg was amputated above the knee, he lost two toes on his right foot and he sustained a serious abdominal injury. The consequences of his injuries are obvious, Svraka said, but ‘still, you have to go on living’

Former commander of one of the brigades in the VRS 1st Krajina Corps is testifying at the trial of Ratko Mladic. The protected witness contends that the Bosnian army and police should have taken harsher measures against the persons responsible for the crimes at the very beginning of the war. In parts of the evidence in open session, the witness spoke about the massacre of 150 Muslims in the school in the village of Grabovica near Kotor Varos in November 1992

According to the prosecution military expert Richard Philipps, the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps was a well-organized formation. Philipps suggested that it would not have been possible to attack the citizens of Sarajevo with shells and snipers without the knowledge of the corps command and its superior command, the VRS Main Staff, headed by Ratko Mladic. The accused was cautioned and told he would be removed from court if he didn’t change his behavior

Journalist Nusret Sivac began his evidence at the trial of General Ratko Mladic; he spoke about the ‘brutal and inhumane conditions’, beatings, torture, killing and ‘cruel abuse’ of prisoners in the Prijedor prison camps of Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje. Sivac contends that the VRS, active police and drafted villagers provided security in prison camps

In the cross-examination of the prosecution military expert Richard Phillips, Mladic’s defense tried to shift the blame for the shelling of Sarajevo on the Bosnian Serb politicians. The prosecution brought up to a document showing that the Main Staff controlled the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps and could even directly decide about the deployment of the artillery around the city

On their arrival in the Omarska prison camp, prisoners had to go through a ‘bloody admission system’: beatings that many of them didn’t survive, former prisoner Nusret Sivac said. The defense wants to prove that the SDS Crisis Staff was responsible for the crimes in Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje. A former member of the Sarajevo security service began his evidence later today

General Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel suggests that ‘a stray bullet’ may have hit a tram on 8 October 1994. According to Mladic’s defense, the witness, who took part in the investigation, was not able to establish the origin of fire and relied on the driver’s statement

Former head of military observers in Sarajevo Francis Roy Thomas said that the goal of the Bosnian Serb army was not to capture territory. They wanted to terrorize the civilian population with artillery and sniper attacks, Thomas insisted. According to him, the accused Ratko Mladic was the ‘dominant personality’ in the VRS

As the prosecution continues its case at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former Danish interior minister Bertie Weiss started her evidence. In 1996, Weiss was present at an exhumation of Muslims killed in the village of Biljani near Kljuc in July 1992

At Ratko Mladic’s trial, a protected witness testifying under the pseudonym RM 63 spoke about the six months of detention in the Penitentiary and Correctional Facility (KPD) in Foca. The defense put it to the witness that the civilian authorities were in charge of the KPD, specifically the Justice Ministry headed by Momcilo Mandic

Former UN military observer and member of the UNPROFOR team investigating the first Markale market massacre started his testimony today at the trial of Ratko Mladic. As the witness recounted, there was a day during his stay in Sarajevo when the Bosnian Serb army fired almost 4,000 shells on the city in 12 hours

Nedzib Djozo, a police officer from Sarajevo, said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that the VRS ‘deliberately’ targeted places where a large number of civilians gathered to cause as many casualties as possible: bread and water queues, children sledding, markets… Before the Markale 2 massacre, the Serb forces took a while to ‘adjust’ mortar fire targeting that part of the city until they finally hit the market

In his evidence, Refik Sokolar, a police inspector from Novi Grad municipality in Sarajevo, said there were one or two sniper and artillery incidents every day in Dobrinja, a part of Sarajevo. The witness himself was wounded in an incident listed in the indictment against Ratko Mladic

In his fourth testimony before the Tribunal, Canadian general David Fraser argued that the VRS ‘deliberately chose civilians as targets’, that Sarajevo was put under ‘disproportionate and random fire’ and that there ‘is no military justification’ for the use of modified air bombs. According to the witness, Ratko Mladic was on the ‘top of the chain of command in the VRS’

Recalling that in September 1994 NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel asked the former deputy commander of UNPROFOR in BH if he and other high-ranking UN officials had ever called in NATO strikes against the BH Army. The defense argues that the BH Army was also responsible for some of the incidents. As the witness explained, no air strikes were called in because the actions of the government troops ‘never escalated to a level that would warrant a military intervention’

Ratko Mladic’s defense challenged the findings of Sarajevo investigators: according to the defense, the investigators were wrong when they determined that the civilians in Livanjska Street and the passengers in trams in Sarajevo in 1994 and 1995 were killed and injured by the Bosnian Serb army artillery and snipers. Mladic’s defense put it to the witness that the fire had in fact been opened from the BH Army positions. There followed a debate about witness Dragan Miokovic’s ethnic origin: is he an ethnic Srbin, a Bosniak, a Yugoslav…or a little bit of everything?

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former UNPROFOR member spoke about the sniper and artillery terror campaign waged by the VRS against the Sarajevo civilians. During the two years of his service in the city, the witness got the impression that Ratko Mladic had full control over the VRS. According to the witness, the VRS had very little leeway to operate outside of Mladic’s supervision

Another member of the UNPROFOR French contingent began his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. In his written statement to the OTP investigators, the witness said that in the first three months of his service in 1993, an average of 1,200 shells fell on Sarajevo every day. The last day of March 1993, 2,400 projectiles were fired on the city from Serb positions

As the cross-examination of the former member of the UNPROFOR French contingent continued, Ratko Mladic was removed from the courtroom for inappropriate interference with the examination of the witness. The trial continues after the Tribunal’s winter recess on 10 January 2013

In a report drafted for the prosecution, sniper expert Patrick Van Der Weijden established possible origin of sniper fire in incidents targeting citizens of Sarajevo. Complaining of health problems, Ratko Mladic at first refused to listen to the evidence he called ‘stupid NATO propaganda’ but then changed his mind

General Mladic’s defense counsel put it to the witness that some sniper victims listed in the indictment were killed by stray bullets intended for the BH Army troops. Prosecution expert Patrick Van Der Weijden dismissed the claim as ‘technically impossible and tactically unreasonable’

In the cross-examination of Dr Milan Mandilovic, Ratko Mladic’s defense put it to him that the VRS didn’t intentionally attack the State Hospital in Sarajevo. Because the southern side of the building was hit so many times during the war, the hospital was nicknamed ‘Swiss cheese’. The defense contends that the hospital had unfortunately found itself in ‘the line of fire’: the Serb troops were in fact targeting the nearby BH Army positions and the police station. Both the BH Army and the police were legitimate targets, the defense argued

Following the evidence of Munira Selmanovic from the village of Novoseoce near Sokolac, British general Michael Rose began his testimony at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Rose described the accused as a man who, together with Radovan Karadzic, was at the top of the chain of command in Republika Srpska. Mladic was the ‘key person’ when combat operations were planned; as a commander, he enjoyed the respect of his subordinates

In the cross-examination of General Michael Rose Ratko Mladic’s defense pointed to the ‘drastic difference’ in the way the UN and NATO treated the warring sides in BH. The defense contends that the Western forces attacked the BH Army with ‘strong words’ and Serbs with ‘strong bombs’

Ratko Mladic missed the final part of the evidence of British general Michael Rose because he was due to meet the Serbian justice minister in the Detention Unit. Later in the day, the accused returned to the dock and followed the testimony of protected witness RM 46, who had been detained in the Foca Correctional and Penal Facility

A French officer, who served in UNPROFOR in 1995, testifies at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the sniper and artillery terror campaign against Sarajevo’s civilian population. The Serb side ‘didn’t have any ethical scruples’, the witness said, and considered it was ‘rational’ to randomly fire on civilians to accomplish its goals

In the cross-examination of a French officer who testified at the trial today, Ratko Mladic’s defense contested the accusations related to the massacre at the Markale market on 28 August 1995. The defense put it to the witness that the Bosnian side had brought in the bodies of persons who had been killed elsewhere to increase the number of casualties and that the UN command tampered with the results of the investigation, opting for the theory that would justify NATO strikes

In the final part of the cross-examination of the French officer testifying under the pseudonym RM 55, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to prove that the VRS ‘had the right’ to reclaim the heavy artillery under UNPROFOR’s control to defend itself against the Muslim attacks. That right was purportedly granted in a protocol signed in 1994 by Radovan Karadzic and Yasushi Akashi

British general Rupert Smith confirmed at the trial of Ratko Mladic that the commander of the VRS Main Staff had authority over his troops and made all the important decisions. At the same time, Mladic ignored Smith’s warnings about breaches of the Geneva conventions. Instead, Mladic issued threats and realized them, refusing to realize that ‘the Serbs’ actions created such a terrible public impression that the international negotiators rejected their proposals out of hand’

Ratko Mladic couldn’t restrain himself and had to voice his opinion of British general Rupert Smith in court. ‘He is not a peace keeper but a British hawk’, Mladic shouted at the end of the hearing. UNPROFOR in BH was not a ‘peace-keeping force’ for a simple reason that there was no peace in BH to keep, Smith said in the cross-examination

In the cross-examination, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel attempted to portray British general Rupert Smith as a person who had come to BH with the intent to ‘fight against Serbs’. According to the defense, the air strikes against the VRS positions were ‘personal, a showdown’ between Smith and Mladic. The witness responded that there was nothing personal there. The only goal was to force Mladic to stop the attacks on Sarajevo and other safe havens

According to a former high-ranking UNPROFOR officer testifying under the pseudonym RM 120, Ratko Mladic ‘conceived the VRS strategy in Sarajevo’. The witness said that Milenko Indjic, VRS liaison officer with UNPROFOR, was there to put the pressure on the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps commander Dragomir Milosevic on behalf of Mladic to ‘make sure that Mladic’s vision was implemented’

During the cross-examination of a French UNPROFOR officer testifying under the pseudonym RM-120, Ratko Mladic had to be removed from court yet again, because he was showing some photographs from a book he had brought with him in the dock

BBC’s war correspondent Martin Bell confirmed in his evidence at Ratko Mladic’s trial that Serbs had been attacking Sarajevo in order to take it and that they ‘tightened the noose’ around the city to gain the upper hand at the peace talks. He was able to see that when he met with the Bosnian Serb leaders who, as he noted, were obsessed by maps

Following an investigation into the financial status of the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, the Tribunal’s Registry established that the accused has enough money to contribute a little less than 61,000 euro toward the cost of his defense. This is less than 146,500 euro to be paid by Radovan Karadzic or the staggering 3.3 million that Slobodan Praljak will have to pay

British correspondent Martin Bell testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the artillery and sniper terror campaign in Sarajevo. In the cross-examination, Bell confirmed his statements in his book In Harm’s Way: he said that a number of journalists took the Muslims’ side during the war. Later in his evidence, Bell corrected his statement, saying that their bias was not ‘conscious’: they did it because they never left the city and couldn’t see the war from any other perspective

Mirza Sabljica, former ballistics expert of the Sarajevo Security Services Center, began his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. During the war Sabljica took part in the investigation of numerous sniper and artillery incidents. One of the incidents is the Markale massacre which happened exactly 19 years ago, on 5 February 1994

In the cross-examination of Mirza Sabljica, Ratko Mladic’s defense contested the claim that the Serb forces were responsible for the artillery incidents listed in the indictment. The defense suggested that the shells could have been fired from BH Army positions, and highlighted the differences in the reports produced by various local investigation teams and the fact they did not tally with the findings of UNPROFOR’s investigations

Remembering the behavior of the accused general during the war in BH, high-ranking UN official Anthony Banbury said that Mladic was an ‘intelligent, strategic thinker’, who used a combination of ‘charm and bullying’ in the negotiations and used his ‘undisputed’ influence on the army to create an atmosphere in which civilians in Sarajevo were killed ‘routinely’

The defense counsel showed the minutes from a meeting where Slobodan Milosevic called Ratko Mladic an ‘honest man’. The defense counsel asked the high-ranking UN official Anthony Banbury if he heard other people describe Mladic in similar terms. ‘No, but I heard people say he very often misrepresented the truth'’, the witness replied

Former member of the Anti-Sabotage Protection Department in the BH MUP in Sarajevo started his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. During the war, the witness took part in more than 50 investigations of the shelling incidents that involved civilian victims. In his evidence, the witness gave some additional explanations concerning the marks left by the lethal shells on the streets of Sarajevo

Ratko Mladic’s defense continued the cross-examination of Ekrem Suljevic. The defense contends that the Sarajevo police ‘planted’ evidence to blame the Serb side for the shelling incidents that caused civilian casualties

Quoting the statement of the health minister in the wartime Bosnian Serb cabinet, Dr Bakir Nakas claims that the VRS intended to destroy the hospitals Sarajevo because they wanted ‘to strip the enemy of the possibility of medical treatment’

In the cross-examination of Dr Bakir Nakas, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel suggested that the Sarajevo Military Hospital had already been shelled while the JNA had still occupied it. According to the defense, the damage to the right-hand half of the southern façade could have been caused by the shells fired from the BH Army positions at Debelo Brdo

Based on the hospital records, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel established that 39 persons were killed at the Markale market in February 1994, not 67, as was established by Edin Suljic, an inspector in the Sarajevo Security Services Center. The defense contends that the BH authorities ‘exerted a lot of pressure’ on the Security Services Center staff working on the investigation, in order to ‘massage the figures for the casualties’: ‘to increase the number and use it in propaganda against Serbs’

A protected witness at the trial of General Ratko Mladic testifies about the murders in the Foca Correctional and Penal Facility (KP Dom). The witness was detained there for more than two and a half years. The defense ‘objected’ to the witness’s claims that some detainees were killed and contested that the witness had ‘any knowledge of it’

Ratko Mladic’s defense denies that the VRS used modified air bombs. However, in the cross-examination of a former UN observer, Per Brennskag, Mladic’s defense claimed that modified air bombs nicknamed ‘sows’ because of their destructive power and inaccuracy …in fact were an ‘accurate’ weapon

Nermin Karagic testified today at the trial of Ratko Mladic. In late May 1992, he managed to avoid death by sheer luck. He was already lined up by the wall of the football stadium in Ljubija, waiting for his turn to be killed. Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel tried to prove that the reserve police, not the army, were responsible for the Ljubija massacre

According to a VRS Main Staff document, on 7 April 1995 the VRS ‘responded appropriately’ to ‘very intense fire’ opened by the BH Army on the Famos factory in Ilidza. The VRS fired a 250-kg modified air bomb on the center of Hrasnica. Norwegian major Thorbjorn Overgard said in his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic that on that day there was no fire on Ilidza from Hrasnica. On the contrary, it was ‘a normal and quiet morning’, Overgard said

Ratko Mladic didn’t appear in the courtroom citing health reasons. The Trial Chamber ordered a medical examination of the accused and adjourned the trial until Tuesday 9 April

The trial of Ratko Mladic was adjourned because of the health of the accused, but will proceed on Wednesday with the evidence of protected witness RM 346. The trial may continue in Mladic’s presence, if he is able to attend, or the judges may decide to invoke the Tribunal’s rules and proceed in his absence by deposing the witness

Mladic’s loud claims that the witness was ‘making things up’ and ‘lying’ resulted in the judges ordering the accused to be removed from the courtroom. The protected witness, who is a survivor of the execution of the Muslim detainees on the Branjevo Farm on 16 July 1995, continued and ended his evidence without the accused

In his sixth and probably last testimony at the Tribunal, the former head of the Srebrenica investigation team once again set the stage for the prosecution’s evidence about the crimes committed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Ratko Mladic was the commander of the VRS Main Staff at the time: now he is on trial for those crimes

Former head of the OTP Srebrenica investigation team Jean Rene Ruez continued his evidence at Ratko Mladic’s trial. Ruez described how his investigation team identified the locations where Bosniaks were captured, detained, executed and buried after the fall of Srebrenica. The bodies were later transferred to new mass graves to cover up the crime

Ratko Mladic’s defense objected to the admission of the prosecution’s collection of maps that present the events in the Srebrenica area after the Serb forces overran the UN protected enclave. Yesterday, in closed session, Mladic was once again removed from court after he made loud comments about the witness’s testimony. At the end of the hearing, Mladic asked to address the Trial Chamber about a ‘personal issue’, but was not allowed to speak to the judges

Dutch lieutenant colonel Pieter Boering testified for the sixth time at the Tribunal. He described the three meetings in the Fontana Hotel in Bratunac in July 1995. Ratko Mladic used ‘threatening’ rhetoric both to the Dutch officers and the representatives of the civilian population

Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to shift the responsibility for the evacuation of civilians from Potocari in July 1995 on the Dutch ‘blue helmets’. The defense counsel invoked the statement made by Lieutenant Colonel Pieter Boering in 1995 in which he said that ‘the Dutch Battalion soldiers helped divide up the people and sent men to the white house’

Parts of a video compilation, Srebrenica – court video were played at the trial of Ratko Mladic during the examination-in-chief of the OTP investigator Erin Gallagher. The clips showed Mladic’s triumphant arrival in Srebrenica, as well as his statement about the ‘revenge on Turks’. There was also a clip showing the ‘Drina Wolves’ unit howling as they attacked, and the video of the Scorpions unit executing six Srebrenica youths and boys

Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel put it to the witness that the UN Dutch Battalion changed the mandate in July 1995 and started a war against the VRS. Witness Evert Rave replied that the blue helmets had been ‘attacked as if they were at war’ and tried to defend themselves and the civilian population in the enclave as best they could

During the cross-examination of Dutch officer Evert Albert Rave, Mladic’s defense counsel put it to him that UNPROFOR failed to demilitarize the Srebrenica enclave and disarm the BH Army’s 28th Division. The BH Army troops were able to ‘deceive’ UNPROFOR: they would hide the weapons whenever the ‘blue helmets’ appeared

A former soldier who served in the UN Dutch Battalion in Srebrenica described how General Mladic told him in Potocari on 12 July 1995 that in 10 years’ time, the Army of Republika Srpska will have to defend Holland against Muslim

As the former head of the Srebrenica investigation team Jean-Rene Ruez remarked in his cross-examination, he was all too aware of the fact that Ratko Mladic’s defense’s ‘last resort was to claim that the victims buried in the Srebrenica mass graves were actually soldiers’. He dismissed the claim, urging the defense and the judges to look at the findings of his investigators. They concluded that in July 1995 the captured men and youths were temporarily detained on several locations and were then taken to the execution sites

Former soldier in the Dutch Battalion confirmed at the trial of Ratko Mladic that on 13 July 1995 he saw the killing of a Bosniak man from Srebrenica in Potocari. The defense contends that the Dutch soldier didn’t witness the murder because his evidence today diverged from his previous statements

In his evidence at Ratko Mladic’s trial, Dutch general Cornelis Nicolai said that he and other UNPROFOR commanders wrongly concluded in July 1995 that the VRS attack on Srebrenica would stop after they took the southern part of the enclave. The UNPROFOR commanders were reluctant to call in close air support because they feared how the Serb side would react

In the cross-examination of the former UNPROFOR chief of staff Cornelis Nicolai, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to prove that in the summer of 1995 UNPROFOR was not neutral. UNPROFOR ‘sided with’ the BH Army. Both UN and NATO thus became a ‘warring side’ in Bosnia and Herzegovina

According to the former deputy commander of the Dutch Battalion Robert Franken, Mladic’s defense case that the civilian population in Srebrenica could have remained in the enclave in July 1995 if they had wanted to was ‘pure nonsense’. The choice to stay was theoretical; in practice the things looked quite different, Franken explained

Ratko Mladic’s defense continued the cross-examination of Robert Franken with the claim that the former VRS Main Staff commander didn’t threaten the Dutch Battalion soldiers and the civilians of Srebrenica. Franken answered that at a meeting in Bratunac Mladic told the Dutch officers: ‘From here you can leave, all of you, or stay, all of you, or die, all of you’

The only Bosniak who survived the execution on the Jadar river bank on 13 July 1995 testified today. The 16 Bosniaks were captured and brought before the firing squad two days after Mladic’s forces overran Srebrenica. The witness, testifying for the fourth time before the Tribunal with image protection and under the pseudonym RM 314, described at the trial of Ratko Mladic what he had gone through that day

The trial of Ratko Mladic continued with the evidence of a protected witness, who survived a mass-execution of the people from Srebrenica in July 1995 in Orahovac. As he lay underneath the dead bodies in the ‘killing field’ in Orahovac, the witness heard a gravely wounded man ask the soldiers to finish him off. ‘Take it easy’, said one of the killers

On 12 and 13 July 1995 in Potocari, the RS special police separated men from their families and detained them. The military police only secured the prisoners, claimed a former member of the VRS Bratunac Brigade military police in his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic

Former member of the Bratunac Brigade confirmed at the trial of the VRS Main Staff commander that thousands of Muslims captured after the fall of Srebrenica were detained in Bratunac in the night of 13 July 1995. In his replies to Mladic’s defense, the witness confirmed that there ‘was hate among the people’, but no ‘desire for revenge’. It is the defense case that the Srebrenica crimes were the consequence of the locals’ desire for revenge

Saliha Osmanovic and Mirsada Malagic described how they lost their closest family after Srebrenica fell. They both saw the accused Ratko Mladic in Srebrenica. Osmanovic and Malagic were deported from the Serb territory together with thousands of other women and children

As the former commander of the VRS 2nd Romanija Brigade said today, Operation Krivaja 95 in Srebrenica was ‘planned and carried out by the VRS Drina Corps’. Its commander was found guilty of the crimes in Srebrenica and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Initially, there was no plan to take the enclaves, Mirko Trivic claimed at the trial of Ratko Mladic

In his Directive 7, the VRS supreme commander ordered his troops to create ‘the situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Zepa’. According to prosecution witness Mirko Trivic, Directive 7 was supposed to be a ‘a sort of a sanction’ that would cause the Muslim population in the enclave to rebel and overthrow the regime that held them ‘hostage’

An insider from Bratunac, who saw the murders in front of the warehouse in Kravica on 13 July 1995, testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic with protective measures about the operation to bury the bodies of hundreds of Muslims killed after the fall of Srebrenica

Tomasz Blaszczyk, a police officer from Poland, described at the trial of Ratko Mladic how videos made by Belgrade journalist Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac helped him and other OTP investigators to reconstruct the crimes in Srebrenica. Pirocanac recorded the footage in the field on 13 and 14 July 1995

Through the evidence of yet another VRS insider, former Bratunac Brigade security chief Momir Nikolic, the prosecution tried to prove that the crimes in Srebrenica had been planned in advance. The prosecution also wants to prove that those who ordered and participated in the crimes shared the intent to cover up and conceal the crimes

The prosecution wants to prove that the findings produced by Karadzic’s ballistic expert Mile Poparic were based on false premises, that he used non-transparent sources and neglected to include relevant information. As a result, he failed to refute the claim that the Bosnian Serb army was responsible for the sniper attacks on civilians in Sarajevo

At a hearing about Ratko Mladic’s health that was scheduled after his defense asked for the working week to be shortened, Mladic paid tribute to all those who have ‘saved his life’ after his arrival in The Hague and ‘pulled me out of a grave’. As he said, he already had ‘both feet in the grave’

In the final part of the cross-examination of Momir Nikolic, the defense focused on the hand gesture Ratko Mladic made on 13 July 1995 in Konjevic Polje. The gesture indicated, as Nikolic testified, that the Muslims captured after the fall of Srebrenica would be ‘mowed down’, or executed

A young man who was seven years old when he survived an execution in a field in Orahovac near Zvornik on 14 July 1995 gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. The witness testified with image and voice distortion and under the pseudonym RM 313 to protect his identity

In the cross-examination of the OTP investigator, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel tried to get the witness to confirm the defense case that the former commander of the VRS Main Staff wasn’t responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica. The Srebrenica genocide is one of the gravest crimes during the war in BH; Mladic has been charged with it

Milenko Pepic testified at Ratko Mladic’s trial. When prisoners were executed in Kravica, Pepic was manning a check point at the Zuti Most bridge nearby. Pepic heard ‘intense gunfire’ from the direction of Kravica. That night, his commander told him that what had happened in Kravica ‘isn’t a good thing’ and that ‘sooner or later someone will be held responsible for what was done’

One of the two survivors of the execution at the Petkovci dam on 14 July 1995 testified at the Tribunal, describing how he was captured and temporarily held in the school in Petkovci and then taken to an execution site at the dam nearby. This is the sixth time the witness is testifying in The Hague about his ordeal

Former military police commander in the 65th Motorized Protection Regiment of the VRS Main Staff couldn’t explain in his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic why a list was made of the names of all the Muslims detained in the football stadium in Nova Kasaba on 13 July 1995. The list was never completed and the lists of detainees were never used

Protected witness RM 269 described at the trial of Ratko Mladic how he, as a VRS soldier, secured the Muslims captured after the fall of Srebrenica. The men were detained in the schools in the villages of Orahovac and Rocevic near Zvornik

The prosecution and the defense disagree about the date and time when General Ratko Mladic returned to the Main Staff in Crna Rijeka from Belgrade as the VRS Srebrenica operation was in full swing. Was it on 16 or 17 July 1995?

Retired VRS colonel Petar Salapura said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that he learned about the involvement of the 10th Sabotage Detachment in the massacre in Branjevo in December 1995 or January 1996, not before. Salapura didn’t think he needed to report it because by that time, ‘everybody knew’ about it. The prosecutor and the judges asked if Mladic had known what everybody else knew. As the witness said, the whole town was abuzz about these facts

In his reply to Mladic’s defense counsel, former commander of the 2nd Battalion in the VRS Zvornik Brigade Srecko Acimovic said that although there was every indication that the detainees would be executed he had hoped it wouldn’t happen ‘because it defied human dignity and all principles of humanity’

In the cross-examination of Dutch colonel Vincentus Egbers, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to prove that the men detained after the fall of Srebrenica in the ‘white house’ in Potocari could be considered soldiers. Many of them had had knives on their persons, the defense counsels argued. The witness explained that these were pocketknives, commonly used to ‘pare apples’

A protected witness who was an operator in the Bosnian State Security Service completed his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. During the war, the Bosnian secret service intercepted the conversations between Bosnian Serb civilian and military leaders. The prosecution then called its next witness, Drazen Erdemovic, former member of the VRS 10th Sabotage Detachment. Erdemovic had pleaded guilty to the execution of more than 1,000 Muslims at the Branjevo farm on 16 July 1995

In the cross-examination of the Tribunal’s first penitent witness, Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel tried to contest parts of Erdemovic’s testimony by using the statements made by his fellow fighters and accomplices in the crime at the Branjevo farm, Franc Kos and Aleksandar Cvetkovic. They gave the statements to the OTP investigators after their arrests in Croatia and Israel, respectively

In July 1995 protected witness RM 254 was captured twice. The witness was able to escape the first time when he was sent to fetch water. The second time, he was saved after he lied about his age, saying he was just 14. The witness recounted that during his detention in Bratunac he met a person who introduced himself as Ratko Mladic. The witness and some other boys of his age were forced to play football with ‘Chetniks’. While they played, the “Chetniks” filmed them with a camera

A protected witness testifying under the pseudonym RM 254 said yesterday that a ‘Serb soldier’ took him away from a group of Bosniak prisoners on 17 July 1995. Today, the prosecution called a former artillery officer in the Bratunac Brigade who claimed he had done that

Mladic’s former assistant for organization, mobilization and personnel issues Petar Skrbic didn’t want to answer the question if he thought the ‘evacuation’ of women and children from Srebrenica on 12 July 1995 was a crime. Skrbic provided buses for the evacuation

According to the latest figures by Dr Thomas Parsons from the International Commission on Missing Persons, the remains of 6,767 victims exhumed from the Srebrenica mass graves have so far been identified using DNA analysis

Senior inspector in the Australian police gives evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic about his involvement in the investigation of the Srebrenica crimes conducted by the Tribunal’s OTP from 1998. The witness coordinated the program of identification and exhumation of mass graves in the Srebrenica area

Australian archeologist Richard Wright gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Wright was in charge of the OTP’s team that located and exhumed the mass graves in Srebrenica and Prijedor

Dutch textile expert Susan Maljaars analyzed pieces of fabric found in the Srebrenica mass graves. The fabric was used to blindfold and tie the prisoners who were later executed. The prosecution called Maljaars as its case continues at the trial of Ratko Mladic

Psychotherapist Teufika Ibrahimefendic testified about the trauma and suffering of the survivors from Srebrenica at Ratko Mladic’s trial. Grief, deep pain and uncertainty because many of the victims have not been found and identified, and the resultant inability to go through the normal process of grieving for the lost family members, and the unclear circumstances in which they lost their lives are just a few of the features of the trauma experienced by the survivors. Dr Ibrahimefendic calls this trauma ‘the Srebrenica syndrome’

In the cross-examination of Dr. Christopher Lawrence, Mladic’s defense tried to prove that the victims from the Srebrenica mass graves were soldiers, not prisoners. The defense also argued that the pieces of fabric found in the mass graves were not blindfolds or ties used to bind the victims’ hands; to corroborate that claim, the defense showed segments from the Srebrenica video collection prepared by the prosecution

At the trial of Ratko Mladic, the prosecution has called Timothy Curtis, an employee of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who has written an expert report on the bullet casings recovered from the execution sites in Srebrenica

With increasing frequency, the trials of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic feature prosecution and defense witnesses who testify at the same time about the same contentious issues, and their evidence is diametrically opposed. Karadzic’s defense expert Dusan Dunjic harshly criticized the findings of American forensic anthropologist William Haglund. One floor below, at the Mladic trial, Haglund testified for the prosecution about the exhumations and the examination of the remains from the Srebrenica mass graves

Ratko Mladic’s defense contests the findings from the report written by forensic expert William Haglund, who coordinated the exhumations of the Srebrenica mass graves. The defense maintains that the reports were written to fit the prosecution’s needs, as the witness was on the OTP’s payroll at the time

According to a report written in 2009 by Norwegian demographer Helge Brunborg, presented today at Ratko Mladic’s trial, 7,692 persons are listed as missing from Srebrenica. The prosecution indicated that an updated figure would be presented in the course of the trial

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former OTP investigator Dusan Janc has stated that 6,849 Srebrenica victims have been identified so far. The figure is not final, Janc has noted, since new mass graves are still being discovered, 18 years after the massacre

Ratko Mladic’s defense contests the allegations in the report written by a former OTP investigator about the exhumations of the Srebrenica mass graves

A protected prosecution witness has told the court at the trial of Ratko Mladic how in July 1995, after the fall of Srebrenica, he managed to board one of the buses used to evacuate the women and children. He was discovered soon afterwards and taken to one of the execution sites. His luck held and he was able to escape and reach the liberated territory

Analyzing the minutes from the Bosnian Serb Assembly sessions, prosecution expert Robert Donia has concluded that the document known as ‘Six Strategic Goals’ envisaged the occupation of those parts of BH with a sizeable non-Serb population and the establishment of a border between the Bosnian Serb state and the territory inhabited by Muslims and Croats, while no border was to be drawn between the Bosnian Serb state and Serbia proper. The goals were conceived by Karadzic, Krajisnik and Koljevic, and implemented by Mladic

In the middle of the cross-examination of prosecution expert Robert Donia, the accused Ratko Mladic complained of dizziness. After a medical examination revealed his blood pressure was low, the trial was adjourned until Monday. Donia was talking about the causes of the war in BH

Although US historian Robert Donia does not deny that Sarajevo Serbs suffered violence during the war, he dismissed the allegations made by Mladic’s defense that Serbs were ‘hostages’ because they suffered violence and could not leave the city. Donia labels those claims a ‘propagandist caricature’

When prosecution expert Robert Donia was asked to comment on the role of the accused in the work of the Bosnian Serb Assembly, he said that as the Army commander he could not participate in the decision-making process in an official capacity, but in practice, his was ‘an influential voice’: he could ‘present proposals, advocate policies and take part in debates’

As the cross-examination of Emir Turkusic continued today at Ratko Mladic’s trial, his defense tried to prove that the shelling of Sarajevo was legitimate. Turkusic is a former employee of the Anti-Sabotage Department in the BH Interior Ministry

Former employee of the Anti-Sabotage Department in the BH Interior Ministry has labeled ‘insane’ the theory put forward by Ratko Mladic’s defense according to which the incident at Markale on 28 August 1995 was caused by setting of a stationary explosive device planted there

If the judges want Ratko Mladic to be polite in court and not respond furiously without ‘short circuiting’, they should agree to his request for a four-day working week, as his defense put it in the motion to the Appeals Chamber

Jose Baraybar, a forensic anthropologist from Peru, described the methodology used to establish the age, sex and the minimum number of 2,541 bodies of the Srebrenica Bosniaks exhumed from 1996 to 2001

Having examined the voluminous evidence, prosecution expert Richard Butler concluded that Ratko Mladic actively participated in the Srebrenica operation in July 1995. Mladic planned actions, monitored their implementation, attended combat operations in the field and decided on the fate of civilians that took shelter in Potocari, Butler explained

American intelligence officer Richard Butler, former analyst with the OTP in The Hague, described in detail the detention, transport and execution of the Srebrenica Muslims in July 1995. Butler used the documents that show the entire process went on with the knowledge and on the orders of the accused Mladic and officers from his staff

In their documents and intercepted conversations Bosnian Serb military officers tried hard to cover up the Srebrenica crimes in July 1995. However, it was not difficult for prosecution expert Richard Butler to reconstruct the course of the events from the capture to the mass executions, the burial of the bodies and their transfer to other graves in a secret operation to eliminate the evidence of the crimes

The defense told the judges the accused was so exhausted he was too weak to even ‘socialize’ with his fellow detainees after hearings last week. After the first session, the accused was taken back to the Detention Unit after he complained of numbness in the right side of the body. The hearing was adjourned until further notice

Presiding judge Orie said that Mladic’s medical examination didn’t indicate there were any reasons why he should not attend his trial, apart from Mladic’s claims that he is under stress. When Ratko Mladic failed to appear in the dock today, the Trial Chamber decided the trial would go on tomorrow with Mladic or without him. The American intelligence officer Richard Butler, who just might be the reason for Mladic’s stress, will thus be able to continue his evidence

When the defense asked American intelligence officer Richard Butler if he had seen any orders issued by Ratko Mladic instructing his troops to commit crimes, Butler replied that in September 1995 the accused had ordered the delivery of five tons of fuel for the transfer of the bodies of the Srebrenica victims from the primary to secondary graves. The accused was back in court today, as he knew the cross-examination would have gone on in his absence

At Ratko Mladic’s trial, the OTP employee Maria Karall today repeated the offensive remarks addressed by the accused at a protected witness during a break in the hearing on 18 February 2013. After Karall completed her evidence, American intelligence officer Richard Butler resumed his testimony

American intelligence officer Richard Butler dismissed the defense’s suggestion that the intercepted conversations of Ratko Mladic and his officers from the period before and after the fall of Srebrenica were not authentic. Butler noted that their contents corresponded to a great extent with the Bosnian Serb army documents as well as with the other evidence on the course of events leading to the Srebrenica genocide

Mladic’s defense implied that the Srebrenica civilians, known as the ‘carpet-baggers’, actually participated in combat when they entered and looted captured Serb villages and were thus a legitimate military target. The prosecution military expert begged to differ

At the trial of his former superior Ratko Mladic, General Manojlo Milovanovic said that the two of them had been ‘two bodies, one soul’. The two met, worked together and became friends in the former JNA and then went on to become closest associates at the top of the VRS. They drove together through the war in BH at the ‘speed of a tank’. After the war, one of them ended up in the dock, the other in the witness stand

General Manojlo Milovanovic said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that the order of the Republika Srpska Supreme Command in Directive 7 – to create unbearable living conditions in Srebrenica and Zepa – was illegal. However, Milovanovic blamed it on Karadzic alone

In the cross-examination, General Manojlo Milovanovic tried as much as he could to corroborate the defense case of his former superior in the VRS Main Staff, Ratko Mladic

At the end of his evidence, General Manojlo Milovanovic said that when he and Ratko Mladic served in the VRS, Mladic was a ‘charismatic man, a giant with the heart of a dove’: he was ‘a strict and fair commander’ who ‘protected his subordinates’

Engineer Milomir Soja described at the trial of Ratko Mladic an unsuccessful attempt by the Bosnian Serb army to improve the electronic firing mechanism on modified air bombs launchers. As the prosecution alleges, the bombs were extremely inaccurate and caused civilian casualties in Sarajevo

British pathologist John Clark said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that most of Srebrenica victims exhumed by 2001 were men who had been shot to death. Some of the bodies recovered from mass graves were blindfolded and had their hands tied. This corroborated the prosecution’s case that the Muslim men and boys were victims of mass executions

OTP investigator Barry Hogan began his evidence about the reconstruction of sniper incidents in Sarajevo. These attacks are among the charges against the former commander of the VRS Main Staff

In her evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, a Bosniak woman from Foca testified as a protected witness. She recounted how she was detained several months in a series of prison facilities in 1992. She and many other women were raped, tortured and humiliated in many other ways

Ratko Mladic’s defense continued cross-examining OTP investigator Barry Hogan, in a bid to contest Hogan’s reconstructions of and findings related to the sniper and artillery incidents in Sarajevo

Andras Riedlmayer, American expert on cultural heritage in the Balkans, has said in his testimony at the trial of Ratko Mladic that religious facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina were hubs of religious and cultural life. They were a symbol of the community’s existence in that area, Riedlmayer pointed. When they were destroyed, Bosnian Muslims and Croats were given a clear message: there was no place for them in the Serb territories

Ratko Mladic’s defense contends that Andras Riedlmayer, expert on the cultural heritage in the Balkans, is pro-Muslim and biased against Serbs. According to Mladic’s defense, Riedlmayer ‘advocated the Muslims’ interests’ before the International Court of Justice. Riedlmayer replied that he didn’t believe in ethnic divisions but in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civil state. The defense claimed that the skull in the ruins of the mosque wasn’t that of a pig but of a ‘horned animal’

In his testimony at Ratko Mladic’s trial, BBC war correspondent from Sarajevo Jeremy Bowen said artillery and sniper attacks on civilians ‘were run-of-the-mill scenes’ in the city. ‘No place was safe’ in the city, Bowen added

Describing the consequences of ethnic cleansing, British journalist Jeremy Bowen said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that that process was particularly traumatic in BH. Entire families were left ‘without their homes and money’ in mere minutes, women and children were ‘completely lost’ without their husbands and fathers. Their husbands and fathers were either killed before their eyes or taken to prison camps

The prosecution analyst testified about Mladic’s outburst in court on 18 February 2013. During a break in the trial, the accused uttered ‘shocking’ and ‘extremely offensive’ words to the protected witness. The Trial Chamber announced that the final prosecution witness would be examined in November 2013 and that the prosecution would rest its case in January 2014

The prosecution has today begun calling evidence on the incidents in which more than 200 UN staff were taken hostage, the fourth and final joint criminal enterprise Ratko Mladic is charged with. The first to give evidence is a French officer who was disarmed at a UN check point on Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo in May 1995 together with nine other ‘blue helmets’

Ratko Mladic’s trial was adjourned when a witness fell ill. The trial is expected to continue on Friday, as the Tribunal is closed on Thursday. In line with the Appeals Chamber’s decision, from now on, Mladic’s trial will proceed four days a week instead of five

Former commander of the Welsh battalion serving in UNPROFOR Jonathan Riley described at Ratko Mladic’s trial how his soldiers were captured in the spring of 1995 and placed around VRS facilities to prevent NATO air strikes. The prosecution showed a document indicating that the hostage-taking operation was run from the VRS Main Staff

Fredy Peccerelli, forensic anthropologist from Guatemala, gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. In the summer of 2000, Peccerelli led the exhumations of mass graves at the Lazete location, near Orahovac. As alleged in the indictment, in July 1995 Mladic’s troops executed and buried about 1,000 Muslims captured after the fall of Srebrenica at that site

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, Canadian Patrick Rechner spoke about the 1995 ‘hostage crisis’. Rechner said that he had felt ‘let down and humiliated’ when he was taken hostage, used as a ‘human shield’ and threatened with death if NATO pursued air strikes against Bosnian Serb military targets. The defense contends that the paramilitaries were responsible for the bad things experienced by the witness and his colleagues

In the cross-examination of Richard Higgs, prosecution mortars expert, the defense attempted to contest his conclusion that the shell that killed 43 and injured 75 Sarajevo inhabitants on 28 August 1995 was fired from the VRS positions on Mount Trebevic

Ratko Mladic’s defense continued cross-examining expert Richard Higgs in a bid to contest his findings on the Markale market incident that occurred on 5 February 1994. According to the indictment, 66 persons were killed and 140 injured in the incident

As the cross-examination of Richard Higgs, prosecutions mortars expert, drew to a close, Mladic’s defense strove to prove that there were many flaws in the investigation of artillery incidents. As a result, reports drafted by the local police, UNPROFOR and UN military observers weren’t reliable. Higgs doesn’t see why he shouldn’t believe the reports and stands by his findings

Despite the efforts of the defense to describe the Republika Srpska Army as decentralized, British general Richard Dannatt ‘politely thanked’ them sharing with him the instructive materials in court. He nevertheless remained adamant that General Mladic was responsible for the events in the field, ’whether he likes it or not’

The prosecution has indicated that the evidence from the mass grave in Tomasica near Prijedor will be tendered into evidence in the case against Ratko Mladic. A total of 470 bodies have been exhumed so far. The trial continued today with the evidence of the prosecution demography expert, Ewa Tabeau. According to the updated data presented by Tabeau, 6,745 victims from the Srebrenica mass graves were identified until the summer of 2013

Janusz Kalbarczyk from Poland testified today at the trial of Ratko Mladic. In May and June 1995, Serb troops used Kalbarczyk and about 200 other UN members as human shields against NATO strikes in the Mount Jahorina region

Ratko Mladic’s Trial Chamber has ordered that the accused undergo a detailed medical examination to establish if the trial could be on five instead of four days a week. In the decision, the judges indicate that a four-day schedule could mean that Mladic’s trial would extend until mid-2016

Ratko Mladic’s defense has argued that the words such as ‘massacre’, ‘atrocities’, ‘scale of victimization’, and ‘ethnic cleansing’… were ‘inappropriate’ for an expert report on demography. Ewa Tabeau, the prosecution’s demographer, begged to differ, noting that the terminology stemmed from the data collected after the discovery of mass graves

The prosecution military expert contends that the strategic goals set by the political leadership on Pale were the basis for VRS operations. According to the expert, the accused Ratko Mladic had to have received reports about the attacks on non-Serbs in Bosnian Krajina and about the conditions in prison camps

Mladic’s defense tried to exonerate the army for the conditions and treatment of prisoners in the prison camps in Bosnian Krajina. According to Mladic’s defense, the prisoners were malnourished because of a general food shortage, even though the Manjaca prison camp command had even hired a nutritionist. ‘If he existed, the nutritionist obviously didn’t do his job’, the prosecution military expert replied

Colonel Milenko Todorovic testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic about an order he received in July 1995, after the fall of Srebrenica, to relay a task to the Corps command to organize the accommodation for 1,000 to 1,200 prisoners in the Batkovic prison camp. The witness said that the order was issued ‘indirectly, within the limits of legality’, but the prisoners never arrived in Batkovic

In the opinion of the former chief of security in the East Bosnia Corps Milenko Todorovic, General Tolimir ‘partly’ operated outside of his purview when he ordered the Corps command in charge of the Batkovic prison camp to prepare the accommodation for about 1,000 to 1,200 prisoners from Srebrenica

The prosecution has announced it intends to re-open its case at the trial of Ratko Mladic to present evidence on the mass grave in the Tomasica mine near Prijedor. The defense has asked for a break of at least six months to prepare its case

Patrick Treanor, the prosecution’s political expert, testifies at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the evolution of the Bosnian Serb political leadership from 1990 to the end of 1995. Treanor described the ‘unilateral’ acts designed to create the Serb state and the ‘successful’ accomplishment of the fundamental goal of the Bosnian Serbs: ethnic division of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The prosecution military and intelligence analyst Reynaud Theunens says Ratko Mladic was an ‘active’ commander who ‘de facto led combat operations’. Mladic was ‘very well informed’ about the activities of his units. As the commander of the Main Staff, Mladic implemented the policy formulated in the Bosnian Serb strategic goals. This is the ninth, and probably the last time that Theunens is testifying before the Tribunal. The defense may open its case on 13 May 2014

The examination-in-chief of military and intelligence expert Reynaud Theunens continued at the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander. Theunens presented his analysis of how the six Bosnian Serb strategic goals were accomplished through Ratko Mladic’s exercise of command and control

Prosecution military and intelligence expert Reynaud Theunens has explained how Ratko Mladic and the VRS implemented the strategic goals of the Bosnian Serb political leadership. He also spoke about Mladic’s ‘charisma’, about Mladic’s knowledge of events and the investigations of the violations of laws and customs of war

As Ratko Mladic’s defense counsel continued cross-examining the prosecution military intelligence expert Reynaud Theunens, he claimed Theunens lacked experience to assess the role of Ratko Mladic as the VRS Main Staff commander. Theunens replied that, in his view, his experience and education made him qualified to draw conclusions about Mladic’s command role

The defense suggested that General Ratko Mladic helped the UN troops to keep the peace, that he insisted on disarming and arresting the paramilitaries who committed crimes, that he was against the use of modified air bombs and that he could not exercise direct command in combat operations. Theunens said that Mladic’s intentions were ‘ostensibly’ good, but an analysis of the documents indicated that the opposite was the case, Theunens explained

Reynaud Theunens was the last witness called by the prosecution at the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander Ratko Mladic for double genocide and other crimes in BH. The hearing on the defense motion to acquit the accused at the half-time of the trial has been scheduled for late February 2014. The prosecution’s case is expected to resume in March 2014, and the defense case will probably begin in May 2014

In the break between the prosecution and defense cases, the former Bosnian Serb army commander has submitted a motion to disqualify judges Alfons Orie and Christoph Flugge because of their purported bias against Mladic

The scheduling order issued by the Trial Chamber in the case against Ratko Mladic marked the end of the prosecution case. A 98bis Rule hearing is slated for 17, 18 and 19 March 2014. The judges will hear the arguments on the defense motion to acquit the accused on the counts in the indictment for which the prosecution has failed to call sufficient evidence. The defense case is scheduled to begin on 13 May 2014

At the half-time of the trial, Ratko Mladic’s defense dismissed all of the evidence called by the prosecution, noting that the former commander of the VRS Main Staff ‘is looking forward’ for the defense case to start because he wants to ‘show the truth and demonstrate his innocence’

According to the prosecution, the evidence called in its case unequivocally shows that Ratko Mladic was responsible for each crime committed by the forces under his command. As the prosecutor said, Mladic had full control of the VRS 'at his fingertips'

In the final part of the Rule 98bis hearing, the defense of the former commander of the VRS Main Staff argued there was ‘clear evidence of irreconcilable differences’ between Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. Countering the argument, the prosecution insisted that the ‘professional relationship between Karadzic and Mladic functioned well’. Their occasional differences didn’t affect their participation in the joint criminal enterprise or their ‘superior-subordinate’ relationship, the prosecution claimed

In line with the Appeals Chamber's order issued last year, the Trial Chamber hearing the case against Ratko Mladic reassessed the trial sitting schedule, concluding that the trial could go on at full speed during the defense case, for five instead of four days a week

On 15 April, Judge Orie's Trial Chamber will render its decision on the defense’s motion to acquit Ratko Mladic on all charges at the half-time of the trial. In its motion, the defense argued that the prosecution has failed to call sufficient evidence to support a conviction in the course of its case

Judge Orie's Trial Chamber has dismissed the defense’s motion to acquit Ratko Mladic of genocide and other crimes against non-Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the Trial Chamber, the prosecution has called enough evidence to support all 11 counts in the indictment

Ratko Mladic’s defense intends to open its case with the evidence of nine witnesses who have previously testified in Radovan Karadzic’s defense – despite the fact that the former military commander and the war-time president of the Bosnian Serbs have often tried to shift the blame on each other for the crimes they are tried for

Due to problems with remote access to the Tribunal’s IT system Mladic’s defense has asked for the trial to resume three weeks later than originally planned. The trial was scheduled to continue on 12 May 2014

The Trial Chamber has granted Mladic’s defense one additional week for the preparation of its case; the defense had asked for three. Mladic’s first witness will thus appear in the courtroom on 19 May 2014. The pre-defense conference will be held on 12 May, as initially planned

Mladic's defense has been granted a total of 207.5 working hours to examine its planned 336 witnesses in chief, the same amount of time as the prosecution had to examine their witnesses. The defense has decided not to present its opening statement. On Monday 19 May 2014, the defense will thus begin its case with the evidence of its first witnesses

The Trial Chamber has allowed the defense to appeal against the decision dismissing the motion to drop some counts in the indictment against Ratko Mladic, filed in line with the Tribunal’s Rule 98bis, in mid-May

The former VRS Main Staff commander opened his defense case by contesting the allegations of artillery and sniper terror campaign against Sarajevo. Mile Sladoje, his first witness, contends that his battalion received a ‘standing order’ to ‘return’ fire when his soldiers were targeted by fire from the city, but only if the ‘targets were visible’. In the cross-examination, the witness said that in his view there was no conflict between the ‘standing order’ and the order he received in July 1995 to ‘return’ fire on Sarajevo because the VRS had run into trouble in the Trnovo battlefield and in the Gorazde area

Predrag Trapara who commanded a VRS company in Lukavica during the war, testified in Ratko Mladic’s defense. In a bid to show that the two armies in Sarajevo were evenly matched, Trapara argued that his unit formed part of a Serb ring around Sarajevo. Another ring, manned by the Muslim forces, was positioned behind the Serbs’ backs, on the dominant hills around the city

Dusan Skrba, former artillery commander in one of the battalions that were part of the 1st Sarajevo Brigade, claimed that his unit was manned by citizens of Sarajevo who had no intent of ‘terrorizing civilians’. All they wanted was to ‘defend their homes as the people’s army they were’. The witness was shown Mladic’s order to ‘keep Sarajevo firmly under blockade’ and to ‘prevent the de-blocking’, but he was categorical that the city had never been under a blockade

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, the former president of the Novo Sarajevo Executive Board claimed that non-Serbs were not persecuted and discriminated against in his municipality. Muslims and Croats regularly received pensions, humanitarian and medical aid. Despite that, the non-Serbs were ‘timid’, but the witness did not specify why. The court heard about the exchange of population in November 1992

Ratko Mladic’s trial continued with the cross-examination of Branko Radan, former president of the Executive Board in the Serb municipality of Novo Sarajevo. The prosecution focused on the discrepancies between the documents and the witness’s description of the situation facing the non-Serbs in his municipality. The judges also noticed this discrepancy

The indictment against Ratko Mladic alleges that modified air bombs (also known as ‘sows’) were used by the Serb army to attack Sarajevo and that they were extremely unreliable and inaccurate. Nikola Mijatovic, former chief of staff of the Ilidza Brigade, argued that the trajectory of the ‘sows’ could be easily controlled. The slight deviations from course were caused by meteorological conditions. Mijatovic also claimed that the order to launch an air bomb on Hrasnica because this is where the ‘greatest casualties and physical damage can be inflicted’ didn’t mean that civilians should be attacked. Only enemy soldiers were the intended targets

Although the indictment alleges that numerous crimes were committed against civilians in Ilidza, Mladic’s defense witness Nikola Mijatovic has argued there were no crimes in that municipality in Sarajevo. For that, Mijatovic said, he was grateful to ‘his brother Serbs’

Former commander of the 7th Battalion in the 1st Romanija Brigade, which was part of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, testified today in the defense of Ratko Mladic. According to him, the civilians in Sarajevo were victims of the decision made by the BH Army to open fire from built-up areas on the Bosnian Serb positions. Slavko Gengo denied allegations that civilians were targeted deliberately and that the shell that hit the Markale Market in February 1994 was fired from a VRS position in Mrkovici

As he testified in the defense of former VRS Main Staff commander Ratko Mladic, Slavko Gengo claimed that the ‘Muslim side refused to participate in the work of the joint military commission’, set up to establish the origin of the shell fired on the Markale town market on 5 February 1994. According to Gengo, the Muslim side feared that the commission would determine that the massacre had been ‘staged’ as were many other incidents in Sarajevo

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense a former VRS officer denied the claim that the Serb troops had opened fire from Grbavica on civilians in Sarajevo. Soldiers in the witness’s brigade didn’t rape, rob and expel non-Serbs. He ‘wasn’t aware’ that soldiers from other VRS units in Grbavica engaged in this kind of behavior. The witness admitted he knew that prisoners were used for forced labor on the frontlines

Muslims who lived in Pale ‘were not expelled’, argued former president of the Pale Executive Board Zdravko Cvoro. On the contrary, the Serb municipal authorities actively tried to persuade them to stay, but in the end, Muslims submitted ‘their applications for a change of residence’ and the authorities ‘granted their applications’

The prosecution alleges that the shell that hit the Markale market in Sarajevo on 5 February 1994 was fired from the positions held by Slavko Gengo’s battalion. Gengo’s deputy Milorad Dzida corroborated his erstwhile superior’s claim that a commission was set up, comprising VRS officers and UNPROFOR staff, and that the commission concluded the Serb troops were not responsible for the incident. The prosecution argues the commission was never established at all

In the examination-in-chief of General Dragan Lalovic, the defense insisted on getting his testimony on the pre-war incidents involving the JNA. The prosecution on the other hand dedicated a good part of the cross-examination to the period after the war, when the witness was the chief of Ratko Mladic’s security, while Mladic was a fugitive from international justice. As the hearing drew to a close today, the accused was removed from court

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Veljko Lubura, an engineer who worked for the Elektroprenos company in Republika Srpska, denied that the Serb side was to blame for the power cuts in Sarajevo. On the contrary, according to Lubura, the Bosnian side ‘showed no interest’ in improving the situation. Lubura contested the allegations in the report of the BH Elektroprivreda that in 1993, Sarajevo did not have power for a total of 140 days, including a period of 53 days in a row without electricity

In the cross-examination, the prosecution has put emphasis on the documents which contradict the witness’s claims that the Muslims left Pale of their own accord, in fear of retribution

A protected defense witness claimed that the army under the command of the accused Ratko Mladic was not the sole culprit for war victims in besieged Sarajevo. The witness argued that ‘young Muslims’ would throw grenades at their fellow citizens. The witness claims he saw bodies with plastic bags on their heads in the city; in Pofalici there were more than 10 mutilated bodies of Serbs. One of the victims was a child with a severed head. Later on, the protected witness found six more severed heads: three were found hanging on the door of the Orthodox church in Novo Sarajevo and three were tied to the necks of stray dogs

The prosecutor has noted a number of strange claims made by the protected witness testifying in Mladic’s defense. The witness claimed that he had seen a series of crimes against Serbs in Sarajevo, including severed heads, on at least three occasions, the prosecutor said. Nevertheless, the witness never noticed that Muslims also suffered in the besieged city

Former police inspector Dragomir Andan testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the role of the VRS Main Staff in the operations against the paramilitary formations in Brcko, Bijeljina and Zvornik in June and July 1992. By that time, most of the non-Serbs had already been expelled from the three municipalities, the prosecution alleges

In the cross-examination of former police inspector Dragomir Andan the prosecution noted that the VRS condoned the presence of paramilitary forces in Republika Srpska. This is evidenced by a number of reports that praise the successful ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs in Zvornik, and by Mladic’s commendation of the Panthers unit for their bravery

Mladic’s defense witness Svetozar Guzina commanded a VRS battalion stationed in Nedzarici. According to him, he and indeed all the Serb soldiers in the Sarajevo theatre of war strictly observed the Geneva Conventions. This prompted the presiding judge to test the witness’s knowledge. Guzina eventually admitted his knowledge of the Conventions was pretty basic. Before the war he was in the catering business and was not a trained officer

Asked about the pre-war arming of Serbs in Sarajevo, Mladic’s defense witness said he didn’t know anything about it. Until the beginning of the war the witness ran a restaurant and didn’t think about war at all. At the same time, the witness claimed that after people ‘had a drink or two in a bar’ all kinds of things could be heard about the Muslims arming themselves. According to the witness, the word 'poturica' is not a slur for a person who converts to Islam

At Ratko Mladic's trial, his defense called Milorad Batinic Lola in order to highlight the suffering of Serb civilians in ‘the occupied Sarajevo’ and in the ‘liberated’ parts of the city under the VRS control where they were under constant sniper and mortar fire from the BH Army positions in the city

Ratko Mladic’s defense witness Milorad Batinic brought to court a war-time photo of General Mladic because he wanted the accused to sign the photo for him. Everyone wants Elvis Presley’s autograph, Batinic explained asking, ‘why shouldn’t I have the general’s signature?’.

Ratko Mladic’s defense case did not continue today after it was announced this morning that the accused was ill and that the trial would be adjourned until further notice. Mladic didn’t give his permission for the trial to continue in his absence. Defense counsel Lukic told the court that Mladic's problems were unrelated to his heart or brain: he has stomach flu

For a second day in a row this week, General Ratko Mladic didn’t appear in court because of stomach problems. The trial was adjourned because Mladic didn’t give his permission for the trial to continue in his absence

The former VRS Main Staff commander didn’t appear in court because of stomach flu. The Detention Unit nurse explained Mladic needed time to convalesce after his stay in the Dutch prison hospital. The defense continues its fight to reduce the working week from five to four working days

Milos Skrba, Mladic’s defense witness, denied that 120-mm mortars were located at the positions held by his detachment on Mount Trebevic. It was therefore impossible that a shell was fired from that location on the Markale Town Market in Sarajevo on 28 August 1995. According to the witness, the Bosnian Serb document that contradicts his statement contains "typing errors"

Ratko Mladic's defense witness Stevan Veljovic, a former operations officer who served in several VRS units, confirmed the prosecution's argument that the modified air bombs used by the Bosnian Serb army in the Sarajevo theatre of war were 'wholly inaccurate but highly destructive weapons'. Muslims called them 'random' bombs because no one could tell where they would hit. He claims they were not fired in built-up areas, but only on 'wider areas' where fighting was going on

In two days, two of Ratko Mladic’s defense witnesses made contradictory claims about modified air bombs. The Bosnian Serb Army used the projectiles also known as ‘sows’ or ‘random’ bombs in the attacks on Sarajevo. One witness claimed that the weapon was ‘wholly inaccurate’ and untested, which is why it was not used to target urban areas. The other witness said that modified air bombs were accurate and had undergone tests before being used. This witness personally ordered three attacks on various buildings in the city

In late May 1995, the commander of the Ilidza Brigade, acting on Ratko Mladic's orders, arrested UN soldiers deployed around Sarajevo. As he testified in Mladic's defense, he claimed that he talked to the French and Ukraine Battalion soldiers as they were placed under arrest. The UN soldiers told him they were ‘aware of the situation’ and then laid down their arms and surrendered to ‘mutual benefit’

In the cross-examination of VRS colonel Vladimir Radojcic, who is testifying in Rarko Mladic's defense, the prosecution tried to prove that modified air bombs were used for random attacks on the citizens of Sarajevo. As an example, the prosecution used the attack on the center of Hrasnica in April 1995. As the witness explained, on that occasion the air bomb fired on his orders ‘did not hit civilians’: it actually ‘missed a military target’. The corps commander ‘was satisfied’, Radojcic noted

With the evidence of Slobodan Tusevljak, Ratko Mladic’s defense is trying to prove that the prosecution had misrepresented the actual situation in Sarajevo. The defense contends that the real victims of terror were those citizens of Sarajevo who rejected the political platform of the then BH leadership. Tusevljak commanded a platoon in the 1st Sarajevo Motorized Brigade

Mladic’s witness Sinisa Maksimovic suggested that the shell that hit the Markale town market on 5 February 1994, killing 66 and injuring 140 Sarajevo citizens, hadn’t been fired from the Serb positions. According to Maksimovic, the sniper bullet that wounded a 14-year old boy at Sedrenik on 6 March 1995 hadn’t been fired from the Serb positions either. Maksimovic did note that he was appointed the commander of the unit that held those positions after the first incident, and left the unit before the second one

In his evidence in Mladic’s defense, former commander of the Mrkovici Platoon says his soldiers warned their neighbors in Sedrenik not to mow the grass or collect hay when the visibility was good to protect them from possible Serb fire. The prosecution suggested that his ‘concerns materialized’ when the neighbors from Sedrenik were targeted by snipers from Spicasta Stijena

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Luka Dragicevic, a war-time assistant commander in the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, claimed that the Serb troops in the Sarajevo area defended their ‘living space’. According to Dragicevic, in the spring of 1995 the UN staff were not taken hostage. They were captured as prisoners of war, Dragicevic argued, because they ‘went over to the enemy side’. Dragicevic agreed that tying prisoners of war to military facilities was a violation of international laws of war

According to Luka Dragicevic, former assistant commander for morale, religion and legal affairs in the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, Serbs are ‘genetically stronger, better, handsomer and smarter’ than converts to Islam, i.e. Muslims. Dragicevic doesn’t think such views make him a racist. On the contrary, they are ‘facts I have learned from my life experience’, Dragicevic explained

Mladic’s defense witness Nenad Kecmanovic contends that the war propaganda and the trust in his friends resulted in him believing for 20 years that Prijedor had witnessed ‘terrible repression by the Serb army and police’. The repression ended with the Muslim population being expelled, their houses burned and the crimes in prison camps. Recently, Kecmanovic received information from some unnamed sources from Banja Luka: the new information ‘refutes and relativizes’ his previous beliefs

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Professor Nenad Kecmanovic revised his previous expert findings on ‘random’ shelling of Sarajevo from the Serb positions. Now, Kecmanovic called those views ‘just impressions’. He had used the term ‘destruction’ of the city center: now he spoke about ‘damage’. A recording of an intercepted conversation in which Mladic calls Kecmanovic ‘a monkey’ was played in court

Although Nenad Kecmanovic has stated on a number of occasions that crimes – genocide included – were committed in BH, now, as he testifies in Ratko Mladic’s defense, he explained that it was his ‘fault’ that the term ‘genocide’ was mentioned at all. ‘None of the ethnic communities in BH wanted to exterminate others’ in a way comparable to what Nazis had done to Jews

At Ratko Mladic’s trial, Colonel Milorad Sehovac has claimed that the BH Army violated international rules of warfare because it failed to evacuate civilians from combat zones. The prosecutor remarked the witness was personally involved in criminal activities, including the murder of Franjo Vrgincic in Brcko. According to the prosecution, Sehovac is not a credible witness

Mladic’s defense witness has claimed he was unaware of any crimes against Muslims in Foca apart from the looting and burning of houses. He blamed the ‘dogs of war’ from Serbia and Montenegro for those crimes. After the Serb Territorial Defense soldiers entered the town, Muslims were allowed to live a ‘normal life’. This claim prompted the prosecutor to quote the Foca Crisis Staff president who said that the number of Muslim citizens in the municipality had fallen from pre-war 51 percent to just one percent by September 1992

Through the evidence of Milutin Vujicic from Foca, Ratko Mladic’s defense tried to contest the allegations from the indictment about the systematic rape of Muslim girls and women in Foca in 1992

Mladic’s defense witness Zoran Nikolic denies that he was the person identified in the judgment delivered in the case against Dragoljub Kunarac and others. According to the witness, there were two other men called Zoran Nikolic in Foca. One of them had lived there before the war, and the other was a soldier from Montenegro

Veselinko Simovic, former member of the Foca Intervention Platoon, contends that the crimes in Foca Ratko Mladic is charged with didn’t happen. Later, Simovic clarified that when he said there were no crimes he didn’t mean that there were no ‘criminal offenses’ such as mistreatment of civilians, looting, and torching of houses. According to Simovic, members of uncontrolled paramilitary groups committed such acts. How ‘men with poetic souls’ turned Foca into Srbinje

Nenad Deronjic, a police officer from Bratunac, claimed at the trial of Ratko Mladic that he was on duty in Srebrenica when the captured Muslims were executed on the bank of the River Jadar. The witness used the entries from a police duty log book to corroborate his claims. The prosecutor noted that the entries in that document have been altered. The original documents showed that the witness was not on duty at the time when the execution took place

Through Milan Pejic's evidence, Ratko Mladic’s defense wants to prove that the accused knew that that the wounded and the sick ethnic Muslims and Croats were treated in the Serb hospital in Blazuj and did nothing to prevent it; according to the defense, this shows Mladic did not intend to commit crimes against non-Serbs in BH

Former platoon commander in the Bratunac Brigade Zoran Kovacevic claimed at the trial of Ratko Mladic that he didn’t see or hear about anyone from Bratunac participating in the effort to separate the men from the rest of the people in Potocari. Kovacevic admitted that he was in Potocari on 12 July 1995. However, after his brief encounter with Mladic, Kovacevic tried to leave as soon as possible. Everyone avoided Mladic ‘like plague’, the witness said

Mladic’s motion against the Trial Chamber’s decision confirming the first two counts in the indictment – genocide in six BH municipalities in 1992, and in Srebrenica in 1995 – was rejected today. The prosecution called sufficient evidence capable of supporting a conviction for the accused’s involvement in both genocides, the Appeals Chamber ruled

A prosecution witness at the trial of Ratko Mladic has argued that in the fall of 1993 the Bosnian Serb army and police helped Croatian civilians move from Vares to Kiseljak in order to protect them from the BH Army attacks. The prosecution has presented evidence showing that it was done to allow the Serb side to improve its position with a view to carving up BH. The Trial Chamber doesn’t like Mladic’s ‘games’

Ratko Mladic’s defense disagrees with the Trial Chamber’s view that it ‘has been wasting’ court time by calling evidence of ‘questionable relevance’. Mladic’s defense is against the Trial Chamber’s instructions on the more efficient use of time, arguing that the ‘rules cannot be changed’ at this stage in the proceedings

War time president of the Ilijas Crisis Staff Ratko Adzic has testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic that there was no plan to expel Muslims and Croats. According to Adzic, Muslims and Croats left the municipality as ‘a result of a difficult and chaotic situation’, not under duress. Adzic has also denied that he had any authority over the Ilijas Brigade. Documents contradicting Adzic’s claims are full of errors, he has told the judges

The prosecution in the case against Ratko Mladic wants to re-open the case to call evidence on the Tomasica mass grave. The prosecution intends to call 13 witnesses: seven survivors and former employees of the Ljubija mine and six experts, as well as to present 43 yet confidential documents. The three of six experts have already testified.

According to former commander of the Igman Brigade Velimir Dunjic, the VRS documents were ‘too general’ in their assessment of the crimes against the non-Serbs in the Sarajevo area. Dunjic compared those assessments with points awarded for ‘presentation’ in figure skating. In Dunjic’s view, there is nothing controversial about a unit run by the Chetnik warlord Brne being described as a ‘criminal group’ whose actions were detrimental to the Bosnian Serb Army. Brne’s unit operated as part of Dunjic’s brigade

Former intelligence officer in the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps Milorad Bukva gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. As Bukva said, the ‘Muslim forces’ in Sarajevo were between 35,000 and 38,000 strong and they used hospitals, schools and kindergartens as command posts and artillery positions

The presiding judge cautioned the prosecutor not to examine Mladic’s witness Colonel Milorad Bukva in great detail about his allegation that the Muslims had staged the bread queue massacre. The witness could not corroborate his claim with facts, and it has ‘zero’ probative value, the presiding judge said

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Radovan Glogovac, former member of the Exchange Commission, claimed that the Bosnian Serb leadership’s policy was designed to help Serb refugees on the one hand, and on the other hand to help those non-Serbs who wished to leave. The prosecutor told him the non-Serb civilians were exchanged for soldiers, and Serb refugees were settled in the areas that Muslims and Croats had left

Former 4th Corps commander Milosav Gagovic commented on Ratko Mladic’s war-time statements about ‘razing half of Sarajevo to the ground’ if the JNA military barracks came under attack. Gagovic said that the accused ‘made a threat with an empty gun’ despite the evidence showing that 5,000 to 10,000 shells fell on the city in the days after Mladic made the threat

Former Bosnian Serb prime minister Vladimir Lukic claims his government protected all the citizens regardless of their ethnic background. The prosecutor put it to him that the authorities did nothing about the crimes, except in those cases when Serbs, rather than Muslims and Croats, were the victims. The witness knew nothing about the rape of non-Serb girls and women on several locations in BH, ‘because he wasn’t there’

Former Republika Srpska prime minister Vladimir Lukic agrees that during the war Serbs committed some crimes, but he insists that there was a lot of propaganda in this regard: the purpose was to cause the world to ‘pity the Muslims’. One of Mladic’s wartime bodyguards begins his evidence

In its response to the prosecution’s motion to re-open its case to call evidence on the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor, Ratko Mladic’s defense notes that the accused would be prejudiced if the motion is granted. Mladic’s defense recalls the Trial Chamber’s decision in the case against Radovan Karadzic where a similar motion filed by the prosecution was denied

Former deputy commander of the Rajlovac Brigade has admitted that in June 1992 there were 'those who would not take orders', i.e. the paramilitaries, who would beat Muslim prisoners in the Rajlovac military barracks. Nevertheless, the witness denied any knowledge of prisoners being taken out of the military barracks to do forced labor. The witness claimed he did not know that at least 47 prisoners were killed in a bus en route to Pale

Stojan Dzino, former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, took part in the attack on the village of Ahatovici near Sarajevo. Dzino spoke about the allegations in the indictment about the aftermath of the attack: the detention, beating and killing of Muslims and the destruction of the local mosque

A protected witness testifying in Mladic’s defense contends that the BH Army was responsible for the sniper and artillery terror campaign in Sarajevo. Muslims opened fire on their own citizens to ‘engender chaos and vilify Serbs as much as possible’ and they ‘staged’ the Markale market incident, the witness claims

The prosecution has countered the defense’s arguments that the Tomasica evidence is irrelevant and would lead to significant delays in the trial, saying that the delays would be reduced if the defense started the preparations now. The evidence is relevant, the prosecution stressed, because it shows the involvement of the Bosnian Serb army under the command of the accused in the Prijedor crimes

Former member of the Foca Intervention platoon Bozidar Krnojelac is testifying in Ratko Mladic’s defense. The witness, who is the son of the war-time warden of the Foca Correctional and Penal Facility (KPD), admitted that some Muslims from Foca were detained ‘without any legal grounds’. However, the witness shifted the blame for the violence against Muslims on the paramilitary groups, insisting his father was innocent

Former president of the Crisis Staff in the Serb municipality of Rogatica Milorad Sokolovic gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Sokolovic stated that 'most' of the Muslims, about 3,000 of them, left the municipality voluntarily. The prosecutor stressed the fact that 13,000 Muslims had lived in Rogatica

Desimir Sarenac, Bosnian Serb military officer, testified in Ratko Mladic’s defense today. Sarenac confirmed that non-Serb prisoners were taken to the frontline for forced labor. Some of the prisoners were killed, Sarenac agreed but denied that he was personally responsible for their fate. According to Sarenac, citizens of Sarajevo wanted the war to end but the conflict continued because of the people from Sandzak

Former VRS officer Stojan Malcic gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Malcic claimed that in 1992, Muslims and Croats in the JNA could choose if they wanted to join the VRS or to leave. This was not the case with the Serbs. The prosecutor showed the grades Mladic had given to some of his closest associates, including ‘straight A students’ Radislav Krstic and Dragomir Milosevic, who have been sentenced to a total of 64 years in prison for the genocide in Srebrenica and the terror campaign in Sarajevo

Colonel Vlade Lucic claimed that the Serb side in the Sarajevo theatre of war used ammunition reasonably and almost entirely for the purpose of the defense. The prosecutor confronted the witness with a document of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps which warns the subordinated brigades to stop opening unreasonable fire on inhabited parts of the city when there was no fighting

Former deputy warden in the Batkovic collection center near Bijeljina Djordjo Krstic contends that the prisoners were never taken out of the camp to do forced labor. According to Krstic, the detainees volunteered for the work knowing that ‘time goes by faster when you work' and it would bring them certain benefits. Zoran Durmic, a police officer from Vlasenica, completed his evidence before Krstic took the stand

Mladic’s witness claimed that Rasadnik and the high school in Rogatica were ‘shelters’ where civilians felt ‘free and safe’. The prosecutor countered the allegation with the Bosnian Serb army lists referring to elderly women as ‘prisoners of war’ and ‘detained civilians’

Mladic’s defense witness Obrad Bubic from Kotor Varos claimed today that in July 1992, the BH Army members had held him captive for 15 days, and had starved and beaten him. The prosecutor did not contest the allegations, focusing instead on the killings, detention, rape, destruction of religious facilities and other crimes that had, according to the indictment, reached the scale of genocide in that municipality

Contradicting the prosecution case, Branko Davidovic, a Bosnian Serb military officer, argued that his brigade calmed inter-ethnic tensions in Sanski Most. According to Davidovic, the brigade was impartial and the operations it carried out in Muslim villages were legal. The prosecutor countered those claims by saying that Davidovic’s brigade was very partial indeed and that the soldiers killed non-Serb civilians

The prosecutor put it to Mladic's defense witness Milenko Jankovic that non-Serbs from Rogatica were expelled, detained and made to perform forced labor at the front lines. Jankovic claimed Muslims left the municipality of their own free will, came to collection centers and even volunteered to help the Serb units, right at the demarcation line

Mladic’s defense witness claimed that during the war the Serb fighters in Rogatica observed the Geneva Conventions. The prosecutor was prompted to contest the claim with a report by the Rogatica Brigade commander, which states that in the summer of 1995 after the fall of Zepa ‘five Balijas were arrested and killed’. According to the document, an unarmed ‘Ustasha from Srebrenica’ was also killed

In the cross-examination of Ratomir Maksimovic, former officer in the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, the prosecutor paid no attention to the witness’s claims that the accused was ‘a capable, energetic and modest’ soldier, devoted to ‘the tradition and chivalry’ of the Serb army. Instead, the prosecutor focused on interrogating the witness about the structure and role of the Bosnian Serb army in the Sarajevo theatre of war

Former local official Mile Ujic denied there was intent to expel Muslims from Rogatica through the systematic commission of crimes. Ujic also claimed that the Serb authorities protected Muslim civilians by putting them up in ‘safe houses’, which are labelled prison centers by the prosecution. Ujic admitted that 25 persons were taken out from one of the ‘safe houses’ and killed. In Ujic’s opinion, this was an act of a ‘deranged person, who was not acting on anyone’s orders, and was not under anyone’s command’

Mladic’s defense witness claims that a ‘deranged person not acting under anyone’s command’ killed about 25 persons taken out from the Rasadnik prison camp in Rogatica in mid-August 1992. The prosecutor contradicts the claim, alleging that the crime was in fact committed by a unit commander in the Rogatica Brigade, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the crime before the State Court in Sarajevo

Former president of the Foca municipal executive board Radojica Mladjenovic denied that Muslims had been expelled from Foca. He did admit that the town that before the war had the same percentage of Serbs and Muslims turned into a ‘Serb municipality’ with a 99 per cent Serb majority. The witness contested the allegation that the town's name was changed to Srbinje to reflect that. There was a need to make the name rhyme with the names of the neighboring municipalities of Trebinje, Ljubinje, etc.

Mladic’s defense witness Tomislav Savkic argued that the bodies of the Srebrenica inhabitants who had been killed in combat were buried in a mass grave by the road from Konjevic Polje to Nova Kasaba. The prosecutor contested the claim with photos showing that the victims had their hands tied with wire. This prompted Savkic to suggest that they might be Serbs. The DNA analysis showed that all the exhumed victims were Muslims, the prosecutor retorted

Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber has granted the prosecution motion seeking leave to reopen its case in order to call evidence on the Tomasica mass grave. The judges ruled that ‘new evidence’ was relevant for the indictment with respect to the crimes in the municipalities

Three of Mladic’s defense witnesses have insisted that Foca was not renamed Srbinje in order to highlight the absolute Serb majority in the town but in order to make it rhyme with the neighboring municipalities of Nevesinje, Ljubinje and Trebinje. This prompted the presiding judge to ask why after the war the old name was reinstated at the Muslim request. ‘Should not a good rhyme work for everyone?’, the presiding judge asked

Speaking about the character of the accused Ratko Mladic, his war-time assistant Rajko Banduka praised Mladic’s education, humanism and professionalism. The witness claimed that he had spent the entire war with Mladic in Crna Rijeka in ‘very modest circumstances’. The ‘humble abode’ was in fact a one-storey villa called Javor located near the entrance to an underground bunker, the prosecutor said

In his evidence in Mladic’s defense, Colonel Slavko Kralj said that during the war the Bosnian Serb army regularly let the convoys with humanitarian aid for the Muslim and Croat enclaves in BH pass through their territory. The prosecutor confronted Kralj with a letter from the Main Staff in which Karadzic’s Directive 7 is invoked. The troops are ordered to "reduce and limit [the logistic support of UNPROFOR to the enclaves and] the supply of material resources to the Muslim population... through planned and unobtrusively restrictive issuing of permits"

The prosecutor showed evidence of the critical humanitarian situation in Srebrenica in the first half of 1995. There were reports that people were starving to death in the enclave because humanitarian convoys were denied passage through the Bosnian Serb territory. Mladic’s defense witness Slavko Kralj replied that it was all ‘propaganda’

Veljko Maric, a medical doctor and war-time director of the Foca Hospital, has claimed that the hospital didn’t discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnicity. He also claimed that Muslims left the municipality voluntarily. The prosecutor noted that civilians: women, children, the elderly, and indeed some of the witness’s colleagues, were detained, abused and killed. Civilians were thus forced to abandon their homes, the prosecutor stressed

As war-time chief of the Vlasenica police Mane Djuric recounted in his evidence, he learned a couple of hours in advance that the army was about to destroy the town mosque. In Djuric’s words, he did nothing to prevent the crime but he warned the local residents to leave the area where the explosion was to occur. ‘If the army had announced it would execute three civilians in the town market, would you have contented yourself with telling the people to keep away in order not to be hit by stray bullets’, the presiding judge asked

Former BH State Security Service employee Nedjo Vlaski claims that the Bosnian Serbs were ‘humiliated and outvoted’ by Muslim and Croat politicians. As a consequence, they established their separate institutions in Bosnia. On the other hand, the prosecutor noted that the Bosnian Serb leadership had devised a plan to conquer and ethnically cleanse large parts of the BH territory, no matter what happened

Ranko Kolar, former officer in the VRS 6th Sana Brigade, described in detail the crimes against Serbs in the village of Kravica region in Eastern Bosnia regardless of the fact that he was there only for a short time, to support the local units. On the other hand, the witness didn’t know anything about the crimes against Muslim civilians in Sanski Most where he spent almost the entire war

Savo Bojanovic, former judge in the Bijeljina military court, claims that during the war Serb soldiers were put on trial for crimes against Croats and Muslims. The prosecutor shows that those were isolated cases. No one was ever convicted of the gravest crimes such as murders and as for robbery and looting, the culprits would get probation, the prosecutor notes

Former employee of the State Security Service, first of BH and later of Republika Srpska, blames Croats and Muslims, their paramilitary formations and criminals for starting the war and for the crimes against civilians. In fact, the witness blames everyone but the accused Ratko Mladic and his armed forces

Mladic’s defense witness has insisted that local authorities were independent from the Bosnian Serb leadership. The acronym ‘SAO’ stood for ’independent [samostalna]’ rather than for 'Serb' autonomous regions, the witness argued. Even when the judges noted that it was rather unusual for an entity to be both independent and autonomous, the witness stuck to his claim. Eventually, the defense gave up on that part of the witness’s testimony

Former member of the Rogatica Crisis Staff Sveto Veselinovic described the period when Muslims had military control over the municipality. Asked about the crimes perpetrated by Serbs while he was a local official, Veselinovic either denied any knowledge or claimed that he learned about those incidents only after the war. The witness however did remember that there were ‘almost no Muslims left’ in the town by the end of the war

In a bid to explain why the call to surrender was issued to all Muslims in Gorazde, not just the enemy soldiers, in June 1993, VRS officer Spiro Pereula blamed it on an ‘ignorant typist’ who made a mistake as they typed the document. The document bore his signature because of the urgency of the situation, typical for war

Former president of the Srbac municipality Milos Milincic testified in Ratko Mladic’s defense today. Milincic claims that before the war Radovan Karadzic advocated multi-ethnicity. ‘A garden is most beautiful when it has many colors and flowers’, Karadzic said. To counter those claims, the prosecutor highlighted some of the Bosnian Serb president’s speeches in the Assembly. For example, the prosecutor noted, Karadzic likened the interethnic co-existence to a garden saying ‘there are also plants that can’t grow side by side’, adding, ‘just like a dog and a cat can’t be in the same box’

Dusko Corokalo, security officer in the Sana Brigade, says in his statement to Mladic’s defense that Arkan and his men arrived in Sanski Most in September 1995. According to the witness, Arkan and his men were responsible ‘for all the bad things’ that happened to the non-Serb civilians. The prosecutor noted that Muslims and Croats had been killed and detained before the arrival of ‘Arkan’s men’. By 1995, most of the Muslims and Croats had already fled the town, the prosecutor stressed

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Colonel Rajko Sarenac claimed that his 1st Guards Brigade was engaged in combat but that it did not attack civilians. Sarenac’s claim prompted the prosecutor to show documents produced by the VRS Mains Staff which order the subordinate units to make the Muslim population feel like they ‘live in a ghetto’ and to ‘make it possible for them to move out’

Mladic’s defense witness claims that the ‘Serb guards’ in the villages around Rogatica were ‘self-organized’. Up until mid-1992 the guards had no contacts with the VRS. The prosecution evidence paints a completely different picture

Nikola Vracar, former reserve policeman in Kljuc, was able to recall at the trial of Ratko Mladic that he had heard about the massacre in Biljani a day or two after the incident. This contradicted the witness’s claim in his statement to Mladic's defense that he had heard about the incident years later, during evidence in the Radoslav Brdjanin case

Momir Deuric, former warehouse guard in the Susica prison camp, gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. Deuric claimed that he knew nothing about the abuse, murders and forced labor in the camp. The witness went so far as to claim that he didn’t remember saving the life of his pre-war Muslim friend

Through witness Ostoja Barasin, Ratko Mladic’s defense tendered into evidence two documentaries Barasin directed. In the cross-examination, the prosecutor was more eager to learn what the witness knew about the crimes against non-Serbs. He also questioned Barasin about the contents of the documents the VRS had distributed to the soldiers, including Milan Gvero’s article entitled Silk Rope for Alija

War-time president of the Commission for the Allocation of Property in the Ilidza municipality claimed that the houses and apartments of non-Serb refugees were taken away only temporarily without intent to prevent them to return. The prosecutor invoked the decisions of the municipal authorities from May 1992 ‘allowing the evacuation’ of Muslims and Croats. In April 1993, the municipal authorities issued documents ‘prohibiting the refugees from returning’. The court did not hear the evidence about Mladic’s ‘pulling out his hair’ after the events in Srebrenica

There were many discrepancies between Bosko Mandic’s written statement and his evidence in court at the trials of Karadzic and Mladic. Mandic was thus forced to ‘think about’ his statements and decide which ones were true. The only explanation the witness could offer 'off the top of my head' was that he thought there was no need to speak about 'things which were general knowledge, such as the crimes against non-Serbs’. The ‘Tribunal already has information about that’, Mandic noted

Former doctor in the Sokolac Military Hospital Simo Bilbija and a protected witness who commanded one of the units in the VRS Main Staff testified in Ratko Mladic’s defense today, praising the accused profusely. According to the witnesses, he was courageous and fair, an expert in ‘warfare and strategy’ and when he talked to the soldiers, they felt like ‘sick men hooked up to an IV feed’

Two of Mladic’s defense witnesses claim that the accused was a humane and gentle man who helped Srebrenica civilians in the period before 1995. To contest those claims, the prosecutor presented Mladic’s orders prohibiting the passage of humanitarian aid convoys, and ordering his troops to attack the enclave and ‘kill anyone carrying arms’. Mladic was annoyed when the Trial Chamber decided to remove him from the courtroom because he was making loud comments. Mladic ended up shouting at the presiding judge

Ratko Mladic’s defense witness tried hard to play down his role in the murder of Ivan Grgic, a priest from Prijedor. The witness recanted the statement he had given to a Banja Luka investigative judge. On that occasion, the witness described how he and three accomplices took the victim from his house and brought him to the Ljubija mine, where the priest was executed. Today the witness was adamant that he had helped a man by the name of Ivica Pavlovic detain Grgic, when Pavlovic suddenly took Grgic out of the car and killed him

Former member of the ARK Crisis Staff Milorad Sajic has denied that the local authorities geared their policies towards forcing out non-Serbs. According to the prosecution evidence, Croats and Muslims were dismissed from public posts, detained in prison camps, forced to leave and prevented from returning…

Vojislav Krsic, an officer in the Kotor Varos brigade, claims that Serb civilians killed 150 Muslims in the village of Grabovica in November 1992, although he admits that the army, which held the prisoners, was 'in a way' responsible for their fate

Commenting on the attack of Pofalici in May 1992, a protected prosecution witness claimed that Ratko Mladic may not have been the person who actually ordered it. It could have been a man called Milenko or Milanko Mladic, the witness explained. According to an intercepted conversation, parts of Sarajevo ‘where there were not many Serbs’ were to be attacked. As the witness explained, that was not an attack on the non-Serb civilians but on the soldiers who had expelled Serbs

Through Bosko Amidzic, Ratko Mladic’s defense wants to prove that the conditions in the Manjaca military prison camp were good. The prosecutor contests the claim with documents from two humanitarian organizations, Merhamet and the International Red Cross, which speak about prisoners being beaten. The 1st Krajina Corps command knew about the crimes, including murders, the prosecutor argues

VRS officer Milovan Lelek claims that Muslims were leaving Rogatica in fear of their extremist compatriots, who did not like the fact that the two ethnic groups were able to live side by side in good terms, The prosecutor countered his claim with the evidence on the expulsions of civilians by the Serb authorities from those villages where the residents were loyal to them

In his testimony in Ratko Mladic’s defense, former president of the Autonomous Region Krajina has said that the entity was established for economic reasons, to stop the cash from flowing to Sarajevo. The prosecutor put it to him that the creation of Serb regions and their consequent unification into a republic – from which Muslims and Croats were expelled – was a political process

In 2001, Vojislav Kupresanin was interviewed by the OTP investigators. In his statement, he offered a completely different story than the one he told last year at the Karadzic trial and today in his evidence in the case against Mladic. Confronted with this claim, former Bosnian Serb official explained that in the meantime he had learned new facts and was 'able to put together a full picture of the truth’. The witness did not stint on praise for the accused. Mladic, in turn, applauded his witness loudly and was removed from court

Marjan Jesic, former driver in the Prijedor Territorial Defense, has testified about the attack of Muslim forces on the town on 30 May 1992. In his evidence Jesic recounted how he was wounded in the incident and how his extended family members were killed in the Ustasha prison camp in Jasenovac

Vojislav Kupresanin, former Autonomous Region of Krajina official, stated in the re-examination that the Bosnian Serb army was the ‘third or fourth or possibly the fifth strongest army in the world'. As he said, during the war, he was in favor of capturing the entire territory of BH and annexing it to Serbia, but Pale leadership was only interested in protecting the Serb people. As a result, his idea was not taken up, Kupresanin explained. Kupresanin blamed the international community and Western Europe for the disintegration of Yugoslavia. As far as Kupresanin could remember, he didn’t say that the war ‘was necessary for the Serb nation’

Snjezan Lalovic, a journalist of the former Serb Radio Television, claims that his editor, not Ratko Mladic, ordered him to interview detained UN staff in May 1995. Lalovic confirmed nevertheless that the UN staff were interviewed to prevent further NATO strikes

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, former Sarajevo public prosecutor Rato Runjevac repeated the defense allegations that the court has heard before: the other side was to blame for the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Runjevac also confirmed the defense case that the independence referendum was unconstitutional, that a Serb wedding guest was murdered, that there were armed criminals in Sarajevo. After receiving threats, Runjevac went to Trebinje on 30 April 1992

Boro Tadic, former head of the Sanski Most Military District, admitted that during the war he ‘assigned for use’ non-Serb civilians. They were used to dig trenches at the front lines. In Tadic’s view, that was in line with the Geneva conventions because the commanders made sure the civilians were safe. Asked to define the 'thin line' between hazardous and safe work at the front lines, the witness replied that he made that distinction ‘in his heart’

VRS colonel Milovan Milutinovic said at Mladic’s trial, ‘I have not heard until today’ that the Srebrenica men, who had been separated from women and children in Potocari, were killed. According to him, the report produced by NIOD, a Dutch institute, found that there ‘was no plan’ to commit the crime in Srebrenica. As he told the court, he did not misinterpret the words of a British journalist who had purportedly said that Muslims in Sarajevo were shooting at their own people: it was in fact the TANJUG agency. Ratko Mladic’s trial will be adjourned until 19 January 2014

Zdravka Karlica, the president of the organization of Serb victims of war from Prijedor, gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. Karlica admitted that crimes had been perpetrated against non-Serb civilians. However, according to Karlica, not all villages were attacked and most of the Muslims fled the town before the conflict broke out

President of the Kljuc Crisis Staff Rajko Kalabic admitted at Ratko Mladic's trial that war crimes had happened in the village of Velagici. According to Kalabic, the crimes in Velagici ‘were not planned’. The crimes were committed by 'individuals who were out of control and not acting on anyone's orders', as were many other crimes against the non-Serbs. There was no forcible removal of the non-Serbs from the Kljuc municipality, the witness argued, despite the fact that only 1,000 Muslims remained there. Before the war, 17,500 Muslims lived in the municipality

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Bosnian Serb military officer Velimir Kevac claimed that the Serb authorities protected Muslims in Kljuc during the war. According to Kevac, Muslims were able to live in peace, and were not exposed to any pressure. Military action was taken only against those Muslims who had refused to surrender their weapons, Kevac explained

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, VRS officer Velimir Kevac claims that the Serb army and police protected the Muslim civilians in Kljuc. The prosecutor put it to him that the ‘protection’ in fact consisted of people being killed, arrested and expelled, houses being burned and other crimes that reached the scale of genocide

When General Mladic talked to his subordinates in the summer of 1991 (he recorded his communications himself), he told them ‘Zadar is in a noose’. Mladic also noted that Kijevo would look like a ‘flower garden’ compared to what was in store for Zadar, Sibenik and Split. ‘I started dealing with Dubrovnik’ Mladic added in a conversation the prosecutor showed to Mladic’s defense witness Slavisa Sabljic

With the evidence of Nedo Blagojevic, Ratko Mladic’s defense is trying to contest the authenticity of intercepted conversations involving VRS officers. The intercepts were recorded in July 1995 at the time of the Srebrenica operation. Blagojevic was the chief of communications in the VRS Drina Corps

Former cameraman in the 2nd Krajina Corps press center Milorad Zoric claims in his statement to the defense that the accused Ratko Mladic protected civilians during the war. Mladic was ‘particularly sensitive’ to the plight of the elderly and children. The prosecutor suggested that Mladic showed no sensitivity when he attacked the non-Serb population in the Bihac protected zone

Dragan Karac, intelligence officer in the VRS Sana Brigade, blamed Muslims for starting the conflict and capturing the municipal building in April 1992. Karac didn’t know that the SDS had made plans to seize power and to attack the municipal building. Karac was not aware of the Serb crimes in the territory of the Sanski Most municipality. That, as the prosecutor remarked, showed that Karac was a ‘poor intelligence officer’

Mladic’s defense witness Branko Predojevic claims that in Sanski Most the Bosnian Serb Army was under strict orders to protect civilians and prisoners of war. The prosecutor tenders into evidence a series of documents showing that soldiers in the witness's unit, 6th Sana Brigade, and indeed in the battalion under his command, committed mass killings of Muslim and Croat civilians

At Ratko Mladic's trial, Milenko Stanic from Vlasenica persisted that the Birac SAO was not there to protect Serb interests only, as the prosecution alleges. The term 'Serb' in the name of the region was put in the documents he was shown by the prosecution by 'ignorant recording clerks with three years of secondary education'

Slobodan Zupljanin, a VRS officer from Kotor Varos, gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. The witness admitted that in early November 1992 the Bosnian Serb army was responsible for the safety of 150 Muslim men who were detained in a school in Grabovica but was not able to protect them from vengeful Serb civilians

Through the evidence of Davor Kolenda, Ratko Mladic's defense tried to prove that the VRS observed international humanitarian law when it allowed about 6,000 Croats to pass through its territory in the summer of 1993. The prosecution noted that Mladic didn’t let the Croats from Travnik to pass out of the kindness of his heart. He did it because he stood to gain, in military, strategic, propaganda and financial terms

Former Crisis Staff president Radomir Pasic claimed that Muslims left Bosanski Novi ‘voluntarily’; the local authorities merely provided assistance. The prosecutor put it to him they had no other choice but to ‘leave voluntarily’

Vojin Ubiparip from Kotor Varos claimed at Ratko Mladic’s trial that the VRS Kotor Varos Brigade was multi-cultural, yet was able to recall the names of just one Muslim and one Croat. He also claimed that Muslims from the village of Siprage left because of the ‘SDA threats’

Mladic’s defense witness Vinko Nikolic testified that Muslims and Croats left Sanski Most ‘at their own request; it was their own decision’ while the municipal authorities only ‘assisted’ them. The prosecutor noted that the assistance in fact consisted of a series of coercive measures that left the non-Serbs with no other choice but to leave

Mile Petrovic, former police officer from Bratunac, contested the ‘absolute untruths’ presented by Momir Nikolic before the Tribunal. Momir Nikolic claimed that on 13 July 1995 Petrovic had killed six Srebrenica men to avenge his brother and that they had met Ratko Mladic in Konjevic Polje, who had made a hand gesture indicating that all the prisoners would be executed

Rade Javoric, former commander of the Prijedor Territorial Defense, argues that Muslims and Croats went to the investigation and collection centers in Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje voluntarily. At the same time the witness admits that some prisoners were killed and raped there. This prompted the judges to ask him if they volunteered to go to places where they were victims of crimes

Nenad Davidovic, a medical doctor from Sanski Most, testifies at the trial of Ratko Mladic. As he sat at a Crisis Staff meeting in late May 1992, Dr. Davidovic jotted down in his war diary, 'Expel forever'. Today the witness was not able to explain what he had meant at the time

Nenad Davidovic, former chief medical officer in the 6th Sana Brigade, recounted at the trial of Ratko Mladic that he had proposed at a Crisis Staff meeting to dress the bodies of murdered civilians in military uniforms to give them a ‘dignified’ burial. The prosecutor claimed it was an attempt to cover up the crime and create an impression that the victims were soldiers killed in combat

In a bid to prove that Trnopolje was not a prison camp but a collection center for civilians, Mladic’s defense witness Slavko Puhalic claimed that the wire seen in the footage made by the British TV network ITN crew in the summer of 1992 was there to fence in the journalists who were filming the camp. All of the persons tried for the Prijedor prison camps at the Tribunal in The Hague used the same argument in their defense, to no avail. Mladic left the courtroom before the end of the hearing because he was unwell

Ratko Mladic's defense witness denies that he beat up Trnopolje prisoners. Some prisoners may have called him 'Chetnik', the witness said, and this may have caused him to push them. The judges asked the witness if such pushing could inflict injuries. 'I’d say that it could not', the witness replied

Radomir Radinkovic, former security officer in the VRS 1st Krajina Corps, described the Manjaca prison camp as the only place where the detainees could hope to survive. As the witness put it, Manjaca was an ‘umbrella’, keeping the prisoners ‘safe from harm’ regardless of whether they were brought in as civilians or prisoners of war

In his evidence in Mladic’s defense Milenko Jevdjevic, a lieutenant colonel in the signals service, described how in 1994 and 1995 the Drina Corps was under constant commando attacks from the Podrinje enclaves. This is why Serb soldiers couldn’t be redeployed to other parts of the front

In a bid to show that he left Srebrenica immediately after the Bosnian Serb troops took it, Mladic’s defense witness Milenko Jevdjevic claimed that on 11 July 1995 he left the Drina Corps forward command post to attend a meeting of commanders with General Mladic in Bratunac, and the next day he established a communications center for the attack on Zepa. The prosecution didn’t contest this timeline, but argued that the events took place one day later

Milenko Jevdjevic, former commander of a signals battalion in the Drina Corps, claims that he left the Srebrenica-Bratunac area on 11, not 12 July 1995. The prosecution argues he is not telling the truth because he ‘is desperately trying to weasel out’ in a bid to show he didn’t know about the separation of the Muslim men from women and children in Potocari and their detention in Bratunac

Witness Milenko Jevdjevic claimed that after the fall of Srebrenica the accused Mladic met with the Drina Corps officers in Bratunac on 11 July 1995, not on 12 July 1995. Jevdjevic corroborated his argument with the fact that fish was served for dinner: according to him, that could only mean that it was 11 July 1995, the last day of the apostles’ fast. Confronted with other evidence, the witness finally admitted that fish could have been served the next day, on St. Peter’s day. Yet Jevdjevic seemed unaware that his admission changed the substance of his evidence, corroborating the prosecution case, that Mladic and his officers were in Bratunac when the first transports with captured Muslims started arriving in the town. In the days that followed, the detainees were executed

After Milenko Jevdjevic completed his evidence, the defense called a new witness, Miodrag Dragutinovic. He also claimed that Mladic met the Drina Corps commanders in Bratunac on the day when Srebrenica fell, on 11 July 1995. The prosecution alleges that the meeting took place a day later, on 12 July 1995. In the cross-examination, Dragutinovic confirmed that he had seen Jevdjevic in the past few days and discussed the events in Srebrenica with him. He also discussed the ‘atmosphere in the courtroom’ with Jevdjevic

In the final part of Miodrag Dragutinovic’s testimony, the prosecutor highlighted the evidence that Ratko Mladic had returned to the VRS Main Staff from Belgrade in the evening of 16 July 1995. The defense alleges that Mladic came back on 17 July 1995. In the first part of Goran Krcmar’s evidence the defense played excerpts from a movie Ljubi brata about the crimes of the El Mujaheed unit against captured Serb soldiers

Goran Krcmar has claimed at Ratko Mladic’s trial that the special unit of the Banja Luka Public Security Service didn’t commit any crimes against non-Serbs in June 1992 in Kotor Varos. Krcmar, a former member of the unit, admitted that he had been in Kotor Varos at the time. In Krcmar’s words, ‘doubtless’ members of the Burce unit committed some crimes…but he actually ‘can't say what those crimes are’

Goran Krcmar, a member of the Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners in the 1st Krajina Corps, completed his evidence. In the final part of his testimony, the prosecutor insisted that the VRS actively participated in the exchanges of civilians. These exchanges were part of the ‘ethnic cleansing machinery’, the prosecutor explained. Milivoj Simic, the war-time commander of the Doboj Garrison, began his testimony

Former commander of the Doboj Garrison Milivoje Simic said in his evidence that he found ‘incredible’ the allegations in the media about ‘8,000 or more persons’ killed in Srebrenica in July 1995. Yet, the witness found it ‘credible’ that 2,000 prisoners were executed without Mladic’s knowledge and permission

Mladic’s defense has called a former military police officer in the VRS Bratunac Brigade to the witness stand in a bid to contest Momir Nikolic’s testimony. Nikolic testified that on 13 July 1995 he saw the Main Staff commander make a hand gesture that implied the captured Muslims would be executed. Why the witness was deported from the USA and convicted in Sarajevo of crimes against humanity

In his statement to the defense, Bosnian Serb military officer Branko Volas said he knew nothing about the incidents listed in the indictment against Ratko Mladic. Volas could not even say what incidents he meant

Former officer in the VRS 1st Krajina Corps Milos Solaja has claimed at the trial of Ratko Mladic that there was no barbed wire fence in Trnopolje. The prosecution has insisted that there was a fence, which was removed from 5 and 7 August 1992 as the camp was prepared for a ‘propaganda visit’ of foreign journalists. The visit was arranged in order to mitigate the shocking effect of the footage taken on 5 August 1992 which showed starving prisoners behind the barbed wire

Bojan Subotic, Mladic's defense witness, claims that on 13 July 1995 he and several soldiers managed to survive three ambushes mounted by thousands of Muslim fighters. As Subotic claimed, he was able to capture a couple of hundred Muslims. In between two ambushes, the witness saw over 500 dead Muslims in the woods near Nova Kasaba. The Muslims had killed each other, Subotic explained, when one group of Muslims had tried to prevent others from surrendering

In a bid to paint the conditions in the Trnopolje 'reception centre' in the rosiest light, Mladic"s defense witness Branko Beric claims that non-Serb civilians ate better food than their Serb guards. In fact, he said, they could roast meat. They could prepare lamb to celebrate Eid. He went as far as to compare the camp with a Hyatt hotel. Milenko Djuric from Kotor Varos completed his evidence before Beric took the stand. Djuric blamed the 'mothers of Serb boys who had been killed' and other civilians bent on revenge for the massacre of about 150 Muslims in the village of Grabovica

Tomislav Delic testified today in Mladic’s defense. According to him, Danilusko Kajtez, one of those who killed Croats in the village of Skrljevita, was a ‘sick man’. Kajtez did not commit those crimes on anyone's orders, Delic explained. The prosecutor called evidence showing that Kajtez served in the Bosnian Serb Army and that he committed the killings on Delic’s orders

Ratko Mladic's defense has opposed the judges’ proposal that the prosecution begin calling evidence on the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor in May 2015. The defense wants the case to be reopened later, and not before mid-August 2015. Mladic’s lawyers have also called for more money for their investigations

Through the evidence of Miso Rodic, former intelligence officer in the 43rd Prijedor Brigade, the defense tried to show the multi-ethnic nature of the Republika Srpska Army. The prosecutor on the other hand highlighted the impunity policy pursued by the army vis-à-vis those who committed crimes against the non-Serbs

As he testified in Ratko Mladic's defense, police general Milenko Karisik claimed that the Muslim side turned the BH Interior Ministry into 'an instrument for the intimidation of Serbs'. As a result, the ministry was split in two. The prosecutor showed him evidence that the division had been planned well ahead of the events by the Bosnian Serb leadership

Milenko Karisik claims he knows nothing about the Srebrenica operation and that he knew nothing about it when it was launched. The prosecutor contradicted Karisik’s claims with documents that show the witness received reports about the police involvement in the attack on Srebrenica and the imprisonment of the Muslim men. Furthermore, after the war, Karisik issued false papers to soldiers who had taken part in the executions of Muslims at the Branjevo farm

Dragoslav Trisic, former assistant commander in the VRS Bratunac Brigade, claims he knew nothing about the mass executions of Muslim prisoners in Srebrenica in July 1995. He did hear rumors about an incident in Kravica. Although he lived in Bratunac, he did not feel 'the unpleasant stench of dead bodies' that spread all over the town when the bodies were moved to new sites in September and October 1995

General Dragisa Masal called to The Hague to testify as Ratko Mladic’s defense witness, but as his testimony progressed, he had to defend himself against the prosecutor's accusations that he was responsible for the shelling of civilian areas in Gorazde, burning down houses, unlawful detention of civilians and an abduction in Strpci

According to the prosecution, the defense’s demand for an almost four-month break at the trial is unacceptable. The defense has asked for the break in order to be able to prepare its case on the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor. The Trial Chamber has proposed that the prosecution should open its case in May or June 2015. The defense, on the other hand, wants the case to be postponed until late August 2015

The prosecutor notes that the Bosnian Serb army aimed to expel the non-Serb population from Gorazde and tries to corroborate the claim by showing an order issued by witness Dragisa Masal on 11 April 1994. 'Keep pushing energetically onwards. The Turks must disappear from these areas', the witness quoted Mladic as saying. Masal explained that the term Turks was used for the enemy soldiers, never for Muslim civilians

Through the evidence of the former commander of the Bratunac Brigade, Ratko Mladic’s defense is trying to prove that the Bosnian Serb army did not issue ‘illegal’ orders that violated laws of war or endangered prisoners’ lives. The witness was convicted by the Tribunal for the Srebrenica crimes

Milomir Savcic, former commander of the VRS 65th Motorized Protection Regiment, gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. The order to take about 1,200 detainees from the football stadium in Nova Kasaba and to put them up in roofed buildings to protect them from being ‘recorded and photographed from the ground and air’ was logical, Savcic claimed. There was a danger that NATO might strike the detainees by mistake

Nedjo Jovicic, Ljubisa Borovcanin’s former chauffer, described what Ratko Mladic did and how he ‘shouted and swore’ in July 1995. The prosecution tried to establish what had been deleted from the footage Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac had taken in the field near Sandici and in front of the Kravica warehouse. Pirocanac rode in the car driven by Jovicic

Witness Dusan Micic doesn’t remember much about the Srebrenica operation apart from Ratko Mladic handing out food and cigarettes in Potocari. Micic rejected the prosecutor’s suggestion that such memories were unpleasant because he didn’t want to become involved in anything related to the Srebrenica crimes

In his first appearance before the Tribunal, Milorad Pelemis, commander of the 10th Sabotage Detachment, tried hard to discredit Drazen Erdemovic. On 16 July 1995, members of Pelemis’s unit executed about 1,000 captured Bosniaks at the Branjevo farm. Erdemovic pleaded guilty to his involvement in the crime

In the case against Ratko Mladic, the Trial Chamber has decided that the prosecution’s case concerning the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor is to begin on 22 June 2015

The BH public prosecutor's office has issued an international arrest warrant for Ratko Mladic’s defense witness Milorad Pelemis. The witness claims that he is willing to come to Sarajevo and prove he is not guilty…but he would first like to consult his lawyers to see ‘what should be done in legal terms’. He is ‘afraid of false witnesses and false statements'

Former agent in the Bosnian secret service Edin Garaplija testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic. He was summoned to appear before the Tribunal by the judges who issued a binding order. Garaplija talked about the operations of a paramilitary unit called the Larks. According to the witness, the unit was involved in assassinations, planting explosives, sniper operations and other ‘dirty jobs’ for which the Serb side was blamed

Ratko Mladic’s defense witness contends that the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina allowed ‘vulnerable categories to move out voluntarily’. This comprised women, children and the elderly. This was so only on paper: in practice, ‘everyone who wanted could move out’, Nikola Erceg said, disregarding the prosecutor’s suggestion that thousands of Muslims and Croats couldn’t move anywhere because they were held in prison camps

A police officer from Bratunac testified at Ratko Mladic’s trial today. In July 1995, the witness escorted Mladic en route from Srebrenica to the Main Staff in Han Pijesak. In his statement to the investigators in Sarajevo in 2006, he described how Mladic calmed down the prisoners from Srebrenica, slapped Serbs and sent women to the forest to ‘kill Turks’ with sticks and stones. In the meantime the witness has forgotten many of those things and the prosecutor had to refresh his memory

Slavoljub Mladjenovic, former police commander in Bratunac, gave evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. Through Mladjenovic’s testimony, Mladic’s defense tried to corroborate its case that the men from Srebrenica killed each other in their breakthrough towards Tuzla in July 1995

Former police officer Mirko Peric denies that he took part in the events that preceded the execution of prisoners at the river Jadar on 13 July 1995. Peric claims that he didn’t see the man identified as the perpetrator at the check point in Konjevic Polje, the warehouse from which the prisoners were taken out for executions. He also didn't see Ratko Mladic and Momir Nikolic

On the day of the mass execution of Srebrenica prisoners in Orahovac, military police officer Nebojsa Jeremic stood guard at the entrance to the VRS Zvornik Brigade command. At the same time, his colleagues in the field carried out mass executions of prisoners

In his evidence, retired colonel Branko Basara talked about disarming Muslims and Croats in the Sanski Most municipality and the VRS attacks on 'Muslim extremists'. Basara stressed that the army and he personally 'did not have any jurisdiction' over the prisons, the transportation to prison centers, evacuation of the population and the Crisis Staff decisions, including the imple-mentation of strategic goals

Retired colonel Branko Basara said that civilians – women and children – were killed in the VRS attacks on the villages of Mahala and Hrustovo because they ‘didn’t leave when the army allowed them to’. ‘Those that remained knew they could end up getting killed, and only those who wanted to fight remained’, Basara explained, adding that civilian killed in NATO air strikes were declared ‘collateral damage’

Retired VRS general Grujo Boric testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the formation and activities of the 2nd Krajina Corps. In his evidence Boric also spoke about his relationship with the former VRS Main Staff commander

Prosecutor Arthur Traldi puts it to Grujo Boric that he has given ‘false’ testimony at Ratko Mladic’s trial to hide his own responsibility for the Biljani massacre, which was committed by soldiers under his command in July 1995 ‘That’s your opinion’, Boric, former commander of the 2nd Krajina Corps, told the prosecutor

In May 1992, the former commander of the VRS Birac Brigade ordered the removal of Muslims from Zvornik, but he had nothing to do with that because the Territorial Defense 'did not act on anyone's orders' and didn’t carry out his instructions. Personally, the witness didn’t feel he had ‘even a modicum of responsibility’ for the killings of Muslims in Zvornik and Kozluk. According to the witness, paramilitary formations were responsible for the crimes

In his evidence at Ratko Mladic's trial, Svetozar Andric, former commander of the VRS Birac Brigade, claimed that he didn't issue the order to 'establish' a prison camp in Susica. Andric did admit that he ordered the 'organization' of the prison camp. The number of prisoners in the area of responsibility of his brigade in late May 1992 increased, Andric explained

Ratko Nikolic has testified about the BH Army attack on the village of Kravica on 7 January 1993. The witness was captured in the attack and was detained first in the police station, and then in the boiler room in a building which housed the municipal services and the court in Srebrenica. Nikolic claims that the Serbs wanted to avenge the suffering and the deaths of 48 civilian victims in the village. The prosecutor didn’t deny the crimes against Serbs, but he used VRS documents to contest the number and status of the Kravica victims

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, a former VRS soldier from Prijedor has described how calls to the Muslims to surrender weapons in the spring of 1992 weren’t ethnically motivated. On the contrary, according to the witness, it was an attempt to ‘keep the peace’ in the municipality. The witness has also claimed that Keraterm and Trnopolje were not prison camps

In October 1995, one of Drasko Vujic's subordinate officers published an ar-ticle in the Kozarski vijenac, a local newspaper. Commenting on the article, Ratko Mladic's defense witness explained that the threat to 'extirpate Balijas' was aimed only at 'out-of-control Muslim troops', not Muslim women and children

As the prosecutor cross-examined Nedeljko Trkulja, he put it to the witness that on 16 july 1995, Trkulja personally relayed to Ljubisa Beara the order from the superior command to execute the prisoners of war. The prosecutor corroborated the allegation with an intercepted conversation in which the 'triage' of prisoners of war was discussed

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense former signals officer in the VRS Main Staff Tihomir Stevanovic claimed that he had never seen any orders to perpetrate crimes against the Muslims during the Srebrenica operation in July 1995. According to the witness, no document signed by the accused arrived in the Main Staff either on 15 or 16 July 1995 while mass executions were carried out

In his evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic, retired air force colonel Janko Kecman described how weapons were smuggled into the protected zones of Bihac and Srebrenica. Kecman also recounted how the aircraft used to transport the arms were shot down. According to Kecman, the UN peacekeepers proved themselves dishonorable because they were also involved in the smuggling operation

Ratko Mladic's defense witness agreed that after the fall of Srebrenica 'some' of prisoners were executed. His 'upbringing' and his 'respect for the victims' didn't allow to speculate on the numbers. The witness refused to accept the prosecution's allegation about 'thousands', of victims

Dragan Todorovic served in the VRS 10th Commando Detachment during the war. He testified in Ratko Mladic's defense. This is the fourth time he has appeared as a witness before the Tribunal. He testified as a prosecution witness in the cases against the Srebrenica Seven, Tolimir and Karadzic

In the cross-examination of Dragan Todorovic, who was the logistics officer in the 10th Com-mando Detachment, the prosecutor showed video recordings from 1996 and 1997. According to the prosecutor, these videos show that Dragomir Pecanac was so close to Ratko Mladic that he was more than just an aide to the Main Staff commander. According to the prosecutor, the wit-ness was also Mladic's man for 'special tasks' such as capturing and killing Avdo Palic or setting up a platoon for the mass execution at the Branjevo farm

In her evidence at Ratko Mladic's trial, Slavka Matic described the attack of the Muslim forces on the village of Bjelovac in the Srebrenica municipality in December 1992. According to Matic, 68 persons were killed in the attack, including her husband and two daughters. Using VRS documents, the prosecutor showed that 55 victims were members of the Bratunac Brigade

According to witness Slobodan Radulj, former state attorney in Prijedor and deputy military prosecutor in Banja Luka, in the first year of the war there was a 'legal vacuum', which was an ideal environment for thieves and criminals. It is difficult to comprehend the crimes that happened as a result

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, former ambulance driver in Prijedor Goran Dragojevic was unstinting in his praise for the non-Serb medical doctors he had worked with. Asked if he knew that many of them ended up detained or killed, Dragojevic first said that he didn’t know anything about that. Eventually, he did admit that they had ‘suffered’. He didn’t know the details because in May 1992 he was wounded and sent to Belgrade for medical treatment

In his evidence at the trial of his former commander, General Savo Sokanovic covered a wide range of issues. Sokanovic spoke about the treatment of foreign journalists, civilians and prison-ers of war, but he also said something about the VRS objectives in the war. According to Soka-novic, 'at all times' the army's goal was to 'protect the population and the territory, to establish freedom and set up a permanent and fair peace'

In Savo Sokanovic’s cross-examination, the prosecutor noted that the VRS tried to ‘deceive the public’ and present all offensive actions as self-defense. The VRS knew that such activities ‘caused criticism of the international community', the prosecutor added. Sokanovic initially claimed he ‘didn’t know about any criticism’, but then he suddenly recalled that the Main Staff Department of Information mentioned it in its reports

Witness Velo Pajic served in the 67th Communications Regiment in Mladic's Main Staff during the war. Today he testified about radio relays and telephone and cable communication lines between the various VRS commands. In the cross-examination, the prosecutor tried to establish Mladic's whereabouts in the evening of 16 July 1995 - the last day of Srebrenica executions - based on intercepted conversations

In his evidence at Ratko Mladic’s trial, Colonel Savo Simic explained that the shelling of civilian facilities, densely populated areas or civilian routes was ‘unlawful’, but only if those facilities were not located near any enemy firing positions

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, artillery officer Savo Simic explained the difference between planned artillery support and actual results. According to Simic, ‘the planned quantity of fire is always higher than the fire actually delivered’

The prosecution began calling its evidence on the Tomasica mass grave with the testimony of a protected witness, testifying under the pseudonym RM 383. The protected witness mostly testified in closed session, and his evidence concerned the collection, transportation and burial of victims killed in Prijedor. The defense stated it was 'not ready’ and sought more time to prepare to contest the allegations of prosecution experts

Protected witness RM 382 testified about how ‘Tomasica was set up and the burial of the victims in that mass grave’. Only the judges and the parties know what exactly the witness said because he testified almost entirely in closed session

Forensic archaeologist Ian Hanson attended the exhumations of bodies from the Tomasica mass grave on behalf of the International Commission of Missing Persons. In his evidence at Ratko Mladic's trial, Hanson noted that 401 ‘groups’ of victim remains in civilian clothing were recovered at that location in 2013. Twelve years earlier, at least 298 bodies were exhumed at a nearby location of Jakarina Kosa. The bodies in Jakarina Kosa had been transferred to that location from Tomasica

In the cross-examination by Mladic’s defense, forensic archaeologist Ian Hanson agreed that occasional mistakes were possible in the work of his organization, the International Commission of Missing Persons. Such errors could happen in the process of the identification of bodies, Hanson explained, dismissing at the same time the allegation about the bias of his organization in favor of the OTP during the exhumations of the Tomasica mass grave

The prosecution continued calling evidence on the Tomasica mass grave at the trial of Ratko Mladic with the evidence of Bruno Franjic. The witness analyzed cases and bullets recovered in the mass grave and in the bodies during their post mortems

Doctor Thomas Parsons from the International Commission for Missing Persons testifies at Ratko Mladic's trial that a total of 385 victims from the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor have been identified using DNA analysis. Two hundred and eleven victims from the secondary grave site at Jakarina Kosa have also been identified. Eight bodies remain unidentified bringing the total of bodies recovered from the mass graves to 604

At Ratko Mladic's trial, biologist Elmira Karahasanovic presented the results of the DNA analysis of items found near the 385 victims in the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor

At the end of the cross-examination of ballistics expert Bruno Franjic, Ratko Mladic’s defense noted that the shells and bullets recovered in the Tomasica mass grave were not necessarily linked to the VRS weapons. Such weapons could have easily belonged to the police as well as the civilians, the defense argued

British pathologist John Clark concluded that most of the victims exhumed from the Tomasica mass grave had been shot; most of them died of gunshot wounds to the backs of their heads or torsos. All victims wore ‘regular’ civilian clothes

In the cross-examination of Dr. John Clark, Ratko Mladic’s defense suggested that the victims from Tomasica could have been killed in the clashes between Serb and Muslim forces, particularly in the Brdo area and the Kurevo forest

Demography expert Ewa Tabeau was asked by the prosecution to write an expert report about the Tomasica exhumations. In the report, she notes that a total of 712 victims were exhumed in four exhumations from 2001 to 2013 and identified. In 95 per cent of the cases, the victims were Muslim men who had gone missing from their villages and the prison camps near Prijedor in July 1992

In the cross-examination of demography expert Ewa Tabeau Ratko Mladic’s defense suggested that the victims exhumed from the Tomasica mine had been killed in combat. Though she didn’t rule out that, Tabeau stated that the victims died a violent death, in the ethnic cleansing campaign in the Prijedor area

At the trial of Ratko Mladic the prosecution rested its case on the Tomasica mass grave with the testimony of Ewa Tabeau. Since 22 June 2015, when the case was reopened, the prosecution has called eight witnesses, including six experts. Written statements of five other witnesses have been admitted into evidence

Ratko Mladic’s defense continued its case with the testimony of Milutin Misic, a member of the board of directors of the BH Institute for Missing Persons. Misic contested the accuracy of the data collected by the International Red Cross, the International Commission for Missing Persons, the missing persons commissions in the two BH entities and his own Institute

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, General Bosko Kelecevic, who served as the chief of staff in the 1st Krajina Corps during the war, tried to shift the blame for the events in the Prijedor prison camps on the civilian authorities. According to Kelecevic, the Manjaca prison camp operated in line with ‘the provisions of humanitarian law’. Civilians voluntarily left the area of responsibility of the Krajina Corps, which was ‘possibly Europe’s largest military corps’

In the cross-examination of Mladic’s defense witness General Bosko Kelecevic, the prosecutor listed a number of crimes committed in the area of responsibility of the 1st Krajina Corps. The crimes ranged from imprisonment and abuse of civilians in the Manjaca prison camp to the killings in Kljuc and Prijedor; no Serb soldier was ever tried during the war for any of those crimes, the prosecutor stressed. In one case the perpetrators were arrested but were released at the request of the Corps commander Momir Talic

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, General Bosko Kelecevic admits that the goal of the Bosnian Serb military and political leadership, to separate Serb territories from the other two ethnic communities in BH, was accomplished by the commission of the gravest crimes against the Muslim and Croat civilians. Kelecevic then corrected his testimony, saying that Mladic’s army protected ‘honest people from other ethnic groups’, those who ‘implemented the tasks envisaged by the Serb people’s idea of co-existence’

Yesterday General Bosko Kelecevic admitted that the Bosnian Serb main strategic goal – the separation of Serbs from the other two ethnic groups in BH – had been implemented through the commission of the gravest crimes against Muslim and Croat civilians. In the re-examination today, the witness ‘categorically denied’ it. When the prosecutor pressed him, Kelecevic agreed that the non-Serbs ‘had no other choice’ but to leave because their property had been destroyed

Zdravko Salipur, former member of the Crisis Staff of the Serb municipality of Novo Sarajevo, testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. Salipur said that life in Grbavica was ‘hell’ because of the constant shelling and sniping from BH Army positions. On the other hand, in his statement to the defense Salipur depicted the life led by the non-Serbs there as ‘harmonious’. According to Salipur, Bosniaks and Croats enjoyed all the rights and freedoms

Demobilized VRS colonel Dragic Gojkovic, formerly of the engineer corps, testified as Ratko Mladic’s defense case continued. With Gojkovic’s evidence Mladic’s defense hopes to contest the allegations on the destructions of religious and historical monuments and other symbols of Bosniaks' and Croats' existence in BH

Defense expert Dragic Gojkovic claims that the mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina were destroyed by ‘groups of vandals’ and irresponsible individuals in combat or after the army withdrew. Gojkovic wasn’t able to explain into which category fit the mosques destroyed in places under the VRS control, such as the Srebrenica mosque, which was destroyed on 19 July 1995

Bosiljka Mladic claims that at the time of mass executions in Srebrenica, from 14 to 17 July 1995, her husband Ratko was in Belgrade. According to the witness, Mladic spent his time in Belgrade at various meetings and at a wedding, and could not issue any orders to his subordinates because he didn't have the communications equipment to do it. The defense and the prosecution argued about the date of Mladic's return to the Main Staff: whether it was on 16 or 17 July 2015

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Mile Dosenovic, communication systems expert, contested the authenticity of intercepted conversations the prosecution has admitted into evidence. Dosenovic claims that the BH Army didn’t have the know-how or adequate technology to intercept well-protected communications of the Serb units

The prosecutor contested the claims made by the defense military prosecutor Mile Dosenovic that the Bosnian Serb military communications were so well protected that it was almost impossible to intercept them. The prosecutor presented a number of orders issued by Ratko Mladic and other VRS officers which state that the enemy was ‘intensively and continually’ monitoring the Serb communications

In his evidence at Ratko Mladic's trial, Gojko Draskovic initially agreed that the war in Sarajevo ‘inflicted damage on both sides’, only to state later in his evidence that the BH Army ‘terrorized’ Serb civilians and soldiers

Biljana and Zarko Stojkovic described in minute detail the course of their wedding that took place on 16 July 1995. The accused Ratko Mladic was the best man at their wedding. The witnesses thus corroborated the defense case that the accused couldn’t have communicated with his forces in the field in that period. According to the defense, Mladic stayed late at the wedding and wasn’t able to return to the Main Staff that same day. Mladic announced he would give a gift to ‘comrade Orie…when I am released’

According to defense demography expert Svetlana Radovanovic, the conclusion that about 8,000 Srebrenica men went missing after Mladic’s troops entered the town in July 1995 is ‘nothing but manipulation’ and the result of ‘mixing apples and oranges’ with a single goal – to inflate the number of victims

Ratko Mladic’s expert Svetlana Radovanovic criticized the prosecution’s expert for using the term massacre in her description of the events following the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. The witness said that her science knew of only three types of violent death – murder, suicide or accidental. Radovanovic noted that she couldn’t tell which of the three happened after Mladic’s troops entered Srebrenica

On the last day of her evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Svetlana Radovanovic explained that she didn’t want to contest the number of the people who went missing or were killed in Srebrenica. The purpose of her testimony was to explain that in her view the methodology applied by the prosecution’s experts was not in line with the current scientific standards. Radovanovic is a professor of demography and statistics from Belgrade

According to defense witness Simo Tusevljak, a post-war investigation of the Republika Srpska interior ministry showed that 3,300 Serbs were killed in Sarajevo. Prosecutor Edgerton didn’t contest the fact that crimes against Serb civilians had been perpetrated but she insisted the victim list contained a number of mistakes. Some names were listed twice and Serbs killed in the artillery attacks launched by Mladic’s army on the city, such as the first Markale town market massacre on 5 February 1994, were also included on the list

The list of victims from Sarajevo that the defense witness brought with him contains names of soldiers killed in combat as well as Serb civilians killed by Serb shells, snipers or Mladic’s soldiers, the prosecution argues. Defense witness Simo Tusevljak says that further checks would be needed in order to establish the truth

At Ratko Mladic's trial, the defense called his former driver Mladjen Kenjic as a witness. Kenjic claims he drove the former Main Staff commander to Belgrade on 14 July 1995. According to the witness, he drove Mladic back from Belgrade to Crna Rijeka on 17 July 1995 at noon. Kenjic claimed that they didn’t stop anywhere along the road. They did not see anything out of the ordinary on their trip, Kenjic told the judges

Former assistant to Sergio de Mello testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic about the ‘official’ results of the investigation into the first Markale massacre. The witness also shared with the judges his own ‘subjective’ opinion about who was responsible for the 66 dead and more than 140 injured citizens of Sarajevo

Ratko Mladic’s defense has labeled the UN staff who were taken hostage by the VRS ‘prisoners of war’. In order to support the claim, the defense called Radoje Vojvodic. From 26 May to 18 June 1995, Vojvodic was in charge of keeping the captive UN staff safe, healthy, fed and entertained. He also made sure they could regularly take walks in a park

In his evidence at Ratko Mladic's trial as well as at several other trials before the Tribunal, Momir Nikolic claimed that after the fall of Srebrenica the accused general had made a hand gesture to let Nikolic know that the Bosniak prisoners would be killed. Nikolic was the chief of security in the Bratunac Brigade. In the examination-in-chief of former OTP investigator Bruce Bursik the defense suggested that Nikolic had invented the story

Paul Conway, former Irish UN military observer in Sarajevo, has testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic. On 28 August 1995, the day of the Markale market massacre, Conway heard several subdued explosions and saw smoke rising up in that part of the city

Witness Radovan Popovic, former journalist of the Vojska magazine, claimed in his evidence that on 16 July 1995 – amid the executions of Srebrenica men and boys – Ratko Mladic was in Belgrade as the best man at the wedding of Biljana and Zarko Stojkovic. What did the Vojska journalist knew about executions at Branjevo?

A Canadian intelligence officer, who is testifying with measures to protect his identity, corroborated Mladic’s claim that the Muslims shelled their own people in order to be able to blame the incidents on Serbs. The witness claimed that the shell that caused the first Markale town market massacre was thrown out of a nearby window. In the cross-examination it turned out that the shell was too heavy and the building too far away from the town market for his claim to be credible

Canadian military officer Michel Gauthier testified at Ratko Mladic's trial via video link. He was the leader of an UNPROFOR team that investigated the incident in which a mortar shell hit the Markale market in Sarajevo on 5 February 1994. The investigators concluded that it was impossible to draw any conclusions as to which warring faction had fire the fatal shell that killed 66 and wounded 140 residents of Sarajevo

Ratko Mladic's defense continued its case with the evidence of Zorica Subotic, a ballistic expert from Belgrade, in a bid to deny that the Serb forces were to blame for the artillery terror campaign against Sarajevo. One of the artillery incidents was the bread queue massacre in Vase Miskina Street on 27 May 1992

Ballistic expert Zorica Subotic continued her evidence. In the second day of her testimony, the defense of the former VRS Main Staff Ratko Mladic continued to contest the allegations related to the artillery terror campaign in Sarajevo. According to the expert witness, the investigations the prosecution has relied upon were either delayed or conducted in a wrong location and in a wrong way

Mladic’s ballistics expert had a brief warm-up session today before getting down to the most important part of her evidence which will focus on the shelling of the Markale town market in Sarajevo. She will discuss the incidents tomorrow. Zorica Subotic denied that the Bosnian Serb army was responsible for an attack on a humanitarian aid queue in Dobrinja and other artillery attacks on Sarajevo citizens. According to Subotic, the attacks were either staged or the shells were fired from the BH Army positions

Ballistic expert Zorica Subotic denies that Ratko Mladic’s army was responsible for the first attack on the Markale market on 5 February 1994. The shell was not fired at all, it had been planted on the ground, the expert claims. According to Subotic, the device was well hidden and activated on the ground

Mladic’s ballistics expert Zorica Subotic claims that the second attack on the Markale town market was staged. At least one of the dead bodies had been ‘brought there from somewhere else’, Subotic says. On the other hand, Subotic didn’t deny that the Bosnian Serb army fired modified air bombs, also known as ‘sows’, on Sarajevo. Contrary to what the prosecution has claimed, the defense expert is adamant that the sows were ‘very accurate’

At the beginning of the cross-examination of Mladic’s witness Zorica Subotic the prosecutor highlighted a number of errors in her reports. Subotic denied in her expert reports that the Bosnian Serb army was to blame for the attacks on civilians during the four-year siege of Sarajevo. The accused was cautioned for inappropriate behavior

Defense ballistics expert Zorica Subotic has altered, concealed or modified the evidence in Ratko Mladic’s case to suit her purpose, which is to deny that the Bosnian Serb army was to blame for the artillery attacks on the Sarajevo civilians, the prosecutor noted in the cross-examination. Subotic claims that she has presented all the information in order to make the judges see the ‘full picture’ of the events

Today the prosecutor probed the conspiracy theory according to which the Markale market incidents had been staged and the bodies brought from somewhere else. In that case, the prosecutor argued, many people should have been in such a conspiracy – from the Bosnian and UN investigators to the civilians in the town market and the TV crew that recorded the tragedy. Mladic’s expert defense Zorica Subotic refused to blame anyone in particular for their involvement, but nevertheless remained adamant that there was a conspiracy

Mladic's defense ballistics expert Zorica Subotic claims that modified air bombs used by the Bosnian Serb army in Sarajevo were just as accurate as any other artillery system. The prosecutor on the other hand argues that the weapon was inaccurate and very destructive

Ballistics expert Zorica Subotic completed her evidence on the artillery attacks on Sarajevo citizens today after 10 days. There will be a break in Ratko Mladic’s trial until 19 October 2015. Another ballistics expert, Mile Poparic is expected to begin his evidence in late October 2015. At the Karadzic trial, Poparic denied that the Bosnian Serb side was responsible for sniper attacks on Sarajevo civilians

As he testified in Ratko Mladic's defense, former head of the Bosnian Serb secret service Dragan Kijac refused to agree with the prosecutor that common goal of the leaderships in Serbia, Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serb Krajina was to establish a united state. The prosecutor showed him several exhibits including a video recording in which the accused says the goal of the fight is 'for all Serbs to be able to live in a single state'

Former British officer, a UNPROFOR member, said at the trial of Ratko Mladic that there were different ‘spins’ after the first attack on Markale market on 5 February 1994. Based on the information he had, the witness concluded that the Bosnian Serb army ‘most likely’ wasn’t responsible for the massacre

Former chief of the Bosnian Serb secret service Dragan Kijac claims that he was at a wedding in Montenegro during the mass executions of prisoners from Srebrenica. According to Kijac, he only heard about the crime in 2000. Later Kijac admitted that as early as in 1996 he heard ‘rumors’ about Muslim men and boys being executed. The indictment against Ratko Mladic qualified the crime as genocide

After a two-hour break caused by ‘unforeseen circumstances’, the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander continued with a discussion of administrative issues. The accused was not present

Ratko Mladic’s defense witness, forensic pathologist Dusan Dunjic was found dead in his hotel room just hours before he was due to start his evidence. The Dutch authorities are investigating his death

A post mortem conducted by Dutch pathologists in the presence of their Serbian colleagues has shown that Mladic’s witness Dr Dusan Dunjic died of natural causes

The court hears how a bank clerk from Valjevo ended up on the other bank of the Drina river among the Republika Srpska special units which took part in the VRS Srebrenica operation. Ratko Mladic’s defense notes that the police from the Republic of Serbia provided support to their colleagues from Republika Srpska in the preparation for the capture of the enclave. Srebrenica was formally under UN protection at the time

Mladic’s expert for weapons and military equipment Mile Poparic denies the allegation that the Serb troops were responsible for sniper attacks on Sarajevo civilians. According to Poparic, there was no line of sight from where the victims were to the positions held by the Republika Srpska army

Mile Poparic, Ratko Mladic's expert for weapons and military equipment continued his evidence today. Discussing the sniper attacks on Sarajevo citizens, Poparic claimed that the Bosnian Serb Army wasn't responsible for those attacks. He is shifting the blame on the BH Army. Even if the Bosniaks did not actually fire the shots, the civilian casualties were collateral damage in the cross-fire, Poparic claimed

Weapons and military equipment expert Mile Poparic continued his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense claiming that the BH Army was responsible for sniper attacks on the Sarajevo civilians. At the beginning of the cross-examination the prosecutor put it to Poparic that he used erroneous methodology to reach his conclusions

In the cross-examination of the defense military expert Mile Poparic the prosecutor put it to the witness that in his expert report he altered the evidence in a bid to corroborate the conclusion that the Bosnian Serb army was not responsible for the sniper incidents in Sarajevo. Parts of the military expert’s testimony were impossible to follow as some photos under seal were discussed

On the fifth day of his evidence, Mladic's military expert Mile Poparic argues with the prosecutor about the scale of the sniper campaign against Sarajevo civilians. Another topic of debate was the line of sight from the Serb positions to the targets

The prosecution contends that Mile Poparic has based his conclusions on assumptions and has altered evidence to fit his purposes. Poparic responds that harmless ‘technical errors’ did not lead to erroneous findings. Mladic’s defense expert has denied that the Bosnian Serb army was to blame for sniper incidents in Sarajevo

On the last day of his evidence in Ratko Mladic's defense, Mile Poparic, weapons and military equipment expert, defended his findings, prompting the presiding judge to comment that Poparic all but told the judges 'what the judgment should be'. The presiding judge warned the defense to make sure that Poparic's testimony does not stray outside of his field of expertise

In 2003, Ostoja Marjanovic testified in the defense of Milomir Stakic, president of the Prijedor Crisis Staff. On that occasion, he blamed the army and the police for the crimes in that municipality. Today, testifying in Ratko Mladic's defense, the former director of the Ljubija mine tried hard to exonerate the army. According to Marjanovic, the only culprit was the police and their chief in Prijedor, the late Simo Drljaca

Ostoja Marjanovic, former director of the Ljubija Mine, didn’t object when during the war in BH his subordinates failed to keep him informed about the fact that the machinery owned by the mine were used to bury hundreds of bodies in the mining complex. ‘The less I know, the better I am’, the witness concluded at the end of his testimony in Mladic’s defense. Savo Strbac, president of the Veritas NGO, began his testimony after Marjanovic completed his

Savo Strbac, president of Veritas, an NGO, continued his evidence today. The prosecutor put it to him that while Mladic was the commander of the JNA Knin Corps in 1991, he was involved in the crimes against local Croats. This was a clear indication as to how Mladic would act as the Serb military commander in BH, the prosecutor noted. The witness replied that the crimes had been committed on all sides. The actions against Croats were undertaken to lift the blockade of the JNA military barracks, Strbac explained. When Stipe Mesic’s name was mentioned, the accused shouted out loud, 'Ustasha!'

Dragan Kijac continued his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. Kijac, who headed the Bosnian Serb secret police during the war and later became the police minister, had claimed that he didn’t know anything about the Srebrenica crimes until 2000. The prosecutor contested Kijac’s claims with the evidence showing that Kijac was involved in an operation in which false documents were issued to the killers from the 10th Commando Detachment. The unit members were given false papers to protect them from the Tribunal in The Hague, the prosecutor emphasized. The witness replied that at the time the Tribunal ‘did not exist’ as far as he was concerned. Kijac noted that there was no law in Republika Srpska regulating cooperation with the Tribunal

Mladic’s defense military expert Mitar Kovac concluded that the war in BH was a ‘typical civil war’. Sarajevo was ‘defended’ city ‘blocked on both sides’, Kovac noted. According to Kovac, in Srebrenica Mladic didn’t pursue a ‘murderous’ plan but a ‘humanitarian’ agenda. Late general Gvero commanded the Srebrenica operation ‘on behalf of the Main Staff’ in Mladic’s absence, Kovac explained. Mitar Kovac was awarded the Transfer of Wisdom award at a book fair in Serbia

Commenting on ideas Alija Izetbegovic had presented in the Islamic Declaration and their implementation, Mile Dmicic says that Serbs and Croats feared the domination of Islam. Secular Bosniaks feared it, too, the witness notes. Dmicic, a former official in the BH Presidency, didn’t agree with the defense's suggestion that the BH president had advocated terrorism

Mitar Kovac, a general with a military and academic background, was forced today to defend himself against allegations of plagiarism. Kovac was asked by Ratko Mladic’s defense to write an expert report. Before Kovac took the stand, the defense called former VRS soldier Dragan Vujcic. He said he didn’t know who had buried the bodies in the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor, although he was able to say who had not done it

According to Mladic’s defense witness, the allegations about artillery and sniper terror in Sarajevo were ‘propaganda’. Sarajevo civilians contributed to their suffering because they didn’t observe ‘necessary security measures’, they ‘moved around without a reason’ and ‘gathered in risky areas’, the witness argued

As he was questioned by Mladic’s defense, Japanese diplomat Yasushi Akashi said that the Bosnian side was responsible for violating the agreement and refusing to sign ceasefire agreements. In the cross-examination, when the focus turned to the crimes, Akashi confirmed the claim he made in his book, that all three sides in BH had committed crimes. However, Akashi noted, there was a ‘quantum difference’ between the three because only for the Serb side ‘genocide was part of their official policy’

In his book Yasushi Akashi, former UN Secretary General' special envoy to the former Yugoslavia, described Ratko Mladic as an 'emotional nationalist' with 'strong feelings for lives of Serbs but without any emotion for the members of the two other BH ethnicities'. In Akashi's words, Mladic was a soldier immersed in the idea of the 'Serb supremacy', 'prone to taking revenge'. Today Akashi distanced himself from the allegations, claiming that he was 'not an historian'. In his book, he was just 'thinking out loud', Akashi remarked

According to the findings of Mladic’s defense military expert Mitar Kovac, everyone was responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica – Alija Izetbegovic, Bill Clinton, foreign intelligence services, Serb mercenaries and avengers, the Scorpions unit, and a part of the Bosnian Serb military services; everyone, in fact, but the Republika Srpska military and political leadership

Mladic’s defense expert, historian Milos Kovic has criticized the prosecution and its experts, claiming that they have erroneously used several terms. The term ‘Bosnian Serbs’ is not correct, because some of these people come from Herzegovina, Kovic stressed. According to him, it was not correct to use the term the ‘siege of Sarajevo’ because the city had access to the outside world through the UN troops. Also, there was no ‘terror’ against the Sarajevo citizens because the Serb artillery and snipers targeted the army and the objective was to divide the city

Three officials of the Serbian Radical Party have been charged with contempt of court for threatening, intimidating, bribing and otherwise tampering with the witnesses in the case against Vojislav Seselj. Serbia has failed to execute the arrest warrant issued on 19 January 2015

Milos Kovic, historian giving evidence at the request of Mladic’s defense, didn’t contest the claim that the crimes had been perpetrated against non-Serbs in the Serb part of BH. He did complain, however, that no one discussed crimes against Serbs. The judges explained to Kovic that the Trial Chamber did not intend to write ‘the history of the entire war’ but to render a ‘judgment to one particular accused’

Ratko Mladic’s defense has called David del Pino, a forensic expert from Chile, in a bid to contest the findings from the report produced by the prosecution forensic expert William Haglund on the exhumations of Srebrenica mass graves. The defense has relied on a report by the Supervisory Commission from San Antonio, but as the report concluded that the errors made by Haglund did not in any way compromise the scientific value of his findings, the defense has thus failed to achieve the desired effect

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik has blamed the Muslim leadership for the outbreak of the war in BH. According to Dodik, Alija Izetbegovic’s policy and the statements he made in his Islamic Declaration were ‘precursors to the current ideology of radical Islam’. The prosecutor contested Dodik’s claims by quoting from an interview Karadzic gave in 1990, when he said ‘there is no need to panic’ in BH because local Muslims had all opted for ‘the European way of life while following their Islamic faith’

Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik claims he didn’t know that the Bosnian Serb leadership had planned and implemented the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs, as he continues his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. This prompted the prosecutor to confront Dodik with the fact that the expulsions of Muslims and Croats had been discussed at the Assembly at the time when Dodik was a deputy in the Assembly. In an interview in 2001 Dodik blamed the Serbian Democratic Party leadership for the crimes. Confronted with his own words, Dodik replied that it ‘seemed to me that some people from the SDS party leadership were involved in the crimes’

Portuguese diplomat Jose Cutileiro has testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Cutileiro said that the Lisbon agreement could have saved peace in BH if Alija Izetbegovic had not been persuaded by the Americans to pull out of it. The prosecutor argued that Karadzic had tricked both Cutileiro and the international community. Karadzic acted as if he was all for peace and negotiations while at the same time he devised plans to capture territory and implement ethnic cleansing there, the prosecutor explained. Also, Karadzic boasted in public that the Lisbon agreement had ‘destroyed Bosnia’

In his evidence in Mladic’s defense former UNPROFOR member Sergey Moroz has played down the suffering of Sarajevo citizens during the war-time siege. When the prosecutor told him that Serb snipers would open fire at UN troops, Moroz said that he had been targeted too, but in his opinion, the shooters were ‘only kidding’ and they did not actually want to kill him

Dusan Pavlovic testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. He had been asked by the defense to write an expert report on the losses of the BH Army during the breakthrough from Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Through Pavlovic’s evidence, the defense tried to prove that the thousands of victims from Srebrenica, exhumed from the mass graves, had in fact been killed in combat

A protected witness called by General Ratko Mladic’s defense argues that the shelling of the Markale town marked was arranged at a meeting of the former Bosnian Muslim political, military and religious leadership to provoke a ‘military intervention of the international community’

In his book Carl Bildt has claimed that ‘probably as many as 4,000 persons or even more were killed when the column of people from Srebrenica was trying to break through the encirclement of the Serb forces. Mladic’s defense expert confirmed that the allegation was ‘referential’. The claim prompted Judge Orie to quote a sentence from the same book stating that ‘in the five days of the massacre Mladic organized an execution of more than 3,000 persons’

As the prosecutor cross-examined Mladic's expert witness, he emphasized that the alleged 'controversial cases' highlighted on Pavlovic's list of Srebrenica men who were killed in July 1995 as they were trying to break through towards Tuzla are not controversial at all: the witness merely failed to take into account all the available documents on the fate of those men

Mile Matijevic, former employee of the Banja Luka Security Services Center, has claimed at Ratko Mladic’s trial that he didn’t know anything about the crimes against non-Serbs in Jajce, Banja Luka, Bosanski Novi, Prijedor and Kotor Varos. The witness never heard of Koricanske Stijene, noting that there were some ‘clues' indicating that crimes were being committed in the Omarska prison camp, but then, in 1995, he began his career in education

The Tribunal’s Trial Chamber I is not happy with the first report from Belgrade specifying actions taken to implement the arrest warrant for the three Serbian Radical Party members who are wanted for contempt of court. The judges have decided to schedule a public hearing for Wednesday, 10 February 2016 to discuss Serbia’s non-compliance and the failure of Serbian authorities to comply with a binding order issued by an international court. The Serbian government has been invited to send ‘authorized and informed representatives’ to the hearing

Ratko Mladic’s trial will be on hold until 29 February 2016. The only events at the Tribunal will be a hearing on Serbia’s failure to comply with the arrest warrant for three Serbian Radical Party officials charged with contempt of court, and two status conferences in appellate proceedings.

In the final straight of Ratko Mladic’s defense case, he will call a former high-ranking UN military observer in a bid to contest the allegation that the VRS fired the mortar shells that hit the Markale market on 28 August 1995, causing the second massacre on the same site

With the evidence of Norwegian officer Per Oien, Ratko Mladic’s defense has tried to deny he was responsible for the second Markale incident in August 1995. According to Oien, in their first report UN military observers stated that they couldn’t establish which side had fired five mortar shells in the direction of Markale. Oien didn’t know if that report was later changed

According to Mladic's defense expert Zoran Stankovic, the report on Tomasica drafted by British pathologist John Clark is ‘inadmissible’ as evidence in the proceedings because of Clark’s ‘informal’ role in the exhumations and post mortems. Stankovic cannot understand how Clark could ‘stoop so low’ as to take photos of post mortems

Dr. Zoran Stankovic, a forensic expert from Belgrade, has again been critical of the findings of the British and Bosnian pathologist who had carried out the post mortems on the victims from the Tomasica mass grave. The defense expert couldn’t understand why only ‘basic equipment’ had been used in the morgue: the staff had not used an x-ray machine or a fluoroscope and they had not consulted the victims’ medical charts. Dr. Stankovic noted that the victims exhumed from Tomasica may not have been executed but killed in combat

In the final part of Dr. Zoran Stankovic’s examination-in-chief, Ratko Mladic’s defense alleged that the Srebrenica victims exhumed from the mass graves may have been killed in combat, and not executed. Strips of cloth found on the victims' heads were not blindfolds but ‘bandanas’ worn by fighters, the defense argued

In the cross-examination of Dr. Zoran Stankovic, a forensic medicine expert from Belgrade, the prosecutor highlighted the inconsistencies between his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense and the claims he made when he testified in other cases in The Hague. The prosecutor also stressed that the accused and the witness were ‘close’

What did Dr. Zoran Stankovic tell Ratko Mladic in October 1995 about the possibility that he might get the Tribunal's indictment against the general withdrawn? Mladic described the meeting in detail in his diary and recorded it on audio tape. In the cross-examination of the defense’s expert the prosecutor played the recording

Dr. Svetlana Radovanovic, demography expert called by Ratko Mladic’s defense, has challenged the integrity of the prosecution expert Ewa Tabeau. According to Dr. Radovanovic, Tabeau’s ‘key mistake’ was her failure to indicate that some of the victims exhumed from the Tomasica mass grave had died in combat

Belgian lieutenant Jan Segers testified today in Ratko Mladic’s defense. After trying for three hours to establish when specific incidents he mentioned in his evidence had actually happened, it turned out that the witness has memory problems caused by the medication he has been taking

Dr. Svetlana Radovanovic continued her evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic today. The expert witness extended her list of complaints about Dr. Ewa Tabeau’s expert report, accusing her of manipulation and deliberate concealment of data. According to Dr. Radovanovic’s, parts of Dr. Tabeau's report on the mass grave near Prijedor were an exercise in 'pure statistical exhibitionism'

Based on a document produced by the VRS 1st Krajina Corps, defense demography expert Dr. Svetlana Radovanovic concluded that there was fighting with the 'extremist' groups in the Prijedor area at the relevant times. When the prosecutor stressed that the document does not state the ‘extremist’ groups were armed, the defense’s demography expert argued that her goal was not to establish ‘whether someone was armed or not but whether there was fighting going on’

Ratko Mladic’s defense notes that Mladic was for all intents and purposes convicted already when Radovan Karadzic’s judgment was handed down in March 2016, warning the judges not to include legal advisers who worked with the chamber which convicted the former Republika Srpska president in the advisory team which will help Mladic’s chamber decide on the general’s guilt

According to the prosecution, the credibility and impartiality of the judges are not jeopardized bythe fact that some of the legal advisers appointed to assist the trial chamber in Mladic’s case had previously worked with the judges who convicted Radovan Karadzic

In his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense, Russian colonel Andrei Demurenko talked about his investigation of the Markale incident of 28 August 1995. A total of 43 citizens of Sarajevo were killed and 75 were injured in the incident. According to Demurenko, the explosion was staged. The United Nations were biased and covered up the ‘Bosniak aggression against Serbs’. Bosniaks opened fire on their own people, Demurenko claimed

In the cross-examination, Russian colonel Andrei Demurenko complained about the prosecutors ‘skillfully confusing’ him with their ‘sophisticated questions’. Demurenko argued that he ‘cannot follow their logic all the time’ because he is just a soldier. The Trial Chamber didn’t allow the witness to shake hands with the accused Mladic

Russian colonel Andrei Demurenko failed to show up in court this morning. The witness was expected to continue his evidence in Ratko Mladic’s defense. The presiding judge said that Demurenko had left Holland ‘after midnight’. The judges asked the defense and the prosecution to present their positions on what should be done with Demurenko’s statement and unfinished evidence. Mladic waived his right to attend the hearing and was absent today

Ratko Mladic’s defense wants the judges to extend the deadline for the submission of final briefs from 1 September to 7 December 2016. According to the defense, the closing arguments should begin on 12 January 2017. Mladic’s defense expects Russian colonel Demurenko to complete his evidence ‘some time in July 2016’. Last week Demurenko left home in the middle of his cross-examination

The fact that two legal advisors to the Trial Chamber sitting in the Radovan Karadzic case had assisted the judges who will be deliberating Ratko Mladic’s judgment does not call into question the integrity of the trail and the presumption of impartiality of the judges in the case against the former VRS Main Staff commander, the Trial Chamber rules

The new provisional deadline for final briefs in the Ratko Mladic case is 3 October 2016, the judges said at the status conference today. The definitive date will be set once the pending issues related to Mladic’s defense case have been dealt with

Ratko Mladic’s defense reiterates the demands it had made in an earlier motion, insisting that Mladic’s right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence are guaranteed, even though the Trial Chamber rejected the original motion. The defense wants a review of the Trial Chamber’s decision or, alternatively, seeks permission to appeal against the decision

Although Ratko Mladic’s defense has maintained he wants to call additional witnesses, the Trial Chamber officially brought the defense case to a close. The former commander of the VRS Main Staff was charged with genocide and other crimes in the BH war. Today Russian colonel Demurenko completed his evidence in Mladic’s defense via video link from Moscow. On 15 June 2016, he left The Hague in the middle of his testimony

ICTY president Carmel Agius has dismissed the motion filed by Ratko Mladic's defense seeking the disqualification of judges Orie and Flügge from the chamber hearing the case against the former VRS Main Staff commander

In the case against the former commander of the VRS Main Staff, the prosecution and defence will deliver their closing arguments in December 2016. The trial lasted 523 days; the court heard the testimony of 380 witnesses and admitted almost 10,000 exhibits into evidence. Ratko Mladic is on trial for genocide and other crimes committed in the BH war

The Tribunal’s President decides not to consider the merits of Mladic’s motion in which Mladic accused the judges in the Trial Chamber and the Appeals Chamber of showing ‘systematic bias’. Mladic demanded that the proceedings against him be terminated and that a special working group be set up in the UN Security Council to investigate the allegations

First the presidents of the Mechanism and of the Tribunal denied Mladic’s motion in which he complained about ‘the systemic bias’ and demanded that the proceedings against him be stayed or that a mistrial be called. Now, Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber did the same

The Trial Chamber is busy tying off the loose ends in a bid to bring the trial of the former commander of the VRS Main Staff to an end. Mladic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995

According to Ratko Mladic's defense, the statements and judgments produced by judges Meron, Agius and Pocar have to a large extent violated the right of the accused VRS Main Staff commander to be presumed innocent. As this gives rise to 'a reasonable apprehension of bias', the judges should be disqualified from the Appeals Chamber which will consider the defense's motion citing violations of their client's right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence

Judge Liu Daqun, as the acting president of the Tribunal, has rejected the motion filed by Ratko Mladic's defense seeking the disqualification of judges Theodor Meron, Fausto Pocar and Carmel Agius from the Appeals Chamber which is set to rule whether the trial of the former VRS Main Staff Commander has been fair

Mladic’s ‘road to hell’ began in the spring of 1992 with a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and Croats from large swathes of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It ended in July 1995 with the killing of almost 8,000 Srebrenica men and boys, the prosecutor noted at the beginning of the closing arguments at the trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander

The prosecution continued with the closing arguments at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS Main Staff. According to prosecutor Traldi, Belgrade contributed to the ethnic cleansing campaign carried out in large areas of Bosnian and Herzegovina. In the case of Prijedor and five other municipalities, ethnic cleansing reached the scale of genocide, the prosecutor emphasized

Concluding the prosecution’s closing argument at Ratko Mladic’s trial, prosecutor Alan Tieger noted that ‘any sentence but the gravest one foreseen by the law would be an insult to the victims and an affront to justice’

On the first day of its closing arguments, Ratko Mladic’s defense argued that the prosecution had failed to meet the burden of proof. According to lawyers Branko Lukic and Dragan Ivetic, the prosecution did not prove Mladic’s guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ and the accused should therefore be acquitted on all counts in the indictment

The army headed by the accused Ratko Mladic did not ethnically cleanse large swathes of BH territory, defense counsel Dragan Ivetic argued as the defense continued presenting their closing arguments. Ivetic also contested the allegation that in Prijedor and some other municipalities the troops under Mladic’s command had committed genocide. Non-Serbs didn’t leave their homes under pressure and violence but because ‘there was no electricity, medicines, water and food’. They left in search of a better life, Ivetic told the court

On the last day of the closing arguments, Mladic’s defense lawyer Ivetic denied Mladic was responsible for the terror campaign in Sarajevo, genocide in Srebrenica and taking UN staff hostage. According to the defense, Mladic should be acquitted. If, however, the judges do find him guilty, his prison sentence should not exceed five to 15 years

The end of the second round of closing arguments by the prosecution and defense in the case against Ratko Mladic today marked the end of the last trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Any future trials (i.e. retrials and contempt of court proceedings) will be held before the Tribunal’s successor, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals

The Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber rejected today Ratko Mladic’s interlocutory appeal against the Trial Chamber’s decision issued in July 2016. As alleged by the defense, the trial decision violated the right of the accused to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence

In its motion, the defense sounds the alarm on the sudden deterioration of the health of the former VRS Main Staff commander and urges the court to allow the accused to travel to Russia urgently, citing humanitarian and medical reasons

In its response to the defense motion demanding that Ratko Mladic be allowed to travel to Russia for medical treatment urgently, the prosecution notes that the defense of the former VRS Main Staff Commander ‘misrepresents the nature of a recent medical intervention in a disingenuous attempt to claim a dramatic new deterioration in the Accused's health’

In a new motion, the defense of the former VRS Main Staff commander urges the Trial Chamber to allow Ratko Mladic to travel to Russia for medical treatment ‘urgently, before it is too late’, warning the judges that they will bear responsibility for ‘any future deterioration and the final fatal outcome’ if they do not let Mladic go

Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber has rejected Ratko Mladic’s defense request to allow their client to travel to Russia to undergo medical treatment, on humanitarian grounds. The judges not that Mladic’s health, contrary to the defense’s alarmist claims, remains ‘consolidated and stable’. The judges are not convinced that the accused would return to The Hague for the judgment in his case, scheduled for November, despite the guarantees offered by the Russian authorities

Former VRS Main Staff commander was found guilty today of the part he had played in four joint criminal enterprises and was sentenced to life in prison. The accused was removed from court while the judgment summary was read out because he loudly complained and cursed the judges. The prosecutor is happy with the sentence Mladic received for the 'most heinous crimes known to humanity', while the defense vows to fight on in the appellate proceedings