Milorad Davidovic, witness at the Radovan Karadzic trial

Radovan Karadzic today continued his cross-examination of Milorad Davidovic, former inspector in the Federal Yugoslav SUP who was sent to Republika Srpska in the spring of 1992 to ‘help’ set up the interior ministry there. As Radovan Karadzic contended, ‘nobody ever informed me’ about the rumors that Vojkan Djurkovic, who was in charge of the ethnic cleansing in Bijeljina, was giving some of the money taken from the expelled Muslims to him and Momcilo Krajisnik. The prosecutor today showed two documents it received through official channels from the Serbian State Security Service.

The first document, dated 4 April 1994, signed by the Greek letter Sigma, was sent to Franko Simatovic. The document speaks about the expulsion of Muslims from Bijeljina. As the document states, the evacuation of the Muslims continued under the auspices of the State Exchange Commission, while Vojislav Djurkovic a/k/a Puskar was causing problems because he was charging the Muslims 300 to 500 German marks to allow them to leave. The document also says that Djurkovic took money from Serbs who moved into abandoned Muslim houses, and that ‘rumors abound that Puskar is operating on Radovan Karadzic’s orders and is giving part of the money to Karadzic and Arkan, because he’s using Arkan’s men to expel the Muslims’.

This intelligence, as the document states, wouldn’t be relevant were it not for the fact that rumors about it had already been circulating in Bijeljina and Janja for some time. Furthermore, the International Red Cross and the ‘Muslim side’, and hence ‘Geneva’ (i.e. the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia) knew about it. The document goes on to say that a deputy in the Serbian Assembly asked whether Djurkovic was Milosevic’s or Karadzic’s man.

The second document, dated 27 June 1994, was produced by the Serbian State Security Service. The document states that an intelligence group codenamed Typhoon from Republika Srpska contacted the service in order to work for it. The document notes that the group should be integrated into the system and codenamed ‘Sigma’.

Karadzic and his legal adviser objected to the admission of the document, arguing that it originated from the Typhoon group, set up by the discontented personnel from the RS State Security Service; they were all arrested eventually. The judges will decide on the admissibility of the document later.

The trial continued with the evidence of a new witness in closed session.

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