Dusan Micic, defence witness of Radovan Karadzic

Radovan Karadzic examined Dusan Micic from Bratunac, former platoon commander in the elite Special Police Unit. He was actively involved in the VRS operations in Srebrenica in July 1995. Although he was in the thick of the events that followed the fall of Srebrenica, the witness doesn’t remember any relevant details from that period.

According to the summary of the statement the witness gave to Karadzic’s defense, on 12 July 1995 he received the order that his platoon should ‘secure’ the refugees gathered in Potocari, and to protect them against Serb paramilitary units. The witness said that he was proud of that. Micic didn’t see the men being separated from the women and children. He never saw anyone being injured or killed. In the evening of 12 July 1995, the witness went to Sandici and once again failed to see anything there. He was there at night, the witness pointed, it was too dark to see, and he was drowsy.

In the early morning of 13 July 1995 Micic went to Bratunac to make preparations for the funeral of a soldier from his platoon, Zeljko Ninkovic, who had been killed the previous night. Micic didn’t see anything in Bratunac because, as he explained, on 14 July he attended the funeral and spent the entire day there. The witness was unable to tell where he was in the days that followed, but he was certain that he was not at the Branjevo farm where more than 1,000 captured Muslims were executed on 16 July 1995.

Prosecutor Carolyn Edgerton noted that the first summary of the witness’s statement disclosed by Karadzic’s defense in February 2013 states that in July 1995 Micic was ‘involved in the events in Kravica’ and that he was securing the Vuk Karadzic school in Bratunac. ‘This is an old summary, now we have a more recent one’, Karadzic objected, thus confirming that this section of the witness’s statement was redacted at a later stage. The witness denied that he had anything to do with the detainees and the killings.

The prosecutor confronted Micic with the statement his superior, Danilo Zoljic, gave to the BH authorities in 2005. In the statement Zoljic says that the witness’s 1^st Company provided security for the buses that were taking prisoners from Bratunac towards Zvornik. ‘That is Zoljic’s personal opinion’, Micic retorted. The prosecutor then quoted a report that Dragomir Vasic, chief of the Zvornik public security station, wrote on 12 July 1995. The report indicated that thousands of Srebrenica Muslims were trying to flee the area and that the Serb forces were trying to stop them by setting up ambushes. According to the report, the 1^st Company was in charge of the effort. Also, the prosecutor played a video recording taken in Potocari on 12 July showing Micic and some of his soldiers. Micic was in the company of Radenko Tomic Gargija, a member of Mauzer’s ‘Panthers’.

As the prosecutor noted, Drazen Erdemovic had repeatedly testified that Radenko Tomic was seen on 16 July 1995 at the Branjevo farm and that he took part in the executions. According to Erdemovic’s testimony, Tomic arrived in Branjevo with about 15 people from Bratunac. ‘But you do know that, don’t you’, the prosecutor asked Micic. The witness was able to recognize himself in the footage but, as he said, ‘I don’t know a thing’ about Branjevo. The witness was not able to tell the prosecutor what he was doing and where he was on 16 July 1995. He may have been in Baljkovica or perhaps he was at home, the witness said.

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