Nenad Deronjic, defence witness at Rako Mladic trial

On 11 July 1995, the day of the fall of Srebrenica, Nenad Deronjic, police officer from Bratunac, was on duty at a check point on the cross-roads in Konjevic Polje. In his statement to Ratko Mladic’s defense Deronjic claimed that in the morning of 12 July 1995 he returned to the police station in Bratunac. On the same day, according to Deronjic, he was sent to Srebrenica to prevent looting and to establish law and order. Deronjic stated that he remained in Srebrenica until 21 July 1995.

The witness contested the evidence of Momir Nikolic, security officer in the VRS Bratunac Brigade. In his guilty plea, Nikolic said that on 13 July 1995 he saw Deronjic at the check point in Konjevic Polje. At the same time Mladic was in Konjevic Polje, promising a group of prisoners there that they would be exchanged. Deronjic was adamant that Nikolic had said a number of lies, not only about him but also about other people from Bratunac. According to Deronjic, Nikolic wanted to secure a better position in his bid to reach a plea agreement with reaching the prosecution.

At General Krstic's trial, a prosecution witness alleged that Deronjic participated in the execution of 15 prisoners on the bank of the River Jadar on 13 July 1995. The prosecution confronted Deronjic with the claim several times, in an interview in Banja Luka in 2001, and during his testimony at the trials of Vidoje Blagojevic and Radovan Karadzic. Each time Deronjic denied that he participated in the crime, arguing that from 13 to 21 July 1995 he didn’t leave Srebrenica.

In the cross-examination, prosecutor Peter McCloskey confronted the witness with the documents of the Zvornik Public Security Center and the Srebrenica Police Station duty log book. The documents showed that on 13 July 1995 the witness was on duty in Srebrenica from 7am to 7pm. However, the prosecutor stressed, the dates have been altered. According to the prosecutor, the original entry stated that Deronjic was on duty from 7pm on 13 July 1995 to 9am on14 July 1995. That would imply that Deronjic was free during the day, the prosecutor suggested, and that he does not have an alibi.

Deronjic said he didn’t know who had altered the duty log book, arguing that ‘someone from the OTP could have done it’. This prompted presiding judge Orie to note that it was the right moment to remind the witness of Rule 90E. The rule allows the witness not to answer any potentially incriminating questions.

As the hearing drew to a close, Mladic’s defense called Milan Pejic, a medical doctor who used to work in the Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo.

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