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WAS PECANAC MLADIC'S MAN FOR 'SPECIAL TASKS'?
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
Dragan Todorovic, defence witness at Rako Mladic trial In the brief cross-examination of Dragan Todorovic,logistics officer in the VRS 10th Commando Detachment, prosecutor McCloskey played videos recorded in 1996 and 1997, which imply that Ratko Mladic had a very close relationship with Dragomir Pecanac, who was an intelligence officer in the VRS Main Staff.
In his evidence yesterday as Mladic's defense witness, Todorovic described how Pecanac came to the 10th Commando Detachment barracks on 15 July 1995. Pecanac ordered Todorovic to select a group of soldiers to carry out a 'special task'. As it turned out, the 'special task' was the execution of more than 1,000 prisoners at the Branjevo farm on 16 July 1995.
The prosecutor used the video recordings to show that during the war Pecanac was Mladic's man for special tasks and his close friend. In the 1996 footage, Mladic says that he sent Pecanac to carry out'the operation to capture Avdo Palic'. In September 1995, Pecanac took Palic, the commander of the forces that defended in Zepa, out of the military prison in Bijeljina where he was detained. Todorovic was able to identify Pecanac in the video. According to Todorovic, it was an 'occasion when everyone was relaxed', a sort of an informal celebration. 'Everything is possible', Todorovic replied when the prosecutor asked him if he knew that the VRS troops captured, detained and eventually killed Avdo Palic.
In the second video taken at the wedding of General Mladic's son Darko, Mladic and Pecanac are filmed embracing each other and singing a song by a popular Serbian folk singer, Toma Zdravkovic. As the prosecutor explained, it was a 'well-known song about misery, sorrow and pain'. The witness said that it was an 'just a regular song you would sing in a bar to relax'. Mladic watched both videos with obvious pleasure.
In the re-examination, Mladic's defense counsel noted that the witness in fact didn't know if Pecanac was Mladic's 'man for special tasks'. When the defense counsel asked him if he was ever present when Mladic gave orders to Pecanac, Todorovic replied that he didn't.
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