Milutin Misic, defence witness at Rako Mladic trial

After the prosecution rested its case on the Tomasica mass grave, Ratko Mladic’s defense case resumed with the testimony of Milutin Misic, a member of the board of directors of the BH Institute for Missing Persons. The witness was to contest the reliability of the data on missing persons collected by the International Red Cross, the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) and the missing persons commissions in the two BH entities.

In the examination-in-chief, Misic said that taken individually all the data on the missing persons collected by those institutions were ‘incorrect’. The only way to get correct data is to match and cross-check the data provided by those sources. The BH Missing Persons Institute started the verification process, but the task was not carried out in line with the law and the Rules of the Institute because of its ‘internal shortcomings’.The witness’s claim pertains to the first 10,000 verifications for persons who had gone missing in the Podrinje area. ‘Somebody has profited from all that’, Misic is convinced.

This prompted judge Moloto to ask who ‘profited from all that’. Misic was vague, saying that those were ‘individuals and groups who manipulate’ the missing persons lists ‘because it is not in their interest for the actual figures to come to light’. ‘The war is over, but the propaganda and psychological aspects of it unfortunately are still ongoing’, Misic explained. The hearing then went into closed session. As Misic’s testimony continued in open session, it became clear that he held Amor Masovic, the Bosniak member of the board of directors, responsible for the purported irregularities.

Judge Moloto asked Misic to clarify why he claimed that the ICMP data were not correct if the Institute itself – as the witness alleged – didn’t have accurate data. Also, Judge Moloto reminded the witness that he had previously described the situation in the Institute as ‘chaotic’, stating that the Institute ‘doesn’t perform its tasks in accordance with the law’ and various individuals profit from the chaos. Misic had previously said that he had been thinking about packing his bags and leaving because of the situation. Misic tried several times in vain to provide a sensible answer to the judge’s question. Judge Moloto remarked it was ‘difficult to follow the witness’s evidence to a certain extent’.

At the beginning of the cross-examination prosecutor Edward Jeremy noted that during the war Misic commanded a brigade in the Ozren Tactical Group under Lieutenant Colonel Novak Djukic. Djukic was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a BH court for the massacre at Kapija in Tuzla on 25 May 1995. Misic first told Jeremy that he had been injured on 19 May 1995, only to ‘recall’ a bit later that he had been wounded after the incident, on 29 May 1995. The witness was adamant that he didn’t know anything about the incident and only learned about it from the media after the war.

The prosecution will continue cross-examining Milutin Misic tomorrow.

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