Zorica Subotic, defence witness at Rako Mladic trial

For whole 10 days Zorica Subotic gave evidence at the trial of Ratko Mladic over a period of three working weeks. Subotic completed her testimony today after the re-examination by the defense and prosecution. Subotic was called to The Hague as the defense ballistics expert to contest the prosecutor’s allegation that the deliberate shelling of the civilian parts of Sarajevo was an important component of the Bosnian Serb army's terror campaign against the city during the four-year siege. Subotic appeared as an expert witness also at the trial of Radovan Karadzic.

The expert witness responded to the prosecution case in three expert reports. The first report dealt with mortar attacks on civilian targets in Sarajevo. In her second report, Subotic focused on the attacks on the Markale market on 5 February 1994 and 28 August 1995. The third report analyzed the attacks with modified air bombs. The prosecution alleges that the modified air bombs were highly indiscriminate and destructive weapon. Subotic argued that the weapon was very accurate. In a nutshell, Subotic's conclusion is that the Bosnian Serb army did not shell civilian targets; they targeted military installations in the city. According to Subotic, very often the incidents, such as the two Markale explosions, were staged.

In the cross-examination, the prosecutor suggested that the expert based her findings on erroneous premises. Subotic misinterpreted the evidence produced by the investigation and the witness testimonies, the prosecutor noted. Defense counsel Branko Lukic attempted to fix that part of Subotic’s evidence by invoking specific information from the documents and testimonies Subotic herself had used. Furthermore, Subotic today stressed the errors the Bosnian police teams made when they investigated the artillery incidents in the city.

Commenting on the first Markale market attack in February 1994, Subotic said that, based on the data presented at the trial, UNPROFOR’s radar should have registered the shell if it had come in from the Serb positions. The fact that the radar did not register the shell fit with Subotic’s theory that the shell had been planted and activated on the ground. Today Subotic was not able to say how the radar had been positioned and whether it really should have registered the flight path of the shell.

The prosecution alleges that in addition to artillery attacks, the citizens of Sarajevo were terrorized by snipers. Mile Poparic, another ballistics expert, will deny that Mladic’s army was to blame for those attacks. Poparic will appear in court in late October 2015.

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