Massacre: 1200 Bosniak Civilians Killed in Serbian Attack on Kozarac

Witness: Serb army reduced the number of killed Bosniaks in the attack on Kozarac ten times.

The Institute for War Crimes in Sarajevo had established that 2,000 Bosniak civilians were killed in the wider region around Kozarac, of which 800 were killed in May of 1992.

Osman Selak, witness at the Ratko Mladic trial

Former JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) colonel Osman Selak has testified about General Momir Talic’s decision to reduce the number of victims in the attack on Kozarac in May 1992 from 800 to 80. Selak also described what he saw when he visited the Manjaca prison camp.

SENSE Tribunal — Retired colonel Osman Selak, former commander of the JNA logistics base in Banja Luka testified today at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the VRS (Bosnian Serb Army) Main Staff, about two meetings he attended in 1992.

At the first meeting on 27 May 1992, Colonel Marcetic informed the Krajina Corps commander Momir Talic that 800 Bosniaks had been killed that day in the attack on Kozarac; 1,200 were arrested. Selak contends that Talic looked at him at that moment, knowing that Selak was the only Bosniak there, and ‘corrected’ Marcetic saying, ‘you mean to say that 80 persons were killed’. The number was then put in a report that was sent to the VRS Main Staff.

Today the witness showed the court the war-time notebook in which he had written the number Marcetic had mentioned, 800, rather than Talic’s ‘correction’. Selak also said that in the meantime as an associate of the Institute for War Crimes in Sarajevo, he had established that 2000 persons were killed in the wider region around Kozarac. ‘Apart from the genocide in Srebrenica, I say genocide was committed in Kozarac too’, Selak said.

The witness tried to get to the crime scene but his deputy stopped him; he was concerned that Selak would be liquidated once the truth about the events in Kozarac got out. Selak thinks that the death toll in the report sent to the Main Staff was reduced ten times because of the ‘personal responsibility of the commander’. As Selak explained, Talic ‘was not a bad man’ but had to implement the order of the superior command. ‘He was not pleased to do it’, Selak noted. However, Talic ‘didn’t take any measures against 343rd Motorized Brigade’ that was in Selak’s opinion responsible for the crime in Kozarac.

At the second meeting, General Talic issued the order establishing the Manjaca concentration camp for about 2,500 prisoners of war. The facilities in the former training ground could be used to house 80 persons at the most, or 200 if military bunk beds were put in, Selak said. Selak visited the prison camp once it was up and running. In the stables, he saw about a hundred detainees mucking out the area. Some of them ‘had been beaten up, they had blood on their faces, Selak said. When Selak walked in, the prisoners were ordered to stand still and put their heads down. The scenes Selak saw ‘were so horrible that even today I shiver when I remember them’, Selak said.

In response to Mladic’s defense counsel Branko Lukic, Selak said that apart from the death toll, the Krajina Corps report contained another inaccurate claim: that the victims from Kozarac ‘died in combat’. According to Selak, those people were ‘liquidated’.

Defense counsel Lukic asked the witness a series of questions about the ethnic composition of the VRS and the BH Army, the response to the call up, the constitutional provisions about the referendum, and the arming and establishment of the Patriotic League and the Green Berets. ‘There was a lot of political issues at play but I didn’t get involved in that’, the witness said; as a consequence, he didn’t think he had the accurate information. The witness also said that he asked to retire in mid-May 1992 because he ‘knew what was coming’. Selak explained that he had received some threatening telephone calls and letters about the expulsion of Muslims and Croats from the army.

For the most part, Mladic followed Selak’s evidence without reacting. He did raise his voice though, when the defense counsel examined the witness about some military issues. Mladic at first contradicted the witness, but finally gestured to indicate he agreed with him. Selak’s cross-examination continues tomorrow or the day after tomorrow after the evidence of the witness who will testify via video link from Sarajevo. The witness will speak about the ethnic cleansing of the Novi Grad neighbourhood in Sarajevo and the massacre of ‘at least 47 Bosniaks’ in a bus en route from Rajlovac to Pale on 14 June 1992.

The following is a report from BIRN:

At the trial of the former Bosnian Serb army chief, Ratko Mladic, his defence argued that the attack of the Serb forces on the village of Kozarac in 1992 was a was a consequence of a Bosniak ambush.

The suggestion was made by Mladic’s lawyers during the cross examination of the prosecution witness Osman Selak who dismissed this claim, sticking to his earlier assertion that 1,200 Bosniaks had been killed in the attack.

Testifying a day earlier, Selak, the former commander of the rear base of the Army of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka, described the meeting on May 27, 1992, when subordinate officers informed the commander of the First Krajina Corps Momir Talic that 800 Bosniaks were killed and 1,200 captured in Kozarac and the area.

According to Selak, General Talic issued an order that the headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army be informed that the number of victims was ten times smaller, aware that his units violated the international law of war.

Mladic, former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, is charged with the expulsion of Bosniak and Croat civilians across Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, according to the indictment, in seven Bosnian municipalities, reached a level of genocide. He is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica and terrorizing Sarajevo citizens.

Asked by the defence whether he knew that an army column passed through Kozarac in late May 1992 and what was its assignment, Selak replied negatively, adding that he knew that “a battalion from Belgrade went in that direction.”

Asked whether he knew that a driver from the column was killed, the witness replied: “I did not know. That is how political parties were trying to justify the killing of 1,200 people”.

The defence lawyer, Branko Lukic, asked how many wounded people there were in Kozarac, suggesting that, having in mind the number of killed that the witness stated, there had to be a “couple of thousand” wounded.

“I believe there was, because people from the village were taken to the camps near Pijedor and many of them died from the wounds there,” said Selak.

Mladic’s lawyer asked the witness about the “resistance movement” in Banja Luka, whose member he was after he retired in July 1992. Selak confirmed this, emphasising that the resistance never carried out any action against the Serb authorities.

He added that during the war “300 people were killed and thrown into the Vrbas river” and that “Bosniaks and Croats were ordered to leave.”

In the course of the trial, presiding judge Alphons Orie had to warn defendant Mladic on several occasions not to talk loudly during consultations with his lawyers and not to comment loudly during the ongoing testimony.

The trial is set to resume on September 28.