The trial of six former high-ranking officials and members of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) accused of genocide in Srebrenica will begin on July 4.
At the status conference, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina stated that it intends to call a large number of witnesses, some of whom are protected by pseudonyms, some abroad, and some in the countries of the region, and stated that they will also present a large number of material evidence.
Miloš Perić, Lazar Ristić’s defense attorney, said that he expects the Prosecution to extract and copy certain material evidence that it will present, considering that they received data from the prosecutor on a CD, and there is a large amount of it.
Perić believes that the Prosecution should make a plan for which witnesses they will hear in the next trials and say what material evidence they will present.
Prosecutor Predrag Tomić said that it would be difficult to specify in advance which ten or twenty witnesses he would call, but that it would not be difficult to find the required information on the CD, as these are documents certified in The Hague.
Radivoje Lazarevic, who defends Sreten Milosevic, requested that his client be assigned an additional defense attorney, which the Trial Chamber refused.
Ristić and Milošević are accused together with Mladen Mihajlović, Dragoj Ivanović and Stanoj and Milorad Birčaković and are accused of being – during a wide and systematic attack by the VRS and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the area of the United Nations Protected Zone of Srebrenica, in the capacity of former high-ranking officials and members Zvornik brigades – knowingly provided assistance to members of a joint criminal enterprise in committing genocide against victims of Bosniak nationality.
The prosecution previously stated that the accused participated in the capture and forced imprisonment of more than 800 Bosniak men and boys in the gymnasium of the ‘Grbavci’ school in Orahovac, and in the operation to transport the prisoners to the place of shooting in localities near the school, where more than 800 victims were killed. , and the bodies – using machinery – were buried in two mass graves, reports BIRN BiH.
