Mladen Bajagic, defence witness of Mico Stanisic

At the trial of Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, the prosecution finished the cross-examination of Mladen Bajagic, expert witness called by Stanisic’s defense. Bajagic, who now teaches at the Police Academy in Belgrade, used to work in the Republika Srpska National Security Service.

The prosecution insisted on various technical and substantive errors in the report on the work of the RS MUP and contested the witness’s objectivity. According to Bajagic’s conclusions, the army was responsible for the functioning of the prison camps ‘from the time they were set up to the moment prisoners were released’. The prosecutor asked whether the VRS was primarily responsible for prison camps in which prisoners of war were kept, rather than the facilities for civilians, including women and children. The witness claimed that facilities for civilians were under the jurisdiction of municipal crisis staffs.

The witness didn’t corroborate his claim with any provisions from the law. He says he based his conclusions on an analysis of documents that spoke about the situation on the ground. The MUP was not responsible for the management of prison facilities, ‘under any laws or regulations’. However, the police would often secure those centers on the orders of the crisis staffs or because of ‘the unresolved issues with the VRS’, which assigned the police officers resubordinated to it to secure prison camps.

The prosecutor went on to challenge the relevance of the sources Bajagic used in his report. Thus the prosecutor noted that in the paragraph about the activities of the Bosniak Democratic Action Party the witness referred to the book Islamic Terrorism in the South of Europe by Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic. The witness described Margetic as one of the ‘most distinguished Croatian journalists and investigators’. As the witness said, the fact that Margetic dedicated his book to Dario Kordic was ‘irrelevant’; this did not affect his opinion of Margetic as ‘a respected and referential’ author. Kordic was sentenced by the Tribunal to 25 years in prison. The witness claims he was unaware that the Tribunal sentenced Margetic to three months for contempt of court. Nevertheless, the witness pointed that he would have quoted Margetic’s work even if he had known it. ‘Many’ people used it as a source, and it was therefore ‘not problematic’ that he himself used it as such.

As the prosecutor noted, the witness didn’t use relevant sources to corroborate some of his claims in the report. Thus, the witness illustrated his allegation that the SDA started arming Muslims ‘already in April 1991’ with a document about the purchase of arms for the BH Army in October 1992. The defense expert replied that ‘the important element was not the dates, but highlighting specific activities’. However, the witness said, he ‘could perhaps have’ provided additional sources when he talked about the SDA activities in April 1991.

Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin are charged with crimes against Croats and Muslims in 20 municipalities throughout BH from April to late December 1992.

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