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MILITARY ATTACKS OR FORAGING FOR FOOD?




Prosecutors are trying to prove that Naser Oric is criminally responsible for the plunder and destruction of property in the Serb villages around Srebrenica and Bratunac. Miladin Simic testifies that some of the houses in the village of Jezestica were burned and the cattle stolen.

When Bosniak forces attacked the Serb village of Jezestica near Bratunac, some of the houses were burned and the cattle was stolen, Milan Simic testified today. He personally saw the aftermath of the attack on 8 August 1992. He says in the hamlets where Bosniak troops passed, all the cattle were led away, while all the pigs were killed.

Prosecutors are trying to prove that Naser Oric, commander of BH Army forces in the Srebrenica area, is criminally responsible for the plunder and destruction of property in the Serb villages around Srebrenica and Bratunac.

Several inhabitants of Jezestica were killed in the attack. When the prosecutor asked the witness to confirm the names of those who had been killed, Oric's defense counsel noted that their client is not charged with the killing of locals in that attack. The judges, however, asked the witness to say everything he knew about the killings, deeming the information relevant to their findings.

Simic said he had seen the bodies of two murdered people, Andjelko and Dragan Mladjenovic. He said their heads had been cut off. "I heard later that a man by the name of Kemal, nicknamed Kemal, had taken Andjelko Mladjenovic's head to Srebrenica… and hung it at the sports field as a trophy," Simic said. He further stated that in the second attack on his village, on Orthodox Christmas in January 1993, his house was set on fire.

The prosecution witness claims there were no troops in Jezestica, that it was guarded by villagers organized in watches. He was among them. Oric's defense is trying to prove that the villagers were members of regular military units and that the attacks launched by Oric's units were militarily justified, primarily as attempts to find food for Bosniak refugees in the Srebrenica area who were cut off and starving at the time.


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