Former Head of RS National Security Service Claims He First Heard of Srebrenica Genocide in 2000

Former head of the National Security Service of Republika Srpska (RS) Dragan Kijac testified at Ratko Mladić's trial that he was unaware of the killings of Bosniaks from Srebrenica until 2000, BIRN reports, as carried by the Bosnian news agency Patria.

Kijac denied having any knowledge of the mass killings of Bosniak men from Srebrenica in July 1995. He stated that from July 14 to 18, 1995 – the days when, according to the indictment, the largest number of mass killings occurred – he was “at his deputy's wedding in Montenegro.”

During cross-examination, prosecutor Arthur Traldi reminded the witness that Belgrade television “Studio B” had already broadcast a film on July 15, 1995, showing dozens of Bosniak bodies, a story also covered two days later by London's “Independent.”

“I did not have such information... I heard later that ‘Studio B’ had published it and that the tape was confiscated... The signal of ‘Studio B’ was only visible in Belgrade,” Kijac replied.

Traldi then presented Kijac with a document bearing his signature from 1996, stating that two witnesses of mass killings in Srebrenica had appeared in The Hague. When asked by the prosecutor whether the document showed that he was aware of the crime in Srebrenica at that time, Kijac confirmed that he had only forwarded the “information” about the witnesses to the Ministry of Justice of Republika Srpska.

He clarified that it “was not verified knowledge,” but that there was “talk” about it.

He also confirmed that, as written in the document, the purpose of the information was to provide assistance to the “defense.” “At that time, there was talk about Srebrenica, the first exhumations were beginning... It is normal that we have an interest and that we refute things,” Kijac said.

Kijac testified at the trial of former commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, Ratko Mladić, who is charged with genocide in Srebrenica committed in July 1995, when more than 8,000 men and boys were killed.

Mladić is also on trial for the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, which in several municipalities took on the proportions of genocide, taking UNPROFOR members hostage, and terrorizing the citizens of Sarajevo.

At this hearing, prosecutors concluded the cross-examination of a witness under the pseudonym GRM-097, a former British officer, who said that there was a belief in the UNPROFOR command in Sarajevo that Bosnian Serbs did not fire the mortar shell that killed 66 civilians at the Markale market in Sarajevo in February 1994.

The credibility of the witness was challenged by Hague prosecutors with claims that he never analyzed the explosion crater; that he had no information about other VRS mortar attacks that day; and that he does not know how to read firing tables. GRM-097 accepted all of this as correct.

The trial continues on Thursday, October 22, NAP reports.