DATE=5/26/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=YUGO WAR CRIMES (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-262852
BYLINE=LAUREN COMITEAU
DATELINE=THE HAGUE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: War crimes prosecutors in The Hague have
finished their sixth week of presenting evidence in
the case against Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic.
As Lauren Comiteau reports from The Hague, General
Krstic is charged with genocide for allegedly
directing the murder of thousands of Muslim men and
boys after the fall of the Bosnian town of Srebrenica
in 1995.
TEXT: Prosecutors say they have found -- at the very
least -- one-thousand-883 bodies. Most of them are
men, and all were allegedly killed after Bosnian Serbs
overran the U-N-declared safe area of Srebrenica.
About 75-hundred people are believed to have been
killed in the days that followed.
The man who prosecutors say commanded the troops is
52-year old General Radislav Krstic.
General Krstic listened impassively throughout the
week as prosecutors brought in survivors of the
massacres, forensic experts, and even an archaeologist
to testify how the Bosnian Serb army carried out the
executions and then attempted to cover them up.
The week's first witness was a former soldier and a
convicted war criminal -- Drazen Erdemovic. He had
pled guilty to being part of an execution squad that
murdered up to 12-hundred Muslims on a single day.
Erdemovic was sentenced to five years for those crimes
and, after serving part of his time in a Norwegian
jail, voluntarily returned to The Hague to testify
against the General.
/// ERDEMOVIC -- FADE UNDER ///
Erdemovic said the men were taken off buses and lined-
up in groups of ten. They were ordered to turn their
backs and when they did, said Erdemovic, we were given
orders to shoot them.
/// OPT /// One Muslim man who survived a similar
massacre was identified only as witness S. He
testified how he and others waited for their lives to
end on the banks of the River Jadar. As Bosnian Serbs
open fired, he threw himself into the river and let
the current carry him away. He was shot in the side,
but lived to have his day in court. /// END OPT
///
Judges were shown photographs of graves filled with
rotting corpses and mutilated pieces of bodies.
Prosecutors have exhumed a total of 17 mass graves.
They still have 21 left to examine.
Some of them are original gravesites, others are what
prosecutors call secondary grave sites -- the places
where bodies from the original sites were moved when
Serbs allegedly tried to cover up their crimes.
Investigators told in detail how they connected the
sites to each other by matching samples of fibers from
the blindfolds the victims were forced to wear.
Forensic experts examined shell casings and
archeologists reconstructed bodies from the parts that
remained.
Prosecution investigator Dean Manning described how
his team used photos, I-Ds, and even an artificial leg
to help identify the victims. Sometimes it worked, he
says, other times it did not. Mr. Manning told the
story of how one 16-year-old boy was identified by a
necklace his mother had given him.
/// MANNING ACT ///
She indicated that she gave him the chain as a
gift. He placed it around his neck. Because of
his small size, it was too long. She saw him
knot it to make it easier to wear. She was able
to identify the pendant itself, particularly the
(letter) S, and more importantly, identify the
knot she saw her son put in that chain.
/// END ACT ///
Prosecutors are laying out their case -- putting the
facts about the murders and how they were committed
into the legal record. So far, the general has been
linked to the crimes only through video tapes showing
him in the area at the times they were committed.
(Signed)
NEB/LC/JWH/ENE/KBK
26-May-2000 13:48 PM EDT (26-May-2000 1748 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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