STEVANOVIC DAY 5: IZBICA, DUBRAVA PRISON, SUVA REKA, KOTLINA, AND PADALISTE VILLAGE
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - May 25, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Serbia’s former assistant interior minister, Gen. Obrad Stevanovic, testified for the fifth day at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday. Milosevic forecasts that this witness’s examination-in-chief will be concluded by the end of the day on Thursday.

Today’s portion of Stevanovic’s evidence dealt with the following incidents alleged by the indictment: Izbica, Dubrava Prison, Suva Reka, Kotlina, and Padaliste village.

The indictment alleges that Serbian and Yugoslav forces shelled Izbica on March 27, 1999. It says that on March 28, 1999, forces of the FRY and Serbia surrounded the villagers, separated the men from the women and children, and then executed the men

Last week Stevanovic testified that the police did not even know that any killings had taken place at Izbica. He said that the police first became aware of the issue when aerial photos of the cemetery appeared on the Internet. He said that it took seven days for the police to find the gravesite and launch an investigation.

When the police found the cemetery at Izbica they launched an investigation. Photographs were taken and sketches were made of the cemetery. These photographs and sketches were shown in court today. The photographs show that five of the grave markers had the letters “UCK” inscribed on them. UCK is the Albanian abbreviation for KLA.

According to the Interior Ministry's documents, when the investigative team approached the area gunfire was directed at them.

The investigation determined that the cemetery was new, because the graves had been freshly dug, and that it was a Muslim-built graveyard, because all of the corpses were buried in individual graves facing Mecca.

The Investigating Judge assigned to investigate the scene ordered an exhumation of the bodies and exhumations began on June 2nd 1999.

101 bodies were exhumed and sent to Kosovska Mitrovica and to Belgrade for forensic analysis and identification, and on that basis a list of the corpses was compiled. 15 of those identified on the Serbian list coincide with the list of names contained in Schedule F of the indictment, but the rest do not.

It is worth noting that many of the bodies found at Izbica were not even from the area. They were brought there from somewhere else and buried.

Following the identification process, the bodies were reburied in cemeteries in Vucitrn and Kosovska Mitrovica, according to interior ministry documents.

Gen. Stevanovic said that the indictment’s version of events at Izbica is illogical. The indictment claims that Serbian forces captured as many as 4,500 villagers, separated the men from the women, and then executed the men. If that had been the case, then more than 100 men should have been killed. Obviously in a group of 4,500 villagers there would have had to be more than 100 men.

The defense put forward by Milosevic is that the cemetery at Izbica was a KLA cemetery, not the site of a mass killing.

The next incident that Stevanovic testified about was the Dubrava Prison. The indictment alleges that Serbian police executed scores of inmates at the Dubrava Prison in late May 1999.

Gen. Sevanovic’s testimony corroborates the testimony given by Col. Radovan Paponjak. Paponjak and Stevanovic both denied that anybody was executed at the Dubrava prison. They both testified that NATO had bombed the prison, and that it was the NATO bombing that killed the prisoners, not some kind of execution.

To bear this point out, Milosevic read from the report of the Spanish forensic team that autopsied some of the people allegedly killed at the Dubrava Prison. It could be seen that corpses they autopsied died from bomb blasts or from shock waves caused by a bomb blasts.

Stevanovic testified that every one of the prison buildings had been hit by the bombing, and that approximately 100 people were killed and about 200 wounded. Most of the people killed were inmates, but some prison officials including the deputy warden were killed too.

After persistent NATO attacks on the prison, Stevanovic personally ordered its evacuation, and the prisoners were sent to different jails or to the hospital if they were wounded.

The next incident that Stevanovic testified about was Suva Reka. The indictment alleges that Serbian forces massacred the Berisha family on March 26, 1999. Stevanovic testified that the Interior Ministry did not have any information about the death of the Berisha family.

He said that if the police had information that the Berisha family was massacred, then an investigation would have been launched. To bear this point out Milosevic read out two incidents that occurred in Suva Reka at roughly the same time, these incidents killed a total of 17 people and were investigated by the police.

Milosevic’s defense is that the police did not have any information to indicate that the Berisha family had been massacred at Suva Reka. The best he can do is prove that the police would have investigated if they had any information that a crime had been committed.

Stevanovic has given extensive testimony, and presented numerous documents, to show that the police arrested members of the army and police who mistreated the civilian population during the war. He has testified that the police were ordered to protect the civilian population regardless of their ethnicity.

After Suva Reka was dealt with, Stevanovic shed some light on events at Kotlina. The indictment alleges that Serbian forces burned-down the entire village of Kotlina on March 24, 1999. It says that Albanian men were killed and then thrown down wells.

According to Stevanovic, fighting between the state security forces and the KLA broke out when the authorities were searching the area around Kotlina for terrorists that had been carrying out ambushes on a nearby road.

After the fighting ended, the authorities found the local KLA headquarters, which was full of weapons and supplies. The police took pictures of the village, and those photos showed that the village had not been burned down like the indictment said it was.

The photos also showed the “wells” that the Albanians were allegedly thrown down. These “wells” did not have any water in them. These “wells” were linked together by underground tunnels and they were equipped with ladders so that people could climb in and out of them. The so-called “wells” were really KLA bunkers that had been disguised to look like wells.

The pictures showed the bodies of the 22 terrorists who died in the fighting. It was clear that the terrorists were armed, because you could see the weapons they had from the pictures.

Milosevic read out a statement that an Albanian gave to the police on March 10, 1999 (two weeks before the fighting). This Albanian identified three of the people listed by indictment as “victims” as being KLA members.

Obviously the people who died in Kotlina were killed in combat. They were not executed and thrown down wells.

Padaliste village was the final incident that Stevanovic testified about. The indictment alleges that Serbian troops went from house-to-house shooting and killing the villagers on March 26, 1999. Although the indictment alleges a wide-scale killing in the village, it only names members of the Imeraj family as having been killed.

Stevanovic said that the interior ministry simply had no information about anybody killing the members of the Imeraj family. He did point out that if somebody had gone door-to-door killing people (as alleged by the indictment) members of more than one family would have had to be killed.

To prove that the police did their job, and investigated every crime they found out about. Stevanovic testified that the police investigated more than 1,500 incidents involving loss of life in Kosovo, and that the indictment does not cover the vast majority of those cases.

Gen. Stevanovic spent the last part of his testimony today listing example after example of cases where the police arrested members of the army and police, because they had been charged with committing crimes against Albanian civilians in Kosovo.

Milosevic is using Stevanovic’s testimony to demonstrate that the police investigated all crimes that they were aware of, and that they arrested all perpetrators regardless of who they were, even if they were members of the army or the police. This evidence is aimed at showing that the Serbian authorities took every step possible to prevent and punish war crimes.

Stevanovic is expected to testify about the role (or the lack of a role) that the Serbian Interior Ministry played in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia when the trial resumes tomorrow.

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