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Erdemovic Pleads Guilty to Srebrenica War Crimes
· Plea is First Conviction for War Crimes Tribunal
By Andrew Kelly
His admission of guilt was the first by one of the seven accused of war crimes by the tribunal. He will proceed directly to sentencing which is provisionally scheduled for July 8 and 9.
Tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said Erdemovic had cooperated fully with prosecutors and was expected to provide important evidence against his superiors. He said the tribunal could impose a maximum sentence of life imprisonment but would bear in mind any mitigating circumstances, including cooperation with the prosecution.
Chartier said he was expected to testify at hearings in late June in the case of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, who have been charged with genocide over the Srebrenica killings but who remain at large.
Erdemovic said those shot were men who had sought refuge with Dutch U.N. troops in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica.
"Most begged us not to kill them or promised us money. Some insulted us while others just mumbled 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great)," he said. Erdemovic said the executions took place near the village of Pilica and the victims were ferried there all day in a fleet of five buses which brought them 60 at a time.
"The Serb drivers were terrified but (the firing squad commander) forced them to kill at least one Muslim each. That
way, they would not be tempted to testify one day. At one point, I turned to another member of the firing squad who was a Croat like me and whispered to him: 'God knows that one day all this will fall back on us.' He replied: 'Shut up and shoot. Otherwise you know very well it will be our turn, we're only Croats.'"
Erdemovic said the killings took place on July 20, nine days after the fall of Srebrenica, a U.N.-protected safe haven. As many as 8,000 Muslims disappeared after the fall of the town. Erdemovic said the eight-man firing squad, members of a unit called the 10th Diversion Commando, used rifles but also a Soviet-made machine gun. (The commander) and his buddies were drinking more and more brandy. They were like crazy and were hitting the Muslims with iron bars. When they knocked one out, they forced his friends to carry him with them to the execution site,'' he said.
"(The commander) decided to use the machine gun to hurry things up but it wasn't professional. The bursts wounded them instead of killing them outright. The wounded were begging us to finish them off. So (another firing squad member) fired bullets into their heads. Later he bragged he had used 700 bullets during the day," Erdemovic said. He said he tried to rescue a middle-aged Muslim who pleaded for mercy, saying he had helped Serb civilians escape from
Srebrenica and offering a list of their names and telephone numbers in Serbia for verification. "'Sorry,' the man was told, 'we can't leave any living witness behind,'" Erdemovic said.
Created by the Security Council in May 1993, the tribunal is the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War Two. To date it has indicted 58 suspects -- 46 Serbs, nine Croats and three Muslims -- and holds six of them at its jail in The Hague. So far only one case has reached the trial phase.
The tribunal has no police force of its own and relies on the former Yugoslav republics, other states or the international peace implementation force (IFOR) in Bosnia to make arrests. IFOR has repeatedly stated that it will not hunt down indicted war crimes suspects such as Karadzic and Mladic. Tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said Erdemovic had cooperated fully with prosecutors and was expected to provide important evidence against his superiors. |
THE HAGUE, May 31 (Reuters) - A young Croat broke down and wept on Friday as he pleaded guilty to taking part in a massacre of unarmed Muslim men after the U.N. protected "safe area" of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995. Drazen Erdemovic, 24, told the U.N. war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia that he had served in the Bosnian Serb army and had been forced to take part in the summary execution of hundreds of Muslims who had already surrendered to the Serbs.
Last Spring, Drazen Erdemovic told the newspaper Le Figaro he believed he personally shot about 70 people to death. "I tried to kill as few as possible," he said.
Key Facts about the War Crimes Tribunal
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia The United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Major War Criminals/Suspects CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia CalTech's Bosnia Site
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