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The Soldiers Who First Encountered the Zvornik Seven
Alpha Battery of the 429th Field Artillery
Interview and photos by Jim Bartlett
EXCLUSIVE TO BERSERKISTAN
See also: The Officer Who First Took Charge of the Zvornik Seven
Arriving at 08:30 hours, they began a normal day of crew drills and fire mission procedures training. As there were no ongoing Cavalry missions that day, they went, under direction from their parent Battalion, further to the rear of the 1/4 Cavalry's base at Camp Alicia. It was this unit who made the first contact with the "Zvornik Seven".
Spec. Rafael Quesada: I was pulling guard, on top of my vehicle, a howitzer with the fifty cal. And I saw three men cross the road in a military manner. Two had BDUs and weapons then shortly after that three more crossed the road then shortly after that one man crossed the road. So altogether there were seven men.
Berserkistan: What kind of weapons did you see them carrying?
Quesada: A couple of AKs — AK-47s — and that was it.
Berserkistan: How did you know they were AK-47s?
Quesada: Because of the clips and the wood. I was close, maybe 150 meters, 125, from where they crossed. Then after that there was shooting and that's when they surrendered, shortly after that.
Berserkistan: Lieutenant, when Spec. Quesada reported seeing the men cross the road, were they west or east of your position.?
Lt. Phil Brooks: They were west.
Berserkistan: Did they cross the road from north to south, or south to north?
Brooks: South to north.
Berserkistan: About how long after the initial report did you hear shooting?
Brooks: About 20 minutes. I sent the report up at 12:38. I reported small arms fire north of our position about 200 meters. Probably 20 to 30 seconds after that, the seven men came running out of the woods with their hands up. We had no idea why they were coming, we thought they were the one's shooting. But they came down, surrendered to us with their hands up.
He informed me that it was a military police matter. He was working directly with brigade to try to coordinate to get military police on the scene as well as a quick reaction force.
Once the Military police arrived, it was in their hands. Approximately 20 minutes after all that, civil affairs with the MPs arrived. However, before they got there the IPTF (International Police Task Force) arrived. They were on their way to a meeting at checkpoint Charlie that same day, but just so happened that they were in route to that meeting. They arrived, with a translator, they began to question each one of these detainees, if you will.
One by one, to try and find out where they were coming from, what they were doing, who they were, were they Muslim, were they Serbian — then shortly after they were questioning them, the MPs arrived. The civil affairs people split into three teams, each with a translator, and began questioning the detainees.
We maintained security — because of the shooting we were still unsure of what had happened. Once they had done their questioning, they determined that this was a local police matter. So the IPTF notified the police or whoever they were, they were in purple-people-eater suits. Once they arrived, they saw that there were seven of them so they called for another backup to transport the people.
When the backup arrived, there was a small explosion from the same direction that the small arms fire had come from previously, and there were several more automatic fire bursts. Everyone in the perimeter got down. The detainees didn't make an attempt to escape. There was only one of the people who didn't get down and that was one of the VRS police. Once the shooting had stopped we checked to see if everyone was okay. The VRS police team conducted a light search, did not handcuff them, did not do anything as far as restraints to them, and put them in the Volkswagen van they were to be transported in, and left for Zvornik with the IPTF behind them.
Berserkistan: The IPTF arrived on scene before the MPs. Did they take charge of the detainees at that time.
Brooks: No, no they did not. I was instructed that it was a military police matter and that they would not be turned over to anybody but the military police.
Berserkistan: After the people surrendered to you who conducted the searches?
Group: Specialist Paz.
Berserkistan: You heard the gunfire, and then what did you do?
Spec. Andres Paz: We just take cover and stand by for instructions from our NCOs. Then after the bursts go off, we saw the seven guys come down the hill. I instruct Sgt. Peese(?) that I was moving forward and to cover me. So we moved forward, me and Sgt. Peese, and they start coming down one by one and I told them to hit the ground.
So I got the seven on the ground and we started searching. So I started searching and found a grenade on one of those and they started popping out grenades, like "hey, I got one! I got another one!" I say, "Hey, nobody move." And I go one by one and pull them out. I got to the second man and found one of the handguns, so I passed it by to the soldier next to me.
Berserkistan: How many grenades did you find?
Paz: We found five, and two handguns with bullets, and each one of the individuals got a knife.
Berserkistan: What were they wearing?
Paz: Some kind of uniform, but I can't call that a uniform you know, like we wear. Everybody had some kind of green, but all mixed, you know.
Berserkistan: How did they smell?
Group: (Groans all around indicating that the detainees smelled.)
Berserkistan: You searched their bags?
Pfc. Jeremy Sheets: Unfortunately.
Group: (Groans: "Funky!")
Berserkistan: They came into your position, Spec. Paz got them on the ground...
Sheets: We took their bags off them and got them into one area. Gilbert, he got a pen and paper, we were going to do inventory in case we found more weapons. Mostly they was just clothes, some kind of food, personal hygiene, some of them had like little tin boxes for tobacco, some of them had bags of rocks, like shiny rocks. No weapons or anything in the bags. They had some kind of food, I don't know what it was.
Brooks: Pita bread or somethin' wasn't it?
Sheets: I don't even think it was that, sir. I don't know what it was. Like some kind of dried dough in a clump.
Berserkistan: When I said you had to search the bags, everyone groaned. You said, "unfortunately..."
Sheets: They were nasty, real nasty. Dirty clothes. They were all sweaty, like they had just taken them off or something.
Berserkistan: Sgt. First Class Padilla, (ranking NCO on scene) you've been in the service how long?
SFc. Padilla: Sixteen years, Artillery.
Berserkistan: What happened once IPTF arrived?
Padilla: The lieutenant went and briefed them. They had a translator, she went around and talked to them, to the two main detainees. They were just trying to get information. Why they were there, who they were, why they were armed, stuff like that.
They talked to them, they took pictures of them and of the armaments that they had, and that was the extent, they just questioned. I think one of the IPTF was aggravated, calling them guys liars. I think he didn't believe their story, cause everybody had the same story. It was too perfect, and he'd been doing it a lot longer than I had anyway. He asked me what IFOR would do in a situation like this. I'm just an artillery man, I said you gotta talk to the MPs.
Brooks: When the VRS police arrived, they asked a couple of the detainees a couple of questions, and one of those questions was, there was a couple of incidents that had happened in Milici, a couple of weeks prior, the VRS police immediately tried to connect the seven with that event that happened in Milici. I don't remember if it was a car bombing or a woodcutter incident, I can't remember the exact details, but they asked one of the detainees why did you do this.
Berserkistan: How did you know what they were saying?
Brooks: There were translators, from both IPTF and Civil Affairs and they were translating what the VRS police were saying, that's how I knew. But that was one of the outstanding questions that the VRS police asked one of the detainees.
Berserkistan: In the course of this fire fight, did you see any more local nationals besides the seven?
Padilla: No, we heard. We heard right across the street, maybe about fifty meters to the left. There were some branches, some people talking, so I sent the IPTF with some guards down there to see who was over there, to see if they could find someone. Cause there was someone over there, you could hear voices. Sheets heard it. Paz heard it. They heard branches crackin'. There were more people out there, they were very close to our position. So I sent the IPTF out there with some soldiers to go investigate. They didn't find no one, but there were people there.
Spec. Parker: Like that guy earlier.
Quesada: Yeah. He approached the gun asking for food and I just told him we didn't have any, and he just went away after that. It was weird, he just went off into the bushes and just disapeared. He didn't take the road, he went off across the street into the woods.
Brooks: This was earlier in the morning about 11:00 O'clock, it was before they ever crossed the road for the first time. Nobody thought anything about it.
Berserkistan: How was this individual dressed?
Group: Civilian clothes.
Berserkistan: (To Spec. Quesada) Did he communicate with you personally?
Quesada: He just made sign language with his hand you know. Then he just went away, back into the woods.
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CAMP ALICIA, Bosnia, May 24 (Berserkistan)
Team Berserkistan conducted this Roundtable Interview with the unit at their base in Camp Alicia. Presented here are excerpts from that session. Berserkistan also discovered in the course of the interview that there had been more people hiding in the woods besides the seven taken on scene. This interview was made possible with the help of A Battery's commander, Lieutenant Phil Brooks of Fayetteville, Tennessee, and Staff Sgt. Padilla, ranking NCO on site.
Our guys of course secured them, searched them. I notified my higher headquarters which is a Lieutenant Colonel, I took orders directly from him from that point on.
Berserkistan, May 21 · The Inside Story of The Svornik Seven
Berserkistan, May 21 · UN: Zvornik 7 Tortured into Murder Confessions
Berserkistan, May 19 · Bosnia Furious Over U.S. Handling of Zvornik 7
Berserkistan, May 18 · Zvornic 7 Beaten in Serb Prison
Berserkistan, May 14 · Zvornik 7 Believed to be Srebrenica Refugees
Berserkistan, May 13 · U.S. Blundered Turning 7 Muslims Over to Serbs
Berserkistan, May 11 · Accused Muslim Soldiers Surrender to U.S. Troops
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