On the second day of his cross-examination of a former Chief of the UN Military Observers Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina Radovan Karadzic accused the witness of bias, and “prejudice against Serbs”.
As witness John Wilson was not able to respond to Karadzic’s question on whether the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina deployed “military tricks”, by shelling Sarajevo and then blaming it on the Serb side, the indictee asked the Court to reject Wilson’s statement as “it is of no use”.
Wilson, former Chief of the UN Military Observers Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Advisor to the UN and European Commission International Conference for former Yugoslavia, began his testimony on June 21, this year, when he denied Karadzic’s allegations of bias.
“I consider myself truly unbiased, as much as a man can be. We all have problems, but, as a professional, I tried to remain unbiased. I assure you I do not show prejudice against Serbs. I have an affinity for all the peoples living in the former Yugoslavia. I realized they were good people, but, unfortunately, there was a bad politics executed by bad politicians,” Wilson said.
Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska and Supreme Commander of its armed forces, is charged, among other things, with genocide committed in seven Bosnian municipalities in 1992 and Srebrenica in 1995, as well as crimes against humanity and a shelling and sniper campaign targeted at civilians in Sarajevo.
The trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, began in October last year.
During cross-examination Karadzic said that Bosnian Serbs were not guilty of any of “the mass murders of civilians” in Sarajevo committed from 1992 to 1995, adding that there was “strong evidence to support the statement”. Wilson responded by saying that he did “not want to comment on the allegations”, because he was not familiar with such evidence.
Wilson was presented with an intercepted conversation between Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, former Commander of the Main Headquarters with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, who is on the run, in which Mladic said “the Muslim force imitated his voice and recorded false orders” in order to accuse Bosnian Serbs of the massacres committed in the city.
“I cannot comment on that, as this is the first time I have heard about it. (…) Mladic had very strong control over artillery weapons. He commanded the shelling of the city,” the witness said.
When asked by Karadzic if it was true that Serb forces had about six thousands soldiers in the Sarajevo surroundings, while Muslims had nearly three times more, Wilson could not respond, but said “the key of someone’s power is not in the manpower but the quantity of weapons”, adding that the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina had only about 20 or 30 minethrowers in Sarajevo in 1992.
The cross-examination of Wilson is due to be completed at the next hearing, scheduled for June 23 this year.