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Trbic: There was a Plan

Joseph Kingori

08 September 2008  A former military observer from the United Nations speaks about the days before attack on Srebrenica, and the suffering of Bosniaks in the enclave.

Kenyan Colonel Joseph Kingori says that, a few days before the attack on Srebrenica, he had a meeting with "Colonel Radomir Vukovic", who told him that there was a plan to take the enclave and that "Muslims must surrender" and if they stayed, "they will kill them all".

Kingori testified in the trial of Milorad Trbic. The State Prosecutor's Office charged Trbic as assistant security chief of the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) with genocide, and participating in the forced resettlement and execution of Bosniaks from Srebrenica.

Kingori was a member of the UN troops in Srebrenica in July 1995. He has already testified before the ICTY on several occasions. He told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the VRS attack on Srebrenica started on 6 July and lasted until 11 July 1995, when the town was taken.

"It was a unilateral attack; shooting was coming only from the Serb side. In those few days, over 200 shells would fall on the town each day. It was terrible. Targets were civilian; there was no Bosniak army in the area," Kingori recalled.

When the VRS entered town, all the Bosniaks moved next to the Dutch Battalion base in Potocari "for greater security".

"In the morning of 12 July, the Serb delegation led by Ratko Mladic arrived in Potocari and separated the men, even boys of 13 and 14 years of age, and put them in the White House. It was not a big house, but they put thousands of men there," Kingori said.

According to the witness, "in 20 minutes maximum, nearly 100 buses arrived". Civilians were put on buses and taken away. "It was all done according to a plan. It had to be planned beforehand," Kingori said, recalling that, at one point on that day, he went to the White House to see how the men were doing inside. He was intercepted by soldiers who were taking a Bosniak man behind the house, and he soon heard a shot coming from that direction.

According to the indictment, on 12 July 1995, Trbic, "along with other VRS soldiers", captured around 15 Bosniaks and took them to "a building better known as "the White House" in Potocari, where he allegedly interrogated them and directed their execution.

Kingori confirmed that, while Bosniaks were being taken away, he witnessed "many instances of ill-treatment and abuse" and was afraid that "the men were being taken to be killed".

The defence did not examine Kingori.

"Everything that was said here today cannot be linked to my client," Milorad Trbojevic said.

The trial resumes on 29 September 2008.