February 17, 2013 – 5:15 am
Recent testimony by a former Bosnian Muslim secret service officer is chockfull of gruesome details on how the Bosnian Muslim government ran a secret terror group that assassinated Serb civilians and sniped own people in Sarajevo in order to blame Serbs for it.
Edin Garaplija testified that a secret terror unit, Seve, ran by the top echelons of the Bosnian Muslim leadership ordered all sorts of killings and used the murders to blame Serbs for it.
The descriptive pieces of Garaplija’s testimony, at the end of this blog, also reveal an equally nasty side to the Hague prosecution.
Prosecutors at The Hague court interrupted Karadzic’s questioning of a subpoenaed witness demanding that the Court put a stop to a question about execution of Serb civilians by the Bosnian Muslim government troops.
“First of all, this information is irrelevant,” snapped Ms Gustafson.
“What’s the basis on which you are saying it’s irrelevant?” Judge Kwon asked.
“It deals with the execution of a number of Serb civilians and soldiers,” Ms Gustafson explained.
“I can also withdraw the question,” Karadzic replied.
Nice to know that execution of Serb civilians is irrelevant to the Hague court.
The testimony’s low-lights below are clear that the Bosnian Muslim leadership was attempting to blame Serbs for the sniping in order to elicit American armed involvement against the Serbs. What the testimony below is not clear, however, to what extent did the US intelligence guide this secret Bosnian Muslim terror unit and what sort of advice did US give on targets and the type of murders needed to be done in order to be sufficient in getting the US administration to attack Serbs.
Page 1387
2 Q. Could you tell us briefly what was so shocking about what you
3 heard in that interview?
4 A. All the terrorist activities pursued by the Seve unit, beginning
5 with sniping assassinations, setting explosives and such, were conducted
6 completely outside of the system and very compromising to Bosnian
7 defence. The only one who could profit from such activities was the
8 opposing side, at that time the Army of Republika Srpska. We were
9 shocked by the sniping assassinations and the brutality displayed by
10 Herenda and his co-perpetrators in these crimes, because until then, we
11 knew of such things perpetrated by the other side alone, by their
12 constant sniping and artillery attacks through the city.
13 We had never expected anyone from, conditionally speaking, our
14 side to be involved in such things.
15 Q. Thank you. Did Mr. Herenda, in that interview, say anything
16 about the murder of a French soldier in Sarajevo during the war? But
17 before that, Mr. Garaplija, what you discussed, did the Seve unit do
18 those things only in Sarajevo or elsewhere?
19 A. As far as I know and as far as I can recall after 17 years has
20 elapsed between that interview and today, and thanks to the proofing done
21 by the Defence team who reminded me of my interview to the OTP back in
22 1998 while I was doing time after the rigged trial that I mentioned a
23 couple of minutes ago, the Seve unit mostly were active within Sarajevo,
24 but some of their activities were conducted outside the city and even
25 abroad. But because of the very short time that we had with Herenda as
Page 1388
1 investigators, we had to focus on the most important things that we had
2 assessed as being crucial or key for our investigation, and one of them
3 being the murder of a French UNPROFOR member.
4 Q. What — could you tell us what Herenda said about that, where the
5 murder happened and under what circumstances?
6 A. I cannot remember the date exactly. I think it was 1995.
7 Herenda explained that he had been given a mission to open sniper fire at
8 Serb positions. This is what he would often do from the building known
9 as the Executive Council’s building in downtown Sarajevo, from which
10 spot, in accordance with his testimony, he fired at that French UNPROFOR
11 member.
Page 1389
10 those events at the time. I did so several years later. What I do know,
11 though, is that certain Bosnian officials stated that the Serb side was
12 responsible for the death of that French soldier. Whether those
13 officials knew who the real perpetrator was, this is something that I
14 can’t tell you.
Page 1390
12 “NM: So the last time we were talking about killing of a soldier
13 from the United Nations.
14 THE INTERPRETER: “[Voiceover] EG: Well, Herenda said he was
15 shooting, that he was ordered to do so by Ugljen so as the United Nations
16 would blame the Serbs. He received a payment for that in the range of
17 2.000 marks.”
Page 1393
12 Q. You mentioned another incident which was chosen to be
13 investigated because of the shortness of time, and that was an explosion
14 killing the wife of General Halilovic. Did Herenda tell you anything
15 about that explosion which killed the wife of General Halilovic and her
16 brother, and if he did so, what did he tell you?
17 A. Yes. Herenda did admit that he was a co-perpetrator within the
18 Seve unit who planted that explosive device with a view of eliminating
19 General Halilovic. It is important to know that General Halilovic was at
20 the time Supreme Commander of the Bosnian Army, and a couple of months
21 before this attempted assassination which killed his wife and her
22 brother, he’d been removed from that position because he’d publicly
Page 1395
1 survived this assassination attempt. However, none of these acts by the
2 Seve unit was criminally prosecuted, brought to trial, because a large
3 team of people worked to conceal these crimes.
…
11 Q. And how was this presented to General Halilovic, and what was the
12 public told? What was the official position on this matter?
13 A. The public was told that this was a shell launched by the
14 Serbian Army, or the Army of Republika Srpska
Page 1398
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We investigated the other crimes by
24 the Seve such as the liquidation of captured soldiers and civilians in
25 the great big park in the centre of town, something that was committed
Page 1399
1 personally by Nedzad Herenda. We had scores of witnesses about this. We
2 also investigated other sniper actions by the Seve units throughout the
3 Grbavica neighbourhood. We investigated the activities of the Seve in
4 the execution and bringing in of confidential documents and funds inside
5 and out of Sarajevo.
Page 1401
21 A. In his interview, Herenda mentioned a pathologist,
22 Ilijas Dobraca, who is no longer alive, but his job was to provide
23 medical certificates after certain assassinations, to cover them up in
24 other words, listing a different cause of death, natural causes or
25 something else, which would side-track the investigation.
Full transcript available here.
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