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Naser Orić (born March 3, 1967) is a former Bosniak soldier who is currently a war crimes indictee at the ICTY.
Career
Naser Oric was born on March 3, 1967 in Potocari, a village near Srebrenica. His parents were Dzemal Oric and Hata Mustafic. Oric went to a trade school where he learned metalworking. 1985-1986 he completed his military service in the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia where he was part of a special unit for the nuclear and chemical defense of the JNA, the Yugoslav National Army, where he achieved the rank of Corporal.
In 1988, he completed a six month training course in Zemun, Serbia, and served in Savski Venac in Belgrade as a trainee policeman. As a member of the police unit for special actions, he had courses for two more years. In 1990, Naser Oric was deployed to Kosovo as a member of a police unit for special actions of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia. Thereafter, he returned to Belgrade. On 5 August 1991, he was transferred to a police station in Ilidza, on the outskirts of Sarajevo. In late 1991, Naser Oric was moved to the police station in Srebrenica and on 8 April 1992 was made the Police Chief of the Potocari police sub-station.
On April 17, the Potocari Territorial Defence was created and Oric was made commander. On May 20, Oric was appointed commander of the Srebrenica Territorial Defence. On June 27, 1992, Sefer Halilovic, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command Staff of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina (ARBiH), confirmed Oric as commander. On August 8, 1992, his position as commander was re-confirmed by the Presidency of Bosnia-Hercegovina. In 1995, the 8th Operation group Srebrenica HQ was re-designated the 2nd Corps, 28th Division. On March 1, 1994, Oric was awarded a “Golden Lily”, the highest military award by Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command. On April 15, 1993, he had been awarded a Certificate of Merit. On July 17, 1994, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier. Oric had de facto and de jure control over the Muslim military units and irregulars in the Srebrenica area, including the two infantry brigades of the 28th Division.
Naser Oric in Eastern Bosnia
According to testimony by Serbs and Bosniaks in eastern Bosnia, during the period from May 1992 to April 1993 units of the Bosnian army (ARBiH) and Bosniak paramilitary units attacked more than one hundred Serb villages and hamlets killing approximately 1,000 civilians and members of the Republic of Srpska Army (VRS), and wounding between 2,800 and 3,200 Serbs. In the book "A Chronicle of Our Cemetery", Milivoje Ivanisevic, lists the names of 999 persons killed and the locations, but also warns that a completely accurate number of victims is impossible to determine because the fate of persons who were imprisoned, captured or in any other way found themselves in Bosniak-controlled territory remains unknown. The majority of attacks on unprotected Serb villages near Srebrenica, Bratunac, Skelani and Milici were led by Naser Oric in person.
Oric's units and Oric personally massacred 87 persons using knives, pitchforks, blunt objects, by crucifixion, castration, setting on fire and torture and burned and destroyed at least 50 Serbian villages. Approximately 5,400 families lost their land and personal property while approximately 12,800 Serbs or 45 percent of the Serb population of the region left their homes. It is speculated that it was these Bosnian attacks that caused a Bosnian Serb reaction and ultimately culminated in the Bosnian Serb takeover of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.
According to Bosnian Serb General Milenko Zivanovic, the commander of the Drina Corps, “Naser Oric’s soldiers burned his village and his house to the ground on June 21, 1995. Twenty-seven Serbs died in eleven towns around Ratkovici. Naser’s men desecrated the graves of his mother and other Serbs by knocking over their headstones.…”
Sources
The attacks of Bosnian troops led by Nasir Oric in the Srebrenica area during the period of 1992-1993 have been relatively scantily reported in western press. As UK historian Misha Glenny explained in his book The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War: “The Bosnian Government troops moved swiftly through Serbian villages, slaughtering a large number of civilians on the way. Because the atrocities were being perpetrated by Muslims, they received relatively little attention in the world media.”
Instead most of the information on the actions of Naser Oric in eastern Bosnia have been provided by local Serbian sources. The events described below are from the books of "The Eradication of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992-1993" (Drago Jovanovic, Gordana Bundalo and Milos Govedarica, eds.) published in Belgrade in 1995 and the book "Blood and Vengeance: One Family’s Story of the War in Bosnia" by Chuck Seditic, published in New York by W.W. Norton in 1998.
The ICTY in its indictment of Naser Oric , states that he was "commanded all units that were operating within his area of responsibility. This includes all units involved in combat activities in the municipalities of Srebrenica and Bratunac, in particular the combat activities in Rupovo Brdo on 10 June 1992, Ratkovici on 21 and 27 June 1992, Jezestica on 8 August 1992, Fakovici on 5 October 1992, Bjelovac between 14 and 19 December 1992 and Kravica on 7 and 8 January 1993 and all units including the Military Police involved in the detention and custody of Serb individuals in Srebrenica." It continues by saying that
"During the period May 1992 to February 1993, Muslim armed units engaged in various military operations against the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter: VRS) forces in Eastern Bosnia. In the course of such operations, Muslim armed units in the Municipalities of Bratunac, Srebrenica and Skelani, burnt and otherwise destroyed and plundered a minimum of fifty predominantly Serb villages and hamlets. As a result, thousands of Serb individuals fled the area."
At the ICTY trial of Slobodan Milosevic (12 February 2004) the prosecutor Dermot Groome asked the French General Philippe Morillon a question about the Kravica attack on Orthodox Christmas: “General, your statement details attacks by Naser Oric, particularly the Orthodox Christmas Eve attack. “ To this Morillon replied: “The actions that you are referring to were one of the reasons for the deterioration of the situation in the area, especially in the month of January. Naser Oric engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants.”
ICTY Prosecutor Groome also asked Morillon about Oric’s treatment of Bosnian Serb POWs: “If I could ask you, what if anything did Mr. Oric himself say to you with respect to what he had been doing with prisoners during this time period?” Morillon answered: “Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself. I think that he realized that these were the rules of this horrific war, that he could not allow himself to take prisoners. According to my recollection, de didn’t even look for an excuse. It was simply a statement: One can’t be bothered with prisoners.”
The first attacks: the villages of Bljeceva and Gniona
On May 6, 1992, on the Orthodox religious feast of St. George (Djurdjevdan), the villages of Bljeceva and Gniona in the Bratunac municipality were attacked by Bosnian forces under Hasib Ibrahimovic and Naser Oric, respectively. An elderly Bosnian Serb woman, Kosana Zekic, whose throat was slit inside her house, was one of the civilians killed. In Gniona, an ailing and half-blind man, Radojko Milosevic (born 1928) was burned to death in his own house and the village was destroyed and burned. In this attack, Oric used loudspeakers to announce himself: “This is Naser Oric speaking…” He demanded that Serbs surrender or they would be killed. Gniona was the first Serbian village completely burned and destroyed in eastern Bosnia.
Further attacks on Serb villages
On May 7, 1992, in an attack on the village of Osmace in the Srebrenica municipality, seven Serbs were killed. Naser Oric organized and ordered this attack.
On May 21, a truck taking eleven Serbian civilians from Podravanje to Milici was attacked and eight Serbs were killed.
On June 21, in an attack on Ratkovici, 18 Serbs were killed. Radenko Stanojevic had his throat cut while Desanka Stanojevic was burned in her house.
On August 8, 1992, the village of Jezestica was attacked. Andjelko Bogicevic, born in 1965, had his head cut off and taken away by Bosnian forces.
On June 30, the village of Brezani was attacked and 19 residents killed. Milos Novkovic was beheaded while Vido Lazic was crucified and set on fire. Kristina Lazic was set on fire in her house.
On July 5, 1992, the Serb villages of Krnjici and Oricevi were attacked and 16 persons killed. The throat of elderly Bosnian Serb woman Vaso Paraca, born in 1912, was slit.
Attack on the village of Podavanje
On September, 1992, Oric planned an attack on the Serbian village of Podravanje which was on the road between Srebrenica and Zepa. Oric sought to drive out and ethnically cleanse the Serbs from the Srebrenica/Zepa area to clear the road between the two towns. Oric assembled troops with the commander of Zepa, Avdo Palic. Large number of the torbari (“bag people” or “scavengers”) also participated in the attacks, as a second wave after the Bosnian Serb defences had been overrun.
Seditic has described the Bosnian attack on Podravanje: “At six o’clock in the morning on September 24, 1992, Muslim soldiers opened fire on Podravanje from three sides. The Serbs tried to defend the village but panicked and ran when they realized how grossly outnumbered they and how quickly the Muslims were coming at them. The Serb fighters left behind men and women who had been wounded and killed by Muslim gunfire. Then the torbari rushed in. Muslim men shot the wounded. They fired their guns into the bodies of the Serb dead. They plunged knives into their stomachs and chests. They smashed their heads with axes and clubs, and they burned the bodies inside buildings. Oric’s men grabbed half a dozen prisoners; one, a fighter from Serbia who had relatives in Podravanje, was beaten to death, and the others emerged bruised and battered when they were exchanged a month later.”
The 31 Serbs killed in Podrovanje had their throats slit, others were beheaded, burned, and some had their stomachs slit open.
Attacks on the villages of Nedeljista and Rogosija
On September 24-26, 1992, 37 Serbs were killed when Oric’s forces attacked the villages of Nedeljista and Rogosija in the Milici municipality. Most of the victims were first wounded in the legs and then were burned. Supposedly, two of the victims were impaled. Those who were wounded had their throats slit, others were decapitated, some had their skulls smashed with axes and sledge hammers and their brains extracted. Some of the dead and wounded were circumcised and several were castrated. These atrocities were supposedly carried out under the command of Naser Oric, Fadil Turkovic, and Becir Mekanic.
Attack on villages along the Drina River
Two weeks later, on October 5 1992 Oric attacked the Serbian villages along the Drina River. The Bosnian forces attacked in overwhelming numbers of troops who were followed by Bosniak refugees. Sudetic has described the attack as follows: “Again the Serbs panicked. Again the stragglers were killed and their bodies mutilated. Again Oric’s men captured weapons, and the torbari (“bag people” or “scavengers”) streamed back to Srebrenica with bags stuffed with food.”
On November 28 1992 the first UN humanitarian aid convoys reached Srebrenica. Forty tons of food were brought in. The Bosnian military command along with the torbari called on Oric to organize more attacks against Serbian villages and civilians. It is argued by some that the Bosnian military command in Sarajevo sought to use Oric’s offensives to create a diversion. According to this argument, the Bosnian government wanted to tie down Bosnian Serb troops in the Srebrenica pocket to allow the ARBiH forces to launch an offensive north of Tuzla. It has also been argued that they also wanted to maintain a crisis situation in eastern Bosnia to gain media attention and intervention by NATO.
On December 14 1992 Oric’s forces attacked the Serbian villages astride the Drina River in the village of Loznicka Rijeka. Sudetic described the attack: “The Serbs, caught completely off guard, waged war from the windows of their houses… Villagers scurried toward the river and were pinned down on the bank. Muslims cut many of them down at almost point-blank range as they tried to cross the river in panic. About 130 Serbs had been living in Loznicka Rijeka, and by midnight a quarter of them had been killed. Scores more Serbs had perished in the villages to the north. The Muslims had seized about forty square miles of territory….”
Attack on the village of Kravica on Orthodox Christmas
On January 7, 1993, Orthodox Christmas, “a high holy day for the Serbs, a national as much as a religious occasion” according to Sudetic, the Bosnian forces based in Srebrenica launched a massive attack against the Serbian village of Kravica, northwest of Srebrenica. Cakes, bread, salads, and meat were prepared for the Orthodox Christmas festivities. Two weeks before the attack on Kravica, Oric’s forces had taken the neighboring town of Glogova killing “a number of Serb men” and critically wounding the military commander of Kravica, Jovan Nikolic. The Bosnian troops were able to surround the town and to cut the only asphalt paved road to Bratunac. The only access to Kravica now was a dirt path that was constructed across the mountains to the Drina River two years earlier. There were about 300 Bosnian Serb defenders at Kravica.
Sudetic described the Bosnian attack on Kravica as a calculated, premeditated assault: “Naser Oric had spent days preparing his attack. It came with anything but surprise. After dark on Christmas Eve, some three thousand Muslim troops assembled on the slushy hilltops around Kravica. Behind them lurked a host of torbari who lit campfires to warm themselves. At dawn they started clattering pots and pans. “Allahu ekber! God is great!” the men shouted. The women shrieked. Shooting began. The Serb men in Kravica scrambled into their trenches. They told their wives and mothers they would be home in a few hours.”
The Bosnian attack was from the direction of Potocari. Bosnian troops were burning houses in Serb hamlets above Kravica under a Bosnian assault from Glogova. The Serbs attempted to hold out but were overwhelmed by the overwhelming numbers of Bosnian troops, ten to one.
Sudetic described the scene when Bosnian troops entered Kravica on “bloody Christmas” as follows: “The first of the torbari to arrive in Kravica found entire Christmas dinners that had been waiting to be eaten by Serb men who had gone off to fight that morning thinking they would be back by noon. Three Muslim soldiers barged into one home and stood there as if paralyzed at the sight of the pastries and the jelly, the bottles of brandy and the roast pork on the stove. They laughed and shouted and plunged into a cake. The ashes of burning houses and stalls fell like snow on the hillside. The pigs ran wild. Sheep were butchered and roasted on the spit or herded back to Srebrenica with the cows and oxen. The dead lay unburied, and within days the pigs, dogs, and wild animals had begun to tear away at the bodies….The torbari combed the homes in Kravica for the next two weeks scavenging for food.”
The torbari located frozen potatoes, pickled peppers, a sack of oats, and a pair of bell-bottom pants. Forty-five Serbs died in the Kravica attack, thirty-five of them were soldiers. All 690 houses in Kravica were looted and set on fire. Bosniak Mirsad Sulejmanovic “Skejo” said that “after the attack on Kravica, Naser’s soldiers caught five or six Serbs in the village of Kajici and they slit their throats.” Oric now had occupied 350 square miles of territory in eastern Bosnia.
Attack on the village of Kamenica
On November 6, 1992, Bosnian military units from Srebrenica attacked and captured the village of Kamenica in the Zvornik district, in which action Bosnian Serb soldiers were captured. When the troops of the Republika Srpska recaptured Kamenica in February, 1993, they discovered seven mass graves containing the bodies of 41 Bosnian Serb soldiers. The exhumed bodies were examined by pathologist Major Zoran Stankovic, who was able to establish that the arms and legs of the majority of the bodies had been broken and the heads had been smashed and cut off. Some of the bodies still had the wires, belts, and cables, with which they were tied up and tortured. Eight of the bodies were so badly mutilated that they could not be identified. The Bosnian units murdered not only Bosnian Serb civilians, but also Bosnian Serb POWs in violation of the laws and customs of war and the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of POWs.
Attack on the village of Skelani
In January, 1993, Oric attacked the town of Skelani on the Drina River. Hundreds of Serbian civilians fled eastward across the Drina River into Serbia in boats. Bosnian troops advanced to about a hundred yards from the steel-girder bridge in Skelani. The Bosnian forces sought to take the bridge and to blow it up. Sudetic described the attack as follows: “gunfire ripped back and forth across the river, but the Serbs held the Muslims off. During the gun battle, a Muslim machine gunner cut down panicked Serb villagers, including women and children, as they tried to scurry across the bridge to the safety of the Serbian side.”
Artillery attack on the village of Banja Kovaljaca
Bosnian military units allegedly fired artillery shells into Serbia. The Serbian town of Banja Koviljaca was hit by three 82 mm caliber artillery shells fired by Bosnian units from Bosnia into Serbia. A 79 year old woman, Vera Vukasinovic, was killed, while another Serbian civilian was seriously injured.
Bosnian Serb counteroffensive
Sudetic described the effect the border attack had in Serbia: “The stories of the fleeing civilians shot down on the Skelani bridge enraged all of Serbia.” Following these event, the Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was able to launch a counterattack that drove northwest and pushed the Bosnian forces back into Srebrenica. The Bosnian Serb forces stopped ten miles southwest of Srebrenica. In Srebrenica itself, the Bosnian troops retaliated against Serbian civilians in the town. Sudetic described what happened in Srebrenica as a result of the counterattack: “A double murder had been committed the night before in the apartment building just below the Celik house. A Muslim soldier seeking revenge for the death of a relative, a military-police chief killed near Skelani, had used the butt of his revolver to smash the skulls of a Serb man and his elderly mother.” They were Slobodan Zekic and his mother Zagorka. Dragica Vasic knew them both. Sudetic described the murder: “Dragica had known both of the victims; Slobodan Zekic and his mother, Zagorka, were the second Serb family that Dragica had seen murdered since the war began. Zagorka, an elderly woman, had suffered a stroke and had been bedridden for years; and Slobodan, a middle-aged former factory worker, had stayed on in Srebrenica to care for her.”
By February 9, 1993 the Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic launched a full-scale counteroffensive against Oric’s troops. Five days later, Bosnian Serb troops took the town of Kamenica north of Srebrenica. Foreign journalists escorted to the Kamenica area by the Serb army were shown corpses that had been devoured by animals and other bodies that had been pulled from a pond and exhumed from three muddy graves on a forested ridge. The Bosnian Serbs alleged that the bodies belonged to prisoners whom the Bosniaks had tortured and killed.
Naser Oric and the Srebrenica Safe Haven
On April 17, 1993, Srebrenica was made a “safe haven”, but Bosnian forces continued to kill Bosnian Serb civilians and engage in sabotage activities. On May 27, 1995, Bosnian forces from Srebrenica allegedly attacked the village of Rupovo Brdo in the Milici municipality and killed five Bosnian Serb civilians who were cutting wood in the forest. On June 23 four Bosnian Serb civilians were killed in the Skelani municipality, again, allegedly by Bosnian soldiers from Srebrenica. Three days later, the village of Visnjica in the Milici municipality was attacked and one Serb killed and two injured and the village was burned down by Bosnian forces from Srebrenica.
In a 1998 UN Report to the Secretary-General termed the Srebrenica Report, the UN conceded that Naser Orc’s forces “used techniques of ethnic cleansing” in burning Serbian villages and terrorizing Serbian civilians to flee. It was also conceded that they “apparently tortured and mutilated” Bosnian Serb civilians and soldiers. The Report also acknowledged that “Serb sources claim that over 1,300 people were killed” in the Srebrenica area by Naser Oric’s forces based in Srebrenica.
The UN further acknowledged that the Bosnian army (ARBiH) had the 28th Division in Srebrenica, made up of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers. The ICTY indictment of Naser Oric for war crimes, however, lists the following military formations in the Srebrenica area: Company Srebrenica from Independent Battalion Srebrenica, Brigade Potocari, Brigade Suceska, Brigade “3 Maj” Kragljivoda, Independent Battalion Osmace, Company Pusmulici of the Srebrenica Independent Battalion, Independent Battalion Skenderovici, 114th East Bosnian Brigade, Independent Battalion Voljavica, Independent Battalion Biljeg, 1st Cerani Detachment, Company Kazani from Independent Battalion Srebrenica, Independent Battalion “5 Juli” Tokoljaci, 6th Detachment Kamenica, and Company Stari Grad. The Bosnian forces were organized in military formations and were equipped with AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns, grenades, grenade launchers, mortars, artillery, anti-tank missiles, and even tanks. Helicopters were used to transport arms and personnel from Tuzla.
In the Srebrenica pocket, it was Naser Oric’s forces who were attacking villages and occupying territory. These Bosnian offensives and attacks forced the Bosnian Serbs to launch a counterattack. UN General Morillon explained in his ICTY testimony why the Bosnian Serb forces were counterattacking in Srebrenica: “Oric was responsible for several massacres in which dozens of women and children had been killed, and it seemed to me there was more hatred in that one small corner of Bosnia than anywhere else… Mladic wanted to avenge his dead.”
Oric’s war crimes and atrocities provoked the Bosnian Serb response. New York Times journalist Roger Cohen emphasized the war crimes committed by Oric’s forces as a cause for the Bosnian Serb retaliation:
Naser Oric, a former bodyguard to Milosevic, who placed himself at the head of an increasingly effective Bosnian guerrilla force that, in the fall and winter of 1992, wreaked havoc on surrounding Serb villages. Oric liked to show visitors videos of piles of Serb bodies. He would boast about the number killed in a succession of lightning raids in the Bratunac area in which Serb communities were massacred and buildings torched. …Mladic liked to usher United Nations officials into desecrated Serb cemeteries in Bosnia in order to explain why he could never trust “the Turk”.
In The Toronto Star article “Fearsome Muslim Warlord Eludes Bosnian Serb Forces”, July 16, 1995, Bill Schiller described his visit to Oric’s headquarters in Srebrenica in 1994:
I met him in January, 1994…Oric, as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield, escaped Srebrenica before it fell…On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his living room watching a shocking video version of what might have been called Naser Oric’s Greatest Hits….There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing….Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork. “We ambushed them,” he said, when a number of dead bodies appeared on the screen. ..The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: “We launched those guys to the moon,” he boasted. …When footage of a bullet-marked ghost town appeared without any visible bodies, Oric hastened to announce: “We killed 114 Serbs there.”…Later there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting his praises…Lately, however, Oric increased his hit-and-run attacks at night. And in Mladic’s view, it was far too successful for a community that was supposed to be suppressed….The Serbs regard Oric…as a war criminal.
In the February 16, 1994 Washington Post article “Weapons, Cash and Chaos Lend Clout to Srebrenica’s Tough Guy”, John Promfret described Oric’s atrocities and war crimes: “Nasir Oric’s war trophies don’t line the wall… They’re on a videocassette tape: burned Serb houses and headless Serb men, their bodies crumpled in a pathetic heap…. “We had to use cold weapons that night,” Oric explains as scenes of dead men sliced by knives roll over his 21-inch Sony.”
Pomfret acknowledged that the Bosnian troops in Srebrenica sneaked past the U.N. Canadian observation posts to take “pot shots” at Serbian troops.
Naser Oric war crimes denyers and revisionism
Many Bosniak sources as well as some western sources, claim that Naser Oric is a war hero who defended the enclave of Srebrenica from Bosnian Serb forces and that the attacks on Serb villages around Srebrenica, which most accept took place, were in fact made with the aim of obtaining food and other resources for the closed off enclave. It is also alleged that there is no connection between Nasir Oric's actions in eastern Bosnia and the subsequent Bosnian Serb counteroffensive, culminating in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.
War Crimes indictment
After the Dayton Peace Accords, he opened a fitness club in Tuzla.
On March 28 2003 he was indicted by the ICTY on two counts of individual responsibility and four counts of command responsibility for violations of the laws or customs of war, and was arrested without further incident at his club by SFOR on April 10 2003. He appeared before the court on April 15, 2003, and pleaded "not guilty" to all the counts of the Indictment.
He is accused of ordering the cruel treatment of eleven and killing of seven Serb men after being detained in the Srebrenica police station in 1992-1993. His troops are accused of pillaging at least hundered and fifty Serb-inhabited villages and hamlets in fifteen raids, causing the massacres of its population and death of at least 1,300 civilians.
Oric was charged with Cruel Treatment for the treatment of Bosnian Serb detainees between September 24 and October, 1992 at the Srebrenica Police Station by the Bosnian Military Police. Nedeljko Radic was beaten with wooden poles and iron bars, punched and kicked. His teeth were forcibly extracted using pliers. Muslim soldiers then urinated in his mouth and he was forced to swallow urine. His teeth were broken and his ribs were fractured. Slavoljub Zikic was punched with fists and beaten with boots. He was beaten with rifle butts. He was beaten unconsciousness. His teeth in his upper jaw were broken and his ribs fractured. One of his shoulders was broken. His vision and hearing were impaired. Zoran Brankovic, Nevenko Bubanj, and Veselin Sarac were punched, kicked, and beaten with wooden poles and iron bars.
Between December 15, 1992 and March 20, 1993, Ilija Ivanovic was beaten with fists, wooden poles, metal bars, baseball bats, and kicked with boots. He was stabbed with knives. His ribs were fractured, his teeth, nose, and cheekbone were broken. His head was smashed against metal bars and concrete walls, until losing consciousness. Bosnian Serb civilians Rado Pejic, Stanko Mitrovic, Miloje Obradovic, Mile Trifunovic were beaten with wooden poles, baseball bats and metal bars, kicked and punched, losing consciousness. Pejic lost so much weight as a result of the beatings and inhumane treatment that he was unable to walk and was exchanged on a stretcher.
Oric was charged as follows: Count 1: Murder, a violation of the Laws and Customs of War under the ICTY and Geneva Conventions. Count 2: Cruel Treatment under the tribunal and Geneva Conventions. Counts 3-6 were wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, not justified by military necessity, plunder of public or private property. From May 1992 to February 1993, his forces burnt, destroyed, plundered a minimum of 50 predominantly Serbian villages and hamlets. “As a result, thousands of Serb individuals fled the area.” Cattle, furniture, and television sets were plundered.
The trial began on October 6, 2004 and the prosecution completed its case on June 1, 2005. A week later the tribunal dropped 2 of the counts against him, withdrew all allegation of plundering public and private property. The tribunal also dropped two villages from the list of alleged raids along with the names of 2 persons allegedly killed by Oric's men. The defence case commenced on July, 4 2005 and ended on April 10, 2006. A decision is expected in the case by the end of June 2006. He has been incarcarated at the ICTY since April 11, 2003.
Bosniak allegations that the trial is biased
Some Bosniaks allege that the tribunal has been biased against Oric. A number of witnesses testefied that Oric was aware of his impending indictment and told the commanders of SFOR in the Tuzla are that he would surrender peacefully, but SFOR chose to arrest him forcefully in spite of this. On July, 25 2003 the tribunal denied his appeal for a provisional release, even though it was clear he was no flight risk. Many of the 52 witnesses that the prosecution called were members of the Bosnian Serb Army who participated in the siege and massacre and as such are untrustworthy. The prosecution has also been accused of providing forged documents which three expert witnesess failed to authenticate, and has also been warned but not sancioned for witholding exculpatory evidence. The judges at one point attempted to reduce the time that defence witnesses were allowed to testify, until an appeals chamber overturned this decision. There is also outrage at the 18 year sentence that the prosecution has asked for. Oric is charged with failing to prevent and punish his subordinates for allegedlly killing 12 people.
These allegations have not, however, been supported by the Bosnian government or any official Bosnian state institutions.
See also
External links
- Indictment against Naser Orić
- Trial Watch profile of Naser Oric
- Oric Trial Drama
- Balkan Repository Project text on Naser Oric