Ratko Mladic witness says Bosnian Serbs only fired in self-defence

The wartime commander of the Bosnian Serbs, Ratko Mladic, opened his defence against charges of genocide and crimes against humanity on Monday, when one of his officers claimed his troops only fired in self-defence during their 44-month siege of Sarajevo.

Mladic (72) – besuited, grey and frail – looked on as one of his former logistics battalion commanders testified at a war crimes tribunal in The Hague that Bosnian Serb forces ringing the Bosnian capital “never received or gave orders to attack civilians”.

About 10,000 people died during the 1992-96 siege, half of them civilians killed by sniper, mortar and artillery fire crossing roads, queuing for water or going to market.

The Bosnian Serb officer, Mile Sladoje, the first of an expected 300 defence witnesses, claimed that Mladic’s forces had never been issued with sniper rifles and that they opened fire only in response to attacks.

At the height of the siege, there were 329 shell impacts a day on the densely populated city, which lay in a basin below steep mountains held by Bosnian Serb forces. During one 16-hour period in July 1993, 3,777 shells rained down on the capital from Serb positions.

In an intercepted phone call in May 1992 early on in the siege, Mladic was heard egging on his gunners around Sarajevo. “Don’t let them sleep ... Drive them crazy,” he ordered. Shoot at Pofalici [a predominantly Muslim district]. There is not much Serb population there . . . Fire one more salvo at the presidency [headquarters of the Muslim-led Bosnian government].”

Mladic also faces genocide charges for his role in the slaughter of 8,000 men and boys following the fall of the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. He was filmed walking through the town declaring “the time has come to take revenge on the Turks of this region”.

– (Guardian service)