THE HAGUE. July 6: Chilling testimony provided the most direct evidence yet of the Bosnian Serb .military commander's alleged participation in the mass execution of Muslims. A man identified as Witness A on Friday described playing dead as he peered up from beneath a pile of bleeding bodies and saw Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic watching the slaughter, reports AP.
Another witness. * Drazen Erdemovic, said he personally participated in the slaughter of up to 1.200 Srebrenica Muslims. His testimony gave the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal the fullest picture yet of atrocities committed after Bosnian Serb soldiers overran the UN-Erotected enclave of Sre-renica in July 1995.
The two men's descriptions came at an evidence
hearing against Mladic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic designed to put more international pressure on them to surrender.
The UN tribunal has indicted them on counts of genocide’ and crimes against humanity for allegedly masterminding a wave of atrocities during the 3 and half year Bosnian conflict. Witness A's testimony provided the most direct link so far between Mladic and the Srebrenica killings.
Both men remain at large in Bosnian Serb territory, where they continue to wield influence and undermine the Dayton peace accord.
"I saw him (Mladic) watching Serb soldiers bringing us thpre. lining 'us up, ana killing us.’ Witness A told the tribunaL
five other times in the enclave after its fall.
Mladic has been singled out as the man who orchestrated the alleged massacres at Srebrenica, which his indictment called "the most horrendous. unimaginable'war crimes committed in Europe since the end of World War II.”
More than 6,000 Muslim refugees from the area are still missing, believed slaughtered by rebel Serbs and buried in mass graves.
The tribunal said the exhumation of suspected mass graves in Bosnia and Croatia wpuld begin this weekend.
The exhumations, which could provide prosecutors with new evidence to bolster their cases against Karadzic and Mladic, are expected to last up to three months.