Among the many witnesses who testified in the trial against Slobodan Milošević were a number who told their painful and tragic stories about what they saw and experienced. People from all walks of life and from across the former Yugoslavia testified for the Prosecution in this trial. Excerpted here are some of their stories.
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“I don’t know anything about clashes of this kind. I know that there was a slaughter and that I fled with my family. And I was just trying to preserve my family…”
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Sadik Januzi, a Kosovo Albanian man and a survivor of a massacre in Kosovo, answering questions about the conflict in Kosovo. He testified on 24 April 2002 in the case against Slobodan Milošević. >> Read his story |
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| “I can prove it also with the other fact that I was in the attic in my own home with my two surviving children, and I very clearly heard the voice of my mother-in-law telling him, "Nenad, how can you kill my son?" You can ask me whether they were masked. I can tell you very well that these people standing in front of my home, those six policemen, were not masked. They had black berets, and I could see their face very distinctly. We could identify all of them because the road was lit that night.”
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Aferdita Hajrizi, a Kosovo Albanian wife and mother, responds to questioning in cross-examination about the identity of the perpetrators who killed her husband, son and mother-in-law. She testified on 26 April 2002 in the case against Slobodan Milošević, and on 26 September 2006 in the case against Milan Milutinović et al.. >> Read her story |
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“Then Majlinda said, “Mummy, mummy, look at how they’ve killed Herolinda.” And when I looked around, I saw Herolinda over there and saw her, that she was lying on the ground with five or six bullet holes in her flesh. She had been such a beautiful girl."
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Shyhrete Berisha, a Kosovo Albanian woman speaking about how Serb forces murdered her children in a café in Suva Reka/Suharekë, Kosovo. She testified on 10 July 2002 in the case against Slobodan Milošević. >> Read her story |
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“As I was getting off the bus, I heard an order being called out that we should flee across the fields, escape across the fields, run across the fields. So I managed to get a little away from the asphalt road, because the people who were first and stepped down from the bus first were right up by the asphalt, and then you get to the field and that’s where they were killed.”
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Suad Džafić, a Bosnian Muslim speaking about how Serb soldiers murdered Bosnian Muslims, including his father and two brothers, in the village of Nova Kasaba, near Bratunac in eastern Bosnia, on 21 May 1992. He testified on 26 and 27 June 2003 in the case against Slobodan Milošević and on 11 February 2004 in the case against Momčilo Krajišnik, a Bosnian Serb leader. >> Read his story |
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| "-Q. Very well. You say that you were separated from the men, and the women and children were ordered to move towards the SUP [the acronym for the police] of Zvornik, and the men stayed behind in front of the entrance to the building. Is that exactly how it happened? -A. Yes, exactly so."
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Witness B-1058, questioned by the accused, Slobodan Milošević, about the moment Serb forces murdered her husband and two sons in the town of Zvornik in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She testified on 9 September 2003 in the case against Slobodan Milošević. >> Read her story |
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“I remember very well all the mistreatment that I was subjected to for a total of 212 days in two camps. And for that reason I can't sleep well. I find it difficult to concentrate. And I am -- I am not very good at fulfilling my responsibilities. I have a wife and three children at home. I was taken to two camps for absolutely no reason, and I repeat, I spent 212 days there absolutely for no reason.”
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Marko Knežić, a Croatian man from a village near Dubrovnik, speaking about the effects of the mistreatment he suffered while imprisoned by Serb forces in 1991 and 1992 . He testified on 17 September 2003 in the case against Slobodan Milošević. >> Read his story |
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“Mr. Milošević, the three or four houses that were in Saborsko, those people were with us up to the fall of Saborsko itself. They were together with us. And we didn't have any problems with them, neither did they have any problems with us. We were together during the war, and they were my neighbours. I knew them.”
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| Vlado Vuković, a Croat man, describes relations between Serbs and Croats in his village in eastern Croatia. He testified in the case against Slobodan Milošević on 3 July 2003, and in the case against Milan Martić on 27 and 28 March 2006. >> Read his story | |
