30 May 2013 - ICTY

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the Sanski Most-Mrkonjić Grad axis and link up with the rest of the MUP units under the
command of Brane Pećanac. 3619
1805. On 11 October 1995, Kovač ordered that the Commander of the Tigrovi Special
Purposes Unit, Željko Ražnatović, the Chief of the Prijedor Public Security Centre, and the
Commander of the Janja Detachment should immediately start arresting deserters from the
front line, organize them in military ranks, and return them to their original brigades. 3620 On
12 October 1995, President Radovan Karadžić authorised the “Special Unit of the Ministry of
the Interior of Republika Srpska, the Tigers”, to arrest deserters and fugitives from the armed
forces of the Republic and to hand them over to the commands of the army in order for them
to be sent back into combat. 3621
1806. In addition to the documentary evidence above, the Trial Chamber has reviewed the
testimony of several witnesses relevant to determine the matter of whether the Accused
directed the involvement of the SDG in the Banja Luka operations. According to Witness JF-
010, a Serb from a village in Sanski Most municipality, 3622 Arkan’s men arrested Serbs of
military age in Prijedor municipality in October 1995. These men were fleeing Sanski
Most. 3623 Borislav Pelević testified that Arkan received orders from the commander of the 1st
Krajina Corps Momir Talić and from Bosnian-Serb Republic MUP Minister Tomislav Kovač,
who co-operated closely with the commander of the Bosnian-Serb Republic special police
brigade, Borovčanin. 3624 Witness JF-027, a Croatian ethnic Serb and a former member of the
SDG, 3625 testified that after the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina took over Sanski Most, his
battalion moved to Prijedor to defend the town together with MUP and VRS units. According
to the witness, his battalion received orders from the Bosnian-Serb Republic MUP through
Simo Drljača, the head of the SJB, and not from the VRS, because the witness saw Arkan and
Drljača together all the time. The VRS, two Bosnian-Serb Republic MUP units (namely the
Janja and the special Prijedor Departments), and the SDG participated in the military action at
Oštra Luka, in Sanski Most municipality, around this time, after which the witness’s unit was
3619 P2946 (Order to Tigers Special Unit, Tomislav Kovač, 26 September 1995); P2947 (Report by Ljuban Ećim
on the period 26-28 September 1995, 28 September 1995).
3620 D28 (Order directed to Željko Ražnatović and others to arrest deserters, Tomislav Kovač, 11 October 1995).
3621 D190 (Authorisation to arrest deserters and fugitives from the armed forces, signed by Radovan Karadžić, 12
October 1995), p. 1.
3622 P262 (Witness JF-010, Milošević transcript, 1-5 May 2003), pp. 19834-19835, 20029, 20077; P261
(Pseudonym sheet for Witness JF-010); P263 (Background information on Witness JF-010).
3623 P262 (Witness JF-010, Milošević transcript, 1-5 May 2003), p. 19917; Witness JF-010, T. 3766-3767, 3817.
3624 Borislav Pelević, T. 16435-16436, 16441; D664 (Photograph of Arkan and Tomislav Kovač), p. 1.
3625 P1596 (Witness JF-027, witness statement, 27 February 2004), p. 1, para. 7; Witness JF-027, T. 8887, 8890,
8971.
Case No. IT-03-69-T 636
30 May 2013