Delic Said to Have Lacked Control

The former Bosnian army chief was not in control of all the forces under his command, lacking even the authority to stop his son from being captured and tortured, the general’s ex-bodyguard told the Hague tribunal this week.



Rasim Delic is charged with responsibility for crimes committed by a group of foreign Muslim fighters known as the El Mujahid unit that was incorporated into the Bosnian army. According to the prosecution, Delic was aware of executions and other abuses, and did not stop them or discipline those responsible.



Ismet Dedovic testified that from 1993 until the end of the war, he spent 24 hours a day with the general and “never saw him meet any members of the [Bosnian] army from African or Asian countries”.



Dedovic’s testimony about the state of the army in 1993 also reinforced the defence argument that some military units were not under Delic’s command.



“The situation inside the main army headquarters was very negative toward General Delic because there was a lot of mistrust toward him when he was first put in charge,” said Dedovic.



“There were units who only answered to their commanders and refused to obey orders issued to them by the army headquarters and General Delic. There was a lot of criminal activity within these rogue units.”



The witness explained that Delic tried to tackle the issue by working with the then-minister of the interior Bakir Alispahic to try to “regulate the work of both civil and army structures, but [he] faced a lot of opposition.



“[Delic] was powerless without the full backing of the wartime presidency and President Alija Izetbegovic.”



To underline this argument, defence counsel Vasvija Vidovic asked the witness about the time when Delic’s son, Admir, was captured by one of the insubordinate units shortly after Delic took command.



The prosecution protested against this line of questioning, describing it as “completely irrelevant to the charges against Delic”. However, Vidovic maintained it was “relevant to proving the conditions the defendant was forced to work in”. The judges allowed her to continue.



Dedovic said members of the 10th Mountain Brigade, run by Musan Topalovic Caco, captured Delic’s son and tortured him.



“Rasim Delic did all he could to free them, but he couldn’t do anything. Young Admir was freed only when President Izetbegovic himself called Caco and asked for his release,” said the witness.



During cross-examination, prosecutor Daryl Mundis asked if this difficult situation continued throughout the war. The witness replied, “The Caco incident served as a catalyst for improvement, and afterward most of the units were obedient.”



The witness was also asked about Delic’s whereabouts in the summer of 1995, when members of the El Mujahid unit tortured several Serb soldiers and decapitated one of them in the Kamenica detainee camp.



From June to August 1995, Delic was trying to break the Serb siege of Sarajevo, said Dedovic – and he “never saw Rasim Delic meeting that unit.



“The Sarajevo operation was planned by General Delic and he took part directly in the fighting. We were always in the field at that time, in command posts near enemy lines, because the communication lines were unsafe and he wanted to manage them directly.”



Dedovic also said that in July they heard about the massacre in Srebrenica and went to the Tuzla region to “talk to and assist refugees that were arriving there”.



He said that “Delic received no documents and could not have been well informed about army activities in other parts of the country”.



The prosecution also asked the witness about Delic’s whereabouts on September 11, 1995 when members of the El Mujahid unit allegedly captured and tortured three women and 50 men in an attack on the village of Vozuca.



Dedovic said he and Delic were at an Islamic aid conference in Kuala Lumpur and only returned on September 17.



“I remember that trip because there were a lot of negative comments in the media about General Delic going to a conference while the war was still raging,” said the witness.



Asked by the judges whether he thought it possible Delic was in charge of operations from there, the witness said, “I was in charge of his security, so I made phone calls for him. We were in touch with nobody. I also carried his bags and I know that we carried no maps or documents of any sort.”



Dedovic also denied the prosecution’s claim that they had visited Vozuca after the attack.



“We visited the Ozren Mountains, not that near Vozuca, after we returned to Bosnia and only stayed for two hours while we met with the command of the 2nd Corps - no one else,” said Dedovic.



Finally, the prosecution asked whether the witness sat in on any of Delic’s meetings and whether he could be fully informed about what the general knew and what orders he gave. The witness replied that he “had never attended any meetings and would always stand outside the door”.



The hearing continues next week.



Denis Dzidic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo.