DUBRAVA PRISON INMATES WERE KILLED BY NATO BOMBS NOT BY SERBIAN POLICE
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - May 5, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Col. Radovan Paponjak, the former head of the Interior Ministry secretariat in Pec continued his testimony at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday.

Col. Paponjak gave testimony regarding documents obtained from the Serbian Interior Ministry concerning crime statistics in Pec.

According to the statistics, in the area of Pec, 606 people were killed between January 1, 1998 and January 1, 2001 as a result of the war. 42 died in the first half of 1998; 81 died in the second half of 1998; 18 died in 1999 prior to the NATO bombing; 388 died during the NATO bombing; and 77 died after the NATO bombing up until January 1, 2001.

Of the dead, 318 were Albanians and 288 were non-Albanians.

Of the 318 Albanians killed, 73 were KLA terrorists, and 245 were civilians; of those 298 were men, 19 were women, and one was a child. Of the killers 67% were Albanians, 23% were Serbs, and 10% were other ethnicities. That is to say, 67% of the Albanians who were killed in the Pec area died at the hands of other Albanians.

The 23% of “killers” who were Serbs include police and army personnel who killed ethnic Albanian KLA terrorists. The Pec SUP arrested 70 Serbs, including 7 policemen, for crimes against Albanians.

Of the 288 non-Albanians killed, 62 were VJ soldiers, 67 were members of the MUP, and 169 were civilians. Of those, 242 were men, 42 were women, and two were children.

These statistics show that non-Albanians make-up a disproportionately large share of the victims. Given that the area around Pec was more than 80% Albanian, it is surprising to see that less than 20% of the population comprises nearly 50% of the people killed.

In the area of Pec there were 166 KLA terrorist attacks, which left 238 people dead - 53 Albanians and 185 non-Albanians. The authorities killed an additional 35 Albanians in anti-terrorist operations.

Crime killed 148 people in and around Pec, of whom 118 were Albanians and 30 were non-Albanians.

NATO flew 97 sorties in the Pec area killing 144 people, 96 Albanians and 48 non-Albanians. A large share of those deaths occurred when NATO bombed the Dubrava prison in Istok in mid-May 1999.

The remaining deaths were the result of miscellaneous causes such as suicide.

Col. Paponjak testified that the police cooperated with the members of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM). He said that the police had to inform the KVM before carrying out operations, and that the information they gave to the KVM was sometimes leaked to the KLA before the operation could commence.

On May 19th, 21st, and 24th, 1999 NATO bombed the Dubrava prison in Istok killing over 90 people. NATO does not deny bombing the prison. The prosecution, however, blames Milosevic for the deaths at the Dubrava prison. The indictment alleges that Serbian police lined-up the prisoners and executed them there.

To refute the allegation that the police executed the inmates, Milosevic played a videotape of the prison taken on May 19th, just after the first NATO attack. For his part, Col. Paponjak was present and directly witnessed what happened at the Dubrava Prison.

On the videotape you could see large craters where bombs had exploded. You could see bomb fragments with English writing on them. You could see that the windows had been blown out of the buildings by the shock wave from the bomb blast. You could see bomb damage to the roofs of some of the buildings. Some of the buildings were still smoldering from the fires caused by the bombing. Clearly the prison had been bombed.

You could also see people who had been killed by the bombing. Corpses were dismembered, their limbs were blown off, their heads were blown off, and they were covered by rubble from the destroyed buildings. Clearly they had been killed in the bomb attack – not executed by Serbian policemen.

Judge Robinson was disturbed by the video. He asked Milosevic what the point of showing these ghastly pictures was. Obviously the point is to show that the people who died at the Dubrava prison were killed by the NATO attacks – not executed by Serb police.

The cherry on the cake is that the wounded prisoners were taken to the hospital after the bomb attacks. Milosevic pointed out that it would be absurd for the police to carry out an execution, and then take the people who survived the attack to the hospital.

Milosevic will play the videotapes from the May 21st and May 24th attacks tomorrow, after the contempt hearing against Kosta Bulatovic is heard.

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