Momir Nikolic

Momir Nikolic, (born 20 February 1955)^[1] ethnic Bosnian Serb was born in Hrancin, Bratunac, Bosnia and Hercegovina, on February 20, 1955. He was Assistant Chief of Security and Intelligence for the Bratunac Brigade, Drina Corps, Bosnian Serb Army, VRS, at a time when the unit was engaged in legal and illegal operations in and around Srebrenica, which resulted in Srebrenica Genocide.

Nikolic was indicted March 26, 2002 charged with genocide or alternately complicity in genocide and persecutions, and Violations of the Laws or Customs of War. He was arrested by SFOR on April 1, 2002 and transferred to International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) custody the following day. Nikolic made his initial appearance on April 3, 2002, pleading not guilty on all counts. A plea agreement was reached on May 7, 2003, and Nikolic pleaded guilty to Count 5 of the indictment - Crimes against humanity.

A written Factual Basis for the crime and for Momir. Nikolic’s participation in it was filed with the Plea Agreement. The Factual Basis and the indictment, which Momir Nikolic acknowledged to be true, described the facts as follows. The crime of persecutions, as charged in Count 5 of the indictment, was carried out by the following means:

the murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians, including men, women, children and elderly persons; the cruel and inhumane treatment of Bosnian Muslim civilians, including severe beatings at Potocari and in detention facilities in Bratunac and Zvornik; the terrorising of Bosnian Muslim civilians in Srebrenica and Potocari; the destruction of personal property and effects belonging to the Bosnian Muslims; and the forcible transfer of Bosnian Muslims from the Srebrenica enclave.

The criminal acts were carried out against the civilian population who fled the Srebrenica enclave following the attack and take-over by the Serbs. In Potocari, women, children and the elderly were separated from the able-bodied men. While the men were detained, their wives and children were placed on buses and forcibly transferred to Muslim-held territory. This forcible transfer was accompanied by acts of terror, humiliation and utter cruelty. The detained men were moved out of Potocari for execution. Similarly, the men who had escaped from Srebrenica in “the column” were captured and detained, pending execution. At one location, Branjevo Military Farm, approximately 1,200 Bosnian Muslim men who had been captured from the column were executed by automatic weapon fire. In total, over 7,000 men were murdered. The Trial Chamber found that Momir Nikolic was not unaware of the crimes unfolding following the fall of Srebrenica instead they found that he appeared to be right at the centre of criminal activity as the operation spread from Potocari, to Bratunac and on to Zvornik. Momir Nikolic was present at the Hotel Fontana during the three meetings in which the fate of the Muslim population was discussed and decided. He did not raise any objections to what he was told was the plan: to deport Muslim women and children to Muslim held territory, and to separate, detain, and ultimately kill the Muslim men. Rather than resist, Momir Nikolic recommended possible detention and execution sites. On 12 July 1995, Momir Nikolic was in Potocari – he saw with his own eyes the separation of men from their families. The Trial Chamber found that he did nothing to stop the beatings, the humiliation, the separations or the killings. Momir Nikolic was an integral part of the implementation of the plan, in order that the aims of the operation were achieved. Further, in the months subsequent to the executions, the Trial Chamber found that Momir Nikolic co-ordinated the exhumation and re-burial of Muslim bodies.

He was sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment on December 2, 2003. The sentence was reduced from 27 years imprisonment to 20 years by the ICTY Appeals Chamber on March 8, 2006.^[2]

Nikolic was transferred to Finland to serve his sentence on 11 April 2007.^[3]

Controversy

During the course of the trial, Momir Nikolic, who served under Blagojevic's command as the head of the security element of the Bratunac Brigade, gave testimony in accordance with a plea agreement he made with the prosecution. At the time of the plea agreement, a controversy came out over false statements that Nikolic had made to the prosecution, which did not appear in the Statement of Facts which accompanied the plea agreement. It is important to note that the prosecution had been made aware of the falsities in advance to remove them from the document and they did not affect any judgments, but the incident was used by the defence to discredit Nikolic's testimony implicating other accused persons, and is still used in various revisionist conspiracy theories with respect to the Srebrenica massacre.^[4]

Nikolic's admission that he had lied raised important issues about the use of plea agreements.

References

1. ^ http://www.icty.org/x/cases/nikolic/cis/en/cis_nikolic_momir.pdf
2. ^ http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/cis/nikolic/cis-mnikolic.htm - ICTY Case Information Sheet - NIKOLIC (IT-02-60/1)
3. ^ http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/momir_nikolic_315.html - Trial Watch Nikolic trial profile
4. ^ http://iwpr.net/?apc_state=hsrftri253798&l=en&s=f&o=253799 - Srebrenica Case Files, compiled by Raphael Broze, an IWPR intern in The Hague

Persondata
Name	Nikolic, Momir
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Date of birth	1955
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