Hodzici Road 6 (also known as Snagovo 1) is one of the seven secondary mass graves of Srebrenica genocide victims located in the village of Hodzici, some 17 kilometres north-west of the city of Zvornik. The remains of a total of 70 individuals have been exhumed there.
The Hodzici Road 6 site was exhumed in 2004 by the Bosnian Federal Commission on Missing Persons, monitored by the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP. The gravesite remains unmarked, on a meadow behind the village houses and next to a line of pine trees.
DNA analysis carried out by the ICMP showed connections between this secondary gravesite and the Lazete 2 primary gravesite (also known as Orahovac 2). According to the ICTY’s forensic report on Srebrenica exhumations, this means that the remains of one individual were found in at least two different graves. The investigation showed that 12 DNA connection cases were between Lazete 2 and Hodzici Road 6. This indicates that human remains were dug up at the Lazete 2 primary mass grave and transferred to Hodzici Road, some 10 kilometres away.
Forensic analysis of soil/pollen samples, evidence and aerial images of creation/disturbance dates, further revealed that bodies from the primary mass graves Lazete 1 and Lazete 2 were dug up and reburied at secondary graves in Hodzici.
ICTY verdicts found that captured Bosniak men from Srebrenica were transported on July 14, 1995 to a school in the village of Orahovac. In the early afternoon, Bosnian Serb Army Zvornik Brigade personnel under the supervision of Drago Nikolic,a security officer with the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik Brigade, and Milorad Trbic, Assistant Commander for Security with the Zvornik Brigade, then transported the captives to a nearby field, where personnel, including members of the 4th Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade, executed them with automatic weapons.
In related verdicts, the ICTY found Radislav Krstic, the Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Drina Corps, guilty of genocide against Bosniaks from Srebrenica – its first verdict establishing that the Srebrenica masacres constituted genocide. Krstic was sentenced to 46 years in prison, although the sentence was subsequently shortened to 35 years.
The ICTY also found that Ljubisa Beara, the chief of security of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Main Staff, was told to organise, coordinate and facilitate the detention, transportation, summary execution and burial of the Bosniak victims murdered at Orahovac. Beara was assisted by, among others, Vujadin Popovic, Chief of Security of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Drina Corps, as well as Nikolic and Trbic.
Beara, Popovic, Nikolic and Trbic were found to have supervised, facilitated and overseen the Orahovac executions, and the ICTY convicted them of genocide. Vidoje Blagojevic, commander of the Bratunac Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting the murder and persecution of Bosniaks in the Srebrenica area, as well as aiding and abetting the murder of Bosniaks in Bratunac. Dragan Jokic, chief of engineering of the Zvornik Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, was sentenced to nine years in prison for the murders of Bosniaks in Orahovac, at the Branjevo Military Farm in Pilica and in Kozluk, and for providing engineering resources and personnel to dig mass graves for the executed victims.
According to the Federal Institute for Missing Persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the remains of 818 Bosniaks from Srebrenica were discovered at seven secondary gravesites on Hodzici Road.