There was not a house that had not been hit and the smell of death spread across the town, he said. Drunken members of Serb paramilitary troops were celebrating to loud music. It was very strange and eerie, as though I were watching "Apocalypse Now", added Van Linden, witness for the prosecution at the trial of the Vukovar Three.
Retired Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) general Mile Mrksic, who commanded the former JNA's Vukovar operation in 1991, and his subordinate officers Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic are on trial for the killing of at least 264 Croatian civilians and wounded at Ovcara on 20 November 1991, the gravest war crime committed during the 1991-95 war in Croatia.
Van Linden said that during his reporting from eastern Croatian battlefields he had never seen or heard Croatian fighters attacking JNA units with heavy artillery.
Only one side, the JNA, used heavy artillery, he said adding, It was a one-way street and it always led to Vukovar.
He provided a detailed description of events at Vukovar's general hospital on 19 and 20 November 1991, as about 500 wounded Croatian civilians and soldiers and hospital staff were being prepared for evacuation.
The other reporters and I came in front of the hospital because we knew that a massacre could take place, he said adding, We wanted with our presence, as much as possible, to prevent that from happening.
Van Linden said it was obvious the hospital had been hit with heavy artillery and that neither weaponry nor anyone in uniform was inside the building.
He described the hospital as crammed with foul-smelling people in grave mental condition because of what they had gone through.
The reporter said a Red Cross representative told him their work was being completely hampered by the JNA.
Van Linden said the wounded and the hospital staff were boarded onto civilian and military vehicles and escorted by the JNA towards the separation line with Croatian troops.
He added the convoy did not cross the line because, a JNA source told him, it had been fired at by Croatian troops and was rerouted to Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia. The reporter said he had indeed seen some of those civilians in a Sremska Mitrovica dome afterwards, but that he did not know what had happened to the wounded.
He said his general impression had been that JNA units were professional and well-trained, and that they protected Croatian civilians from Serb paramilitary troops.
Van Linden resumes his testimony on Tuesday, when he is to be examined by the defence.