Testifying in the trial of former JNA officers Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic, the witness, an employee of the hospital at the time, began his testimony at a closed-door session and continued with his voice and image distorted.
He described how former Yugoslav Air Force aircraft destroyed housing buildings in his neighbourhood, where there had been neither weapons nor defence positions, prompting the hospital's manager, Vesna Bosanac, to urge him to move into the hospital in mid-August 1991.
The witness, who worked in the hospital kitchen, said the JNA started shelling civilian targets in mid-August and that the hospital was being shelled the whole time, day and night.
He said JNA aircraft shelled the hospital with heavy aerial bombs, demolishing the top floors of the hospital's two buildings, which was why hundreds of wounded people were moved to the basements. The witness said one such bomb smashed through five ceilings, ending unexploded on the bed of a wounded person in the basement.
He also testified about the fall of Vukovar, the arrival of the JNA and Serb paramilitary troops into the hospital on November 19, 1991, a meeting between the hospital staff and the accused Sljivancanin and the compiling of a list to evacuate people to free Croatian territory.
Instead, the next morning he and some 300 wounded and civilians were taken by bus to a JNA barracks where paramilitary troops threatened to kill them, said the witness who will resume testifying on Friday.
Earlier today the defence completed the examination of prosecution witness Josip Covic, who confirmed that after the fall of Vukovar some Croatian soldiers took refuge in the hospital, dressed in civilian clothing and without weapons, which were left outside the hospital.
Retired General Mrksic, who commanded the JNA and Serb troops' attack on Vukovar, and his subordinates Radic and Sljivancanin are charged with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war over the November 20, 1991 killing at Ovcara farm of at least 264 wounded and soldiers taken from the Vukovar hospital.