The JNA fully controlled the hospital, they were sovereign in that area, but there was no one in command, Peter Kiper, who was in Croatia in 1991 as a European Community monitor, said in the trial of former JNA officers General Mile Mrksic, Colonel Veselin Sljivancanin and Captain Miroslav Radic at the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Monday.
The officers, also known as the Vukovar three, are charged with a massacre of at least 264 wounded Croatian soldiers and civilians from the town hospital on the Ovcara farm outside Vukovar in November 1991.
The witness said he came into conflict with members of the Serb Territorial Defence over their aggressive behaviour towards the wounded. He described an occasion on 19 November 1991 when ICRC officials complained to him about being prevented from evacuating 300-400 wounded people from Vukovar.
Despite efforts by the European Community Monitoring Mission office in Zagreb to resolve the situation through European Community member states, about 60 wounded people were taken out of the hospital without authorisation and disappeared without trace, Kiper said.
The Czech diplomat will resume his testimony on Monday when he will be cross-examined by defence counsel.