Two witnesses who testified today said that on the night when prisoners from the Vukovar hospital were brought to Ovcara in November 1991, they saw at Ovcara a large number of members of the Territorial Defence (TO) and volunteers, but no Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) members.
In 1991 Milan Petkovic and Sasa Miljic were reservists of an anti-aircraft defence unit in Vukovar. In the evening of 18 November, Captain Jan Marcek ordered them to go to Ovcara to stand guard. Unlike Miljic, who could not remember almost anything, Petkovic said that at the time when they arrived there prisoners were still arriving at Ovcara.
"The prisoners had to walk the gauntlet and were forced to leave their personal belongings aside as they were walking. There were 150-200 prisoners, most of them were wearing civilian clothing, but some were in military uniforms, several had bandages on their heads, one was missing a leg that was amputated below the knee, he was all in bandages and covered in blood," the witness said, adding that some TO members were cursing and beating the prisoners.
While the prisoners were still being registered in the hangar, a group of TO members took out two groups of 8-10 prisoners, the witness said.
"We heard somebody say that they were being taken to another hangar and to a tractor trailer. We heard shooting from the outside, but it was normal to hear shooting those days," the witness said, adding that after spending two hours in the hangar, they received an order to withdraw, after which they left Ovcara.
The witnesses learned of the massacre the following morning from soldiers who said that "those people were executed".
The trial is the continue on February 7, when new witnesses for the prosecution and some witnesses who were not questioned during the investigation, but were summonsed by the court, will take the stand.