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Seselj claims his men killed 30 Croatian policemen in 1991

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Aug 24 (Hina) - Indicted Serbian Radical Party (SRS)leader Vojislav Seselj said on Wednesday that his party's volunteershad killed 30 Croatian police officers and mercenaries in the easternCroatian village of Borovo Selo on 2 May 1991.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Aug 24 (Hina) - Indicted Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj said on Wednesday that his party's volunteers had killed 30 Croatian police officers and mercenaries in the eastern Croatian village of Borovo Selo on 2 May 1991.

Seselj was speaking as a defence witness in the continuation of the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

Seselj said he had dispatched 16 SRS volunteers to Borovo Selo in April 1991 following a call by Serbian Territorial Defence commander Vukasin Soskocanin, and added that during an engagement on 2 May "the 16 volunteers defeated the Croatian attackers."

"Thirty men were killed on the Croatian side, but the Croats admitted 15. The rest were Kurds on whom old banknotes dating from the time of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) and Hitler's Reichmarks were found," the witness said.

Seselj explained at length how only his party had sent volunteers to war zones in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, noting that that was done at the request of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) leadership.

The SRS enlisted about 10,000 volunteers and took them to the JNA training centre at Bubanj Potok, where they became members of the JNA and were assigned to its units. They were issued JNA identification cards and received pay and other entitlements in accordance with relevant laws, he said.

There were up to 120 SRS volunteers in given JNA units. They were attached to the JNA 1st Guards Brigade in Vukovar, the Territorial Defence in Western Slavonia and so on, the witness said, adding that the Western Slavonia Territorial Defence was under the command of active-duty JNA colonel Milan Trbojevic.

Seselj said that the Leva Supoderica detachment of the Territorial Defence, commanded by Milan Lancuzanin Kameni, mainly consisted of SRS volunteers.

Lancuzanin and 16 members of the detachment are currently on trial in Belgrade for the murder of 264 Croatian prisoners of war on the Ovcara farm outside Vukovar in late 1991.

Seselj denied allegations that Milosevic had influence on the JNA at the time, saying that the armed forces were within the authority of "(Federal Prime Minister) Ante Markovic, a Croat."

The indictment against Milosevic for crimes committed in Croatia alleges that the accused exercised de facto influence on the JNA through the so-called Serb bloc, notably four members of the Yugoslav Presidency. It mentions Seselj as one of the participants in a joint criminal enterprise and says that as of February 1991 he recruited or otherwise provided significant assistance to Serbian volunteers known as Chetniks or Seselj's men who committed alleged crimes.

Speaking of the role of the Serbian Guard of Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) leader Vuk Draskovic, Seselj described it as an organisation of robbers led by criminals, and recalled that the current foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro had been running "a very belligerent policy" in the early 1990s.

"Draskovic demanded territorial autonomy for the Serbs in Croatia, as well as autonomy for Istria and Dubrovnik and cantonisation for Bosnia-Herzegovina," the witness said.

Seselj stressed that Milosevic or any other member of his government had never made any war-mongering statements, but that such statements had been made only by him and Draskovic.

Speaking of present Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica and his assassinated predecessor Zoran Djindjic, the witness said that the two had been "very close" with Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic. He described current Serbian president Boris Tadic as "one of those effeminate types who were not in favour of the war."

Seselj accused Montenegrin prime minister Milo Djukanovic of sending "a busload of Bosnian Muslims to (the eastern Bosnian town of) Bratunac to be executed by Miroslav Deronjic."

At the insistence of the accused, Seselj claimed that the authorities of Serbia and the now defunct Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not want to cover up atrocities committed in the eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in 1995, but that they wanted a thorough investigation because they caused great damage to the Serbs.

The witness described the role of a paramilitary group dubbed Pauk (The Spider) in the execution of Muslim prisoners of war in eastern Bosnia, saying that an investigation had shown that the unit was made up of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and foreigners and that it was led by the French secret service.

Seselj continues his testimony on Thursday.

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