The indictees, also called the "Vukovar Three", are Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin.
In his opening statement prosecutor Marks Moore said the charges related to the imprisonment, torture and murder of more than 260 wounded soldiers, patients and civilians from the Vukovar Hospital, and added that those crimes were part of systematic and organised attacks on Croats in Vukovar municipality. All crimes that were committed in Vukovar were part of an organised course of action which led to the crime at Ovcara, Moore said, adding that the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would relate to all war crimes committed during and after attacks by the JNA and rebel Serbs on Vukovar and not only to the Ovcara massacre, which was the culmination of the crimes and the central count of the indictment.
The prosecutor described the political situation in Croatia in 1990-1991, the arming of Serbs in 1990, and the Croatian referendum and declaration of independence. He explained that after attacks by the JNA and Serb forces and the taking of all places in eastern Slavonia and Baranja in August 1991 Vukovar became a town of great strategic and symbolic importance.
The prosecution claims that the JNA and rebel Serb forces carried out attacks on Croatian villages, killing, torturing, imprisoning and expelling civilians. The JNA got more and more violent. It had been deployed with the task to separate Croatian forces and Serb rebels, but in reality since summer 1991 it was supporting Croatian Serb rebels in the fight against Croatian authorities, the prosecutor said.
The objective of the JNA and rebel Serbs was to consolidate the territory under their control, which was why the JNA formed the Operative Group South to attack Vukovar, with Colonel Mile Mrksic as its commander. The group was comprised of the elite 1st Guard Motorised Brigade from Belgrade, units of
the local Serb Territorial Defence (TO), and Serb paramilitary units, Moore said.
The prosecutor also described the military structure and subordination within the Operative Group and Guard Brigade, as well as the role of Major Veselin Sljivancanin as the brigade's officer in charge of security who was responsible for the evacuation of the Vukovar Hospital, and of Captain Miroslav Radic, who was in charge of units of the local TO "Petrova gora" and "Leva Supoderica", whose members were the executors of the massacre at Ovcara. Seventeen members of those units are currently standing trial in Belgrade for the Ovcara massacre.
The prosecutor said the crucial events in the last few days before the fall of the town on November 18 - the rounding up of 1,500-2,000 civilians in front of the hospital, the separating of men and their transfer to the "Velepromet" building, a JNA barracks and to Ovcara, and their imprisonment, torture and killing, would be described in detail during the presentation of evidence with the help of the most important witnesses including Vukovar Hospital director Vesna Bosanac, UN Special Rapporteur Herbert Okun, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, members of the European Community Monitoring Mission, senior JNA officers and others.
He stressed that fierce fighting was going on in Vukovar and that the JNA suffered great losses, with some 600 soldiers killed, including a large number of officers, which prompted JNA General Zivota Panic, who feared retaliation, to order Mrksic to pay special attention to the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War during the taking of the town, but Mrksic, Sljivancanin and Radic did not follow his order.
At the beginning of the opening statement, the tribunal was shown a BBC video recording showing the destroyed town on November 19, 1991, and recordings showing the hospital's basement packed with wounded people and rooms on the upper floors destroyed by shelling.
Defence counsel said they would make their opening statement before they started presenting evidence in spring next year, while Sljivancanin and Radic said they were innocent and expected the tribunal to establish the truth and condemned the crimes in Vukovar.
"I hope that justice will be served and that all those responsible for the crimes in Vukovar will be punished," Radic said.
Sljivancanin said that he did not hate Croats and that he had helped many people in Vukovar. He said the crime at Ovcara had been committed by people who hated the JNA and wanted to compromise it so that it could not "defend Yugoslavia".
He said he sympathised with the families whose members were killed in Vukovar and throughout the former Yugoslavia, and then in a shaken voice read out the names of some 20 JNA soldiers and officers killed in the Vukovar area.