Bosanac, who is the first witness for the prosecution in the trial of Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic, indicted for the murder of at least 264 wounded people and civilians at the Ovcara farm, described her conversations with Colonel Mrksic and Major Sljivancanin, as well as with ICRC representative Nicholas Borsinger. She also spoke about her attempts to reach members of the European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM), and her having been taken to a local barracks while the JNA was taking men from the hospital.
Mrksic, who commanded the JNA Operative Group which on 18 November took Vukovar, ignored the agreement on evacuation signed in Zagreb by the Croatian government, the JNA and the ECMM, Bosanac said, adding that Mrksic told her on 19 November that everything would be all right, that Vukovar was his home town, and that the evacuation could be carried out better without the ICRC and monitors.
Bosanac said her request to talk to EMCC monitors was refused and she was returned to the hospital, where she saw "a large number of (JNA) soldiers, reservists and volunteers wearing cockades on their caps, who were entering the hospital, inquiring about some people and who started taking men to trucks and transferring them to a local company".
She said that this was the first time she saw Sljivancanin, who came to her office with two representatives of the ICRC, "Borsinger and a Swiss doctor".
"I had the impression that the ICRC representative was scared, I was disappointed because we did not expect that," Bosanac said, adding that she was shocked when Borsinger told her that they were leaving for Belgrade, but would return the following day.
"Borsinger told me that the ICRC could not organise the evacuation and that he had no influence whatsoever, and that the JNA would organise the evacuation," Bosanac said.
She said that Sljivancanin then insisted that she give him the list of people to be evacuated and all copies of the list. The list contained the names of some 400 wounded people and other hospital patients, including 180 people with serious injuries, she said.
Bosanac said that the following morning Sljivancanin called a meeting of the hospital staff to inform them that "the JNA had liberated Vukovar" and that the Vukovar Hospital was now within the jurisdiction of the School of Military Medicine from Belgrade.
Bosanac said that after the meeting she was taken to her office and forbidden to answer the phone. She was visited by her mother who was among civilians in the hospital and who told her that the soldiers wanted all people who could walk to leave the hospital. Bosanac said that this was when her father-in-law was taken away. He was later found among the victims at Ovcara.
"In the evening, a soldier came and said that there had been some changes, that the evacuation was completed and that we have to stay," said the witness, who was taken that night to a prison in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia.
Prosecutor Marks Moore, who visited Vukovar last week, introduced at the end of Bosanac's testimony a categorised list of victims from the Vukovar Hospital.
According to the indictment, in the early afternoon of 20 November, the JNA transferred by buses some 300 wounded persons and civilians from the hospital to a local barracks and then to the Ovcara farm. There they were beaten and in the evening hours taken in groups of 10-20 to a nearby ditch, where they were executed and buried.
Defence counsel today started cross-examining Bosanac, claiming that the Serbs in Vukovar and the city hospital were discriminated against and intimidated before the start of the conflict in 1991, that members of the local Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) were preparing for the war, that the local JNA barracks was blocked and that JNA soldiers were disappearing.
Responding to defence attorney Miroslav Vasic's claim that on 18 November, when the city fell into the Serbs' hands, some Croatian soldiers hid in the hospital, where they got rid of their weapons and changed into civilian clothing, Bosanac said this was not true and that one group of Croatian soldiers had surrendered on 17 November outside the town, while others attempted a breakthrough, during which many were captured and taken to camps in Serbia.
Attorney Vasic, who represents the first indictee Mile Mrksic, said that all three defence teams would challenge the authenticity of the agreement on the evacuation of the Vukovar Hospital, signed in Zagreb by the Croatian government, JNA General Andrija Raseta and the head of the ECMM.