Retired General Mile Mrksic, who in 1991 commanded all JNA troops engaged in the attack on Vukovar, and his subordinate officers Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic are charged with the 20 November 1991 massacre at Ovcara, near Vukovar in eastern Croatia, in which at least 264 wounded people and civilians from Vukovar's hospital were killed.
"Mrksic and Sljivancanin ordered that those people from the hospital be killed. Mrksic and Radic selected reliable officers who secured the location, while the executions were carried out by members of the Territorial Defence and paramilitary units," said the witness, quoting a JNA officer as saying during a meeting in Belgrade in November 1992.
The witness, whose voice and image were distorted, said he met the officer in Vukovar on 19 November 1991 when he worked as a photographer for a Serbian newspaper.
The witness said that during the 1992 meeting the officer complained that "when decorations were being awarded for Vukovar, Mrksic and Sljivancanin took all the glory, while he fared poorly". He added the officer told him that "prisoners were executed at some desolate stretch of country" and described how treasure was stolen from Eltz castle.
Asked by the prosecutor if he knew the officer's name, the witness said he only remembered that he was neither Serb nor Montenegrin.
The witness also described standing at the entrance to the Vukovar hospital on November 19, 1991 and seeing "JNA soldiers taking out 15 to 20 Croatian prisoners on war on stretchers".
"I was shocked to see that the wounded were shaved, with combed hair, in clean light blue pajamas. They looked so neat as though Vukovar was not at war. They were all young, pretty guys old between 20 and 30."
The witness said that Radic, standing at the entrance, asked him if he knew "how many of our people they killed" and explained that "they are dead men". The witness added that at the time he did not know what that meant.
He also said that as he was leaving the hospital he met a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross whom Sljivancanin prevented from entering.
The witness also described seeing a group of 200-300 people on a plateau in front of the hospital on November 20, learning later that they were taken to the Ovcara farm.
He also recalled visiting a ravaged Borovo Naselje on November 19 and seeing the bodies of whole families, including women and children, in yards along the main street.
The protected witness will be interrogated by the defence tomorrow.