HUNGARIAN GENERAL TESTIFIES IN MILOSEVIC TRIAL

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Jan 28(Hina) - General Ferenz Veg, former chief of staff of the Hungarian armed forces, testified as a prosecution witness in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday.#L# Veg had prepared a report on relations between the Yugoslav army and the rebel Serb forces during wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He gave his testimony from Budapest via a video link. The Hungarian general said that the Yugoslav army and the armed forces of Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb entity) and the self-styled Republic of Serb Krajina in Croatia had had a common goal and had closely cooperated in carrying out their tasks, but had separate command structures. Those were separate armed forces that had very close logistic cooperation, he said. The witness pointed to strong links between the Yugoslav army and the Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in terms of personnel, saying that throughout the war officers had received their pay, pensions or promotions from Belgrade. During the cross-examination conducted by Milosevic, the Hungarian general said he had compiled the report on the basis of documents provided by the Office of the Prosecutor and on the assumption that charges against the accused were accurate. Milosevic said this meant that the witness corroborated the allegations of the indictment on the basis of the allegations by the prosecution, stressing that this was in contravention of the presumption of innocence as a fundamental legal principle. Milosevic described the links between the Yugoslav army and the Serb forces across the Drina river as "assistance to the endangered Serbs". He also said that the officers who had been transferred from Serbia to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were volunteers originally from those republics. (Hina) vm sb