In front of the Vukovar hospital, where Cakalic said he saw Veselin Sljivancanin, there were five buses which took prisoners to Ovcara. Later on, another bus came to pick up the last group of prisoners, which numbered between 50 and 60 people. The fate of those people is not known, said Cakalic, a retired Croatian Army officer.
Once the buses arrived at Ovcara, a Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) captain took the prisoners' money and personal belongings.
The witness, a utility services inspector in Vukovar, said the prisoners were then forced to run the gauntlet and were beaten by people who gathered there, including the war-time mayor of Vukovar, Slavko Dokmanovic, who recognised him. After that, Milos Bulic aka Bulidza, a butcher from the Vukovar hospital, beat him with a metal bar. Once in the hangar, the witness saw Bulidza and another man called Kemo kill two prisoners, of whom one was Damjan Samardzic. The attempt by a "Chetnik wearing full Chetnik insignia, with a knife at his belt" to start killing the prisoners was thwarted by the arrival of a JNA major and two lieutenant-colonels, the witness said, adding he later learned that this was Major Mile Mrksic.
The witness said that he was approached by Stevan Zoric aka Celo who helped him get out of the hangar. Each of the five or six people from his group was saved by someone, the witness said.
After he left the hangar and before he was taken to the "Matadeks" company facilities and later to the "Velepromet" company facilities, the witness saw a group of people beating the prisoners.
"There was a captain from the Counter-Intelligence Service (KOS), who told us he had come to save us and that we should get onto the bus. The bus would not start so we had to push it and just as we were leaving, we saw drunken people arrive, singing 'There will be meat, we will slaughter the Croats'," said the witness, who had spent 88 days in a prison camp in Sremska Mitrovica.
Witness Dragutin Berghofer, who was taken to Ovcara from the hospital, was helpedby Goran Ivankovic to get out of the hangar. Berghofer, too, testified about the torture of prisoners, naming Milos Bulic as the person who had tortured them the most. He recognised the accused during the trial, although the accused has a different first name, Milan. Berghofer will continue his testimony on Tuesday.
Another witness from Vukovar, Hajdar Dodaj, who was saved in the same group of prisoners, will testify in the continuation of the trial. After today's hearing, the witnesses were received at the Croatian Embassy in Belgrade under police escort.
The attorney for the families of the Ovcara victims, Dragoljub Todorovic from Belgrade, said he was satisfied with the course of the trial.
"The witnesses who were questioned so far have confirmed all the evidence introduced, and it is becoming irrefutably clear that civilians were taken from the Vukovar hospital to Ovcara, that they were searched there and that more valuable belongings of theirs were taken from them, that they were forced to run the gauntlet and were tortured and beaten in the hangar, and were taken by tractor to the execution site and killed. Most of these allegations have been confirmed with the evidence introduced so far. Those are the key facts that have been established," Todorovic told reporters after the hearing.