Marcek, who was in the vicinity of the site of the massacre at Ovcara between 18 and 22 November 1991, stated explicitly that the JNA had handed prisoners from the Vukovar general hospital over to members of the Territorial Defence (TO).
Marcek, at the time a captain first class and only professional soldier in his platoon, said that the prisoners had been transported to Ovcara three nights in a row. On the first night, between November 18 and 19, members of the National Guard Corps' (ZNG) Mitnica Brigade, who had surrendered and handed over their weapons, were at the hangar at Ovcara. On the morning of November 19, they were taken from Ovcara to Sremska Mitrovica. In the evening of the same day, five or six buses carrying women, children and elderly people arrived at Ovcara. They spent the night in the buses and on the next morning left for Serbia and Croatia. On the third day, November 20, prisoners from the Vukovar hospital were brought to Ovcara, the witness said.
"Around 2 pm I learned that the prisoners had arrived at Ovcara. What I saw was this: buses parked one behind another, with two police officers from the Guard Brigade in each bus. The prisoners came out of the buses running, they were forced to run the gauntlet, with TO members and volunteers standing on each side. They took the prisoners' personal belongings, beat them, shouted insults and accused them of crimes against the Serb population," the witness said, adding that several senior officers of the Guard Brigade were present and that a lieutenant colonel from the 80th motorised brigade, Milorad Vojinovic, tried to protect some of the prisoners with his body.
Later in the evening, Marcek's soldiers, who were at the hangar securing the prisoners, told him that the JNA had withdrawn and handed over security to the TO, which he said was later confirmed by Vojinovic.
"I then told him that those people might be killed... thank God, nobody from my unit was there on that night and nobody asked us to do anything," Marcek said, adding that he had heard single shots and barrage fire that night. He learned of the crime early next morning, but from that moment "a conspiracy of silence started, nobody said anything about that any more, nor could any answers be obtained".
"This is not a catharsis, but it is a kind of relief for us people who were in Vukovar at the time. We wish we had never been there," said a visibly shaken Marcek, who at the beginning of his testimony said that in 1992 he had been diagnosed with PTSD and that he had never fully recovered from it.
Marcek and witness Borco Karanfilov, who in 1991 was a JNA Guard Brigade captain and was at Ovcara on the first day, recognised the second indictee, TO deputy commander Stanko Vujanovic.
The trial will resume on Wednesday with the testimonies of other JNA officers.