Seventeen persons are accused of involvement in the killing of at least 192 Croatian prisoners of war.
Drago Vukosavljevic and Milorad Vojinovic, two witnesses who were heard today, said that their superior, former Yugoslav army (JNA) Colonel Mile Mrksic, had been warned that members of the Territorial Defence (TO) at Ovcara were mistreating the prisoners who had been brought from the Vukovar hospital and that they might be killed.
Vukosavljevic said that Mrksic, the JNA commander for the Vukovar area at that time, had dismissed them with a wave of the hand, saying that he had "more urgent business to attend to". In November 1991, Captain First Class Vukosavljevic was chief of security of the JNA's 80th motorised brigade from Kragujevac, Serbia.
Vukosavljevic said that on the day in question, his superior Vojinovic, then commander of the 80th brigade, ordered him to go to Ovcara because the situation there was "quite delicate".
Having arrived there, the witness saw two groups of prisoners, some 15 soldiers, and three times as many TO members. He said the latter were telling the military police that "the prisoners belonged to them and not the JNA".
Having realised that there were not enough soldiers to protect the prisoners, the witness returned to headquarters in Negoslavci, where he said Vojinovic, Mrksic, and Major Veselin Sljivancanin were in a meeting. He said a guard would not let him in, and that only a couple of hours later was he able to inform Mrksic and Vojinovic of what was going on at Ovcara.
"A decision was then made to withdraw the army from Ovcara," the witness said, not answering the question who had given the order to that effect. He added he had then gone back to Ovcara, where the TO had already "pushed back the military police," and that they had all returned back to Negoslavci, having left the prisoners to the TO.
"Ovcara was a topic of discussion while I was in Vukovar, until mid-January 1992. I relayed everything I heard to my superiors, first the Guard Brigade, and later the JNA's Counterintelligence Service in Sid, where Colonel Petkovic told me to concern myself with the units and not with (Ovcara)," said Vukosavljevic.
Vojinovic gave a similar statement. He was driving by Ovcara and "saw two or three buses in front of the hangar and people coming out of them".
He said he saw the prisoners passing through two lines of "some people, who I had seen for the first time and who, to put it mildly, were behaving very unfairly". He added he then entered the hangar and tried to prevent those people from beating the prisoners, but to no avail.
Vojinovic said that when it appeared that the military police had physically separated the TO members and the prisoners, he went to Negoslavci where, together with Vukosavljevic, he informed Mrksic of what was happening at Ovcara.
"I asked who the prisoners and the armed people at Ovcara were and why I hadn't been notified in advance. Mrksic told me, 'Don't talk to me about that'. I was surprised because I saw that he knew what was happening at Ovcara".
Vojinovic said that the next day, November 21, he heard what had happened the night before from Negoslavci's residents.
The witness said that he had seen first indictee Miroljub Vujovic, then TO commander, and his deputy Stanko Vujanovic, among the 20-30 TO members at the hangar.
The trial resumes tomorrow.