MILOSEVIC TRIAL - WITNESS SPEAKS ABOUT CIVILIAN VICTIMS IN E. CROATIA

ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Jan 10 (Hina) - Protected witness C-1204 described attacks by the ex-Yugoslav army (JNA) on Lovas, a village in easternmost Croatia, at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Friday. #L# A Croat resident of the village near Vukovar, the witness spoke about the fall of Lovas on 10 October 1991, when 20 residents of the predominantly Croat village, with a population of 1,800, were killed. The village was first shelled and later occupied by JNA soldiers, reservists and paramilitary troops, among whom were Lovas' Serb residents, said the witness. C-1204 saw they bore insignia of several Serbian paramilitary groups. The witness and some 70 other residents were later detained in a camp in the centre of Lovas. He also described an event which occurred in December 1991, when members of a Serbian paramilitary group forced about 50 camp inmates to walk across a clover field planted with mines outside Lovas. Several villagers were gravely injured or killed on that occasion. Those who survived had to collect their bodies and bury them in a joint grave at the local cemetery. C-1204 saw these events from close proximity. Milosevic accused the witness of making things up, saying the JNA only intervened to disarm paramilitary troops of the local Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party branch. Milosevic said Tomislav Mercep was the main organiser of the armament of the HDZ troops, and that the weapons were coming from Hungary. C-1204's testimony was preceded by that of Robert Hausvicka, a former Croatian special police officer from Mokosica near Dubrovnik who accused the JNA of attacking and killing civilians in southern Croatia's Dubrovnik area. The trial resumes on Monday. (hina) ha