THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 4 (Hina) - Doctor Vesna Bosanac, the head of the Vukovar General Hospital, who also held this post during the Serb occupation of the town in 1991, on Tuesday took the witness stand in the trial against former
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 4 (Hina) - Doctor Vesna Bosanac, the head of
the Vukovar General Hospital, who also held this post during the
Serb occupation of the town in 1991, on Tuesday took the witness
stand in the trial against former Yugoslav president Slobodan
Milosevic before the Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal. #L#
The Croatian section of the trial against Milosevic is currently
being held before a trial chamber presided by Judge Richard May.
Bosanac already testified about events in the hospital during the
occupation and fall of Vukovar, which includes the period from
October through November 1991, in the trial against former Vukovar
mayor Slavko Dokmanovic in 1998.
Her testimony from the 1998 trial has been introduced as evidence in
the Milosevic trial.
Today, only a summary of her testimony was read. Bosanac verified
it.
The summary includes information about the ethnic composition of
Vukovar's population, 15,000 people who were blocked on August 25,
1991, the daily shelling of the hospital, and air strikes by the
then Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) without any regard to displayed
Red Cross signs, shells weighing 450 kg launched at the undefended
hospital, and the killing of hundreds of wounded persons, patients
and medical staff during the siege.
Dr. Bosanac spoke about the appeals and protest letters she sent
daily to commanders of the JNA, the European Community's Monitoring
Mission, the International Red Cross and representatives of the
international community about attacks on the hospital.
Maps, photographs and video footage of the hospital, Vukovar and
the location of mass killings on Ovcara near Vukovar were entered as
evidence.
The doctor testified about the last days before Vukovar's fall,
negotiations about evacuating the hospital which ended in JNA's
deceit, the abduction of Croat civilians from the hospital and
their mass liquidation on Ovcara.
She spoke about the murder of two members of her family on Ovcara, as
well as the suffering she and her husband, along with hundreds of
Vukovar residents, had gone through in Serbian prisons.
The whereabouts of more than 400 Vukovar residents are still
unknown, Bosanac said. She added that so far, 40 mass graves had
been located.
During cross-examination, Milosevic attempted to contest the
credibility of Dr. Bosanac's testimony by citing excerpts from
investigations conducted in Serb prisons.
His cross-examination focused on proving that a large number of
armed Croatian soldiers had been sheltered in Vukovar Hospital,
whose roof he said had been used for sniper and missile attacks on
Serb aircraft and ground troops.
Bosanac refuted all of Milosevic's claims describing them as
tendentious and incorrect. She stressed that only medical staff and
wounded and other patients had been in the hospital from which no
military action had ever taken place.
Bosanac's testimony should end tomorrow. It will begin with
Milosevic's cross-examination, for which he has been granted two
hours.
(hina) lml sb