THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 17 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Monday continued cross-examining retired General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, a former head of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) counter-intelligence service.
Milosevic questioned the witness for the prosecution about Ovcara, Dubrovnik, Kosovo and Bosnia.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 17 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic on Monday continued cross-examining retired
General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, a former head of the Yugoslav
People's Army (JNA) counter-intelligence service. Milosevic
questioned the witness for the prosecution about Ovcara,
Dubrovnik, Kosovo and Bosnia. #L#
Vasiljevic is one of 15 participants in a criminal enterprise under
the indictment the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague issued
against Milosevic for crimes committed in Croatia. As one of the
most knowledgeable witnesses for the prosecution, he explained how
Milosevic had, through the Serbian interior ministry and the State
Security Service and by exerting influence on top officials in the
army, co-ordinated preparations and implemented the aggression on
Croatia.
Seen as he had no success in countering Vasiljevic's testimony,
Milosevic tried to use the witness to confirm intelligence data
which were to clear him of responsibility for some allegations in
the indictment for Croatia and Bosnia and the indictment for
Kosovo.
Milosevic wished confirmation for the thesis that the JNA bore no
responsibility for the crime on Ovcara farm. Vasiljevic replied
"the prisoners were controlled by the JNA, concretely, the 80th
motorised brigade from Kragujevac".
He wanted to receive confirmation that the JNA had attacked
Dubrovnik in self-defence. Vasiljevic, however, said the attack on
Dubrovnik was a military tactic because troops of the former
Croatian National Guard Corps (ZNG) had been "off the side and back
to JNA forces which broke through onto the west bank of the Neretva
River in September 1991".
Vasiljevic countered Milosevic's claims that he had had no
influence on top JNA officials by mentioning his role in the
dismissal of generals in 1992.
Asked whether he had ever heard of "Greater Serbia" or "some
Karlobag, Karlovac and Virovitica" as a top official in the JNA,
Vasiljevic said no, but he had heard of them at rallies as a
citizen.
During a large part of the cross-examination Milosevic tried to
counter the witness's allegations that he had directly
orchestrated Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbian interior ministry
operations in Kosovo in the spring of 1999, which makes Milosevic
the most responsible for the mass exile and killing of Albanians.
Vasiljevic, who was called back to duty during NATO strikes on
Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, confirmed that Milosevic had lead
operations in Kosovo via Nikola Sainovic, the then federal vice-
premier, and the Serbian interior ministry. He said the defendant
had also ordered the processing of the gravest crimes in Kosovo.
With the consent of presiding judge Richard May, Milosevic asked
the former counter-intelligence head about events preceding the
conflict in Bosnia, although he had not testified about it
previously.
Milosevic insisted on the alleged armament of paramilitary troops
of the Party of Democratic Action and their attacks on Serbs and the
JNA thus revealing that his defence would rest on the thesis that
Serbs had waged a defence war because they had been threatened.
Milosevic will conclude the cross-examination tomorrow, after
which amici curiae will examine the witness.
The next witness for the prosecution, unofficial sources say, is
Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as "Captain Dragan", who had led the
training of Serb paramilitary troops in early 1991 in Golubic near
Knin and other locations, under the orders of the Serbian State
Security Service.
(hina) lml