TESTIMONIES ABOUT CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN BOSNIA AT MILOSEVIC TRIAL

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 10 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes trial continued on Monday with testimonies about concentration camps in Bosnia through which tens of thousands of people passed, with detailed accounts of the killing and abuse of prisoners. #L# The secretary-general of the Alliance of Concentration Camp Prisoners in Bosnia, Malika Malesevic, testified before the trial chamber based on a summary of her written testament. The alliance's documents were entered as evidence in the proceedings. The Croatian part of the trial is underway in the Milosevic proceedings. The Bosnian witness was allowed to testify in this section of the trial at the request of the prosecutor. During the war in Bosnia, 651 concentration camps were registered to exist in the country, of which 520 were under Serb control. More than 100,000 people were imprisoned in these camps, said Malesevic. She stressed that more than 200,000 people had gone missing or had been killed during that time, while data on all victims was still being established. The witness described the beastly abuse of prisoners in some of the camps. She said that the prisoners' files had revealed 63 forms of torture and murder in the Serb camps. Examples were "beheading a killed prisoner, roasting prisoners, tearing off their genitals, releasing animals on prisoners, putting salt on their wounds, severing arms and legs with chainsaws", and others. Along with mass rapes of women, also registered were numerous cases of sexual abuse of men and children, she said, citing an example of a crime in Celopek near Zvornik (eastern Bosnia), where eight selected prisoners, fathers and sons, were forced to have sexual intercourse with each other. During his cross-examination, Milosevic attempted to contest the credibility of the witness and her testimony. (hina) lml sb