CROAT WHO SPENT WAR WITH ARKAN TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - Protected witness B-71 on Wednesday took the witness stand in the trial against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and described his unusual war path from a village guard in a Bosnian Croat village near Jajce in 1992, to a POW in the Manjaca concentration camp and Serbian warlord Arkan's "Tigers" troops in Erdut and a worker in Arkan's bakery in Belgrade, where he stayed until 1997. #L# The witness confirmed seeing Arkan shooting a prisoner in the head in the village of Perici. He also indirectly testified about the killing of women and children in Vukovar about which he was told by "intoxicated members of the Tigers". He said he had carried food and ammunition to Arkan's troops, but had not fought together with them, which was what Milosevic suggested during his cross-examination. The central issue of the testimony was a mass grave in a well near Erdut, which he helped "fill up and mask" while he was in Arkan's troops in 1995, and which he helped discover and unearth in cooperation with Croatian investigators in 1998. The witness spoke about his work on felling oak trees in occupied parts of Slavonia. Trunks and stolen goods were transferred to Serbia from where weapons for Arkan and other paramilitary troops were delivered, he said. During his cross-examination, Milosevic claimed the witness had "voluntarily joined Arkan's troops and his testimony is completely inconsistent". The witness refuted the claims, stressing he was a prisoner and had not escaped because he had not had any personal documents. (hina) lml sb