THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 22 (Hina) - The trial of former Serbian and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague continued on Thursday with the testimony of a protected witness, B-161, who is
believed to have been an official of the former Yugoslav ministry, i.e. an insider witness.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 22 (Hina) - The trial of former Serbian and
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes
tribunal at The Hague continued on Thursday with the testimony of a
protected witness, B-161, who is believed to have been an official
of the former Yugoslav ministry, i.e. an insider witness. #L#
The witness spoke about the assistance which the Yugoslav interior
ministry and army gave to Bosnian Serb forces and about crimes
committed by Serbs in eastern Bosnia from 1992 to 1995.
The witness confirmed that the said ministry had helped the Bosnian
Serb leadership and troops all the time during the war and that the
help had been co-ordinated by Petar Mihajlovic, the head of the
ministry's department for borders and foreign nationals.
B-161 said he had notified the then Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister,
Nikola Sainovic, of the atrocities committed by Serbs against
Bosniak (Muslim) civilians in the eastern town of Zvornik in April
1992. He also believes that Milosevic must have known of the
crimes.
Describing how he often travelled through eastern Bosnia in spring
and summer 1992, the witness spoke about the deployment of
paramilitary troops commanded by Zeljko Raznatovic aka Arkan and
other paramilitary groups from Serbia in the area of Bijeljina and
Zvornik.
He said that local Serb leaders in Zvornik had paid 400,000 German
marks to Arkan, to order his troops, known as Tigers, to overrun the
town.
The witness testified about the execution of 740 Bosniaks detained
after the fall of Zvornik in a school on the outskirts of Karakaj,
who were killed by paramilitaries known as Yellow Wasps. This is one
of the massacres with which Milosevic is charged in the
indictment.
The witness also spoke about events in Zvornik and its surroundings
after the July 1995 fall of Srebrenica, the last Muslim-populated
enclave in eastern Bosnia.
He said that a lieutenant of the Bosnian Serb army, Dragan Nikolic,
had told him that a high-ranking commander of the Serb forces,
Colonel Ljubisa Beara, had issued an order that 6,900 Srebrenica
men and boys should be killed in five days' time.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) has accused Nikolic and Beara of genocide and they are on the
run.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic reiterated his theory about
the conflict in eastern Bosnia, accusing the Muslim (Bosniak) side
of the clashes. He also spoke about the legitimate act of offering
help to endangered Serbs outside Serbia.
He tried to convince the witness and others in the courtroom that
the Bosnian Serb leadership, at whose helm was Radovan Karadzic,
"tried to avoid the war at every cost and that General Ratko Mladic
proscribed unfair treatment of civilians and prisoners of war".
B-161 will wrap up his testimony on Friday, after which an expert on
constitutional law, Slovene professor Ivan Kristan, will take the
witness stand.
(hina) ms sb