ICTY: WITNESS TESTIFIES ABOUT OCCUPATION OF EAST BOSNIAN TOWN

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, June 5 (Hina)- At the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal (ICTY), witness B-24 ended testifying on Thursday, speaking about the occupation of the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik. #L# Witness B-24, a police commander and member of the Serb crisis committee in Zvornik, whose testimony was adjourned two weeks ago, said that Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan had ordered the attack on Zvornik even though local Serb forces had no intention to take that town where local Bosnian Muslims had accounted for 70 percent of population. He noted that around 20 of Arkan's men took part in the attack on April 8. Amongst them was Milorad Lukovic Legija who was taken captive by Bosnian forces but rescued by Serb territorial defence forces under cannon fire from Mali Zvornik in Serbia. The battle for the village of Kula Grad, above Zvornik, was waged by members of the 72nd parachute brigade of the Yugoslav Army, witness B-24 said. The witness confirmed that Muslims eligible for military service were taken prisoner in Zvornik and surrounding villages and were later murdered in a secondary school in Karakaj and the local cultural hall in Celopek. The indictment for genocide and war crimes in Bosnia charges Milosevic with ethnic cleansing of Zvornik and its surrounding region where more than one thousand Bosnian Muslims were killed and over 15,000 were expelled. During his cross-examination of witness B-24, Milosevic did not try to refute the charges but instead to shift the guilt of the local conflicts to "Muslim extremists from the Patriotic League". The arming of Bosnians and international recognition of Bosnia- Herzegovina, according to the indictee, caused concern amongst the Serbs in Zvornik and compelled them to organise their own defence and to call for assistance from Serbia and from Arkan too. The trial against Milosevic will adjourn until next week (hina) sp ms sb