THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 3 (Hina) - The prosecution in the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague-based U.N. tribunal on Thursday called three witnesses who described the suffering of Croats in the
Lika and eastern Slavonia regions.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 3 (Hina) - The prosecution in the war crimes
trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague-
based U.N. tribunal on Thursday called three witnesses who
described the suffering of Croats in the Lika and eastern Slavonia
regions. #L#
The first witness, police officer Vlado Vukovic, described an
August 1991 attack by Serb troops on Saborsko, in the central
Croatian region of Lika.
The former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Croatian Serb rebel
units started shelling Saborsko from the direction of Licka
Jasenica without any motive on August 5, said the witness.
He described being arrested by members of Milan Martic's police
that September and later being maltreated while in detention in
Plaski and Korenica. After that, JNA troops transferred him to
Bosnia-Herzegovina, first to Bihac, where he was also maltreated,
and then to the Manjaca camp near Banja Luka.
Vukovic returned to Croatia as part of an exchange of prisoners with
the JNA.
He said the remains of 20-30 locals were exhumed from two mass
graves in Saborsko in August 1995, of which a dozen belonging to
elderly people.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic said the JNA had attacked
Saborsko in bids to secure its ammunition and fuel storehouses from
attacks by Croats, which the witness denied.
Protected witness C-1230 of Poljanak described how 12 years ago,
when he was 16, Serb troops killed his father. On 7 November 1991, in
the hamlet of Vukovici, these troops shot dead six men and two women
whom they had forced out of a house they had been hiding in, said the
witness. He added that two Serb soldiers had prevented a third one
from killing him.
After that, these troops went to Poljanak where they killed more
civilians and expelled the rest, said C-1230.
In his cross-examination, Milosevic tried to contest the
credibility of the witness by pointing out the witness had first
described the Serb troops as local residents who had surrounded the
house mentioned above, and that in three different statements given
to Croatian authorities he had multiplied their number from a dozen
to 100, only to identify them in a fourth statement to Hague
prosecutors as special police from Nis, Serbia.
Witness C-1126, a woman from eastern Slavonia, described how Croats
were treated after the onset of Serb occupation.
During the testimony her identity was fully protected. The name of
the place in which Croat residents, including herself and her
husband, were taken to interviews, forced labour, and maltreated,
was also kept secret. She said that Croats from the village had been
forced to wear white bands around their arms and to put white signs
on fences around their houses.
The next witness for the prosecution will be Djelo Jusic who is to
speak about the destruction of Dubrovnik's festival building.
The Milosevic trial resumes next week.
(hina) ha