THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 11 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague resumed on Friday with the testimony of witness C-1171, a soldier who dodged execution at the
Ovcara farm outside Vukovar by escaping from a truck carrying prisoners to the farm.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 11 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in
The Hague resumed on Friday with the testimony of witness C-1171, a
soldier who dodged execution at the Ovcara farm outside Vukovar by
escaping from a truck carrying prisoners to the farm. #L#
Witness C-1171 has already testified in The Hague at the trial of
Slavko Dokmanovic, the mayor of Vukovar at the time of the Serb
occupation of the town, and the transcript of his statement has been
introduced as evidence against Milosevic.
Answering questions by the prosecution, the witness described his
tribulations after the fall of Vukovar on 19 November 1991.
This former member of the National Guard Corps (ZNG) was among more
than 200 prisoners taken by bus from the Vukovar hospital to a
Yugoslav People's Army barracks and later to the Ovcara farm.
"Once we arrived there, we had to give over all our valuables, after
which we were taken to a hangar through a gauntlet of men wearing
different uniforms, who beat us with iron bars, shovels and
anything they could get hold of," the witness said.
The torture and beating continued in the hangar, where 200-300
people were detained, with a group of 10-20 people going from one
group of prisoners to another, interrogating and beating them. One
of the detainees died as a result of the torture.
The prisoners were registered in the hangar by a JNA soldier, he
added.
During the night, the prisoners were told that they would be
transferred to another hangar, after which they were lined up and
taken outside in groups of 10-15. The witness, who was in the fourth
or fifth group of prisoners who were taken outside, was told to get
onto a military truck covered by a tarpaulin, with a driver and an
armed soldier inside.
As the truck was moving through a field at a speed of less than 20
kmph, the witness jumped out and ran away in the direction of
Vukovar. As he was running, he heard bursts of fire behind him.
The witness was later arrested again, handed over to the military
police and taken to Stari Jankovci, where he was severely beaten.
His suffering continued in Serb prisons in Sid, Sremska Mitrovica
and Belgrade, from where he was exchanged in August 1991.
During the cross-examination, Milosevic tried to compromise the
witness by accusing him of blowing up the businesses and homes of
Vukovar Serbs as a member of the ZNG's commando unit.
The witness dismissed the allegations, and the judge cut Milosevic
short.
Following his defence strategy to shift responsibility for crimes
onto paramilitary units, Milosevic requested the witness to
confirm that Ovcara was not under JNA control, which the witness
dismissed.
"The JNA, Territorial Defence and paramilitary units cooperated,
supported each other and acted together," he said.
Before this witness, Milosevic completed the cross-examination of
protected witness B-1120 who spoke about the attack of the JNA and
Serb paramilitary units on Foca in April 1992 and the ethnic
cleansing of Bosnian Muslim areas.
(hina) rml sb