THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - A former war correspondent for the British TV company Sky News from Croatia and Bosnia, Dutchman Aernhout van Lynden, on Monday began his testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic before the Hague war crimes tribunal.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - A former war correspondent for
the British TV company Sky News from Croatia and Bosnia, Dutchman
Aernhout van Lynden, on Monday began his testimony in the trial of
former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague war
crimes tribunal. #L#
Van Lynden reported from Croatia in 1991 and occasionally about the
Serb siege of Sarajevo in 1992-4, which is the subject of his
testimony. The prosecution entered the transcript of a testimony he
gave last year in the trial of Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) general
Stanislav Galic, who was accused of the siege of Sarajevo.
A summary of that testimony was read in court today.
The witness described that when the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA)
withdrew from the Marsal Tito barracks in June 1992, Sarajevo was
exposed to random shelling from Serb positions in the surrounding
hills. One thousand missiles would fall on the city per night with
the aim to intimidate the civilian population.
The witness said that wounded civilians were continually brought to
a former military hospital downtown from whose top storeys
journalists filmed the shelling. Two nearby skyscrapers were
completely razed to the ground although they were not military
targets.
The witness also described an incendiary bullet attack on a
skyscraper with hundreds of civilians inside, and that he himself
was once in the middle of mortar fire.
In July 1992 he saw sniper shots fired at three civilians, of whom
two died.
That September, with permission from VRS commander Ratko Mladic, he
spent 10 days touring Serb positions around Sarajevo, where he saw
everyone wearing JNA uniforms and insignia, which were later
replaced with VRS ones. The witness said he was then showed sniper
nests in skyscrapers in the Serb-controlled part of the Grbavica
neighbourhood.
Deployment in elevated locations and numerous artillery enabled
Serbs to shoot at any target in the Bosnian capital, said the
witness.
He added that in February 1994, when he toured Serb paramilitary
troops deployed near the Jewish cemetery, he was told they answered
to the VRS General Staff.
Van Lynden said Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina troops in Sarajevo
were small in number and their equipment was much poorer than that
of the Serbs.
The defendant Milosevic will cross-examine the witness on
Tuesday.
(hina) ha