THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 15 (Hina) - Milan Milanovic, the chief Serbian negotiator in talks that resulted in the signing of the Erdut peace agreement, completed his testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic
before the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Wednesday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 15 (Hina) - Milan Milanovic, the chief
Serbian negotiator in talks that resulted in the signing of the
Erdut peace agreement, completed his testimony in the trial of
former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war
crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on
Wednesday. #L#
The testimony of Milanovic as an insider witness was of
considerable assistance to the prosecution in their efforts to
prove Milosevic's responsibility for war crimes committed in the
Eastern Slavonia region of Croatia in the early 1990s.
During the cross-examination, Milosevic claimed that Milanovic was
testifying against him because he himself was a suspect. The
witness rejected the allegation, saying that he had not held any
important political position at the time of the fighting in the area
in late 1991.
Responding to questions put by amicus curiae Steven Kay, Milanovic
described how rebel Serb authorities had exploited oil in Eastern
Slavonia from 1992 to 1996. A daily production of about 250 tons of
oil alleviated the shortages in Serbia caused by the UN embargo, he
said.
The witness said that the earnings from the sale of oil ended up in
Serbia because the oil company run by Serb rebels in Croatia charged
30 pfennings per litre, while in Serbia oil was sold at prices
exceeding four Deutschmarks.
During an additional examination by prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-
Retzlaff, the witness said that Croatian Serb rebel leader Milan
Martic, under pressure from Milosevic, had not signed the Z-4 peace
plan, which the witness described as "the biggest mistake for the
Serb people in the Krajina (rebel-held territory)."
The prosecution presented two protected witnesses who spoke about
war crimes committed by Serbs in northern Bosnia.
Witness B-1115 described how the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and
Serb forces took Doboj on May 7, 1992, and attacked his
predominantly Muslim village, Gornja Grapska, a few days later. He
said that 34 villagers had been killed in the shelling.
B-1115 also described his time in Serb-run detention camps and
prisons, where he spent 17 months. Along with all other men from his
village, he was taken to the Bare camp and then to the Spreca prison
in Doboj where Muslim and Croat inmates were beaten, maltreated and
taken for executions at night. He said that about 5,000 prisoners
had passed through the Spreca prison by February 1993.
Witness B-1445, one of the founders of the Muslim-led Democratic
Action Party (SDA) in Doboj and member of the Bosnian Serb assembly
since 2000, described the political situation that preceded the
Serb takeover of Doboj and the roles of the Serb Democratic Party
and the JNA.
(hina) vm