THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 29 (Hina) - The prosecution in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday called to the witness stand Jasna Denona, who spoke about war
crimes in the village of Bruska near Skabrnja in the Zadar hinterland. Another two protected witnesses from Bosnia-Herzegovina testified today.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 29 (Hina) - The prosecution in the trial of
former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the UN war crimes
tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday called to the witness stand Jasna
Denona, who spoke about war crimes in the village of Bruska near
Skabrnja in the Zadar hinterland. Another two protected witnesses
from Bosnia-Herzegovina testified today. #L#
The 27-year-old Jasna Denona described how on 21 December 1991
members of former Croatian Serb leader Milan "Martic's militia"
broke into the house of her parents in Bruska and opened machine-gun
fire on its occupants while they were trying to escape.
Fifteen at the time, Denona was shot in the hip and one arm. The
following day, she saw the dead bodies of four villagers and heard
reports about five more having been killed, including one Serb.
The killing of 10 civilians in Bruska is named among individual
crimes in the part of the indictment against Milosevic referring to
war crimes in Croatia.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic said that the crime in
Bruska had been committed by a deranged person, but the witness
replied that she did not think so. Answering Milosevic's claims
that there was a conflict going on between the Yugoslav People's
Army (JNA) and Croatian forces at the time, the witness said she
knew nothing about it and that she was a child at the time.
After they took the neighbouring village of Skabrnja on November
18, 1991, JNA troops went from house to house, killing at least 38
civilians. Between November 18 and February 1992, JNA forces killed
the remaining 26 elderly and feeble villagers.
Witness B-1780 from Bosnia-Herzegovina described the inhuman
torture that Muslims imprisoned at a farm near the eastern town of
Zvornik were subjected to after Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan's units and
other paramilitary forces from Serbia took the town in May 1992.
He said that during the four days of his imprisonment at the farm,
Arkan's and Serbian political leader Vojislav Seselj's men, as well
as members of the "Yellow Wasps" and "White Eagles" paramilitary
units, beat and tortured the prisoners on a daily basis, killing a
dozen of them.
The witness said that on May 12 he was taken to a room for an
interrogation, during which he was beaten with wooden boards, bats
and plumbing pipes. He said that there were some 20 prisoners in the
room who had been tortured. The witness then described how the
guards forced the men to run and then shot at their backs, killing at
least seven people.
The witness also said that he had personally seen a group of Arkan's
men impale a prisoner and cut a 20-year-old's ear off and force him
to eat it.
B-1780 also described other atrocities committed at the farm.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic said the events were
"incredible" and objected to the prosecutor's saying the crimes had
been committed by Serbs, instead of by Serb paramilitary units and
individuals.
(hina) rml