THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 2 (Hina) - Sulejman Tihic, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, testified against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) on Tuesday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 2 (Hina) - Sulejman Tihic, a member of the
Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, testified against former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday. #L#
Tihic said there would have been no war in Bosnia if Serbia and the
former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) had not carried out
aggression.
"If there had been no aggression, no interference of other
countries and the JNA, there would have been no war in Bosnia," said
Tihic, who is also the president of the Bosniak Party of Democratic
Action (SDA).
Tihic testified about the 1992 attack of Serb paramilitary forces
and the JNA on Bosanski Samac where he was located, and about his
imprisonment in Serb concentration camps in Bosnia and prisons in
Serbia.
Asked by the prosecutor to comment on relations between the JNA and
paramilitary units, the witness said "members of special forces
were masters of war, masters of life and death, whom everybody
feared, including territorial defence units and the JNA".
He said it was wrong to call them paramilitary units since they were
special units from Serbia with logistical support from the Serbian
Interior Ministry and the JNA.
The witness said local Serbs sometimes helped non-Serb prisoners.
Tihic had already testified before the ICTY about crimes in
Bosanski Samac. The ICTY prosecution introduced the transcript of
his testimony as evidence against Milosevic.
The witness described his days in Serb-run detention centres in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, stressing that he lost his front
teeth and suffered broken ribs as a result of severe beating. Tihic
also suffered kidney injuries.
Cross-examining the witness, the defendant used his usual method of
reverse thesis, saying that the war in Bosnia was the result of the
arming of Croats and Bosniaks in Bosanska Posavina. Milosevic
presented data about arms shipments from Croatia.
The defendant tried to assure the witness that there were no
"special forces from Serbia" in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that "he
most definitely was not beaten up by JNA soldiers".
Tihic calmly refuted Milosevic's claims by talking about his own
experience and describing how JNA solders had beaten up Croat
prisoners in the Srijemska Mitrovica camp with knuckle dusters,
forcing one male prisoner to have sexual intercourse with another
male prisoner from the United States.
Tihic ended his testimony against Milosevic on Tuesday. Milosevic
is standing trial for genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes
against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo.
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