TIBOR LOVRENCIC COMPLETES HIS TESTIMONY IN SAKIC TRIAL

ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - I personally never saw or heard that Dinko Sakic had committed any crime or physically abused or killed anybody. I can't remember that he was present at any event when inmates were killed, said the witness, Tibor Lovrencic, who resumed his testimony on Wednesday, during the trial of Dinko Sakic a former commander of the Jasenovac-based Ustashi concentration camp. Lovrencic stressed that he had been outside (the camp) every day for works outdoors so that he had no particular knowledge of what was happening inside the camp. During his testimony before the Zagreb County Court, which he commenced on Tuesday, Lovrencic added that the walk round the camp was forbidden, and he did not have many contacts with other prisoners. He presumed that he would have learnt if anything important linked to Dinko Sakic had happened. The witness reiterated, in response to the question of the defendant's attorney Ivan Kern, that he saw only one killing of an inmate and it was in the autumn of 1943 when Ustashi sent that prisoner to fetch firewood and when he moved away a warder shot him dead by gun. Lovrencic could not say precisely when the 'Logornik' Winer disappeared but it could be in 1943. He added that except the public executions of Mile Boskovic and some other twenty inmates who were hung at a specially built scaffold which seemed like a big soccer gatepost he could not remember other "musters" at which executions had been carried out. Neither did he remember who of Ustashi officers had been present at the hanging. The witness remembered that many inmates had been taken away, but it was generally unknown what had happened with them. He added that inmates used to be taken for labour to Germany, but they were also taken away for execution, and other prisoners would subsequently learn of that. He added in the autumn of 1944 the nervousness of Ustashi was obvious because of the front's approaching the area. In that period he saw groups of 30 to 40 inmates being taken away by ferry across the Sava river, but he did not know about their fate later. He added that during 1943 they would get, twice a day, corn-flour meal and a quarter of bread and from time to time the meals would be improved by some kind of vegetable or a piece of meat. The food was mainly the same during 1944. Prisoners who had no dishes to receive food would not get it then. The inmates "did not starve to death" thanks to packages they received from their families. Hygienic conditions in the barracks were very poor, Lovrencic said. Lovrencic, who is an architect, today described precisely all facilities in the camp and their arrangement inside. There was no beating in a working engineering group to which Lovrencic belonged, but the witness knows that Ustashi would sometime beat and harass prisoners with whose work they were not satisfied. Skilled artisans would be preserved in a way, Lovrencic said. He did not remember inmates who were "labour force" and did not know what had happened with them. Lovrencic did not contact those who survived as, he said, he did not want to burden himself with the past. At the end Lovrencic added that he did not have any inconvenience for his testimony in the investigation. The trial is to resume on April 6, after a witness scheduled for testifying on Thursday said she could not come due to her illness. (hina) ms