VUKOVAR WAR CRIMES TRIAL VUKOVAR, June 3 (Hina) - Witness Dragutin Berghofer on Thursday testified before the Vukovar County Court in the trial of 22 persons charged with genocide and war crimes committed against civilian population
during the Serb occupation of Vukovar. During the battle for Vukovar, Berghofer was in charge of supplying food for civilians. He testified about the events between November 17 and 22, 1991, when the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries entered Vukovar after a three-month siege. After a failed breakthrough attempt on November 17, Berghofer was taken to hospital, where he was imprisoned. From the hospital he was taken together with other Croatian soldiers and civilians to the Ovcara farm outside the town, and there "it was as if we were in hell". After severe beating, Berghofer and several other prisoners saw Goran Ivankovic, the son of Dr Mladen Ivankovic, who had worked at Vu
VUKOVAR, June 3 (Hina) - Witness Dragutin Berghofer on Thursday
testified before the Vukovar County Court in the trial of 22 persons
charged with genocide and war crimes committed against civilian
population during the Serb occupation of Vukovar.
During the battle for Vukovar, Berghofer was in charge of supplying
food for civilians. He testified about the events between November
17 and 22, 1991, when the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb
paramilitaries entered Vukovar after a three-month siege.
After a failed breakthrough attempt on November 17, Berghofer was
taken to hospital, where he was imprisoned. From the hospital he was
taken together with other Croatian soldiers and civilians to the
Ovcara farm outside the town, and there "it was as if we were in
hell".
After severe beating, Berghofer and several other prisoners saw
Goran Ivankovic, the son of Dr Mladen Ivankovic, who had worked at
Vukovar Hospital the whole time. According to witnesses, Goran
Ivankovic, who was wearing an army uniform, first intended to take
them to a 'Velepromet' warehouse, but as there was no room there any
more, he took them to a 'Modateks' warehouse.
Berghofer said that while at the warehouse at Ovcara, he had seen
Slavko Dokmanovic, the then mayor of Vukovar and later a Hague
indictee who committed suicide.
Berghofer stayed at the Modateks warehouse one day. On one
occasion, a "girl, who could have been 15, wearing an army uniform,
walked into the warehouse" and pointed her finger at him. While
other soldiers held him, the girl put a knife on his throat and
threatened him. In one moment she tried to extinguish her cigarette
on his eye, but was prevented by a JNA soldier. Berghofer was told
later that the girl's name was Sladjana Korda.
The group of prisoners to which Berghofer belonged was later taken
from the Modateks to the Velepromet warehouse.
"On the night of November 21, JNA solders came and put us on a bus,
saying 'the captain wants to save your lives'. Then they took us to a
barracks in Vukovar, gave us food, entered our names on lists and
transported us to Sremska Mitrovica (Serbia)", Berghofer said. He
added he had never learned the captain's name.
The witness said he had been terribly beaten up in Sremska
Mitrovica. He witnessed the murder of one of Kata Soljic's sons
(Soljic lost her four sons in the Homeland War).
After four and a half months in Serbia, Berghofer was exchanged.
Asked by indictee Stevan Curnic, who is the only indictee present at
the trial, whether he had seen him on the Velepromet premises,
Berghofer said he had not.
Of other indictees, who are being tried in absentia, Berghofer had
seen Milan Ikaca, Goran Mugosa, Stanimir Avramovic and Milos Bulic
at Ovcara and at the Velepromet and Modateks warehouses.
He said Mugosa had taken his watch and DM350.
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