WAR CRIMES TRIAL AGAINST 22 DEFENDANTS CONTINUES IN VUKOVAR

VUKOVAR, June 11 (Hina) - The trial of 22 suspects accused of genocide and war crimes against civilians committed during the Serbian occupation of eastern Croatian town Vukovar in 1991 resumed at the Vukovar County Court on Thursday. Three witnesses testified, the first being Franjo Kozul, former member of Vukovar's civil defence, who was captured and brought to the yard of Vupik factory, across a Velepromet storehouse. Kozul said the selections of people were led by defendant Darko Fot, who himself ordered the witness to the Velepromet grounds. There Kozul saw defendants Zoran Stankovic, Mirko Vojnovic, Milos Bulic, Simo Samardzija, Nenad Zigic, and some others. Kozul was then taken to Stajicevo, a prisoners' camp, where defendant Marko Kraguljac made decisions who was to be interrogated and harassed. The witness also remembered seeing defendant Vojnovic on the Velepromet grounds with something in his left hand which resembled a human head, and a bloodied knife in the other. "In Stajicevo we were placed in two barns. The Serbs called one Poljud (the name of a stadium in southern Croatian port Split), and the other Maksimir (famous park in Zagreb). There were 1,842 prisoners in the first, and 462 in the second barn," Kozul said. He added he had testified about the events in Vukovar and the Stajicevo camp at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. There he was shown videotapes made at that time by the British. Kozul said he saw "many people from Vukovar who committed crimes, some of whom today walk freely through the town." The second witness, Pavle Opravic, was captured at Vukovar's hospital and taken to the Velepromet grounds, where he spent several days. Maltreatment and beatings were customary, he said, adding some prisoners would be taken outside and never return. After several days, Opravic and other inmates were taken from Velepromet by members of the former Yugoslav People's Army to a barracks, and on November 23 to a prison in Sremska Mitrovica, Yugoslavia. Opravic saw only defendant Radivoj Jakovljevic Frizider in the Velepromet yard. The third witness, Emil Cakalic, told the court he saw prisoners captured in Vukovar forced to walk through a cordon of Chetniks who savagely beat them with truncheons, clubs, metal bars and guns. Among the Chetniks he recognised Slavko Dokmanovic, the suicide war crimes suspect who had been accused by The Hague tribunal. The witness saw Dokmanovic beat prisoners in the Velepromet yard with both hands and feet. He harassed Damjan Samardzic, who subsequently succumbed to the severe injuries he had suffered. Cakalic saw defendant Bozo Latinovic at Ovcara, a farm near Vukovar. Latinovic approached and told him he had just returned from killing a hundred Ustashi. "A horrible massacre took place at Ovcara, and it lasted about a half hour," the witness said, adding 250 and not 200 persons were killed there. "Those 50 were probably buried someplace else," he said. He was saved from Ovcara by Stevan Zoric, who wore a JNA uniform, as well as a band of the infamous "White Eagles", armed units then commanded by Vojislav Seselj, the current Yugoslav prime minister. At Ovcara Cakalic also saw a JNA Lieutenant Colonel who used a whistle to set "the rhythm of the beatings". Later, while detained in a Sremska Mitrovica prison until a February 1992 exchange, Cakalic recognised the Lt. Col. in a military magazine. An accompanying article read that he was "Lt. Col. Mrkusic, commander of the Novi Sad Corps which liberated Vukovar." (hina) ha jn