WITNESS SAW DOKMANOVIC IN HANGAR ON OVCARA

( Editorial: --> 9462 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 4 (Hina) - A witness for the prosecution at the trial of the former mayor of Vukovar, Slavko Dokmanovic, told the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that he had seen the defendant, Dokmanovic, in a hangar on the Ovcara farm, on which soldiers and civilians, patients of the Vukovar hospital, had been abused on 20 November 1991. The witness, Dragutin Berghofer, was among the people who had that day been transported from the Vukovar hospital to Ovcara where the prisoners were then beaten, some to death, and from where most of them were taken to be killed and buried in a mass grave. Berghofer, a 57 year-old upholsterer from Vukovar said that Croat houses had been repeatedly shot at from nearby Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) barracks, while houses owned by Serbs had been spared. After that the witness lived in the basement of his shop along with 40 women and several children. "My daughter Vesna was taken by the JNA and Chetniks and she never came back," Berghofer said. Berghofer's wife was killed by a grenade in the shop's shelter on 6 November. During the occupation there had been Serbs, Hungarians and Albanians in the shelter, Berghofer said. On 17 November, when it had become obvious that the city had been occupied, all those remaining in Vukovar left for the hospital. In the morning of 20 November, Berghofer and the rest of the men were taken to the barracks and then to Ovcara. Berghofer said the men had been beaten with fists and feet from all sides. "We had entered hell. Damjan Samardzic and another man were beaten to death," Berghofer said. "There was also Sinisa Glavasevic, the reporter," he added. Berghofer was hit in the lower part of his abdomen and back of the neck, but had not lost consciousness, not was his sight affected. "There were some prisoners running in, and the municipal head, Slavko Dokmanovic, hit the face of man who was squatting down with his foot," Berghofer said, adding that Dokmanovic had hit another young man of some 18 years, as well as Dado Dulic. Dokmanovic told Emil Cakalic who had been a sanitary inspector in the municipality with a grin ,"Oh, mister inspector, you're here as well?", after which he was beaten, Berghofer said. He added that Berghofer had been in the hangar 20 to 25 minutes and had been dressed in a dark blue JNA aviation suit and a dark jacket. He added that he had seen Dokmanovic well because the hangar had not been full yet and he knew the defendant for over 20 years. "I knew him from sight, he played football... and I saw him at the food industry where I was setting the curtains," Berghofer said. Berghofer saw no military ensignia or weapons on Dokmanovic. He was walking nervously in the hangar for the twenty minutes he was there, Berghofer said. One reserve soldier, large, about 40 years-old, blew a whistle to mark the change of shift of those beating us, Berghofer said, adding that he had also seen two women of whom he was familiar with one. About a dozen persons were taken to a van about one and a half hours later. The witness was taken to Srijemska Mitrovica in Serbia, where he spent almost four and a half months, until an exchange of prisoners on 27 March 1992. (hina) lm jn 042159 MET feb 98