"EVERYTHING WAS ORGANISED" - WITNESS AT DOKMANOVIC TRIAL

( Editorial: --> 9510 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 5 (Hina) - The act of taking men from the Vukovar general hospital and their murder in nearby Ovcara was organised, a former defender of Vukovar told the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague Wednesday. Witness "K" testified at the trial against former Vukovar mayor Slavko Dokmanovic. The ten-member unit from Zagreb "K" commanded arrived in Vukovar, eastern Croatia on 1 October 1991. "We had rifles and anti-armoured vehicle weaponry", he told the court. While holding position in Vukovar's Prvomajska street, the witness said he fought with the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary units, adding he could tell them apart by their clothes and insignia. Their attack was coordinated, but where he was fighting, "K" said, the JNA was at the front and seemed to be superior to Serb paramilitaries. "We surrendered on 20 November (1991). That was the day when the army took us from the hospital. We had no alternative or other way out. Other units had surrendered too, the whole town had surrendered", said the witness, who arrived at the Vukovar general hospital on 17 November, unarmed and in plain clothes. Asked by Dokmanovic's defence why he had taken off his uniform, "K" said he would have been killed sooner had he kept it on. Describing JNA's activity in the hospital on 20 November, when joined by Serb paramilitary units the former Yugoslav army lined and searched the men in the hospital, "K" said it had not been chaotic but organised. The witness had been sent to one of five buses waiting in front of the hospital. There were 55 people approximately on each bus, "K" said. "K" was then transferred to a JNA barracks where he saw some JNA soldiers and Chetniks he had seen at the hospital. "They called themselves Chetniks", he answered Dokmanovic's defence. From the barracks, "K" was taken to a hangar in Ovcara. Here the people got off the bus one by one and had their rosaries, money and documents taken away. "One young JNA soldier asked me where I was from, I said from Zagreb, he was from Ruma", the witness said. "I mentioned a friend from Ruma whom he knew too, and then I asked him if he could save me. He said God would save me", "K" added. The he had to pass "through two rows of Chetniks" who beat the people on their way to the hangar. Upon entering the hangar the witness heard "Chetniks shout: Here is Sinisa Glavasevic (Vukovar radio reporter). He must be killed, he is an Ustasha!" He was being beaten in the hangar when the JNA soldier from Ruma, accompanied by a JNA officer, arrived. "K" said the soldier told his superior: "Captain, I know this man, may I take him outside?" After being led out, the witness, and other singled people, spent one hour and a half guarded by the JNA. A woman came crying and begging that her retarded son be taken out of the hangar. The officer who led the son out told her: "Go and remember that your son has been saved by Lt. Col. Ivankovic, or Ivanovic", "K" told the court. "K" and the group standing outside were then led in the hangar where JNA soldiers at an improvised table wrote down their names. "In front of the hangar was a parked vehicle with its lights on (...) and then I saw inside the hangar about 100 (JNA) soldiers and our people sitting, tossing on the floor or lying (...) faint moans could be heard", the witness said. When getting in the vehicle outside, "K" asked a young soldier what would happen to the people inside the hangar, to which he was answered they would probably all be killed. "K" pointed out that before people inside had their names written down, machines could be heard some 500 metres away. "What was about to happen was known in advance", the witness said. "The schedule, the arrival of the buses, the two rows of (Chetniks), security, one soldier whistled for a change of people to be beaten", he added. "K" and the group he was in were then taken to a sewing shop in Vukovar where they spent the night. "In the morning Chetniks came and yelling asked what men were doing there, that they would kill both us and those who had brought us there", he added. "K" was afterwards taken to a JNA barracks, and on 22 November 1991 to Sremska Mitrovica, in Serbia. (hina) ha mm 051205 MET feb 98