EMIL CAKALIC TESTIFIES BEFORE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

( Editorial: --> 9806 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 6 (Hina) - Emil Cakalic, a former Vukovar municipal sanitary inspector, on Thursday testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY. Cakalic testified about his meeting with the former municipal head Slavko Dokmanovic, who is on trial, in a hangar at the Ovcara farm (near Vukovar) where prisoners from Vukovar were beaten before being executed. Cakalic and his wife went in search of a shelter at the Vukovar hospital on 17 November 1991. A witness at the hospital saw a Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) Mayor, Veselin Sljivancanin. Cakalic testified to seeing Milos Bulic who threatened to kill a prisoner, Damjan Samardzic, and other local Serbs, including Radivoje Jakovljevic aka Frizider (Refrigerator) and Vlado Kosic, at the JNA barracks in Vukovar. At Ovcara, a JNA captain - and the witness said he thought he was a reserve soldier " because he couldn't button up his shirt" - took away Cakalic's glasses and trampled them. The prisoners then passed through two rows of Chetniks who neat them, and then entered the hangar where the beatings continued. "In front of the hangar I saw the 70 year-old brother-in-law of Doctor Bosanac fall to the ground from the beating," Cakalic said. After entering the hangar, Cakalic said he was met by Slavko Dokmanovic - whom he said he had known for 14 or 15 years - who said, "Look, out inspector, You're here as well!". Cakalic said he was then beaten "because they thought, I guess, that I was a police inspector". Dokmanovic hit Dado Vladimir Djukic with his feet, Cakalic recalled, adding that he himself had been hit with a stick on the spine by Milos Bulic. The defendant, Dokmanovic, had been dressed in a dark blue uniform and wore a JNA army cap with a red star and a jacket with Lieutenant's insignia, Cakalic said, adding that even without his glasses he saw well who was around him. Cakalic and another six people were later taken out of the hangar and brought back to Vukovar, where they were locked in the offices of the textile company "Modateks", and then in the "Velepromet" warehouse. In "Velepromet", there was a "death room" from which several people had been taken and had never returned, Cakalic said, adding that Tihomir Perkovic, who came from Ovcara, had met the same fate. From Vukovar Cakalic was taken to Srijemska Mitrovica. he was questioned there on 14 January by Goran Hadzic and Boro Stanic, the president and secretary of "a party". Finally, on 7 February 1992, Cakalic was exchanged. During his couter-examination, Cakalic confirmed that the beatings in the hangar had neither begun nor stopped parallel with Dokmanovic's arrival or departure, adding that he saw Dokmanovic in the hangar for two or three minutes. Asked by Judge Cassesse whether Dokmanovic had possibly been the superior to the Chetniks in the hangar, Cakalic said Dokmanovic had looked as if he had come there on his own initiative and added that he would not call Dokmanovic a Chetnik. Dokmanovic's trial continues on Friday. (hina) lm mm 061144 MET feb 98