DOKMANOVIC CASE: JAN SCHOU AND MATE BRLETIC TAKE STAND

( Editorial: --> 0798 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 10 (Hina) - A former member of the European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM), Jan Schou, and a former commander of Ilok's defence forces, Mate Brletic, took the witness stand on Tuesday at the trial of former Vukovar mayor Slavko Dokmanovic. Dane Jan Schou was in Croatia in 1991 as a doctor at the ECMM, and had lead negotiations about the evacuation of the wounded. He testified he had arrived in Vukovar with an ECMM team on 19 October 1991, during the siege of the eastern Croatian town, so they could evacuate the wounded from the Vukovar hospital. Schou had seen great damage in the town and the hospital had been basically moved to the basement. While the ECMM convoy with 110 wounded people was leaving Vukovar for Zagreb, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) had obstructed their passage near Luzac with a tank and an armoured personnel carrier, Schou said, adding that JNA Major Veselin Sljivancanin had ordered the convoy to take the road through Bogdanovci, along which mines had been laid. The fourth vehicle in the convoy had ridden over a mine at which time two Swiss nurses had been wounded, Schou testified, adding that he had heard later that the nurses had lost their hearing. He said that he had been sent again to Vukovar with two other persons on 19 November 1991. He had been stopped on 20 November at 10.00 hours on a bridge two kilometres before the hospital, where representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been stopped as well, Schou said. "Sljivancanin told us on the bridge that it was dangerous to go to the town because of snipers... however, we had seen no fighting in the town, but instead members of the Serb paramilitary forces who had been celebrating by shooting in the air," Schou said, adding that they had been allowed to go to the hospital two hours later. The ECMM took a register of patients and then the JNA arrived with four buses into which were taken women, children and men who had intended to go to Serbia, he said, stressing that Sljivancanin had confirmed on 20 November that some persons had already been taken from the hospital. The next witness, Mate Brletic, was police commissioner in Ilok in 1991 and the commander of the defence forces in this easternmost town in Croatia. Brletic said that he had resisted JNA warships and its air and ground forces with 300 guns, 100 of which had been guns for hunting. He said that the JNA corps from Novi Sad had been active in the area, whose commanders were Petar Grahovac and Dragoljub Arandjelovic, based in Sid. Brletic stressed that by the end of September 1991, the population in Ilok had risen from six or seven thousand to 20,000 because of the fall of surrounding villages. The town had been isolated from the rest of Croatia, he said. During that time, he had several talks with the JNA in Serbia. He said he had been called to Backa Palanka to meet JNA members and to bring an ECMM team to Ilok. Brletic said that he had seen Slavko Dokmanovic in front of the town hall in Backa Palanka with Grahovac and civilian officials. Dokmanovic had refused to shake Brletic's hand and, Brletic said, he had answered my plea to go to Ilok and prevent the crimes saying he could not, adding that Ilok was the place of Ustashas. "I was surprised to see Dokmanovic, and I did not know what he was doing in that area," he said. Brletic also said that near Backa Palanka there was a training centre for Serbian volunteers who had gone to the Vukovar battlefield, and that he thought that Dokmanovic might be involved in rounding up the volunteers, although he had not heard that Dokmanovic was seen in any such centres. The exodus of the population of Ilok had begun in the morning of 17 October 1991 when the JNA began to search people on the bridge near the town. "There were JNA officers on the bridge as well as Backa Palanka officials, and Slavko Dokmanovic was there also," Brletic said, stressing that more than 30 people had been selected from the convoy and taken to Backa Palanka. Brletic said he had not known Dokmanovic personally, but from various meetings of municipal committees. When asked by Judge Cassesse about it, Brletic said that Dokmanovic had observed what was happening on the bridge and had spoken with his colleagues from Backa Palanka, the officers and Serbs from Ilok. (hina) lm mm 102027 MET feb 98