TRIAL OF FORMER VUKOVAR MAYOR BEFORE ICTY CONTINUES

( Editorial: --> 9996 ) THE HAGUE, March 16 (Hina) - The trial of the former Vukovar Municipal Assembly head Slavko Dokmanovic before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continued on Monday morning after a one-month break. The first witness gave his testimony via video link and his identity as well as the content of his testimony remain unknown to the public. The next witness was Ivica Dodlek, a member of the Croatian police in 1992, who made a statement about the events in Vukovar in 1991. The statement was made on the basis of Dodlek's conversation with Dragutin Berghofer, also a prosecution witness. During his testimony before the ICTY in February, Berghofer said he saw defendant Dokmanovic on 20 November 1991 in a hangar in Ovcara, where patients from the Vukovar hospital were taken and brutally beaten. Berghofer said that Dokmanovic himself hit several people. The prosecution proposed that the statement made by Dodlek be accepted since it corresponded to Berghofer's testimony before the ICTY and showed Berghofer's consistency as a witness directly accusing Dokmanovic. However, the judges decided not to accept the prosecution's evidence, accepting an objection by Dokmanovic's attorney Toma Fila who said that the document was only an official record by a police officer, made on the basis of an interrogation, and not a statement signed by Berghofer. The trial of Slavko Dokmanovic was then closed to the public. (hina) rm/mrb 161418 MET mar 98