FIRST FEMALE WITNESS TESTIFIES IN PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST SAKIC

SAKIC ( Editorial: --> 5951 ) ZAGREB, July 6 (Hina) - Mara Cvetko (aged 77) from Zagreb on Monday testified before the Zagreb County Court in preliminary investigation proceedings against Dinko Sakic, commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II. Cvetko was a student when she was arrested in Zagreb at the end of 1942 and taken to Stara Gradiska, from where she was transferred to the Jasenovac concentration camp, then transferred back to Stara Gradiska and once again returned to Jasenovac. At the end of 1945 she was exchanged. According to Sakic's court-appointed attorney Ivan Kern, Cvetko personally did not see Dinko Sakic in the camp but she did hear once of him. Male inmates or commanders did not come to the section where women were imprisoned, Cvetko said. According to Kern, Cvetko said she had once seen an Ustasha soldier kill an inmate for refusing to spit on another inmate in 1944, while in 1943 she had seen wagons full of people who were not taken to the camp so she supposed they had been executed because one of the women from the camp went to wash the wagons which were covered with blood. Cvetko also spoke of 50 women who were taken from Mlaka and for whom she believes to have also been killed. At the end of 1944, from time to time, a few women would be taken from the camp by night and they never returned. Cvetko, who was often treated in the camp infirmary, spoke in detail about the difficult conditions in which inmates were living. All inmates were hiding from camp officials, she added. According to Kern, Cvetko also mentioned Sakic's then future wife, whom she saw in Stara Gradiska wearing an Ustasha uniform. Sakic's future wife was an insignificant person, Cvetko said, adding that a woman prisoner once complained that Sakic's wife once took something from her parcel. (hina) jn rml 061809 MET jul 98