TWO WITNESSES TESTIFY IN PRE-TRIAL AGAINST WW2 CRIMES SUSPECT

RIJEKA, Dec 23 (Hina) - A Zagreb County Court investigating judge on Wednesday questioned in Rijeka Milada Palcec, a witness in the pre- trial investigation against Nada Sakic, a Croatian World War Two crimes suspect. Palcec, born in 1920, was arrested in September 1942 as a communist sympathiser. She was taken to the Stara Gradiska concentration camp where she was detained until November 1944, when she was transferred to the Jasenovac concentration camp. She was subsequently released. The witness said she saw Nada Sakic, whom she recalled as Nada Luburic, in late 1942 and early 1943, uniformed and armed with a pistol. Palcec had not personally seen the defendant torturing or harassing anyone, but added she had heard Sakic had beaten a woman in the camp's weaving mill. Another witness in the Sakic case, Beska Frentic, born in 1913, was questioned in her flat in Pula. Frentic was arrested as a Communist Party member in Varazdin in the early summer of 1942. She was taken to the Stara Gradiska camp in August 1942 where she was detained until August 1944, when she was exchanged. The witness said she used to see the defendant, whom she recalled as Nada Luburic, among four armed Ustasha women. Frentic said she had been detained for more than a month at the so called Kula (tower), a place used to starve and liquidate camp inmates, which she said she had seen Sakic entering. Sakic's court-appointed attorney Branko Seric said the defendant was still detained at the Zagreb County Prison's hospital. Further hearings will resume on Monday. (hina) ha