THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 2 (Hina) - A protected witness for the prosecution, registered as B-1505, on Tuesday continued his testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal in The
Hague.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 2 (Hina) - A protected witness for the
prosecution, registered as B-1505, on Tuesday continued his
testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. #L#
The witness spoke about the role of the ex-Yugoslav People's Army
(JNA) in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims in Visegrad in the
summer of 1992.
The witness, a former official of the Party of Democratic Action
(SDA) in Visegrad, eastern Bosnia, said he had seen troops of the
JNA Uzice corps, commanded by Dragoljub Ojdanic, bring in between
4,000 and 5,000 civilians from the Bosniak village of Brsljanica to
Visegrad's soccer field.
At the beginning of his testimony last Friday, B-1505 spoke about an
agreement among JNA officers in a barracks near Visegrad on the
"cleansing" of the area. Ojdanic then promised the witness he would
protect civilians.
The JNA commander in Visegrad, Jovanovic, told the civilians at the
soccer field to which villages they could go, since they were
forbidden to return to their homes. He warned them every house from
which shots were fired at the army would be demolished, and an
entire village levelled to the ground for every wounded JNA
soldier. Jovanovic also said he commanded the "Beli orlovi" units
in the Visegrad area.
The part of the indictment against Milosevic for genocide and
crimes against humanity in Bosnia-Herzegovina contains
accusations of three mass killings of civilians in Visegrad in
which 140 people were killed and the exile of 6,690 Bosniaks and
other non-Serbs.
During cross-examination, Milosevic said the witness was "lying"
when he blamed the JNA for ethnic cleansing, claiming that Bosniaks
had wilfully left Visegrad and the JNA had protected civilians.
B-5150 said the Bosniak population had been openly exiled at the
beginning, but later the town had been blocked and people had to pay
to get out of it.
People gave large amounts of money to exit the town because life
there was not worth a "pfennig" and anybody could kill a Bosniak
without being punished, said the witness.
Milosevic was adamant in negating allegations about the JNA's
participation in ethnic cleansing in Visegrad, but the witness said
people were leaving areas where the army would arrive, and those who
remained were killed.
Milosevic cited information about the armament of "Muslim
paramilitary troops" in 1991, and entered as evidence a report by a
Serb chief prosecutor in Visegrad written in 1993 about crimes
committed against Serbs in the area.
The trial chamber agreed to allow the document to be entered as
evidence, but chairman Richard May warned that the trial chamber
could be flooded by biased documents of questionable credibility.
(hina) lml sb