THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 11 (Hina) - In the continuation of the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday, the prosecution presented witness C-007, who took part in
the 1991 attack on the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar as a member of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Serbian Territorial Defence.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 11 (Hina) - In the continuation of the trial
of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war
crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday, the prosecution presented
witness C-007, who took part in the 1991 attack on the eastern
Croatian town of Vukovar as a member of the Yugoslav People's Army
(JNA) and the Serbian Territorial Defence. #L#
The witness said that, as a member of the military police of the JNA
1st Guards Brigade from Belgrade, he was given an order in September
1991 to go to Vukovar. On arriving in Vukovar, he said that outside
the JNA barracks in the town he had seen tanks firing on the Croats.
There were horrible stories circulating among JNA troops about what
had happened to those captured by Croats. The purpose of those
stories was to create an atmosphere of fear among young soldiers so
that they would be able to kill women, children and anyone else they
encountered, C-007 said.
The witness later left the JNA to join the Serbian Territorial
Defence in Vukovar and was stationed in the Blaz Jovanovic
neighbourhood, where he said he used to fire between 2,500 to 3,000
bullets daily.
He said his unit consisted of 10 soldiers, including a
"pathological killer" who bragged after the fall of Vukovar in
November 1991 that he had killed 165 prisoners.
The witness said that he had seen JNA Major Veselin Sljivancanin in
the Vukovar hospital, and that later on in the yard he himself had
stopped a volunteer soldier from killing Dr Vesna Bosanac.
He partly described what had happened at the Ovcara farm, where at
least 200 Croatian wounded and prisoners from the hospital were
killed.
During the eight hours spent at Ovcara, the witness saw prisoners
being beaten on their way from buses to the hangar by members of the
Serbian Territorial Defence. When the prisoners were taken for
execution by firing squad near the hangar, the Serb soldiers turned
on the engines of combine harvesters to drown out the sound of
shooting, he said.
C-007 said that the person in charge at Ovcara was a Territorial
Defence commander called Miroljub. During the cross-examination,
the witness acknowledged that he had seen no JNA soldiers at Ovcara
during the execution of Croatian prisoners.
The witness also described how the JNA and Serb paramilitary forces
had looted in the town and sent packages with looted goods to
Serbia. He admitted he himself had also done "a bit of looting".
For the most part the hearing took place in a closed session.
The prosecution also presented witness Isak Gasi from Brcko, who
described how the JNA had armed the Serbs and occupied this town in
northern Bosnia in May 1992.
Gasi spoke of his detention in the Luka camp, where he said between
150 and 200 Bosniaks and other non-Serbs had been killed, and where
inmates had been beaten and otherwise abused on a daily basis. He
personally took part in the disposal of about 20 dead bodies, which
were dumped into the Sava river.
The witness was released from the camp in June 1992 by Dragan
Vasiljkovic aka Captain Dragan at the intervention of his wife and a
colleague from Belgrade.
(hina) vm