MILOSEVIC'S FORMER AIDE, JOVIC, BEGINS TESTIFYING IN THE HAGUE

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Nov 18 (Hina) - Slobodan Milosevic exerted a crucial influence on decision-making processes and other events in Serbia during 1990s, a persecution witness, Borisav Jovic, who used to be a close aide to the defendant Milosevic, told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in The Hague on Tuesday. #L# The 75-year-old witness Jovic, who was a member of the collective presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) from 1989 until the break-up of the Yugoslav federation in 1992, was subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Milosevic, a former Serbian and Yugoslav president. "For over one decade Milosevic was the chief political figure in Serbia, having absolute authority among the people and the (Communist) party. He exerted crucial influence on all decisions and was the major protagonist of all what happened at the time," Jovic said at the start of his testimony. From May 1991 to October 1992, Jovic was the president of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and held the post of vice-president until late 1995. The Milosevic indictment reads that Jovic was one of accomplices in the joint criminal endeavour the purpose of which was to remove Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina so as to annex those areas to a new Serbian State. After a Croatian Serb rebel leader, Milan Babic, and the chief of the Yugoslav Counterintelligence Service (KOS), General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, Jovic is the third accomplice in the criminal endeavour to testify against Milosevic. The prosecution also introduced Jovic's diary, in which he described his meetings with Milosevic in early 1990s, as a piece of evidence. Before Jovic took the witness stand, Milosevic wrapped up the cross-examination of the protected witness B-1524, a Serb from the town of Zvornik, who testified about the cleansing of non-Serbs from eastern Bosnia. (hina) ms