TRIAL OF DOKMANOVIC CONTINUES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

( Editorial: --> 0464 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 9 (Hina) - The trial of former Vukovar mayor Slavko Dokmanovic before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continued on Monday behind closed doors. Dokmanovic is charged with helping or participating in some other way in the organised abduction of Croats and other non-Serbs from the Vukovar Hospital on 20 November 1991 to the Ovcara farm near the town, where the prisoners were beaten in a hangar and then executed. Out of 300 or more persons who on the morning of 20 November were abducted from the hospital, at least 200 were killed in Ovcara, the ICTY indictment reads. The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary forces, which committed the crime, were commanded or supervised by JNA officers Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin. On the basis of these charges, the ICTY concluded that Mrksic, Radic, Sljivancanin and Dokmanovic are responsible for beatings and killings by their actions or failure to act. Both crimes are defined by three counts of the indictment - severe violations of the Geneva Conventions, violations of law and customs of war and crimes against humanity. Dokmanovic's responsibility was established primarily on the basis of testimonies by persons who survived the beatings in the hangar in Ovcara and who said they had seen Dokmanovic in Ovcara on 20 November, 1991. (hina) jn rm mrb 091353 MET feb 98