WELCOME TO IWPRS ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 548, April 25, 2008 CROATIAN ARMY ACCUSED OF SHELLING SERB CIVILIANS As he drove through Knin, witness speaks of seeing corpses along the roadside. By Goran Jungvirth in The Hague
WITNESS DESCRIBES SERB ABUSE OF PRISONERS But Seselj tells court his volunteers had nothing to do with the crimes. By Simon Jennings in The Hague FUSTAR ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS Ex-Keraterm prison camp guard found guilty of crimes against humanity by Bosnian court. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo BOSNIAN COMMANDERS JAIL TERMS CUT Appeals chamber rules Enver Hadzihasanovic not responsible for crimes committed by foreign Muslim fighters. By Simon Jennings in The Hague **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** SAHAR JOURNALISTS ASSISTANCE FUND To find out more or donate please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/sahar.html COALITION FOR INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE (CIJ) TRIAL REPORTS ARCHIVE Milosevic and other ICTY Trial Reports as well as Sierra Leone Reports are now available at <http://iwpr.net/?apc_state=hen&s=c> NOW AVAILABLE IN FRENCH: Reporting Justice: A Handbook on Covering War Crimes Courts. 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By Goran Jungvirth in The Hague A former senior United Nations official told the trial of three Croatian generals this week that their forces systematically shelled residential areas rather than military bases during a 1995 operation. Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac are indicted at the Hague tribunal for war crimes against Serbs committed by troops under their command during and after Operation Storm an offensive aimed at retaking territory held by Serb rebels since 1991. General Andrew Leslie said artillery shelling on Knin in the southeast Krajina region started at 5.02 am on August 4, 1995, and continued non-stop for two hours, hitting mostly civilian targets. There were only three military targets in Knin, he said. Sporadic shelling continued throughout the day. From 7am onwards, it was easier to determine that most of the shells were dropped on the area of houses in the centre of town, but that doesnt mean that the smaller groups of buildings in the suburbs were excluded from shelling, Leslie told the court. Leslie, currently Canadas land forces commander and a former NATO commander in Afghanistan, was the head of UN headquarters in Sector South in Knin at the time. He is one of the highest ranking officers to testify in the trial. According to the indictment, the Croatian army precipitated a mass exodus of Serbs from the region. The generals are accused of taking part in a joint criminal enterprise with the goal of cleansing the Serb population from Croatia. The indictment says that at least 30 people were killed in Knin, and at least 150 in the whole of Krajina region from August to November 1995. This week, Leslie said he estimated around 3,000 shells were fired at Knin for a day and a half before Croat forces entered the town at around noon on August 5. On that day, the witness was involved in the evacuation of patients from the towns hospital. As he drove there, he saw corpses by the road and found dozens in the hospital. He saw no less than 30 and no more than 50-60 dead bodies in Knin at the time of shelling. However, he added that the Croatian forces made great efforts not to hit the hospital which suffered no serious damage during the attack. Leslie dismissed the possibility put forward by the defence that Serb forces angry that the Croatian army was about to enter Knin carried out some of the shelling. During cross-examination, Gotovinas defence lawyer Gregory Kehoe showed Leslie reports by UN and United States military observers that said the Croatian army targeted military points, with damage to civilian buildings only occurring where they were close to military targets. Leslie simply replied that the UN Military Observer, UNMO, data had created controversy when it was released. The defence also sought to counter an earlier assertion by Leslie that in the first two days of Operation Storm, there were no active Serb forces or positions in the area. Kehoe presented UN reports about a Serb military presence, as well as some of Leslies own statements, which said that Knin region was occupied by soldiers and artillery at the time. The defence played a statement Leslie gave to the BBC on the evening of August 4, in which he said the Croatians were not near Knin, and that there were a lot of Serbs in Knin and its surroundings. Asked who he was referring to, Leslie said, Serbs means Serbs Im not making a distinction between soldiers or civilians not in the context of that statement. The defence then showed the witness a statement he made to Canadas Toronto Star newspaper, in which he said he personally saw a Serb tank returning fire in front of a UN base in the area. Kehoe also presented various reports by UN military observers from August 5, about the movements of Serb artillery towards Knin, as well as their distribution across positions around nearby Strmice from where they opened fire on the town that night. Leslie acknowledged that he knew about this. He said that the day before the attack, some 15 to 20 kilometres from Knin, he saw a much more sophisticated and professional Serb artillery unit than he had seen before in the region. The trial continues next week. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained journalist. WITNESS DESCRIBES SERB ABUSE OF PRISONERS But Seselj tells court his volunteers had nothing to do with the crimes. By Simon Jennings in The Hague A Bosniak witness in the trial of Vojislav Seselj this week described to judges how detainees were killed, tortured and abused by their Serb captors. The protected witness, testifying in the trial of the Serb nationalist politician, cried as he spoke of the treatment of prisoners detained by Serb forces in the Zvornik region of Bosnia in June 1992. The man, known only by the pseudonym VS1065, told the court that ten prisoners at a detention facility in the Zvornik region, including fathers and sons, were placed on a platform and ordered to perform sexual acts. The people on the stage had to take off their clothes and were forced to engage in oral sex, he told the court. Seselj, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, is on trial at the Hague tribunal accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his SRS volunteers in a bid to create a Greater Serbia between 1991 and 1993. The indictment against Seselj contains allegations of the murder and mistreatment of Bosniaks and other non-Serb civilians in prison camps in the Zvornik region of Bosnia, amongst others. Seselj faces charges relating to sexual assaults of Croat, Muslim and other non-Serb civilians by Serb soldiers during their capture. Witness VS1065, who testified with his voice and image distorted, described how in late May 1992 he was captured along with 500 other civilians in his home village of Divici in the Zvornik region by men wearing military uniforms. He told the court that after being transported between various locations, he was selected as one of 174 men of military age and transported to the Novi Izvor administrative building, where the group was detained. At Novi Izvor, some prisoners were taken out apparently to help search houses around the village, said the witness. When asked by prosecutor Mathias Marcussen if anyone had seen these prisoners since, the witness replied, I do not think anybody saw them alive but they were found dead, some of them. After three days, the remaining prisoners were transported to the Culture Hall detention facility in Celopek, near the town of Zvornik, said the witness. He then described the conditions at the Celopek prison and the abuse and killings that took place there. For the first three days, the prisoners were not given any food, he said. We had to manage somehow ourselves with the help of the guards. We gave them money and they would get us something to eat. Groups of men dressed in military uniform or wearing half military and half civilian clothing came to the detention facility, the witness told the court. These men some of whom the witness identified by nicknames such as Repic and Zoks subjected the prisoners to verbal and physical abuse. While they were asking for weapons or money, they would threaten us in various ways. Zoks said our lives were cheaper than the bullets in the barrel of the pistol he had, said the witness. In early June, the witness explained that up to 15 prisoners were taken outside and never seen again. I did not see anybody actually killed. Two people were taken out and you could hear two shots fired. Afterwards, they took another person out to see what had happened outside. They were told to tell us what they had seen, he said. A third man known as Buca, according to the witness, stuck a knife into peoples thighs, cut off a persons finger and poked the knife into the persons hand and arm. Asked by Marcussen if he was abused in this way, the witness replied, Yes. He also stabbed me in both hands and cut into my left shoulder. The witness then described more serious incidents that took place on Bajram Day an annual Muslim festival in mid-June. He said the volunteer known as Repic ordered about ten men, including fathers and sons who were paired up, to fellate one another, as he walked around choosing people to shoot. When they were ordered to engage in oral sex, Repic selected people who he would shoot at, the witness told the court. The witness further described another attack carried out by Repic on two prisoners that same day. Repic took out two men and told them to lie down. I could not see what happened to them, but I heard from others that one had his throat slit and the other was stabbed in the heart, he said. After this series of attacks, the dead bodies were loaded onto trucks and taken away and the prisoners had to clean up the mess, the witness told the court. We had to clean up everything, so there would not be traces of blood, so that no one could notice that something had happened, he said. According to the witness, the men who carried the bodies to the trucks never came back. He then described attacks on prisoners that took place on the Orthodox holiday St Vitus Day on June 28, 1992. The witness said Repic entered the building and fired a gun in the air, wounding three prisoners who fell to the floor, one of whom did not get up again. That was the person whose sex organ had been cut off, said the witness. The witness said Repic fired repeated bursts of gun fire and killed about 30 people. After these events, around 100 surviving prisoners were transferred to an old prison in Zvornik, said the witness. At the end of the testimony, Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti asked the witness if he knew Repics real name. It was Dusan Vuckovic, he replied. Vuckovic, who pleaded guilty to killings in Celopek and was sentenced by a Serbian court to ten years in prison, committed suicide two years ago. Seselj declined to cross-examine the witness, telling the court that he had testified truthfully. He did, however, question the relevance of his testimony. The accused denied that he had anything to do with the unit who had committed these crimes and said his volunteers were no longer in Zvornik at the time they occurred. He testified about the bestial behaviour of members of the Yellow Wasps [unit] and its up to the [Office of the Prosecutor] to prove that after 26 April a single volunteer of the Serbian Radical Party remained in Zvornik, said Seselj. The Yellow Wasps were a Serbian paramilitary unit operating in Bosnia in the early Nineties. Marcussen said the prosecution planned to bring evidence before the court to link Seselj to the men who committed the crimes. The trial continues next week. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. FUSTAR ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS Ex-Keraterm prison camp guard found guilty of crimes against humanity by Bosnian court. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo Former Bosnian Serb prison camp guard Dusan Fustar was this week sentenced to nine years in jail for crimes against humanity by Bosnias war crimes court after accepting a plea agreement. Fustar took responsibility for beatings and murders that took place under his watch at the infamous Serb-run Keraterm camp in northern Bosnia in 1992. He read a statement asking forgiveness from the families of the victims. My conscience bids me to express remorse for all those who were tortured, beaten and murdered in that camp. It hurts me especially because they were people I knew. I regret what happened deeply and with all my heart, Fustar told the court. Fustar was originally indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, alongside Zeljko Mejakic, Momilo Gruban and Dusko Knezevic. Their case was transferred to the War Crimes Chamber of the Bosnian State Court in May 2006. The trial of the men who were charged with murdering, beating and sexually assaulting non-Serbs and confining them in inhumane conditions in the Omarska and Keraterm camps in 1992 began more than a year ago, and is expected to conclude in about a month. Fustars trial is the first time a case transferred to the Bosnian war crimes court has ended with a plea deal. Prosecutor Peter Kidd described Fustars statement as a truthful act of remorse. In addition to the human value of the accuseds plea, it will also save the courts time and be a positive influence on the victims, said Kidd. Explaining the sentence, presiding judge Saban Maksumic said the court found Fustar guilty of taking part in a joint criminal enterprise which was discriminatory toward non-Serbs, adding that his shift was an especially difficult time for detainees. Fustar was in a position to see the inhumane conditions and brutal torture the detainees were being subjected to and had an obligation to stop it. By not doing so, he committed a crime against humanity, said Maksumic. While the plea agreement states that Fustar never personally beat detainees, Maksumic said it was clear that the accused did not use his position of authority to condemn acts of violence like other shift commanders did and in that way, he aided the terror of detainees. As mitigating circumstances, the court noted that Fustar was a family man with no criminal record. His willingness to cooperate with the prosecution and testify in other cases was also taken into consideration by judges when deciding on the length of his sentence. It is not clear whether Fustar will now testify against his former co-accused, or in any other cases before the Bosnian court. Judges said they used ICTY sentences given to others found guilty of crimes at the Omarska and Keraterm camps as a guideline. We have looked at the cases against [Dusko] Sikirica, [Milomir] Stakic and [Miroslav] Kvocka, said Maksumic. The Hague court sentenced Sikirica to 15 years imprisonment for his role as chief of security at Keraterm. Former president of the Prijedor municipal assembly Stakic was handed a 40-year term, while Kvocka, chief of security in the Omarska camp, was given seven years. Judges ruled that the time Fustar has already spent in custody would count towards his sentence. He turned himself over to the ICTY in 2002, so he could be free in three years. The trial of Mejakic, Gruban and Knezevic continues next week. Denis Dzidic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo. BOSNIAN COMMANDERS JAIL TERMS CUT Appeals chamber rules Enver Hadzihasanovic not responsible for crimes committed by foreign Muslim fighters. By Simon Jennings in The Hague Tribunal judges this week partially upheld the appeals of two former senior Bosnian army officials, cutting the prison sentences handed down to them in 2006. Enver Hadzihasanovic, commander of the Bosnian Army, ABiH, 3rd corps, and Amir Kubura, leader of the divisions 7th Muslim mountain brigade were both found guilty of failing to prevent or punish crimes committed against Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs by troops under their control in Bosnia between January 1993 and March 1994. Hadzihasanovic, whose sentence was cut from five to three-and-a-half years, was originally found guilty of failing to prevent murder and prisoner mistreatment in the Bugojno and Zenica regions, as well as in the Orasac prison camp in Travnik. However, the appeal chamber ruled that Hadzihasanovic did not have control over a group of foreign Muslim fighters known as the El Mujahed detachment that fought alongside the ABiH 3rd corps. It therefore overturned the ruling that he was responsible for crimes committed by the detachment at the Orasac prison camp. While appeals judges accepted that the El Mujahed detachment took part in combat operations alongside the 3rd corps, Judge Fausto Pocar said this did not necessarily provide sufficient support for the conclusion that Hadzihasanovic had effective control over the El Mujahed detachment in the sense of having material ability to prevent or punish its members should they commit crimes. Judge Pocar said that while there was cooperation between the 3rd corps and the El Mujahed detachment, there was evidence the latter maintained a significant degree of independence from the units it fought alongside. [The] relationship between the El Mujahed detachment and the 3rd corps was not one of subordination, said Judge Pocar. Instead, it was close to overt hostility since the only way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distant enemy force. The appeals chamber also reversed the trial chambers decision to convict Hadzihasanovic for failing to punish troops under his command for the murder of Croat soldier Mladen Havranek and the cruel treatment of six prisoners at the Slavonija furniture salon detention facility in Bugojno on August 5, 1993. It found that it could not be established beyond reasonable doubt that the 3rd corps failed to initiate an investigation into murder and cruel treatment committed there. Judge Pocar noted that a commander need not administer punishments personally, but could instead hand over that duty to the competent authorities. The appeal chamber found that Hadzihasanovics reporting of the crimes to the Bugojno municipal public prosecutor, as well as disciplinary measures taken by the military office in Bugojno, constituted necessary and reasonable measures to punish the perpetrators. The former commander was also acquitted of the mistreatment of prisoners in detention facilities in Bugojno on August 18, 1993, although judges rejected the appeal against his conviction for failure to prevent or punish the cruel treatment of prisoners detained at the Zenica music school from May to September 1993. Meanwhile, Kuburas two-and-half-year prison sentence was cut by six months. He was originally convicted in relation to his troops plundering of public and private property in the Ovnak and Vares areas of central Bosnia. The appeals chamber reversed the ruling by trial judges that he had failed to prevent plunder by his 7th brigade in the Vares region in November 1993. It pointed to the fact that Kubura followed orders in withdrawing his troops from Vares the very same day and then forbade the members of the 7th brigade from entering or staying in Vares on 5 November 1993. However, the appeals chamber upheld the finding of trial judges that Kubura failed to take reasonable measures to punish further acts of plunder committed by troops under his command in Ovnak and Vares in the same year. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE, which has been running since 1996, details events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in The Hague. These weekly reports, produced by IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution process. The opinions expressed in ICTY - Tribunal Update are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. 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