Goran Hadzic in the courtroom

The trial of Goran Hadzic was postponed for two days because of defense counsel Zoran Zivanovic’s health problems. The trial continued today with the evidence of a protected witness testifying under the pseudonym GH 015. The witness also has voice and image distortion as protective measures. Most of his evidence proceeded in closed session.

In late January 2003, the witness testified against Slobodan Milosevic; the transcript was today tendered into evidence in the Hadzic case. At the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the witness said that in the spring of 1991 weapons kept arriving into Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem; they were transported in boats from the other side of the Danube through a man called Sarac, an employee of the Serbian State Security Service. In the summer of 1991, Erdut and Dalj were captured. At Milosevic’s trial, the witness said that most of the Croats left the area. Today the witness added that their exodus was followed by a ‘mass looting’ of their houses.

At the previous trial, the witness also claimed that the remaining Croats were detained in the police station in Dalj; in September 1991, Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan and his men took 11 prisoners out. The witness claimed that nine of them were killed. The indictment against Hadzic states that all 11 detainees were killed and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in the village of Celije. A while later, on 4 and 5 October 1991, Arkan came to the police station again and, as alleged in the indictment, 28 non-Serb prisoners were killed. In the evidence at Milosevic’s trial, the witness said that Goran Hadzic accompanied Arkan on both visits to the police station.

In his evidence today, the witness said that in the fall of 1991 the chief of the Serbian State Security Service Jovica Stanisic came to Eastern Slavonia, demanded, ‘find me Goran Hadzic’ and shouted at those present, ‘Why hasn’t Vukovar fallen yet?’ A meeting was organized on Stanisic’s demand with the local leadership in the Dalj Territorial Defense building. As the witness said, he was in charge of security of the building. A while earlier, in June 1991, the witness was part of Milan Martic’s escort during a visit to Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem. He came there after a meeting with Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade.

The witness was today shown several video recordings from 1991 in which he identified Goran Hadzic, former vice-president of the SFRY Presidency Branko Kostic and an opposition politician from Serbia, Milan Paroski. In the footage filmed at a rally in Eastern Slavonia, Paroski says that local Croats and Hungarians were ‘Johnny-come-latelies who will have to pack their suitcases and leave’ and that Serbs may kill any of those ‘usurpers’ ‘like dogs’.

The protected prosecution witness will continue his evidence tomorrow, when he will be cross-examined by defense counsel Gosnell. Goran Hadzic is charged with crimes against non-Serbs from 1991 to 1993 when he was the prime minister of the Serb Autonomous Region of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.

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