Witnesses Address Zagreb War Crimes Trial by Video Link

The war crimes trial of two Croatian generals this week began to hear testimony by video link from protected witnesses, whose previous failure to give evidence threatened to derail the case.



The nine individuals, whose identity was not disclosed for their own protection, spoke to a closed session of the Zagreb County Court. Their testimony, given in Belgrade, will not be made public until February 12.



The court had been due to hear from 28 protected witnesses in October and November last year, but police had trouble finding them. Some declined to come to Croatia from Bosnia and other countries where they live.



Their testimony is key to the cases against Generals Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi, who are accused of allowing Croatian troops under their command to commit war crimes in the “Medak Pocket” in September 1993.



In the operation, which seized control of a Serb-held salient of land that threatened to cut Croatia in two, troops allegedly killed or seriously injured 29 Serb civilians, and five Serb prisoners.



The Croatian troops were then forced to hand over control of the area to United Nations forces, but allegedly looted and burned the Serb villages on their retreat.



Local rights groups praised the court for finally tracking down the witnesses, and said the problems it had faced in finding them could be a salutary lesson for local courts in future.



Verna Terselic, of the Documenta NGO, said it was crucial for the trials still to come that protected witnesses be persuaded to give evidence, and that the Croatian practice could be useful “especially for those which are transferred from the Hague tribunal to local courts”.



She said problems occur if the local prosecutors failed to contact the witnesses on the list supplied by the prosecution from the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, before the trial starts. The ICTY list could well have been made several years ago, and failed to keep track of witnesses moving house or even dying.



Terselic’s view was confirmed by Srdjan Dvornik from the Croatian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group.



“The problem of a lack of protected witnesses wouldn’t come up if someone from the prosecution contacted the witnesses before the trial and found out if they are alive, where they live now, what their new address is, etc,” he told the IWPR.



He said some of the witnesses called by the prosecution for the Norac-Ademi trial only discovered from the media that they were expected to take part.



In a separate development this week, Croatian human rights organisations that have been monitoring war crimes trials in the country since 2005, issued a report on February 4 in which they said that “most war crimes trials in Croatia in 2007 were conducted in compliance with fair-trial standards”.



"Crimes committed by members of the Croatian forces are also being prosecuted despite pressure from some quarters of the public, serious political opposition and obstruction within government institutions," said the report.



The report says that the two most demanding ongoing trials are those of Ademi and Norac, and of member of parliament Branimir Glavas and six other accused, for war crimes committed against Serb civilians in Osijek in 1991, because “the accused are Croatian Army generals and the public is still divided over whether they should be tried at all”.



They organisations also called for witness and victim support during war crimes trials and said that people who had been convicted in absentia should be ensured a fair trial.



The report was compiled by the Centre for Peace and Human Rights, the Documenta Centre for Dealing with the Past, the Civil Committee on Human Rights, and the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights.



Last year, these organisations monitored 28 war crimes trials before 12 county courts and seven appeals cases before the Supreme Court.



Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR reporter in Zagreb.