Horror in The Hague as first witness heard in Karadzic trial

Apr 14, 2010, 2:17 GMT

The Hague - Gruesome episodes from the Bosnian war took centre stage Tuesday at the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as a Bosnian Muslim witness recounted how he was tortured and how fellow Bosniaks were murdered by Serbian forces.

Ahmet Zulic, who says he has been scarred for life by the horrors of the 1992-95 conflict, was one of the few survivors of the Manjaca camp, in northern Bosnia, and the first witness to be called in by the prosecution in the Karadzic trial taking place at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

During his testimony, he confirmed statements made in previous ICTY trials about the June 1992 murder by Serbian soldiers of some 20 Muslim men who had their throats slit after having been forced to dig their own graves.

He also told the court how imprisoned Muslims were beaten unconscious with a bat and tortured on a regular basis.

At one point, he recalled being told to make the sign of the Christian cross by Serb forces while being detained in a makeshift prison camp in a garage.

'When I refused to do, they stepped on my hands and broke my fingers,' Zulic told the court.

Zulic, who also testified against Slobodan Milosevic - the former Yugoslav supremo who died in The Hague in 2006 - was the first of a long list of witnesses called by the prosecution in its case against Karadzic.

The former Serb leader faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role as supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces during the Bosnian war, which killed some 100,000 people.

The most notorious episode of his alleged ethnic-cleansing campaign is the 1995 Massacre of Srebrenica, which saw Bosnian Serb armed forces kill some 8,000 Bosniak civilians living in what was then a UN-protected 'safe area.' It is considered Europe's worst war time atrocity since World War II.

In his opening statements to the court last month, Karadzic dismissed the Srebrenica Massacre as 'a myth' and repeatedly portrayed local Serbs as helpless victims of Muslim (Bosniak) aggression. The former psychiatrist denies all charges and is conducting his own defence. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.

Tuesday's hearing marked the resumption of his trial after a 5-week break as appeal judges considered and rejected a fresh request to be given more time to prepare his defence. Karadzic has repeatedly attempted to delay proceedings since the start of the trial, in late October.

During his testimony Tuesday, Zulic denied the existence of 'organized' or 'spontaneous' Bosniak armed resistance in the Muslim village of Mahala and spoke of people's homes being burnt at night by Serbian forces or paramilitary groups.

'I could see shells flying in and exploding, and I could see houses burning at night,' Zulic said, noting that three women and two brothers were killed in one targeted house alone.

Zulic was then cross-examined by an unemotional Karadzic, who attempted to portray the prosecutor's witness as politically motivated.

Karadzic, 64, was arrested in July 2008 in Belgrade, where he had been hiding disguised as the long-bearded Dragan David Dabic, doctor of alternative medicine.