Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410220061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SALZBURG, AUSTRIA LENGTH: Medium
The first person to be tried outside former Yugoslavia for Bosnian war crimes pleaded innocent Thursday in a trial that presaged the hurdles the international Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal will face.
The first day of the landmark proceeding, opening in Salzburg, was marred by hearsay evidence and translation errors. The presiding judges adjourned it until Dec. 5 to allow a search for more witnesses.
A series of contradictory statements and affidavits led even the prosecutor to doubt whether he had a case.
Asked during a break whether he had a leg to stand on, prosecutor Hubert Maringele said, ``not at this stage.''
Dusko Cvjetkovic is accused of murder, genocide and arson. He is accused of killing one Muslim in the village of Kucice, participating indirectly in the killing of another Muslim for ethnic and religious reasons and taking part in the torching of the village.
Cvjetkovic, 26, said he was working as a radio operator for Bosnian Serb forces and helping in a soup kitchen behind the front line. ``I never fired a gun,'' he testified.
If found guilty, he faces life in prison.
But the prospects of conviction looked dim Thursday. Testimony by the prosecution's chief witness, a Muslim who claimed to have seen the atrocities, which included the killing of his brother, diverged markedly from his own affidavit.
Under Austrian law, the prosecutor does not have a chance to question his own witnesses beforehand, so that affidavit served as the backbone of the indictment.
Affidavits from other witnesses identified people other than Cvjetkovic as the murderers.
Police kept inaccurate records of Cvjetkovic's and the chief prosecution witness' statements under questioning, caused in part by translation mistakes. And the evidence that witnesses offered included hearsay that had sometimes been relayed third-hand.
The Salzburg trial provided a foretaste of difficulties that will face other countries and the Hague-based Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, which was established by the U.N. Security Council last year and is expected to hand down its first indictments next month.
At least five prisoners accused of committing war crimes in Bosnia are being held in western Europe. The tribunal, which will conduct the first international war crimes trials since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following the Second World War, will seek jurisdiction in some of these cases, as well as others initiated at the Hague.
Other cases have been tried in former Yugoslavia. Bosnia has convicted two men of war crimes.
The tribunal is due to hold its first public sitting Nov. 8, when the prosecutor's office will request permission to ask Germany to defer the case of Dusan Tadic - a notorious suspected war criminal - to the tribunal, in a legal process similar to extradition.
by CNB