Prosecution Statement Launches Hadzic Trial

Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal this week made their opening statement in the last trial to take place before the Hague tribunal. 

Goran Hadzic, the wartime leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, was arrested in Serbia in July 2011 after evading detention for seven years. Since he was the last suspect wanted by the tribunal, his trial is accordingly the final one to be held there.

“This is the last opening statement of the last trial to be held in this tribunal,” prosecutor Douglas Stringer said. “But the crimes you’ll hear about were among the very first to be committed during the long years of conflict and despair that witnessed the death of a culturally rich, diverse country called Yugoslavia.”

During the war in Croatia in the early 1990s, Hadzic held senior political positions in Serb-held parts of the country. He headed the government of the self-declared Serbian Autonomous District of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem, and from February 1992 to December 1993 was president of the Republic of Serb Krajina, which had absorbed the autonomous district.

Hadzic is charged with 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed against the Croat and non-Serb population, including persecution, extermination, murder, imprisonment, torture, inhumane acts, cruel treatment, deportation, wanton destruction and plunder.

He is also alleged to have been part of a joint criminal enterprise with other political and military officials – including the then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic – the purpose of which was the “permanent forcible removal of a majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from approximately one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia” in order to create a Serb-dominated state.

“Goran Hadzic was Slobodan Milosevic’s man on the ground in Croatia,” prosecutor Stringer told the court on the first day of the trial.

Milosevic died in 2006, before his trial before the Hague tribunal ended.

According to the prosecution, with Serbia’s guidance and influence, Hadzic helped eradicate non-Serb populations from Serb Krajina and supplied armed forces to achieve that goal.

Among the incidents highlighted by the prosecution during its opening statement this week was a massacre that occurred at Lovas, Croatia in 1991. At a minefield outside the town, soldiers of the Yugoslav army or JNA forced 51 Croat civilians to walk across a minefield holding hands and sweeping their feet to clear it. When one of the mines went off, soldiers opened fire on the group, killing 22.

The trial is also expected to cover the battle for Vukovar in Croatia and the ensuing massacre of some 200 men and boys by JNA forces at the nearby Ovcara farm in November 1991.

The defence did not use its opportunity to present an opening statement; it will do so instead at the beginning of Hadzic’s defence case.

This week, the judges heard the testimony of the first witness in this trial, a Croat civilian who described in court how he burned off a political tattoo  to avoid being tortured while he was imprisoned by the Serbian paramilitary force known as Arkan’s Tigers.

Arkan’s Tigers were commanded by Zeljko Raznatovic aka “Arkan”, a Serbian warlord who was indicted by the Hague tribunal in March 1999, but was assassinated in Belgrade in 2000.

During opening statements this week, prosecutors alleged ties between Hadzic and Arkan’s Tigers, stating that the accused acted as a link between his civilian government and Serb military forces.

At the start of the war in Croatia, witness Zlatko Antunovic, who was aged 17 at the time, lived in the eastern Croatian town of Erdut. In August 1991, following Croatia’s declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, JNA forces entered the town.

Several days afterwards, Antunovic was arrested and taken to the nearby town of Dalj, where he was imprisoned inside a cultural centre. He described how he and other men were beaten and humiliated by their captors.

“They beat me on my foot soles,” Antunovic recalled. “The pain was awful. And you cannot defend yourself.”

Antunovic also described being forced to clean the guards’ toilet with only his hands and buckets of water.

“After that, they gave me bread, as if I had to spread [faeces] on the bread and eat it,” he recalled.

Although he was released some days later and allowed to return to work at the local vineyard, Antunovic was arrested again in October 1991 and taken back to the Dalj cultural centre.

It was there that he came into contact with Zeljko Raznatovic.

“I remember he asked if I knew who he was,” Antunovic said. “And then he slapped me and introduced himself to me as Arkan.”

The witness said that while he was held by Arkan’s Tigers, he and other detainees were again subject to violent beatings and humiliation.

During one episode, Antunovic was forced to climb on top of a truck and sing songs for the guards. One of them asked him to take off his shirt in order to reveal a tattoo on his arm representing the Croatian Democratic Union or HDZ, which was the.ruling party in Croatia at the time, 

A guard told Antunovic that he would be gone for two days and that when he returned he would cut the tattoo off.

“As soon as I stepped into my cell, I took my cigarettes and started burning off the tattoo,” Antunovic told the court. “The next morning, I stripped the scar or skin off. I kept burning it off until it was gone.”

Eventually Antunovic was released again, only to be arrested a third time in December 1991, several days after his 18th birthday.

This time he was taken to a training centre in Erdut run by Arkan’s Tigers.

“They handcuffed me to an old lady,” Antunovic said, adding that the woman had been arrested for celebrating Christmas and lighting a Christmas tree. “Two girls came along and hit this old woman on the face. It hurt me because the handcuffs were stretched, but it was worse for her, I’m sure of that.”

Antunovic was again released after a few days. He told the court that not long afterwards, he and the remaining Croat population of Erdut were put on buses and driven out of the town to the nearby town of Osijek.

During cross-examination, the defence challenged the Antunovic’s memory of events and their precise timing.

“Were the individuals present wearing civilian clothing?” defence lawyer Christopher Gosnell asked him.

“I don’t remember that,” Antunovic replied.

“Was there one beating during your detention, or was there more than one beating?” the lawyer went on, referring to his first detention at the Dalj cultural centre.

“They did hit me, but I don’t remember when, or how many times,” Antunovic insisted.

At several points, Antunovic struggled to recall precise dates. He also had difficulty explaining why he had got the HDZ tattoo that was later to cause him trouble with Arkan’s paramilitaries.

Antunovic, who was a member of the youth wing of the HDZ, claimed in court that he was not political at the time and only got the tattoo because “it simply came to be, as part of youth and all it brings. The insanity.”

“You could have gotten any number of symbols,” Gosnell told him. “What I’m curious about is why you chose that particular symbol.”

“At that time, that must have seemed interesting to me,” said Antunovic, who repeatedly insisted that he was not involved in politics or HDZ meetings. “I don’t know what other answer I can give you.”

The trial continues next week.

David Nelson is an IWPR-trained reporter in The Hague.