SERB GOES ON TRIAL IN BOSNIA GENOCIDE

In first case, Tribunal hears charges of murder and torture

by William Drozdiak

The Washington Post, Wednesday, May 8, 1996

The first international war crimes trial since the postwar judgments at Nuremberg and Tokyo opened Tuesday when a Bosnian Serb charged with murdering and torturing his Muslim and Croatian neighbors confronted the prospect of life imprisonment if convicted of acts of genocide. Dusan (Dusko) Tadic, a 40 year-old café owner and karate instructor, looked nervous and confused as he stepped into the dock as the first person to stand trial at a United Nations tribunal set up three years ago to investigate war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The prosecutor, Grant Niemann, accused Mr. Tadic of helping Serbian forces round up thousands of Muslims and Croats during a wave of ethnic cleansing in 1992 in the Prijedor region of central Bosnia. He said the evidence " will prove beyond any reasonable doubt" that the defendant engaged in acts of despicable brutality against his former neighbors who were detained at three prison camps.

Mr. Tadic's lawyer, Michail Wladimiroff, said that while such crimes had taken place, they could not have been committed by his client. He said Mr. Tadic was neither a member of the Bosnian Serb militia nor active in nationalistic politics, and warned about the perils of an unfair trial. "The thirst for revenge must not be satisfied at the well of polluted justice, " said Mr. Wladimiroff, a Dutch lawyer appointed to the Tadic case at the tribunal's expense. "The tribunal must be wary of the desire for revenge and the need for a scapegoat". The trial, which is expected to last several months, represents a milestone in the campaign by the chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, to seek retribution for the victims of some of the worst atrocities seen in Europe since World War II. While Mr. Tadic is considered only a minor figure in the violent wave of murder, rape and forced deportations that characterized the four-year war in Bosnia. Mr. Goldstone ' s strategy is to build a pyramid of evidence by prosecuting thos

e who carried out crimes in order to get at those who gave the orders. The tribunal has indicted 57 people, including 46 Serbs, 8 Croats, and 3 Muslims, for war crimes.

Mr. Tadic is one of only two suspects now in custody at a special, 24-cell wing of Scheveningen prison near the Hague. He was captured in Germany in February 1994 and extradited after Bosnian refugees identified him as one of their most vicious tormentors. He is accused of helping Serbian forces round up thousands of Muslims and Croats from May to December 1992 near Prijedor, in central Bosnia, and herd them into prison camps, including the notorious Omarska camp where leading intellectuals, businessmen and politicians were detained. The indictment against him describes the conditions at Omarska as brutal. Prisoners were fed on starvation rations and filthy water. Male and female inmates were beaten and physically abused with all kinds of weapons, including wooden clubs, metal rods and rifle butts.

Mr. Tadic, charged with having taken part in killing at least 16people, was accused of carrying out some of the most brutal kinds of maltreatment at the three camps of Omarska, Keraterm and Trnpolje. Witnesses claim he forced some victims to drink motor oil or bite off the testicles of other prisoners. The indictment released Tuesday alleged that he "ordered prisoners to drink water like animals from puddles on the ground, jumped on their backs and beat them until they were unable to move. As the victims were removed in a wheelbarrow, Tadic discharged the contents of a fire extinguisher into the mouth of one of the victims. "The prosecution has lined up more than 100 witnesses who are expected to testify in coming weeks that Mr. Tadic mistreated prisoners. But is lawyers say he cannot receive a fair trial because those who could prove his innocence are reluctant to leave territory held by the Serbs.