Relative was burned alive, genocide trial witness says

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A Bosnian Muslim told judges in Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial Tuesday that Serbs burned his elderly father-in-law alive during the brutal takeover of his village at the outset of the Bosnian war.

The testimony finally opened the presentation of evidence against the former Bosnian Serb leader after months of delays and legal wrangling since his arrest in July 2008 after 12 years on the run.

It also marked Karadzic's debut as his own defense counsel at the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal.

Karadzic, 64, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for allegedly orchestrating atrocities perpetrated by Bosnian Serb troops and paramilitary thugs to carve out an ethnically pure Serbian ministate in Bosnia. He faces a life sentence if convicted.

Karadzic insists he is innocent and argues that Serbs were defending themselves against what he has described as a fundamentalist plot to turn Bosnia into an Islamic republic.

On Tuesday, Ahmet Zulic said his father-in-law was killed by Serbs "mopping up" survivors of an artillery attack on a mainly Muslim village near Sanski Most, in northwestern Bosnia, in May 1992.

Zulic also watched Serbs force about 20 Muslim men to dig their own graves and then slashed their throats or shot them, prosecutor Ann Sutherland told judges.

Zulic said in a written statement that a former teacher, Medeljko Rasula, saved him from his own throat being cut.

The Serbs arrested Zulic and other Muslim men and held them first in a cramped garage and then in a cattle shed at the notorious Manjaca camp near the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka from June to November 1992, Sutherland said.

Zulic's weight dropped from 198 to 121 pounds; relentless beatings by Bosnian Serbs ranging from police officers to schoolchildren left him with broken bones and a septic wound on his back, he testified. He said his captors broke his fingers after he refused to make the sign of the cross.

In an effort to save time, most of Zulic's testimony was given to judges in a 37-page written statement and he was not asked to describe much of his ordeal in court.

He did, however, tell judges that he was beaten "nearly to death" after he allowed Red Cross workers to examine his injuries during an inspection of Manjaca camp. Two other Muslims who also allowed the Red Cross to examine them were beaten to death, Zulic said.

Although Zulic did not mention Karadzic in the early part of his testimony, prosecutors allege the former Bosnian Serb leader orchestrated the plan, and their ability to link him to well-documented Bosnian Serb crimes is key to proving their case.

Karadzic's case is the tribunal's most important since former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died in his jail cell in 2006 before judges at the U.N. court could reach a verdict in his trial.