At war crimes trial, UN interpreter recalls fleeing Croatian bombing campaign

A former U.N. interpreter testified Thursday that shells rained down around her as she fled to a bomb shelter during the start of a deadly 1995 Croatian army blitz for which three generals are accused of war crimes.

Prosecutors with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal say the military offensive began Aug. 4, 1995, with the shelling of Knin and continued with a brutal campaign known as "Operation Storm" in which Croat forces murdered Serbs and pillaged and torched their homes.

By the end of September, some 350 Serbs were dead and up to 200,000 had fled the Krajina region in southern Croatia, which rebel Serbs had seized four years earlier as Yugoslavia crumbled.

Croat generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak are accused of orchestrating a campaign of murder and persecution of Serbs in the offensive. Prosecutors say their aim was to permanently drive the Serb civilian population from Krajina.

But in Croatia, the three men are considered national heroes and the operation is widely regarded as a military triumph.

Gotovina, Markac and Cermak have pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes based on their command of troops and special forces involved in the killings and persecution. If convicted, they face maximum life sentences.

The former interpreter who testified Thursday was the first prosecution witness in the generals' trial. She was identified only as Witness 136 and her face was hidden from those watching the trial.

"As soon as I left the building, a house next to the apartment building was completely destroyed and I wondered at the time if anybody could have survived," she said.

The witness said shells hit homes and a medical clinic.

"I cannot recall any other details," she said. "As I ran, shells were falling around me."

She described visiting a cemetery in Knin a few days later and counting 62 new graves, most of them unidentified.

Gotovina's lawyer, Greg Kehoe, said the area where the shells fell was "replete with various army ... facilities."

Under international law, shelling military targets is allowed but care must be taken not to cause civilian casualties.