THE HAGUE, June 11 (Reuters) -- The first eyewitness at the war crimes trial of Bosnian Serb Dusan "Dusko" Tadic took the stand on Tuesday to testify behind closed doors. The witness, referred to only as "Q," gave evidence in camera to three judges at the Hague-based U.N. criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
The prosecution expects to call 70 eyewitnesses to testify against Tadic, a former bar-owner and karate teacher accused of murdering, raping and torturing Muslims after the Bosnian Serbs seized power in the Prijedor area of northwest Bosnia in 1992. The prosecution accuses Tadic of roaming the Omarska and Trnopolje prison camps, committing atrocities at will as part of a broader Bosnian Serb policy of "ethnic cleansing."
Tadic, who denies all the charges against him, was in court to hear the first eyewitness testimony. A tribunal spokesman said that a second eyewitness was expected to testify in open court later on Tuesday. Since the trial began on May 7, the prosecution has called 16 so-called "expert" witnesses to show that Tadic's alleged atrocities were part of a widespread and systematic Serb campaign of attacks against non-Serbs.
Historians, politicians and journalists have been among those called to portray the general context in which Tadic's alleged crimes took place.
The trial, held at a specially-built courtroom in The Hague, is expected to last several months. Created by the U.N. Security Council in 1993, the tribunal is the first international body for the prosecution of war
crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War Two.
The tribunal has so far indicted 58 suspects -- 46 Serbs, one of whom has since died, nine Croats and three Muslims. Six are held at the tribunal's detention centre in The Hague, while another three are under arrest in Croatia and Bosnia. The two most prominent indicted suspects are Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander General Ratko Mladic, both of whom remain at large.