Serbian paramilitary admits mass killings, torture

   I would do the same again, if something were to break out in Kosovo,"-declares serb
criminal
   Serbian security police on Thursday arrested a former paramilitary fighter in the wars in
Croatia and Bosnia who admitted torturing and killing up to 80 people, including women,
Serbian media reported.
   Slobodan Misic, 50, was detained on the premises of the newspaper to which he gave
his account, the Belgrade-based independent news agency Beta quoted Vranjske Novine
editor Vukasin Obradovic as saying.
   Obradovic said Misic had gone to the newspaper's office because he had been
harassed by reporters.
   He said he warned Misic that he could be arrested once his confession was published
and Misic was aware of that. Hours before his arrest Misic gave Vranjske Novine a
harrowing account of his atrocities as a paramilitary fighter, including cutting off Moslem
ears for sale.
   "I am a dead man and nothing worse can happen to me," said Misic, a former convict.
   "I am 50 years old, and ... I am sick of lying. They all keep lying, varnishing things -- once
and for all we should tell it as it was," Misic was quoted as saying.
   Serbia, main republic in federal Yugoslavia, has denied involvement in the wars in
Bosnia and Croatia, although both republics were plunged into battle with the Serbian-
dominated Yugoslav army or regular and paramilitary offshoots after they declared
independence from the federation in 1991-92.
   Serbia has also refused to hand over war crimes suspects to an international war crimes
tribunal in The Hague.
   Misic's account, picked up by many newspapers in Serbia, was the first time since the
wars that a Serbian paramilitary soldier has openly admitted to committing atrocities to the
domestic media and public.

   He said he did not regret any of his actions, except the murders of two Moslem women.
   "I would do the same again, if something were to break out in Kosovo," he said,
mentioning the volatile Albanian-majority province in southern Serbia. "But I wouldn't kill
just Albanians -- some of our own would also be my targets."
   Asked if he wasn't tired of killing, he replied: "The biggest mistake is when you kill for the
first time. After that it just goes on its own ... You can't understand how it is. It gets into
your blood, your brain. Like a drug. You just can't go without it."
   He said he volunteered in June or July 1991 because he "could not bear to see mass
crimes against the Serb population" and was sent to the front line near Vukovar in Croatia.
   The U.N. war crimes tribunal has indicted three Yugoslav army officers for war crimes
after federal forces demolished the Baroque town on the Danube in a three-month siege.
The first man Misic said he killed was a Croat: "First I was scared and nauseated, but after
two or three days you get used to everything."
   He said civilians were also killed -- "mainly extremists who were known by the local
Serbs, and they were liquidated at once." He admitted to killing some prisoners, an offence
for which he was given seven days detention.
   He said the largest number of people were killed in Vukovar. "They killed us, we killed
them..." he said.
   When the war started in Bosnia in April 1992 he joined local paramilitary units operating
in eastern Bosnia. They "cleaned out the Moslem villages, one by one".
   "We burned everything we saw, we threw grenades into houses, we fired our guns... We
captured some Moslems and sent them to Bratunac. After our actions, the villages were
completely razed. Zanjevo, Tegare, seven or eight others".
   Bratunac is close to Srebrenica where the United Nations believes some 4,000 Moslem
male prisoners were executed after the town fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.
   Misic said houses were torched by incendiary devices thrown through windows. Serb
fighters had not checked whether there was anyone inside. He said he did not kill children,
"but we did kill women".
   Misic claimed he cut off the heads of two Moslems and impaled the head of one, who
had previously killed a young Serb, on a fence, and then killed six other Moslems who
came in the evening to collect the body.
   When short of funds, he said he sold Moslems' ears to Serbs for 50 German marks
apiece. He said he always cut off the ears personally, and always the left ear. "One ear -
one Moslem," he said.
   Misic, known as "Top," spent time in juvenile detention and later several years in prison
for embezzlement. He said he had been left by his family and was penniless.