Defense charges women lied about being raped in Bosnia

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Lawyers for three Bosnian Serbs accused of raping Muslim women argued Tuesday that the women made up their accounts of torture, gang rape and sexual enslavement.

''The prosecution has not presented a single piece of evidence'' incriminating the defendants, lawyer Slavisu Prodanovic told a U.N. war crimes tribunal in closing arguments in the first international trial of rape as a crime against humanity.

Sixteen Bosnian Muslim women testified that paramilitary fighters overran their villages and detained them for up to two years at schools, a sports hall, motel rooms and homes during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, a former republic of Yugoslavia.

Victims who were as young as 12 during the war wailed with grief as they recalled being beaten and raped nightly at gunpoint by soldiers.

On Monday, prosecutors urged the court to show no mercy toward the three defendants.

Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. If convicted, they would face a maximum life sentence.

Prodanovic, Kunarac's lawyer, speaking on behalf of all three defendants, denied the Serb leadership encouraged rape to intimidate Muslims in the Bosnian city of Foca into fleeing.

He didn't deny that sexual assaults occurred, but said if they did, ''it by no means can be considered comprehensive'' so as to fall under the jurisdiction of a war crimes tribunal.

In a rambling speech that he didn't stop even when a judge complained it was repetitive, the Bosnian Serb lawyer alleged the victims testimony was ''confused and contradictory.''

He claimed they misidentified perpetrators and sometimes placed a single defendant in two places at the same time.

''The court cannot lend credibility to such witnesses,'' Prodanovic said.

He challenged a witness's account that she was raped for up to three hours by 15 soldiers in a house that prosecutors described as Kunarac's headquarters. ''This should be checked by medical experts,'' he said.

Prosecutors on Monday reminded the tribunal that its statutes require no corroboration of testimony from rape victims.

Prodanovic argued that the women were not detained but rather held in ''collection centers'' for their own safety during a Serb counterattack against Muslim forces. He claimed the women were free to leave.

''It is clear that the Partizan sports hall was by no means a detention unit,'' he said. ''Even the fact that there were bars on the window does not change this.''

In their final trial brief, defense lawyers also argued that because the testimony was presented so well, ''it is obvious that there are no permanent psychological and psychiatric consequences suffered by any of these witnesses.''