Page 12042
1 Monday, 19 July 2004
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
5 JUDGE LIU: Call the case please, Mr. Court Deputy.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is Case Number
7 IT-02-60-T, the Prosecutor versus Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic.
8 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
9 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Are there any matters that
10 the parties would like to raise? It seems to me there are none.
11 Could we have the witness, please.
12 [The witness entered court]
13 JUDGE LIU: Good morning, Witness.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.
15 JUDGE LIU: Could you please make the solemn declaration in
16 accordance with the paper Madam Usher is showing to you.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
18 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. You may sit down, please.
20 Yes, Mr. Stojanovic, the witness is yours.
21 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.
22 WITNESS: ZORAN RADOSAVLJEVIC
23 [Witness answered through interpreter]
24 Examined by Mr. Stojanovic:
25 Q. Good morning, sir.
Page 12043
1 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness move closer to the microphone,
2 please.
3 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Would you please move closer to the microphone, and you can put
5 your headset on -- can you hear me?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Thank you. Would you please introduce yourself. What is your
8 first and last name?
9 A. My name is Zoran Radosavljevic.
10 Q. For the sake of the record, could you please spell your first and
11 last name.
12 A. Z-o-r-a-n R-a-d-o-s-a-v-l-j-e-v-i-c.
13 Q. Thank you. Mr. Radosavljevic, where and when were you born?
14 A. I was born on the 13th of May, 1957, in the municipality of
15 Loznica.
16 Q. Would you please tell us where the municipality of Loznica is
17 located.
18 A. It's in Serbia opposite Bosnia and Herzegovina.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Could there be a pause between question and
20 answer, please.
21 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Where did you live and what was your education?
23 A. I lived and still live in Pilica. I completed my primary school
24 in Pilica, secondary school in Osijek, and further education in Sarajevo.
25 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, could we please pause after my question so that
Page 12044
1 the interpreters can interpret everything we say. Thank you.
2 Where is the village of Pilica?
3 A. The village of Pilica is 30 kilometres away from Zvornik and 25
4 kilometres away from Bijeljina and 4 kilometres away from Loznica, which
5 is in the neighbouring republic of Serbia.
6 Q. At one point today you said that you completed your secondary
7 school in Osijek.
8 A. Yes, I did. In Osijek, in the Republic of Croatia.
9 Q. Would you tell us the reason why you went to school in Croatia.
10 A. I had an aunt there; she still lives in Osijek. And I stayed with
11 her while I was going to secondary school.
12 Q. And what was your post -- two-year post secondary education?
13 A. The higher administrative school in Sarajevo.
14 Q. And when you completed the administrative school, did you gain a
15 profession?
16 A. Yes. I was a lawyer specialising in administrative work, and my
17 specialty was misdemeanors.
18 Q. Thank you. Did you serve in the army before the outbreak of the
19 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
20 A. No, I did not. And I did not participate in this war, the last
21 war.
22 Q. This might be a good point to ask you why you didn't serve in the
23 army.
24 A. My right kidney was removed before I was to serve in the army, and
25 the military medical academy found to my eyesight is 65 per cent - that's
Page 12045
1 why I wear glasses - and this is the reason why I did not do my military
2 service.
3 Q. Would you please describe your career up to 1992.
4 A. My first job was in the rubber factory in Zvornik, where I worked
5 from 1984 until 1991. After this when I left the rubber products factory,
6 I worked in Loznica in a privately owned company called Lozane Export.
7 After this I worked in a privately owned company called Milprum [phoen] in
8 Loznica here I worked until 2001.
9 In 2001, in February, I got a job in the ministry or displaced
10 persons and refugees of Republika Srpska, where I remained until the 31st
11 of December, 2003. After this, because our mission was completed - and
12 this was the implementation mission - I was put on stand-by.
13 Q. In 1992 when the war broke out, where were you employed?
14 A. I was employed in Milprum in Loznica, a privately owned company
15 across the street, or rather, seven kilometres away from my house.
16 Q. Is this in Serbia?
17 A. Yes. This is in the Federal Republic of Serbia.
18 Q. Thank you. After I show you a topographical map, could you please
19 show us where the community centre in Pilica is, the Kula primary school
20 in Pilica, and your house.
21 Mr. Radosavljevic, to your right you will see a topographical map,
22 and the scale is 25.000. You have a pointer here. If you can, please
23 indicate with this pointer and assist us by showing us the community
24 centre in Pilica, your house, and the Kula school in Pilica.
25 A. I'll start like this. On my right-hand side is the river Drina.
Page 12046
1 On the left-hand side of the river Drina is the village of Pilica. And
2 here is the Kula primary school. Yes, I found it, it's here. This is
3 Branjevo. Here it is. So this is the Kula primary school, this is river
4 Drina.
5 Q. Could you please show us, if you can find your way about on this
6 map.
7 Could we please zoom in on this part. Enough. Thank you. Thank
8 you.
9 Could you please tell us now at which crossroads in the village of
10 Pilica is the community centre. Could you point to this.
11 A. Just a moment. Let me try and find it. Here it is.
12 Q. Thank you. How far from your house is the Kula primary school, if
13 you can point to the primary school now.
14 A. The Kula primary school is here.
15 Q. Do you see a school marked on this map with the letters S K?
16 A. Yes, I do.
17 Q. How far is it from your house?
18 A. It's three and a half kilometres away from my house.
19 Q. Would you tell us where the Branjevo Farm is located?
20 A. It's located right here; it's two kilometres away from my house.
21 Q. How far is the Pilica community centre from your house?
22 A. Between my house and the community centre there are three other
23 houses, and the distance is about 100 metres.
24 Q. Thank you. I would now like to ask you something else. The
25 Branjevo Farm, is it a military or civilian farm?
Page 12047
1 A. After World War II until this war, the Branjevo Farm was under the
2 Nova Selo/Bijeljina. It is not a military farm. Throughout all this
3 time it was just an agricultural estate. And according to the cadastre
4 it belongs to Zvornik, but it was never run by the military.
5 Q. When the war broke out, between 1992 and 1995, during the war,
6 what was this farm used for?
7 A. That's where they raised livestock for the army during the war.
8 They kept pigs there, cattle, and this was food for the military during
9 the war.
10 Q. Thank you. I will now ask you the following: How did the local
11 government operate in Pilica after the war? Were you involved in the
12 local government, and can you tell us very briefly how it functioned.
13 A. The president of the local commune after the outbreak of
14 hostilities in Pilica was Diko Micic [phoen]. He left for Germany almost
15 immediately. He was succeeded by the president of the commission for
16 wartime conditions, and he was not elected by the people. He was
17 appointed because of the wartime situation. His name was Pero Petrovic.
18 He was the president of the commission, and later he replaced the
19 president of the local commune. And he was at that post until the end of
20 the war.
21 Q. And did Pero Petrovic carry out this duty because he was
22 politically active?
23 A. Yes, he was. And he was in the council so they nominated him as a
24 president of the commission for wartime conditions. And when the
25 president left for Germany, we were left without a president and then he
Page 12048
1 took over this duty.
2 Q. And what was his political affiliation?
3 A. He belonged to the SDS.
4 Q. Thank you.
5 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Would the usher now assist us and
6 remove the map.
7 For the record, this is D128/3. And the scale is 1:25.000. Thank
8 you.
9 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, we have had occasion here to listen to the
10 testimony of Pero Petrovic, and he said that throughout the war he was the
11 president of the local commune of Pilica. My question is the following:
12 Was he ever elected as the president of the Pilica local commune?
13 A. No, he was never elected by the voters. He was the president of
14 the commission. He was a self-appointed president because he was never
15 elected by the people.
16 Q. When you say a "self-appointed president," what do you mean by
17 that?
18 A. I mean the elections were never held at which Pero Petrovic was
19 never elected as president. The people never elected him to that office.
20 Q. Thank you. I'm now just briefly going to ask you a few things
21 about 1992. In that year, 1992, in the community centre of Pilica were
22 prisoners brought who were Muslims ethnically?
23 A. Yes, that's right.
24 Q. Do you happen to remember where these prisoners came from, where
25 they were brought to the community centre from?
Page 12049
1 A. Well, I said it was from the Djulici area around Zvornik.
2 Q. Tell me, please: At the time, Pero Petrovic, did he perform the
3 duty of the self-appointed president of the Municipal Assembly?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Thank you. Now you, Mr. Radosavljevic, did you know Dragan Jokic
6 at all?
7 A. I didn't know him. I heard of him. And before the war, he was in
8 charge of the village roads, for the construction and reconstruction of
9 roads,, but I never met him personally nor was I ever with him personally.
10 Q. You said that at the beginning of the war he worked in the village
11 on road construction?
12 A. Well, we have a roundabout road running for 20 kilometres, and it
13 has to be repaired with machinery two or three times a year. So on that
14 particular occasion he was engaged on the reconstruction of that road. I
15 didn't meet him, but I heard it was Jokic who was repairing the roads.
16 Q. Did you hear anything bad about him?
17 A. No, nothing. I didn't hear anything like that.
18 Q. After the war did you have any contacts at all, friendly meetings
19 or anything of the kind with Dragan Jokic?
20 A. No. And to the present day I have never been with him.
21 Q. Everything you're saying here today, does it have anything to do
22 with your relationship perhaps with Dragan Jokic?
23 A. No. No reason for that at all.
24 Q. Thank you. Now, you yourself, were you militarily involved in
25 1992 until 1995, Mr. Radosavljevic?
Page 12050
1 A. For a brief period of time I left up until November, I was just
2 called up. But when I told them that I was not fit for military service,
3 I was exempt. So I was not engaged in any way. I just went once.
4 Q. Did you personally have any problems or unpleasantness for not
5 being militarily involved and for not taking up a rifle?
6 A. Yes. They sent me to sit before a commission to be submitted to a
7 medical examination, and I went in November 1992 to have a re-examination.
8 And they established that I was not fit to do any military service, either
9 during the war or during peacetime either.
10 Q. I should now like to ask you something about 1995. Do you
11 remember the events that are linked to the fall of Srebrenica?
12 A. Yes. I remember the 14th of July. There were rumours going
13 around the village that Srebrenica was to fall and that it would fall.
14 And --
15 Q. Let me stop you there. Where were you yourself in the days when
16 Srebrenica fell?
17 A. I was at home. I had a work obligation in Loznica. I had to go
18 to work every day, so I was at home basically.
19 Q. When you say "at home," how far is your house away from the
20 community centre or cultural centre at Pilica?
21 A. I said my house was 100 metres away. I have three -- there are
22 three houses between my own my house and the cultural centre, but we're on
23 the same side, on the right-hand side, looking towards Zvornik. So three
24 houses in between the centre and my house.
25 Q. Is there a catering establishment in your house?
Page 12051
1 A. Yes. It's been there since 1985.
2 Q. What's the catering establishment called? What do people call it?
3 A. It takes my grandfather's name, and it is called Milakov Han. And
4 in the 1900s my grandfather owned a catering establishment called Han,
5 Milakov, so my father decided to call this catering establishment after
6 him.
7 Q. And who was the proprietor of the establishment?
8 A. Then and now my mother is the proprietor. She is the owner, and
9 she is in charge of the restaurant, and of late my brother has become
10 involved as well who helps her out.
11 Q. From your house and from your catering establishment can you see
12 the entrance into the cultural centre at Pilica?
13 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please speak up and approach
14 the microphone. We didn't actually hear him say anything.
15 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. I'm going to ask you again. From your house and catering
17 establishment, can you see the entrance to the cultural centre at Pilica?
18 A. Yes. You can see where you turn to go into the centre, but you
19 can't actually see the entrance and doorway. You can see the entrance
20 into the yard but not the actual entrance to the centre, the building
21 itself.
22 Q. Thank you. I'm now going to ask you another question, but let me
23 say straight away that we heard certain testimony speaking about another
24 catering establishment which is located opposite the cultural centre. Now
25 my question to you is this: Opposite the cultural centre, is there
Page 12052
1 another catering establishment at all?
2 A. Yes, there is. It is Novi Zivot. The restaurant is called
3 Novi Zivot, or new life, opposite the cultural centre.
4 Q. From that restaurant, the Novi Zivot restaurant, can you see the
5 entrance into the cultural centre at Pilica?
6 A. The cultural centre has three entrances, so I think you can only
7 see one, the first, where the offices are located but not the other two.
8 Q. Thank you. And now to go back to the 14th of July. Were you
9 working on that day?
10 A. Yes, I was. I worked regularly. When I came back from my job in
11 my mother's restaurant I came across Pero Petrovic and Milovanovic Cviko.
12 Q. Let's take that step by step, Witness. Can you tell us, please,
13 Mr. Radosavljevic, when in the afternoon was this on the 14th, what time?
14 A. Well, I worked in Loznica from 4.00 to 6.00, or rather, I returned
15 home from 4.00 to 6.00, so I might have come home at 6.00 p.m. actually,
16 round around about that time.
17 Q. You mentioned the name of Cviko Milovanovic?
18 A. Yes. Cviko Milovanovic was a postman in our village at that time.
19 Q. Did the two of them have any reason for being in your mother's
20 catering establishment?
21 A. Well, they were there when I arrived, so I sat down at their
22 table, and whilst talking to them they said that they would like us to go
23 to the elementary school of Kula because something was going on there,
24 somebody had been brought there, so that we should go and have a look to
25 see what had happened and who was -- had been brought there.
Page 12053
1 Q. In what context did they say that something was going on there?
2 Actually did Pero say that or did Cviko say that?
3 A. Well, Pero and Cviko were sitting down together. They were
4 waiting for me to come so that we could all go together to the elementary
5 school, because allegedly they had heard that some people had been brought
6 in there but they didn't know what was going on.
7 Q. If I understand you correctly, Pero told you that he didn't know
8 what it was all about and what was going on?
9 A. Yes. He didn't know who was brought there, he hadn't received any
10 information, so he wanted us to go off together to see what was happening,
11 because at the time he performed the function of president of the local
12 community.
13 Q. And what about Cviko Milovanovic, did he occupy any position in
14 the local community?
15 A. No. He was just the first -- the next-door neighbour, next door
16 to the office, because the postman's office was next to the president of
17 the local community's office at that time.
18 Q. Did Pero say why he wanted to go and see what was going on?
19 A. He said that he had heard that some war prisoners have been
20 brought there in buses. Now as he didn't have anymore information about
21 that, he wanted us to go off together to see what was happening there.
22 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, on two occasions during this short space of
23 time you said that Pero said he hadn't been informed, that he didn't know,
24 wasn't informed. I wanted to tell you that Pero Petrovic testified here
25 before this Trial Chamber on the 2nd of December, 2003 --
Page 12054
1 MS. ISSA: Your Honour.
2 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
3 MS. ISSA: I'm objecting to this line of questioning simply
4 because -- well, first of all, it seems to be approaching a leading
5 question, but more importantly none of these questions were put to
6 Mr. Petrovic. Mr. Petrovic was never asked any questions relating to the
7 meeting of this witness in cross-examination. And so it actually violates
8 the rule of 90(H)(ii) which states that the case must be put to the
9 witness in cross-examination. The Defence had ample opportunity to do so;
10 Mr. Petrovic was here. They cross-examined him at length, and they never
11 asked him a single question about this meeting. So in the interests of
12 fairness and this rule, I would submit that the Defence not be permitted
13 to continue with these questions.
14 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Stojanovic, do you have any reply?
15 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, this is surprising
16 argumentation as far as I'm concerned. How could I have asked a question
17 like that of Petrovic, Pero, when I didn't know of the existence of any
18 such meeting? All I can say is that after the statement given by Pero
19 Petrovic here before this Honourable Trial Chamber under oath, that I,
20 together with your investigator, tried to find the relevant evidence to
21 show that he wasn't telling the truth on the occasions. So the arguments
22 we're putting forward today through this witness -- and this witness is
23 here to attempt to state what we knew from the very first day, from day
24 one. Therefore, I had a talk with the present witness after I had talked
25 to Pero Petrovic, and I learned that on that particular day, the 14th, he
Page 12055
1 had -- his movements were quite different to what he set out before this
2 Honourable Trial Chamber here in this courtroom. So I have nothing more
3 to add.
4 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Stojanovic, I'm a little bit confused with
5 the purpose of your questions to this witness, because we believe that you
6 have to show us the relevance to your client, Mr. Jokic, concerning the
7 testimony of this witness, rather than the challenge to the testimony of
8 another witness. This is the essential issue in this case, that is, it
9 has to be relevant to the whereabouts or his knowledge of these events.
10 If there is no such kind of linkage, I'm afraid those testimonies are
11 somehow irrelevant.
12 Since you just got the information about this meeting, I'll allow
13 you to continue. But you have to bear in mind the warning from the Bench
14 as well as the objections from the Prosecution. You may proceed.
15 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. Yes, might I just
16 make a digression, Your Honours. I don't think I need remind you that
17 Petrovic, Pero said that on that day, during his testimony, in the morning
18 hours he talked to the duty operations officer in the Zvornik Brigade from
19 another village, and that he thought it was Dragan Jokic. And that Dragan
20 Jokic informed him about the arrival of the prisoners and said it wasn't
21 his concern and that he could go home. Those were the words he used, Pero
22 Petrovic, used in this courtroom, and they are directly linked to attempts
23 to prove Dragan Jokic's knowledge about the existence of prisoners. But I
24 will move on, Your Honours, and I will of course bear in mind the
25 suggestions and guidelines you have just given me.
Page 12056
1 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, on that day in the afternoon, that is to say
2 the 14th of July, did Pero Petrovic tell you anything at all of his
3 knowledge about the prisoners? Did he mention the fact?
4 A. Pero Petrovic wanted us to go to that location together because he
5 didn't know what it was all about. All he had heard was that someone had
6 been brought there. So Cviko and I went with him to the spot.
7 Q. From your conversation with him, did you draw the conclusion that
8 in actual fact he didn't know what this was about at around the -- 6.00 on
9 the 14th of July?
10 A. He and Cviko were waiting for me to come back from work so that we
11 could drive off in my car to see what was going on. They heard something
12 from someone, but they didn't know any specifics, nothing concrete.
13 Q. On that occasion did Pero Petrovic mention any conversation with
14 Dragan Jokic in the morning hours of the 14th of July?
15 A. He didn't say anything. He just said he didn't know what it was
16 all about, but he had just allegedly heard something from a woman but that
17 he knew no specifics about anything.
18 Q. Thank you. Now, did you leave together with Pero and Cviko and go
19 off in the direction of the school at Kula?
20 A. Yes, we did. The elementary school of Kula, the three of us. And
21 when we arrived we encountered several buses full of people at different
22 ages. They were being guarded there by soldiers who I had never seen
23 before, nor did I know any of them.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] May I have the usher's assistance
Page 12057
1 again, please, and show the witness several photographs.
2 For identification purposes, Your Honours, we received them from
3 the Prosecution when Mr. Ruez was questioned, and they are Exhibit Number
4 P17.2.
5 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, could you please comment picture by picture as
6 it is placed on the ELMO. Could you please look to the right, to the
7 photograph, and tell us: Is this the Kula school in Pilica?
8 A. Yes. This is the elementary school Kula in Pilica.
9 Q. Is this the school you arrived at and in front of which you saw
10 the bus with the prisoners?
11 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the witness's
12 answer.
13 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Could you please repeat your answer. It was not recorded in the
15 transcript. Is this the school in front of which you saw the prisoners?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Thank you. Could you please take the pointer which is in front of
18 you and show us on the photograph on the ELMO where this road is and where
19 the buses were.
20 A. It's impossible to tell from here because it was on the other
21 side. There should be an entrance on the other side. I see several cars
22 here. The road is here where you can see the cars; it's on the upper
23 part. That's where the buses were. It's impossible to tell here because
24 this is the building shown from the other side.
25 Q. Very well. Thank you. We will show you another photograph and
Page 12058
1 see if it's possible to see on it what is characteristic about it.
2 A. This also shows the Kula building which is just below the school
3 that we had just seen. This is on the opposite side, this road is on the
4 other side. So nothing of this was I able to see on that day.
5 Q. Is this school named Kula after this building?
6 A. The school is not called Kula. The name of the school is Majolke
7 Brigade. This is where I went to school. The name of the school is
8 Majolke Brigade, the brigades of Majolvica [phoen], not Kula. Kula is a
9 hamlet; it's a part of Pilica that is called that after this building that
10 you are looking at right now.
11 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, for the purposes of identification, does that
12 place have anything to do with the location of Kula Grad?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Could you please tell us where Kula Grad is.
15 A. Kula Grad is in Zvornik. It's above Zvornik. It's the old part
16 of the Zvornik fortress.
17 Q. Let's move to the next photograph. Do you recognise which part of
18 the Kula school this is.
19 A. This is the part that is inside. This is the entrance used by the
20 teachers. The other side that you showed us a little while ago is the
21 entrance used by the pupils. So it's the entrance from the courtyard used
22 by the pupils, and this here is the official entrance used by the teaching
23 staff. This is where the parking is for the staff cars.
24 Q. I would like to ask you throughout the time that you were there in
25 front of the school, was Pero Petrovic with you there all the time?
Page 12059
1 A. Pero came there with me in front of the school and then he went
2 off somewhere. A few minutes later he came back, and he said he had to
3 stay. He had to make tea for somebody; I don't know for whom. And then I
4 went or I left there after some 10 or 15 minutes.
5 Q. Could you tell us how many buses you saw there.
6 A. I didn't count them bus by bus, but I think there were
7 approximately ten buses, not more than then. All the buses were turned in
8 the direction of Zvornik.
9 Q. I will try to show you the last photograph, if you can look at it.
10 The last photograph from this group.
11 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] And could the usher also take the
12 next photograph and place it on the ELMO, the last photograph.
13 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, is this the road where the buses were standing?
14 A. Yes. That is the road where the buses were standing. I saw this
15 part of the elementary school that day when I was there. The two images
16 before were angles of the school that I did not see.
17 Q. How many soldiers were guarding this area?
18 A. As far as I could tell and count, there were between 20 to 30
19 soldiers. They were not anybody I knew or had seen before.
20 Q. Were they wearing white belts?
21 A. I wasn't able to see that. They were all kinds. Some were
22 wearing the white belts and some were without.
23 Q. And were there any comments about why those people were brought
24 there?
25 A. I thought that there might be an exchange that evening. All the
Page 12060
1 buses were facing in the direction of Zvornik. None were facing in the
2 direction of Bare. So because they were all facing Zvornik, I assumed
3 there would be an exchange that evening.
4 Q. How long did you stay there?
5 A. Not more than 15 or 20 minutes.
6 Q. And what did you do after that?
7 A. I went home and Pero stayed behind.
8 Q. Did Pero tell you the reason why he stayed?
9 A. He said the soldiers wanted coffee and tea, so he was staying
10 behind in order to help. He was going to make them coffee and tea.
11 Q. How far is Pero's house from the school?
12 A. It's about the same distance as from my place to the school, about
13 three kilometres. It's up -- it's up to about three kilometres to his
14 house.
15 Q. And is that the road from Pilica, from Zvornik to his house?
16 A. Well, his house is halfway from Zvornik and my place.
17 Q. My question was, let's just clarify it for the transcript, was as
18 follows: Is this road the road that leads to Pero's house?
19 A. I understood the question. Perhaps I didn't express myself
20 properly. But going from my place towards the elementary school, Pero
21 takes that same road to his house. When you go from my house to Pero's
22 house, the elementary school is halfway.
23 Q. So my question is: If Pero Petrovic goes to Zvornik, does he have
24 to pass by that school?
25 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the answer of the
Page 12061
1 witness.
2 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. For the purposes of the transcript could you please repeat your
4 answer to this last question.
5 A. Does Pero have to pass by the elementary school if he's going home
6 from work? Yes, he does, unless he takes a shortcut through the woods. I
7 don't know.
8 Q. Thank you. The local community of Pilica in that period, in July,
9 did it have its own premises or offices?
10 A. Yes, it did.
11 Q. Could you please tell us where these offices were.
12 A. The office of the local community was right next to the post
13 office, on the left side of the post office, on the ground floor.
14 Q. How far is that from the Pilica hall of culture?
15 A. It's in the courtyard of the Dom Kulture.
16 Q. Do you know if the office of the local community had a functioning
17 telephone connection and a telephone number in those days?
18 A. Yes, of course. I know that on the 15th of July sometime between
19 12.00 and 1.00 a courier came to my courtyard from the local community.
20 Q. Well, please, let us go step by step. I will be asking you
21 questions about that. My question was: Do you know whether there was a
22 telephone number on the premises of the Pilica local community?
23 A. Yes. The local community had its telephone and telephone number.
24 Q. Thank you. Let us now go step by step. Where did you return to
25 on that afternoon of the 14th of July, 1995?
Page 12062
1 A. On the 14th I returned home.
2 Q. Where did you spend the night of the 14th?
3 A. I spent it at home with my family.
4 Q. Did you notice any shooting or anything unusual that night?
5 A. No, I didn't notice anything in particular. Everything was
6 normal.
7 Q. Where did you spend the morning of the 15th of July?
8 A. I spent it at home because I was working from 2.00.
9 Q. Did you see any buses passing by with prisoners or any unusual
10 activities in the morning?
11 A. No. I didn't notice anything unusual in the morning.
12 Q. What happened around noon on the 15th of July?
13 A. At about 12.00 or 12.30, a courier came to my office from the
14 local community and said that Pero ordered me to find my rifle and to come
15 and guard these prisoners. Of course I was not a military conscript; I
16 didn't have a gun and I did not wish to take part in this. I took my car.
17 I packed and I crossed over into Serbia, to Loznica.
18 Q. Let me stop you there for a minute. You said that a courier came?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Do you remember who it was who came?
21 A. Bosko Sukic was the one who came. He is a retired person who
22 before that was a police officer. He came to my yard, and he said that
23 Pero ordered me to find a gun and to come and guard the school or I don't
24 know what.
25 Q. You said now that you were told that you were supposed to find
Page 12063
1 your rifle?
2 A. Yes. But I didn't have one.
3 Q. How could you find a rifle?
4 A. Well, since it was wartime each house had a rifle. I was the one
5 who did not because I was not a military conscript.
6 Q. Can Pero Petrovic order you to do anything?
7 A. No, he could not. But at the time he was the president of the
8 commission for wartime conditions, so he was in authority, in power,
9 so ...
10 Q. Did he take over the organisation relating to securing the
11 prisoners?
12 A. Well, I don't know what his intention was, but it was unusual for
13 him to ask me to come and guard the elementary school. I was not a
14 military conscript, and I felt that I was not obliged to do anything like
15 that, and that is why I went to Serbia.
16 Q. Did this courier mention any connection between Pero Petrovic and
17 Dragan Jokic to you?
18 A. No. We didn't discuss anything like that.
19 Q. Did the courier tell you where Pero Petrovic was at that time?
20 A. He didn't say anything, actually. He just said that I should go
21 to his office and that I would receive my assignment there.
22 Q. Now we're going back to the question of when you say "to go to his
23 office," which office were you thinking of?
24 A. There was an office next to the post office where the president of
25 the local community was located. All the activities, all his duties, were
Page 12064
1 performed from that -- conducting from that office. So that is about 100
2 metres away from where I was.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] I am now going to ask the
5 Prosecution to help us in a technical aspect. We would like to show you
6 Prosecution Exhibit 9.10, which is actually a short videoclip of the
7 cultural centre in Pilica so that we can ask this witness to identify, if
8 possible, where this office was and where the cultural centre was. I
9 would like to thank Ms. Janet, who is assisting us in the technical aspect
10 of showing this exhibit to the witness.
11 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, I would like to ask you if you can to give us
12 your comments, and if you need the clip to be stopped anywhere, just say
13 so.
14 [Videotape played]
15 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Do you know what this is?
17 A. Yes, this is the road. You have just passed my house. And we
18 need to stop here, please. Can you stop here. Perhaps we can go a little
19 bit ahead, past the monument, and then straight ahead we would be able to
20 see Pero's office the time. Yes, this is the cultural centre.
21 Yes, can you go a little bit further so that we see the other
22 monument which is right after this one. This is good. You can -- can you
23 go back a little bit so we can see the right-hand corner, because right
24 here where this young man is sitting, the office is to the right of that.
25 Q. On this shot, could you also see the entrance to your house and
Page 12065
1 the entrance to your yard?
2 A. Yes. You passed my yard and my house. The restaurant is on the
3 right-hand side. Going towards the cultural centre is the restaurant of
4 my mother.
5 Q. Well, we see this young man sitting on this fence here.
6 A. Yes, that is correct.
7 Q. Can you please show us now where the -- or rather, how far from
8 this place are the premises of the local community?
9 A. To the right from this young man sitting on the fence, if you
10 follow along the wall, you can see the office of Pero Petrovic straight
11 ahead. And only the post office is next to it. After the -- behind the
12 fence you can see the cement path that leads to the office of Pero
13 Petrovic.
14 Q. Thank you very much.
15 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Now I would like to ask the usher
16 to help us with the paragraph showing the entrance to the Pilica cultural
17 centre. The Prosecution has this photograph.
18 For purposes of identification, this is P19.3, admitted into
19 evidence during the testimony of Mr. Ruez.
20 Q. Sir, Mr. Radosavljevic, could you please comment on the location
21 of the entrance to the centre and where Pero Petrovic's office is.
22 A. Going through this entrance, through this doorway, you come
23 straight to the door of Pero Petrovic's office. Where the pointer is now
24 is where the office of the local commune used to be. And this used to be
25 the entrance to the pre-war office. If you go through here and through
Page 12066
1 the hallway, you come straight to Pero Petrovic's door.
2 Q. Thank you. What did you do after you were informed that you were
3 supposed to report to Pero Petrovic in his office in order to be given an
4 assignment to guard the school?
5 A. I got into my car and went to my work in Loznica. From there I
6 called my wife and told her to get the children and pack some things. And
7 we went to Vrnjacka Banja, 300 kilometres away from that place. All the
8 time I was in office. It was at Sepacki Put number 17. I was in
9 telephone contact with my wife Ranka [phoen] telling her to pack, to take
10 this, to take that, not forget to take money.
11 Q. What as the reason you decided to leave Bosnia, cross over into
12 Serbia and go to Banja?
13 A. I was not -- or I had not been active in the military. As Pero
14 had told me to find a rifle and to come and guard the camp, I didn't want
15 to get blood on my hands. I was afraid I might become a war criminal
16 myself. And as I had managed to stay out of that up to that point, I
17 wanted to go on like that.
18 Q. You said that on the 15th of July you contacted your wife several
19 times?
20 A. Yes. I was working in a trading company in Loznica. And from
21 there I called my wife several times reminding her what things she had to
22 take, telling her to take the children. I told her we would not be back
23 home for some time.
24 Q. So did you communicate by telephone?
25 A. Yes.
Page 12067
1 Q. In your restaurant and in your flat did you have a telephone?
2 A. Yes, yes. We always had a phone. I got my first telephone in
3 1988, and I've always had a telephone since then.
4 Q. Throughout these days from the 10th to the end of July, were
5 telephone communications in good order?
6 A. Yes, unless there was a power shortage. And then there would be a
7 short interruption.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Would the usher assist us now and
10 show the witness D116/3, which is information concerning the operation of
11 telephone lines in this period.
12 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, according to this certificate obtained by the
13 Defence through Ozrenka Jaksic, the telecom of Republika Srpska informs us
14 that in 1995 the local community office of Pilica used the following
15 telephone number: 590054. And this number was functional in the month of
16 July 1995. Have you seen this document?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And does this confirm what you say, that in July 1995 telephones
19 were fully operational throughout?
20 A. Yes. As I've told you, I called my wife on several occasions. I
21 often spoke to my wife while I was working in Loznica. I called home.
22 Pilica had 200 telephone numbers at the time in the village.
23 Q. Thank you. I will now read to you an excerpt from the transcript
24 of the testimony of Pero Petrovic and his statement before this Tribunal.
25 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] For purposes of identification,
Page 12068
1 Your Honour, this is an excerpt from the transcript, page 5553 in English.
2 And this is the cross-examination conducted by me of Pero Petrovic on the
3 3rd of December, 2003.
4 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, will you please follow what I'm saying. I
5 asked Pero Petrovic the following. He was saying that on the 14th of July
6 he went to Sepuk to call the command of the Zvornik Brigade and to talk to
7 the brigade duty officer. He thought it was Jokic. And I asked him why
8 he went from Pilica to Sepuk to conduct this telephone conversation. And
9 his reply was: "There was no telephone in Pilica, but I can't remember."
10 My next question was: "Sorry. I don't understand you. You
11 cannot remember whether it worked or not?"
12 The answer given by Petrovic was: "I'm not aware of the reason
13 why it didn't work. I know we went to Sepuk because it was impossible to
14 phone from Pilica. But I don't know the reason why the lines were down.
15 We often went to the post office there during the war because the lines
16 were often down during the war. And this is what I had in mind when I
17 declared in my statement that the telephone was not working."
18 What I want to ask you again, Mr. Radosavljevic, is: Are you
19 certain that during those days, the 14th and 15th of July, 1995, the
20 telephones were in good working order in Pilica?
21 A. I'm sure about that day, yes. The lines may have been down the
22 day before or the day after, but I'm absolutely certain that on the 15th
23 the telephones were working. I called my relative. I called him home --
24 I called home to talk to my wife to tell her what things to take, to
25 explain to her that we were leaving Pilica for a longer period of time.
Page 12069
1 So it wasn't just once that I called her. I called her again and again on
2 that day.
3 Q. Thank you. And my next question is: On the 14th of July from
4 your office did you call home?
5 A. We all worked in offices and we were in the habit of calling home.
6 I was in the habit of calling home every day, and I still do. I call my
7 family every day.
8 Q. Does that mean that the telephones were operational?
9 A. Yes, they were.
10 Q. Thank you. And I will conclude with another part of this
11 statement --
12 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Stojanovic, before you turn to other
13 subjects, could I ask: Do you know who does this number 590054 belong to
14 in that document? In that document the certification from the - I think -
15 post office says the telephone number 590054 was functional in the month
16 of July 1995. Who does this number belong to?
17 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, according to the
18 post office report, the telecom of Republika Srpska, this is the telephone
19 number of the local office of the Pilica local commune. And this
20 telephone was in the offices, in the office of the Pilica local commune.
21 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
22 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
23 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, I will read to you another excerpt from the
24 questions I put to Mr. Petrovic on that occasion. This is page 5554, and
25 this is the cross-examination of the 3rd of December, 1995 [as
Page 12070
1 interpreted], line 11. I said: "Do you know where Milijan's cafe is
2 located in relation to your office?"
3 The witness responded: "Yes. On the road towards Bijeljina, some
4 100 metres away down the road.
5 "How far from your office is Jovanovic's [phoen] house in Sepuk?"
6 And he said: "Three to four kilometres, maybe more."
7 Do you know at that time there was a telephone in Milijan's cafe.
8 He said: "I can't remember. I know there was a phone, but I'm
9 not sure if the phone was working. There had been a phone before the war;
10 I know that."
11 My question is: When you say "Milijan's cafe," does this
12 referring to your mother's establishment?
13 A. Yes. It was better known by my father's name than my mother's
14 name. They called it Milijan's cafe. The didn't call it Ivanka's cafe
15 most often, although my mother was running it..
16 Q. Is your father's name Milan?
17 A. Yes, it is.
18 Q. And is this answer correct that your cafe was 100 metres down the
19 road?
20 A. Yes. That's what I said. It's about 100 metres away from the
21 office.
22 Q. Could you try to respond once again to the following question:
23 Throughout this time was there a telephone line?
24 A. I repeat again, on the 14th and the 15th the telephone was
25 working. The lines would be down if it rained because then there would be
Page 12071
1 a power shortage. So the batteries had to be filled again.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have about 10
4 minutes to go, and I think that this may be a use -- a convenient time for
5 a break.
6 JUDGE LIU: Well, we'll take a break and we'll resume at quarter
7 to 11.00.
8 --- Recess taken at 10.14 a.m.
9 --- On resuming at 10.48 a.m.
10 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Stojanovic, let's resume the proceedings.
11 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
12 Q. Mr. Radosavljevic, we left off when I showed you excerpts from the
13 transcript of the cross-examination of Mr. Pero Petrovic. You permanent
14 that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. I'm just going to put another excerpt to you, and then that would
17 round off that area. I asked Pero Petrovic, who was the witness, the
18 following thing: "Would you agree with me when I say that it is logical
19 that you went to Milijan's cafe that day which is 100 metres away to
20 telephone to check what he told you instead of going to Sepuk to have that
21 conversation?"
22 And the witness's answer was: "Yes, I agree. That would be more
23 logical. But perhaps at that time I knew the fact that in Milijan's cafe
24 the telephone wasn't working. Perhaps I wasn't quite sure. Perhaps I
25 decided to go because the telephone wasn't working that day. I mean, I
Page 12072
1 didn't have information, exact information, as to which telephone in which
2 household was working on that particular day."
3 And then I go on to say: "I don't rule out the possibility that
4 on that day it was working as well."
5 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Now, that passage and excerpt is
6 to be found on page 5555, line 7 to 15. And the date is the 3rd of
7 December, 2003.
8 Q. Witness Petrovic says at one point that it was possible that the
9 telephone worked in my offices, he says. And my question was this, or
10 rather, my question is this to you now: What Pero Petrovic said, the
11 place he went to telephone which was Donji Sepuk, was it also somewhere
12 where the telephones were working sometimes but not other times because of
13 the battery?
14 A. Yes. They all work according to the same principle.
15 Q. Thank you. That's what I wanted to hear from you as an answer.
16 And now I'll draw my examination to a close for today. When did you go
17 back to Pilica?
18 A. I went back 16 or 17 days later.
19 Q. Did you hear that in the meantime crimes had been committed at the
20 Branjevo Farm?
21 A. I heard -- I talked to from father from Vrnjacka Banja so I was
22 kept abreast of the situation. And I did not go back until I was told
23 that everything was back to normal.
24 Q. When you came home, were you informed that the crime had been
25 committed there?
Page 12073
1 A. Yes, I was.
2 Q. Did you happen to hear that Dragan Jokic was involved in any of
3 those events at all?
4 A. No, I did not.
5 Q. Thank you, Mr. Radosavljevic. I have no further questions for
6 you. If there are any other questions, would you please answer them. If
7 Mr. Karnavas has any questions for you or the Prosecution or Their
8 Honours. Thank you once again.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Mr. Stojanovic.
10 Mr. Karnavas, do you have any questions to put to this witness?
11 MR. KARNAVAS: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours.
12 Good morning, sir.
13 I have no questions for the gentleman.
14 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
15 Any cross-examination? Ms. Issa.
16 MS. ISSA: Yes. Good morning, Your Honours. I think I have just
17 a couple of questions, just a very short cross-examination.
18 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
19 Cross-examined by Ms. Issa:
20 Q. Good morning, sir. Now, sir, I want to go back to the beginning
21 of your testimony where you indicated that the Branjevo Farm, according to
22 you, was not a military farm. And I'd like to refer to Exhibit 873, I
23 believe. If we can put the English translation on the ELMO. Thank you.
24 Now, if we look at this article, sir, it's from the from the
25 Drinski magazine dated June of 1995. And it refers to the military farm.
Page 12074
1 And I can read a few excerpts from that and I'll ask you about that.
2 The -- it starts off with indicating that Milan Stojanovic 's
3 unit produces for itself large quantities of potatoes, onions, tomatoes
4 tobacco, peas, green beans and other vegetables. It states: "The war has
5 been going on for a long time and we do not know when it will end. That
6 is why we have to be as well organised as possible in every respect, and
7 especially in organising food supplies. In view of our potential in terms
8 of agriculture, we should have no problem in feeding the army and the
9 people, said officer Milan Stojanovic at the beginning of our discussion
10 of the military farm."
11 And it goes on. And at the very bottom of the first page there is
12 a reference to the director Tomo Simic, it says: "Who told us a few
13 things about the cooperation of the army and this company."
14 On the next page he's quoted as saying: "We help each other out.
15 There is a moral and financial obligation to help the army."
16 And it continues. So according to this article, sir, the Branjevo
17 Farm was in fact a military farm. Would you agree with that?
18 A. I said a moment ago that Branjevo was never a military farm up
19 until the war. In wartime they did produce food for the army. So before
20 that it was never a military farm. When the war broke out, this farm
21 produced and grew food for the army but not before or after. And after
22 the war now it's not a military farm either.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. If that answers your question.
25 Q. Thank you. I just want to clarify one other point, sir. This
Page 12075
1 won't take long. You indicated that you were home on the night of the
2 14th of July. Is that right? You were home during that evening?
3 A. Yes, yes, I was. That's right.
4 Q. And you didn't hear any shooting that may have been coming from
5 the Pilica school at that time?
6 A. I didn't hear any shooting, no.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 MS. ISSA: I have nothing further.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
10 Any questions out of the cross-examination? Yes, Mr. Stojanovic.
11 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. Just a few
12 questions.
13 Re-examined by Mr. Stojanovic:
14 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Radosavljevic, would you take a look at that
15 same exhibit we were looking at a moment ago. And in paragraph 3 it
16 says: "In considering the fact that in the area of responsibility of this
17 unit you find the Branjevo Farm, we came up of the idea of taking part of
18 the land and using it for the -- for army purposes. The Agropro
19 management gave the land to the army."
20 Have you had a chance to read through that passage?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Now, does that paragraph in the Drinski newspaper confirm your
23 testimony here today?
24 A. Yes, it does. It does confirm it.
25 Q. One more question. Do you know who Milan Stanojevic?
Page 12076
1 A. Yes. Milan Stanojevic was the commander of that battalion that in
2 was there, that was in charge there.
3 Q. And this farm, is it located within the area of the responsibility
4 of the Milan Stanojevic battalion?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] I have no further questions, Your
8 Honour.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE LIU: Well, at this stage are there any documents to
12 tender? Mr. Stojanovic.
13 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. With your
14 permission we should like to tender into evidence Defence Exhibit D116/3,
15 which is the certificate from telecom Republika Srpska, and D69.1/3;
16 D69.5/3, that is the five photographs that we showed the witness today.
17 And it refer -- they refer to the Kula school, which by mistake was
18 registered as Prosecution Exhibit P19 -- 17/2 because it was a different
19 photograph. That wasn't the photograph we showed the witness but the
20 building and the facility is the same. So it is D69.1/3 up until
21 D69.5/3. The set of five photographs depicting the school. Thank you.
22 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
23 Any objections, Ms. Issa?
24 MS. ISSA: No, Your Honour. Thank you.
25 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
Page 12077
1 Those documents are admitted into evidence.
2 On the part of the Prosecution, do you have any documents to
3 tender?
4 MS. ISSA: Yes, Your Honour. We would like to tender P873 which
5 is the Drinski magazine or passage that we read from, along with the
6 translation.
7 JUDGE LIU: Any objections, Mr. Stojanovic?
8 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] None, Your Honour.
9 JUDGE LIU: Well, as for this document, we don't see any
10 differences between the testimony of this witness and what is said in that
11 document. And most parts are read in the transcript, so we doubt very
12 much whether it's still a necessity to admit that piece of the information
13 into the evidence at this stage.
14 Ms. Issa, yes.
15 MS. ISSA: Well, Your Honour, I would only perhaps refer to the
16 second paragraph of the document. That may be a slight variation to what
17 the witness has told us. And I would submit that it would be best to
18 simply admit it, to put the whole testimony into context.
19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
20 Since there is -- yes.
21 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, if you recall, when
22 we proposed that the Slobodna Bosna article be tendered as well we said
23 that both the Prosecution and ourselves quoted the relevant passages from
24 that newspaper article, so the situation is the same here. Both the
25 Prosecutor and I myself quoted this portion, which is the relevant portion
Page 12078
1 for both sides. And I think that is sufficient for the transcript because
2 I see no difference between the testimony and what was noted here,
3 although in principle we don't have anything against having the whole
4 article tendered into evidence. We don't consider that there is any
5 difference, in fact.
6 JUDGE LIU: Well, on this very issue I sense a difference between
7 the parties, because the Prosecution claims there is a slight difference
8 but the Defence believes there's no difference at all. So in this
9 situation we admit this document into the evidence. It is so decided.
10 Well, Witness, thank you very much indeed for coming to The Hague
11 to give your testimony. Madam Usher will show you out of the room. We
12 wish you a pleasant journey back home. You may leave now.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
14 [The witness withdrew]
15 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Stojanovic, would you please brief us on the
16 situation of the witnesses for this week.
17 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, counsel.
18 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, we have planned
19 another witness for today. We think the witness has arrived and that his
20 testimony will be relatively brief. It speaks to the character of our
21 client, Dragan Jokic.
22 The witness for tomorrow still hasn't received his travelling
23 papers, and in the course of the day we shall be able to inform the Court
24 whether everything is in order or whether we'll have to give up hearing
25 that witness's testimony. (Redacted)
Page 12079
1 (Redacted)
2 (Redacted)
3 (Redacted)And on Thursday we have military expert
4 Dragoslav Lackovic, and we'll try and abide by your proposal of having his
5 statement given under 94 bis. So that is an issue we will solve today and
6 we shall be informing you of our decision by the end of the day so we have
7 a witness for Friday as well. He will be coming in on Friday.
8 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
9 And could we have the next witness, please.
10 [The witness entered court]
11 JUDGE LIU: Good morning, Witness.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.
13 JUDGE LIU: Would you please stand up and make the solemn
14 declaration.
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
16 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
17 WITNESS: MIRKO REBIC
18 [Witness answered through interpreter]
19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. You may sit down, please.
20 Mr. Stojanovic.
21 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
22 Examined by Mr. Stojanovic:
23 Q. Can you hear me, sir?
24 A. Yes, I can.
25 Q. Thank you. Would you introduce yourself, please, what your name
Page 12080
1 is, your first and last name.
2 A. I apologise, but do I have to get up?
3 Q. No. You can remain seated.
4 A. I name is Mirko Rebic.
5 Q. For the record will you please spell your name letter by letter,
6 your first and last name?
7 A. M-i-r-k-o R-e-b-i-c.
8 Q. Thank you, Mr. Rebic. Would you now tell us when and where you
9 were born.
10 A. I was born on the 19th of September, 1953, in Baljkovica, the
11 Zvornik municipality.
12 Q. Could you tell us what education you've had and what jobs you have
13 held. Where did you complete elementary school.
14 A. I completed elementary school, or rather, four years of primary
15 school in my native village of Baljkovica. And then I went to eight years
16 of elementary school in Zvornik and secondary school, the gymnasium, I
17 graduated in Zvornik. After secondary school I enrolled in the university
18 of Novi Sad at the faculty of law. And I graduated from the faculty of
19 law at the end of 1978 and the beginning of 1979.
20 Q. When you continued with your high school education, did you travel
21 from your village or did you live in Zvornik?
22 A. I travelled also during the period when I went to elementary
23 school. And then I continued for the most part to do the same when I
24 attended the gymnasium. The transportation wasn't so well developed, I'm
25 talking about bus transport. So for those of us who wanted to go to
Page 12081
1 school, we had to walk there.
2 Q. Could you please tell us where Novi Sad is.
3 A. Novi Sad is the administrative centre of the autonomous province
4 of Vojvodina.
5 Q. Is that part of Serbia?
6 A. Administratively speaking, yes.
7 Q. Thank you. When you graduated from university, what did you do
8 then?
9 A. After I graduated my first job was in the organs of the Municipal
10 Assembly of Zvornik; however, I didn't stay there for very long. I
11 transferred to the business sector. For a while I worked in a
12 construction company, in Engineering Zvornik, after which I moved Jadar
13 timber industry factory where I worked until 1992. After that I continued
14 to work there for some periods up until the end of 1995.
15 Q. Allow me to stop you there for just a moment. In 1992 what was
16 your job in the Jadar Zvornik company?
17 A. Since I completed the faculty of law, I worked as the manager of
18 the legal and personnel sector of that company.
19 Q. Once the war broke out in the area of the Zvornik municipality,
20 were you mobilised? Did you join the army?
21 A. When the unfortunate events in 1992 began to play out, I was
22 mobilised as early as May 1992.
23 Q. Maybe this is a good point to ask you whether by that time you had
24 served in the military and did you have any ranks.
25 A. I had served my regular military term after I graduated from
Page 12082
1 university; that was the order of things. I did serve in the Yugoslav
2 People's Army. And I had the rank of lance corporal but that was because
3 of the work that I was doing in the military. Because I worked with the
4 commander for morale and political affairs, and the person who performed
5 that job had to have that rank.
6 Q. Thank you. After you were mobilised and joined the Army of
7 Republika Srpska, can you remember which unit you were deployed to.
8 A. I must say that the first call-up in May 1992 did not take so long
9 because I was needed in my company where I was already employed. There
10 was another mobilisation in early 1993 when I was assigned to an infantry
11 battalion which changed its name often. At the time when I was in it, it
12 was called the 4th Infantry Battalion.
13 Q. Perhaps this would be a good time to say --
14 A. This battalion was located in Drinjaca. That's where the command
15 was. This is from the Drina River upstream towards Sarajevo.
16 Q. Who was the commander of the battalion?
17 A. For the most part during the time that I was in the battalion,
18 Mr. Radika Petrovic was the commander.
19 Q. Mr. Rebic, did you carry out any military duties? Did you have
20 any ranks or specific position in the battalion?
21 A. No. Throughout the time that I was mobilised I didn't occupy any
22 command post, and I didn't have any rank. Most of the time that I was
23 there, I was in the so-called communications unit. We made sure that the
24 lines were functioning from the command to the trenches and the other way.
25 So that was my main task, together with the other men who were in that
Page 12083
1 company.
2 Q. How long did you stay in this battalion?
3 A. I think that that was until the end of 1994.
4 Q. Where did you go at the end of 1994? Did you leave the Army of
5 Republika Srpska?
6 A. In 1994 when I was released, demobilised, I was sent for work duty
7 back to my company, Jadar. This is where I worked.
8 Q. And what was your job at the time in Jadar?
9 A. The same as before. I was manager of the legal and personnel
10 sector.
11 Q. How long were you on work duty in Jadar? Did you return to the
12 army before the end of the war?
13 A. After I was demobilised, I no longer returned to the army. But
14 sometime before the end of 1995 following the signing of the Dayton Peace
15 Accords under a decision of the president of the municipality at the time,
16 I was allocated to the commission for refugee affairs. In view of the
17 events at the time and the fact that a large number of population left
18 Sarajevo, many of them came to the territory of Zvornik.
19 Q. And how long did you work on this assignment?
20 A. I worked on this assignment until April the following year. This
21 is 1996. Sometime until late May or early April at a meeting of the
22 Municipal Assembly of Zvornik, I was elected as president of the Executive
23 Board or the president of the local government.
24 Q. How long were you at the post of president of the municipal
25 government of Zvornik?
Page 12084
1 A. I remained at that post until October or November 1997. There
2 were local elections in the territory of Republika Srpska, including
3 Zvornik naturally. And after the elections, I was the president of the
4 Municipal Assembly of Zvornik. I stayed at that post until the end of
5 1998. After the republican authority was taken over by the Sloga
6 coalition, this also encompassed the local authorities, whereby I was no
7 longer the president of the Municipal Assembly.
8 Q. Does that mean that from April 1996 until the end of 1998 you were
9 carrying out the most important functions in the municipality of Zvornik
10 in the political sense?
11 A. Yes, that is correct, in the political sense, but also in other
12 ways. I don't know exactly how to express that. This was a local
13 government, local authority. And the position of the president of the
14 municipality is the number one post in the territory of a sociopolitical
15 community like a municipality, or as it is called in the west it would
16 correspond to the post of mayor in the western system.
17 Q. And what have you been doing since then until now? Are you
18 employed at all?
19 A. After I stopped being the president of the municipality, after a
20 short period, I started work as the director of a textile factory where I
21 stayed until 2002. Following the privatisation which was implemented in
22 that area and the way that it was implemented, I was no longer in that
23 factory and I did not keep the post that I was carrying out. So since
24 that time until now, I have not been working.
25 Q. Just one more question, Mr. Rebic, are you married? Do you have
Page 12085
1 children?
2 A. Yes, I am married. I'm the father of two children. I have a
3 daughter and a son.
4 Q. Thank you. Mr. Rebic, we called you here today so that you could
5 tell us what you know about Dragan Jokic. I would like to divide this
6 group of questions into three groups. The first one up until the war, the
7 second during the war, and the third would concern the period after the
8 war. So I would like to ask you the following: Since when have you known
9 Dragan Jokic? How long have you known each other?
10 A. My answer to your first question is connected to the question you
11 put to me earlier. At the time when I went to elementary school and
12 gymnasium, Dragan Jokic and I knew each other as pupils, as young boys.
13 It's true that I'm a little older than he is, but we're very close
14 generation-wise. We travelled 80 per cent of the way together. I had to
15 cover about 12 to 13 kilometres, and he had to cover about 9 to 10
16 kilometres going to school each day. So 80 per cent of that road we
17 travelled together.
18 Q. Perhaps this is a good moment to ask you whether Dragan Jokic also
19 grew up in a village?
20 A. Yes. He lived in the village where he was born, that is the
21 village of Grbavci. My village is called Baljkovica. I said that we live
22 more or less in the same area, and 80 per cent of our road to school we
23 covered together. So that we had the opportunity to go to school and
24 return from school together in a group of other pupils. And that was an
25 opportunity to get to know one another better.
Page 12086
1 Q. During those first years of your acquaintance, did you travel
2 together by bus or did you walk? Can you tell us a little bit about that.
3 A. I already said that we walked. There were no buses because my
4 village and his village were remote villages. And all those who wanted to
5 continue with their education after completing the first four years of
6 school had to travel.
7 Q. At the time was Zvornik a mixed community in the ethnic sense?
8 A. Yes. Zvornik was a mixed ethnic community. It's true that most
9 of the population in the town itself were Muslims and the rest were Serbs
10 and to a lesser degree Croats. But all three ethnic groups lived together
11 in that town.
12 Q. In those conditions, was there any ethnic division in the
13 classrooms? Were there -- were the classes divided into Muslim, Serb, and
14 Croat classes or were they also ethnically mixed?
15 A. There was no question at that time of any divided classes. They
16 were multi-ethnic. There were no differences between any member of an
17 ethnic group. As a Croat would say quite to the contrary, "dapace." The
18 kids when I recall all of those days did not pay attention to whether
19 anybody was a member of one or the other ethnic group.
20 Q. And what are your first impressions about Dragan Jokic from that
21 period of schooling, from that boyhood period?
22 A. At that age, it seems to me that people get to know each other in
23 the best possible way because that's the time that has the most influence
24 on how a person develops as an individual later on. Remembering Dragan
25 from that period, he was a sociable person, a good friend. And simply
Page 12087
1 each one of us from that group liked to spend time in the company of
2 Dragan Jokic. He made jokes, he was talkative, liked to socialise, and I
3 think because of all of that as boys we liked to have him in our company.
4 We liked to have Dragan Jokic in our company.
5 Q. Dragan Jokic left for the military high school and then for the
6 military academy. During that period did you have any contacts with
7 Dragan Jokic? What kind of contacts were they, if you did maintain them?
8 A. Dragan decided, after he completed the eighth year of middle
9 school, that the military school was the best option for him for economic
10 reasons. Had his parents been better off, I'm sure that he would not have
11 chosen to go to military school but would have stayed with the rest of us
12 to attend any of the schools in Zvornik. However, the circumstances were
13 such that he left Zvornik to attend middle school. But as far as school
14 holidays, we did spend a lot of time together going swimming on the Drina,
15 going for walks in the evening along the streets of Zvornik, talking, and
16 so on.
17 Q. At one point, Mr. Rebic, you said that it was for economic reasons
18 that he decided to go to military school. Do you recall that? I would
19 like you to explain to us what this is about. What did you mean by that?
20 Does this mean that a military education did not entail any costs?
21 A. I did say that the villages in which we were born were very poor.
22 The municipality was an impoverished one. This is evident from the fact
23 that whoever wanted to continue his schooling after the first four years
24 of primary school, which were obligatory under the law, and the rest of
25 our education was not obligatory, so whoever wanted to get an education
Page 12088
1 was forced to walk for kilometres to go to school and back on foot. Most
2 boys who successfully completed the eight-year elementary school were
3 unsure as to their future education for financial reasons, so their
4 options were limited. I wanted to go to Sremska Kamenica near Novi Sad to
5 go to the police high school there, but I was not accepted. I believe it
6 was for financial reasons, because of his parents' poverty, that Jokic,
7 because he wanted to continue his education, decided to go to a military
8 school because this was a great relief to his parents. This school was
9 free of charge. He did not have to pay tuition and the state provided
10 accommodation.
11 Q. Thank you.
12 A. If I'm not taking up too much time, I would like to add that I
13 believe Dragan would have made a good engineer or perhaps a good lawyer
14 had it not been for this financial situation which influenced his choice
15 of school.
16 Q. During the summer holidays when you socialised, from your
17 conversations with Dragan Jokic could you come to any conclusion as to why
18 he chose to go for the engineering branch?
19 A. Knowing him as a young boy who was very sociable, I would often
20 get angry with him. If there was six of us together and we needed five to
21 make up a soccer team, he would also opt out and let one of his friends
22 take his place. And I wanted to play with him in the team. He was, as I
23 said, a very sociable young man, and we were always very happy to have him
24 among us in our group of friends.
25 Q. After he had completed his education and embarked on a
Page 12089
1 professional military career, did you keep in touch with him?
2 A. Yes. As I said, after I graduated I came back to Zvornik and
3 worked there. Whenever Dragan was on leave, he would visit his parents
4 and then we took every opportunity to be together. We both wanted that so
5 that during holidays, as far as his and my obligations allowed us to, we
6 spent a lot of time together.
7 Q. Did his choice of a military specialty reflect his character?
8 A. I think the answer to your question regarding his character, the
9 character of Mr. Jokic, is self-evident. If it was necessary for
10 financial reasons for him to go to military schools and military schools
11 provide a wide range of specialties, Jokic chose the engineers, he chose
12 engineering. Why? The Yugoslav People's Army built roads in the most
13 remote and backward villages and hamlets where people couldn't have ever
14 dreamed of a road that could be used by a car or a truck or a bus. His
15 choice of engineering, building villages -- building bridges, connecting
16 two villages on different banks of a river, building water works, this
17 choice among the broad range of military specialties available I think
18 testifies in itself to Mr. Jokic's character. He was a very humane person
19 because military engineering was something that many villages remembered
20 with gratitude because of the construction work that was carried out.
21 Q. Thank you, Mr. Rebic. Would you tell us whether in the tragic
22 period after 1992 you ever felt any ethnic hatred or antagonism in what
23 Mr. Jokic said or did in that period. Did he ever show any such feelings
24 in his conversations with you?
25 A. Throughout the time we socialised as primary school pupils,
Page 12090
1 secondary school pupils, students, on completion of our studies, in all
2 our contacts with the rest of our friends in our group of friends - and I
3 have already said that Zvornik is an ethnically-mixed community - I never
4 observed any such thing in Mr. Jokic's demeanor.
5 Q. Were you able to see whether he consumed alcohol, whether he
6 drank, whether he was inclined to any kind of a vice such as drinking or
7 gambling?
8 A. In all the time we spent together - and as I've said, we did spend
9 a lot of time together - I never saw anything like that. After graduating
10 from the military academy, whenever Dragan was on vacation, he would visit
11 Zvornik, he would visit my home. We socialised. I never observed any
12 such thing.
13 Q. Mr. Rebic, are you aware that Dragan Jokic had family problems and
14 that after his divorce he looked after his child?
15 A. Yes. Unfortunately I'm aware of that. He told me this. He
16 explained to me how this came about, what the reasons were. And I know
17 that he looked after his son from that marriage.
18 Q. Let's now talk about the wartime period. Did you have contacts
19 with Dragan Jokic during the war between 1992 and 1994 when you were a
20 member of the Zvornik Brigade?
21 A. It's hard to recall the details because this was an unusual period
22 of time, but as a member of the battalion Mr. Jokic as an engineer would
23 come by whenever the line changed and new trenches had to be dug, new
24 connecting trenches, Jokic would arrive with the members of his unit to do
25 this. And that was when we would see each other.
Page 12091
1 Q. As a senior officer at that time, did he demonstrate any signs of
2 arrogance of power, or did he stay the same as a person? How did you see
3 him in that period?
4 A. Well, I know Dragan. But I can tell you how the other men
5 responded and the battalion commanders. I'm referring to the battalion I
6 belonged to. Dragan Jokic was always welcome to the battalion. He was
7 generally well liked and accepted. The reason for this was that never did
8 any of the common privates observe any signs of arrogance, any kind of
9 domineering attitude. He never took the stance, "Well, I'm a commander
10 and you're just common privates." No, he wasn't like that.
11 Q. Did you ever see him working together with the engineers doing
12 common tasks, obstruction, construction, digging trenches, obstacle
13 construction, and so on?
14 A. He was always the first to roll his sleeves up. Regardless of the
15 fact that he was an officer, that he had graduated from the military
16 academy and had quite a high rank, this was no obstacle for him to work
17 alongside common privates in his unit and to work with them?
18 Q. In view of the fact that you knew him from before, from his
19 childhood, was this also evidence of what his character was? Was it a
20 reflection of his character?
21 A. Well, yes. The facts speak for themselves. And someone who had
22 graduated from the academy as an officer, who had rank while the JNA was
23 still in existence, he could have simply issued orders and not even gone
24 out into the field, not even inspected the work himself. He could have
25 delegated that to others. But he did not hesitate. He did not refrain
Page 12092
1 from going and doing all this himself.
2 Q. Do you know that he was the Chief of Staff in one period in 1992
3 and that then he went back to a lower-ranking duty, a lower-level duty,
4 such as chief of engineers?
5 A. Yes. This was when the brigade was being established after the
6 outbreak of the misfortunes that happened in 1992. There were frequent
7 changes of the command structure in the brigade.
8 Q. Did he leave the impression of leader, of a man who is ambitious,
9 who is eager to rise to a higher rank, or quite the opposite? Did he
10 appear to be a man who just wanted to do his job with the least amount of
11 problems?
12 A. Well, if you look at the rank he had when the war broke out and
13 the rank he had when the war ended, and if you compare this to the careers
14 of others, the ranks they had when the war broke out and the ranks they
15 had when it ended, and you will see there is a huge discrepancy. He
16 started and finished with the same rank he had had in the JNA as a
17 soldier. Just compare this to others who had a far lower rank than he did
18 when the war broke out and rose much higher afterwards.
19 Q. And how would you comment on this? Would this show that the
20 brigade commander didn't think highly of him as a person and as a
21 professional?
22 A. The way I see it is that in spite of the fact, sir, that --
23 MS. ISSA: Sorry, Your Honour, I'm just making an objection here.
24 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
25 MS. ISSA: I think that question is highly speculative. I don't
Page 12093
1 see how the witness could answer it.
2 JUDGE LIU: Well, we have heard some comments on that aspect. I
3 don't know whether this witness has some knowledge on that or not, but we
4 may try along this line.
5 You may proceed, Mr. Stojanovic.
6 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I did
7 have a preparation with this witness, but let me rephrase that.
8 Q. Mr. Rebic, among the army, among the ordinary rank and file
9 soldiers, was this commented on, and if so what were the comments and
10 remarks made? Why was Jokic not promoted? Why was he underestimated, in
11 fact?
12 A. I apologise. Maybe I'm speaking slowly and thus giving the
13 impression that I'm doing a bit of guesswork. I'm not guessing anything.
14 What I said was this in response to your question: You yourself provided
15 part of the answer, in fact. We can see quite clearly that Mr. Jokic did
16 not have any leadership positions, nor did he have any desire for
17 leadership positions. And what I wanted to say was that this illustrates
18 his character sufficiently, speaks about the kind of man he was. And I
19 apologise to the interpreters. I hope they'll find a way of translating
20 what I'm now going to say. He wasn't a pusher. He didn't push himself
21 forward at all costs. He was a modest man, a man who looked around him,
22 looked at others. That's it in a nutshell.
23 Q. Thank you. And did he show consideration for other soldiers, for
24 other people, for the army?
25 A. Yes, he did. Absolutely.
Page 12094
1 Q. Does that mean, as we would say in the army, that he wouldn't push
2 people further than they could go?
3 A. Yes, that's right. He would always do the job himself, even if he
4 didn't have to. And I think that best testifies that he wanted to save
5 others from having to undergo hardships and do very rough work.
6 Q. During that wartime period in your contacts with Dragan Jokic, did
7 you notice any changes in his demeanor and conduct towards other ethnic
8 groups? Did he ever assume nationalistic positions?
9 A. No. I didn't notice anything like that. And he did not take
10 centre stage at all. He never appeared much, either in the media or did
11 he -- nor did he hold speeches, give speeches to the soldiers. And there
12 we see the difference between him and other commanding officers who did do
13 so.
14 Q. Do you happen to know whether he was politically involved as a
15 member of the SDS during the war or any other political party?
16 A. I don't know -- I'm not aware that he was politically involved,
17 no, in either of the -- or any one of the political parties, whether it
18 was the SDS, the socialist party, the radical party, or whatever. I
19 didn't -- I wasn't aware that he was a member of any political party, in
20 fact. And I would have noticed this after the war, I think, when I
21 occupied the posts I told you about.
22 Q. During that wartime period, amongst the soldiers and amongst the
23 inhabitants, did people comment that officers used the war for their own
24 enrichment, for this kind of thing?
25 A. Yes. That was quite obvious. This was obvious, and the army as
Page 12095
1 for -- and the soldiers as far as they were able or dared to comment, that
2 is to say, in narrow circles, they did comment about this a great deal.
3 But in none of those stories going around did I ever come across the name
4 of Dragan Jokic mentioned in that context.
5 Q. Was that one of the reasons as well why he was much loved amongst
6 the soldiers?
7 A. Yes. I would say it was. Absolutely correct. Because, you know,
8 we were dealing with a war. It was wartime. And during war this was
9 something that people noticed and paid attention to, what you've just been
10 saying, sir. So it was a sentiment shared by the officers and NCOs. But
11 in none of these stories did I ever hear the name of Dragan Jokic bandied
12 about in that context of profiteering.
13 Q. So was that one of the reasons that he was pushed out of the
14 commanding structures and staff of the Zvornik Brigade, that he was held
15 at bay?
16 A. Well, that was probably one of the reasons. And I would say that
17 the key reason was that Dragan was where he was because he had no choice,
18 but he had no ambitions of being a commander, the commander of a brigade
19 or a commanding officer or promoted to a higher rank or anything of that
20 kind. He -- it was out of necessity that he joined the army and did the
21 work that he was educated to do and trained to do. He was an engineer's
22 man.
23 Q. Do you happen to know whether Dragan Jokic during those war events
24 was given an apartment or built a house of his own, or did he live as a
25 tenant in a rented out apartment? What was his situation with respect to
Page 12096
1 his accommodation?
2 A. He left the war poorer than he entered it. It's a classical
3 example of a man who stagnated in that respect, economically speaking. He
4 didn't prosper, which was quite different to some others. I don't want to
5 take up the Court's time into going into things of that kind in detail,
6 and I don't wish to recall all those instances either myself.
7 Q. As friends, did you hear him complain ever that he was in a
8 difficult financial situation, that he was having trouble looking after
9 his child financially and so on?
10 A. Yes. Unfortunately, I did on many occasions. But it's very
11 difficult for me to speak about things like that here.
12 Q. Thank you. Mr. Rebic, do you remember those days of July 1995
13 when Srebrenica fell?
14 A. Well, I don't like having to recall those days, and I've done my
15 best to forget them as much as I have been able to. But yes, I do
16 remember the general psychosis and mood that prevailed and reigned at the
17 time.
18 Q. Can you tell us, please, where you yourself were at the time and
19 what jobs you were doing.
20 A. I said I was demobilised at the end of 1994. And in view of that
21 fact I managed to avoid subsequent mobilisation in July 1995. I stayed
22 back in my own company, the company of Jadar, where I worked, and that's
23 how I spent that entire time. I was there throughout.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Perhaps this would be a good
Page 12097
1 moment, Your Honours, to take a break. I have 10 more minutes for the
2 examination of this witness with regard to the application of Dayton, the
3 Dayton Accords and the postwar period.
4 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We'll take a break and we'll resume at 12.30
5 --- Recess taken at 11.59 a.m.
6 --- On resuming at 12.33 p.m.
7 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Stojanovic, let's come to the after war
8 period.
9 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. Just the
10 period that we wanted to discuss with today's witness.
11 Q. Mr. Rebic, I wanted to ask you whether after the war, while you
12 were performing the duties you told us about earlier on, had an
13 opportunity of contacting with Dragan Jokic?
14 A. Yes. And I did see him, not very often because of my engagements
15 and in view of the position I held which left me very little free time for
16 socialising and maintaining contacts outside my work.
17 Q. And do you know what Dragan Jokic did during that period of time?
18 A. When the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, demobilisations
19 started, that is to say the soldiers left their positions, the army left
20 its positions. And since the front lines were mined, fortified, and so
21 on, Jokic worked on demining the front lines and getting rid of the mines
22 and explosive devices that were planted along those lines.
23 Q. Do you know whether when he was going about his duties he had to
24 have communication -- constant communication with the opposite side, the
25 BH army, in fact?
Page 12098
1 A. Yes, that's right.
2 Q. Did you hear whether any member of the BH army ever lacked
3 confidence in him or the members of the multinational force. Did they
4 trust him or not?
5 A. No, I don't know that they didn't trust him, that anybody, any of
6 the commanders from the BH army ever had any criticism of his work, nor
7 did I ever hear anybody from the international force criticising him and
8 the way in which he coordinated work with them and cooperated with them.
9 And in view of the post that I held at that time, I'm sure that
10 information and rumours of that kind would have reached me.
11 Q. Thank you. Yes. Now, do you know about his family life after the
12 war, what happened there?
13 A. From the contacts I had with him, and as I knew the whole family
14 and the family situation, Dragan continued as he had done before. That is
15 to say, after the war he continued to care for his child, a child who was
16 with him, and he was the sole provider and guardian. I mean, he was the
17 parent, the one parent, the child had to look after it.
18 Q. After the war did he gain any riches? Did he own a company? Did
19 he own property, anything like that?
20 A. No. I think that Mr. Jokic is a classical example of a man who
21 from 1992 to 1995, the general impoverishment, left the war owning less
22 than he owned before the war. I said before, I explained this to you, and
23 in that way he was very different from many others.
24 Q. In view of the posts you held, were you informed about all the
25 tragic events that took place in July 1995 in the Zvornik municipality
Page 12099
1 area?
2 A. Well, in the extent to which this was relevant for the local -- to
3 the local authorities and local parent authority, and of course mostly
4 with representatives -- in contacts with representatives of the
5 international community, they were the ones who gave me concrete
6 information mostly about the unfortunate occurrences in Zvornik. When I
7 say "in Zvornik," I mean of course the entire territory covered by the
8 Zvornik municipality.
9 Q. Were you informed by anyone that Dragan Jokic participated in the
10 crimes in any way?
11 A. No, never. From -- not from anybody.
12 Q. And finally I wish to ask you: After Dragan Jokic was arrested,
13 or rather, after he gave himself up to the Tribunal, what were the
14 comments from the population in Zvornik, the citizens at large in general,
15 what did they say?
16 A. Well, you see, Zvornik - and I apologise to the Tribunal for
17 having to use this expression that I'm going to use - because of the
18 poverty and trials and tribulations from 1992 to 1995, Zvornik was -- had
19 changed a great deal. The population make-up changed. There were many
20 people coming from other areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina to take up residence
21 in Zvornik, for example. And I'm saying this because Dragan Jokic -- for
22 this newly arrived population, the name of Dragan Jokic didn't mean
23 anything. They didn't know who he was, these people who came in from other
24 areas.
25 Now, as far as comments go he was known in the local communities
Page 12100
1 in which he built a road, for example, in which he was involved in some
2 sort of construction, building a bridge, building roads, building a
3 waterworks supply system, things like that. But otherwise in the circles
4 that I moved around in the comment -- the general comment was: How come
5 they got Dragan? Why Dragan? Why Jokic? What I mean to say by that is
6 this: Quite simply, he was not a well known personage. He was more or
7 less anonymous. He wasn't somebody who had a high-sounding name or a
8 surname that everybody could recognise, precisely because of the kind of
9 work and jobs that he did during those four years in the brigade. And of
10 course in the local communes where the good work went on, the construction
11 work, building roads, building bridges, building a water supply system
12 from the wells and so on, people didn't like accepting the fact that he
13 had been taken. They were sorry.
14 Q. Thank you, Mr. Rebic. We have no further questions for you.
15 Perhaps my colleagues from Mr. Blagojevic's defence team have something to
16 ask you, the Prosecution, or Their Honours, and if so would you please
17 answer their questions. Thank you.
18 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Mr. Stojanovic.
19 Mr. Karnavas, do you have any questions?
20 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President.
21 Good morning, sir.
22 I have no questions for the gentleman.
23 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
24 Ms. Issa?
25 MS. ISSA: Yes, Your Honour, I do have a couple questions.
Page 12101
1 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
2 MS. ISSA: Thank you.
3 Cross-examined by Ms. Issa:
4 Q. Good afternoon, sir.
5 A. Good afternoon.
6 Q. I just have a couple questions, sir, about Mr. Jokic since you
7 spent so much time telling us about his character and what you know of
8 that. Do you know Mr. Jokic as a man who would take responsibility for
9 problems, or would he tend to blame others?
10 A. Well, in answer to your question I think that Mr. Jokic's
11 relationship with the Tribunal is illustrative. He wouldn't do what he
12 did; he would have shifted it to others or he would have gone into hiding,
13 for example. So I think Jokic, at least as far as I know him, as much as
14 I know him, he is not prone to shifting the blame, his own blame, to
15 somebody else.
16 Q. Okay. So if there were problems, for example, in the
17 engineering -- with the engineering people, would he blame his
18 subordinates or superiors, or would he take responsibility for those
19 problems himself?
20 A. Well, I think that he would prefer, if they were serious problems,
21 that he would have preferred to ascribe the problems to himself, take it
22 on himself, rather than blame somebody lower down, somebody subordinate to
23 him.
24 Q. Okay. Thank you.
25 I also just wanted to ask you, sir: Did you know that Mr. Jokic
Page 12102
1 started out in the rank of captain and then was subsequently promoted to
2 the rank of major. And after the war he actually became a lieutenant
3 colonel. Did you know that?
4 A. Yes. But as I said, you should compare this and make a parallel
5 with the others, let's call them officers, with the ranks they started off
6 with at the beginning of 1992 and the ranks they ended up with when the
7 Dayton Accords were signed. So that's the parallel you want to draw.
8 Q. Okay. Thank you.
9 MS. ISSA: I have no further questions.
10 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
11 Any questions out of the cross-examination? Mr. Stojanovic.
12 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Just one, Your Honour, to avoid
13 any misunderstanding.
14 Re-examined by Mr. Stojanovic:
15 Q. Mr. Rebic, do you know Mr. Jokic arrived in 1992 as captain first
16 class and that he left the army in the rank of major, which was a regular
17 promotion, not an extraordinary promotion, ahead of time. Is that
18 something you're aware of?
19 A. Well, the rank of major -- may I be allowed to say something? The
20 rank of major would have been a rank that Jokic would have been given
21 otherwise, were it not for this unfortunate period from 1992 to 1995. So
22 quite simply, it was regular, standard procedure in the Yugoslav People's
23 Army and so on.
24 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I have
25 no further questions.
Page 12103
1 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
2 [Trial Chamber confers]
3 JUDGE LIU: Well, at this stage are there any documents to tender?
4 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE LIU: Ms. Issa?
6 MS. ISSA: No, Your Honour. Thank you.
7 JUDGE LIU: Well, Witness, thank you very much for coming to
8 The Hague to give your evidence. Madam Usher will show you out of the
9 room, and we wish you a pleasant journey back home.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. President, may I be allowed to
11 say one sentence, please?
12 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am a religious man, a believer.
14 And I'd like to thank the Court, Your Honours, for enabling me to come
15 before this Trial Chamber to state that Dragan Jokic is not guilty before
16 God and time will tell. Thank you.
17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. Madam Usher will show you out of
18 the room.
19 [The witness withdrew]
20 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Stojanovic, it seems to me that we finished
21 today's work now, and tomorrow there will be no witness. Am I right?
22 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, you are
23 completely right. So it would be my duty to inform you about that today,
24 by the end of the day. We have a meeting at 2.00 p.m. with the
25 Prosecution, and by the end of business today I will send in my schedule
Page 12104
1 to you depending on the information I'm given by the Victims and Witnesses
2 Unit from the Prosecution, from Mr. Lackovic, and the National Committee
3 for Cooperation with The Hague Tribunal from Belgrade for the subpoena of
4 Mr. Zivanovic. So by the end of business today I will provide you with
5 that schedule.
6 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. So we're waiting for your
7 further information today, or maybe tomorrow morning, and so we'll decide
8 whether we are going to sit on Wednesday or not.
9 Are there any other matters that the parties would like to raise
10 at this stage? It seems to me there is none. So the hearing for today is
11 adjourned.
12 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned
13 at 12.49 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,
14 the 21st day of July, 2004, at 2.15 p.m.
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