Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 14268

1 Monday, 2nd November 1998

2 (Open session)

3 --- Upon commencing at 2.13 p.m.

4 JUDGE JORDA: Please be seated. Registrar,

5 have the accused brought in, please.

6 (The accused entered court).

7 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, I would like to

8 say good afternoon to the interpreters and to be sure

9 that they hear me speaking, I hope they have had a good

10 weekend. Then, of course, I would like to say good

11 afternoon both to the Defence and to the Prosecution

12 counsel, and to the accused, and to the Trial Chamber's

13 legal officer.

14 Now we can continue with the re-examination,

15 which is part of the procedure pursuant to our Rules,

16 which we can do as soon as Mr. Dundas-Whatley has come

17 into the courtroom at request of the registrar.

18 (The witness entered court).

19 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, good

20 afternoon, did you rest up a bit over the weekend? Do

21 you feel good?

22 A. Yes, thank you, Mr. President.

23 JUDGE JORDA: That's good. Mr. Hayman, you

24 may proceed.

25 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President, good

Page 14269

1 afternoon, Your Honours.

2 MR. HAYMAN:

3 Q. Mr. Whatley, I will be jumping around to

4 touch briefly on several different topics raised in

5 your cross-examination at the end of last week.

6 First, on cross-examination you were asked

7 about the level of military experience of Lieutenant

8 Colonel Watters and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, also of

9 the Cheshire Regiment and also witnesses who testified

10 in this case.

11 First, let me ask you a few questions about

12 the service in Bosnia-Herzegovina of Lieutenant Colonel

13 Brian Watters. As the second in command of the

14 Cheshire Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina, did his duties

15 take him off of the British Battalion's base on a

16 regular or daily basis?

17 A. Not on a daily basis, but occasionally, yes.

18 Q. How frequently he had contact with HVO and BH

19 army commanders?

20 A. I don't know exactly, but he did have contact

21 with commanders, usually if there was a high level

22 meeting taking place and Bob Stewart wasn't available,

23 and perhaps Brian Watters would help chair that

24 meeting.

25 Q. Would that have been a regular or frequent

Page 14270

1 occurrence, or not?

2 A. Certainly early on it was hardly ever, but I

3 think towards the end, the last couple of weeks of our

4 time there, it probably happened once or twice a week.

5 Q. Did Lieutenant Colonel Watters serve with the

6 regiment during its complete tour of duty in

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

8 A. He didn't. He came out to replace the second

9 in command who had been there up until about the second

10 week of February, '93, that's when Major Watters, as he

11 was then, arrived.

12 Q. Thus he would have arrived about midway

13 through the tour of duty, is that right, and only been

14 in Bosnia-Herzegovina the latter half?

15 A. That is correct.

16 Q. Now, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, he was a

17 company commander; is that right?

18 A. That is correct.

19 Q. Did he serve part of his service in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina in Tuzla?

21 A. Yes, he did. His company was posted to Tuzla

22 for some time, and back to Vitez.

23 Q. Would his company, or the platoons in his

24 company, have been principally involved in liaison work

25 or other types of patrol or operative work?

Page 14271

1 A. No, his platoons and he, indeed, were not

2 liaison officers, that was our job. He was a rifle

3 platoon -- I'm sorry, rifle company commander.

4 Q. And thus, how frequently, if you know, did he

5 have contacts with battalion or brigade commanders,

6 either in the HVO or the BH army?

7 A. I don't know for certain how often he had

8 meetings with senior commanders. I think most of the

9 contact that the company commanders had was with

10 checkpoints, but I do know of one or two occasions

11 where he did meet brigade commanders.

12 Q. Now, you were in Bosnia-Herzegovina for seven

13 months; is that right?

14 A. That is correct.

15 Q. And just to summarise, you worked in the

16 field an average of, you said about six days per week?

17 A. Something like that, yes.

18 Q. How many meetings per day, on average, would

19 you have had with local commanders of the warring

20 parties?

21 A. It would, of course, vary. A normal day

22 would probably be three meetings, and a busy day could

23 be anything up to about ten.

24 Q. If you had four meetings a day on average,

25 that would work out, I believe, to be 25 days or so per

Page 14272

1 month, six months, four meetings per day, about 600

2 meetings with local commanders during your tour of

3 duty; is that a fair, rough, very rough estimate?

4 A. As a rough estimate, I think it is probably

5 about right.

6 Q. I asked you earlier today to count in your

7 notes how many meetings, or documented in your notes

8 with local commanders on the 15th of April, 1993. Have

9 you counted that figure for us?

10 A. Yes, I have.

11 Q. And how many meetings did you have?

12 A. About ten that are documented in my

13 notebook. Ten.

14 Q. From the 1st of March to the 16th of April,

15 did anyone in the British Battalion have as many

16 contacts as you did with the HVO and BH army commanders

17 Vitez and the surrounding areas?

18 A. No, they didn't.

19 Q. At one point in cross-examination you

20 described using a BiH army radio to arrange a meeting

21 with a Serb commander across the front-lines, I believe

22 west of Travnik. Could you describe that experience

23 for the Court? You weren't able to fully describe it

24 during cross-examination.

25 A. I frequently went to the Bosnian army

Page 14273

1 communications centre in Travnik, the purpose of which

2 was to establish contact with the Serb army, the VRS.

3 In order to do that, we, I would go into the

4 communications room with Baba Salko, who I mentioned

5 before, a very brave and honourable man, and we would,

6 he would instruct the gentlemen operating the

7 communications equipment to re-tune the radio into a

8 Serb frequency.

9 In the process of doing that, they would

10 flick through frequencies and my interpreter would tell

11 me which, listening to the conversations they were

12 having, tell me which frequency or which organisations

13 unit they are broken into. They would say, "Oh, that's

14 the Bosnian army on the Vlasic, or that's the HVO in

15 Novi Travnik, or that's the -- all right, we have got

16 the Serbs now, that's good -- oh, no, it's the wrong

17 Serb unit," so they would re-tune and go to another

18 Serb unit.

19 The point was that it became very obvious to

20 us in December '92, that an enormous amount of military

21 traffic between, or within the warring factions armies,

22 was conducted over open VHF radios, and it was easy for

23 the communication centre to re-tune through these

24 frequencies. Then they would tune to a frequency that

25 seemed appropriate for what we wanted to do, and the

Page 14274

1 radio operator would start then calling on that

2 frequency to interrupt the conversations taking place,

3 and we would then establish communications with the

4 Serbs that way.

5 Q. The first time you arranged a meeting with

6 the Serb commander, that is a meeting between a Serb

7 commander and UNPROFOR representatives, was that before

8 or after the 1st of March when you were assigned on a

9 full-time basis to the Travnik Vitez, Novi Travnik

10 area?

11 A. It was long before the 1st of March. My

12 first across-the-front-line-meeting with the Serbs was

13 in December, '92.

14 Q. Was that meeting arranged in the way you

15 described?

16 A. It was.

17 Q. You were asked on cross-examination, if you

18 were a commander, would you have investigated the

19 events in Ahmici? Who in the British army is

20 responsible for investigating serious violations of

21 military discipline, including criminal violations?

22 A. The royal military police.

23 Q. Do they have specialised training in that

24 function?

25 A. Indeed, they are the police force of the

Page 14275

1 British army, they are trained to investigate crimes,

2 and they work to a very high level chain of command,

3 they don't work for battalion or brigade commanders,

4 they work at a much higher level; but that is their

5 function.

6 Q. You have said that command and control in the

7 HVO was poor. If a commander's ability to command and

8 control the military police was also poor, what would

9 the effect be on that commander's ability to

10 investigate serious violations of military discipline?

11 A. I think it would probably be totally

12 impossible to investigate.

13 Q. Can you explain why?

14 A. The military police, like any police force,

15 is expected to be, to act in a thoroughly legal way,

16 because they are the enforcers and the regulators of

17 military discipline, particularly in relation to crimes

18 and serious breaches of discipline.

19 If the military police failed to conduct

20 their business properly, and there is no other way,

21 there is no other system that I'm aware of, certainly

22 in the British system, that I'm aware of, other than

23 them investigating themselves, other than the military

24 police sorting out their own internal problems, that a

25 breakdown of discipline of that nature can be dealt

Page 14276

1 with. I think that answers your question.

2 Q. Thank you. I have given you copies of

3 certain exhibits you were shown during your direct

4 examination in order to save time.

5 Do you have Exhibit, Prosecutor's Exhibit 539

6 before you? That's the MILINFOSUM of the 8th of April,

7 1993. And if we could activate the ELMO so it can be

8 used, please. I'll be directing your attention to

9 paragraph 6, and I also have a copy. Why don't I give

10 you a copy. I will place my copy on the ELMO for

11 convenience.

12 Have you had a chance to compare paragraph 6

13 of Exhibit, Prosecutor's Exhibit 539 with the notes in

14 your notebook from entries dated 8th of April, 1993?

15 A. Yes, I have, Your Honours.

16 Q. And are there entries in paragraph 6, which

17 is the paragraph titled "Travnik" and is now visible on

18 the ELMO, are there entries which correspond to entries

19 in your notes, including specific time references?

20 A. Yes, there are.

21 Q. The paragraph begins "An LO team"; do you see

22 that?

23 A. Yes, I do.

24 Q. What is that a reference to, what is an LO

25 team?

Page 14277

1 A. An LO team is a liaison officer, in this case

2 me, plus my driver, my interpreter and the other

3 members of my team, I would have an escort of some

4 soldiers who would act as my personal protection, and

5 possibly a second vehicle to support my vehicle, and

6 that would all together be called an LO team.

7 Q. And were you the LO referred to as the LO

8 team in paragraph 6 of Exhibit P539?

9 A. Yes, I was.

10 Q. Now, these MILINFOSUMs which were produced,

11 did you write them?

12 A. No, I did not.

13 Q. Did you make any decisions concerning what

14 went in or what was omitted from them?

15 A. No, I was not. No, I did not.

16 Q. Was that someone else's job?

17 A. That was the responsibility of the military

18 information officer and his staff.

19 Q. Thank you. We're done with that exhibit, you

20 can put it aside.

21 You were asked on cross-examination about

22 alcohol consumption by the liaison officers. Why was

23 it that the liaison officers of the British battalion

24 were frequently served alcohol in the course of their

25 working day?

Page 14278

1 A. This is a bit of a custom that we found when

2 we visited the headquarters of brigades and civilian

3 organisations, as well. We would always be given a cup

4 of coffee and a glass of plum brandy; so, depending how

5 many meetings we went to in a day as to how much plum

6 brandy we drank.

7 Q. Did the consumption of alcohol interfere with

8 your performance of your duties?

9 A. No, it did not.

10 Q. In April of 1993 did the pace of your work as

11 a liaison officer accelerate?

12 A. Yes, it did, enormously.

13 Q. Did that cause you to refuse some of the

14 local's hospitality when it was offered to you?

15 A. Yes, about the beginning of April, 1993, I

16 decided I would no longer drink plum brandy in the

17 meetings, I would make an excuse about taking

18 antibiotics or some other excuse so I didn't feel so

19 tired every day from drinking so much the previous day.

20 Q. And in fact, did you start refusing the plum

21 brandy?

22 A. Yes, I did.

23 Q. You were asked whether you told investigators

24 from the Office of the Tribunal Prosecutor that your

25 memory of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not very

Page 14279

1 good. Let me ask you: Were you interviewed by an

2 investigator from the Office the Tribunal Prosecutor

3 named Mr. Montooth on the 19th of February, 1995?

4 A. Yes, I was.

5 Q. On page four of his interview notes, which

6 were provided to the Defence by the Office of the

7 Prosecutor, beginning of the first full paragraph, he

8 wrote, and I quote, "DW," referring to Dundas-Whatley,

9 "Has a good deal of information, and although he

10 repeatedly suggested he had a bad memory, he soon

11 recalled specific detail when specifics were

12 discussed." End quote.

13 Was that true? Did you recall specific

14 details in this interview, although you apologised for

15 not remembering more?

16 A. Yes, it is true.

17 Q. This same interviewer from the Office of the

18 Prosecutor, in February of 1995, wrote in the third

19 sentence of the same paragraph, referring to you, and I

20 quote, "He is more than willing to provide as much

21 information as he can." End quote.

22 Was that true? Did you cooperate with the

23 Office of Tribunal Prosecutor in this interview?

24 A. Yes, I did.

25 Q. This same investigator also wrote three lines

Page 14280

1 down in the same paragraph, on page 4 of his interview

2 notes, and I quote, and this is a reference to you,

3 "His loyalty to the British Battalion is without

4 question, and particularly to his close liaison officer

5 colleagues." End quote.

6 How do you view your eight years of service

7 in the British army, and what is your relationship with

8 your former Cheshire Regiment colleagues?

9 A. I was then and am now very proud of my

10 regiment, and proud of the work that I did with them,

11 both in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia. I was very

12 proud, and still am, of my work and the work of my

13 regiment in Bosnia of United Nations, and I was proud

14 to serve the United Nations.

15 My relationship now is as it was five or six

16 years ago, with nearly all the officers in my regiment,

17 I have a very close relationship with many of the

18 officers who are still serving and many of the officers

19 who are retired.

20 Q. In the last line of the interview notes of

21 this Office of the Tribunal Prosecutor investigator,

22 written of his interview with you on the 19th of

23 February, 1993, reads as follows." If --

24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you say '93?

25 MR. HAYMAN: I'm sorry, misspoke, you're

Page 14281

1 absolutely right, Your Honour, 19th of February, 1995.

2 Q. And I quote from the last sentence, and this

3 is a reference to you: "If at all possible he,"

4 referring to Mr. Dundas-Whatley, "Should be interviewed

5 before any statements are taken from the Cheshire

6 Regiment officers." End of quote.

7 Do you know why the investigator would say

8 that?

9 A. I can only imagine that the investigators at

10 last had found somebody who actually knew quite a lot

11 about what had gone on in middle Bosnia and was very

12 willing to cooperate; but more than that, I can't

13 comment.

14 Q. You said during cross-examination that you

15 met the prior witness, Slavko Marin, at the airport in

16 Amsterdam; could you explain how that meeting occurred

17 and whether you had met him previously?

18 A. Firstly, I had not met Slavko Marin

19 previously, to my recollection. The meeting came about

20 by what must only be a coincidence that I was at the

21 Amsterdam airport, coming here to be a witness, and I

22 met Counsel Anto Nobilo, who was had there to meet me,

23 and with him, Slavko Marin was with him, as well, and

24 that's how I met him.

25 Q. Did you meet Mr. Nobilo for the purposes of

Page 14282

1 transportation to The Hague to testify before this

2 Tribunal?

3 A. Yes, I did.

4 Q. You said on cross-examination that you were

5 interviewed once by the Office of the Tribunal

6 Prosecutor on a particular occasion in the city of

7 Split, Croatia. Where do you currently reside, in what

8 city or town?

9 A. I live in the city of Banja Luka, which is in

10 the Serb half of Bosnia.

11 Q. Also on cross-examination you were asked

12 about the presentation of HVO bases in Central Bosnia;

13 what did you mean when you referred or used that term,

14 a base, a military base?

15 A. In the context that I answered the question,

16 during the process of this trial, I was referring to

17 places where we would see HVO soldiers, places where we

18 knew they would be sleeping, like there would be quite

19 a lot in a house or in a converted shop which they had

20 taken over. Or it could be, I mentioned the Hotel

21 Orient in Travnik and the Hotel Vitez, anywhere where a

22 number of HVO soldiers would be stationed, in the

23 school of Dubravica, for example.

24 Q. You were asked about HVO training in Central

25 Bosnia. Did the HVO, to your knowledge, have a

Page 14283

1 training facility in Central Bosnia?

2 A. Not to my knowledge.

3 Q. You were shown certain exhibits related to

4 training, for the record, Prosecutor's Exhibits 484 and

5 456/104 through 108, and you said you were not

6 surprised to see those documents, including certain

7 orders for training issued by Colonel Blaskic.

8 Can you elaborate as to why you weren't

9 surprised to be shown those documents by the

10 Prosecutor?

11 A. There are two things: Firstly, I was not

12 surprised that Colonel Blaskic was making an attempt to

13 train his soldiers. Secondly, I was not surprised,

14 because all but one of those were dated before

15 September, '92 when the situation between the Muslims

16 and Croats in Bosnia was much more stable.

17 Q. You were also shown certain combat orders,

18 for the record, Exhibits D300 and P456/45 and 46. You

19 were asked if you could deduce that they had been sent

20 in a secure manner, that is via a secure communications

21 method, and you said it would have been stupid not to

22 send them via a secure communications method.

23 Do you know how those orders in fact were

24 sent by the HVO?

25 A. No, I do not.

Page 14284

1 Q. Would you be surprised based on what you

2 learned about both the BH army and the HVO during your

3 service if those orders were sent by an amateur

4 software system that was, in fact, frequently

5 intercepted by the BH army?

6 A. No, I would not be surprised.

7 Q. You were asked whether Colonel Blaskic, to

8 your knowledge, asked the BH army to join in a joint

9 investigation of Ahmici. Did UNPROFOR serve, on a

10 regular basis, in the role of facilitating

11 communications between the HVO and the BH army?

12 A. Yes, we did. Primarily through the use of

13 our armoured vehicles. We frequently -- in fact,

14 towards the end, we constantly moved HVO and Bosnian

15 army commanders and negotiators around middle Bosnia to

16 each others headquarters, or to pick them up and bring

17 them to our headquarters for meetings and visits to the

18 ground, constantly.

19 Q. Well, why wouldn't, after the 16th of April,

20 General Hadzihasanovic just come to the Hotel Vitez to

21 visit Colonel Blaskic on his own?

22 A. For exactly the same reason. I can only

23 guess, but I should imagine it's for exactly the same

24 reason that Colonel Blaskic could not go to Zenica and

25 visit the headquarters of the Third Corps. That is,

Page 14285

1 they were at war with each other. It would be too

2 dangerous.

3 Q. You were read certain passages from a

4 magazine interview with then Colonel Blaskic, and from

5 the testimony of a Prince of Wales' Own officer

6 recounting his recollection of a discussion with then

7 Colonel Blaskic. Those texts pertain, in part, to

8 events in Ahmici in 1993, April of 1993.

9 Can you tell us, with respect to information

10 about ongoing criminal investigations within an army,

11 is information concerning such ongoing matters in any

12 army likely to be considered confidential and

13 restricted information?

14 A. Yes. I don't know exactly what security

15 classification that type of information would go under,

16 but it would certainly be information that would be

17 closely guarded until a decision was made to publish

18 the results of the investigation, I believe.

19 Q. And now I'd like to turn to the last topic,

20 command and control in the HVO. You were shown, on

21 cross-examination, a dozen or more documents consisting

22 both of orders and reports. Earlier this morning I

23 provided you with the following additional documents,

24 Defence Exhibits 340, 341, 343, 213, 211, 148, 361,

25 363, 368, 75, 135 and exhibit -- Prosecutor's Exhibit

Page 14286

1 421, and I asked you to review those. Have you had a

2 chance to review those exhibits prior to the

3 commencement of this afternoon's court session?

4 A. Yes, I have.

5 Q. Could you please tell the Court, taking into

6 account your personal experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina

7 during the war, the documents that the Prosecutor asked

8 you to review on cross-examination and the documents

9 that you reviewed during your direct testimony --

10 JUDGE JORDA: You want to leave a little time

11 for the Office of the Prosecutor to have a quick look

12 at those documents. Mr. Harmon -- can you identify

13 them, Mr. Harmon?

14 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, thank you for

15 your consideration. Yes. If I have a problem, I will

16 just interrupt briefly until I can get the appropriate

17 document in front of me.

18 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Excuse me,

19 Mr. Hayman. Please continue.

20 MR. HAYMAN: Of course, Mr. President.

21 Q. Taking into account your personal experiences

22 during your service in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as

23 the documents you have seen subsequent to that service,

24 both what you were shown by the Office of the Tribunal

25 Prosecutor on cross-examination, and the eight or ten

Page 14287

1 documents that I asked you to review this morning, can

2 you tell the Court, based on all of that information

3 available to you, whether having that additional

4 information, does it change or cause you to modify the

5 opinions that you expressed to this Court both on

6 direct and on cross-examination concerning the degree

7 of command and control that existed in the HVO during

8 your period of time serving with UNPROFOR in Central

9 Bosnia?

10 A. The further documents that I've reviewed this

11 morning only go to further reinforce my view that

12 command and control was poor, and I have broken these

13 documents down into three separate piles.

14 The first pile are three documents that

15 relate to the Ahmici situation, and particularly, the

16 Ahmici investigation, and these are documents D340, 341

17 and 343.

18 If I could briefly read you a little bit from

19 340. This document was written on April the 23rd --

20 Q. Please go slowly. The interpreters don't

21 have the documents in front of them. If you would like

22 to read and place it on the ELMO that's fine, but in

23 any event, please go slowly so that they can a full and

24 fair opportunity to interpret. Thank you.

25 A. This document was written by Colonel Blaskic

Page 14288

1 on April the 23rd. It's a letter written from his

2 headquarters in Vitez to Colonel Bob Stewart, my

3 commanding officer. And he says, "I am ready to send

4 immediately the investigating commission to the village

5 of Ahmici, as well as to all other places that need to

6 be investigated because of gathering facts about all

7 the innocent victims of this conflict. I myself beg

8 you to help us stop this suffering and make the

9 adequate conditions for the commission to work

10 properly."

11 There's some more paragraphs. In the final

12 paragraph he says, "I consider to you be an utterly

13 honourable and professional soldier."

14 Then there are two other letters, in fact,

15 two other orders, both of which were written by Colonel

16 Blaskic, one on the 10th of May, '93 and one on the

17 17th of August, '93.

18 The one from the 10th of May, and it's

19 difficult to know exactly who it was sent to from the

20 heading, but it comes out in the text, and it's titled,

21 "Inquiry and Written Report on the Events in the

22 Village of Ahmici", and then there's some background.

23 "For several days various rumours have been

24 circulating in the public regarding the events in the

25 village of Ahmici since the 14th of May, '93."

Page 14289

1 Now, I think he probably means the 14th of

2 April because this letter was actually written on the

3 10th of April, but he says, "14th of May, '93, and the

4 civilian casualties there." He then goes on and orders

5 two orders.

6 Firstly, "Gather all the information and

7 submit a report on the events that actually took place

8 in the village of Ahmici. In particular, on the number

9 of casualties."

10 The second part of the order, "I designate

11 the assistance of SIS of the OZ in Central Bosnia as

12 the person responsible for this task. The deadline is

13 the 25th of May, '93."

14 Before I come to the third document, what

15 these two mean to me is that firstly, on or about the

16 23rd of April, Colonel Blaskic isn't fully aware of

17 everything that happened in Ahmici, and he appears to

18 be having trouble investigating it. So he's asking us

19 to help him -- to help him. In other words, to provide

20 security and possibly personnel to go to the village of

21 Ahmici to begin an investigation, because he's hearing

22 what he refers to two weeks later as rumours.

23 But in the second one I read there, he's here

24 giving an order to the SIS to go ahead and make an

25 investigation of what -- and he says of what actually

Page 14290

1 took place.

2 The third document was dated the 17th of

3 August, and again it's written by Colonel Blaskic, and

4 this is again written to the SIS. I say it's again;

5 this one is written to the SIS, and we know the last

6 one must have been, because he's ordering them in the

7 text of it.

8 Now, this one is for three months later, just

9 over three months later, and the order is, "In order to

10 provide all the facts and take steps in further

11 investigation in connection with killing the civilians

12 in the village of Ahmici, the order, Point 1, to go on

13 with making data and collecting information,

14 considering the harm to civilians in the village of

15 Ahmici." And further down he says, "The deadline for

16 fulfilling this order is the 17th of September, '93."

17 What this one means to me is that over three

18 months since he last sent an order to this SIS unit, he

19 doesn't appear -- although we don't know what went on

20 between him and the SIS, he doesn't appear to have had

21 the reports that he wanted. He doesn't appear to

22 receive the information he's wanted. That is a clear

23 indication that the command and control, and indeed

24 communications between him and his subordinate units,

25 if indeed the SIS were a subordinate unit, is not

Page 14291

1 working properly.

2 The second group of documents are a

3 collection of orders and reports that were either

4 written by Colonel Blaskic or received by him, and

5 there is a further -- the first one, it appears not to

6 have been written by him or received by him.

7 The first one is Defence Exhibit 213. It's a

8 very long document, and it was written on the 1st of

9 March, 1993, long before the events in Ahmici. I won't

10 read any of it, but I'll just summarise what it says.

11 It's a very long document. It's a report written by

12 the Military Police in Vitez and sent to the Military

13 Police headquarters in Mostar. There is nothing on the

14 document to suggest that it was also sent to Colonel

15 Blaskic, but it may have been.

16 It's all about an incident that took place in

17 Vitez and Busovaca, I believe, but particularly in

18 Vitez, in relation to the Military Police unit that was

19 based there, took into custody, and then interrogated

20 and got a lot of information from an individual who had

21 been involved in criminal acts, and this report is

22 written by that police battalion that was doing that

23 investigation into these criminal acts, and the report

24 lists a number of people who were -- as a result of

25 that interrogation and other information, they found

Page 14292

1 were also involved in various criminal acts, and some

2 of these criminal acts appear to be quite violent.

3 As the report goes on, it turns out that

4 whilst in the Military Police custody in Vitez, this

5 particular person was forcibly removed from the

6 Military Police custody by a criminal gang that appears

7 to have been led by some military policemen and others

8 out of Travnik and other places.

9 It's not necessarily an indication that the

10 Colonel -- Colonel Blaskic's chain of command was

11 particularly bad, it's an indication that the Military

12 Police were not functioning properly and certainly were

13 not functioning in the manner which a Military Police

14 organisation must function if military discipline is to

15 work properly, because whilst in Military Police

16 custody, guarded by armed military policemen in

17 uniform, presumably, this prisoner was released by

18 other armed uniformed men, some of whom were also in

19 the Military Police.

20 The other documents from this second batch,

21 all these were either sent by, or to, Colonel Blaskic.

22 They're all Defence Exhibits 211, 148, 361, 363 and

23 368.

24 The first one, written by Colonel Blaskic,

25 he's referring to the destructive conduct of

Page 14293

1 individuals in HVO uniforms, and he orders that persons

2 inclined toward destructive and criminal conduct -- and

3 he goes on about what should be done about them, and he

4 gives a deadline of the 29th March. This document is

5 written on the 17th of March.

6 The next one, written --

7 Q. If you could just slow down slightly.

8 A. I'm sorry. The first one, on the 17th of

9 March, went to a very wide circulation of commanders,

10 HVO brigades, independent units, Military Police in

11 Travnik and Vitez, HVO presidents and various

12 departments.

13 The second one, written on the 22nd of April,

14 again to a very wide circulation, 12 brigades and

15 various other organisations including the Military

16 Police, the orders that he most strictly -- I quote, "I

17 most strictly forbid the torching of houses and

18 business premises and the looting of property." That's

19 on the 22nd of April.

20 Two days later, on the 24th of April, Colonel

21 Blaskic sends another order to all the units in his

22 zone -- in his Operative Zone, and it's titled,

23 "Elimination of Arbitrary Acts by Commanders and

24 Individuals -- by Commanders and Individuals", in the

25 order. "After an assessment carried out in the field,

Page 14294

1 it is apparent that the lower commanders and the units

2 are acting outside the chain of command. They are not

3 executing orders from superiors and are independently

4 making decisions contrary to the received orders. They

5 plan and execute their own combat activities, exert

6 pressure on civilians and disrupt the work of UNPROFOR,

7 ICRC and ECMM."

8 Then he goes on to order, amongst other

9 things, that all the organised troops are to be fully

10 controlled and the commanders are personally

11 responsible for the behaviour of the subordinates. He

12 also orders that the individuals and groups who are

13 completely out of control are to be arrested

14 immediately and warrants are to be delivered to the

15 command of the Military Police unit.

16 He writes another order, also on the same

17 day, to a very large distribution including the brigade

18 in Busovaca, the brigade in Kiseljak, to the police in

19 Vitez, "The unlawful --

20 MR. HARMON: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, would you

21 kindly identify the document you're referring to by

22 number, please?

23 A. I do apologise. This is Defence Exhibit 363,

24 and the next one is 368.

25 And he orders, and I quote, "Unlawful taking

Page 14295

1 of the flats and stealing of property from the flats

2 which belong to citizens, who for different reasons are

3 temporarily not present, is to be prevented by all

4 means" --

5 JUDGE JORDA: Please speak more slowly,

6 Mr. Dundas-Whatley.

7 A. I apologise.

8 JUDGE JORDA: Try not to speed up.

9 A. I'm very sorry. "Unlawful taking of flats

10 and stealing of property from flats which belong to

11 citizens, who for different reasons are temporarily not

12 present, is to be prevented by all means, including by

13 use of force."

14 And the final, dated the 31st of May, written

15 by Colonel Blaskic, and it's sent to the 4th Military

16 Police Battalion in Vitez and SIS. And I quote, "On

17 the 30th of May, 1993, the officer on duty of the

18 Central Bosnia Operative Zone informed me that these

19 two people," who I won't say their names unless you

20 particularly want me to, "Both members of the Military

21 Police were expelling Muslim families by force. This

22 was despite the order which bans such actions."

23 It goes on to say, "In order to prevent

24 further actions that hinder the execution of orders and

25 the correct behaviour of Military Police," he goes on

Page 14296

1 to order that they should conduct -- that the 4th

2 Military Police battalion and the SIS should conduct an

3 investigation, take disciplinary measures and send him

4 a report by the 5th of June.

5 Those five documents together, when you

6 consider command and control within Colonel Blaskic's

7 Operative Zone, those indicate to me that he is -- he

8 is becoming aware that things are going wrong. He's

9 becoming aware that illegal acts are being -- happening

10 all over the place. But what it more indicates to me

11 is that he is constantly, over a period of about six or

12 eight weeks there, he's constantly having to send more

13 or less the same order again to more or less the same

14 people, stop burning houses, stop expelling people, and

15 there's sending an order to the Military Police to tell

16 military policemen to stop expelling Muslims from their

17 houses. I think things were going quite badly at this

18 stage for him.

19 MR. HAYMAN:

20 Q. When you say that, can you explain?

21 A. Well, if the military policemen are taking

22 part in the illegal activities, expelling people from

23 their houses, then who is going to stop it from

24 happening?

25 Q. Thank you. And the last documents that I

Page 14297

1 asked you to review, can you tell the Court whether

2 they affect or cause you to change the opinions that

3 you've given the Tribunal concerning the level or

4 degree of command and control within the HVO?

5 A. No at all. They simply reinforce the

6 opinions which I stated last week and continue to hold

7 at the moment.

8 The first document is the Prosecution

9 document number 421. This document was produced by the

10 ECMM -- the ECMM office in Travnik on the 4th of July.

11 It's a very long document and I'll summarise it.

12 It's in relation to an aid convoy belonging

13 to MSF Holland, Medicines Sans Frontier from Holland.

14 There were four vehicles, it appears, and with four

15 drivers. Three of them were French and one was

16 English. They were all in possession of legal UNHCR ID

17 cards.

18 It appears from this report that this convey,

19 consisting of medicines and other aid, arrived in

20 Busovaca where it was stopped by the HVO, and the HVO

21 arrested the drivers -- well, took the trucks and the

22 drivers to a location and then arrested the drivers.

23 Sometime after, the HVO Military Police arrived and

24 told the HVO normal soldiers to go away and that the

25 Military Police would handle the situation.

Page 14298

1 Then sometime after that, the ECMM and some

2 other international organisations got involved in the

3 negotiations about these trucks, the humanitarian aid

4 and the drivers. Very quickly the drivers were

5 allowed -- were released, were allowed to be treated

6 reasonably normally, and negotiations began in relation

7 to moving of the humanitarian aid on, I think to

8 Zenica, and I think some was going to Tuzla. And I

9 quote, "The team suggested to transport the most

10 urgently needed goods to their destination," and then

11 there's a gap. "The legal and very urgently needed

12 goods, medical equipment and medicines for Tuzla, and

13 the powdered milk for Zenica would stay on the trucks

14 and should be transported to their destination

15 immediately." That was the suggestion of the meeting.

16 The chief of the police, he's referring to

17 the Military Police here, had to ask permission from

18 his superiors in Mostar first. Had to ask his

19 permission -- had to ask permission from his superiors

20 in Mostar first.

21 That document suggests to me that the

22 Military Police chain of command came from Mostar, not

23 from Colonel Blaskic. That's the indication that I

24 draw from that.

25 And now the final two documents. These both

Page 14299

1 concern Colonel Alistair Duncan. Colonel Duncan

2 commanded the BRITBAT after Colonel Bob Stewart. The

3 first one an excerpt from a statement that Colonel

4 Alistair Duncan made.

5 MR. HARMON: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, would you

6 kindly identify the document by number? There should

7 be an exhibit number on that.

8 A. It's Defence document 75 followed by Defence

9 document 135.

10 In this document 75, Colonel Alastair is

11 talking about a convoy, the Convoy of Joy, which was

12 interrupted by the HVO, and he's talking about his

13 negotiations with regards to getting that convoy moved

14 on. It's not unlike the story that I related to you

15 last week. I'll only read two and a bit lines,

16 two-thirds of the way down the big paragraph on this

17 page 4899999.

18 I quote, "The soldiers refused to allow the

19 convoy to move, even when I used the name of Colonel

20 Blaskic as an authority." It goes on, "The soldiers

21 said quite categorically they wanted the order to

22 come from" -- I won't say the name in court, but it was

23 another senior figure in middle Bosnia at the time.

24 And the final document, Your Honours -- I'm

25 sorry this is taking quite a long time -- is Defence

Page 14300

1 Exhibit 135, which is a -- it's a report of a meeting,

2 written by Colonel Alistair Duncan, in August, '93.

3 I'm reading from paragraph three. I'll miss out some

4 names. He's referring to a Mafia Godfather, and it

5 says in this report, "It would appear that this Mafia

6 Godfather has considerable influence with the people of

7 the Lasva Valley, whereas Blaskic does not, as proved

8 by the events of the Convoy of Joy, where Blaskic

9 proved to be nothing more than a puppet commander,

10 ignored by the locals."

11 Those last three documents, particularly the

12 last, the one from the ECMM, I already told you that

13 suggests that the military police were not responding

14 to the Vitez chain of command but to the Mostar chain

15 of command, and these last two from Colonel Alistair

16 Duncan indicate strongly that Blaskic did not have a

17 great deal of power in the Lasva Valley in relation to

18 the Convoy of Joy, and these other people whose names

19 appear in the documents had a great deal more authority

20 than he had. His command and control was poor.

21 Q. Thank you for that explanation. I have one

22 other question for you of substance, but first let me

23 ask you, what's on your lapel?

24 A. This is, we call this a poppy, and it dates

25 back to the 1st World War when the British army was,

Page 14301

1 the British army, and indeed the armies of the

2 Commonwealth and the French army were fighting in

3 France and Belgium against the Germans, and millions of

4 people were killed, and they were killed in the fields

5 of Flanders and elsewhere in Northern France, and at

6 the time there were a lot of poppies in the fields.

7 Ever since the armistice of the 11th of November, 1918,

8 the British soldiers, and indeed Commonwealth soldiers,

9 wear these every year to commemorate that war and every

10 war that has followed subsequently.

11 Q. I have one more question for you, and that

12 is, I would like to ask you whether you can confirm a

13 particular incident or event which is recounted in your

14 commanding officer's book "Broken Lives," Robert

15 Stewart's book, "Broken Lives" and the incident

16 described appears at the bottom of page 91 and carries

17 over to the top of page 92.

18 I will read you Colonel Stewart's description

19 of the incident, and I would like you to tell the Court

20 if you can confirm it, if you're familiar with it, and

21 to what degree.

22 "In Bosnia most forces fighting on all sides

23 are from the local area. It is really a domestic war

24 in many more ways than it at first appears. Suddenly a

25 very large column of dispirited Croat soldiers, mostly

Page 14302

1 in old cars and on tractor driven trailers, appeared in

2 Vitez. They really did look a miserable sight. They

3 all were perfectly willing to say what was happening,

4 which was a clear indication to us that morale was very

5 low. In fact, they just wanted to go home and were

6 going to stay together until they did so. They were

7 not soldiers at all, very few had had any real

8 training. They could handle their weapons all right,

9 but were really civilians in uniform. I asked them

10 what they were paid, and they laughed. They were paid

11 practically nothing, and certainly had no money at all

12 for several weeks. In a normal army what they were

13 doing would properly be called mutiny, but no army in

14 Bosnia was normal. For two days, this large column

15 stayed around Hotel Vitez, although once it tried to

16 head west and then south to Gornji Vakuf, but was

17 turned back by its own side. It was clearly very

18 embarrassing for Tihomir Blaskic, the Croat commander

19 of Central Bosnia. When I asked him about it, he

20 simply shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of

21 resignation. Eventually Blaskic agreed that the

22 soldiers could go home, but they had to hand over their

23 weapons in Kiseljak as they did so."

24 Are you able to confirm this event and

25 provide any greater context for the Court concerning

Page 14303

1 it?

2 A. I can certainly confirm that it took place.

3 The fall of Jajce was traumatic, and there was a

4 massive influx of refugees, a lot of soldiers, a lot of

5 civilians; but I don't think I can any add any more

6 than that.

7 Q. Is the description in "Broken Lives" of a

8 very large column of HVO soldiers from Jajce?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Thank you.

11 MR. HAYMAN: That concludes my redirect

12 examination, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you. Do you, I suppose

14 you have some documents to submit as exhibits.

15 MR. HAYMAN: All the documents referred to

16 are already in evidence, Mr. President.

17 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, we would move

18 into evidence the exhibit that we tendered, 539.

19 JUDGE JORDA: I see there is no objection.

20 Before the Judges ask their questions, we're going to

21 take a short 10-minute break, perhaps 15 minutes, and

22 then, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, you will be asked some

23 questions by the Judges and that will be all you will

24 be asked to do. Thank you very much.

25 --- Recess taken at 3.20 p.m.

Page 14304

1 --- On resuming at 3.35 p.m.

2 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have

3 the accused brought in, please.

4 (The accused entered court).

5 JUDGE JORDA: I think we are ready to

6 resume. Mr. Dundas-Whatley, after the direct

7 examination, the cross-examination and the

8 re-examination, I believe that the three of us Judges

9 would like certain points clarified. Let me give the

10 floor right now to my colleague, Judge Riad.

11 JUDGE RIAD: Captain Dundas-Whatley, good

12 afternoon.

13 A. Good afternoon, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE RIAD: Can we continue calling you

15 captain?

16 A. It's not traditional below the rank of major

17 to maintain one's rank after one leaves the service.

18 JUDGE RIAD: You are living in Banja Luka

19 now?

20 A. I am at the moment, Your Honour, yes.

21 JUDGE RIAD: How long have you been there,

22 and what are you doing, may I ask?

23 A. I've been there on and off a long time, but I

24 moved there permanently about a month ago, and I'm

25 running a small business from that city.

Page 14305

1 JUDGE RIAD: I have a few points which I

2 would like to understand more clearly, and I'm sure you

3 will help me with it. You insisted on the fact that,

4 of local loyalties, that the HVO was more or less a

5 local army, and the loyalty was to the village or city,

6 political leaders, if I understood rightly.

7 Did that mean that any of -- not General

8 Blaskic at that time, Colonel Blaskic's orders, combat

9 orders; were they disobeyed, or the local authorities

10 obeyed all the combat orders?

11 A. Yes, Your Honour, I understand the question.

12 What I was describing was the -- I don't think it was

13 just the HVO, I think it was -- what I was describing

14 was also very true for the Bosnian army, was that the

15 structure of the organisation was built locally, that,

16 if you could compare it, for example, with the British

17 army, which for more than a hundred years the British

18 army has been used to decamping and going to other

19 countries as battalions, regiment, divisions, brigades

20 to fight wars. So, it was perfectly normal within the

21 British military structure to have a chain of command

22 and a fully functioning chain of command and a rank

23 structure which could be transferred anywhere. People

24 could be posted in and out of various headquarters,

25 regiments could be attached to one headquarters or

Page 14306

1 another. It's a system which has been in place for a

2 long time, and it works very well.

3 We do not have, in the British system, a

4 problem with posting people or posting regiments under

5 command of different divisions and different brigades.

6 We don't have a problem where people say "I don't want

7 to leave my home," or "I don't really want to go there

8 and fight that war." I don't want to -- a British

9 soldier or officer would not say "I don't think that's

10 the job you want to do."

11 But we have seen examples in the last few

12 days, a very good example was in Fojnica, where the HVO

13 military commander in Fojnica was given an order by

14 Colonel Blaskic, as he was then, and then wrote back

15 saying that he has consulted the priest and the various

16 other organisations within the town and they don't

17 really want to carry out the order. In fact, they

18 refused to carry out the order.

19 The reason was, as explained in that letter

20 that I'm referring to from last week, was that the

21 loyalty of the people in the town of Fojnica, the

22 Croats in the town and the church and the other

23 institutions which I can't remember right now,

24 including the mayor, I think, and the other political

25 representatives, was not, wherever the loyalty was, it

Page 14307

1 was not to the HVO military chain of command.

2 The HVO commander felt more loyal to the

3 other civilian representatives in his town than he did

4 to the orders he was receiving in a normal military

5 chain, and that is a very good example of what I was

6 talking to you about.

7 JUDGE RIAD: As you mentioned, and as we have

8 been informed before, there was a chain of command

9 since 1992, a chain of brigade, brigade commanders, we

10 have been informed since the beginning, almost, of the

11 trial; and you are confirming there was a chain of

12 command of brigade commanders that existed?

13 A. Yes, it did exist, yes, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE RIAD: But, of course, there was this,

15 as you said, religious influence. But do you have

16 other very -- you mentioned before that example of the

17 checkpoint when, I think it was you, you were passing,

18 and they had to call Colonel Blaskic to take his

19 opinion. You mentioned that was one of the examples of

20 disobedience; but, in fact, they obeyed the order of

21 General Blaskic, because you passed.

22 A. They -- it was -- yes, I understand what you

23 mean. I think not -- it wasn't that, in that

24 particular case, that they obeyed the order of Colonel

25 Blaskic. I think in that case they just realised that

Page 14308

1 I was serious, that I was going to destroy that

2 checkpoint if they did not let the convoy go through,

3 even though they got an order from Colonel Blaskic over

4 the phone.

5 They swore at him and then slammed the phone

6 down and then continued to be very angry, and I think

7 it was the show of force outside, which was so often

8 the case in Bosnia, the show of force and the real

9 intent to use it, is what won the day on that occasion.

10 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you. You mentioned, also,

11 something about the Muslim cleansing in Prozor when you

12 arrived in October, 1992. Do you know how this

13 cleansing took place? Could you just explain to us

14 what you meant by this cleansing? Did they put them in

15 buses to send them away, or did they, what?

16 A. I understand. Most of ethnic cleansing, most

17 of the ethnic cleansing we witnessed in Bosnia was not

18 in the style that you're talking about, the buses and

19 so on. It was done through a process of fear and

20 intimidation, that -- and this was on all three sides,

21 all three sides -- but in the case of Prozor, it was

22 the Croats taking control of the town, and all the

23 Muslims then left because of some violence that was

24 directed against them.

25 There was some burning of shops and some

Page 14309

1 burning of houses, and I presume, but I can't swear,

2 that there was some shooting of Muslims in the town as

3 well. But the result of the burning of the houses was

4 the Muslim population felt very insecure in the town

5 and so they left. They were terrorised, victimised and

6 terrorised on ethnic grounds, so they left Prozor and

7 the Croats had complete control of that town.

8 Now, that style of ethnic cleansing was

9 commonplace throughout the whole of middle Bosnia.

10 JUDGE RIAD: Who did the cleansing? Did you

11 inquire, did you know who did the cleansing?

12 A. Well, we knew it was the Croats, Your Honour,

13 but as to which units and so on, I have no idea at all.

14 JUDGE RIAD: You said the Croats; was it the

15 police, was it the HVO? I mean, who had the weapons to

16 do it? You said there was shooting.

17 A. I don't know whether it was the military

18 police, the civilian police, or the army, the HVO army,

19 the normal army, or whether it was criminal groups. In

20 the situation in Prozor, we were not first-hand

21 witnesses of the initial phases of the cleansing.

22 When I observed Prozor burning at the end of

23 October, '92, what we saw was houses on fire, and the

24 edges of the town were undergoing mortar fire, mortars

25 were landing in villages around the town, and on the

Page 14310

1 edges of the town, some, not a huge number. But it was

2 enough to terrorise the population, the Muslim half of

3 the population.

4 JUDGE RIAD: I want to see something more

5 clearly about Ahmici. To your knowledge, was the

6 attack on Ahmici an organised one? Was it militarily

7 organised?

8 A. It's difficult to answer that. I presume you

9 have heard first-hand accounts of people in the

10 villages at the time, and I certainly have, and I

11 presume you have some idea of the scale of the

12 village. So, I don't think that it could possibly have

13 happened unless it was planned, and to plan it and

14 organise it, it had to have taken place. To answer

15 your question, simply; yes, it must have been planned

16 and organised, because it couldn't have been done by

17 two or three people, it had to be done by a larger body

18 of people.

19 JUDGE RIAD: And according to a systematic

20 way, in a systematic way, not haphazardly?

21 A. I don't know, we weren't there, we weren't

22 aware until a week or so later. What I will say is I

23 think most of the house burning, what I think -- this

24 is a very personal opinion now, from many years

25 experience, but without first-hand knowledge of what

Page 14311

1 happened there, because I wasn't there.

2 But from talking to many of the victims,

3 myself, in the course of talking to friends and so on,

4 I think there were two separate phases to it. I think

5 there was the military side, which resulted in these

6 horrible deaths, the 96 or so, hundred possibly, people

7 killed, mainly women and children. I think the

8 military side probably only took a few hours, maybe one

9 day, and it was during that war, during that military

10 attack, of some nature, that terrorising military

11 attack, which must have been very fearful, it was

12 during that phase that the population left.

13 I think that the second phase was probably

14 the looting and burning phase, and the destruction of

15 the mosques, blowing up the mosques, burning the

16 houses, a sort of scorched earth policy, which we are

17 fully aware of in wars in that region, and throughout

18 the world, anyway. I think that was over the day that

19 is followed. So, I think it was two separate things.

20 The first phase, the first part of it

21 probably only lasted a few hours, but that's when the

22 terror happened, and that's when, I think, all the

23 death happened.

24 JUDGE RIAD: The terror happened by the

25 military?

Page 14312

1 A. Well, I say -- I don't know if it was

2 military policemen or normal soldiers or bandits or

3 criminals or what, I personally don't know which part

4 of the Croat community committed that atrocity.

5 JUDGE RIAD: Now, although there were these

6 atrocities that existed, you mentioned that in an

7 interview to this newspaper called Zagreb Danas

8 Journal, Colonel Blaskic accused the Muslims of coming

9 in to do this work, or even the Serbs, and even

10 referred to Colonel Stewart as trying to spread false

11 rumours, or even almost conniving with the Muslims.

12 Now, at the same time you said that, or

13 perhaps we concluded that, Colonel Blaskic ordered an

14 investigation. Was this interview a result of the

15 investigation? Did the investigation lead to the fact

16 that Muslims themselves did that to themselves? Or was

17 it a comment to influence the investigation?

18 A. I very much doubt if it was actually either

19 of those, Your Honour. I think that --

20 JUDGE RIAD: If there was an investigation,

21 it would be asking the question, did they investigate

22 to find out that this man did that thing. There is no

23 need for an investigation in that case.

24 A. Yes. You're right, but I don't think that

25 that was the reason why Colonel Blaskic made the

Page 14313

1 statement that he said. I must say I never saw the

2 newspaper before Friday or Thursday, whenever it was,

3 but I can only guess that -- I think that newspaper was

4 October, '93, it was towards the end of the year, and I

5 think probably by then the situation for Vitez and the

6 Vitez pocket, the enclave, if you like, the Croats

7 territory, surrounded as they were, that Colonel

8 Blaskic found himself in at that period, I think the

9 situation was probably very bad for the Croats.

10 And I think possibly that newspaper article,

11 he was using it for propaganda reasons. That would be

12 my guess, that he was using it for propaganda reasons,

13 to -- I mean, it would not, bearing in mind he was

14 trapped in an enclave, it would not have been wise for

15 him to, despite what he probably felt in his heart

16 about the events of Ahmici, to go public and say that,

17 well, we know it was committed by members of the HVO or

18 members of whichever Croat organisation it was. It

19 probably wasn't wise for him to do that. He would

20 probably be more sensible not to speak about Ahmici at

21 all until the investigation was complete.

22 But he was concerned, I think, from reading

23 the article, from the part that was translated, with

24 the morale of his own army, which he -- and he knew it

25 was an ill disciplined army, anyway, from these reports

Page 14314

1 we spoke about. I think he was concerned with saying

2 something which was likely to turn his army against him

3 or against each other, when in fact their main concern

4 at that stage was to continue to fight against the

5 Bosnian army.

6 JUDGE RIAD: But don't you think that would

7 make the investigation pointless, if you are making an

8 investigation and your boss decided the result

9 beforehand. What is the need of the investigation?

10 That is my inquiry.

11 Because you already decided what the result

12 was, what was the result was. And what was the reason

13 for his reproach to Colonel Stewart in saying that he

14 spread false rumours and that sort of thing?

15 A. Yes --

16 JUDGE RIAD: Was there any kind of animosity

17 between him and Colonel Stewart?

18 A. Not -- I don't think there was when my

19 regiment left in the middle of May, '93, but there is

20 one incident which comes to mind that may throw some

21 light on some animosity that may have existed, and that

22 was when Colonel Stewart went into Ahmici. I wasn't

23 with him, but when he discovered, he was there when

24 some of the, one of the younger officers and some other

25 people discovered the horrific events there.

Page 14315

1 He had television cameras with him, and he,

2 he was recorded saying the words "bloody HVO", swearing

3 at the HVO, in relation, I think, to the atrocity that

4 had been committed.

5 Subsequently that quote, whether it was in

6 context or not, I have no idea, subsequently that quote

7 was broadcast over one of the satellite channels,

8 whether CNN or SKY, I don't know, and many Croats in

9 Vitez and elsewhere saw this. So, I think it was

10 enough people understood enough of the language to know

11 what "bloody HVO" meant. So that moment of anger that

12 Colonel Bob Stewart displayed, I think, was then thrown

13 back in the faces of the Croats by the satellite

14 broadcasters. I think that's what we're talking about

15 here, but I'm not sure.

16 JUDGE RIAD: Was it on a special occasion,

17 was it -- do you remember Ahmici, or what? Was it as a

18 consequence of a massacre, or what?

19 A. I believe, Your Honour, I believe, and I

20 wasn't there when he said this, I believe it was when

21 he visited Ahmici for the first time, for the first

22 time after the massacre; but I'm not absolutely certain

23 about it.

24 JUDGE RIAD: You mentioned also that, lately,

25 perhaps today, that several orders by Colonel Blaskic

Page 14316

1 were given asking for an investigation and for

2 disciplinary measures. It was, I think, addressed to

3 the 4th Military Police Battalion, SIS, and these

4 orders were not executed. There was no -- was there

5 any follow-up, first, if you know about it? And if

6 there wasn't, did he, did the matter, was the matter

7 raised to the higher authorities, to explain or to

8 notify that nothing has been done? Or was it just, was

9 the matter closed?

10 A. I was commenting on some documents that I

11 saw, which were translations of orders that Colonel

12 Blaskic had written. As to what the results of those

13 documents, his orders were, I'm not entirely certain at

14 all.

15 Although, last week I was shown, on Thursday

16 or Friday, I was shown a report written by the 4th

17 Military Police Battalion on about the 16th or 17th, I

18 think on the afternoon of the 16th of April, '93, where

19 they, they went into no detail at all about what had

20 happened in Ahmici, but said that, I think, Muslim

21 forces from Ahmici had engaged -- it was a very minor

22 description of what can only be described as a major

23 event. And it appears that the 4th Military Police

24 Battalion was stationed very close to Ahmici at the

25 time.

Page 14317

1 So, to answer that part of your question, did

2 that happen as a result of the orders he wrote? Of

3 course we never knew. I didn't see these orders until

4 I came here to Holland. But it appears, the fact that

5 he had to continually send the same order, continually

6 write the same order so many times over a period of so

7 many months, that he can't have been getting the

8 results that, in the British army, we would expect as a

9 result of the first order. We're not in the habit of

10 having to repeat ourselves.

11 JUDGE RIAD: But you don't know if it was

12 raised to the higher authorities in form of complaint

13 or --

14 A. No document of that nature --

15 JUDGE RIAD: Or asking if he had the

16 authority to do it, the higher authorities, was there a

17 higher authority to do it, which he can defer to?

18 A. From the documents I've seen here, I think

19 the higher military authority to Colonel Blaskic was

20 probably General Petkovic in Mostar. That's how I

21 understand it, but I'm afraid I'm going beyond my scope

22 of knowledge here.

23 JUDGE RIAD: But he was not in the picture?

24 A. I'm not aware Your Honour. I haven't been

25 shown these documents. It would be wrong for me to

Page 14318

1 draw any conclusions about that because I haven't seen

2 any documents relating to that, apart from that one

3 report shown to me on Thursday which made no mention of

4 anything like that at all.

5 JUDGE RIAD: You went also -- you explained

6 to us that sometimes the raising of flags had an

7 inflammatory effect, and especially when Mate Boban

8 came, I think there was some trouble because they

9 raised the Croatian flag. Was Bosnia, at that time, an

10 independent State or not yet?

11 A. Oh, yes. Legally and recognised by the

12 United Nations --

13 JUDGE RIAD: It was no-man's land?

14 A. No, Bosnia was an independent sovereign State

15 from the previous year.

16 JUDGE RIAD: They had a flag.

17 A. They did have a flag.

18 JUDGE RIAD: And this flag was not the

19 Bosnian flag which was being raised?

20 A. No. The point, Your Honour, is that by the

21 time of the period we're talking about, Bosnia was

22 divided not just into two, it was divided into three,

23 and the Serbs -- the Serbs point-blank rejected the

24 Bosnia flag, the Bosnia government and all the rest of

25 it, and they controlled 70 per cent of Bosnia using

Page 14319

1 Serb symbols, Yugoslavia Slav symbols, Serb symbols and

2 the Cyrillic alphabet, et cetera, et cetera.

3 In the other 30 per cent of the territory,

4 which is what we're discussing, and Vitez and Travnik

5 were in the other 30 per cent, there was a division

6 there between the ruling government in Sarajevo, which

7 we called the Bosnian government, which had the Bosnian

8 flag, and they then ended up controlling something

9 like -- I can't remember -- something like 15 or 20 per

10 cent of the territory, something in that order.

11 Although they were the established government, they

12 only had about 15 or 20 per cent of the territory. And

13 that's where their flag flew. Then there was the Croat

14 territory which flew the Croat flag, and they had

15 about -- a similar amount of the territory as well.

16 So it wasn't that the Croats had just

17 rejected the Bosnian government and the Bosnian flag,

18 so had the Serbs. It was a three-way thing. And so

19 the Bosnian flag was actually only flown in three major

20 cities, which was Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla, and other

21 towns like Travnik.

22 But at the time we're talking about, Your

23 Honour, if I could be absolutely clear, the Croat flag

24 and the Bosnian flag were both in Travnik from the day

25 I arrived and from before, because the HVO, which had

Page 14320

1 the Croat flag, and the Bosnian army, which had the

2 Bosnian flag, worked together in Travnik and Vitez and

3 other towns, Gornji Vakuf, Zenica, many other towns,

4 they worked together, so you could drive through the

5 town and see both flags.

6 The incident that you spoke about with

7 regards to Mate Boban, we didn't see Mate Boban in the

8 town. We were told that he had been there, and we were

9 told that the presence of Mate Boban had inflamed

10 things, because allegedly he -- whether he was there or

11 not, I don't know, but we believed at the time that he

12 was. That his presence inflamed things because he

13 said, "Look, this is a Croat canton under the

14 Vance-Owen Plan, and, therefore, the Croats' flag

15 should be everywhere because this is a Croat canton

16 under the plan," and that is what allegedly sparked the

17 flag burning and shooting incidents of that day in the

18 first week of April, I think.

19 JUDGE RIAD: Now, I pass on another thing

20 which you mentioned this morning about your -- I think

21 somebody mentioned that you were ready to provide all

22 the information you had to the Prosecutor, and, in

23 fact, you were interviewed by the Prosecutor in Split?

24 A. Yes. I've been interviewed many times.

25 JUDGE RIAD: Many times?

Page 14321

1 A. Many times.

2 JUDGE RIAD: But you mentioned before, I

3 think it was February 1995, one of them --

4 A. Yes, that's correct.

5 JUDGE RIAD: But you said before that you

6 refused once to sign a declaration. They wanted to you

7 sign a declaration and you refused.

8 A. Yes. I've never signed a statement.

9 JUDGE RIAD: When you're interviewed, don't

10 you usually sign a declaration?

11 A. In my experience, and I have a lot of

12 experience with this, the Prosecutor -- the Office of

13 the Tribunal Prosecutors have visited me many times to

14 clarify certain points. Now, over time, they have

15 become much more knowledgeable about who was involved

16 and what was happening, but as time has gone -- and as

17 I speak to them, and I've spoken to them in Sarajevo,

18 I've spoken to them in Zenica, I spoke to them in

19 Split, I've spoken to them in many places, they, of

20 course, like good investigators they write everything

21 down. But on occasions they've wanted witnesses or

22 potential witnesses like me to -- instead of them just

23 writing down everything I say, they want me to make a

24 statement to the Court, and I've never wanted to make a

25 statement until I had much more knowledge about the

Page 14322

1 subject matter, and until I was confident that the

2 statement I was going to sign was accurate and correct

3 and a full statement, and, furthermore, that I was

4 willing to be a witness to that statement in -- and a

5 witness to the Court as a result of that.

6 Consequently, I have never signed any

7 statements for anyone, because I think that all the --

8 all the cases in this Tribunal must be seen on their

9 own merit and individually.

10 And in the case of Colonel Blaskic, I have

11 views which I've expressed in the last few days which I

12 wanted to come here -- eventually I made a decision to

13 come here and present those views in person to the

14 Court. This would not have been helped by making a

15 statement.

16 JUDGE RIAD: You mean, you are not almost

17 allowed to put your views in this statement?

18 A. That's a different issue, Your Honour. There

19 was an occasion where I was asked to sign a statement

20 which was a statement that I hadn't written, almost as

21 if I was incapable of writing my own statement, and I

22 said, "I'd rather not."

23 JUDGE RIAD: I see. Just a rather personal

24 question; you yourself said that you were -- when the

25 Prosecutor was questioning you, you mentioned sometimes

Page 14323

1 that you were often drunk, which I don't at all -- I

2 fully understand that if anybody was living in these

3 circumstances, it was better to be drunk.

4 A. Your Honour, that was not the reason why I

5 was drunk. I was not searching for the bottle to make

6 up for some other inadequacy.

7 JUDGE RIAD: Turn away from the horrible

8 views, perhaps, what you are seeing. But was it the

9 case with all the people of the army? Were they trying

10 to run away from the atrocities by getting drunk?

11 A. No, that was most definitely not the case,

12 Your Honour, and it was not the case for me either.

13 This -- this -- the point of the -- the point

14 about the alcohol, I tried to explain it this morning,

15 but I will -- this afternoon, but I will try again.

16 There were six captains who were liaison

17 officers, and I was one of them, and our job, our only

18 job, was to talk to the local commanders. The

19 battalion and the British in Bosnia at the time had

20 something like 1,500 people and a whole regiment of

21 engineers, I think, and lots of logistics people as

22 well, but there were six of us, out of all these 1,500

23 people who had to spend all day every day talking to

24 military commanders and civilian leaders.

25 Most members of my battalion and most members

Page 14324

1 of the British army didn't meet locals. They saw them

2 occasionally at checkpoints, they didn't meet them.

3 Many members of the battalion didn't go outside the

4 British base the whole time they were in Bosnia,

5 because their job didn't require them to.

6 Then there were people on patrol like the

7 companies, like Major Thomas' company, Colonel Thomas

8 as he is now, who went out on patrols, and to observe

9 the front-lines and observe other things, and they were

10 in and out whole time and they would see the locals.

11 But there were six of us who were out the

12 whole time with the locals, and the custom we found was

13 that -- and I think possibly we encouraged it as well,

14 but the custom we found is that when we went into

15 somebody's office, we would be given a cup of coffee

16 and a glass of brandy. And the coffee always tasted

17 horrible and the brandy always tasted horrible, but if

18 you alternated it would become a little bit nicer. And

19 we got -- and this would happen every day. So if I had

20 ten meetings in a day, I would probably be quite drunk

21 at the end of it. But I knew this was happening, and

22 so I wrote everything down in my notebook so I didn't

23 have to rely on my memory, and when things got really

24 busy I made a decision that I would stop drinking. I

25 was not the only one. I made a decision that I would

Page 14325

1 refuse their hospitality, which was okay because they

2 knew me by then. They all knew me very well, so

3 refusing the hospitality did not matter in the sense of

4 upsetting the commanders.

5 Does that answer your question, Your Honour?

6 JUDGE RIAD: Yes. Yes, it does. Now, the

7 last question: Concerning the 7th Muslim Brigade, you

8 mentioned that they were different from the people in

9 the area, and that even some Bosnian officers

10 complained to you about them and mentioned that they

11 were fundamentalists. That was your word, I think. In

12 other words, they were religious fanatics.

13 Would you then conclude that the other

14 Bosnians, the Muslim Bosnians were not Muslim fanatics?

15 Is that a fair conclusion?

16 A. That's absolutely right, Your Honour. The

17 overwhelming percentage of Muslims and Croats and

18 Serbs, but Muslims, to answer your question, are not

19 fundamentalists in their religious or other beliefs.

20 They are perfectly normal, sensible people.

21 That's what was so particularly worrying

22 about the formation of the 7th Muslim Brigade, because

23 it wasn't what anyone expected in Bosnia. Bosnia does

24 not have a history of Islamic fundamentalism.

25 In reality, I think many of the people who

Page 14326

1 joined the 7th Muslim Brigade themselves were not

2 fundamentalists at all, but it was a better army to

3 join -- not a better army, but a better part of the

4 army to join, because they were paid more, they were

5 given uniforms, and in the event of them dying, their

6 families would be cared for properly, which -- there

7 were other advantages for them to be with the 7th

8 Muslim Brigade, but there was an unity of purpose

9 within the 7th Muslim Brigade. It was very attractive

10 for the Muslims. And it attracted those, of course,

11 who had more deep religious views and were capable and

12 wanting to fight as well.

13 But that was what was so worrying about it,

14 is that most Muslims in Bosnia, and I have many Muslim

15 friends in Bosnia, of course, are perfectly rational

16 people who do not posses religious or other fundamental

17 views.

18 JUDGE RIAD: So there was no religious

19 barrier between Muslims and non-Muslims?

20 A. Not prior to this war. The problems that

21 nationalism create are they -- as we've seen in

22 Northern Ireland and all over the world, nationalism

23 unites people behind one cause or one flag at the

24 expense of all others. So the Muslims and the Croats

25 separated, and they ended up being united behind their

Page 14327

1 own flags at the expense of each other. Instead of

2 uniting behind one flag, as they have subsequently

3 managed to do with the Federation, which is progressing

4 quite well in Bosnia right now.

5 But back in '93, religious -- sorry,

6 nationalism, not fundamentalism -- nationalism was a

7 very powerful force. It was in the hands of very

8 irresponsible, power crazy, many of them young people.

9 It was stirred up by criminal groups who benefited from

10 the anarchy and chaos which it brought about, and it

11 allowed criminal gangs to loot and pillage. If you

12 create Croat nationalism in a Muslim area, the Muslims

13 leave and you go and take the car and the television.

14 So I think there are a whole load of reasons why

15 nationalism was very successful in middle Bosnia, and

16 part of it was this religious fundamentalism, this

17 religious divide that you're talking about, but that

18 wasn't the historic cause of it in Bosnia.

19 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much, Captain.

20 JUDGE JORDA: Judge Shahabuddeen.

21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Dundas-Whatley,

22 anyone who has listened to you, as we have these last

23 days, would be puzzled to know how anyone could

24 possibly have the temerity to expect that you would

25 sign a statement which did not represent your full and

Page 14328

1 true views. Where were you when this statement was

2 written up?

3 A. I didn't sign the statement, and I was --

4 this took place in Sarajevo last -- last year, Your

5 Honour, I think.

6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes, but where were you

7 when this statement was being written?

8 A. Oh, in my flat in Sarajevo.

9 Q. The statement was being written in your

10 flat?

11 A. No, I was -- I -- an investigator came to my

12 flat and asked me if I would sign the statement and was

13 it suitable for me to sign, and of course, I said

14 "No." He, I believe, had written the statement as a

15 result of a conversation we'd had the previous day or

16 the previous week in Sarajevo.

17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Oh, he had written it up

18 before coming to your flat?

19 A. That's correct, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: And did you read it or

21 did he read it?

22 A. As I remember, he showed it to me and I said,

23 "I have no intention of signing a statement."

24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: How many pages was it?

25 A. I can't remember, Your Honour.

Page 14329

1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would you say several

2 pages or one page?

3 A. I really can't remember, Your Honour, because

4 the whole idea of being asked to sign a statement

5 written by someone else was -- seemed ridiculous to me,

6 and I said this to the investigator at the time, and he

7 was quite happy with this. I must point out he was

8 quite happy with this. I think he realised he asked me

9 please -- would not -- please sign, but he said, "Could

10 you sign this," or, "Would you sign this statement it

11 would be quite good for us if you-- or quite useful if

12 you would sign a statement, words to that effect." I

13 can't remember the exact words. And I said, "No."

14 So I can't actually remember -- I think the

15 statement was brought out, put on the desk. I don't

16 think we even turned it over.

17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I see. So would I be

18 correct, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, in concluding that you

19 refused to sign the statement on the basis of the

20 principle that any such statement should have been

21 written by you? Is that a way of looking at it?

22 A. That's partly it, yes, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: It was not a question of

24 the statement containing any specific inaccuracies?

25 A. No, not at all, Your Honour, and if that's

Page 14330

1 been the suggestion, then I'm very sorry. That was

2 never meant to be the suggestion.

3 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, I was interested in

4 your career having been demobilised. Is that the right

5 word?

6 A. It used to be Your Honour, yes.

7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Demobilised from the

8 army because it was slimming down. You then served

9 with certain NGOs, I think Oxfam was named, and you

10 lived for a while in Belgrade and later on in Sarajevo,

11 and later on in Banja Luka, or were there other places?

12 A. I've also lived -- when I was with Feed the

13 Children, I lived in Vitez, Your Honour, which is

14 particularly relevant, and I have lived in Split in

15 Croatia as well.

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very good. And you

17 operate a business?

18 A. That's correct, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Could I ask what

20 business is it?

21 A. Yes. I act as a consultant for people. For

22 example, I do a lot of work -- not so much now, but

23 historically I did a lot of work for the press, for the

24 international press. More latterly, in the last year

25 or so, I have -- I provide a lot of services,

Page 14331

1 facilities, for the International Community, in

2 particular the -- for example, I -- it would be

3 inappropriate for me to mention some of my clients,

4 but --

5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Please feel completely

6 secure, and do not trouble to mention any clients about

7 whom there might be the slightest sensitivity.

8 A. No, there's no sensitivity, I just think

9 that -- for example, I manage a house for the British

10 Embassy. I don't do it personally, but we -- the

11 British Embassy have contracted me as a consultant to

12 organise a house for them and manage it for them on the

13 coast. We do -- I would do that type of thing for

14 other organisations, which I don't need to list, I

15 don't think.

16 We -- our big drive in the last two years has

17 been towards leisure for the International Community,

18 and we do a great deal of skiing for the British army.

19 We hosted all the British army skiing in Bosnia last

20 winter, including -- we run their ski meetings towards

21 the end for the British division. And we do sailing

22 for the international organisations, where we act as a

23 broker between the international organisations --

24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What is the scope of

25 your contribution to the international media?

Page 14332

1 A. This is coming to an end now, Your Honour,

2 because of course, the international press are not too

3 interested in the events in Bosnia so much now, but

4 normally I -- they -- I'm -- I've got a title such as

5 "coordinator," something like that, and I provide

6 interpreters, and I would probably drive the news crew

7 around, or documentary company.

8 I must point out that I was involved in the

9 documentary on The Hague last year, although I didn't

10 actually come here, I did the Bosnia end of that.

11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would I be right in

12 supposing that your contribution to the international

13 press would be concerned mostly with the events about

14 which you speak?

15 A. No, you wouldn't be, Your Honour. It's --

16 the documentary was partly concerned with Vitez, and it

17 was -- but no, most news is not interested in this. I

18 didn't start working for news until the summer of '95,

19 autumn '95, by which time the events of Ahmici were

20 long forgotten as a news item.

21 No, it's things like the election or the

22 opening of the bridges in Mostar or -- the elections

23 are a very big and ongoing story, every time there's an

24 election or appointing of governments. Sometimes the

25 introduction of the single currency, the new single

Page 14333

1 currency in Bosnia. Events like this that take place

2 in the course of time attract the international media,

3 and they need someone on the ground to organise things

4 for them, to organise camera crews for them and

5 vehicles, and know what's going on and to have the

6 contacts.

7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very good. Then would I

8 be right in supposing that in the course of your

9 contribution to the international press, you would have

10 had occasion to speak on the subject of command and

11 control in the Lasva Valley?

12 A. I don't think so, Your Honour. I don't

13 remember discussing command and control with anyone.

14 Q. Were there other British officers like you

15 who settled down in the former Yugoslavia after leaving

16 the British army?

17 A. There's one from my regiment which I'm aware

18 of, Your Honour, who lives in Sarajevo, and there are

19 quite a few British people working there as well. I

20 wouldn't say we've settled -- any of us have settled

21 down there, Your Honour. It's --

22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Do you have a family?

23 A. No, not at all.

24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You don't have a

25 family. You're a loner. All right.

Page 14334

1 A. I'm just not married to my family.

2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All right. Once or

3 twice, perhaps more often, in the course of your

4 testimony, you assured the Court that you were not

5 being evasive. Why did you feel it necessary to give

6 that assurance? I don't believe --

7 A. I can't remember a specific example, but I

8 think -- I think occasionally I would be asked a

9 question which required a more complicated and in-depth

10 answer than a simple yes or no, or a number, or date,

11 and so in order to explain it, I would have to come in

12 from a slightly different angle, and that's what I was

13 referring to, things that happened in Bosnia and

14 continue to happen in Bosnia are not necessarily as

15 simple as people may wish to believe them.

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Am I right in my

17 recollection that neither Defence counsel nor

18 prosecuting counsel used the word "evasive"?

19 A. I don't know, Your Honour. Probably.

20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, let us talk about

21 Prozor a little, through which you passed in October

22 1992. The prosecuting counsel was asking you a

23 question like this: Did tensions rise as a result of

24 the ethnic cleansing in Prozor? My recollection is

25 that your answer was that tensions rose because of the

Page 14335

1 influx of refugees in certain places.

2 Now, which is it really? Did the ethnic

3 cleansing by itself in Prozor cause tensions to rise,

4 or did tensions rise solely because of the subsequent

5 influx of refugees into certain places?

6 A. It's going to be a long answer, Your Honour.

7 In most of the towns and most of the cities in Bosnia,

8 the HVO and the Bosnian army worked together, but

9 then -- as the relationship between the two of them

10 started to collapse, from the south heading northwards,

11 what happened in one town may have almost no effect on

12 a town 50 miles way, or that we could see.

13 So were it not for the fact that Prozor had

14 this horrific situation which resulted in a loss of

15 confidence on the front lines in Jajce, which resulted

16 in refugees coming into Vitez, which were explained in

17 the book just now, it is unlikely that the results of

18 Prozor would have had a direct effect on Vitez, because

19 the Vitez situation, like the situation in all the

20 towns further north, was a power struggle and a

21 balance.

22 But the refugees came, a lot of Muslim

23 refugees came from Banja Luka, Jajce fell and that

24 caused a strain, and that reverberated down the Lasva

25 Valley, from Travnik down to Vitez and further.

Page 14336

1 But at the same time -- we're talking now

2 about October, '92 -- at the same time in Tuzla, a 100

3 miles or so away, the HVO and the Bosnian army

4 co-operated throughout the war and this had no effect

5 on them. And so it was -- and at the same time, Vitez

6 and -- in Vitez, the Muslims and Croats in October,

7 '92, were shooting each other in the streets, but in

8 Travnik they're walking down the streets together, only

9 20 miles away.

10 So what I was trying to answer -- what I was

11 trying to explain in that answer, is that, yes, Prozor

12 was ethnically cleansed, but one of the main results of

13 that as the collapse of Jajce, and the influx of

14 refugees, and the loss of confidence between the two

15 sides locally, and to some extent regionally, but it

16 did not cause panic and despondency further down --

17 further down the chain. The HVO in Sarajevo and Tuzla

18 were -- continued to co-operate perfectly with the

19 Bosnian army.

20 Do you understand why I wanted to explain?

21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let me square my

22 understanding with yours. Your position is that the

23 ethnic cleansing in Prozor did not, by itself, cause

24 tensions to rise in places further afield; is that it?

25 A. That's correct, Your Honour.

Page 14337

1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All right. I understand

2 your answer. Now, are you in a position to say to the

3 Court, in a ballpark sort of way, whether you

4 considered that a substantial part of HVO personnel had

5 come to the HVO with or without previous JNA

6 experience?

7 A. I think the overwhelming percentage of the

8 population in Bosnia had JNA experience, but, I also

9 believe, and this is, of course, hearsay, that at some

10 stage the, many people in Bosnia started not attending

11 their compulsory military service. They didn't bother

12 to go, the system was collapsing, I think probably

13 in '90 or '91. So, yes, there were young people of

14 military age that did not have military experience, but

15 it was, of course, a minority when put against the

16 overwhelming majority who had served in the JNA 20

17 years before, or whatever.

18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would you say that,

19 therefore, to follow the drift of your remarks, that

20 the HVO did not have greater JNA experience than the

21 ABiH? Is that what you would say?

22 A. I would have thought -- this is not an area

23 I'm an expert in, none of us were, none of us are --

24 but I would have thought that the percentages would be

25 very similar.

Page 14338

1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very similar. Thank

2 you. What about equipment?

3 A. The, from what we saw, and from what we knew

4 from talking to people who had been on the Serb side,

5 the Serbs had overwhelming military might, in the sense

6 of equipment, tanks, artillery, so on.

7 Left on the other side, on our side, if you

8 like, where we were stationed, there wasn't actually a

9 great deal of military hardware around, and to see an

10 artillery piece going down the street was a major

11 event. So, I don't think that -- and the most number

12 of tanks I ever saw in one day was two, and they were

13 probably 30 miles apart.

14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let me ask your

15 impression on this point about which the Court has had

16 the benefit of other testimony.

17 How would you compare the fire power exerted

18 from the Vitez side against the fire power exerted from

19 the Stari Vitez side?

20 A. I think in taking that isolated area together

21 --

22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Over a sustained period

23 of time, say during the whole of April.

24 A. I didn't ever see any heavy weapons in Stari

25 Vitez. I saw rifles, I didn't -- I don't remember ever

Page 14339

1 seeing mortars, tanks, artillery in Stari Vitez.

2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What I mean,

3 Mr. Dundas-Whatley, is; was the level of fire power the

4 same, or was it preponderant in one side or

5 preponderant on another side?

6 A. Probably I saw very little hardware. I think

7 probably the Croats had, in that, in the Vitez town,

8 had more heavy equipment than the Bosnian army. But

9 we're not talking about tanks here --

10 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: No, I'm talking about

11 fire power, whatever the source be, rifle, tanks,

12 mortars.

13 A. I see. Well, I think it is then down to how

14 many people that the Croats could put on that

15 front-line, because the Croats had another front-line as

16 well, the outside front-line looking out towards Zenica

17 and Travnik.

18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What I mean,

19 Mr. Dundas-Whatley, was; there was an armed exchange

20 between Vitez and Stari Vitez which went on for a

21 while. Now, which side had the preponderance of fire

22 power, or did they have roughly the same level of fire

23 power?

24 A. I don't know. I should imagine the Croats

25 outnumbered them, but I don't know, Your Honour.

Page 14340

1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did the HVO control the

2 territory through which the resupply routes of the ABiH

3 passed?

4 A. For Stari Vitez?

5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Generally.

6 A. Absolutely right, Your Honour, yes. Except

7 that there were stories that, there were stories, and I

8 never confirmed it, that in Travnik the Bosnian army

9 was actually getting resupply also from the Serbs, but

10 I think it is more of a black market nature than

11 anything else.

12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let us turn to HV, the

13 wearing of HV insignia, that is, the military emblems

14 of the army of Croatia proper.

15 A. Yeah.

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: My recollection is that

17 you said you saw only one insignia being held up by

18 some instrument or another, a pin or something.

19 Were you aware, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, that the

20 then Colonel Blaskic had issued instructions to his

21 military to order them to discontinue the wearing of

22 any HV emblems?

23 A. No, I wasn't, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Assuming that he did so,

25 would that make a difference to your evidence that you

Page 14341

1 did not see any soldiers in HV uniforms or wearing HV

2 insignia?

3 A. No, Your Honour. I can only remember one

4 occasion where I saw an HV insignia.

5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let us talk a little

6 about another subject. Did you become aware of some

7 degree of cooperation between the HV and the Serbs?

8 A. The HV and the Serbs?

9 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: The HVO, I'm sorry, the

10 HVO and the Serbs.

11 A. Yes, but this was after I left the army that

12 I was appraised of all this, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Never mind when you

14 became aware of it, you did become aware of it?

15 A. Absolutely, yes.

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: There was a degree of

17 cooperation between the HVO and the army of the

18 Republika Srpska. Could you tell us a little more

19 about the nature of that cooperation?

20 A. The, there are a few examples that spring to

21 mind, Your Honour. For example, in the area of

22 Kiseljak we were aware, or I became aware, as an aid

23 worker travelling through Kiseljak, that as you went

24 from Croat territory to Serb territory, there were no

25 bullet holes in the walls, which was normally the best

Page 14342

1 indication of front-line.

2 So, it appeared to us, then, that Kiseljak,

3 although it had a front-line with the Serbs, and indeed

4 with the Bosnian army, as well, it was not in a

5 shooting war with the Serbs, indeed, there was traffic

6 crossing that front-line. So there is that incident of

7 cooperation that I was aware of in '94.

8 Also in '94 I became aware of what had gone

9 on in the town of Zepce, which I mentioned to you

10 before, it's well to the north of Zenica. Zepce was,

11 in my time, had an HVO and a Bosnian army headquarters

12 in the town. Subsequently there was a small war in the

13 town and the Bosnian army was kicked out and the HVO

14 took control of the town.

15 During -- that came about, I've been told,

16 because of cooperation between the HVO commander in

17 that town and the Serbs who came across the front-line

18 and assisted the HVO in their war against the Bosnian

19 army in the town of Zepce. So, those are two examples

20 that spring to mind, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you become aware at

22 any stage of a covering umbrella agreement between

23 Serbia and Croatia under which this, these incidents of

24 cooperation might have occurred?

25 A. I remember reading something in the

Page 14343

1 newspaper, some, probably in '94 or '95.

2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you read anything

3 about talks being held at -- what's that name,

4 Karadjordjevo, between President Milosevic and

5 President Tudjman?

6 A. The press spoke about this frequently, that,

7 it's not something that I'm aware of at all, Your

8 Honour, but the press spoke about this frequently, that

9 there was a master plan. Whether it involved

10 Mr. Izetbegovic or not, I'm not sure, but there was,

11 allegedly, a master plan to divide Bosnia up.

12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: The Vance-Owen Plan came

13 along and it assigned Canton 10 inter alia to the

14 Croatian community; is that correct?

15 A. Yes, I believe Travnik was Canton 10, yes.

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Could you help the Court

17 by telling us how the HVO understood the assignment of

18 Canton 10 to the Croatians? Did they understand it to

19 mean that the HVO were to control it, or did they also

20 understand it to mean that Canton 10 was to be cleansed

21 of any non-Croatian elements?

22 A. I don't think it was the latter, but I think

23 what happened was, when the Vance-Owen Plan was

24 produced and divided Bosnia into all these cantons, it

25 was, part of the plan was that each canton would be

Page 14344

1 ruled by one of the three parties, and that is how we

2 understood it. We were having trouble getting enough

3 information --

4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I'm asking you if you

5 could help us by telling us how the HVO understood it.

6 A. That's how we understood it, and I believe

7 that Mate Boban's alleged visit to Travnik was him

8 saying that Travnik is the capital of Canton 10, this

9 should be under the control of the Croats, why aren't

10 the Croat flags everywhere.

11 I think that's the way the Croats saw it.

12 But in, the real situation was, the Croats knew in

13 Travnik, in the town of Travnik, that they were

14 hopelessly outnumbered in terms of numbers of soldiers,

15 but also in the fire power that was available to the

16 Bosnian army in Travnik, because of the huge number of

17 refugees which had come in from Republika Srpska, that

18 it was better, that Colonel Filipovic probably thought

19 it better to leave things as they were, rather than

20 trying to impose some sort of control over Canton 10.

21 But I think what you described is how the

22 Croats thought it was meant to be but were not in a

23 position to do it.

24 I do remember attending a meeting on this

25 issue in Travnik, and the HDZ representative, that's

Page 14345

1 the Croat political party representative, for the town

2 of Travnik, was a man whose name was Krizanac, his

3 nickname was Klempo because he had sticking out ears,

4 and that's how I remember him, he was a very odd

5 looking man. And his politics were slightly less

6 balanced than people like Colonel Filipovic. He was, I

7 believe he was from Travnik, and I think he went to

8 school with the, with my interpreter's aunt.

9 He was a great one for screaming and shouting

10 and banging the table, and he did this at this meeting,

11 and it got so annoying for everyone at the meeting that

12 the military part of the meeting, which was Colonel

13 Alagic and Colonel Filipovic and their staff officers

14 and aides, and me and my interpreter, we decided to

15 adjourn the meeting and have another meeting which

16 would have no civilians at it, because it was the HDZ

17 representative in Travnik that was causing all the

18 problems.

19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What was he saying on

20 this point of Canton 10 being or not being exclusively

21 occupied by Croats?

22 A. No, he would have been, he would have been

23 strung up there and then if he said anything like that

24 in that meeting. That may have been his personal

25 views, I don't know. But he was, um, if I remember,

Page 14346

1 and I haven't got any notes about it, because it was

2 such a ridiculous conversation I didn't write anything

3 down, but as I remember it, he was complaining to the

4 Croat military leaders that they were weak and should

5 take control of the town. And this was in front of the

6 Bosnian army commanders, as well.

7 It was a ridiculous situation to be in. The

8 military commanders like Colonel Blaskic had much more

9 understanding of the real situation on the ground, and

10 they weren't about to start inciting in that manner.

11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: They had a saner

12 assessment?

13 A. I beg your pardon?

14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: They had a saner

15 assessment?

16 A. Certainly, sir.

17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Tell me, was there any

18 question, did you ever become aware of Herceg-Bosna

19 giving an ultimatum to the BiH to this effect that if

20 the BiH, Mr. Alija did not sign on to the Vance-Owen

21 Plan, the Croatian community would unilaterally

22 implement the plan? Did you become aware of any such

23 ultimatum?

24 A. No, Your Honour. But I do remember something

25 about that, but it was much later that I, and probably

Page 14347

1 in '94 or '95, when I was reading a book by a

2 journalist that I remember something about that. It

3 was not an issue during my time in the army.

4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: If it had arisen during

5 your time in the army, would you have considered it

6 sufficiently important to engage your attention?

7 A. Yes, an ultimatum of that nature, Your

8 Honour, would have -- ultimatums by their very nature

9 have a destabilising effect.

10 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What you read in the

11 books was about an ultimatum to implement the

12 Vance-Owen Plan effective the 16th of April?

13 A. I don't remember a date being involved. I

14 don't remember there being a date. What I do remember,

15 and this is well out of my scope of knowledge, Your

16 Honour, but, well out --

17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I only ask you because

18 you were there, and you said you had been visiting a

19 number of the officers on both sides.

20 A. The Vance-Owen Plan was a constant topic of

21 conversation through March and April, '93, right up to

22 the events this Court is concerned with, primarily.

23 I think that the opinion that many

24 journalists hold on this, and it is not an unrealistic

25 opinion, was that the Vance-Owen Plan, the very

Page 14348

1 presence of, whether it was signed or not, or an

2 ultimatum or not, the very presence of it is what

3 resulted in the Muslim-Croat war in Bosnia, the

4 complete collapse, the rush for land, the grab for

5 land.

6 I don't remember reading that, the ultimatum

7 that you're referring to, that I think was in a book by

8 Vulliamy, I believe, who may have testified in this

9 case, I'm not sure, referred to a date, I think -- I do

10 remember something in probably his book about this,

11 about there being some sort of ultimatum.

12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you, yourself, speak

13 once or twice about the Vance-Owen Plan, or perhaps I'm

14 mistaken?

15 A. In this Court, Your Honour?

16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes. Perhaps I'm

17 mistaken.

18 A. Yes, I referred to it on one occasion, I

19 believe.

20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let's turn to a separate

21 subject which relates to command and control. The

22 thesis you presented was that based on your experience

23 on the ground, and looking at the documentation,

24 command and control was flimsy, I think you used the

25 word, and it best sums up the totality of your

Page 14349

1 testimony on the point; is that what you were saying,

2 that it was flimsy?

3 A. Yes, Your Honour.

4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, are you aware that

5 in some documents Colonel Blaskic reminded his soldiers

6 that International Law relating to armed conflicts

7 applied -- I'm paraphrasing a great deal of

8 documentation here. You're aware that he took that

9 position?

10 A. No, I'm not aware that he ever used that

11 phrase, Your Honour. It's not been in any documents I

12 read.

13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I think he referred to

14 the Geneva Conventions and International Law and to the

15 International Humanitarian Law. If I'm wrong counsel

16 on both sides may correct me.

17 A. He may have used the word Geneva Convention,

18 but I'm not entirely certain, Your Honour, but he

19 certainly spoke about the points of those laws, if not

20 mentioned them by name.

21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, you are a military

22 man, yourself, and you are familiar, I take it, with

23 the rough outlines of that area of law as it applies to

24 military men.

25 A. Yes, Your Honour.

Page 14350

1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, we all know it

2 covers several branches, but is it your impression that

3 a central idea in that law relates to the question of

4 command and control?

5 A. In the sense that a commander is responsible

6 for the actions of his subordinates, to some extent; is

7 that what you're referring to, Your Honour?

8 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes. Now, do I gather

9 from what you are saying that as you see it, nobody,

10 just nobody had any command and control responsibility

11 for whatever happened in the Lasva Valley?

12 A. No, far from it, Your Honour, I most

13 definitely am not saying that.

14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, could you tell us

15 what you are saying?

16 A. What I am saying is in the -- in the specific

17 case of Ahmici, for example, a very good example, an

18 attack happened on that village resulting in a lot of

19 people being killed, and that attack must have been

20 controlled by somebody, or a group of people, and it

21 must have -- so under their control there must have

22 been a larger number of people.

23 So, it was a planned and organised attack,

24 I'm sure, although, I didn't witness it, of course, I

25 believe it was a planned and organised attack, but

Page 14351

1 probably on a much, much lower level than the OPS group

2 level or even the brigade level.

3 I think it is far more likely that it was --

4 talking about that one for a moment -- that that attack

5 was planned and orchestrated at a lower level, you

6 could probably say at company level, if you were to

7 compare it with a British army, something of that

8 nature.

9 Furthermore, the -- we used to refer to -- I

10 still do -- refer to the state of middle Bosnia and the

11 Lasva Valley, at the time in question, as being in

12 anarchy. But by that we didn't mean that everyone was

13 out with a gun doing what he wanted. What we meant was

14 there was gangs, criminal gangs, small military, quasi

15 military units, that the central power and the chain of

16 command did not follow what we had written down on the

17 big wall of our MILINFOSUM, with Petkovic at the top

18 and OPS group, Central Bosnia and Tomislavgrad I think

19 was the other one, Mostar, I'm not sure, and the

20 various OPS groups, and underneath them the various

21 brigades, and under them whatever the battalions were,

22 I can't remember.

23 That was a chain of command, and it looked

24 good on the wall, and any visiting generals would see

25 that and think we had a good idea of what was going on;

Page 14352

1 but we would then tell them that actually there were

2 many other influences and that -- so, I'm sorry, but if

3 I could finish -- that there was a chain of command on

4 paper, and there were a lot of things that were

5 happening in the town, and they weren't random. But

6 that does not mean that they were as a result of the

7 main, the military chain of command that we

8 understood.

9 We knew there were criminal gangs, we knew

10 Bob Stewart had to personally negotiate for the release

11 of vehicles that had been hijacked or stolen, so did

12 Captain Martin Fulgrave, who was a liaison officer in

13 the Lasva Valley prior to me, he had to personally

14 negotiate with people.

15 But the people we were negotiating with were

16 not the brigade commanders and Colonel Blaskic. It was

17 other people, it was some political figures on

18 occasion, some criminal figures on occasion. Does that

19 answer your question, Your Honour?

20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, it's

21 always interesting and rewarding to listen to you.

22 I'll ask you my last question.

23 I gather, from what you are saying,

24 understandably, that a number of variables have to be

25 taken into account in evaluating any situation.

Page 14353

1 Now, would there be a distinction, do you

2 think, between certain kinds of orders? On the one

3 hand you have combat orders which are telling troops to

4 attack or to retreat or to encircle the enemy or

5 something like that. I would call those combat orders,

6 but I would defer to your more accurate description.

7 On the other side you have other kinds of

8 orders, say orders relating to safe passage of convoys,

9 or non-torching of houses, or non-expulsion of people;

10 do you see what I mean? There is a distinction, I

11 would suppose, but only suppose, between combat orders

12 and other kinds of orders.

13 Now, is it within your knowledge that any

14 combat orders issued by Colonel Blaskic were disobeyed

15 with impunity?

16 A. All the information I have relating to

17 anything like this I have learned much more recently,

18 from a documentary point of view, from the documents,

19 orders that I've seen in court, for example.

20 I think the example of Fojnica, where the

21 brigade was given an order to link up, to protect the

22 southern flank of the pocket, I think that summarises

23 the order, this area down here, which was point blankly

24 refused. So, there is that example which has come to

25 my notice in the last four days.

Page 14354

1 But if I could go back to the question: In

2 the British army we don't draw distinctions between

3 these different types of orders, we have --

4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: No, I know, the British

5 army is a very superior kind of military model. I was

6 offering you a distinction and inviting you to say

7 whether you would make that distinction. Are there

8 other incidents like Fojnica?

9 A. I'm not aware of any other incidents at the

10 moment, Your Honour, I haven't seen enough documents.

11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did Fojnica concern, and

12 I really don't know, did Fojnica concern the question

13 of obedience to a combat order to engage the enemy?

14 A. I probably would have to study the order in

15 more detail, Your Honour. But the impression it

16 creates and that its response creates, to me, is that

17 the brigade there was asked to take military action in

18 one or two villages, I can't remember, and refused to

19 do that.

20 The, all the impressions I have created are a

21 result of everything, not a result of one particular

22 incident.

23 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes, yes, I appreciate

24 that, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, and I do thank you for your

25 answers.

Page 14355

1 A. Thank you, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE JORDA: I think after the questions

3 that my colleagues asked it won't be necessary for me

4 to ask any. I want to thank you very much. I see that

5 my colleague, Judge Riad, would like to ask you an

6 additional question, apparently. All of them were

7 asked, Mr. Riad, remember we have a break to take for

8 the interpreters' sake. Thank you very much.

9 JUDGE RIAD: Point of clarification, I was

10 under the impression, when I asked you about your

11 refusal to sign the statement with the investigator, I

12 was under the impression that you were not in agreement

13 with the substance of the statement; but in your answer

14 to the searching question of my colleague, Judge

15 Shahabuddeen, you mentioned it was the result of an

16 interview, and the whole thing was that you did not,

17 you wanted it to be in your own style, that was the

18 only reason.

19 So, I want just a clear answer, was the

20 statement the result of the interview, and it was just

21 prepared for your convenience; or was it a statement of

22 things you don't want to sign? That's the first.

23 The second: If you didn't, if you are, being

24 a journalist and a writer, you wanted to write it

25 yourself; why didn't you do that, since you have been

Page 14356

1 telling us several times that you are only in search of

2 the truth and it was an occasion to tell the truth.

3 Did they prevent you from writing it?

4 A. No, Your Honour. I didn't -- I don't

5 remember whether I read the statement -- the statement

6 they wanted to be signed or not. I don't think I read

7 it. I think what happened, if I can remember -- this

8 was only a minor point and I am very surprised it has

9 become an issue, it is a minor point.

10 JUDGE RIAD: Not for us.

11 A. Of course not, Your Honour. For me it was

12 not a big issue. The issue at the time was that I

13 didn't want to -- there were two things, I didn't want

14 to sign a statement which I hadn't written myself.

15 But, secondly, I didn't want to sign any statements

16 anyway, because at the time of the interview I didn't

17 have the benefit of all these notebooks which I kept at

18 the time. I knew my memory was -- I do not have a good

19 memory, and I know that, so I was very concerned about

20 putting my pen to paper on things which, even if I

21 believed them to be absolutely true, which until I had

22 been back to Britain, found my notebooks, which were

23 dotted all over the place, and had the benefit to sit

24 down and talk to people who knew a lot about the

25 situation and be briefed fully, particularly, if

Page 14357

1 possible, read the MILINFOSUMs and the other documents

2 which my regiment produced, which there are an enormous

3 pile of documents, then I would be in a better position

4 to make a statement.

5 JUDGE RIAD: But the statement was a result

6 of the interview?

7 A. The interview was the day before, but I

8 presume so, Your Honour, yes.

9 JUDGE RIAD: It is normal to make a statement

10 after an interview, that is what I wanted to make sure

11 of.

12 A. Yes.

13 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much.

14 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I would make a

15 request of the Court, and that is, Mr. Dundas-Whatley

16 has --

17 JUDGE JORDA: I think we're going to first

18 take a break. I really want to keep in mind the

19 interpreters. You can take the floor once the break is

20 over, 20 minutes.

21 MR. HARMON: Before Mr. Dundas-Whatley leaves

22 --

23 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Dundas-Whatley will be back

24 in the courtroom to hear your statement.

25 --- Recess taken at 5.04 p.m.

Page 14358

1 --- On resuming at 5.45 p.m.

2 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have

3 the accused brought in, please.

4 (The accused entered court)

5 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Harmon, I think that you

6 had -- that you had requested be given the floor. I

7 suppose it is a statement relating to that statement;

8 is that correct? The statement in the Prosecutor's

9 office. Go ahead.

10 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, we yield the

11 floor. We have no additional information or requests

12 to the Court, and we're prepared to proceed with the

13 next witness. Thank you.

14 JUDGE JORDA: I think then as regards the

15 testimony, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, the Tribunal sends you

16 back to your job, and thank you for having come.

17 THE WITNESS: Thank you Mr. President, Your

18 Honours.

19 JUDGE JORDA: Perhaps you might at least

20 introduce the next witness in order to gain some time,

21 Mr. Nobilo. I only have the English version in front

22 of me which introduces the witness.

23 MR. NOBILO: Thank you, Mr. President. I

24 shall briefly present the next witness to you. The

25 next witness is the father -- is Father Ivan Pervan, a

Page 14359

1 clergyman. He belongs to the Franciscan Order, and he

2 is the clergyman in Kiseljak.

3 He will be explaining where he comes from,

4 what schools he has completed, and he will say a few

5 words on the importance of the Franciscan Order in

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina throughout history. After that, he

7 will describe his community and parish, the territory

8 it encompasses.

9 He will be speaking about his work as the

10 leader of Caritas, the humanitarian organisation, which

11 sent aid and assistance both to Croats, Serbs and the

12 Muslims during the war. He will be speaking about the

13 refugees which appeared in the municipality of

14 Kiseljak, where they came from, who they were fleeing

15 from, and the number of refugees that came and

16 individuals dates when the refugees arrived, so as to

17 be able to get an impression of what actually happened

18 in Kiseljak.

19 They will then be speaking about the village

20 of Rotilj, and he went to the village of Rotilj

21 personally and took food to the Muslim population

22 there. He will describe the conditions under which the

23 Muslims in Rotilj lived and what he remembers from that

24 time.

25 Furthermore, he will speak about how Kiseljak

Page 14360

1 came by its food supplies, what the roads were and

2 communications were via Serb territory that were

3 used to take humanitarian aid to the needy. And Father

4 Ivan was personally in charge of the convoys passing

5 across Serb territory to Split, where in the port of

6 Split food was taken over and that was the food that,

7 in fact, fed the population of the Kiseljak

8 municipality. He will indicate the directions used,

9 the exact directions used, and how these directions

10 were used for other commercial purposes and military

11 purposes.

12 He will also be speaking about the way

13 Kiseljak was cut off as an enclave from Vitez and

14 Busovaca, the second enclave, as he saw it from his own

15 position, and he will be speaking about his meetings

16 with Tihomir Blaskic, what they discussed, his

17 assessment of Tihomir Blaskic as an individual, as a

18 man, and he will be speaking about what he learned

19 about relations between Tihomir Blaskic and Ivica

20 Rajic, the commander of the brigade in Kiseljak, and

21 Blaskic as commander of the Operative Zone, and from

22 his aspect -- from his angle of vision, how he saw the

23 functioning of the chain of command and control of the

24 command.

25 Then he will speak about Miel Borzic (phoen)

Page 14361

1 who was at one time the commander of the Ban Josip

2 Jelisic Brigade, and the circumstances under which he

3 was expelled from the command of the Ban Josip Jelisic

4 Brigade, and under what circumstances and conditions he

5 was reappointed -- Ivica Rajic was reappointed as

6 commander of the Ban Josip Jelisic Brigade.

7 Well, that would be a summary and a praecipe,

8 and the testimony could last up to three hours, Your

9 Honours.

10 JUDGE JORDA: Three hours. Very well. We'll

11 have the witness brought into the courtroom

12 (The witness entered court)

13 JUDGE JORDA: Do you hear me? First of all,

14 do you hear me?

15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I can hear you very well.

16 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, give us your

17 name, your first name and what people generally call

18 you, since your religious work was described to us

19 briefly. First state your name, your first name, where

20 you work, and what name you would like the Tribunal to

21 use when speaking to you, and after that you will take

22 the oath. For the time being remain standing, please.

23 THE WITNESS: My name is Ivica Pervan. That

24 is the name I was given at birth, Ivica Pervan. I am

25 by vocation a clergyman, and everybody addresses me as

Page 14362

1 Father Ivan Pervan. I am a clergyman in the Kiseljak

2 parish. I have been since the 1st of September, 1991,

3 up to the present day.

4 I would like you to address me as Father

5 Ivan.

6 JUDGE JORDA: If you like. This is a

7 question you would ask of the President of the

8 tribunal, but it is self-evident that the Judges may

9 have a different sensitivity. This is an International

10 Tribunal, they will call you as I see fit, but I was

11 asking what in general people call you.

12 Obviously, our colleagues, according to their

13 own sensitivities, will call you what they feel is

14 appropriate.

15 For the time being you are Mr. Ivica Pervan.

16 Remain standing are for a few more moments, the time it

17 takes to read the solemn declaration.

18 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

19 tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the

20 truth.

21 JUDGE JORDA: You may be seated. This is the

22 end of the afternoon, but we still have about 15

23 minutes, which will allow Mr. Nobilo to begin with his

24 direct-examination.

25 WITNESS: IVICA PERVAN

Page 14363

1 Examined by Mr. Nobilo:

2 Q. Thank you, Mr. President.

3 Good evening, Father Ivan. We shall try, in

4 the 15 minutes at our disposal, to cover some basic

5 information about you and the Franciscans, and we'll

6 continue tomorrow with other concrete matters.

7 Father Ivan, tell the Court, please, where

8 and when you were born, what schools you have completed

9 and where you have worked so far.

10 A. Your Honours, I was born on the 16th of

11 December, 1957, in the place of what Nadiocivitsa

12 (phoen) of the Maglaj municipality, and I completed, in

13 my native village, eight years of primary school. In

14 1973 I graduated and went to classical gymnasium in

15 Visoko. I graduated four years of the classical

16 gymnasium, and then I went to Sarajevo where I attended

17 the Faculty of Theology.

18 I also completed the Raijal (phoen) gymnasium

19 in 1978 in Zagreb, and the Faculty of Theology I

20 graduated in -- that is I went in Sarajevo, and

21 graduated in Ljubljana Slovenia in 1983 as a clergyman,

22 and as such I was sent to the Lepenica parish, which is

23 10 kilometres away from Kiseljak, which is where I spent

24 one year. After that I went one and a half years in

25 Travnik in the Rajkovici (phoen) parish, after which I

Page 14364

1 spent three years as the vicar of -- in the monastery

2 in Kresevo. After that I was assistant for three years

3 of the clergyman in Busovaca, and I have been in

4 Kiseljak for eight years. I am the parish priest

5 there.

6 Q. Could you tell us something about the

7 Franciscan Order? I think we should speak a little

8 more slowly so the interpreters can follow us.

9 Your order, the Franciscan Order, came to

10 Bosnia in 1292. So tell us briefly -- tell the Court,

11 briefly, under what circumstances the Franciscans came

12 to Bosnia and what they mean to the history of Bosnia.

13 A. Bosnian history has recorded that Bosnia

14 gained its statehood, Your Honours, in the 11th

15 Century, and that statehood is always mentioned, and

16 the name of Kulinbahn (phoen) was mentioned, and it

17 says that "There have never been better days than the

18 days of Kulinbahn."

19 So the 11th Century is the century I'm

20 talking about, which is when the church had its

21 hierarchical organisation, and the Bisjuanova (phoen)

22 is mentioned as a place which is the Vitez of today,

23 which was the headquarters of the bishop, and it had

24 Bishopric and it had three churches. With the

25 Bosnian Kingdom, especially with the Kotrominic (phoen)

Page 14365

1 Dynasty, there were closer links formed as was usual

2 and customary in the Europe of the day between the King

3 and Rome.

4 The King asked the Pope in Rome to send to

5 Bosnia missionaries who would teach his people and who

6 would spiritually educate and lead the people. The

7 Pope replied by sending him the Franciscans, and at the

8 time the King's seat was in Central Bosnia in Sutjiska

9 (phoen) at the town of Bobovac, and in 1292, was the

10 year when the Franciscan Order arrived in Bosnia.

11 The Franciscans remained in Bosnia, remained

12 in Bosnia to the present day, and they make up more

13 than half the Bosnian Catholic clergymen.

14 With the downfall of the Bosnian monarchy

15 under the -- under Turkish rule in 464, the King

16 was killed, the Queen fled to Rome, and the Franciscans

17 have remained in Bosnia to the present day.

18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: 464? Did I hear

19 correctly?

20 MR. NOBILO: 1464. It's a mistake. 1464.

21 There was a mistake in the translation of the

22 name (sic). In 1464 was when Bosnia fell. You may

23 continue.

24 A. To the present day, nobody in Bosnia and

25 Herzegovina is contesting the fact that somebody does

Page 14366

1 not -- that people do not have a 700 year old

2 continuity except the Franciscans, and we celebrated

3 the 700th anniversary of the Franciscans in

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina at the meeting. At this celebration

5 we had the presence of all the church dignitaries and

6 the State dignitaries headed by the President,

7 Mr. Alija Izetbegovic.

8 Since the downfall of the Bosnian monarchy in

9 1464, the Franciscans remained the sole people to offer

10 resistance -- to support the Catholics in

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina right up until the arrival of the

12 Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878, and throughout that

13 time they erected their settlements, which are called

14 monasteries, and which on several occasion were set

15 fire to by the Turks. New ones were built which

16 incurred a lot of heavy material costs, and

17 certificates for these to be built up from Istambul.

18 They were the protagonists of education, they

19 were the sole physicians, the sole builders in the

20 country, and they were the first to write a grammar of

21 the language of our people. They were also the sole

22 representatives with the authorities of the time, and

23 in this period of almost 500 years, nobody was able to

24 have power and authority unless they were under the

25 rule of the Turkish Empire and an Islamist.

Page 14367

1 Q. Tell us, please, is it true that when the

2 700th anniversary of the Franciscans arrival in Bosnia,

3 is it true that the president of Bosnia, Mr. Alija

4 Izetbegovic, said that the Franciscan Orders are the

5 oldest part of the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and,

6 therefore, the fathers, Franciscan fathers?

7 A. Yes, that is true, and we were very happy to

8 hear this. He told us that in a long speech that he

9 made on the occasion, and he said this with pride. He

10 said -- and we accepted this, and recognised it as

11 recognition for all the good that we had done for the

12 State of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

13 Q. Thank you. Could you now explain to the

14 Court, and we shall be completing this now, your

15 parish, what places does it incorporate, the parish of

16 Kiseljak, and is there a difference between the parish

17 of Kiseljak and the territory of the Kiseljak

18 municipality?

19 A. The Kiseljak parish is located in Central

20 Bosnia, and it takes the name of the municipality of

21 Kiseljak. It has the same name. It is the town

22 proper, the town itself, but the municipality of

23 Kiseljak incorporates three more parishes, the Banba

24 Lepenica (phoen) to the south of the municipality, in

25 the middle we have the Kiseljak parish, and then we

Page 14368

1 have the Gromiljak parish. Next to it the Brestovska

2 (phoen) parish. So we can say that is a central town

3 urban parish.

4 Q. In addition to the town of Kiseljak, what

5 other large place belongs to your parish?

6 A. To my parish belongs the town itself, and

7 also the surrounding villages linking up on the town.

8 The largest village which belongs to the parish of

9 Kiseljak is quite certainly the Brnjaci community,

10 Calukovac, Potkraj, Palez, Zagorice, Zavrsje, Veljko

11 Selo, Podastinje, Parizevici, Rotilj, and one part is

12 called Privori, then we have Borina, both the Borinas,

13 Kresevska Cesta and Cizma.

14 Q. Thank you.

15 MR. NOBILO: Mr. President, that was the

16 introductory part; so, before we go into the substance

17 of our examination-in-chief, perhaps we could break for

18 the day.

19 JUDGE JORDA: I think we will suspend the

20 hearing. We resume tomorrow at 10.00.

21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

22 6.05 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,

23 the 3rd day of November, 1998 at 10.00

24 a.m.

25