1 Thursday, 21st January, 1999
2 (Open session)
3 --- Upon commencing at 10.12 a.m.
4 JUDGE JORDA: Please be seated. Registrar,
5 have the accused brought in, please.
6 (The accused entered court)
7 JUDGE JORDA: Good morning to the
8 interpreters. I hope that the day together is going to
9 be good. Also, good morning to Defence counsel, to the
10 accused.
11 They say that one finds solutions over the
12 night, so who is the witness now?
13 THE REGISTRAR: Apparently, we're going to
14 have Mr. Tadic. Mr. Tadic will be here.
15 JUDGE JORDA: All right. First, let me thank
16 the Defence, and I'm sure that it was the Defence that
17 convinced Mr. Tadic to remain here, and the two of us
18 would like to thank Mr. Tadic as well. I know that it
19 wasn't easy for him, it might have caused him some
20 problems, but having said this, we can have Mr. Tadic
21 brought into the courtroom now.
22 The Prosecution still has 30 minutes.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, 30 minutes.
24 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Harmon, you have 30
25 minutes.
1 (The witness entered court)
2 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Tadic, please be seated.
3 You're still under oath.
4 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
5 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, on behalf of
6 myself and Judge Shahabuddeen, I would like to thank
7 you for having remained available to the Tribunal. I
8 know that it was difficult for you. I know that you
9 have a busy schedule, and you have shown a great deal
10 of patience. We are all available and at the disposal
11 of justice with a big "J."
12 I think, however, that you will be able to
13 leave today. I hope so. Thank you very much.
14 THE WITNESS: Thank you too, sir.
15 JUDGE JORDA: Once again, I would like to
16 thank the Defence counsel.
17 Mr. Harmon, you have until about a quarter to
18 eleven to finish your cross-examination. Thank you.
19 MR. HARMON: Thank you very much,
20 Mr. President. Good morning, Mr. President, good
21 morning, Judge Shahabuddeen, and good morning,
22 Counsel.
23 WITNESS: MATO TADIC (Resumed)
24 Cross-examined by Mr. Harmon: (Cont'd)
25 Q. Good morning, Mr. Tadic, and welcome, once
1 again, to the Tribunal.
2 A. Good morning.
3 Q. Mr. Tadic, yesterday we were talking about an
4 order given by Colonel Blaskic on May 10th to SIS to
5 conduct an investigation. In the course of that
6 testimony, you said that you believed that SIS was part
7 of the military police.
8 MR. HARMON: Let me show you Defence Exhibit
9 167, and I have taken the liberty, Counsel, so you
10 know, to take my copy of 167 and highlight it, and we
11 will put my copy, if that is agreeable, on the ELMO to
12 show Mr. Tadic.
13 Q. Mr. Tadic, this is an exhibit that was --
14 JUDGE JORDA: What is the exhibit? I don't
15 think that the Defence knows what the exhibit is.
16 MR. HARMON: It's 167. It is the organogram
17 introduced by counsel in his opening statement showing
18 the structure of Herceg-Bosna, so if we could have that
19 placed on the ELMO --
20 MR. HAYMAN: That's fine, Mr. President, but
21 if it's been altered or highlighted, then it's no
22 longer D167. It's a new document with new
23 characteristics. It should be marked, and we have no
24 objection to counsel using it.
25 MR. HARMON: Well, I don't want to get
1 hypertechnical. Mr. Hayman has marked plenty of
2 exhibits in the course of this trial. We're using this
3 for illustration. Mr. Dubuisson has confirmed that
4 what has been shown to him by the assistant is, in
5 fact, a copy of Defence Exhibit 167, with the exception
6 of two colours, the colour yellow and the colour green,
7 that have been placed on this exhibit.
8 Is that correct, Mr. Dubuisson?
9 THE REGISTRAR: Yes. After having checked
10 it, that's correct.
11 JUDGE JORDA: All right. You have the
12 guarantee of the registrar, Mr. Hayman.
13 MR. HAYMAN: It's just that it's a new
14 exhibit if it's been marked, Your Honour. That's all.
15 If we mark on somebody else's exhibits, we mark it as a
16 new exhibit so there's a record of what the witness is
17 being shown. We need a record in this case.
18 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, this is to save
19 time and so that --
20 JUDGE JORDA: All right. Mr. Harmon, would
21 you agree to our giving it another number so that we
22 can begin the day without entering into sterile
23 discussions?
24 Mr. Hayman, first of all, let me ask you if
25 you're satisfied if we give it another number, since it
1 now has yellow and green on it.
2 MR. HAYMAN: Precisely.
3 MR. HARMON: Fine, Mr. President. I'm happy
4 to give it another number.
5 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Dubuisson, since colours
6 are very important, we all know that. There are
7 colours on flags, there are colours in different clans,
8 and also colours for exhibits. All right. That's the
9 end of this incident.
10 Mr. Registrar, would you give us a new number
11 for that exhibit, which will be 167 but with colours?
12 There's a black and white version and a colour version,
13 like in the movies. All right. We can give it a new
14 number.
15 THE REGISTRAR: It will be 569.
16 JUDGE JORDA: All right. Mr. Harmon?
17 MR. HARMON:
18 Q. Mr. Tadic, I'd like to show you Prosecutor's
19 569, which is an identical copy of Defence Exhibit 167
20 that was introduced by Mr. Hayman in his opening
21 statement.
22 Let me direct your attention to the colours.
23 Yesterday, you said that the SIS was part of the
24 military police, and let me direct your attention,
25 first of all, to the yellow colours. If you go to the
1 bottom box marked in yellow, you will see that the SIS
2 for Central Bosnia is in that particular box, and if
3 you follow the line of command up, you will see that
4 they answered to the head office for security and
5 information service which then, in turn, answered to
6 the department of defence.
7 Now, a separate chain of command existed,
8 according to this document, for the military police,
9 and if we could start, Mr. Tadic, I'll orient you with
10 the green box on the bottom indicating the 4th Military
11 Police Battalion, and it is and should be connected
12 with the three boxes above that which are the 1st, 2nd,
13 and 3rd Military Police Battalion, all of which
14 answered to the head office for military police which,
15 in turn, answered to the department of defence.
16 So when you said that SIS was part of the
17 military police, is this diagram correct or incorrect?
18 A. First of all, I don't know the date of this
19 diagram, which period it refers to.
20 Second, I said, as far as I can recall, and
21 we can check that in the transcript, that I think that
22 for a time, it was in the composition of the military
23 police, and if you want me to say why I think this and
24 why I know that was that in 1992, in the summer, I was
25 present, and I'll be quite frank, to a quarrel that
1 went on in Mostar as to whether SIS and the military
2 police should remain together.
3 When they separated, how matters proceeded
4 after that, I did not follow this fact afterwards
5 because it did not come within my domain.
6 Q. On May the 10th, 1993, to your knowledge, was
7 SIS part of the military police?
8 A. I'm not aware of that. I don't know.
9 Q. Now, in a normal investigation, the
10 competency to investigate criminal conduct was under
11 the investigative section of the military police; isn't
12 that correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. All right. Now, we'll leave that subject for
15 a moment, and let me turn to a new topic, and that is,
16 within the rules and laws and regulations that you have
17 testified about before this Court, who had the power to
18 appoint the head of a military police battalion?
19 A. To be quite frank with you, I did not study
20 that. I can only give you a hypothetical answer, but
21 not with any certainty.
22 Q. Would you give us that answer, please?
23 A. I said that I cannot tell you with any
24 certainty who had that power.
25 Q. To your knowledge, did Colonel Blaskic have
1 the power to appoint the head of the 4th Military
2 Police Battalion in the Central Bosnia Operations Zone?
3 A. I don't know that. One would have to study
4 the acts and documents and see what the competencies
5 were.
6 Q. Let me now turn to a different topic, and
7 that is, Mr. Tadic, did Colonel Blaskic have the power
8 and authority under the laws and rules which you've
9 testified about to give commands to the civilian HVO
10 police?
11 A. The civilian police, no, because it had its
12 own interior affairs department in 1992 and 1993. It
13 had its own setup, and at the head of it was the head
14 of the department for the interior.
15 Q. Now, let me show you Prosecutor's Exhibit
16 456/5 and 456/38.
17 Mr. Tadic, you have been given a copy of --
18 let me see which document it is. You've been given a
19 copy of 456/5, and you will see in examining that
20 document, Mr. Tadic, that this document is dated the
21 31st of December, 1992, and it is directed to, among
22 others, the chief of the Travnik department.
23 I'd like to draw your attention -- let me
24 just make one other clarification on this. This is an
25 order that was issued by Colonel Blaskic, as you can
1 see.
2 Now, directing your attention to the first
3 paragraph in that, you will see that Colonel Blaskic
4 assigns three civilian police officers and one military
5 police officer to a particular checkpoint. He gives an
6 order to the civilian police to perform certain duties,
7 and in paragraph 3 of that particular document, that
8 order, you will see that Colonel Blaskic tells the
9 police officers what they have to do, that is, check
10 civilians, humanitarian aid convoys, et cetera.
11 If you would refer to paragraph 7 of that
12 document, Mr. Tadic, you will see that Colonel Blaskic
13 orders that the chief of the police department select
14 persons to be assigned to the checkpoint and requires
15 that the chief of police inform him in writing by the
16 3rd of January, 1993, and he gives, in paragraph 9, a
17 date of compliance with that particular order.
18 Now, let me show you the next exhibit,
19 Mr. Tadic, which is 456/38 --
20 MR. NOBILO: Mr. President, the Prosecutor
21 did not give the witness enough time to peruse the
22 document. He has passed through the document very
23 quickly because he knows it, whereas the witness needs
24 time to read through the document if we wish to have a
25 good quality answer.
1 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I have no
2 problem. I'm trying to facilitate the speed of this
3 examination.
4 JUDGE JORDA: This is a Prosecution
5 document. It's absolutely legitimate for the
6 Prosecution to show exhibits about which the witness
7 has to react. If the witness can't react to them, he
8 can tell us, but please, let the witness answer,
9 please.
10 If the witness needs a little bit of time in
11 order to familiarise himself with the document, of
12 course, we can give him the time, so long as it's not
13 too long.
14 MR. HARMON:
15 Q. Are you satisfied, Mr. Tadic, that you have
16 had enough time to review 456/5, and have I accurately
17 described the contents of those numbered provisions
18 which I referred to?
19 A. I said yesterday already that I did not have
20 an opportunity to see any of these documents which were
21 given to me yesterday and today by the Prosecutor.
22 JUDGE JORDA: Please continue, Mr. Tadic.
23 A. I said yesterday that none of the documents
24 that were shown to me yesterday and that I see here now
25 again today, I have not seen these before; however, I
1 can give my opinion, which is, of course, my vision of
2 the contents of these documents, and the Court will
3 decide and assess that.
4 Under the competence of the commander was
5 what we called a daily use, operative daily use, of the
6 military police and, amongst other things, the
7 regulation of traffic.
8 When we're talking about the civilian police,
9 it had its own setup, it had its own department, and at
10 that time, that is to say, the date, the 31st of
11 December, 1992, it was not the ministry, but it was a
12 department. It would be natural, I say it would be
13 natural, that is my legal viewpoint, to go to the
14 commander of the civilian police and then the two
15 police forces to act in a coordinated fashion.
16 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Harmon.
17 MR. HARMON:
18 Q. Mr. Tadic, this is an order to the civilian
19 police to perform certain tasks, isn't it?
20 A. In paragraph 7, the civilian and military
21 police and the head of the 4th Battalion, so both
22 civilian and military.
23 Q. All right. Let me turn to Prosecutor's
24 Exhibit 456/38. This is a document, as you will see,
25 that has been issued by Colonel Blaskic, and it is
1 directed to, among others, the commander of the police
2 station in Vitez. It's an order. If you will direct
3 your attention to certain provisions. I would like you
4 to peruse the document in total. It's a short
5 document, but this is an order to provide unobstructed
6 passage for the convoy of food to the village of
7 Krusica on the 21st of June, 1993. And, as you see in
8 paragraph 5, Colonel Blaskic says that, "I shall hold
9 the commanders of --" and he goes on to identify
10 certain groups, "-- the Vitez police station
11 responsible for ensuring compliance with this order."
12 So, Mr. Tadic, this is another order by
13 Colonel Blaskic to the civilian police in which Colonel
14 Blaskic as the operation zone commander holds the
15 civilian police chief, or the civilian police commander
16 personally responsible to him, the military commander
17 of the Operative Zone. Isn't that correct?
18 A. Yes, but here there are four orders, in fact,
19 towards the brigade, which he has the right to do,
20 towards the military police, which he once again has
21 the right to do, and one of them is towards the
22 civilian police. So paragraph 5 includes four, that is
23 to say there are four subjects in paragraph 5. Why he
24 did this, why Mr. Blaskic did this, vis-a-vis the
25 civilian police, he can give you, I suppose, an answer
1 to that. But I have given you a precise answer and I
2 cannot express his desires.
3 Q. Mr. Tadic, I am not asking you for Colonel
4 Blaskic's desires. I am asking you to comment on this
5 document. You've come here as a witness to testify
6 about the laws and the rules and the regulations that
7 existed in Herceg-Bosna during the relevant period of
8 time. This is an order by Colonel Blaskic to the
9 commander of the civilian police department in Vitez
10 where the military zone commander personally holds
11 responsible the civilian police chief. My question to
12 you, Mr. Tadic, is what was his legal authority to do
13 that?
14 A. As I have already said, he should not have,
15 and he could not have acted that way, but this is a
16 cumulative order. That is to say, it is towards four
17 individuals, not only the head of the civilian police.
18 That is one of four. I said earlier on that he should
19 have followed the road of the civilian police
20 organisation and set-up.
21 Q. All right. So he was acting outside of his
22 competencies when he gave that order to the civilian
23 police chief, correct?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Now, let me turn your attention to another
1 topic, and that is the topic of prisons. Your
2 testimony two days ago, which is found at page 57,
3 lines 3 through 7, you were asked a question by my
4 colleague, Mr. Nobilo, and the question was as follows:
5 "Did Blaskic, according to any basis, was he
6 authorised to control or command what was happening in
7 a military detention centre or a military prison?" And
8 your answer was: "No, that was not his competence or
9 authority."
10 So what you are telling this Court is Colonel
11 Blaskic couldn't order wardens of military detention
12 facilities what to do. Do I understand your testimony
13 correctly?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Now, let me show you Defence Exhibit 373,
16 please.
17 JUDGE JORDA: I think that you have to finish
18 at a quarter to 11.00. Please don't forget. About a
19 quarter to 11.00.
20 MR. HARMON: Thank you.
21 Q. Now, take a look at that document, please,
22 Mr. Tadic. This is a command, you will see that it is
23 issued to wardens of military prisons, it was issued on
24 the 21st of June, 1993, and it was issued by Colonel
25 Blaskic. Now, this is a command, as you can see, in
1 respect of the regulations of the Geneva Conventions.
2 You will see that Colonel Blaskic, according to this
3 Defence Exhibit, is commanding certain conduct not take
4 place within the military prisons. And, as you will
5 see in paragraph 4, Colonel Blaskic says, "I hold
6 responsible brigade commanders and wardens of military
7 prisons for carrying out this order."
8 Tell me, please, Mr. Tadic, what was Colonel
9 Blaskic's legal authority to hold responsible a warden
10 of a military prison?
11 A. Mr. Blaskic did not have competencies towards
12 military prisons. That is clearly stated in the
13 regulation relating to district military courts and
14 other documents.
15 Q. Let me ask you this question, then: He had
16 an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to ensure
17 that those conventions were complied with; isn't that
18 correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. If in fact Colonel Blaskic was aware that
21 there were violations of these conventions that were
22 taking place within his operation zone as a military
23 commander, he had a paramount obligation to ensure that
24 those violations were taken care of, were corrected,
25 were ameliorated; am I correct?
1 A. That should have been done by every
2 commander, including Commander Blaskic, but within the
3 regulations that envisages this, that is to say what
4 the courts do. The courts are responsible for their
5 work, prisons, civilian prisons and within their
6 frameworks they had military departments, military
7 units, and they had their commanders. The civilian
8 section had a civilian chief and the military had a
9 military chief. The defence department, therefore, had
10 supervision over this, and Blaskic should have, legally
11 speaking of course, I am saying what I would do as a
12 legal man, should have written a letter to the defence
13 department and telling them that he has the knowledge
14 that such and such actions are not in keeping with the
15 conventions, will you take the necessary steps, please,
16 a letter to that effect.
17 Q. Now, what we are talking about are military
18 prisons and detention facilities that are recognised,
19 that are identified as a military prison, for example,
20 the Kaonik military prison, correct?
21 A. Kaonik, I am telling you now, we didn't have
22 purely military prisons.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. Kaonik, according the regulations, was one of
25 the civilian prisons which had a military prison unit.
1 Q. Now, let me ask you, Mr. Tadic, in respect of
2 locations where prisoners of war and civilians were
3 detained that were not official military prisons; for
4 example, a command headquarters; for example, a school
5 or a chess club. Under those circumstances whose
6 obligation was it to ensure that the prisoners of war
7 and the civilians were being accorded the proper
8 treatment under the Geneva Conventions and the other
9 international conventions?
10 A. The regulations, the rules and regulations
11 state that with regard to prisoners of war, it is the
12 military police who is in charge, which is in charge of
13 them.
14 Q. What about detained civilians?
15 A. And civilians. In any case, everything that
16 is not under the courts treatment, so-to-speak.
17 Q. What obligation in the operation zone of
18 Central Bosnia did Colonel Blaskic have vis-a-vis those
19 detained civilians and prisoners?
20 A. I don't know what -- of course, he would have
21 to see that the conventions were respected, but there
22 were services working in this regard, that is to say
23 the military police controlling facilities of this
24 kind, where civilians were detained or prisoners of
25 war.
1 Q. I only have a few minutes left. Let me turn
2 to a different topic. When you testified about the
3 rules and regulations, Mr. Tadic, that affected the
4 district military courts and the district military
5 prosecutor and the military police, your testimony
6 didn't mean to imply that Blaskic didn't have the power
7 to control and punish his subordinates, because there
8 was a separate set of regulations, the rules of
9 military discipline that you did not testify about. Am
10 I correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. So let's turn our attention and the Court's
13 attention to the rules of military discipline, and the
14 powers that Colonel Blaskic had under those particular
15 rules. I see Mr. Nobilo is up, so --
16 MR. NOBILO: My learned colleague has just
17 said that Mr. Tadic did not testify about the
18 disciplinary rules and regulations, so if he did not
19 testify on this in the examination-in-chief, he cannot
20 do it during the cross-examination, because it is
21 outside the focus of the examination-in-chief.
22 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, yesterday
23 Mr. Tadic did refer to the rules of military discipline
24 in response to a question that I raised. I think, in
25 terms of pure fairness, and so that the Court is not
1 misguided or left with an impression that Colonel
2 Blaskic had very, very limited powers in respect
3 to the --
4 JUDGE JORDA: Ask your question, Mr. Harmon.
5 Ask your question, please.
6 MR. HARMON:
7 Q. Now, please, Mr. Tadic, you are familiar with
8 the rules of military discipline, aren't you?
9 A. No. No. I only know that they exist, but I
10 didn't study them. It had nothing to do with my work.
11 Q. Have you ever seen them?
12 A. I mean, I saw it as a document, but I didn't
13 read all of it.
14 Q. Well, you gave us testimony at great length
15 about how evidence is gathered by the military police,
16 how it goes to a military district prosecutor and how
17 it goes to a military district court. Are you aware,
18 Mr. Tadic, that there was also, at the same time, a
19 parallel system of discipline that Colonel Blaskic
20 could impose on an offender?
21 A. I said that the part related to the law on
22 criminal procedure was involved because it was applied
23 by the crime investigation military police, and that is
24 what the rules clearly say. As far as discipline is
25 concerned, and the rules of discipline, as a lawyer, as
1 a citizen, as a legal person who was always involved in
2 certain segments, I know that the commander does have
3 certain authority. After all, I was a soldier before
4 the war, and I know that a commander can take certain
5 disciplinary action.
6 As far as I remember, the maximum prison
7 sentence was 60 days. I did not study the rules or
8 regulations involved. I do know that it was the
9 military police that took care of these persons who
10 were punished in a disciplinary sense.
11 Q. Could I see Prosecutor's Exhibit 38, please,
12 and ask that that be shown to Mr. Tadic.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Is this a Defence or a
14 Prosecution -- all right. Prosecution exhibit.
15 MR. HARMON:
16 Q. Now, Mr. Tadic, what has been placed in front
17 of you should be the rules of military discipline. Do
18 you have those in front of you, Mr. Tadic?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. These were promulgated in September of 1992.
21 Now, let me ask you some questions, because you were a
22 soldier and you are a lawyer and you were the Minister
23 of Defence -- Minister of Justice, I'm sorry. Let me
24 ask you to refer to Article 3 of that particular set of
25 rules. Do you see Article 3?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. That indicates, does it not, and are you
3 familiar with this provision, that any act of military
4 personnel that contravenes the rules of military
5 discipline and orders issued by superior officers
6 should be considered a breach of military discipline?
7 And under paragraph 8, a breach of military discipline
8 includes all other illegal acts that are damaging to
9 the reputation of the armed forces. Are you familiar
10 with that provision?
11 A. This is the first time I see it. The norm
12 that you just presented to me is one I see for the
13 first time, because I was not involved in that.
14 Q. Well, let me direct your attention, sir, to
15 Article 29 of this particular set of rules and
16 regulations. I would like to direct your attention to
17 the first paragraph, because this impinges somewhat on
18 your testimony the other day. Article 29 in the first
19 paragraph says: "That when an authorised officer
20 establishes that a breach of military discipline is
21 also a punishable act, the case shall be handed to an
22 authorised prosecutor through official channels."
23 Now, I want to read the second sentence,
24 because we come to the second prong of this: "If it is
25 in the interest of the service, the officer shall also
1 undertake measures to initiate disciplinary
2 proceedings."
3 So there can be a dual track of sanctions.
4 Am I correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Now, the military disciplinary courts where
7 military discipline was imposed are separate and
8 distinct from the military district courts, correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. The military disciplinary prosecutors are
11 separate and distinct from the district military
12 prosecutors, correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Colonel Blaskic did not have the authority or
15 competency to appoint the district military prosecutor,
16 but he did have the authority to appoint the military
17 disciplinary prosecutor. Am I correct?
18 A. The district military prosecutor, no. He did
19 not have that authority, and it says quite clearly in
20 the decree who appoints the prosecutor. But as far as
21 the military disciplinary prosecutor is concerned, I
22 told you a few minutes ago that I have not read this
23 document. But it is certain that it was regulated, I
24 mean, who appoints the district military prosecutor.
25 Q. All right. Mr. Tadic, there may have been a
1 translation error. I didn't say Colonel Blaskic had
2 the power to appoint a district military prosecutor. I
3 said he had the power and authority to appoint a
4 disciplinary court prosecutor. And your answer, I
5 understood, you are not familiar with that document.
6 Let me turn to a different part of this and
7 refer you, please --
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. -- very briefly, Mr. Tadic, to Articles 10
10 and 11 which discuss the punishments that are available
11 for a disciplinary error or a disciplinary offence.
12 You will see in there, in respect of disciplinary
13 errors, which are minor offences, that the sanctions
14 include anything from a warning to a military detention
15 of up to 30 days. Now, in respect of disciplinary
16 offences, the disciplinary punishments can include
17 suspension, pay cuts, discharge from active service,
18 and detention for up to 30 days and other sanctions.
19 I've only named some of them.
20 Am I correct, Mr. Tadic, from your review of
21 that particular Rule?
22 A. Yes, that's what it says here.
23 Q. Okay. Now, let me direct your attention to
24 Article 60 of this particular document. Again, we are
25 dealing with the military disciplinary system and not
1 the legal system that you described. That in Article
2 60 -- actually, in Article 59, as soon as a military
3 superior officer learns of a breach of discipline, he
4 is obligated under Article 59 to undertake all
5 necessary measures to secure evidence and collect
6 information that's relevant to establishing the facts
7 of the offence. Am I correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Under Article 60 of this particular provision
10 it indicates under the second paragraph: "Disciplinary
11 investigation of non-commissioned officers and officers
12 appointed to state administrative agencies, enterprises
13 and other legal entities shall be initiated by a
14 decision of an officer holding the post of commander of
15 the Operative Zone."
16 So the decision to initiate an investigation
17 falls on the shoulders of the commander of the
18 Operative Zone under this provision, correct?
19 A. Article 60, just like the entire rules,
20 pertains to these disciplinary measures, and Article 60
21 says quite clearly disciplinary action against
22 non-commissioned officers, et cetera.
23 Q. That's what we are talking about,
24 disciplinary actions, Mr. Tadic. I am not talking
25 about district military courts or district military
1 prosecutors, I am talking about this regulatory scheme
2 dealing with discipline within the HVO. So let's be
3 clear on that.
4 Now, disciplinary investigation of
5 non-commissioned officers and officers of the armed
6 forces shall be initiated by a decision of an officer
7 holding the post of brigade commander and a
8 corresponding or higher post. That's in the first
9 provision. So Blaskic could initiate a disciplinary
10 action under this set of rules, likewise a brigade
11 commander could initiate an action for disciplinary
12 action, correct?
13 A. I never said otherwise.
14 Q. Well, let me move on, Mr. Tadic. Mr. Tadic,
15 let me move on very quickly.
16 MR. HAYMAN: I apologise for interrupting
17 counsel. If there was something being added to the
18 documents here, that's one thing, but counsel is simply
19 reading the documents. The witness hasn't had
20 anything --
21 JUDGE JORDA: I am waiting for the
22 interpretation. Yes. Yes, that's correct. Counsel is
23 reading the documents. The witness has to be able to
24 give his opinion. You are right, Mr. Hayman.
25 Mr. Harmon, what is your question?
1 MR. HARMON: This is a long way of getting to
2 my question, because it relates to the witness's
3 testimony, but I need to lay some predicate questions
4 first. And if I can just get through a few more
5 questions, Mr. President, I will rapidly come to a
6 close of this examination. So if I, with the Court's
7 indulgence, can ask some additional questions. I have
8 my eye on the clock. I am moving as fast as I can.
9 Mr. Nobilo once again wants some of my time.
10 JUDGE JORDA: Don't take too much time from
11 the Prosecution, Mr. Nobilo.
12 MR. NOBILO: I won't. One minute. In
13 principle, I think that this line of questioning is
14 wrong. Mr. Tadic said that he did not see this
15 document, that he never worked on this particular piece
16 of work, he was not involved in discipline. He cannot
17 give any kind of answer. He can only listen to the
18 Prosecutor reading out documents. I don't see any
19 sense in this line of questioning.
20 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nobilo, you are not
21 Mr. Tadic's lawyer. He has a lawyer. He is familiar
22 with the rules. He was a minister himself. Let
23 Mr. Harmon do his work. Let him ask the question. If
24 Mr. Tadic doesn't know, he will say he doesn't know,
25 but we are dealing with his area of competence. If he
1 says he is not familiar with these regulations, it
2 would be normal for the Prosecutor to familiarise him
3 with it. We are wasting time.
4 That was a minute for Mr. Nobilo and a minute
5 for Jorda. Go ahead.
6 MR. HARMON:
7 Q. Mr. Tadic, let me direct your attention to
8 Article 67. That indicates that the decision to bring
9 the offender before the military disciplinary court
10 shall be issued by, one, the commander of the armed
11 forces or, two, the commander of the Operative Zone for
12 non-commissioned officers and officers up to the rank
13 of brigadier serving in the units or institutions which
14 are subordinate to the Operative Zone commander. The
15 decision to bring the offender to a military
16 disciplinary court rested on Colonel Blaskic's
17 shoulders, according to this provision, did it not, as
18 well as the commander of the armed forces?
19 JUDGE JORDA: Take time to think about it,
20 Mr. Tadic. It's an important question. We are at the
21 very heart of an important issue. Take your time.
22 A. Mr. President, Your Honours, you put it very
23 nicely a few minutes ago. Yes, I am a lawyer, yes I
24 have been involved in legal matters for a long time. I
25 was not involved in military matters. The Prosecutor
1 read this to me, and he read it the way he read it, and
2 what else can I answer? If I were to be involved in
3 the entire subject matter, I would have to read out the
4 entire rules and regulations, because you know how
5 dangerous it is to take out only one provision out of a
6 law or a legal document. It has to be interpreted
7 within the context of the entire rules and regulations
8 and, therefore, I cannot say anything else but that is
9 what it says here. That is what it says here.
10 I don't know whether there is another norm
11 which translates this norm in relative terms. I do not
12 know that because I never read these rules and
13 regulations, because I did not need it for my own line
14 of work.
15 I think that that is the way this should be
16 perceived. I should not be put in a position to speak
17 because I am a lawyer about this, because if any legal
18 person wants to speak competently, he has to study the
19 material in its entirety. Then it is not going to be a
20 partial answer, but one in its entirety.
21 JUDGE JORDA: I understand what you are
22 saying, Mr. Tadic, but the question, afterall, was not
23 that complicated as it appears. You can always answer
24 that you need a few days to familiarise yourself with
25 all the rules, but it does seem to me that it's a
1 relatively easy question. All you have to do is to
2 read Articles 59 and 60. These are not very
3 complicated articles. That's all I want to say. But
4 if you don't know, then you don't, and it will be noted
5 that Mr. Tadic is not familiar with the regulations of
6 the question.
7 MR. HARMON:
8 Q. Mr. Tadic, let me come back to the question I
9 asked you a moment ago. Under Article 67, the decision
10 to bring the offender before a military disciplinary
11 court shall be issued by the commander of the armed
12 forces under provision 1, or under provision 2, the
13 commander of the Operative Zone for non-commissioned
14 officers and officers up to the rank of brigadier
15 serving, they were subordinate to him in the Operative
16 Zone, correct?
17 A. Well, that is a provision which says exactly
18 what you read out. Again, I say is there another
19 provision that relativises (sic) it? That I don't know
20 because I never studied this.
21 Q. Let me turn your attention to two exhibits
22 very quickly, 456/69, 68 and 69. These exhibits, just
23 to give you a preview.
24 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Hayman, do you have an
25 objection?
1 MR. HAYMAN: If we were plowing some new
2 ground, we don't want to cut off the Prosecutor, but
3 the Prosecutor, for 10, 15 minutes now, he has been
4 reading documents that, one, speak for themselves and,
5 two, this witness has no particular expertise. We are
6 wasting time.
7 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, I would note,
8 Mr. Hayman, that you yourself state that they are
9 self-evident. That's important. It's self-evident
10 documents. I also remind the Prosecutor of his time
11 constraints. You can't ask the witness and -- well,
12 there has to be a certain equity in these discussions.
13 I do this with the agreement of Judge Shahabuddeen,
14 that is we try to be flexible, because the Judges are
15 also interested in everything that's being said, and
16 that's natural. But having said that, Mr. Harmon, you
17 cannot really go through all of these areas. You've
18 got to establish priorities.
19 MR. HARMON: I have three more areas of this
20 document to go through and then I have --
21 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Harmon, I have to ask you
22 how many more minutes do you need? Otherwise I am
23 going to be somewhat dictatorial. I want this trial to
24 be conducted in a proper amount of time. How many more
25 moments do you need in order to finish what you are
1 doing, and after that I am going to interrupt? It's
2 the rule. It's the rule of equity.
3 MR. HARMON: Without interruption,
4 Mr. President, I will be concluded in ten minutes.
5 JUDGE JORDA: All right. This is your
6 procedure, Mr. Harmon. This is part of the procedure,
7 but I cannot refuse the right of someone to make an
8 objection. Mr. Harmon, I'm going to give you five
9 minutes, and after that, we have to stop. That's all.
10 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President. I
11 appreciate that. I will accept the Court's decision.
12 I will withdraw those exhibits.
13 I will merely direct Your Honours' attention
14 to those exhibits which are 456/68 and 466/69 which
15 are --
16 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. You never use that
17 procedure. You always think that you're dealing with
18 unprofessional Judges. Provide the documents, the
19 exhibits. I have not applied the new Rules of
20 Procedure and Evidence because these rules were set
21 into place and the trial had begun in 1997, but the
22 spirit of the new rules is the following: Trust the
23 Judges, provide them with documents, provide them with
24 briefs, so that we can speed things up; otherwise, we
25 will be here for another three years. You can tell us
1 what it is you want to draw our attention to, and then
2 in your closing arguments, you can develop your
3 arguments. That's all.
4 MR. HARMON: All right. I will adopt the
5 procedure out of necessity, and let me direct Your
6 Honours' attention to Prosecutor's Exhibit 456/69 and
7 456/70, which are two orders by Colonel Blaskic where
8 he identifies the powers that he has in him pursuant to
9 Article 12, Article 22, and Article 31 of the military
10 disciplinary manual to impose sentences, and you will
11 see in 456/69 and 456/70, Colonel Blaskic sentences one
12 individual to 60 days and another individual in a
13 different order to 30 days.
14 I would also direct Your Honours' attention
15 to Article 94 of the rules of military discipline and
16 Article 95, because these are articles which show the
17 extent to which Colonel Blaskic had control over the
18 military disciplinary courts. Article 94 indicates,
19 and I will read it: "The commander of the unit or
20 institutions where the military disciplinary courts
21 shall supervise the work of the military disciplinary
22 courts and their prosecutors."
23 I direct your attention to Article 95 as
24 well. Article 95 indicates as follows: "The president
25 of the first instance military disciplinary court and
1 the prosecutor shall bear disciplinary liability for
2 their work in court --"
3 JUDGE JORDA: You're quoting the text.
4 That's enough. The Judges will read it themselves.
5 MR. HARMON: All right.
6 JUDGE JORDA: Do you have a final question
7 regarding all of the powers, all of the powers that you
8 believe that the accused had? If you do, please ask
9 it.
10 MR. HARMON:
11 Q. So, Mr. Tadic, it's fair to say that in
12 respect of the rules of military discipline, Colonel
13 Blaskic had considerably more powers at his disposal
14 than the powers you described he had under the rules
15 relating to the military district prosecutor and the
16 military district courts; am I correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. So when you testified at page 16 in your
19 testimony, and I will read the question to you by
20 Mr. Nobilo and your answer or part of your answer:
21 "Tell me, according to your interpretations and your
22 perception of the work of military courts, the
23 commander of an operative zone, in this specific case,
24 Colonel Blaskic, who was subordinated to the main
25 staff, did he have anything to do with the
1 establishment of the courts, the appointment of judges,
2 the control over the work of courts or military
3 prosecutors' offices, and the like," and your answer
4 was, "No, no. It is the defence department that had
5 this right."
6 When you gave that particular answer, you
7 weren't referring to the military disciplinary courts,
8 were you?
9 A. Not to the disciplinary courts but to the
10 courts that were established by way of the decree on
11 district military courts that we elaborated on and
12 where it says explicitly who appoints judges and who
13 they are accountable to, who they submit reports to,
14 and who supervises them. It says so quite clearly
15 there, that that is the department of defence, and the
16 appointments are made by the presidency of the Croatian
17 Community of Herceg-Bosna at the proposal of the head
18 of the defence department.
19 Q. Now, let me ask you a similar question, and
20 you don't have to give us a long explanation. I'd just
21 like to know a "yes" or "no" answer. This was a
22 question asked by Mr. Nobilo on page 28, lines 14, and
23 your answer which I will quote, part of it goes through
24 line 22: "Could you tell us, please --"
25 JUDGE JORDA: Last question. Otherwise, for
1 the first time since this has started, I'm going to use
2 this instrument. Last question.
3 MR. HARMON: All right.
4 Q. "Could you tell us, please, who decides on
5 whether an investigation will be set into motion which
6 represents the first step in a formal procedure? Who
7 decides this, and Blaskic, as the commander of the
8 Operative Zone, was he able to say that a procedure of
9 this kind would be set in motion or not?" And your
10 answer was, "No. This is the exclusive right of the
11 investigative judge ..." and your answer goes on.
12 When you gave that answer to that question,
13 you, again, were not referring to the military
14 disciplinary courts, were you?
15 A. No, not about disciplinary courts, about
16 military courts.
17 MR. HARMON: Seeing that I have run my time,
18 Mr. President, I will not ask any additional
19 questions.
20 Mr. Tadic, I appreciate your answering my
21 questions. Thank you.
22 THE WITNESS: You're welcome.
23 JUDGE JORDA: Excuse me, Mr. Harmon, for
24 having been so directive, but you took 20 minutes more
25 than we had planned. You know, for the final
1 arguments, we're not going to limit the time at all,
2 nor will we do that for the Defence.
3 About how much time do you need, Mr. Nobilo,
4 because I'm really beginning to try to take some
5 precautions?
6 MR. NOBILO: As usual, very brief.
7 JUDGE JORDA: Well, you didn't quite answer
8 my question, but all right, go ahead.
9 Re-examined by Mr. Nobilo:
10 Q. Mr. Tadic, war crimes, crimes against
11 humanity, is this a crime or is this a disciplinary
12 offence?
13 A. Of course, it is a crime of the most serious
14 kind.
15 Q. Routinely speaking, in Bosnia, if someone
16 were to commit a serious, important crime and,
17 alongside it, made a traffic violation or some other
18 minor offence, would he be tried for murder and for the
19 traffic offence or if he had passed by a red light at
20 the traffic lights, he would be tried for a criminal
21 act?
22 Now, I apologise for having to ask you in
23 this way, but you are a witness in this case, so I
24 apologise, but do you know the principle that
25 subsumes -- that the more important act subsumes the
1 lesser offence?
2 I will repeat it once again because it was
3 not introduced into the transcript. I apologise for
4 having to ask you that question, for having to ask you
5 basic facts relating to the law. I am asking you
6 whether a more serious crime subsumes a lesser offence?
7 A. Yes. The more serious offence subsumes the
8 lesser offence, and there is a clear-cut provision for
9 this in the law.
10 Q. Tell me, in disciplinary measures and
11 procedure, if the perpetrator is not known and we want
12 to determine who the perpetrator is, not to improvise
13 at this point, but when it is not clear immediately who
14 has committed a disciplinary offence, who will
15 investigate, the military police?
16 A. Well, the military police will before it has
17 reached the disciplinary prosecutor, and, of course, it
18 won't reach that individual if the perpetrator is
19 unknown.
20 Q. Let us return for a moment to something asked
21 of you yesterday by the Prosecutor and Article 27 of
22 the regulations governing military courts, where only
23 mention is made of the commander of the Operative Zone;
24 therefore, they are cases where the commander can
25 detain the perpetrator of a criminal offence and must
1 cooperate with the military police and keep all the
2 evidence.
3 In the spirit of that regulation and in the
4 entirety of the regulations governing criminal acts and
5 the law on criminal courts, is this a routine matter or
6 is that an exception provided for for certain extreme
7 cases?
8 A. Regular business of uncovering crimes and
9 reporting them, reporting criminal acts, is usually
10 done by the crime investigation department of the
11 military police. This, therefore, is an exception,
12 shall we say, because of the overall situation and the
13 state of war.
14 Q. Give us an example. When could this
15 provision be applied, in your opinion? For which cases
16 is this provision, that is to say, Article 27 on the
17 regulations governing military courts?
18 A. I think that I have quoted examples already.
19 If the military police is not there and something has
20 happened within a military unit, then the commander
21 will undertake everything to detain that individual, to
22 retain the evidence and traces, and to turn that
23 individual over to the investigative judge and the
24 military prosecutor. And if the military police
25 arrives there before that, then it can take the case
1 over into its own hands, and everything will evolve,
2 according to the law, after that.
3 Q. Tell me, in the Law on Criminal Procedure, do
4 the same competencies exist for every citizen, that is
5 to say, that they can arrest a criminal and detain him
6 until the police arrive?
7 A. Yes. The Law on Criminal Procedure does have
8 a provision which states that citizens have the right
9 when they come across and are on the spot where a crime
10 has been committed, that they can detain that
11 individual and inform the nearest police station of
12 these occurrences.
13 Q. From all your knowledge, and especially your
14 knowledge on the Law on Criminal Procedure and the
15 regulations governing the military police that we have
16 mentioned, tell us, please, whether a commander, the
17 commander of the Operative Zone, has the duty to,
18 himself, seek for the perpetrators of a crime and
19 search for them or is this regulated in some other way?
20 A. First and foremost, the regulation relating
21 to district military courts, as well as the Law on
22 Criminal Procedure and its application in a war
23 situation, it is stipulated that all the competencies
24 that the regular police force has are taken over by the
25 military police in wartime, that is to say, the service
1 of the military police which means the criminal
2 investigation police.
3 And here, first and foremost, it is the task
4 and role of the specialised, so to speak, services for
5 matters of this kind, that is to say, the crime
6 departments of the military police.
7 Q. May we move on to the next area. You saw an
8 order, not signed by Blaskic, but it was an order
9 nonetheless, from which it stems that Blaskic orders
10 that if a unit or individual flees from the
11 battleground, that the whole unit be executed or
12 individual soldiers.
13 Could you tell the Court now, please,
14 whether, according to your knowledge, in the Croatian
15 Community of Herceg-Bosna, there were instances where
16 soldiers fled from the battleground?
17 A. You mean from the Croatian Defence Council as
18 a military component, not the Croatian Community, you
19 mean?
20 Q. Yes, fleeing from military units.
21 A. Yes, there were cases of this kind, just as
22 there were in any other army.
23 Q. Bosnia is not a big country, and the
24 territory called the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna
25 is even a smaller territory. Have you ever heard of
1 anybody being executed for fleeing from the
2 battleground?
3 A. No, I've never heard of any cases of that
4 kind.
5 Q. I'm now going to ask you a hypothetical
6 question. Perhaps it is not overly hypothetical, but
7 for the purposes of your testimony, it is.
8 If a unit of the military police, without the
9 knowledge of the commander of the Operative Zone of
10 Central Bosnia and without his authorisation, sets fire
11 to a village, kills 100 people, most of them civilians,
12 and gives false information to the commander of what is
13 going on when it is actually occurring, would this be a
14 routine criminal procedure of the crime police or would
15 it be a serious, enormous security problem for the
16 enclave of Central Bosnia?
17 A. Quite certainly, it will be a very serious
18 problem, and if that is something that the -- if the
19 military police did do this, then other mechanisms
20 should be sought, if I may say that, or other services
21 should we sought to meritoriously be able to
22 investigate this matter.
23 Q. Which service, in your general knowledge,
24 because you said you had no expert knowledge as regards
25 the army, what service is authorised to investigate
1 security matters, the security situation within the
2 army?
3 A. That is the service that we call SIS, the
4 Security and Information Service, and its abbreviation
5 was SIS.
6 Q. So SIS is the Security and Information
7 Service?
8 A. Yes, it was called SIS for short.
9 Q. If this hypothesis were to be correct, the
10 one that I have just put to you, would the order for an
11 investigation into Ahmici given to SIS be valid
12 nonetheless, in the sense of its official formal
13 qualities?
14 A. I think that it would be logical to ask SIS
15 to step in in a situation of this kind. If, therefore,
16 the military police did something of that kind, then it
17 is logical that it created an enormous problem, and it
18 is the security service which would have to investigate
19 and to be activated in that regard.
20 Q. I'm not going to go through the documents, I
21 know your plane is due to leave shortly, but I will
22 say, taking them all together, the last document was
23 document 373, Defence Exhibit 373, where Tihomir
24 Blaskic, as the commander ordered the warden of the
25 military prison and all the brigade commanders and
1 asked them to respect the Geneva Conventions with
2 regard to prisoners of war.
3 You said that he did not have that
4 authorisation. Tell us now, please, as a legal man and
5 from your overall knowledge, how do you assess
6 Blaskic's actions which supersede his authorisations in
7 order to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions and
8 the other qualitative matters, that is to say, his
9 orders in that regard? How do you assess his conduct,
10 taking everything into account?
11 A. I should like to ask Your Honours to
12 understand the following: When I say something, I
13 always look at the norms, the rules, regulations, and
14 how they comply with other superior norms or acts, and
15 in that sense, I said hierarchially what the situation
16 should have been like.
17 As a human being, as an individual, I
18 understand and find it normal that a commander should
19 pay care and attention to the fact that the Geneva
20 Conventions are respected or not. Whether he did this
21 in the right way by going through the courts to the
22 prisons and the defence department, that is another
23 matter because the defence department had supervision.
24 But at all events, it would be affirmative and positive
25 that he did pay care and attention to ensuring that the
1 Geneva Conventions were respected.
2 Q. Mr. Tadic, in the case of conflict, under
3 wartime conditions, I'm not talking about peacetime
4 when the rule of law prevails, the conflict between
5 formal law and implementing justice, what would you
6 choose?
7 A. Well, let me tell you, formally speaking,
8 legal men are always a little formalistic and must
9 adhere to a certain amount of form, officialese, the
10 judgment will fall through if the council and panel has
11 not been set up as they should have been and if the
12 court proceedings have not been as they should have
13 been.
14 Q. But we're talking about Blaskic and his acts?
15 A. Here, we are faced with a situation of war.
16 They are extraordinary situations, and they dictated --
17 it was the situation on the spot, on the terrain, which
18 dictated matters, and I don't know whether I, as a
19 legal man, had I found myself in a situation of this
20 kind, would have acted in a different manner to what
21 Mr. Blaskic did.
22 MR. NOBILO: Thank you, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE JORDA: You were right, Mr. Nobilo.
24 You didn't take much time. I know that we have to
25 release Mr. Tadic. It's break time now.
1 Let me first turn, however, to Judge
2 Shahabuddeen and ask him whether he has any questions
3 or would he prefer to do it afterwards?
4 We're going to take a 20-minute break before
5 moving to the Judges' questions because, in any case,
6 you missed your plane, Mr. Tadic. So we're going to do
7 our best to make sure you don't miss the next plane.
8 We'll take a 20-minute break, and then we'll
9 come back for the Judges' questions.
10 --- Recess taken at 11.21 a.m.
11 --- On resuming at 11.45 a.m.
12 JUDGE JORDA: May we continue. Have the
13 accused brought in, please.
14 (The accused entered court)
15 JUDGE JORDA: Judge Shahabuddeen, would you
16 like to take the floor?
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Tadic, I do hope
18 that any questions which I or my colleague may have for
19 you will not unduly delay you and will enable you to
20 catch your plane. I understand the imperatives which
21 are involved. So I will ask you only a very few
22 questions.
23 My recollection is that you were appointed
24 Justice Minister on 6th January, 1993.
25 A. No.
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: No. Then would you tell
2 me what was the date?
3 A. The 6th of January, that's correct, the 6th
4 of January, 1993 I was appointed assistant, assistant
5 head of the department for justice and administration
6 of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna. So that is
7 a big difference.
8 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Herceg-Bosna. I see. I
9 see. I appreciate the correction. Should I
10 understand, then, that that appointment meant that you
11 had no constitutional relationship to the government in
12 Sarajevo?
13 A. Yes.
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, the constitutional
15 court in Sarajevo gave a decision on the 18th of
16 September, 1992 in which it, effectively, declared
17 itself to be annulling the establishment of
18 Herceg-Bosna?
19 A. Your Honour, I said yesterday that I am aware
20 of such a decision, but I have never seen it. I have
21 never read it. I got out of Sarajevo on the 28th of
22 April, 1992, and all communications with Sarajevo were
23 cut off, so there was no possibility of communicating.
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Tell me a little bit
25 more about the exact constitutional relationship of
1 Herceg-Bosna with the government in Sarajevo as the
2 matter was seen by Herceg-Bosna. Herceg-Bosna, I
3 believe, described itself as a component part of the
4 state of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
5 A. Yes. I don't know whether I am competent to
6 give an answer of proper quality to your question,
7 because this was part of politics, really, and I was
8 not involved in that particular part. It is true that
9 the Croatian community, I emphasize the Croatian
10 community, not the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna,
11 pointed out that it was a component within the state of
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina. On all documents it said the
13 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and underneath that the
14 Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna. Since I was away,
15 I was in the north, what kind of communications there
16 were between the political leadership on the one hand
17 and Sarajevo on the other hand, I cannot give you a
18 proper answer, qualified answer to that.
19 When I was in Bosanska Posavina, that is in
20 the north of Bosnia, I used to go to Zagreb, and part
21 of the government of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
22 was there. They were detached. They left Sarajevo and
23 they were staying in Zagreb, in Senoina Street, and I
24 communicated with them in relation to the establishment
25 of the judiciary in Bosanska Posavina, because all
1 communications with Sarajevo were cut off.
2 However, this part of the government of the
3 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Zagreb ceased to
4 operate soon. This went on only for a few months.
5 After that, it ceased to operate.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I don't want to delay
7 matters too much, so may I ask you this kind of
8 question: As seen from the point of view of the
9 Croatian community in Herceg-Bosna, was there still a
10 constitutional relationship of some kind between that
11 community and the government in Sarajevo?
12 A. Yes.
13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now --
14 A. With your permission -- I am sorry, my
15 apologies. In Article 2 of the decree on military --
16 district military courts it says that they pass
17 judgments on the basis of the constitution and laws.
18 The Croatian community did not have a constitution.
19 The constitution referred to was the constitution of
20 the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: So should I take it that
22 a decision of the constitutional court in Sarajevo had
23 some significance or importance to a distinguished
24 legal officer of your standing in the service of the
25 community of Herceg-Bosna?
1 A. We applied practically all the regulations of
2 the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina that were taken over
3 by the presidency of the Republic of
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina, but, in all fairness, by the
5 presidency of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna
6 too. You will see in the decree on the Law on Criminal
7 Procedure and the Criminal Code that there are only two
8 articles, one which says that that Criminal Code and
9 Law on Criminal Procedure are being taken over that
10 were taken over by the presidency of the Republic of
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And the Official Gazette of the
12 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina is quoted. There is
13 another article saying that it enters into force
14 immediately.
15 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Perhaps we could learn
16 to abbreviate the proceedings in the interest of your
17 own early departure. And then I would beg to remind
18 you that my question was whether the decision of the
19 constitutional court was perceived by someone in your
20 position as having any importance or significance.
21 A. I don't know.
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You don't know. I take
23 your answer --
24 A. I don't know because I didn't see the
25 decision.
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would it have been
2 possible for you to see the decision if you had wanted,
3 though?
4 A. To be quite frank with you, I was not aware
5 of its existence for quite some time, because there was
6 a war going on and one had to save one's very life.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, let us move away
8 from the question of constitutionality to the question
9 of the relationship between the Ministry of Defence and
10 Colonel Blaskic. Now and then in the course of your
11 testimony you said something to the effect that Colonel
12 Blaskic would have been overstepping his authority.
13 A. Yes.
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, to your knowledge,
15 did the Ministry of Defence take any corrective action
16 against Colonel Blaskic in respect of any acts by which
17 he overstepped his authority?
18 A. I'm not aware of that.
19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, prosecuting counsel
20 has shown you one or two documents addressed by Colonel
21 Blaskic to the military police, in effect ordering them
22 to take or to institute certain disciplinary
23 procedures. Do you recall that?
24 A. Yes.
25 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, to your knowledge,
1 did the military police ever object to the competence
2 of Colonel Blaskic to issue such directives to the
3 military police?
4 A. I'm not aware of that.
5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did Colonel Blaskic have
6 someone in the position of a legal adviser to tell him
7 when he was overstepping his authority?
8 A. I don't know all these persons who worked
9 with Colonel Blaskic. I do not know what they were by
10 training.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, Mr. Prosecutor
12 showed you certain disciplinary regulations promulgated
13 by Mr. Mate Boban dated 3rd of July, 1992. I think you
14 said this was the first time you were seeing them. You
15 recall that?
16 A. Yes.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, I would like to
18 collect or write your exact position on these
19 regulations. Should I understand you to mean that this
20 is the first time you were seeing the regulations, but
21 you are not doubting the authenticity of the
22 regulations?
23 A. Yes. Yes.
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Do you accept the
25 authenticity of the regulations, but are you saying
1 this is the first time you've seen them?
2 A. I said that until now I had not studied or
3 read these regulations. I am not denying its
4 authenticity. I am not saying that it's forged or
5 something like that. So I have not read it, because I
6 never needed it.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let me ask you a general
8 question like this. The laws have many objectives,
9 but, basically, in relation to situations am I right
10 that they may do these things: They may call into
11 being a new situation or they may prohibit the
12 continuance of an existing situation or they may accept
13 that an existing situation is inevitable and seek to
14 regulate it?
15 Would you respond to that synopsis? Do you
16 think that's a fair analysis of the functions of law?
17 A. Certainly. Laws are supposed to regulate a
18 certain situation.
19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would you say whether
20 the laws of Herceg-Bosna would have recognised the
21 inevitability of a situation in which a battlefield
22 commander has to have a certain measure of disciplinary
23 authority if he is to wield his competence
24 effectively?
25 A. The laws attempted to resolve the situation
1 in terms of what it should be under new circumstances,
2 that is to say in a state of war, and in that sense
3 there were interventions in certain laws in order to
4 have them adjusted to the war situation. For example,
5 in the Law on Criminal Procedure, the periods for
6 appeal were considerably shortened, the composition of
7 panels of judges were changed, et cetera, and other
8 steps were taken in order to make work more operative,
9 so-to-speak. Disciplinary action which was within the
10 authority of the military, that is to say of the
11 commander, he would regulate the situation in his own
12 way.
13 So, certainly attempts were made through this
14 law to adjust to the given situation, but invariably,
15 bearing in mind the law and observance of the law as
16 things were in civilian life or, rather, in peacetime.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Tadic, I hope you do
18 catch your plane. I thank you for your answers.
19 A. Thank you too, sir.
20 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you, Judge Shahabuddeen.
21 I will try to be sure that you can take your plane. I
22 would like to thank Judge Shahabuddeen for having asked
23 some questions that go to the very heart of our
24 discussions.
25 Am I wrong when I say that your functions put
1 you at the meeting point between problems of justice,
2 military justice, and all of this in wartime in January
3 of 1993?
4 A. Mr. President, that is not the best possible
5 interpretation. I was not within the system of
6 military justice. I was assistant head of the
7 department of justice and administration. It was a
8 kind of secretariat which had its chief. I was not the
9 chief. I was one of the three assistant chiefs. My
10 task was to establish in the Posavina the civilian
11 judiciary and the military judiciary. That's what I
12 did. And in March, 1993, in Posavina, in Bosanska
13 Posavina, the civilian and military judiciary started
14 to operate.
15 JUDGE JORDA: But can we say that the
16 structures of military justice for the Croatian
17 community of Herceg-Bosna, were you very involved in
18 working on them, in drafting them? Did you supervise
19 them? We are talking specifically about military
20 justice.
21 A. Supervision over military justice and the
22 military prosecutors office was exercised by the
23 Department of Defence. Now, what did we do? We tried
24 to provide the necessary persons, that is to say
25 judges, prosecutors, and then material that was needed
1 for work, registers, typewriters, offices, everything
2 that was needed so that they would start working.
3 Because they used --
4 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, all of the logistics.
5 A. Part of the logistics involved. Part of the
6 logistics involved. We did not provide for their
7 salaries. It was the defence department that did
8 that. And the defence department provided for salaries
9 and for the rest of logistics, but we provided for part
10 of logistics.
11 JUDGE JORDA: But as regards the constitutive
12 text for military justice, did you have meetings, did
13 you give advice in which it would give the opinion of
14 the Ministry of Justice about the text that had been
15 set up by the ministry of --
16 A. No.
17 JUDGE JORDA: Well, perhaps as a legal
18 specialist you can clarify the treatment in the
19 Yugoslav Criminal Code about genocide and war crimes.
20 Ordinarily, did the Yugoslav Code provide for
21 punishment for war crimes? I suppose it continues to
22 punish them.
23 A. Yes, yes. Yes. These are the gravest
24 crimes.
25 JUDGE JORDA: The question I wanted to ask
1 you is the following: In your opinion, like in all
2 armies in the world, in war time, a commander in an
3 Operative Zone, as like the accused, does the commander
4 have powers to denounce people, to carry out
5 investigations and to defer cases to the military
6 courts? Yes or no?
7 A. No. No. He could report people, but not
8 order custody against them, except in Article 27, in
9 cases mentioned in Article 27, when a known perpetrator
10 is involved or, rather, when this happened in his
11 unit.
12 JUDGE JORDA: I didn't get the
13 interpretation. Do you have anything you could tell us
14 about what one teaches military officers at the
15 military academy in respect of war crimes?
16 A. I don't know.
17 JUDGE JORDA: As part of your work, were you
18 in contact with the political leaders of the Croatian
19 Community of Herceg-Bosna?
20 A. From time to time, yes.
21 JUDGE JORDA: Did you know their political
22 plans as regards the constitution of that community?
23 A. The Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was
24 established before I came to join its structures. I
25 have to emphasise that Bosanska Posavina was not
1 immediately part of the Croatian Community of
2 Herceg-Bosna. This was some time at the end of 1992,
3 October, November, I'm not quite sure when. So the
4 Croatian Community already existed when I joined its
5 structures. And as regards further plans, I did not
6 take part in that. I tried to only see to my
7 professional duties.
8 JUDGE JORDA: Do you agree with me when I say
9 that in all the armies of the world, the rules of
10 military discipline are known, that is, that you have
11 to punish the operational commander, a general, for 60
12 days, that is, he can arrest people and hold them for
13 60 days? But do you agree with me when I say that is
14 not what the problem is? That's not the question. We
15 all know that General Blaskic had powers against
16 somebody who would not salute him in the morning.
17 That's common in all armies of the world when it comes
18 to military discipline, that is, you can be arrested if
19 you don't do what you're supposed to do.
20 I suppose that you did military service,
21 Mr. Tadic?
22 A. Yes.
23 JUDGE JORDA: So did I. So did I.
24 A. In the Yugoslav People's Army.
25 JUDGE JORDA: But that's not the problem
1 here. The problem is that this is wartime. There was
2 a political project of the Croatian Community of
3 Herceg-Bosna. So my question is, as regards this
4 entire structure of military organisation, was it
5 intended more to seat Colonel Blaskic's power over his
6 troops or, at the same time, did it also give him the
7 power to punish failures, serious failures, to respect
8 the laws of war, crimes that might have been
9 committed? It seems to me that that is the real
10 question. That is what I think.
11 A. As far as I understood your question, did he
12 have powers to punish --
13 JUDGE JORDA: I'll repeat my question. Could
14 we say that this entire architecture of texts the
15 Prosecutor showed to us, could we say that, in your
16 opinion, these texts were designed only in order to
17 seat the hierarchical authority of the accused in
18 respect of all of the military structures that came
19 under him, that is, in respect of discipline, for
20 example, as everybody knows, or would we say that these
21 same legal instruments, did they give him the power to
22 prosecute and to investigate war crimes, genocide,
23 crimes against humanity, committed under his
24 authority? Do you understand my question?
25 A. Yes, yes, I think specifically when I saw
1 these documents, that this is a question of authority
2 of the commander who is supposed to build this kind of
3 authority among his troops because these were special
4 circumstances. And sometimes he does overstep his
5 authority in order to keep discipline and his authority
6 because this is not a professional army. This was an
7 army that was only in the making, that was in its very
8 inception.
9 JUDGE JORDA: Therefore, my question is
10 whether the legal structures that, in wartime, the
11 commander of the Operations Zone had, could he use that
12 power?
13 A. No, no, he was not given such powers. He was
14 given powers up to a certain extent, and those were his
15 powers, and the rest was supposed to be carried out by
16 other structures, and that could be seen from the
17 regulations too.
18 JUDGE JORDA: I thought that that's what your
19 answer would be.
20 My last question is in another area. If I've
21 understood what you said, I still have somewhat of an
22 impression that when serious crimes, not little
23 failures to obey military discipline, when those kind
24 of crimes, serious ones, are committed, when he was
25 involved with them, he was not supposed to because he
1 was overstepping his authority, and when he did take
2 care and when he was in Ahmici, then that was the
3 greatness of soul which led the accused to do so.
4 You, who are a legal specialist, are saying
5 that there is no legal specific instrument. So my
6 question is, do you think that in any army in the
7 world, at least the civilised world, wouldn't you think
8 that there are legal instruments?
9 A. I have not had the opportunity to see other
10 regulations. It is quite understandable to me that
11 this should be regulated. Every crime should be
12 investigated and punished. In this specific case,
13 whether, strictly formally speaking, he acted
14 accordingly or not, that is a different question
15 because our Law on Criminal Procedure had a certain
16 procedure involved, one that was envisaged in the law.
17 In practice, there were certain dilemmas as regards its
18 implementation, and this was the case here too in a few
19 instances.
20 JUDGE JORDA: In other words, either we're
21 talking about minor discipline, which is not the proper
22 case here, or else we're dealing with very serious
23 issues, and it's through the goodwill on the part of
24 the accused, that is, generals, not only him, but that
25 there was an entire field which had not been provided
1 for. So I go back to what Judge Shahabuddeen said.
2 Were there legal specialists?
3 A. That is something that has to be resolved at
4 a professional level.
5 JUDGE JORDA: So then would you agree with me
6 when I say that perhaps all of these rules were
7 established in relation to the political project of
8 setting up a constitution for this community and that
9 perhaps one could not give to the military officials
10 powers that would be significant in respect of the most
11 serious crimes, given the very nature of the war that
12 was being waged? Would that be an interpretation?
13 A. I can give you the following answer: All the
14 time attempts were made to build a civilian structure
15 of authority in the Croatian Community of
16 Herceg-Bosna. If too great an authority were to be
17 given to the commander, then the civilian structure of
18 government would be brought into question. What the
19 political background was, that is something I really
20 cannot answer because I never held any office within
21 politics and the party, and I never held any posts
22 related to that.
23 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. That's as far as
24 we'll go.
25 Mr. Tadic, thank you. I hope that you will
1 be able to get home, as you need to be. We have
2 completed our work here. I would like to thank you.
3 Once again, we are very grateful for you having come to
4 The Hague and for having stayed longer than you had
5 originally intended to.
6 Mr. Dubuisson, will you have the witness
7 taken out of the courtroom, please?
8 THE REGISTRAR: I would like to know what I
9 should do with 568 and 569, the Prosecution Exhibits.
10 MR. HARMON: I was going to move that those
11 two exhibits be introduced into evidence. One is a map
12 and one is the decree appointing Mr. Tadic to his
13 position.
14 JUDGE JORDA: Any objections?
15 MR. HAYMAN: No objection.
16 JUDGE JORDA: All right. No objections.
17 THE WITNESS: Mr. President, Your Honours, I
18 am pleased if I managed to help you at least a very
19 little bit. I wish you every success in your work, in
20 your very, very difficult and responsible work, but
21 above all, your very honourable work.
22 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you. Thank you very
23 much, Mr. Tadic.
24 (The witness withdrew)
25 JUDGE JORDA: We still have some time. Is
1 Professor Jankovic available?
2 Judge Shahabuddeen, shall we hear the
3 Professor now?
4 Mr. Hayman, he's here?
5 MR. HAYMAN: He is, and then we do have a
6 witness who will be available at 2.30 after we're done
7 with the Professor. We have one more witness this
8 afternoon. I don't know if that witness will take the
9 whole afternoon, but that witness is not here yet, the
10 next witness.
11 JUDGE JORDA: All right. Then we'll finish
12 the morning with Professor Jankovic.
13 MR. CAYLEY: Mr. President?
14 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Cayley?
15 MR. CAYLEY: It was simply actually a point
16 of procedure. I wanted to have it clear in my own mind
17 as to the procedure that is being adopted now with the
18 Professor.
19 My understanding is that he will make a
20 presentation to the Court. You and your brother judge,
21 Judge Shahabuddeen, will be asking him questions, and
22 then Mr. Nobilo and I, although we're not allowed to
23 ask questions of the witness at this stage, may make
24 some representations to the Court. Is my understanding
25 correct?
1 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. On the advice of my
2 eminent colleague, we have somewhat changed the legal
3 framework. We decided that rather than calling him as
4 an expert amicus curiae, we will simply use Rule 98,
5 that is, he becomes a witness again. In agreement with
6 my colleague, you can ask him questions but assuming
7 that the questions are brief. We don't want to start
8 the Professor talking once again about everything he
9 has already said. He's going to present -- maybe that
10 is going to change.
11 The Judges will ask him directly to give us a
12 critical presentation, of course, in a broad sense, his
13 presentation, I mean, on the diagrams that had been
14 attached to Witness W; is that correct, Mr. Dubuisson?
15 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, that's right.
16 JUDGE JORDA: And then you can ask whatever
17 questions you like, as can Defence counsel. Since this
18 is a Defence witness, we'll start with Mr. Nobilo, and
19 then it will be your turn, and, if necessary, the
20 Judges will ask some questions, but the idea is that we
21 should be able to finish, more or less, within 30
22 minutes. We're not going to start the entire testimony
23 of the Professor from the beginning. You know, he's a
24 very knowledgeable man in the field of explosives. We
25 want to count the amount of time that's going to be
1 used.
2 All right. We can have the witness brought
3 in.
4 (The witness entered court)
5 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. Thank you, Judge
6 Shahabuddeen.
7 THE WITNESS: Good afternoon, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE JORDA: Professor Jankovic, you have
9 been recalled pursuant to Rule 98. I'm going to ask
10 you to take the oath again, please. Would you please
11 rise? There is a statement which will be given to
12 you. You've found it yourself.
13 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will
14 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
15 truth.
16 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you very much,
17 Professor. Thank you for having been willing to remain
18 here, remain available to the Tribunal.
19 You're going to make a presentation that you
20 were asked to do in respect of the diagram, and this
21 falls within your area of competence, and then the
22 Defence will ask you the questions it wishes to, the
23 Prosecution will follow, and then perhaps the Judges,
24 and then it will be finished. We hope that we can
25 finish before 1.00.
1 About how much time do you need in order to
2 make your presentation?
3 THE WITNESS: Five to ten minutes.
4 JUDGE JORDA: Well, that's just fine. Take
5 your time and make your presentation. Shall we put the
6 document on the ELMO? All right. Please proceed.
7 WITNESS: SLOBODAN JANKOVIC (Recalled)
8 A. All right. This is the document I'm talking
9 about. First of all, as you see, the scales have not
10 been respected. Therefore, you've got 1.800 metres,
11 and here you have 7.500 metres. You can see that, on
12 this scale, the 1.800 is larger than the 7.500.
13 Then you see that here, there is a height. I
14 looked on the map. This figure is correct, that is,
15 the top of a mountain. It is exactly in the eastern
16 direction of Zenica. Therefore, that should be the
17 trajectory vertically in the east/west direction.
18 Here's the map. This is the mountain top
19 which is in this direction (indicating); however, the
20 other mountain top is this one (indicating) which is
21 600 metres. This is the Brankovac radius. It's not
22 absolutely on this plane but a little north of that.
23 So this is not absolutely a demonstration of the
24 east/west direction.
25 The trajectory which is shown here should be
1 compared with the pictures that I showed you yesterday,
2 I and C, I for OF 462 and C for the M76. For example,
3 let's take the first one. I've also done the exact
4 calculations in the east/west direction, and that's
5 important because of the influence of the earth's
6 rotation, and that has to be taken into account.
7 Here you see the scales which were respected
8 because this is computer produced. This is the
9 mountain top where it was found, and you can see that
10 the high is much higher, much higher than that point.
11 The other one we were talking about, that is, the 600
12 metres is not at all important at this distance, which
13 is noted in the original document, that is, at the
14 distance of 1.800 metres. On 1.800 metres, you have
15 the height of 1.519 metres. Therefore, that's three
16 times higher, and if it's 800 metres, then the height
17 for the M76 projectile would be 300 -- let me see, how
18 much is that, 5 or 6 times higher. On this drawing, it
19 should be 5 or 6 times higher.
20 So what I would say, it's not even a good
21 sketch. It gives a wrong impression. It gives the
22 incorrect orientation, and it's more or less the same
23 thing for the other projectile. I can repeat to you
24 that the numbers are different. Here you have the top
25 of the projectile, here's the mountain top, and here is
1 the top of the projectory, the same thing over here at
2 the start of the trajectory, and by making a
3 comparison, you can see very clearly. On the copy of
4 the document, I could say that, on this scale, you
5 can't give exact results because the scale has not been
6 respected, and everything I tried to do just didn't
7 work.
8 So, therefore, my conclusion would be to
9 compare the document that you gave me with the two
10 drawings because these are the ones where the scales
11 have been respected, and I have referred back to these
12 points in question.
13 That's all I can tell you.
14 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you. I would like to
15 thank you for having spent another 24 hours in The
16 Hague in order to do all these calculations.
17 A. It was an honour for me.
18 JUDGE JORDA: I thank you so much. Would the
19 parties like to make any comments?
20 Mr. Nobilo, have you any comments you would
21 like to make or Mr. Hayman?
22 MR. NOBILO: As we have a new type of
23 procedure, I'm not quite sure whether we should give
24 precedence to the Prosecutor. They usually ask
25 questions first. Only when we call our witnesses -- we
1 did not call this witness, the Court called the
2 witness, and I think that the initial impact is on the
3 side of the Prosecution which would be more in keeping
4 with procedure. So they can start their questioning.
5 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nobilo, you are too clever
6 a lawyer for these Judges who are very skillful
7 themselves, but we can see what is underneath your
8 question. Let's be serious for a moment here. We
9 asked the witness, who is your witness, to come to make
10 a scientific criticism of a Prosecution exhibit. If
11 you want to make a comment, I suppose you do have some
12 comments you would like to make, you can do so, and if
13 you have to go back to what you want to say, then you
14 can make further comments, but perhaps you don't have
15 anything else you want to say.
16 MR. NOBILO: We have no comments to make, and
17 as this is not a state of war, I think that procedure
18 is important in every detail. As I say, we have no
19 comments, no criticisms, but do we have the right to a
20 redirect?
21 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. Yes, have you the right
22 to redirect. The Judges will take into account what
23 you have pointed out to us, but I remind you that we,
24 ever since the beginning of this trial, have wanted to
25 be sure that the Rules are properly respected, and we
1 have been vigilant in so doing.
2 Mr. Cayley?
3 MR. CAYLEY: Thank you, Mr. President. As is
4 the case, my learned friend has very skillfully placed
5 himself in an advantageous position, but I bow to your
6 decision on this. I have very few questions for the
7 witness.
8 Cross-examined by Mr. Cayley:
9 Q. Professor, you would agree with me that this
10 diagram is not at all to scale, is it?
11 A. That's what I said.
12 Q. In fact, I think you would also agree with me
13 that, in fact, this document is simply illustrative of
14 the direction of a shell from a westerly position to an
15 easterly position. That is all this diagram actually
16 shows.
17 A. No, that's not what it shows. It only shows
18 that the projectile goes above Vranjaca Mountain, but
19 we have to take into account the fact that it goes
20 through Puticevo, Branke. In that case, you would be
21 right, from Branke toward Vranjaca, that is, from west
22 to east.
23 Q. I think, as you pointed out to the Judges,
24 the actual height of the trajectory is much higher than
25 the two points indicated here at 820 metres and 600
1 metres, isn't it?
2 A. Yes, I showed that.
3 Q. So, in fact, all this diagram really
4 demonstrates is that these were the two highest points
5 over which the shell had to travel. It doesn't
6 represent the actual trajectory of the shell, does it?
7 A. Yes, but the scales have not been respected
8 -- well, because the height of the mountain was 800
9 and then you have the top being 400, and one point is
10 almost near the other.
11 Q. So, as you've already said --
12 A. 4.000. Excuse me.
13 Q. As you've already stated, this is
14 illustrative, this document is not to scale, is it?
15 A. Yes, but if you permit me, I could say that
16 it's not a good illustration.
17 Q. Now, the line drawn from the weapon to the
18 point of impact is not the trajectory line of the
19 shell, is it?
20 A. This diagram is not that, no. That's not
21 this diagram.
22 Q. In fact, the line of trajectory at its
23 highest point would have been 5.000 metres, wouldn't
24 it, or thereabouts?
25 A. Would you repeat that question, please.
1 Q. The actual height of the trajectory of the
2 shell, at its highest point, would have been 5.180
3 metres, wouldn't it?
4 A. As regards the projectile, the M76, the
5 height is 3.788. That's for the OF4 D2. It's 4.506
6 metres.
7 Q. What is the height of the trajectory with a
8 standard OF 462?
9 A. I just said, 4.506 metres.
10 Q. Is that with a full charge or an additional
11 charge?
12 A. As you can see on the diagram, I gave you
13 these figures for the initial velocity of 735 metres.
14 So that's the maximum.
15 Q. So all the line on this diagram represents,
16 Professor, is simply the highest points over which a
17 shell would have had to have travelled in order to
18 reach Zenica, not its actual trajectory?
19 A. Let's be careful about what we say. For the
20 OF 462 -- actually 470. Excuse me. I've lost the
21 picture here.
22 JUDGE JORDA: This is one time we shouldn't
23 have lost the image. This is that moment. We are not
24 going to have the witness come back yet again.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Apparently, there is a slight
1 technical problem and it will be fixed.
2 JUDGE JORDA: Do you have another question
3 you want to ask?
4 A. I can make a comment without the image. What
5 I showed you just now, and we'll see it on the picture
6 when it comes up, is the real image which the
7 projectile would have had with the largest charge
8 possible. That's my drawing, that is the drawing "I,"
9 and the height is 4.506 metres. This is not the
10 greatest height that the projectile could have. They
11 were talking about a howitzer, and a howitzer can be
12 fired with very high angles, even 65 degrees, and then
13 I can look in the tables, but it could have an order of
14 magnitude of 6.000 and, therefore, the distance is much
15 shorter.
16 MR. CAYLEY:
17 Q. Professor, I think we both agree that the
18 actual trajectory of the weapon was much higher than
19 600 or 820 metres. The point that I am making to you
20 is that the line on the exhibit that you've been given,
21 Exhibit 230, can only represent the highest physical
22 points on the ground over which the shell would have
23 had to have travelled in order to reach its target. Is
24 that correct?
25 JUDGE JORDA: Are you talking now about the
1 exhibit which is in dispute? Yes. All right.
2 A. I'm sorry, what do I have to answer?
3 JUDGE JORDA: I think we are going to put the
4 diagram of the exhibit which has been criticised back
5 on the ELMO. Then you can ask the question again,
6 Mr. Cayley, so that the witness can understand it
7 properly.
8 MR. CAYLEY:
9 Q. Would you agree with me, Professor, that all
10 this diagram shows are the highest physical points on
11 the ground over which the shell would have to travel in
12 order to reach the target indicated on the right-hand
13 side of the diagram? It doesn't show the trajectory,
14 the actual trajectory of the shell, does it?
15 A. Yes. I agree with that.
16 MR. CAYLEY: I have no further questions,
17 Mr. President. Thank you.
18 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nobilo, have the
19 Prosecutor's questions inspired you?
20 MR. NOBILO: As usual.
21 Re-examined by Mr. Nobilo:
22 Q. Professor, take a look at the diagram that
23 you have received. A gun has been drawn in here. From
24 the fact that the line moves from the gun up to the
25 region of the town of Zenica and the department store
1 of Bosna, what did Witness W wish to show by that
2 line? What did he want to show, not what he got? What
3 did he want to show, if he had a gun on one side and
4 the position where the shell fell on the other, and all
5 this connected by a line?
6 A. I understood that to be the trajectory.
7 That's how I viewed it and I compared it with my
8 trajectories.
9 Q. Is the full term used, ballistic trajectory
10 for a line of this kind? Is that the term applied?
11 A. This is a term which is used, but just what
12 it means from a technical point of view is something
13 else. I don't think I am going to get into that now.
14 I don't want to go into those details.
15 Q. Thank you. The term "ballistic trajectory"
16 is sufficient for us. Now I come to my last question,
17 Professor. What do you think about the level of
18 professionalism for a man who draws a trajectory, a
19 ballistic trajectory of this kind for an International
20 Tribunal, that is to say the shell that represents a
21 war crime? What do you think about his
22 professionalism, the professional expertise of that
23 witness?
24 A. Well, I think that's somebody who really
25 could not give an expert opinion. Absolutely not.
1 MR. NOBILO: Thank you, Mr. President. That
2 is all.
3 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: One little question,
4 Professor. Would it have been possible for you to draw
5 that sketch to scale so that we could see the
6 representation of the actual trajectory of the
7 projectile?
8 A. Yes, and that's exactly what I did on
9 diagrams "I" and "C." This is absolutely to scale, to
10 real scale, although I did add here the top of the
11 mountain, but tried to respect the scale. So you see
12 here, this is the top of the mountain, and you can see
13 how far above that mountain the trajectory is. This is
14 a real scale. And the same thing here, that is the two
15 diagrams. The diagrams came right out of the
16 computer.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: But I am talking about
18 this sketch which you presented this morning. Would it
19 have been possible for you to draw that one to scale?
20 A. Excuse me. Could you make your question a
21 bit clearer to me. I don't think I understand what you
22 are saying. I prepared the diagrams using a scale
23 which is noted here. That is, one kilometre is about
24 one centimetre. The real scale would be impossible.
25 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I see. It would have
1 been impossible. That's your answer. I understand.
2 Thank you.
3 JUDGE JORDA: I'd like, perhaps, one
4 clarification. The angle of elevation at the initial
5 point of the fire is, of course, very important. It's
6 the firing person who is going to decide what it will
7 be in respect of the target.
8 A. Yes, that's correct.
9 JUDGE JORDA: I don't have the controversial
10 drawing in front of me. What was the angle of fire
11 that was used? It's not marked, but that was perhaps a
12 supplement to what Judge Shahabuddeen asked. I can't
13 really read it properly here.
14 When you chose this firing angle, are these
15 angles that you chose arbitrarily or was that in
16 respect of the 16 kilometres separating Zenica?
17 A. Yes, that's right.
18 JUDGE JORDA: You reconstituted the process
19 going backwards?
20 A. Yes.
21 JUDGE JORDA: All right. If there are no
22 further comments. Mr. Dubuisson. Mr. Cayley.
23 MR. CAYLEY: I just think that the diagrams
24 that the Professor has produced, and I'm sure
25 Mr. Hayman will agree with me here, that they actually
1 be made exhibits for the Court, because the good
2 Professor has made certain marks on Exhibit 230, which
3 will be of help both to the Prosecutor and to the
4 Defence and to the Judges.
5 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. I'm sure that the Defence
6 would not refute the fact that these two exhibits -- I
7 suppose this is Defence material now. What I mean is
8 the Defence would not object this time to have these
9 two corrected drawings be numbered as Defence exhibits,
10 and not as Prosecution exhibits. Do you agree with
11 that?
12 MR. NOBILO: Yes, of course, we do agree.
13 JUDGE JORDA: All right. That way I think I
14 am respecting the procedure, Mr. Nobilo.
15 I think that with a smile on our faces and
16 with a great deal of gratitude we must say -- express
17 our gratitude to Mr. Jankovic, who agreed to remain
18 available to international justice that we represent
19 here, that is to stay another 24 hours in The Hague. I
20 see the registrar is turning to me. Perhaps I made a
21 mistake.
22 THE REGISTRAR: I just want to say for the
23 transcript that the drawing is 230, Prosecutor Exhibit,
24 and the other exhibits, that is those of which the
25 witness based himself, is D526. I also draw your
1 attention --
2 JUDGE JORDA: There are two exhibits.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Let me draw your attention to
4 the fact that since this witness, who is a witness who
5 is appearing now pursuant to Rule 98, perhaps it would
6 be proper to set up a Trial Chamber's exhibit list so
7 that the two exhibits that were noted by the witness,
8 including the top of the mountains, should be noted as
9 C1.
10 JUDGE JORDA: Why C?
11 THE REGISTRAR: For Trial Chamber.
12 JUDGE JORDA: Well, if that's how it has to
13 be, I suppose that's all right.
14 Do you agree with that, Mr. Nobilo? All
15 right. I'll take away the number. Do you agree,
16 Mr. Hayman? Very well.
17 Thank you very much, Professor Jankovic. We
18 are going to suspend the hearing for lunch break and we
19 will resume -- just a moment, please. We will resume
20 at 2.45 with your witness, Mr. Hayman and Mr. Nobilo.
21 The Court stands adjourned.
22 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.52 p.m.
23 --- On resuming at 2.49 p.m.
24 JUDGE JORDA: We will resume the hearing
25 now. Have the accused brought in, please?
1 (The accused entered court)
2 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nobilo?
3 MR. NOBILO: Mr. President, the next witness
4 would like to be heard in closed session and be
5 assigned a pseudonym. I can explain the reasons for
6 this but, once again, in a closed session.
7 JUDGE JORDA: All right. First of all, we
8 will move into a closed session for you to explain the
9 reasons, unless there is an objection from the
10 Prosecution. If you have any objections, then we don't
11 have to do that.
12 MR. KEHOE: No objections, Mr. President.
13 JUDGE JORDA: All right. Closed session.
14 Have the witness brought in. He will be given a
15 pseudonym and it will be what?
16 THE REGISTRAR: It will be Witness DV.
17 JUDGE JORDA: Let's first move into closed
18 session.
19 (Closed session)
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22 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
23 5.10 p.m., to be reconvened on Friday,
24 the 22nd day of January, 1999 at 10.00 a.m.
25