1. 1 Tuesday, 27th July, 1999

    2 (Open session)

    3 --- Upon commencing at 10.07 a.m.

    4 JUDGE JORDA: Please be seated. Have the

    5 accused brought in, please.

    6 (The accused entered court)

    7 JUDGE JORDA: The interpreters are here.

    8 Good morning. Good morning to counsel for the

    9 Prosecution, counsel for the Defence, the accused.

    10 For the benefit of the public, I wish to say

    11 that we are in our last week, and we are listening, for

    12 the second day, to the closing arguments of the

    13 Prosecutor.

    14 It is still Mr. Kehoe, is it?

    15 MR. KEHOE: Yes, Mr. President. Thank you.

    16 Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. Good

    17 morning, Counsel.

    18 Mr. President, I would like to take us back

    19 to where we left off yesterday, and I just, before I

    20 move in through the rest of -- or continue on with my

    21 summation, I just, of course, would like to refer back

    22 and just reference exactly where we are.

    23 As I noted yesterday towards the latter part

    24 of the day, the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the

    25 ABiH, of course, reacted to the attacks by the HVO, and



  2. 1 the reaction, as we will see in some of the coming

    2 evidence that we will discuss, was to shell the town

    3 and to begin an offensive. In fact, Blaskic's

    4 testimony reflects that the shelling was extremely

    5 intense on the 19th of April, 1993. In fact, upon

    6 review of these facts, Mr. McLeod, who, of course,

    7 wrote this ECMM report, which is Prosecution Exhibit

    8 242, noted that:

    9 "The Muslim reaction from Zenica was to

    10 attack the key road junctions East of Vitez and North

    11 of Busovaca, effectively cutting off those two towns.

    12 The Muslim forces were only prevented from achieving

    13 this by accepting the intervention of the ECMM and

    14 UNPROFOR who brokered a cease-fire."

    15 So the 19th of April becomes a significant

    16 day, because at this particular juncture, the ABiH

    17 begins a rather strong offensive, and there are

    18 reactions by the HVO, and I will address those when we

    19 go back to the podium.

    20 The first such reaction, Mr. President, Your

    21 Honours, is the truck bomb incident that occurred on

    22 the 19th -- excuse me, that occurred on the 18th of

    23 April, 1993, but the more significant events occurred

    24 on the 19th of April; and that, of course, commenced

    25 with the Zenica shelling that took place in the midday



  3. 1 of the 19th of April, 1993.

    2 Now, keep in mind, from Blaskic's own

    3 testimony, from his own comments and from the testimony

    4 of Slavko Marin and the reports that we have received

    5 from the Defence, there was shelling, heavy shelling,

    6 taking place on the 19th of April, 1993.

    7 What was the response of the HVO? The

    8 response from the HVO was the shelling of Zenica that

    9 took place in the middle of the day on the 19th of

    10 April, 1993.

    11 Mr. Hooper, with your assistance, if we could

    12 move to the next two photographs that are down below

    13 us?

    14 Mr. President, what we see are just two of a

    15 series of exhibits which reflect the carnage that was

    16 inflicted on downtown Zenica on midday of the 19th of

    17 April, 1993. These, as I say, are only two photographs

    18 of numerous photographs. I believe at this point,

    19 approximately 15 civilians were killed and numerous

    20 others were wounded.

    21 Mr. Hooper, if we can move to the yet third

    22 photograph in this regard?

    23 This is yet another photograph of the locale

    24 in downtown Zenica that the HVO shelled on the 19th.

    25 What is significant about this? It was



  4. 1 shelling that took place in the middle of the day in a

    2 heavy civilian traffic area with no military targets in

    3 the locale where these shells hit the area and, of

    4 course, the predictable result occurred, i.e., the

    5 death and injury to numerous Bosnian Muslim civilians.

    6 What has been the reaction of the HVO and the

    7 immediate reaction of Tihomir Blaskic? Of course, as

    8 is predictable, "It wasn't us. It was the Serbs."

    9 Well, let's analyse that. Let's take this by a process

    10 of deduction and exclude the possibilities of who it

    11 possibly could be.

    12 Let us move, if we could, again with the

    13 assistance of Mr. Hooper, if we could take these

    14 documents down, and I will address the map that is on

    15 the easel, which is map 469.

    16 Mr. President, Your Honours, it is beyond any

    17 doubt that the shell that hit Zenica at midday,

    18 approximately midday, on the 19th of April, 1993, was a

    19 122 shell. Major Baggesen testified to that. We had

    20 testimony from Witness W as well as a Bosnian Serb

    21 investigator, Judge Veseljak, who investigated that

    22 matter at the time. So we know that, in fact, a 122

    23 shell landed in Zenica, or numerous shells landed in

    24 Zenica, killing those civilians.

    25 The question on the table is: Who fired



  5. 1 that? Who fired the 122?

    2 Let's take this by a process of elimination,

    3 and let us examine this issue from the standpoint of

    4 the Defence witnesses.

    5 Early on in this case, the Defence called

    6 Blaskic's military intelligence analyst, an individual,

    7 now Brigadier Zeko -- I do believe, Judge Rodrigues,

    8 that might have been before you joined us -- but

    9 nevertheless, he was one of the early witnesses that

    10 was called by the Defence.

    11 In cross-examination by my colleague,

    12 Mr. Harmon, Mr. Zeko placed the artillery pieces

    13 belonging to the VRS, the artillery pieces belonging to

    14 the Bosnian Serb army. Where did he place them? He

    15 placed them at Location A and he placed them at

    16 Location B. These, of course, are the notations that

    17 were made by Brigadier Zeko.

    18 A follow-up question: "Brigadier Zeko, did

    19 the VRS have a 122 at either of these locations?" "No,

    20 they did not." Brigadier Zeko, the military

    21 intelligence commander, charged with knowing where

    22 enemy forces and enemy artillery is placed so he can

    23 advise Blaskic, testifies to this Chamber that there

    24 are no 122s in that location, either location.

    25 The next question asked by my colleague,



  6. 1 Mr. Harmon: "Tell us, Brigadier, what is the range

    2 distance between Point A, where the Serbs had an

    3 artillery piece, and Zenica?" His testimony is, 24 to

    4 25 kilometres. Now, why is that significant?

    5 Twenty-four to 25 kilometres is significant because

    6 another - another - Defence witness, Professor

    7 Jankovic, the individual who testified on the angle of

    8 fire, said that such a distance was well outside the

    9 range of a 122. The simple matter was that from

    10 Point A to Zenica, you couldn't reach with a 122 shell.

    11 Let us move to Point B. Point B, the second

    12 point where the Serbs had an artillery piece, what is

    13 the range or what is the distance between Point B and

    14 downtown Zenica? Approximately 23 to 24 kilometres.

    15 Again, well outside the range of a 122 and, of course,

    16 as Brigadier Zeko added, they didn't have a 122 there

    17 anyway, "they" being the VRS.

    18 Where did the Defence witnesses testify that

    19 the HVO did have a 122? What was the locale? The

    20 locale that they picked was right here (indicating).

    21 This particular locale is Pucarevo. Now,

    22 from this particular location to downtown Zenica is the

    23 direction of fire that Major Baggesen, Witness W, and

    24 Judge Veseljak concluded from the splash marks was the

    25 direction of fire. Not this angle and not this angle,



  7. 1 the angle from -- if I might point to it exactly? --

    2 the angle of fire coming from approximately this

    3 location (indicating).

    4 Now, what else do we know from this

    5 particular location? We also know from this location

    6 that the distance between Zenica and this locale where

    7 the HVO had their 122 piece is somewhere between 16 to

    8 18 kilometres, depending, if you move this mobile piece

    9 up and back.

    10 Now, this mobile piece, of course, as we have

    11 seen, is a piece that is taken from one location to

    12 another. It is carried around on the back of a truck.

    13 So when you place it at a particular location, after

    14 you fire it, according to Blaskic's own testimony, you

    15 don't keep that weapon in one locale, you move it

    16 around because, heaven knows, you don't want the enemy

    17 to key in on your artillery pieces by you keeping them

    18 there in an unsecured location for a significant period

    19 of time. But Marin tells us that, in fact, that

    20 122 piece was located there.

    21 Now, there's been much debate about the angle

    22 of fire and the mathematics that Witness W took on the

    23 date when the shells actually hit Zenica, and that with

    24 the angle of fire as testified to by Witness W,

    25 Professor Jankovic said, "Oh, it is impossible for a



  8. 1 shell to be fired from that locale with an angle of

    2 fire."

    3 Let's assume that Witness W made a mistake on

    4 his field mathematics that he took that day. Let us

    5 take us to the next question.

    6 Mr. Cayley asked Professor Jankovic,

    7 "Professor, if we had approximately a four-degree

    8 discrepancy, a four-degree error in that angle of fire,

    9 could that shell have reached?" What was his answer?

    10 "Yes. Yes." The shell could have reached from this

    11 location if the mathematics was four degrees in one

    12 direction, and certainly if that weapon had been moved

    13 up it could have reached as well.

    14 So what do we have? We have field

    15 calculations that -- based on what Witness W said are

    16 possibly erroneous, but with an adjustment of

    17 approximately four degrees the weapon could, in fact,

    18 reach there, the 122. We know, based on Marin's

    19 testimony, the chief of operations and at that point

    20 the deputy chief of staff of Blaskic, that, in fact,

    21 they did have a 122 at that location, and we know that

    22 the VRS did not have a 122 within range. The weapons

    23 that they did have were out of range and, in fact,

    24 those weapons weren't 122s at all.

    25 Now, assuming that the Bosnian Muslims didn't



  9. 1 shell themselves and murder their own civilians, which

    2 nobody has made that argument, the only conclusion is,

    3 and the conclusion of independent third parties on the

    4 ground such as the British Battalion, was that the HVO

    5 fired on Zenica on the 19th of April, 1993, and in a

    6 moment we will answer why.

    7 The answer why, Mr. President and Your

    8 Honours, finds itself in the rationale given to this

    9 Court by Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Watters, then

    10 Major Watters, the second in command of the Cheshire

    11 Regiment as part of the British Battalion.

    12 What did he tell us? On page 3409 -- now,

    13 mind you, this is at a time when the Bosnian Muslim

    14 offensive, the ABiH offensive is under way. What did

    15 Watters testify to? He said:

    16 A. Because shelling Zenica was going to

    17 achieve no tactical advantage to the

    18 forces in retreat into Vitez and

    19 Busovaca, HVO forces, against the

    20 onslaught of the BiH, and we could only

    21 assume that the HVO had fired their

    22 artillery into Zenica as a warning to

    23 the Muslim forces to stop attacking.

    24 Now, that is a rationale that was made on the

    25 ground by Major Watters, in the British Battalion, in



  10. 1 and around the 19th of April, 1993. They rejected

    2 Blaskic's explanation that the VRS had actually shelled

    3 Zenica, and concluded that the HVO had done it, and

    4 they concluded that they did it by saying, "If you

    5 continue this offensive, we are going to shell your

    6 cities and we can reach your civilians."

    7 Now, the question that comes up: Is this an

    8 isolated incident? Is this the only time that such an

    9 effort was conceived of and thought about by the HVO

    10 command and Blaskic? The answer is it is not. This

    11 event took place on the 19th of April, 1993. Let me

    12 take you up just several months in the chronology to

    13 the Stari Vitez and Vitez attack on the 18th of July of

    14 1993.

    15 You recall Blaskic's testimony that on the

    16 18th of July, 1993 Darko Kraljevic and others conducted

    17 an offensive against the ABiH and, of course, the ABiH

    18 responded. After that particular offensive by

    19 Kraljevic or the HVO was under way and then the ABiH

    20 responded, the ABiH was successful in repelling that

    21 attack.

    22 On the 20th of July, 1993, while the ABiH

    23 counter-offensive was under way, Darko Gelic makes a

    24 very interesting comment to Captain Lee Whitworth, the

    25 liaison officer of the British Battalion. Of course,



  11. 1 Captain Whitworth is in the second generation of the

    2 British Battalion, part of the Prince of Wales' Own

    3 Regiment of Yorkshire.

    4 But before we talk about that comment, let's

    5 ask a question. Who is Darko Gelic? Darko Gelic is

    6 Blaskic's hand-selected liaison officer to the British

    7 Battalion and to international agencies. This is

    8 Blaskic's man who goes out and takes care of business

    9 and passes on information for Blaskic.

    10 What does Gelic tell Whitworth on the

    11 20th of July, 1993? Because what he tells him is very,

    12 very probative of what the HVO intended on the shelling

    13 of Zenica on the 19th of April.

    14 On the 20 the of July, 1993, and this is in

    15 Exhibit 711, P711, Darko Gelic says this:

    16 "Darko Gelic, the three Op zone HVO liaison

    17 officer claimed that if the ABiH attacked Vitez, then

    18 the HVO will retaliate by shelling Zenica."

    19 Now, I submit to you, Your Honours, does

    20 anyone suspect that Darko Gelic came up with that

    21 strategy on his own? That he would tell the liaison

    22 officer for the British Battalion that the HVO would

    23 shell Zenica in July if he hadn't consulted and spoken

    24 with Blaskic? I submit to you no. That strategy, that

    25 strategy of curtailing any BiH offensive was well



  12. 1 ingrained in Blaskic's thinking and within the HVO.

    2 They had two cards in the deck that they were prepared

    3 to use if an ABiH onslaught took place. Actually,

    4 three.

    5 The first one, of course, is the shelling of

    6 Stari Vitez, which we will talk about in a few moments,

    7 which they did.

    8 The second one, of course, is the blowing up

    9 of the Vitez factory, which, of course, Blaskic

    10 threatened to do, in documents that we've seen.

    11 The third, and the one that we've seen

    12 repeated both in April and in July, is the threat

    13 against the town of Zenica and the civilian population

    14 in Zenica.

    15 There is no doubt that based on these three

    16 events that the strategy of Blaskic, in order to

    17 curtail the ABiH offensive into Vitez, is clear. One

    18 of the prongs that he was prepared to use and, in fact,

    19 on the 19th did use was the shelling of Zenica, a

    20 purely terrorist, criminal act designed to accomplish

    21 one specific goal, and that is to send the ABiH a

    22 message and that message is, "If you come in here we're

    23 going to get your civilians and we can reach them."

    24 If I may, before we move to the next topic, I

    25 would reflect on one point concerning the actual use of



  13. 1 artillery, and I think that Your Honours have to keep

    2 in mind that the use of artillery, barring smaller

    3 pieces that were designated to the brigades, the use of

    4 artillery by Blaskic's own testimony was under his sole

    5 command and control.

    6 Let us move on. Mr. President, Your Honours,

    7 one can not look at the particular event in Zenica and

    8 the shelling of Zenica in isolation, because many

    9 things happened. Numerous things happened on the 19th

    10 as attempts by the HVO to curtail the ABiH offensive.

    11 One of those most significant events and the

    12 most serious threat at this time was the threat that

    13 was conducted on the evening of the 19th to the 20th of

    14 April, 1993. That is later on, on the same day as the

    15 Zenica shelling, 19th of April, 1993, Dr. Muhamed

    16 Mujezinovic, was brought to the cinema building. The

    17 cinema building which is, of course, not only the place

    18 where civilians are incarcerated and from which they're

    19 taken out to dig trenches, but it's also, it's also the

    20 headquarters of the Viteska Brigade and Mario Cerkez.

    21 What happens that evening? Cerkez brings

    22 Mujezinovic in and, of course, Mujezinovic is not only

    23 a physician, he's also a political leader in Vitez, and

    24 he makes a series of threats to him. Cerkez, in the

    25 presence of Zvonko Cilic and various other members of



  14. 1 the HVO, brings Mujezinovic in and says, "Do you know

    2 what happened in Ahmici?" Mujezinovic says, "Yes, I'm

    3 aware of what happened in Ahmici." He says, "What I

    4 want you to do," and this is Cerkez speaking, "What I

    5 want you to do is go downstairs, get other leaders from

    6 the Bosnian Muslim community, and call 3rd Corps, and

    7 call Sarajevo, and call anybody you want and get them

    8 to stop the offensive. Get them to cease the ABiH

    9 offensive. And if you don't do that, I will kill the

    10 2.225 civilians that we currently have in custody."

    11 Now, when does this threat take place? This

    12 threat takes place outside the back door of Blaskic.

    13 By our estimates, it's approximately a one-minute

    14 walk. By his estimates, it's approximately a 40 to 50

    15 minute walk -- a 40 to 50 metre walk. These civilians,

    16 where this threat is taking place, is essentially in

    17 his backyard.

    18 Now, not only is Cerkez making this threat,

    19 but Blaskic's colleague and a person who he gets along

    20 with very well and consults with, Ivica Santic and Pero

    21 Skopljak, also make that same threat in the early

    22 morning hours of the 20th of April, 1993. I believe

    23 the record reflects it's somewhere in the area of 05.30

    24 or approximately 06.00 in the morning that Santic and

    25 Skopljak come back in and make the same threat. Ivo



  15. 1 Santic is, of course, the mayor of Vitez. Pero

    2 Skopljak is an HVO leader and HDZ party official.

    3 Just a reference back, Pero Skopljak is the

    4 individual that I spoke about yesterday, who, on

    5 approximately the latter part of October 1993, noted at

    6 a press conference that the HVO is the only authority

    7 in Vitez.

    8 Nevertheless, in their efforts to engage this

    9 cease-fire, what, in fact, do they do? They force

    10 Dr. Mujezinovic to sign a document.

    11 If we could move to the next exhibit?

    12 What we see here, Mr. President, Your Honours

    13 -- I'm not sure Your Honours can see this, but this is

    14 Exhibit 86, French on this side and the English on the

    15 right-hand side -- what we see is a compulsion by the

    16 HVO, Santic and others, to force Muhamed Mujezinovic to

    17 sign a document compelling him to what?

    18 "4. Both sides agree that in Vitez and

    19 Province 10, the Vance-Owen Plan should be

    20 implemented --"

    21 JUDGE JORDA: Just a moment. Can we please

    22 have the text on the ELMO? I do admire you for the big

    23 exhibits that you have made, but I think it would be

    24 advisable for the benefit of the public to have these

    25 documents on the ELMO.



  16. 1 Never mind then. Please continue.

    2 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, I can put the

    3 French copy on the ELMO.

    4 JUDGE JORDA: No. The interpreters don't

    5 have the text either, I am told.

    6 I am asking -- I can understand that the

    7 registrar cannot have all the exhibits at hand; it

    8 would take a lot of time. You have taken care, and I

    9 thank you for it, for these very large exhibits. When

    10 it is a map, we can see it on our monitor. So I don't

    11 see why this document cannot also be shown. It would

    12 allow the public to follow the debate more easily. I

    13 think this is a possible improvement that we can make,

    14 but we are not going to interrupt you, and please

    15 continue now, Mr. Prosecutor.

    16 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, just to assist the

    17 public and to assist Your Honours, we have put the

    18 French copy on the ELMO. We can flip back with the

    19 French and the English, as need be. Hopefully that

    20 will be of some assistance.

    21 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. That's very well

    22 like that. Thank you very much. That's fine.

    23 MR. KEHOE: Thank you, Mr. President.

    24 Now, let us go back. What do we see,

    25 Mr. President, Your Honours, in the midst of these



  17. 1 combat operations? What do we see are the desires of

    2 the HVO? We see once again their desire to implement

    3 the Vance-Owen Plan. At the possible threat to 2.225

    4 civilians and other individuals in custody, they want

    5 to implement the Vance-Owen Plan in their canton. That

    6 is the overriding concern.

    7 What do they say? "Both sides --" and this

    8 is point 4.

    9 "4. Both sides agree that in Vitez and

    10 Province 10, the Vance-Owen Plan should be implemented

    11 even before it is signed by the Serbian side. Also,

    12 the army commands shall retain their structure in

    13 conformity with the ethnic composition of the province

    14 and the municipality."

    15 Again, laced through everything that is going

    16 on within the HVO is the political and military desire

    17 to implement this plan in this canton. That explains

    18 in large part the effort that is taking place

    19 militarily on the ground that commenced on the 16th.

    20 Of course, this counter-offensive by the ABiH

    21 that is conducted on the 20th didn't subside, and there

    22 are a sequence of events of exactly what transpired on

    23 the 20th.

    24 Now, contrary to the testimony of the

    25 accused, the shelling continued on the 20th. He has



  18. 1 testified that there was very little shelling on the

    2 20th, and there is a good explanation as to why he

    3 decided to lie about that because of what exactly he

    4 and other members of the HVO did during the 20th and

    5 the use of human shields. Nevertheless, let us analyse

    6 his particular contention that there were no human

    7 shields.

    8 What was taking place on the 20th? The 20th

    9 saw yet another day in the counteroffensive by the ABiH

    10 of shelling of downtown Vitez. How do we know that?

    11 We know that, first and foremost, from Exhibit 187.

    12 That is three exhibits up, 187, which is an ECMM

    13 report.

    14 In this report dated the 20th of April, 1993,

    15 in point 3, ECMM wrote:

    16 "3. Ceasefire - Violations (unconfirmed).

    17 T34 tanks --"

    18 T34 being an old JNA-style tank.

    19 "-- were told to be in positions on the

    20 mountain road between Zenica and Vitez. Shelling

    21 HVO HQ and the PTT building in Vitez. HVO is said to

    22 be putting an ultimatum on Gacice, and after that

    23 failed, HVO is said to have started attacking the

    24 village."

    25 If we can just go into private session just



  19. 1 briefly, Mr. President, to refer to another small bit

    2 of testimony in this regard?

    3 (Private session)

    4 (redacted)

    5 (redacted)

    6 (redacted)

    7 (redacted)

    8 (redacted)

    9 (redacted)

    10 (redacted)

    11 (redacted)

    12 (redacted)

    13 (redacted)

    14 (redacted)

    15 (redacted)

    16 (redacted)

    17 (redacted)

    18 (redacted)

    19 (redacted)

    20 (redacted)

    21 (redacted)

    22 (redacted)

    23 (redacted)

    24 (redacted)

    25 (redacted)



  20. 1 (redacted)

    2 (redacted)

    3 (redacted)

    4 (redacted)

    5 (redacted)

    6 (redacted)

    7 (redacted)

    8 (redacted)

    9 (redacted)

    10 (redacted)

    11 (Open session)

    12 JUDGE JORDA: I think we can continue now.

    13 MR. KEHOE: Yes. Thank you, Mr. President.

    14 What was Blaskic's response to this

    15 continuous shelling in downtown Vitez on the 20th of

    16 April of 1993?

    17 If we can take a look at the exhibit that is

    18 on the ELMO, that is an exhibit that is a portion of

    19 Exhibit 45. What it depicts are three locales.

    20 Location A is the Hotel Vitez; Location B is, of

    21 course, the cinema where the prisoners were being kept

    22 and also Mario Cerkez's headquarters; and Location C,

    23 to the left of the letter "C," is the communications

    24 centre or the PTT building.

    25 If you recall from the ECMM report that we



  21. 1 just discussed, on this same day, the HVO had completed

    2 their attack on Gacice and had subdued Gacice, and from

    3 the testimony that Your Honours have heard, they took

    4 civilians and put them in various houses, I think it

    5 was approximately seven houses, in Gacice.

    6 What happens later on in the afternoon on the

    7 20th of April? Two hundred and forty-seven civilians,

    8 247 civilians are brought to downtown Vitez and are

    9 told to sit in the space next to the Hotel Vitez.

    10 If Your Honours view the ELMO, the overhead

    11 that is on the ELMO, the area that is circled and is

    12 designated number 1 is the area that was circled and

    13 designated by a witness, (redacted)

    14 (redacted)

    15 (redacted)

    16 (redacted)

    17 (redacted)

    18 (redacted) testified that the HVO soldier that brought

    19 them down makes a comment that, "Well, you know, now

    20 you're going to see what it's like to have people shell

    21 you." But more importantly, he says that, "I am going

    22 to come in and tell the commander that you are here."

    23 Now, who is the commander in the Hotel Vitez

    24 on the 20th of April, 1993? Who is the person who is

    25 in charge on the 20th of April, 1993? Certainly not



  22. 1 Mario Cerkez. That's not his headquarters. It is

    2 Blaskic's. It is Blaskic's headquarters.

    3 He testified to Your Honours that he was

    4 totally unaware of this gross violation of

    5 international humanitarian law. But interestingly

    6 enough, who was aware of it? His then acting deputy

    7 chief of staff and his chief of operations, Slavko

    8 Marin. Slavko Marin knew that those individuals were

    9 there. What did he tell us?

    10 On page 13554:

    11 Q. Brigadier, let's talk about these women

    12 and children that were taken back to

    13 Gacice.

    14 Because after they successfully acted as

    15 human shields around the Hotel Vitez, they were taken

    16 back to Gacice and stuffed back into several houses.

    17 I will continue on with this testimony:

    18 Q. Were they in downtown Vitez before

    19 they were taken back to Gacice?

    20 A. The village of Gacice is right next to

    21 the town of Vitez, and as far as I know,

    22 these civilians were in town, and I

    23 cannot say what the exact location was,

    24 I cannot say at this point. However,

    25 the town of Vitez is not a very big



  23. 1 town, so it could have been between the

    2 post office, the municipality building,

    3 the cinema building, et cetera.

    4 So he knows that these people are down

    5 there. Of course, Blaskic denies it. His right-hand

    6 man, the person he is operating with, stuck in the

    7 basement on these two telephones knows about it, but,

    8 of course, Blaskic does not. Because, of course, if he

    9 knew something about it, he would have to do something

    10 about it; and even if he found out after the fact about

    11 it, he would still have to punish somebody because of

    12 it, and, of course, he never stopped it because he knew

    13 about it, and even if he did know about it, no one was

    14 ever punished.

    15 It goes on:

    16 Q. Brigadier, on the 20th of April --

    17 And this, I'm sorry, is page 13565:

    18 Q. Brigadier, on the 20th of April did any

    19 member of the HVO come into the Hotel

    20 Vitez and tell you or Colonel Blaskic or

    21 any other officer in the headquarters

    22 that women and children were outside the

    23 Hotel Vitez at this location that is

    24 circled in Exhibit 158, the one that's

    25 on the ELMO? Did any soldier do that?



  24. 1 Very interesting response by Brigadier Marin:

    2 A. I am not aware of that, but I know that

    3 out of those civilians who were brought

    4 in, none were killed and none were

    5 wounded that day. That I do know.

    6 So he doesn't know about the individual

    7 soldier coming in to tell him that they're there, but

    8 he knows, he knows, that nobody was told and none of

    9 those people that were surrounding the Hotel Vitez were

    10 killed or injured that day.

    11 How does he know that? How does he know

    12 that? We are talking about a very small geographic

    13 area several metres away from the main headquarters

    14 where Blaskic is in charge. Both Marin and Blaskic

    15 knew full well that those civilians had been brought

    16 out there, knew full well the strategic and tactical

    17 reasons why they brought those civilians and surrounded

    18 the Hotel Vitez with those civilians on the 20th of

    19 April, 1993.

    20 I will note for Your Honours that during this

    21 offensive, this is the only instance in the entire war

    22 where civilians are brought to the Hotel Vitez. The

    23 only time. Two hundred and forty-seven civilians

    24 brought as human shields. The only time. And Marin

    25 knows about it and Blaskic does not. I submit to you



  25. 1 he lied and shaded the truth significantly in this

    2 regard once again because the consequences for Blaskic,

    3 of course, bring with it criminal sanctions.

    4 Let us continue on, because as we continue on

    5 we probe yet deeper and examine Blaskic's total

    6 disregard for the civilian population and for

    7 individuals who are ordered to combat or outside of

    8 combat and thereby should be protected under the Geneva

    9 Conventions.

    10 Where were the civilians and other

    11 individuals who were out of combat incarcerated

    12 commencing on the 16th of April, 1993? Two very

    13 interesting locations. At the Dubravica school and at

    14 the cinema building.

    15 The Dubravica school, up toward the front

    16 line, is not only the place where these individuals

    17 were incarcerated, individuals, civilians that were

    18 taken from Ahmici, and Santici, and Nadioci, for

    19 instance, but it is also the headquarters of the

    20 Vitezovi, a legitimate military target for any

    21 counter-offensive by the ABiH, and Blaskic knew that.

    22 Where is the second, and for the purposes of

    23 our discussion, a much more interesting location

    24 because of its proximity to his headquarters? The

    25 second locale where hundreds of civilians were being



  26. 1 kept at various times is the cinema building. You

    2 recall the testimony of various witnesses that some of

    3 these prisoners were in the basement and it got too

    4 crowded and some people went back up to the cinema

    5 building. This is the same cinema building that is

    6 approximately one minute away, by walking, from

    7 Blaskic's headquarters. The cinema building is also

    8 the same location that is Mario Cerkez's headquarters.

    9 It's also known, for the purposes of our discussion, as

    10 the Workers' University.

    11 If we can move to these photographs, if we

    12 can, on the easel.

    13 This is a similar photograph to the one that

    14 we viewed before. This is, again, a portion of

    15 Exhibit 45, and again, just for clarity's sake, "A" is

    16 the Hotel Vitez and "B" is the building that is both

    17 the cinema and what they call the Workers' University.

    18 It is a building that is connected, that has a

    19 figuration of a "T", if you will, with the Workers'

    20 University being the top of the "T" and the cinema

    21 building being the bottom part of the "T".

    22 Clearly, artillery fire directed at this

    23 legitimate military target, which it was, would have

    24 placed in serious jeopardy the numerous, the numerous

    25 civilian -- Bosnian Muslim civilian detainees who were



  27. 1 being incarcerated in the cinema building from which,

    2 of course, and we will talk for a moment, hundreds of

    3 them were taken to dig trenches all throughout the area

    4 of the Lasva Valley.

    5 Now, Blaskic knew two things very, very

    6 well. He knew the Geneva Conventions, and he knew the

    7 Protocols, and he knew what was a violation of the laws

    8 or customs of war, and he knew those things that were

    9 not. He was aware, when I asked him on

    10 cross-examination, of provision of Article 51(7) of

    11 Additional Protocol 1, which reads in part:

    12 "The presence or movements of the civilian

    13 population or individual civilians shall not be used to

    14 render certain points or areas immune from military

    15 operations, in particular in attempts to shield

    16 military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour

    17 or impede military operations. The Parties to the

    18 conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian

    19 population or individual civilians in order to attempt

    20 to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield

    21 military operations."

    22 Now, he was aware, by his own testimony, he

    23 knew that those civilians were in the cinema building.

    24 He testified he knew at least on the 17th. He actually

    25 knew on the 16th, but he knew, by his own testimony,



  28. 1 that they were there on the 17th. He knew that putting

    2 them in harm's way to protect a military target was

    3 against the Geneva Conventions and the Additional

    4 Protocols. He was also aware that the Workers'

    5 University had been the subject of attack.

    6 How did he know that? Let us turn to Exhibit

    7 327, Defence Exhibit 327. If we look at first --

    8 actually it's the second full paragraph.

    9 "Around 16.00 from the region of Vjetrenica,

    10 probably from the road, saddle Vjetrenica-Kuber, Muslim

    11 forces shelled the town area of Vitez from a tank,

    12 (probably T-34). The municipality building was hit,

    13 and the enemy was probably targeting the buildings of

    14 the Post Office, the Hotel, Workers' University as well

    15 as civilian facilities in town."

    16 Now, this is a report that he received on the

    17 19th of April, 1993, that Marin testified came from the

    18 Viteska Brigade. So he knew they were there on the

    19 17th. He knew it was a violation of the law, and he

    20 knew that the Workers' University was a target of

    21 attack. And what does he say? "I couldn't do anything

    22 about it. I had to wait for the ICRC to come in and

    23 take their names down. I had to keep them there in

    24 harm's way. I couldn't do anything about it. I

    25 couldn't move these civilians to another locale. I



  29. 1 couldn't move them to a safer location. That would

    2 have been a violation of ICRC's rules and

    3 regulations."

    4 I submit to Your Honour, he never, ever, ever

    5 gave that explanation to a member of the ICRC, and I

    6 defy any ICRC individual to come forward to say that,

    7 "We were against taking civilians to safer areas, to

    8 places that were out of harm's way."

    9 These people were in there on the 17th, at

    10 least by his own testimony on the 17th, and they didn't

    11 begin to get released until the 30th of April of 1993,

    12 and some even after that, into the first week of May.

    13 All that time, both in the Dubravica school and in the

    14 cinema building, they were in harm's way and subject to

    15 attack on legitimate military targets, and what did

    16 Blaskic do about it? Nothing. Nothing. He took no

    17 steps whatsoever to protect those civilians who were in

    18 harm's way.

    19 We have been focusing, of course, for most of

    20 our argument on the cinema, but obviously the same

    21 argument concerning not taking these civilians out of

    22 harm's way pertains to the numerous civilians from

    23 Ahmici and other villages around Ahmici that were

    24 incarcerated and detained in the Dubravica school.

    25 Now, let us move on to the next egregious



  30. 1 crime committed by Blaskic and the HVO, and that is the

    2 pervasive, the ever-pervasive and continuous pattern

    3 going back until at least January and continuing

    4 throughout the HVO campaigns in April and, of course,

    5 again in June, and that is the trench digging that

    6 Bosnian Muslim detainees are forced to conduct.

    7 Blaskic, by his own testimony, was informed,

    8 was informed on the 5th of February, 1993, in a meeting

    9 at which General Merdan participated that Bosnian

    10 Muslim detainees were being forced to dig trenches.

    11 He was told, on the 12th of February that two

    12 Bosnian Muslim detainees, told to the ICRC, by the way,

    13 a woman by the name of Iris, he was told that two

    14 Bosnian Muslim detainees taken out to dig trenches had

    15 been murdered. He says they were punished. He

    16 couldn't answer some very significant questions in that

    17 regard, the first one being, "What punishment did they

    18 receive?" and the second one being, "Were they removed

    19 from the HVO permanently?" He didn't know.

    20 What we do know as regards that significant

    21 event that he admits Bosnian Muslim detainees were

    22 killed, is that the commanders in Busovaca, such as

    23 Dusko Grubesic, were never dismissed or removed from

    24 command as a result of this practice, never. And guess

    25 what happens in April? Predictably, when Blaskic gives



  31. 1 the order to begin to dig trenches, a written order

    2 drafted by Slavko Marin that goes out to the brigades,

    3 what happens? Brigades and all units, excuse me. The

    4 brigades comply with that order, and there is written

    5 responses back from both of those brigades to Blaskic,

    6 that the Defence has submitted into evidence, that the

    7 trench lines have been dug. How have they been dug?

    8 Through the forced compelling of Bosnian Muslim

    9 detainees to dig those trenches.

    10 A witness testified to this Court that in

    11 February of 1993, every man, woman, and child in

    12 Busovaca knew that Bosnian Muslim detainees had been

    13 taken to dig trenches. It was such a massive practice

    14 that everyone knew. Of course, except Blaskic. He's

    15 in communication with his people in Busovaca but he

    16 doesn't know.

    17 History repeats itself predictably. In April

    18 of 1993, where the practice becomes yet more massive

    19 than that which was undertaken in February, hundreds of

    20 Bosnian Muslims are taken and forced to dig trenches.

    21 Detainees are forced to dig trenches. Taken from the

    22 Kaonik camp, for instance, taken from the cinema

    23 building about 30 or 40 metres away from his

    24 headquarters, taken from the Dubravica school, taken

    25 from the veterinarian station and the SDK building, all



  32. 1 being taken to dig trenches. And what's Blaskic's

    2 explanation? He don't know nothin' about nothin'.

    3 That's nonsense.

    4 There is a key rationale as to what the HVO

    5 is all about, and the rationale that was set forth by

    6 the warden of the Kaonik camp, Zlatko Aleksovski

    7 explains exactly what the HVO was doing when they were

    8 forcing these Bosnian Muslims to dig trenches.

    9 If I could, if I will, Mr. Hooper, if you

    10 could put this chart back up on the easel.

    11 This, of course, Mr. President, is again part

    12 of Mr. McLeod's report, the ECMM report that he took in

    13 May, 1993. It is part of Exhibit 242. What we have

    14 done is blow up a portion of the interview that

    15 Mr. McLeod conducted with Zlatko Aleksovski, the warden

    16 of the Kaonik military prison, and what does he say?

    17 He is complaining to Mr. McLeod about various

    18 incidences. He says:

    19 "The 5th is the kind of work that the

    20 prisoners have to do because I know that the Geneva

    21 Conventions do not allow prisoners to be taken for any

    22 work if their lives are in danger. I have been warned

    23 about that by the ICRC as well.

    24 "But I am not the only one responsible for

    25 this because I just carry out orders. The brigade



  33. 1 commanders in Busovaca and Vitez give them. Not that I

    2 really want to avoid my responsibility, because I am

    3 not the one who releases people to do the work. In

    4 order to clear it up, I went with Beatrice of the ICRC

    5 to the commander in Busovaca, where she protested for

    6 the people to be taken to work under such conditions.

    7 "She was given the answer I almost completely

    8 agree with. We here actually do not have enough people

    9 to do the security jobs. Somebody has to dig the

    10 trenches, and it happened that the men to do that were

    11 the prisoners. On the contrary, it would happen that

    12 Busovaca would be occupied. I do not need to explain

    13 what would happen if Mujahedin occupied it. So in a

    14 way, the Muslims protected Busovaca."

    15 So here we have direct subordinates of

    16 Blaskic, his two brigade commanders in Busovaca and

    17 also in Vitez, going to Kaonik camp and taking Bosnian

    18 Muslim detainees out to dig trenches throughout the

    19 area. This is not a work platoon. This is not some

    20 work detail that has been set up by the defence

    21 department as Blaskic testified about. It's nothing

    22 like that. These are detainees that have been taken

    23 out to dig trenches, and the reason given by Aleksovski

    24 is the reason employed by Blaskic, "We need to dig

    25 trenches. We don't have enough soldiers to dig these



  34. 1 trenches, so we are going to use these detainees."

    2 That's the reason, a very cold, rational reason, which

    3 also happens to be a violation of International

    4 Humanitarian Law.

    5 The trench digging, of course, Mr. President

    6 and Your Honours, was pervasive and continued. It

    7 didn't take place just in the Vitez area. We need only

    8 go to the testimony of Father Pervan, another Defence

    9 witness. Father Pervan was a Defence witness who

    10 testified about numerous things. Father Pervan was a

    11 priest, a Catholic priest from the Kiseljak area.

    12 What was going on in the Kiseljak area? What

    13 was taking place in Kiseljak was the same thing that

    14 was taking place in the Lasva Valley, and that is the

    15 forced -- or forcing Bosnian Muslim detainees and

    16 civilians to dig trenches.

    17 I think the view or the explanation given to

    18 Father Pervan is instructive, because it parallels that

    19 which was given by Zlatko Aleksovski in May of 1993,

    20 and I am reading Father Pervan's testimony at 14523:

    21 A. Yes, trench-digging I consider to be

    22 wrong, just as I consider the war to

    23 be wrong.

    24 Q. Did you ever raise concern, the concerns

    25 that you had, with the HVO command in



  35. 1 Kiseljak about the use of Muslim men for

    2 forced trench digging?

    3 A. Yes, I spoke about that, and I received

    4 the following answer, "We need trenches

    5 in order to remain, and let them dig

    6 it. We give them cigarettes and

    7 alcohol. Nobody is mistreating them or

    8 beating them while they are doing this

    9 work, and so, they are not, they are

    10 alone. The Croats are there, too, and

    11 they are escorted." That was the

    12 answer that I heard several times.

    13 The testimony that Your Honours heard, of

    14 course, throughout this trial, is that civilians that

    15 were on the front lines digging trenches were, in fact,

    16 beaten; and civilians, Bosnian Muslim detainees that

    17 were forced to dig trenches, were, in fact, killed

    18 while they were performing this ever-dangerous work.

    19 And the explanation given by Colonel Morsink and the

    20 rationale given by Colonel Morsink as to why the HVO

    21 did this is instructive and compelling. The HVO forced

    22 Bosnian Muslim detainees to dig trenches on the front

    23 line for one reason: It was dangerous. It was very

    24 dangerous.

    25 Colonel Morsink reasoned that they forced



  36. 1 them to do this because it would put them in harm's way

    2 and they wouldn't expose their own personnel and their

    3 own soldiers to that danger. That's the reason they

    4 did it. And no one was ever punished for this

    5 practice, what once began in earnest in April of 1993,

    6 and no one was punished, disciplined, sent to gaol,

    7 dismissed as a result of this practice; and lo and

    8 behold, if we move ahead yet again several months to

    9 September of 1993, we see Blaskic doing the same

    10 thing: compelling Bosnian Muslim civilians to dig

    11 trenches on the front lines.

    12 If we could turn to three exhibits that we

    13 addressed towards the end of Blaskic's testimony?

    14 Those exhibits are Exhibits 715, 716, and 717.

    15 This is a series of documents that we

    16 addressed towards the end of Blaskic's

    17 cross-examination, that he, of course, did not tell the

    18 truth about until he was shown these documents, and the

    19 first one is a document that is dated the 10th of

    20 September of 1993 that reflects on the third full

    21 paragraph -- if we can go up with that, Kirsten -- and

    22 this deals with the forced work units:

    23 "Two members of the work unit were killed

    24 while at work and two were wounded."

    25 I will not read the entire document, but I



  37. 1 would like to turn to the last page of this document.

    2 I would like Your Honours to keep in mind that Blaskic

    3 testified on direct examination that he never took or

    4 never had individuals going to front-line positions to

    5 dig trenches. That, of course, was before this

    6 document was shown to him.

    7 This is a document, of course, that is

    8 written on the heels of the Grbavica offensive that

    9 Blaskic conducted on the 7th and 8th of September of

    10 1993. The Grbavica feature was taken by the HVO forces

    11 on September the 8th, 1993, and this document reads as

    12 follows. If we can focus in on that top paragraph?

    13 "On 8 September 1993, a verbal order was

    14 issued by Colonel Blaskic to engage a minimum of 100

    15 people from the work units to work on the consolidation

    16 and digging-in on the first defence lines on the

    17 Jardol-Divjak-Grbavica axis towards Sadovace."

    18 The bottom line in that paragraph:

    19 "The remaining personnel are to dig in at

    20 the first defence line."

    21 Now, this is an order by Blaskic putting

    22 these work units on a front-line position; not in some

    23 back-line position to dig trenches, not in some

    24 back-line position to dig dugouts. This is an order

    25 that is given immediately after the combat in Grbavica



  38. 1 ends. These are first-line trenches on the front line

    2 that Blaskic sends them to. And lo and behold, look

    3 what happens?

    4 If we go to the bottom part of that

    5 paragraph, the bottom part of the last paragraph.

    6 "Some members of the second group were

    7 abused and beaten by some soldiers which can be

    8 established on the basis of statements of the

    9 commanders of the work unit."

    10 "Beaten and abused" in September of 1993. I

    11 ask Your Honours to hearken back to the testimony of

    12 numerous witnesses from April and May of 1993 who were

    13 beaten and abused while being forced to dig trenches on

    14 the front line, and I ask the question once again that

    15 keeps coming back, because it is inescapable, as to

    16 what would have happened to these individuals who were

    17 killed or beaten and abused in September had Blaskic

    18 punished somebody, punished just somebody for beating

    19 or abusing or killing a Bosnian Muslim detainee who was

    20 forced to dig trenches in April of 1993? He didn't do

    21 it. He didn't do it because he didn't want to do it.

    22 And as a result of that, he signalled to his troops

    23 that this was okay, and, in fact, he ordered them to go

    24 to the front lines, which, in fact, they did.

    25 The next document, and we will take 716 last,



  39. 1 the next document being 717, reflects a series of

    2 individuals which are clearly Muslims by their names,

    3 although Blaskic says they're Gypsies, Muslims all

    4 being forced into work platoons.

    5 And the last document that I would like to

    6 talk about is a document on the 20th of September,

    7 1993, which again, in accord with the verbal request of

    8 Commander Tihomir Blaskic, yet more individuals are

    9 taken to a front-line position to dig trenches.

    10 If I may for one moment, Mr. President,

    11 before we complete this document before the break, I

    12 would just like to go into private session on Exhibit

    13 716.

    14 (Private session)

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    13 --- Recess taken at 11.28 a.m.

    14 --- On resuming at 11.58 a.m.

    15 (Open session)

    16 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have

    17 the accused brought in. Please be seated.

    18 (The accused entered court)

    19 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Mr. Prosecutor, you

    20 may continue.

    21 MR. KEHOE: Thank you, Mr. President.

    22 Mr. President and Your Honours, the next issue to be

    23 addressed is, of course, in addition to the burnings

    24 and killings we have any number of expulsions of the

    25 Bosnian Muslim population that took place throughout



  46. 1 the Central Bosnia Operative Zone.

    2 By Blaskic's testimony himself, in

    3 approximately March of 1993, approximately 60 per cent

    4 of the Muslim population wanted to depart the Kiseljak

    5 municipality. One need only ask the question: "Why?"

    6 But that displacement and expulsion of the Bosnian

    7 Muslim population, of course, increased in earnest

    8 after the commencement of hostilities on the 16th of

    9 April, 1993.

    10 We need only take a case in point of what

    11 happened to those civilians from Gacice, those

    12 civilians that we were talking about earlier today that

    13 had been taken and placed around the Hotel Vitez, which

    14 of course Blaskic knew about. What happened to those

    15 civilians when they returned to Gacice? Were they

    16 permitted to conduct their lives as normal? Of course

    17 not. They were kept in approximately seven houses,

    18 jammed together, and then ultimately they were taken on

    19 trucks by the HVO and taken, as so many other Bosnian

    20 Muslims that we've heard about, they were taken to the

    21 mountain road going to Zenica, taken to a checkpoint

    22 and told to walk across no-man's land and walk into

    23 Zenica.

    24 How many of those individual Muslims were

    25 expelled? I need only recall the testimony of Sefik



  47. 1 Pezer, one of the individuals who lived actually in the

    2 town of Vitez itself. After he was expelled from

    3 Vitez, he had occasion to visit the Red Cross facility

    4 in Zenica. He was told of thousands, and he met any

    5 number of those individuals who had been expelled from

    6 the Vitez area during the time frame commencing on the

    7 16th of April of 1993.

    8 Blaskic knew about this, and his knowledge

    9 and his failure to do anything about it was pursuant to

    10 an organised plan.

    11 If I may briefly go into private session in

    12 this regard, Mr. President, I would appreciate it.

    13 (Private session)

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    11 (Open session)

    12 JUDGE JORDA: Let's continue now, please, in

    13 public session. Please continue, Mr. Prosecutor.

    14 MR. KEHOE: Yes, Mr. President. As we move

    15 into May, Mr. President, Your Honours, we see a

    16 reduction in the hostilities in the Lasva Valley area

    17 and an eruption of those hostilities and attacks by the

    18 HVO in other locales, specifically in Mostar.

    19 As of the 9th of May, 1993, the HVO attacked

    20 the city of Mostar, and that encirclement and siege of

    21 Mostar remained in place until, I believe,

    22 approximately the 27th of February of 1994. Of course,

    23 in that instance, as in others, thousands of Bosnian

    24 Muslim civilians were detained and numerous Bosnian

    25 Muslim civilians -- hundreds of Bosnian Muslim



  53. 1 civilians were killed.

    2 While we move into June, a different sequence

    3 of events transpires. The tide begins to change in

    4 Central Bosnia. We begin to see, in June of 1993, an

    5 offensive taking place by the army of

    6 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the area of Travnik. The army of

    7 Bosnia-Herzegovina successfully takes Travnik. The

    8 offensive that is going on at the same time is an

    9 offensive that takes place down in the Kiseljak area,

    10 where the attacks take place in villages such as Han

    11 Ploca, Tulica, and other areas in that locale where the

    12 Bosnian Muslims are attacked by HVO forces operating in

    13 conjunction with the VRS, with the Bosnian Serb army.

    14 This is a very interesting development, as we look at

    15 the timing of it.

    16 Now, Blaskic would have you believe that he

    17 saw very little of Kiseljak during this time frame.

    18 That is, of course, not the case. We, of course,

    19 direct the Court to the testimony of Brigadier Duncan,

    20 who notes that he and the other British Battalion

    21 brought Blaskic to Kiseljak on the 29th of May, 1993,

    22 initially for a meeting at the U.N., which was very

    23 brief and meaningless, according to Brigadier Duncan.

    24 And thereafter, Blaskic, with Milivoj Petkovic and

    25 Ivica Rajic, go off to the Kiseljak barracks for a



  54. 1 meeting and meet for several hours, through the balance

    2 of the business day.

    3 As we move into June, we see a sequence of

    4 events in various locales involving the Bosnian Serb

    5 army and the HVO, and the common thread in all of those

    6 locales is Blaskic. In mid June, we see the VRS, as I

    7 noted -- I'm talking about the 12th and 13th of June --

    8 the VRS and the HVO attacking Bosnian Muslim villages

    9 in Tulica and Han Ploca together with the VRS offering

    10 artillery support in those villages. As with so many

    11 others, we have the time-honoured tradition of killing

    12 civilians and non-combatants, burning of homes,

    13 destruction of mosques.

    14 In the Travnik area, we have HVO soldiers

    15 moving, who were retreating, moving through VRS lines

    16 with civilians, in through the civilians, and if we

    17 look at an exhibit such as Exhibit 744, a document that

    18 comes from the Krajina Corps, the commander the Krajina

    19 Corps notes, in pertinent part:

    20 "You may provide fire support for HVO forces

    21 in requested areas."

    22 So in and around the locale in Travnik, the

    23 HVO is participating with the VRS, and that's not the

    24 only locale. There is combat ensuing up in the Zepce

    25 area. In the Zepce area, the HVO is again operating in



  55. 1 conjunction with the VRS in attacks against the ABiH.

    2 Now, the question to be raised is: Who is

    3 the commander in Zepce and Travnik and in Kiseljak?

    4 Who is the common person? Certainly not Ivica Rajic.

    5 The common person and common commander is the defendant

    6 Blaskic, and I will note that in a document that the

    7 Defence put in evidence, which is an interview of

    8 General Alagic, General Alagic refers to conversations

    9 and communications that Blaskic was having on regular

    10 bases with VRS commanders on the Vlasic feature.

    11 Nevertheless, as we move on, we again have

    12 the time-honoured tradition in the attacks in June of

    13 1993 in Kiseljak where civilians are detained, they are

    14 again beaten and abused at the school in downtown

    15 Kiseljak as well as the Kiseljak barracks, and those

    16 individuals are taken relentlessly to dig trenches

    17 throughout the area.

    18 As of the 16th of June, there is a cease-fire,

    19 a tripartite cease-fire, and after that, a joint command

    20 is set up, which we will talk about at another

    21 juncture, where Blaskic and Hadzihasanovic meet with

    22 Brigadier Duncan and Ambassador Thebault to discuss the

    23 protection of the civilian population, and if Blaskic

    24 didn't know that all these civilians in Kiseljak were

    25 being abused prior to these meetings, after those



  56. 1 meetings on the 19th, the 21st, and the 28th of June of

    2 1993, he certainly knew then that civilians were still

    3 being arrested, that civilians were still being taken

    4 out to dig trenches, that the Kiseljak mosque was

    5 destroyed, et cetera. Of course, consistent with this

    6 prior conduct, nothing happens.

    7 In response to all this, as we move into

    8 July, we have the interesting attack of the 18th of

    9 July, 1993, on Stari Vitez. What did Blaskic tell us

    10 about Stari Vitez? He testified that this was an

    11 attack that was conducted solely by Darko Kraljevic and

    12 the Vitezovi and it was contrary to his orders and he

    13 didn't know anything about it until he got back to

    14 Vitez at 1800 hours and the entire time he was down

    15 with the priest from Busovaca, going to mass and having

    16 lunch, and he was totally unaware of the day's events.

    17 Interesting story, but, of course, it's not true.

    18 How do we know it's not true? We know it's

    19 not true from the account of exactly what transpired,

    20 and I turn Your Honours' attentions to Exhibit 708, and

    21 708 is a military information summary that chronicles

    22 what transpired on the 18th of July, 1993; and contrary

    23 to Blaskic's testimony where he allegedly was

    24 criticised for not giving artillery support to the HVO

    25 troops, let us read what the British Battalion, that



  57. 1 was on location at the time, noted.

    2 "On the 18th of July at 0045 in the

    3 morning --"

    4 0045 in the morning.

    5 "-- an intense barrage of the Muslim area

    6 began and involved occasional multi-barrel rocket

    7 launchers and artillery fire as well as mortars, and

    8 the fighting has continued throughout the day."

    9 There is a commentary by Darko Gelic, the

    10 ever-present Darko Gelic, who is Blaskic's liaison

    11 officer. I ask the Court to look at this comment that

    12 Darko Gelic gives to Captain Whitworth, in light of

    13 Blaskic's testimony that he doesn't know anything

    14 that's taking place in this attack. Darko Gelic, the

    15 Operative Zone Central Bosnia liaison officer to

    16 BritBat has confirmed that the HVO are attacking Stari

    17 Vitez and that the artillery barrage was the

    18 preliminary phase.

    19 Now, how does he know that? How does he know

    20 that this artillery barrage, commencing at 0045 --

    21 artillery which, by the way, is under the control of

    22 Blaskic -- but how does he know that this artillery

    23 barrage is the initial phase of an attack? If he is

    24 Blaskic's liaison officer, he's not even supposed to

    25 know it's going to be taking place. It defies logic.



  58. 1 Gelic knew that the artillery attack was

    2 taking place and that it was a preliminary phase

    3 because that was the plan. That was the plan that

    4 Blaskic ordered and that was the plan that was

    5 undertaken.

    6 Likewise, this is not only Darko Kraljevic

    7 and the Vitezovi that received casualties as a result

    8 of this. If we examine Exhibits P758 to P763 as well

    9 as the actual death reports that the Defence put in,

    10 D345, we see individuals killed from the Viteska

    11 Brigade, the Vitezovi, as well as the military police,

    12 and I believe that Exhibit 345, the Defence exhibit,

    13 also puts individuals from Tvrtko II, another special

    14 purposes unit, in the fray.

    15 So this was hardly an attack that was taking

    16 place merely with the Vitezovi; it was a coordinated

    17 attack by various units of the HVO that are operating

    18 at the same time in concert with artillery support, as

    19 most military operations that take place undergo:

    20 First an artillery barrage, and then an offensive

    21 barrage by these four units.

    22 To argue that Blaskic is the only person that

    23 didn't know this was going to happen and that it did

    24 happen is simply not true. All these units and their

    25 unit commanders knew about it, Blaskic's LO, liaison



  59. 1 officer, knew about it. What does the Court have to

    2 conclude? That he knew about it. He knew about it

    3 too.

    4 What he doesn't want to admit and he doesn't

    5 want to admit and the reason he doesn't want to admit

    6 that he was involved in this operation to subdue Stari

    7 Vitez once and for all: because it was a massive

    8 attack on a civilian population. It was not only a

    9 massive attack on a civilian population that was also

    10 used, it was an attack that was indiscriminate in its

    11 nature.

    12 If you would put the next exhibit on the

    13 easel, Mr. Hooper, which is a ...

    14 What is this, Your Honours? This is a

    15 photograph of something that is called a "baby," and

    16 what this is the outside of a fire extinguisher that is

    17 stuffed with fertiliser, benzene or some type of

    18 accelerant, petrol, and it is launched and fired. What

    19 is the problem with this particular piece of weaponry

    20 or ordnance, if you will? You can't direct it. It

    21 fires indiscriminately.

    22 If Your Honours examine the testimony of

    23 Captain Bower that was led by my colleague, Mr. Cayley,

    24 he will tell you how these things actually -- what

    25 direction they fire in when they land. They can't be



  60. 1 guided. They can be given a general direction, but you

    2 don't know exactly when they're going to come down and

    3 where they're going to come down. Why?

    4 Because aerodynamically, they're not attached with the

    5 type of fins that we normally see on ordnance that is

    6 put on a mortar shell or is even put on a bomb that is

    7 sent out of a bomber. In any event, it is a type of

    8 ordnance that is totally indiscriminate. And what

    9 Blaskic and his troops did was fire hundreds of these

    10 things into Stari Vitez over the course of the war,

    11 many, many, many of which were fired on the 18th of

    12 July of 1993.

    13 What does Blaskic know? Blaskic knows full

    14 well that firing such a type of ordnance into a

    15 civilian-populated area is a crime. So he can't tell

    16 you he was there. And that's why, that's the reason

    17 why he says he's down in Busovaca and knows nothing

    18 about an operation about which his liaison officer is

    19 fully informed.

    20 I will note, Mr. President and Your Honours,

    21 this is the same liaison officer, if I might remind the

    22 Court, who, two days after this attack on Stari Vitez,

    23 noted that if the ABiH offensive continued, that they

    24 were going to attack Zenica.

    25 The next sequence of events that we move



  61. 1 into, Your Honours, goes to Grbavica, the attack on the

    2 town of Grbavica, the feature next to the British camp

    3 that took place on the 7th and the 8th of September of

    4 1993. What do we know about that particular attack?

    5 We know several things about that attack from

    6 Blaskic's own testimony. We know first and foremost

    7 that he planned it. He, with his commanders, selected

    8 the troops. He was the one who was out on the ground

    9 examining this operation while the entire matter was

    10 under way. There's no allegation that he was in the

    11 basement of the Hotel Vitez, there is no allegation he

    12 was at church in Busovaca or home in Austria or down in

    13 Grude. He was there when this took place.

    14 Who did he employ for this combat operation?

    15 Well, certainly he employed members of the Viteska

    16 Brigade and certainly there were members of the

    17 Vitezovi involved as well. You only need look at

    18 Exhibit 250 where the Vitezovi acknowledge that they

    19 were, in fact, involved. Of course, when this

    20 particular attack was conducted, nobody in the Vitezovi

    21 was ever punished, disciplined, dismissed, or anything

    22 else for crimes such as the truck bomb.

    23 Who else was involved? The 3rd Light Assault

    24 Battalion was involved. And who is the 3rd Light

    25 Assault Battalion? The 3rd Light Assault Battalion is



  62. 1 the second generation of the Jokeri, the military

    2 police unit that had conducted the atrocities and were

    3 involved in the atrocities in Ahmici. Let me just take

    4 you back and just take you briefly through the course

    5 of events.

    6 The Jokeri existed through approximately the

    7 latter part of July of 1993 and early August. From

    8 Blaskic's own testimony, the 4th Military Police

    9 Battalion was taken over by Marinko Palavra, (redacted)

    10 (redacted), and they established an

    11 anti-terrorist unit called the 3rd Light Assault

    12 Battalion, and the members from the Vitezovi became

    13 part of the 3rd Light Assault Battalion.

    14 Now, when Lee Whitworth examined the soldiers

    15 that were involved in this Grbavica attack, he

    16 recognised these soldiers as members of the Jokeri. In

    17 addition to that, Palavra conceded that the 3rd Light

    18 Assault Battalion or the Jokeri were probably involved

    19 in Grbavica because his guys were not involved.

    20 Last but not least, we know that the 3rd

    21 Light Assault Battalion of the military police were

    22 involved because Pasko Ljubicic, in Exhibit P357, three

    23 years a military police, says so, that they were

    24 involved as a combat unit in Grbavica.

    25 What happened in Grbavica was similar to what



  63. 1 happened in numerous other locales.

    2 The take-over and the initial attack on

    3 Grbavica was a legitimate attack; it was a legitimate

    4 military objective. It was a place at which the ABiH

    5 had had positions and were denying access along the

    6 road to the HVO. So there was no question that Blaskic

    7 had a legitimate reason for attacking that feature.

    8 But it is not the attack on the feature that

    9 is the crime, it is what happened thereafter and some

    10 of the methods that he employed while he was in there.

    11 After these particular locales were secured,

    12 what happened was the HVO soldiers burnt the houses,

    13 looted the houses and ultimately the entire village was

    14 burnt.

    15 If we could move to the next series of

    16 photographs.

    17 If you recall the testimony of Captain Lee

    18 Whitworth concerning this event, Captain Whitworth went

    19 down to Vitez while the attack was under way on the

    20 8th of September, 1993. In the transcript or in his

    21 testimony he notes various pieces of interesting

    22 information. On his way back shortly after lunchtime,

    23 while the attack was still under way, he drove back

    24 towards Grbavica and he examined the skyline which was

    25 burning.



  64. 1 I believe we have another photograph that

    2 also depicts that, Mr. Hooper.

    3 This is a similar photograph, of Captain

    4 Whitworth, taken on the 8th that also depicts the

    5 burning of Grbavica.

    6 Now, contrary to Blaskic's statement, Captain

    7 Whitworth said the houses were burning before the

    8 attack ever finished. What Blaskic testified to was a

    9 handful of houses were burnt while the combat was under

    10 way. Put that in stark contrast to the testimony of

    11 Captain Whitworth who that said that that was simply

    12 not the case. Houses were burning and burning during

    13 the course of that day.

    14 What happened after that? If we could move

    15 to the next several photographs, Mr. Hooper.

    16 Again, this is another photograph of HVO

    17 soldiers. This one, of course, carrying a radio that

    18 he looted from one of the houses.

    19 Let's go to the last photograph. Yet another

    20 photograph of HVO soldiers carrying looted weapons.

    21 This is 433/24. Again, a different soldier carrying a

    22 radio which he obviously looted from the location.

    23 So what we have is burning of houses after

    24 the HVO had successfully secured the feature, burning

    25 houses that was totally unnecessary, sending, of



  65. 1 course, as Captain Whitworth noted, the message to the

    2 Bosnia Muslims, "Don't return to Grbavica." They

    3 looted those houses and certainly looting took place by

    4 the civilian population thereafter.

    5 One item I forgot, during the course of this

    6 testimony, that was employed by the HVO, that Blaskic

    7 forgot to mention, and that is the next photograph,

    8 which is a photograph 433/28, a photograph taken by

    9 Captain Whitworth, which is a baby in mid flight, being

    10 launched onto the houses in Grbavica.

    11 So in this operation that Blaskic plans, they

    12 use illegal, unguided ordinance to attack homes, and we

    13 have that in a photograph taken by a Captain of the

    14 British Battalion while the weapon was in mid flight.

    15 We thereafter have the time-honoured tradition of HVO

    16 soldiers securing premises, burning the houses

    17 unnecessarily. Of course, not necessary militarily.

    18 And last but not least, the looting of the houses

    19 thereafter.

    20 What, of course, do we then know after that?

    21 We then know that on the same day Blaskic, the 8th of

    22 September, 1993, Blaskic orders that civilians be taken

    23 to front line positions just the other side of Grbavica

    24 to begin digging front line trenches.

    25 So if we look at this particular operation



  66. 1 that Blaskic himself planned, his crimes are numerous.

    2 Using illegal ordinance, permitting his soldiers to

    3 burn Bosnian Muslim houses and directing their attack

    4 against Muslim houses contrary to any military

    5 necessity, the looting of those houses and, of course,

    6 forcing civilians, Bosnian Muslim civilians to dig

    7 trenches on front line positions, and this, by his own

    8 testimony, is an operation that is planned by him and

    9 him alone.

    10 Suffice it to say it was all predictable. He

    11 uses the second generation of the Jokeri, he uses the

    12 Vitezovi, all these units that he said he's complained

    13 about in combat operations, knowing full well what they

    14 had done in the past, knowing full well what they were

    15 capable of, and lo and behold they repeated their

    16 conduct yet again.

    17 So we come to an end of this portion of the

    18 final argument before I turn the floor over to my

    19 colleague Mr. Cayley.

    20 The bottom line in all this, Mr. President

    21 and Your Honours, is that when all is said and done, by

    22 the latter part of 1993, there were virtually no

    23 Muslims left in Vitez, in the area controlled by the

    24 HVO. No Muslims left in the area controlled by the HVO

    25 in Busovaca and fewer Muslims still in Kiseljak, in the



  67. 1 area controlled by the HVO, except possibly in the

    2 village of Rotilj which had been described by the UNHCR

    3 as a concentration camp, where hundreds of Muslims were

    4 stuffed into that little village.

    5 The Muslims were gone. The plan had worked,

    6 they had been evicted from the area, and the tool

    7 implemented that policy was the accused Tihomir

    8 Blaskic.

    9 I can only hearken back to the comment Franjo

    10 Tudjman made to the Right Honourable Paddy Ashdown on

    11 the 6th of May of 1995, when Ashdown asked Tudjman what

    12 was to become of the Muslims and the Muslim state, and

    13 Tudjman responded, "There will be no Muslim state."

    14 That was the plan, that was the design, and

    15 that was what Blaskic was sent to the Central Bosnia

    16 Operative Zone to do.

    17 I thank you at this point, Your Honours. I

    18 don't know, with the schedule, if should we turn the

    19 floor over to Mr. Cayley.

    20 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you, Mr. Kehoe. In

    21 principle, we should continue until 1.00 and, of

    22 course, it is up to the Judges to give the floor to the

    23 next speaker, and we welcome him. Mr. Cayley.

    24 MR. CAYLEY: Good afternoon, Mr. President,

    25 Your Honours, counsel. My task in the closing argument



  68. 1 is to address you on the special legal and evidential

    2 requirements in those counts in the indictment which

    3 are charged under Article 2 of the Statute, the grave

    4 breaches provisions.

    5 I will address you both on the most recent

    6 law of the Tribunal and the evidence presented in this

    7 case pertaining to those counts, and they are Count 5,

    8 wilful killing; Count 8, wilfully causing great

    9 suffering or serious injury; Count 11, extensive

    10 destruction of property; Count 15, inhumane treatment;

    11 Count 17, taking civilians as hostages; Count 19, also

    12 inhumane treatment but in respect of conduct which is

    13 discreet when compared to the evidential foundation for

    14 Count 15.

    15 If I could first of all hand out a binder.

    16 My production is a rather more low-budget affair than

    17 Mr. Kehoe. I don't have any large photographs to show

    18 you. I've gathered some exhibits which I think should

    19 be brought to your attention, and I've prepared a file

    20 for each of you and for the Defence. They are not in

    21 the order in which they were admitted into evidence, so

    22 I've tabulated them, and I'll refer to the tabs along

    23 the side when addressing you on the particular

    24 exhibit.

    25 What are the special legal requirements or



  69. 1 ingredients which are a prerequisite for the

    2 application of Article 2? Most recently, they have

    3 been enumerated in the judgement of the Appeals Chamber

    4 in the Dusko Tadic case, and I would refer you to

    5 paragraph 80 of the Appeals judgement.

    6 The requirement is twofold. The conflict

    7 between the parties must be international in nature.

    8 The second requirement is that the grave breaches must

    9 be perpetrated against persons and property defined as

    10 protected by any of the four Geneva Conventions

    11 of 1949.

    12 Let me address you on the first requirement,

    13 that the conflict between the parties must be

    14 international in nature.

    15 In a case such as the instant case before

    16 you, where the Defence assert that there was an

    17 internal armed conflict taking place between the

    18 Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Croats, I would submit

    19 to you that there are two primary areas of

    20 consideration for you.

    21 The first is this: What legal conditions

    22 must be met to demonstrate that the HVO were acting on

    23 behalf of the Republic of Croatia? The second

    24 consideration is whether in this case the evidence

    25 adduced satisfied those conditions.



  70. 1 What are the legal conditions that must be

    2 met? The Appeals Chamber has recently confirmed that

    3 the proper test to establish whether the control of

    4 Croatian authorities over the HVO -- and I'm inserting

    5 "Croatian" and "HVO", the test was, of course,

    6 stylised in a generic fashion -- whether or not the

    7 control of Croatian authorities over the HVO was

    8 sufficient to make the armed conflict be international

    9 is overall control, going beyond the mere financing and

    10 equipping of such forces, and involving also

    11 participation in the planning and supervision of

    12 military operations. That you will find in the Tadic

    13 appeal judgement at paragraph 145.

    14 Has the evidence adduced in this case

    15 satisfied those conditions? My submission to you is

    16 that it has in overwhelming fashion.

    17 The evidence supporting the assertion that

    18 the HVO were de facto agents of the Republic of Croatia

    19 can, in my submission, be neatly divided into Croatia's

    20 political ambitions both directly and through her

    21 agents in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and her military

    22 intervention both directly and through her agents in

    23 the same state.

    24 In respect of the political intervention, I

    25 will be very brief. My learned friend, Mr. Kehoe, has



  71. 1 already addressed you at some length on this. I think

    2 I only need say that Dr. Franjo Tudjman stated both

    3 publicly and privately that he had aspirations for the

    4 territorial aggrandisement of the Republic of Croatia.

    5 Testimony has demonstrated that this dangerous ambition

    6 was to be fulfilled by an agreement on the partition of

    7 Bosnia-Herzegovina between the Serbs and the Croats.

    8 As my learned friend, Mr. Kehoe, has recently said, the

    9 Muslims were to be relegated to a small and

    10 insignificant element of a Greater Croatian state.

    11 The evidence shows, in this case, that this

    12 doctrine was transmitted by Zagreb to the HDZ in

    13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it was publicly and privately

    14 repeated by Mate Boban and his gang of subordinates in

    15 Central Bosnia, comprising of Mr. Dario Kordic, who is

    16 now residing with us here in The Hague, Mr. Anto

    17 Valenta and Mr. Ignac Kostroman.

    18 The evidence is overwhelming in this case

    19 that the accused, General Blaskic, was tasked with the

    20 military facilitation of this policy, and in that

    21 respect I would refer you to your own witnesses,

    22 Colonel Robert Stewart, [redacted], [redacted]. I

    23 would also refer you to Prosecution Brigadier Alistair

    24 Duncan and Witness DX who was called for the Defence.

    25 Let me now turn to the evidence showing the



  72. 1 military intervention of the Republic of Croatia in

    2 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is at the heart of the

    3 Prosecutor's position on this point.

    4 The essence of the Prosecutor's argument is

    5 twofold. Firstly, the Prosecutor says that Croatia's

    6 overall control and support of the HVO gave rise to an

    7 international armed conflict at the time that armed

    8 conflict broke out between the HVO and the Bosnian army

    9 in May of 1992.

    10 Alternatively or in addition to the direct

    11 military intervention by the Republic of Croatia and

    12 participation of its armed forces on behalf of the HVO

    13 in the armed conflict between the Bosnian Croats and

    14 the Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina gave rise to

    15 an international armed conflict at the latest by

    16 January 1993, when units of the Croatian army

    17 participated in military operations against the Bosnian

    18 army and Bosnian Muslims.

    19 Mr. President, Your Honours, the Croats of

    20 Bosnia, from early on, looked to Croatia for military

    21 support and guidance. On the 21st of March, 1992, the

    22 then commander of the Herceg-Bosna Central Bosnia

    23 command, Pasko Ljubicic, a character of whom you've

    24 heard much in this case, requested by letter a meeting

    25 with the Minister of Defence of the Republic of



  73. 1 Croatia, the late Gojko Susak, in order to receive

    2 instructions on further actions in the area.

    3 I would direct you, in respect of that

    4 particular piece of evidence, to Exhibit 406/4, which

    5 is in the two volumes of material which were submitted

    6 last July and which, if you recall, I did an oral

    7 summary of those documents.

    8 On the 8th of April, 1992, after President

    9 Franjo Tudjman formally recognised Bosnia-Herzegovina,

    10 the HVO was created. Two days after this, President

    11 Tudjman appointed General Janko Bobetko to the position

    12 of commander of the southern front of the Croatian army

    13 in charge of all land and sea forces between Split and

    14 Dubrovnik. That is Exhibit 406/6.

    15 What is the significance of this appointment

    16 in this case? Well, it is this: Within eight days of

    17 his appointment and on the 16th of April, 1992, Bobetko

    18 established a forward command post of the Croatian army

    19 southern front command in Grude in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    20 That is the first document that you will find in the

    21 binder in front of you.

    22 Now, I would ask you to review that document

    23 with me briefly. One of the points that I would like

    24 to make about this document is that you will see in

    25 paragraph 2 that General Bobetko appoints as his



  74. 1 deputy, the language suggests that it is his deputy,

    2 Colonel Milivoj Petkovic. [Redacted], the same witness

    3 who you called to testify in this case, who stated that

    4 in April of 1992, he left the HV and became a brigadier

    5 and chief of staff of the HVO.

    6 At this time, [redacted] apparently was still

    7 in the HV and was answering directly to General

    8 Bobetko.

    9 By his order of the 19th of May, 1992,

    10 Bobetko had established a Central Bosnia forward

    11 command post in Gornji Vakuf. Just over a month later,

    12 the accused General Blaskic would command this

    13 headquarters, a headquarters established, set up, by a

    14 Croatian General who had been appointed to his position

    15 by Franjo Tudjman.

    16 The establishment of the Central Bosnia

    17 forward command post you will find is document 2, is

    18 tab 2. Again, if I could ask you briefly to review

    19 that document with me, you will see it is issued on

    20 headed paper of the Republic of Croatia, Southern Front

    21 Command, Split Operative Zone Command, Ploca Forward

    22 Command Post.

    23 In this order, General Bobetko appoints

    24 Brigadier Zarko Tole as commander of the forward

    25 command post, and you will recall that the accused in



  75. 1 his evidence confirmed that this individual was one of

    2 his predecessors in the position of commander of the

    3 Central Bosnia regional command. The accused also

    4 confirmed that Brigadier Zarko Tole was an HV officer,

    5 a member of the Croatian army.

    6 To orientate Your Honours, I have produced at

    7 tab 3 a diagrammatic representation, a map

    8 demonstrating to you the two headquarters that were

    9 established by General Bobetko. You will see firstly

    10 the forward command post at Grude, Croatian army

    11 southern front command, and then you will see above it

    12 the Central Bosnia forward command post established at

    13 Gornji Vakuf which was to be General Blaskic's first

    14 regional command after his time in Kiseljak. I have

    15 also marked in for your orientation the towns of Vitez,

    16 Busovaca, and Kiseljak.

    17 I would briefly draw your attention to tabs

    18 4, 5, and 6 which are orders issued by General Bobetko,

    19 a Croatian General, to units of the HVO.

    20 In tab 4, you will see that General Bobetko

    21 is appointing key officers into the HVO: Zarko Tole,

    22 Zeljko Siljeg, characters about whom you have heard

    23 during the course of this trial. He makes no secret of

    24 the fact that he has command over units of the Croatian

    25 Defence Council, because if you look at the B/C/S



  76. 1 version of this document, it makes it quite clear. The

    2 Croatian Defence Council is issuing orders to what the

    3 Defence would have you believe is a completely separate

    4 army.

    5 Tab 5 is another order, again on divisions of

    6 zones of responsibility. The significance of this

    7 order is that Major General Ante Roso, who is referred

    8 to in paragraph 1, as I will probably demonstrate to

    9 you after the lunch break, was a Croatian army officer

    10 at the time, apparently serving, as far as this paper

    11 would lead you to believe, within the HVO. He had not

    12 yet even resigned from the Croatian army when this

    13 order was being issued to him.

    14 The last order is merely to demonstrate to

    15 you that General Bobetko had full control over the HVO

    16 and was able to issue orders just as he was able to

    17 issue orders to units of the Croatian army, and you

    18 will note in this document, tab 6, he is addressing an

    19 order to General Slobodan Praljak again as commander

    20 within the HVO. You will be surprised to hear after

    21 lunch, if you recall, that General Praljak was the

    22 Assistant Minister of Defence of the Republic of

    23 Croatia.

    24 Three of Bobetko's immediate subordinates in

    25 the southern front command were HV officers:



  77. 1 [Redacted], who acknowledged to you when he was here

    2 that he was in the HV from July of 1991 until April of

    3 1992 when he joined the HVO as chief of staff. Not a

    4 Bosnian returning to serve in the HVO, a native of

    5 Sibenik in Croatia. Slobodan Praljak, an HV officer,

    6 served in the HVO from August 1993 until November

    7 1994. As I have already said to you, and this can be

    8 seen from tab 7, and it is, in fact, the final

    9 paragraph, the penultimate paragraph where it states --

    10 I'm sorry, the final paragraph where it states that the

    11 talks were attended by General Major Slobodan Praljak,

    12 Deputy Defence Minister.

    13 On the 21st of April, 1992, Bobetko ordered

    14 the then HV General Ante Roso to the defence of Livno

    15 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and you will find that it is not

    16 a document that I have incorporated into this bundle

    17 but it document 406/11.

    18 On the 27th of June, 1992, General Blaskic

    19 acknowledged that he was promoted to be commander of

    20 the Central Bosnian Operative Zone by Ante Roso who was

    21 then a serving Croatian army General.

    22 Now, General Blaskic stated to this Tribunal

    23 that when he was promoted by Roso, he knew absolutely

    24 nothing about General Roso's background or function.

    25 Mr. President, Your Honours, armies do not work like



  78. 1 that. Officers talk with each other about their

    2 background, about where their last posting was. It is

    3 inconceivable that the accused did not know that this

    4 individual was an HV officer.

    5 You might wish to finish at this point

    6 because I will need to move into private session in

    7 order to address the next set of documents.

    8 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Let us have our

    9 lunch break now, and we will resume at 2.30 in private

    10 session. The hearing is adjourned.

    11 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m.

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  79. 1 --- On resuming at 2.39 p.m.

    2 (Private session)

    3 (redacted)

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    23 (Open session)

    24 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Registrar, when the

    25 Prosecutor asks for going back into public session, can



  82. 1 the booth hear this? Because I don't think that the

    2 Judges are disputing this point.

    3 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, in principle, but the

    4 booth always waits for my permission.

    5 JUDGE JORDA: I see. That is the permission

    6 of the superior. So I understand, Mr. Registrar. We

    7 can't proceed any faster. So let's continue.

    8 MR. CAYLEY: In April and May of 1992, the

    9 then Colonel Blaskic acknowledged that he received

    10 approximately ten orders from General Ante Roso, and I

    11 submit to you this merely reinforces what I have said

    12 already, that the accused lied when he said nothing

    13 about Ante Roso's background. Why would he lie?

    14 Because he did not wish to place a Croatian army

    15 officer in the chain of command in the HVO in April or

    16 May of 1992.

    17 On the 8th of May, 1992, Ante Roso issued an

    18 order banning the Bosnian Territorial Defence forces,

    19 the forces of the government in Sarajevo on the

    20 territory of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.

    21 The order further stated that the only legal units

    22 within the Croatian community were HVO units.

    23 If I can direct your attention to tab 11,

    24 which is the order of Ante Roso, you will see I have

    25 summarised what that order -- the essence of that



  83. 1 order, and I would ask you to note the confidential

    2 order number, which is 33192 on that order.

    3 If you turn to tab 12, which is an order of

    4 the 11th of May, you will see that the accused was

    5 issuing an order in almost identical form in response

    6 to the order of General Ante Roso.

    7 Blaskic does state in his evidence to this

    8 Court that at the time there were armed conflicts

    9 taking place in the Kiseljak municipality. It's

    10 expressed in a somewhat confused form but,

    11 nevertheless, there were Muslims and Croats fighting

    12 each other during this time period.

    13 It is, therefore, our submission that the

    14 implementation of the order of the Croatian army

    15 General Roso by the then Colonel Blaskic demonstrates

    16 that by May of 1992, firstly, that the HVO was

    17 controlled by the Croatian army and thus Muslims in HVO

    18 controlled territory were in the hands of the Croatian

    19 army and the Republic of Croatia; and secondly, that

    20 the armed conflict that began in May of 1992 was an

    21 international armed conflict between the Republic of

    22 Croatia on the one hand and the Republic of

    23 Bosnia-Herzegovina on the other hand.

    24 I now wish to address Your Honours on the

    25 issue of control of the HVO by the Republic of Croatia,



  84. 1 and in order to do that we will need to move back into

    2 private session. Thank you.

    3 (Private session)

    4 (redacted)

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  87. 1 (redacted)

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    7 (Open session)

    8 MR. CAYLEY: In respect of other evidence

    9 showing HVO control, HV control of the HVO, I would

    10 refer you to Prosecutor's Exhibit 406, volumes I and

    11 II, and a summary of those documents that I gave to the

    12 Trial Chamber in July of last year.

    13 Now, the Republic of Croatia's involvement in

    14 the war was not simply limited to its control of the

    15 HVO and the structures of Herceg-Bosna, but it also

    16 extended to the deployment of Croatian army units and

    17 equipment to fight alongside the HVO against the

    18 Bosnian army in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    19 By the 15th of May, 1992, there were

    20 significant elements of the Croatian army present in

    21 Bosnia-Herzegovina. By Resolution 752, the Security

    22 Council recognised the presence of large bodies of

    23 Croat troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina and called on the

    24 Republic of Croatia to withdraw them from the territory

    25 of Bosnia-Herzegovina and to cease interference in that



  88. 1 State. The Republic of Croatia totally ignored this

    2 demand.

    3 If we could now return to closed session

    4 testimony, with your permission, Mr. President.

    5 (Private session)

    6 (redacted)

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  92. 1 (redacted)

    2 (redacted)

    3 (redacted)

    4 (redacted)

    5 (redacted)

    6 (Open session)

    7 MR. CAYLEY: In addition to all of the

    8 evidence that I have referred to, there is a

    9 substantial amount of documentary evidence which

    10 demonstrates the presence of HV soldiers in

    11 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the provision of everything by

    12 Croatia, from gasoline to heavy armour, throughout

    13 1992, 1993, and 1994, and I would again refer Your

    14 Honours to Volumes I and II of Prosecutor's Exhibit

    15 406.

    16 Two documents which I think are worthy of

    17 particular note in Prosecutor's Exhibit 600, which I

    18 haven't put in the binders in front of you but I will

    19 briefly summarise what that exhibit states, in that

    20 exhibit, the commander of the HVO brigade in Gornji

    21 Vakuf writes to the commander of the 4th Split Brigade

    22 of the Croatian army stating that one of their

    23 soldiers, Croatian army soldiers, was killed in combat

    24 whilst fighting with the HVO brigade in

    25 Bosnia-Herzegovina.



  93. 1 The next document is Prosecutor's Exhibit

    2 601, which you will find at tab 16 in the file in front

    3 of you. Here the commander of the HVO brigade in

    4 Gornji Vakuf, Mr. Zrinko Totic, is requesting of the

    5 2nd Brigade of the Croatian army that one of their

    6 officers, Mate Kunkic, could remain with the HVO

    7 brigade. The letter states that the Croatian officer

    8 had been engaged in combat with the Bosnian army and

    9 had, in fact, been entrusted with the command of the

    10 defence of the town of Gornji Vakuf in

    11 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    12 Now, I don't intend to read the entire

    13 request to you, but I would commend it to Your

    14 Honours. It certainly shows beyond doubt that there

    15 was a very significant interchange of personnel between

    16 the Croatian army and the HVO, and certainly the manner

    17 that this is set out expresses a common struggle by the

    18 Croatian army and the HVO against the Muslims. That is

    19 very clear from this document.

    20 I would now like to briefly refer to Croatian

    21 army presence and participation in Central Bosnia.

    22 In order to trigger the provisions of the

    23 grave breaches, it is unnecessary for the Prosecutor to

    24 demonstrate that Croatian army units were present in

    25 Central Bosnia during the critical period of this



  94. 1 indictment. Be that as it may, it is my submission

    2 that there is evidence, significant evidence, to show

    3 that units of the HV were in Central Bosnia and were

    4 operating both within and alongside the HVO.

    5 (redacted)

    6 (redacted)

    7 she recalled soldiers wearing HV badges in the

    8 Dubravica school. She spoke to one of the members of

    9 the unit who stated that they had been specially

    10 brought in to "sort out the problems with the

    11 Muslims."

    12 You will recall the evidence of Dr. Muhamed

    13 Mujezinovic who observed soldiers from Croatia in the

    14 Vitez health centre in January of 1993.

    15 Major Roy Hunter, a company commander with

    16 the British Battalion in the summer of 1993. His

    17 opinion was that intelligence indicated that Croatian

    18 army units were acting together with HVO units in the

    19 Lasva Valley. He also confirmed that a Croatian army

    20 helicopter was landing in the Vitez area in the summer

    21 of 1993, thus ensuring both communications and adequate

    22 supplies were coming from the Republic of Croatia.

    23 Muslim victims of HVO attacks and forced

    24 labour testified in respect of a large number of

    25 sightings of HV soldiers, and I would refer you



  95. 1 particularly in this respect to Witness R, Abdulah

    2 Ahmic, (redacted), Witness Q, and Witness BB.

    3 Now, you will recall that General Blaskic has

    4 maintained throughout this trial that there were no

    5 Croatian army officers or soldiers present in the

    6 Central Bosnian Operative Zone. The orders that he

    7 issued requesting data on HV officers in his unit he

    8 states were only issued because the general staff of

    9 the HVO requested that the orders be sent out, and I

    10 would refer you to Prosecutor's Exhibit 406/26 and

    11 406/55 in that respect. I have, in fact, included

    12 406/55 as tab 17 in the bundle in front of you, and you

    13 will see it is an order by Tihomir Blaskic of the 12th

    14 of April, 1993, in which he requests information about

    15 Croatian army officers in the units under his command.

    16 So, in essence, Mr. President, Your Honours,

    17 we are all expected to believe that these orders were

    18 transmitted up and down the chain of command in the

    19 full knowledge that they had no application to anybody

    20 at all. Hard to believe. Hard to believe because it

    21 is not true.

    22 On the 5th of June, 1992, Gojko Susak, the

    23 Defence Minister of the Republic of Croatia, sent 13

    24 members of the 101st Brigade of the Croatian army to

    25 the southern front command on temporary assignment.



  96. 1 Included in that list were Colonel Miro Andric, Blaz

    2 Andric, Mirsad Sivac, and Branko Kozul, and if you go

    3 to tab 18 in the bundle of evidence in front of you,

    4 you will see that order.

    5 On the 3rd of May, 1993, the same Colonel

    6 Andric reported back to the HV 101st Brigade that he

    7 and the four servicemen that I have referred to were

    8 serving with the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna

    9 pursuant to the Croatian Defence Minister's order.

    10 Colonel Andric at this time represented himself as a

    11 member of the HVO staff, the HVO main staff, and you

    12 will see, if you go to tab 19, that the report is sent

    13 from the town of Vitez and that the stamp on the

    14 original document is the stamp of the accused from the

    15 Central Bosnian Operative Zone.

    16 Now, in his evidence, the accused denied that

    17 he knew that Andric was a member of the Croatian army.

    18 He stated that he thought he was a member of the HVO

    19 command, just like he denied that he knew that Ante

    20 Roso was a member of the Croatian army when he was

    21 appointed by him. Now, General Blaskic does confirm

    22 that Andric was participating in discussions with

    23 Petkovic and he with the Bosnian army in Zenica.

    24 Prosecutor's Exhibit 607, which is document

    25 20 in the tabulated documents before you, indicates



  97. 1 that Mr. Andric went on to greater and grander things

    2 in the Croatian army after his service in Central

    3 Bosnia, to become a brigadier and later a general in

    4 the Croatian army, and in 1997, you will see from this

    5 report, this BBC report, in the very last sentence,

    6 that he was, in fact, head of the Office for Military

    7 Attaches and Protocol within the Ministry of Defence of

    8 the Republic of Croatia.

    9 It is our submission, in addition to my first

    10 submission, that by early January 1993, at the latest,

    11 Croatian army units had entered Central Bosnia and

    12 Bosnia generally, and in conjunction with the HVO,

    13 participated then on with HVO units engaged in military

    14 operations against the Bosnian army in Central Bosnia

    15 and elsewhere.

    16 The Republic of Croatia did not advertise the

    17 fact that its forces were present and fighting against

    18 the Bosnian army in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A constant

    19 stream of public statements by government officials

    20 denying any presence of the Croatian army beyond the

    21 Bosnian borders were made, and I would refer you to

    22 Prosecutor's Exhibit 406/28, 406/64, and 406/70;

    23 406/70, when Mr. Tudjman and his Defence Minister are

    24 denying the presence of Croatian army units except in

    25 the borderland areas.



  98. 1 The fact that HV personnel were serving in

    2 Bosnia-Herzegovina against Bosnian forces was often

    3 concealed, as I have said, through the interchanging of

    4 military paraphernalia and badges which would identify

    5 the unit.

    6 On the 3rd of October, 1993, Drazen Gvozden

    7 was killed on Mount Hum near Mostar. At his death, he

    8 was wearing an HVO uniform. On the 2nd of March, 1994,

    9 President Franjo Tudjman posthumously conferred on

    10 Mr. Gvozden the rank of reserve captain of the armed

    11 forces of the Republic of Croatia, and I would refer

    12 you to Prosecutor's Exhibit 609 to 614 in that respect.

    13 Orders are in evidence requiring Croatian

    14 army members to remove Croatian army insignia and

    15 replace them with HVO insignia, and those are

    16 Prosecutor's Exhibit 406/26, 406/31, and 406/36.

    17 Admiral Domazet, the chief of Croatian

    18 military intelligence, you will recall under

    19 cross-examination refused to state the outer deployment

    20 of Croatian army units in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He did

    21 acknowledge to you, Your Honours, that those HV

    22 officers, those Croatian army officers who went to

    23 Bosnia-Herzegovina to serve in the HVO required

    24 approval from the Croatian authorities to do so and

    25 continued to be paid by the Croatian government. They



  99. 1 had an automatic right to return to the Croatian army

    2 after their time in the HVO. That was Admiral

    3 Domazet's testimony.

    4 Now, the Defence say in their brief that the

    5 Prosecutor has not sufficiently met the test set out in

    6 the Tadic appeal judgement.

    7 Your Honours, we have proved:

    8 (1) A unity of political direction and

    9 control going right from the top with Franjo Tudjman

    10 down to Dario Kordic in Central Bosnia.

    11 THE INTERPRETER: Counsel, slow down, please.

    12 MR. CAYLEY: (2) We have proved a Croatian

    13 General, Janko Bobetko, established by his own order

    14 the regional command of the HVO that General Blaskic

    15 himself would command. He appointed Blaskic's

    16 predecessor, and that same General, appointed by Franjo

    17 Tudjman to his post, demonstrated that he was able to

    18 issue military orders to both the HVO and the Croatian

    19 army in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    20 (3) Principal positions in the HVO were held

    21 by HV officers. An HV officer, Ante Roso, indeed

    22 issued the order banning the Bosnian Territorial

    23 Defence in May 1992. Ante Roso appointed Blaskic to

    24 his position in the HVO. Croatian army officers who

    25 went into the HVO continued to be paid by the Croatian



  100. 1 army and had an automatic right to return to the

    2 Croatian army.

    3 (4) A Defence witness testified in this case

    4 that the political leadership in Zagreb not only

    5 monitored and controlled the HVO but appointed its

    6 military leadership.

    7 (5) The Croatian army was fighting with the

    8 HVO from May 1992 until February 1994, and specifically

    9 with the HVO in the Muslim-Croat war, providing it with

    10 manpower, supplies, and equipment. Croatian personnel

    11 regularly rebadged into the HVO.

    12 Lastly, the accused himself was directly

    13 transferred by Franjo Tudjman, commander in chief of

    14 the Croatian armed forces, from the HVO to the Croatian

    15 army.

    16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Cayley, under (4),

    17 you refer to a Defence witness who "testified in this

    18 case that the political leadership in Zagreb not only

    19 monitored and controlled the HVO but appointed its

    20 military leadership."

    21 Should I take it you have a good reason for

    22 not being more explicit about the identity of the

    23 witness?

    24 MR. CAYLEY: Yes, Judge Shahabuddeen.

    25 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All right.



  101. 1 MR. CAYLEY: I mentioned earlier in my

    2 submissions, I think I identified that witness in

    3 closed session.

    4 In conclusion, Mr. President, Your Honours,

    5 it is our submission that in the Muslim-Croat war in

    6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia played a

    7 full and substantial part which I would ask you to

    8 determine as overall control of the HVO, going beyond

    9 the mere financing and equipping of such forces but

    10 also involving the participation in the planning and

    11 supervision of military operations. This, I would

    12 suggest to you respectfully, is the only conclusion

    13 that can be reached in this case.

    14 Now, the second requirement that I stated to

    15 you before lunch, and this will be a much shorter

    16 submission, is that the grave breaches must be

    17 perpetrated against persons and property defined as

    18 protected by any of the four Geneva Conventions of

    19 1949, and I will just read the first section of Article

    20 4 of the IV Convention:

    21 "Persons protected by the Convention are

    22 those who, at a given moment and in any manner

    23 whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or

    24 occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or

    25 Occupying Power of which they are not nationals."



  102. 1 The Defence say in this case that the Bosnian

    2 Muslim victims prima facie found themselves in the

    3 hands of Bosnian Croats, victims in the hands of

    4 perpetrators of the same nationality. Do the Geneva

    5 Conventions apply to this situation bearing in mind

    6 what I have just read from Article 4?

    7 They do, and the appeals judgement in Tadic

    8 confirms this position, and I will read the relevant

    9 sections of that judgement which I think are

    10 applicable. It is three quite small sections.

    11 First of all, paragraph 166:

    12 "Under these conditions, the requirement of

    13 nationality is even less adequate to define protected

    14 persons. In such conflicts, not only the text and the

    15 drafting history of the Convention but also, and more

    16 importantly, the Convention's object and purpose

    17 suggest that allegiance to a Party to the conflict and,

    18 correspondingly, control by this Party over persons in

    19 a given territory, may be regarded as the crucial

    20 test."

    21 And then I will read two sentences from

    22 paragraphs 168 and 169, and these are the final

    23 sentence at paragraph 168 and the first sentence at

    24 paragraph 169:

    25 "In granting its protection, Article 4



  103. 1 intends to look to the substance of the relations, not

    2 to their legal characteristics as such.

    3 "169. Hence, even if in the circumstances of

    4 the case the perpetrators and the victims were to be

    5 regarded as --

    6 I think there is a "the" missing.

    7 "Hence, even if in the circumstances of the

    8 case the perpetrators and the victims were to be

    9 regarded as possessing the same nationality, Article 4

    10 would still be applicable."

    11 That legal reasoning, Mr. President, Your

    12 Honours, applies as much to this case as it does to the

    13 Tadic case.

    14 I will briefly address the political and

    15 military links between the Republic of Croatia and the

    16 Bosnian Croats in order to demonstrate this test of

    17 allegiance which the Tadic appeals judgement has given

    18 to us.

    19 As has already been stated, the aspirations

    20 of President Tudjman in respect of Bosnian territory

    21 were very clear; that these aspirations were shared by

    22 the HVO and by Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina is apparent

    23 from the evidence and can be seen in Exhibit 406/2

    24 where the Croatian political leadership in

    25 Bosnia-Herzegovina is reaffirming and supporting the



  104. 1 Banovina Plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    2 President Tudjman granted Croatian

    3 citizenship to Bosnian Croats at the time that

    4 Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognised by the State of

    5 Croatia, and that is apparent from Prosecutor's Exhibit

    6 406/2. The Bosnian Croats reacted to this and applied

    7 in their hundreds for Croatian citizenship, and that

    8 can be seen in Prosecutor's Exhibit 406/47, 406/51,

    9 406/52, 406/59, 406/68, and 406/69.

    10 You will recall that Prosecution counsel

    11 asked a number of witnesses for the Defence, "What

    12 passport do you carry?" Slavko Katava from Busovaca,

    13 [redacted], Tomislav Rajic all waved Croatian

    14 passports in front of you.

    15 If we can now move into private session?

    16 I would add, if I'm not being clear, that all

    17 of those witnesses were Croats from

    18 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    19 (Private session)

    20 (redacted)

    21 (redacted)

    22 (redacted)

    23 (redacted)

    24 (redacted)

    25 (redacted)



  105. 1 (redacted)

    2 (redacted)

    3 (redacted)

    4 (redacted)

    5 (redacted)

    6 (redacted)

    7 (redacted)

    8 (redacted)

    9 (redacted)

    10 (Open session)

    11 MR. CAYLEY: Your Honours, the Croats of

    12 Bosnia-Herzegovina looked to the Republic of Croatia as

    13 the land of their fathers. Every policy issued and

    14 every statement uttered by the HDZ in Croatia and in

    15 Bosnia has encouraged that polarisation and permanent

    16 shift of allegiance by the Croats of Bosnia to the

    17 Republic of Croatia.

    18 I will briefly mention the relationship

    19 between the perpetrators and the victims. It hardly

    20 needs mentioning in this case that in Central Bosnia,

    21 the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims came to

    22 regard each other as bitter enemies.

    23 When the HVO took Muslims into detention, or

    24 beat them, or killed them, or burnt down their

    25 villages, those Muslims clearly regarded themselves as



  106. 1 being in the hands of a party to a conflict.

    2 What did the HVO think of the Muslims. Well,

    3 I would briefly refer to Exhibit 406/95, which I have

    4 not included in the bundle but I will read it out. It

    5 is the minutes of a meeting of the HVO municipalities

    6 held in September of 1992, at which the accused

    7 General Blaskic, was present on the working

    8 presidency. The minutes indicate that he spoke at the

    9 meeting -- I'm sorry, it's 456/95. My learned friend,

    10 Mr. Kehoe, has just corrected me. These are some of

    11 the observations that were made at that meeting:

    12 "New refugees are arriving daily, especially

    13 Muslims. This could disturb the ethnic balance in our

    14 areas. The policy should be such that our

    15 municipalities serve as a transit point for Muslim

    16 refugees who should be directed to Muslim

    17 municipalities. Reception centres for refugees which

    18 are planned by the government in Sarajevo on Croatian

    19 territories are not acceptable to the Croatian

    20 population, because that would mean the disruption of

    21 the ethnic balance. If the war is prolonged, such

    22 centres would be an Islamic fundamentalist's Trojan

    23 horse on Croatian territory. Croatian refugees can be

    24 provided for by Croats, without centres. Exiled Bosnia

    25 and Herzegovina government and its bodies with



  107. 1 pro-Muslim policies are undesirable on our territory

    2 and their possible activity contrary to the principles

    3 of HDZ bodies shall not be tolerated. There is no

    4 Bosnian language and it is an insult to the Croatians

    5 when anyone tries to make the Croatian language into

    6 some kind of Bosnian language."

    7 I wish now to briefly consider with you the

    8 enclaves, the Busovaca, Vitez and Kiseljak enclaves as

    9 occupied territory within Article 4 of the Geneva

    10 Conventions.

    11 The Prosecutor also takes the position in

    12 this case that the Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak

    13 pockets were occupied territory. The British manual of

    14 military law, a book I'm very familiar with, in part 3

    15 employs a two-part test to determine when territory is

    16 occupied. The first part of the test is this:

    17 "Due to the occupation, the legitimate

    18 government is no longer able to exercise publicly its

    19 authority in the territory concerned."

    20 And two:

    21 "The invading force, on the other hand, is in

    22 a position to control and to enforce its authority in

    23 the same territory."

    24 The reference to this is contained in book I

    25 of the Prosecutor's brief. It is, in fact, paragraph



  108. 1 503 of part 3 of the manual.

    2 In this case, the evidence is such that you

    3 may determine quite legitimately that the government of

    4 Bosnia-Herzegovina in Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak was

    5 no longer exercising any reasonable authority during

    6 the relevant period of this indictment. The evidence

    7 shows in this case that the HVO seized control in all

    8 three municipalities. Croatia controlled the HVO and

    9 the evidence shows in this case that the HVO both

    10 gained and sought control in all of the municipalities

    11 that were declared to be part of Herceg-Bosna, and I

    12 would refer you back to Prosecutor's Exhibit 456/95,

    13 which I have just read from, in which senior HVO

    14 officials were discussing the level of control which

    15 they exercised in those municipalities which they

    16 regarded as Croatian territory.

    17 It is our submission that at its highest, the

    18 evidence demonstrates that the Muslim victims were in

    19 the hands of an occupying power, the Republic of

    20 Croatia through its de facto agent the HVO. Even if

    21 you were to find, Your Honours, that the territory were

    22 not occupied, the evidence demonstrates conclusively

    23 that the victims were in the hands of the party to the

    24 conflict, the HVO, again as de facto agents of the

    25 Republic of Croatia.



  109. 1 I will now briefly address you on

    2 co-belligerent status and diplomatic relations and how

    3 this affects protection afforded under the Geneva

    4 Conventions. The protection afforded under the

    5 conventions does not extend to civilians in the hands

    6 of a State that is allied and has normal diplomatic

    7 relationship -- a normal diplomatic relationship with

    8 their own State.

    9 Now, the Defence has suggested in this case

    10 that Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia,

    11 during this war, maintained diplomatic relations and

    12 were, in fact, co-belligerents against the JNA and the

    13 army of Republika Srpska, the VRS.

    14 The truth revealed by the evidence in this

    15 case is that Croatia adopted a dual Machiavellian

    16 policy with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Robert Donia, the

    17 historian who testified at the beginning of the case,

    18 mentioned this in his lengthy testimony. Where it

    19 suited the Republic of Croatia to be in alliance with

    20 the government in Sarajevo, it was so. When its

    21 interest do not suit it to be in alliance, then it was

    22 not.

    23 If we could go briefly, and I think almost

    24 finally, into private session, please, Mr. President.

    25 (Private session)



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  111. 1 (redacted)

    2 (Open session)

    3 MR. CAYLEY: Witness DT then testified

    4 himself, in fact, that the 5th Corps in Bihac

    5 significantly assisted the defence of Croatia. He

    6 confirmed this. Bobetko, in fact, stated that the HV

    7 regarded it as a corps behind enemy lines.

    8 But let us look at the reality of the war in

    9 Central Bosnia. Defence Exhibit 345 is a list of 560

    10 names of dead HVO soldiers killed in combat with the

    11 Bosnian army. These are the dead of a war fought out

    12 not between co-belligerents but between bitter

    13 enemies.

    14 In May of 1993, Haso Efendic of the Bosnian

    15 government made a public statement on behalf of the

    16 government in Sarajevo, and that is contained at

    17 tab 22, and I will read out a small section of that

    18 statement that was made at the time:

    19 "The government of Bosnia and Herzegovina

    20 states once again that it wishes to develop

    21 all-encompassing relations and cooperation with the

    22 Republic of Croatia on the basis of mutual trust and

    23 respect. However, unless the attacks are immediately

    24 stopped and the units of the State of Croatia are

    25 withdrawn immediately from the territory of Bosnia and



  112. 1 Herzegovina, the government of the Republic of

    2 Bosnia-Herzegovina will be forced to turn to the

    3 International Community and request protection from the

    4 aggression."

    5 Even Professor Degan, who was brought here by

    6 the Defence to state that the relations were, in fact,

    7 entirely normal between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia,

    8 stated that the armed conflict between Croatian

    9 soldiers and Bosnian government forces was unlawful

    10 armed intervention against the sovereign government of

    11 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Moreover, Professor Degan

    12 acknowledged that had the cutting of supplies and

    13 military material occurred by the Republic of Croatia,

    14 that would not be the act of a co-belligerent.

    15 If we can very briefly go into private

    16 session.

    17 (Private session)

    18 (redacted)

    19 (redacted)

    20 (redacted)

    21 (redacted)

    22 (redacted)

    23 (redacted)

    24 (redacted)

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  116. 1 (redacted)

    2 (redacted)

    3 (redacted)

    4 (redacted)

    5 (redacted)

    6 --- Recess taken at 3.50 p.m.

    7 --- On resuming at 4.17 p.m.

    8 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Please

    9 be seated. Have the accused brought in, please.

    10 (The accused entered court)

    11 JUDGE JORDA: We are going to continue now.

    12 I wish to say for the benefit of the public

    13 that we are in the final week of the trial against

    14 General Blaskic, who is here present, and that we are

    15 listening to the closing arguments of the Office of the

    16 Prosecutor. Mr. Cayley has finished his part and has

    17 left, and it is now Mr. Harmon's turn.

    18 We are listening to you, Mr. Harmon.

    19 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President. Good

    20 afternoon, Your Honours. Good afternoon, Counsel.

    21 I would like to, first of all, discuss with

    22 Your Honours the HVO in Central Bosnia, and in that

    23 respect, I would like to remind the Chamber of the

    24 proposition that has been put forth by the Defence to

    25 this Chamber that General Blaskic was commanding armed



  117. 1 peasants. That is a proposition that has been put

    2 before you repeatedly, and it is something that I would

    3 like to put into context because it gives the

    4 impression that we are not talking about a developed

    5 country, a highly industrialised country and a country

    6 with a strong military tradition.

    7 The former Yugoslavia had compulsory military

    8 service for all men of military age, able-bodied,

    9 between the ages of 18 and 26, and that compulsory

    10 military service lasted a minimum of 12 months; and

    11 during those 12 months, the able-bodied men of the

    12 former Yugoslavia learned military skills and, more

    13 importantly, they learned the principle of

    14 subordination because one of the paramount

    15 considerations and principles in the JNA was the

    16 principle of subordination.

    17 The principle of subordination wasn't an

    18 alien concept that was brought over and dropped into

    19 Central Bosnia; it wasn't the first giraffe that was

    20 seen by Western Europeans; it was a concept that was

    21 fully and completely understood.

    22 If I could have the principle of

    23 subordination placed on the ELMO?

    24 Mr. President and Your Honours, this was a

    25 principle that was immediately engrafted into the



  118. 1 decree of the armed forces of the Croatian Community of

    2 Herceg-Bosna, and I will take just a moment to read

    3 this.

    4 It is found in Article 32, which is in our

    5 Exhibit 38, tab 2:

    6 "Command in the Armed Forces shall be

    7 founded on the following fundamental principles:

    8 (a) unity of command and the obligation to

    9 implement the decisions and carry out the command and

    10 orders of a superior commander; and

    11 (b) commanders of the Armed Forces shall be

    12 responsible to their superiors for their work, command

    13 and control."

    14 So this, Mr. President, was a principle that

    15 was well understood by virtually -- by everybody who

    16 had served in the former JNA.

    17 Now, when we talk about JNA, we are talking

    18 about an army that was considered by the Western

    19 powers, by the NATO alliance, to be one of the most

    20 formidable armies and potential foes in Central

    21 Europe.

    22 It was a large army. We have heard testimony

    23 about the size of the army. It was an army that had

    24 excellent training. It was an army that had officers

    25 who came from military academies, the military academy



  119. 1 -- one of them was in Belgrade. General Blaskic

    2 graduated from the military academy in Belgrade, other

    3 officers in the JNA graduated from the military

    4 academy. They also had a reserve officer training

    5 programme, and the reserve officer training programme

    6 resulted in individuals who didn't go to the military

    7 academy being commissioned as officers and being part

    8 of this potentially formidable foe, this large army,

    9 the JNA.

    10 You know, we have had some testimony in this

    11 case about the quality of the reserve officer training

    12 programme which made up a fundamental part of the JNA

    13 officer corps. I got the sense when I was listening to

    14 this testimony that the Defence in some way was trying

    15 to denigrate the quality of officers that were coming

    16 out of that particular programme, and I would like to

    17 remind the Trial Chamber, we all come from different

    18 countries, but in my country, the United States, not

    19 every officer who serves in the military has graduated

    20 from Annapolis or has graduated from West Point. There

    21 are other ways to become an officer. Those officers

    22 who come up through other mechanisms, through other

    23 channels, are considered fine officers, they are

    24 excellent officers, and they make up the bulk of the

    25 United States Army.



  120. 1 Likewise, not every officer from the United

    2 Kingdom graduates from Sandhurst or, from the French

    3 army, graduates from St. Cyr. Reserve officer

    4 programmes are fundamental aspects of large militaries,

    5 it is a reality, and it was a reality in the former

    6 JNA.

    7 Now, let me also mention that when the

    8 discussion hit upon a peasant army, what we are talking

    9 about is a level of training from the JNA that created

    10 a vast pool of experience that was available to the

    11 HVO, it was available to the ABiH, and it was available

    12 to the VRS, and it is not as though the war -- the

    13 former Yugoslavia disintegrated, the mandatory service

    14 dissolved, and there was a hiatus of 15 or 20 years

    15 where the experience level of people who were trained

    16 in military elements disappeared, we are talking about

    17 a transitional period from the disintegration of the

    18 former Yugoslavia, 1991 and 1992, when there was

    19 compulsory service, to the beginning of this war which

    20 started in 1992 and 1993. So we are not talking about

    21 a large gap where military-aged and eligible men for

    22 service did not have military training.

    23 The conclusion we can draw from the

    24 compulsory military service is, there was a large body

    25 of available men with training in the military, in



  121. 1 military skills, and primarily in the unity of command

    2 that was available to all parties in this conflict.

    3 We heard some testimony in the course of this

    4 trial that the HVO didn't meet NATO standards. Now,

    5 let's examine that because it has been conceded in this

    6 trial that NATO had the most formidable military

    7 services in the world. It has the best-trained officer

    8 corps, it has the best armaments, it has the best

    9 equipment in terms of communications. What we also

    10 heard from Witness DX was the former JNA did not meet

    11 NATO standards, and very frankly, most countries that

    12 have signed up and have agreed to abide by the Geneva

    13 Conventions don't meet NATO standards. That's a red

    14 herring. The signatories to the Geneva Conventions,

    15 whether or not they meet NATO standards, are still

    16 obliged to abide by the provisions of those standards.

    17 Let me move on to the next aspect of the HVO

    18 that I would like to discuss with you, and that's

    19 training.

    20 First of all, we have heard Brigadier Marin

    21 testify in this case that the level of training in the

    22 HVO -- first of all, he said there was none, then he

    23 changed his testimony and ultimately he said, in

    24 response to a question by my colleague, Mr. Kehoe, and

    25 to another question by Judge Shahabuddeen, that the HVO



  122. 1 carried out a level of training that was "minimal and

    2 most essential."

    3 Let's examine what the HVO did in respect of

    4 training this large pool of already-trained military

    5 men who had done compulsory service.

    6 If we could turn to the first exhibit?

    7 This first exhibit -- and I won't present all

    8 of the exhibits that discuss training -- but this first

    9 exhibit that I would like to show is one dated the 10th

    10 of May, 1992, and it is an order that was issued by

    11 Colonel Blaskic in Kiseljak on the 10th of May, and in

    12 point 4, he says:

    13 "4. All Municipal HVO Commands must begin

    14 with training and additional training of soldiers in

    15 locations which must be under guard."

    16 So Colonel Blaskic, as soon as he arrived in

    17 the theatre, started to train his soldiers.

    18 At the same time, we've heard testimony in

    19 this case about HOS. HOS was another organisation

    20 separate from the HVO. As we've heard, it ultimately

    21 evolved into -- it disintegrated and many of the

    22 members went into the HVO.

    23 But let's take a look at the next exhibit,

    24 which is D249. D249 is a report from Major Darko

    25 Kraljevic, dated the 19th of July, 1992, to the HOS war



  123. 1 staff command in Zagreb. What does Darko Kraljevic

    2 have to say about the level of training that's taking

    3 place?

    4 If we turn to the third paragraph, Kraljevic

    5 says in 3:

    6 "3. The training camp in Vitez has been in

    7 existence for four months now. Five hundred troops

    8 have been trained there. Their operations and sabotage

    9 actions are the best proof of the quality of

    10 training."

    11 So in addition to the HVO training that was

    12 being initiated by Colonel Blaskic in the Kiseljak

    13 municipality, there had been training going on for four

    14 months where 500 members had been trained.

    15 Moving along, I'd like to turn the Court's

    16 attention to Prosecutor's Exhibit 104, because the

    17 training that was being given by Colonel Blaskic to his

    18 subordinates wasn't limited to basic training.

    19 If we turn to Exhibit 104, we can see that

    20 this order issued by Colonel Blaskic on the 23rd of

    21 July, 1992, deals with specialised training in

    22 specialised equipment. In this case it's a Strela

    23 artillery piece, and he identifies a large number of

    24 soldiers in this particular document that will be

    25 trained on this particular occasion in the use of that



  124. 1 particular weapon system.

    2 If we turn next, Mr. President and Your

    3 Honours, to July 24th, 1992, we can see another order

    4 of Colonel Blaskic. This one is an order where he is

    5 sending his subordinate soldiers to Croatia to be

    6 trained. He discusses the needs of those soldiers and

    7 what they will be trained in and when they will go.

    8 Training was across the board in the HVO,

    9 Mr. President and Your Honours, and I'd like to turn

    10 next to an exhibit, Prosecutor's Exhibit 484. Now this

    11 -- I will only put on the ELMO the cover sheet of this

    12 rather lengthy exhibit that we presented, and what this

    13 is a training plan and programme for recruits of the

    14 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna. It is dated the

    15 1st of September, 1992 and it is issued by Brigadier

    16 Milivoj Petkovic.

    17 I would commend Your Honours to examine this

    18 document, because if in your deliberations -- in your

    19 deliberations you will see, by merely looking at the

    20 index, the contents of this training programme are

    21 extensive. As I recall Brigadier Marin testified, this

    22 training programme lasted 22 days and it covers a

    23 variety of topics. What is more remarkable about this

    24 exhibit, however, is the fact that there's not a single

    25 moment of training in International Humanitarian Law,



  125. 1 on the laws and customs of war, on the Geneva

    2 Conventions.

    3 Now, if we move on in this, Mr. President and

    4 Your Honours, we can see that in addition to the

    5 training that I have described now taking place, there

    6 was additional training that was taking place in other

    7 parts of, as I say, other parts of Bosnia and

    8 Herzegovina by the HVO. I don't have a copy of it here

    9 because there are too many exhibits, but I would refer

    10 Your Honours to Prosecutor's Exhibit 457, page 17 in

    11 that particular document, "Three Years of Military

    12 Police History," which there is a report that deals

    13 with what we've accomplished in the various -- from

    14 January 1993 until June of 1993, and on page 17 you

    15 will see that there is a reference to training 2.000

    16 HVO soldiers.

    17 In addition, Mr. President and Your Honours,

    18 we have presented to Your Honours a film. You may

    19 recall it. It was a film taken by a reporter,

    20 Dan Damon, and it showed training where these soldiers

    21 -- HVO soldiers dressed in combat kit, jumping out of

    22 trucks and running around in movement, training with

    23 dogs. It is another illustration of the level of

    24 training that was being conducted by the HVO.

    25 Now, if we move next, Mr. President and Your



  126. 1 Honours, to Prosecutor's Exhibit 106. This is an

    2 exhibit that is dated the 20th of September, 1992.

    3 This is also signed by then Colonel Blaskic, and in

    4 item number 3 it says:

    5 "3. The training of new recruits who have

    6 not yet served in the Yugoslav army is to be basic and

    7 specific. Recruit all able-bodied men over 18."

    8 This goes to ONO, the operations and training

    9 body. Now, who is the training officer for Central

    10 Bosnia? Brigadier Marin. And the deadline for this

    11 particular training for the neophyte soldiers is

    12 indicated, 15 to 30 September, 1992.

    13 The next exhibit I'd like to direct the

    14 Court's attention to is Prosecutor's Exhibit 107. This

    15 is a training schedule signed by Colonel Blaskic, and

    16 it discusses, it outlines a training regimen that lasts

    17 from 6.00 in the morning until 21.00 in the evening.

    18 Once, Mr. President and Your Honours, the

    19 conflict commenced, Colonel Blaskic sent a report to

    20 his superiors on May the 7th. That's found in

    21 Prosecutor's Exhibit 456/32. What did Colonel Blaskic

    22 say in that report to Mate Boban, to Bruno Stojic, and

    23 to Milivoj Petkovic? He says in point 2:

    24 "2. Younger troops, especially in Busovaca,

    25 38 killed and 108 wounded so far, are undergoing



  127. 1 special training according to the submitted training

    2 plan."

    3 So even while the war is -- shortly after its

    4 most intense phase, the HVO continues to train its

    5 young soldiers.

    6 Now, Your Honours have heard a large amount

    7 of testimony from third parties, independent observers

    8 who were operating in theatre in the Central Bosnia

    9 area. One of those individuals was Lieutenant-Colonel

    10 Watters, and my colleague, Mr. Kehoe, asked

    11 Lieutenant-Colonel Watters the following question: He

    12 said:

    13 Q Let me ask ...

    14 And I'm reading from 3649.

    15 Q. Let me ask for that clarification.

    16 Would you agree with me when I say the

    17 HVO soldiers had been trained militarily

    18 either in the former JNA or more

    19 recently with the regular Croatian

    20 forces? Would you agree with that first

    21 statement?"

    22 Lieutenant-Colonel Watters responded:

    23 A. The majority of the commanders I met, I

    24 know them to be former JNA officers. I

    25 cannot give a personal account of the



  128. 1 individual soldiers, sir, I did not talk

    2 to them about it, but they were

    3 certainly trained by their military

    4 commanders. We saw them training.

    5 Now, in fact, the next exhibit I'd like to

    6 show you is a photograph that was taken by one of the

    7 British observers who was in Central Bosnia, and this

    8 photograph, he testified, shows young HVO soldiers

    9 training.

    10 Now, what can we conclude, Mr. President,

    11 from this testimony that we have heard that this was

    12 only armed peasants? What we can conclude from this

    13 about the HVO in Central Bosnia is this: They had a

    14 large pool of people to draw from into their service

    15 who had compulsory military service, who understood the

    16 principle of unity of command, and who continued with

    17 ongoing training in the HVO.

    18 Now, we heard the next claim that was raised

    19 by the Defence and raised by Brigadier Marin, "We had

    20 lack of trained officers."

    21 Now, Your Honours may recall that the

    22 impression that one was left with when listening to

    23 Brigadier Marin, was that there were only three trained

    24 officers in all of Central Bosnia. It was, frankly, an

    25 astonishing proposition. It was a misleading



  129. 1 proposition, and you may well recall that my colleague,

    2 Mr. Kehoe, spent the better part of half a day of the

    3 trial session identifying officers who were in Central

    4 Bosnia and asking them about the level of training that

    5 they had in -- and they had had before they joined the

    6 HVO.

    7 I would direct your attention, Your Honours,

    8 to the Prosecutor's brief, book II, pages 13 through

    9 15, and you will see, and I will not repeat here, you

    10 will see a list of some of those officers who were

    11 identified. We did not identify all of the officers

    12 who served under Colonel Blaskic, we identified some,

    13 and you will see that the training that they had

    14 included training at the military academy, training at

    15 reserve officer training programmes, and you will see

    16 that it's quite comprehensive, this list.

    17 The problem in Central Bosnia, Mr. President

    18 and Your Honours, wasn't the level of training with the

    19 officer corps or the level of training of the lower

    20 troops, the problem in Central Bosnia was the problem

    21 of leadership, the problem of leadership of Colonel

    22 Blaskic, because it was his failure of leadership that

    23 led to these crimes in Central Bosnia.

    24 His hand-selected commander for the Kiseljak

    25 municipality was Mijo Bozic. Mijo Bozic was a military



  130. 1 academy graduate from Belgrade, and Mijo Bozic was the

    2 officer who issued the illegal order to burn the

    3 villages in the Kiseljak municipality. That order was

    4 issued while Colonel Blaskic was in Kiseljak.

    5 Mato Lucic. Mato Lucic was an active duty

    6 JNA officer who led the attack on Svinjarevo. We know

    7 what happened to Svinjarevo. In Prosecutor's Exhibit

    8 85, ECMM concluded that there had been ethnic

    9 cleansing, and you have heard the testimony of the

    10 victims from that area and you have seen the

    11 photographs of Svinjarevo, yet Mato Lucic was an active

    12 military officer.

    13 JUDGE JORDA: (No interpretation). Continue

    14 please, yes.

    15 MR. HARMON: Mario Cerkez had had reserve

    16 officer training. You may recall the testimony of

    17 Colonel Henk Morsink who testified that Mario Cerkez,

    18 at a Busovaca joint commission meeting, felt confident

    19 enough and comfortable enough to threaten to burn the

    20 village of Kruscica to the ground.

    21 Let's talk about Ivica Rajic, an active JNA

    22 officer. He's been indicted for Stupni Do. He was in

    23 Kiseljak when Tulica and Han Ploca were burned to the

    24 ground, yet he was an active JNA officer.

    25 The problem, Mr. President and Your Honours,



  131. 1 wasn't a problem of training, it wasn't a problem of

    2 whether there was sufficient officers, the essential

    3 problem in this case was leadership, and leadership

    4 starts at the top and the top is Colonel Blaskic. The

    5 question we have to ask is: What kind of leadership

    6 did he provide?

    7 We would submit to Your Honours that the

    8 leadership he provided was such that it encouraged and

    9 promoted his subordinates to engage in criminal conduct

    10 because they were absolutely confident in the fact that

    11 nothing would happen to them as a result.

    12 Mr. President and Your Honours, the next area

    13 the Defence raised and said that this was an area that

    14 certainly impinged upon Colonel Blaskic's ability to

    15 command and control, was the area of communications.

    16 I think the characterisation was made that

    17 the only thing Colonel Blaskic had was an amateur

    18 packet communication system that any amateur could

    19 crack, and on the 16th of April, he had two telephones

    20 in his headquarters. We are left again with the

    21 impression that Colonel Blaskic had very little at his

    22 disposal, and again we must put this into context.

    23 Mr. Kehoe discussed with you earlier the HVO

    24 take-over of the various municipalities. That also

    25 included the take-over of JNA facilities and that also



  132. 1 included the take-over of the equipment in those

    2 facilities, including communications equipment. We

    3 have heard testimony from various witnesses that the

    4 equipment, if it was shared, wasn't shared equally

    5 amongst the HVO and the ABiH.

    6 We have submitted a lengthy exhibit to Your

    7 Honours, it is Prosecutor's Exhibit 757, and this

    8 particular exhibit identifies some of the equipment

    9 that was made available to the HVO, the types of

    10 communication equipment that was made available to the

    11 HVO at various times in the municipalities commanded by

    12 Colonel Blaskic, and I would urge Your Honours to

    13 examine the 77 entries that are found in portion 3 of

    14 this exhibit because this describes the various types

    15 of communication that were sent to the HVO, to

    16 Blaskic's headquarters, to Kiseljak headquarters, to

    17 the Busovaca headquarters, and to other headquarters

    18 and other elements of the HVO from the maintenance and

    19 repair depot in Travnik, and you will see, on close

    20 examination of this particular exhibit, you will see

    21 that what was sent was radios, various types of radio

    22 equipment, short-range, long-range radios, mobile

    23 communications vehicles, telephone communications,

    24 antennae, radio relay devices, teleprinters, battery

    25 rechargers, field switchboards, et cetera, et cetera,



  133. 1 et cetera.

    2 Let's be quite frank on this. Colonel

    3 Blaskic got his fair share of this. He didn't limit

    4 himself to two telephones.

    5 We have also heard testimony that the HVO and

    6 the Muslims were aligned against the VRS before their

    7 conflict started. How was the HVO communicating with

    8 its forces on the front lines against the Serbs before

    9 this war started? On April 16th, 1993, did the

    10 communications capabilities of the HVO vanish? I don't

    11 think so.

    12 When Colonel Blaskic said he had two

    13 telephones in the Hotel Vitez, that was both false and

    14 it was misleading. First of all, we have had the

    15 testimony of a number of witnesses, third parties and

    16 Defence witnesses, who have testified about what they

    17 saw in the Hotel Vitez.

    18 I refer Your Honours to the testimony of

    19 Major Hunter, who was in the Hotel Vitez on May the

    20 20th. He observed radios in the Hotel Vitez. Major

    21 Baggesen, who was an ECMM monitor and who was in the

    22 Vitez area when the attacks commenced on the 16th of

    23 April, he observed radio antennae coming out of the

    24 Hotel Vitez and he actually was in the Hotel Vitez and

    25 he saw somebody talking on a radio. Brigadier Zeko,



  134. 1 Blaskic's chief of intelligence, said that there was a

    2 communications area in the hotel.

    3 Now, this testimony, "I only had two

    4 telephones," leaves the impression again there was

    5 minimal amount of communications capability.

    6 Let's again examine reality, and reality is

    7 the HVO had a communications centre located a few

    8 metres across the plaza at the PTT telephone building,

    9 and that communications centre was operational. It was

    10 operational before the conflict on the 16th of April

    11 and it was operational after the 16th of April.

    12 How do we know that?

    13 Let me show Your Honours some exhibits,

    14 starting with D96, and this is only a sample of these

    15 exhibits. If Your Honours examine the orders that were

    16 sent out by Blaskic and the replies that were sent in

    17 from his subordinates in the field, frequently there

    18 was a stamp on the order in the B/C/S language

    19 reflecting the date and time and location of the

    20 receipt.

    21 Let me take Your Honours through just four

    22 examples to illustrate my point. D96, you will see,

    23 Mr. President and Your Honours, on the B/C/S version

    24 that's on the ELMO, you will see a stamp, and that

    25 stamp on the upper line says "CV HVO Vitez," which is



  135. 1 the communications centre stamp, and this was received

    2 on the 27th of January, 1993.

    3 If we move to Prosecutor's Exhibit D -- I'm

    4 sorry, Defence Exhibit 264, I'll put the English

    5 version on, and you will see, on the lower right-hand

    6 corner, the translation of the stamp, Croatian Defence

    7 Council HVO Vitez Communications Centre dated 15 April

    8 1993 at 0711 hours.

    9 Moving to now immediately after the conflict,

    10 if we go to Prosecutor's Exhibit 288A, again on the

    11 ELMO, Your Honours will see the English translation of

    12 the stamp indicating Croatian Defence Council Vitez

    13 Communications Centre, 17 April 1993 at 0614 hours in

    14 the morning.

    15 One last example for Your Honours is 303, it

    16 is Defence Exhibit 303. Again, this is the B/C/S

    17 version of the stamp. It indicates on the lower

    18 left-hand corner again the HVO Communications Centre,

    19 dated April 18th, 1993.

    20 Mr. President and Your Honours, what we see

    21 here is that there was a functional operational

    22 communications centre a short distance away from

    23 Colonel Blaskic, and when he says "I could only

    24 communicate on two telephones," that's misleading and

    25 it's false.



  136. 1 The next question arises -- we've heard

    2 Colonel Blaskic testify about problems with his ability

    3 to send secure communications. Again, Mr. President

    4 and Your Honours, I commend you to Prosecutor's Exhibit

    5 757, particularly the first portion of that exhibit,

    6 because in that first portion of the exhibit, there is

    7 a series of documents which show (1) that Colonel

    8 Blaskic was receiving coded communications from

    9 Mostar. I believe in that exhibit -- there are four

    10 exhibits in there, four sample exhibits, where General

    11 Petkovic sends Blaskic coded communications.

    12 Second of all, in that exhibit there are a

    13 number of examples of rudimentary codes that were used

    14 by various subordinate units of Colonel Blaskic in

    15 Fojnica, for example, I believe there is one from

    16 Vares. It is inconceivable that Colonel Blaskic did

    17 not use codes when he was fighting the Serbs. He was.

    18 He used codes. There were codes as standard operating

    19 military procedures. He was aware of them and he used

    20 them.

    21 Could they encrypt their messages? What do

    22 we know about that? We know that Brigadier Marin

    23 testified before Your Honours -- now, Brigadier Marin,

    24 again, was the chief of intelligence. He had an office

    25 or a location in Nova Bila, which was near the British



  137. 1 base, and I asked Brigadier Zeko, "Did you have

    2 encryption capabilities and could you communicate with

    3 encrypted communications to the Hotel Vitez?" He said

    4 "Yes."

    5 So it is clear, Mr. President and Your

    6 Honours, from the equipment that was available to them

    7 and the communications centre that was there, that the

    8 HVO and Colonel Blaskic had far more communications

    9 capabilities than he said in his testimony.

    10 Again, I'd like to turn Your Honours'

    11 attention to the testimony of -- it was Major Baggesen

    12 who testified that when he went to HVO positions on

    13 Serb lines, he saw HVO communications officer

    14 communicating on a radio with various other radio

    15 stations in the HVO radio network. Now, that was when

    16 they were fighting the Serbs.

    17 Captain Jean-Marc Lanthier, who was a member

    18 of the Canadian battalion in Kiseljak, his testimony to

    19 Your Honours was the HVO had excellent communications

    20 at various HVO headquarters. Colonel Stewart, when he

    21 testified, testified that it was easy for the HVO

    22 headquarters to pass commands down to subordinate

    23 units.

    24 Let's examine another facet of the problem of

    25 communications, and that is: What did the victims tell



  138. 1 Your Honours when they came to this Chamber and related

    2 their tragic stories?

    3 Many of these victims testified that, in

    4 fact, while they observed these actions of the HVO

    5 soldiers, they saw them. They saw them with

    6 Motorolas. I believe a witness by the name of Sulejman

    7 Kavazovic testified that in addition to Motorolas he

    8 saw hand-held field telephones that were being used.

    9 Now, if we could go briefly into private

    10 session, it will be very brief, I'd like to --

    11 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, briefly. Mr. Registrar.

    12 (Private session)

    13 (redacted)

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  140. 1 (redacted)

    2 (redacted)

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    9 (redacted)

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    11 (redacted)

    12 (redacted)

    13 (redacted)

    14 (redacted)

    15 (Open session)

    16 JUDGE JORDA: I must remind you once again,

    17 in view of the fact that a maximum of publicity focuses

    18 on this debate and that we must limit to a minimum

    19 private sessions to only those witnesses that were

    20 under protection. So please continue.

    21 MR. HARMON: I apologise, Mr. President.

    22 That's my mistake.

    23 Let's turn to Kiseljak and discuss Kiseljak

    24 for just a moment.

    25 We have heard testimony from a professional



  141. 1 military officer, it was Captain Libert who said that

    2 physical separation of command is not unusual. It

    3 happened on a number of occasions and he cited examples

    4 in the Second World War. Was that a problem for

    5 Colonel Blaskic? Let's hear the words of

    6 Colonel Blaskic. I will refer Your Honours to

    7 Prosecutor's Exhibit 380, and this is what

    8 Colonel Blaskic said. He was asked the question:

    9 Q. Kresevo, Kiseljak, and part of Fojnica

    10 municipality also controlled by the HVO

    11 are also in Central Bosnia but are not

    12 connected with the forces of Vitez and

    13 Busovaca. How are they holding up?

    14 Blaskic -- I will read only a portion of this

    15 answer given the time, and I'm reading from midway

    16 through his answer:

    17 A. ... They are carrying out in a

    18 coordinated and organised manner all

    19 commands connected with the defence of

    20 the people and Croatian territories.

    21 This physical separation is not an

    22 essential or decisive factor, because we

    23 figured out in our planning that the

    24 temporary physical separation of these

    25 areas could occur. Travnik is the first



  142. 1 Operative Group, Kiseljak is the second,

    2 Zepce the third, and Sarajevo the

    3 fourth. All operative groups are under

    4 my command with the chain of leadership

    5 and command functions absolutely,

    6 without interruption.

    7 So Colonel Blaskic agreed with Captain Libert

    8 that physical separation did not necessarily pose

    9 problems with command.

    10 Now, I will not repeat the testimonies of

    11 Brigadier-General Duncan or Baggesen or Lanthier, but

    12 all of them testified to the effect that the command

    13 functioned properly in the Kiseljak municipality, and

    14 Blaskic told them that there were no problems with the

    15 command, even though there was a physical separation

    16 between the Vitez-Busovaca municipality and the

    17 Kiseljak municipality. That's what he told them then.

    18 What he's telling this Trial Chamber now is different.

    19 What he told the Donis reporter in October is different

    20 than what he's telling this Chamber now.

    21 Now, Mr. President and Your Honours, I'd like

    22 to turn first of all to identify some of the units and

    23 deal quickly with some of the units, whether

    24 Colonel Blaskic commanded and controlled these units.

    25 Let's start with the artillery.



  143. 1 My colleague, Mr. Kehoe, touched upon --

    2 JUDGE JORDA: You're going to another

    3 subject, are you? I'm asking you in order to be able

    4 to follow you.

    5 MR. HARMON: I am.

    6 JUDGE JORDA: Are you still talking about

    7 communications? Yes. Very well. Continue, please.

    8 MR. HARMON: I'm now talking about units that

    9 were under the command of Colonel Blaskic. I'd like to

    10 start with, first of all, the artillery.

    11 As I say, my colleague, Mr. Kehoe, touched

    12 upon that this morning when he discussed the shelling

    13 of Zenica on the 19th of April, 1993.

    14 Blaskic himself testified that he commanded

    15 the important major artillery pieces in his area of

    16 operation. Why? Because artillery assets were

    17 precious. The lower commands had mortars, smaller

    18 millimetre mortars, they had anti-aircraft pieces, but

    19 the big pieces were under Blaskic's control and only he

    20 could give orders in respect of those. My colleague

    21 mentioned why that's important. In part, the Zenica

    22 shelling.

    23 Briefly let me put another exhibit on the

    24 ELMO. This is Prosecutor's 690, and it relates to

    25 Colonel Blaskic's testimony about the 16th of April,



  144. 1 1993.

    2 On the 16th of April, as you will recall,

    3 Colonel Blaskic testified that he was taken by surprise

    4 by this attack on the Hotel Vitez. His artillery was

    5 unprepared, and as I recall in his testimony, he was

    6 not able to organise any artillery response until

    7 approximately 9.00 or 9.30 that morning.

    8 Now, let's take a look at what a third-party

    9 observer identified? The third-party observer, as you

    10 will see on this Exhibit A, says that at 06.45 hours,

    11 they noticed the artillery piece, a field gun, started

    12 to fire from an area and they give the coordinates.

    13 Well, during the testimony of this case those

    14 coordinates were identified, and those coordinates were

    15 at a quarry known as Mosunj, which housed a

    16 152-millimetre artillery piece that was under the

    17 exclusive control of Blaskic.

    18 So when Blaskic testified in this Chamber

    19 that he didn't start the artillery fire until 9.00,

    20 9.30 on the 16th, he had exclusive control over this

    21 artillery piece that started firing at 06.45 hours.

    22 I'd like to turn next to a special purpose

    23 unit known as Zuti. Did Colonel Blaskic command and

    24 control this particular special purpose unit?

    25 If I could put before this Chamber the



  145. 1 following testimony of Brigadier Marin, who testified

    2 at page 13965 and 13966. He said as follows:

    3 A. The Zuti units, the yellow units, was

    4 within the composition of the Frankopan

    5 Brigade, so it was not a unit

    6 organisationally linked to the Defence

    7 Ministry or any other institution. It

    8 was a unit which, that is to say, a

    9 group of 30 individuals who proclaimed

    10 themselves to be special purpose units,

    11 and they acted within the frameworks of

    12 the Frankopan Brigade, just as a company

    13 or platoon with the framework -- within

    14 the framework of the brigade.

    15 So this, according to a Defence witness, puts

    16 the Zuti special purpose unit directly into the

    17 Frankopan Brigade, and we have heard testimony from

    18 Colonel Blaskic that he controlled the brigades.

    19 Let's take a look at Prosecutor's

    20 Exhibit 456/37, an order, a command by Colonel Blaskic

    21 dated June 19, 1993. In the distribution section of

    22 this order it says and I quote: "All the independent

    23 units under the command of the HVO 3rd OZ commander,"

    24 and it lists, among others, the Vitezovi, TURTKO II,

    25 and Zuti.



  146. 1 Now, let's talk about Zuti. How is this

    2 Zuti, this organisation, characterised by the Defence?

    3 If I can refer Your Honours to page 19612, a question

    4 by my colleague, Mr. Nobilo. The following question:

    5 Q. Would you remind us please, one of the

    6 representatives, you say in a very nice

    7 way the members of an armed group, but I

    8 would like to say Mafioso groups, you

    9 mentioned Zuti. Is it the same Zuti

    10 that witnesses from the International

    11 Community mentioned who was responsible

    12 for hijacking of convoys?

    13 Answer by Blaskic:

    14 A. Yes, it was. He was one of the bosses

    15 in the area.

    16 So we have Colonel Blaskic testifying that

    17 Zuti, in adopting the characterisation by my colleague

    18 Mr. Nobilo, that Zuti was one of the Mafioso bosses in

    19 the area.

    20 Now, let's discuss Zuti a little bit more in

    21 the context of war crimes. You may recall

    22 Major Baggesen who testified before this Chamber. Let

    23 me relate his testimony, starting at page 1978 and

    24 going over to 1979. Major Baggesen answered:

    25 A. We went to that area and witnessed two



  147. 1 Muslim families forced out of their

    2 homes and their houses were given over

    3 to Croat families.

    4 Q. Who forced them out of their houses?

    5 A. It was an HVO unit. We were able to see

    6 that and we were told the commander of

    7 this unit had the nickname Zuti.

    8 Q. Did you witness this event actually

    9 happen?

    10 A. Yes, we did.

    11 Further on down the line:

    12 Q. Who did you complain to about this

    13 incident.

    14 A. On our way back we passed Colonel

    15 Blaskic and we complained about this to

    16 Colonel Blaskic.

    17 Q. You said you passed Colonel Blaskic?

    18 You passed the Hotel Vitez in Vitez and

    19 you went to his headquarters and told

    20 him about this incident? What did he

    21 say?

    22 A. He said he was sorry and he would try to

    23 do something about it.

    24 Q. Did he do anything about it?

    25 A. I do not think, because at this time it



  148. 1 only seems it's as a minor problem that

    2 two families were forced out.

    3 This occurred on the 11th of May, according

    4 to Major Baggesen.

    5 The question is: Assuming this was a Mafioso

    6 group, a group that stole from international convoys

    7 humanitarian aid and a group that, according to Major

    8 Baggesen, evicted Muslims from their homes, did Colonel

    9 Blaskic have the military might to suppress this

    10 group? Absolutely. And I will refer Your Honours to a

    11 testimony of Brigadier General Alastair Duncan who was

    12 talking in the context of the Vitezovi but it applies

    13 equally to Zuti.

    14 Brigadier General Duncan testified that Darko

    15 Kraljevic and his knights had a number of about 20 or

    16 30 strong, and the question was put to Brigadier

    17 General Duncan:

    18 Q. Did Blaskic have enough troops under his

    19 control to control 20 or 30 men?

    20 A. Most certainly. If he wished to stamp

    21 out 20 or 30 men, he could have done so

    22 easily.

    23 The next exhibit I would like to turn Your

    24 Honours' attention to is Prosecutor's Exhibit 685

    25 because the leader of the Zuti group was a man by the



  149. 1 name of Zarko Andric.

    2 What happened to this man who ECMM advised

    3 had evicted Muslims from their homes, who Blaskic

    4 acknowledged had stolen from international humanitarian

    5 aid convoys. What happened to him? Was he punished?

    6 Was his group suppressed? The answer is "No" to both

    7 of those questions, and the answer can be seen in

    8 Prosecutor's Exhibit 685. Zarko Andric was personally

    9 appointed by Blaskic to be the assistant commander for

    10 the active forces in Central Bosnia on the 4th of July,

    11 1993.

    12 Let me turn to another special purposes group

    13 very briefly, the Tvrtko II group. This Court has

    14 heard testimony from Blaskic that on the 16th of April,

    15 at 12.34 in the afternoon, Blaskic personally placed

    16 the commander of the Tvrtko unit at the disposal of

    17 Mario Cerkez and asked him to assist Cerkez in the

    18 assault on Doing Veceriska that was taking place.

    19 Yesterday my colleague showed Your Honours

    20 pictures again of what happened in Doing Veceriska.

    21 The Muslims were driven out, their homes were burned to

    22 the ground. One of the participating units beside the

    23 brigade that was under Blaskic's control was this

    24 special purposes unit, and again, if there is any

    25 question as to whether this special purposes unit was



  150. 1 under Blaskic's control, I would refer Your Honours to

    2 456/37. I have referred to it earlier.

    3 The next group is in Kiseljak, special

    4 purposes unit known as the Maturice. This was a group,

    5 Mr. President and Your Honours, that was part of the

    6 Ban Jelacic Brigade, and as such, by Blaskic's own

    7 admission that he controlled the brigades, he

    8 controlled, obviously, the actions of this particular

    9 group.

    10 Lastly, I would like to turn to the Vitezovi

    11 because Blaskic tried mightily to distance himself from

    12 the Vitezovi special purposes unit. What he testified

    13 and what Marin testified about was that the Vitezovi

    14 was led by Darko Kraljevic, and in order to give Darko

    15 Kraljevic an order, an assignment, even after he had

    16 been "attached," he would have to negotiate with Darko

    17 Kraljevic, and only if Darko Kraljevic agreed could

    18 Blaskic rely on the services of the Vitezovi.

    19 He also testified that the Vitezovi was out

    20 of control and that Blaskic complained all the time to

    21 the main staff about the Vitezovi, about their actions,

    22 about the actions of their commander, Darko Kraljevic,

    23 and that, Your Honours, was a lie. Absolutely a lie.

    24 Why did he lie about that? It is quite clear

    25 why he did: Because virtually every crime in this



  151. 1 indictment has the fingerprints of the Vitezovi on it.

    2 I refer Your Honour to a protected witness I

    3 referred to a few moments ago who discussed

    4 communications while in Ahmici and in the January

    5 attack in Busovaca. I won't identify him in public

    6 session, but he identifies the Vitezovi as

    7 participating in the January attack where the Muslims'

    8 houses were burned, where they were attacked, where

    9 they were driven out.

    10 The truck bomb. We have heard Colonel

    11 Blaskic testify that the Vitezovi were the group that

    12 was responsible. We have heard testimony of Blaskic

    13 saying that the Vitezovi were assigned to guard around

    14 his headquarters. We have heard testimony of victims

    15 who testified about what happened to the Muslim homes

    16 around the Hotel Vitez: They were burned to the

    17 ground, civilians were driven out. There is testimony

    18 of what they did through third party British officers

    19 who drove into Vitez and observed the one-sided combat

    20 taking place.

    21 The Vitezovi held prisoners at the Dubravica

    22 school from the 16th of April until early May, and I

    23 would refer Your Honours to the testimony of Dr. Fuad

    24 Zeco who testified that the Vitezovi threatened to kill

    25 the prisoners in the Dubravica school if the ABiH, in



  152. 1 their counterattack, came closer and continued to

    2 advance on Vitez.

    3 The Vitezovi has been identified in Ahmici as

    4 participating in the killings and the burning in

    5 Ahmici. My colleague discussed the attack on Stari

    6 Vitez on July 18th. Blaskic says, "The Vitezovi did

    7 it. I was in Busovaca. I was at breakfast -- I was at

    8 mass and I had lunch with the minister." They were

    9 identified in Grbavica in September.

    10 The point is that everywhere there is a

    11 crime, the Vitezovi have their fingerprints firmly on

    12 the crime. But Blaskic now needs to distance himself

    13 from the Vitezovi. Darko Kraljevic is dead. He can't

    14 respond to the claims that Darko Kraljevic was somebody

    15 that was out of control.

    16 The Prosecutor submits to Your Honours that

    17 Blaskic controlled and commanded this particular

    18 special purpose unit throughout the war, and they were

    19 subordinated to him, they weren't attached to him. You

    20 may recall, Your Honours -- if we may have the next

    21 exhibit? -- Prosecutor's Exhibit 666, which is an order

    22 from Milivoj Petkovic, dated the 19th of January, 1993,

    23 and it subordinates the Vitezovi to Colonel Blaskic.

    24 It forbids any independent action by that group, and it

    25 says:



  153. 1 "This order shall remain in force until I

    2 personally change it."

    3 This is dated the 19th of January, 1993.

    4 Now, if we could go into private session for

    5 just a moment?

    6 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, indeed, because you are

    7 referring to a testimony which is under protection, so

    8 we will go into private session, please.

    9 (Private session)

    10 (redacted)

    11 (redacted)

    12 (redacted)

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  1. 1 (redacted)

    2 (Open session)

    3 JUDGE JORDA: We are adjourning now. It is

    4 5.30. We will resume tomorrow at 10.00.

    5 I am reminding you that you should finish

    6 tomorrow. That is an imperative. Are we agreed?

    7 MR. HARMON: Yes, we are agreed.

    8 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Thank you. The

    9 hearing is adjourned.

    10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

    11 5.31 p.m., to be reconvened on

    12 Wednesday, the 28th day of July, 1999,

    13 at 10.00 a.m.

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