1 Tuesday, 24 June 2003

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

5 [The accused entered court]

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Madam Registrar, could you call the case,

7 please?

8 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good morning, Your Honours.

9 This is case number IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can you follow

11 in a language that you can understand?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning to everyone. Yes, I

13 can follow in a language I understand, thank you.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Appearances, Prosecution?

15 MS. KORNER: Joanna Korner assisted by Denise Gustin, case

16 manager, good morning, Your Honours.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you. Appearances for Radoslav

18 Brdjanin?

19 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours, I'm John Ackerman with

20 David Cunningham and Aleksandar Vujic, and I just want to point out for

21 the record that Mr. Cunningham and I continue to appear in the absence of

22 a licence from the treasury.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: With regard to this I did receive a communication

24 which I cannot consider official because I received it through friends

25 that I have in Washington, which confirms exactly what you said yesterday.

1 Supposedly you should have received it by now but anyway -- but I feel I

2 would not be exposing you or Mr. Cunningham to any risk if we proceeded.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: That's our current feeling, Your Honour, based upon

4 that permission document that was sent to Judge Meron but it really

5 doesn't -- it's not a licence and that's the thing that concerns me.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: But for -- to be on the safe side, Madam Registrar,

7 I would like you to extract this part of the transcript of today, as well

8 as the first part of the transcript of yesterday, where Mr. Ackerman made

9 a statement on the situation, as he considered it to obtain yesterday, and

10 communicate both to the -- to Judge Meron, President Meron, for his

11 information. Any preliminaries? Ms. Korner? Nothing?

12 I have a very short matter to bring up with you, and I need your

13 cooperation. On the 28th of April of this year, the Prosecution filed a

14 motion, Rule 92 bis motion, relating to the admission of evidence under

15 that rule relating to destruction of religious sites. You had responded,

16 Mr. Ackerman, not objecting to the admission of these statements, but you

17 did object to the admission of the attachments accompanying the statement

18 of Witness 7.243. Now, the attachments consist of the following: One

19 attachment is a kind of a brochure, a kind of a brochure in English, which

20 I personally need to discuss with my two judges. I have not discussed it

21 as yet, but which doesn't seem to be that much relevant but I'm open to

22 conviction. The problem is the CD. This CD, having gone through it,

23 there are two books in English. I would imagine that there are relevant

24 parts of these two books and parts which are absolutely not relevant. I

25 don't know. So if you already have a clue as to what is relevant and what

1 is not, please let us know because that would put us in a better position

2 at least to decide whether they should be admitted or not. Then there is

3 another problem. There is another book in B/C/S which Mr. Ackerman hasn't

4 objected to being admitted in evidence, but the thing is how can we decide

5 to admit it in evidence if it is not translated in English so if it's not

6 translated in English we are going to have a problem. We will probably

7 admit it because there is no objection on the part of Mr. Ackerman, but

8 what use we would be able to put to it frankly I don't know. So this

9 is -- I'm just saying it -- also incidentally, you do not as such specify

10 which attachments you object to, and I take it therefore that you are

11 objecting to all attachments, all right? If I am wrong there, correct me.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: You're correct, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: But Ms. Korner, if you can take that up and help us

14 please, it would be appreciated.

15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I regret to say that I can't. This is

16 what is colloquially described as Ms. Richterova's baby and Ms. Richterova

17 is not here today but she'll be back tomorrow and I'll make inquiries.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I appreciate that and I thank you, Ms. Korner.

19 Usher, please, the solemn declaration.

20 Good morning to you, sir.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Welcome back. We will proceed with your

23 cross-examination and hopefully finish with you today. May I ask you,

24 please, to repeat your solemn declaration.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

1 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

2 WITNESS: WITNESS BT94 [Resumed]

3 [Witness answered through Interpreter]

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Please, take a chair and let's proceed.

5 Mr. Ackerman.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman: [Continued]

8 Q. Good morning to you, sir.

9 A. Good morning to you, Mr. Ackerman.

10 Q. We got off to a kind of shaky start yesterday with all of the

11 mixup over documents and things and I'm hoping we can move rather rapidly

12 now today based upon the agreement we have entered into regarding the use

13 of these documents because I would like to finish with you today so that

14 you can go back home. So if you'll cooperate with me I'll cooperate with

15 you in that regard.

16 I want to go just very briefly --

17 A. I hope so too.

18 Q. I want to go very briefly to your testimony from yesterday. There

19 was that portion of your testimony where you talked about the four

20 horsemen of the apocalypse and named Mr. Brdjanin as one of those and in

21 your statement of 24 November, 2001, on page 3, you claim that those four

22 persons, Vukic, Kupresanin, Radic and Brdjanin, were responsible for what

23 happened, and the question I have in that regard is this: With regard to

24 Mr. Brdjanin, can you give us the name of any person you spoke to and the

25 date upon which you approximately might have spoken to them, who told you

1 that they had committed any kind of an offence, any kind of a crime,

2 because of something they heard Mr. Brdjanin say?

3 A. Well, that's rather ridiculous. Who would say that? Who can --

4 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. The interpretation that I got says that

5 you used the word ridiculous. You cannot address anyone here with those

6 adjectives.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sorry.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I repeat to you, Mr. Ackerman here is

9 doing his duty. And he has a right to be respected and allowed to do his

10 duty. So there will not be a repetition of that.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I respect Mr. Ackerman

12 and I am aware of what his role is here in this trial. Mr. Ackerman,

13 nobody came and told me directly, you know, under the influence of

14 Mr. Brdjanin I did so and so. Well, to expect something like that is not

15 on. These people are not going to say what they have been doing. Nobody

16 came up to me to say, this person provoked me to do such and such a thing.

17 MR. ACKERMAN:

18 Q. Well, I don't know if you know. I'll ask you if you know, that a

19 number of people who have been indicted by this Tribunal have in fact

20 admitted that they've committed certain offences, they've pleaded guilty.

21 They have done things like that. So that happens, doesn't it?

22 A. Certainly.

23 Q. Now, my next question to you is this: I take it that you do not

24 claim that these things that you've described that happened would not have

25 happened if Mr. Brdjanin had not been there. You don't make that claim,

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1 do you?

2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm not sure how he can answer that.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Ms. Korner.

4 MS. KORNER: How can you speculate --

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. President, please.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Sorry, my apologies to you for not having turned the

7 microphone on. Objection sustained. You either rephrase your question,

8 Mr. Ackerman, or put another question.

9 MR. ACKERMAN:

10 Q. You claim, sir, that Mr. Brdjanin, among these four people, was

11 responsible for what happened. I take it that the other side of that, you

12 can't claim, that these things would not have happened but for the

13 presence of Mr. Brdjanin. You can't make that claim, can you?

14 A. Only due to his presence, I don't think so, but he's one of the

15 people who contributed to what had happened. Unfortunately this happened.

16 Yes, you cannot just say that it is just Mr. Brdjanin who was creating the

17 atmosphere and raising the tension, which would then result in the

18 misfortunate that occurred but the fact is that he is one of them, that is

19 certain, and there is no doubt about that whatsoever.

20 Q. All right. We are going to talk more about that as we get a

21 little further on here with regard to certain things you said in your

22 diary. I want to go back to your diary now and I'm going to the 15th of

23 April, page L0034690. On that page, sir, you're quoting or referring at

24 least to, and I think quoting, an article from Glas, and that article

25 talks about the new insignia for the police, the Ministry of Interior

1 insignia, and the oaths of loyalty that police officers were asked to

2 take. The article indicates that in the Banja Luka Public Security

3 Station, almost all Serbs have signed the oath of loyalty while the

4 percentage of Muslims who followed suit was around 60 and for Croats that

5 number was over 60. Do you recall recording that in your diary?

6 A. Yes. Yes. That's -- that was copied from Glas. I remember

7 copying this.

8 Q. I'm now going to go to page -- it's actually the date of 16 April,

9 1992, page L0054895. And you -- you speak of an interview done by the

10 Serbian Minister of External Affairs with an Iranian newspaper agency, and

11 what you say that that Serbian Minister of External Affairs stated --

12 INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. President, please.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment because I am not receiving -- it's okay,

14 it's okay. I thought there was something wrong but I'm receiving -- must

15 have been some kind of disconnection here.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. What you say in your diary is that Serbian Minister of External

18 Affairs, Slobodan Jovanovic stated Muslims in the so-called third

19 Yugoslavia will not be recognised as a people or nationality, but only as

20 a religious community. Do you have any idea what he's talking about?

21 A. Mr. Ackerman, what you quoted to me a moment ago, and what you

22 quoted just now as said by this Serbian minister, this was directly taken

23 out either I typed out, copied the newspaper article so it wasn't my

24 guessing. And this other thing, as far as I can see, is the interview

25 that I've transcribed from the radio so what he's talking about -- well,

1 he's talking about what Muslims were always talking about, it wasn't a

2 nationality. It was an ethnic community. It was a religious community.

3 It was the Serbs who became Islamisised. That's what -- the term that was

4 used and this is what they have been talking about from the start.

5 Q. Do you know when it was in the history of Yugoslavia that the

6 Muslim community of Yugoslavia was first recognised as a nationality?

7 Given national status? Do you know when that happened?

8 A. To be honest, I don't know that very well. I wasn't following

9 that but I know that it happened during Tito's era.

10 Q. Let's go now to 17 April of 1992, and I'm on page L0065794. And

11 just very briefly, you simply state there and I'm not sure we can tell

12 where you got the information from, you simply state: "The Krajina economy

13 is operating only at 40 per cent of its capacity."

14 A. Mr. Ackerman, all of this data I found in the newspapers. I as a

15 layman who was not part of it, I couldn't have made this up. All of this

16 data is based on what I have read in Banja Luka press or heard from

17 electronic media that were active in Banja Luka. It was not a secret.

18 Everybody knew this in Banja Luka.

19 Q. Sir, please understand. Because you're spending a lot of time

20 defending yourself from accusations I'm not making. I'm not suggesting

21 you made this up. I know you got it from some source, newspaper, magazine

22 or something like that. I only want to point out --

23 A. Read, I read and copied, typed it out.

24 Q. I simply want to point out that from some source you learned that

25 the economy was operating at 40 per cent of its capacity. I'm not

1 accusing you of making that up, okay?

2 A. I don't think that you're accusing me. I'm just explaining how I

3 came by that information.

4 Q. Please be assured that if I take the position that you're making

5 something up, I'll be very direct about that and tell you that that's how

6 I feel, okay? I'm now going to 21 April of 1992 and the page is L0057081

7 in English and it's just -- this is just a very brief thing. You're

8 speaking of the deterioration of Radio Banja Luka. You're commenting on a

9 conversation that you heard on the radio, you're commenting on the

10 deterioration of Radio Banja Luka and then you make -- you say this, and

11 this is April of 1992: "But amazingly enough its music programme is

12 replete with many melodies performed by Croatian artists." And that's an

13 observation you made yourself just by listening to the radio, isn't it?

14 A. I don't see this here but I believe you if you have read it out,

15 if I have written it, then that's what it is.

16 Q. I'd be happy to help you find it if you would like me to. It's

17 right near the end of your diary for that day. It's under a quote from

18 Goga. Goga says: "We would like to thank Nenad Stevandic, this concludes

19 our conversation."

20 A. Goga Stegic?

21 Q. And then right under that, it's the last part of the interview

22 that you're talking about. Right under that, at least in the English,

23 there is a line and then you talk about this conversation is a mild

24 illustration. It's the last paragraph -- it's the paragraph right before

25 the last paragraph on that date, I think.

1 A. Well, we don't have to waste time. I believe you. I believe you.

2 Q. And it's more than believing me, you personally observed, you

3 personally heard, that the music programme was replete with many melodies

4 performed by Croatian artists. You knew that of your own knowledge,

5 didn't you?

6 A. Well, let me tell you, that happened until the appearance of the

7 Serbian Defence Forces. After that, we did not know what we were

8 listening to. We practically moved to Serbia. Instead of listening to

9 songs about Vrbas Regura and so on we were listening about the Ibar River,

10 Drina River, Morava River. This is what our children were learning in

11 school. That's the truth, Mr. Ackerman.

12 Q. Well, just a minute. Just a minute. On 21 April, that's what we

13 were just talking about, was 21 April, on 21 April, you said: "Amazingly

14 enough its music programme is replete with many melodies performed by

15 Croatian artists." Now you say that was true until the SOS but the SOS

16 arrived on the 3rd of April, and you're talking about the 27th; right?

17 Right?

18 A. Yes, Mr. Ackerman, but that's why I've written it down that it was

19 a surprising thing. Something happened and on that day, that's what was

20 broadcast, many Croatian singers.

21 Q. 27 April is where I'm going now. L0055314.

22 [Technical difficulty]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. [Microphone not activated]

24 JUDGE AGIUS: And so is everybody else, I gather. I'm not the

25 only one.

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1 THE INTERPRETER: Testing.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I am receiving you in English now or at least I

3 heard the word "testing". Can you say something else, please?

4 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: We can hear you so I take it that we can proceed.

8 MR. ACKERMAN:

9 Q. All right. We were getting ready to talk, sir, about page

10 L0055314. And this is 27 April of 1992, and there you're writing about an

11 announcement from the BH Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, that the JNA

12 should withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina. And then you say it was

13 announced that members of the army could join the newly established TO

14 forces and they were called upon to put themselves at the disposal of the

15 legal organs of authority of this republic. Correct?

16 A. I'm afraid I didn't understand the question. Could you please

17 repeat it for me?

18 Q. Yes. On that date, on 27 April, at the particular page of the

19 diary that I'm referring to, you're talking about President Alija

20 Izetbegovic announcing that the JNA should withdraw from

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And then you record this: "It was announced that

22 members of the army could join the newly established TO forces and they

23 were called upon to put themselves at the disposal of the legal organs of

24 authority of this republic." And my question about that is: This was a

25 call by Izetbegovic, I take it, to get the JNA members in

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina to join up with the Muslim-Croatian TO to become part

2 of what was later to become the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, wasn't it?

3 A. Mr. Ackerman, this was no Muslim-Croatian TO. This

4 Muslim-Croatian TO, how would you make General Siber, a Croat or Jovan

5 Divljak, a Serb general, tie in with that. That's not what we are talking

6 about here. That was different. This was a call on those young men to

7 leave the army, the army, becoming ever-more aggressive, and to start

8 defending their own home country, Bosnia and Herzegovina. That's how I

9 understood the invitation that was issued to them.

10 Q. And it turned out then that the vast majority of people who became

11 part of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina were in fact Muslim with some

12 notable exceptions like Jovan Divljak which was also true of the Army of

13 Republika Srpska which had Muslim officers and Muslim soldiers serving in

14 that army, so there was mixture in both armies, wasn't there?

15 A. At the beginning, yes.

16 Q. It's a fact, isn't it, that when certain JNA forces tried to leave

17 Sarajevo, that they were blocked by Muslim forces and not allowed to leave

18 with their weapons? That happened, didn't it?

19 A. Yes. I know what you mean. You mean the -- when Kukanjac left,

20 when he came out, yes, this did indeed happen. But if you remember, there

21 was an agreement reached before the representative of the international

22 forces, and this agreement said that the weapons were to be left behind as

23 well as the documents, and that only the soldiers of the JNA were free to

24 leave because the weapons, for God's sake, we were the ones who had paid

25 for those weapons, not only the Serbs, not the Serbs alone. It was all of

1 us who paid for that, the weapons. I really don't understand why Bosnia

2 and Herzegovina should have less of a right to obtain something that

3 Croatia and Serbia already had.

4 Q. I'm really not quarrelling that there is a lack of right. I'm

5 just trying to make sure that the Chamber understands all of the facts

6 about what was happening at that time. And I appreciate you helping me in

7 that regard, I appreciate it a lot.

8 A. I will try hard, Mr. Ackerman.

9 Q. I know. And I appreciate it very much that you're doing that.

10 I want to go now to 5 May of 1992. I don't know if you recall

11 that but 5 May of 1992 was the date on which the Crisis Staff of the

12 Autonomous Region of Krajina was formed. On that date, you refer to an

13 interview on the radio with Mr. Brdjanin, and Mr. Brdjanin is being asked

14 about the mobilisation, and you report and I assume correctly, that he

15 said, mobilisation is being carried out in order to prevent war and to

16 safeguard peace.

17 A. I do believe that this is correct. You can't lead this out in the

18 future. I believe this is correct. As you can see, I also took down what

19 your client said in terms of positive things, not merely the negative

20 things. I wasn't only pointing out the negative things he said. I said

21 what he -- I wrote down what he said. And he really did say this, but

22 Mr. Ackerman, how can it happen, I am asking you now, that all the

23 citizens somehow saw that this was not for the purpose of peace, of

24 preserving peace? No one in Banja Luka had any illusions whatsoever that

25 Mr. Brdjanin was some kind of a peace keeper or the dove of peace. That's

1 what he called himself. But what was being talked about was one thing and

2 it was what was being done was something entirely different. Unfortunately

3 that's the way it was.

4 Q. You have been critical of Mr. Brdjanin for the things he said, and

5 now you're telling us that he said a lot of things that had to do with

6 peace and I want to show you another one, if you go to -- if we go over to

7 page 03036115, Mr. Brdjanin was asked, "Will members of other

8 nationalities" - talking about this mobilisation again - "Will members of

9 other nationalities join the TO units, even minorities in the areas of

10 Bosanska Krajina?" Mr. Brdjanin said, "Well, of course they will, of

11 course. Even in the Partisans the first to come were Osman Karabegovic

12 and the Maza brothers and so on. All those who want to live in these

13 areas will join in. Of course I'm not saying that they will. Maybe they

14 will not want to but those who are thinking rationally will join in and

15 defend this place together." He said that, didn't he?

16 A. I'll take your word for it, if that's how it was written down,

17 then he said it. But this is all talk, empty talk. Who was there to

18 defend from? Who? That's the only reply I'm looking for from you. Who

19 was Banja Luka supposed to defend from in the first place?

20 Q. The way things work here is I ask questions and you give answers.

21 But it seems to me that when Mr. Brdjanin says something that you find

22 offensive, then it's not just talk, but when he says something that's

23 favourable then it's just talk but let me go on to the next one, 03036118

24 part of the same interview, Mr. Brdjanin says this: "All those who are

25 contemplating leaving Bosanska Krajina, regardless of whether they are

1 Serbs, Croats or Muslims will be sharply warned and other parts of Serbia

2 and perhaps Montenegro will be told not to accept them. They should not

3 be leaving these parts now when they are needed the most by their people.

4 I'm allowing, and those in the crisis area to save their children," and so

5 on. And again that's something you reported that Mr. Brdjanin said during

6 this interview. That certainly doesn't sound like some policy to

7 ethnically cleanse the area of Croats and Muslims but a policy to keep

8 them from leaving, doesn't it?

9 A. I don't know about that. I believe there is a misunderstanding

10 between us here. No one said, and I never wrote down, well, it is there

11 in my diary, I see your relying on my diary. Whatever Mr. Brdjanin said I

12 wrote down. If he said something that could have been interpreted as

13 meaning well, I did write that down too. I'm not accusing him but you

14 needed to be there. You needed to be in the town to sense the atmosphere,

15 to understand the atmosphere and everything that was going on and then if

16 you had been there you would have understood what the words meant to

17 people. Our life was completely normal, nothing much was happening, and

18 they started telling us no one would be in your way, and emigrations,

19 everyone joining the TO, everyone. You know why everyone? Everyone was

20 free to leave but not everyone was joining because not everyone was

21 allowed to join the TO. They were still acting the part of Partisans, the

22 liberators. There was still this act being put on, we are the right

23 people, and the Chetnik insignia were being concealed but those were later

24 to shine in their full splendor and Biljana Plavsic was here was to go to

25 Jazovac a place near Gradiska and she stated openly: "I'm proud to be in

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1 Chetnik Jazovac." Please. They were pretending they were Partisans who

2 would go there and liberate the Serbian people. Where? In Croatia. They

3 were liberating Croatia from the Croats and Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be

4 liberated from the Bosniaks. That was the final aim. This was just a

5 brief introduction. This was putting in their measuring rod and seeing

6 how the international community would react. Whenever there was a sharp

7 reaction from the international community, they would immediately quiet

8 down a little bit and watch for reactions from the international

9 community. As soon as reactions were reserved, they would step up, step

10 the whole thing up, and that was the truth of it. Unfortunately. Mr.

11 Ackerman, if you believe that I'm a fortunate man to be sitting here now,

12 giving you my testimony, which may cost your client dearly, you are far

13 wrong. I would be far the happier man if the war had never happened in

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, if I'd never had to write this bloody diary. I can't

15 even stand to look at it now. I would indeed have been very fortunate if

16 none of this had ever come to pass. I wish I could just wake up one day

17 and realise it was all just one bad nightmare.

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16 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, Mr. Ackerman. Ms. Korner, yesterday --

17 let's go into private session for a while.

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20 [Open session]

21 MR. ACKERMAN:

22 Q. All right. Sir, I'm staying with the same radio interview --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment because we are still in private session.

24 I don't know why.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: It says open session here, Your Honour.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session now.

2 MR. ACKERMAN:

3 Q. And I'm now going to page 03036119 in the English. Mr. Brdjanin

4 is asked if he has anything to add at the end, and he says this: "From

5 the bottom of my heart and soul, I am appealing to the citizens of

6 Bosanska Krajina to help out in safeguarding peace. Going to war does not

7 benefit any people. No people in this world likes to wage war. That is

8 why we are keeping the peace."

9 Now presumably, this is a programme that's being broadcast fairly

10 widely throughout the Krajina on Radio Banja Luka, and presumably being

11 heard by a number of people; correct?

12 A. Yes. That's correct. But on the same show, you can tell

13 immediately, it's just that there is Bulic's statement claiming on the

14 same show --

15 Q. Please, please. Only question I asked you was whether it was

16 being broadcast widely across the Krajina. I didn't ask you about Bulic's

17 statement. Okay? If you want to talk about it and be here tomorrow, I'll

18 permit you to do that but I think you just sort of agreed that you'd like

19 to go home today. So you make your own choice in that regard.

20 A. I'm not sure what I should tell you. We are talking about

21 Brdjanin, about his call on the people of Krajina, the call for peace, and

22 on the same show, you have a man appearing who was the commander of some

23 kind of security services centre saying that fires had been started --

24 that a barracks in Seba had burned down, that explosive devices had been

25 thrown at the Lotus Cafe and many other explosions outside Banja Luka. In

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1 peace time, prior to these unfortunate events, we didn't talk about peace.

2 We lived peace. Peace was our life. Now, it is not my aim to challenge

3 if Mr. Brdjanin indeed said some positive things.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: The question -- let's go back to the question, sir.

5 The question that was asked of you, I did allow you to speak because I

6 still think that what you said was important, and fits in the question

7 that Mr. Ackerman put to you. What Mr. Ackerman wants to know from you,

8 whether such broadcasts were fairly widely transmitted throughout the

9 Krajina on Radio Banja Luka, and presumably being heard by a number of

10 people. Would you consider it in other words a voice in the wilderness or

11 was it something that was broadcast on a regular basis, one would be able

12 to follow it on a regular basis on Radio Banja Luka? Was this a common

13 occurrence or not?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I believe I've already

15 answered this. Yes. It was broadcast very widely across the Krajina and

16 people did listen to it. Shows were --

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Stop there. Mr. Ackerman.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. I want to go now to 6 May of 1992, L0055644. Mr. Brdjanin is

20 talking about -- I think this is from Glas but I'm not sure. It might be

21 the radio. Mr. Brdjanin is talking about -- it's a press conference.

22 Talking about decisions of the ARK war staff, said they must be

23 implemented, and he says the first thing was that able-bodied men age 18

24 to 60 are forbidden to leave. Then on that same page, he says this: "We

25 simply will not allow the flames of war to move to the very heart of

1 Krajina, that is Banja Luka. Yes? On 10 May, 1992, L0054973, you talk

2 about a war staff session of 9 May, 1992. It's not clear whether this

3 comes from Glas or from the radio. Part of that that I'm interested in is

4 the next page. You talk about the order it has to do with Atlas travel

5 agency being band, Putnik travel agency not to sell tickets to men between

6 18 and 60, and so forth. Then you say that the order was signed by the

7 chairman of the war staff, Radoslav Brdjanin. Now, I take it you really

8 don't know if Brdjanin signed it. The indication that you had was that it

9 was signed in his name but you don't know if Mr. Brdjanin himself actually

10 signed it, do you?

11 A. I only know what I heard over the radio. Now, whether that was

12 correct or not, I really can't say. If something was published on the

13 radio, a piece of information, my part was to write that down. Now, the

14 radio people themselves may have misinterpreted something which is

15 something I can't know.

16 Q. Do you know, have you learned, did you ever learn, that a large

17 number of the documents issued by the ARK Crisis Staff were not signed by

18 Mr. Brdjanin?

19 MS. KORNER: If that's asserted as a piece of evidence, it's not

20 there. Are you asking him whether he knows? That's a different matter.

21 But if it's asserted that they weren't signed by him --

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner. You're perfectly right and I will

23 restrict the question to what you have just indicated now. Are you in a

24 position, sir, to answer that question from your own knowledge?

25 First-hand information.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's difficult for me to say now how

2 many of those had been issued -- those issued by the Crisis Staff were

3 actually signed by Mr. Brdjanin. It's very difficult for me to say. I

4 didn't really have -- well, yes, I had my informers, let me make this

5 clear, informers close to him but you couldn't check every single

6 document. What was really important is that he was at the very heart of

7 the Crisis Staff, Radoslav Brdjanin was the key figure.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

9 MR. ACKERMAN:

10 Q. Did you ever attend any Crisis Staff meetings?

11 A. My God, how? As what? In what capacity? How would I agree to

12 that? I was an ordinary citizen --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Next question.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- who was trying to keep a low

15 profile.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. You just told us that Mr. Brdjanin was at the heart of the Crisis

18 Staff and a key figure, and then you admitted you never went to a Crisis

19 Staff meeting. You have no idea what role he played in meetings of the

20 Crisis Staff, do you?

21 A. That's not true. You are misinterpreting my words. I didn't say

22 I didn't have a clue. I did have a clue. I listened. Ninety per cent of

23 the territory, of the area in terms of newspaper coverage, 50 per cent of

24 the air time, given to the representatives of the Crisis Staff of the war

25 staff. All this, all this was given over to Mr. Brdjanin as a leader. He

1 was the spokesperson and the main man, and you can see that. You can see

2 that from documents that the -- this Court has. You can also see from my

3 unfortunate diary. It is well known.

4 Q. I really understand what you're saying but that doesn't go to my

5 question. You have no idea inside Crisis Staff meetings what role if any

6 Mr. Brdjanin played. You don't know if he was outvoted, and still had to

7 issue the decisions, you don't know if he voted for or against them, you

8 don't know any of that, do you? It's okay to say you don't know something

9 if you don't, and I think you don't.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't expect him to have answered that question

11 before, because that was not the question that you put to him,

12 Mr. Ackerman.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: I understand that, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: You're putting a completely different question

15 forward.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: I understand.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Witness, I don't quite know whether you have

18 understood that you have to answer the question. It's being put to you

19 that since you never attended any meeting of the Crisis Staff, you're not

20 really in a position to tell us what was indeed the role that Mr. Brdjanin

21 played in that -- in the course of the Crisis Staff meetings. In other

22 words it's being suggested that if you were asked do you know if he was

23 ever outvoted, you're not in a position to answer that, whether he had --

24 still had to issue a decision in spite of the fact that he wouldn't agree

25 with it, it's being suggested to you that you're not in a position to

1 answer that and so on and so forth. Are you in a position to answer that

2 question?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, yes. It is certain that I

4 don't know what has been happening and I can't say that I know or don't

5 know that he had been outvoted. How can I say that I know? Of course

6 not. I don't know.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Next question.

8 MR. ACKERMAN:

9 Q. I'm going now to 13 May, 1992, sir. L0047474. You're reporting

10 on -- when I say you're reporting, please understand that I'm always

11 saying that you're reporting what was reported by this -- in this case

12 Radio Banja Luka. You're reporting about a parade that was held on 12

13 May, 1992, of the CSB units in Banja Luka, and the newspaper there. The

14 radio reported that this parade was attended by Nikola Koljevic, Momcilo

15 Krajisnik, Branko Djeric, Radislav Vukic and Milan Martic but no

16 indication that Mr. Brdjanin was there, is there?

17 A. No. He wasn't there. If it doesn't say so in the diary, then he

18 wasn't there.

19 Q. 14 May, 1992?

20 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, for the record, according to what I have

21 on my CD, at least, it's not what you asked the witness about does not

22 show on 47474 but 47475.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: In mine it's on 74. You may have a different

24 translation than I do, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm always one step ahead, Mr. Ackerman.

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1 MR. ACKERMAN: I've made that observation, Your Honour, more than

2 once.

3 Q. 14 May, 1992, L0080674. You speak of a person by the name of

4 Vida -- we better go to private session?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into private session, please.

6 [Private session]

7 (Redacted)

8 (Redacted)

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18 [Open session]

19 MR. ACKERMAN:

20 Q. Now, this person you're referring to, Vida Husedzinovic, was a

21 Serb --

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Or is a Serb?

24 A. Her real last name, I mean maiden name, I think, is Grandic, Vida

25 Grandic, and she was married. She had been married, rather, to a

1 journalist Husedzinovic, and that's where she has that last name. She had

2 a son. I don't know his name. But I know that later on, he became Sasa,

3 and in order to gain some privileges, she became the member of the

4 Association of Serbian Sisterhood and a very regular member.

5 Q. And she had something to do with the cultural centre. I mean,

6 she's referred to here as the former and probably future director?

7 A. Yes, yes.

8 Q. And then what I see written here as -- is this: And we are now in

9 May of 1992. The words I see in your diary are the following: "At the

10 same time, at the cultural centre Vida Husedzinovic gets rid of two Serbs,

11 Branko Sestic and Milan Stijak and employs two Croats and one Muslim."

12 A. Yes. At that time, Vida was still playing to this effect. She

13 didn't know how things would play out later. That same lady,

14 Mrs. Husedzinovic gave me the keys to the Banski Dvori. I was allowed to

15 let people go in there when I was making a tape, a videotape in Banja

16 Luka. She thought at the time that everything that was going on in the

17 name of the Serbs at risk, that she wanted to do the right thing, but then

18 when she saw that this wouldn't happen, she then became the member of the

19 Association of Serbian Sisterhood, got rid of those people from work, and

20 then that's how she then turned her coat. They are all turncoats,

21 Mr. Ackerman.

22 Q. Let's go now to 16 May of 1992, and the page I'm interested in is

23 L0054850. And this comes from Glas and it talks about --

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. -- a report from the meeting of the Crisis Staff. It doesn't say

1 whether Mr. Brdjanin was present at that meeting or took part in this

2 decision. But the decision that it refers -- that I'm wanting to refer to

3 was this: "Particularly severe measures shall be applied against those

4 who misuse the uniform and insignia of the police, Territorial Defence and

5 the army, and those who stop citizens to check their papers, control

6 traffic, search flats or other facilities without a proper authorisation

7 to do so." Now, that sounds like a measure designed to try to keep the

8 peace and avoid some of the problems that were existing in the area at the

9 time, doesn't it?

10 A. That's what it sounds like.

11 Q. The next day, and I'm now going to page -- it's 17 May, going to

12 page L0072832, this is a comment by you: "Tomorrow is D-day, at least

13 according to rumours around town. Panic and fear from 20th has already

14 culminated in mass exodus of people of all ethnic denominations from this

15 town."

16 MS. KORNER: [Microphone not activated]

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Mine.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have to remind myself of that.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: You're right, it is the 19th of May.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You said the 17th.

21 MR. ACKERMAN:

22 Q. It's the 19th, I'm sorry. Ms. Korner is correct.

23 MS. KORNER: He doesn't have it.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: You don't have it there, sir, it's the 19th of May.

25 A. Very well.

1 Q. Do you recall what you meant when you said "Tomorrow is D-day"?

2 A. Well, I don't know, really. It's hard for me to recall. I would

3 have to look at it for a while. I'd have to read through to see what was

4 happening at the time. Then I would certainly be able to answer your

5 question.

6 Q. It says, "Panic and fear from the 20th has already culminated in a

7 mass exodus of people of all ethnic denominations from this town." Does

8 that jog your memory at all?

9 A. Well, to be honest, if you had seen the diary and you have, you

10 can see that a couple of days earlier, there was a showdown between the

11 Serb police and the Serb defence forces where three members of the Serb

12 defence forces were killed. The situation was such that people lived in

13 fear. The curfew was introduced in Banja Luka so that looting could be

14 allowed and I have proof of this. The police was distributing what's been

15 looted, what's been looted, what the criminals have looted, people like

16 Vedran Mandic and the others. The Serb defence forces, you're able to see

17 that, they were threatening through the newspapers. The Serb defence

18 forces were threatening because of the murder of Inspector Milorad

19 Sufnica, and then they were threatening saying that if these people didn't

20 hand themselves over within 48 hours, then they would be the ones who

21 would get to them. They said it was a Muslim-Croatian conspiracy and all

22 that. People found that very hard to swallow. Nobody could be protected.

23 This commander of the police station, I've forgotten his name, he raped a

24 couple of women. He brought them to the police station and raped them

25 there.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: I have to stop you because we are -- you are going

2 far, far beyond who was asked from you.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I know, I know.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: The question is a simple one. I appreciate -- that

5 will be the end of the story. The question was, do you recall what you

6 meant when you wrote in your diary, "Tomorrow is D-day"? I will read out

7 to you the relevant part from your diary. "Tomorrow is D-day. At least,

8 according to rumours around town. Panic and fear from 20th has already

9 culminated in mass exodus of people of all ethnic denominations from this

10 town. The town's first man, Predrag Radic, was invited to speak on the

11 radio this morning to reassure the public." Now, having read out to you

12 what you wrote in your own diary on the 19th of May of 1992, can you tell

13 us what you meant by "D-day"?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I can't recall, if I look

15 through, then -- yes, yes.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Next question, Mr. Ackerman.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Q. Sir, if we go to the 22nd of May, L0080554, I'm interested in the

19 first page there, and it's very -- it's a very simple question, I think:

20 This -- your entry there indicates -- and it's being handed to you. Your

21 entry there indicates that the executive council of ARK, headed by Nikola

22 Erceg, was continuing to operate in parallel to the ARK Crisis Staff

23 during this period of time, and in fact, on this date, 22 May of 1992, the

24 Crisis Staff approved Erceg's proposal for a cabinet of the Autonomous

25 Region of Krajina government. I think you can just answer that with a yes

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1 if you agree.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: If it appears from --

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's what it says. Yes, yes.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead, Mr. Ackerman.

5 MR. ACKERMAN:

6 Q. Under the system, the government system at that time, in Bosnia,

7 former Yugoslavia, the executive council was the executive branch of the

8 government and the assembly, the legislative branch of the government.

9 That's true, is it not?

10 A. These questions are not the ones I would like to answer, for the

11 reason that I wrote down in my diary some daily events. I was not

12 conducting any kind of policy. So please allow me not to answer. I don't

13 know that.

14 Q. That's all you had to say was you don't know and I wouldn't have

15 insisted then.

16 25 May of 1992, L0072791. This appears to be some observations

17 being made by you, and if we go down two-thirds of the way, almost

18 three-quarters of the way down the page, you make this observation: "Also

19 the word is out that the main hassle with mobilisation has passed since

20 the army doesn't know what to do with so many people who signed up. They

21 have no more uniforms or food to feed those people. Some say that the

22 group currently training at Manjaca are virtually going hungry, have no

23 arms at all (the group is of mixed ethnicity)." Do you recall writing

24 that and where you might have learned that?

25 A. Well, I wrote it down and found out about it from -- you see,

1 people brought information, some information we received. At that time we

2 were cheered by that. Later on, I think it was the 18th, when

3 mobilisation happened, so it -- we got cheered up for nothing.

4 Q. On 26 May of 1992, at L0057040 - and I'm sure you'll remember

5 this, I don't think you need to even look at it - you report in some

6 detail the killing of Arkan. You recall that, don't you?

7 A. Yes, yes. The supposed killing that was broadcast on BHTV, I

8 think.

9 Q. And you refer to him as the leader of the Beli Orlovi, the White

10 Eagles, in your report about that?

11 A. If that's what it says in the diary, that is -- that's what I

12 wrote down.

13 Q. And you know today that both those things you reported there were

14 not true, that he wasn't killed and that he wasn't the leader of the White

15 Eagles, don't you?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's take them one by one, Mr. Ackerman.

17 MR. ACKERMAN:

18 Q. First of all, you know that he wasn't actually killed, what you

19 reported there was not true.

20 A. Yes. Yes. You're right, Mr. Ackerman. Except that in -- further

21 on in my diary, I corrected this. I only carried, or rather, reported,

22 copied the information carried by the radio, so what they broadcast,

23 that's how I wrote it down. Later on in the diary, I corrected this.

24 Q. Well, we'll get there in a minute.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Do you want him to answer the second part of the

1 question?

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, I'm going there now.

3 Q. You also know now that your report that he was the leader of the

4 Beli Orlovi, the White Eagles, was also not true, don't you?

5 A. I know -- I certainly know that he was the leader of the Tigers,

6 but I'm telling you again, it is BH radio that carried this news and I

7 just typed out what they broadcast. I said what the source was, and it's

8 their mistake.

9 Q. I understand that. I'm not suggesting it's your mistake, I'm just

10 suggesting that you recorded it in your diary and you later learned it was

11 not true. That's all. Nothing else.

12 Okay. I want to go now to 27 May of 1992, L0054912. On that

13 page, you talk about -- let's go into private session.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Private session, please.

15 [Private session]

16 (Redacted)

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9 [Open session]

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. All right. Are we -- yes. Sir, I'm going now to 2 July of 1992,

12 the page is L0047559. It's very difficult to tell where this comes from

13 since only a part apparently of your diary on that date has been

14 translated?

15 MS. KORNER: We don't have that page for the witness because it

16 wasn't one of the ones that we were given.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm sorry, it got left off, Your Honour. I had

18 someone else making the list because I didn't have time to do it myself,

19 and ordinarily she is quite a competent individual.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, please. Yes, which part are you going

21 to refer the witness to?

22 MR. ACKERMAN: It's right in the middle of the page beginning with

23 the words, "the War Presidency."

24 JUDGE AGIUS: The whole paragraph?

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Witness, please follow carefully what I am going to

2 read out to you from your own -- from your own diary. The interpreters

3 will be translating. In your war diary you wrote as follows: "The War

4 Presidency will undertake stringent measures to evict all those who have

5 broken into other people's flats. In addition to that, the breakers-in

6 will be banned for at least three years from applying for a flat in the

7 territory of the Banja Luka municipality, said Predrag Mitrakovic member

8 of the War Presidency. Adding that the punitive measure is still in the

9 form of a conclusion but the proposal will soon be on the agenda of a

10 municipal assembly session."

11 MR. ACKERMAN:

12 Q. Sir, I have several questions about that. First of all, there had

13 been in existence for sometime a problem of persons breaking into empty

14 flats and just moving into them and taking them over; correct?

15 A. Yes, that's correct.

16 Q. There were many refugees in town, Serb refugees primarily, who had

17 come to Banja Luka from Croatia and parts of Bosnia where they had

18 basically been kicked out; correct?

19 A. Yes. There were refugees.

20 Q. And this passage that the Judge just read to you from your diary,

21 it refers to the War Presidency and Predrag Mitrakovic. That would have

22 been the Banja Luka War Presidency, would it not?

23 A. Yes, that's what it says.

24 Q. And what it says was that the -- what the War Presidency did in

25 this regard at the time was still in the form of a conclusion but that it

1 would soon go to the municipal assembly so that it could be confirmed and

2 then have the force of law; correct?

3 A. That's what it says.

4 Q. Do you know who Mitrakovic was at this time?

5 A. No. I wasn't really thinking about that. I merely recorded what

6 he said. I know that he was a member of the staff.

7 Q. On the next page, you recorded this: "Referring to the conflict

8 of jurisdiction between AR Krajina and the municipal authorities,

9 Mitrakovic underlined that all contentious issues must be resolved. We

10 believe that we have jurisdiction over our municipality, although we do

11 respect hierarchy. That is why we have suspended the decisions of the AR

12 Krajina Crisis Staff in two cases only, said Mitrakovic."

13 So what I take from that is that the Banja Luka municipality felt

14 free to basically ignore the Crisis Staff when it was in their interest to

15 do so. Would you agree with that?

16 A. It's possible.

17 Q. Were you ever made aware that the Crisis Staff in Prijedor took an

18 even stronger stance and totally refused to recognise any decision of the

19 ARK Crisis Staff for a significant period of time? If you don't know

20 that, that's fine. You may not have heard that.

21 A. No, I can't remember.

22 Q. All right. I now want to go to 7 July of 1992, and --

23 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, we haven't got that either. The list that

24 was given to us this morning was a bit late so we didn't bring that. We

25 only went on the basis of what you asked us for yesterday.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: I appreciate that, Ms. Korner. In fact, we have a

2 problem too. We need a reference because it's telling us 7 July, Glas,

3 is, you know, asking us to work miracles.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: L0058851.

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, if we are still in private session, we

6 can put it up on the ELMO, the English.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session.

8 MS. KORNER: We are in open session.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: We can go into private session.

10 MS. KORNER: Actually we can put this page up on the ELMO anyhow,

11 I've got the English.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think there should be difficulties in

13 putting on the ELMO an extract from a newspaper.

14 MS. KORNER: It's not an extract from a newspaper. It's him

15 quoting a newspaper again.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Ah, all right. Okay.

17 MS. KORNER: I don't think there is any difficulty.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I misunderstood the -- misread the list, then.

19 MS. KORNER: I see, no. The English is on Your Honour's screen

20 but the -- of course it's the witness who doesn't have the B/C/S so I can

21 have my paper copy back, please. Do Your Honours have it up on the

22 screen?

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

24 MS. KORNER: Again, I think somebody will have to read it to the

25 witness.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, let me do that very quickly, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

3 MR. ACKERMAN:

4 Q. Sir, what this refers to is a news story from Glas dated 6 July,

5 referring to some remarks made by Colonel Bogdan Subotic, Defence Minister

6 of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to that,

7 Subotic in fact was the Defence Minister of Republika Srpska at the time,

8 I think. In any event, what Subotic said was: "On the occasion that the

9 establishment of Crisis Staffs did not have a legal founding, and it was

10 simply a case of copying something that the Ustasha created and introduced

11 into Croatian practice." In other words, Subotic was saying that the

12 Crisis Staffs were illegal and there was no basis for their having existed

13 in the first place. I'm sure you remember that.

14 A. Yes, yes. I remember that very clearly.

15 Q. Because that was the beginning of what turned out to be quite a

16 storm over whether or not Crisis Staffs were legal or illegal or

17 appropriate, isn't that true?

18 A. Yes, it's true.

19 Q. And amazingly, if we go to 9 July, on page L0080309, even Nikola

20 Erceg, chairman of the executive council, argues that we can do without a

21 Crisis Staff when he was the person who had actually appointed it in the

22 first place. Did you know that?

23 A. Hardly. As if through a mist.

24 Q. All right. You know, do you not, that at least by the 17th of

25 July, of 1992, the Crisis Staff had ceased to exist? The ARK Crisis

1 Staff?

2 A. Yes. I believe that's true.

3 Q. And if you look, for instance, at I think you allude to that and

4 I'll have to ask you if that's what you intended. If you look at your

5 diary for 19 July, skip ahead here for a bit, at L0081209, you say

6 Radoslav Brdjanin, president of the, in parens, non-existing closed

7 parenthesis, War Presidency of the AR Krajina and it talks about him

8 appearing on television. But I think you are the one that put in the

9 material in parentheses, the non-existing War Presidency of AR Krajina

10 because of your understanding that it had ceased to exist by that point;

11 correct?

12 A. I don't believe you're right. If something is clearly marked as a

13 quotation, and the quotation marks, what they are supposed to do at least

14 in my opinion, is to put a question mark over what's being said, a

15 written. This Crisis Staff --

16 Q. That's fine. So what you're saying is that it was the person who

17 you were quoting that had referred to the Crisis Staff as non-existing?

18 Which I can accept also. That's okay.

19 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm sorry, I don't want us to go down a

20 wrong track, so I'll point out to Mr. Ackerman that there are further

21 entries showing that the War Presidency existed after that date, and

22 Radoslav Brdjanin was in fact the President of the War Presidency. They

23 changed the name.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I think there is -- I'm not sure we are in

25 agreement about that, Your Honour. Ms. Korner has said for the record in

1 this case that the -- yeah --

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the president, please.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: That's something that we will take up at a later

4 stage, Mr. Ackerman.

5 MR. ACKERMAN:

6 Q. Now, that particular quote that you have in your diary on that

7 date we have been referring to, that appearance by Brdjanin on television,

8 what he did was announce his candidates for the new editor of Glas. He

9 said he would like it to be either Dr. Savo Capljic or Nenad Novakovic,

10 and the fact is that neither of the persons he wanted to be the new editor

11 of Glas actually became editor; correct?

12 A. That's correct. If he had announced them and they didn't become

13 that, then that was supposedly correct.

14 Q. Yes. Now, we are going to go back now to talk about what happened

15 with regard to Glas just a little bit. If you look at -- I'll tell you,

16 on 11 July of 1992, L0059139, it's an article from Glas dateline 10 July,

17 reports that Kupresanin and Brdjanin held a press conference at which

18 basically they announced that Miro Mladjenovic should be removed from his

19 position as editor of Glas and you of course --

20 A. Yes, yes.

21 Q. -- are very familiar with that series of events. And as those

22 events unfolded, Mladjenovic basically ignored Brdjanin and Kupresanin, he

23 fought back against Brdjanin and Kupresanin, and said that he was not

24 under their jurisdiction or control, and that only if the municipality,

25 the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka, called for his dismissal would he

1 feel like he had to step down. That's true, isn't it?

2 A. Well, yes, that's true. It was a struggle for the control of the

3 media. You have to know that Miro Mladjenovic was a man who was in favour

4 of paramilitary formations, particularly of Miroslav Milinkovic and --

5 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't catch the second name.

6 A. And what Kupresanin and Brdjanin didn't like, they needed to have

7 more space in Glas.

8 MR. ACKERMAN:

9 Q. Well, Miro Mladjenovic was very close, was he not to -- the name

10 just left me, the leader of the Wolves of Vucjak?

11 A. I said that. I said that. Veljko Milankovic, yes, yes.

12 Q. Brdjanin of course had on several occasions criticised

13 paramilitary formations and asked they be disbanded, and so that was part

14 of the issue that was going on between them, wasn't it?

15 A. As far as I recall, the conflict started when Vojo Kupresanin

16 stated that over 70 per cent of Serb soldiers were looting and thieving on

17 the front, and I think that's why the misunderstanding occurred, which

18 later on result in this struggle for the control of Glas.

19 Q. Now, after the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka met and actually

20 dismissed the editor, I think it was your observation that even though

21 he'd been -- Mladjenovic had been dismissed, that he continued to work

22 behind the scenes and affect the editorial policies of the Glas newspaper.

23 Is that true?

24 A. I believe so, to a large extent.

25 Q. I think on 23 July of 1992, at page 00 -- L0056125, you referred

1 to Glas as Miro's Glas and you said, "I'm saying Miro's Glas because he

2 clearly continues to have a firm hold of all the strings, although he does

3 not call himself editor-in-chief." Do you recall writing that?

4 A. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. I recall that, yes. Mladjenovic was at that

5 time quite powerful. He had many followers at the time as well, and he

6 was supported by Milankovic's men.

7 Q. In fact, do you recall a quote from Milankovic that if anybody

8 gets rid of Mladjenovic, that they will die or something to that nature?

9 Do you recall something like that?

10 A. I recall him threatening.

11 Q. I want to take you to 16 July of 1992, and it's page L0058079.

12 And we are back to this dispute that was going on about whether Crisis

13 Staffs were legal or not. You're talking about the editor of desk, Goran

14 Trkulja. You know who that is, don't you?

15 A. Trkulja, yes, yes, I do know. He was a journalist of Glas.

16 Q. Yes. You refer to something he wrote. You say this: "According

17 to Goran Trkulja, the signatory Radoslav Brdjanin was aware that the

18 institutions he represented could not pass decisions so he resorted to the

19 good old communist methods, issued conclusions and referred them for

20 decision to the deputies of the municipal assembly, the founder of the

21 paper." Do you recall that?

22 A. I recall that. That was Trkulja's thinking so that was what Goran

23 Trkulja was thinking, and I just copied that in my diary, I transferred it

24 as interesting.

25 Q. It's that same issue we talked about a moment ago, that a

1 conclusion from a Crisis Staff does not have the force of law and must be

2 referred and confirmed by an assembly. And I don't know if -- I think you

3 told me that you really didn't know that.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: You don't need to answer that?

5 A. Let me tell you.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: You don't need to answer that question. Because

7 it's not a question. It's a comment.

8 MR. ACKERMAN:

9 Q. On 17 July, sir, L0083019, there is reference again from Glas to

10 this person we talked about yesterday, Nikodin Cavic from the Serbian

11 Radical Party and you quote him in Glas as saying, "As for the Krajina War

12 Presidency, their influence is not felt anywhere except in Banja Luka."

13 Do you remember that story? Do you remember that entry?

14 A. I recall that announcement, Cavic, well, that was ridiculous what

15 he said. It was just meant for the most naive ones, how -- what does he

16 mean not having any influence? What he had was enough.

17 Q. He's probably referring to things like happened in -- we talked

18 about in Prijedor, where they ignored what the Crisis Staff was doing and

19 maybe even talking about in Banja Luka where he says they had influence,

20 where they rejected decisions of the Crisis Staff. Don't you suppose

21 that's what he's talking about?

22 JUDGE AGIUS: The witness has already told you, Mr. Ackerman, that

23 he knows nothing about the Prijedor matter or event.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: I withdraw the whole question, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

1 MR. ACKERMAN:

2 Q. 28 July, sir and it's page L0046843. It's another article from

3 Glas. It's about the agency for resettlement in Banja Luka and Glas

4 reports according to you, which I'm sure is accurate, as follows: "The

5 Banja Luka-based agency for resettlement of population and exchange of

6 property --"

7 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Ackerman, slow down when reading, please.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you.

9 Q. "-- for the AR Krajina, which was set up on 12 June, 1992,

10 pursuant to the decision of the AR Krajina Crisis Staff, with the office

11 in the former Mejdan 2 local commune, successfully resettles citizens of

12 all three ethnical groups."

13 Do you independently know that to be true?

14 A. Well, yes. It was true, yes. That was the truth. They

15 successfully resettled us, yes, very successfully. You can see the

16 consequences. (Redacted)

17 (Redacted)

18 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we should redact this.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into private session for a while, please.

20 MS. KORNER: Can we redact, please, lines.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, wait until we get into private session.

22 [Private session]

23 (Redacted)

24 (Redacted)

25 (Redacted)

1 (Redacted)

2 [Open session]

3 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session now, thank you.

4 MR. ACKERMAN:

5 Q. Sir, I'm now going to 1 August of 1992. And this is what you are

6 reporting here and the page I'm really interested in is L0081492. You are

7 reporting a fairly extensive interview with Rajko Kasagic, a deputy in the

8 SRBH assembly, and president of the Banja Luka municipal executive

9 committee. And at one point on page 1492, they are talking about a

10 meeting of the assembly, he's asked if Brdjanin was present at that

11 meeting, and he says "No, he wasn't." He's then asked if the decisions of

12 that assembly mean that Crisis Staffs and War Presidencies will be

13 cancelled where legal civilian authorities can operate? His answer was

14 this: "The assembly in fact only confirmed its earlier decisions about

15 the operation of War Presidencies at the municipal level. Regions were

16 not discussed at all because the Serbian republic BH constitution does not

17 recognise them as such." In other words, what he's saying is that the

18 constitution doesn't recognise regional organisations and therefore they

19 didn't choose to even address whether regional Crisis Staffs were legal or

20 illegal, since the whole concept of regionalisation was not constitutional

21 or not part of the constitution. Isn't that the way you read that?

22 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

24 MS. KORNER: Sorry, Your Honour. I think it was completely taken

25 out of context. You have to look at the whole interview to see how this

1 applies. It starts off with a complaint at page L0081489 about the

2 regions not passing on notices of this assembly. So you can't just take

3 that completely out of context of the whole interview has to be looked at.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, the whole interview is in

5 evidence. I agree with Ms. Korner that the whole --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: I agree too.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: -- should be looked at. I'm just dealing with one

8 small part of it right now.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: But we need to bring to the attention of the

10 witness -- you didn't -- to the attention of the witness the rest of the

11 report.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's several --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: The rest of the entry any way.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: It's several pages so I'm not going to do that

15 because I don't have time to go through this entire interview. It's quite

16 long.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Any way, the report says what it says.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: It does. It speaks for itself.

19 Q. 3 August of 1992, the page I'm interested in is L0054140. And

20 again, when it comes to Mr. Brdjanin, you are reporting a rumour and you

21 say this: "As for Brdjanin, the rumour is getting louder here that he is

22 finished or at least hanging by his nails. There are two stories on the

23 city grapevine according to one he has resigned from his position in the

24 autonomous province government, whereas according to the other, he has

25 simply been removed. The truth remains to be seen."

1 Do you recall writing that?

2 A. Certainly, certainly. And stressed that this was hearsay,

3 rumours.

4 Q. I read that it was. I think I was fair to you about that. Right

5 after that, when we go to the next page --

6 A. Yes, yes.

7 Q. You then start referring to articles from today's Glas, and in

8 that context, you quote from an article and at page L0054142, the

9 following language appears, which I believe to be simply your quote from

10 Glas: "The regional government has asked for the status and position of

11 the SRBH, and particularly the 1st Corps, to be defined, which is utterly

12 unacceptable. At its last session, the assembly of the SRBH extended a

13 formal recognition to the army for the tasks accomplished until then and

14 set out clear guidelines for the future actions of the state government.

15 It seems that many have been confused and made them think that the 1st

16 Krajina Corps is under the authority of the regional government, which is

17 an utterly wrong conclusion. The 1st Krajina Corps, like all armed

18 establishments of the Serbian people, are under the direct command of the

19 main staff and the relationship between the government and the army and

20 the subordination therein are well defined pursuant to the law on the

21 army. Hence nobody has the right to think that their authority is

22 limitless and to act contrary to the constitution and conclusions that

23 have been passed.

24 I'm just wondering, in light of that, and based upon your

25 experience, if you are aware and were aware that local civilian

1 authorities have absolutely no control over the army, that the army

2 operates under the direction of the main staff.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Even if he tells you yes, Mr. Ackerman, where do we

4 stand? Is he the one who is going to decide on this?

5 MR. ACKERMAN: You're correct, Your Honour. Absolutely correct.

6 I'll go on to the next question.

7 Q. I want to go to 11 August of 1992, and this is a page that you

8 looked at yesterday, when Ms. Korner was questioning you. It's page

9 L0034477. And it's that story about Celinac, where it says Muslims are

10 allowed to move around for not more than four hours a day. You remember

11 that?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And you just throw into there your own comment that "The best

14 illustration of the atmosphere in this town is the fact that for a long

15 time their political leader was the former president of the municipality,

16 Radoslav Brdjanin." You put that in there yourself, didn't you?

17 A. I don't recall that exactly but if that's what it says there, then

18 that's what I wrote down. Nobody else had any contact with that diary

19 except myself.

20 Q. You know, don't you, that Mr. Brdjanin left Celinac in May of 1992

21 and didn't hold any position of authority there after May of 1992? Did

22 you know that?

23 A. I do know that.

24 Q. So suggesting on 11 August of 1992 that Mr. Brdjanin had something

25 to do with Muslims not being allowed to move around for more than four

1 hours a day was just a gratuitous attack on Mr. Brdjanin on your part,

2 wasn't it, without foundation?

3 A. Mr. Korner --

4 THE INTERPRETER: Says the witness.

5 A. -- everything that's been going on since Mr. Brdjanin left Celinac

6 and I think has direct consequences on what he organised over there, I

7 believe, and I cannot say decisively but considering his behaviour in

8 Banja Luka, where he had just arrived, I can imagine what it was like in a

9 place where he felt he was the boss.

10 Q. Well, it's too bad you didn't inquire, because you would have

11 learned that nothing bad was happening in Celinac while Mr. Brdjanin was

12 president of the municipality?

13 MS. KORNER: Let's not have a speech, please.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, thank you, Ms. Korner. Point taken, I hope,

15 Mr. Ackerman.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour.

17 Q. I want to talk very briefly, sir, about the SOS and the SOS in

18 Banja Luka so we are going to go back now to 3 April, 1992. And I think

19 you will remember on that date, you talked about your phone ringing at

20 5.00 in the morning and receiving a call from someone who told you there

21 were blockades around the city.

22 A. That's correct.

23 Q. And those blockades were manned by armed individuals who basically

24 took over Banja Luka and made certain demands of the local authorities,

25 didn't they?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. And in fact, on page L0051703, I think you referred to them as

3 peasants and criminals, if I have the right page number. Somewhere you

4 referred to them as peasants and criminals. Do you remember that

5 reference?

6 A. I recall that well. I don't know whether you have the exact page

7 number but these are my words and that's what happened.

8 Q. Actually the page number was 1704, about two-thirds of the way

9 down. "People born in Banja Luka have lived to see the day when peasants

10 and criminals ID and harass them." That was what you actually wrote, I

11 think. This group that took over the town --

12 A. That's correct.

13 Q. They demanded the creation of a Crisis Staff with whom they could

14 negotiate their demands, didn't they?

15 A. That group was organised and armed by the SDS. In order to play

16 that game so to speak, they had a number of requests, this group, to

17 create -- to establish the Crisis Staff and so on. After this was done,

18 this group said that they had ten paragraphs or something, and the Crisis

19 Staff that was established supposedly afterwards responded to them and

20 they fulfilled 11 of them. It was a game, like they asked for ten things

21 and the Crisis Staff fulfilled 11.

22 So they were so -- if they were such criminals that if you had put

23 it all together these people who were on barricades, they would have had

24 1500 years of prison together. Who gave them the weapons? All this had

25 to be organised. After they became very strong, SDS had to kill them

1 off. For instance, the elimination of Mandic and the others in the Mejdan

2 station and then it went on from there.

3 Q. Okay. You got to make your speech. Now, do you remember the

4 question that I asked you?

5 A. Didn't I answer the question?

6 JUDGE AGIUS: No. The question was -- Mr. Ackerman asked you

7 whether you know that they demanded the creation of a Crisis Staff with

8 whom or with which they could negotiate their demands.

9 Do you recall that they demanded the creation of a Crisis Staff?

10 Answer yes or no.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I recall that, yes.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

13 Your next question, Mr. Ackerman.

14 MR. ACKERMAN:

15 Q. Do you recall that they demanded that war profiteers be arrested

16 and their activities and names be made public?

17 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, why ask him if he recalls it? It's all

18 recorded in his diary. That just takes longer.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: You are right -- is it recorded in his diary,

20 Mr. Ackerman?

21 MS. KORNER: All of it.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: It is, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: So let's move ahead. I think the objection is

24 sustained. That would be part of your submissions later on, I suppose,

25 Mr. Ackerman.

1 MR. ACKERMAN:

2 Q. One of the things that they were trying to accomplish was they

3 wanted managers dismissed in all public companies who conducted an

4 anti-Serb policy, and the Crisis Staff response to that was to appoint a

5 committee to deal with that demand. That committee consisted of three

6 persons, Brdjanin, Milinkovic, and Mitrakovic. Do you recall that?

7 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we are getting back to the same thing.

8 All of this is in the diary, word for word.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I suggest, Mr. Ackerman, go straight to the relevant

10 part in the diary, because Ms. Korner is absolutely right here, refer the

11 witness to that part and then put the question.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: That's exactly what I'm doing.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no. You were asking him whether he recalls

14 having entered this in his diary. Just go straight to the page and tell

15 him, In your diary on this -- the entry for this particular date, this is

16 what you state. And then go straight to the question that you want to put

17 to him.

18 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the page -- that page is 0 -- L0051708.

19 At the moment, Your -- Mr. Ackerman -- I'm sorry I'm sitting down.

20 Mr. Ackerman is doing what Your Honour is complaining about that I used to

21 do until I was stopped and just reading the document. What's the actual

22 question? All of this is recorded.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman. Go straight to the question that

24 you want to put to the witness.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll do that, Your Honour.

1 Q. Now, in connection with this task that had been handed to

2 Mr. Brdjanin, Mr. Milinkovic, and Mr. Mitrakovic regarding the staff

3 levelling demands made by the SOS, at one point you recorded in your

4 diary, did you not, and it was dealing with a press conference - and I'm

5 on now 5 April of 1992 - a press conference at where Mr. Brdjanin was

6 being asked questions about the staff levelling. He refers to the

7 enterprise Metal.

8 Can you tell us what the enterprise Metal was involved in in Banja

9 Luka?

10 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it's page L0034674.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I see. All right. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Korner.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What it was involved in, the Metal

13 company, export-import. That's -- that's what they did, the company

14 MR. ACKERMAN:

15 Q. What was it's business. Import and export of what?

16 A. I believe both. Now, what exactly they did, I don't see why I, as

17 a common citizen, would have been supposed to know.

18 Q. You can just say you don't know then. That's fine with me.

19 Mr. Brdjanin indicated, did he not, that both the director general

20 and the director were Muslims and that at least -- that a Serb would have

21 to replace one of those two. Correct?

22 A. Yes, yes. I know that he said that.

23 Q. I think we talked a little bit when you first started your

24 testimony in this case about the proposition that in creating this diary,

25 you came at that process as the person who you were, with all of the

1 biases that you might have personally, and I think you told me that you

2 agreed with that. Correct?

3 A. That I was biased? Is that what you're aiming at? I was not

4 biased.

5 Q. Okay. That's --

6 A. I believe.

7 Q. I'd like to refer to an entry in your diary very early, 16

8 January, 1992, and you're speaking there about -- it's page L0034489.

9 You're speaking there about an individual by the name of Borisav Jovic,

10 who I believe at the time was a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia?

11 MS. KORNER: The witness is looking for it but wasn't one of the

12 ones on the list, so he hasn't got it.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: What does -- Mr. Ackerman, what does the witness

14 need to be read to him?

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I'd like to read the part to him, Your

16 Honour, beginning with "for Jovic," which is about halfway down the page.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Let me read it out to him myself.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: All right.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Witness, in this entry which goes back to the 16th

20 of January of 1992, you say something about a certain Borisav Jovic giving

21 an interview to the Tanjug, and I'm going to read out to you a part from

22 this paragraph: "For Jovic, the report of the arbitration commission of

23 the conference on Yugoslavia was completely unacceptable, since, as he

24 said, it failed to respect the every nation's right to self-determination

25 and hence transformed the Serbian people in Croatia and Bosnia and

1 Herzegovina from a state forming and constituent nation into a national

2 minority."

3 Do I stop there, Mr. Ackerman?

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

6 Do you remember this entry?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, do I remember the entry,

8 yes.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: So your question, Mr. Ackerman?

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. I take it that you would accept that the Croatian people should be

12 seen as a state-forming people, do you not?

13 A. Yes, of course, of course. Where do you mean exactly? In

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina or in Croatia?

15 Q. Anywhere.

16 A. Well, yes, yes, I believe they should be viewed as state-forming,

17 same as the Serbs and the Bosniaks.

18 Q. Well, when Mr. Jovic says that the Serbian people in BH and

19 Croatia are being denied that right to self-determination as a

20 state-forming people, what you say one sentence later is: "His spouting

21 of rubbish is just one more proof that this political clown is incapable

22 of grasping reality." So what you're saying is what he's saying about the

23 Serbs being a state-forming people is rubbish.

24 Now, if that's rubbish, why isn't it rubbish that the Croats are

25 too? Or doesn't that just display your bias?

1 A. There is no bias involved. If you think through it again, you

2 will see that Jovic did say that, but for God's sake, no one was trying to

3 turn the Serb people into a minority. What was he basing his statement

4 on, that the Serbs had become a minority anywhere? How in the world

5 should they have been a minority in Bosnia-Herzegovina if they were the

6 most numerous group, as they said? Those were just stories. This was

7 just paving the way for the evil that was coming our way, the dark clouds

8 over our heads, the dark clouds over Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those were just

9 games.

10 Q. On 16 April, 1992, page L0054897, this is after the creation of

11 the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina you make this observation:

12 "Today is particularly marked by one absolutely unbelievable move by the

13 Serbian Republic of BH Presidency and government. Today, this parastate

14 requested international recognition. Here are these news that absolutely

15 shocked much of the population of this republic." And then you quote the

16 news item where the Serbian Republic of BH had requested recognition.

17 Now, you had absolutely no shock whatsoever that I can recall about the

18 Bosnian government requesting recognition, internationally, but you seem

19 to be just totally, absolutely shocked that the Serbian republic would

20 request international recognition. Does that not display a bias on your

21 part against Serbs?

22 A. No. That's not true. There was no bias on my part. Bosnia and

23 Herzegovina was a state, same as Croatia, same as Serbia. But for

24 Republika Srpska, Mr. Ackerman, I can state even here where I'm sitting

25 now that I'm sitting on my own ground and proclaim a republic. I would

1 have the same right as Republika Srpska back then. What exactly does that

2 mean to be on one's own ground? Yes, I was shocked, yes it was a

3 parastate and it still is.

4 Q. You have -- you have and you had at the time, some kind of a

5 particular hate or dislike for Mr. Brdjanin, didn't you?

6 A. Well, well, no, that's simply not true. Simply not true,

7 Mr. Ackerman. Why would I?

8 Q. Let's take a look. 27 February of 1992, L0054276, reference to

9 Brdjanin. No wonder that Brdjanin behaved like that. He is after all

10 just a redneck from Celinac.

11 You said that, didn't you?

12 A. Yes, yes, I did. I still stand by that, but that doesn't mean I

13 hate him, Mr. Ackerman.

14 Q. On -- well, you certainly don't show much respect. On 3 April,

15 1992, L0051709, I think I may have the wrong date. No, I don't. You

16 mention four people, five people, Brdjanin, Mitrakovic, Radic, Vukic and

17 Stevandic, as the entire team of fiercest Banja Luka Falcons. Again

18 that's your choice of words, isn't it?

19 A. I think I did describe them as falcons, yes, falcons, yes.

20 Q. On 5 May, 1992, 03036111, you refer to Mr. Brdjanin as the

21 mastermind behind all this madness. On 7 May, 1992, L0034454, you refer

22 to Mr. Brdjanin as an incompetent politician.

23 A. Mr. Ackerman, if I may, with the Court's permission, I may have

24 had my personal opinion on Radoslav Brdjanin.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, because you haven't been asked a

1 question as yet. So let's get on with the question, Mr. Ackerman.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 Q. I'm going to refer to a series of what he said, Your Honour, and

4 then ask him one general question about them all. That's what I'm in the

5 process of doing?

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, they are all in the diary. If

7 Mr. Ackerman wants to give the page references to all the references to

8 Brdjanin, fine. But I'm anxious to give him an opportunity to re-examine.

9 And just reading the whole -- all the references to Mr. Brdjanin, then

10 asking the question I think is unnecessary.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I think we are almost finished, Ms. Korner, if I

12 read Mr. Ackerman well. Right?

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I told Ms. Korner I would finish by

14 the next break, and I will, quite easily. She'll have plenty of

15 opportunity to re-examine.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: It would have been much easier had you collected

17 them on one piece of paper and read these descriptive expressions or,

18 descriptions of Mr. Brdjanin in the diary and then put the question. It

19 would have been much easier. You wouldn't have had to stay referring to

20 the pages and read from them.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I'm only doing that in fairness to the

22 witness, telling him the date and the page number.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

24 MR. ACKERMAN:

25 Q. On 25 August of 1992, sir, at page 110057708, you refer to

1 Brdjanin along with Kupresanin, Vukic and Radic as quote, nationalistic

2 scumbags in crime up to their necks. On 4 October, 1992, you say you're

3 referring to a 29 November interview which could not be.

4 A. I'm not sure what this is about.

5 Q. I'm going to -- I have to get that actual -- if it's here.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: What are you looking for?

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Well -- I'm sorry, Your Honour, I'm having trouble

8 finding the --

9 JUDGE AGIUS: What are you looking for?

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Well -- I --

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Maybe we could be of help, either Ms. Gustin or

12 myself.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: It's -- the reference I have in my notes is it's 4

14 October but it isn't in the 4 October materials here. It's a reference

15 where Mr. Brdjanin is quoted in an interview as saying that the number of

16 Muslims and Croats in Banja Luka has increased. I found it, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

18 MR. ACKERMAN:

19 Q. The page -- it's actually December -- 4 December of 1992 and the

20 page is L0057015. You're referring to an interview given by Mr. Brdjanin

21 entitled "Vipers in the fold." On November 29th of this year. And what

22 Mr. Brdjanin is saying, that if the UNPROFOR forces and the Canadian

23 Battalion located in Banja Luka would mostly be engaged in spying. What

24 you said about Mr. Brdjanin at that point was this: "This filthy little

25 bastard, who as he claims represents the interests of the Serbian people,

1 is the most shameful phenomenon in the history since the homo sapiens has

2 appeared in this land. Any person who possesses even the least sense of

3 honour and decency would be embarrassed by so many shameless lies and lack

4 of scruples. The bastard obviously has never even heard of a category

5 called shame."

6 Now, sir, with that kind of an attitude, I suggest to you that

7 there is no chance that this Chamber could rely on whatever it is you have

8 to say about Mr. Brdjanin.

9 MS. KORNER: Not a proper question. That's a comment and a speech

10 he can make to the Trial Chamber.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Objection sustained, rephrase your question,

12 Mr. Ackerman.

13 MR. ACKERMAN:

14 Q. That quote, sir, indicates what I suggested to you earlier, that

15 you come here with a complete bias against Mr. Brdjanin, prepared to say

16 anything that you can to hurt him, and I suggest to you that's confirmed

17 by your earlier testimony today where you said something to the effect

18 that he might be seriously damaged by the testimony you give here.

19 MS. KORNER: What, pray I ask, is the question? Is the question

20 does he have a bias, because if so he ought to be entitled to answer it.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: I take it that the question is, do you have a bias

22 against Mr. Brdjanin?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not particularly fond of

24 Mr. Brdjanin. I never was. That's true. But if any, even the smallest

25 imprecision can be pointed out to me on my part, something that I may have

1 quoted mistakenly, I quoted his statements from TV, radio, newspapers, if

2 you can point out a single, however minute imprecision, something that I'm

3 insinuating to the cost of Mr. Brdjanin, I am prepared to swear another

4 oath and then if that is proven, I can replace him as the accused. I

5 would never insinuate anything that he didn't actually say in order to

6 harm him, if that's what you're aiming at, Mr. Ackerman. You are

7 insinuating that I have a pro-Croatian bias. (Redacted)

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10 MS. KORNER: Sorry, so can we go into private session.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't want to stop his answer either, but let's go

12 into private session.

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13 [Open session]

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

15 MS. KORNER: Do Your Honours have any questions because I'll

16 tailor my re-examination.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: As you may have imagined there are a few questions

18 from Judge Janu, there is just one question from myself which is a very

19 short, straightforward one, and to my understanding, no questions from

20 Judge Taya. So probably we will require between us five minutes, six,.

21 MS. KORNER: Seven Minutes.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Six, seven minutes.

23 MS. KORNER: Thank you, Your Honours.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: 25 minutes.

25 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.

1 --- On resuming at 1.00 p.m.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I take it you don't have a re-examination,

3 Ms. Korner?

4 MS. KORNER: I made that so clear, didn't I, Your Honour? Sorry.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead.

6 MS. KORNER: Thank you.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Let me explain to the witness what this is all

8 about. Re-examination is a procedure that we follow after the

9 cross-examination, if a request is made for that, and the Prosecution

10 would like to put some questions to you arising from what you stated in

11 the course of the cross-examination.

12 Re-examined by Ms. Korner:

13 Q. Yes, sir, I'd like you -- I'm not sure you got, actually, this

14 date. The 5th of March, because you were asked some questions about that

15 yesterday.

16 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it is at the LiveNote page 77.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Of yesterday?

18 MS. KORNER: Yes, yesterday's LiveNote, page 77. He was asked

19 some questions about the 5th of March entries.

20 Q. I can deal with this, if the English goes up on -- thank you,

21 Ms. Gustin. This is -- the entry I want to ask you about is at page, in

22 the translation, L0054475. And it's the part where you refer to Stojan

23 Zupljanin talking about the security situation in the Autonomous Region.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman?

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I believe -- maybe I'll be proven

1 wrong, but I don't think so. I believe the only thing I referred to from

2 5 March was the -- that little quote from the diary of Thomas Mann. I

3 don't think that opens up the entire diary of 5 March for re-examination.

4 I think this is beyond the scope of what I covered in cross. Unless I'm

5 shown otherwise, I think that's the case.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: I have to check that before I --

7 MS. KORNER: That's it, that's absolutely right, Your Honour. I'm

8 going to use some of the entries that Mr. Ackerman referred to for his

9 purposes to deal with other entries for my purposes.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I suggest that's totally inappropriate. This

11 wasn't something that was raised on cross for the -- that she can now just

12 because I mentioned 5 March, I don't think she can now question about all

13 diary entries from 5 March. That doesn't open that door.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: It depends what the question is. I haven't heard

15 the question as yet, Mr. Ackerman.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: I understand, Your Honour, but I only referred to

17 the quote from Thomas Mann, and she's over dealing with Stojan Zupljanin

18 on the fifth page of that which has nothing to do with the Thomas Mann

19 quotes. It's brand new material.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: What's your question, Ms. Korner.

21 MS. KORNER: The entry refers to --

22 JUDGE AGIUS: I need to find the entry, can you give me the ERN

23 number.

24 MS. KORNER: It's 0054475, and it's up on the screen now and

25 you'll see it starts with Stojan Zupljanin, and then there is a comment

1 thereafter. He's referring to Ustasha saboteurs. How could it be

2 possible, says the --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Where is it? I can't see it.

4 MS. KORNER: Just in the second paragraph.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Uh-huh.

6 MS. KORNER: And he goes on to say, how could it be possible with

7 the invincible Banja Luka Corps and a mass troops in a variety of

8 uniforms. Now, Your Honour, I absolutely accept it has nothing to do with

9 the part that Mr. Ackerman referred to, but he's opened the door to an

10 entry. He's picked on something that assists his case in that particular

11 entry. I want to re-examine on another part of that entry.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: In relation to what he was asking yesterday?

13 MS. KORNER: In relation to -- no, not in relation to the Thomas

14 Mann quote, no.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: I hope not.

16 MS. KORNER: I'm completely unmoved by the Thomas Mann quote. If

17 Your Honour --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's hear the question.

19 MS. KORNER:

20 Q. The question, sir, you talk about the Banja Luka Corps there. You

21 were a citizen of Banja Luka. How evident was the corps, the soldiers of

22 the corps, in the streets of Banja Luka?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, there is no reason that couldn't have

24 been asked during direct. I certainly didn't ask anything on cross that

25 would justify that question on re-examination.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't agree with you. You did. The Banja Luka

2 Corps came up in the course of your cross-examination.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: She's basing this on my question about this day,

4 the 5 March of 1992. Not on something I questioned about.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: She is picking an extract from -- an excerpt from

6 the entry of 5th March dealing with the Banja Luka Corps, or dealing with

7 what someone supposedly said about the Banja Luka Corps, and she is

8 putting a question that does indeed relate to a part of your

9 cross-examination. So I'm going to allow it.

10 MS. KORNER:

11 Q. Sir, can you just tell me, as a citizen then of Banja Luka, how

12 evident was the presence of the 5th Corps in Banja Luka?

13 A. It was vast. There were many armed men in olive drab and

14 camouflage uniforms and there was shooting in the sky, non-stop. It was

15 dangerous. There were drunken individuals who had come from the reserve

16 forces and so on. What I particularly recall is one detail, in the

17 evening, there were so many, many -- so much shooting that some birds that

18 were flying, they were -- a lot of them were killed because of the firing

19 up in the air.

20 Q. All right. Yes. Thank you. Now, sir, can we move next to the

21 5th of May, please, about which you were asked today? Now, you were

22 asked, and you were asked a number of questions about, at the end of your

23 examination, cross-examination, about Mr. Brdjanin and your comments, and

24 you were asked about this interview here and it was put to you that he was

25 effectively not asking -- he was saying that peace, I think, or words to

1 that effect, I can't remember the quote. Can you turn to the first part

2 of that entry for the 5th of May? You describe Brdjanin, this was a quote

3 that wasn't put to you by Mr. Ackerman, I don't think, that Mr. -- "that

4 Brdjanin only wants one thing, he will not give up power at any cost. For

5 the first time a Brdjanin has the chance to enter into history and for the

6 first time he can do anything he wants."

7 Sir, before Mr. Brdjanin achieved power in -- in Banja Luka, did

8 you know anything about him?

9 A. To be honest, I didn't have a clue. I found out from some people

10 when he arrived, from some people who had worked with him in a company,

11 specifically it was from Milovan Smolic who had worked with him, I found

12 out some details but until then I hadn't heard anything about him.

13 Q. Right. This is relatively early on in 1992, May. What led to you

14 write then: "He only wants one thing. He will not give up power at any

15 cost. He has a chance to enter into history and do anything he wants."

16 What was it that led you to write that?

17 A. Well, that was the only possible conclusion. This person didn't

18 have a -- didn't need a mirror because he had his own TV, he had his own

19 radio. He was there all the time. He practically needed a sofa bed to

20 sleep there. And in all the other media, in Glas and others, every now

21 and then, he would appear, and that's what made me write this. I saw him.

22 I read what he said. I heard what he said. Only a retard wouldn't

23 make -- wouldn't draw this conclusion and wouldn't see the truth of what

24 was going on.

25 Q. Thank you. Can you move next to the 5th of May, about which you

1 were asked as well? This was another press conference given by Brdjanin,

2 and this is at page L0055644.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: You said 5th of May.

4 MS. KORNER: 6th of May, I'm sorry.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. We've seen this before.

6 MS. KORNER: Absolutely, yes, Mr. Ackerman asked questions about

7 it.

8 Q. You say there a press conference was held today in Banja Luka

9 where the ARK war staff president, Radoslav Brdjanin, informed the

10 journalists of the most recent decisions made by the staff. And part of

11 that was put to you. These decisions, he said, must be implemented

12 without objections in all 38 ARK municipalities.

13 As far as you were concerned, did you hear him say that or did you

14 read that in the newspaper?

15 A. If this is what it says here, I just have to see whether this is

16 something I heard or this is something I read in the newspaper. I can't

17 recall. After all it's been quite a few years and you can ask

18 Mr. Brdjanin whether I had added anything or taken something out. If

19 that's what it says here, then it's certain.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Hold it. Try to answer the question and only the

21 question, please. I mean it's -- the question was -- Ms. Korner very

22 rightly put to you a very important question. Are you reporting what you

23 read in a paper here or is this a reporting of a meeting which you

24 yourself attended? And your answer is you don't remember.

25 MS. KORNER: I think in fact, Your Honour, earlier -- if one goes

1 back --

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This was a press conference, so if

3 this was carried -- if this was written on that date then it must have

4 been carried by Banja Luka Radio.

5 MS. KORNER:

6 Q. Thank you. Can you move now, please, to the 17th of May? Because

7 you were asked about the SOS and you talked -- or you were asked a

8 question and you talked about the showdown between the SOS and the

9 authorities. This is at page L0055598. And it's right at the beginning.

10 You record Radio Banja Luka news, and you say a insolent attack was

11 launched on the police station in the Mejdan local commune in Banja Luka

12 at midnight last night, but was swiftly suppressed. And then there are --

13 I'm not going to take you through them, but there are further entries

14 about what happened. Is that what you were talking about, the showdown,

15 when the attack on the police station took place?

16 A. Yes, yes. That's right. Exactly that, precisely, yes.

17 Q. Next, can I ask you to go, please, to the 29th of May, at page

18 L0058435, because you were asked about that in connection with the Crisis

19 Staff saying that Muslims and Croats should be allowed to move out of the

20 Krajina as opposed to being forced to move out. And could you go from

21 there, please, because you quote a lot of the other people, including

22 Mr. Ilic and Dr. Vukic, on this particular topic, and could you go to the

23 part -- this is on page L0058438, where you -- I think it's your comment,

24 and perhaps you can confirm this. The paragraph starts: "Over 1.000

25 Muslims have been taken prisoner on the battle fields. The Serbian army

1 treats them humanely and tries to help them move to those territories

2 where they want to live. Nothing will happen to any Muslim or Croat."

3 JUDGE AGIUS: You need to bring it -- you passed it already, just

4 a few lines. Stop, stop, stop.

5 MS. KORNER: Right.

6 Q. Nothing will happen to any -- I think -- I'm sorry, this may be

7 Mr. Ilic, if you look at the previous page, "And therefore there is no

8 reason for them to flee other Banja Luka or Bosanska Krajina." And then

9 you make a comment about Mr. Vukic or Dr. Vukic. And talks about the fact

10 that they have been transferred to Omarska. I'm sorry, Your Honour, in

11 fact this is an error. I mean it's actually not a question at all. So

12 I'll move on.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Right.

14 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, about that.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

16 MS. KORNER: Right.

17 Q. 10th of June, please. Now, your attention was drawn, please, and

18 this is at page L0055807, where the War Presidency of the Municipal

19 Assembly, in fact, not of the regional assembly, approved the request of

20 the Banja Luka Mufti Halilovic, changing the curfew, and then there is a

21 long list of those instructions. Can you go now, please, in your diary to

22 the part where you deal with the form? And it's on our page L0055810. I

23 think the suggestion was that there was the municipal Crisis Staff or War

24 Presidency acceding to a request by a Muslim. However, if you look at

25 what you said about it, you said, and this is -- yes, the top of the page,

1 "That the place where this announcement was published was to say, the

2 least, inappropriate. Below it are five obituaries of people who lost

3 their lives in this unfortunate war and altogether this seems to me more

4 as another challenge to local extremists to persecute the Muslim

5 population than and expression --"

6 THE INTERPRETER: Would Ms. Korner slow down when reading, please.

7 MS. KORNER: "-- more than an expression and gesture of goodwill.

8 At this time, where not a single positive word about Muslims can be read

9 or heard in the local media, and when they are all Islamic

10 fundamentalists, extremists or fanatics, this is just pouring oil on the

11 fire," and so on. Is that something that you in your judgement felt was

12 done deliberately, i.e., the placing of this announcement above the

13 obituaries?

14 A. I understood that as a provocation, as a simple provocation. If,

15 for instance, some stupid goods are being advertised, sugar or something,

16 at a more appropriate place, then it can only be understood as a

17 provocation.

18 Q. Thank you.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman

20 MR. ACKERMAN: All right, Your Honour, I think two things. Number

21 1, Ms. Korner is doing what she criticised me for and that's just reading

22 the diary to you. And number 2, I think in all fairness if she is going

23 to do that, the last sentence of that paragraph needs to be read because

24 it goes directly to the question that was asked of the witness.

25 MS. KORNER: Certainly, Your Honour, I'm quite happy to do that.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Let me read it as well, Ms. Korner. Yes. Go ahead.

2 MS. KORNER:

3 Q. "In any case, if this was not intentionally, then very

4 thoughtlessly done and will bring more harm than benefit to relations

5 between these two until recent brotherly peoples who are moving

6 increasingly further away from each other, at least in Bosnia."

7 Can we move finally to three entries that you were referred to in

8 July or some entries?

9 Yes. 15th of July, please. You were referred to parts relating

10 to the War Presidency, I think, and the argument with Glas. I just want

11 to -- yes. And I think this also relates to the suggestion that

12 Mr. Brdjanin was not trying to force people to leave and the whole -- the

13 Bosnian Serbs are not trying to force people to leave Banja Luka. Can you

14 turn to page -- the page that begins -- well, it's a paragraph that begins

15 at page L0048332, "During the past 24 hours a total of ten crimes have

16 been reported in Banja Luka." But I want you to go to what's the part

17 that begins, "Day in, day out, the area is being ethnically cleansed by

18 force," which is L0048333. You say, "Day in, day out, the area is being

19 ethnically cleansed by force and thousands of people are trying to leave

20 the territory of the Krajina in an attempt to save the only thing that

21 remains to be saved. The local media still present the huge Muslim and

22 Croat migrations and abandonment of their centuries old homes as the acts

23 of generosity on the part of the usurpers of power. An impression is

24 being created that Catholic churches and mosques are destroyed by Croats

25 and Muslims respectively. The fact that the Muslims and Croats are moving

1 out is accounted for, believe it or not, by the fact that both Croats and

2 Muslims fear the extremists in their own respective ranks who will not let

3 them live in love and peace with their Serbian neighbours."

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman? You're objecting to the reading?

5 MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah, she objected to me doing it and you sustained

6 her objection and I stopped and skipped a whole bunch of material.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: And I sustain your objection. So let's move with

8 the question.

9 MS. KORNER:

10 Q. You were asked a number of questions today about the reason why

11 you and others left. That is what you wrote in 1992. Is that your

12 opinion today or have you changed that opinion?

13 A. I'm sorry, I didn't understand your question very well.

14 Q. You were asked a number of questions today about people leaving

15 voluntarily, like yourself. In 1992, you wrote the paragraph that we've

16 just read, namely that the area was being ethnically cleansed by force.

17 Is that your opinion today or have you altered your opinion?

18 A. I haven't changed my opinion, not at all, not in the least.

19 Q. And finally --

20 MS. KORNER: Actually, Your Honour, I think that will do because

21 the last question I can deal with in argument.

22 Sir, thank you very much.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Korner. Judge Janu has some

24 questions for you, sir.

25 Questioned by the Court:

1 JUDGE JANU: Mr. Witness, at the beginning of your testimony, you

2 told us that ethnicity wasn't an important factor in your lives, and you

3 gave the example that you didn't know the ethnicity of half of your

4 friends and they didn't know -- many of them didn't ask -- didn't know

5 yours. Could you please assist the Chamber in this problem? How was it

6 possible that in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there still were villages who were

7 ethnically clean, who were Muslims or Serbs or Croats?

8 A. That is a very hard question to answer, but I can try. In

9 principle, yes, there were villages that were ethnically clean, but there

10 were very few villages where you had Muslims and Serbs together. That was

11 very difficult to find in Bosnia. But it wasn't a rare occurrence that

12 there were villages with Croats and Muslims mixed. I find it very

13 difficult, and I ask myself often how did this occur? Why did this

14 happen? And why did this occur? We lived for centuries together. Urban

15 part is a different story in Bosnia. In Bosnia, there is a big difference

16 between the rural and the urban part. The rural part is one responsible

17 for everything that happened because it's the rural population that

18 believed all those stories they were being told, and that's when we

19 started to sort of fight for some kind of security, that's when all

20 security eluded us and that's when everything occurred.

21 JUDGE JANU: Yes. Thank you. Can you tell me what does it mean,

22 calling Mr. Brdjanin a redneck?

23 A. Well, a redneck, when we say that in Bosnia, when we use the

24 expression, we don't mean the farmers, the people working the land, that's

25 not what we have in mind. When we call someone a redneck, that's usually

1 pejorative. It's derogatory. I've got to tell you that. The expression

2 is used in this case because certainly in town -- well in Bosnia, you know

3 there is a proverb which says the wild ones came along and chased away the

4 tame ones. Those people came, all of a sudden, and started imposing their

5 feral habits and customs on us so these were the people we referred to as

6 rednecks.

7 JUDGE JANU: You said, and we were discussing Mr. Ackerman touched

8 that point, that in your diary, there is an entry that Mr. Brdjanin was a

9 core member of the Crisis Staff and you also said that he had unlimited

10 access to the media and television. My question is: Did you ever hear

11 Mr. Brdjanin saying that he is about to leave Crisis Staff because he's

12 always voting against the majority? That the decisions are adopted

13 against his will?

14 A. Your Honour, I don't remember having heard anything like that. I

15 can't say that I didn't, but I don't remember. If I've heard anything

16 like that, I would have written it down in my diary and it must be there

17 in that case.

18 JUDGE JANU: My next question is: Can you tell us, please, why

19 did you consider former President Tudjman regime fatal for Croatia? Why?

20

21 A. Vital? I'm not sure what you mean but probably you're asking me

22 why I criticised President Tudjman.

23 JUDGE JANU: Fatal, why did you consider former President

24 Tudjman's regime to be fatal for Croatia?

25 A. Well, because he did everything he could against Bosnia and by

1 dint of that he was working against Croatia too. Tudjman was no better

2 than Milosevic. He was just a smaller player in a manner of speaking.

3 Milosevic was the more intelligent one. I'm quite convinced. Tudjman

4 would speak openly about things that Milosevic tended to conceal or speak

5 less openly about. He'd be carrying the branch of peace and, well, the

6 international community respected him in a way, whereas the other one had

7 no brains to even conceal his intention to destroy Bosnia and tear it to

8 pieces.

9 JUDGE JANU: Thank you. And my last question is: Could you

10 please estimate the role of propaganda in the conflict in your

11 municipality and in Bosnia-Herzegovina maybe some sort of summary, if you

12 would be so kind?

13 A. It is my opinion, and my deepest conviction, that all those who

14 were killed in the actual war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, had been killed

15 even before they were physically killed by the electronic media. I think

16 that's the briefest form in which I can put this.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm sorry, to butt in like this, Judge Janu, but I

18 haven't understood your answer. Perhaps if you could repeat it, you were

19 asked by Judge Janu -- one moment -- "Could you please estimate the role

20 of propaganda in the conflict in your municipality and the BH, maybe some

21 sort of summary, if you would be so kind?" And you said that, "It is your

22 deepest conviction that all those who were killed in the actual war in

23 Bosnia and Herzegovina had been killed even before they were physically

24 killed, by the electronic media. I think this is the briefest form in

25 which I can put this. But I think it calls also for an explanation. In

1 other words, are you saying that the mass media was mobilised in order to

2 procure the genocide of these people or not? The killing of these people

3 or not? The physical elimination of these people or not?

4 A. The media were not calling for genocide but the media were

5 creating an atmosphere which led to the misfortune that occurred. It's

6 the media's fault most of all. Who would have heard Mr. Brdjanin speaking

7 had it not been for Radio Banja Luka, TV Banja Luka, TV Pale? If the

8 local newspapers hadn't been there? It was the media that paved the way.

9 They paved the way for what eventually happened to our deepest regret.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I have one real question but I'm going to divide it

11 into parts. You mentioned yesterday, and you also mentioned it today as

12 well, or you referred to Brdjanin, Kupresanin, Vukic and Radic as the four

13 horsemen of the apocalypse. You remember that?

14 A. Yes.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: In your opinion, having lived those days, and even

16 bothered to write a diary, who was the most powerful amongst those four

17 horsemen of the apocalypse?

18 A. It's a very difficult call. It's very difficult to estimate.

19 Vukic was the most primitive one. Brdjanin was the most aggressive one.

20 Radic was the vilest and Kupresanin was an ambiguous personality. You

21 couldn't really tell what he was about.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: My question relates to power. At the end of the

23 day, if you squeezed all the juice out of --

24 A. Yes, I know.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Who was the most powerful? Who wielded the power,

1 in reality?

2 A. Well, who wielded the power, who was the driving force? Difficult

3 to say really. Most of the fatal decisions, at least the way it seemed,

4 were taken by Brdjanin. I'm not sure if that was only an outward

5 representation of his power and his desire to be in the forefront. It's

6 very difficult for me to say. Maybe there was someone else behind all of

7 them, without me knowing. Maybe it was something we didn't know about.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. You used the term apocalypse as a

9 context in which you qualify or described these four persons. Apocalypse

10 has a connotation of a disaster, an utter, complete disaster, a cataclysm.

11 Would you consider the four horsemen of the apocalypse that you say you

12 lived equally responsible or would you say that any one of them is more

13 responsible than the others? In which case I would like to know who.

14 A. To be honest, I wouldn't single out any which one of them because

15 it's very difficult for me to say.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Next question. Who appeared in the

17 media or who figured in the media most out of the four?

18 A. Without the shadow of a doubt, Brdjanin.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: And my penultimate question: In the events that

20 took place there, is there any particular area of activity which you

21 describe as being directed against the Muslims and/or the Croats? Is

22 there such an area that that you would hold Brdjanin responsible for more

23 than the other three?

24 A. He was at the head of the staff which was in charge of the ethnic

25 levelling, a staff which had the power to dismiss anti-Serbian persons.

1 Your Honours, you too would be dismissed at their hands because in their

2 eyes you would have been anti-Serbian. Their policy was if you're not

3 with us, you're against us. Why would I have supported someone there only

4 in order to be viewed as a constructive person? I think he was the one

5 who was in charge of dismissing managers, dismissing people from their

6 jobs. A little while ago, we talked about two managers who were Muslims.

7 Why wouldn't they be Muslims and managers if they are competent people?

8 Why would we not have three managers who are Serbs, if they are fully

9 qualified to do their job? That's what it's about. I think that was the

10 biggest sin that Radoslav Brdjanin committed. Whether he called the shots

11 alone made these decisions alone, I don't know. It's not for me to say

12 but he was the one who informed the public about these decisions.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: My last, very last, question to you but I have to

14 clear up something with Judge Taya, I think I better clear that up first.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE AGIUS: At a certain point during your testimony, and while

17 you were answering one of my questions, you said that the most vital or

18 fatal decisions, at least the way it seemed to you, were taken by

19 Brdjanin. What motivates you, on what grounds do you reach that

20 conclusion?

21 A. You had the impression because all the most fatal things that were

22 communicated through the media, radio, TV or papers by Mr. Brdjanin to us.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. My very last question and then you can

24 leave. A few minutes ago, you drew more or less a comparison between

25 Milosevic and Tudjman and you said that Tudjman was not such a big player

1 as Milosevic was. How big a player was Brdjanin?

2 A. You mean in the context of Republika Srpska? Is that what you're

3 referring to?

4 JUDGE AGIUS: In the context of the ARK. The Autonomous Region of

5 Krajina. And Republika Srpska. Take it as you like.

6 A. In the context of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, he was

7 certainly quite a big player. As for Republika Srpska, I think even there

8 he was near the top, near the very top. It's difficult for me to say but

9 I think he was near the top. After all, he was a man who dared to even

10 oppose Karadzic himself sometimes.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, sir, for having come over to give

12 evidence in this trial against Radoslav Brdjanin. I thank you not only on

13 my behalf but on behalf of Judge Janu from the Czech Republic and Judge

14 Taya from Japan sitting together with me in this trial as judges. You

15 will receive all the assistance you require by the staff of this Tribunal

16 to enable to you return to your country. On behalf of everyone present

17 here I wish you a safe journey back home. Thank you.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you too, Your Honours. Good

19 luck.

20 [The witness withdrew]

21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I just raise tomorrow? That is that

22 we have set aside two days for the next witness. I'd like to know,

23 please, if I can in advance, how long Your Honours will give me for

24 examination-in-chief.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Who will be cross-examining the witness? Roughly?

1 How much time do you require.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: A day or less, that's my guess.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: You can have the whole of tomorrow for sure and then

4 Mr. Ackerman would be in a better position to say whether he requires a

5 full day or less. I take it --

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I just check as well, did we -- I

7 thought I had made the diary an exhibit but I can't be 100 per cent sure.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it was made -- I better not comment on that.

9 I don't remember.

10 MS. KORNER: If can I formally apply -- I think I did, but can I

11 formally apply.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: I think you did.

13 MS. KORNER: 2326. And, Your Honour, finally then can I mention

14 the binders for Celinac, Bosanska Krupa and Kotor Varos? I'm told that

15 none have been admitted, the documents therein, may I ask that they are

16 formally admitted?

17 JUDGE AGIUS: We will decide that tomorrow because I have to check

18 about any objections that Mr. Ackerman may have raised. I think we did

19 deal with the Celinac ones for sure here.

20 MS. KORNER: Objections were raised, no they weren't actually I

21 don't think any objections have been raised with Celinac.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: With Celinac I think there was, I'm not quite sure.

23 MS. KORNER: Certainly not to Krupa yet and not to Kotor Varos.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't remember, Ms. Korner, I think I need to

25 check that with my staff first and then we will take a decision tomorrow.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I think I have objections to Celinac and Krupa

2 filed and I have not yet filed Kotor Varos but will. I just haven't

3 gotten there yet.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I wish to thank you once more the

5 interpreters and the technicians and all the other remaining staff for

6 overstaying with us for more than five minutes. I thank you and I really

7 appreciate that.

8 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

9 1.51 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,

10 the 25th day of June, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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