1 Wednesday, 21 April 2004

2 [Prosecution Closing Statement]

3 [Open session]

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

5 [The accused entered court]

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

7 Registrar.

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

9 Case Number IT-99-36-T, The Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.

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

11 the proceedings in a language that you can understand?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. Yes, I

13 can follow the proceedings in a language I understand.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.

15 Appearances for the Prosecution. Mr. Nicholls, I suppose today.

16 MR. NICHOLLS: Yes. Good morning, Your Honours. Julian Nicholls,

17 Joanna Korner, Anna Richterova, Ann Sutherland, and Denise Gustin today.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, and good morning to you all.

19 Appearances for the Defence.

20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Good morning, Your Honours. I'm David Cunningham

21 with John Ackerman and as always assisted by Aleksandar Vujic.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: So you have an hour and a half, Ms. Korner unless

23 there are preliminaries, which I hope there aren't.

24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, no, and that's what I want to mention.

25 Because when we looked at the questions Your Honours asked and the

1 judgement, it's not a simple straightforward matter. We would prefer, and

2 I believe Mr. Ackerman would concur with that, if we can put this in in

3 writing which we'll do before Friday because it hasn't actually given a

4 definitive answer.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: I wouldn't like to discuss it myself obviously. But

6 there are questions which are begged, of course.

7 MS. KORNER: There are a number of alternatives, and I believe we

8 need to set them out for Your Honours.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: If that is okay with you, Mr. Ackerman, as well, I

10 would prefer it that way because it would give you an opportunity to go

11 deeper into the matter. I intend to go deeper into the matter with my two

12 colleagues and our staff as well because it is obvious. I know exactly

13 what you have in mind. Thanks.

14 Mr. Ackerman

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, although I agreed that would be an

16 appropriate procedure, I didn't agree to this Friday. I can't make that.

17 Can we say a week from Friday? I mean, they can file theirs on Friday.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: It's not going to change anything.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: If they want to file theirs on Friday, I don't have

20 any objection to that. But I just can't do it.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: We have already fixed a schedule for ourselves how

22 to spend the forthcoming days, so it doesn't really make a difference.

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we're quite happy with that as well. I

24 simply said Friday in case Your Honours wanted it urgently.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: We have plenty to discuss, Ms. Korner, as you can

1 imagine.

2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, then may I -- may I then return and just

3 finish off yesterday's section with two documents. I was dealing

4 generally with the media and propaganda, and I want to say a little more

5 about it in specific relation to Mr. Brdjanin. But Your Honours, I would

6 like to you to have a look, please, at two particular documents, one which

7 Your Honours may remember is the -- generally called the document which is

8 "The Curse of Lazar" issued by the Bosanska Krupa municipal board of the

9 SDS. It's P2073. If we can put that up on the ELMO.

10 And Your Honour will see down there, this was issued at the time

11 of the referendum. It's an exhortation to Serbs to boycott it, and it

12 ends with this remarkable, as it were, sentence: "The curse of Lazar will

13 fall on each and every Serb despite everything he sees, knows, or hears,

14 he chooses to cast his vote at the referendum." And it tells what you the

15 curse of Lazar is. May no offspring male or female fill his heart with

16 joy, may his hands -- something -- he was -- I can't read that, but anyhow

17 Your Honours can see it.

18 Your Honours, clearly the propaganda that was issued in -- by the

19 form of leaflets and pronouncements from the SDS can go a lot further in

20 many senses than what could actually be published in the, if I can call

21 it, the proper media such the newspapers and the like, because this was an

22 internal issuing. It wasn't likely to get the same kind of publicity if

23 you like than if it was said to a television crew or to a newspaper.

24 Your Honour, can I now ask you to look, please, at 2356.

25 Your Honour, although it's undated, from the context it's possible to see

1 that it's around the 6th of September, and it's -- it was issued by the

2 Assembly of the association of Bosanska Krajina Municipalities, so it's

3 before it's transformed into the ARK Assembly. And it's dealing with the

4 mobilisation that happened September/October 1991.

5 And you will see there that Mr. Brdjanin is quoted in this

6 document issue. "Radoslav Brdjanin deputy president of the assembly gives

7 this instruction." "We have no right, he says, to leave the Serbian

8 people in Croatia to the mercy of the Ustasha warriors for our

9 grandfathers would curse us and our grandchildren would be ashamed of us."

10 We would suggest there's a similarity of language used by Mr. Brdjanin in

11 this case to what -- much further in the Krupa document, because,

12 Your Honour, the suggestion is that, as I say, Krupa is a completely -- a

13 municipality that's off on its own. It has got no connections with any of

14 the others. It's a renegade municipality. We say not. We say the same

15 themes occur throughout.

16 Your Honours, I'm going to turn now to for the next until I

17 have -- until the next break to discuss Mr. Brdjanin in full, or

18 concentrate on him, although obviously throughout what I've said over the

19 last two days I have been linking the events and matters that I have been

20 describing to him.

21 Your Honours, he was, of course, we say one of the major

22 propagandists of the Bosnian Serb leadership. There are very few other

23 people who had the impact on the media and who said the things in the

24 media that he did. Dr. Vukic, of course, was one of them, but you've

25 heard evidence from a number of people, although in particular from the

1 Witness BT-94, that although he could make terrible speeches, he wasn't

2 regarded with anything like the same horror as Mr. Brdjanin, or anything

3 like having the same authority notwithstanding the fact that he was the

4 president of the municipal and regional SDS.

5 Because he had this drinking problem. He was a man who could

6 consume apparently 10 whiskeys a day without any difficulty whatsoever.

7 So Your Honours, we say that Mr. Brdjanin, because of the positions he

8 held, was much more the dangerous man and the person who incited, if

9 nothing else, the crimes that were committed. But it's more than

10 incitement. He had the authority to carry out the plan, not just incite

11 it.

12 Your Honours, if one just reminds ourself for a moment of his

13 positions that he held during the period of the indictment, because a lot

14 of people have said that was what gave him his authority. In November of

15 1990, he was elected to the Council of Municipalities in the multiethnic

16 assembly of Bosnia. On the 19th of December 1990, he became the president

17 of the executive council in Celinac. And that comes from a Defence

18 exhibit, DB151.

19 In April 1991, he became the first vice-president of the

20 association of Bosnian Krajina municipalities. In September of 1991,

21 vice-president of the Assembly of the ARK. April 1992, he was a member of

22 the SOS Crisis Staff, and it looks like their chief spokesman. From the

23 5th of May to at least the 17th of July, he was the president of the

24 crisis staff of the region. He was also appointed on the 13th of May to

25 the ARK executive council as the secretary for the secretariat of traffic,

1 communications, construction, et cetera. And on the 15th of September

2 1992, minister for construction in the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, and

3 then acting deputy prime minister.

4 Now, there are very few people we have looked at in this case who

5 held that number of positions. Now, Your Honour, I want to deal what is

6 effectively the Defence's main point on his behalf, to counter all the

7 other evidence that this case has shown that he was inciting and carrying

8 out, a party to the carrying out of these offences. And that is what is

9 described on a number of occasions as his saving of the 1.860 Muslims in

10 Celinac. And so we think it's necessary to have a look at the background

11 to that action, such as it was.

12 Your Honour, the Defence in its final brief at page 139 stated

13 that the Prosecution has at best proven that Brdjanin was an ambitious

14 politician without any real authority or power behind the confines of the

15 Celinac Municipality. And further claim that the exercise of his power

16 and authority there are factors apart from anything else which are to be

17 taken into mitigation -- as mitigation.

18 Now, Your Honour, one needs to summarise what actually happened in

19 Celinac between April and December of 1992 whilst the accused had real

20 authority and power in that municipality. That's how it's described.

21 Because as in every other municipality in the autonomous region that

22 Your Honours have heard about, the Muslims and the very, very few Croats

23 were driven from that municipality in fear of their lives. And like

24 everywhere else, the direct perpetrators of crimes were neither prevented

25 from committing those crimes, nor subsequently punished for the commission

1 of those crimes.

2 As Your Honours know, the Serbs were an overwhelming majority in

3 Celinac. They formed approximately 88 to 90 per cent of the population

4 there. Therefore, the non-Serb populations, the 2.000 or so Muslims,

5 formed no threat whatsoever to the Serbs there. They held all the

6 positions of authority in the government of Celinac. They, however,

7 engaged, according to a report of the 5th Krajina Corps as it then was, on

8 the 10th of March, and that's P363, that they engaged in arming the Serb

9 population. The report also alleged that the Muslims in Celinac were

10 being armed. And they noted in that report that the SDS had won the

11 election and held all the power in Celinac.

12 Now, about this time, Celinac addressed the -- Brdjanin addressed

13 the Celinac Municipal Assembly, and this can be seen in P1999 at page 4.

14 This was on the 31st of March 1992. And he gave his view very bluntly

15 that with regard to the soldiers who have gone to the front, "we have

16 tried to help many of them. No one can harm them or accuse them of being

17 war criminals." In other words, whatever they may be doing at this stage

18 in Croatia or wherever, they couldn't be war criminals. Now, it may well

19 be, in fact, we would suggest it was, that the municipal authorities took

20 those words to heart because the Celinac political leadership put pressure

21 on the military court in order to obtain the release of the now notorious

22 Sugic brothers who committed the murders in Celinac.

23 Brdjanin, we say, on the basis of the documents - there's no

24 evidence to contradict it - was on the 13th of May appointed to the

25 Celinac municipal crisis staff. That's in P1993 and 1999, between pages

1 16 to 22. Your Honour, the witness, Mr. Talic, the Muslim Defence witness,

2 confirmed that Muslims were disarmed in Celinac at the order of the

3 police. It was put to him that the -- that there was an announcement on

4 the radio saying that the Muslims had to surrender their weapons. It came

5 from the -- it was suggested that was to the crisis staff on the 10th of

6 May, so the same deadline. And he said, no, that wasn't correct. It was

7 to the SUP in Celinac. And he was one of the people who had a weapon, a

8 proper license. But nonetheless, he surrendered it to the police. That's

9 at transcript page 24161.

10 And Your Honour, it's confirmed by the SJB at a meeting of the

11 Celinac Assembly that in Celinac, none of the non-Serbs have weapons.

12 That was later on, on the 5th of August of 1992, and is at page 36 of

13 P1999. Yes, sorry. I have been saying 199. It's all 1999. It's that

14 long series of documents. Thank you.

15 Your Honour, in June of 1992, in this overwhelming Serb

16 Municipality, the attacks on Muslims' homes, businesses, and mosques

17 began. This was documented contemporaneously in news reports and also

18 verified by the witnesses that Your Honours have heard from at this trial.

19 And the attacks followed the same pattern. The businesses and homes were

20 blown up. Your Honour, can I remind Your Honour without having to put the

21 exhibits up, P1991, Radio Banja Luka report of the 11th of June. And this

22 was confirmed by the witness who gave evidence in closed session at pages

23 T -- transcript pages 17072 to 3.

24 On the 12th of June, the mosque was damaged and subsequently

25 destroyed. And that's P1992, the item of the 12th of June. Both

1 witnesses, that's the Defence witness and the Prosecution witness,

2 confirmed that was right.

3 And ultimately, the two mosques in Celinac were destroyed. Those

4 attacks, those bombings that took place on Muslim residences terrified the

5 Muslims and prompted them to leave. And that, too, was confirmed by

6 Mr. Talic. At page 24164, it was put to him that he had said the Muslims

7 had left Celinac because they were in fear. Is that correct? And he

8 said: "Correct. Question: "What was this fear about? What was it based

9 on?" "First, he said, let me tell you. There were intimidations going

10 on. Fire. 24 houses are set on fire. Mosques were blown up."

11 Now, the evidence was that Brdjanin attended a meeting between the

12 SDS and Muslim leaders in July. This was after the killings that took

13 place in Popovac -- I'm sorry, after the -- yes, the Sugic brother

14 killings of the people returning from the meeting. And Your Honour, what

15 the evidence is that Mr. Brdjanin said during that meeting at which

16 Mr. Talic was not present was this: "Celinac was Serbian. Muslims and

17 Croats would not live there, and the Serbs would find a way for them to

18 move out." That is, Your Honours, at pages 17082. And to the people who

19 were present at the meeting, it was abundantly clear what was meant by

20 that.

21 Your Honours, as I say, Mr. Talic didn't attend these meetings,

22 and he was unable able to help the Court on that aspect of things. And in

23 fact, he explained, Mr. Talic, that he didn't spend a lot of time in

24 Celinac, he was either in Banja Luka or Orasje or on work obligation.

25 Your Honours, that's at page 24172. Now, Your Honour, by the -- the

1 effect was pretty dramatic because by the end of April of 1993, from the

2 document P1981, there were only about 770 Muslims left in Celinac.

3 Your Honour, it's also worth remembering that this is the municipality

4 that produced what is possibly the most discriminatory document of any of

5 the municipalities. And that was the document issued on the 23rd of July

6 1992 by the war presidency of which Brdjanin was a member, regulating the

7 status of the non-Serb population in Celinac. It's P1998. And

8 Your Honours will recall it prohibits movement, gatherings, and whatever.

9 And one witness I think described it as a Nazi law effectively.

10 And Your Honour, there's no question but that that document was

11 disseminated. A number of witnesses even outside the municipality were

12 aware of it, and it's the document that the Celinac Municipal Assembly

13 when it re-met to verify the decisions taken by the crisis staff, refused

14 to verify that.

15 Your Honour, by the end of August 1992, the members of the Celinac

16 Light Infantry Brigade, the Sugic brothers, and members of the CSB special

17 unit or special detachment as it's called were engaged in these murderous

18 attacks on the Muslims of Celinac. There were killings in the villages of

19 Basici and Mehovci. Indeed, it was raised in the assembly. Your Honour,

20 the Sugic brothers came under the command of Major Janko Trivic. And

21 Your Honours, the major spoke at the municipal assembly. This is P1999,

22 at page 42. And he was saying that he had seen the Sugic elders, and they

23 have promised not to do it again. However, said Major Trivic, they

24 continue to do it. And he said, and here we have the clear liaison and

25 cooperation, coordination, whatever one likes to call it, between the

1 political and the military side. He said, it is now up to you to decide

2 what you will do next. With regard to this, the municipal assembly should

3 establish crisis points and select two assemblymen who will spend three

4 days studying the problem.

5 Your Honour, if one recaps and summarises what the situation was

6 by the time we come to the 1.860 Muslims in this municipality where the

7 accused, it is conceded, accepted, had real power and authority, Serbs had

8 been armed. Non-Serb population had been disarmed. Attacks had taken

9 place on property owned by the Muslims. The mosques were destroyed.

10 Brdjanin was saying that Celinac was a Serbian municipality and they would

11 have to leave. They began to leave. That decision in July had been

12 issued. And the killings had started. And Your Honour, that's the

13 context in which the accused's alleged rescue of all the Muslims in

14 Celinac has to be seen.

15 Your Honour, when one comes to the events of the 18th of August,

16 there is a report from the 1st Krajina Corps about what happened, and that

17 is P2000, that it reports on the killings that took place in the Bastasi

18 village and what had happened there. And as a result of those attacks,

19 the Muslims of Celinac gathered in the centre of town. They couldn't

20 return to their homes, and they couldn't leave because of the danger of

21 attack. As the 1st Krajina Corps put it in its report of the 17th of

22 August, because of some killings in the light infantry brigade, the Serbs

23 were Celinac had decided to take its revenge on the Muslim population

24 around Celinac.

25 Your Honour, there was a witness, and can I just commend to you,

1 who gave evidence about what happened at the school. That's transcript

2 page 15478 to 15489. And we suggest that if Your Honours look at that

3 testimony, Mr. Kovacevic who was the president of the municipal assembly

4 and the former crisis staff president went to ask the 1st Krajina Corps

5 what to do about the Muslims, that the security chief, Colonel Blagojevic

6 was sent with others to deal with that problem. And we suggest that on

7 that evidence, it was the 1st Krajina Corps who ordered Kuzmanovic not to

8 harm the Muslims. And that's perhaps clear. It was a centre of attention

9 clearly, Celinac. It's very close to Banja Luka. The idea that you

10 should harm the 1860 Muslims who were gathered together in fear for their

11 lives on the green that Your Honours may recall seeing between the

12 municipal assembly and the hotel where the founding session of ZOBK was

13 held. And Your Honour, the evidence also was to this effect: That

14 Brdjanin was present at this meeting, as was Stojan Zupljanin.

15 Your Honour, we suggest, therefore, that to say that Brdjanin was

16 responsible for saving those Muslims is an overstatement.

17 Mr. Talic, of course, gives Mr. Brdjanin full credit for that. It

18 may well be that's because he isn't aware of the full facts and also

19 because from his point of view, Mr. Brdjanin helped him save his daughter.

20 She was in Kotor Varos. And that is a very interesting aspect of this

21 case. Because it's suggested over and over again that Brdjanin had no

22 authority outside Celinac and that if he went to visit the front line or

23 wherever it was, he had to get a permit, whereas Mr. Radic didn't. One of

24 the points that's made.

25 But Your Honour, in fact, you may remember, Your Honours may

1 remember, that Mr. Brdjanin, according to Mr. Talic, was able to provide

2 Mr. Talic not only with a car - and Your Honours, this is at page 24186 of

3 the transcript - a driver, but also a special permission permit "which

4 enabled me to bring my daughter over to Celinac. I crossed a Serbian

5 checkpoint in Kotor Varos, and they allowed me to go through." And at

6 24187, he explained how he went up to the municipality building and went

7 to look for his daughter. And he -- there was a description of how he

8 explained or the officer there had seen that he had been given permission

9 by a Serb. And this officer said: "Well, we are fighting Muslims, and

10 here it is we have a Muslim in the car. And then they understood that I

11 was on friendly terms with Mr. Brdjanin, and I was allowed to go on on

12 foot."

13 Your Honour, it's clear from that alone that Mr. Brdjanin's

14 authority extended well beyond the confines of Celinac.

15 Your Honour, finally, if one reminds oneself very quickly of the

16 Sugic brothers, they were finally, finally, detained and charged with the

17 murders. And as with nearly every other Serb arrested for killings -

18 we've deal with that in our final trial brief - they were released and

19 returned to their units. Having been arrested at the end of 1992, as a

20 result of a motion filed on the 26th of January, they were released, and

21 the motion specifically cited the recommendation of the Celinac Municipal

22 Assembly Executive Board for their release, together with the intervention

23 of their commander and a petition signed by all the inhabitants of

24 Mr. Brdjanin's own hometown, which was Popovac. So Your Honour, if one

25 looks at all of that as a background to what happened, we suggest it is

1 not the overwhelming mitigation that the Defence suggests that it is, nor

2 does it suggest that that was the only place that he had power.

3 Your Honours, we suggest that that was but an example of the power that he

4 could exert. And if he could do it, then why didn't he do it in any other

5 municipality? Why didn't he say "these Muslims should not be harmed"

6 wherever it was, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, where his authority ran.

7 Your Honour, one of the aspects I say, of course, of the

8 cooperation between the military and the various crisis staffs, including

9 the regional, what I failed to touch on yesterday was this: Apart from

10 any other authority, cooperation, coordination which is shown, the

11 municipal authorities, and in particular, the regional authority, because

12 one of the major problems the municipality were having was supplies, and

13 you recall the evidence, they were going up to discuss oil, was to cut off

14 all supplies to the intervention squad that they knew was committing

15 offences, to the military units, to the TO units, to say "we will not

16 provide you with food, we will not provide you with the weaponry or the

17 money or whatever." It may well be that it was a standard procedure with

18 the old JNA that that was what the municipalities were expected to do.

19 That may well be. But they had the ability, and in particular,

20 Mr. Brdjanin, through the regional crisis staff, to say "your men are

21 committing crimes. Until you stop them, we will not carry on supplying

22 you." And who knows then what might have happened?

23 Oh, yes, I'm sorry, I should give -- the exhibit number of the

24 motion is P528, to release the Sugic brothers.

25 Your Honour, in the remaining time, can I pick up the particular

1 aspects of matters I've already gone through that reply to -- sorry, that

2 apply to Mr. Brdjanin. Your Honour, his role in the early stages of the

3 plan. At the -- in the Defence final brief, at page 110, they say:

4 "Mr. Brdjanin never joined in a common design and was heavily criticised

5 for his failure to do so." And later, at page 130, they say: "It is

6 untenable to argue that in the light of this kind of criticism - that's

7 from the Sansko-Usko group of municipalities - that the defendant was part

8 of any joint criminal enterprise bent on achieving the strategic goals

9 announced by Karadzic and Krajisnik."

10 Your Honours, we've looked at some of the intercepts. And

11 Your Honour if one just runs through some of the major ones, as early as

12 the 17th or 18th of June 1991, there's a record of a telephone

13 conversation between Mr. Brdjanin and Karadzic with Mr. Brdjanin

14 complaining, even at that early stage, because a number of Muslims and

15 Croats had not been removed from managerial positions in the media and

16 companies. Not a single man has been replaced. And Mr. Karadzic

17 expressed his support to Mr. Brdjanin and agreed that part of the SDS

18 policy was the need to remove non-Serbs from managerial positions.

19 Mr. Radic at one stage agreed that he was one of the architects of this

20 policy. He said one of the smaller ones, but nonetheless one of the

21 architects. And we say the evidence shows clearly that this persecution

22 which started very early on and continued throughout was partly, at least,

23 the brainchild of Radoslav Brdjanin.

24 Your Honour, and I'm now not going to deal with every intercept or

25 every speech made by Mr. Brdjanin in public. But on the 12th of July

1 1991, there was an SDS assembly, and Mr. Brdjanin attended it. And he set

2 out his personal creed which we say is extremely applicable here and is if

3 you like the epitome of the joint criminal enterprise or the chain of

4 authority. He said: "I am a man who abides by two principles. I obey

5 and respect those who are above me. All those who are under my command

6 must obey me." And Your Honour, that is at -- it's Exhibit P2611, and I

7 can't remember the page number. But it's in there.

8 Your Honour, he put those principles into effect, we say the

9 evidence shows, in the various positions of authority he held during the

10 period of the indictment. Your Honour, on the 28th of July of 1991, a

11 further intercept records a conversation between Brdjanin and Karadzic,

12 again talking about the issue of the removal of non-Serb managers. And

13 they also discussed the implementation of the SDS policy. Your Honour,

14 there was a conversation between Karadzic and Stevandic on the 17th of

15 August 1991. And it may well be that the reason that Mr. Stevandic

16 notwithstanding his criminal activities was able to be on the various

17 crisis staffs is because he was clearly a man who was close to Karadzic.

18 And he said this: "Since we put Brdjanin into the picture, he is not

19 letting Vojo - by that we take it he means Kupresanin - and Andjelko -

20 that's Grahovac - do anything stupid. However, all of them have now

21 turned against Brdjanin, not because of jealousy, but because they wanted

22 to become involved in this part of the work."

23 Your Honour, on the 18th of September 1991, again, in an

24 intercept, there was -- between Karadzic and another gentleman named Komad

25 who was the SDS Executive Board secretary, there was a discussion about

1 getting Kupresanin, Brdjanin, Vukic and Radic together regarding

2 mobilisation. And on the same day, the 18th of September, Mr. Brdjanin

3 and Karadzic are recorded conferring over the phone on that issue, the

4 mobilisation. And Brdjanin said: "I'm in charge of that - referring to

5 the mobilisation - and the part that we're doing is going well."

6 Throughout, the documents show that Brdjanin was linking himself very

7 closely with mobilisation, the bringing in of troops and the like. There

8 is evidence also from witnesses who were discussing these matters at that

9 time, in particular BT-80.

10 Yes. I'm sorry, I should give the exhibit numbers again. The

11 intercept that is I discussed of Stevandic-Karadzic intercept P2355. And

12 the next one where Brdjanin said "I'm in charge of that," P2382.8.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner. You did give the reference for the

14 second intercept, that between Brdjanin and Karadzic where they discussed

15 removal of non-Serbs the second time, at 28th of July.

16 MS. KORNER: Sorry, Your Honour. 28th of July, the number there

17 is 2382.4.

18 Now, Your Honour, on the 23rd of September 1991, an intercept

19 records Karadzic talking to Slobodan Milosevic. And he refers to Brdjanin

20 as one of the persons who would implement the common plan in the Krajina

21 because Milosevic was saying in general: "Banja Luka and Prijedor and

22 those parts, some of those -- all of that should somehow constantly be

23 kept in some kind of political readiness, under some kind of political

24 influence." And Karadzic said this: "I don't know what's going on in the

25 Krajina. I don't know who it is because I've told Brdjanin and

1 Kupresanin. They're going there today to give them a speech. I think the

2 people over there are happy to go." And then he said, there was further

3 discussion about consolidation and so on and so forth.

4 Then, Your Honour, on the 16th of October 1991 -- I'm sorry,

5 Your Honour. The number for that is 2383.6.

6 On the 16th of October, Brdjanin and Karadzic were deliberating

7 about the Krajina and agreeing together that they should stop a movement

8 to unite the Croatian and Bosnian Krajinas. According to the

9 conversation, that was being spearheaded by Kupresanin and Grahovac.

10 Certainly, Mr. Grahovac, we know from what was being done and said, was

11 very keen on this idea.

12 Your Honour, the telex, which I don't propose to go into detail

13 about again, that was sent after the meeting in Banja Luka of the

14 municipality presidents, which is referred to and indeed an assembly, to

15 the presidents of the municipal assemblies. That's P22. Your Honour, the

16 instructions bear some similarity to those in variant A and B about what

17 is to be done. It could be said that this was a foreshadowing. It

18 appears that the implementation or non-implementation was then discussed

19 at an assembly meeting on the 6th of November. And one of the reasons

20 given for that non-implementation was that in certain municipalities, the

21 variant B municipalities, they couldn't be implemented. Because there the

22 Serbs didn't have the authority. And that's P23, Your Honours.

23 And Your Honour, finally, there are a number of different

24 intercepts, including the one on the 18th of November which Mr. Radic

25 listened to in the course of his evidence and identified the various

1 voices, where again Mr. Brdjanin has rushed into print talking about the

2 dismissal of non-Serbs. And Mr. Karadzic is telling him that "we were

3 trying to treat it as a joke. I was trying to get you off the hook

4 because you can't say that in public." They were trying at that stage

5 still to keep the ideas covert ones.

6 Your Honours, there are assembly meetings where he spoke, further

7 meetings with Karadzic, Plavsic, and other leaders about which the Chamber

8 has heard. And on the 7th of January 1992, there is a discussion between

9 Karadzic and somebody called Miroslav. They're discussing candidates for

10 leadership positions in the ARK, and Miroslav says "the principle ones are

11 Dr. Jaksic and Brdjanin." And Karadzic said: "Find a political

12 personality who will be able to take power." Miroslav: "Then it would

13 have to be Brdjanin, I think."

14 Your Honours, this is P2358, Exhibit 2358.

15 Now, Your Honour, much is made in the Defence pre-trial brief of

16 the outspoken criticism that took place of Brdjanin in early 1992, in

17 particular at the end of February, the 28th of February at the meeting of

18 the deputies' club. And the complaints, if I'm summarising, seem to be

19 directed at the fact that the proposals that were made in the ARK Assembly

20 for a separate Krajina state, the Republic of Krajina, were a product of

21 Brdjanin's lust for power. But the concerns expressed reveal not only his

22 importance, we suggest, but also how his extremist views which he was

23 prepared to enunciate in public were being used by the SDS, the top

24 leadership thereof, to achieve their goals. And the next day, many of

25 that top leadership turned up to the 29th of February assembly in Banja

1 Luka in order to make sure that this proposal for a Republic of Krajina,

2 they were linking through the Krajinas, was once and for all squashed, and

3 it was. And Your Honour, Dr. Donia, when he gave evidence, when he looked

4 at all the documents, and this is at page 1150, said: "Yes, there clearly

5 was a rift at some stage by the end of February. That was healed."

6 Your Honour, the reality of the situation is as numerous witnesses

7 have stated, the SDS exercised a rigid hierarchical control. And Brdjanin

8 was able to assume the highest position in the government of the

9 Autonomous Region of Krajina and remain there until such time

10 effectively as the crisis staff was abolished and then he became a

11 minister in the government.

12 Your Honour, we suggest, therefore, that on the evidence, the

13 assertion that he was not a party to any common plan which, as we say, the

14 Defence appear to accept did exist, it cannot be maintained in the light

15 of that evidence. In respect of the authority that he had, he did put

16 that plan into effect in the Autonomous Region of Krajina. And to the

17 Muslim and Croat people in the ARK, there was no doubt that he held and

18 exercised power and influence, and even some of the Serb witnesses called

19 by the Defence, whilst attempting to minimise the effect of his role, and

20 we suggest that is because they themselves were concerned in participation

21 of these events, conceded that he did have real authority. I've already

22 dealt with Mr. Radic saying he was a man of authority, not because

23 particularly he was the president of the crisis staff, but because of all

24 the other positions he held.

25 BT-94 -- well, first of all, I should deal -- yeah, BT-94 who made

1 assertions both in his diary and when he came to court, and some of the

2 assertions that he made originally, Your Honours asked him to expand upon

3 when he came -- returned to court. But he nonetheless stuck to this. He

4 said: "In the context of the autonomous region, he was a big player,

5 quite a big player. As for the Republika Srpska, I think even there, he

6 was near the top, near the very top." And Your Honours, that was at page

7 T18 -- transcript page 18169. "And after Brdjanin - he said - and the

8 other three horsemen took over power, life became unbearable. Chaos set

9 in. And Banja Luka turned into the biggest concentration camp in the

10 world."

11 Your Honour, interesting enough at the very early stages of this

12 case when it was said, I think, originally by Mr. Krzic, there was a lot

13 of cross-examination about why they were saying that and whether they got

14 together, but a number of different witnesses used that very expression.

15 Krzic said, if you live in a very practical concentration camp, you have

16 to find ways to protect your life. Witness -- that was at page 1576.

17 Witness BT-17, can I invite Your Honours to see what he said at T2835,

18 because he testified in closed session, and then in fact Mr. Radic,

19 although it was a different context, we accept, said Banja Luka was sealed

20 off, cut off from the world at this period, 1992, that we are constantly

21 discussing."

22 Your Honour, when matters were happening like the arrival of the

23 SOS or other important decisions were being taken, in particular on the

24 5th of April, it was Brdjanin and Mr. Vukic, but not Mr. Radic, the

25 president of the SOS crisis staff, who went on to Banja Luka Radio to

1 explain the implementation of the demands. It was Mr. Brdjanin who -- I'm

2 sorry, that's Exhibit 2326. It's the diary. And P138.

3 Your Honour, the 21st of April, and at other occasions,

4 Mr. Brdjanin, when being interviewed, specifically named individuals who

5 needed to be dismissed. And he issued the following threat: "If

6 individual people in the Banja Luka companies who have been asked to

7 withdraw do not do so in a period of three days, then members of the SOS

8 will come on to the scene." On the 4th of May, and I'm sorry,

9 Your Honour. That's P154.

10 On the 4th of May, he said, again in an interview with Glas, when

11 he was a member of the crisis staff and the commission for ethnic leveling

12 of staff, "that managers who had voted for a sovereign Bosnia and

13 Herzegovina should leave their positions in the shortest possible time.

14 Otherwise, they will be withdrawn by force and by members of the Serbian

15 Defence Forces at that..." And that's P169.

16 Now, Your Honour, that authority that he was using to issue those

17 threats continued throughout his tenure as the president of the crisis

18 staff of the autonomous region. Your Honour, I've already dealt briefly

19 with the fact of his signatures. Those signatures not only went out under

20 his signature block -- I'm sorry, those documents not only went out under

21 his signature block, but in order to give them the added force, when

22 Mr. Blagojevic was putting them into the Gazette, he added by each of the

23 end of the documents that the original carried the signature of

24 Mr. Brdjanin by putting in the words "SR," because that was important. It

25 didn't matter, in effect, who did sign it, but what was important was that

1 to the public and to the people to whom these decisions and orders were

2 going were firmly of the impression that this carried the authority of the

3 president of the crisis staff.

4 Your Honour, on the signatures, as I say, the evidence has been

5 from Mr. Blagojevic that he signed only -- actually signed only two or

6 three. He said that other people were forging his signature. The real

7 question was why was it necessary to forge his signature when the evidence

8 was that if he wasn't there, and anyone could sign on his behalf, or

9 certainly the vice-president? If there was whole scale forgery going on,

10 and his secretary said not one single decision bore his signature, not

11 even the one that was in the newspaper, the 22nd of June, the two that

12 that was added in the Defence final brief the Defence conceded, and the

13 ones they put in themselves. But the real question is: If there was

14 whole scale forgery going on, who was doing it in and why? How is it that

15 Mr. Brdjanin missed all of this? How does it square with Mr. Blagojevic's

16 evidence that he was taking these decisions to Mr. Brdjanin for signature

17 at the end of the day? No minutes, but decisions for signature.

18 These decisions and conclusions did have a binding force, we say,

19 equivalent to an order. And as Mr. Blagojevic put it when he was asked

20 why the decisions had to be published in the Gazette: "It is a well known

21 fact to make the general public aware of the decisions that were taken and

22 how they were to be applied." And that can be seen at transcript page

23 21894.

24 Now, on the 5th of May when Mr. Brdjanin appeared on Banja Luka

25 Radio to talk about mobilisation, he was described by BT-94 as the

1 mastermind behind all this madness. And when he came back, he was asked

2 to explain it. He said: "It could hardly be put that way that Radoslav

3 Brdjanin was the mastermind, that he conceived all of this. He was one of

4 the creators of the self-defeating policy. This had to do with

5 mobilisation," he said, "as far as I could see. He stood behind this

6 self-defeating policy. He was a prominent proponent of this policy. Now

7 what made me say this? Everything he said showed that this was a man who

8 did not hesitate to use big words, and big words lead to big consequences.

9 He labelled other ethnic groups and glorified his own. All of that was

10 sufficient reason for me to view him the way that I did and to assess him

11 the way that I did." Your Honour, that can be seen at page 24778.

12 Now, Your Honour, the expression "puppet" was used by either

13 Mr. Vidic or Mr. Dejanovic. I can't remember which of the two now. We

14 say that the evidence that what Mr. Brdjanin did at these meetings, of all

15 of the decisions, show that he was no puppet, but the driving force behind

16 the major decisions that were being made. And those decisions were being

17 implemented in the municipalities. Milorad Sajic's testimony at 23 -- at

18 page 23703 shows that he was the constant factor in the crisis staff. He

19 decided when it was necessary to hold a meeting. He summoned members to

20 the meetings being sometimes at short notice. He was in charge of all the

21 meetings, and the meetings could not start without him being present. And

22 that's at -- I think I've given the reference already.

23 Now, the Defence in their final brief between pages 156 and 165

24 dealt with the evidence of the internationals. Not with any of their

25 descriptions of the events in Bosnia of what was happening, of what nearly

1 all of them described as ethnic cleansing and more, but to underline the

2 fact that none of them had any meetings with Mr. Brdjanin. And if they

3 met anyone in Banja Luka, it was Mr. Radic. And they assert that that

4 shows that he had no authority. Your Honours, we submit that all of that

5 shows, all that shows is that he wasn't put forward as the person to meet.

6 It is perhaps not surprising. The face that he showed to his own people,

7 the face that could be seen in Banja Luka by the Muslims and the Croats

8 and by the Serbs themselves was not one that they, the Serbs, were anxious

9 for the international community to see.

10 Moreover, of course, Predrag Radic was the municipal president or

11 mayor as he was known to those who couldn't distinguish between the two.

12 And he had been there since the elections of 1990. And undoubtedly,

13 Your Honours may think from the evidence, whatever his true aspects were,

14 he was the more user-friendly of the two men. That is what many of the

15 victims themselves said. And the more user-friendly as far as the

16 leadership was concerned.

17 Your Honour, the documents and the testimony of those who were in

18 Banja Luka, of those who were living in the municipalities, not just

19 passing through, show the reality. Your Honour, in early August of 1992,

20 when foreign journalists were arriving to inspect the camps, Mr. Brdjanin,

21 together with Mr. Ostojic, appeared on Banja Luka Television. And

22 Your Honour, he was moved to explain - I was going to show this video, but

23 I think I'm running out of time - to say this: "We were surprised when

24 the Muslim and Croatian people rose to fight in certain parts of Krajina.

25 We were surprised for two reasons: Primarily we're good neighbours; and

1 secondly, they don't stand a chance in the world. And those who are

2 honest amongst those people must understand that at least here, on this

3 territory, they don't stand a chance in this fight." Your Honour, that is

4 the video P7 -- sorry, P2727.

5 Your Honour, after the winding up of the crisis staff,

6 Mr. Brdjanin was still a power to be reckoned with. On the 18th of

7 August, he's attending the meeting with -- it's a

8 political-police-military meeting in General Talic's office, which

9 includes amongst others General Talic, Stojan Zupljanin, and the Air Force

10 General Ninkovic. And can I make it absolutely clear that what was

11 discussed there as we said in our response, we put in error camps, but the

12 closure of the Omarska camp was being discussed there. And there were

13 other meetings, and he was still making public statements.

14 The public statements that he was making throughout were

15 propaganda designed to terrify the Muslims and Serbs into leaving,

16 designed to create the climate whereby these offences could be committed.

17 I'm sorry, the Muslims and Croats. I see it has come out on the

18 transcript as Muslims and Serbs.

19 The Serbs who testified on his behalf themselves recognised the

20 appalling nature of his public statements. Mr. Dejanovic said, "he has

21 talked quite hard, also as Mr. Vukic. They talked very hard.

22 Mr. Brdjanin especially during election campaigns, he was capable of

23 saying anything at those public rallies, and he was able, including other

24 SDS members, virtually competing in who would use more abusive language."

25 That was Mr. Cvijic. And he added, as did some of the other witnesses,

1 that this wasn't the real Mr. Brdjanin. He had two faces. One was for

2 the public. And it was really inconceivable how this person could have

3 said these things, and he had another face when he was at work. And Mr.

4 Radic said something similar. Mr. Cvijic said that at page 21421 and Mr.

5 Radic at 22006.

6 Your Honour, the importance of this propaganda was really

7 highlighted by one of the witnesses, and that's BT-19. Can I invite

8 Your Honours to look at the transcript page 20654.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner, the transcript -- the reference to

10 Mr. Cvijic's statement?

11 MS. KORNER: It's 21421.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, and Mr. Radic?

13 MS. KORNER: 22006.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Ms. Korner.

15 MS. KORNER: And one of the other witnesses, again, Your Honour

16 can I refer to -- this was in closed session as well. Can I ask

17 Your Honours to look at the evidence of Witness BT-11 at 3974 and 3998.

18 Brdjanin, we say, and I don't think that there is, Your Honours,

19 so much evidence about this that I think I'm simply going to invite

20 Your Honours to go back to brief on this because we have listed quite a

21 lot of the various things that were said. But I perhaps should add this

22 in relation to the targeting part of Mr. Brdjanin's speeches:

23 Particularly, when he was advocating the dismissals of the non-Serbs in

24 positions of responsibility, he actually mentioned people by name.

25 Mr. Osmancevic, the head of Metal, one of most successful business in

1 Banja Luka, Mr. Fazlagic, who ran the travel agency. And one of the

2 witnesses said -- I'm afraid it was in closed session as well. Can I ask

3 Your Honour to look at Witness BT-17, please, at 2866, what he said was

4 the result of this targeting by Mr. Brdjanin in the media.

5 Your Honour, at the end of August, Mr. Brdjanin appeared on

6 television to state, according to BT-94, the media watchdog as he's

7 described by the Defence, which is perhaps not an inappropriate way of

8 describing him, to say this: "Those who are not loyal are free to go.

9 And the few loyal Croats and Muslims can stay. As Seselj said about the

10 7.000 Albanians in Kosovo, they will be treated like gold, and this is

11 exactly how we are going to treat our 1.200 to 1.500 Muslims and Croats.

12 If Hitler, Stalin, and Churchill could have working camps, then so can we.

13 Come on, we are at war after all."

14 Your Honour, those statements had a direct and positive impact on

15 the non-Serb population, the Muslims and the Croats. The percentages that

16 he gave of those that -- who would be allowed to remain, the figures,

17 1.200 to 1.500, the 2 to 3 per cent, those go, we submit, specifically to

18 a genocidal intent he was expressing. Mr. Fazlagic at page 4273 talked

19 about that speech. He said: "5 to 6 per cent, which meant that 95 per

20 cent would have to leave their native land. I had to leave my town, a

21 town that I had given everything to. And I'm wondering why I left. What

22 did I actually do?" And another witness said: "In all the" -- I'm sorry,

23 Your Honour. That's 4273 of the transcript.

24 Another witness said: "In all the programmes, and especially on

25 television, he, Brdjanin, publicly frightened people. And after that,

1 people would leave Banja Luka and ethnic cleansing took place. I can say

2 with certainty for Mr. Brdjanin that he was the alpha and omega of those

3 programmes." Your Honours, that's at page 3264.

4 Your Honour, I think it's only right that instead of just reading

5 through what he said, Your Honours should be reminded of just two of the

6 occasions that Mr. Brdjanin was on television. Your Honours, first of

7 all, can I ask that -- what's the first video I had? Could I ask that

8 510, which is with the video booth, be played. I'm not going to trust

9 Sanction today. P510. The video I was trying to play.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: It was the one you were trying to play --

11 MS. KORNER: Yesterday, yes.

12 [Videotape played]

13 MS. KORNER: Yes, if we could play it. Sorry, is there a problem?

14 [Videotape played]

15 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, could we pause for a moment. Pause,

16 please.

17 The interpreters' booth do have the transcripts. And I'd ask --

18 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters' booths have 508 and 463.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Did you catch that?

20 MS. KORNER: Yes, I did.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: They have 508 and 463. I suppose we have the

22 transcripts here, which we can then --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour, please.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I apologise. Madam Registrar, do we have the

25 transcripts here? 510, please.

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I don't know how that happened. We

2 provided all four to the person in charge of the interpreters yesterday.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: You don't know, Ms. Korner. You can't imagine how

4 much I know.

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I know that Your Honours have seen this

6 video before, and you'll remember it.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: But if it's -- I suppose, is it the visual part of

8 it that interests you or the transcript?

9 MS. KORNER: Both, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: So... Let's see --

11 MS. KORNER: There's one point that's made on this by the Defence,

12 and I want Your Honours to have a look at it. And that is who it is on

13 the tank that we're going to see in this clip.

14 And Your Honour, if I can put it that way, it's the --

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Right. I mean, the Trial Chamber is aware of what

16 the Defence submitted in regard --

17 MS. KORNER: I think that Your Honours should have a chance to

18 have one last look at this video.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, we can put it on the ELMO. And the

20 interpreters can follow from there. I suppose that is possible

21 technically, because they have also to follow the video, as it --

22 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I've only got 10 minutes. So perhaps we

23 can just play it through, just so that -- and Your Honours can then look

24 at the transcript later.

25 Yes, thank you. If we can go on playing the video.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I don't know if the technicians have heard

2 that. Could we please...

3 [Videotape played]

4 MS. KORNER: Thank you. That will do. Thank you very much. Stop

5 playing the video. Thank you.

6 For Your Honours to make up your own minds whether the man in the

7 white shirt on the tank that you can see very briefly and the man standing

8 in front of a tank wearing a white shirt giving an interview, saying that

9 "let me tell you, my duty as president of the crisis staff of the

10 autonomous region is to visit all fronts..." And so on and so forth,

11 whether those are one and the same man. I'm not sure how much adds to it,

12 but the Defence dispute that.

13 Your Honours, secondly can I remind Your Honours of the one

14 that -- yes, no. Yes, could I ask that 463 now be played, please. P463.

15 It's the same video as 509, and there, the translators have got that.

16 Could we ask that be played, just that one segment.

17 [Videotape played]

18 THE INTERPRETER: [Voice over] Brothers and sisters, dear citizens

19 of Krajina, and other patriots attending this gathering, we must be not

20 tricked into believing that we are voting for peace or war. We are voting

21 for the betrayal or the salvation of Republika Srpska. The leftists who

22 are offering us again to live together must know that the obligation of

23 the Serbs for the next 100 years is to wipe the shoes of this

24 non-Christian scum who [unintelligible] this country of ours."

25 MS. KORNER: Yes, thank you. That will do. Thank you very much.

1 Now, Your Honours, the Defence make the point, and it's a valid

2 point to this extent, that this was a rally that took place in 1993. But

3 it shows in 1993 an intention which was almost unnecessary by then because

4 certainly in most of the areas, the Muslims and Croats of the Krajina, the

5 Muslims and Croats were gone. But it's not that so important. It's the

6 way he describes them. "Non-Christian scum." Your Honour, this is a man

7 who allegedly according to his secretaries, to Mr. Talic, really liked

8 Muslims. Didn't have any animosity against them at all. Then why is he

9 using those terms to describe the Muslim population?

10 Your Honour, I've dealt now with the -- a sort of very quick

11 overview of his speeches and the effect that they had. In the Defence

12 final brief at page 207 -- it's the final brief, they say: "One must

13 still question the extent to which the public had access to the

14 defendant's purported statements." And they talk about the newspaper

15 shortage and the electricity cuts. But Your Honour, the fact is everybody

16 has said that they did have access, they did hear what he said. And even

17 if they didn't hear it personally, because it was so terrifying, it was

18 repeated to them.

19 Your Honours, I've dealt with the intent, the specific intent

20 that's shown by the percentages that he was raising, but in -- on the 10th

21 of July, he gave what was called a selective press conference because Glas

22 was complaining about it. It was to do really with the editorial policy

23 of Glas. And he said: "The only way the Serbian people can be unified is

24 through the promotion of the Serbian Movement for Liberation and the

25 destruction of the Ustasha." Your Honour, that is Exhibit P2326.

1 The famous Prijedor statement, 17th of July: Having visited

2 Prijedor, including the Omarska camp, having undoubtedly seen the

3 destruction that was being caused, he said, and it was quoted in Kozarski

4 Vjesnik: "What we have seen in Prijedor is an example of a job well done.

5 And it is a pity that many in Banja Luka are not aware of it yet, just as

6 they are not aware of what might happen in Banja Luka in the very near

7 future." And that is Exhibit P284. The Defence themselves say Prijedor

8 was the scene of some of the most horrendous crimes.

9 Your Honour, it is said that's only Kozarski Vjesnik, and that

10 can't be relied on. But there -- and he said, "there's no other evidence

11 to support that." That's not right, in fact. Because (redacted)

12 gave evidence before Your Honours. And this is at pages 12776 to 7,

13 himself a journalist. And he was asked as to whether or not he had seen

14 Mr. Brdjanin, and he said, yes, he had seen him after he had got out of

15 Omarska on a programme on television. And he said the programme lasted

16 for more than an hour, and was open to receive questions from viewers.

17 And as far as I remember, the gist of the programme was that the accused

18 here, Radoslav Brdjanin, commended the Prijedor Crisis Staff and the

19 political leadership for having done a very good job in the territory of

20 the Prijedor Municipality, that they cleansed the area very well in

21 accordance to some plans. And I remember very well a sentence that he

22 used, and it was a sentence often used by someone who shares his political

23 views and who worked with him. And he mentioned the name of this other

24 man. "Brdjanin repeated a sentence then, and the sentence is as follows:

25 `All the non-Bosniaks who remained to live there', he said

1 `all Turks or balijas who remain in the territory Serbian State will shake

2 with fear. Their pants will shake with fear if they do not accept the

3 laws of the Serbian state.'"

4 Your Honour, these and the similar statements express a frank

5 desire that crimes be committed and they were part of this campaign of

6 propaganda in which the accused played the leading role. As I've said,

7 and I repeat, the purpose to strike fear into the non-Serb population, and

8 as importantly, to create the climate whereby if the fear didn't drive

9 them out, then the crimes would be committed against them.

10 Your Honour, finally, and this is the last thing that I want to

11 say, the Defence in their final brief dwelt on this aspect of

12 Mr. Brdjanin, in particular what was said about BT-94, suggesting that the

13 defendant was merely the public face, and that the real power and

14 authority lay elsewhere. And this, they say, of course, has been the

15 defendant's claim from the start. They seem to realise that they don't

16 want to mean it quite as the way it sounds, because footnote 443 on that

17 page says that they don't mean that public face means equal spokesman, but

18 that the public perception of Brdjanin and his actual power and authority

19 are two different things.

20 Now, that has not been the defendant's claim, that he was merely

21 the public face from the start or any other time. On the evidence,

22 however, both the public face -- I'm sorry, he was both the public face

23 and indeed had authority. Others, like Vukic and Radic may also have had

24 authority, but it was the "public face" who was responsible in the

25 position that Mr. Brdjanin held for not only inciting the crimes, but for

1 having the powers to issue those decisions that we've spoken -- that I've

2 spoken about. The words "talked a good game" which is how the final brief

3 talks about him at page 212, if I understand correctly that expression, in

4 those circumstances "talking a good game" is criminal behaviour.

5 Some witnesses have said that in their view, the reason for his

6 actions was to advance his own political career, rather than an honest and

7 genuine belief that the only way to create a Serbian state was to drive

8 out and destroy the Muslims and Croats. And a number of witnesses have

9 said that there was a real dichotomy between what he said and what he did

10 in private with respect to non-Serbs and his public attitudes. And in

11 page 212 of the Defence final brief, they say: "The defendant did not

12 join in a common purpose with others. He was acting independently to

13 further his own career." Of course, we say the evidence shows that he

14 was, indeed, joining a common purpose. He was not acting independently.

15 The words "to further his own career," very possibly. If so, that

16 was his motive, and that cannot affect his intent. The intent, we say,

17 that the evidence in this case clearly shows, the intent required for the

18 commission of these offences. And we say, Your Honours, that it is all

19 the more cynical and reprehensible that he did, or if he did all these

20 things for no other reason, for no other motive than to further his own

21 career, that is more reprehensible than the man who commits these offences

22 out of genuine conviction and a desire to see the total extinction of the

23 Muslims and non-Serbs.

24 Your Honour, we say finally, if Your Honours consider all the

25 evidence in this case, dispassionately and objectively, as we know that

1 you will, then the only proper verdict -- verdicts, in this case, is one

2 of guilty on all counts charged.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Korner.

4 We'll now have a break, Mr. Ackerman. If we start at 11.00, is

5 that okay with you? Okay, thank you.

6 --- Recess taken at 10.36 a.m.

7 --- On resuming at 11.04 a.m.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, Mr. Cunningham and I will be splitting

10 our time, the time for argument. Mr. Cunningham will go first. Before he

11 begins, based upon the agreement we made Monday, I do have a couple of

12 objections, and Mr. Cunningham has one, to the argument of the

13 Prosecution. Now the two I have are both from today. Page 22, line 21,

14 Ms. Korner was speaking of signatures on ARK Crisis Staff documents. She

15 said "the evidence was that anyone could sign on his behalf." I don't

16 believe that that's the evidence. I don't believe there's any evidence in

17 this case that Mr. Brdjanin authorised anyone to sign on his behalf.

18 And then, I believe it's on page 26, talking about a meeting,

19 Ms. Korner said "the closure of Omarska was discussed." And I think

20 that's a bit of a stretch. I don't think it was discussed. I think a

21 very small part of that meeting was an announcement that it was to be

22 closed. That group had no authority to open, close, or anything else in

23 Omarska, and it was just pointed out that Karadzic had ordered its

24 closure. And I believe that's the case, but I'm working off the top of my

25 head just from listening today.

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm not going to respond to the second

2 one, but can I respond to the first, because I wasn't intending to suggest

3 that Mr. Brdjanin -- maybe my phraseology, I was talking off the top of my

4 head there. I wasn't intending to suggest that he authorised anyone else,

5 but I thought, and I'll check it, that one of the witnesses said that if

6 Mr. Brdjanin wasn't available, anyone else could sign. But I will check

7 that. But I wasn't intending to suggest that Mr. Brdjanin said to

8 somebody, You can sign using my name.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: You can check, Ms. Korner. You may be right, in

10 fact, but do check. I do have that recollection, too, but obviously it's

11 something to be checked.

12 MS. KORNER: Okay.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Mr. Cunningham -- sorry, Mr. Cunningham.

14 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: I think she may be right, too, but the distinction

16 is really important.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Oh, definitely, Mr. Ackerman. Yes, definitely,

18 Mr. Ackerman.

19 Mr. Cunningham, your objection, first.

20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Your Honour, my objection goes to page 10 today,

21 lines 21 through 23 where it was argued that the Defence had conceded and

22 accepted that the defendant had real power and authority this Celinac.

23 That is not our position. We do not concede that. We at best concede

24 that he was a man of some influence in Celinac, but not sufficient to rise

25 to the level of 7(3) responsibility or 7(1) responsibility.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Who's going first? Mr. Cunningham.

2 [Defence Closing Statement]

3 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. President, may it please the Court. As

4 Witness B-20 recounted early in this trial, the problem faced by everyone

5 trying to deal with the situation in the Krajina in 1991, in 1992, was the

6 mere fact that people held offices or had titles, did not necessarily

7 describe their authority, and it was often that people without titles were

8 the people that were actually wielding the authority. Radoslav Brdjanin

9 may have had titles, Your Honours, but he had no power, no authority, no

10 subordinates, and he should be acquitted on all counts.

11 If we were to distill the Prosecution's case to its essence, it

12 comes down to their argument, and we see this, for example, in paragraph

13 183 of their brief that Brdjanin --

14 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please slow down. Thank you.

15 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Absolutely.

16 Brdjanin was the most powerful civilian in the region, they

17 allege, and served as an essential link between the republic leadership

18 and the region. The second part in essence is that as head of the ARK

19 Crisis Staff, the defendant had a great deal of authority over the

20 municipal bodies, the police, and the military structures. As we've

21 argued in our final brief and as we'll argue here today, we believe that

22 these claims are not supported by the evidence, and Mr. Brdjanin is

23 entitled to an acquittal on all counts.

24 If we go back to early mid-1991 in Celinac, what we would find

25 from the evidence is that Mr. Brdjanin is a man who enjoys some influence

1 in that municipality. As I stated earlier, it's not the sort of influence

2 or power that translates into 7(1), 7(3) liability as described in

3 paragraph 263 of the Delalic appeals judgement. But if we look at the

4 evidence in 1991, we'll see that there is a relationship between him and

5 Radovan Karadzic. And while at first glance, it might appear to be a

6 relationship that's based on mutual respect, it really isn't. Because we

7 know by looking at all the evidence in this case, by the end of February,

8 well before the formation of the ARK Crisis Staff, and I'm talking about

9 February 1992, his relationship, Mr. Brdjanin's relationship with

10 Mr. Karadzic, had deteriorated to the extent that they were both openly

11 critical and contemptuous of each other. We know from the evidence that

12 there was really no place for a regional body in Bosnia's political

13 culture, in a political culture that was headed up by a strong central

14 leader such as Dr. Karadzic and, and this is just as important, included

15 strong, independent municipal leaders that were not about to give up the

16 power that had been theirs for years.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Cunningham, slow down.

18 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'll put it on 33, Judge, rather 45.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, okay. You're still there.

20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: And I invite both the Court's comments and the

21 interpreters' comments if I'm going a little too rapidly.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

23 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Keeping that in mind, I would slowly like to

24 discuss several areas that will show that the defendant and the ARK and

25 the ARK Crisis Staff lacked political legitimacy. Political credibility.

1 And the absence of his own political legitimacy. Political credibility in

2 the absence of his own political legitimacy and credibility affected the

3 way he was viewed by Sarajevo, then Pale, as well as by the

4 municipalities.

5 I'd like to discuss the evidence which I think shows that Karadzic

6 quite candidly considered Mr. Brdjanin to be an incompetent, someone who

7 constantly belittled him in public, and that this embarrassment, this

8 humiliation, this criticism of Mr. Brdjanin affected Brdjanin's political

9 legitimacy and the way that he was viewed.

10 And I would also like in the course of my comments today to talk

11 about some structural factors, what I will call for want of a better word,

12 the institutional resistance to Mr. Brdjanin ever having any power. That

13 institutional resistance comes in the form of two things: Number one,

14 Dr. Karadzic, and what I'll call the upper echelons of the SDS. We'll see

15 from the evidence that I talk about today that Dr. Karadzic was radically

16 opposed to regional bodies.

17 I'll also talk about the forces in the municipalities, the fact

18 that despite what Ms. Korner may say, I believe the evidence has clearly

19 shown that Mr. Brdjanin was not accepted in the municipalities.

20 Yesterday, Ms. Korner said all municipal leaders had been big fish in

21 small ponds. The municipalities were given a great deal of autonomy under

22 the old Bosnian system, and no doubt they were most reluctant to surrender

23 the autonomy. Ms. Korner makes the argument that ultimately they did. I

24 submit the evidence supports the contrary position, that they never did.

25 A good place to start, Your Honour, in tracing, if you will,

1 Mr. Brdjanin's lack of political legitimacy and his falling out with

2 Mr. Karadzic is the wire intercepts. Prosecution argues that these

3 intercepts show that the defendant was a man of power and authority in the

4 Krajina. But if we look at the intercepts as a whole, the very few that

5 we have, we'll see fissures, breaks, in the relationship between Karadzic

6 and Brdjanin, that by the end of October of 1991, I submit, that there was

7 really no real respect between the two men. And by the end of February

8 1992, there was a wide, open schism, a wide, open break between the two,

9 and that Mr. Brdjanin was openly contemptuous not only of Mr. Karadzic,

10 but of the Pale power structure. And what despite what Mr. Karadzic may

11 have alluded to in one of these intercepts, Mr. Brdjanin was devoid of any

12 real authority and real power.

13 When we talk about the Prosecutor's position and again trying to

14 break their position with respect to these intercepts down to its most

15 basic level, I think you can see their position contained in three

16 paragraphs. Paragraph 192 of their brief says: "A review of the

17 telephone intercepts shows that Brdjanin was committed to the planning --

18 to planning the SDS strategy." In paragraph 546, they allege, argue:

19 "Intercepted phone calls show that the accused cooperated closely with

20 Dr. Karadzic and the SDS leadership, and in Karadzic's words, the

21 defendant `had all the power in the Krajina'."

22 The Prosecution also makes much about Exhibit 2611. And this

23 contains what they call Mr. Brdjanin's personal creed. This is a

24 statement attributed to him 12 July 1991 in which he is quoted as saying:

25 "I am a man who abides by two principles. I obey and respect those who

1 are above me. And all those who are under my command must obey me." If

2 this Chamber were to look closely at the body of the intercepts and the

3 events that go into February of 1992, this personal creed that they place

4 so much weight in about Mr. Brdjanin literally quite goes out the window.

5 The first part of the creed we'll see from these transcripts is that, and

6 the events that go into February, is that Mr. Brdjanin did not follow the

7 orders and directives of those above him. And as we'll see when we look

8 particularly at this one exhibit, one intercept, nor did he obey and

9 respect those that were above him.

10 The second part of that creed has to deal with his subordinates.

11 The fact of the matter is when we look at the evidence as a whole,

12 Mr. Brdjanin did not have any subordinates.

13 Before I talk about these conversations that were intercepted

14 conversations, I want to bring up a couple of points before I go into the

15 actual body of the intercepts. During the course of their arguments and

16 their presentations, the Prosecutor has argued that the defendant was

17 given great autonomy and independence. And I submit to the Court that

18 they cite this to you, they argue this to you to help on their part to try

19 to explain the lack of any real meaningful, written, or telephonic

20 communication between the ARK and Sarajevo, then Pale. The inference

21 they're trying to get the Court to draw is the following: Because there

22 was no communication between ARK and Pale, it must be due to the fact that

23 the defendant was accorded great autonomy and independence.

24 In reality, we believe the reasonable deduction from the evidence

25 is that Karadzic had no place for the ARK, and after doing what he could

1 through the upper echelons of the SDS, and through his ties to the

2 municipality, to ensure that the ARK was impotent, largely ignored it.

3 The second point that I'd ask the Court to consider when you consider the

4 body of the intercepts is this: The range of the intercepted

5 conversations before this Court, between Mr. Brdjanin and Mr. Karadzic,

6 goes from 17 June 1991 to 18 November 1991. Must ask, I believe, why are

7 there no conversations between Brdjanin and Karadzic after the last one on

8 18 November? Why is it, the evidence has shown that 80.000 conversations

9 were garnered by the wiretappers, if you will, in Sarajevo, why of those

10 80.000 conversations, why only these 13? If there was this close chain of

11 command, if there was this Karadzic-Brdjanin working hand in hand, where

12 are the records of any additional telephone communications between the

13 two? And while an argument might be made, might be made, that the combat

14 operations or the war might explain the absence of telephonic

15 communications, why aren't there any written communications? If this is,

16 as alleged by the Prosecution, an intermediate level of government, why

17 aren't there not documents going up from Banja Luka to Pale or down from

18 Pale to Banja Luka?

19 I'd like to now start by looking at the wire intercepts and the

20 events in the summer and fall of 1991. July 1991 is the date that we see

21 a conversation, 2 July 1991, reflected in Exhibit P2382.2. This is a

22 conversation between Brdjanin and Karadzic. And in this -- I don't think

23 it's important to put it up on the ELMO, but I think if we read this, one

24 of the things that you'll start to see is the derision, the condescension

25 in Karadzic's voice when he is dealing, and in his words more importantly,

1 when he is dealing with Brdjanin. Because when we look at this, there is

2 a discussion in this intercept about a Serb army. And Karadzic literally

3 has to lecture Mr. Brdjanin about what I call the fallacy of a Serb army.

4 July is also important, Your Honours, because in July, Karadzic

5 makes some statements about how he feels about regional bodies. And I'll

6 come to that shortly. He's talking about, granted, regional bodies of the

7 SDS, regional boards of the SDS. But I think from Karadzic's statements

8 about regional bodies, we see his true attitude towards the ARK.

9 We know that from the evidence, there is a dispute between Pale

10 and Banja Luka about whether or not there should be an independent

11 Krajina. We know from the evidence that the -- the people in Banja Luka

12 had expressed displeasure at the republican government for not paying

13 attention to them, and we know from the evidence that was presented that

14 the people in Pale felt under Karadzic that it was repeating himself, that

15 Karadzic was ignoring the people in Pale. And we see one of the

16 manifestations of this dispute, this conflict between Brdjanin and

17 Karadzic, on 13 July 1991. Reflected in Exhibit P13, which is the

18 stenogramme or the notes of an SDS meeting on 13 July 1991, we see

19 Dr. Karadzic making statements referring to people, and I'm quoting,

20 as"power grabbers." He is condemning people with "power grabbing

21 impulses" and "the little Napoleans who are trying to do things to harm

22 the Serbian people." Those quotes that I gave, Your Honours, come from

23 pages 25 and 28 of Exhibit P13.

24 Although he doesn't mention Mr. Brdjanin by name, when one reads

25 Mr. Karadzic's statements later on, it is obvious that he is referring to

1 those people in Banja Luka that are pressing for an independent autonomous

2 Krajina, and he is opposing that.

3 Also in July, we see that there is another conversation that is

4 intercepted. That is Exhibit 2382.4, a 28 July conversation, and in this

5 conversation, again, by reading it, you can sense the condescension, the

6 derision that Mr. Karadzic has for Mr. Brdjanin. There is a conversation

7 in here about a referendum. And if you read that exhibit closely, you'll

8 see that Dr. Karadzic is getting exasperated with Mr. Brdjanin. He says

9 to Mr. Brdjanin, he has to put him in his place by saying, and I'm quoting

10 Mr. Karadzic's words: "So please trust us in what we are doing, for God's

11 sakes." That's at page 4. Now, is this a full-blown agreement between

12 these two gentlemen? Of course not. What I'm suggesting is in July, we

13 start to see a feud, a dispute, a conflict that's starting to simmer.

14 And we see this going into October as well. Exhibit 2382.11 is an

15 intercepted conversation between Karadzic and Brdjanin, 18 October 1991.

16 This is referenced in paragraph 204 of the Prosecution brief. And here's

17 what their brief says: "Karadzic is instructing Brdjanin by telephone on

18 issues related to the implementation of the SDS strategy in the Krajina.

19 Brdjanin responds positively to all instructions from Radovan Karadzic, in

20 a way indicative of a common purpose." I ask the Court: Do the following

21 responses made by Mr. Brdjanin in the body of this conversation support a

22 claim that he is responding positively? During the course of this

23 conversation, on page 1, page 2, Brdjanin says: "I don't want to get

24 involved."

25 Secondly, he is making the complaint that we hear so often through

1 this trial, that "no one in Sarajevo was supporting them." No one was

2 asking them to behave responsibly. And again, talking about the

3 condescension, the attitude that Mr. Karadzic has to Mr. Brdjanin, he

4 talks about - referring to Brdjanin - about childish games and talks about

5 "slapping them and you," referring to Brdjanin. I suggest to the Court

6 we're starting to see the fact that irrespective of what Mr. Karadzic may

7 have said to Milosevic, there are problems between the two, and I think we

8 can honestly say from the evidence that Mr. Karadzic is thinking that

9 Mr. Brdjanin, with all due respect, is a foolish child.

10 31 October is another conversation, and I'd like to see

11 Exhibit 2357, please. This is a -- if I could hand this to the usher,

12 this is an exhibit that was talked about yesterday. And you get a clear

13 picture of this growing rift between the two, and to put this in the

14 context, this exhibit is the one that was discussed yesterday where

15 Brdjanin calls up Dr. Karadzic talking about their having a dancing

16 programme at the JNA hall while at the same time there have been 11

17 soldiers who have been in war and who have been killed.

18 I believe it's on page 4 that we see Karadzic belittling him. And

19 to be fair to the Prosecution, when you look at this brief in -- this

20 brief, this intercept in its entirety, there are points that they argue

21 that are very, very important. And in all fairness, I'll bring them out

22 because Karadzic says "if you are capable of governing the Krajina, then

23 do it properly, damn it." Civilian government is in your hands. That's

24 what Karadzic says to him. He also says: "You have all the power. Why

25 don't you exercise it? If Stojan is no good, dismiss him." But I want to

1 point out some of the things that the Prosecutor didn't bring out in this

2 conversation. Interestingly, the Prosecutor didn't point out in the very

3 same conversation, Karadzic says: "You call me about every little thing,

4 and that proves your incompetence. " There's even a reference in there

5 where Karadzic says to him "what am I, your nanny?" He says to Brdjanin:

6 "Don't give me proof of your incompetence. If you can't cope, put a group

7 together that can."

8 It's kind of interesting, although I find another point

9 interesting in this, in that Karadzic tells Brdjanin that Radic should

10 have declared a day of mourning. And that's on page 3. And I don't think

11 it's important to look at that right now. But I want to bring, while

12 we're talking about what Karadzic says and these attributing power and

13 authority to Mr. Brdjanin, I want to remind the Court that something that

14 Lord Ashdown said when he came before this Court and he told this Court at

15 page 12415 of the transcript, and he's talking about Karadzic and his

16 dealings with Karadzic. And this is what he said about Karadzic:

17 "Karadzic was able to lie to you straight to your face in a way more

18 convincing than any man I have met." And I submit to Your Honours that

19 Lord Ashdown's experience, his dealings with Karadzic, give a really good

20 insight into his personality and to take Karadzic's statements at this

21 point as the gospel truth is unwarranted because of his personal

22 character, but more importantly as the subsequent political events show.

23 Thank you, Mr. Usher.

24 The next conversation is 9 November, that I want to talk about, is

25 9 November 1991. And this is important because in this conversation, we

1 see what Brdjanin, Mr. Brdjanin, thinks of Pale, what he thinks of

2 Karadzic. And as we go through this, I'd like the Chamber to ask

3 themselves these questions: Is Exhibit 2382.12 indicative of what the

4 Prosecution claims is the evidence of the close cooperation between

5 Karadzic and Brdjanin? Is this an indication of the personal creed where

6 obedience and respect are essential?

7 Can I have that exhibit, please.

8 This is the conversation where Mr. Brdjanin calls up the SDS

9 looking for Mr. Karadzic, but apparently Mr. Karadzic and his cohorts are

10 at a party somewhere, so he's left talking, Mr. Brdjanin is, to the duty

11 officer. That's not reflected on their screen right now. But on page 1,

12 there's conversation, Brdjanin is talking about the blue helmets,

13 obviously the UN in Sarajevo. But on the second page, we see some of the

14 things that he said. Brdjanin says: "We renounce our loyalty to the

15 army. We renounce our loyalty to the SDS, to everyone, everybody has

16 tricked us. And feel free to say that if Karadzic or someone else stops

17 by, Brdjanin telephoned, and he will say just let Brdjanin talk. But all

18 of them who say that will deeply regret it. We do not trust anyone any

19 more. We are going to organise ourselves on our own. Neither Karadzic

20 nor anyone else should come to the Krajina any more. He lied to us. We

21 were going for the creation of a state. We will call a plebiscite, and

22 those pigs, one next to another, you know, are calling in the blue helmets

23 while they are celebrating in the Holiday Inn" and then we see what other

24 language he used. That is not an individual that is showing obedience,

25 respect, for allegedly those who are above him.

1 Thank you, Mr. Usher. I'm done with that.

2 By this stage, the end of -- the first part of November, the stage

3 is set for full-fledged conflict between Pale and Sarajevo and Banja Luka,

4 because I think the evidence clearly shows what Brdjanin thinks of them.

5 He is, to put it mildly, distressed because they are ignoring the Krajina.

6 And we know from Karadzic's statements from the conversation that I talked

7 about earlier, Karadzic quite candidly thinks Brdjanin is an incompetent.

8 This simmering dispute that I talk about in the fall of 1991

9 becomes a full-fledged dispute, fully boiling, by the end of February.

10 The events in February, I submit to the Court, are important because they

11 affect the political legitimacy, the political credibility of Brdjanin,

12 and the ARK Crisis Staff. This --

13 THE INTERPRETER: Please slow down.

14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I apologise to the interpreters. And please,

15 interrupt me at any time.

16 This conflict is one of the many factors that we submit ensures

17 that neither the defendant nor the ARK, nor the ARK Crisis Staff have any

18 real power, real legitimacy.

19 I think at this stage, I'd like to take a step back and devote

20 just a few minutes to talk about the political culture in the former

21 Yugoslavia because that political culture, particularly in Bosnia, affects

22 the way that the upper echelons, the Karadzic, and the municipalities view

23 the ARK, the new comer, the novelty on the scene.

24 In his testimony, Dr. Shoup talked about the long history of

25 central government, and he used the phrase that central government called

1 the tune in the former Yugoslavia. I suggest to the Court that that sort

2 of ingrained, political culture doesn't change overnight, and that the

3 events in this case show that to be actually the case. The ARK was the

4 new kid on the block. It was a novelty. And because of forces in the

5 upper echelons and in the municipalities, we suggest that it was doomed to

6 failure before it even started. Why was it doomed to failure? Well, the

7 reasons come from many different ways. We know that there was no way,

8 based on Dr. Donia and I think Patrick Treanor's testimony, they both

9 talked about the notion of sociopolitical communities and their unique

10 status in the former Yugoslavia. But neither of them said that the

11 regional bodies were a sociopolitical community. So that tells us it

12 doesn't fit into the political culture. But more importantly, the

13 president of the party was not about to give up any of his powers, and we

14 know it's a strong, centralised party. We know from looking at the

15 evidence, and this is where I'm going to talk about what Karadzic said

16 about the regional bodies.

17 In July of 1991, I alluded to this earlier, at P13, which again

18 are the notes from the SDS session of 12 July 1991, Karadzic is quoted at

19 page 27 of paragraph -- excuse me, of Exhibit P13 about how he feels

20 about, granted, regional boards of the SDS. But I believe that his

21 thoughts about regional boards easily translate to his thoughts about

22 where a regional bodies stands in the political culture. Karadzic tells

23 us at page 27, and I'm quoting: "Regional boards would be a power

24 structure above the municipal boards, instead of coordinating".

25 THE INTERPRETER: Could you please slow down for the

1 interpretation.

2 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Absolutely. And I apologise again. Let me start

3 over. He tells us: "Regional boards would be a power structure above

4 municipal boards, instead of coordinating boards, and it would cause a

5 great deal of screaming and wailing in the municipal boards."

6 We know from other witnesses that Karadzic's words about regional

7 boards translated into his attitude and those of the upper echelons of the

8 SDS about how they really felt about the ZOBK and then the ARK. Dobrivoje

9 Vidic was an assemblyman, a deputy, to both the ZOBK and the ARK, and at

10 pages 22954 through page 956, he talks about how from the beginning the

11 ZOBK and the ARK was attacked by the upper echelons of the party.

12 Not only did the ARK have to deal with the attacks from the upper

13 echelons, but they had to deal with the municipalities, the presidents, as

14 Ms. Korner so aptly put it yesterday, being the big fishes in the small

15 ponds, not likely to give up power. And I remember what her statement

16 was, and I differ with that, and I believe the evidence supports my

17 position.

18 I guess my point is this: When you have a party leader, someone

19 with the power that Karadzic has, coming out and criticising, coming out

20 against regional bodies, when you have municipality presidents who, in

21 effect, see their power bases being threatened, I suggest to the Court

22 that neither of them are going to give up that power. This institutional

23 resistance by Mr. Karadzic and the upper echelons and by those strong

24 presidents in the municipalities was one of the factors that the ARK was

25 doomed from the very start.

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1 I've talked a little bit about how Karadzic feels about regional

2 bodies. Let me go back to February of 1992 to see how Mr. Karadzic feels

3 about Mr. Brdjanin. Now, when we talk about February of 1992, it has to

4 be placed in this context, because the Prosecution claims that this is --

5 that Mr. Brdjanin is an individual who has a close relationship with

6 Karadzic, and in effect, they're working hand in hand and that the

7 defendant is essential to that plan. In February, what we see is not just

8 backdoor manoeuvring, backdoor quiet tongue-lashings in a party forum;

9 what we see is full-blown, public humiliation and public ridicule of

10 Brdjanin. And I suggest that this ridicule, this humiliation, is not

11 something that's going to be forgotten by people in the party, people in

12 power. Particularly those people that are beholden to Karadzic. It is

13 something that further erodes any political legitimacy, any political

14 credibility that Mr. Brdjanin might have.

15 25 February 1992 is an important date, and that is the meeting of

16 the 8th session of the Assembly of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and

17 Herzegovina. It is reflected -- the notes of it are reflected in Exhibit

18 P33. And the Court will remember this because this is a time when

19 Karadzic is reporting to the assembly on the status of talks in Lisbon and

20 the discussions about the prospect of cantonisation of Bosnia and

21 Herzegovina. During the course of his speech, Mr. Karadzic is called off

22 stage to take a phone call from Mr. Cutileiro, and to be informed that

23 Mr. Izetbegovic has withdrawn from the agreement in principle. And it's

24 known that Izetbegovic is withdrawing because of the talk of a -- the

25 Serbian Assembly is about to adopt a constitution. When Karadzic comes

1 back to this full assembly, he uses language that is harshly critical of

2 Mr. Brdjanin, and it's not just critical, it starts to get humiliating.

3 At page 43 of Exhibit P33, Karadzic reminds the attendees that they, the

4 assembly, is a supreme power. At page 44, Karadzic vows not to allow five

5 people with personal ambitions to destroy our chances. He then, in

6 effect, calls out Mr. Brdjanin, asking him "do you have a better plan?

7 Then you present it." This is what he says. And I'm quoting from page 71

8 now. "Neither Brdjo nor anyone else can act out of step with this

9 assembly. They may, if they resign or until we reach a decision. But

10 once we reach a decision, no one has a right to sabotage it."

11 Now, the party leader has just attacked him in front of all his

12 peers, and what does Mr. Brdjanin do? Mr. Brdjanin, on 27 February, is

13 interviewed by a Sarajevo newspaper, and he's interviewed in a forum that

14 he shares with Krajisnik. This interview is, again, 27 February 1992.

15 It's reflected in Prosecutor's Exhibit 117. In this article, Brdjanin,

16 it's reported, quoted as saying "Every Serbian deputy from the area of the

17 Bosnian Krajina should have already resigned for failing to convey to the

18 assembly the wishes of the people." He also says: "Well, you see, if the

19 Serbian Assembly of BH does not feel this pulse of ours as it should, we

20 shall put into actual practice our intention to declare the Serbian

21 Republic of Krajina."

22 All of this is being said with Krajisnik right there. Brdjanin

23 continues: "So on 29 February if the Serbian Assembly of BH does not

24 accommodate our request by then" --

25 THE INTERPRETER: Please down when reading. Thank you.

1 MR. CUNNINGHAM: So on 29 February he says: "If the Serbian

2 semi-by of BH does not accommodate our request by then, we shall proclaim

3 the Serbian Republic of Krajina." And it's interesting because in an

4 instance where the Prosecution claims the defendant is cooperating with

5 them, hear in an openly public forum with the leading -- a leading figure

6 of the SDS by his side, he has adopted a stance that's totally different

7 from what the party says. And this stance, I suggest prompts the harshest

8 criticism that comes a few days later. Actually, it's the next day. 28

9 February is a meeting of the SDS deputies' club, and at this meeting

10 Karadzic is relentless in his criticism, but more importantly, his

11 humiliation of Mr. Brdjanin.

12 Can I see Exhibit P34.

13 Your Honour, I'm handing an excerpt from that exhibit, P34, to the

14 usher, and I'm going to be quoting from page 36. And I'd like to have

15 that put on the ELMO.

16 What does Karadzic say, again, in the presence of we would assume

17 Mr. Brdjanin's peers and other party functionaries? He says the

18 following: "We are in power, and we should exercise that power for the

19 good of the people. We can and we must renounce everyone who refuses to

20 work the way we have agreed. Brdjo and all the rest. When Brdjo appears

21 somewhere, he's like a bomb. He blows up everything. Then he winks at

22 him, and I won't allow it, as a psychiatrist and as the party leader.

23 After an interruption, he continues. Karadzic humiliates him in front of

24 his peers by saying: "He's crazy. He's not normal. He doesn't know what

25 he can do and what he can't do."

1 Now, I'd like the Chamber to ask themselves to be humiliated that

2 way in front of your peers, how is that going to affect the peers, how is

3 that going to affect the way that presidents of municipalities are going

4 to look at Mr. Brdjanin after the party leadership has criticised him in

5 the harshest way?

6 But the criticism does not stop there. On the following day, the

7 ARK Assembly meets. And we know from the evidence that the effort to form

8 an independent Krajina is compromised. It's agreed. It's put aside. But

9 that doesn't prevent Karadzic from continuing with the criticism. Because

10 looking at Exhibit P35 -- and I'm sorry, Mr. Usher, I'm done -- which is

11 an extract of the minutes of the ARK Assembly meeting of 29 February,

12 there's criticism again of Mr. Brdjanin where he refers to those,

13 including the defendant, who wanted an independent Krajina as being

14 childish.

15 Ms. Korner suggested that Dr. Donia said that the dispute between

16 Pale and Banja Luka was over, that the meeting of 29 February healed all

17 wounds. And I don't think it was advertent, but I think what Dr. Donia

18 said was that, and I apologise, it's quoted in the brief but I don't have

19 the quote here - that Dr. Donia claimed that the rift between Karadzic and

20 the defendant was resolved, but he didn't say it was definitive.

21 I think a reasonable deduction from the evidence is that

22 Karadzic's criticism and public humiliation as well as Karadzic's public

23 opposition to regional bodies has got to impact the way that people are

24 going to view the defendant in the ARK. When the head of a party is so

25 critical of Brdjanin, the very notion of a regional structure, surely that

1 criticism has to impact, and it did impact, the way that people in the

2 municipalities viewed the ARK, viewed the defendant.

3 So where do we stand at the end of February? From the evidence

4 there, it's clear that Karadzic doesn't think Brdjanin is very competent.

5 He has called him crazy. He has called him a bomb. We know from

6 Mr. Blagojevic, Boro Blagojevic, who testified that in the wake of this

7 assembly meeting, that most of the municipality presidents gave their

8 absolute support to the central powers. That's what Mr. Blagojevic says

9 at transcript 21764. Now, what impact would the municipal leaders --

10 would this have on the municipal leaders, the big fish in the small pond?

11 What is surprising is after this public humiliation, after Karadzic's

12 speaking out against the regional bodies, that fact the Prosecution wants

13 this Court to believe that in the span of about 65 days, 65 days being the

14 time span between February 29th where Karadzic criticises those being for

15 an independent Krajina as childish to May 5th, the date of the formation

16 of the ARK Crisis Staff, that somehow, everyone is going to be willing to

17 forget about this public criticism, that people are going to choose

18 Brdjanin over Karadzic, and that the strong leaders within the local

19 municipalities were going to hand over their power.

20 Before I leave the events in February, I think it's also

21 interesting to try to take a snapshot, if you will, of what is actually

22 going on in the ARK. And I want to digress just a minute to talk about

23 Section 16. Section 16 is something that the Prosecution has focussed on

24 because it contains, as they say, a Defence provision, and they impute

25 sinister connotations and sinister intentions to this.

1 Your Honour, I suggest there's nothing sinister about this. In

2 the former Yugoslavia, all people's defence, the TO, was the

3 responsibility of the municipalities. And I suggest to the Court, in the

4 ARK it was clear that all that was envisioned was cooperation regarding

5 the municipal responsibilities regarding the ARK. And there is certainly

6 support for this in the record. And I would cite the Court to

7 Mr. Mirko Dejanovic's testimony at 23213. At that point, and I'm

8 paraphrasing the question that was put to him, Was it unusual to have such

9 a provision in the ARK statute?

10 His answer: "This is not something unusual in our context. Even

11 a company would have the same provision in its statute at the time, that

12 it should take care of issues related to the coordination of the defence

13 and so on and so forth." Well, let's look at what's logistically

14 happening, and probably the better way to phrase it is not happening

15 within the ARK. Brdjanin is the vice-president of the ARK, and we know

16 from three witnesses who came and testified that in February of 1992, that

17 the ARK is not functioning at all. We know this from -- the three

18 witnesses are Jovica Radojko, from Bosanski Petrovac, we know from this

19 Dobrivoje Vidic, from Prnjavor, and we know this from Mirko Dejanovic from

20 Bosanski Novi.

21 Yesterday, Ms. Korner talked about Mr. Radojko, and asked that

22 this Court read the entirety of his testimony. I join in that request. I

23 ask the Court to read it and to read it carefully because I think there

24 are some very serious divergences between the way I interpret the

25 testimony and the way Ms. Korner interprets it. But talking about the

1 ARK, because in his duty as -- at Petrovac Radojko had to deal with the

2 ARK. And at page 20093, that's 2-0-0-9-3, he is just appalled by the

3 administrative disorganisation within the ARK. He told us at page 20012:

4 When the ARK was formed, it was supposed to adopts the duties of

5 government, but it was clear to them that it wouldn't do it. He says it

6 rarely functioned if at all in the basic areas of economy, healthcare,

7 education, pensions, health funds. In fact, he called it societal

8 collapse.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Cunningham, slow down again. I keep receiving

10 notices here.

11 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I keep receiving noticed from Mr. Vujic, and

12 everyone is on the same page.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. Radojko is also an interesting character

15 because in dealing with the societal collapse of the ARK, we start to see

16 a recurring theme; that is, when he needed something done, when he needed

17 to go to Banja Luka, he didn't go to see Brdjanin. He went to go see

18 Mr. Erceg. And the common theme, this theme that we see, is when people

19 had problems within the ARK, they went to where the power was. And

20 invariably, that power was not Mr. Brdjanin.

21 We know from Mr. Radojko's testimony how the municipal leadership

22 in Petrovac looked at the ARK. He testified, and I'll give the Court the

23 page citations later on, because I bring those up when I talk about

24 implementation, Mr. Radojko conveyed that the municipal leadership in

25 effect thought that the ARK was a joke, that it wasn't doing anything to

1 help them. And we know that this is something that's also echoed in

2 effect by every municipality that's in the Sanska Unska group. We know in

3 Bosanski Novi, from Mr. Mirko Dejanovic's testimony, he said "early on,

4 they figured out that the ARK was not going to help them and that they had

5 to fend for themselves."

6 BT-95 said his municipality got nothing from the ARK and were in

7 effect told to "fend for themselves." Sipovo, witness says: "Nothing

8 came to them. They got nothing." Prnjavor, through Mr. Vidic, nothing

9 came to them.

10 The ARK may well have had some of the trappings of power in

11 authority, but it didn't take members of the ARK Assembly very long to

12 figure out what it was, that it was a farce, it was a sham, it was a body

13 that had no real power. And what is interesting is invariably, witnesses

14 talk about the ARK being impotent as a function of the fact of the ongoing

15 dispute between the central powers and municipalities. We hear that from

16 Mr. Sajic, BT-95. And I'll read his quote to the Court shortly. And Boro

17 Blagojevic, who was present.

18 I'd like to take a sidestep briefly because I broached

19 Mr. Boro Blagojevic, I'd like to make a sidestep and talk about him and

20 some things. The Prosecution claimed in effect during their summation

21 that Mr. Blagojevic was a liar because of his testimony regarding the

22 minutes, and then of course they then cite his testimony for the fact that

23 the ARK was the lawful authority within the area. I understand that as a

24 fact-finder, this Chamber can make credibility choices and can believe

25 all, some, or none of what a witness has to testify. But I also think

1 it's also fair to point out that during his testimony, he talked about

2 crisis staffs, about how to the ARK the competency of the assembly was

3 never transferred, that he called the crisis staff repeatedly an

4 improvisation, and that it could not function.

5 I apologise for that side -- aside, but I want to get back to the

6 ARK Assembly, because I think it's important in determining and looking

7 and trying to decide if there's any political legitimacy, any political

8 credibility, any real power to the ARK, to consider the evidence that came

9 from Mr. Vidic and Mr. Dejanovic. They both testified at trial that it

10 didn't take them long to realise what a shell, what an empty promise, how

11 no power resided in the ARK. And the Prosecution claims, makes the

12 insinuation, that somehow, they got together and conjured up testimony.

13 And I want the Court to consider that argument. Then I want you to look

14 back and obviously use your experience and use your common sense and your

15 recollection to remember just how they presented themselves, how Mr. Vidic

16 and how Mr. Dejanovic presented themselves to the Court.

17 Both of these men were well-educated individuals. Both of these

18 men came in and dealt effectively with the cross-examination that they

19 were presented. And yet, they're criticised because they both talk in

20 very similar terms about the farcical nature of the ARK Assembly. The

21 fact of the matter is these educated men saw through the ARK Assembly, saw

22 that there was nothing to it, and they shouldn't be criticised for that.

23 Their testimony was believable and credible.

24 Well, let's talk about specifically what they said. Mr. Vidic,

25 the Court will recall, was the former president of the Prnjavor Municipal

1 Assembly. He was also a republican deputy. He outlined a number of

2 factors which led him to quickly conclude this was not the ARK Assembly, a

3 serious institution, that it was something totally devoid of any real

4 power and authority. Vidic had long recognised something that I've talked

5 about, that the upper echelons of the SDS were opposed to regional

6 associations, and they were preventing the associations such as ZOBK and

7 ARK have having any meaningful power. He tells us for example at page

8 22954, quoting from him testimony, "people attacked and undermined the

9 initiative and kept it from being established." In a very similar vein,

10 page 22956 to 57, he tells us: "But I do know that the members, the

11 leaders of the SDS were not keen on that. You could see that at the first

12 session in Celinac when there was a heated argument. The people who were

13 involved in this argument were later to become very successful members of

14 the SDS."

15 Mr. Vidic, you'll recall, had a real interest in democracy and

16 governance, but he tells the Court and told the Court at page 22964 that

17 the ARK did not have any bodies that were subordinate to it. And as a

18 result of that, he was not sure, and I'm quoting his testimony at 22969 -

19 Vidic told the Court that he was not sure that "Krajina had the

20 instruments of government whereby it would operate or act in the

21 municipalities. Krajina could not force implementation because the

22 municipalities had executive government, and Krajina did not have

23 executive government."

24 In his view, as a result, many municipalities did not implement

25 decisions of the ARK Assembly. No sanctions were ever imposed. And

1 what's interesting is what his recurring assessment of the ARK was. He

2 has called it "nothing." Proforma. It had no power. No jurisdiction

3 over anything. He told the Court "we just had meetings at the time

4 because there were no instruments to use." And in a very, very apt

5 summary of the ARK, he says, I'm quoting from page 23102: "They had no

6 influence over anything. They were merely expressing their support for

7 someone or the other. They might as well have been an ordinary

8 association. That's at least the way it looked."

9 We remember from his testimony, and I'm sure Your Honours do, how

10 critical he was of the lack of protocol and procedure. And before I read

11 the next passage, and I hate to keep harping on political legitimacy, but

12 if there's anything that shows just how totally devoid of legitimacy that

13 the ARK Assembly was it's the following passage. He is being -- he is

14 asked about protocol. And I'm quoting now from page 23078. "It was

15 ridiculous. There was no protocol. There were no accreditation. Nobody

16 knew who was invited. And because I did not agree with this kind of work,

17 to work without the rules of procedure, and Mr. Brdjanin probably

18 remembers that, he said, well, why are you bothered by that? I know that

19 I was quite literally thrown out of the session. It was held in a hall

20 which was twice as small as this one here. I was kicked out, and my

21 driver remained there, and he laughed later on, saying that he, in fact,

22 passed some of the decisions. I've refused to go there because I couldn't

23 do anything."

24 Vidic in that statement pointed out in effect how it was possible

25 for literally anyone off the street to come in and give a speech.

1 Mr. Dejanovic a criticised because in effect he agreed with it. In effect

2 he saw the very same thing. Dejanovic told the Court at page 23156, and

3 remember Mr. Dejanovic was testifying in English at this stage, about

4 people coming in off the streets. "It was like Hyde park." And there

5 he's referring to Speaker's Corner obviously. "Everyone could enter.

6 Everyone could have a speech. It was a very unserious job. It was really

7 funny, let's say, because there is no minutes. There is no rules about

8 proceeding, these minutes."

9 Another thing in their eyes, at least in Mr. Vidic's eyes, which

10 affected the legitimacy of the ARK Assembly was the concern that he had

11 about the way that Mr. Boro Blagojevic handled the documents. Those are

12 cited extensively in our brief, but I bring up these points about

13 Mr. Radojko, Mr. Vidic, Mr. Dejanovic and their views of the ARK Assembly,

14 because these are all three individuals with important ties to

15 municipalities. All three of them told the Court that as an institution,

16 the ARK was not working, that it had at best limited legitimacy. They

17 also told us, at least Mr. Vidic did, that it was opposed by the SDS upper

18 echelons.

19 That's talking about municipalities. It's good now to talk about

20 Karadzic and his relationship to the municipalities. When the head of a

21 political party is so openly critical of Mr. Brdjanin, when he's so openly

22 critical of these regional structures, that has got to affect, I've said,

23 the way that people view Mr. Brdjanin and the ARK. The upper echelons,

24 Mr. Karadzic did what they could do to hamstring it, and now I want to

25 talk a little bit about the municipalities, how they viewed what was going

1 on. And because I'm going to quote a protected witness, if I could,

2 Your Honour, I'd like to go very briefly into private session.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Let's go briefly into private session.

4 [Private session]

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 [Open session]

9 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session, Mr. Cunningham.

10 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you, Your Honour.

11 In their brief, in their submissions earlier this week, the

12 Prosecution often cited the Court to BT-104 as being a well-placed Serb

13 witness. What I'd like to do is talk about another well-placed Serb

14 witness, someone who was in a position to monitor what was going on and

15 take, if you will, the pulse at this time. And that is Milorad Dodik.

16 And he was questioned about the relationship between the municipalities

17 and in the context here, the ARK Crisis Staff. And this is what he said.

18 I'm quoting to the Court from page 20520.

19 "In many municipalities, there were strong, local persons who at

20 given points in time and in certain activities had full independence.

21 This assessment is based on conversations with people who were familiar

22 with the situation." He continues: "I know that it is only local people

23 who were of key importance and in other places, too. They were

24 autonomous. I think they had stronger links to the top echelons of

25 government then - Karadzic at the time - rather than the crisis staff and

1 other regional groups."

2 Among those he expressly mentioned, Mr. Dodik, were Gojko

3 Klickovic and Miroslav Vjestica, I have yet to get that right, but the two

4 gentlemen from Krupa. He referenced Simo Drljaca in Prijedor, and he

5 referenced a Mr. Rasula in Sanski Most. As we get into the spring of

6 1992, I think it's clear from what I've put in our written submissions and

7 what I've presented to the Court today that in effect, the ARK was a

8 farce, a sham, with no real power, that there was both institutional

9 resistance coming to it from Sarajevo, then Pale, and then the

10 municipalities, and that these forces did, in effect, obstructed,

11 resisted, and nullified any power that the ARK might have.

12 I'm going to talk about the ARK Crisis Staff obviously, but I

13 think here is a good point, again, to take a step back and talk about the

14 description of life in Banja Luka in the spring of 1992. Because there is

15 an important divergence between what I'll call international witnesses and

16 what -- and the non-Serb population. I'm not suggesting that life was

17 roses in Banja Luka at all, but I think there are some critical

18 differences that need to be pointed out.

19 Mr. Krzic who the Court remembers was one of the very, very first

20 witnesses in this case constantly refer to the fact that Banja Luka was a

21 ghetto for the non-Serbs. Other witnesses claim, came in and testified

22 that ethnic cleansing and genocide was taking place. The Court remembers

23 the testimony of BT-20, (redacted)

24 (redacted) by Mr. Ackerman, "Was Banja Luka a ghetto

25 for the non-Serbs?" He disagreed [Realtime transcript read in error

1 "agreed"] with that.

2 The Court, I'd also refer the Court to the conversation, the

3 exchange between Mr. Krzic and Mr. Ackerman --

4 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

6 MS. KORNER: He was in closed session, Your Honour, this witness.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you for pointing that out.

8 Madam Registrar, we need to block -- we are going to block it. No

9 major harm done. But try to avoid mentioning names of witnesses who --

10 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Just so that I can tell the Court what -- and I

11 don't mean to get into a long discussion about this. It was my

12 instructions, my understanding from Mr. Ackerman, as long as I do not do

13 anything that could even remotely reveal who this individual was. But I

14 understand the Court's admonition, and I'll take that in due course. And

15 I apologise.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

17 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I say, I agree with that, and in two

18 cases I referred to some testimony without -- because it didn't identify.

19 But I think this particular question and answer would because he was the

20 only one -- are we in private session?

21 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session. But I think I would agree

22 with you. And the other thing is please make sure, both of you, but

23 particularly the Defence final briefs, they do contain a lot of references

24 which would reveal the identity. So when that is made available to the

25 public, please make sure that they are properly redacted or edited.

1 MR. CUNNINGHAM: And I will, Your Honour. And I apologise.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: It's okay, Mr. Cunningham. Let's proceed.

3 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Before we go, there is an error in the

4 transcript, at page 66, line 6.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

6 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I thought I said that he disagreed with that

7 notion.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. That's correct.

9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Are we in private session?

10 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session. But we can go into private

11 session.

12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I just -- I don't need to be.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: All right, okay.

14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: At all.

15 In talking, I think, another passage that might be instructive for

16 the Court is the exchange between Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Krzic which appears

17 at page 1788 to 1789. This is a passage where Mr. Krzic is being

18 cross-examined about his claim of ethnic cleansing occurring in Banja

19 Luka. And I'm paraphrasing now, but what happens is during this exchange,

20 Mr. Ackerman talks to him, Mr. Krzic, about the fact that Mr. Krzic had

21 talked to the reporter, Roy Gutman, that he had spoken with him apparently

22 in his home, and Mr. Krzic, if my recollection is correct, agreed that

23 Mr. Gutman was a responsible journalist.

24 Mr. Krzic was then confronted with Mr. Gutman's articles in

25 Newsday and was specifically asked whether he agreed with Mr. Gutman's

1 writings, which said "until now, Banja Luka, the principal city in

2 northern Bosnia, has largely been spared the terror tactics of ethnic

3 cleansing, the practice of emptying territories of unwanted ethnic

4 groups."

5 And of course, Mr. Krzic agreed with the representations or the

6 writings of someone he called a responsible journalist. And getting back

7 to my point, Your Honour, again, life for everyone in Banja Luka in 1991

8 and 1992 was difficult. But I'd like to cite the Court, to remind the

9 Court of the testimony of Milenko Savic. Mr. Savic was a Serb officer,

10 police officer from Prnjavor, an individual that had no political ties

11 because he felt as a professional police officer it was appropriate,

12 necessary, for him not to join any political parties. The Court will

13 recall from his testimony that he was in Prnjavor up until March or April

14 of 1992, that he was then transferred to Banja Luka where he did

15 white-collar crime investigation.

16 And one of the points that was brought out during his testimony is

17 that during his travels throughout the Krajina in 1991 and 1992, the

18 safest place, the safest places to be were Banja Luka and Celinac. That

19 can be found at page 22.390 through 92. And it's also confirmed by some

20 of the charts obviously that Ms. Korner showed yesterday.

21 I want to switch gears, if you will, and talk about something else

22 now that is connected to something that Ms. Korner represented -- excuse

23 me, that she talked about this morning. And that has to deal with the

24 international individuals, the international organisations that come to

25 Banja Luka in 1991 and 1992. Ms. Korner's argument, in effect, is

1 "they really don't matter because who would put Brdjanin -- who would

2 present Brdjanin to these individuals?" She also argued yesterday that

3 with respect to the non-Serb population, and this might have been Monday

4 when she quoted a witness saying, in effect, that they felt it would be

5 fruitless to go to Mr. Brdjanin because of his speeches. The fact of the

6 matter is that the international organisations, their representatives who

7 came to Banja Luka, in effect went to where the power was, and invariably,

8 the power, the authority, was someone other than Mr. Brdjanin.

9 Judge, Your Honours, I don't remember with respect to the military

10 monitors whether that was in closed session or not.

11 MS. KORNER: That's open session.

12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Korner.

13 We've discussed this in detail in our brief, but I do want to

14 bring out some points. The European Community military monitors came to

15 Banja Luka throughout 1991 and 1992. And they went to see Mr. Radic

16 invariably, invariably. And it's important to note that at this stage

17 that Mr. Radic is not just talking about matters that are limited to the

18 municipality of Banja Luka; but in essence, he is talking about

19 Krajina-wide issues. And I think it's important, if I could look at

20 Exhibit 61 -- 615. The print on this is very, very small, Your Honour.

21 I'm not going to put it on the ELMO. I can read a very, very short

22 passage.

23 To put this exhibit in its proper context, Exhibit P1615, is a

24 report dated 20 April 1992. It's done by one of the monitors, and it

25 references a visit to Mayor Radic of Banja Luka. And I think this is

1 important because the date, as we recognise, 20 April 1992, is after the

2 first week of April, after the appearance of the SOS.

3 And what does this exhibit say? On the second page, in very small

4 print, it says, talking about Mr. Radic, "We feel that he's the most

5 realistic, flexible, and workable basis for future agreements - referring

6 to Radic. We feel that since he - Radic - is receptive to this and since

7 he is a potentially important figure in the formation of politics to be,

8 it is significant and may be a good basis for future agreements,

9 negotiations on the whole problem."

10 Now, to be fair, there is one notation of Mr. Brdjanin being

11 present at a meeting with the ECMM, and that is a meeting with a group of

12 six or seven other individuals in early February in Celinac Municipality.

13 But that is in effect the only mention of him from the military monitors.

14 I'd like to go talk about a witness that testified in closed

15 session, so if we could go into private session so I can briefly discuss

16 him.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. Let's go into private

18 session for a while, please.

19 [Private session]

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

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2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

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8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

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15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 [Open session]

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. We are going to have a short break, resuming

19 at 10 minutes to 1.00, please. Thank you.

20 --- Recess taken at 12.27 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 12.54 p.m.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Cunningham.

23 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Judge, during the break, I was admonished --

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Severely, I hope.

25 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Well, they were very friendly with me, but they

1 suggested that I take it from 33 down to 16, so... With that in mind,

2 I'll try.

3 When we left off, Your Honours, we were talking about the

4 internationals and their search, if you will, for the power, their

5 assessment of the power in the Krajina. I have been informed that the

6 witness I'm going to talk about next was not a protected witness, although

7 he's related to an international organisation. And that's Mr. Krudja.

8 The Court remembers obviously what -- his position. The Court obviously

9 remembers where he was stationed; that is, right across the river from

10 Novi. And in his time in this area, although he was dealing with an area

11 that was a part of the ARK, he had no contacts, no reference, heard no

12 mention of Radoslav Brdjanin. What is interesting is, the records

13 reflects, that he did receive a phone call or a message that was taken

14 from a Mr. Kupresanin, the mayor of Banja Luka.

15 But more importantly, when this well-educated, well-trained, and

16 experienced individual gave his assessment of where the authority lied, he

17 said that in the area where he was working, the presidents of the

18 municipalities showed a complete deference to Knin, and they -- he called

19 that the "the centre for the coordination of authority."

20 Another international that visited the Banja Luka area or the

21 Krajina was Mr. Mazowietski, that came in August 1992. Again, no mention

22 of Mr. Brdjanin.

23 Reflected in BT-94's diary is reference to the visit of

24 General Nambiar, the head of UNPROFOR when he came to Banja Luka. And

25 interestingly enough, when he came to Banja Luka, he did not meet with

1 Mr. Brdjanin, the so-called master of life and death in the Krajina.

2 I've talked about the international organisations. On a similar

3 note, let me talk now about the charitable organisations. And this Court

4 heard of the efforts of Caritas and Merhamet. And I'd like to go into

5 private session, because I'm going to reference someone who I believe

6 testified with full protective measures.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, let's go into private session for a while,

8 please.

9 [Private session]

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

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25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 [Open session]

3 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session, Mr. Cunningham.

4 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I want to talk to the Court about Exhibit 256.

5 And if I could have the usher place the second page of this exhibit up on

6 the ELMO. This exhibit deals with, among other things, the provision of

7 Merhamet aid within the Krajina. And this exhibit, P256, is a summary of

8 a meeting held between various representatives of the non-Serb community.

9 It's interesting for several things, one of which is that the meeting is

10 not held with Mr. Brdjanin, the so-called master of life and death. But

11 the meeting is held with General Talic. And I believe the date on this is

12 June 22nd, during the time that the ARK Crisis Staff is still in

13 operation, during a time, if you will, as the Prosecution claims, there

14 was close coordination and cooperation between Mr. Brdjanin and the

15 military and security organs.

16 But what's interesting is Mr. Talic, General Talic, in dealing

17 with their complaints, where does he direct these individuals to go? He

18 directs them, and if I'm correct it's on page 2, "Muslims should contact

19 the crisis staff of Banja Luka Municipal Assembly and request visits to

20 the collection centres and concentration camps and everything else

21 connected with this."

22 Again, further indication of where the actual power lay.

23 In a related point to this, Your Honour, and thank you, Mr. Usher,

24 I'm done, and it's something we didn't raise in our brief but I think it's

25 something that is equally applicable to this point, during the trial the

1 Court received a number of exhibits that were in effect letters written by

2 Bishop Komarica. These letters were written on behalf of his

3 parishioners, written in an attempt to improve the conditions, if you

4 will, make life better. While there are a number of letters directed to

5 individuals I've talked about before, Mr. Radic, Mr. Zupljanin, there is

6 no letter directed to Mr. Brdjanin. And this is some evidence of the fact

7 that despite the fact Mr. Brdjanin held the title of vice-president of the

8 ARK Assembly, and later president of the ARK Crisis Staff, he was not

9 recognised by many circles as being an individual with power.

10 I'd like to now talk about the formation of the ARK Crisis Staff.

11 And obviously, we see it in our dreams, and we know that the ARK Crisis

12 Staff was formed on the first part of May, 5 May 1992. In our written

13 submissions to the Court, we talked about -- we referenced the legality of

14 the ARK. And when we make these arguments, Your Honour, obviously this is

15 not a challenge, if you will, a legal challenge claiming, you know,

16 somehow that the ARK was illegal. It's phrased in this context or put in

17 this context: The legality of the ARK Crisis Staff was questioned by and

18 reflected in exhibits by members of the upper echelons of the SDS. The

19 perfect example of the way that the upper echelons of the SDS, the

20 republican officials, felt about the ARK is reflected in one of the

21 entries in BT-94's diary. That diary, obviously, is Exhibit 2326.

22 And in that, the witness refers to a Glas article on 6 July 1992;

23 again, the ARK Crisis Staff is in operation. And the statement is

24 attributed to the republican minister of defence, the minister of Defence,

25 the Court remembers, is Mr. Subotic. And this is what the article says.

1 In quoting Mr. Subotic, Glas reported. "On the occasion, that the

2 establishment of crisis staffs did not have a legal founding. It was

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

4 into the Croatian practice." Now, that's an important point especially

5 when it's considered in conjunction with one of the things that

6 Mr. Blagojevic said, and that is at the ARK Crisis Staff meeting, people

7 came in and openly challenged the legality of the ARK Crisis Staff. And

8 this gets back to the point that I have been making or trying to make

9 throughout, and that is when you have the republican leadership, someone

10 like Mr. Subotic criticising it in the press, when you have attendees

11 questioning the very legality of the ARK, how much legitimacy does it

12 have? I submit that it has no legitimacy, no credibility, no power.

13 I want to talk now about the members of the ARK Crisis Staff. The

14 Prosecution has claimed repeatedly throughout the case that the very

15 composition of the ARK Crisis Staff, the members, if you will, the corps

16 members, and their positions ensured that the ARK's directives would be

17 followed. I'm going to submit to the Court if you look at these corps

18 members, if you look at their statements and/or their attendance records,

19 that we're going to see a familiar theme. That is, much like the ARK

20 Assembly members who came, Mr. Vidic and Mr. Dejanovic, realised that the

21 ARK Assembly had no power, it didn't take long for members, the corps

22 members, if you will, of the ARK Crisis Staff to determine that this was a

23 body with no power, no real authority.

24 The first witness to start with is Mr. Radic. Obviously, we all

25 know, president of the Banja Luka Municipal Assembly, the mayor, if you

1 will, of the most populated, the most influential municipality in the ARK.

2 He quit going to the meetings rather quickly because he felt one, it was

3 unorganised; two, didn't feel with serious issues; and most importantly,

4 three, felt it was a waste of time. Mr. Erceg is the man who with the

5 stroke of his pen created it; yet the witnesses said that his attendance

6 was at best one-third of the time. Mr. Sajic came in and testified and

7 described Mr. Erceg's attitude towards the crisis staff. He said, Sajic

8 did, "he did not see the crisis staff as a body that was superior to him.

9 He had no respect for this body as a superior body, and he, Erceg,

10 believed that his duty was to run the municipality and to rally behind the

11 republican structures." Now, that's what one witness says about the, if

12 you will, the founder of the ARK Crisis Staff. Now, how much legitimacy

13 does that add to this organisation?

14 Milorad Sajic obviously was a member, and he was surprised when he

15 was a member. And he told the Prosecution in interview and he repeated it

16 in Court that he was surprised to find out that he ever was the

17 vice-president of the ARK Crisis Staff. He didn't know that until well

18 after the fact. He also told the Court that he had other business that

19 prevented him from attending, and he didn't go. And when you consider

20 these attendance records, it raises a question at least in my mind and I

21 hope it raises the same question in your mind, and that is, if this is the

22 highest body in the Krajina, why is it that these members come and go when

23 they please, why is it, if you don't come, there is no sanction? Why is

24 it, like Zoran Jokic, the air force pilot, when you decide you're not

25 coming any more, no one even bothers to call you up and find out your

1 reason?

2 The Prosecution's answer to this is, of course, the sinister

3 approach. These witnesses, Your Honours, they argue, are simply trying to

4 distance themselves. I submit an equally permissible deduction from this

5 evidence is, much like the municipal -- much like the ARK Assembly

6 members, it didn't take these individuals long to realise what a joke,

7 what a farce this was.

8 General Talic, we know, the evidence is, attended at best one

9 meeting, and then he directed a representative to attend the meetings and

10 report. And much is read into the fact of this by the Prosecution, but

11 one of their very own witnesses and because I'm unsure if this witness

12 testified -- his name is used throughout the record. So to be sure, can I

13 ask to go into private session very, very quickly.

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

15 [Private session]

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 [Open session]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session, Mr. Cunningham.

24 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I thank Ms. Korner for the assistance, and I

25 (redacted)

1 Much is made of the fact that Vujnovic was directed to attend

2 these meetings. But as we'll see when I talk about the military aspect of

3 this case, Osman Selak saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what

4 is interesting, if we look at some of the decisions of the ARK Crisis

5 Staff, it shows how utterly powerless it is because what I'd like to do is

6 show the Court a couple of the conclusions. If I could see 15 May 1992.

7 Apparently, I don't have that one. I apologise for making the usher come

8 over here. But I do have it written verbatim.

9 In 15 May 1992, a conclusion is delivered, and it reads as

10 follows: "Talks should be held with General Talic about calling up and

11 assigning military conscripts on 20 and 21 May 1992." Now, obviously

12 Mr. Talic, General Talic, didn't bother to show up because if we look at

13 the conclusion from 22 May, we see the following passage, the following

14 conclusion, number 4. "In view of the present poor coordination between

15 the Crisis Staff and the newly established army, the VRS, mandatory

16 attendance of General Talic, or a person designated by him, is requested."

17 I'm done with that exhibit. But it's kind of interesting.

18 Mandatory attendance is not requested, mandatory attendance is demanded.

19 And the fact of the matter that they couldn't do that is further

20 indication of just how woefully inadequate, how woefully powerless this

21 body was.

22 If you look at the citations in our brief as to the attendance of

23 the corps members, to put it mildly, it's woeful. Mr. Blagojevic just

24 testified that after a while they quit coming. And again, the reason I

25 suggest that happens is these are individuals who quickly saw that it was

1 a joke, that it was not a serious institution. It was, as Predrag Radic

2 called it, a waste of time.

3 We know from the evidence that presidents of the municipalities

4 were in attendance. And I'm going to submit that the evidence shows the

5 following: Much as the ARK Assembly members saw it for what it was, much

6 as the corps members saw it for what it was, the municipality presidents

7 saw it as a body that could not help them. And there is a quote that is

8 very, very indicative of it that comes from a witness who testified in

9 closed session, so we need to go into private session with your

10 permission.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, let's go into private session once more,

12 please.

13 [Private session]

14 (redacted)

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21 (redacted)

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24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

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6 (redacted)

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16 [Open session]

17 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session, Mr. Cunningham.

18 MR. CUNNINGHAM: This, again, was echoed by Mr. Dejanovic who the

19 Court recalls was a member of the crisis staff in Bosanski Novi, and he

20 testified that again, we realised that we had to help ourselves because we

21 would not get any help from the ARK. That's at page 23156.

22 Now, what's interesting is much like the corps members felt like

23 they didn't have to attend meetings and if they had something else in the

24 works, that they wouldn't go, individuals from the crisis staffs, the

25 municipal crisis staffs felt the same way. And rather -- I'm just going

1 to direct the Court to three witnesses and to some citations that confirm

2 the fact that they didn't believe that they had to attend, that many times

3 they didn't bother to send a replacement. And these citations are as

4 follows: BT-103 at page 19930; BT-95, 19581 through 82; BT-92, 19898.

5 During the course of our presentation of evidence, we brought to

6 the Court just how woefully lacking the ARK Crisis Staff and the ARK was

7 in, if you will, the trappings of authority. And that's important,

8 because it again points to the lack of legitimacy that the institution

9 had. And it also points out the fact that they were basically, if you

10 will, a pawn between the municipalities and the upper echelons of the SDS.

11 When Mr. Blagojevic and other witnesses testified that the ARK,

12 the ARK Crisis Staff, didn't have its own offices, that it was forced to

13 borrow space from Banja Luka Municipality, that there were only two paid

14 employees for this institution that is supposed to be in control of the

15 Krajina. And those two paid employees were Mr. Blagojevic and

16 Mr. Kupresanin. And of course, that stands in stark contrast to what was

17 the number of employees at Banja Luka Municipality which was in the

18 neighbourhood, one witness testified, 350 to 380. And I think someone

19 else testified maybe as much as 600. And the reason that the ARK was

20 treated, as we call in the States as the red-headed stepchild, was not

21 really given the time of day was because Mr. Kasagic the president of the

22 executive council in Banja Luka never supported the crisis staff and never

23 lent it any support.

24 Now, Mr. Blagojevic talked about how they didn't even have the

25 simple things. Audiorecorders, anything to take minutes. And he took a

1 lot of heat in that from the Prosecution about the minutes and obviously

2 that caused the Court some concern as to whether or not there were really

3 minutes. But what's interesting, and I'm going to find an exhibit -- I'm

4 reading from Exhibit 247, which is one of the Sanska Unska documents, this

5 is the one -- the latter one dated 14 June. And the Court recalls that

6 this is the document where this group is making demands.

7 It's interesting because one of the demands that they make is on

8 the second page, under letter C, and they demand "in the future, all

9 sessions of the ARK Crisis Staff shall be recorded on tape and the minutes

10 taken by several clerks." That suggests at least to me that maybe there

11 weren't any minutes being taken. But that kind of sidetracks from my

12 points, which is you have an institution that didn't have its own office

13 space, an institution that couldn't even get a tape recorder, an

14 institution that didn't have a stamp and had to borrow a stamp. All that

15 points to, again, the fact that this was not a serious institution. But

16 there's one -- there's one ARK Crisis Staff conclusion that really attests

17 to how impotent this entity was.

18 If I could see 22 May. We know from the evidence that the ARK

19 Crisis Staff or the ARK tried to get offices. And they issued a

20 conclusion on 22 May to that effect. And I want the Court to consider

21 this conclusion in the light of the Prosecution's arguments that they made

22 in their brief. Paragraph 341, the Prosecution argues: "These

23 conclusions were orders, obedience was mandatory." Paragraph 97:

24 Prosecution argues: "Instructions were followed and witnesses were of a

25 view that had they not complied with the instructions they would be

1 replaced."

2 If I could have the usher place this on the ELMO, I'm going to

3 draw the Court's attention to the very first conclusion of 22 May 1992.

4 The decision reads, the conclusion to be fair: "By 30 May 1992, the

5 second floor of the employment bureau is to be fully prepared to house the

6 offices of the Autonomous Region of Krajina." Nothing happened. They

7 never moved. More importantly, there has never been any evidence as far

8 as I can recall, and I'm sure if there's anyone who can recall, it's you

9 Judge Agius, but I don't believe there was any evidence that said they

10 even started to make preparations for this move.

11 And thank you, Mr. Usher.

12 If there's something that points out how impotent this entity was,

13 this entity couldn't even fend for itself to acquire the basic essentials

14 it needs as an administrative body. Is -- if this body cannot even fend

15 for itself, how can it be said that they directed or instigated or ordered

16 other entities, other municipalities, other structures within the Krajina?

17 While we're on the crisis staff, I want to talk and answer some of

18 the arguments that have been made by the Prosecution that deal with what I

19 call the self-congratulatory phrases and decisions passed by the ARK

20 Crisis Staff. Can I see Exhibit 182, and then 9 May.

21 Start with that one first. Thank you.

22 Four days after the crisis staff is formed, 9 May 1992, we see

23 Exhibit 182, and this should be a decision. Four days after their very

24 formation, the ARK Crisis Staff feels it's important to tell everyone that

25 "all the decisions and conclusions of the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous

1 Region of Krajina are binding for all the municipalities.

2 "Objections to or appeals against decrees from the previous

3 paragraph will not delay their implementation."

4 It seems to me that if this is the highest body in the land, that

5 that should have been readily evident to everyone in the land on 5 May.

6 But four days later, they have to adopt that decision.

7 If we can put on now the decision of 9 May 1992. It's a -- it's a

8 conclusion. Should be the other one I gave. This comes out of P227.

9 Again, four days after its inception, the following conclusion:

10 "Decisions adopted by the war staff are to be strictly respected in all

11 public and economic organisations."

12 Okay. Thank you.

13 You would think maybe, after four days and after these

14 conclusions, that maybe someone was getting the point that supposedly we

15 are the highest authority in the land. But apparently, someone must not

16 have been listening very closely because two days later, on 11 May, they

17 feel compelled to issue another -- this is a conclusion from 11 May, where

18 they say "the work of the crisis staff of the autonomous region is given

19 full support." Not really sure what that means, but they are constantly

20 having to proclaim themselves to be, if you will, the highest law in the

21 land. But the important thing is no one's listening because on 18 May,

22 they feel compelled to issue another conclusion where they tell us, at 18

23 May, conclusion 2, and this is at page 21 of Exhibit P227, the English

24 version, that "the crisis staffs are now the highest authority in the

25 municipalities."

1 But the message that I talked about on 9 May about the crisis

2 staff decisions being binding still is not getting through, because 26

3 May, there's this conclusion: "The work of the crisis staff has absolute

4 support since it's now the highest organ of authority in the Krajina as

5 the assembly cannot function due to objective and subjective

6 circumstances." It has to repeat that "decisions of the crisis staff are

7 binding for all crisis staffs in the municipality." And then they tell in

8 the decision that decisions will be submitted for verification as soon as

9 practicable.

10 It's interesting because in the three weeks that they have been in

11 existence, they feel, the ARK Crisis Staff feels compelled to issue three

12 different conclusions or decisions where they have to proclaim themselves

13 the highest authority, and that their decisions need to be respected.

14 Now, shouldn't it be obvious, or are people ignoring them? And I submit

15 to you it's the latter. And the reason I do that is because we know of

16 the struggle between the upper echelons, the big fish in the small ponds

17 at the municipality, and I submit to the Court the municipalities realised

18 just as the assembly members did, just as the corps members did, just as

19 the presidents did, that this institution really has no authority. What's

20 interesting is how the ARK tries to resolve that problem, and that's in

21 their amendment or their purported amendment of Article 35, which is the

22 Court remembers is the provisions dealing for how decisions would be

23 adopted in the municipalities.

24 On 15 June 1992, the decision is issued. It states: "Paragraph 2

25 of Article 35 of the ARK Statute is hereby amended to read: `The

1 decisions and conclusions must be respected by the municipality.'" I

2 submit to the Court that the reason they had to do this was they were

3 ignored in the municipality. These municipal presidents didn't feel like

4 they were compelled to answer, to implement everything that came.

5 I want to talk about the municipalities now and the notion of

6 implementation. And I want to recite to the Court a couple of points made

7 by the Prosecutor in their briefs. Paragraph 181, they argue that the

8 regional crisis staff had a great deal of authority over municipal bodies

9 notwithstanding occasion complaints or incidents of revolt and put into

10 effect all the major decisions which were designed to create an ethnically

11 pure state.

12 Paragraph 414 of the Prosecution brief: "Municipal leaders who on

13 the evidence did accept orders and directions from the accused in his

14 capacity as president of the ARK Crisis Staff..." I'm going to talk

15 about the notion of implementation now, and this is going to require some

16 discussion about witnesses from the municipalities. But it's interesting

17 to start with the report of Patrick Treanor. When we talk about

18 implementation, because although there were a number of decisions and

19 conclusions, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the vast

20 overwhelming majority of these were never, ever implemented in the

21 respective municipalities.

22 That is a point that Mr. Treanor conceded even before he got to

23 the witness stand because paragraph 186 of his report says as follows:

24 "The available documentary evidence would not suffice to prove or to

25 reasonably infer a scheme of systematic and mandatory implementation of

1 all of Brdjanin's enactments by municipal bodies." That's at paragraph

2 186. And I see you nodding your head, Your Honour, because I remember you

3 questioned him on the next paragraph as well.

4 Paragraph 187 says: "The available documentary evidence is more

5 compelling in the above-mentioned critical areas, disarmament, dismissals,

6 and resettlement, regardless of the precise state of authority of

7 Brdjanin, his enactments were, in fact, implemented in these critical --

8 for these three critical purposes. In these three areas, the available

9 documentary evidence indicates the municipal institutions acted either

10 directly or prompted by Brdjanin or in a way concurrent and consistent

11 with his policies."

12 Earlier in the report, Treanor had tried to back up his arguments

13 about implementation, and I'm going to cite from paragraph 165, he says in

14 that paragraph: "The overall coordination of evidence available on

15 implementation of ARK Crisis Staff enactments in the 13 relevant

16 municipalities would provide an estimate of 11.9 per cent of provable

17 implementation." Stated another way, in the light most favourable to the

18 Prosecution, that means that there was an 88 per cent rate of

19 non-implementation. And I'm going to submit to the Court, there's a

20 problem even with Treanor's 12 per cent rate of provable implementation,

21 and that's going to require the Court to again look at his notion,

22 Mr. Treanor's notion, of cumulative evidence of implementation.

23 It's described in paragraph 164 of his report, and for the Court

24 his report is P2353. He says the following: "Cumulative evidence of

25 implementation. The decisions or actions at the local level coincide with

1 one or more items passed by the ARK Crisis Staff. The ARK Crisis Staff is

2 not mentioned in the municipal decision. The action at the lower level

3 could have been caused by authorities other than the ARK Crisis Staff

4 itself, RS, SDS, MUP, CSB, and VRS. The evidence seems to be inefficient

5 to establish a direct causal link between the local level and the ARK

6 Crisis Staff. The evidence, rather, indicates parallel, concurrent action

7 or common purpose between the local bodies and the ARK Crisis Staff."

8 I submit to the Court by its very definition, these events, this

9 concurrent, cumulative evidence of implementation should be dropped from

10 any notion of provable implementation because by his own admission,

11 there's no causal connection. If you do that, the rate of

12 non-implementation rises from 88 per cent to 96 per cent.

13 I want to now talk about the municipalities and implementation and

14 in the notion of implementation in the municipalities. I'll start with

15 Banja Luka. We know from our remarks, my remarks, as well as the written

16 submissions that the local officials in Banja Luka took a dim view of the

17 ARK Crisis Staff. There is an exhibit, DB292, a Glas newspaper article

18 where Mr. Kasagic, the president of the executive board, is talking. And

19 he in this article talks about how he is against the ARK Crisis Staff

20 taking power. When Mr. Radic came and testified, he told the Court that

21 Mr. Kasagic opposed the crisis staff because he was afraid it would

22 interfere with Banja Luka's policies. That same article, DB292, also

23 quotes Mr. Kasagic as saying: "The smaller municipalities were not

24 putting into effect its decisions."

25 When Mr. Radic was here for that week, he was, of course,

1 questioned about crisis staff decisions. And he was emphatic that they

2 did not implement any decisions from the ARK Crisis Staff, and even

3 challenged the Prosecutor to show them an instance. And the Prosecutor

4 didn't, and I suggest that's because they were aware of what Mr. Treanor

5 said in his report, and this is paragraph 164 from 2354. Treanor states

6 the following with respect to Banja Luka: "There is little evidence of

7 implementation by the municipal crisis staff of regional crisis staff

8 enactments. Six instances. The Official Gazette of Banja Luka

9 Municipality does not show specific indications of linkage to the ARK

10 Crisis Staff, nevertheless the regional crisis staff having its seat in

11 Banja Luka may have been in a position to have direct influence over this

12 municipality. Predrag Radic, the president of the Banja Luka crisis

13 staff, was also a member of the ARK Crisis Staff."

14 Mr. Radic's testimony, Mr. Treanor's assessment of implementation

15 was confirmed when Mr. Cvijic came to testify. Mr. Cvijic, the Court will

16 recall, was the secretary of the municipal assembly. He told the Court

17 and I'm quoting from page 2142 and it carries over to 13, that the ARK

18 Crisis Staff never ordered anything to the municipality of Banja Luka. It

19 never proposed any issues for discussion, nothing that pertained to the

20 work of the crisis staff was ever discussed by the municipality. The

21 Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka never had any such orders instituted to

22 them.

23 Just to make sure the record is clear the complete citation is

24 21412 carrying over to 413.

25 Your Honours, I see I have about five minutes. I'm about to go

1 into the Sanska Unska group, and with your permission I'd like to start

2 that tomorrow.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Can I continue presuming that you should be able to

4 conclude tomorrow between you and Mr. Ackerman?

5 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't know that we have much choice.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no. But the thing is this, no, let's put it

7 like this. You conceded an hour and a half to Ms. Korner, so I think it's

8 only fair on my part to ask what the position looks like at this present

9 moment.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, I think we can finish tomorrow.

11 I think we can.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. We appreciate it.

13 Basically, I think we can use the next five minutes --

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE AGIUS: We shall now give two oral decisions as anticipated

16 during yesterday's sitting, both decisions relate to a corresponding

17 Defence motion.

18 Our first oral decision relates to a confidential motion to strike

19 the Prosecution's final brief filed by the accused on April 16. It has

20 been decided first, although it was the last one to be filed, because if

21 it is successful then the other motion becomes moot automatically since

22 Appendix C is an integral part of the Prosecution final brief.

23 The Prosecution final brief was filed on April 5. In support of

24 his motion, the accused makes the following submissions. The

25 Prosecution's final brief contains countless misstatements of fact and

1 improper footnote citations that are designed to mislead or have the

2 effect of misleading the Trial Chamber. In addition, the Prosecution

3 attempts to interject factual findings from both Stakic and Plavsic cases

4 into this case, a practice which according to him is highly improper. The

5 accused submits that these shortcomings are improper and unprofessional

6 enough to warrant the striking of the Prosecution's final brief.

7 The Prosecution's final brief, according to the accused, takes

8 answers totally out of context and fails to provide the complete nature of

9 a witness testimony. In addition, it consistently mis-cited, directed the

10 reader to pages which do not support the assertion made, and at times

11 directed us to testimony and/or exhibits which do not exist or are wholly

12 inapplicable.

13 The accused then gave several examples in support of his arguments

14 asserting that these showed a pattern in the brief that can only lead to

15 one conclusion; namely, that the Prosecution was deliberately trying to

16 mislead the Chamber.

17 Finally, the accused submitted that in paragraph 445 of the final

18 brief, although the Prosecution notes that the factual findings of the

19 Stakic case in no way bind this Chamber, it nonetheless turns around and

20 injects those factual findings into their arguments suggesting that this

21 Court adopt in toto the findings of another Chamber when the witness was

22 not subjected to cross-examination in this case, and this Chamber did not

23 have the opportunity to see and assess the witness's demeanour and

24 credibility. He pointed out that this improper use of the Stakic

25 judgement appears in various paragraphs of the brief. The accused also

1 submitted that the Prosecution seek to do likewise in paragraph 571 where

2 in footnote 1072 they seek to inject testimony from the Plavsic, Biljana

3 Plavsic case.

4 The Prosecutor filed her response on April 19, making several

5 submissions, chief of which are the following: The motion is an effort to

6 impugn the integrity of the Prosecution and prevent the Trial Chamber from

7 hearing argument which may weigh against the accused. The Prosecution

8 readily concedes that on rereading the final trial brief, there are some

9 inadvertent errors in the facts and/or citations contained therein. The

10 Prosecution points out that the reason for footnoting assertions of fact

11 and law is to give the Trial Chamber the opportunity to check the accuracy

12 of these assertions. Not just the Trial Chamber, but also the accused.

13 The Prosecution is categoric that none of the errors which exist

14 are intentional, and no part of any filing by the Prosecution is intended

15 to mislead. It is also submitted that much of the motion is merely more

16 argument on the facts.

17 There are other submissions, particularly with regard to the

18 alleged interjection of factual findings from the Stakic and the Biljana

19 Plavsic, the allegation is denied, and the Prosecution points out that

20 they cited the Stakic trial judgement principally to address the accused's

21 own suggestion from the Rule 98 bis stage; namely, that the Stakic trial

22 judgement findings on genocide somehow preclude a genocide conviction in

23 this case.

24 In addition, the Prosecution also purports to make clear that the

25 Trial Chamber is not being asked to adopt these factual findings from

1 Stakic and Plavsic, but rather to decide on the case of the evidence

2 presented, and if the Trial Chamber chooses to completely disregard the

3 various references relevant, relevant references, then it can easily do

4 so.

5 The Trial Chamber fully understands and appreciates that mistakes

6 in the statement and in the description of facts or in references

7 sometimes do happen and sometimes do happen inadvertently and unavoidably,

8 especially in long and complicated cases like the present one, where the

9 Trial Chamber and the parties have to deal with thousands of documents

10 containing thousands and thousands of pages, plus thousands of pages of

11 transcript of evidence in these proceedings. The presumption is, and

12 short of proof to the contrary, remains that such mistakes are made

13 inadvertently, sometimes also the result of negligence. They can, of

14 course, exceptionally be made intentionally, but then the supposition,

15 whoever resorts, the supposition is that whoever resorts to such egregious

16 and despicable tactics does so in the foolish expectation, or assumption

17 for that matter, that whoever is ultimately called to decide the case will

18 take for granted every submissions made as made without due verification.

19 The supposition would also be that opposing counsel, too, is incompetent

20 or irresponsible enough not to bother to check on the submissions and

21 references made to the Chamber or to take such submissions for granted.

22 In reality, however, it's practically impossible to envisage such a

23 scenario. As conceded by the Prosecution itself, there are some mistakes

24 in the final brief, but there is absolutely no basis for the assertion by

25 the accused that any of these "countless misstatements of fact and

1 improper footnote citations" contained in the Prosecution's final brief

2 were or are designed to mislead the Trial Chamber.

3 The accused also contends that these misstatements of fact and

4 improper footnote citations have the effect of misleading the Trial

5 Chamber nonetheless. The accused may rest assured that the Trial Chamber

6 will not allow itself to be misled by anything or anyone and can therefore

7 put his mind at rest or at ease without deciding for the Trial Chamber

8 what weight, what value to give to the various pleadings filed by the

9 Prosecution.

10 With regard to the alleged improper interjection of factual

11 findings from other Chambers, the Trial Chamber finds the explanation

12 given by the Prosecution satisfactory; however, the Trial Chamber points

13 out that it will treat these references as submitted by the Prosecution

14 and not by way of adopting the relative findings as feared by the accused.

15 This case will be decided on the evidence presented in the case -- in this

16 case, and not on any other.

17 This motion, therefore, that is the accused's motion of April 16

18 2004 to strike the Prosecution's final brief, is rejected.

19 Our second decision disposes of a confidential motion filed by the

20 accused on April 12th, 2004, seeking to strike Appendix C of the

21 Prosecutor's final brief. The accused moved this Court to strike Appendix

22 C of the Prosecutor's final brief, bringing forward the following

23 arguments: The Prosecution is attempting to introduce new evidence before

24 the Chamber in the form of a revised version of a purported section of a

25 previously admitted exhibit. According to the Prosecution, Appendix C

1 represents a revised version of Section 5, V, of addendum report by expert

2 Patrick Treanor, Exhibit 3253. That's not correct. I think it's a

3 mistake there.

4 According to the table of contents to the Treanor addendum report,

5 Section V consists of nine pages of text, and this is in the submission of

6 the accused completely different from the document called Appendix C which

7 is 65 pages spreadsheet. If the Prosecution sought to introduce a revised

8 version of a trial exhibit, the proper method would have been to have done

9 so during Mr. Treanor's testimony or to have applied to re-open the case

10 at the appropriate time. The accused submits that the Prosecution failed

11 to do either.

12 Appendix C in the eyes of the accused is an outrageous attempt to

13 introduce unsworn evidence that was not subject to cross-examination. And

14 furthermore, it constitutes a revision of unsworn testimony that -- sorry,

15 I'm repeating. Which has not been subjected to cross-examination.

16 There is a response in writing by the Prosecution dated or filed

17 on the 16th of April. And I will just highlight the main points. First

18 of all, the Prosecution submits that Appendix C represents a revised

19 version of appendices 10.1 and 10.12 of Section 5 of the above-mentioned

20 addendum did you mean. During Mr. Treanor's testimony on July 2nd 2003,

21 the Prosecution advised the Court that it did not intend to call

22 Mr. Aguirre, the author of that particular Section 5 of the report, but

23 that he was available for cross-examination by the Defence. On 3rd July

24 2003, after that Mr. Aguirre had not been produced to give evidence in

25 chief or in cross-examination, the Prosecution stated that those

1 appendices would be rechecked and that the Trial Chamber and Defence would

2 be provided with any discrepancies. The Defence did not object at the

3 time.

4 With respect to the same appendices, the Prosecution stated --

5 Appendix C, the Prosecution added, in Appendix C, exhibit numbers have

6 been added to both the documents showing the implementation of the crisis

7 staff decisions and conclusions, and the ARK Crisis Staff documents listed

8 in appendices 10.1 to 10.12. The text of the documents listed has been

9 shortened to focus only on implementation. The documents listed in those

10 appendices which have not been admitted into evidence are not included in

11 Appendix C. Documents listed in those appendices which do not directly

12 indicate implementation are not included in Appendix C. Duplicate

13 documents listed in the appendices have not been included in Appendix C.

14 And the same appendix contains documents showing implementation of the ARK

15 Crisis Staff decisions which were admitted into evidence after the report

16 was tendered; for example, with regard to the Bosanski Novi and Prnjavor

17 Municipalities, or documents which were not included in those appendices.

18 Above all, the Prosecution contends that it is not attempting to

19 introduce new evidence. Although Appendix C in its eye, it's obviously

20 based on an original document, it should be treated as no more than a

21 schedule of evidence tendered through the documents admitted into

22 evidence. And the same, if the Trial Chamber is of the view that such a

23 schedule would not assist it, then it may disregard it.

24 The Trial Chamber has examined carefully Appendix C, and it has

25 taken a long time, and that explains why we are coming with the decision

1 today and not before. And it has examined carefully Appendix C within the

2 parameters of the submissions made by the respective parties and

3 particularly with a view to establishing that the submission of the

4 accused that by means the Appendix C "the Prosecution is attempting to

5 introduce new evidence before the Chamber in the form of a revised

6 revision of a purported section of a previously admitted exhibit is

7 founded or unfounded. Furthermore, this Trial Chamber perused this same

8 Appendix C with a view to assessing or making an assessment on the

9 assertion by the Defence that "this revision is unsworn testimony which

10 has not been subjected to cross-examination."

11 The conclusion that the Trial Chamber has come to is that Appendix

12 C as explained by the Prosecution in their response indeed reflects or

13 describes the exercise which the Prosecution made to update already

14 existing documents on the basis and in the light of evidence which had

15 been tendered until then, until after that the report had been prepared

16 and after that Mr. Treanor had given evidence. The Trial Chamber has

17 tried to find out if indeed there was any evidence that was being

18 introduced obliquely and/or abusively by the Prosecution, and until now

19 has found none. Neither has it come across any unsworn testimony or

20 evidence which has not been subjected to cross-examination and which is

21 being indirectly and nonetheless introduced abusively by the Prosecution.

22 The Trial Chamber, however, wishes to make it clear that it does

23 and will continue to treat Appendix C, as suggested by the Prosecution

24 itself, namely as no more than a schedule of evidence tendered through the

25 documents admitted into evidence and not beyond that.

1 This further motion of the accused is, therefore, also rejected.

2 I thank you. We will reconvene tomorrow morning --

3 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I just ask before -- I know we've

4 run over. Would Your Honours also order that public versions of the

5 motion filed by the Defence and by the Prosecution be made so that the

6 public can see what Your Honour has been summarising. Your Honour, for

7 one reason alone, and it may be because these wild allegations were being

8 made Your Honour gave more detail to the Defence motion than to our

9 response. And I am anxious that our response is seen in full. The

10 confidentiality aspect was the reference to witnesses in closed session.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. You will understand, Ms. Korner, that this was

12 an oral decision. I mean, obviously we had prepared a few things in

13 writing. But we did cover, I can assure you, we did cover all your

14 objections just the same. But yes, provided the confidentiality aspects

15 that regulated the matter so far is given due attention and redactions are

16 made, I would recommend to the other two Judges to grant. However, I

17 would like to hear what Mr. Ackerman has to say on it.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, I think you have in your order

19 touched upon the major allegations, the major contentions of our motion,

20 so it is now -- that is now public.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't think anything is to be gained by going

23 through that exercise.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: I agree with you. One final point --

25 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm sorry. I don't think your answer --

1 if Mr. Ackerman now in public, because this has been given in public, this

2 judgement, withdraws the allegations that he made against this Prosecution

3 team and this office, that these matters were dealt with -- were put in

4 improperly, Your Honours have now accepted there is no basis for that.

5 But I would like a public withdrawal. If not, then I would like

6 published -- I would like for the public to be able to read - I'm sorry -

7 the sort of allegations that were being made and our responses because we

8 gave a very full response pointing to the same kind of conduct in the

9 Defence brief, but without making the same allegations.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Do you wish to state anything else, Mr. Ackerman?

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I'm not withdrawing anything, and I

12 think you have covered what was in our motion very completely in the order

13 you just entered for the record. I think that's all that needs to be

14 done.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Well, point taken, Mr. Ackerman. But again, I mean,

16 the oral decision obviously did not cover all the points. We covered what

17 we considered to be essential for the purpose of the oral decision. I had

18 more points here which I skipped, as I went through, reading the points,

19 the notes that I had made.

20 Yes, the decision is to grant that they be made public, but all

21 due care has to be taken, I suppose. I don't know who is supposed to be

22 charged with that, whether it's the -- the parties themselves. The

23 parties themselves are to see to the proper redactions necessary needed to

24 make the motions ready for -- to be made public.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, since this is of interest to the

1 Prosecution and not to us, I have no objection to the Prosecution making

2 whatever redactions they think are appropriate from my motion and letting

3 it be filed that way. But I really don't want to go through that

4 exercise. I have plenty other things I have to deal with.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, as it's our application, yes, we'll do

7 the appropriate redactions.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you. Thank you.

9 I would like to make a public statement, one minute, which I would

10 like to be communicated to the President of this Tribunal. I wish to

11 thank all -- first of all, the parties for bearing with us, for staying

12 here 20 minutes, the staff, the clerical staff here, and the rest of the

13 team. I consider you on board. You're part of the team, all the

14 technicians, all the interpreters, you have been most kind, you have been

15 gracious. Without your cooperation, we wouldn't have managed to finish

16 this part of the proceedings today. Once more, I thank you. You have

17 behaved like this throughout the entire trial, and I wish to commend you.

18 We will resume tomorrow morning at 9.00 in this same stuffy

19 courtroom. Thank you.

20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.05 p.m.,

21 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 22nd day of

22 April, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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