Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 1153

1 Thursday, 10 April 2008.

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.01 a.m.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone in the courtroom and those

7 just outside assisting us.

8 Mr. Registrar, would you please call the case.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to

10 everyone in the courtroom. This is case number IT-06-90-T, the

11 Prosecutor versus Ante Gotovina et al.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

13 WITNESS: EDWARD FLYNN [Resumed]

14 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Flynn, before I give an opportunity to continue

15 to cross-examine you, I would like to remind you that you're still bound

16 by the solemn declaration that you've given yesterday at the beginning of

17 your testimony.

18 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, are you ready to continuing cross-examining

20 Mr. Flynn?

21 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. It's reaching controls at

22 times that is difficult.

23 Cross-examination by Mr. Kay: [Continued]

24 Q. Mr. Flynn, good morning.

25 A. Good morning.

Page 1154

1 Q. We were discussing yesterday the visit of Mr. Akashi to Knin on

2 the 7th of August and for Your Honours references we're dealing with

3 matters in P20 at page 3, just for reference.

4 I'd like to produce a document at this stage concerning

5 Mr. Akashi's visit. If the registrar could produce Prosecution 65 ter

6 document 4025.

7 This is a report of Mr. Akashi's visit that we'll be seeing on

8 that day that he --

9 JUDGE ORIE: It's not yet in evidence I take it.

10 MR. KAY: Yes, because I know it takes -- it's on the screen

11 already. It takes a bit of time to upload.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. You want to tender that? And it's not in

13 evidence yet.

14 MR. KAY: It's not in evidence.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Any objections?

16 MR. KAY: This will not --

17 JUDGE ORIE: I already ask. Yes, perhaps I should allow you to

18 finish your sentence.

19 MR. KAY: This will not be a controversial document and go

20 straight in. All parties will be producing it.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Ms. Mahindaratne, any objection?

22 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No, Mr. President.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Then we first get a number and then it will

24 immediately be admitted into evidence.

25 THE REGISTRAR: As D29, Your Honours.

Page 1155

1 JUDGE ORIE: D29 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

2 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, may I? I wish to request the

4 Defence, as we move through the documents, to also refer by tab numbers

5 because we have got binders with tabs from the Defence so I could easily

6 follow through.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Is the Cermak Defence or is that all Defences or --

8 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Cermak Defence, Mr. President. The numbering

9 if you follow the list you sent, you know, the numbers against each

10 document on our list. Thank you. If it's not possible, that is all

11 right, Mr. President. I will follow on e-court.

12 JUDGE ORIE: I take it Mr. Kay will do his utmost best to see

13 whether he can meet your needs.

14 MR. KAY: Yes.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

16 MR. KAY:

17 Q. This is a report of Mr. Akashi's visit. Can you see it on your

18 screen, Mr. Flynn?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And it's the report to Kofi Annan in New York, and you can see

21 there in paragraph 1, in about the sixth line, that he says that he met

22 the new Croatian army commander for the Knin region, General Cermak. Do

23 you see that?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Not military governor; is that right?

Page 1156

1 A. That's right.

2 Q. Yes. Where did the title "Military Governor" come from?

3 A. That's a usage that I fell into while I was in Knin, and I really

4 can't say exactly where it came from.

5 Q. Thank you very much. We may be able to fill in those gaps later

6 on.

7 During his visit, Mr. Akashi met a number of people and also

8 toured Knin as you told us yesterday.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. His overall impression of the town of Knin is that it suffered

11 considerable damage from artillery fire, and he gives his observations.

12 "However, the damage to the town structures, while noticeable, was less

13 than I anticipated."

14 Would that accord with your observations of Knin?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. He goes on to say: "Large numbers of homes and buildings were

17 left untouched by the fighting." Would that accord with your

18 observations?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. "Utilities were still off, but General Cermak told me he expected

21 water and electricity to be restored today and phones tomorrow." Were

22 you aware of those failure in the public services?

23 A. No, I wasn't.

24 Q. Were you aware of the issue in these first days of Knin after its

25 liberation that the town had to have its services restored to normalise

Page 1157

1 public life?

2 A. I must say I really don't recall that issue in particular.

3 Q. Were you aware of the issue that we see in paragraph 2 again:

4 "Cermak told me very soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, regular HV units

5 would be removed and only military and civilian police would remain

6 together with the nascent civil administration."

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Presumably in your tour with Mr. Annan, although you may not have

9 been with him at all the meetings, you were collecting information as to

10 the circumstances of Knin as you had arrived in it?

11 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, the reference to Mr. Annan most likely is a

12 slip of the tongue.

13 MR. KAY: Yes.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed. I take it that you wanted to refer

15 to Mr. Akashi.

16 MR. KAY: Yes. My apologies, Your Honour.

17 THE WITNESS: Yes, although on that day it was rather difficult

18 to get detailed information because, as I think I described in one of my

19 reports, there was a large crowd moving around with Mr. Akashi. We were

20 in the hospital, for example. We could barely move down the hallway, and

21 so we certainly didn't have an opportunity or I didn't have an

22 opportunity that day to do any significant fact gathering.

23 MR. KAY:

24 Q. If we turn over the page to page 2 and look at section 3 of the

25 report where the hospital is mentioned, on that day, on the 7th, the

Page 1158

1 hospital had doctors in operation within the building working.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And within that hospital were people of Serb ethnicity as well as

4 Croatian ethnicity?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Were you aware, if we turn to paragraph 4, of the meeting between

7 General Cermak and Mr. Akashi at the camp in which they -- or Mr. Akashi

8 handed over a copy of the Akashi Croatian government agreement that we

9 looked at yesterday?

10 A. Yes, I was aware of the meeting.

11 Q. And that's Exhibit D28. Again the concerns in that meeting was

12 for assistance that Mr. Cermak could give concerning the people within

13 the camp which the UN had temporary control or custody of because they

14 were within their area?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. The issue at that stage as well was whether those Serbian people

17 who'd lived under the Republika Srpska Krajina flag in the region,

18 whether they were going to commit themselves and stay within the Republic

19 of Croatia.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. That was a great unknown and something that the UN and the

22 agencies such as yours needed help to solve as a problem.

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Again, that would accord with the relationship between the UN and

25 the Croatian government as defined by that Akashi agreement?

Page 1159

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Were you present at that meeting between Mr. Akashi and

3 Mr. Cermak?

4 A. No, I wasn't.

5 Q. Were you aware, maybe from other sources, about the assurances

6 Mr. Cermak had given in relation to the safety and security of Serbian

7 people who wanted to stay?

8 A. No, I don't believe I was aware of the assurances that had been

9 given at that meeting.

10 Q. Did you become of that -- aware of that later on, at subsequent

11 meetings or subsequent exchanges?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And it would be fair to say that right from the start that that

14 was one of the objectives expressed by Mr. Cermak to the UN of the desire

15 he had to help people stay within the Knin region who had lived there

16 previously?

17 A. That was a statement he made on a number of occasions, yes.

18 Q. Yes. Again in paragraph 4, there is five lines, four lines from

19 the bottom the issue of freedom of movement because the UNCRO troops by

20 that stage, on the 7th of August, had been kept within -- those that were

21 there, within the UNCRO compound.

22 A. I'm sorry, I missed the question.

23 Q. Right. On the 7th of August, at that time in the visit of

24 Mr. Akashi, the UN authorities were concerned about their own freedom of

25 movement because the Croatian forces had, so to speak, kept them within

Page 1160

1 the UNCRO compound?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Were you aware on that day, the 7th of August, that in fact

4 Mr. Cermak had only arrived the day before?

5 A. No, I don't recall being aware of that.

6 Q. The issue in paragraph 5 concerning --

7 A. I'm sorry, could we scroll down just a bit?

8 Q. Yes. The issue in paragraph 5 concerning the interviews of

9 military-age men in the UNCRO compound to be interviewed by the Croatian

10 authorities, that is a matter again that arises within the Akashi

11 agreement, our Exhibit D28?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. The terms and process as to how such interviews would take place

14 as to identifying whether any people within that camp were war criminals

15 was a matter that still had to be ironed out as between the UN and the

16 Croatian authorities?

17 A. Yes, that's right.

18 Q. You were aware that that was a matter of concern for the UN and

19 something that further negotiations were needed upon?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Thank you. Turning now to page 3 of the report by Mr. Akashi,

22 paragraph 6, third line: "In his tour --"

23 A. I'm sorry, it's just a little small to read right there.

24 Q. Yes. In his tour Mr. Akashi makes this comment: "The most

25 striking aspect of my conversations however was the fact that all of

Page 1161

1 those with whom I spoke uniformly expressed a desire to leave Croatia."

2 A. I'm sorry, you're asking if that's what the report says?

3 Q. Yes, the report says that. Does that accord with your experience

4 as well on that day?

5 A. I wouldn't say uniformly. I recall that some individuals wanted

6 to go back to their homes.

7 Q. Yes.

8 A. Yeah.

9 Q. Would it be fair to say that the vast majority, in fact, had made

10 their minds up to go either to Republika Srpska or in Bosnia or Serbia

11 proper?

12 A. The great majority had, I would say, yes.

13 Q. Yes. Within the UNCRO compound as well were you aware of the

14 fact that there were Croatian -- people of Croatian descent within that

15 camp at the same time? It wasn't just people who were from Serbia.

16 A. Or people who were Serb.

17 Q. Yes.

18 A. Yes, I was.

19 Q. Thank you very much.

20 JUDGE ORIE: One clarifying question, Mr. Flynn. The question

21 was put to you whether the vast majority had made up their mind to go

22 either to Republika Srpska or in Bosnia or Serbia proper, and you said

23 yes, the great majority had.

24 Now, to go there, would that -- did you understand that to be the

25 wish to go there and stay there or to go there at least for that moment

Page 1162

1 and then further consider and decide whether to stay out of Knin or to

2 come back to.

3 THE WITNESS: My understanding was that at that point the

4 majority of people in the camp wished to leave the area and go to these

5 other locations mainly for their security. I did not understand that

6 they wished at that moment and had decided at that moment to emigrate or

7 permanently leave Croatia.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. To settle there. That's -- yes. Thank you.

9 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

10 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

11 Q. The next document I want to turn to arises from a series of

12 questions that you were asked about yesterday arising from that first

13 HRAT report of the 8th of August, Exhibit P29. We have no need to call

14 that up. Concerning the numbers that were dead, and it was a question

15 that I believe came from the Bench yesterday.

16 Could we please bring up Prosecution Exhibit 65 ter 850.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Not in evidence yet. It needs a number.

18 MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honour.

19 Q. Can you see that document there? That's now in English and the

20 Croatian language.

21 JUDGE ORIE: While zooming in takes place, Mr. Registrar, this

22 would be number?

23 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, this becomes Exhibit D30, marked for

24 identification.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Ms. Mahindaratne, can you say already

Page 1163

1 something about whether you object?

2 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, may have a minute?

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll hear from you.

4 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

5 MR. KAY: Yes.

6 Q. This is a report from a man called Brigadier Dr. Brkic, and he

7 was the chief of the health administration, and he filed a report on

8 hygiene and sanitation measures taken in the period from the 5th to 12th

9 of August, 1995, and you can see this report was sent to the Croatian

10 chief of staff. On the 5th of August it says that he came to Knin on

11 that day to carry out an inspection, "... which I perform in every event

12 of this kind and I encountered the following situation..." and he gives

13 human sanitation and technical measures about bodies in the area and you

14 can see information about what he found.

15 On page 2 of this document, on about the eighth line, you'll see

16 mention of an order he made to Mr. Ivan Delic, engineer, to deal with the

17 bodies in conformity with the Geneva Convention and carry out complete

18 forensics examination. And the report goes on to deal with steps taken

19 by him.

20 You gave evidence yesterday about a meeting that happened on the

21 7th of August that you thought Mr. Cermak had mentioned details about 61

22 people being buried, and within that passage it mentioned 70 centimetres

23 apart.

24 Do you think that that conversation in fact could have been with

25 someone with more technical expertise such as this man

Page 1164

1 Dr. Brigadier Brkic?

2 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, I object to that question. The

3 witness is being asked to speculate on a matter I don't know if the

4 witness is familiar with, and the witness has not even indicated that

5 he's familiar with this documentation.

6 JUDGE ORIE: At the same time, he -- it's put now to the witness

7 that certain people have more technical knowledge. He's asked whether

8 he -- whether he considers it's a possibility that he had spoken. He's

9 not asked to think about the content but just about to whom he had been

10 speaking.

11 MR. KAY: Yes.

12 JUDGE ORIE: That doesn't need any technical knowledge apart from

13 that it needs the skill perhaps to distinguish between knowledgeable and

14 less knowledgeable people in this field. So therefore the objection is

15 denied. Please proceed.

16 MR. KAY:

17 Q. You see the point of the question. The passage you referred to

18 yesterday, you weren't precise. You didn't say General Cermak said this.

19 It was, "Well, maybe my recollection," "It could be," "I think," and I'm

20 just pointing out that in that paragraph it mentions that 70 centimetres

21 as some sort of gap which I presume is an international standard, and it

22 seems that there was a man on the ground here who has an expertise in

23 this. Do you think in fact it could be the case that this information

24 arose from someone else rather than General Cermak?

25 A. Yes, absolutely. He was often -- he was always accompanied by

Page 1165

1 others, and it's quite possible he was accompanied by this individual.

2 Q. Yes. Thank you.

3 MR. KAY: I wonder if this could be admitted as an exhibit now as

4 D30 because it's a document from the Prosecution and uncontroversial I'd

5 have thought.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, I don't know whether the whole

7 collection of Prosecution documents are all uncontroversial, if that was

8 the case, Mr. Kay, there would be no need to ever object to them, isn't

9 it? That would be the logical consequence of that.

10 But, Ms. Mahindaratne, is there any objection against this?

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Then Exhibit D30 is admitted into evidence.

13 MR. KAY:

14 Q. Did you meet this man Brigadier Brkic who was in charge of

15 dealing with the dead and the sanitation of the terrain and was in Knin

16 throughout this period?

17 A. He may have been at the meeting at which I was present on the 8th

18 of August with General Cermak, but I really don't recall.

19 Q. Right. Thank you. Did you know the people who were with

20 General Cermak in your dealings? You haven't given us many names in your

21 testimony, but certainly him as the front of house, were you aware of the

22 other people who may have been with him or who had other

23 responsibilities?

24 A. I think I referred earlier to two other individuals who I recall

25 were usually with the general, and unfortunately I can't recall their

Page 1166

1 names with certainty. I remember what they looked like. I described

2 them in my statement. I can describe them again for you if you wish.

3 Q. No need, because I am going to ask you about that. It is

4 material.

5 General Cermak didn't speak in English. He spoke in Croatian.

6 A. That's right.

7 Q. He spoke through an interpreter who was a Croatian army liaison

8 officer?

9 A. I believe so.

10 Q. Did the UN also have an interpreter?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. When dealing with General Cermak?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. So at these meetings you had two interpreters?

15 A. That's right.

16 Q. But do you know where your interpreter came from?

17 A. I had a number of different interpreters over the course of time.

18 Q. I don't want their names or anything like that as I appreciate

19 that can be sensitive, but were they from an official system or were they

20 other people who were, shall I put it this way, around in the region?

21 A. Well, no. They were all on staff. They were UN staff members.

22 Q. Were they local people?

23 A. Some of them were local, yeah. The majority, the great majority

24 were local.

25 Q. Yes. We're aware of the situation as we've had other evidence in

Page 1167

1 the case, and I don't want to go into backgrounds.

2 You described someone as being a deputy to Mr. Cermak, and you

3 described him with a small goatee beard. Did he speak English?

4 A. Yes. And I wouldn't say a goatee beard. It was more of a full

5 beard.

6 Q. Were there in fact two interpreters, as you recall?

7 A. Well, he wasn't an interpreter. There was a third individual who

8 did often serve as interpreter, a gentleman with rather long grey hair, a

9 long beard. I remember him, yes.

10 Q. The one with the beard you've described as the deputy who spoke

11 some English, he was a Croatian army liaison officer, wasn't he?

12 A. I couldn't say that with certainty because I'm not exactly sure

13 what you mean by Croatian army liaison officer.

14 Q. Were you aware of the structure that had been developed between

15 the UN and the Croatian government where there was a liaison system?

16 There was a whole hierarchy coming down from Brigadier Plestina, who was

17 in Zagreb. I don't know whether you met him.

18 A. No.

19 Q. But he was the chief of this particular hierarchy, and then

20 moving down on the ground into Knin where there were two liaison officers

21 who worked with UNCRO liaising with General Cermak and UNCRO. Were you

22 aware of that?

23 A. You know, I wasn't aware of the formal structure per se, but it

24 was evident to me that there were members of the Croatian contingent

25 there who were responsible for liaison and who conducted liaison and who

Page 1168

1 in fact were very competent at liaison, and that would certainly include

2 this individual.

3 Q. Yes. Would it be fair to say that his English was not perfect?

4 It was not a fluent English?

5 A. I think that's a fair statement, yes.

6 Q. Yes. He picked up the language. That would be fair to say, but

7 he did not have a technical skill?

8 A. I couldn't comment on where he got it or how he got it, but --

9 Q. Of course.

10 A. Yeah.

11 Q. I just use that as a characterisation from officially trained

12 people that we have here to those who speak a bit of the language.

13 A. Yes. I would just say he wasn't fluent --

14 Q. Yes.

15 A. -- but I never had any serious understanding difficulties with

16 him.

17 Q. No. This is the man you describe as the deputy?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Very well. Can we look now at a document, Prosecution 65 ter

20 1623, which is the appointment of Mr. Cermak to his position and why he

21 was in Knin.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, may I take it that that would be D31?

23 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honours, that's correct. This becomes

24 Exhibit D31, marked for identification.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, could you inform us as soon as you

Page 1169

1 see the document whether there's any objection.

2 MS. MAHINDARATNE: I know this document, Mr. President. No

3 objections.

4 JUDGE ORIE: D31 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

5 MR. KAY:

6 Q. The series of questions I'm asking you is relevant to the issue

7 of the deputy as well as the title that you gave Mr. Cermak about

8 military governor, Mr. Flynn. You can see the translation of the

9 document here?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. It's a decision from Zagreb on the 5th of August, 1995, by the

12 president, and it says: "I hereby appoint Colonel-General in the reserve

13 Ivan Cermak to the post of commander of Knin garrison HQ."

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And then it says: "I hereby release Major Marko Gojevic from

16 Kijevo of his duty as commander of Knin garrison HQ and appoint him to

17 the post of the deputy commander of Knin garrison HQ."

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. First of all, did you know that in fact Mr. Cermak, until he was

20 appointed this day on the 5th of August, was actually a civilian before

21 this appointment and working in civilian life?

22 A. I believe I did know that, yes.

23 Q. And he'd been working there for a number of years having left

24 politics and his previous roles in relation to the government?

25 A. Yes.

Page 1170

1 Q. Did you know at that time that he was taken from that civilian

2 life and arrived in Knin in this position on the 6th of August? He came

3 straight into it.

4 A. I didn't know how much time, how recently or long before he had

5 been appointed to this position, but I knew that relatively recently he

6 had been in civilian life, yes.

7 Q. Yes. Well, we see his appointment on the 5th of August, which

8 coincides with the completion of Operation Storm, and you know that he

9 was there on the 7th.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. From this document you'll see that the previous holder of this

12 position, commander of Knin garrison HQ, was previously a major,

13 Major Gojevic.

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And he in fact was downgraded from that position and put to the

16 post of deputy to the commander?

17 A. I see that that's what this document says, yes.

18 Q. Yes. And Marko Gojevic, did you know him by name as the deputy

19 to Mr. Cermak?

20 A. No, I didn't know that. And when I referred to deputy before, I

21 really meant deputy with a small D, if you will. I didn't mean that the

22 individual we discussed earlier to my understanding was formally deputy

23 in rank to General Cermak in Knin. I meant essentially his close

24 assistant or advisor. And in point of fact, he was also the individual

25 who was there and who received us if General Cermak was not available.

Page 1171

1 Q. Yes. Is he the individual to whom you reported what had happened

2 at Grubori on that evening of the 25th of August at 4.30?

3 A. I'm just not sure, but I doubt it frankly.

4 Q. Right. Well, for the record, and this may help you to remember,

5 the individual that you're talking about with the beard who spoke a bit

6 of English and was a Croatian army liaison officer with the UN was

7 someone called Dondo.

8 A. I remember that name, yes.

9 Q. That's the man you're talking about when you use this name Juric

10 in your statement?

11 A. I suppose so, yes.

12 Q. And his first name Carolj Dondo.

13 A. I don't recall that.

14 Q. Okay. Very well. Now, of importance here in the document that

15 we're looking at, D31, is the fact that you see the actual appointment of

16 Mr. Cermak to the post as commander of Knin garrison HQ and not military

17 governor.

18 A. Yes. I evidently was not aware of his formal title.

19 Q. Yeah. Were you aware, in fact, that there is no role of military

20 governor within the Croatian army?

21 A. No, I wasn't aware of that.

22 Q. Right. There is a role of military governor within certain

23 circumstances as we're aware. After the Iraq conflict there was an

24 appointment by the American forces of a military governor.

25 A. Yes.

Page 1172

1 Q. I want to look at the position now of what a -- a garrison

2 commander, as he was appointed, does, what their function is, because in

3 your statement you recollect -- you gave your belief, your thoughts, and

4 I don't criticize you for that because you quite properly -- you put that

5 description with what you were saying, belief, thoughts, as to

6 General Cermak's role. All right?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. If we could look at 65 ter number 3408. And in this document we

9 will need to turn to page 21. It is quite a full document, and it's the

10 is service regulations of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia,

11 dated the 20th of May, 1992.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, that would --

13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that becomes Exhibit D32, marked

14 for identification.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, could you tell us already whether

16 there is any objection to this document.

17 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Your Honour.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Then D32 is admitted into evidence.

19 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

20 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 Q. Page 21, please, of the regulations. I can see it.

22 You'll see here what a garrison is described as. A garrison is

23 an area in or near a populated place where a company or higher units of

24 the armed forces are housed.

25 A. Excuse me, could it be magnified just a bit, please. Thank you.

Page 1173

1 Yeah.

2 Q. Presumably you don't need the Croatian part on the right-hand

3 side.

4 A. I don't speak or read Croatian. That's right.

5 MR. KAY: Right. I don't know whether it's possible for the

6 witness to move it so that he just has the English version.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, there are two elements involved here, what

8 the witness can read on his screen and what the public will see, the

9 public --

10 MR. KAY: Right.

11 JUDGE ORIE: -- might be interested to follow these proceedings

12 and then of course if we would limit it to English only, we would exclude

13 a large portion of the population in the Balkans.

14 THE WITNESS: It's okay. I can read it now.

15 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. I'm getting to grips with a

16 new courtroom for me and what can be done.

17 Q. And you can see there what the garrison is in paragraph 50. You

18 can see how he's appointed. In fact, he should be appointed by the

19 orders of the Main Staff. And you can see in 52 that the garrison

20 commander is responsible for billeting, order, discipline and service.

21 All units and institutions within are subordinate to the garrison

22 commander as regards issues of order, discipline, and service. And at

23 the entrance to the facilities where the command is located, you put up a

24 sign, and he has responsibilities to issue rules on order, discipline,

25 supervision of behaviour. So that's rules of behaviour of military

Page 1174

1 persons in the garrison.

2 Page 22 --

3 A. I don't see that now. It needs to be scrolled down, sorry.

4 Q. Right.

5 A. Okay.

6 Q. You can see that there are these various rules --

7 A. I'm sorry, now -- okay. Here we go. 22, thank you.

8 Q. Page 22, defining the billetings, training ranges, bathings in

9 rivers, summer or winter uniforms. 55, instructions for the behaviour of

10 units and institutions within the garrison in case of readiness, natural

11 disasters. Reception and billeting in 56. 57, military ceremonies. And

12 the command may define the organisation and work of technical sanitary

13 construction, and other services.

14 So these are from the rules. We're just going to look at a

15 series of documents now. There are many more, but just to put it into

16 context as to his role so that I can ask you a question, and I think you

17 know what the question is that -- that's coming.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. If we can pull up Prosecution 65 ter 2907. This is not an

20 exhibit yet and is headed "Setting Up of Garrisons," dated the 16th of

21 February, 1993.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

23 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit D33, marked

24 for identification.

25 MR. KAY: Perhaps the Prosecution --

Page 1175

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Ms. Mahindaratne, could you give us already --

2 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

3 JUDGE ORIE: No objections. Then D33 is admitted into evidence.

4 Please proceed.

5 MR. KAY:

6 Q. The document here we're looking at as you can see on page 1 is

7 the setting up of garrisons, and 16th of February, 1993. And you agree a

8 regulation, in fact, issued before the Croatian republic had control over

9 Knin and the occupied territories?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And if we go to page 4 of this document, which on the previous

12 pages has a various number of garrisons such as Benkovac, other places,

13 Dubrovnik, Sinj, Split, Zadar, as to the areas they cover. And there you

14 can see in Knin garrison it's the territories specified there, Knin,

15 Nadvoda, Kistanje, Ervenik, Otric , Kijevo from where Major Gojevic came

16 and Civljani?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And that regulation says that it's in Gospic until it moves to

19 Knin.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And someone within the Home Guard battalion had to carry out

22 tasks although they weren't in Knin?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Thank you. If we go to page 6, paragraph 2 there, or number 2.

25 The commanders of the garrisons are directly subordinated to the

Page 1176

1 commanders of the military districts. And in 3, the commands of the

2 garrisons of the navy, air force, and defence are in charge of preparing,

3 organising, and setting them up.

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And paragraph 5 on the next page, page 7. All other questions

6 relating to the setting up of garrisons are to be dealt with by the

7 commands of the military districts.

8 If we go through this document to page 9, we see a report on

9 troop numbers for Knin garrison headquarters.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. 31st of August. And this is an official form filled in on that

12 day, and it says: "Five active officers, one drafted private, three

13 civilians, and overall nine."

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Manned for wartime duty, active 2. Let's go to page 10. And we

16 see here again various numbers relating to the break-up of the unit: Who

17 is active, two; reserve, two; non-commissioned officers, four; privates,

18 two; civilians, ten.

19 There it's signed by a lance corporal Juric, but I suspect that

20 wasn't you were dealing with, this is --

21 A. I'm just not sure.

22 Q. I make that point just to deal with it. So a small unit within

23 the garrison HQ. And did that accord, in fact, with your dealings with

24 General Cermak? When you went to his HQ, he had a number of civilians

25 there and a small unit of people with him.

Page 1177

1 A. Well, at the headquarters of General Cermak there were certainly

2 not a lot of personnel present ever, and I had the impression that

3 General Cermak had responsibility for a larger number of people, and he

4 certainly let on to us that he could have an influence, for example, over

5 the presence or removal of Croatian military units from Knin.

6 I never believed that General Cermak had direct command

7 responsibility over those units, but my impression was that he considered

8 that he might be able to influence or not -- or to influence the removal

9 or not of those units.

10 Q. I put it to you yesterday that he was there to help the UN, and

11 that was -- would be -- that would accord, that kind of function, with

12 helping the UN, because that was a desire of the UN, wasn't it, in trying

13 to deal with the aftermath of the war within that area?

14 A. Well, General Cermak was our -- certainly my main contact, most

15 senior contact, and he was virtually always cooperative and certainly

16 generally encouraging about the possibility of helping us with some of

17 our requests.

18 Q. Would it be fair to say he's a positive man?

19 A. I think he was fairly positive with us, yes.

20 Q. Were you aware that he'd had a successful career in business

21 pre-establishment of Croatia?

22 A. I was aware of that, yes.

23 Q. And he was successful in business when Croatia was established?

24 A. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline, yeah.

25 Q. But you were aware that he had those qualities?

Page 1178

1 A. I was aware that he was a successful business man, yes.

2 Q. Were you aware that he had had an interest in the early days of

3 the Croatian state in helping organise logistics?

4 A. No, I wasn't aware of that.

5 Q. As a specific field.

6 A. No.

7 Q. If we look at page 11 and we see the 26th of September, 1995, a

8 further report on this establishment, and it reads the same. Overall

9 nine we see on that page. And on page 12, a lesser number of people, in

10 fact. The handwritten signature at the bottom has got

11 Assistant Commander Marko Gojes, but that would be Marko Gojevic.

12 Looking at that headquarters, what actually was there, you

13 entered the building and he had offices on the first floor. You go up

14 some steps and there were offices on the first floor.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. The UN also had a liaison officer within those officers working

17 with the Croatian army liaison officers?

18 A. Well, actually I don't exactly recall that, but that's certainly

19 true, I imagine.

20 Q. Yes. It wouldn't have been unusual.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Down on the ground floor of the garrison HQ was a large public

23 kitchen that was eventually established.

24 A. I don't recall that.

25 Q. Can you remember as you go in through the front door you go up

Page 1179

1 some steps, there's a big dining-room. To the left there was a big

2 kitchen, a mess hall -- the mess hall on the front and a big kitchen, and

3 outside a big feeding area as well where everyone went?

4 A. That sounds familiar, but I don't think I paid a lot of attention

5 to that premises in particular, especially when we were there. Our

6 objective was to meet immediately with the senior authority there.

7 Q. Would it be right to say that within the garrison HQ there were

8 many people milling around? There were civilians. There were members of

9 the public. It was a busy terminus.

10 A. I'm sorry, I just can't really comment on that. I just don't

11 remember.

12 Q. Is it too long ago to --

13 A. I just don't recall a large number of people milling around, but

14 there may have been.

15 Q. That's all right. You just tell us your recollections. That's

16 very, very fair.

17 I want to now go to Prosecution Exhibit -- sorry, not exhibit, 65

18 ter number 785, called the organisational order regarding work, order,

19 and discipline at garrison HQs. And this is an order from the 27th of

20 August 1993 from the Ministry of Defence and, Your Honour, could we --

21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

22 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D34, marked for identification,

23 Your Honours.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

25 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

Page 1180

1 JUDGE ORIE: Exhibit D34 is admitted into evidence. Please

2 proceed.

3 MR. KAY:

4 Q. This document is an organisational order regarding work, order,

5 and discipline, and it notes, you will see in the first two lines, not

6 all HQ commands have been set up. And order number 1: "The commanders

7 of the military districts, navy, air force, anti-aircraft defence are

8 superior and responsible for the entire work, order and discipline in the

9 garrison HQ in their areas ..."

10 Turning to page 2, paragraph 2 of Exhibit D34. "The garrison HQ

11 commands do not have an operational function and the right to issue

12 orders to Croatian army units except precisely prescribed authorities

13 regarding work, order and discipline at the garrison HQ outside of

14 barracks and other military facilities, within the tasks provided by the

15 Rules of Service of the Armed Forces."

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And that lack of operational function actually accords with your

18 impression of General Cermak from the observations you made about five

19 minutes ago in answer to my question.

20 A. Well, I think I said earlier that I was not entirely clear on his

21 operational authority. I did not understand General Cermak to have

22 direct command authority over the large part of military units in Knin.

23 But as I say, he gave us, gave me, the impression that he had the ability

24 to influence the presence or removal of military and police units in the

25 area.

Page 1181

1 Q. Yeah. Paragraph 3: "The garrison headquarters' commands are

2 required to establish cooperation and coordination of tasks of the

3 garrison HQ with administrations and departments for defence, departments

4 for care, stationary telecommunications, information systems, departments

5 of the military -- of the Ministry of Defence headquarters,

6 administrations and other bodies and institutions of the Ministry of

7 Defence, Ministry of Interior, and other government administration

8 organs."

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Just looking at that paragraph, the words "cooperation and

11 coordination of tasks," were you aware of General Cermak's role in trying

12 to get the electricity, sanitation, water, public utilities working

13 within Knin?

14 A. With regard to those specific responsibilities, no, I don't think

15 I was aware of his responsibility in that area.

16 Q. Okay.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask you, Mr. Kay, your question was about

18 his role. That could be his -- and that's apparently how the witness

19 understood the question, what his responsibilities are, but you have of

20 course a factual role and a structure of responsibilities.

21 MR. KAY: Yes.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Could we clarify that the witness also has no

23 knowledge, at least that's what I understand, about a factual role he may

24 have played, whether or not strictly within his responsibilities.

25 THE WITNESS: That's correct, Your Honour. I -- I have no

Page 1182

1 particular knowledge of that. I mean, I think that there may be some

2 connection with these issues, for example, and questions about the

3 general welfare of the civilian population in the area, and I know that

4 General Cermak, for example, addressed the question of rehabilitation of

5 residential structures. He appeared to be directly responsible for

6 individuals who were temporarily housed in the local school and what

7 might happen to them. So with regard to those sorts of humanitarian

8 issues he certainly seemed to have a direct responsibility. But with

9 regard, for example, to the restoration of utilities and that sort of

10 issue, I don't recall knowing of his responsibilities there.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Now you again used the word "responsibility." Do

12 you exclude for the possibility that he addressed these matters even if

13 it would not be within his formal competence, within his formal

14 responsibilities?

15 THE WITNESS: No. He well may have. I just don't know.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. That's clear. Could we always try to make

17 perfectly clear when we're talking about roles whether it was the formal

18 role as described in whatever kind of documents, and sometimes a role

19 which might go beyond what the formal responsibilities were. Both

20 directions. Go beyond or not taking responsibilities where there are

21 formal responsibilities.

22 Please proceed.

23 MR. KAY: Yes. Thank you, Your Honour.

24 Q. Paragraph 4, we don't need to deal with that in fact, and we

25 don't need to deal with paragraph 5.

Page 1183

1 Attached to this, if we go to page 3, is "Instructions on

2 regulating some issues within the jurisdiction of garrison headquarters."

3 And this document, which was attached to the one we're looking at,

4 contains various functions that have to be done. For instance, if we

5 look at 2(b), garrison headquarters with several barracks and units.

6 The ZM commander shall compile a list of staff on duty and their

7 assistants. All sorts of organisational objects here. Turning to page

8 4. I don't say it in a light-hearted manner, but "Arrangements for

9 swimming in rivers, seas or lakes." This shows the scope of various

10 functions.

11 Paragraph 4, "Employing military police units." The commander is

12 required to arrange a procedure with the closest unit of the military

13 police and have them intervene in the case of unrest, accidents, et

14 cetera, when an MP unit is indispensable to establish order and

15 discipline in the area of the garrison HQ, and arrange temporary

16 employment of MP patrols to supervise work, discipline and conduct of

17 military personnel in public places.

18 We'll look further at that in a moment in relation to another

19 order.

20 And number 5, which comes from that last series of questions I

21 asked you. "The ZM is required to establish cooperation and coordination

22 with the public administration or the police stations in the area of the

23 ZM, and in conjunction with the arrangement and reciprocal exchange of

24 information regarding maintenance of work, order and discipline and the

25 conduct of military personnel in public."

Page 1184

1 "Cooperation and coordination with the police administration or

2 police stations." I want you to particularly note that because it does

3 not say subordination. And do you appreciate, Mr. Flynn, the difference

4 between being in control of a police and actually cooperating and

5 coordinating with them?

6 A. Yes, of course I am.

7 Q. And why I ask this question is because from the terms of your

8 statement that has been put in evidence, D20 and D -- P20 and P21

9 exhibits, it was your impression that Mr. Cermak had control of the

10 police?

11 A. I wouldn't say -- I don't think I ever said he was directly in

12 control --

13 Q. Right.

14 A. -- of the police.

15 Q. No.

16 A. But I would say that this description that you are offering

17 presupposes, in my view, a fairly orderly environment, and certainly in

18 August of 1995 many of these matters were almost irrelevant, because the

19 whole zone was in complete disarray and -- and essentially was lawless,

20 in my view.

21 Q. Yes. We had a situation where a state had regained control of

22 its own territory. The Republic of Croatia had for the first time

23 occupied this area that was part of its territory. Its mandate and writ

24 had never extended there before. That's right, isn't it?

25 A. Yes.

Page 1185

1 Q. To say it was territory probably doesn't accurately define the

2 extent of the region. We're talking about a very big region, in fact,

3 aren't we, when we look at the boundaries of what was called

4 Republika Srpska Krajina?

5 A. Do you mean the area formally known as Sector South?

6 Q. Yes.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And after the successful military campaign, the State of Croatia

9 had to try and organ take control for its administration over this

10 territory?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. It was a scene of chaos.

13 A. I would say more lawless. Chaos implies that there was a lot

14 going on. This, as you know, was a very sparsely populated area.

15 Q. Yes.

16 A. But there was a general sense, especially in the early days, of a

17 lack of control, including a lack of police control, and that's why your

18 reference to coordination with police stations is a little unrealistic in

19 those early days, because there were no police stations.

20 Q. One was opened up in Knin on the 6th of August by the Minister of

21 the Interior Jarnjak.

22 A. In Knin, yes.

23 Q. And that was filmed -- were you there when it was opened?

24 A. No.

25 Q. But it was a public event that was -- have you seen film of it?

Page 1186

1 A. No, I haven't.

2 Q. Right. But you're aware of the fact?

3 A. That there was a police station?

4 Q. Yes.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. We'll be looking at that later on. Page 5, section 7,

7 "Organising food and accommodation of non-permanent military personnel,"

8 dealing with billeting, accommodation, catering facilities, security of

9 military facilities.

10 I'm going through this rapidly because I know that the learned

11 Judges will be able to read this. It's not because I'm skipping

12 information. I hope you understand that, Mr. Flynn.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Yes. Page 6, section 12, firefighting, fire prevention. Again,

15 various emergency provisions, although oath-taking I wouldn't include in

16 that.

17 16: "Setting up garrison headquarters detention units." A

18 barracks detention unit.

19 And page 7, lay down instructions in section 17 on order,

20 discipline and supervision of the conduct of military personnel at the

21 ZM. Then again we have further issues to do with control and we have no

22 need to go into further details because I know the Court will be able to

23 read this document for themselves.

24 Next document I want you to look at, because it arises from those

25 provisions within that framework, is a document 2D010001.

Page 1187

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

2 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that becomes Exhibit D35, marked

3 for identification.

4 MR. KAY: Your Honour, this is an exhibit that has not been

5 produced by the Prosecution through its 65 ter regime, nor in

6 Mr. Theunens' expert report which the Court has had filed, but is a

7 document we can look at concerning the control of the military police as

8 issued on the 6th of July, 1994, by the minister of defence, Mr. Susak.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Ms. Mahindaratne, could you give us already

10 your --

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, we can't seem to trace this

12 document amongst the documents we've got notice of from the Defence, but

13 we were informed this morning that there will be a couple of new

14 documents being tendered in evidence. I haven't had time to go through

15 this document. May have a couple of minutes, Mr. President?

16 JUDGE ORIE: We'll hear from you.

17 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

18 MR. KAY: It's at tab 107.

19 Q. And we're looking at this, Mr. Flynn, because it's relevant to

20 that passage concerning the military police within the instructions to

21 the garrison HQ.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. It's important that we give a complete picture. I'll read the

24 text: "... with a view to removing any ambiguities in the system of

25 command and control over units of the military police and with regard to

Page 1188

1 the information about the failure to respect the system in the area of

2 responsibility of the 72nd [Realtime transcript read in error "77th"]

3 Battalion of the military police in connection with military police

4 platoons in Croatian army brigades on the southern front I hereby order."

5 In that preamble were you aware that the 72nd Battalion of the

6 military police was in fact in this district of the Split Military

7 District within the area of Knin?

8 A. No.

9 Q. You said to us you didn't pay much attention to units and what

10 their particular pedigree was.

11 A. I paid attention to which branch of service, let's say,

12 individuals belonged to. For example, whether they were police or

13 military, but within those I did not personally note as a rule the

14 specific unit.

15 Q. To you it was just military police rather than where they came

16 from.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Thank you. Paragraph 1 makes all units of the military police to

19 be subordinated to the military police administration under the command

20 and control of the chief of the military police administration under

21 rules from the government.

22 Were you aware that the chief of the military police

23 administration was a man called Mate Lausic?

24 A. No.

25 MS. MAHINDARATNE: If I may just point out, I think the

Page 1189

1 transcript records the 72nd Military Police Battalion in two places.

2 MR. KAY: I'm very grateful to the Prosecution. I actually can't

3 see the transcript from here.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I understand. Then this is now put on the

5 record.

6 MS. MAHINDARATNE: And I have no objections to this document

7 going in, Mr. President.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then D35 is admitted into evidence.

9 Please proceed.

10 MR. KAY:

11 Q. So in your position within HRAT you had no dealings with the

12 chief of military police?

13 A. I don't recall that we did.

14 Q. Would you have liked to have seen him and set up some kind of

15 coordination project with him?

16 A. We really considered that dealing with General Cermak was

17 adequate to our purposes of informing the authorities of issues that were

18 of concern to us.

19 Q. Right.

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. And it gives here various powers to the chief of the military

22 police administration as to his authorisation to commanders of military

23 police battalions.

24 A. I should say also that I assumed that other components of the UN

25 presence in Knin were dealing with other elements of the Croatian

Page 1190

1 authorities.

2 Q. Yes. And what about in Zagreb, which is really where the

3 headquarters of most institutions were.

4 A. Yes, absolutely. I'm sure that was true as well. That's one

5 reason that we sent our reports to Zagreb, of course.

6 Q. I was going to ask you that later on. Let's just deal with that

7 now because you raise it.

8 Your reports went to which office in Zagreb?

9 A. They went to something called the Humanitarian Crisis Cell, which

10 was, I believe, part of the office of the SRSG at UNCRO headquarters in

11 Zagreb.

12 Q. Thank you. And we can see here that the essential thrust of the

13 whole of this order is that the military police are subordinated to the

14 military police administration. It can be looked at in detail later on.

15 Paragraph 9 on page 2, decisions on manning the active force of

16 military police battalions at the proposal of the battalion commander in

17 agreement with the commander of the military district, other

18 institutions, shall rest with the chief of the military police

19 administration.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Number 10, which is very important for the issues I've been

22 raising before: "All orders regulating the system of command of military

23 police units or manning of military police units in a manner contrary to

24 the Rules of the Organisation and Work of the Military Police of the

25 Republic of Croatia and to this order shall cease to be in effect."

Page 1191

1 So that the terms of this order keep control of the military

2 police within the power of the chief of military police.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And that in fact revokes that order that we were looking at

5 concerning the military police in the garrison regulations. Remember

6 that paragraph I showed you about the military police within the garrison

7 HQ?

8 A. Yes.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne and Mr. Kay -- Ms. Mahindaratne,

10 you said Mr. Kay could check that on the transcript. You said, "I think

11 the transcript records the 72nd Military Police Battalion." I saw as a

12 matter of fact that it was the 77th Military Police Battalion where it

13 should have been the 72nd. That's I take it that you wanted not to refer

14 to what was on the record but what should be on the record.

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: That's correct, Mr. President. I wanted to

16 point out that instead of 72nd it was recorded as 77th.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes and that does not clearly appear on page 36,

18 line 13, but now we have all confusion dealt with. Please proceed.

19 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I was just about to go to a new topic.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then perhaps it would be better to -- to have

21 a break now.

22 MR. KAY: Thank you.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, could you give us any indication as to how

24 much time you still need?

25 MR. KAY: We are doing very well. I had in my mind at the start

Page 1192

1 that I would be about five hours, because obviously this is an important

2 witness for us.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

4 MR. KAY: And I had to amend my papers last night to try and

5 assist the Court in relation to questions that had been made from

6 Your Honour Judge Gwaunza concerning the reports of crimes on the 7th of

7 September, so I've endeavoured to increase it slightly. I hope to inform

8 the Court how long that section will take. I haven't had quite time to

9 work that out, but --

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. If you start saying that you're doing quite

11 well, then we expect some new reduced number of hours. You have said

12 five hours. What is your estimate approximately now?

13 MR. KAY: I think my original estimate was right, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

15 MR. KAY: Looking at how far we've gone.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Of course we are dealing here with quite an

17 extensive 92 ter statement for which even the Prosecution took three

18 additional hours. So could I ask other Defence counsel -- first of all,

19 I don't know to what extent you're aware of what Mr. Kay is exactly

20 dealing with, but, Mr. Misetic, what is your expectation?

21 MR. MISETIC: Your Honour, the order we've agreed upon is that

22 counsel for General Markac will go after Mr. Kay and then the

23 Gotovina Defence. You're absolutely right, it depends on the materials

24 Mr. Kay will cover but as of right now I would say approximately two

25 hours.

Page 1193

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Mr. Mikulicic -- or Mr. -- yes.

2 MR. KUZMANOVIC: Thank you, Your Honour. I'll be conducting the

3 cross of Mr. Flynn and I estimate at this point, depending on what comes

4 in, no more than half an hour.

5 JUDGE ORIE: So that brings us to -- we have now had

6 approximately two and a half hours, I think. Yesterday, was it one hour?

7 Mr. Registrar, could you -- you gave me the information before court, but

8 I think it was close to one hour. One and a half hour, now two and a

9 half. So another four and a half to five hours to go. That's -- yes.

10 That means that, Mr. Flynn, we have still a good expectation that you

11 could leave before the weekend.

12 THE WITNESS: That would be appreciated. Thank you.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Yes. Until now cross-examination has taken --

14 yes. I was a bit overoptimistic. I'll check the numbers later.

15 We'll have a break now. We'll resume at five minutes to 11.00.

16 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

17 --- On resuming at 10.57 a.m.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, are you ready to proceed?

19 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

20 Q. Can we turn to 2D01-0009. We're going to look at a series of

21 newspaper reports now, Mr. Flynn.

22 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, for a minute. May I just have

23 an indication as to the tab number, please, I'd be grateful.

24 MR. KAY: 113.

25 Q. And these deal with Mr. Cermak's job and what he said at the

Page 1194

1 time. The first article is only on our screens at the moment in

2 Croatian.

3 MR. KAY: Your Honour, if it could be --

4 JUDGE ORIE: I have it in English as well on the left side of the

5 screen.

6 MR. KAY: Yes. This is a translation by the Defence,

7 Your Honour, and a document produced by us.

8 JUDGE ORIE: So I take it -- I make one observation here. I

9 noted that some of the documents that were earlier introduced into

10 evidence, the translation was marked as unrevised. Could you please --

11 these were documents provided by the Prosecution, although tendered by

12 the Defence.

13 Could the parties see that we do not have any dubious

14 translations? I'm not saying that if they're unrevised that they're not

15 good, but of course they still need to be revised, and the Chamber would

16 like to avoid that we have major -- especially if we are talking about

17 these core documents as were produced this morning, that at least for

18 those documents that we have proper translations. So could you please

19 perhaps together seek that these important documents are revised and that

20 we have final translations of them.

21 MR. KAY: I tender this into evidence, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Is this part of a series and is it the whole

23 of the series or is it document by document?

24 MR. KAY: It's going to be three documents. We'll do it document

25 by document.

Page 1195

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, that will be number.

2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D36, marked for identification, Your

3 Honours.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

5 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, the link is so tenuous. This

6 is a press article. I don't know what is the basis to have this admitted

7 in evidence through this witness.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

9 MR. KAY: Shall we --

10 JUDGE ORIE: You would prefer that it would be tendered from the

11 bar table or --

12 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, I withdraw -- I do not object,

13 but I just wanted to place on record how I do not object.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then it's admitted into evidence, and it goes

15 without saying that if something is published in a newspaper, it's not

16 for the full hundred per cent sure that it would reflect what someone

17 said or that it reflects what has happened.

18 Please proceed.

19 MR. KAY:

20 Q. D36, Exhibit D36, it's simply a very straightforward report,

21 Mr. Flynn, on matters we were talking about this morning concerning the

22 appointment of Mr. Cermak as the commander of the Knin garrison, which

23 was in the public media.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And exactly the same as the order we looked at this morning about

Page 1196

1 Gojevic as the deputy commander.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And a brief resume of Mr. Cermak's positions in the last five

4 years.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And those are facts that we -- we've already covered, and I've

7 just put this into evidence to say that his position was of a publicly

8 appointed nature. You had a UN press department run by a man called

9 Mr. Roberts within your circle; is that right?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Did he produce articles from the publications of Croatia for you

12 so that you could learn what was happening?

13 A. There was a press service within the UN. I'm not sure if

14 Mr. Roberts himself was responsible for that. There was a lot going on

15 in those days.

16 Q. All right. Did you see this article or a translation of it?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Thank you. Let us now move to, in fact, a press article produced

19 by the Prosecution on their 65 ter list, 4422.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, that would be?

21 MR. KAY: Tab 17.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that would be Exhibit D37, marked

23 for identification.

24 MR. KAY: Do the Prosecution object to it going into evidence?

25 It's on their list.

Page 1197

1 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Then D37 is admitted into evidence.

3 MR. KAY:

4 Q. This is an article dated the 10th of August, 1995. Headline:

5 "We must catch the remaining rebels." And it's an interview with

6 General Cermak about the restoration of Knin and the surrounding area.

7 We can see what's written. I'd like to go to line four: "The

8 newly appointed commander of the Knin garrison HQ Colonel-General

9 Ivan Cermak was confronted with the complex task of coordinating the

10 military and civil police, the UNCRO forces, the European Union peace

11 mediators, in a town without any living conditions, and where there is

12 still a small number of fanatics ..."

13 Again from your observations of his task, what he did, is that an

14 accurate small picture of his role coordinating between the institutions?

15 A. I would say so, and I'd like to say that it was primarily his

16 responsibility as described here for coordinating military and civilian

17 police which was of interest to us with regard to the security situation.

18 I think you have shown that a garrison commander has a number of tasks

19 and duties including some of rather mundane nature, but it was certainly

20 his responsibility with regard to the re-establishment of security that

21 was of particular relevance to our work.

22 Q. Shall we look at the third paragraph, which is a question that's

23 asked, and this is an answer: "We are in the process of restoring the

24 Knin garrison. We are doing our best to bring normality back to a town

25 with no civilian authorities, no water, electricity or telephone lines.

Page 1198

1 On Monday we withdrew Croatian army units from town, deployed them in

2 positions around Knin; the town now has members of the military and

3 civilian police, whose complex job is to bring life back to normal and to

4 keep law and order."

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. An accurate assessment, would you agree, of what was needed on

7 the 10th of August, 1995, in Knin?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. It goes into further detail on page 2. I'm just going to look at

10 the second paragraph. Other matters can be looked at in more detail.

11 Of the second paragraph: "I have spoken to Serbian refugees who

12 are housed in UNCRO's reception camp and many of them want to live in the

13 Croatian republic. They are aware that they made a mistake ..." and then

14 it goes into further detail, ending with: "They had not heard about

15 President Tudjman's missive and lived in great fear ..." and then it

16 mentioned propaganda.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Some did want to live in Croatia; is that right?

19 A. Yes, I knew that many of them had lived all their lives in

20 Croatia and that was where their property was, and so certainly a large

21 number did want to live in Croatia.

22 Q. On page 2, if we look at the bottom paragraph which begins: "Not

23 only do we not have any problems with the peacekeepers, we collaborate

24 extremely well. I have talked to Mr. Akashi and the commanders of UNCRO

25 forces, and we soon found a common language to our mutual satisfaction,

Page 1199

1 so we have agreed on particular aspects of cooperation."

2 Would it be right to say, in fact, there was a cordial

3 relationship between the UN and General Cermak?

4 A. In general I would agree with that, although certainly at times

5 General Forand, for example, took a tough tone in his meetings with

6 General Cermak because he was frustrated with what he saw as a continuing

7 lack of security. So some of the meetings were rather tense in that

8 regard, but fundamentally there was certainly a sense of cordiality, if

9 you will, and mutual respect.

10 Q. Yes. This was a series of problems that the UN was bringing to

11 General Cermak, but he was dealing with them politely. He wasn't being

12 aggressive towards you. You may have disagreed with what was happening,

13 but on the personal, one-to-one level, this was a respectable

14 relationship between you?

15 A. I think so, although I do think there was also, at least in what

16 was said, an evident difference in perception of what was taking place.

17 Now, I don't know if that reflected true beliefs, but sometimes I think

18 our concern for serious lack of security was not fully shared by the

19 general, at least in what he said.

20 Q. We have two sides here, don't we, in the sense of the UN, the

21 Croatian government, and a person from the Croatian state in Knin at that

22 time? You would expect, would you not, for him not to disbelieve his own

23 government or his own people in the same way that you would not

24 disbelieve your UN hierarchy? That's a fair comment, isn't it, in

25 relation to your jobs?

Page 1200

1 A. I think so. I would expect the general to be very careful,

2 certainly, in conceding possibly any wrongdoing or misconduct on the part

3 of the government or agents of the government that he represented, but

4 there were some times in which I felt that plainly evident facts were

5 disputed by the general, such as the wide scale of burning that was

6 taking place in August.

7 Q. Yes. In relation to that relationship, the position adopted by

8 him was, by and large, to present the Croatian point of view; is that

9 right?

10 A. I think so.

11 Q. Yes. But there were occasions when in fact he didn't, and he --

12 he conceded or he said, "No, there is problems, and we must sort it out"?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And there were occasions when incidents were brought to his

15 attention. You used the phrase in your evidence that he said he would

16 order something to be done.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. It's that word "order" that I want to look at, because what he

19 said would have been, "I will speak to the civil police. I will tell the

20 military police." Not order, but saying that he would pass on through

21 information that which you had mentioned. Would you agree with that?

22 A. Yes, but I don't think that I put down incorrectly what was said.

23 I think there may have been some inexactitude on the part of the general

24 about actions he would take and perhaps regarding his actual authority,

25 because when I used the word "order" I didn't use it lightly, and

Page 1201

1 General Cermak did carry himself with a sense that he had a certain

2 authority. But as I said yesterday, I was not and still am not exactly

3 sure of what his actual authority was.

4 Q. Yes. That's apparent from your evidence. And you were, of

5 course, talking through interpreters.

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. If we just go to page 3 of this newspaper report, and it's the

8 last two sentences. "... we hope that thanks to continual coordinated

9 and successful action of Croatian army and police force we will arrest

10 them." That means terrorists, in fact. "After that we shouldn't

11 encounter any great problems in the course of restoring civilian rule,

12 reviving and repairing the town."

13 A. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by terrorists?

14 Q. It comes -- I'm not actually interested in that part and it's a

15 fault of the over-highlighting. I'm actually concerned with the last

16 sentence, Mr. Flynn. It's his function or his job, what he was doing,

17 being involved in restoring civilian rule, reviving and repairing the

18 town, being concentrated upon Knin.

19 A. Yes, absolutely, although he did as, you know, also take a very

20 direct role, for example, in the negotiations regarding the displaced

21 persons in the UN compound who were to be interviewed. Now, whether that

22 is directly related to restoring civilian rule or not is perhaps an open

23 question, but there were some areas that perhaps went somewhat beyond

24 strictly restoring normality to a community.

25 Q. That was the point I put to you concerning helping the UN as a --

Page 1202

1 one of his jobs that he was doing. His door was always open to you,

2 wasn't it?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And he was available, either him or someone, in his office for

5 you to --

6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, this is repetitious.

7 MR. KAY: I'm sorry.

8 JUDGE ORIE: This has been answered these questions about the

9 openness and always even without short notice. Please proceed.

10 MR. KAY: I will move on.

11 JUDGE ORIE: If you are about to leave this document I would like

12 know because I would like to seek clarification.

13 MR. KAY: I am leaving this document.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Flynn, both on the first page and perhaps we

15 could go back to that, we find a reference to -- and I'll try to read

16 slowly: "Are there still any armed rebel Serbs in Knin who did not

17 surrender when the Croatian army entered?" And then in the answer: "We

18 find that there are still many Serbs -- rebel Serbs in town, but you

19 can't see them during the day, but during the night they behave like

20 common criminals, slyly ambushing our police force. There are still

21 quite a few of them."

22 This seems to be referring to the same what we found on the last

23 page, that is that people should be arrested.

24 Does this correspond with what you at that time learned about

25 terrorist attacks as it's even mentioned on the first page by Serb rebels

Page 1203

1 attacking the Croatian police? Is that -- does it fit in the information

2 you received at that time?

3 THE WITNESS: No. I don't recall that that was the situation,

4 Your Honour, after about the 6th of August. From the UN side I don't

5 think that there was a sense that there were rebel Serbs in the town, for

6 example, who were actively targeting Croatian units. After a couple of

7 weeks it became evident that there were some holdout members of the RSK

8 army who were in the hills and more or less in hiding, and I don't

9 exclude that there may have been a number of attacks of small scale they

10 might have been involved with, but certainly in the town itself there was

11 no sense that there were still rebel Serbs who were posing a threat.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

13 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

14 MR. KAY: Thank you. Next if we can produce 65 ter number 530,

15 tab 11. This is a newspaper article of the next day, the 11th of August,

16 1995, an interview with General Cermak, and its detail can be looked at

17 on another occasion, but I just want to ask about the first paragraph,

18 Your Honour?

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, that would be number.

20 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D38, marked for identification,

21 Your Honours.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Ms. Mahindaratne, could you already --

23 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

24 JUDGE ORIE: No objections. Exhibit D38 is admitted into

25 evidence. Please proceed.

Page 1204

1 MR. KAY: Thank you.

2 Q. This article here, we can see on the sixth line the question is

3 asked of Mr. Cermak: "Dr. Tudjman has appointed you commander of the

4 Knin garrison. What are your tasks and jobs in the conditions of the

5 immediate aftermath of the liberation of Knin?"

6 So the question in fact that I've been asking you this morning.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. The reply is: "My task is to coordinate the establishment of the

9 civil authority and the running of all systems necessary for a normal

10 life of the town. That includes coordinating the work of the civilian

11 police, the military police, and civilian authority. Currently, there is

12 no civilian authority in Knin. The government has appointed its

13 commissioner, Petar Pasic, who will start creating the civilian

14 organisation of government on the territory of the former municipality on

15 Wednesday."

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. That then was a contemporaneous description by him of his tasks

18 and jobs. From your dealings with him, would you agree with -- with that

19 observation?

20 A. Yes, although it doesn't mention in his comments the -- the

21 matter of the persons in the UN compound, but of course that's mentioned

22 earlier in that article.

23 Q. Yes. Thank you very much. I'm going now to a new matter and it

24 concerns the role of the police, starting first of all with Cedo Romanic,

25 who was the chief of police for Kotar Knin area. Isn't that right?

Page 1205

1 A. Yes.

2 MR. KAY: And, Your Honours, for reference purposes this is from

3 the statement P20, page 10, line 20, and page 12, line 4 onwards to

4 assist the Court in a cross-reference.

5 Q. And in your statement you made several observations about

6 Mr. Romanic. I would like to turn first of all, to deal with this

7 through documents, to 65 ter number 1687, tab 31.

8 This is the appointment of Mr. Romanic as chief of the Kotar Knin

9 police on the 5th of August, 1995.

10 MR. KAY: Your Honour.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

12 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D39, marked for identification,

13 Your Honours.

14 JUDGE ORIE: The Prosecution.

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE ORIE: No objection. D39 is admitted into evidence.

17 MR. KAY: Thank you.

18 Q. Cedo Romanic. You knew his first name, didn't you?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. This is his appointment, chief of the Knin district police

21 administration. In fact, from the 5th of August, 1995.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Just a minor matter: In your first statement you may recollect

24 that you said that you believed that he came slightly after you.

25 A. Oh, okay.

Page 1206

1 Q. Probably a mistake.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And we can see there the personal details, and also the name of

4 the minister who appointed him, Mr. Jarnjak.

5 Again this makes it apparent that he has come from the MUP within

6 the Sibenik police administration.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Thank you. The next document I would like to see is 65 ter 2431,

9 tab 69.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that would be Exhibit D40, marked

12 for identification.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Any objections yet?

14 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No, Mr. President.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Then D40 is admitted into evidence.

16 MR. KAY: This just needs a little introduction. The document

17 that the Prosecution were putting on the 65 ter arises from an inquiry by

18 the Defence, and obviously it was released by the government to the OTP.

19 We turn to page 2 where information is given concerning the

20 police stations which were set up in the liberated area.

21 Q. And you can see Kotar Knin police administration, and Knin police

22 station were set up on the 6th of August, 1995, being the day before you

23 arrived.

24 A. Yes, although I'm not sure what "set up" would mean exactly.

25 Obviously there's a big difference between an administrative formality

Page 1207

1 and actually becoming operational.

2 Q. You visited the actual police station in Knin?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Can you remember the date of your first visit?

5 A. I really can't. It must have been within the first week I was

6 there, but I just can't remember.

7 Q. Yes. In terms of the set-up of that police station, would it be

8 right to -- to bear in mind when you first got there it would be early

9 days of its establishment?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Let's say you went there within the first week. Would it be fair

12 to say that it was not well equipped?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. That it was a basic building; is that right?

15 A. Right.

16 Q. How many police cars did they have?

17 A. I would hate to venture a guess, because I couldn't know what --

18 which cars were parked there, which might have been out, but what was

19 notable is that away from the police station it was very rare to see a

20 police vehicle.

21 Q. Yes. And you were aware of a problem here that they had taken

22 control of a previously occupied area and had to set up this kind of

23 institution?

24 A. Oh, absolutely.

25 Q. We can see on this document the dates of other police stations

Page 1208

1 being opened up, on the 5th of August, and 8th of August, Drnis, Obrovac,

2 Benkovac, Gracac, Korenica, Donji Lapac, Donji Srb. Did you visit those

3 police stations?

4 A. No, and I must say I would tend to take this information with a

5 grain of salt as we say in English. For example, we couldn't go to

6 Benkovac until more than a week after that date, and if there was a

7 police station there I'm surprised the UN wasn't even permitted access to

8 the town. So I find these dates a little hard to believe, again in terms

9 of any operational capacity, even a pretty minimal operational capacity

10 for some of these towns.

11 Q. Which was the problem that was faced generally with -- with the

12 events that had happened?

13 A. Yes. No, I think that's a fair statement.

14 Q. Yes. If we go to the next document, which is 2D01-0011, tab 115.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D41, Your Honours, marked for

17 identification.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, you have the document on your

19 list?

20 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Yes. No objections, Mr. President.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Then D41 is admitted into evidence.

22 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

23 Q. This is a document dated the 4th of August. It comes from the

24 MUP, the assistant minister of whom was a man called Josko Moric.

25 Did you know Josko Moric?

Page 1209

1 A. I don't believe so.

2 Q. Did you have any dealings with the senior police officers?

3 A. In Knin you mean?

4 Q. Generally in Croatia. How far up did you go in relation to your

5 contacts?

6 A. Well, really only to the local chief. We didn't go any higher

7 within the Ministry of the Interior.

8 Q. Right. The local chief being Mr. Romanic?

9 A. Yes. And I think we had dealings in the -- in the second and

10 third week of August, I believe, with -- I think there was a police chief

11 in Korenica, if I recall, and in Gracac.

12 Q. Right. Those other police stations that we've looked at in -- in

13 the list.

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Which you said were probably set up later.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Did you have dealings at all with a police officer called Cetina?

18 A. I don't remember that.

19 Q. Who would have been Romanic's superior?

20 A. I don't believe so.

21 Q. Very well. I'm dealing with the aspect of your testimony

22 concerning the role of the police and what they were -- were doing, which

23 is why we're looking at these documents. This is dated on the 4th of

24 August, 1995. It is to all police administrations as we can see on page

25 1, and we can see the terms of why this was issued, and it's a series of

Page 1210

1 orders concerning the organisation to be adopted by all police

2 administrations effective for Operation Storm. That would be right,

3 wouldn't it?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And we can see the concerns and the orders made. Paragraph 3,

6 step up security and monitoring of the crossing of the border. Step up

7 monitoring of vehicles, passengers in vehicles, and inspect vehicles.

8 And then in 6, an order that puts that into the context of Operation

9 Storm because it concerns the attacks that were obviously happening on

10 that -- that day.

11 So that's a document about preparation. Can we turn to 65 ter

12 number 4553 -- 4534, sorry. 4534. Tab 101.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

14 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D42, marked for identification,

15 Your Honours.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

17 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

18 JUDGE ORIE: D42 is admitted into evidence.

19 MR. KAY: Yes.

20 Q. 7th of August, 1995. Subject, assistance the Zadar Knin police

21 administration. For the needs of a rapid terrain clearance of the town

22 Knin, urgently mobilise 100 civilian protection conscripts from the area

23 of Sinj. The unit shall be dispatched for jobs relating to the clearing

24 of the terrain and roads in the area of Knin. And signed by an assistant

25 minister, which is a document that shows that the MUP could take steps to

Page 1211

1 increase police strength or assistance if they wanted to.

2 A. I don't have any knowledge of that. I don't know what their

3 actual capacity was.

4 Q. Yes, but on the face of this order it seems that this assistant

5 minister was ordering that rapidly and urgently that 100 conscripts go to

6 the area?

7 A. That's what it says, yes.

8 Q. And in fact it was a concern of yours about the failure of the

9 police to order more policemen to the area, and that's apparent from your

10 statement.

11 A. Well, or to actually effectively ensure that more police showed

12 up. We weren't, needless to say, concerned about the order or not, but I

13 was concerned with what we saw on the ground.

14 Q. Yeah. You appreciated that you were dealing with a state that

15 ran on a hierarchical system, didn't it?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And at the top somewhere someone would have to order extra

18 policemen who would have to come to the region?

19 A. Yes.

20 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, I think the document that

21 Mr. Kay is referring to is not the document that's on the screen. I'm

22 finding it difficult to follow.

23 MR. KAY: It's the one I've got.

24 JUDGE ORIE: What -- I have on my screen a document, although

25 it's difficult to see because it's not zoomed in, the 5th of August, 1995

Page 1212

1 with the letterhead Republic of Croatia, Ministry of the Interior.

2 That's what I have on my screen.

3 MS. MAHINDARATNE: That is the same but I thought Mr. Kay

4 referred to a document dated 7th August, which is what is on the

5 transcript.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Let me just check on the transcript. Could you give

7 us line and page where the 7th of August appears?

8 MR. KAY: Yes, I did Your Honour, because I put my gaze on to

9 another similar order and it's my mistake, and the Prosecution is quite

10 right. There were --

11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I see that although it appears that the

12 substance and content might be approximately the same --

13 MR. KAY: Yes.

14 JUDGE ORIE: -- that you are talking about two different

15 documents and this document is of the 5th of August, apparently.

16 MR. KAY: Yes, it is. And it's my mistake. The substance is

17 very similar. Dispatch 100 personnel and the Zagreb PU another 100

18 personnel to Zadar Knin police station.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

20 MR. KAY:

21 Q. So the MUP was aware of the need for policemen in the area,

22 certainly on this date, the 5th of August. That's right?

23 A. It seems so.

24 Q. And if we look at 4553, tab 103 --

25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

Page 1213

1 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that becomes Exhibit D43, marked

2 for identification.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

4 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

5 JUDGE ORIE: D43 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

6 MR. KAY: I'll deal with this quickly.

7 Q. One hundred civil protection conscripts, which was the document I

8 was wrongly looking at before. So again support from the top being given

9 to this region by the Ministry of Interior so it would seem?

10 A. I'm sorry, it's just coming up on my screen. I'm not sure I

11 really understand what "rapid terrain clearance" means here, the clearing

12 of the terrain and roads in the area.

13 Q. Yeah.

14 A. I'm not sure if that is, you know, removal of debris or if it

15 could mean clearing of the terrorists who were alleged to be there, I

16 just don't know.

17 Q. Whatever --

18 A. Yeah.

19 Q. It seems --

20 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, it seems that in the original it is

21 ciscenje, the language, which has given rise in many cases before this

22 Tribunal through a thorough investigation on what that actually means.

23 Yes, Mr. Misetic.

24 MR. MISETIC: Okay. Thank you, Your Honour. I was just reading

25 the first sentence does not say ciscenje. It says asanacija. It is in

Page 1214

1 the second sentence though, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, the second sentence. Yes.

3 MR. KAY: Thank you. We've got the documents there and I've got

4 no need to dwell on it too much. Let's go to the next section of

5 documents which concern cooperation between the MUP and the military

6 police. So 65 ter 2206, tab 71.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this becomes Exhibit D44, marked

9 for identification.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

12 JUDGE ORIE: D44 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

13 MR. KAY:

14 Q. We're looking at this because of your concern in the statement

15 about not having sufficient forces and not having sufficient control in

16 this area and we'll look at this document first of all which is from the

17 military police administration, 3rd of August. We can see the 72nd

18 Military Police Battalion Split as well as other battalions, and its

19 subject: "Activities of the military police, cooperation, joint

20 activities of the civilian and military police, obligations of the

21 military police towards the arrested paramilitary and militia members."

22 And we can see a series of orders emanating from the 3rd of

23 August, a working meeting between the MUP has been held. The tactics and

24 method of the MUP -- of the military police and the civilian police in

25 the beginning of the attacks in the newly liberated areas were agreed

Page 1215

1 according to the conclusions in order to implement them on all levels of

2 command in the army.

3 And we can go through quickly on page 2. This order makes the

4 police administrations and commanders of police stations bodies to which

5 the military police must contact immediately on all levels of command,

6 set up check-points, follow the progress the army, jointly patrol to

7 ensure public order and peace in towns, and other duties.

8 Page 3 concerns paramilitaries and how people are to be taken to

9 reception centres, questioning, and how people are to be dealt with.

10 And on page 4 we see it emanates from Major General Lausic.

11 So this seems, certainly at the beginning, that there was a plan

12 by the military police to coordinate with the MUP in relation to security

13 in the area.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay. Mr. Kay, are you asking the witness about

15 whether he observed anything, or are you asking the witness to interpret

16 what this document says, where it then would need a foundation why he is

17 the person who should do that and why not, for example, the Bench.

18 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I suppose I'm guilty of taking this

19 quickly and at speed because of the time.

20 JUDGE ORIE: I do understand but even within the time allocated

21 to you, you should still follow the rules. Please proceed.

22 MR. KAY: I understand, Your Honour, and it's a very good -- good

23 ruling.

24 Q. In your dealings with the civil police, were you aware that the

25 Knin police administration had, in fact, obligations, as well as the

Page 1216

1 military police having obligations, to coordinate and work together?

2 A. Not particularly.

3 Q. Were you aware that there were a whole series of -- of orders,

4 nothing to do with the Zborno Mjesto of Knin, General Cermak that had

5 been issued relating to the duties and obligations of the military police

6 and the civilian police to work together to provide peace and security?

7 A. I find this very surprising, because well into my stay there

8 there seemed to be, as I say, a minimal police presence, and we

9 repeatedly and earnestly brought this to the attention of the authorities

10 including General Cermak and Police Chief Romanic, because I felt that

11 there was a serious deficiency in security in the area. So it's quite

12 remarkable to see these orders.

13 Q. You were unaware of the orders --

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. -- that I'm about to look at with you, and it's relevant to your

16 opinion and beliefs and thoughts at the time, which is why I'm bringing

17 them to your attention. You didn't know the background behind the

18 military police or the civil police in terms of what they had to do?

19 A. Well, I knew what their responsibilities were, but I didn't know

20 their duties pursuant to these orders that you -- that you showed.

21 Q. Yes. That's pre-Storm on the 3rd of August, and we're going to

22 look further down -- down the line.

23 MR. KAY: If we'd bring up 65 ter 431, tab 99. Your Honour?

24 JUDGE ORIE: A number should be assigned. Mr. Registrar.

25 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D45, marked for identification,

Page 1217

1 Your Honours.

2 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Then D45 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

4 MR. KAY:

5 Q. This arises from that last question I asked you. It's dated the

6 4th of August. It comes from the military police administration whose

7 chief was General Lausic. It's the records of a meeting they'd had on

8 the 3rd of August with the Assistant Minister of the Interior

9 Josko Moric. We've seen an order from him already today. Mr. Djurica,

10 chief of police sector. Mr. Nadj [phoen], chief of crime.

11 Colonel Gugic, chief of the ministry of defence information and security

12 service administration.

13 And if we look at page 2, it's delivered to regular military

14 police department, crime military police department, traffic department.

15 Page 3, on the 4th of August, sets out the working meeting of

16 those leaders of those departments, and its topic was coordination of

17 activities of MUP, military police, intelligence services in the period

18 of preparation and during the planned offensive actions of the Croatian

19 army in the following period.

20 And if we turn to page 4 --

21 A. I'm sorry, when you say MUP that means civilian police?

22 Q. Yes. Ministry of Interior. It's become a common phrase in this

23 court here --

24 A. Right, I remember it.

25 Q. -- well, all courts here. Yes. I'm sorry.

Page 1218

1 And we can see on page 4, Mr. Moric, the assistant minister of

2 the ministry of interior, the MUP, pointed out the fundamental principles

3 of the operation of the police and military police in the state of war

4 based on their experiences. Major General Mate Lausic, head of the

5 military police are aware of negative experiences. They have to ensure

6 full cooperation and absolute carrying out of tasks from the scope of

7 their activities.

8 Page 5. I'm just taking passages as this can be read at length

9 later on.

10 In the second paragraph Major General Lausic said about the

11 meeting of the highest officials had among others render the military

12 police and the MUP responsible for complete efficiency in carrying out

13 tasks during combat activities of the Croatian army; pointed out that the

14 commanders of HV units were warned that they would be personally

15 responsible for the discipline of their subordinates, otherwise not even

16 a much larger number of the military police force would be able to

17 ensure -- secure discipline.

18 This report goes on and I don't have time to deal with all of

19 those factors, but it comes down to this arrangement they had for

20 cooperating in providing security in the area at the highest level?

21 A. Would it be possible to scroll down just a bit --

22 Q. Sure.

23 A. -- on the English version? Thank you.

24 Q. Which page are you on?

25 A. That's okay. The Court has done that. And is there a page after

Page 1219

1 this?

2 Q. Yes, there are other pages.

3 A. Oh, okay.

4 Q. And there are nine pages, in fact, and I've distilled the essence

5 of it. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, but --

6 A. I was just trying to see the extent to which it addressed in

7 particular the post-combat situation.

8 Q. We will get to that, in fact.

9 A. Okay.

10 Q. Because what I'm putting to you are a series of measures.

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, if the witness wants to read

12 the document in its entirety, I think it's fair to let him if the witness

13 is going to be questioned on it.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Is there any wish on your part to read the document

15 as a whole?

16 THE WITNESS: Maybe not at this moment, Your Honour, but perhaps

17 I would request to do so depending on the question.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps -- yes. Okay. Then perhaps -- sometimes it

19 saves time if there is any problem of context that the witness is allowed

20 to read the document during the break and that then questions will be put

21 to him.

22 So please proceed, but if there's at any moment you feel the need

23 that you need to know more about the context of what was read to you,

24 please tell us so that we can take appropriate measures.

25 THE WITNESS: I will.

Page 1220

1 MR. KAY:

2 Q. It's just a simple point that arises and why I'm using this

3 document, is there was this structure, nothing to do with General Cermak,

4 between the MUP and the military police as to their responsibilities and

5 obligations.

6 MS. MAHINDARATNE: I object to that, Mr. President. The witness

7 is being asked to give an interpretation to a document, and I don't know

8 whether there is a basis for that question.

9 JUDGE ORIE: As a matter of fact, it is not even a question. It

10 is an observation by Mr. Kay why he addresses this document. So I'm

11 waiting for his question.

12 MR. KAY: And it was going to be this:

13 Q. Were you aware of that at the time in your dealings with

14 Cedo Romanic, for example?

15 A. No, I wasn't aware of these documents and these orders that you

16 have shown me.

17 Q. Yeah. The reason why I'm showing them is because of your

18 thoughts that Mr. Cermak somehow controlled Cedo Romanic so that he was

19 within his hierarchy or some connection, and that's why I'm showing you

20 these documents which you weren't aware of at the time, but you've given

21 your thoughts and beliefs.

22 A. My main impression was that the relationship there related to

23 resources for the most part, that General Cermak could play a role with

24 regard to the resources that were put at the disposal of the police

25 forces, but I was not certain of General Cermak's capacity in that

Page 1221

1 regard.

2 Q. Right. I'm going to move now quickly to 65 ter 2299, tab 73.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

4 THE REGISTRAR: D46 marked for identification, Your Honours.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, could you already ...

6 MR. KAY: It's a Prosecution --

7 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Then D46 is admitted into evidence.

9 Mr. Kay, I must confess to you that the issue just raised by

10 Ms. Mahindaratne, the context of the document, reading the whole of the

11 document is keeping me busy behind my screens here. Going through

12 certain elements of a document where the whole of the document is in

13 evidence creates some puzzles now and then. Just to give you an example,

14 the 3rd of August document you referred to earlier, that is the

15 pre-Operation Storm document, apart from the parts you referred to I also

16 read, for example, at paragraph 3 that women, children, and elderly

17 people from the liberated areas should be handed over by the MP members

18 to the closest police station, and then it follows that they have to be

19 registered.

20 That is -- it doesn't say anything about being arrested.

21 Nevertheless, apparently groups of the population, of which one would

22 wonder why they have to be handed over to police, that leaves a puzzle

23 which might be worthwhile to address at any moment either by the

24 Prosecution or the Defence. And also since they have to be registered

25 there, whether there are any such registers, whether this Chamber would

Page 1222

1 find people of all ethnicities on those registers or a specific

2 ethnicity. That's -- this raises quite a lot of questions.

3 Therefore, reading the whole of the document, I tried to do it at

4 the same time listening to your questions.

5 MR. KAY: Yes.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

7 MR. KAY: Your Honour, please accept, and the Bench, my

8 apologies. I know it's a tough task.

9 JUDGE ORIE: No. I'm just telling you what goes through my mind,

10 because sometimes it may help the parties to know what approximately

11 comes to the mind of the Bench so that they can probably respond to that

12 or pay attention to it. Please proceed.

13 MR. KAY: Yes. Thank you.

14 Q. There are many documents, Mr. Flynn, and I have taken a few to

15 provide a little picture of each of these sections that I'm dealing with

16 in terms of your evidence --

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. -- and as I have put to you what the facts were concerning

19 General Cermak, which is my responsibility.

20 A. I understand.

21 Q. So we're looking at this letter dated the 10th of August, 1995,

22 from the Military Police Chief General Lausic, and it says: "According

23 to reports from the field and in particular the territories from --"

24 sorry, Assistant Minister Moric, my mistake, to General Lausic.

25 "According to reports from the field, and in particular the territories

Page 1223

1 of Lika-Senj and Zadar-Knin police administrations," with which we are

2 concerned, "... cases are being noted of individual Croatian army members

3 on liberated territory stealing movable property, burning houses and

4 killing cattle that strays around the area."

5 So a problem which reflects the matters you've raised in your

6 evidence. That's right, isn't it?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. "In addition, there is a lack of cooperation at check-points,

9 roadblocks between the police and the military police.

10 "We understand the size and nature of the tasks that you have to

11 contend with, we kindly ask you to take measures to eliminate these

12 things."

13 So a significant letter from the assistant minister in relation

14 to ongoing problems on the 10th of August that had been brought to his

15 attention from the police administration.

16 A. It is significant. You're of course not asking me to comment on

17 the reliability of every statement in that letter.

18 Q. No.

19 A. For example, the reference to individual Croatian army members.

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. No.

22 Q. That would be something as a given that you would take issue with

23 from the terms of your evidence. But what I'm asking you about it is --

24 is this, that there again behind Cedo Romanic in the hierarchy of the

25 civil police, the assistant minister writing to the chief of the military

Page 1224

1 police saying what are you going to do about these problems that we're

2 facing?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Something that you were unaware of in the background and unaware

5 of when you made your statement in 1998?

6 A. I was unaware of this letter, yes, and that sort of activity.

7 Q. Yes. As I said, and this won't -- this is a fact. There is a

8 selection of documents here to give this convenient picture relating to

9 your testimony, and there are a few more on this subject I want to turn

10 to as they advance in time.

11 65 ter 1133.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

13 MR. KAY: Tab 67.

14 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D47, marked for identification,

15 Your Honours.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

17 Ms. Mahindaratne.

18 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Then D47 is admitted into evidence.

20 MR. KAY:

21 Q. The previous document we looked at, as you quite rightly pointed

22 out, you would disagree with the characterisation in that report of

23 individual cases.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. But it would seem that that's what had been put up the chain from

Page 1225

1 the police station level to the assistant minister.

2 A. Well, I'm not -- I can't say that for sure.

3 Q. Unless he characterised it like that and that's another option.

4 A. Right.

5 Q. We're looking now at the document from the military police

6 administration, again dated the 14th of August. We can see the

7 72nd Battalion of the Split Military Police. It's subject is the

8 implementation of military and police tasks in the zones of

9 responsibility of the military police units.

10 It's an order. It's post-Operation Storm order as you can in the

11 first paragraph. And then point 1 concerning combat readiness. No need

12 to tarry there, but page 2. In paragraph 3: "I will leave it to the

13 commanders of the military police units to decide when they will

14 completely abolish their forward command post."

15 It deals with zones of responsibility in paragraph 5 and 6.

16 Let's go to 7. Third line: "... commanders of the military

17 police shall start to analyse check-points in their zones of

18 responsibility, and in line with the assessment and together with the

19 MUP, police station commanders, police administration chiefs, they shall

20 set up joint check-points which will work energetically to prevent

21 unauthorised entry. They shall check and search cars to prevent

22 uncontrolled and unauthorised removal of 'war booty' from the newly

23 liberated areas."

24 At page 3 is a series of orders concerning check-points, and in

25 paragraph 11 the duty to provide as requested by the commander of the

Page 1226

1 72nd the necessary assistance with forces and equipment to carry out

2 military and police tasks in the newly liberated area, as well as in

3 Split and Sibenik.

4 So again behind what you were dealing with, there appears to have

5 been a hierarchy in which the problems you were concerned with on the

6 face of it were being addressed at the highest level.

7 A. This documentation all looks perfectly in order, but of course on

8 the ground there was nothing like this sort of order.

9 Q. Exactly. Exactly. And that's my point to you about Mr. Cermak's

10 role, because this is completely outside his domain. There is a separate

11 hierarchy that you were unfamiliar with which had the responsibility to

12 deal with these issues of concern?

13 A. Well, but again there were occasions in which General Cermak made

14 representations to us about communicating concerns to Zagreb. As I say,

15 on one or two occasions his comments were translated to me as ordering

16 increased police presence, although in reviewing my notes I also saw that

17 in early September at one point he made a comment about requesting

18 strengthened forces, police forces, from Zagreb. So -- and I also would

19 reiterate that Mr. Romanic appeared to think that some of the resources

20 available to him depended to some extent on General Cermak. But it's

21 quite right that there is an extensive amount of paperwork here that

22 would indicate another forum in which these issues were being discussed.

23 Q. And that's the point of these questions, Mr. Flynn, concerning

24 your statement and your assessment in 1998 involving Mr. Cermak. You

25 were unaware of all this information.

Page 1227

1 A. I was.

2 Q. Yes. And what this document shows, that certainly on the face of

3 it, in paragraph 11, that the -- another battalion of the military police

4 has the duty to provide support to the battalion that was in the Knin

5 area, the 72nd, with the necessary assistance, that the issues concerning

6 provision of support that you were concerned with were -- were being put

7 down to a particular commander and he was told to do something about it.

8 A. That's what these documents indicate, yes.

9 Q. Yes. Yes. And the next document 65 ter number 2391, 17th of

10 August, tab 53.

11 MR. KAY: Your Honour.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar. Yes, I drew the attention of the

13 registrar to something else at this very moment, so I'm guilty.

14 MR. KAY: A D number.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Mr. Registrar.

16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D48, marked for identification,

17 Your Honours.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

19 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

20 JUDGE ORIE: No objection. Yes. D48 is admitted into evidence.

21 MR. KAY:

22 Q. You quite rightly, Mr. Flynn, pointed out that you would take

23 exception with the individual cases and this letter here on the 17th of

24 August of Mr. Moric at the Ministry of Interior to the military police

25 commander, the chief Mr. Lausic, indicates that there are great problems

Page 1228

1 in this area that we're talking about?

2 A. If I may just observe this document we're talking about is

3 labelled top secret so of course there was really no way I would have

4 known about this document at the time.

5 Q. Yes, yes. And that's a fair point in relation to your state of

6 knowledge.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. "It is apparent from reports submitted by police stations and

9 police administrations that cases of houses being burned down and other

10 people's property being stolen are recorded on a daily basis in the

11 territory liberated in the Storm operation. Perpetrators of these acts

12 in most cases are wearing Croatian army uniforms. Our information points

13 to these persons who are formally and in effect members of the Croatian

14 army but that there are problems over those who are not and are abusing

15 the uniform. I hope you will understand the problems that the civilian

16 police faces, which is legally bound to protect life and property. I

17 therefore conclude that the joint work of the military and civilian

18 police in this area has not produced up to now results in accordance with

19 the basic provisions of our state policies and legal system and that it

20 needs to be changed. We need a new method in order to eliminate these

21 problems."

22 A. Could I just ask, this is from whom and to whom again?

23 Q. This is from the assistant minister Josko Moric.

24 A. Of the interior?

25 Q. Of the interior. Who is in charge of the civil police. All

Page 1229

1 right?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. To the man in charge of the military police, General Lausic. So

4 at the highest levels on an operational level, we've been looking at a

5 series of documents between these two.

6 A. I see.

7 Q. Above them are the ministers.

8 A. Right.

9 Q. But it's these two in the paperwork. And they know their work

10 has been a failure from the terms of this letter.

11 A. It would seem so.

12 Q. Yes. So again Mr. Cermak is not a person to whom this problem is

13 being referred to at that level. You would agree?

14 A. That's true, although I do believe there was a reference to a

15 certain role of coordination between military and civilian police, but

16 no, certainly, I wouldn't attribute to General Cermak a leading role in

17 dealing with these kinds of issues when assistant ministers, if that's

18 what they are, are exchanging correspondence on this issue. Of course

19 they have to base their findings on information they get from the field.

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. And I'm sure that General Cermak would have played a role in that

22 as others presumably would have.

23 Q. No.

24 JUDGE ORIE: That's the field of speculation whether someone

25 would have played a role in something. And, Mr. Kay, it appears clearly

Page 1230

1 that this correspondence is not addressed to or coming from Mr. Cermak.

2 MR. KAY: Yes.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Whatever that means is a different matter, but I

4 think it's not very useful to -- I mean, that's so perfectly clear that

5 we don't have to pay a lot of attention to that.

6 MR. KAY: I'm grateful for that, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

8 MR. KAY: And I'm just looking at this document now on the 18th

9 of August, 65 ter 644, tab 85.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

11 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D49, marked for identification,

12 Your Honours.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne, any objections?

14 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No, Mr. President.

15 JUDGE ORIE: D49 is admitted into evidence.

16 Please proceed, Mr. Kay.

17 MR. KAY:

18 Q. Again I'm producing this because of your perception of

19 Mr. Romanic and his role, which in your statement made him in a way look

20 powerless, but here we have a document dated the 18th of August from the

21 Ministry of the Interior, the assistant minister Josko Moric. We can

22 look at his signature at the end of this document. To the police

23 administrations, and you'll see Zadar -Knin.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And you'll see on page 2 that it goes to the chief at Knin. So

Page 1231

1 we go to the superior police administration down to the police station at

2 Knin. And Mr. Moric in this order says: "Written and oral reports by

3 police stations and police administrations shows that these are daily

4 cases of torching of houses, illegal taking away of people's movable

5 property ...

6 "Most acts perpetrated by individuals wearing Croatian army

7 uniforms. The facts indicate that these individuals are, formally and

8 actually, members of the Croatian army, but there are individuals who are

9 not ... who are wrongfully wearing Croatian uniforms.

10 "Torching of houses and taking of property assumed such

11 proportions that it is inflicting political damage on the Republic of

12 Croatia both in the country and abroad.

13 "In order to put a stop to this problem, I hereby issue the

14 following order."

15 So this order was going to Mr. Romanic, page 3.

16 "Police administration chiefs must immediately convene a meeting

17 with commanders of military police, battalions, to inform them of the

18 problem and of the decision to put a stop to it. The meeting must be

19 informed of the decision about those crimes and put a stop to it as of

20 today."

21 When you look at that paragraph 2, this needs further

22 examination. "The meeting must be informed of the decision that cases of

23 torching of housing and illegal taking away of people's movable property

24 that have hitherto occurred will not be operatively investigated, but a

25 stop must be put to cases of this type as of today."

Page 1232

1 Were you aware of that?

2 A. No.

3 Q. That they weren't going to investigate according to the assistant

4 minister those crimes until this date of the 18th of August with which

5 you have been concerned?

6 A. I find that rather inexplicable, and I certainly wasn't aware of

7 that order.

8 Q. No.

9 A. I would also point out that there were a number of killings that

10 occurred before the 18th of August, and certainly those would have

11 required investigation if nothing else. I'm not sure if they are

12 referred to in this document or not.

13 Q. No. But that's a very fair observation.

14 Paragraph 3 about check-points being mixed between civilian and

15 military.

16 Paragraph 4: "It should be agreed as of today an on-site

17 investigation and forensic and operative processing will be conducted

18 after every case of torching of houses and taking property.

19 "If the military police can't do it the civilian police will do

20 it alone, irrespective of whether the perpetrator wears a Croatian army

21 uniform or not.

22 "Commanders of military police battalions are to be requested to

23 inform, through the line command, commanders at the lower levels of

24 responsibility of this order.

25 "Police administration chiefs shall relay this order to

Page 1233

1 commanders of all police stations and branch police stations and

2 immediately send reports."

3 A. Excuse me. Is this an order given by Mr. Moric also to military

4 police or only to civilian police?

5 Q. Only to civilian police on the pages.

6 A. Yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, at the last question the witness put, and I

8 ask you, as a matter of fact, to interpret this document which comes a

9 bit of a surprise, but it exactly deals with the same matter, the same

10 question I had, and I'm not inviting you to tell us what -- how we have

11 to understand this document but, rather, how the Defence understands this

12 document so that we know at least what your position is.

13 MR. KAY: Yes.

14 JUDGE ORIE: In 1 and 2, police administration chiefs, that are

15 civilian police administrations I do understand, must immediately convene

16 a meeting with the commanders of the military police.

17 MR. KAY: Yes.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Now, in paragraph 2 it says: "The meeting must be

19 informed," I cannot understand that in any way and else by those who are

20 ordered to organise such a meeting, "of the decision," unclear by whom,

21 "that cases of torching of houses and illegal taking away of people's

22 movable property that have hitherto occurred will not be operatively

23 investigated."

24 Now, therefore, that's how I understand this document at this

25 moment, civilian police commanders have to convene a meeting with

Page 1234

1 military police commanders to inform them about what has happened, and

2 also to inform them that any of these acts that hitherto occurred will

3 not be operatively investigated.

4 Does that mean that the civilian police tells the military

5 police, "We're not going to do it"? Or are they saying, "Whether by you

6 or by us, we'll leave it behind us. We just look to the future and will

7 not investigate what has been done"?

8 Therefore, I fully understood the question of the witness, and

9 I'd like know the position of the Defence how you understand especially

10 these paragraphs.

11 MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honour --

12 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not inviting you at this moment to start

13 arguments, but in order to follow your line of questioning and to better

14 understand the evidence that you're presenting, it might be interesting

15 for us to know how you interpret these two paragraphs.

16 MR. KAY: What was happening here was that there was a complete

17 hierarchy working entirely on its own without Mr. Cermak on both the

18 police -- military police side, civilian police side at their highest

19 level, that the responsibility for the failures of those particular

20 bodies, military police and the civilian police, was not a responsibility

21 of General Cermak. This --

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, that's not an answer to my question.

23 MR. KAY: I'm sorry, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not asking whether -- I just want to know

25 whether he, the civilian police, is sent to inform and to instruct the

Page 1235

1 military police as well not to investigate, or whether you say, no, this

2 is just an instruction for the civilian police not to investigate and to

3 inform the military police of the non-investigation. I'm not talking at

4 this moment in any way about the role and involvement of Mr. Cermak.

5 MR. KAY: Sorry, Your Honour, I misunderstood the question. It's

6 very difficult for the Cermak Defence team to see what was behind this

7 particular order and why it was issued. It looks as though it was some

8 form of general amnesty that the assistant minister was giving in

9 relation to these particular crimes as the witness in my view observed,

10 and that he was saying to his police chiefs, "This has to stop now. You

11 have no need to operatively investigate those particular crimes. Inform

12 the police administration of this decision." That's how I interpret it.

13 And you'll see in paragraph 3 that it's a request to the military

14 police to form mixed check-points, and that they should, in paragraph 4,

15 agree between them.

16 So it looks to me entirely as though the assistant minister is

17 attempting to get the civil police and the military police to work

18 together and to combine.

19 JUDGE ORIE: To jointly desist from further investigations of

20 what happened in the past.

21 MR. KAY: Yes.

22 JUDGE ORIE: It's good to know what the position of your Defence.

23 If any of the other counsel, of course, would like to at a later stage

24 explain their positions, that is appreciated, because it's unfair to ask

25 Mr. Kay how he interprets this and not to ask other Defence counsel. So

Page 1236

1 if there's any wish to do so in the near future, please let me know.

2 Mr. Kay, I'm looking at the clock.

3 MR. KAY: I have one more document in this sequence --

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. If we deal with that and then have the break.

5 MR. KAY: -- and then I turn to something else. 65 ter 2976, tab

6 49. If it could be given a D number, please.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D50, marked for identification,

9 Your Honours.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Mahindaratne.

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Exhibit D50 is admitted into evidence.

13 Before you put a question to the witness, Mr. Flynn, I just would

14 like to know whether the matter I raised whether that was -- whether I

15 understood your question well as that it was this specific point was

16 unclear to you as well.

17 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour. Yes, it's clear now.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed.

19 MR. KAY:

20 Q. As I've said, Mr. Flynn, I've taken just a selection of documents

21 to deal with these points. This is the last in this sequence. It's from

22 the 22nd of August. You can see it's from the Ministry of Interior,

23 deputy minister. That's Mr. Moric. From the MUP. It goes to the police

24 administrations. You can see Knin. To the chief personally. And on

25 page 2, "In our telegram cited above, we ordered linking with the

Page 1237

1 military police in order to stop houses being burnt and property taken.

2 We sent a letter to the military police administration." That's to the

3 General Lausic, the chief, "In which way describe the magnitude and

4 significance of this issue. As a result, the military police

5 administration has sent an order to all military police battalions

6 ordering them to link with the police administrations to solve the

7 problem."

8 It refers to the crimes, not including murders, and then it asks

9 to be monitored and to be informed of the cooperation, in paragraph 1,

10 between the police and military police, to describe that cooperation in

11 section 2, whether there are still some incidents of these particular

12 crimes, who were the perpetrators, about on-site investigations, how many

13 of them, on page 3, are crimes being investigated, how many perpetrators

14 of crimes have been identified.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Again, I think it goes without saying you were unaware of

17 Mr. Romanic's obligation to his hierarchy in relation to these particular

18 steps.

19 A. Well, I see that this letter also is marked top secret, so I

20 don't think he could even have told me about it.

21 Q. No. And therein lies the issue of your assessment of

22 Mr. Romanic's role and what he was doing. Would you agree you weren't in

23 possession of all the facts?

24 A. Well, if -- if in -- it may still be that in -- in a way he was

25 unfortunately powerless, but I certainly was not aware of this activity

Page 1238

1 which was taking place behind the scenes, and he did seem to have the

2 active input of his ministry on ways to deal with the problem -- problem.

3 Q. But from your assessment his ministry didn't send him any extra

4 police or any extra resources.

5 A. Not in significant numbers, no.

6 Q. Did you know at all what resources were available to the Croatian

7 government at that time?

8 A. No.

9 Q. Or what resources in terms of hardware, vehicles, radios?

10 A. I really wasn't aware of the details on that matter.

11 Q. Did it look to you as to whether the local police were well

12 equipped or poorly equipped, or give your own characterisation.

13 A. I would say poorly equipped.

14 Q. Yeah. Thank you. I have no further questions on that topic.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Then we'll have a break. We will resume at five

16 minutes to 1.00.

17 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.

18 --- On resuming at 12.56 p.m.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, please proceed.

20 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 Q. Mr. Flynn, an area concerning the civil police I want to ask you

22 about. Did you know that they were responsible for the collection

23 centres? And by that I don't mean the UNCRO compound but the collection

24 centres like in Knin where people were taken.

25 A. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. You mean responsible in

Page 1239

1 terms of security or in terms of running the centres?

2 Q. Running them, that it was part of their duties.

3 A. I may have been, but offhand, no, I don't really recall that.

4 Q. Do you recall recollect visiting Mr. Romanic to get permission to

5 go into the Knin detention centre at the school, collection centre?

6 A. It may well have been. I can't recall.

7 Q. And there were -- you went to the collection centre, didn't you?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And they were civil police officers who were in attendance there?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Yes. Let's quickly look at 65 ter 420, tab 83.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

13 THE REGISTRAR: That is Exhibit D51, marked for identification,

14 Your Honours.

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

16 JUDGE ORIE: D51 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

17 MR. KAY: Thank you.

18 Q. This is dated the 4th of August. It again comes from Mr. Moric,

19 the assistant minister of the interior. It goes to the military police

20 people as well as, down at the bottom, for the attention of police

21 administration chiefs, and its subject is collection centres. And it

22 says on page 2: "In order to execute the tasks of Operation Povratak,"

23 that means return, "all indicated police administrations must immediately

24 undertake the following preparations." And it gives a scheme for the

25 layout of a collection centre, how they're to be looked after, the

Page 1240

1 admission and procedure.

2 Page 3, previous intelligence and criminal processing. And it

3 goes for information on page 4 to the military police administration.

4 So it seems that those collection centres by order were the

5 responsibility of the local police.

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Thank you. And we can see that in the next document 2D010029.

8 This isn't in the Prosecution's tabbed bundle but has been hand-delivered

9 because it was a document released today.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D52, marked for identification,

12 Your Honours.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

14 MR. KAY: Do the Prosecution have any --

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, may I just take a minute and I

16 will let you know --

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Meanwhile that gives me an opportunity to ask

18 one additional question.

19 The last question put to you, Mr. Flynn, was: "So it seems that

20 those collection centres by order were the responsibility of the local

21 police."

22 Nevertheless, we see that instructions are given not by local

23 authorities but by higher up authorities. Did you draw the conclusion on

24 the basis of the document, or did you answer the question with in the

25 back of your mind other information?

Page 1241

1 THE WITNESS: Of course the document does indicate that some

2 aspects of those collection centres are under military police authority

3 related to the processing of -- of persons suspected of direct

4 involvement in the conflict, and -- I'm trying to recall. There was some

5 discussion about our access to -- to the people in the school and

6 possibly also General Cermak's role in that. But with respect to my

7 answer to the previous question, I was basing it on the document which

8 indicated that -- that, generally speaking, it was the civilian police

9 that had the authority over those collection centres.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but the question was local police, not civilian

11 police. That's exactly what I'm -- that's at least what I read on the

12 transcript.

13 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure I understand the distinction.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Well, if a letter is sent from a ministry which is

15 not a local authority --

16 THE WITNESS: Yes.

17 JUDGE ORIE: -- and gives instructions to how to deal with

18 matters on a local level, then whether it's a local responsibility or a

19 central responsibility is still to be -- well, at least you could argue

20 that if local authorities receive instructions for a higher up level that

21 it's a shared responsibility or primary responsibility from the higher-up

22 authorities or that the authority's left to the local police. That's --

23 these are all different interpretations of what you could understand from

24 a correspondence between a central authority and a local authority. So

25 therefore I wondered whether it was your conclusion on the basis of this

Page 1242

1 document or whether there was anything else that you had in mind when you

2 said that you would agree that it was a local responsibility.

3 THE WITNESS: No, there was nothing else, Your Honour.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

5 Please proceed.

6 MR. KAY: The next document dated the 7th -- the next document

7 dated the 7th of August, 1995, may fill in some gaps on this.

8 Q. You can see it's a letter from the chief of administration.

9 Ivo Cipci from the Zadar-Knin police administration collection centre

10 report and it encloses the lists of person in the collection centre in

11 Knin which was sent to Sinj as a notification and sent for information to

12 the Ministry of the Interior amongst others. If we turn to page 1 --

13 MS. MAHINDARATNE: If I may, Mr. President. I'm not certain as

14 to what Mr. Kay is referring to as the next document. We have -- we have

15 the previous document on the screen and I have no objections to the

16 admission of the document.

17 JUDGE ORIE: The problem is he referred to a document, I think,

18 of the 7th of August where, at least in the document which is on my

19 screen at this moment, it says question mark August, but I take it you

20 are referring to this document from the 10th police station coded VII,

21 very urgent.

22 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I can see what's happened. There's a

23 front page that's been missed off in the scanning system and we can

24 attend to that. These things have to be filed electronically, as you

25 know, and sometimes these things happen.

Page 1243

1 JUDGE ORIE: The cover page, does that give any specific

2 information or ...

3 MR. KAY: It's been put in as the last page and it's in fact the

4 cover page. Yeah.

5 JUDGE ORIE: That's dated the 7th of August?

6 MR. KAY: Yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: There --

8 MR. KAY: It's just how the document arose.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

10 MR. KAY: I'm -- I'm sorry.

11 JUDGE ORIE: You see it now, Ms. Mahindaratne, that apparently

12 the reference to the next document was the document I just referred to

13 and that the last page gives a date whereas the first page does not.

14 Let's proceed.

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Okay, Mr. President.

16 MR. KAY: Thank you.

17 Q. And here we see a list of the Knin collection centre report. "We

18 hereby send you a list of persons in the Knin collection centre in Knin,"

19 and then we have a list of names by commander - and there are 91 names -

20 Commander Marko Bjelobrk, and then page 6 has the cover letter.

21 And why it's produced here is because there were a number of

22 people in this collection centre in Knin. That's right, isn't it, which

23 was the local school?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. This gives information on that date. Would you say that the

Page 1244

1 number was about right, 91 or so people?

2 A. Yes, I think so.

3 Q. You, of course, came out of the UNCRO compound a couple of days

4 after the 7th of August. Your first visit into Knin was a few days

5 later; is that right?

6 A. Right. On the 9th of August.

7 Q. Yes. On that date did you visit the collection centre in Knin at

8 the school?

9 A. I don't recall that. I'm not sure that I did.

10 Q. Right. It would have been very soon after that date, would that

11 be right?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And you went to see Mr. Romanic to go and get access to the

14 school?

15 A. I think we did, yes.

16 Q. Yes. Thank you. That finishes that particular subject.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask you one question if you're talking about

18 numbers. Were you aware of the reasons why these people were in this

19 collection centre?

20 THE WITNESS: I'm really not sure, Your Honour. I -- of course I

21 prefer not to speculate. I know that many people ended up in the UN

22 compound because of their fear for security. I'm not sure if others

23 ended up in the school for a similar reason. I'm not sure, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

25 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. I'm not sure of the people who ended up

Page 1245

1 in the school at that early date. I know that a few weeks later we

2 actually requested that the authorities make more room available at the

3 school because the UN compound was full, completely full of displaced

4 persons.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But here we're talking about the 7th of

6 August. That's the day on which you arrived.

7 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's right. I'm not sure exactly how or why

8 those people ended up in the school.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Because I earlier saw a document that women,

10 elderly, and I think children had to be taken to collection centres,

11 whereas just having a first glance at the document there appear to be

12 among those apparently present or registered there we find elderly --

13 elderly women as well and -- not all of them, but a considerable number

14 of them.

15 THE WITNESS: And some men.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, yes. Therefore I said some of them.

17 THE WITNESS: Yes.

18 JUDGE ORIE: In order to avoid whatever confusion.

19 THE WITNESS: Yes.

20 JUDGE ORIE: But the population, why they were there, did you

21 have any further information about that in these early stages?

22 THE WITNESS: No, I really don't.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

24 Please proceed.

25 MR. KAY: Thank you.

Page 1246

1 Q. We're turning now to specific --

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

3 MR. KAY: Sorry.

4 Q. We're turning now to specific roles concerning the chief of

5 police, Mr. Romanic. Can we bring up 65 ter 1500. Tab 15.

6 JUDGE ORIE: And while the registrar is doing that, D52,

7 Ms. Mahindaratne, have you --

8 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objections, Mr. President.

9 JUDGE ORIE: No objections.

10 MS. MAHINDARATNE: May I just point out that we were not served

11 the document, but we followed it on the screen.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I think this was an exception from what I

13 understand.

14 MR. KAY: It was an overnight job, and it arose as a result of a

15 question from the Bench yesterday which brought something to my mind.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I take it, nevertheless, Ms. Mahindaratne,

17 that you ever taken sufficient time to make up your mind.

18 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Yes, Mr. President.

19 JUDGE ORIE: D52 is admitted into evidence.

20 MR. KAY: Thank you.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar, the next document would be number?

22 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D53, marked for identification,

23 Your Honours.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

25 Already an opinion about admissibility, Ms. Mahindaratne?

Page 1247

1 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE ORIE: No objection. D53 is admitted into evidence.

3 Please proceed.

4 MR. KAY:

5 Q. Were you aware that in fact the civil police and the military --

6 and the UNCRO police, UNCIVPOL, which is the phrase that was given to

7 them, had a joint programme as well to work together?

8 A. Yes. I know that that was a standard operating procedure of

9 UNCIVPOL really wherever they were, that they had a mandate, among other

10 things, to work jointly with the local police. I don't think that

11 happened in Sector South or the former Sector South for quite a period of

12 time, and I'm not familiar with this document you're showing me now.

13 Q. No. And I -- because I was going to ask you about the time. As

14 this document is undated, it's not one of mine. It comes through

15 disclosure by the Prosecution. It doesn't have a date, but we'll take

16 into account what you say about cooperation coming further down after

17 some time.

18 Shall we just look at it in terms of what it says? It's the

19 rules of the joint work of the police, the MUP, and CIVPOL.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. We can see that in the former north and south sectors UNCIVPOL

22 members will be enabled to control the work and conduct of Ministry of

23 Interior members with respect to the protection of human rights and

24 freedoms.

25 A. I assume that the word "control" there means monitor essentially.

Page 1248

1 Q. Yes. I don't know.

2 A. I would think so. I mean, I'm sure they had no mandate to

3 control the work.

4 Q. There will be an opportunity for us to ask another witness about

5 that.

6 Paragraph 2, the chief of the Knin district police administration

7 Mr. Cedo Romanic and the chief of the Glina district police

8 administration shall be appointed to coordinate the work between MUP and

9 UNCIVPOL.

10 And in paragraph 3, UNCIVPOL will designate officers who will

11 coordinate joint activities on a daily basis and contact Mr. Romanic and

12 the other person.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Coordination meetings shall be held once a week, minutes taken.

15 Problems at can't be solved on the level cited at 3 will be resolved by

16 UNCIVPOL together with police department chiefs of the Zadar-Knin police

17 administration, and the people are named, and minutes taken. And then if

18 problems exceed that level, the UNCIVPOL force commander or his deputy or

19 the chief of the MUP police sector, Mr. Franjo -- and it's actually

20 Durica it begins with a D that name --

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. -- or a person whom he designates shall be authorised to resolve

23 them. And then in 7, taking up your comment, UNCIVPOL members can

24 observe and follow the work of MUP employees, record but without sound

25 and video or photographs.

Page 1249

1 8: UNCIVPOL members shall be engaged to have access to police

2 documents, certain police documents only with knowledge and approval.

3 UNCIVPOL shall be enabled to carry out patrol activities with MUP

4 employees and then a plan in relation to how that should happen.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Are you able to put into any time just to help us at this stage

7 when the cooperation between UNCIVPOL and the local police was put into

8 effect?

9 A. It was quite some time after my arrival on the 7th of August. As

10 I say, there wasn't, as far as I could see, a significant Croatian

11 civilian police presence in the areas outside of Knin, and I do remember

12 a report that I prepared I think about the last week of August that

13 referred to a joint CIVPOL and Croatian police patrol in which the

14 Croatian police actually withdrew shortly after entering, I think, the

15 Plavno Valley because they were concerned they didn't have enough fuel in

16 their car. And I think I noted that instance of joint patrolling because

17 it was an important event in terms of what we were hoping to see.

18 But I also know that earlier on certainly there was a

19 professional cooperation along the lines of this agreement between

20 UNCIVPOL and the Croatian civilian police in Knin.

21 Q. Yes.

22 A. And with the chief of police, but of course I'm not the best

23 person to comment on the details of that.

24 Q. No. UNCIVPOL were part of your HRAT monitoring; is that right?

25 You combined with the various organisations when you went out on the

Page 1250

1 road?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. So the film we saw yesterday, that would have been with a member

4 from UNCIVPOL, you as HRAT, and then any other agencies as part of the

5 team?

6 A. Right. Essentially UNCIVPOL tasked an officer or a couple of

7 officers on a daily basis in principle to join HRAT.

8 Q. Right. Thank you. And your recollection is right concerning the

9 documents you saw about the Croatian police not proceeding further

10 because of fuel concerns.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. One of the documents that was produced yesterday, I can't

13 remember which one, it may be around the 4th of September.

14 A. Okay.

15 Q. Shall we look at Prosecution Exhibit 31. Tab 117 for the

16 Prosecution. And this is one of the documents produced through your

17 evidence yesterday. It's your report dated the 10th of August.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And if we go to page 2, freedom of movement, and it there refers

20 to a meeting between you and Mr. Romanic concerning freedom of movement

21 for you being extended to Obrovac, Benkovac, and Plitvice, but on main

22 roads.

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. So your freedom of movement for that particular area was not

25 anything that came through Mr. Cermak?

Page 1251

1 A. Well, no. There were other instances in which Mr. Cermak

2 informed us of increased freedom of movement. If I recall correctly, I

3 think I may have described that in one or two reports as an order that

4 had come from General Cermak regarding freedom of movement, but I'm not

5 sure now that General Cermak was ordering matters related to freedom of

6 movement. He may have been informing us on behalf of the Croatian

7 authorities that freedom of movement had been extended to certain areas.

8 Q. Yes. We can look at that later on, but you're exactly right

9 about passes issued for the area. Did you have a pass for the area?

10 A. Well, we didn't have passes, so to speak.

11 Q. Right.

12 A. Yeah.

13 Q. Did you have an order or something that you were able to show at

14 a check-point?

15 A. Well, no. I believe as -- as the UN we didn't need that, and we

16 weren't testing the limits of the freedom of movement that the

17 authorities told us we had.

18 Q. Right. Next document we want to look at is again one of your

19 documents. It's P46. Tab 4 for the Prosecution. And it's your report

20 of the 23rd of August.

21 A. I'm not sure this is my report.

22 Q. Right. It's one you produced, but it was signed by

23 Maria Teresa Mauro. I think I'm looking at a different document. 3463,

24 65 ter 3463. I thought it was P46.

25 JUDGE ORIE: I have for P46 I have a different -- I have a

Page 1252

1 propusnica on page 4 and the report is 10th of August --

2 MR. KAY: No.

3 JUDGE ORIE: -- that's what I have at least under P46.

4 MR. KAY: This is my mistake in looking at the table because we

5 didn't have descriptions of the documents and I've obviously got a number

6 confused with the court-designated exhibit number. I wonder if we could

7 be helped.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps the -- Mr. Registrar, you could help us out

9 with the 65 ter number given by Mr. Kay.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, I show 65 ter number 03463 being

11 marked for identification as P46.

12 MR. KAY: Oh, right.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Then I have a problem with my -- please proceed.

14 MR. KAY: I've got a misfiling. I wonder if anyone can help in

15 relation with the HRAT report of 23rd of August. Oh, P47. Thank you

16 very much. P47.

17 Q. Sorry, Mr. Flynn.

18 A. No problem.

19 Q. Let's look at the right report then. Signed by

20 Maria Teresa Mauro. No, at the bottom it's just her authentication

21 signature.

22 Was this one written by -- by you? It's from Mr. Al-Alfi, but

23 did you write the report or --

24 A. I don't think I did, but I don't see -- all I see is the cover

25 page right now.

Page 1253

1 Q. Ah, no. There's another one of 23rd of August. Sorry,

2 Your Honour. It's my mistake.

3 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, if I could assist.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

5 MS. MAHINDARATNE: There's a P46 is 65 ter number 3463. That's

6 the Human Rights Action Team report of 22nd August, and P47 is 65 ter

7 number 3467. That's the Human Rights Action Team report of 23rd August.

8 I think Mr. Kay is referring to P47, 3467.

9 JUDGE ORIE: I have for P47 I have a three-page document, first

10 page starting with "Most immediate," and then the second page as we see

11 it now on our screen having "Note for the file."

12 MR. KAY: Sorry. I've got another document of the same date.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Than would be number?

14 MR. KAY: I'll give the ERN number just in case anyone --

15 JUDGE ORIE: The Chamber has difficulties in finding it on the

16 basis of ERN numbers but if you give the ERN number then most likely

17 Mr. Registrar will be able to assist us.

18 MR. KAY: 00351685. I hate to say it, it's got three ERN numbers

19 on it.

20 JUDGE ORIE: From the body language of Mr. Registrar I understand

21 that he can't retrieve it. Could you please move on for the time being.

22 MR. KAY: Yes.

23 Q. May we go back to this matter as it's actually a very pertinent

24 matter and one that requires your attention, Mr. Flynn after I'm sorted

25 out later on.

Page 1254

1 You referred in your statement to Mr. Pasic, and you gave your

2 view as to how long he'd been appointed and where he came from. I just

3 want to look at some quick documents in relation to him. The first

4 one --

5 A. I'm sorry, did I say he was the Civil Defence coordinator?

6 Q. The mayor.

7 A. Oh, the mayor.

8 Q. 2D01-0005. Tab 109.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that would be Exhibit D54, marked

11 for identification.

12 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE ORIE: D54 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

14 MR. KAY:

15 Q. It's just the uncertainties in your statement about Mr. Pasic

16 that I'm dealing with, because I think you can see from here he was

17 appointed --

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. -- the government's commissioner in relation to Knin municipality

20 on the 6th of January, 1992.

21 A. I see.

22 Q. You had an impression that he came along later. I'm just putting

23 into evidence his appointment here.

24 A. Oh, yeah, okay. I could well have been mistaken about that.

25 Q. Yes. The next document, 2D01-0007. Tab 111.

Page 1255

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.

2 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D55, marked for identification,

3 Your Honours.

4 MR. KAY: First time of the numbers of James Bond and Nelson come

5 together.

6 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE ORIE: I would say that James Bond and Nelson are admitted

8 into evidence but D55 is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

9 MR. KAY:

10 Q. You were uncertain in your statement or you had a view he may

11 have left very quickly but we see here that he left his appointment on

12 March the 28th, 1996. So after you had left Knin.

13 A. Okay. Then I was -- let me just verify. This is the

14 commissioner of the government for the town of Knin, which would be the

15 mayor?

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Yes.

19 A. Okay. Then I was mistaken.

20 Q. And I just refer to that because of what was in your statement

21 and just to clarify.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. In relation to Mr. Pasic, can we deal with a -- a report from

24 Mr. Al-Alfi, 65 ter 4100, tab 9. Date --

25 JUDGE ORIE: Not in evidence yet, Mr. --

Page 1256

1 MR. KAY: No.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Needs a number. Mr. Registrar.

3 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit D56, marked for identification,

4 Your Honours.

5 MR. KAY: This is a Prosecution document.

6 MS. MAHINDARATNE: No objection, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE ORIE: D56 is admitted into evidence.

8 Please proceed.

9 MR. KAY: Thank you.

10 Q. It's dealings with Mr. Pasic that I'm concerned with. We can see

11 in paragraph 1 that there was a meeting with him, and his description as

12 being in line 4 in charge of the restoration of civilian facilities in

13 Knin.

14 Did you have dealings with him direct?

15 A. I may have on one or two occasions, but I don't recall that we

16 dealt with him very much, or that I dealt with him very much if at all.

17 Q. Right.

18 A. But it may just be a problem of recollection. I just don't

19 really recall.

20 Q. The document that we couldn't find that I wanted to refer to on

21 the 23rd of August, which is a -- a report -- message from Mr. Al-Alfi in

22 fact refers to him intending to go to Plavno on the 25th of August with

23 Mr. Romanic for a meeting with the local people.

24 JUDGE ORIE: I just seek some verification first before --

25 MR. KAY: Yes.

Page 1257

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, I'm reading in paragraph 1: "This morning

2 I had a meeting with Mr. Pasic, the mayor of Knin. Also present at the

3 meeting were Mr. Djakovic, deputy to the mayor, and Mr. Damir Vidovic,

4 who is in charge of the restoration of civilian facilities in Knin."

5 Now, in your question you suggest that it was Mr. Pasic who was

6 in charge of the restoration of the facilities in Knin, which is not in

7 my knowledge of the English language what I read in line four.

8 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I'll put my hands up. I was reading very

9 quickly.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please proceed.

11 MR. KAY: Yeah.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. -- would your answer be any different knowing

13 this?

14 THE WITNESS: Well, I think it would. I think I agreed with

15 Mr. Kay that the mayor had responsibility. It appears that the Court is

16 quite right, it was Mr. Vidovic.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Yes. In general, I would like -- I appreciate

18 that the parties try to speed up. At the same time, I would also

19 appreciate if the highest precision would be upheld. Please proceed.

20 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 Q. Do you recollect that he was to go to Plavno on that morning of

22 the 25th of August with Mr. Romanic to meet the local population?

23 A. I don't remember specifically that Mayor Pasic was to be part of

24 that delegation, but there was apparently a meeting set up in Plavno on

25 the 25th of August, and he could well have been a part of that.

Page 1258

1 Q. Yes. We saw it referred to in the DVD clip on the first day of

2 your evidence. You recollect that the lady said, "But no one came.

3 There was a meeting arranged, but no one came."

4 A. That's correct. There was also a meeting in the town that we

5 visited first, Zorici, and there were local authorities, as I recall, at

6 that meeting. And I'm not sure that there was any meeting that took

7 place on the other side of the valley, let's say across near Grubori,

8 because I don't believe that those local residents from Grubori found a

9 meeting.

10 Q. It seemed from the terms of her statement in the video, on the

11 film, that she had gone down to what is a local place for a meeting and

12 no one came, so that there was a meeting scheduled.

13 A. That was my impression, yes.

14 Q. Yes. Do you know if in fact that was the meeting that

15 Mr. Romanic was supposed to go to on the 25th and didn't go?

16 A. I don't know that for a fact.

17 Q. The meeting in Zorici to which you referred, did Mr. Romanic go

18 to that?

19 A. I'm trying to recall that. I don't believe he did, but I think

20 there was some discussion of improving the humanitarian situation of the

21 people there, and I think that there was some representation from local

22 authorities, but I'm not sure who that was exactly.

23 Q. Right.

24 MR. KAY: We'll need to turn to that document that I was trying

25 to find, Your Honour. I can't deal with this in any other way other than

Page 1259

1 producing the missing document, which is my fault.

2 Q. Dealings with the mayor, you didn't have many, but as we see in

3 D56, the matters of which you were concerned, the humanitarian position

4 of the local population were matters that were discussed with him. And

5 if we look on the second page of D56 exhibit. In paragraph (d): "The

6 mayor also expressed the desire to assist Serbs who left the area during

7 the recent hostilities to come back to their houses."

8 In your dealings with him, was that his position?

9 A. I think that was the position he expressed in meetings that I was

10 present at, yes.

11 Q. Do you recollect that his position was also that such a process

12 for the return of Serbs may be complicated?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And that before returning, those who had left would have to apply

15 for Croatian citizenship at the liaison office in Belgrade?

16 A. Yes. At about that time it was becoming clear that there would

17 be that kind of procedure for people to return.

18 Q. Yes. In (f): "It was brought to the attention of the mayor that

19 reports about continuing burning of villages and looting until this time,

20 and he acknowledged that problem and informed Mr. Al-Alfi that the

21 military and civilian authorities are having regular meetings to put an

22 end to such acts."

23 Was that his position in your dealings with him?

24 A. As far as I recall, yes, it was.

25 Q. And he believed crimes were being committed by what was being

Page 1260

1 done unlawfully. Would you accept that position?

2 A. I believe so, but I'm afraid my memory of discussions with the

3 mayor is a little hazy.

4 Q. Right. If we go to page 3 of this document, there is a meeting

5 in the afternoon of the report of Mr. Al-Alfi at which you're named as

6 being present.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Did you provide a separate report in relation to that meeting, or

9 is the information here not in any report submitted by you in evidence?

10 A. I'm sorry, what is the date of this document?

11 Q. It's the 18th of August, and it's a message, and it starts at

12 paragraph 1, "This morning." So we can take the date as the 18th of

13 August.

14 A. Oh, I see. This is for the people accommodated inside UNCRO

15 battalion locations to Sector South headquarters.

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. No, I did not submit a separate report on that.

18 Q. Right. Did you review Mr. Al-Alfi's report or did he just send

19 it?

20 A. He must have just sent it. I didn't review it.

21 Q. Yeah.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, I'm looking at the clock. I would need one

23 and a half minutes to find out how we will proceed tomorrow before you

24 start a new line of questioning.

25 MR. KAY: Your Honour, looking at the time Your Honour's one and

Page 1261

1 a half minutes is there already.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. No, but you have not gone through the

3 substance of this report. Perhaps it is good that Mr. Flynn stays,

4 because we will speak about tomorrow.

5 Mr. Kay, until now you are close to four hours, which would leave

6 you another hour. What will be the sequence tomorrow? Second in line

7 would be? Mr. Kuzmanovic, is that --

8 MR. MISETIC: Actually, Your Honour --

9 MR. KUZMANOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ORIE: And you, as you told us, Mr. Kuzmanovic, you needed

11 two hours?

12 MR. KUZMANOVIC: No, Your Honour, half an hour at the most, if

13 any.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Half an hour, if any. Mr. Misetic, then I might

15 have mixed up.

16 MR. MISETIC: Yes. I may need about two hours, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Then I suggest the following: Mr. Kay, tomorrow

18 until 10.00 it's your time even if you would lose a couple of minutes,

19 but I really want to finish tomorrow. Then from 10 to 10.30,

20 Mr. Kuzmanovic, it would be for you. Mr. Misetic, then after the first

21 break usually we have one and a half hour available. If you could try to

22 see whether you could fit that in into that. If not entirely, then you

23 may take another 15 minutes after the break, and then we would have left

24 approximately one hour for re-examination, questions by the Bench,

25 although the Bench of course has put already some questions.

Page 1262

1 Ms. Mahindaratne, part of the exercise of Mr. Kay today has been

2 to -- well, mainly to present a lot of documents. Almost all of these

3 documents not known to the witness, and therefore rather to verify

4 whether this material was available when he gave his statement, and I

5 think in addition to that to inform the Chamber about the existence of

6 such documents.

7 May I take it that it will not -- that you will not need lengthy

8 time in view of the characterisation I just gave from the

9 cross-examination? Could you inform the Chamber what your estimate at

10 this moment would be?

11 MS. MAHINDARATNE: Mr. President, I don't anticipate too much of

12 time spent on re-examination. It would be a brief, at the most half an

13 hour.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That means that --

15 MS. MAHINDARATNE: But may I just add, Mr. President, it also

16 depends on what will come out in evidence through cross-examination

17 for --

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, of course. I do understand. These are always

19 commitments under certain reservations.

20 Then I take it that we could finish tomorrow with the examination

21 of Mr. Flynn. At the same time, I don't think that there would be much

22 time left for the next witness to be called, and therefore rather than to

23 have the next witness on standby for almost the whole of the day, then

24 perhaps to just use five or ten minutes we might use that for the MFIs,

25 and then perhaps release the next witness until Monday.

Page 1263

1 Mr. Kay.

2 MR. KAY: Your Honour, can I raise a matter? I have to confess

3 that I was too conservative in my time estimate and that I might need

4 more time. I've been trying to move as quickly as I can with a

5 wide-ranging witness in a way that I felt best dealt with those issues as

6 far as the Defence for Mr. Cermak are concerned. I will, of course,

7 review my materials in the break, and Your Honour has characterised the

8 approach of the Defence to try and more finely tune the remaining issues

9 to deal with the witness.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Of course one of the possibilities would be, but

11 please consider it and please speak about it with Ms. Mahindaratne, that

12 some of the documents as such perhaps could be introduced in by other

13 means than through the witness unless there's any specific reason to

14 assume that the witness could add something to it. There might be other

15 ways of -- I noticed that even before questions were put, the Prosecution

16 often already did not object against admission. To see whether there's

17 anyway of getting this material in evidence, perhaps to make a selection

18 where you would expect the witness to -- to be in a position to further

19 clarify matters in those and where you would expect the witness mainly to

20 say that if he would be aware of this that he might have had to

21 reconsider his opinions.

22 It's clear that this witness gave -- gives his -- his

23 observations, his impressions in a rather clear way and that perhaps it's

24 not for all of the information necessary to say, "Well, if I would have

25 known this, I might not have drawn exactly the same conclusions," because

Page 1264

1 what he tells us what he observed, why he formed certain opinions or

2 gained some impressions, of course an adaptation of that or perhaps I

3 should say make it not as absolute as it sounds on paper up till this

4 moment, of course. The Chamber can do something in that respect as well

5 and say this is what the witness observed. We now have additional

6 information, so that might -- but first perhaps focus on those matters

7 where you would expect the witness to add something on the basis of new

8 information you provide to him.

9 At the same time, I would like to -- I would really like to see

10 whether we can finish tomorrow. I'll also ask Mr. Registrar to see

11 whether there's any margin of perhaps 15 minutes available. That depends

12 on other Chambers.

13 You also may have noticed that -- that where the Prosecution took

14 three hours here in view of the material tendered, the 92 ter, that the

15 Chamber now allowed for close to eight hours, which is of course far more

16 than the 1 to 1, but for good reasons. Nevertheless, I'd like you to

17 discuss both with Ms. Mahindaratne and with other counsel to see -- to

18 find a schedule such that we can finish tomorrow.

19 MR. KAY: Your Honours' observations are absolutely understood by

20 us, and we will certainly be working towards that -- that end.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then I just got something which I have to read

22 before I know whether ...

23 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

24 JUDGE ORIE: What was brought to my attention had been dealt with

25 already. That's the next witness.

Page 1265

1 If there's nothing else, we adjourn until tomorrow, the 11th of

2 April, 9.00, Courtroom III.

3 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.51 p.m.,

4 to be reconvened on Friday, the 11th day

5 of April, 2008, at 9.00 a.m.

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