Page 13188
1 Friday, 5 December 2008
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone. Mr. Registrar, would you
7 please call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to
9 everyone in the courtroom. This is case number IT-06-90-T, the
10 Prosecutor versus Ante Gotovina et al.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
12 WITNESS: REYNAUD THEUNENS [Resumed]
13 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to you as well, Mr. Theunens.
14 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE ORIE: I would like to remind you, you are still bound by
16 the solemn declaration that you have given at the beginning of your
17 testimony.
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, are you ready to continue your
20 cross-examination?
21 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour, yes.
22 Cross-examination by Mr. Kay: [Continued]
23 Q. Mr. Theunens, we are now going to turn to the issue of the
24 terrain, hygiene, and sanitation measures. Pages 245, 246, and 262 in
25 your report.
Page 13189
1 The first document I'd like to call up is 2D070167. And this is
2 a document dated the 15th of October, 1993. It's authored by Dr. Brkic
3 from the health care administration and veterinary department and is
4 issued from the Ministry of Defence, and we can see the first page there.
5 "Guidance on hygiene and sanitation measures applying to the
6 terrain under control of Croatian army units."
7 And as I said, author by the health care administration chief,
8 Colonel Brkic.
9 Have you seen this document before?
10 A. I have not seen this document before.
11 Q. Were you aware that Dr. Brkic was described as the health care
12 administration chief working out of the Ministry of Defence?
13 A. I probably knew before coming to the ICTY, but during my work
14 here I have not come across information in relation to Dr. Brkic and his
15 occupations.
16 Q. Shall we turn to page 2 of the report. As we can see, the
17 preliminary opening's on page 1. And his guidance here goes through the
18 various natures of the type of work that has to be done. We can see
19 finding identification and the burial of killed enemy troops and
20 civilians, eliminating animal corpses, wandering cattle being taken care
21 of, and various other related steps.
22 In the second to last paragraph, it is written:
23 "Hygiene and sanitation measures are performed by the regional
24 Civilian Protection Staff in cooperation with units that require hygiene
25 and sanitation ..." and it depends on the scale of the operation.
Page 13190
1 We have no need to go further through this report which speaks to
2 itself in a very obvious way as to the kind of measures to be taken, but
3 it's relevant because it is a guidance that is stated -- that is cited by
4 the chief of staff, General Cervenko. Do you recollect that he refers to
5 1993 guidance?
6 A. I have no specific recollection that the chief of the Main Staff,
7 General Cervenko, refers to this document.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 MR. KAY: Your Honour, the information does not need to be gone
10 into further detail, but I ask that it be an exhibit.
11 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1056.
14 JUDGE ORIE: D1056 is admitted into evidence.
15 MR. KAY: Let us turn now, then, to the measures taken and what
16 was written at the time concerning this matter, because it is one of the
17 features that you point out in relation to your conclusion that
18 General Cermak, on a daily basis, issues orders and takes measures aimed
19 at normalising life, and while doing so, is the most senior authority in
20 Knin and superior to the civilian police and MP, military police, in
21 Knin.
22 So let us look at the first document, D -- Exhibit D598.
23 On the 5th of August, 1995, this order was issued by
24 General Cervenko, and it's an order concerning sanitization of the
25 territory in which Operation Storm is conducted. First of all, is this a
Page 13191
1 document you're familiar with?
2 A. I believe so, because I have in the section discussing Operation
3 Storm, i.e., the day-by-day development during and after storm, I have
4 included an order by General Gotovina to establish sanitation teams
5 within the zone of responsibility of the Split Military District, and I
6 remember -- or I seem to remember that he refers to an order from the
7 chief of the Main Staff which may well be this specific document.
8 Q. Yes. That is an order that was issued on the 11th of August of
9 1995, Exhibit P496 for reference purposes.
10 We can see here that the chief of staff is issuing orders to the
11 military districts, including Split, about establishing a mixed
12 sanitization detachment. We can see there the types of matters which are
13 obvious to that.
14 If we turn to page 2, we can see units mentioned at the top. We
15 can see that the sanitization teams invariably include criminal
16 investigation technicians from the MUP for identification, persons for
17 keeping records, medical team for immediate medical assistance,
18 explosives experts, pathologist, or other physician trained to establish
19 causes of death, utility company employees for funerals, and vets.
20 And then in 2 we can see in coordination with the police
21 administrations and Health Crisis staff in counties, they are to include
22 a civilian protection unit from the county police administration in those
23 particular districts there, and that does not mention Split ZP in
24 paragraph 2.
25 In the course of the work of the sanitization detachment the
Page 13192
1 commander shall coordinate all issues.
2 A. Your Honours, I think in paragraph 2 the first section applies to
3 all the military districts, and then in the Bjelovar, Karlovac and Gospic
4 military district and other special, what is called DDD squad, has to be
5 included. But my impression is that the first part of the sentence
6 applies to all the military districts.
7 Q. Thank you. If we turn to page 3, because we find here the
8 reference to that report that we've just looked at, because 3 says that
9 it shall be conducted in accordance with the instructions of the order of
10 the health administration, 15th of October, 1993. We can see the points
11 that are being made there, and the order goes on to deal with those
12 issues, and the end of the order on page 5 was sent to the Split Military
13 District. So we know, then, Mr. Theunens that the senior military
14 authorities were taking steps from the 5th of August in relation to
15 hygiene and sanitation of the terrain and issuing instructions which
16 showed coordination between both civil and military authorities; isn't
17 that right?
18 A. Yes, that is correct. And just for your information,
19 General Gotovina's order can be found on English page 147 of the second
20 part of the report.
21 What I found interesting in the context of the order by
22 General Gotovina is that he also establishes a team for Knin, but there
23 is no reference in his order to the garrison commander in Knin, even
24 though General Gotovina's order dates from the 11th of August.
25 Q. And that is right. And we are going through all the steps taken
Page 13193
1 to get to the 11th of August, because the documents in between need to be
2 looked at, Mr. Theunens.
3 The next document is Exhibit P506, and it's that order now we can
4 look at dated 5th of August that you've referred to on a number of
5 occasions as being an order issued on that date, as you said, to show
6 that Mr. Cermak was in authority on that date. Your footnote 976.
7 We see Exhibit P506 now. It was issued by General Cermak, and it
8 has that date the 5th of August.
9 Now, I gathered from remarks you made yesterday that you've
10 actually considered the issue of that date as I flagged it up with you as
11 something that needed to be analysed.
12 A. Indeed. The numbering, when you look at later orders by
13 General Cermak for the -- I mean issued during the following days, they
14 have a lower file number. They may have 08, 07 at the end instead of 10.
15 Now, there are different options. I cannot draw a final conclusion. It
16 could be that the date is incorrect. It could be that the number is
17 incorrect. It could be that both are incorrect. But what is interesting
18 also is there is no reference to the order of General Cervenko. In the
19 introduction it's not obligatory to have that reference, but it's quite
20 common to do so, and there is no reference to the order of
21 General Gotovina. Again one cannot draw a final conclusion on -- on that
22 because, okay, one could say, Well, the fact that there's no reference to
23 these other orders means that this order may have been issued prior to
24 the other orders, but I'm not going to draw the conclusion, because it
25 could also be that General Cermak considered it not necessary to refer to
Page 13194
1 these other orders.
2 Q. We know that an Exhibit D609 ends with that classification, that
3 number 3231, which is the military stamp. 019509, and D609 is dated the
4 10th of August, but this ends in a 10 and is dated the 5th of August.
5 Is that something that your research, because I know you've
6 looked at the numbers confirms?
7 A. Indeed. D609 has the number 09 at the end. However, I have also
8 recollection that, for example, in footnote 982 there is a document
9 ending in 02, which is dated the 8th of August. The number 10, I mean
10 ending 10, I have found it also on, I believe, one other occasion but
11 much later. So as I said earlier, it could be indeed that the date is
12 wrong, but it could also be that the number is wrong.
13 Q. You've told us that already.
14 A. Yeah.
15 Q. No need to repeat it. But we will look further at Dr. Brkic.
16 But in terms of what happened, Mr. Cermak himself had not arrived in Knin
17 on the 5th of August. Did you know that?
18 A. I know that on the 5th of August he was appointed to his
19 position.
20 Q. That's not the question. Did you know whether he had arrived in
21 Knin on the 5th of August or not?
22 A. No, I don't know whether he had arrived on the 5th of August or
23 not.
24 Q. There is evidence in the case that he arrived on the 6th of
25 August, and that is a matter that can be flagged up now.
Page 13195
1 We see there the terms of the order. We have no need to look any
2 further at it. Let us now go to Exhibit D603. This is a 65 ter, 4956,
3 Mr. Theunens. It's a special report to the deputy minister, and it comes
4 from the chief of the Civilian Protection Department in Zagreb
5 Mr. Cemerin.
6 Have you seen this document before?
7 A. I believe I came across that document while conducting research.
8 Q. Did you cite it within your report?
9 A. I don't think so. And I believe it covers the entire territory
10 of Croatia
11 was restored as a result of Operation Storm.
12 Q. The Civilian Protection Department is within the Ministry of
13 Interior and the organisation responsible for the hygiene and sanitation
14 of the terrain within the Ministry of Interior; is that right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Thank you. We can see here that on the 4th of August, the chief
17 of the sector informs the deputy minister that civilian protection units
18 were prepared pursuant to an order for activation, Zadar-Knin police
19 administrations. We'll be looking at that later, and says that it is
20 necessary to proceed in the police administrations to the clearance of
21 the dead from the terrain in the area liberated in coordination with the
22 military authorities and with their approval coordinating with the crime
23 police. The same telegram required these police administrations to
24 participate in logistical support for organisation of collection centres.
25 If we turn now to the next page, having seen that on the 5th of
Page 13196
1 August, at the bottom there, that is the dateline, but on page 2, if we
2 can go up to the top of the page, we're missing a bit, 1910 hours the
3 deputy minister announced our units were entering, amongst the places
4 Knin, and at 1917 hours Dr. Brkic called and announced he and his people
5 were going first in accordance with the agreement with vice-president
6 Kostovic and we are to prepare units for clearance which should be
7 clearing up the area in question from the morning of the 6th of August
8 onwards.
9 Do you know about the agreement with the Vice-president Kostovic?
10 A. You mean the agreement between Mr. Brkic and --
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. No, I'm not familiar with that.
13 Q. Or an agreement in which Mr. Brkic was following an agreement
14 with Vice-president Kostovic? Do you know anything about that?
15 A. Not specifically, but I would see it more in a sense of an
16 authorisation by Kostovic in that sense, but anyway it comes back to the
17 same.
18 Q. We can see at that talks were being held with the police
19 administrations including Zadar Knin on preparing units on that day. A
20 telegram was sent, order on conducting clearance with detailed
21 instructions on the method of conducting clearance and a sample form
22 which should be completed with data on those killed. Zadar Knin police
23 administration was sent assistance for carrying out the clearance tasks,
24 and we see the numbers of people that were added to the team. And then
25 we go down to the 6th of August. We can see that Messers Batur,
Page 13197
1 Zadar-Knin police administration who is the chief of the civilian
2 protection department of that body, and others, were sought brief
3 instructions regarding clearing roads and approaches to liberated
4 settlements. And a meeting was held at 9.55 with the Crisis Health Staff
5 including Mr. Cemerin who wrote this document.
6 Would you agree that that shows an organised approach to this
7 matter being conducted through the Ministry of Interior concerning the
8 sanitation of the terrain?
9 A. Indeed. And it reminds me a bit of what we discussed in the
10 context of military command and control with the professional line.
11 Procedures are established by the Ministry of Interior as to how to do
12 it, and as we saw on the first page, the actual clearing is conducted in
13 coordination and with the authorisation of the military authorities in
14 the area.
15 Q. Yes. If we turn to the next page. We see further details of
16 what unfolds during that a day concerning the actions taken. We've no
17 need to look at them any further. It is information about the process.
18 In page 4, if we move to that, we see no information had been
19 received from Sibenik police administration regarding clearance of Drnis,
20 and then in bold the following problems were observed over the course of
21 the day: Units left to their own devices largely in operations, without
22 necessary equipment, poor communications, Zadar-Knin police
23 administration hindered because of the extent of the liberated territory,
24 coordination within each police administration unsatisfactory. And owing
25 to the above, we see a man here, Mr. Boris Davidovic, being sent from the
Page 13198
1 Ministry of Interior department to the territory of Zadar-Knin as
2 coordinator for the conduct of clearance in the police administration's
3 territory.
4 Just stopping there and looking at Mr. Davidovic, is that a name
5 that you recognise from the information that you were looking at
6 concerning this issue?
7 A. I may have seen the name before, but I have not mentioned him in
8 my report.
9 Q. Thank you. First down we see again further steps taken including
10 those by Mr. Davidovic.
11 Page 5 --
12 A. I just want to highlight that the text in bold applies to the, as
13 I see the document now, the entire territory where Operation Storm was
14 conducted.
15 Q. We've worked that out, yes.
16 A. Okay.
17 Q. Page 5. Further information about what is happening. Again
18 going through what was required in Knin, the steps taken. Moving as well
19 to the 7th of August date before this report was written. And then on
20 the 8th of August various other steps.
21 Let us turn to page 6. Those steps on the 8th, in the third
22 paragraph, Mr. Davidovic, at 2050 hours, reporting, and a report from
23 Mr. Cicko who was yesterday appointed the coordinator of the clearance of
24 Knin, who reported at 2200 hours on the 8th of August the situation in
25 Knin regarding organisation is extremely poor. There were 170 members of
Page 13199
1 the civil protection working in Knin that day. And then going into the
2 details of that, strenuous physical labour, the temperature. Zadar-Knin
3 police administration operatives have not shown the slightest interest in
4 providing logistical support. Mechanical digger is out of order and
5 immobilised. You can see the detail there.
6 And then Dr. Brkic appears. This is at page 5 in the
7 Croatian-language document. About 20 bodies were picked up today in
8 Knin, stored in refrigeration until burial. Dr. Brkic is causing certain
9 problems. So Cicko asked for his activity to be restricted. Until
10 Mr. Cicko arrived, the burials organised by the Zadar-Knin police
11 administration, and he says by agreement with Dr. Brkic, were in a common
12 grave. A particular problem is the lack of any communications out of
13 Knin at all, so that today it was not even possible to establish
14 communications from General Cermak's command. And we see the further
15 detail there. The last page is just the signing by Mr. Cemerin of
16 this -- this document.
17 Having pointed out those matters, would you agree it shows that,
18 first of all, the Ministry of Interior, even till this time, had set up a
19 programme for dealing with the hygiene and sanitation in the terrain?
20 A. Yes, and it's being implemented, as we saw on the first page, in
21 coordination and with the authorisation of the military authorities in
22 the area.
23 Can I just say something about --
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. -- Dr. Brkic and the common grave?
Page 13200
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. I have a report by --
3 Q. We're going through all the -- please, if you just follow me. I
4 don't want you to make speeches --
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I don't think, as a matter of fact, that
6 Mr. Theunens was preparing for making a speech.
7 THE WITNESS: No, no.
8 JUDGE ORIE: At the same time, if you would follow the line of
9 questioning developed by Mr. Kay, and if anything you think might be
10 missing then at the end you'll have an opportunity to supplement whatever
11 was missing.
12 So if there's a certain matter you would like to raise, please
13 make a short note and then check at the end whether everything has been
14 covered.
15 MR. KAY: I thank Your Honour, and I wasn't being rude,
16 Mr. Theunens. It's just that I do have a programme and a time limit, and
17 I want to make sure things are covered in a progressional way.
18 Your Honour, may this document be made an exhibit?
19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Waespi.
20 MR. WAESPI: I thought it was already an exhibit.
21 MR. KAY: Oh, I'm sorry. I was taken out of my stride there.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
23 MR. KAY:
24 Q. Again, other than that reference to General Cermak there, no
25 other reference to him at all and no reference to him as being
Page 13201
1 coordinating or in charge of those measures being taken by the civil
2 protection department. Isn't that right?
3 A. That is right, but I want to point out that the report discusses
4 the situation throughout the area covered by Operation Storm, and on the
5 other hand, as we just saw, the fact that it was not possible to
6 establish communications from -- with General Cermak's command is
7 highlighted in the report, which means that it is important for the
8 implementation of the sanitation tasks to have communication with
9 General Cermak.
10 Q. It says:
11 "A particular problem is the lack of any communications out of
12 Knin at all ..." so out of Knin at all, "so that today it was not even
13 possible to establish communications ..." which does not apply
14 essentially to solely General Cermak but to communicating with anyone in
15 Knin; isn't that right?
16 A. Your Honours, that is correct, but the fact that General Cermak
17 is -- his name is highlighted in the report, to me, means something,
18 because there are many more people in Knin, obviously.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. It may be clear that -- it seems that the
20 general situation is described and specific mention is made that no
21 communication with General Cermak's command could be established, which
22 means that at least that has been on their minds, and it may even have
23 been attempted to do so.
24 Please proceed.
25 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
Page 13202
1 Q. If we now turn to 65 ter 5387. Footnote 976 in your report. And
2 we see here -- I don't have a date on this document in the English, but
3 on the Croatian language we can see the 8th of August date, and it's from
4 Dr. Brkic. It's to General Cermak, and it's a report about hygiene and
5 sanitation measures, and it refers --
6 JUDGE ORIE: Is it true that the English document does not
7 correspond in any way with the original, what we see on our screen at the
8 moment? I've never seen a translation which takes approximately four
9 times the size --
10 MR. KAY: Yes. There's obviously been something there that's
11 happened in the system, Your Honour, and from my perch here I can now see
12 the full text. Yeah.
13 If we can just look at the English version in the interests of
14 time. Thank you.
15 Q. This is a report from Brkic to General Cermak referring to the
16 order, referring to the instructions we've looked at from 1993 and giving
17 details of various dates, 7th of August, 8th of August, 9th of August, of
18 people who had been processed, and remarking that all have been processed
19 in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention and buried as
20 usual. Graves have been marked with regular intervals, and crosses with
21 a mark have been put on each of them. And all unidentified persons in a
22 process of secondary identification, and another report to be filed
23 during the day.
24 There are further reports we will look at, so we'll just go
25 through them so that they are -- are dealt with, but there apparently is
Page 13203
1 a conflict between Mr. Brkic, Brigadier Brkic, and Mr. Cemerin concerning
2 who had done what correctly, we can point out from this document.
3 May this document be made an exhibit, Your Honour?
4 JUDGE ORIE: Let me first clarify the issue. I mean, if it's
5 admitted into evidence, then, of course, it will be the original and the
6 translation. I noticed that the ERN of the English translation ends with
7 7670, whereas it appears that the original we find now on our screen the
8 last four digits are 7667.
9 MR. KAY: Your Honour, there's a certification page at the back
10 which we're not looking at for obvious -- unless Your Honour wants to
11 certify it's a copy.
12 JUDGE ORIE: I just want to know for sure that when we admit
13 something in evidence that we know what we are admitting, and I'll have
14 a --
15 MR. KAY: Page 2.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
17 MR. KAY: I don't --
18 JUDGE ORIE: What I have on my screen under this number is, as
19 you said before, the document dated the 8th of August, 1995
20 English translation is not only longer but also without a date.
21 MR. KAY: Your Honour, it's not the same document. It's not the
22 same document, yeah.
23 JUDGE ORIE: No. But if we admit something in evidence, we have
24 to take together the original and the translation, and therefore a final
25 decision on admission should wait until we have seen the original
Page 13204
1 properly uploaded.
2 MR. KAY: Your Honour, we'll ask the Prosecution to supply the
3 original. It's not an uploaded by us, so we will get it sorted out.
4 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not blaming anyone, but I'm not very much
5 inclined to admit into evidence the translation of a document which is a
6 totally different document. That's --
7 MR. WAESPI: We'll try to find the original B/C/S that
8 corresponds with the translation.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, and once you have found it, once you have
10 uploaded it, can you inform us so we can decide on the matter, but it
11 could already be marked for identification awaiting the uploaded of the
12 original.
13 Mr. Registrar, that would be --
14 THE REGISTRAR: That would be Exhibit number 1057, marked for
15 identification, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
17 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
18 Q. The next document is Exhibit D609, footnote 977 or 1048,
19 concerning the order by General Cermak to Dr. Brkic for the disposal
20 of -- of refuse. We put that in for completeness. D6 -- we'll move on
21 from there.
22 Exhibit D610 is a further order concerning animal hygiene and
23 sanitation measures. There's no need to call that up. And we can now
24 move to 2D07-0423.
25 This document is also dated the 10th of August, 1995, and it's a
Page 13205
1 request for the transfer of personnel from the Civil Defence, and it says
2 in regard to the sanitation of the municipality of Knin
3 "We request the transfer of personnel from the Ministry of
4 Interior, city of Zagreb
5 in Knin with the aim of improving efficiency."
6 And it's a request for Mr. Cicko who had been mentioned in that
7 earlier report, the Court will recollect, and a Dr. Santetic is also
8 mentioned, and asking for them to be placed with the Knin garrison
9 temporary, and it's signed by General Cermak.
10 So indicating there, Mr. Theunens, wouldn't you agree that
11 Mr. Cermak wasn't ordering the Civil Defence in the Ministry of Interior
12 but requesting assistance in relation to these measures?
13 A. Indeed. And it shows that a distinction has to be made between
14 the authority of General Cermak in Knin, and then as we also saw
15 yesterday with the documents for military personnel, he requested from
16 various structures, so the distinction between the authority in Knin and
17 his position towards the outside world where obviously a garrison
18 commander or somebody in the position of General Cermak in the city of
19 Knin cannot order somebody in a ministry in Zagreb.
20 Q. And we know from that earlier report by Mr. Cemerin, dated the
21 8th of August, that, in fact, Mr. Cicko was already down there and
22 working.
23 A. Yeah, that's possible. I don't remember exactly, but it's
24 possible.
25 Q. Well, it was important because he was the person who was critical
Page 13206
1 about Dr. Brkic, if you remember in the passage that I read out to you.
2 A. Indeed.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 MR. KAY: Your Honour, may this document be made an exhibit.
5 JUDGE ORIE: I think it was. Wasn't it D610?
6 MR. KAY: No, this is --
7 JUDGE ORIE: I'm sorry.
8 MR. WAESPI: Yes. We have no objections.
9 JUDGE ORIE: No objections. Mr. Registrar.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this becomes Exhibit number D1058.
11 JUDGE ORIE: D1058 is admitted into evidence.
12 Mr. Theunens, we saw the other document. I think it was D609,
13 footnote 977. From what I remember, there was -- one of the terms used
14 there was "subordination." Do you remember that? And in view of the
15 last questions, could you explain the situation as far as requesting for
16 the assistance, subordination to clarify how we exactly would have to
17 understand that.
18 Perhaps we could have it on the screen.
19 MR. KAY: Exhibit D609.
20 THE WITNESS: Your Honours, the distinction between the two
21 documents, in my view, is that General Cermak has the title of commander
22 of the Knin Garrison, and he exercises various powers as we have seen
23 over the past days in relation to his position of garrison commander,
24 whereby he also deals with matters that go beyond what is stipulated in
25 the regulations as being the duties of a garrison commander.
Page 13207
1 D609 shows that the staff for hygiene and sanitation measures in
2 Knin is subordinated to General Cermak, which is coherent with what we
3 saw in the earlier document, the report about the dispatching of the
4 clearing teams to the various parts of Croatia, whereby the Ministry of
5 Interior determined how the teams should be formed, how they should
6 proceed, what regulations they had to apply when, for example, burying
7 human bodies, but the document there also clearly stated that they would
8 operate in coordination and under the authorisation of the military
9 authorities in the area.
10 D609 is, for me, an example of the authority, the military
11 authority in the area has over the clearing teams, whereby as I said
12 General Cermak can issue orders to the head of the staff for hygiene and
13 sanitation measures in Knin.
14 The last document we saw, it uses the word "request," and I
15 understand the confusion that sometimes "request" is used in documents
16 where actually one would say from the contents it is an order, but the
17 last document, obviously it is not an order, and I draw that conclusion
18 from the context of the documents. General Cermak can request the
19 Ministry of Interior to provide additional staff, but I see that as a --
20 a question he asks to provide -- excuse me, to the Ministry of Interior
21 to provide him with personnel, whereby it's the Ministry of Interior who
22 will decide whether or not he receives the personnel. I mean, and the
23 other requests we have seen from the context, we could see that it is a
24 superior who indeed requests a subordinate to do something, but from the
25 contents it was basically the superior ordering the subordinate to do
Page 13208
1 something.
2 I think when looking at these documents, one has to look at who
3 signed it, for whom is it intended, what are the de jure or de facto
4 relations between the sender and the addressee, and based on those
5 aspects we can -- and the contents of the document, we can determine its
6 significance in the sense of whether it's a request in the sense of a
7 question or a request in the sense of an order.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Kay.
9 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 Q. Let us turn now to the document you referred to earlier, Exhibit
11 P496, which shows the order of the 11th of August, issued by
12 General Gotovina based on the Cervenko order of the 5th of August, 1995
13 And in the aim of clearing up the terrain this order is made. We see a
14 clear-up operations in Knin, and then we see a detachment command. We've
15 taken a little time going through this because this all comes together
16 now, these names we've seen before which the Court may recognise. Mr. --
17 Captain Radovic, Mr. Davidovic, Mr. Batur.
18 Turning to page 2. Again further names there, what's to happen
19 in relation to the composition of the groups.
20 Page 3. Again referring to Captain Radovic as the clear-up
21 coordinator, equipment.
22 Page 4. Reference to Dr. Brkic's guidance that we've looked at
23 right at the start.
24 A. Can you point out the name of Dr. Brkic in the document because I
25 haven't seen it yet.
Page 13209
1 Q. No, at the top of the page you see 15/10/93. That's the guidance
2 we looked at the start, Dr. Brkic's guidance. Yes?
3 A. I don't have it on my screen, but --
4 JUDGE ORIE: Could we have a look at -- apparently you're
5 referring to the date, the date of the 1993 document.
6 MR. KAY: Yes, it may be on the previous page, Your Honour. I
7 know e-court has its marvels, but documents are -- go down, please.
8 A. Yes.
9 JUDGE ORIE: There we fine it at the semi-last line, the 15th of
10 October, 1993, which is the date of --
11 MR. KAY: Yeah.
12 THE WITNESS: But I was thinking of Dr. Brkic in the context of
13 his role in Knin, as we saw by the documents by -- I mean his reports to
14 General Cermak. I haven't seen his name in this document, but maybe I
15 missed something.
16 MR. KAY:
17 Q. You haven't seen his name here at all, and we'll look up. That's
18 why I pointed out to you in Mr. Cemerin's report of the 8th of August his
19 announcement that he was going in, as opposed to being ordered by the
20 civil protection staff. And we're going to look further as to what he
21 says about himself.
22 This is all from General Gotovina, an organisation for dealing
23 with this matter. We see on the last page that it's dispatched to the
24 various parts of the Split Military District including the garrison
25 commander.
Page 13210
1 A. That's correct, yes.
2 Q. Very well. That's already an exhibit. If we go to the next
3 document, 65 ter 4981.
4 This is a report to General Cermak from Colonel Brkic again.
5 It's dated the 12th of August. Report about hygiene and sanitary
6 measures. It repeats that earlier report that we saw that he filed on
7 the 9th, giving the details on the first page, citing again his guidance
8 of the 15th of October.
9 If we go to page 2. He refers to further details there about the
10 marking of the graves. Oh, it's page 1 of the one on e-court. And we
11 can see that he refers to how the graves are marked at a proper distance,
12 et cetera.
13 MR. KAY: Your Honour, may this document be made an exhibit.
14 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1059, Your Honours.
17 JUDGE ORIE: D1059 is admitted into evidence.
18 Mr. Kay, earlier, and I do understand that it's a more complex
19 matter, our attention was drawn to the numbering of documents and the
20 dates, 5th of August, et cetera. I noticed looking at some of these
21 documents that at least apart from other evidence about who arrived by
22 what date, that there seems to be little consistency in the numbering of
23 documents and the dates. For example, here we have a 02 document of the
24 12th of August, where we have already on the 8th and 9th, we have far
25 higher numbers. Just for me to understand the position of the Defence,
Page 13211
1 is that through the other evidence we have -- we would have to conclude
2 that one document of the 5th of August could not have been issued on the
3 5th of August, not primarily on the basis of the numbering but, rather,
4 on the basis of the other reference. Is that --
5 MR. KAY: Yes. Your Honour, so there's no mystery, I'll put my
6 case and explain it to the Court. I think it's proper as you're --
7 JUDGE ORIE: No, but if I understood your position well, then we
8 don't have to repeat it.
9 MR. KAY: Exactly.
10 JUDGE ORIE: If you say, No, you have misunderstood the position,
11 then, of course, I would ask you for a clarification.
12 MR. KAY: Yes. That -- that order of the 5th of August was
13 impossible for General Cermak to have been issuing on that day. He
14 wasn't in Knin. He didn't have that -- that stamp.
15 Our case on this is that Dr. Brkic turned up, said he was -- made
16 himself available to General Cermak and started doing his business which
17 General Cermak allowed him to do, and then he came back to General Cermak
18 saying he needed an order and got him to sign the order. That's our
19 case, and you will have seen from the other documents that there was some
20 controversy about what Dr. Brkic was doing in Knin when the other organs
21 were already in work, and a deputy minister had become involved sending
22 him down there. So it's a picture of chaos and confusion.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, so the dates on the documents and the position
24 of the Defence is explained by the need at a later date to have some form
25 of document. That's clear to me now.
Page 13212
1 MR. KAY: Yes. And it was Dr. Brkic justifying himself is our
2 case, Your Honour, in relation to these documents.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you for this explanation.
4 Please proceed.
5 MR. KAY: Yes.
6 I'm sorry that there was mystery about it, but I didn't want to
7 comment --
8 JUDGE ORIE: No, but, of course, I'm looking at the numbers --
9 MR. KAY: Yes.
10 JUDGE ORIE: -- in relation to the dates, and then, of course,
11 I'm asking myself how to understand matters.
12 MR. KAY: Yes.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
14 MR. KAY: Let's move now to --
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Waespi.
16 MR. WAESPI: Yes, perhaps to finish that open issue with D marked
17 for identification 1057, if we go to 65 ter 5387, then we see that the
18 correct original B/C/S is uploaded.
19 JUDGE ORIE: You it's now -- the correct one is uploaded?
20 MR. WAESPI: That's correct.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Then I'll check that.
22 Please proceed.
23 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. Thank you, Mr. Waespi.
24 2D07-0372.
25 Q. This is a report from Dr. Brkic to the Minister of Defence,
Page 13213
1 Mr. Susak, on Knin garrison paper. It's a report on his work between the
2 5th and 12th of August, 1995, and he's writing to the minister, although
3 not in response to any particular order or request from the front of the
4 letter here. We'll look down further to see what's said.
5 "Dear Mr. Minister, I came to liberated Knin on 5th of August,
6 1995, to a regular inspection that I perform on occasions like this, and
7 I found the situation as following ..."
8 And then he gives an account in this report. We can note that
9 it's in conflict with the account given in Mr. Cemerin's document of the
10 8th of August, but he says that there was a problem in the cemetery.
11 There was a big hole. There were several bodies in the hole, several
12 more around it. It wasn't done properly, "so I issued an order to an
13 engineer, Jelic, to treat the bodies in accordance with the Geneva
14 Convention, to perform a complete forensic processing - identification,"
15 burial of each body, mark the graves, and contacted the local priest.
16 All activities had to be minimised because the president visited on the
17 6th of August. He went back on the 7th of August in the morning and saw
18 that the hole behind the church had been buried. He inquired, "But I did
19 not get the answer. It became clear to me that because the task was so
20 sensitive and because I had other tasks, my presence there had been
21 necessary." And then he refers to that order from General Cermak stating
22 he formed the company who took over the task, and together with civil
23 protection, performed the task in accordance with all the rules about the
24 hygiene and situation, i.e., bodies that were in the same room were
25 separated and buried separately. And he refers to further details there.
Page 13214
1 He refers to animal sanitation. And you can see just before the
2 conclusion of the letter: "I hope I have justified my presence," and he
3 refers to another doctor.
4 Had you seen this document before?
5 A. I have this included in footnote 980 on English page 246, second
6 part of the report.
7 Q. And there we are. We brought it to the attention the Court. It
8 exhibits the order that we've looked at already, as well as some further
9 appended documents.
10 MR. KAY: May this document be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
11 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1060, Your Honours.
14 JUDGE ORIE: D1060 is admitted into evidence, and D1057 is also
15 admitted into evidence, the original having been uploaded.
16 Please proceed.
17 MR. KAY: The next document is 2D07-0428. This time dated the
18 14th of August. Again from Dr. Brkic, this time to the chief of the Main
19 Staff, General Cervenko, and report about his participation in operation
20 Summer 1995. I don't need to go into the details of that, but it's just
21 there for completeness as to what he is writing about.
22 May this document be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
23 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1061, Your Honours.
Page 13215
1 JUDGE ORIE: Is admitted into evidence.
2 MR. KAY:
3 Q. And the next document is Exhibit P543. It's similar but not
4 identical to the report that we saw was made to the minister of defence,
5 Mr. Susak, earlier. It's from Dr. Brkic to General Gotovina, dated the
6 16th of August, reporting on his activities between the 5th, 12th of
7 August, and it opens:
8 "General, sir, came to liberated Knin on the 5th of August, 1995
9 to a regular inspection that I perform on occasions like this, and I
10 found the situation as following," and then that information we've seen
11 before as well as the rest of the letter is the same as the letter to the
12 minister.
13 Just moving on from that, there is another report that we need to
14 see. Exhibit D612. This time Dr. Brkic is writing to the chief of
15 staff, General Cervenko, on the 29th of August, and reporting on clearing
16 up the terrain between the 5th, the 28th of August. And again he
17 repeats: "That's something I do after any such action," and then goes
18 into the detail of his work and what he could see at the cemetery.
19 If we could turn to page 2. The further details we've already
20 seen in the earlier reports. Further detail, however, on the 7th of
21 August.
22 "...I came to the graveyard to find the hole filled up... who did
23 that? Got no reply. It became clear to me that my presence was
24 essential."
25 A team was formed, and he refers to the order, and then we know
Page 13216
1 there's further detail there, clearing up the terrain.
2 And at page 3 about the final work that will be in a report to be
3 sent giving further technical details.
4 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. There's no further information
5 I need to point out in relation to that, but that's Dr. Brkic's role.
6 And now we will go to that involving the Ministry of the Interior
7 and what takes place there.
8 Your Honour, if we can go to Exhibit D232. This is a document
9 from the assistant minister at the Ministry of Interior called
10 Mr. Zidovic.
11 Q. Do you know what Mr. Zidovic's position, what his responsibility
12 is in the Ministry of Interior?
13 A. If we look at the end of the document, we will find it, but I
14 have no specific knowledge of it.
15 Q. He's in charge of the civil protection and fire service and
16 issues a whole series of orders to the police administration departments
17 with that responsibility. And we can see here on this page, on the 4th
18 of August, orders that are given there. Page 2, paragraph 3, referring
19 to the Zadar-Knin police administration amongst others, telling them to
20 prepare the activation of units. Immediately activated a detachment for
21 hygiene and sanitation measures and a detachment for clearing up the
22 terrain.
23 Paragraph 4:
24 "In the said police administrations in cooperation with the
25 military authorities and on their approval, engage in the removal of the
Page 13217
1 bodies of the dead, in cooperation with the criminal police. Keep
2 records," et cetera.
3 If we go to Exhibit D233, we an order the next day, the 5th of
4 August, and I'm going to take matters very swiftly thereafter to conclude
5 the whole series of documents that have already gone into evidence, Your
6 Honour, and just deal with the matter globally, as I believe the Court is
7 well seized of these exhibits now.
8 5th of August here, we see hygiene and sanitation measures. This
9 document again is from Mr. Zidovec. It's estimated that there is a large
10 number of bodies of people who were killed in the area. Promptly engage
11 all available resources on the ground. Get manpower from other
12 administrations.
13 Page 2, part of the steps to be taken concerning dead bodies and
14 explosives, examining the area. Identifying, photographing,
15 fingerprinting the body. Identification number, and buried in single
16 graves properly marked with a cross, and saying only single graves shall
17 be dug. Under international law any grave containing more than four
18 bodies is considered a mass grave.
19 Page 3. Recording that dead bodies shall be recorded on forms,
20 an example of which is attached. And then giving details of units to be
21 carrying out this task.
22 Mr. Theunens, are you familiar with these documents emanating
23 from the Ministry of Interior and further such documents all sent to the
24 Zadar-Knin police administration, to other police administrations, as
25 well as Kotar-Knin police administration on measures and steps to be
Page 13218
1 taken in relation to the sanitation and clearing of the terrain?
2 A. I'm not familiar with these specific documents, but I'm familiar
3 with the procedure and also the cooperation and the role of the military
4 authorities in the implementation of these procedures.
5 Q. Are you aware of the role of the civilian authorities in the
6 implementation of these procedures?
7 A. Indeed.
8 Q. We've had countless, probably 20 or 30, exhibits in this case
9 detailing this, none of which are, in fact, referenced to General Cermak.
10 They show, in fact, the Ministry of Interior operating independently and
11 separately under their own procedures in relation to this matter. Did
12 you appreciate that?
13 A. Yes, but I wouldn't look at these documents in isolation from --
14 from, for example, the instruction you showed earlier where it was
15 clearly stated on the first page that these activities have to be carried
16 out in cooperation and under the authority of the military authorities.
17 The document we see now, I mean -- no, D232, clearly state in
18 paragraph 4 that there is a requirement for cooperation with the military
19 authorities, and I think from a common-sense point of view, that is
20 logical. In an area where military operations are conducted or have been
21 conduct, the military is the best organised structure. They know the
22 terrain. They may know where bodies are. They may know where, for
23 example, booby-traps or explosives are. And even if the Civil Defence
24 carries out the specific activities, they will have to cooperate with the
25 military authorities and receive instructions from the military
Page 13219
1 authorities as to where and when they can carry out the sanitation
2 activities.
3 Q. These very detailed orders to identified units within the civil
4 protection of the department of the ministry of interior show, in fact,
5 that General Cermak is not in command of these agencies in Knin; isn't
6 that right?
7 A. We have seen a number of documents including those signed by
8 Brigadier Brkic where reference is made to a command of General Cermak.
9 Q. Yes, we've seen that, but we've looked at the military documents,
10 and if you like, we can go through the 30 or 40 of Ministry of Interior
11 documents all setting out the procedures which you say you're familiar
12 with which show the Ministry of Interior operating within its own
13 hierarchy and not viewing itself as being subordinated to General Cermak;
14 isn't that right?
15 A. I agree with you that it's not the subordination of the Ministry
16 of Interior to General Cermak, but it is the operation of elements of the
17 Ministry of Interior, i.e., Civil Defence units operating in cooperation
18 and under authority of the military authorities in the specific area, and
19 for what the Knin Garrison area is concerned the documents I have
20 included in my report on pages 245 and 246, indicate that General Cermak
21 is the military authority.
22 Q. You are completely overstating your argument on this matter,
23 aren't you, Mr. Theunens? You have cited solely in the part of your
24 report dealing with the garrison and General Cermak, the Brkic orders;
25 isn't that right?
Page 13220
1 A. They're actually reports by Brigadier Brkic?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. There is also P05 -- we already had P506, there may be discussion
4 about the date, but it was signed by General Cermak.
5 Q. Let's just focus on the question. We're dealing now with the
6 Ministry of Interior. We have established that the Ministry of Interior
7 has a civil protection department. Civil protection department is
8 issuing orders to the police administrations who have civil protection
9 units within them, correct?
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. Those units are then operating under the orders of the civil
12 protection departments of the police administrations, and they are
13 dealing with the issue of the hygiene and sanitation of the terrain. And
14 I can refer -- well, to 30 or 40 orders. The Court has seen them.
15 Those -- those operations are acting entirely without the
16 authority of General Cermak commanding them. Isn't that right?
17 A. As I explained, it is the Ministry of Interior that instructs
18 teams to be sent. It also explains the teams how they are to carry out
19 their work, but it is the military authority that determines when, where
20 these activities have to be carried out, and it is also the military
21 authority, at least based on the documents I have reviewed and include in
22 my report, who receive information on the implementation of the
23 sanitation tasks.
24 The teams will obviously also report or send information on the
25 implementation of their duties to the Ministry of Interior as well as,
Page 13221
1 for example, as you showed, on problems they have, but again, it is not
2 an exclusively Ministry of Interior type of activity. There needs to be
3 cooperation with the military authorities, and as we saw in the first,
4 call it, generic document you showed, the activities of the sanitation
5 are carried out in cooperation and under the authority of the military
6 authorities.
7 Q. You mentioned cooperation, but you say cooperation under the
8 authority of the military authorities.
9 Putting Brkic on one side, which is the person not from the civil
10 protection department, but within the Ministry of Interior civil
11 protection department where is there a single order from General Cermak
12 commanding them?
13 A. I think there are two elements in the question. What --
14 Q. Just answer -- it's clear what I'm getting at.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay -- Mr. Theunens, you can point at two
16 elements in the question, but would you please identify them, and then
17 I'll tell you whether you can address them, yes or no.
18 THE WITNESS: Your Honours, the first element is that Mr. Kay
19 states that I said cooperation under the authority. I --
20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And the second element was?
21 THE WITNESS: The second element is orders by General Cermak.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Let's first deal with the first one.
23 THE WITNESS: The first one, I don't have the exhibit number, but
24 the -- what I call the generic document we saw stated that sanitation
25 activities had to be carry out in cooperation with and under the
Page 13222
1 authority of the military authorities. That was --
2 JUDGE ORIE: Having clarified this, could you please move to the
3 second element of the question.
4 THE WITNESS: The -- the second element, well, I have the
5 document P506 in my report.
6 MR. KAY: Can we call that up, please. Exhibit P506.
7 A. It's the one where there's discuss about the date or the number.
8 MR. KAY:
9 Q. That's the Brkic document. No, you're ...
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Theunens, I think part of the question was that
11 leave apart Dr. Brkic, if there were any orders apart from him.
12 THE WITNESS: Well, this is an order by General Cermak.
13 MR. KAY: Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to go through the
14 exhibits then.
15 Q. I'm afraid, Mr. Theunens, you're playing this for one side alone.
16 You are.
17 A. No. I can only draw conclusions on the documents I have seen.
18 Now, the only, I mean, option -- other option I can see is that also in
19 addition to this team, and we also have then the team established -- or
20 the team establish by General Gotovina, that there are separate teams
21 operating, i.e., what you call Ministry of Interior teams, but then I
22 would have to review more documents of the Ministry of Interior to see
23 also to whom these Ministry of Interior teams send information in
24 relation to their activities.
25 We saw a document this morning, even this review of the
Page 13223
1 activities of the teams, of the Civil Defence teams, where the
2 communication problems in Knin were highlighted, and it was specifically
3 highlighted that there were -- that they couldn't even reach
4 General Cermak in Knin. We only saw the document on the screen, but I
5 don't remember seeing any reference to another senior member of the arm
6 forces in that document.
7 Now, if -- if the situation is that there are separate teams,
8 separate Civil Defence teams, operating in the area, I have not seen
9 documents, such documents or documents indicating that during the
10 preparation of my report, but I'm willing to consider such documents, and
11 then obviously review what is included in the report. What is included
12 in the report is based on the material I reviewed, and there we have an
13 order by General Cermak to establish a team or to -- excuse me, to
14 establish a staff, what we see now, P506, and we have the Brkic reports.
15 I have not come across material that --
16 Q. You will be, after the break.
17 A. Okay.
18 Q. It's --
19 A. But I just want to say the position of Mr. Brkic, indeed you show
20 a document from the Civil Defence where certain reservations are made
21 about the position or the role of Mr. Brkic. I would expect the members
22 of the Civil Defence to highlight that issue also with General Cermak.
23 It's speculation, I agree, but --
24 JUDGE ORIE: Let's not speculate.
25 THE WITNESS: Okay.
Page 13224
1 JUDGE ORIE: We will have a break, and we'll resume at 11.00 a.m.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 11.07 a.m.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, please proceed.
5 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
6 Q. Shall we go back to Exhibit P496, please, General Gotovina's
7 order of the 11th of August. And my questions, Mr. Theunens, actually
8 concern Mr. Cermak's authority, which is at the section of the report
9 that we are -- are dealing with. And this is the order that you have
10 referred to several times, dated the 11th of August. We can see that the
11 order is to establish operative groups and that there is a detachment
12 command, and you'll see Captain Boris Radovic. He worked for the MUP
13 Ministry of Interior as well, civil protection department. I'm sorry,
14 Boris Davidovic did, the deputy clear-up coordinator. I don't know
15 whether I read that out correctly or rightly. And we see Stanko Batur,
16 who was had he of the civil department -- civil protection department, in
17 fact, of Zadar-Knin police administration and various other members of
18 the detachment command.
19 If we go to page 2, we see the further names there and what each
20 operations group should consist of.
21 If we go to page 3, in the middle of the page we see the time and
22 place at which parties are to report shall be determined by the clear-up
23 coordinator, Captain Radovic. And we can see the various equipment from
24 the logistics bases and operation groups of the brigades in paragraph 5.
25 We see a combination in 6 relating to personnel and equipment
Page 13225
1 from the police -- from the Split-Dalmatia Police Administration, and
2 that the clear-up is to be, in line 10, with that guidance of the 15th of
3 October, 1993.
4 If we go to the next page, and it's paragraph 12:
5 "Dispatch daily reports by 2200 hours, indicating the situation
6 of 2000 hours; the reports shall be dispatched to the OPL sector of the
7 Croatian Army Main Staff." And a final report no later.
8 And this document is sent to various parts of the Split Military
9 District, including the Knin Garrison.
10 Now, the issue I was asking you about was Mr. Cermak, whether he
11 was in command of the Ministry of Interior Staff or even the Split
12 Military District Staff involved with this clear-up of the terrain, and
13 you'll notice that the order of general Gotovina causes that the reports
14 be submitted to the army Main Staff; isn't that right?
15 A. I see that -- I mean the sending to the army of the Main Staff, I
16 agree, but that's the second component of the question. The first
17 component is that this order does not make any reference to a role by
18 General Cermak in relation to these clearing teams, particularly the
19 clearing team for Knin, and I find that unusual.
20 When I addressed the role of General Cermak in the context of
21 clearing of the terrain, that is the section on the pages 245 and 246, I
22 have included his orders for the establishment of a terrain hygiene and
23 sanitation measures staff.
24 I have tried when reviewing the documents to make a connection
25 between these two documents, i.e., between P506. There's also D610 which
Page 13226
1 is an order by General Cermak, and P496, and I wasn't able to make such a
2 connection except that P496 is actually issued after P506, even if there
3 is -- there can be debate about the date P506, but D610 is dated the 10th
4 of August.
5 And just to finish the answer, we have the reports by
6 Brigadier Brkic to General Cermak at least one or two reports dated the
7 12th of August.
8 That is all I can say in connection to your question.
9 Q. Now, just looking at this and then looking at what this document
10 can tell us, that under this order of the Split Military District, the
11 reporting system was not to General Cermak; isn't that right?
12 A. That is correct.
13 Q. Which indicates that General Cermak was not in command of this
14 particular order and operation.
15 A. As I mentioned, P496 does not mention a role for General Cermak.
16 He's only mentioned as one of the addressees.
17 Q. Well, could you answer the question. You're meant to be an
18 expert on command and control, because one of the essentials of the
19 command and control would be to have a reporting system to General Cermak
20 if he was in command of these units; isn't that right?
21 A. Command and control indeed implies also a verification of the
22 implementation of the order. The most logical manner is that, indeed,
23 one receives reports, but as I mentioned it several times, the commander
24 also has to collect information himself. Now, I agree with you that the
25 most logical approach would have been to -- if General Cermak had a role
Page 13227
1 in relation to the teams established by P496, the most logical approach
2 would have been to mention his name in connection to the Knin team,
3 determine what his role was, and then also depending on his role,
4 determine in P496 whether or not he was to receive reports. That is not
5 done in P496.
6 Q. And the documents of General Cermak that you refer to indicate
7 his involvement in a capacity before this date, before this period when
8 he issues an order and Dr. Brkic reports to him about matters before this
9 date.
10 A. The orders by General Cermak I have reviewed are indeed before
11 this date, but as I mentioned, there are -- is at least one report by
12 Brigadier Brkic from after this order. What I have in footnote 980 is a
13 report by Brigadier Brkic dated the 12th of August.
14 Q. And the events in at that report are before the 11th of August;
15 isn't that right? We've looked at it today.
16 A. The title is "Report about hygiene and sanitary measures
17 taken --"
18 Q. We'll look at it. We'll look at it.
19 A. If we could maybe see the previous page of P496 to see whether
20 there is a date established in the order indicating when the order enters
21 into effect. I mean, just to clarify the question of Mr. Kay.
22 Q. I'm sorry, I don't understand. I don't understand you.
23 A. Often an order will also include an information as to when the
24 order is to come into effect. We have seen many orders which stated this
25 orders comes into effect immediately.
Page 13228
1 Q. It says "hereby." It says "hereby."
2 A. Okay.
3 Q. And it says: "Dispatch daily reports by 2200." So it's to come
4 into effect straight away. And if we go to 65 ter 4981, it has an
5 exhibit number now, but I --
6 A. Mm-hmm. You have D1059?
7 Q. I haven't got the number. Yes, 1059, which is dated the 12th of
8 August. You will see that, in fact, it goes up to events on the 11th of
9 August.
10 A. That is correct. Again this is not exact science, but one would
11 expect that Brigadier Brkic, if the teams established by the order of
12 General Gotovina in P496 were already active, had arrived and had start
13 with their activities, that Brigadier Brkic would have informed
14 General Cermak about that. Again, it's not a must, but it would be
15 logical in the context of military reporting and the types of reporting
16 that Brigadier Brkic is sending, but I want to emphasise that this is not
17 a kind of final conclusion, but it -- I just want to highlight that it
18 would be illogical for Brkic not to mention the teams established by
19 General Gotovina if they had already been active.
20 Q. Yes. We -- we've seen what Brkic has written and to whom
21 thereafter, and now we're going to look at the Ministry of Interior
22 reports and documents that were issued, because you said you were unaware
23 of them.
24 If we see Exhibit D444. That's D444. This is a document dated
25 the 5th of August, 1995. It's from the assistant minister, Mr. Zidovec
Page 13229
1 again, to the police administration in Zagreb, Operations Staff. It
2 concerns dispatching assistance to the Zadar-Knin Police Administration
3 and Civilian Protection Forces to go there. It's not a document
4 referenced General Cermak in any way, but it is the 5th of August.
5 If we go to Exhibit D447. This is dated the 6th of August, 1995
6 again from the Assistant Minister Zidovec from the Ministry of Interior
7 to the police administration in the Primorje Gorski Kotar operations
8 staff about dispatching assistance to the Zadar-Knin police
9 administration. We can see the terms of that.
10 A. Your Honours, the document stated they are to be sent to Gracac
11 to assist with the clearing. Now maybe Gracac is just and assembly point
12 from where they will be dispatched to other areas, but Gracac is not part
13 of this zone covered by the -- at least as it is determined in D33 of the
14 zone covered by the Zadar-Knin garrisons.
15 Q. I know that, Mr. Theunens, but the indictment, as you will
16 recollect, is drafted very differently in this case from the garrison
17 area, and so there are various matters that go outside the garrison area,
18 and it's a matter of evidence in relation to this case.
19 We can see Gracac mentioned there, assisting with the clearing of
20 the terrain of Zadar-Knin police administration. Identifying who they're
21 to report to. Mr. Sacic.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 A. And that is --
25 Q. Continue.
Page 13230
1 JUDGE ORIE: Please.
2 THE WITNESS: That is logical and, I think, coherent with what I
3 have said earlier. That the teams are dispatched and then need to --
4 have to contact the local authority. I have to discuss the presence of
5 Special Police in the Gracac area at length and also the role of
6 Mr. Sacic, but the teams are sent to the area, and have to contact there
7 the authority, who is going to task them and as to where and when they
8 will carry out the tasks, which in general terms, i.e., the modus
9 operandi has been determined by the Ministry of the Interior as they have
10 to abide by specific procedures while carrying out their tasks.
11 Q. Thank you. Exhibit D448. This is another document from the
12 assistant minister Zidovec, dated the 6th of August, 1995, to the
13 Zadar-Knin operations staff of that police administration. Yes?
14 A. I believe this concerns again areas, Korenica -- I'm not sure
15 what would be now, but Korenica and Gracac, outside the zone of
16 responsibility of the Knin Garrison as has been determined in D33.
17 Q. You have no need to tell us about that. We do know about the
18 Knin Garrison area, and as I said, this is a case involving a wider
19 allegation than the Knin Garrison area. There are matters that I am
20 caused to deal with outside that. Please accept it from me. But it
21 mentions Knin here and Udbina, yes. And it's the mobilisation of 150
22 members of that Civil Protection Unit, and the Zadar-Knin police
23 administration is ordered to ensure room and board for them.
24 If we go to Exhibit D43. Exhibit D43 is dated the 7th of August,
25 1995. It's from Assistant Minister Zidovec again, to the Split-Dalmatia
Page 13231
1 operations staff this time. It concerns assistance to the Zadar-Knin
2 police administration. And then going down the scale to Knin again for
3 the needs of a rapid terrain clearance of the town of Knin, urgently
4 mobilise 100 civilian protection conscripts, and they shall be dispatched
5 for jobs. They must report to Mr. Stanko Batur in Knin police station.
6 We recollect him from the 8th of August, report by Mr. Cemerin as well as
7 General Gotovina's order on the 11th of August. And again police
8 administration will be providing transportation, et cetera.
9 If we go to D449, Exhibit D449. This is a document dated the 8th
10 of August, 1995, dispatching assistance to Zadar-Knin police
11 administration again, although it's a Gracac order, and it requires
12 further conscripts. It states the number and what's to happen in terms
13 of uniforms, and it's to the Istria
14 If we go to --
15 JUDGE ORIE: Now, Mr. Kay, you're putting it to the witness. I
16 understood from his earlier answers that he considers these documents not
17 surprising to the extent that it's mainly focusing on making available
18 persons rather than to give any details. If the other documents are the
19 same, then it might not be necessary to go through all of them.
20 MR. KAY: I'm grateful to Your Honour. I'll put the proposition.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Then we'll know how the expert understands these
22 documents, what -- how he explains that Mr. Cermak is not mentioned or
23 referred to in any way, whereas it's clear to the Chamber that you give a
24 different significance to the absence of any mentioning or reference of
25 Mr. Cermak in these documents.
Page 13232
1 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I haven't dealt with this issue actually
2 explicitly having looked an at these documents. If I might put a
3 question to the witness on it. I won't go through the rest of it as the
4 Court --
5 JUDGE ORIE: As you did now, you introduced the document and
6 didn't ask any questions and went on to the next document, which is, of
7 course, at the certain moment, questions should be put to the witness in
8 relation to them as well.
9 MR. KAY: Of course, Your Honour.
10 Q. Well, if these people were reporting to the command of
11 General Cermak, he would have been copied in to the order, wouldn't he?
12 A. We have seen different documents dealing with, as Your Honours
13 explained, the making available people. In one case it was explained
14 they had to contact Mr. Zeljko Sacic, which I then explained why I
15 considered that coherent with what I said earlier. In a later document
16 there was the chief of the Knin police. There are documents which, as I
17 explain, do not deal with the area covered by the Knin Garrison, and I
18 agree with you these documents do not mention General Cermak. That's all
19 I can say about them, because there are different types --
20 JUDGE ORIE: But the question was --
21 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
22 JUDGE ORIE: -- that if these units or these -- yes, if these
23 units would be put at the disposal of General Cermak, whether it would
24 not have been logical or to be expected that he would have copied on
25 these documents. That was the question.
Page 13233
1 THE WITNESS: I believe there was one document, one mentioning
2 the head of the Knin police administration. It would have been logical,
3 even though the document doesn't explain whether -- I believe it was
4 Mr. Batur, whether he was to contact or not Mr. Cermak in relation to the
5 use of the teams. And that brings us back to the initial discussion,
6 so -- but in a strict sense, these documents do not mention General
7 Cermak. That is correct.
8 MR. KAY:
9 Q. And if he was to have command, he would have to know what was --
10 JUDGE ORIE: That was part of your earlier question. The witness
11 apparently has chosen to -- to specifically deal with the matter, which
12 of course is understood by the Chamber in a certain way as well.
13 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
15 MR. KAY: Yes.
16 Q. I will skip those other ones, then, sending these people down to
17 the Zadar-Knin police administration, and let us look at D -- Exhibit
18 D464.
19 Have you been familiar with any of those documents we've been
20 producing so far?
21 A. No, I don't think that I had seen them before, except, of course,
22 P496.
23 Q. Is there any reason why this aspect of the case was not analysed
24 by you in your section on the report concerning General Cermak?
25 A. The reason is that -- or I have not analysed the role of the
Page 13234
1 Civil Defence because I considered it outside the sphere of my experience
2 or expertise, and that's also why you can find that in the -- the small
3 section dealing with the role of General Cermak in relation to clearing
4 of the terrain in Knin, I have not made reference to any Civil Defence
5 documents. I only made reference to orders, i.e., orders issued by
6 General Cermak or documents sent to General Cermak. And that's also what
7 I said before the break, that I had not considered the civilian defence
8 documents.
9 Q. Thank you. If we look at Exhibit D464, we see again that the
10 assistant minister, Mr. Zidovec, on the 16th of August is sending to all
11 those police administrations -- and just while we're here, the Zadar-Knin
12 police administration, did you know that that was the police
13 administration that was the back-up or resource centre, if you like, for
14 the Kotar-Knin police administration?
15 A. Yes, even though I'm not a hundred per cent sure of the
16 municipalities covered by the Zadar-Knin police administration or the
17 Split-Dalmatia police administration.
18 Q. It's the structure that Kotar Knin receives resources because it
19 doesn't have these departments from Zadar-Knin which is the controlling
20 police administration. Were you aware of that?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Mr. Zidovec is asking for submission of information from the
23 police administrations because they're necessary for compiling reports,
24 and he wants information on the clearing up of bodies, information on
25 number of civilians in reception centres.
Page 13235
1 Again, if part -- if Mr. Cermak was part of the operation for
2 dealing with this matter, surely he would have been requested to provide
3 his information.
4 A. Not from the military point of view.
5 Q. We're not looking at a military document. We're looking at the
6 Ministry of Interior document. You have said what you've said about
7 General Cermak being in command and the superior authority, and now we're
8 looking at the system because you also comment on systems of command and
9 control and reporting, and now we're looking at it in action,
10 Mr. Theunens. Surely this would have been something, if he occupied the
11 position you say he did, that he would have been requested to either
12 receive from the police administrations or to have provided information
13 himself.
14 A. It is possible.
15 Q. Well, it's obvious, according to your report, isn't it, on
16 command and control?
17 A. My report on -- the aspects of command and control I have covered
18 in my report do not cover the relations between the military, i.e., the
19 HV and the police and other organs of the Ministry of Interior.
20 Q. As you were commenting on the military and civil authority of
21 Mr. Cermak, isn't that something you should have done as part of your
22 analysis? Don't you think?
23 A. Yes, that's possible, but the conclusion I drew is based on the
24 documents that describe the role of General Cermak as the commander of
25 the Knin Garrison. But I agree with you it could have helped just to
Page 13236
1 provide background on the de jure aspects of the relations between the
2 military as well as the Ministry of Interior.
3 Q. I'm going to look at a document now called Exhibit P46. It's a
4 United Nations document coming from Mr. Al-Alfi's department, and it
5 concerns the report of a meeting on the 22nd of August between the UN
6 agencies apparent in the document as well as Mr. Romanic, chief of police
7 for Knin, and Mr. Jukic Pavo, the officer in charge of Civil Defence in
8 Knin.
9 And if we turn to page 2 of this document and look at
10 paragraph 6, we see a report that Mr. Pavo, a chemistry engineer normally
11 based in the Civil Defence headquarters in Zagreb, and now in charge of
12 Civil Defence in Knin, had joined the meeting that was taking place, and
13 according to him, the main tasks of the Civil Defence in the area, he
14 describes them, and they include removing dead animals and human bodies.
15 And he further informed the team that the collection of dead human bodies
16 is being carried out by a specialised team operating in the Knin area and
17 that the people connect with it.
18 And then in paragraph 7 we see Mr. Kostovic mentioned again,
19 deputy prime minister who was the only Croatian official authorised to
20 speak to the public on a question concerning burials.
21 Again, have you seen this document? Were you aware of its
22 information?
23 A. I have not seen this document while preparing my report.
24 Q. Thank you. And I'm going to be cutting this section slightly
25 shorter now than it could have been.
Page 13237
1 Exhibit D351, please. This is a document from a man called
2 Mr. Cetina. Do you know who he is?
3 A. Yes, I do, and it's also stated in the document.
4 Q. Yeah. He's the chief of the Zadar police administration. Did
5 you know that he filed a number of report, of which this is one, to the
6 Ministry of Interior Main Staff which had an operation return department,
7 and did you know those reports over many days concern the reports of the
8 bodies found in the area of Zadar-Knin?
9 A. Yes, and I'm familiar in general terms with the -- the staff
10 return.
11 Q. Thank you. These reports started from slightly before this, on
12 the 7th of August, 1995, and they indicate a clear reporting line, don't
13 they, from the police in Zadar-Knin up to the Ministry of Interior in
14 Zagreb
15 A. Yes, they do.
16 Q. And none of those documents included a reference to
17 General Cermak?
18 A. I haven't seen the other documents, but if you talk about
19 reference in the sense of addressees or --
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. Yes, I agree with you.
22 Q. They've all been exhibited in the case, a large number, which if
23 he was superior to Mr. Cetina, he would have received a copy of these
24 reports; would he not?
25 A. He could, but Mr. Cetina could also have reported otherwise to
Page 13238
1 Mr. Cermak. Now, I have not claimed in my report that Mr. Cermak -- or
2 General Cermak is superior to Mr. Cetina.
3 Q. No, but you have said that he is superior to the military police
4 and the civil authority in Knin; haven't you?
5 A. I have said -- I have stated in my report that indeed
6 General Cermak is superior to the military and the civilian police in
7 Knin based on the documents that are included in that section where this
8 topic is addressed.
9 Q. As part of your analysis in relation to these issues of
10 authority, why didn't you include this information in your report for the
11 Judges?
12 A. You mean these, these reports here?
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. Because they show that indeed a civilian police official in the
15 Zadar-Knin police administration, which is actually also covering an area
16 outside the Knin Garrison, sends, indeed, information to the Ministry of
17 Interior, but they do not allow to draw conclusions as to whether or not
18 any information is shared by Mr. Cetina, in this case, with General
19 Cermak. The fact that he is -- I mean, the fact that he's not included
20 as an addressee in this report does not allow to draw any conclusions as
21 to whether he receives information or not. We can only say he does not
22 receive this report. We cannot draw other conclusions.
23 Q. Well, there's another 40 or 50 behind in exactly the same terms.
24 So it's not just this report. There's another 40 or 50. The Judges have
25 them.
Page 13239
1 A. Yes. I meant the type of report. It's like a military sitrep.
2 There is a list of addressees. It could be that some other people who
3 are not included as -- on the list of addressees receive information that
4 is included in these sitreps, probably not everything, through another
5 chain. I'm not claiming, certainly not, that Mr. Cetina was providing
6 information to Mr. Cermak. I'm just trying to explain why I did not use
7 these type of documents in my report in the section on the authority or
8 the position held by General Cermak while he was commander of the Knin
9 Garrison.
10 Q. Is that because your report has been prepared exclusively with
11 the aim of putting only one side of the case, that the negative in
12 relation to Mr. Cermak did not suit the purposes of your argument for the
13 Prosecution?
14 A. No. The report deals, as it's explained in the scope, the report
15 attempts to cover the role of General Gotovina, General Cermak, and
16 General Markac during and after Operation Storm. I have tried to be as
17 thorough as possible in describing that role. I did not consider it
18 necessary to describe what they were not doing, because it's difficult to
19 determine exactly where this starts and where this ends.
20 Q. But if you are expressing an opinion, surely as an expert, you
21 should be considering the other aspects as well, in the way that you're
22 answering my questions by putting the other point of view for your side.
23 A. The conclusions in the report are based on the information that I
24 have reviewed. The references can be found in the footnotes. It is up
25 to the reader to determine whether the conclusion I draw from the
Page 13240
1 material I reviewed is correct or not. And it is obvious if I am
2 confronted with other material that shows the opposite of my conclusions
3 that I should be willing to review my conclusions and also change them.
4 As I have attempted to explain with these documents, I think I'm
5 open to do so, but I want to be as thorough as possible and also in this
6 particular case explain why I didn't use these documents.
7 I didn't use them because they, as you tried to put it, did not
8 serve the goal of the report as you define the goal. In my view, the
9 goal is different. It is to describe of role of certain people. Yeah,
10 that concludes my answer.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Theunens, may I try to see what Mr. Kay is
12 seeking an answer to.
13 He, as I understand it, put to you that you have used certain
14 documents. You have explained to us that the documents you used are in
15 the footnotes.
16 Now, what he's asking you is other documents which perhaps do
17 not -- are not contradicting your conclusions, but at least maybe by
18 their number or their content are relevant to consider whether the
19 impression gained by the documents you did use and you did put into your
20 footnotes, whether it would not have been worth mentioning them. For
21 example, to say there are 30 documents on this and this matter where one
22 could ask oneself why no reference whatsoever is made to Mr. Cermak in
23 this case to have them in your footnotes as well, because you say the
24 reader, on the basis of the footnotes, can verify, can draw his own
25 conclusions, but of course, only on the basis of the documents you did
Page 13241
1 use. And the question by Mr. Kay is would it not have been -- would it
2 not have given a more complete picture if you would have included the
3 documents he draws your attention to at this moment also in the
4 footnotes, even if they would not undermine your conclusions but at least
5 to point at them. Would that not have been a better method?
6 THE WITNESS: Of course, Your Honours, there are documents which
7 have been presented to me during cross-examination which I would really
8 have liked to include to -- to avoid maybe certain mistakes, to be more
9 complete on certain issues. I have not thought of including, for
10 example, documents of the type we see now because I didn't consider them
11 relevant in the context of determining or trying to establish the role,
12 in this particular case, of General Cermak. Indeed, it could have been
13 included, but as I said earlier when I was trying to describe the systems
14 of sitreps, these particular types of documents, well, yes, they allow to
15 conclude at that Mr. Cermak is not included in the list of addressees,
16 but I would not be in a position to say, well, he should have been
17 included or not. That's --
18 JUDGE ORIE: But often you've told us that you would have
19 expected something. Now, the question here then clearly is if -- and a
20 similar question was put to you by Mr. Kay several times, whether you
21 would not have expected to find a reference or copied the document to be
22 copied to Mr. Cermak.
23 THE WITNESS: I would certainly have expected that, and that's
24 what I mentioned actually before the break, that if there were regular
25 reports by the Civil Defence teams on the clearing activities, that
Page 13242
1 information included in those reports would also have been sent to
2 Mr. Cermak. If the Civil Defence teams were subordinated to him for the
3 clearing activities. I have not stated in my report that the civil
4 defence teams were subordinated to Mr. Cermak. I have only drawn a
5 conclusion on the staff he establishes and the fact that members of the
6 staff -- excuse me -- on the staff sanitation staff he establishes and
7 that members of that staff report to him. I have not drawn any
8 conclusions on Civil Defence except the ones I mentioned during my
9 testimony this morning when I was confronted with Civil Defence
10 documents.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay.
12 MR. KAY:
13 Q. The conclusion you have put forward to the Court, surely it's
14 directly relevant to this, is that he is superior to the civilian police?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And we are looking at civilian police documents.
17 A. I think we should -- we should be more precise. The conclusion I
18 draw in relation to the authority of General Cermak over the civilian
19 police is based on P510 which states that they have received -- I mean,
20 the civilian police have received an order from General Cermak in
21 relation to freedom of movement for civilians. There is also a document
22 included -- there's also a document included in my report, and I will
23 find it, where the -- an official of the civilian police in Knin asks, I
24 believe, the head of the Zadar-Knin police administration to be allowed
25 to participate in meetings between General Cermak and UNCRO in order to
Page 13243
1 be informed immediately of decisions or agreements between General Cermak
2 and UNCRO.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I was just about to see whether we could -- we
4 can do two things. We could have an early break and then have a
5 relatively long last session. We could also take a break for one or two
6 minutes.
7 MR. KAY: I'm going to change topics anyway.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I don't know whether that for transcription
9 makes it any better, Mr. Kay, but apart from that, I at least appreciate
10 that you would share my concern for the well-being of our transcriber
11 this morning. Although it's not on the record, the transcriber tells us
12 that she's okay, but I'll keep a close on you. Be assured of that. Then
13 to have to transcribe this must be a very special experience.
14 Mr. Kay, you may proceed.
15 MR. KAY: Yes.
16 Q. Mr. Theunens, you were going to add some more because you're
17 citing one of the sort of 12 orders again, I think.
18 A. No. I was just going to add that the document I referred to at
19 the end of my previous answer is D589, which is footnote 1043.
20 Q. You go back to the same documents again in relation to this.
21 Your Honour, I am going to change subjects. I've got it now. But we
22 will turn to the military police, because with a swift glass of water,
23 I'm sure I'll be okay.
24 You were asked many questions by Mr. Misetic on the issue of
25 Major Juric from the military police administration, the relationship
Page 13244
1 with General Lausic, the chief of the military police administration.
2 I'm not going to go over those details again, and for the Court's
3 reference, Mr. Misetic has handled that cross-examination, and I'm not
4 going to repeat matters, Your Honour, but let's just run through a few
5 things.
6 We know on the 5th of August, 1995, that a military police
7 company was established in Knin by General Lausic's order as well as one
8 in Benkovac, Drnis. We know that on the 5th of August, 1995, Exhibit
9 P881, if we could look at that just for a moment, because this -- the
10 reference to this order becomes important later on in relation to certain
11 matters we're going to address.
12 This is that order ending in 485 of 512, dated the 5th of August,
13 from General Lausic to the 72nd in Split
14 completion of the Oluja military operation. We've seen this order before
15 and we know that it refers again to the 72nd Military Police Battalion
16 and to the military police company in Knin.
17 Can we turn to page 2. For reference for questions to come, look
18 at point 3.
19 "A communications and reporting system shall be put in place
20 immediately, in keeping with the system of reporting in the zones of
21 responsibility of military police units."
22 And 7:
23 "For the execution of daily operations, the commanders of the
24 newly established VP units shall be subordinated to the most senior
25 military commander in their respective zone of responsibility."
Page 13245
1 And we see to whom this order was addressed.
2 Moving on from there, we know that the company was established,
3 and various orders were issued to it in relation to the men on the 6th of
4 August.
5 If we can look at Exhibit D787, which is the front page of the
6 daily order book of what was called then the Knin joint company, and
7 again, it's just pointing out a few things that will become relevant
8 further down the line. We see the stamp of the military post is 2233.
9 Is that right, Mr. Theunens?
10 A. Yes, that's what the document says.
11 Q. And that's the stamp to be used by the Knin joint company; is
12 that right? It's the stamp of the 72nd being used by the Knin joint
13 company?
14 A. Yes. It is the stamp of the 72nd. Now, I have seen stamps with
15 additional characters behind the first four digits, whereby I thought --
16 I would think that these were stamps of sub-units, but I have never
17 managed to establish that.
18 Q. Thank you. We're not going to go through the book, but we're
19 just pointing that out. Can we go to Exhibit D789.
20 This is an order from -- it says Major Budimir, but
21 Colonel Budimir who was the commander of the 72nd, on the 17th of August,
22 and we notice there the order of the chief of military police of the 5th
23 of August, ending in 485 that I asked us to pay attention to and why I
24 selected it in the introduction, regarding the needs arising in the newly
25 liberated areas of the Republic of Croatia
Page 13246
1 17th of August to carry out the rotation of military and police forces
2 from your units engaged in Knin, and it's to 1st Lieutenant Orsulic who
3 is to be the Knin military police joint company commander, various other
4 appointments under him. And then for the rotation in Knin, the commander
5 of the 1st company provides 29 officers; the 2nd Company, 40; traffic
6 company, 18; crime investigation military police department chief, duty
7 service leader, and logistic platoon commander shall select rotation for
8 their officers. We see various further details there.
9 And if we turn over to page 2. Commander Budimir continues with
10 the order that: Lists of people selected for rotation shall be committed
11 to a Major and commanders of the aforementioned mentioned units are be
12 responsible for the order.
13 We can see here that it's delivered to the commander who is
14 Mr. Lieutenant Orsulic, the 1st company of the military police Split, 2nd
15 Company Split
16 duty, and the traffic company.
17 General Cermak is not included within this order as someone to be
18 in receipt of this information; isn't that right?
19 A. It is correct that General Cermak is not mentioned. Again from
20 the military police point of view, there is no requirement to inform
21 General Cermak or any other officer where this military police company is
22 operating because it concerns purely military police, yeah, internal
23 matters as to how they provide the manpower.
24 One can expect that the commander of the company is going to
25 introduce himself upon his arrival with the most senior HV officer in the
Page 13247
1 area where his company is to operate and that then the matter of rotation
2 is also notified to the most senior HV officer in the area.
3 Q. Now, if we see that 5th of August order, we know at point 7 that
4 that was part of the command, and we also know that in point 3 that a
5 communications and reporting system shall be put in place immediately in
6 keeping with the system of reporting in the zones of responsibility.
7 First of all, was this a document you were familiar with when you
8 wrote your report?
9 A. This specific one for the rotation?
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. No. And it would have been useful as additional information,
12 but -- okay.
13 Q. Secondly, General Cermak would have been included within this
14 document if -- if Lieutenant Orsulic of the Knin military police was to
15 report to him so that he knew who his military police subordinate was to
16 be. That is right, isn't it?
17 A. No, Your Honours, it's a purely military police internal order
18 dealing with the internal organisation and activities of the 72nd
19 Military Police Battalion. The commander Lieutenant Orsulic will know
20 from the instructions he has received from Colonel Budimir, and again,
21 from what was mentioned in the order by General Lausic on the
22 establishment of the companies, I believe P881, that he is to be
23 subordinated for the regular or the daily military police tasks to the
24 most senior HV officer in the area, and it is then, as I mentioned, up to
25 the commander of the military police unit that is to go to that area to
Page 13248
1 introduce himself with the most senior HV officer, in this case
2 General Cermak.
3 Q. Firstly, you've incorrectly stated what the rules are under
4 Regulation 9, haven't you?
5 A. I was referring to P881, but we can go to the rules.
6 Q. Regulation 9 of the rules states the most senior commander by
7 function, and that was something that I brought to your attention earlier
8 in my cross-examination as something that you had not correctly described
9 in your evidence and report.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Waespi.
11 MR. WAESPI: I think the issue was that Mr. Theunens relied on an
12 earlier incorrect translation, which was then later corrected.
13 MR. KAY: That's my point, that you've put yourself forward as an
14 expert, but you didn't have the right translation of the rules, so
15 your --
16 JUDGE ORIE: Let's -- Mr. Waespi, I think let's keep it in
17 neutral terms, that is that Mr. Kay did not blame specifically perhaps
18 Mr. Theunens for having relied upon the wrong translation but establishes
19 that that was the case, and that maybe relevant for his questions.
20 MR. KAY: It is, Your Honour. If you would like to see Article 9
21 again in the revised translation of the OTP document, Exhibit P880,
22 page 5.
23 JUDGE ORIE: I take it that Mr. Theunens will accept that the
24 language you just used was the -- was the valid translation at this
25 moment.
Page 13249
1 MR. KAY: He asked to see it, Your Honour, which is why I --
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
3 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure that -- I don't recall saying that I
4 wanted to see it, but --
5 JUDGE ORIE: Well, it's not -- if you don't, if you feel no need
6 to see it, let's proceed. If you feel that need, Mr. Kay will ask it to
7 be shown.
8 MR. KAY:
9 Q. Yes. You said, "We can go to the rules," so I'm taking us to the
10 rules.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, there are several ways of doing that, either
12 looking at them or quoting them. So please proceed.
13 MR. KAY: Yes.
14 Q. So do you accept it from me that that was the correct translation
15 that was issued in the court?
16 JUDGE ORIE: It's on our screen.
17 MR. KAY: Ah, we're there now.
18 Q. You can see it, Mr. Theunens. This is a corrected translation
19 from the original OTP documents, because it concerns the issue of the
20 highest HV commander by function.
21 A. Yes, that's what it says, and, in my view, it doesn't change --
22 it doesn't imply any significant changes.
23 Q. It does, doesn't it, because the function of the officer is
24 critical to the relevance of the subordination.
25 A. In theory -- I mean, you can imagine scenarios where that does,
Page 13250
1 indeed, play a role, but looking again at the material we are reviewing,
2 unless you're going to give me examples where it has an importance that
3 is by function is added, I don't believe that it changes anything to what
4 has been established so far in my report or, for example, when
5 Mr. Misetic was cross-examining me.
6 Q. Say you have a colonel-general of the Education Corps, and he
7 happens, because of his distinguished academic career, to hold that rank,
8 and he's in the armed forces, and he's running the education department
9 in the area, you don't report to him in relation to your duties, do you?
10 A. It depends how you define running, because if he is the commander
11 of a military training centre or a school where for whatever reason there
12 is a requirement to use military police or to have military police --
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I think what I considered symptomatic earlier
14 happens here again. We're now dwelling into areas -- Mr. Kay put to you
15 that -- that it may be significant, the difference between a highest HV
16 commander or highest HV commander by function. If the highest commander
17 is not functioning in the, could I say, operational command structure,
18 then -- and that's what Mr. Kay put to you, then it may make a
19 difference.
20 Have I understood your question?
21 MR. KAY: Exactly right, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE ORIE: So if you could please answer that or comment on
23 that, rather than to dwell in military police getting lost in educational
24 institutions.
25 THE WITNESS: But I mean the operational command structure, we
Page 13251
1 know that the garrison commander does not -- plays no role in the
2 operational chain of command. However, the garrison commander is
3 responsible for order and discipline in the area covered by the garrison,
4 i.e., the area outside the barracks.
5 He will need resources in order to fulfill that responsibility,
6 and we have seen documents, including those included in my report,
7 whereby the garrison commander makes use of the military police in order
8 to fulfill his responsibility of maintaining order and discipline, even
9 if as a garrison commander he's not part of the operational chain of
10 command.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Let me just try to see if I understood your answer
12 correctly.
13 What you say is a garrison commander that may be functional in
14 view of his responsibility to maintain order and discipline, that he may
15 be functional in the context of Article 9 in relation to troops or
16 officers who are not directly and organically subordinated to him. Is
17 that more or less a proper understanding of your answer?
18 THE WITNESS: If we are dealing with the relation between a
19 garrison commander and military police unit in his -- in the area covered
20 by the garrison.
21 I think what Mr. Kay was pointing at was you can have, indeed, a
22 colonel-general who is not a commander, because he may be a professor or
23 he may be a chief of staff, and there, of course, the clarification of
24 Article 9 is -- is important. But in the context of the garrison
25 commander, we are talking about somebody who is a commander, at least
Page 13252
1 according to the regulations, even though he's outside the operational
2 chain of command, and that's why I tried to explain the distinction.
3 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Kay.
5 MR. KAY:
6 Q. In fact, it's described as a non-operational post under
7 Regulation 2 of the organisation. I'll get the exhibit number for us.
8 It is D3 -- D34, paragraph 2, exhibit -- paragraph 2 of Exhibit D34,
9 Organisational order regarding work, order, and discipline at garrison
10 HQs.
11 "The garrison headquarters commands do not have an operational
12 function and the right to issue orders to Croatian army units except
13 precisely prescribed authorities regarding work, order, and discipline at
14 the garrison," et cetera.
15 Point 7 of the 5th of August order by General Lausic does not
16 cause the military police to report under point 7 to the garrison
17 commander or whomsoever for their daily tasks, does it?
18 A. Could we see point 7 of the 5th of August order again?
19 Q. Yes. Please. It is in Exhibit P881, and it says:
20 "For the execution of daily operations, the commanders of the
21 newly established VP units shall be subordinated to the most senior
22 Croatian army commander in their respective zone of responsibility."
23 So it's quite clear that that is not, through point 7, a
24 subordination to the garrison commander, isn't it?
25 A. I don't agree with you.
Page 13253
1 Q. Why not?
2 A. Because the garrison commander is the most senior HV commander in
3 the zone of responsibility of the Knin Garrison for the matters he is
4 responsible for, i.e., maintaining order and discipline as well as other
5 aspects covered in Article 54 of D32, as well as D34.
6 Q. But it refers to the daily operations in respect of which the
7 military police for their daily operations are not subordinate to the
8 garrison commander. That's right, isn't it?
9 A. No. We are talking about -- I mean, the daily operations here
10 are daily operations conducted by military police which, if I remember
11 well --
12 Q. You cited Article 10 which -- as being daily operations.
13 Mr. Misetic disagreed with you in relation to that, and I agree with his
14 cross-examination of you, by the way, on that matter, but Article 10
15 means that the garrison commander, by your argument, is suddenly taking
16 on all the responsibilities there are nothing to do with him. If we look
17 at the military rules governing structure and operation of the military
18 police. Which by your argument would mean that as a matter of
19 coincidence the garrison commander would be taking over all the
20 responsibility in relation to the military police which would include
21 fighting, sabotage, terrorist, rebels, carrying out combat tasks on the
22 front line, security of the president, verification, detection, dispatch
23 and escort of members. The Croatian army have abandoned their unit. He
24 wouldn't be doing much garrison commanding, would he? He would be
25 running the whole show if your argument was -- was right, Mr. Theunens.
Page 13254
1 He would be, Isn't that?
2 A. Your Honours, Article 10 lists the duties the military police can
3 do. I think it's clear from the article that they're not -- the military
4 police is not carrying out all these duties at the same time by one and
5 the same unit. A military police company of, I don't know, 150 or maybe
6 300 men would not be in a position to carry out all these duties listed
7 here from 1 to 10 at the same time in the same area. The comment made by
8 Mr. Kay about participation in combat tasks, which is listed in paragraph
9 9 of Article 10, clearly states that these tasks can only be carried out,
10 i.e., participation in carrying out combat tasks pursuant to an order by
11 the minister of defence of the Republic of Croatia
12 tasks implies that the operational chain of command is working and --
13 Q. You've taken one. Take eight then. Go on. Sabotage, terrorist,
14 rebels, and other enemy groups.
15 A. If there are sabotage units in the area covered by the garrison,
16 there will obviously be a coordination between -- or cooperation between
17 the command of the military district, the garrison commander and others
18 as to see how they can deal with it. It is indeed logical that taking
19 into account that the responsibility of the garrison commander is mainly
20 territorial and that he is responsible for the common facilities that are
21 used in the garrison or -- and order and discipline there, whereas the
22 dealing or the action against sabotage and terrorist units will consist
23 of conducting combat tasks, that there the role of the garrison commander
24 can only be maybe to provide information as these sabotage units may have
25 done something against the common facility, but he will not be involved
Page 13255
1 in the chain of command of the struggle against these terrorist and
2 sabotage units.
3 And again for your information, the Special Police sends reports
4 on the discovery of members or alleged members of the former Serb forces
5 they discovered during their search operations in the territory covered
6 by the Knin garrison to the commander of the Knin garrison, and that is
7 discussed in the section on Special Police.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Theunens, may I ask you in relation to that last
9 answer, were you referring to such reporting in a broader sense, or were
10 you talking about, if I could say, the nine we discussed yesterday,
11 because for the nine, we have -- at least there is evidence of a very
12 specific context as we dealt with yesterday in quite some detail and
13 where you said you were not familiar with that context. Is it any
14 broader, or were you referring to the reporting on the nine who had been
15 found where Mr. Roberts was around as well?
16 THE WITNESS: It is broader, Your Honour, and I will check for
17 the correct references because I made a distinction in my report between
18 the provision of information on such groups, on one hand, and the actual
19 hand-over of the people, which refers to the nine, on the other hand.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, I'm looking at the clock.
21 MR. KAY: One point.
22 Q. Special Police are under the Ministry of Interior. They are
23 nothing to do with the military. You should know that, Mr. Theunens.
24 You do know that, do you?
25 A. That is correct, but I tried to explain why or what the possible
Page 13256
1 role of a garrison commander could be in the context of the
2 participation, the fight against sabotage, terrorist, rebel, and other
3 enemy groups. And it has nothing to do with the military police either,
4 but I just focused on the aspect of sabotage, terrorists, and rebels.
5 Q. Could you please give answers that focus on the issue instead of
6 widening it far way beyond what it needs and keep it relevant to the
7 issue.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay.
9 MR. KAY: A break, yes, I know.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, time for the break. We will have a break, and
11 we will resume at 10 minutes to 1.00.
12 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
13 --- On resuming at 12.54 p.m.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Kay.
15 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
16 Q. Going back to Exhibit D789, please, and page 2 of that document.
17 A fundamental principle of command, Mr. Theunens, is that people have to
18 know who they are commanded by and who is under their command. Don't you
19 agree?
20 A. Excuse me. That is correct.
21 Q. And if your argument is right, this document emanating from the
22 commander of the 72nd as to who is in charge of the military police,
23 traffic police, what the rotation is, when they are to arrive, is all
24 information that the garrison commander would have to know if these units
25 and this company were subordinated to him. That's right, isn't it?
Page 13257
1 A. He will need some of these elements. I mean the garrison
2 commander will need some of these elements, but they will be communicated
3 in another manner than through an order which is purely dealing with
4 internal military police and matters going from the military police
5 battalion commander to his company commanders.
6 It would not be efficient to bother somebody with outside the
7 chain, the military police professional chain with certain issues or
8 certain aspects that are included in this order.
9 Q. That's complete nonsense, isn't it? This would be information
10 that the garrison commander, if your argument is right, would have to
11 know. He'd have to know whom he was commanding.
12 A. Can we please see the first page of the document?
13 Q. Yes. Let's go through it. He'd have to know there was a
14 rotation on the 17th of August. Yes?
15 A. That is correct. Or he would have to be informed in advance at
16 least as a matter of courtesy, but also for operational requirements it
17 would be important for the garrison commander to be inform that indeed
18 the rotation is taking place.
19 Q. We're not talking about matters of courtesy here. We are talking
20 about subordination, Mr. Theunens, aren't we?
21 A. Yes, but just to clarify the issue, subordination in the sense of
22 Article 9 of 1994 rules on the use of military police, P880.
23 Q. And for clarification, that is not in the heading of this
24 document, is it?
25 A. No. The document refers to the -- the order of the 5th of
Page 13258
1 August, but we have seen it there in paragraph 7, Article 9 is
2 reiterated.
3 Q. No, it's not actually. It's written in a different form. It
4 doesn't include the words "by function." But people can see that for
5 themselves. Let's move on.
6 A. But if I'm allowed.
7 JUDGE ORIE: You are.
8 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honours. It would be unusual at
9 least from a military point of view to change subordination relations
10 that have been established or confirmed in a regulation in 1994, to
11 suddenly start to change them when a significant military operation is
12 being conducted.
13 MR. KAY:
14 Q. I don't know how that helps us, but let's go -- go through.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, these are comments we can do without.
16 MR. KAY: I'm sorry, Your Honour.
17 Q. He would have to know who was in charge of the traffic?
18 A. Not necessarily. I mean, if he, the garrison commander, needs
19 assistance from one of these sections or components of the company, the
20 logical procedure would be to contact the company commander, and the
21 company commander can indeed inform the garrison or any other commander
22 about the composition of his forces.
23 Q. They would need to know who they reported to, and if it's the
24 garrison commander, that's not in here, is it?
25 A. We -- who do you mean "they would need to know?"
Page 13259
1 Q. Lieutenant Orsulic would have to be told, "You are reporting to
2 the garrison commander." We've seen that in many orders. It's not here,
3 is it?
4 A. It is not here, but based on the introduction and the fact that
5 we're the 17th of August, by then, people in the area, I mean at least in
6 the military, know who is holding which position where, but I mean more
7 importantly the introduction of the order, there is no requirement, at
8 least from the military point of view, to specify that the Knin -- that
9 the commander of the Knin company has to report to -- to General Cermak.
10 It's self-explicatory.
11 Q. Where? Where?
12 A. Because of what I have explained.
13 Q. But where is it self-explicatory? Let's say Lieutenant Orsulic,
14 and this is his first post as the commander of the Knin military police.
15 How does he know where to go and who to see and who to report to?
16 A. He knows in theory who, I mean, he has to contact, not the
17 individual, I mean the name, but who by position by going to Knin. He
18 will have been briefed by Colonel Budimir, and he would also, if nobody
19 has told him that it is General Cermak who is the commander of the
20 garrison in Knin, well, then, Lieutenant Orsulic will collect or find out
21 that information prior to going with his people to Knin. But you're
22 right, it's not specified in this order.
23 Q. It tells them where they must be present, the time, about
24 transport.
25 A. Yes, and these are things that are not of a -- there is no need
Page 13260
1 to know for the operational commander or the most senior HV commander by
2 function to know how these people -- where they will gather, at what
3 time, and how they will travel to -- to Knin. The most important is that
4 there is a continuous presence of military police, and this is an
5 internal order in the military police battalion to ensure this continuous
6 presence of military police.
7 Q. You slipped up there, because you said the operational commander
8 or the most senior HV commander by function. When you first gave
9 evidence about these matters in this court, you described the operational
10 commander.
11 A. I'm not sure --
12 Q. Under Article 9.
13 A. I don't think so.
14 Q. Very well. Others can look at it.
15 A. There are other documents connected with this which are the
16 orders, and what we will do is we will look at them, and we'll look at a
17 following document just so that we can see the detail of what is given.
18 If we could look at 2D07-0590.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, when we are waiting for this document to be
20 shown, when you said others can look at it, I don't know who you had in
21 mind, but it included the Chamber, and, if so, some assistance in where
22 to look exactly would certainly be appreciated.
23 MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honour. I don't want to spend all my time --
24 JUDGE ORIE: No, I'm asking you, but you could in one way or
25 another assist us to know where exactly to find that instead of -- I
Page 13261
1 mean, it takes just as much time for us to find it as it will take you.
2 You put it to the witness, and you suggest that he said something, and,
3 of course, we'd like to verify.
4 Please proceed.
5 MR. KAY: We're looking now at an order that was issued by
6 Commander Budimir to the 1st Company, giving that 29 military police
7 officers, telling them when to assemble.
8 We will now look at the next document concerning the 2nd
9 Company --
10 MR. KAY: May this be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
11 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this becomes Exhibit number D1062.
14 JUDGE ORIE: D1062 is admitted into evidence.
15 MR. KAY: 2D07-0592. This is still coming up, but it's the order
16 to the 2nd Company and all the details. If we turn to page 2, we see
17 it's from captain Dzolic which the Court knows is a witness earlier in
18 the proceedings.
19 Your Honour, may this document be made an exhibit.
20 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that becomes Exhibit number D1063.
23 JUDGE ORIE: D1063 is admitted into evidence.
24 MR. KAY: Thank you. If we go to 2D07-0596. This is a document
25 from the traffic police company, dated the 17th of August, detailing
Page 13262
1 their officers who are going to comply with the order that was issued and
2 citing the 485 of 5th of August order. Again we don't need to go into
3 the detail, but, Your Honour, could this be made an exhibit?
4 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1064, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Exhibit D1064 is admitted into evidence.
8 MR. KAY: The next document is 2D07-0552. This is a document
9 from Major Cipcic of the traffic police company who signed the previous
10 order, dated the 17th of August. It goes to the commander, Colonel
11 Budimir. Sorry, it goes to the assistant commander for the traffic,
12 Major Cipcic, from 1st Lieutenant Renic, and it's the list of duty
13 service staff for the work in the duty service of the joint independent
14 Knin company, and it's pursuant to a meeting held on the 12th of August
15 by the 72nd, by which the duty service is to appoint a representative of
16 the duty service leader of the Knin Company in the transition period and
17 in line with the first order from Commander Budimir we saw, and we see
18 the people who are to be used to set up the duty service.
19 Staff members will rotate in shifts according to the given
20 schedule, assume the duty to represent the duty service leader, et
21 cetera, and the selection of the shift leaders and information concerning
22 that.
23 May this document be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
24 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
Page 13263
1 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1065, Your Honours.
2 JUDGE ORIE: D1065 is admitted into evidence.
3 MR. KAY:
4 Q. Looking at that last document, wouldn't it have been relevant for
5 the commander of the garrison, if your argument is right, to have been
6 copied in on this document so he knew who duty service staff were who
7 were going to be working in Knin and subordinate to him?
8 A. It would indeed be useful for the garrison commander to know who
9 the duty officer is in the military police, but he will be informed of
10 that through another document. He may receive, for example, a duty
11 roster which includes only the information he needs to have instead of
12 all these kind of purely internal military police information dealing
13 with internal functioning of the military police. There's no need to
14 know for the operational commander or the most senior HV officer by duty
15 of all these kind of internal information. It's only distractive for
16 him. Distractive, I'm not sure whether it's an English word, but ...
17 JUDGE ORIE: It would distract his attention from more important
18 matters; is that what you mean?
19 THE WITNESS: Exactly, Your Honours.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
21 MR. KAY:
22 Q. Is there anywhere the duty roster that you talk about, have you
23 seen it?
24 A. I have not seen such duty roster. I have seen it in other
25 environments but not for Knin and General Cermak.
Page 13264
1 Q. So you've seen them elsewhere but not for Knin?
2 JUDGE ORIE: That's what the witness just said.
3 MR. KAY: Yes. I'm just digesting that, Your Honour. I'm sorry
4 I repeated it.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We heard it, and we were able to digest it
6 already. Please proceed.
7 MR. KAY:
8 Q. In relation to Knin, then, is that a document that you have
9 looked for?
10 A. Indeed, I have done searches on -- on these issues. I'll keep it
11 short.
12 Q. Thank you.
13 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I have a large number of these rotations,
14 including the exact same constructions, none of which include
15 General Cermak within the documents. I don't propose, with the Court's
16 consent, to go through each and every one to make the same point as I
17 anticipate what the witness's answers are, but I am not just producing
18 one document on the matter. There are a whole file here which I would
19 propose to file by bar table means.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, I take it these documents do not appear
21 in the footnotes of this witness.
22 MR. KAY: No.
23 JUDGE ORIE: I wonder, but I'm not the master of the time of
24 Mr. Theunens. The way to proceed would be and that would be fair to him
25 to provide him with copies of these documents and invite him to read
Page 13265
1 them. He now knows what the issue is, and then to ask him, perhaps after
2 the weekend, to ask him whether this triggers any need for comment other
3 than he has already given in response to your questions, Mr. Kay.
4 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. These are Prosecution
5 documents that I am holding in my hand. They're all their documents,
6 rather than mine.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I'm not -- the only thing is that we know the
8 answers that the witness reviewed, a couple of them. I have not reviewed
9 them. The witness was not in a position to review them. If they are all
10 approximately the same, then I would expect he comes back after the
11 weekend to say that he has no comments other than he had before the
12 weekend, and then that seems fair to me and to both the Prosecution and
13 the Defence and the witness.
14 MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE ORIE: I take it we will find ways of getting copies of
16 these documents to the witness through the victims' and witness' section.
17 May I take it these are not yet on the first three bar table submissions,
18 so we expect a fourth one, including these.
19 MR. KAY: Yes.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Let's proceed in this way.
21 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.
22 Q. But I do want to ask a question about it. As to whether you'd
23 seen these documents before, Mr. Theunens.
24 A. I believe I did. I'm not a hundred per cent sure, but I'm sure I
25 did not include them in my report for the reasons I explained.
Page 13266
1 Q. You didn't include them in your report, and they arise as a
2 result of for RFA's, requests for assistance. So did you review those
3 documents?
4 A. I've answered the question. I believe seen them. I mean, I
5 don't check systematically how they were obtained by the OTP; that would
6 lead me too far, but I have looked at them and based on the comments on
7 the reply I gave earlier, I did not consider them relevant for my report.
8 Q. Very well.
9 MR. KAY: We will deal with it that way according to Your
10 Honour's suggestion, and we will now turn to another matter.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Before we do so, Mr. Kay, I have to ask the witness
12 whether he has objections. I started saying I'm not a master of your
13 time, Mr. Theunens. When I'm talking about the weekend, of course, it
14 starts only at 5.00, but I don't know whether you have other things to
15 do, and I just wanted to seek your agreement with this procedure.
16 THE WITNESS: My Supreme Commander has booked a weekend to Paris
17 before we started with testimony, but we come back on sunday, and she
18 will understand that on Monday, when it's a UN holiday, I can look at
19 this.
20 JUDGE ORIE: This sheds specific light on command and control,
21 isn't it?
22 THE WITNESS: Indeed.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed Mr. Kay.
24 MR. KAY: Let's turn to Exhibit D790.
25 Q. And while this is coming up, I while this is coming up, I will
Page 13267
1 put the broad proposition of what this is, Mr. Theunens, so you know, and
2 it accords with Mr. Misetic's cross-examination of you that, in fact,
3 what happened here was that the commander of the 72nd Budimir maintained
4 control of the independent Knin company, and it wasn't handed over to
5 anyone else, that they remained subordinated to him at all times. Do you
6 understand that?
7 A. Yes, and it -- I would consider -- I mean, I'm reading the
8 document but I'm listening to what you say.
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. It is the application of Articles 8 and 9 with the professional
11 line and the operational line. Articles 8 and 9 of P880.
12 Q. Now, here we have an example, 22nd of August, 1995. The safety
13 of the Knin command post, we know that to mean garrison, Commander
14 Colonel General Cermak needing security, and an order is made by
15 Colonel Kozic of the military police administration to the commander of
16 the 72nd Battalion that he will conduct all organisational preparations
17 to take over the security of the Knin garrison commander from the Knin
18 military police 7th Company. It says military post, vonja posta, but
19 vonja policija is what it means, of the 7th Company. Now, this
20 indicates, does it not, that General Cermak didn't have the authority to
21 order Lieutenant Orsulic, the commander of the Knin 7th Company, to
22 provide for his security, as he was not subordinated to him?
23 A. It's possible, but there are several, I mean, as I said,
24 possibilities in this context, because it could be that -- it could
25 indeed be that General Cermak has asked for security by military police.
Page 13268
1 We don't know where he asked it. Maybe he did order Orsulic to provide
2 security, and Orsulic said, I don't do it.
3 I have included in my report P509, P513, P512, which are examples
4 of orders by General Cermak to the military police in Knin.
5 Q. We've looked at those, the UNCRO vehicle ones, et cetera, et
6 cetera. Let's deal with this. Please don't throw up the UNCRO orders,
7 but look at this, please, because security is a regular task of the
8 military police; is it not?
9 A. Security in general, yes, but I'm just checking in the Article 10
10 whether anything specific is said about ensuring personal security,
11 because I understand that these people functioned as kind of --
12 Q. It's the very first one, actually, of Article 10.
13 "The protection of life and the personal security of military
14 personnel and other Croatian republic citizens and the protection of
15 their property."
16 So it's Article 1 -- point 1 of Article 10 of Exhibit P880, the
17 Rules Of The Military Police.
18 Now, by your argument that you've put to the Court that
19 General Cermak had the military police subordinated to him, he would have
20 been able to ordered this. It didn't need to go up to the military
21 police administration, did it?
22 A. My understanding of this document is that it deals with a very
23 specific aspect of security, i.e., providing personal security on what
24 appears to be a 24/7 basis to the garrison commander, which will
25 obviously have implications on who can provide that security. You need
Page 13269
1 specialised personnel. You need sufficient personnel in order to have
2 them present or available on a 24/7 basis. So in my view it goes beyond
3 the execution of regular or daily military police tasks as is explained
4 in Article 9 of P880 and reiterated in the order by Lausic of the 5th of
5 July. I believe P881, but I'm not sure.
6 Q. Would you agree that the order does not specify any special
7 policemen that would be required, it just says from the formation of the
8 military police forces of the Knin Company?
9 A. Article -- excuse me. Paragraph 2 does not really indicate -- I
10 agree with you that they have to have specific training, but there is
11 mention made of appropriate equipment and weapons, so that would mean
12 they would need to know how to operate these weapons, and as is stated
13 there "maximally paying attention to the image and behaviour." I don't
14 know what is specifically is meant by that. Military policemen should
15 know how to behave and which image to maintain. So it could be that the
16 intention is expressed to -- to make a specific selection of specific
17 personnel.
18 Q. All of which could have been dealt with by Mr. Orsulic himself
19 because he has all those people we've seen in the orders we've just
20 looked at coming under his command to Knin; isn't that right?
21 A. Your Honours, I'm not a specialist or an expert in the domain of
22 ensuring personal security, but I have spoken with people, for example,
23 in that area and you need a lot of people to ensure a 24/7 personal
24 protection of an individual. I don't think it can just be solved by --
25 by a company, because this company is there also to -- or carry out the
Page 13270
1 regular military police tasks.
2 Q. You'd agree, though, it does defy your analysis on the
3 subordination issue; is that not right?
4 A. No, Your Honours, because I see this as a very specific task,
5 ensuring personal security or personal safety of a -- of a
6 colonel-general, of a senior officer.
7 Q. Let us look at Exhibit D791. This is a report dated the 21st of
8 August, 1995, from Lieutenant Orsulic of the Knin Company concerning
9 securing a Ministry of Defence working group during their tour of
10 military facilities with two military policemen and reporting to the
11 military administration.
12 No report there to the -- General Cermak; is that right?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. By your argument there should have been a report to
15 General Cermak, shouldn't there?
16 A. I would say it depends whether General Cermak had imposed this
17 task or not. If he had imposed this task, then there surely should have
18 been a report to General Cermak. If he had not imposed this task, then
19 there is not necessarily a report to him.
20 Q. So if General Cermak has imposed no tasks, we will see no reports
21 from Lieutenant Orsulic to him. Would that be right?
22 A. Reports on the execution of those specific tasks, yes, that would
23 be right.
24 Q. Have you seen any reports from Lieutenant Orsulic as the
25 commander of the Knin Company to General Cermak?
Page 13271
1 A. No, I have not seen such reports.
2 Q. Thank you. Exhibit -- well, number 2D07-0053. This is dated the
3 16th of September, 1995. It comes from Colonel Kozic again from the
4 military police administration to the deputy chief of military police
5 administration, Brigadier Biskic, and is a general assessment of the
6 security situation in the Republic of Croatia
7 to our assessment, the security situation," he describes within the area
8 of responsibility of the military police units, and he describes it as
9 being good and stable, operating jointly in the entire territory.
10 Military police and forces of the MUP alongside with military and
11 civilian authorities set up, have taken control of the area. We can see
12 the rest of the text about VP units. Breaches of general security and
13 public order by way of offences, referring to the breaches of public
14 order, and the overall activities undertaken.
15 If we turn to page 2. A recommendation about abandoning the
16 system of work and switching in another way, intensive -- start with
17 intensive familiarisation of HV commanders, et cetera. We can see the
18 text there.
19 This indicates a high degree of observation and control by the
20 military police administration, does it not, of its units in the
21 liberated area?
22 A. Yes, and it is coherent with Article 9 -- excuse me, Article 8.
23 Yeah, sorry. Article 8 of P880.
24 Q. Yes. And the structure of the system and the reports that exist
25 show the system working within a reporting system, doesn't it?
Page 13272
1 A. Indeed according to the -- or in accordance with the professional
2 line as explained earlier.
3 Q. Thank you. No further questions on that.
4 MR. KAY: May that document be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
5 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1066, Your Honours.
8 JUDGE ORIE: D14066 is admitted into evidence.
9 MR. KAY:
10 Q. If we look at 2D07-0079. This is a document dated the 21st of
11 September, again from -- it says Commander Lieutenant Michael Budimir
12 here which is probably not the correct translation of his rank. To
13 Lieutenant Orsulic, and it concerns taking away of objects, and it's
14 ordered that that is forbidden, that the commander of the joint company,
15 Lieutenant Orsulic, is responsible for carrying out that order. So it's
16 concerned with the taking away of war booty.
17 No copy of this being sent to General Cermak to advise him of the
18 position with the Knin Company?
19 A. It is correct that this document is not sent to General Cermak,
20 but we should have a look at the -- the order that lays at the basis of
21 this order, i.e., the order by General Gotovina of the 13th of September,
22 which is mentioned in the introduction, in order to see whether that one
23 was sent to General Cermak, because this document, to me, indicates that
24 General Gotovina's order is forwarded through the chain of command from
25 the highest level to the lowest level, to the various units, and in that
Page 13273
1 context it would be unusual to have the commander of the military police
2 battalion send the order to one of the garrison commanders.
3 Q. I don't have that to hand, but we will try and locate that within
4 the next few minutes.
5 MR. KAY: May this document be made an exhibit, Your Honour.
6 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this becomes Exhibit number D1067.
9 JUDGE ORIE: D1067 is admitted into evidence.
10 MR. KAY: Your Honour, there are several other documents of a
11 similar nature which I will bar table to save time, and the Court is
12 familiar with the issues.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, we are. I just wonder, I don't know how many
14 there are, and I don't want to burden --
15 MR. KAY: Not a great deal.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Not a great deal. If there's just a few, if you --
17 if there's anyway to add them to the collection already prepared for
18 Mr. Theunens.
19 MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
21 MR. KAY: We'll endeavour to do that.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And there are only a few, Mr. Theunens.
23 THE WITNESS: Can be a relative concept, but --
24 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, yes.
25 MR. KAY:
Page 13274
1 Q. Let us go to a document now which is 65 ter 2562. And this
2 precursors a large number of similar documents of which we will be
3 dealing with the first lot. The remainder are untranslated. They have
4 been provided by the Prosecution as quite a great deal of them, but they
5 tell the same story, and it concerns the daily report for the 31st of
6 August, 1995.
7 Have you seen this document before?
8 A. I have no specific recollection of this document, but I have seen
9 similar military police reports.
10 Q. Before we break for the day, I want to go through the document
11 with you. It's a duty service report from the military police, the 72nd.
12 You can see the date of it. The first heading is "Breaches of the
13 provisions of the Rules of Military Discipline." And you will notice in
14 the first point that on the 31st of August, a member of the -- of a
15 particular unit, VP there, meaning military police post, 1108 in Drnis,
16 entered the premises of the 72nd Military Police Post in Knin and
17 reported that at a certain time in a neighbourhood in Knin, three members
18 of the Croatian army driving a car had stolen a large amount of furniture
19 from the house and a patrol of the 72nd Military Police in Knin was sent
20 to investigate, and that the patrol noticed the vehicle in front of the
21 Split Garrison command and brought those persons in the vehicle to the
22 military police in Knin. And then the story unfolds over what happens.
23 Let us move to page 2. And we can see that the daily report for
24 this day includes a report from the Knin police station about a Croatian
25 army member and an issue with a member of the public and a patrol of the
Page 13275
1 72nd in Knin was sent out, put as VP 2233, meaning the Knin Company, and
2 we can see further details there about the military police in Knin.
3 If we go to page 3, these are all headings, general headings that
4 we've seen of breaches of the Rules of Military Discipline, other events,
5 securing public gatherings. Page 3 has attacks on officials of the
6 military police. Further up the page in English, means of coercion,
7 breaches of provisions of the Rules of Military Discipline, safety of
8 traffic.
9 And then we can go to the next page, page 4. We see further
10 information about other -- other military police activity, including a
11 patrol of the military police 72nd in Drnis, but of interest is who this
12 is delivered to. First of all, the Military Police Administration
13 Operative Duty department. That's general Lausic's department, isn't it,
14 up in the headquarters in Zagreb
15 A. It is a department within General Lausic's administration, yes.
16 Q. Next the commander of the Split Military District. Number 3 is
17 the commander of the Split Military Garrison.
18 A. The Split
19 Q. Yes.
20 SIS, being the information service, chief of Split Dalmatia
21 police administration, military court, military Prosecutor's office,
22 commander for operations and training, duty officer of the 72nd, and the
23 chief of the military crime police. No Knin garrison included,
24 Mr. Theunens. But do you recollect seeing this document at all?
25 A. I think you asked me that already. I have seen similar
Page 13276
1 documents, and it is correct that here there is -- I mean, there is no
2 mention made of the command of the Knin Garrison, where I would expect --
3 I mean, based on the first incident that is reported, which took place in
4 Knin or was reported in Knin, that such reports should also be sent to
5 the commander of the Knin Garrison, as according to the regulations, he's
6 responsible for maintaining order and discipline in his garrison.
7 Q. So the reporting line from the duty service here does not include
8 him within this document, and we've seen a number of incidents concerning
9 Knin which, if your argument was correct, he would be informed about;
10 isn't that right?
11 A. Indeed. I explained -- I mean, independent of what you call my
12 argument, I explained that I considered that this report should also have
13 been sent to the commander of the Knin Garrison. It has actually nothing
14 to do with subordination or not. It is a matter of the commander of the
15 garrison having information, operational information, he needs in order
16 to carry out his duties.
17 Q. You see --
18 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kay, I'm looking at the clock.
19 MR. KAY: Yes. I was going to ask the last question on this
20 document.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, one question then, because I need two minutes
22 for another matter.
23 MR. KAY: I'm sorry, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE ORIE: No, I should have announced that so no need to
25 apologise. One question.
Page 13277
1 MR. KAY:
2 Q. And it's this issue I've been putting to you, and there are more
3 of these, all going to the Split Garrison instead of Knin. There are a
4 whole batch, which indicates, does it not, that, in fact, the Knin
5 Company was acting under the 72nd and was not working with and reporting
6 to the Knin Garrison?
7 A. I have answered that question. I have explained that
8 General Cermak has issued a number of orders to the Knin military police.
9 I have also explained that the reporting of incidents in the zone of
10 responsibilities of a garrison is not necessarily related to command and
11 control.
12 MR. KAY: Your Honour, I'll continue with these documents with
13 the Court's leave, on Tuesday.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
15 MR. KAY: May this document be made an exhibit.
16 MR. WAESPI: No objections.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
18 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number D1068, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE ORIE: D1068 is admitted into evidence.
20 Mr. Theunens, I need two minutes for a procedural matter which
21 doesn't concern you in any way.
22 First of all, I'd like to express my appreciation that you
23 accepted the invitation to look at a few documents. They will be
24 delivered to you through the usual channels. We'll not sit on Monday.
25 We will resume on the 9th of December, that's Tuesday, at quarter past
Page 13278
1 2.00 in the afternoon. We'd like to see you back. My instructions in
2 relation to not to speak with anyone about the testimony matter already
3 given or still to be given remains the same as it always was.
4 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honours. Further to that matter, if we
5 send the documents through e-court, Mr. Theunens has access to e-court,
6 and that apparently is a much more efficient way of getting them to him.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Theunens.
8 THE WITNESS: I have access to e-court. I'm just thinking of how
9 can I identify the documents.
10 MR. KAY: They have descriptions.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Then let's take care that we use the usual channels
12 to make sure that -- apart from that, it would burden Mr. Theunens
13 printing them out. If he wants to take them with him, then, of course,
14 that would not be very reasonable that he would have to do the job which
15 is supposed to be done by others.
16 Mr. Theunens, thank you very much. We would like to see you back
17 on Tuesday.
18 Madam Usher, could you escort Mr. Theunens out the courtroom.
19 [The witness stands down]
20 JUDGE ORIE: Could we turn into private session.
21 MR. KUZMANOVIC: Your Honour, before we go, we are Tuesday
22 afternoon for Mr. Theunens benefit. I believe we are in the afternoon on
23 Tuesday, not in the morning.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Just a moment. Earlier I said I think the
25 afternoon.
Page 13279
1 MR. KUZMANOVIC: You're correct, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, it's 89, line 7.
3 [Private session]
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
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10 (redacted)
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12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 [Open session]
24 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're back in open session.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
Page 13280
1 We adjourn, and we will resume on Tuesday, the 9th of December,
2 quarter past 2.00, Courtroom III
3 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.51 p.m.
4 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 9th day
5 of December, 2008, at 2.15 p.m.
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