Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 1

1 Monday, 18 April 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.09 a.m.

5 JUDGE LIU: Call the case, please, Mr. Court Deputy.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case number

7 IT-01-48-T, the Prosecutor versus Sefer Halilovic.

8 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I

9 apologise for the delay, and before we hear the next witness, I believe

10 there is something that the Defence would like to bring to the attention

11 of this Bench.

12 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Your Honour, there is.

13 There is just two matters. The first one doesn't concern this witness and

14 the second one does. The first one is just an inquiry that we need to

15 have resolved and that is relating to the provision of the expert report.

16 The Prosecution in the past had an expert report which formed part

17 of the materials, and there's been some discussions with the Prosecution

18 at an earlier stage about what would happen with respect to that expert.

19 Now we're coming to the break, or a break, anyway, not the break but a

20 break, just prior to the end of the Prosecution case, and if there is

21 going to be expert evidence led by the Prosecution now, then it's getting

22 to the stage where we need the report because in the break we'll -- we'll

23 consider it. It's to be hoped that we wouldn't need any extra time and if

24 we got the -- if we got the thing now or within the next couple of days

25 we'd be in a position to proceed and we'd be -- we wouldn't ask for any

Page 2

1 more time, but obviously with expert evidence you need to get your own

2 expert opinion and need to have the proper chance to take instructions

3 and, generally speaking, to deal with it. So might I just ask the

4 Prosecutors now to indicate what is happening with this -- with the expert

5 and -- and what's the future of this report.

6 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Let's deal with those two things one by one.

7 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes Mr. Weiner.

9 MR. WEINER: Good morning, Your Honour. Your Honour, as we

10 discussed at the meeting we had, the meeting in room 177 concerning the

11 expert report, we were waiting for Mr. Karavelic to testify and then we

12 would see the expert after Mr. Karavelic testified. The meeting that we

13 had three weeks ago, and that was the discussion then and that's the same

14 statement now. We're waiting for Mr. Karavelic to complete his testimony,

15 then we have to go see the expert.

16 JUDGE LIU: I see. So it implies that in this week you will be in

17 the position to inform the other party whether there will be a new expert

18 report or not.

19 MR. WEINER: We should be able to by the end of the week. But

20 once again we've got to have Mr. Karavelic testify. That was the final

21 military witness that we needed.

22 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

23 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, Your Honours, we'll see what occurs about

24 that. Obviously the more timely the better.

25 Your Honours, the next matter concerns the witness to come.

Page 3

1 That's Ms. Kate Adie. Now, we've received proofing notes in respect of

2 that witness. I'm not sure if Your Honours have those proofing notes. I

3 wouldn't be referring to them in detail now but I just want to raise my

4 concerns about a couple of matters here.

5 The first is that there appears to be, at least by reference to

6 the proofing notes, some sort of intention to call opinion evidence from

7 this witness about whether there was a massacre or not. Now, I'm not sure

8 exactly how my friend is proceeding -- wishes to proceed about that, but I

9 wish to say that I would object to any general evidence being given by

10 this witness on that topic at all. I don't object to the witness saying

11 what she saw, what she noticed, but -- and what she noticed about

12 particular persons who were dead. She might say, "Well, I saw a

13 particular wound on them. I've seen that sort of wound before. I'm not a

14 pathologist but I've seen gunshot wounds and this looked like a gunshot

15 wound." I don't wish to be unrealistic about it. Of course she can say

16 what she saw.

17 But to give opinion evidence, to give opinions there really has to

18 be a proper basis laid and as far as I can see here what's -- the basis

19 that seems to be being laid is that she's an experienced journalist who

20 has received some wounds herself and has watched conflicts and there are

21 various other experiences that she's had over the years which I referred

22 to in the proofing notes, and what I want to raise is this, Your Honours,

23 that if there is sought to be crime scene opinion evidence given, wherein

24 it's not good enough to give it to us in proofing notes the day before.

25 If she is to become a witness who is going to give expert opinions about

Page 4

1 bullet marks in walls or shell craters or their absence or the cause of

2 particular fires, then we need to know that in advance. And with respect,

3 at the moment what was going to be a very short cross-examination, quite

4 frankly, is -- is now likely to take significantly longer, but in any

5 event, I'm going to be objecting to general opinions being given.

6 Now, Your Honours can't rule on this now and I just want to place

7 it on the record that that's what's going to happen. I'm going to be

8 objecting to that so everyone knows in advance what's coming.

9 And it is a matter of importance that people qualify themselves as

10 experts as able to say something that you the Tribunal are not in a

11 position to work out for yourselves just by using human intelligence and

12 experience. Now if there is such a field of expertise it has yet to be

13 established. I don't know what it is and I don't know what the

14 qualifications are, but on what we've been provided with there is no way

15 in the world this witness qualifies as an expert of any sort. So

16 therefore I'll be objecting. If there's anything more by way of expertise

17 to come we better hear about it before the witness comes, Your Honour. So

18 that's what I'm raising now.

19 JUDGE LIU: Any reply from the Prosecution.

20 MR. WEINER: Yes, Your Honour. I have no intention of asking her

21 for her opinion as to whether or not a massacre occurred. I've never

22 heard of such in evidence this Tribunal and I don't expect to lead such

23 evidence.

24 With regard to her observations, we will be asking her as to her

25 observations. Some will -- based on her experience will border on some

Page 5

1 sort of expertise but overall her basic observations, what she saw. At

2 times did she see any crater holes? What the inside of an apartment with

3 dead people looked like? Those are basic observations that people make.

4 In addition to that, as Your Honour knows, in other cases

5 experienced war journalists or war correspondents have been given the

6 opportunity to make all sorts of opinions. As this Court knows, Paul

7 Davies from ITN news who testified in the Strugar trial and the Milosevic

8 trial offered opinion evidence as to the types of weaponry that was used

9 by the JNA and the Croatian armies. The various -- the differences in

10 strengths between two armies, the abilities of the armies to attack

11 targets and strike them, the types of -- the types of shells that were

12 used to damage or rockets that were used to damage certain items, the

13 weaknesses of the various armies.

14 In the Galic case, Morten Hvaal, which is H-v-a-a-l, the photo

15 journalist from Norway testified about persons shot, the pattern of

16 shooting, the types of death that were caused as a result of blood loss

17 due to people being shot, in blood loss, Van Linden of Sky Television in

18 the Galic case testified as to areas of sniping, the direction of shots

19 being fired, whether or not civilians were being targeted.

20 So what has happened in this Tribunal is that experienced war

21 correspondents who have covered war after war or conflict after conflict

22 who have seen people die in front of them, who have seen all sorts of

23 attacks and battles occur right in front of them, have been given some

24 sort of leeway to discuss certain types of facts and offer some opinion

25 evidence. But with regard to cause of death, with regard to whether or

Page 6

1 not a massacre occurred, I'm not asking her to testify to those types of

2 issues. Whether or not she saw wounds and described the wounds, yes.

3 She'll say that "I saw what I thought were bullet wounds." Whether when

4 she walked into a room and what did you see inside the room? "Well, other

5 than behind the victims where there were a few bullet holes, the rest of

6 the room was intact. The windows were intact. The houses were intact.

7 There was no rummaging or trashing of the house." Those types of things.

8 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. I believe that in some

9 jurisdictions the opinion, views from a fact witness, is not allowed.

10 However, this is an International Tribunal. It is not a jury trial.

11 The Judges will decide on a case-by-case basis whether it goes to

12 the special area of expertise and whether the witness is capable to

13 testify in that area.

14 So generally speaking, all the questions and the answers should be

15 within what the witness saw or she noticed during that time. However,

16 we'll also give some leeway to certain areas. It all depends on the

17 actual situations during the proceedings. Anyway, we'll try to see if

18 it's workable or not.

19 So could we have the witness, please.

20 [The witness entered court]

21 JUDGE LIU: Good morning, Witness.

22 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

23 JUDGE LIU: Would you please stand up and make the solemn

24 declaration, please.

25 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

Page 7

1 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. You may sit down, please.

3 WITNESS: KATHRYN ADIE

4 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Weiner. The witness is yours.

5 Examined by Mr. Weiner:

6 MR. WEINER:

7 Q. Good morning. Would you state your name, please?

8 A. My name is Kate Adie.

9 Q. In what country do you live?

10 A. In the United Kingdom, in Britain.

11 Q. What do you do for work?

12 A. I'm a journalist.

13 Q. How many years have you ban journalist?

14 A. About 30.

15 Q. Who do you work for at this time?

16 A. I've worked freelance for the BBC. I've worked for the BBC for

17 those 30 -- 33 years, and my final job was as the chief news

18 correspondence for BBC.

19 Q. As the chief news correspondent what sort of matters did you

20 cover?

21 A. I covered all major stories, not exclusively warfare. Terrorism,

22 major trials, and major incidents, those at home and abroad.

23 Q. With regard to warfare, what wars had you covered?

24 A. I covered the conflict in Iran/Iraq, the civil war in Lebanon,

25 numerous wars and conflicts in Africa, Sierra Leone, Chad, Angola,

Page 8

1 conflict -- the war when the Russians were in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and

2 several smaller conflicts, Central America, the Falklands war, I went with

3 the army and in fact joined the British army for the Gulf War in 1990 and

4 spent six months in the army and was present with the invasion troops

5 going into Iraq and then Kuwait, and then I was in southern Iraq at the

6 end of the invasion two years ago. And then I spent four and a half years

7 often on -- in the former Yugoslavia.

8 Q. We'll gets to the former Yugoslavia shortly. Did you cover any

9 terrorist incidents?

10 A. Scores of terrorists incidents. Apart from having covered the

11 conflict in Northern Ireland for some 25 years from the early 70s, which

12 involved an enormous array of terrorists incidents, bombings, shootings,

13 ethnic -- well, as it were, a kind of ethnic cleansing. Also the Red

14 Brigade in Italy, ETA in the Basque country in Spain, the PLFP, the

15 Palestinian -- the many Palestinian liberation and terrorist groups

16 operating in the 1970s and 80s, and the Black September, the PLO, across

17 the Middle East and Europe for some 15 years from the early 1970's until

18 the late 1980s.

19 Q. During this time that you covered these various conflicts were you

20 ever injured?

21 A. Several times, but mainly in former Yugoslavia with quite serious

22 injuries.

23 Q. And could you tell us how you were injured?

24 A. I've been hit by bullets four times. Extraordinarily lucky, just

25 grazed taking bullet fragments and taking shrapnel fragments as well. One

Page 9

1 of those incidents was in China, one was in the Middle East, and then

2 three of them in Bosnia.

3 Q. Now, you indicated you were in Bosnia and the war in the former

4 Yugoslavia. When did you serve in the -- or report on the war in the

5 former Yugoslavia?

6 A. I'm sorry, when did I --

7 Q. Report on the war in the former Yugoslavia?

8 A. I first went to Slovenia at the very start of the break-up of

9 former Yugoslavia. In fact, I remember reporting on seeing the first tank

10 operational in Europe, well, technically since the Second World War but

11 you could say that, I suppose, the Hungarian uprising and Berlin saw tank

12 operations, but I saw almost the first tank coming through a cabbage field

13 in Slovenia at the very start of the conflict when Slovenia broke away.

14 Q. What about Croatia? Did you cover the Yugoslavian Croatian war?

15 A. I immediately moved on to the Croat-Slav -- -Serb war and I saw

16 action in most of the major areas, in the Krajina, and around the border

17 areas and the river and in the area of Vukovar, Osijek, Pakrac, all the

18 major centres. Intense skirmishing, I think we would call it.

19 Q. And finally the war in Bosnia.

20 A. I moved on to the war in Bosnia and was based in several places

21 over a period of some three years. In Sarajevo and in the Lasva Valley,

22 in the Kiseljak and Vitez-Zenica area, working though to other places such

23 as Mostar and Tuzla and Bihac. All the major -- and Gorazde. All the

24 major areas of conflict.

25 Q. Is it fair to say you covered the war from 1991 to 1995?

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1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Now, did you receive any special training while you served in the

3 British army during the Gulf War?

4 A. I was -- all of us who were actually in the army as journalists

5 were trained to act as battlefield medics and were given intensive

6 training.

7 Q. And did you ever serve as a medic in any of these conflicts or

8 wars?

9 A. I don't know if I served, but I certainly saw a lot of people who

10 were injured, badly, and in some cases had the opportunity to intervene,

11 colleagues who were injured and also civilians with various injuries and

12 wounds and gave them first aid, intensive first aid and sometimes got them

13 to some sort of hospital, and -- and this is not the first time. I've

14 done it in other wars as well.

15 And also, specifically in Sarajevo during very intensive shelling

16 I have been present twice at the hospital, the main hospital in Sarajevo,

17 and directed triage in the emergency area. Such was the chaos with

18 over -- in one instance, a hundred badly injured people coming to the

19 hospital in under an hour and having to be examined and either taken to

20 surgery or made to wait.

21 Q. Now, in that case you indicated that you directed the triage.

22 What exactly did you do?

23 A. It means you have chaotic scenes with hysterical, injured, and

24 people in extreme states of pain and distress coming in with their friends

25 and relatives in -- while shelling is still going on in the hospital

Page 11

1 within that area. And in the chaos, you have to decide what the limited

2 facilities for surgery can deal with and direct the most seriously injured

3 cases and make the other cases wait or possibly get them some minor

4 attention from anybody who is around. But these are chaotic

5 circumstances, but you need to examine people very quickly and work out

6 what their injuries are.

7 Q. Had you ever seen persons with shrapnel injuries?

8 A. I have lost count of the occasions.

9 Q. What about persons with gunshot injuries?

10 A. Again, hundreds of times. I was also -- I have been to hospitals

11 in Afghanistan, Iraq, and also in Beijing in China during the Tiananmen

12 Square after the demonstrations were broken up by the army, where I saw

13 several hundred people with gunshot wounds.

14 Q. Thank you. Let us move on. Let's move to Bosnia in September

15 1993. Could you tell us where you were?

16 A. I was based in the Lasva Valley near the town of Vitez operating

17 down to Sarajevo, Mostar, Jablanica, Zenica, in that area.

18 Q. In the morning of September 15th, do you recall where you were?

19 A. In Vitez.

20 Q. And who else was present?

21 A. I had a small team, a cameraman, a producer, and a satellite,

22 couple of satellite engineers. There were one or two other press around.

23 It was used, Vitez, as a press base, mainly because of the presence of the

24 British army which had a main base in Vitez, and we liaised with them

25 regularly. We worked sometimes alongside them. We didn't work for them,

Page 12

1 but we worked alongside them and they were very open with their

2 information to us, some of which was operational information.

3 Q. And did you learn anything that morning?

4 A. They had had reports, the British army had had reports of an

5 incident near or involving the town of Prozor.

6 Q. What else did they tell you about that incident?

7 A. They suggested that a number of people had been killed and that it

8 was not what one might call a running incident. In other words, where

9 there had been an exchange of fire between militias. These were civilians

10 who had been killed, and they knew that they -- that there was -- there

11 were some bodies which could be seen.

12 Q. Did they tell you where the bodies were that could be seen?

13 A. They had been informed and had a message. I don't know where it

14 came from, but clearly from someone in Prozor, that some bodies were

15 actually in Prozor, the town there.

16 Q. What did you do?

17 A. We decided to go. Not an automatic decision, because you had to

18 judge each piece of information on its merits and sometimes information

19 could be misleading, sometimes turned out not to have any -- any kind of

20 substance behind it. There used to be a lot of stories circulate in

21 Bosnia. We were well aware after three years in the country that some

22 stories had no basis in truth.

23 This one, though, did sound as if it had substance, and Prozor was

24 not too difficult for accession. That's another decision. We have

25 perhaps ahead of us a whole day available to get the story, so we have to

Page 13

1 calculate whether we could actually get there, get pictures, television

2 insists on getting the pictures, and also we had to assess the risk, which

3 in Bosnia was always a very difficult task because the press used to be

4 possible targets for all factions in Bosnia. The roads had many

5 roadblocks on them at the time manned by various militias, sometimes

6 civilians, often drunk, and there were also mines, sniper fire, artillery

7 positions, and bandits who operated, thieves and bandits, considerably.

8 Just to the north of Prozor just between Prozor and Vitez there was a

9 notorious area which had a number of armed gangs who set upon anyone who

10 ventured that way.

11 So you take a very careful decision to go somewhere and this story

12 sounded as if it had substance.

13 Q. So did you go there?

14 A. We went down to Prozor via Gornji Vakuf. We possibly met up -- I

15 can't remember, forgive me, I can't remember precisely whether the army,

16 the small army group which set out for Prozor went from Gornji Vakuf to

17 the south of us or whether it went from Vitez. The road from Vitez was

18 not too difficult to Gornji and we checked that there was no trouble on

19 the road that morning. We drove down there. I drive an armoured vehicle.

20 I had with me a cameraman. Just two of us. That's a team, two people

21 which we take into dangerous situations so that one could get the other

22 out of trouble. We don't take any more than two, and we picked up, I

23 think, an army group, a small unit of British army soldiers with a Gurka

24 captain, Captain Bullock, and we headed down to Prozor, which is a good

25 road, a good run, and was kept clear much of the time because it was one

Page 14

1 of the main supply routes north to south in Bosnia.

2 Q. And once you arrived in Prozor, where did you go?

3 A. We were directed to a kind of hall. I suppose you'd call it a

4 village hall. I don't know what its function was. It was a large room.

5 The door was open. There was quite a bit activity outside. The town the

6 Prozor wasn't particularly lively. It had had, oh, almost half its

7 buildings burned early on in the war, the side of the town which had been

8 Bosnian Muslim, and there were few if any Bosnian Muslims in the town. It

9 was almost entirely Croat.

10 We went to this hall. There were a number of people around, some

11 men in uniform, Croats, a number of women in traditional dress, a number

12 of perhaps officials. I think there was a doctor there. We went into the

13 hall and there were, and I counted them, 22 bodies on the floor. They

14 were covered with blankets.

15 Q. Did you remove the blankets and get a chance to look at them?

16 A. I didn't do that immediately. I took some general shots of the

17 hall, what we call GV, GV, general visions, general shots of the hall. I

18 then indicated that I wanted to look closer because it's a sensitive

19 business and you are careful when there are corpses involved. You must

20 always be aware of the people who are standing around. There were clearly

21 some grieving and very distressed people. But in Bosnia generally there

22 usually was no great objections to you going and taking a closer look at a

23 corpse. There wasn't too much sensitivity on any side, with any religion.

24 I indicated that I was going to do that, and I pulled, gently pulled the

25 blankets back to look and see.

Page 15

1 The reason I do this is not because we desire pictures close up.

2 In fact, in the BBC we don't take those for transmission. But you are

3 looking to see what has happened to these people, because this is from a

4 firm belief in eyewitness broadcasting, that you yourself must verify what

5 you can. You cannot always rely on other people, particularly in a war

6 situation where people may not tell the truth for a very good reason. So

7 you do yourself. And although it seems distasteful for a reporter to do

8 this, I thought it proper to inspect as well as I could the bodies.

9 I pulled back the blankets. From what I could see, there were

10 bullet wounds to these people, all of whom were elderly. There was one

11 child. I couldn't estimate the age of the child, but there were -- the

12 rest, 21 of the corpses were of elderly people. What do I mean by

13 elderly? I don't know, 60s, 70s. They were village people by their

14 clothes, wearing -- women with some headscarves, with home-knitted

15 cardigans, sweaters, shawls. The men with fairly rough suits, open-neck

16 shirts. They were village people, elderly, and I didn't inspect -- look

17 at all the corpses. Maybe half a dozen. They all had bullet wounds.

18 Some had one, some had two. They had been shot in the torso. I cannot

19 remember a bullet wound to the head. I would have noticed that. But most

20 were shot in the torso.

21 Q. Now, you said they were village people based on their closing.

22 Could you tell us about the footwear that they had?

23 A. A lot of them did not have shoes on. That doesn't surprise me,

24 because in both Bosnian, Croat Muslim and Serb homes, not just Bosnian

25 Muslim homes as the idea might be, that they take their shoes off to go

Page 16

1 into the house. In nearly all country areas people wore heavy shoes or

2 boots, and it was good manners and also good housekeeping in a muddy

3 village to take your shoes off and leave them on the doorstep. That would

4 be normal. And then some people would put on light slippers, leather

5 slippers, just what we could call mules. You just push your feet in them,

6 easily slipped off. Or in many cases elderly people would have thick

7 knitted stockings and they wouldn't use shoes at all. So it occurred to

8 me that these people had been indoors. So it wasn't unusual they weren't

9 missing their shoes; they had been indoors.

10 Q. Now, did you have any discussion with anyone there as to when

11 these deaths occurred?

12 A. I did not have an interpreter, I should point out. Sometimes I

13 travel with an interpreter, but as we were clearly crossing -- well,

14 crossing boundaries, no real obvious front lines in this area, and there

15 was big trouble with both Croat and Muslim communities all over the area

16 at the time. The Lasva Valley was in open warfare between some Muslim and

17 Croats communities. I did not have an interpreter because I could not

18 find anyone who was willing to go from one area to another. Though they

19 were brave people, the interpreters, they did and we had to say as well,

20 take the decision that they couldn't go if we didn't know where we were

21 going to end up, if we doesn't guarantee which group we were going to see.

22 So I didn't have an interpreter. I understand a certain amount of

23 Serbo-Croat, a very rough amount which I picked up, and I used to listen

24 to conversations, but not enough for accurate translation and certainly

25 not enough to ask questions and conduct a conversation. But the army had

Page 17

1 an interpreter, and through that interpreter from, I think a couple of

2 local people and one or two of the men in uniform who were standing

3 around, we picked up that these people came from a nearby village. We got

4 the name of the village, and that it was indicated that something had

5 happened yesterday, because when I go in anywhere, I'm looking, you know,

6 in a very basic way, for facts. I want to know who is involved. I want

7 to know where it happened, when it happened where it happened. Very

8 simple questions.

9 On the subject of when, people said yesterday. It's always a

10 difficult one in Bosnia. Yesterday to some communities, particularly

11 village people, sometimes means last week, even ten years ago. You have

12 to be very careful on making assumptions about words. But I looked at the

13 bodies, again, and they looked to me, I would say, as if it was only a

14 24-hour period in which they'd been killed. The blood had not gone to the

15 base of the bodies. I know they'd been moved so that would have changed

16 their configuration, but they looked as if the blood had not sunk.

17 Perhaps 24, maybe at the most 36 hours by the look of them.

18 So yesterday something had happened. And the Croats alleged that

19 the Muslims had come into the village and that they had done this.

20 Q. And how long did you stay at that hall in Prozor?

21 A. Probably 20 minutes, half an hour at the most. There was no point

22 in hanging around, and anyway, I think both myself and I think also the

23 army captain took the view that we ought to go to the village as soon as

24 possible to see if there was anything else happening there or what had

25 happened there.

Page 18

1 Q. Did you drive to the village of Uzdol?

2 A. We drove to Uzdol. I drove an armoured vehicle along with a small

3 number of army vehicles. It was a journey without incident, and there was

4 discussion as to how to get there. Prozor is only about ten miles, 15

5 kilometres from Uzdol, but it's a long and winding set of lanes. I mean,

6 typical high set of cluster of hamlets. We went through one or two

7 hamlets on the way. There was an argument as to precisely what route we

8 were taking. It wasn't a direct road, but we had no incidents on the way

9 there, and it was a climb to a village quite high in the hills to the

10 east.

11 Q. And did you see anything along the way just outside of Uzdol?

12 A. Just outside Uzdol as we were nearing it, and we knew because we

13 had very detailed maps, we used army ordnance survey maps so I knew where

14 I was going. I wasn't in contact with the army. We don't have radio

15 contact, but I was reading a map and my cameraman was driving and then we

16 swapped over. I was driving because as I near any operational area, I

17 always drove and the cameraman was there waiting to film. And he was also

18 looking at the map and we knew we were very near and we could see towards

19 the top of the ridge a big white building which we knew was probably the

20 central -- the school. We'd been told that that was a rendezvous point by

21 the army.

22 And we must have been a mile -- now I can't be accurate, but

23 within sight of the village we both spotted out in a green field, it was

24 late summer, that there was something in the field approximately 50, 60

25 yards from us. We stopped the vehicle. The cameraman got out, used his

Page 19

1 lens to close-up on this, and he said "It's a body." I looked through it.

2 It was a body.

3 We didn't approach it because there might have been a booby-trap.

4 You can't be too careful. We didn't know what we were going into. We had

5 no idea. You keep an open mind so you are extra careful.

6 And then there was a second body, we thought, in another field a

7 bit further up. We took pictures of both. Then we got back in the

8 vehicle and went on to the village.

9 Q. Now, when did you arrive within the village of Uzdol?

10 A. About 11.00-ish in the morning. I can't be accurate. I wasn't

11 looking at the time. It was coming towards the hottest part of the day, I

12 do remember. It was a hot September day, and it was very bright sunshine

13 that day. It was nearing midday, 11.00, midday-ish.

14 Q. And what did you do once you got to the village?

15 A. I have a system in which, unless it's necessary for security

16 reasons, by that I mean we are under threat, physically being shot at or

17 there is a very present threat, I don't automatically accompany soldiers.

18 I don't think that's right. I'm a journalist. I'm independent of them.

19 So while they went to certain houses, having said to us, you know,

20 watch out for booby-traps, but they were rare, rare. They did happen

21 sometimes but we had a feeling that this wasn't an instance where we would

22 find that.

23 We headed for the first few houses we saw. Most of the doors were

24 open, and so we decided we'd go and look inside.

25 Q. Did you have any procedure or any plan or policy that you use when

Page 20

1 you go out and look at houses or look in areas where there have been

2 killings?

3 A. I'm looking for facts. I'm looking for the straightforward

4 pictures which tell me what has happened. I'm looking for the

5 circumstances. I'm looking at all the detail. I'm not just looking for

6 bodies.

7 I've spent quite a lot of time in various countries well before

8 this learning that things are sometimes not what they seem, that bodies

9 can be placed around. I remember that in the Iran/Iraq war. One of the

10 protagonists used to take a truck and regularly throw corpses off the back

11 of it in certain areas to look as if there had been a fight and dump

12 corpses. You can go to other places where you discover that bodies have

13 been dragged from one place to another. So you are automatically

14 suspicious, wary, careful.

15 I'm looking to see if there has been a fight. I'm looking to see

16 what might have happened. I'm trying to get, of course, because the next

17 thing I'll be looking for is eyewitness accounts from people alive who

18 were around at the time.

19 But as this village appeared to have nobody in the streets at all,

20 that we were -- was very obvious, there were no animals out, there were no

21 dogs barking, there were no chickens, nothing to be seen, no cows in the

22 field. The place had a look of being empty, and there were no people.

23 There were no children running to see us. That would have been automatic.

24 There was nothing. There was nothing.

25 So we went -- before we even got into the houses I remember in a

Page 21

1 group it's a higgledy-piggledy hamlet with houses here and there, not a

2 straight line. We already saw that outside one house there was a corpse

3 on the steps of a house, and we filmed that.

4 Then we went into the first house. We were next -- and I can't

5 remember the sequence, I'm afraid now. I can't remember the sequence, but

6 we went into house after house, and the scene in each house was that we

7 discovered dead people, sometimes one, sometimes two. Sometimes in the

8 front room, these are small houses, on a sofa, on the floor. I went into

9 one house and there was a body in bed, and the bedclothes were soaked

10 through with blood.

11 I went into another house. There was a body in the corner. There

12 was a huge blood spray up the wall, a white wall. And all of these people

13 were elderly, all of them.

14 There were a couple in a barn. The army found them and called me

15 over, and there was a man and a woman. He was lying on top of her,

16 embracing her, as if to protect her. Both had bullet wounds.

17 Every single corporation I looked at had bullet wounds.

18 Q. How many houses did you inspect?

19 A. Sixteen, 17.

20 Q. And could you describe the interior of these homes?

21 A. Neat little country homes --

22 MR. MORRISSEY: Excuse me, please. I'm sorry. Your Honours, I

23 object to that. The witness can describe individual homes one by one.

24 There is no such thing as a general home, and the witness ought to be

25 asked to explain one by one the houses.

Page 22

1 JUDGE LIU: Well, maybe we could deal with the general matters.

2 Then we could have specific house.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, that's true but there are specific

4 dead persons named on the indictment that we have to deal with, and it's

5 those people that -- that I'm proposing to deal with anyway, Your Honour.

6 But if Your Honours think it's useful, that's Your Honour's ruling.

7 JUDGE LIU: Let's begin with the general impression and then we'll

8 go to the specific houses if possible.

9 MR. WEINER:

10 Q. The houses that you went into, could you tell us generally what

11 they looked like?

12 A. I've been into hundreds of Bosnian, Croat, Muslim and Serb houses.

13 I mean, it would only be fair it seems to me to describe what is common to

14 them that might be useful in that they tend to be -- they tend to be neat

15 and tidy, and very -- there is nearly in every house a little china or

16 ornament cabinet. That's very common to each family. Full of their

17 trinkets, their best coffee set. That would be common to the whole of

18 Bosnia, the whole business of offering coffee to visitors is a tremendous

19 tradition. There would be the best coffee set. There would be also

20 sometimes -- in a Croat house there would be religious icons in the sense

21 of a small picture of the Virgin Mary or a crucifix or little pictures.

22 That would be common to Croat homes. In Muslim homes there would often be

23 also imagery in the sense of pictures of certain places. In Serb homes

24 often pictures of and little ornaments relating to Serb saints. It was a

25 classic, sort of what I would call rather old-fashioned kind of display.

Page 23

1 There would also always be shoes on the front doorstep. Most people would

2 take their outer shoes off. And inside you would find a living room very

3 much like a Western living room with sofas, very heavily carved wooden

4 furniture. I mention this because during attacks the splinters from wood

5 from the furniture, from heavy furniture of wardrobes and sofas, and beds

6 would be lethal. In Sarajevo I have been frequently in one of those

7 rooms, and then if anything hits in the splinters from the wood go

8 everywhere.

9 So there are certain things which I thought were common to these

10 house.

11 Q. Now, what was the condition of those houses that you visited?

12 A. Perfectly normal. There was no sign of a fight or a struggle.

13 That was the first thing I was looking for. Nothing was disarranged.

14 Nothing was broken. There was nothing either in those houses damaged.

15 Another feature, and why I mentioned the china and the knick-knacks and

16 the little personal treasures was that there was an absolutely common

17 feature in four years for sometimes during ethnic cleansing, as it came to

18 be known, for all the personal ornaments to be thrown out of the place,

19 smashed, trashed, ruined. It's a very common habit. Not just of course

20 in the Balkans but in any area where you are trying to destroy the raison

21 d'etre, the living conditions of people.

22 Nothing was broken, nothing at all. There had been no fight, no

23 signs ever struggle or resistance, nothing. Not even furniture

24 overturned, rearranged, nothing. Which made it extremely disturbing. I

25 mean, I thought then I could make some assumptions about how the deaths

Page 24

1 came about.

2 Q. Did you see any evidence of bullet spraying?

3 A. Oh, yes. There were two instances. One of the person in the bed

4 and one of the body against the wall where both had been hit from clearly

5 quite close range, and the entry point of the bullet was quite small, but

6 the exit, we could tell with the one we looked at which was against the

7 wall that the exit point had produced an enormous spray of tissue, body

8 tissue, and blood right up the wall for a foot, a foot and a half, and

9 that the bullet had exited into the wall.

10 And this is -- I mean, it's -- it's classic bullet-exit damage.

11 Q. Did you see a lot of bullet holes in these houses?

12 A. A few. Not many. Most of these people had one. And in -- in

13 some cases two bullets. I didn't examine the bodies in great detail

14 looking for others. Again, they were torso wounds, though there was one

15 with a very bad wound in the neck with the head partly off.

16 Q. Did you see any damaged wood or wood splitting which you would

17 describe previously in -- which you would see in Sarajevo?

18 A. No, nothing. I mean, for heaven's sake the windows were still in

19 the house. Mean, if you fire bullets around in a place or you have any

20 kind of a firefight or explosion, I mean, the windows go. That's

21 automatic. All the glass was in the windows. All the china was on the

22 window sill. All the china was in the little cabinets. There was no

23 damage at all. That's why we need -- hadn't even been a struggle. Nobody

24 had knocked anything over. There was nothing in any way to suggest

25 anything other than close-range firing of bullets nor had there been much

Page 25

1 run-up. There was not a spray of bullets in the wall. It looked as if

2 the rifles, I'm assuming they were AK47s, which were the commonest weapon.

3 I don't know, I have no idea about that. But whatever had been used was

4 not on spray. It was not on full automatic. It had been on single shot

5 or repeat shot.

6 Q. Now, outside of these homes did you see any shelling damage or any

7 craters?

8 A. Not a single shred of evidence. No craters on the road, no damage

9 to houses, no holes in walls, no holes in roofs, nothing. No sign

10 whatsoever. Nothing. And also had there been artillery pieces or mortar

11 positions, the British army which would have sent out a certain amount of

12 surveillance, would have reported back to us of such positions.

13 Q. Now, did you take any video of these 16 or 17 homes?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And after you finished taking the video of those homes, where did

16 you go?

17 A. We went up to a larger building on the -- on the ridge, a white

18 building which we were told was a school.

19 Q. And could you describe the interior of that.

20 A. It was empty. It was rather curious. There were also bloodstains

21 on the walls inside, in the main hall. They looked as if they had been --

22 someone had attempted to perhaps clean the place up.

23 I could not get any clear picture of what happened in this

24 building. There were no bodies there. I could not find anybody who --

25 there was no one in the village who appeared to have been there and was

Page 26

1 still alive. There were no eyewitnesses that I could discover. We asked

2 people around who had come with us. There did not appear to be anyone I

3 could get an eyewitness report from, which is a major problem for a

4 journalist. I can't substantiate. I don't like to speculate too much. I

5 could, but all I could see was a room where there was blood on the walls

6 an attempt to clean it, and quite a lot of bullet marks around. Again,

7 bullets, nothing else. The roof was intact. The windows were in. Again,

8 just gunfire.

9 Q. Now, were there any Croatian soldiers present?

10 A. There were some Croats in military uniform. I always hesitate to

11 designate who is what because at the time anybody could wear any piece of

12 uniform. There were some Croats in military fatigues. They had come with

13 us from Prozor.

14 Q. And did you learn anything or did you receive any information as

15 to what occurred at this school?

16 A. Both down in Prozor and up in the village.

17 Q. What do you mean?

18 A. There were remarks. There were comments that, first of all, the

19 Bosnian Muslims were to blame, that they had come to the village. There

20 appeared to be a complication, and it was impossible to pin down precisely

21 what had happened. The impression I got was that there was some form of

22 revenge act taking place. There had been clearly some kind of action

23 between fighting men, men of military age, in other words young men with

24 guns, not villagers but young men with guns, that there had been some kind

25 of action and at some point the Muslims had come into the village. And it

Page 27

1 looked to us as if the Croat fighting men were no longer there, because as

2 I said there was no evidence where the elderly people died of any action,

3 any crossfire. It looks as if they may have left the village, I say may

4 have left the village. I can't substantiate that. And that the elderly

5 people were killed by men with guns who went from house to house quite

6 quickly, not doing any looting or damage or trashing anything. But as I

7 say, there may have been some action beforehand of which I still cannot

8 pin down. I can find no one to verify what happened.

9 Q. Now, during your visit to Uzdol, did you take any video? Did the

10 cameraman take any video?

11 A. We took extensive amounts of video.

12 Q. And approximately how many minutes of video was taken between

13 Prozor and Uzdol or the two together if you wanted to total that?

14 A. Oh, probably -- I probably had two cassettes and they probably had

15 ten to 12 minutes on each at the most, which would also have included

16 rather lengthy interviews which were cut down for the transmission with

17 one of the EU monitors. There were two EU monitors with us. One of them

18 was a Dutchman. I can't remember the other one's nationality. He may

19 have been Greek but I'm not sure.

20 One -- the Dutch monitor, Rudy Gerritsen, I interviewed them. I

21 also interviewed one of the Croat men in uniform who claimed that he knew

22 the identity of two of the victims, was related to them. That's not

23 unusual in the sense that nearly all the militias and people were local to

24 their area. He very likely -- he clearly knew the village when he was

25 showing people around, pointing things out. So there would be two longish

Page 28

1 interviews plus a third piece for me which we call a to-camera piece which

2 is an explanation for the viewers. So all in all maybe 12, 15 minutes on

3 each video.

4 Q. The Croat soldier who knew the identity of -- of two of the

5 victims, was that the two elderly people who were found in a barn

6 embracing?

7 A. He called them Ratkic. The name he gave was Ratkic.

8 Q. Now, was a broadcast ever made from all of this film and these

9 interviews?

10 A. We returned to Vitez that afternoon and I cut a piece for the BBC

11 1800 news bulletin which was broadcast from London that night. We had a

12 satellite transmission equipment in Vitez for direct connection to London,

13 and we recut with very little difference a piece for the later 9.00

14 bulletin. So two transmissions went on the BBC. They would also go out

15 on a great number of TV stations around the world with which the BBC has

16 agreements.

17 Q. Thank you. Okay.

18 MR. WEINER: Your Honour with the Court's permission I'd like to

19 show the first of the two videos.

20 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

21 MR. WEINER: It's about three minutes long.

22 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.

23 MR. WEINER: We will be using Sanction because it's a video,

24 Your Honour the Sanction system. The first video is V0002725, which is 65

25 ter number 140.

Page 29

1 THE REGISTRAR: That will be MFI 373.

2 MR. WEINER: And there's a transcript that goes with that, too.

3 THE REGISTRAR: That's assigned the same number.

4 MR. WEINER: Your Honour, could we have the technicians place the

5 counselled with the video?

6 JUDGE LIU: Yes, of course.

7 [Videotape played]

8 MR. WEINER: We're trying to resolve the technical problem,

9 Your Honour. They're going to send someone from the technical booth,

10 Your Honour.

11 JUDGE LIU: Maybe we should have an early break so during the

12 break we could have that fixed. Is that agreeable? Mr. Morrissey?

13 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, of course it is, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE LIU: Yes. And by the way, as I said that last week, we'll

15 have an extra siting this afternoon.

16 Well, we'll have 30 minutes break. We'll resume at 20 minutes to

17 11.00.

18 --- Recess taken at 10.11 a.m.

19 --- On resuming at 10.41 a.m.

20 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Weiner.

21 MR. WEINER: Yes. We'll try again. Video V000-2725.

22 [Videotape played]

23 "The village of Uzdol is high in hills of Central Bosnia. It has a

24 school building later used as local Croat military headquarters.

25 Yesterday, the Bosnian army descended on Uzdol, then withdrew leaving

Page 30

1 terrible evidence of their brief visit. We walked through the scattered

2 farms and cottages with British soldiers and European Monitors trying to

3 establish what happened here. It soon became clear that every house and

4 cottage had been visited by the Bosnian army soldiers. Systematic

5 slaughter. Every room had been entered. There were bullets in the

6 bedroom walls. An old lady killed in her bed. The victims were all

7 elderly and one child unable to flee. Some had tried to hide. One

8 couple, 67-year-old Martin Ratkic and his wife Cara, had taken refuge in

9 the barn. They lay in each other's arms, apparently shot by someone

10 standing over them.

11 "The word 'atrocity' has been used a lot in this war. It's usually

12 very difficult to find out exactly what has happened. There is so much

13 propaganda and myth, but in this case it seems clear that there was

14 wholesale killing of civilians. But as to the reason, it's almost

15 impossible for an observer to guess.

16 "One answer came from a Croat soldier who came back to his

17 parents' house this morning to find his mother burned in the ruins.

18 "'It is a war. It is a war,' he said. 'They hate civilians and

19 they hate us.'

20 "For the UN in this instance British soldiers and the European

21 Monitors know there is nothing they could do except to observe and report

22 to a European committee.

23 "Probably they will say maybe it's a war crime because there are

24 slaughtered civilians and maybe in the future there will be an

25 investigation of the Court of Justice in The Hague or something like

Page 31

1 that.

2 "22 of the victims had already been taken to a makeshift morgue in

3 the nearby town of Prozor. Again the UN and the EC observed and did not

4 comment, very conscious of the way such incidents in this war are either

5 distorted or denied becoming part of the propaganda of both sides with the

6 UN being seen as a convenient scapegoat. Such was the nature of the

7 killing at Uzdol that recriminations have not yet gathered force and grief

8 was only beginning.

9 "Kate Adie, BBC news, Uzdol. For ABC news this is Kate Adie of

10 the BBC, Central Bosnia."

11 MR. WEINER:

12 Q. Ms. Adie, do you recognise that film footage?

13 A. Yes, I do.

14 Q. And what do you recognise that as?

15 A. That is the edited story, first of all, that we showed on the

16 news, and then it was followed by some extra shots which not -- not all of

17 which would have been transmitted for reasons of taste. Close-ups are not

18 accepted in the BBC, close-ups of dead bodies, or lingering shots. But in

19 this instance, we probably showed more than we normally did because of the

20 nature of the story. And I did have conversations with the BBC in London

21 about this, saying that unless we actually showed, as it were, the state

22 of the bodies that we could not convey the full impact of the story.

23 Q. Thank you.

24 MR. WEINER: Your Honour, there's another video. The -- there is

25 a different intro in the beginning for the first 15 seconds. The body of

Page 32

1 it is the same, but it doesn't include that last minute at the end which

2 has no sound. Would the Court like to see that, too?

3 JUDGE LIU: Well, as you like. This is your case.

4 MR. WEINER: Then, fine. That is video V000-2632.

5 THE REGISTRAR: That will be MFI 374.

6 MR. WEINER: Thank you. That's 65 ter 942.

7 [Videotape played]

8 "Peace talks founded the Muslim forces have continued their

9 defensive in Central Bosnia and have taken more territory by force. The

10 massacre took place at Uzdol, 40 miles west of Sarajevo after Croat

11 soldiers failed to hold the village and it was taken by the Muslim Bosnian

12 army. You may find some of the pictures in this report disturbing

13 "The village of Uzdol is high in the hills of Central Bosnia. It

14 has a school building lately used as local Croat military headquarters.

15 Yesterday, the Bosnian army descended on Uzdol then withdrew leaving

16 terrible evidence of their brief visit.

17 "We walked through the scattered farms and cottages with British

18 soldiers and European Monitors trying to establish what happened here. It

19 soon became clear that every house and cottage had been visited by the

20 Bosnian army soldiers. Systematic slaughter. Every room had been

21 entered. There were bullets in the bedroom walls, an old lady killed in

22 her bed. The victims were all elderly and one child unable to flee. Some

23 had tried to hide. One couple, 67-year-old Martin Ratkic and his wife

24 Cara had been taken refuge in their barn. They lay in each other's arms

25 apparently shot by somebody standing over them.

Page 33

1 "The word 'atrocity' has been used a lot in this war. It's

2 usually very difficult to find out exactly what has happened, there is so

3 much propaganda and myth. But in this case it seems that there was

4 wholesale killing of civilians. But as to the reason it's almost

5 impossible for an observer to guess. One answer came from a Croat soldier

6 who came back his parents' house this morning to find his mother burned in

7 the ruins

8 "'It is a war. It is a war,' he said. 'They hate civilians.

9 They hate us.'

10 "For the UN, in this instance British soldiers and the European

11 Monitors, there is nothing they can do except to observe and report to a

12 European committee.

13 "Probably they will say maybe it's because they are slaughtered

14 civilians, and maybe in the future there will be an investigation of the

15 Court of Justice in The Hague or something like that.

16 "Twenty-two of the victims had already been taken to a makeshift

17 morgue in the near town of Prozor. Again, the UN and the EC observed and

18 did not comment, very conscious of the way such incidents in this war are

19 either distorted or denied becoming part of the propaganda of both sides

20 and with the UN being seen as a convenient scapegoat. Such was the nature

21 of the killing at Uzdol that recriminations have not yet gathered force

22 and grief was only beginning.

23 "Kate Adie, BBC news, Uzdol."

24 MR. WEINER:

25 Q. Do you recognise that video clip?

Page 34

1 A. I do.

2 Q. And what do you recognise that as?

3 A. That was the 9.00 news version, the later version. It's

4 substantially the same.

5 Q. Thank you.

6 MR. WEINER: We'd like to offer both of those videos.

7 JUDGE LIU: Any objections?

8 MR. MORRISSEY: No, Your Honour, none.

9 JUDGE LIU: They are admitted into the evidence.

10 MR. WEINER:

11 Q. Finally Ms. Adie --

12 MR. MORRISSEY: Sorry, Your Honour, could we just get the numbers

13 for those.

14 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

15 THE REGISTRAR: The first video with ERN ETV000-2725 is

16 Prosecution Exhibit P373. And the second one with ERN ETV000-2632 is

17 Prosecution Exhibit P374.

18 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. You may proceed Mr. Weiner.

19 MR. WEINER:

20 Q. Ms. Adie, did anyone from the Bosnian government or military ever

21 contact you concerning your observations in Uzdol?

22 A. I can never remember that happening in four years of war.

23 Q. And did anyone ever make a request to you for a copy of the video?

24 A. The same answer. There was no organisation which was competent

25 enough or functioning enough in four years in Bosnia to even be aware of

Page 35

1 video transmissions. There was virtually no television in Bosnia. Most

2 people had no electricity most of the time. The idea that people would be

3 following or aware and responding was unknown on all three sides. Though

4 I have to say people claimed to frequently. They say, "We saw this. We

5 saw that on BBC, on CNN." You knew they had no electricity in their

6 house, never mind television. So most of -- the claims were usually

7 spurious. And as for a functioning system to contact journalists, that

8 just did not exist at all. There was, from our point of view for much of

9 the time, no functioning government.

10 Q. Thank you. No further questions.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. Any cross-examination, Mr. Morrissey.

12 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour. Thanks very much.

13 Cross-examined by Mr. Morrissey:

14 Q. Thank you Ms. Adie. I just have some questions first of all about

15 the nature of the information that took you to Uzdol. Did that

16 information came directly from Croatian sources or did it come to you

17 through military sources?

18 A. From military sources, from the British military operation.

19 Q. Now, I understand this is probably triple hearsay but I'll ask you

20 anyway. What did the British sources that contacted you tell you about

21 where the information originally came from?

22 A. They weren't specific. They said that it was from Prozor, which I

23 would assume to be a Croat source.

24 Q. Yes. You used the term "militia" earlier on. Are you familiar

25 with a particular organisation called the HVO?

Page 36

1 A. Yes. There are -- there were many different outfits operating

2 through four years in Bosnia. They gave themselves names at times. Some

3 of them did not have direct connections to a headquarters, some operated

4 as local warlords, some as militias. "Militia" is a common word that we

5 used in the BBC when we were not precisely sure which military group this

6 was. There were many ad hoc military operations, military units

7 functioning on all sides. HVO I would be well aware of. But before or

8 unless I could actually verify, I would use the word "militia" generally.

9 Q. Very well. And at the time when you were still -- before you went

10 to Prozor, did you make an inquiry as to whether this was the HVO you were

11 dealing with or some other militia organisation?

12 A. Of whom would I make that inquiry?

13 Q. The question is did you make such an inquiry?

14 A. Well, who would there be to make the inquiry of? Are you asking

15 who I called?

16 Q. I'm just asking whether you made any inquiry of any person there,

17 Ms. Adie. What's the answer?

18 A. The answer is there was no one to ask. The assumption that there

19 were somehow official functioning sources of information is a specious

20 one.

21 Q. Well, there is no criticism of you for not asking. I just needed

22 the fact as to whether you did ask or not.

23 A. You don't ask when there's a vacuum.

24 Q. Well, after that time you went down to Prozor, and when you got to

25 Prozor did you inspect the deceased people as they're depicted in the news

Page 37

1 broadcasts that have been shown?

2 A. They're on the floor. I didn't inspect them on film for the

3 precise reason that I don't think that our viewers expect our reporters to

4 do that. I did it when the camera was not on and I peeled back blankets

5 and had a look at the bodies without disturbing the bodies as much as

6 could. There were no objections from anybody who was there, but even so,

7 you do it quite discreetly.

8 Q. Who was there when you did that?

9 A. Sorry?

10 Q. Who was there when you did that?

11 A. There were a number of civilians, some elderly people. It was

12 unclear as to whether these people -- one assumed -- I assumed that they

13 were Prozor people. No one claimed to be there from Uzdol that I remember

14 specifically, though there were some young men also in Croat uniform

15 there. There was a doctor, I believe, and obviously some local workers,

16 the man with the disinfectant. Not a lot of people around, but as I say

17 it wasn't a particularly busy town. It was semi-deserted.

18 Q. Very well. Just in terms of the people who were present, you've

19 indicated that there were some -- some elderly civilians, and I want to

20 the ask you, were those elderly civilians present when you performed the

21 inspections of the deceased bodies that you've described?

22 A. People were wandering in and out. Nobody interfered with me and

23 nobody took specific notice of what we did. I arrived with the British

24 military. They commanded some respect in the area. No one expected them

25 to do anything untoward or improper. I was with them. And it was not

Page 38

1 unknown for journalists to do this kind of thing. And as I indicated, it

2 did not seem to in any way offend any of the factions in Bosnia. I was

3 frequently, for example, in intensive care units and morgues, makeshift

4 morgues around the country, and it was -- these bodies were frequently

5 shown to us by people. The hyper-sensitivity you get in some cultures did

6 not exist there.

7 Q. No, no. And as to the presence of, I think you said young men in

8 Croatian uniforms, did you make an inquiry as to which unit they were

9 from?

10 A. No.

11 Q. And did anyone from the British forces that you were with point

12 out which units they were from?

13 A. They made their own report, as did the EU monitors. I have

14 assumed that those reports are present in this court. There were official

15 reports made by the monitors.

16 Q. Yes. Well I'm going to give you the opportunity to consider one

17 such later on, but I have to ask you the questions as to what you observed

18 and the question is: Did anyone tell you whether they were a British

19 source or a UN source that you were dealing with the HVO or some other --

20 A. The assumption was that the HVO were operational at that area as

21 they were in Gornji Vakuf, in Vitez, and in several other towns in the

22 region. I had not been to Prozor in the preceding few months concerning

23 any major incident. Prozor itself used to be relatively, relatively - and

24 I mean that term in a very strong way - quiet, but I did not know the

25 Prozor region intimately regarding the units operating there.

Page 39

1 Q. Sure. Well, then I make -- I'm ask you the question again. Did

2 you ask which units were operating there?

3 A. No.

4 Q. Why not?

5 A. Why should I?

6 Q. Well --

7 A. What else would they have been on the Croat side. I'm genuinely

8 asking you what else would they have been? There were at least three

9 other Croat units which I knew to operate within Bosnia but it was a long

10 distance away, some around the border with Bosnia, others in the

11 Tomislavgrad area and to the north of Travnik. There were different

12 groups at different times. The HVO was a generic term often used for

13 Croat forces.

14 Q. Did you ever hear of an institution called the Home Guard?

15 A. Is that the English term for something? Can you be specific.

16 Q. It is an English term for -- for an HVO unit that we've heard

17 about in evidence here.

18 A. And in Serbo-Croat it would be?

19 Q. It's domobrani?

20 A. Not a specific term that was used by journalists or by, as far as

21 I know, the British military.

22 Q. Okay.

23 A. I have to say in the circumstances there was such a ragtag and,

24 shall we say, ad hoc nature with many of these units that specific names

25 were given to everybody. They called themselves "Fighting Tigers," "the

Page 40

1 Lions of Bosnia" -- you know, there were a dozen different nicknames given

2 to units, normally bombastic and exaggerated. So we tended to be very

3 careful in naming units.

4 Q. Very well. Now, as to the actual deceased people that you

5 inspected, your method of inspecting them was to peel back the -- the

6 coverings that there were, as you've indicated. After you did that, did

7 you notice whether these people -- these persons at Prozor were clothed or

8 unclothed?

9 A. They had clothes on.

10 Q. All right. Did you remove any of that clothing?

11 A. There was no need to.

12 Q. You just have to deal with my questions as they come, I'm sorry.

13 Did you personally remove any clothing from those people?

14 A. There would be no reason for me to do so.

15 Q. Okay. So the answer is that you didn't; is that right?

16 A. Absolutely.

17 Q. Okay.

18 A. If you try to get clothes off a corpse it's extremely difficulty,

19 I might add.

20 Q. Sure. Do you know whether pathologists normally remove clothes

21 from dead bodies before they perform inspections?

22 A. Because obviously they are going for an internal inspection.

23 Q. Okay. And to your knowledge, how do you assess whether there's

24 post-mortem lividity on a deceased body?

25 A. There are very specific and professional levels of inspection

Page 41

1 needed if you or pathologist. I am obviously lip not a pathologist. All

2 I would say is I have seen a great number of bullet wounds, fragment

3 wounds, grenade, and general injuries.

4 Q. Sure. But just dealing with the question of post-mortem lividity,

5 did you inspect these persons to see if they had post-mortem lividity?

6 A. I saw them in the Uzdol area. I specifically looked at one body.

7 Q. Okay. But let's deal with Prozor right now.

8 A. No, not in Prozor. There were merely bullet wounds in Prozor, I

9 can confirm that. Merely bullet wounds.

10 Q. Okay. Now, in assessing this issue of post-mortem lividity with

11 respect to the Prozor people, what you say is you didn't look for that. Is

12 that correct?

13 A. I looked at the pallor of their faces. I looked at how rigid they

14 were and a number -- I was wondering -- my fascination at that point was

15 when did this happen? And the rough guide, and nobody seemed to dispute

16 this was that it was within the last 24, 36 hours. And that would have

17 been my amateur guess.

18 Q. Yes. Well, in terms of now the numbers of people that you looked

19 at, you indicated 22 people, one of whom was a child and the other 21 of

20 whom were relatively, and I understand you're not attempting to use a

21 scientific term there, but relatively --

22 A. I'm using a cultural term there. Elderly is a matter of

23 relativity in various cultures.

24 Q. Sure. Well, in any event, I don't think there's any quarrel about

25 it. But what I wanted to be quite clear about is that those 22 were all

Page 42

1 civilians; correct?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And you say they were civilians because they were dressed in

4 civilian clothes; correct?

5 A. They were also older than any group in Bosnia than, in my

6 experience, would ever have joined any military unit.

7 Q. Were you told whether or not any of the older people that were --

8 you looked at in Prozor had weapons in their homes?

9 A. There was no one to tell us from about the village in that sense.

10 And what you would assume and I would assume is that with knowledge of

11 Bosnia that in many, many homes in Bosnia, country homes, a weapon was

12 frequently kept. Elderly people, though, were unlikely to have them. It

13 would be my experience by 1993, because what was needed by all the

14 fighting forces was as many weapons as possible, and I met many -- saw

15 many instances where elderly people had given their sons and their

16 relatives weapons and there was no longer a weapon in each house.

17 Q. Was it ever pointed out to you that any of these individuals in

18 fact owned weapons at that time in September?

19 A. There would be no one to point that out, and it would be highly

20 unlikely that they would have other than the -- kind of the occasional

21 shotgun. AK47s and assault rifles would not be kept by elderly people.

22 They would much more likely have a shotgun for rural incidents.

23 Q. With respect to the people in Uzdol, how do you know that?

24 A. I am merely cross-referencing it with several hundred other

25 villages that I visited in four years.

Page 43

1 Q. And had you ever gone Uzdol before this occasion?

2 A. No, I had not.

3 Q. Prozor?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. How many times to Prozor?

6 A. Oh, I have lost count because it was on the main supply route

7 north to south, and I would have passed through it many times, stopped in

8 it many times.

9 Q. Did you also see a number of killed soldiers or dead soldiers

10 nearby to the place where you viewed the old people dead?

11 A. I have not made any reference to that. I don't know where that

12 idea comes from.

13 Q. Well --

14 A. Not in my experience.

15 Q. I'm just asking you whether you did in fact see --

16 A. No.

17 Q. -- any?

18 A. No, no, no. We did not see.

19 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please pause between question

20 and answer for the benefit of the interpreters. Thank you.

21 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, I forgot about that trouble, Your Honour.

22 Q. My apologise, Ms. Adie. We have to, or I have to slow down a bit.

23 Very well.

24 You just made a reference in a statement to the -- to the

25 investigators some time ago -- look, I should ask you this: Did you get a

Page 44

1 chance to look at your statement before you gave evidence here?

2 A. I had my statement validated in London on oath, and I've seen it

3 several times.

4 Q. Well, look, there's no -- this is not an attempt to trip -- trip

5 you up, but you've made a reference here and I'm just -- I just want you

6 to clarify -- you'd be -- you said, "I think we saw some Bosnian Croats

7 soldiers at the morgue." Now, were you referring to living Bosnian Croat

8 soldiers when you made that comment?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Okay.

11 A. You can see them on the video.

12 Q. Yes, well, that's correct and that's what I was asking you about.

13 Very well. So the answer is then that at that -- at Prozor you saw no

14 dead soldiers from the Croat side or from the Bosnian army side?

15 A. No, none at all; we saw only civilians.

16 Q. And when you got down to Uzdol - I'm jumping ahead now - the same

17 thing applies. You saw no dead soldiers and no dead -- no dead Bosnian

18 soldiers and no dead Croatian soldiers; is that correct?

19 A. That's correct.

20 Q. Okay. And were you told where -- were you told that any soldiers

21 had been killed at all?

22 A. We were aware that something had probably taken place prior to the

23 attack on the elderly people. That which I indicated in my video, we did

24 not know what had happened. And I therefore was not going to speculate

25 and I left it at that. It seemed that there had been -- we knew that the

Page 45

1 school had been a Croat headquarters, so one assumed that it would be --

2 it would have Croat soldiers in it. This is assumption, speculation by

3 me, and therefore, if Bosnian soldiers had come into the village, there

4 would have been some kind of engagement, or it was quite possible that

5 people run away, and I don't actually put that out of the question. This

6 used to happen, though no local on either side would ever acknowledge

7 that.

8 So I don't know, but clearly something occurred for the Bosnians

9 to be able to come into that village.

10 Q. Well, Ms. Adie, I won't ask you to speculate. We've heard some

11 evidence about all of this already. But what I do want to ask you about

12 is the number of killed people or dead people that you saw. You saw 22 in

13 Prozor, apparently all civilians. How many did you see in Uzdol?

14 A. I think 12 or 13. I say "I think," because I didn't do a precise

15 count at the end of the day, and they were scattered around the various

16 buildings. And there were two in fields as well.

17 Q. So all in all as to civilians you saw on your calculation 34 or

18 35?

19 A. Perhaps. I can't give you the precise number.

20 Q. Now is the area of doubt connected to the number that you saw at

21 Prozor or the number that you saw at Uzdol?

22 A. No, I counted precisely in Prozor.

23 Q. How long were you in Uzdol?

24 A. A good hour, hour to an hour and a half. I would -- I think I

25 remember. I probably wasn't longer than that. Hour and a half, maybe.

Page 46

1 Q. Yes. Well, you were there and I wasn't, so are you happy if we

2 work on the basis of approximately an hour and a half?

3 A. Yeah, but my memory is fuzzy on that. I'm just calculating how

4 much film we took and so on.

5 Q. All right. There's no difficulties about that. I've just got a

6 couple of more questions -- returning to Prozor now. As to the killed

7 people that you saw there you noticed no one who had been shot in the

8 head; is that correct?

9 A. As far as I could see. There appeared to be all torso wounds.

10 Q. And you noticed no one had been shot more than twice; is that

11 correct?

12 A. I didn't find a body which had more than two bullet wounds in it,

13 but I didn't inspect all of the bodies. So I can't say that one didn't

14 have more than that.

15 Q. How many of the bodies did you inspect?

16 A. About six or seven.

17 Q. Looking at the video that you've seen, are you able to identify

18 the -- by reference to the blankets and any other identifying mark those

19 bodies which you did look at?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Were you ever provided with a name of any of those bodies that you

22 looked at?

23 A. No.

24 Q. Did -- did you have anyone either among the British party or -- or

25 indeed any person at all who was able to speak both English and Bosnian,

Page 47

1 Serbian, Croatian?

2 A. The British army had an interpreter with them.

3 Q. All right. And was that person prepared to assist you with

4 questions if you asked them?

5 A. Yes. It was a British army soldier.

6 Q. And in fact did that person assist you with questions from time to

7 time when you asked?

8 A. From time to time, but there were few people who were worth

9 questioning, and by that I'm not being patronising. My point about

10 questions is that unless I have eyewitnesses, the testimony for me is

11 secondhand and I have to treat it carefully. And particularly for this

12 kind of instance. I was looking all time for an eyewitness and I did not

13 find one.

14 Q. As to the -- to the Croatian militia persons that you've

15 described, did the -- do you have the interpreter ask any of them whether

16 they were eyewitnesses or not?

17 A. They appeared not to have been eyewitnesses.

18 Q. I understand that, but the question is did you get the interpreter

19 to put that precise question to --

20 A. It was not as precise. These are not formal circumstances because

21 we are moving around a room with dead bodies. We have distraught people

22 outside. We are being extremely careful. Occasionally one -- one says,

23 does anybody -- is anybody saying so and so, is does anybody giving this

24 information? But I'm extremely aware that there is no eyewitness coming

25 forward which is -- as a reporter what I'm very aware of.

Page 48

1 Q. Of course, and don't take my questions to contain criticisms, but

2 I have to ask the question in a precise way for later transcript purposes,

3 and the question is: Did you get the interpreter to ask any of these

4 young Croatian soldiers whether they were eyewitnesses or not?

5 A. I think I was aware that the information had come to me already

6 that they were not eyewitnesses.

7 Q. Okay. And in a general sense when you're in the field like that

8 you're receiving information from various people, soldiers nearby, your

9 cameraman, anyone else who's -- who might have noticed something; correct?

10 A. You take information from wherever you can but you have to

11 evaluate it and you have to be aware as we were in all of the time in

12 Bosnia that most of the people living near or close experience to

13 something like this frequently do not tell the truth, particularly if they

14 have not been eyewitnesses. The reasons are obvious and manifold.

15 Q. Okay. Now, let's turn from the journey from Prozor down to Uzdol.

16 In the course of that journey you indicated that you noticed a person --

17 well, perhaps I should ask you, did you see more than one person dead in

18 the fields or the countryside nearby?

19 A. Two. Two.

20 Q. Okay.

21 A. We saw two bodies.

22 Q. Were both of those -- can I just ask you a couple of questions

23 about that, were both of those persons depicted in the film that we've

24 seen here?

25 A. Yes, one is in the transmission, and the other is in the second

Page 49

1 shot which you saw in the -- secondly, the extra rushes at the end.

2 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly pause between question and answer, and

3 please speak one at a time to ensure an accurate record. Thank you.

4 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. I consider myself ticked off by the

5 interpreters, Your Honour, and I will endeavour to do better.

6 Q. Pardon me, Ms. Adie. So -- where was I? Very well.

7 As to either of those people, were both of them in the same

8 position, namely that it was potentially dangerous to approach them

9 closely?

10 A. There used to be a lot of scare-mongering in -- by local people,

11 that there were mines in areas where there was some kind of activity.

12 "Minar, minar," [sic] people used to shout. It -- it happened sometimes

13 there -- and there were some booby-trapped areas, field, doorways, gates

14 to field. The British army like any professional army was always

15 extremely careful about approaching a body that was in the public view,

16 again because of booby-traps or any kind of problems surrounding it.

17 Q. Well, just as to those two people, I take it, then, that for very

18 good and sensible reasons you didn't approach them or inspect the bodies?

19 A. No. But my cameraman zoomed in on one of them and could tell that

20 it was a civilian lying in a field as if he had been --

21 Q. Been shot?

22 A. Died unexpectedly, and been shot would be the obvious one.

23 Q. Yes. Okay. And when you say civilian, you're unaware of whether

24 those individuals who were in the field belonged to any particular

25 organisation; is that correct?

Page 50

1 A. They looked like locals. The man was wearing rough clothes of a

2 farmer.

3 Q. Okay.

4 A. And I think a cap.

5 Q. Well, were you aware of whether or not any of the locals in their

6 rough suits and caps were members of the Home Guard of the HVO or not?

7 A. I do not recognise this phrase "Home Guard," and you're suggesting

8 organisation, which would barely have been able to exist in the chaos and

9 lack of administration in Bosnia at the time. You're suggesting something

10 far more organised than anything we ever encountered.

11 Q. All right. I'm going to take you now to certain of the facts

12 in -- or certain of the observations you made in the village, but before I

13 do that I have to ask you some questions which are general in nature,

14 narrative in nature, and you may say you know or you may say you don't

15 know but I'll put them to you anyway.

16 Did you know that in July of 1993 that civilians in the Uzdol

17 village had been told by the HVO to leave?

18 A. I did not know that specifically.

19 Q. Okay. And did you know in fact that most of the children of

20 school age had in fact indeed left and gone to Prozor and a couple of

21 other villages nearby?

22 A. I did not know this.

23 Q. And were you aware of whether or not there were various

24 fortifications stationed around the edges of the hamlets making up the

25 village of Uzdol?

Page 51

1 A. Can you describe what you mean by fortification?

2 Q. Well, there's various different types. I'll certainly clarify,

3 but just in general terms were you told that there were any areas that

4 were -- had trenches constructed there?

5 A. We were not told -- you're describing a kind of organisation and

6 precision that did not exist throughout Bosnia.

7 Q. Okay. So as far as you knew, anyway, that there was no trenches

8 or gun emplacements in the area of Uzdol?

9 A. I was not aware. The British army could tell you because it had

10 fairly specific knowledge of these things. And if there had been, the

11 British army would have warned us about any major emplacements if we were

12 going into that area, and the officer in charge would have known and would

13 have had that intelligence. We had special services and intelligence on

14 the ground for the area.

15 Q. Yes. And when you got to Uzdol, did you notice the remains of a

16 tank, an army tank near the school?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Did anyone tell you there had been an army tank there that had

19 unfortunately been destroyed the previous day?

20 A. No. It was -- nobody mentioned that. Interesting that a tank got

21 up there. That's all I would say. I couldn't see the point of it,

22 really, from tactical terms.

23 Q. Yes, well --

24 A. That's -- sorry. That's speculation. But it wouldn't be what I

25 was looking for.

Page 52

1 Q. No. But it's a bit hard to miss a tank if it was there, isn't it?

2 A. No, you're wrong. It's extremely easy to conceal one in that kind

3 of countryside and behind ruins. Two trees and a bit of earth and you can

4 do it.

5 Q. And -- but in fact the answer to my question basically is this,

6 that you didn't see a tank and no one pointed out the existence of one?

7 A. No.

8 Q. And as to wrecked buildings, did you see any buildings that were

9 wrecked?

10 A. Yes a couple were. They had been burnt.

11 Q. Yes. And did you see any that were still burning?

12 A. There was a smouldering building.

13 Q. And did you see any that had obviously been destroyed by some

14 agency or another.

15 A. Burning only. There were no major shell holes, mortar holes, or

16 anything resembling any large, heavy weaponry being fired at all. Nor

17 were there any what we called "splat marks." This is journalistic term for

18 shell damage against the walls of large buildings which were common to

19 half of Bosnia or more. There was only small-arms fire.

20 Q. What about the buildings that were actually on fire or damaged?

21 Did you inspect those to see whether they --

22 A. The timber had gone and they had fallen in.

23 Q. So, in short, it's impossible to draw any conclusion as to whether

24 they'd been hit by artillery fire so far as you're --

25 A. There was absolutely zero evidence of artillery fire to us.

Page 53

1 Q. In terms of those burnt houses there, was any evidence of anything

2 that had caused them to burn?

3 A. I saw several houses set on fire during ethnic cleansing which

4 involved usually the use of some petrol and a match.

5 Q. Well, did you notice any petrol being used on this occasion?

6 A. You would not find the evidence unless you were doing a forensic

7 investigation, and it would be difficult.

8 Q. And when you say it would be difficult, do you -- were you able to

9 smell any petrol at any of these burnt buildings?

10 A. You don't. Any forensic scientist would tell you that afterwards

11 in the countryside 24 hours later. I saw several buildings being set

12 alights in the three years.

13 Q. Can I just ask you this -- sorry. Just?

14 A. You just set them alight with whatever material is available.

15 Maybe I should not have mention the petrol. You use the curtains, you use

16 the materials inside. You use perhaps straw from the farm outside. It is

17 extremely easy, particularly in houses which have a lot of wood, and as I

18 also indicated a lot of wooden furniture inside.

19 Q. Yes. But the point is this, that you didn't smell any petrol;

20 right?

21 A. I perhaps -- if I could withdraw the phrase petrol because I said

22 it just on the -- having seen it used a couple of times in other villages

23 but that other -- yet at other times I saw other much simpler ways of

24 setting a house on fire.

25 Q. I see. Were you told whether or not there were active armed HVO

Page 54

1 soldiers living in the hamlets that went to make up Uzdol on the night of

2 the attack?

3 A. I was told no information like that. I could comment on the

4 assumption that there might be, but there was no information came to me.

5 Q. I see. I don't want you to comment on assumptions, but did you

6 ask that question through the interpreter, "were there active armed

7 soldiers in the village at the time when the killings took place"?

8 A. There was almost no one around who could give such an answer.

9 Q. What about the Croats?

10 A. The Croats, we had country boys who did not have specific

11 information, who were clearly local, and who clearly did not have any

12 detailed information of any major operations. These were local lads, and

13 as a --

14 Q. Why didn't you ask them?

15 A. -- as a journalist, you don't -- we had limited time and it's not

16 the kind of question which would have produced an honest answer.

17 Q. Well, let's just take that step-by-step. First of all, you didn't

18 ask them; is that correct?

19 A. No.

20 Q. Sorry that's my silly question there. Did you ask them?

21 A. No.

22 Q. Thanks. Sorry. All right. And is the reason you didn't ask them

23 because they were local people and you didn't think you'd get a truthful

24 answer?

25 A. I ask questions of people under certain circumstances when I think

Page 55

1 that there will -- it would be valid to listen to them, not whether it is

2 truthful or not. In this instance, we had a lot of dead Croat people, and

3 I made the assumption that people wearing Croat uniform would give me an

4 answer which would frame their view of what had happened.

5 Q. Why did you interview that Croat soldier on the BBC if that's the

6 case?

7 A. Because he claimed to know the family, and that was a claim which

8 I thought could be either later found to be true or false. That to me was

9 a link to an eyewitness piece of evidence.

10 Q. And did you find out whether it was true or false later?

11 A. No.

12 Q. What checks did you do to try to find that out?

13 A. I did not need to do that. It is not part of my remit. I am not

14 an investigator.

15 Q. Very well. And were you told -- well, perhaps just in terms of

16 asking these questions, did it appear to you be a relevant thing to

17 question about whether there had been military conflict in the village or

18 whether it had just been a simple -- well, not simple I suppose, that's an

19 unfair question. Did it -- I'll ask the question again. Did it seem to

20 you to be important to verify whether there had been a military fight on

21 the one hand or a piece of brutal ethnic cleansing on the other hand?

22 A. Yes, I did think that important, and I found that was what was

23 already -- was in the report as you have seen. I could not fully verify

24 this in any way, shape, or form, except that the British military, having

25 had a good look round the school building, indicated that there had been,

Page 56

1 and the phrase they gave to me, "some kind of rear guard action."

2 Q. But just returning to the Croatian boys or young men that you've

3 indicated. Let me be quite clear about the position. Not only did you

4 not ask them through the interpreter, but you're not aware of anyone else

5 asking them either through the interpreter or directly as to whether there

6 was a military action in Uzdol?

7 A. They were not eyewitnesses.

8 Q. How do you know?

9 A. Because I knew that I had no eyewitnesses. That I did know from

10 the Prozor -- no one was there who had witnessed what had happened. That

11 had been my first inquiry. Is there anyone here who knows and saw, saw

12 what happened? And at the very beginning we knew that no one claimed to

13 have been there at the time of the killing of the elderly people.

14 Q. Well -- and how did you know that, that no one had been there at

15 the time of the killing of the elderly people?

16 A. Because when we got to Prozor we said, "Did anyone see this

17 happen," and the answer was "No."

18 Q. Did you ask whether there were any survivors?

19 A. Yes, and as far as I -- and this was in my report we -- as far as

20 we could find out there were none. No one came to us either and -- and

21 with the circumstances, when we were in Prozor, if you have a number of

22 bodies laid out and the Croats are happy enough for us to view the dead

23 bodies, both British military and journalists, and I've known of instances

24 where these things have been covered up, if they were happy for us to see

25 the dead bodies, I think they would have been more than happy to produce

Page 57

1 someone who saw what had happened and had been a survivor. I would have

2 thought that's automatic in this situation, and we had no one come

3 forward.

4 Q. Yes. Okay. But just come back to the question. The question I

5 asked you was: "Did you ask whether there were any survivors," and you

6 answered me "Yes," and then you went on to explain the inference that you

7 drew. But I just want to deal with that answer of yes.

8 Who did you ask whether there were any survivors?

9 A. There was what -- sorry. You are suggesting a formal interview

10 situation.

11 Q. I'm just asking you who you asked?

12 A. I was talking with the army interpreter who was gleaning, and that

13 is the phrase I was using, gleaning snippets of information from people,

14 and I was asking him fairly direct questions which he would be aware of

15 anyway because his officer and the two EU monitors were also asking. We

16 were all asking, "Did anyone see what happened? Have we got an

17 eyewitness?"

18 Q. And what was the answer?

19 A. The answer came back, "No we didn't."

20 Q. And who did that answer come back from?

21 A. Via the interpreter from all the people who he was going around

22 talking to.

23 Q. And those people were the soldiers in uniform and certain local

24 civilians; is that correct?

25 A. Yes. Yes.

Page 58

1 Q. Okay. So at the very least what we can say is the soldiers were

2 telling you, or those you were with, that there were no survivors;

3 correct?

4 A. They didn't say that precisely. They didn't produce a survivor.

5 Q. Just a second. Let's be clear about this. Did they say that

6 there was an eyewitness in existence or did they say there was no

7 eyewitness in existence?

8 A. They said neither. They didn't produce one. When you ask a

9 roomful of people, did anyone see anything and they put their arms in the

10 air and shake their heads and no one comes forward. You are in -- keep

11 presuming precise questions. This was not the circumstance.

12 Q. Well, as a barrister I can well understand it. It's not always

13 right -- it's not always possible to ask a direct question, isn't it? In

14 my case, you have all sorts of reasons. But you're an experienced

15 journalist and you know how to ask a direct question. Now what I'm asking

16 you is: Why didn't you put it to some of the soldiers, "Listen, have you

17 got an eyewitness or not"?

18 A. I didn't need to. I already knew by the first two minutes in that

19 room that no one was going to come forward. I have been in circumstances

20 time and again where I have arrived as a journalist and if people on one

21 particular side wish to deliver full information about what has happened,

22 which will give full information as to what has happened to their people

23 as victims, they will produce, they will push forward, they will name,

24 they will indicate or they will in some way deliver an eyewitness to you

25 because it is in their favour if they do it. If they don't then you can

Page 59

1 make the assumption that there is no eyewitness.

2 Q. All right. And is that the assumption that you drew?

3 A. It was at that time.

4 Q. Yes. Okay. And certainly nobody mentioned to you that there was

5 a person called Kazimir Zelenika who might be of interest?

6 A. Specific names are rarely mentioned in these instances by local

7 people in Bosnia.

8 Q. Were any specific names given to you?

9 A. Only the one given by the Croat up at Uzdol.

10 Q. Okay. And that was the one who pointed to the name of Ratkic?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Now -- very well. As to other questions about that, did you make

13 any inquiries of Croat armed forces, the HVO, or any other force whether

14 they had in fact shelled, fired artillery fire on the morning when the

15 killings took place?

16 A. Such inquiries were not made by journalists because they were

17 fruitless and pointless, and nor was there an obvious headquarters of an

18 organisation to inquire of.

19 Q. Who was the senior Croatian military person that you met down

20 at -- either at Prozor or at Uzdol?

21 A. No senior military people.

22 Q. Was there anyone who seemed able to call the shots with the other

23 soldiers?

24 A. No.

25 Q. Was there no one with the insignia or any -- any indication that

Page 60

1 they had a position of seniority?

2 A. All of these things were meaningless in the terms of the militias

3 operating in Bosnia in rural areas. They called themselves generals when

4 they were corporals. We used occasionally the term commander when someone

5 said they had responsibility for a particular unit. Other than that, it

6 was toy-town military nonsense, I have to say. And I'm just trying to

7 point out that the kind of organisation you're presenting to me was not

8 obvious to us in any sense on the ground.

9 Q. Okay. Now, a minute ago I was asking you questions about

10 fortifications and so on around the village of Uzdol and you gave certain

11 answers there. Specifically was a -- an area of entrenchments with the

12 name Borak draw to your attention at any stage?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Were any other strong points, for want of a better word, placed

15 within 500 metres of the emplacement at Borak drawn to your attention?

16 A. Strong point? Can you describe what I should be looking for? I'm

17 genuinely -- I don't know what you mean there.

18 Q. Yes. Well, I'm in your hands to some degree here. The answer

19 might well be simply, no, you weren't told anything about it but?

20 A. What am I looking for.

21 Q. You're looking for entrenchments, places where soldiers guard the

22 front line.

23 A. Such trenches were dug in some areas, but hit and run tactics were

24 the most common, and for a strong point where a gun emplacement might be,

25 because guns were so hard to come by on most sides, they were usually

Page 61

1 moved from one position to another. So you're not looking for permanent

2 positions most of the time in Bosnia. Rare to find them. Rare to see any

3 earthworks or anything like that.

4 Q. Okay, well I'm really specifically dealing with Uzdol here, if

5 that's okay. Is the answer to my question that No, no one told you about

6 any such --

7 A. Nor would we be looking at because this was not a flashpoint area

8 of huge tactical significance unlike, for example, Gornji Vakuf which was

9 a front line fight between two very close groups of fighters.

10 Q. Yes, okay.

11 A. Prozor did not have that kind of action around it from the very

12 early days when most of the Bosnians had been driven out by burning.

13 Q. Were you aware of whether or not the Bosnian army was conducting a

14 series ever attacks along a series of axes along the 13th and 14th of --

15 of September?

16 A. The Bosnian army was a collection -- the Army of BiH was a

17 collection in 1993 of a ragtag group of disparate units which had poor

18 communication, if any, and uncoordinated behaviour area by area. The idea

19 that it was a wholly coordinating, communicating army is unknown to me.

20 So the idea that a specific act was carried out may have happened in an

21 area but it was unknown to me and I certainly wouldn't see it as part of

22 an overarching strategy.

23 Q. And to your experience that army consisted of a lot of self-willed

24 little warlords who obeyed when they felt like it?

25 A. Not entirely. I had connections with both -- and I saw and knew

Page 62

1 commanders up in Travnik and in Zenica it was the 3rd Corps and with the

2 2nd Corps in Tuzla. They lacked all kinds of essentials for a functioning

3 army. There was some extremely well-disciplined men. I specifically

4 remember one commander, two commanders, one in Travnik, one in Zenica.

5 There were others who acted as warlords and so on. This was common to

6 both the Croats and the Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims, with the Bosnian

7 Muslims having the greater problem of fewer resources.

8 Q. All right. But just coming back to the specifics of the battle

9 you weren't aware of any --

10 A. Battle? "Battle" is not a word I would use. Battle is a

11 large-scale, coordinated military operation, hardly ever seen in Bosnia.

12 Q. I understand we're not discussing Waterloo here, but perhaps we

13 could just use the word "battle" in its broader sense?

14 A. No, because you misunderstand the nature of fighting in Bosnia

15 which was like domestic violence on a village and town scale.

16 Q. I see. Well, do you know a hill called Crni Vrh?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Do you know Makljan.

19 A. No.

20 Q. Do you know whether there was an attack made by Bosnian Muslim

21 units who, in an attempt to took over the hill Crni Vrh on the way to --

22 A. Well, Crni Vrh would mean black hill, I believe, and there must be

23 a thousand of those in Bosnia.

24 Q. Okay, well we're talking about the one on the road to Makljan

25 here, so what's your answer? Do you know whether there was an attack

Page 63

1 there or not?

2 A. I don't know the word of Mak -- can you --

3 Q. Makljan, a town.

4 A. Town, big town?

5 Q. It's --

6 A. Either it's unknown to me, or --

7 Q. -- I think --

8 A. Not as big as Prozor. Prozor is a tiny country town, anyway.

9 Q. Okay. Well, anyway, I take it that you --

10 A. I'm generally ignorant about this. I don't know where you're

11 referring to.

12 Q. That's okay. I'm not being critical in any way. It's just -- I

13 just needed to know whether you were aware of -- of any military action in

14 that area, and I suppose your answer is you don't even know the town of

15 Makljan, so that puts an end to those questions.

16 A. Yeah. It doesn't sound -- it's not a big town that I've heard it.

17 So --

18 Q. No, no, no.

19 A. Can I say that we used to get, and this refers back to the first

20 question you asked me at the very beginning. We used to get information

21 from all kinds of sources, some of it first hand, some of it fourth hand,

22 about activity, if I can put it in inverted commas, all over the region on

23 a daily basis. Some of it was significant, some of it was -- didn't even

24 happen. So unless we actually got to an area which was why for example I

25 went to Uzdol, which I thought was significant, we tended not to give a

Page 64

1 great deal of credence to various reported so-called military actions.

2 Q. Okay. And can I just ask you whether you -- I understand what you

3 say about the -- about the military -- whether they're battles or not,

4 but --

5 A. Can I also point out something about Prozor which I think is

6 relevant here.

7 Q. Of course of course?

8 A. Prozor was one -- on one of the main supply routes, MSRs, up from

9 the coast to the Lasva Valley to Zenica, big town, and then onwards to

10 Tuzla. It was one of the army-patrolled routes for NATO and previously

11 the UN. It was a main road and a real artery going through Central

12 Bosnia. If there had been major military activity within even five, six

13 miles, ten miles of that road we would have all have been alerted to it

14 over the period of time we were there in -- because that would have

15 possibly cut that main supply route.

16 I cannot remember any major point except north of Prozor near

17 Gornji Vakuf where an artillery piece appeared somewhere in early 1993 of

18 any specific problem that ever closed the road or made it a risk road. So

19 major activity near it would seem to be -- it would be much more minor,

20 local fighting.

21 Q. My last question on that is did the British intelligence services

22 ever miss anything around that time?

23 A. You must ask them.

24 Q. Well, look what we might do now is turn to the -- turn to the

25 issue of -- of the -- what you saw when you got to Uzdol. First of all,

Page 65

1 is it your -- I'm sorry. Is it your understanding that Uzdol consisted of

2 three or four hamlets?

3 A. Yes, because when we enquired of the name of the village, in

4 inverted commas, there was various points to go various areas and the area

5 appeared to be called Uzdol.

6 Q. And I don't know whether you got this specific but I have to put

7 the questions to you. Did you become aware of a village -- of a hamlet

8 called Kriz, K-r-i-z?

9 A. I didn't ask for specific names.

10 Q. Okay?

11 A. Uzdol appeared to me to be a generic name for that little region.

12 Q. Okay well I just -- I'm going to put some specifics to you anyway,

13 and they may jog your memory and they may not. But I mentioned Kriz what

14 about Rajici, R-a-j-i-c-i?

15 A. I have to say that's quite a common name in Bosnia. So if I did

16 remember it would be possibly because I've heard it elsewhere.

17 Q. Okay. What about Cer?

18 A. No.

19 Q. And Zelenika?

20 A. Zelenika?

21 Q. No, not the football team. Z-e-l-e-n-i-k-a?

22 A. Yes. The reason for that being that in television-reporting terms

23 I would only use a minimum of designated place names and sometimes

24 specific personal names because we don't scatter names in the -- in the

25 report. We keep it fairly simple.

Page 66

1 Q. All right. Is it -- is it a possible -- well, there's a

2 photograph we could show you and it might assist, I don't know if it

3 will. Are you able to recall the route that you took when you were in the

4 village?

5 A. Coming to the village, what I remember is that we had on our right

6 we were coming up a ridge line heading east and the -- as we curved around

7 towards it the school was at the top of the ridge on a -- slightly to our

8 right.

9 Q. This was on the way from Prozor?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Did you go through a village called Donja Vas on the way?

12 A. None of them have village signs. We did not stop to ask. We are

13 in armoured vehicles and it is an unknown area so we do not ask directions

14 and names.

15 Q. Okay. Well, now, apart from -- I'm now going to take you some of

16 the killed people that you saw and I've got some specific questions about

17 them, but apart from the -- the people described to you as having the

18 surname Ratkic, were there any others who -- to whom was attributed a name

19 that was told to you?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Okay. And did any of the soldiers, I'll call them militiamen if

22 you're happy with that term, any of the Croatian militiamen that you saw

23 point out any of those people and give names to them even though they

24 weren't relayed on to you?

25 A. No. I would not be looking for specific names. I'm assuming

Page 67

1 that -- because I would not be using them in my report. And secondly,

2 they appear to have been killed in their own homes, so for later reasons,

3 people would be able to identify them. There are instances where I've

4 been at stories where bodies have been found in various circumstances and

5 you've needed identity perhaps to help inquiries afterwards. Theses

6 people appeared to be in their own homes in their home village.

7 Q. Did you -- you did not want to name them?

8 A. I did not need to name them.

9 Q. Well, why was it that you went to such lengths to interview that

10 soldiers because -- simply because he could name the name of Ratkic?

11 A. I didn't go to any great lengths. You misconstrue the work of a

12 reporter.

13 Q. Let me put another question, then. Why was it that you asked the

14 questions there of that soldier -- just a minute. Why did you ask those

15 questions of that soldier on the basis that he knew the names of the

16 Ratkics?

17 A. Well, you've answered the question. He said who they were.

18 Q. So putting the names on national TV was a good idea; is that

19 correct?

20 A. Not at all. You misconstrue the nature of it. The reason for

21 doing that kind of interview is to identify as a specific person with a

22 name someone which stands generically therefore for identifying people in

23 the village. That is a common, as it were, technique we would use in

24 television, that we have got someone who is prepared to give a name,

25 identify, and therefore it stands for us being able to identify people in

Page 68

1 the village. But we do not go round and do it with every family.

2 Q. Well, then is your position this, that -- well, perhaps I could

3 ask you this: Why was it that you asked about the Ratkics and were

4 interested by the name, in the case of the Ratkics but didn't pursue that

5 question in the relation to the other killed people?

6 A. I thought I just answered that. But let me make it clear again.

7 I'm going to repeat myself, that if you interview someone in a crowd at a

8 football match, you might ask a particular football fan what he thought of

9 it and you would ask for his name to identify and verify his identity and

10 the authenticity of the interview. You Do not ask the other 37.000 people

11 in the crowd what their names are.

12 Q. But you didn't ask this soldier his name, you asked him the name

13 of the people who were -- who he was identifying. Isn't that correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Okay. Look, anyway --

16 A. He said he was related to them and he knew them.

17 Q. Okay. Did you notice whether or not the man Ratkic who was the

18 deceased man did -- was he mutilated by having his ears cut off when you

19 saw him?

20 A. That is an old folk superstition that knocks around Bosnia a lot,

21 and if I knew of evidence of that I would look for the evidence. It was

22 not mentioned at the time, and no one pointed it out to me nor did I see

23 any evidence myself. But they had been burned.

24 Q. Well, just to be clear about this, you said in your statement to

25 the OTP this: "I did not see any mutilated or tortured or beaten or burnt

Page 69

1 bodies," and that was accurate, wasn't it?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Okay. Well, turning to mutilated, you would understand -- this

4 is -- I'm not being condescending about this, I just have to put the

5 question in a step-by-step way. You would understand cutting off

6 someone's ears to be mutilation, quite simple?

7 A. There is a long and primitive tradition in many countries and it

8 arose in the Balkans at various times of various forms of mutilation and

9 allegations of mutilation, sometimes which was proved but was often found

10 to be completely fanciful. But it is a product of a folk tradition, and

11 the cutting off of noses and ears, fingers, particularly children's or

12 baby's fingers, is a tale heard over and over again in the Balkans from

13 the -- 1991 onwards. If we heard this and someone alleged it, you tried

14 to find the evidence. It was extremely rare that any journalist saw this.

15 It was told to us over and over again.

16 Q. In the concrete case of Martin Ratkic whose body you saw

17 apparently in the arms of a woman, and killed, you didn't notice that he

18 had his ears cut off, did you?

19 A. No one mentioned to me that the ears had been cut off, and

20 therefore I did not look to the body to notice it. I mean, we could

21 possibly look at the video again to see. There would have been therefore

22 a great display of blood, I would assume, if both ears had been cut off.

23 There would be serious amounts of blood loss.

24 Q. I'm -- I'm going to take you through it and we will indeed pause

25 to -- to have a look at that, but certainly at the time when you were --

Page 70

1 when you were looking, no one pointed out to you -- we're about to see an

2 example of that folk practice or however it's described?

3 A. No one mentioned it, no.

4 Q. All right. Well, I wonder now if we could play the video which is

5 P373. I'm just going to have to ask that this be stopped at certain

6 moments, and, Ms. Adie, what I'll do is stop at particular parts and ask

7 you to comment on a variety of -- of sights.

8 MR. MORRISSEY: I'm not sure it's the court staff that's going to

9 help or those in the audio-visual booth or it may be that it's the

10 Prosecution because this is going through Sanction. In fact, I think it

11 is -- the Prosecutors who handle it. Could I just request therefore that

12 when I -- Your Honours, this might take a little time.

13 Q. This is -- pardon me, Ms. Adie, you'll just have to excuse me

14 while I make arrangements.

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, what I've got in mind is to take the

16 witness to particular killed persons and to get her comment about

17 particular aspects of that, so I'll be asking that the tape be stopped on

18 a couple of occasions.

19 Yes, very well. Could we commence that now and we'll -- we'll

20 stop when I call out.

21 [Videotape played]

22 "The village of Uzdol is high in the hills of Central Bosnia. It

23 has a school building, lately used as the local Croat military

24 headquarters."

25 MR. MORRISSEY:

Page 71

1 Q. Just stop there for a moment, please. Thank you. We don't have

2 to go backwards. I just have a question to you about the school. As to

3 the school, were you shown the upstairs part of the school?

4 A. No.

5 Q. Were you shown any communications equipment that was located in

6 the school?

7 A. The school appeared to be virtually empty on the ground floor

8 that -- what we saw of things, virtually empty.

9 Q. Okay. And as to whether there was a communications centre up

10 stairs you are unable to comment; is that correct?

11 A. What are we talking about? I don't even recognise the term in the

12 terms of rural militia. Communications that I only ever saw any of these

13 units use would be one small field telephone.

14 Q. Well, it may be -- it may be that --

15 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly slow down, Mr. Morrissey, please.

16 MR. MORRISSEY:

17 Q. Perhaps what I'm thinking about is uniformed members of the HVO

18 with radios.

19 A. There would be none upstairs at the time because a visit by the

20 British army would have sent them straight into the hills with such stuff,

21 let me tell you.

22 Q. Is there something improper about them having communications

23 equipment?

24 A. They would not wish to show anything to the British army. That

25 would be the standard view.

Page 72

1 Q. Okay. Very well let's --

2 A. And there were certainly no soldiers around. The British went

3 through the buildings and they would have come across anything like that

4 and told us and we would have seen it. And they did a thorough search of

5 the building.

6 Q. So as far as you're concerned at the time you got down to the

7 school there had been -- there was no communications equipment there and

8 no weapons there and, in fact, no soldiers there?

9 A. If there had been weapons the British would have searched for

10 those initially, that is the standard army practice going into a village

11 which may possibly be hostile or active, and the soldiers would have

12 searched ought rooms for such things, any armed men any weapons any stores

13 of ammunition. Any such matters would have been discovered and would have

14 been reported to us for our own safety and would have been reported to the

15 British army.

16 Q. Sure. Okay. Well, I understand that.

17 A. So you can assume that they found nothing upstairs, I think.

18 Q. Yes, yes. Of course. Now, moving to the picture that's on the

19 screen in front of you, do you notice that there's a house that's in --

20 it's a renovator's dream on the right-hand side of that photograph. Do

21 you see that?

22 A. It's a standard post-burning Bosnian house.

23 Q. Okay. And it's -- it's quite clear that there's smoke coming from

24 inside the house and also perhaps from a source just to the left of that

25 house; is that correct?

Page 73

1 A. It's impossible with a burning house to say from that distance

2 where that is, I can tell you, because there could have been a store of

3 wood against the wall. There could have been a sofa against the wall on

4 the other side.

5 Q. Yes, of course, but it does look -- well, perhaps I'll put this

6 question to you. You with such knowledge as you've gained over the years

7 in -- as a war reporter cannot comment on what it was that started the

8 fire in that house, can you?

9 A. It's unlikely to have been a bolt of lightning.

10 Q. No, well, it might not have been a bolt of lightning, but just as

11 a British journalist, you wouldn't be wanting to comment on what started

12 that, would you?

13 A. In Bosnia houses on fire was such a common occurrence that

14 inquiries as to the cause became relatively pointless.

15 Q. Could I just note for the transcript, Your Honours, that when

16 Ms. Adie was asked questions about that particular picture it's at 00.16.6

17 on the transcript, in case we need to come back to that at a later stage

18 can we just proceed now?

19 Very well. Now could we just proceed now?

20 [Videotape played]

21 "... army descended on Uzdol than withdrew leaving terrible" --

22 MR. MORRISSEY:

23 Q. Stop there, please. Right. Now, we've stopped there tape now at

24 00.22.3. Now here is depicted a deceased person wrapped in a pink and

25 perhaps brown-looking blanket. Do you recall that particular person

Page 74

1 independently of the photographs that are here now or not?

2 A. I don't quite understand what you --

3 Q. Well, I'm -- it's okay, I mean, but the questions are sometimes,

4 you know, phrased in a -- in a -- in the wrong way. So I'll try to get

5 a --

6 A. I don't.

7 Q. That's okay, not a problem. With respect to that person there,

8 obviously you can see them depicted on the on the -- on the -- on the --

9 A. Video.

10 Q. -- on the screen there, and the video. Can you remember anything

11 else about that appearance of that person other than what is on the video

12 in front of them?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Any other details about that person?

15 A. No. I look at that. I know that someone has put a blanket round

16 him. I therefore have to ask myself who has done that and that the body

17 has been interfered with since it was killed. That I'm aware of.

18 Q. Okay. Can you state now what wounds that particular that

19 individual had?

20 A. I did not undo any of the blanket on that. The person appears to

21 be bleeding from the mouth, suggesting to me that he has a torso wound

22 which has killed him.

23 Q. All right. Well, --

24 A. He also appears to have died quickly in the positions that his

25 arms and fists are. That is an assumption, but it suggests that he has

Page 75

1 not lain on the ground.

2 Q. I think I'll have to ask you just to remain with the -- not with

3 the inferences that you draw --

4 A. Okay thank you.

5 Q. -- but with the facts that you observe. Now, do you recall

6 whether you noticed a bullet wound on that person?

7 A. No, I don't.

8 Q. Okay.

9 A. Although I believe at the top of that blanket there may be some

10 blood. But it's difficult to tell with the colour of the blanket. But I

11 don't know.

12 Q. That's okay. That's okay, I'm just talking about what you

13 observed at the time rather than what that we can glean from the photo.

14 So with respect to that person, I was going to ask you about the number of

15 wounds but your situation is that you can't be sure?

16 A. No, and you don't go too near a body in a field like that which

17 has been interfered with which could have -- possibly be booby-trapped.

18 That was one of the first ones that we actually took pictures of.

19 Q. I understand that. Okay, can we please now press on to the next

20 scene?

21 [Videotape played].

22 "We walked through the scattered farms and cottages with British

23 soldiers and European monitors" --

24 MR. MORRISSEY:

25 Q. Stop there for a moment, please. Please stop here. Thank you.

Page 76

1 Now, this particular house was self-evidently the subject of some sort of

2 fire and has some fire damage on the outside. Can you remember anything

3 about the appearance of that house apart from what's depicted on the

4 screen here and, if it's depicted anywhere else, what?

5 A. There are the roof tiles coming off. That is a fierce blaze which

6 has come from the inside on that side of the house because of the scorch

7 marks coming up from the windows. The roof tiles have slid off the

8 guttering suggesting that the interior of the house has gone up and that

9 the roof has collapsed.

10 Q. All right. These --

11 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, that is 00.32 on the tape.

12 Q. Just -- I understand your comments about what can be inferred from

13 that. What I'm asking you now, though, is do you recall anything extra

14 about that house than what is depicted on the pictures?

15 A. In what way? Please guide me. I don't know what you're asking

16 for.

17 Q. In any way, do you have a memory of that house outside of what you

18 see on -- on the screen there?

19 A. Without another shot of it, no.

20 Q. Okay. Well, look, could I ask just ask you to bear that in mind.

21 If you see another shot that jogs your memory about that, feel free to

22 interrupt me and say so because it may be that it's depicted again, it may

23 be that it's not. Anyway, just having regard to that particular house,

24 the last question is: Is that the same house that we saw on the panoramic

25 shot earlier on or how not sure?

Page 77

1 A. The panoramic shot is of the school.

2 Q. Yes. It was the shot just after that we saw the burning house.

3 Is this that same burning house that we saw?

4 A. No, that is not.

5 Q. Okay. Thank you. Very well. Could we keep going now?

6 [Videotape played].

7 "It soon became clear that every house and cottage and house had

8 been visited by the Bosnian army soldiers."

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please. Sorry, could we go back --

10 before we come to this bloodstain on the wall, could we just please go

11 back to that previous killed person.

12 [Videotape played].

13 "It soon became clear that every house and cottage had been

14 visited by the Bosnian army soldiers."

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please. Thank you.

16 Q. Did you -- were you ever given a name of that person?

17 A. No the.

18 Q. Were you told who wrapped them up in that blanket?

19 A. No, we were not. All the bodies in Prozor were wrapped in

20 blankets, so we had to assume that some kind of operation had taken place

21 between the killings and the bodies first being shown to us in Prozor at

22 9.00 that morning and having been transported there, and the blankets are

23 typical, rough Bosnian blankets, and we had no idea who had done that.

24 Q. Okay. And did you ask any of the soldiers, the young soldiers who

25 you were with who had done that?

Page 78

1 A. No.

2 Q. And as to that killed person there, did you inspect to see what --

3 I understand you're not a scientist and I'm not asking you to do an

4 off-the-cuff pathology report here, Ms. Adie, and I apologise, sometimes I

5 put you on the spot with these things. But to your observation, did you

6 notice whether she'd been shot or hit or what had occurred to her in terms

7 of --

8 A. Been shot. Shot.

9 Q. Okay.

10 A. There was blood.

11 Q. How many -- did you notice any --

12 A. No, I can't tell you how many, but it definitely a bullet wound.

13 Because there's no other -- there's no other damage to clothing, nor to

14 her face which would happen in an explosion, for example, or a bombing or

15 a mortar blast. The face and hands are clear, so therefore you're looking

16 for a torso wound.

17 Q. Okay. Did you notice the specific wound yourself when you saw

18 this person killed?

19 A. I didn't take the -- I had a look closely. There was blood; I

20 know that.

21 Q. You didn't identify a particular bullet wound; is that correct?

22 A. No, I didn't.

23 Q. Okay. Nor can you say how many bullet wounds that person may

24 have?

25 A. Not specifically on that one.

Page 79

1 Q. Just excuse me a moment, please.

2 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, that's at 00.37.

3 Q. Also, did you notice any particular amount of blood on that carpet

4 that can be seen in the photograph --

5 A. I think it's underneath her.

6 Q. -- at the time.

7 Well, the question is there may be blood underneath or there may

8 not be, according to the photograph. But I'm asking --

9 A. I don't think there was blood elsewhere on the carpet in that

10 room, though my memory now is hazy, I have to say.

11 Q. Okay.

12 A. But it's specifically -- what I was looking for was to see whether

13 these bodies -- I know this sounds gruesome, but had been arranged in any

14 way. It's something which you are aware of when you're looking, in quite

15 difficult circumstances, you're going from house to house. You're looking

16 to see if they - to use an awful word - have been posed.

17 Q. Yes.

18 A. And it seemed to me that they had not. They appeared to have been

19 wrapped probably by someone just lifting up the legs, popping a blanket

20 around them. But the very -- the position across the doorway to me

21 seemed -- there was no sign of it being dragged or of any blood trails

22 along the carpet which you might have had had a body been moved from one

23 place to another.

24 Q. Yes. The real question I have is -- is did you notice any blood

25 immediately underneath this person or can you not now recall?

Page 80

1 A. No, I don't know. But there was no blood elsewhere and there's no

2 blood trail leading to that body.

3 Q. Yes. There is some brownish marks on the doorstep there. I don't

4 know if you can comment --

5 A. No, they're not blood.

6 Q. -- upon those?

7 A. They're not blood. They are -- they are walls in the -- they

8 are -- whatever the word is for -- I've forgotten.

9 Q. Wood holes.

10 A. Yes, in the blood -- in the wood, yes. Yes, yes.

11 Q. Okay. Well, do you have a specific memory of those marks on that

12 doorstep thing there or not?

13 A. No.

14 Q. I'm not suggesting that you should.

15 MR. MORRISSEY: All right. Sorry, Your Honours, I'm just prompted

16 that it might be time for a break but I'm happy to continue, and it's a

17 matter for the Tribunal.

18 JUDGE LIU: Well, it depends how long we're going to use for this

19 video.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: We're going to go through each person depicted on

21 it, so it will take as long it's now taking. Perhaps, you know, two or

22 three minutes per person.

23 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We'll take a break for 30 minutes and then we'll

24 resume at 25 minutes to 1.00.

25 --- Recess taken at 12.05 p.m.

Page 81

1 --- On resuming at 12.34 p.m.

2 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Morrissey. Let's continue with the

3 videotapes.

4 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Thanks, Your Honour.

5 Q. Just -- sorry, Ms. Adie, do you have the screen with the body with

6 the red and green blanket?

7 A. Yes, I have.

8 MR. MORRISSEY: Could I just ask the Prosecutor to assist by

9 commencing to replay this again.

10 [Videotape played]

11 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please.

12 Q. When you were there, there was no sign of the person who -- whose

13 blood that was that's been placed on the wall there --

14 A. No.

15 Q. -- is that correct? Were there any people in that -- were there

16 any people, deceased people of any sort in that particular house when you

17 went there?

18 A. I can't remember, I have to say.

19 Q. There was -- we know from other evidence that a young girl was

20 found and was -- we've seen other videos, of course, in that house. Does

21 that jog your memory in any way? Young girl perhaps about 10?

22 A. Well, that would be the one young girl perhaps who was in Prozor.

23 Q. At Prozor. We have -- unfortunately, we have two young girls in

24 this case. But in any event, there was no such young girl in this

25 house to --

Page 82

1 A. Not in the house, no.

2 Q. No, okay. Thanks.

3 Very well. Would you mind -- we've also had some -- do you

4 remember whether there was any bullets, bullet marks in that house outside

5 of that room?

6 A. I can't remember. There were very few bullet -- the houses

7 generally is all I could say were not sprayed with bullets, which used to

8 be common in any firefight in Bosnia. They were rather specific, and I

9 think when we looked at the wall of the preceding picture there were no

10 bullets above or around the room. It is a common habit of people to spray

11 round a room if they are going into it in an assault attack. That would

12 be a standard piece of behaviour. There was none of that. This is -- and

13 the bullets here were concentrated in a corner.

14 Q. We had some evidence from a man called Kazo Zelenika -- sorry.

15 We had anyway from a particular witness who was associated with

16 this house about noticing quite a lot of bullet fire around. But could I

17 just ask you -- perhaps I'll look -- that was turning into a speech. I'll

18 try another question.

19 When -- when was it that you would inspect a particular wall

20 for -- for bullet marks? Did you look at all the walls in the village or

21 was it just when there was a deceased person or a blood mark such as that

22 nearby that you would turn your mind to the question of bullet marks on

23 walls?

24 A. Neither of those instances. On walking through the village, I

25 took note of whether there appeared to be evidence of a major firefight,

Page 83

1 and particularly as we went into a house I looked for evidence of assault

2 on the building and the classic techniques that anybody would use who had

3 an assault rifle or was going into a house expecting defensive measures to

4 be taken against them, and there was no evidence of that.

5 Q. Were you ever given -- well, at the time, I should ask you, were

6 you given information that any HVO soldiers who had spent the night

7 sleeping in a house had opened fire on the invading forces?

8 A. Had spent which night sleeping in a house?

9 Q. The night before the killings.

10 A. The night before the killings. There was -- all I can say is

11 there was no evidence of a firefight.

12 Q. No, no. But really, through your interpreter or any of the other

13 people nearby, did anyone nearby mention that any HVO soldiers had

14 returned fire or initiated fire or --

15 A. No.

16 Q. -- fired at all?

17 A. No.

18 Q. And incidently, did any of them tell you whether civilians had

19 hand grenades this their houses?

20 A. Hand grenades were almost unknown in a domestic setting, and they

21 were very rarely used by any of the forces. That would be a rare instance

22 where a hand grenade was used. The JNA would have been issued with it,

23 one assumes, but the Croats and Muslims, I do not know of an instance,

24 specific instance where we commonly found hand grenades.

25 Q. Did they take you to any houses associated with --

Page 84

1 A. Nor was there any evidence here of a hand grenade being used. You

2 would know instantly from the fragmentation which I have seen endlessly in

3 Beirut of what a hand grenade does and we -- I would know its marks.

4 Q. Did you see a house associated with a family named Zelic at any

5 stage?

6 A. As you know, I only knew the one name that was given to me.

7 Q. Very well. Let's press on from that photograph.

8 [Videotape played]

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please.

10 Q. Could we just note that this is 00.48.

11 Now, the deceased person depicted here, can you recall what

12 injuries, if any, you noticed on that person?

13 A. Bullet wound.

14 Q. Where was that?

15 A. I think the bullet wound there is somewhere below the right

16 clavicle.

17 Q. Can you recall actually seeing that at the time?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Okay. And so far as you could see, that was a single bullet

20 wound?

21 A. I only saw one bullet wound. I didn't look for another.

22 Q. Was the person covered by the blanket when you first got there or

23 not?

24 A. No.

25 Q. So that --

Page 85

1 A. Because you can also see that there is no bloodstain on that cream

2 part of that blanket there.

3 Q. Yes. Did you notice any bloodstain on the grass underneath that

4 person?

5 A. There may have been. I cannot recall. The blood would have dried

6 by then, well dried. It's not a huge spill of blood over the actual

7 chest, but it suggests that he was -- that he was on the ground when the

8 bleeding started. Otherwise, the blood would be right down the front of

9 the shirt, I'm assuming.

10 Q. Well, can you say -- okay. Well --

11 A. I don't know.

12 Q. Do you recall -- in any event, what you say is that you can't

13 recall whether there's any blood on the grass itself; is that correct?

14 A. I don't know. It would have soaked away anyway.

15 Q. All right. Well, can we please -- and, sorry, just for

16 completeness, you were never told the name of that person?

17 A. No.

18 Q. And nor did you ask?

19 A. I did not ask.

20 Q. Okay. Let's continue.

21 A. I also note that the walls behind have two pockmarks, possibly

22 three, on them of stray bullets but that the windows are there, and there

23 is nothing on the side of the wall or anywhere else in the house to

24 indicate other than maybe one or two shots fired in that vicinity.

25 Q. Are you able to make out what the situation is with the bottom

Page 86

1 window there, the bottom left-hand window?

2 A. There is glass in it.

3 Q. Is there also glass out of it from what you can see?

4 A. No. I can't see from here.

5 Q. Is it possible -- I don't know whether it is possible with this

6 Sanction to zoom in on it. Is that a facility we have, to zoom in on the

7 bottom left-hand window?

8 We'll just see what we can do, Ms. Adie, and --

9 A. There was almost no broken glass anywhere. You are instantly

10 conscious of broken glass in these circumstances because you watch where

11 you put your feet and you are aware of crunching on it.

12 Q. Well, just -- okay. Sorry. Apparently we can't -- we can't get

13 any resolution to that.

14 Very well. Okay. Well, can we now press on. Thank you.

15 [Videotape played]

16 MR. MORRISSEY: Just stop for a moment please. I just ask that we

17 go back to the previous person. There appeared to be a shoe and a whitish

18 covering over a person, perhaps three or four seconds before. Before

19 that.

20 That's it. Thank you. Stop there, please. That's it. Thank

21 you.

22 Q. Did you, now, pull the cover off that particular person or -- or

23 sorry, did you have a chance to look at that particular person?

24 A. I may have done. I do know that I looked at half a dozen bodies.

25 I have to honestly tell you, I cannot now -- and there were

Page 87

1 several which we looked at that are not on the video because we have not

2 got all the bodies that we found in the village on this video. We didn't

3 film all of them, and I cannot honestly recall specifically which I looked

4 at and which I did not.

5 All I can say is that there was no inconsistency between all of

6 the bodies I looked at, that they were all bullet wounds in elderly

7 people.

8 Q. That one there, just let me ask you this: Do you recall whether

9 or not you looked at that person --

10 A. I can't. I told you, I cannot recall the differences between

11 them.

12 Q. Do you recall the gender of that person?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Okay. Can you recall. Geographical positioning of that person?

15 A. No.

16 Q. Do you recall anything about that one?

17 A. No.

18 Q. You've indicated that you looked at -- I think you said --

19 A. Six or seven.

20 Q. Six or seven.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And by "looked at," do you mean that you had a close look at those

23 people and noticed what wounds was on them or --

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Okay. And you say -- and I think you're indicating that you've

Page 88

1 seen perhaps seven more than that?

2 A. We saw about I think a dozen or so. I have to be vague. I can't

3 give you a number.

4 Q. Okay. So do I. But what I wanted to ask you was of the six or

5 seven that we're talking about that you looked at, are they all depicted

6 on this particular video or --

7 A. No. No, that's the point. There is no correlation between those

8 I looked at and those on the video.

9 Q. Okay. Well, just following on from that. Of the ones we've seen

10 so far on the video, how many of those include the ones that you've looked

11 at --

12 A. I'm sorry, my memory's gone on that.

13 Q. That's okay. I'll try and remind you. That's okay there's a bit

14 of detail to go through.

15 You recall that there was a lady lying on a nice carpet?

16 A. Yes, her.

17 Q. That's one of the ones that --

18 A. Yes, indeed. And the one on the grass outside on the corner of

19 that house, yes.

20 Q. All right. So that's two?

21 A. Two.

22 Q. You didn't look at this one?

23 A. I don't think so.

24 Q. And you didn't look at the person that we saw at the start in the

25 field?

Page 89

1 A. Not in the field, no. There two in the fields, yes.

2 Q. Thanks, okay. Let's press on. Thank you.

3 [Videotape played]

4 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please. Sorry, we'll need to go back

5 to that one. Sorry. Stop there. Okay. Thank you.

6 Q. Now, having regard to that picture there, is that how you saw

7 these two individuals?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And is that the position they were in?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Did you yourself descend down and move any of those calico-looking

12 bags or other objects?

13 A. I did not.

14 Q. Okay. The male -- the person on the left appears on the

15 photograph to be a male. Is that the way you saw it at the time?

16 A. It is.

17 Q. And having a look at that you can see very clearly the right ear

18 of that person; correct? When I say "very clear" perhaps it's a relative

19 term.

20 A. I can't see it very clearly, but there's something there, yes.

21 Q. It looks like he's got an ear anyway, doesn't it?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And that's how he looked at the time you saw him?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. If the pathologist says that ear is off when the pathologist looks

Page 90

1 at that man, you would agreed with the inference that that ear came off

2 after you looked at it; correct?

3 A. I would but we are so far from it. Also the argument about the

4 ear being off, sometimes earlobes were cut off. Sometimes an ear -- it is

5 extremely difficult to cut off an ear, I'm told.

6 Q. Yes.

7 A. And there would have been a great deal of blood.

8 Q. Well, I was going to ask for an expert opinion about that but I

9 won't, Ms. Adie.

10 A. I would have assumed.

11 Q. But having a look at that -- having a look at that person in the

12 sad date they are at any event --

13 A. Had there been a major wound around the ear I would have looked

14 closer.

15 Q. And as you indicated earlier, I think, you would have expected to

16 notice a considerable amount of blood.

17 A. Yes, I would.

18 Q. That's if it was done while they were alive, of course.

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Very well.

21 Now, the question of the two people being in each other's arms

22 there, are you -- it may be simply my way of looking at this but I just

23 can't really make out an arm. Can you indicate to me an arm in that

24 photo?

25 A. Well, his elbow is -- the right elbow is going down behind the

Page 91

1 sacking, and I think there is the slight trace of a hand possibly near the

2 woman's black traditional costume.

3 Q. Yes. Okay. And -- all right. So again, this is -- this is not a

4 criticism, it's just an attempt to ascertain what the facts are. You

5 based the comment on them being in each other's arms on that sighting that

6 we can see there?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. All right.

9 A. It seems unlikely to me they were placed in that position.

10 Q. No, okay. We have other evidence of what people's impressions was

11 when they saw it and, it's okay, I won't ask you to swap speculations.

12 But anyway you've given your evidence honestly about that. I'll move on

13 from it, thank you. Can we go to the next part.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Just stop there for a moment, please. I'm sorry,

16 could we go back to the previous sighting. Stop there. Okay.

17 Q. Now, that destroyed building that can be seen, is that one of the

18 once we've seen at an earlier stage or not?

19 A. I think that is another building. I'm unclear. I think it was

20 another building, because we were walking down the side of another

21 building which was substantially in better order.

22 Q. All right. Thank you. Now can we -- yes, please, go on although

23 we're going to stop again quickly.

24 [Videotape played]

25 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there.

Page 92

1 Q. If we could just go back to that little half damaged -- okay.

2 That little damaged building, is that associated with the other

3 bigger damaged building that we just saw or is it separate?

4 A. You mean by ownership or by geographical --

5 Q. Geographically, I mean.

6 A. I assume it is. I tend not to jumble shots when I'm editing. I

7 just have to assume it is sequential.

8 Q. Okay. All right, let's press on.

9 [Videotape played]

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Could I just stop there for a moment, please.

11 Q. Where is that shot taking place? Is that Uzdol or Prozor?

12 A. Uzdol.

13 Q. Okay. Is that at the school?

14 A. I do not know.

15 Q. Let's play it a little further and see if you can see if it helps.

16 [Videotape played]

17 THE WITNESS: Hard to tell. I cannot tell, I'm afraid. The

18 school was -- it occurred to me it looks a bigger building. I don't know.

19 I can't be sure.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: Just stop there for a moment, please.

21 Q. I just want to ask you about that, in terms of what building that

22 was at. There was in a part of Uzdol named Cer two churches, an old

23 church and a new church. Did you see those?

24 A. Absolutely no. I didn't see any of that.

25 Q. Okay. Let me just ask you: As to the two Ratkics that you saw

Page 93

1 that we looked at earlier - that was the couple where the calico bag was -

2 are they included in the list of people who you looked at to see what sort

3 of wounds they had?

4 A. I bent over the man and I noticed also there was some blood behind

5 the woman's head. Impossible for me to say whether they -- one assumed

6 they may have fallen into that position perhaps. I can't tell. They were

7 obviously together or he fell perhaps onto her, I don't know. And I think

8 there was also the mark of a bullet indentation into the wall behind the

9 woman's head. I think.

10 Q. All right. Yes, can we just play on a little bit further, please.

11 [Videotape played]

12 MR. MORRISSEY: Just stop there. Can we just go back a moment,

13 please. There was a young -- a man in civilian sort of clothing gesturing

14 there. Stop there, please.

15 Q. Do you see the man with the black top, glasses --

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Who was he?

18 A. Not a clue. But he clearly speaks English because the English

19 soldiers do not speak Serbo-Croat. He may have been doing some

20 interpreting. I cannot tell you. I do not remember.

21 Q. You don't have any memory of that man at all?

22 A. I may not even have physically been stood there next to the camera

23 at that point. The cameraman is shooting things and I am doing other

24 things in another part of the room at times, and in the short time we were

25 there, 20 minutes or so, I couldn't give you a minute-by-minute

Page 94

1 description of my physical place, and some of the shots would be taken by

2 my cameraman around the room. He's an experienced man. He does not get

3 directed by me to take shots.

4 Q. No, I understand. Well, okay. What this -- we can press on,

5 then, please.

6 [Videotape played]

7 MR. MORRISSEY: Okay. Yes. I think we can stop there now, thank

8 you.

9 Q. Now, I'm going -- I will have some more questions about this in a

10 minute.

11 All right. Could you just indicate of those -- we've seen perhaps

12 half a dozen killed people up to now, two of whom were the Ratkics, and

13 one of whom was the lady on the carpet there, and then we've seen two in

14 the field, and one under a -- under a cloth in the open somewhere. It's

15 not quite clear where.

16 Now, of the remaining ones, although they're not on the picture,

17 can you tell us where they were?

18 A. One was upstairs in a bedroom in a bed.

19 Q. One was lying in a bed upstairs --

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. -- when you saw her?

22 A. Mm-hm.

23 Q. And what wounds did the one who was upstairs in a bed --

24 A. It was a woman, and there was so much blood I didn't look too

25 close. And the blood was around the shoulders and neck area. I think.

Page 95

1 Yes. I do know --

2 Q. That's okay --

3 A. I took a quick -- there are some things -- you may think I am a

4 hard-bitten reporter but there are some things which I just find -- this

5 was an immensely distressing time, and I was trying to do a factual

6 observation. There were one or two things I turned away from because I

7 did not want to look closer myself. I didn't have the stomach for it, I

8 have to say.

9 Q. That's okay. But I just want to ask you about this upstairs

10 person.

11 Do you recall was it an internal staircase you we went up?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Okay. And you went up an internal staircase, and you found a

14 person in a bed and you looked very briefly at them but it was

15 distressing --

16 A. Yes. Beds are more -- what can we call it, couch-like beds.

17 Often in country houses they weren't four legs, but they were against

18 walls. That's quite common, to have both benches which serve as sofas,

19 couches, sitting and sometimes bed positions. There's quite a bit of that

20 in the traditional houses.

21 Q. Was a name provided --

22 A. No.

23 Q. -- for that person?

24 A. No.

25 Q. Was any information provided about that person?

Page 96

1 A. No.

2 Q. Moving from that person on, can you say where the others --

3 A. There's one on a doorstep.

4 Q. Very well. Was that a man or female on the doorstep?

5 A. Male. Male.

6 Q. And how many injuries did that male have to your --

7 A. I don't know.

8 Q. -- observation?

9 A. I don't know.

10 Q. Were they injured by bullets or -- by a bullet or bullets or by

11 some other mechanism?

12 A. There was no evidence of any other mechanism being used because I

13 was also looking for possibly close quarter, as it were, attack. The use

14 of a knife or the use of anything else, bayonet. No evidence of that at

15 all.

16 No injuries to faces, no injuries to hands, which gives you the

17 idea of combat, of people, you know, getting involved in fighting. None

18 of that. And no scrapes or abrasions or small splinters which would

19 indicate any large explosion. Only bullets.

20 Q. This particular individual on the doorstep, no name for him?

21 A. No.

22 Q. And no particular bullet wound that you can now recall?

23 A. No. Torso wound, nothing -- I'm racking my memory to think of any

24 specific body which stood out in any way different, and it was just a

25 consistent pattern.

Page 97

1 Q. Okay. Well, let's keep going though. That's two.

2 Now, of the ones that aren't displayed on the screen, what other

3 ones can you now remember?

4 A. There must have been at least two or three others in the doorways,

5 and there was one along in a house I didn't look at which the soldiers had

6 looked at and said, "It's just more of the same." I remember them saying

7 that, "more of the same."

8 We had soldiers searching in these buildings as well and had they

9 come across anything different or noteworthy they would have told both the

10 officer or myself.

11 Q. Okay. So is the position -- and I'm not being critical about

12 this at all but I just need to be clear. Is the position this: That

13 there were a couple of bodies or a small number of bodies which you didn't

14 yourself see in the village but were told about by the soldiers?

15 A. I think I probably saw just about -- I put my head into doorways

16 and saw what was clearly a body in -- and just looked and thought I do not

17 need to look at each body. There is no forensic demand that I do. I had

18 by then seen a number of bodies and consistently seen that they had been

19 attacked in the same way.

20 Q. Okay. And as to the ones that you looked round the doorway

21 briefly, they're not -- you don't include them in the category of those

22 that you inspected or looked at?

23 A. Looked at briefly in the sense of knowing that there are bodies

24 there. Again, to get a sense of the total that were there.

25 Q. Okay. I understand that. In no house did you notice any

Page 98

1 firearms, is that correct, or weapons?

2 A. Absolutely. The British soldiers would have immediately shown

3 these and would have taken them.

4 Q. And again I think I've asked you this already but just to make

5 sure that I have, in no place did you see a deceased Croatian soldier or

6 indeed a deceased Bosnian soldier?

7 A. Absolutely not. No one in military uniform was found or seen by

8 any of us.

9 Q. After that -- now, in -- on this -- on the video. Can we just go

10 back to the video briefly. On the video there's a depiction of a dog.

11 A. Hmm.

12 Q. I just wonder if we can go along at the normal pace or we can

13 scroll to the dog. Ms. Adie, I'm sorry, because I was working from a hard

14 copy of the video I don't have these numbered. I wonder if we could just

15 go forward to the -- to where the dog is depicted. It's at 3.54, I

16 believe. If we just go forward to 3.54. Stop. Go back. I've missed

17 something. Thank you. If we just go back to that body in the field.

18 Thank you.

19 That's the second of the bodies in the field. Do you notice that

20 there is by -- does there appear to be a shoe on the ground near that

21 body?

22 A. There appears to be a boot, yes.

23 Q. Is that the -- that's second body that you mentioned that you --

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. -- noticed but didn't approach?

Page 99

1 A. Yes, it is.

2 Q. Okay. What are you able to say about the clothing of that body?

3 A. It isn't army fatigues. I got Nigel to look very closely.

4 Q. And you asked him that question, I suppose?

5 A. Yeah.

6 Q. Yeah, okay. And are you able to comment on the age of that

7 person?

8 A. No. You cannot see anything about it at all.

9 Q. It's not apparent on the photograph but just to be cautious I want

10 to ask you: Was there any -- were you able to see from where you were or

11 using the camera any sign of any particular wounds?

12 A. No, not from that angle except you looked towards the top and that

13 could be congealed blood.

14 Q. Yes. But at the time -- this is really the view you had at the

15 time, too, isn't it, because it was the -- because you were using the

16 camera; is that correct?

17 A. Uh-huh, yep.

18 Q. Okay. Thanks. All right. Well, let's keep moving.

19 [Videotape played]

20 MR. MORRISSEY: Stop there, please.

21 Q. Was that dog injured when you first saw it?

22 A. Not that one. That was a dead dog. There were, I think, two.

23 I'm not sure if there was a third. These two dogs dead and then a third

24 was found by a British soldier, and it was in such a poor way that it was

25 put out of its misery by an officer.

Page 100

1 MR. MORRISSEY: I just want to interrupt the video to go over to

2 the E-court for a moment, please, and ask the witness be shown a document.

3 This is DD001337, and its 65 ter number is Defence 252. Yes, sorry.

4 Could I ask for a MFI number for this one?

5 THE REGISTRAR: MFI 375.

6 MR. MORRISSEY: The B/C/S version is on the screen at the moment.

7 I just wonder if we could have the English version, please. Sorry.

8 Pardon me. Wait. Don't you do anything. It may be us that are on the

9 wrong channel.

10 Q. Ms. Adie, can I just ask do you have an English document or B/C/S

11 document?

12 A. I have it in Serbo-Croat. Should I have pressed ...

13 Q. No, no. It'll be -- because we -- we're used to dealing with

14 witnesses who have to have it that way, so -- would you just tell us when

15 you have it in English? Okay. This is a document procured by the

16 Defence, and I just want you to comment upon it -- sorry, by the

17 Prosecution. I'm sorry. Sorry, just excuse me a moment.

18 [Defence counsel confer]

19 Procured by the Defence.

20 I'd just like you to comment on this.

21 A. I haven't got it in English yet.

22 Yes, coming clearer. I have it now.

23 Q. This is a document headed "Analytical Report 2, Proposal for

24 Propaganda Action, dated 1st of September 1993," and it proposes this:

25 "1. Show wounded domestic pets on video. A slaughtered Croatian dog

Page 101

1 will cause greater concern among English viewers than five slaughters

2 Croats. In that respect, also show footage of a three-legged animal with

3 a broken leg which children are taking care of," et cetera.

4 Now, let me just ask you this: First of all, did you ever see a

5 Croat document of this nature -- when I say "Croat," I don't mean to use

6 Croat, an HVO document of that nature proposing propaganda methods?

7 A. No. The only time I came across -- understood propaganda methods

8 were in the compilation of videos used on TV by all three sides who

9 developed quite sophisticated sentimental and violent advertising means to

10 promote their cause.

11 Q. To promote the war effort, okay. Well, look, okay, I'm going to

12 come to that in a minute. That's an area where you might be able to

13 assist the Tribunal.

14 As to this one, though, did it seem to be a feature of Croat -- or

15 scenes of tragedy that you were shown by the HVO or Croats that they would

16 feature such things?

17 A. Never.

18 Q. Slaughtered animals or --

19 A. Piece of fantasy from one somebody sitting at a desk.

20 Q. Okay.

21 A. A sophistication never seen in the field.

22 Q. As to the dogs, though, where were they positioned when you

23 arrived?

24 A. One was in -- you know, between the houses. Certainly the dog

25 that was injured was in fact discovered within a building and was in a

Page 102

1 dark building, and I did not go in to see it because it was in a terrible

2 state, but I heard the shot as it was killed, and it was not on show.

3 Q. I'm not suggesting that you put it on show in any form, but can

4 you recall how it was discovered or not?

5 A. A soldier was searching. All the buildings were searched by the

6 British troops.

7 Q. Okay. Thanks. Well -- but in short, this document here, are you

8 familiar with it or anything like it?

9 A. It sounds laughable.

10 Q. Well, that's -- I don't mean to be nasty about it. That wasn't

11 really my question. Are you familiar with it--

12 A. Well, the point is it does not link -- it does not relate to the

13 reality that I witnessed on the ground. That's my point about it. And we

14 were aware that there were kinds of people. I specifically knew through

15 the television medium that there were people who had ideas about

16 conducting propaganda and such-like on the ground. There was very little

17 that you ever saw that could in any way relate to this, not at all.

18 Q. Very well.

19 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, I'd just like to offer that for

20 tender now. It will -- it can't be tendered through this witness, but I

21 just want to offer it for tender to give it a MFI number at this stage and

22 see whether I can tender a basis for it at a later time.

23 JUDGE LIU: Any objections?

24 MR. WEINER: Not if it's just for identification at this time.

25 That's fine.

Page 103

1 MR. MORRISSEY: That's all we ask at this point, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE LIU: Well, let's have a MFI number of this document.

3 THE REGISTRAR: MFI 375.

4 MR. MORRISSEY: Okay. Thank you. I'm grateful for that.

5 Now could we please go back to the video.

6 Q. Shortly there's another -- I'm sorry. Just a moment. We can't

7 see it.

8 A. I don't know which one to press.

9 Q. You will be assisted there.

10 A. That one. Thank you.

11 Q. Okay. Could we just move on from this. We're now going to come

12 to another individual person at whom I want to stop. Yes. Play it,

13 please.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Just stop there, please.

16 Q. That person depicted there, is that the same person that we saw

17 lying in the open just a frame or so before?

18 A. It is.

19 Q. Okay. And with that picture there you can see at least one

20 significant wound?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And that's the wound that you recall seeing?

23 A. It is.

24 Q. Okay. Very well. Could we keep playing, please.

25 [Videotape played]

Page 104

1 MR. MORRISSEY: Very well. Yes. That can be stopped now, thanks.

2 And, yes, those are the -- those are the parts of the video that I wish to

3 play to this witness. So I'm grateful to the Prosecution for --

4 THE WITNESS: Can I -- you asked me if there was any blood under

5 the woman on the carpet. You can see it in that shot.

6 MR. MORRISSEY:

7 Q. I certainly will go back, then, please.

8 A. Yes, that one.

9 Q. Yes, so, if you notice something you can see --

10 A. Yes, you asked me if I could see any blood. In fact, there is the

11 blood to the left of the head, very definitely, and possibly to the right,

12 and that is congealed blood.

13 Q. That's your evidence. Do you recall that or are you basing it on

14 what you can see on the screen?

15 A. I'm basing it on what I can see, and that is a shot taken by my

16 cameraman. Which we would not show because of its close-up.

17 Q. Now, I understand that, but what I'm asking you is: Do you have a

18 specific memory of that being blood, or are you just going on what you can

19 see in the picture?

20 A. I don't quite get that because I'm saying that I was standing next

21 to my cameraman most of the time, and that is blood.

22 Q. Yes, but --

23 A. What else would it be?

24 Q. Well, what I'm asking -- well, I don't know what else it would be,

25 but I'm asking you --

Page 105

1 A. I suggest it is blood.

2 Q. That's okay, because -- just attend to the question for a second.

3 At the time did you know it was blood or is it something that you're now

4 saying you noticed --

5 A. I would know at the time it was blood.

6 Q. All right. Thank you. Well, just to make sure of that we'd

7 better play on with that scene because there may be something that

8 confirms what you say or not.

9 A. There does not appear to be blood elsewhere that we can see.

10 Q. All right.

11 [Videotape played]

12 MR. MORRISSEY: All right. That can be stopped now. Thank you.

13 Q. Very well. Now, after you had visited those houses -- let me just

14 ask you a question about this. Did you -- do you recall one hamlet that

15 was -- we know -- we know the name of it is Kriz, but do you recall there

16 being a hamlet on the side of a hill detached from the others by perhaps

17 500 metres or so?

18 A. No, not specifically, no.

19 Q. Was any village point -- any neighbouring village high up on a

20 ridge pointed out to you as being a Muslim-inhabited village called Here?

21 A. No, but it was a mixed area. I was aware of the composition

22 around Prozor, where you had a scattering of both Muslim and Croat

23 villages in that area, and they would be within sight of each other.

24 Q. All right. Now, after you had finished at -- in the -- the

25 hamlets, did you go back to the school?

Page 106

1 A. We went first to the hamlets, then we ended up at the school.

2 That is where we finally were.

3 Q. When you were at the school, you noticed a particular wall which

4 had some blood on it; is that correct?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And it was obvious to you that that wall had been wiped in some

7 form or cleaned in some form; is that right?

8 A. It appeared to be. That's -- it wasn't running blood, but it was

9 smeared.

10 Q. Yet the -- but that blood that was on the wall wasn't limited to

11 one small part but seemed to be covering quite a significant area of the

12 wall; is that correct?

13 A. It was and the floor had, we think, been clear -- cleaned.

14 Q. Because the floor was spotless?

15 A. I wouldn't say that, but it appeared not to have any traces of any

16 large amounts of blood on it.

17 Q. Okay. Now, did any of the Croatian militiamen who were present

18 give you any account of how that all came about?

19 A. We had no good evidence. There was by that time through the

20 various remarks made in Prozor and by bits and pieces suggested by the

21 British soldiers who had an interpreter and the two monitors, that clearly

22 something had taken place, we think prior to the killings of the elderly

23 people, and that the school which was said to be a Croat HQ had been

24 involved. I can't be more specific than that. I felt at the time very

25 worried that I could not get more information. It's a very uncomfortable

Page 107

1 position to be in, and there was no hard evidence of what had happened.

2 Q. Did you -- were you able to speak to local journalists and local

3 media people and --

4 A. There weren't any. What local journalists? There were no

5 newspapers. There's no radio, no television. There were no local

6 journalists.

7 Q. Did you ever --

8 A. What a fantasy. This is -- this is a chaotic country. These

9 institutions and sources of information do not exist.

10 Q. You didn't tune your radio into an institution called Radio Rama

11 at any stage?

12 A. Not journalism.

13 Q. No, I'm just talking about the existence of the --

14 A. All three sides had propaganda outfits which peddled rubbish.

15 Q. Can you -- I understand you're not preferring one side to the

16 other here. I'm not asking you to do so. But I -- my questions relate to

17 the Croat -- Croatian or HVO media outlets because that's what is relevant

18 to this case. Did you have the experience that those media outlets would

19 simply put out whatever information they thought assisted their cause?

20 A. Including putting out what they had made up.

21 Q. Did it ever happen that false or exaggerated claims about

22 atrocities were put out over those media outlets?

23 A. With so much frequency we never listened.

24 Q. When your professional position was that it just wasn't really

25 worth paying any attention to those outlets; is that correct?

Page 108

1 A. You could, but you would need to monitor it 24 hours a day and

2 have good local information to verify specific claims made because of the

3 very nature of the way the information was delivered, which was frequently

4 hysterical and aggressive and totally without reason, it was -- it would

5 have been a full-time monitoring job for a team of professionals to sift

6 relevant and good information from any of those outlets.

7 Q. And -- very well. If you were to perform that sort of sifting

8 exercise, intelligence gathering on --

9 A. That's not intelligence gathering. Monitoring on that scale, and

10 I speak from the biggest monitoring organisation in the world, the BBC,

11 is -- would have been near impossible.

12 Q. Yes. Okay. Well, I think you've really answered the question

13 there. And to put it in a colloquial term, what you heard on the Croatian

14 radio, that just wasn't really news, was it, as you understand it?

15 A. We would not see it as a news source, no.

16 Q. All right. Well, thank you for that. Now, I think I'm going to

17 have to go into the closed session for this -- for this document,

18 Your Honour. Would -- might I just ask that we go into the closed

19 session, please?

20 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We'll go into the private session, please.

21 [Private session]

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

Page 109

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11 Pages 109-120 redacted. Private session.

12

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Page 121

1 (redacted)

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7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 [Open session]

12 MR. MORRISSEY: Okay, thanks.

13 Q. Okay, this is what you said in the statement concerning some

14 conclusions that you drew from at -- at Prozor. You said that you -- I

15 think you've answered that. I'm sorry, I won't trouble you with that,

16 actually. You've answered that question.

17 You indicated as to the conclusions that you drew in your article

18 some of the -- or the bases upon which you based those comments. Now, I

19 just want to put those to you and ask you some questions about them. You

20 said this in your statement, "I did not see any mutilated, tortured,

21 beaten, or burnt bodies," and that is the fact isn't it?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Okay. None of the bodies had any restraints on them? That's the

24 fact too?

25 A. That's a fact.

Page 122

1 Q. The houses had not been looted, that's the fact?

2 A. Can I also put another word in? They had not been -- looted is

3 not the correct word in one sense. In that area, it was our experience

4 that when houses were in any way attacked, they would have the contents

5 broken and thrown out the windows, piled in heaps on the lawn, smashed,

6 and in every way damaged and ruined. It was rare to see looting going on,

7 but there was no evidence of what I suppose we call trashing a house.

8 That is the more-specific term I should have used.

9 Q. By trashing, do you mean that sort of contemptuous --

10 A. Absolutely.

11 Q. Effectively degrading the enemy's will --

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. As well as conquering his village?

14 A. Yes. There may not -- the one conclusion I might have drawn from

15 that is that there may not have been time. I got the impression that they

16 had gone into -- that there was such a pattern of killing that it was a

17 house-to-house system that went -- was used, and there wasn't time to hang

18 around. Which suggests that these people did not intend to hold the

19 village.

20 Q. Did anyone tell you that some of the villagers had been taken by

21 Muslim soldiers known to them, as a matter of fact, and kept in a cellar

22 and let go later on. Did anyone bring that --

23 A. No one mentioned that.

24 Q. And as to the people that were killed in the open, did it occur to

25 you whether or not those people were in the company of armed HVO soldiers

Page 123

1 when they were killed?

2 A. Any soldier who ran across an open field with a bunch of fighters

3 trying to shoot you would be stupid. Terrified elderly people might just

4 run. A soldier would not go across an open field.

5 Q. By soldier do you mean a --

6 A. A fighter. If he had any brains he would not be running across an

7 open field, about the worst defensive tactic you could manage. I assumed

8 those were terrified elderly people who ran for their lives. To be

9 accompanied by military people you would have defiled by a lane into a

10 wood, along a hedgerow or whatever. No soldier would run across an open

11 field. No young man with any military experience would do that.

12 Q. What if he didn't have a choice?

13 A. I can't see -- you don't choose death. You try the best option.

14 Q. Okay. Would you be prepared to concede this, that you and I can

15 put scenarios to each other but we're in the realm of speculation?

16 A. We are, but not with that. You would not -- I haven't --

17 soldiers do not run across open fields when there are people waiting to

18 shoot them.

19 Q. Could we agree with this: I put to you that you're a hundred per

20 cent wrong and you say you're a hundred per cent right?

21 A. But I have one --

22 MR. WEINER: Objection, Your Honour. This is --

23 A. Can I make one point about this?

24 JUDGE LIU: All this is becoming very argumentative. There is no

25 need for that.

Page 124

1 MR. MORRISSEY: I think, Your Honours, I just think -- I think the

2 witness in fairness is giving her views of things. The Prosecution was

3 allowed to lead that evidence by the Court and the Defence doesn't agree

4 with it, but that's about as far as it goes. I think I'm not proposing to

5 engage the witness in a dispute.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And I -- I -- and I recognise I'm

7 speculating. All I'm trying to put over is that it was a chaotic,

8 irregular, badly disciplined, if anything, conflict. And in these

9 instances, you can't rely on what people would do under conventional

10 conflict circumstances.

11 MR. MORRISSEY:

12 Q. Just excuse me for one moment, please, Ms. Adie.

13 [Defence counsel confer]

14 MR. MORRISSEY: Thank you very much. Those are the questions.

15 JUDGE LIU: Well, it's time for the lunch break, so we might come

16 back at 2.30. Is that agreeable? We only have two minutes left for the

17 morning session.

18 Yes. We will resume at 2.30 this afternoon.

19 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.44 p.m.

20 --- On resuming at 2.31 p.m.

21 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Weiner. Any redirect?

22 MR. WEINER: Just two questions, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.

24 Re-examined by Mr. Weiner:

25 Q. Good afternoon, Ms. Adie.

Page 125

1 A. Good afternoon.

2 Q. Just two questions. One is, you were questioned by Defence

3 counsel about your hearing that Bosnian police officers were involved.

4 However, when you gave your broadcast some hours later, you opened up by

5 saying "the Bosnian army descended on Uzdol," and then a little later

6 "every house and cottage had been visited by the Bosnian army soldiers."

7 Were did you use the phrase "Bosnian army"?

8 A. Because the Bosnian army would be recognised by my audience as an

9 overarching organisation to which any action which had any militaristic

10 context would be ascribed. In other words, we did not, unless we had a

11 very, very specific bit of information, give different names to different

12 groups, even though it might seem more accurate to people locally. We

13 would just refer to "the Bosnians" or "the Bosnian army." There were

14 times when we made a specific difference here and there, but on the whole

15 we would say "the Bosnians" or "the Bosnian army."

16 Q. And the other question I had was, you were asked about some of

17 your conclusions towards the end of the cross-examination, and it -- you

18 answer on page 117, you have an answer, "Absolutely," as to whether or not

19 trashing means some sort of contempt for the people. And then the

20 question, it says, "Key grade," and it's -- the question basically is

21 none -- is unintelligible, and your answer is "Yes, the one conclusion I

22 might have drawn from that is there may not have been time. I get [sic]

23 the impression that they'd gone in, that there had been a pattern of

24 killing, that it was a house-to-house system." I don't know if you meant

25 systematic?

Page 126

1 A. Yes, I did. Systematically going from house to house.

2 Q. And went -- and "there wasn't time to hang around." Could you --

3 since it didn't come out well, could you explain, if you recall, where you

4 were heading on that?

5 MR. WEINER:

6 MR. MORRISSEY: Before the witness explains that, Your Honours,

7 I've got an objection to raise.

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, I objected at the start.

10 Your Honours indicated, if I may so, in a common-sense way that -- let's

11 just see how the evidence goes. The witness is entitled to answer

12 questions responsively and honestly, and no doubt has done so. But it

13 just can't assist the Tribunal. Some of the things that have been said

14 here are, you know, may be valid in other forums, but to engage in what

15 the witness herself prepared to say seem to be entering into the realms of

16 speculation now is just not going to assist the Tribunal. I'm not

17 attacking the bona fides of it. What I'm objecting to is the question and

18 the attempt to elicit another version of that -- that same account. This

19 house-to-house pattern of killing and so on is just unadmissable,

20 unhelpful in any way in court proceedings, so I object to it.

21 JUDGE LIU: Well, maybe the question put by the Prosecution is not

22 a proper one because you asked the witness to explain where she was

23 heading on that. But however, I believe that the question put by the

24 Prosecution is mainly within the scope of the clarification on that issue.

25 On this point, I will allow the witness to clarify it, what she means by

Page 127

1 "systematically."

2 MR. WEINER:

3 Q. Yes. The question was, since it's not clear from the transcript,

4 what do you mean by systematic, the systematic house to house and not

5 enough time? It's just not clear from this answer. Thank you.

6 A. What I meant was that in many villages I'd been in before where

7 people had been killed and where houses had been damaged, there was much

8 greater damage and a sense that people had come into the village and had

9 taken possession of it. That used to happen with ethnic cleansing and at

10 times when front lines, so-called, moved forward and back, that you went

11 in and you stamped your mark on it. You burnt houses, you trashed

12 belongings, you threw things out of the windows. You made the houses

13 uninhabitable. It's part of territorial acquisition. In this instance,

14 that hadn't happened, it seemed to me. Whoever had come in had not stayed

15 to do that, had not spent time doing that, which we'd seen all over the

16 place. They had come in, but a considerable number of people had been

17 killed individually in situ in different houses over several -- well, over

18 a few hundred yards and more, and also a couple in fields, and I had the

19 sense that they had been determinedly sought out, looked for in their

20 houses, because they were inside, upstairs, in a bed. This -- that says

21 to me -- and systematically what I mean by that is someone must have take

22 the decision. And I don't know if we're talking individually or an order,

23 I have no idea, but someone must have taken a decision and a voice must

24 have been raised saying, "Kill whoever you can find." That was what was

25 going on. That's what it seemed to me to be, and that these people had to

Page 128

1 be found to be killed.

2 MR. WEINER: No further questions, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. Any questions from the Bench?

4 Judge El Mahdi. Yes.

5 JUDGE EL MAHDI: Thank you, Mr. President.

6 Questioned by the Court:

7 JUDGE EL MAHDI: [Interpretation] Mrs. Adie, I would -- I

8 understand that you understand French as well as you do English. I would

9 just like to clarify a number of points and relating to your testimony.

10 The first has to do with misinformation or information

11 misconstrued. You stated that the parties to the conflict were trying,

12 whenever possible, to provide misleading information, and you excluded the

13 possibility of saying that what you had seen had been manipulated. No.

14 You said that what you had seen was in fact what had happened.

15 So whilst being aware of the fact that misleading information was

16 provided to you by the parties to the conflict, how can you ascertain as

17 relates to this particular incident that what you had seen was not

18 something that had been arranged but was actually truthful?

19 A. It's a very valid point, and I was very aware of it when I went

20 into the village, partly because we were accompanied by some Croat men in

21 uniform. Clearly also Croats had been into the village from outside to

22 bring down the corpses to Prozor, and we were 24 hours after the event at

23 least. I'm totally aware of that. And I was looking for signs of a

24 stage-managed scene, and I have seen this before in other conflicts.

25 From what we saw of the bodies, it seemed to me that they had been

Page 129

1 killed where they lay. Admittedly, blankets had been put round people.

2 They would have had to move a body. But at no point did I see what I

3 could -- and I have to say in many instances we were dealing with

4 unsophisticated military outfits. At no point did I see any, what I might

5 say, dramatic, overexaggerated poses and positions, any what I would call

6 in television terms a display of the bodies. You would look for that.

7 You would look for someone making a dramatic gesture. And they seemed to

8 me, and we had to look for the bodies, to be lying pretty well where they

9 were killed.

10 So I wasn't conscious of any major manipulation. It is possible

11 to say that by putting blankets round, maybe something was being

12 concealed, but I couldn't see what. We could see the injuries. We saw

13 people's physical position as they had been killed. There was no, as I

14 call it, sometimes sentimental rearrangement of the body. I have seen

15 this before. It seemed to me pretty realistic.

16 JUDGE EL MAHDI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. My second

17 question runs as follows: Some bodies were taken to Prozor, others

18 remained in the spot where they allegedly had been killed. Did anybody

19 tell you how these bodies were sorted, which ones were taken away? Where

20 were these bodies that had been taken away, and why did some remain, and

21 why did others get taken away? Did anybody provide any explanation for

22 this?

23 A. No, none whatsoever. It was puzzling to us as to why you would

24 bring some bodies out and why you would leave others there. I have no

25 idea. I -- no one told us, and no one gave any explanation. And it's --

Page 130

1 I could speculate, but I don't think it would be constructive.

2 JUDGE EL MAHDI: [Interpretation] Fine. My last question has to do

3 with what you mentioned. You mentioned the school. You said that at the

4 school you noticed some signs of fighting, of an exchange of fire, and

5 this had been cleaned up, that there were traces of blood on the walls,

6 but that the floor was clean, which means, in other words, and this is --

7 was what I would like you to confirm, that someone had cleaned the place

8 up. Someone had cleaned the place up, had cleaned the school, but had not

9 cleaned other places up.

10 You were accompanied by Croat members of the army. Did they tell

11 you why some places -- one place had been cleaned up and why other places

12 had not been cleaned up? Was this to clearly demonstrate or is it that

13 they wanted to show you something quite specific?

14 A. I -- at that point -- at that point I had deep misgivings about

15 what had been going on. I felt adrift. I felt very, very concerned,

16 because I wondered myself what had happened in the school. I wondered if

17 people had been executed there. That was my first thought, the number of

18 bodies I'd seen in Prozor. But on the other hand, there was no example of

19 using automatic fire and a lot of bullets and torn clothing and -- which

20 you probably would have seen in an execution. I had no idea.

21 I'd found the whole atmosphere, I will be candid, hugely

22 disturbing. That someone had cleaned a place seemed to be unnatural and

23 suspect -- one suspects, a cover-up. What is someone trying to hide? I

24 could get no answer for this. I didn't know.

25 I had a very uneasy feeling that I would never know what went in,

Page 131

1 in time for broadcast, and my responsibility as a journalist is to get

2 that news out that night as accurately as possible with as many facts, and

3 I knew I was not going to get that information.

4 When someone has cleaned up a room and there are other people

5 lying unburied in the village, what is going on? And I have no answer to

6 that. It makes me feel extremely diffident, but it didn't alter my view

7 of those people in the houses. I sense that that was quite clear to me,

8 what might have happened. What happened in the school I have -- I do not

9 know. And the fighting was alluded to by the British army soldiers, and

10 they gave me the phrase, when I said, "Can you tell from the gunfire --

11 gunfire damage what happened," they said it looks like a rear guard

12 action, and I took their testimony there.

13 JUDGE EL MAHDI: [Interpretation] My last question has to do with

14 the state of these bodies. I know this is rather unpleasant, but in what

15 condition were these bodies? The bodies in Prozor, were they in the same

16 condition as others? Can you confirm that these bodies or that these

17 people had been killed at the same time, in other words, on the 14th of

18 September?

19 A. I do not have the professional expertise to give a time of death.

20 There seemed to be no substantial difference in the state of the bodies

21 that I saw in Prozor and in Uzdol to my amateur eye, no major difference.

22 They were all wrapped in the same kind of clean blankets, and I rather

23 suspected that those blankets had come from one source. We're talking a

24 couple of dozen very clean blankets, and all the bodies had been wrapped

25 in these similar blankets.

Page 132

1 The gunshot wounds seemed to be of the -- what had happened to the

2 bodies appeared to be the same. I had no reason, but I have no proof that

3 they all died in roughly the same time. I don't have the proof. I can't

4 prove it. But I saw no difference between the groups.

5 JUDGE EL MAHDI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

6 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Judge El Mahdi.

7 Any questions out of Judge El Mahdi's questions? It seems to me

8 there are none.

9 At this stage, are there any documents to tender on the part of

10 the Prosecution?

11 MR. WEINER: Ours are all tendered, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

13 MR. MORRISSEY: There's one that we offered for tender,

14 Your Honour, which is not in a state to be tendered yet. I don't seek to

15 tend it now through this witness, as I indicated, so that could just be in

16 abeyance until we make our case about it.

17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. But anyway, it has a number on it.

18 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE LIU: So that we won't miss it.

20 There will be an announcement about the correction of the numbers

21 of the documents by the court deputy.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, Your Honours. There's one document

23 that was tendered under seal, and it was wrongly described as Prosecution

24 Exhibit. In fact, it's a Defence Exhibit and it will have the number

25 D376, which will be under seal.

Page 133

1 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

2 Well, Witness, thank you very much indeed for coming to The Hague

3 to give your evidence. We wish you a very pleasant journey, and

4 Madam Usher will show you out of this courtroom.

5 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

6 JUDGE LIU: You may go now.

7 [The witness withdrew]

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, I'm sorry to say. We've got a bit

10 of a problem, I think, with the LiveNote. On my computer here, it's --

11 we've got the old version that's working right now but we just -- the

12 Ringtail version of the transcript is not working on my computer.

13 JUDGE LIU: I see. But mine's okay.

14 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, I can see actually --

15 JUDGE LIU: Maybe we could ask a technician to have it fixed.

16 So are we ready to hear the next witness?

17 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, I think so, Your Honour. If it starts to

18 cause trouble, I'll say, and meanwhile we should press on.

19 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 [The witness entered court]

22 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, Witness.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon.

24 JUDGE LIU: Would you please make the solemn declaration in

25 accordance with the paper Madam Usher is showing to you.

Page 134

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

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

3 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. You may sit down, please.

4 WITNESS: VAHID KARAVELIC:

5 [Witness answered through interpreter]

6 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Re.

7 MR. RE: Thank you, Your Honour.

8 Examined by Mr. Re:

9 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Karavelic. Some formal questions. Your name

10 is Vahid Karavelic?

11 A. It is.

12 Q. You were born on the 7th of April, 1956?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. You describe yourself as a Bosniak?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Do you have a nickname?

17 A. I had different nicknames in my life, but of late they've been

18 calling me Vaha.

19 Q. Did they call you Vaha in the war?

20 A. Yes, very often.

21 Q. Your occupation, you're a retired major general.

22 A. That's right.

23 Q. Did you retire on the 31st of August last year from a very senior

24 position, which was about number three in the Bosnian army?

25 A. Yes, I did.

Page 135

1 Q. What was the formal title of your position at the time of your

2 retirement?

3 A. Chief of the administration for policy, plans, and operations

4 attached to the staff of the joint command of the Federation army.

5 Q. And is this the third time that you have testified in proceedings

6 before the ICTY?

7 A. Yes, it is.

8 Q. Did you testify for the Prosecution in the case of Prosecutor

9 against Galic?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Did you recently, that is last month, testify for the Defence as

12 an expert witness, a military expert witness, in the case of Prosecutor

13 versus Hadzihasanovic and Kubura?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And at the relevant time during the war with which -- which

16 concerns this indictment, were you the commander of the 1st Corps in

17 Sarajevo?

18 A. I was the assistant commander of the 1st Corps until mid 1993, and

19 as of August 1993, I was the commander of the 1st Corps of the Army of

20 Bosnia and Herzegovina.

21 Q. Just very briefly to take you back to the point where you got to

22 there to enable the Trial Chamber to understand your military background

23 and expertise. Did you join the JNA in 1975 and graduate from the

24 military academy in Belgrade in 1979?

25 A. Yes, I did.

Page 136

1 Q. Were you a platoon commander from 1979 to 1982, rising to the rank

2 of second lieutenant and then lieutenant?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And were you then based in Ljubljana as the deputy commander of an

5 elite motorised battalion in the 1980s?

6 A. Yes. Deputy commander of the militarised battalion. That's

7 right. I think there was a mistake there.

8 Q. Okay. And from 1988 to 1991, were you the commander of that same

9 battalion?

10 A. Until 1991, yes.

11 Q. Where did you move to then?

12 A. After the armed conflicts, namely the aggression against the

13 Republic of Slovenia, Belgrade decided, the top military leadership in

14 Belgrade, decided to relocate all the armed formations of the Yugoslav

15 People's Army from the territory of the Republic of Slovenia to the

16 central parts of the remainder of Yugoslavia. At that time, my brigade

17 and I myself with my battalion were relocated from the barracks in

18 Ljubljana to the barracks in Zenica. More precisely, this took place on

19 the 20th of August, 1991. And then two months later, precisely on the

20 20th of October, 1991, I was relocated, just me with my battalion, that

21 is, to the Tuzla barracks, from Zenica to Tuzla. The intention being of

22 my being sent to attack the city of Vukovar in the north-eastern part of

23 the Republic of Croatia.

24 Q. All right. And was it as a result of that intention that you in

25 fact left or, in military terms, deserted the JNA in 1991, at the end of

Page 137

1 1991?

2 A. Yes. At the end of December, yeah.

3 Q. Did you join the Patriotic League in Visoko?

4 A. Not in Visoko, yes, but I did join the Patriotic League.

5 Q. Was Sefer Halilovic at that time its deputy leader?

6 A. Yes, he was, and he and the late General Karesik, they actually

7 admitted me to the league.

8 Q. Did you know Sefer Halilovic then?

9 A. Not until that time, no.

10 Q. In April 1992, were you appointed to the command of the

11 Territorial Defence in Tuzla?

12 A. In April 1992, on the 12th and 13th of April, 1992, after the

13 recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an internationally recognised

14 state, and after the establishment of the new army in Bosnia and

15 Herzegovina called the Territorial Defence, which was on the 8th of April,

16 1992, after several days I was appointed the commander of the District

17 Territorial Defence of the Municipality of Tuzla, and I was also a member

18 of the Patriotic League.

19 Q. All right. I'm trying to get through this reasonably briefly. If

20 you could possibly help me with this, because I think I can lead on this:

21 Were you captured by Serb forces on the 27th of April, 1992, and taken to

22 Sremska Mitrovica military prison near Belgrade?

23 A. Yes, I was.

24 Q. Were you mistreated, court-martialed by the Serb -- or the JNA,

25 sentenced to death?

Page 138

1 A. Yes, I was.

2 Q. On the 9th of May, 1992, were you transferred to -- by helicopter

3 to Pale near Sarajevo?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Four days later were you exchanged for some high-ranking Serb or

6 JNA military officials?

7 A. Yes. They were from the security service. They were the

8 assistants to the first man, the leading man of that particular service in

9 the Yugoslav People's Army.

10 Q. Following your exchanges were you placed on the Main Staff of the

11 fledgling Bosnian army from May 1992 until August 1992?

12 A. After a short time of recovery, I was attached to the republican

13 Territorial Defence -- Defence Staff commanded by Hasan Efendic. And then

14 towards the end of May that same year, after this duty was assumed by

15 General Sefer Halilovic, I also continued doing the same work in the

16 command with Sefer Halilovic at the helm until I was appointed the deputy

17 commander of the 1st Corps, which was on the 1st of September, 1992.

18 Q. Was it Sefer Halilovic who recommended or arranged your

19 appointment to the Main Staff? I'm sorry, the Territorial Republican

20 Defence.

21 A. I'm not sure, but I do think that he did, that it was him. In

22 fact, prior to the appointment of General Sefer Halilovic, I was already a

23 member of the Republican TO Staff while Efendic was the commander. And

24 after Mr. -- General Halilovic assumed the post of commander of TO, I

25 continued doing the same -- performing the same duty.

Page 139

1 Q. Who was the commander of the 1st Corps in Sarajevo when you were

2 appointed as deputy commander?

3 A. Until that time, there had existed a District or Regional, and

4 both are quite correct, Staff in Sarajevo, just like there had existed a

5 District and Regional Staff in Tuzla where I was until I was arrested and

6 captured. At the helm of this was Hajrulahovic Mustafa, nicknamed

7 Talijan, the Italian. After the creation of the 1st Corps of the Republic

8 of Bosnia-Herzegovina or rather the 1st Corps in Sarajevo he was appointed

9 commander and I was appointed his deputy. That was on the 1st of

10 September, 1992.

11 Q. While we're on this, are you a cousin of a person called Hasan

12 Cengic?

13 A. No. No, no. No relation whatsoever. No kinship whatsoever with

14 this person. Nor did I know him at all until the Patriotic League time.

15 Q. What was -- from your last -- the answer before the last one, were

16 you saying that the 1st Corps was created on about the 1st of September,

17 1992, that is it didn't exist before then?

18 A. That is exactly so.

19 Q. What was the area of responsibility of the 1st Corps?

20 A. Well, it changed from time to time. Initially this zone of

21 responsibility, according to the first variant when the corps were

22 constituted and established within the army of the Republic of Bosnia and

23 Herzegovina, the -- that zone encompassed the city of Sarajevo proper, its

24 immediately surroundings, and the entire territory to the east up to the

25 state border on the Drina River, meaning including Gorazde, Rudo,

Page 140

1 Visegrad, and even Zepa and Sokolac, and so on and so forth, and Pale as

2 well. Later this changed.

3 Q. As of spring/summer 1993, had its area of responsibility

4 contracted?

5 A. There is a part of the territory in the eastern part of

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina that did contract, but there was another part that was

7 added to it containing an operations group at Visoko which had been part

8 of the 3rd Corps up to that point. It was several times detached from the

9 1st Corps and then brought back to the organic composition of the 1st

10 Corps.

11 Q. I want you to tell the Trial Chamber about the composition of the

12 1st Corps or the structure of the 1st corps as of spring/summer 1993, from

13 the corps command with you and Talijan as the commander and deputy

14 commander, the corps structure, the chief of staff, the brigades, the

15 subordination, the departments within it. First of all, was the corps

16 structure of the 1st Corps the same as the corps structure of all the

17 other corps in the Bosnian army?

18 A. Most frequently and for the most part the organisation and

19 structure of all corps of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and

20 especially as concerns the corps commands, were the same, which means

21 nearly identical. Depending on the manpower of a certain corps, the

22 command, too, would be established. It depends on the extent to which the

23 different bodies within a corps were manned or short staffed.

24 For example, the 1st Corps of the BH army in Sarajevo, of which I

25 was commander, throughout 1993, for example, the manpower levels changed.

Page 141

1 There used to be about 75.000 soldiers. That's what the corps numbered.

2 It was only natural that the corps command should include more members

3 than, for example, the corps command of the 4th or 5th Corps, which had a

4 maximum of perhaps 15.000 soldiers each within their composition.

5 Generally speaking, however, the structure of corps commands was --

6 specifically the structure of the 1st Corps command was always follows:

7 The corps commander heading the command, his deputy, the secretary, the

8 cabinet, whatever you choose to call it, and there are several departments

9 that are permanently in touch with the commander. First of all, the

10 staff. The most numerous body and the most important subject of the corps

11 in a manner of speaking, the chief would be led by the chief of staff and

12 this applies to all units from brigade level upwards. This staff would

13 have within its composition a variety of bodies in charge of planning,

14 monitoring and control of combat activity.

15 The different branches were also represented in the staff.

16 People, more specifically officers that were at the head of each of these

17 branches. Our army, for example, had seven different branches in arms and

18 services. You had the chief of the artillery, the chief of the armoured

19 and mechanised units, the chief in infantry, the chief of atomic and

20 biochemical warfare defence, the chief of communications, and so on and so

21 forth. In addition to the chief of staff and the staff itself, and these

22 were permanently in touch with the corps command, also in touch with the

23 corps commander were the following bodies: Assistant commander for

24 morale, information and propaganda, religion-related issues, all these

25 would be discharged by a single person. The next one was assistant for

Page 142

1 security. You also had an assistant for legal matters, an assistant for

2 logistics and an assistant for finance.

3 Roughly speaking, this is what the corps command structure was.

4 The corps command would sometimes comprise as few as 50 or 60 people, or

5 this figure could go up to 150 people depending on the size of each corps.

6 Q. All right. Now, were each of these assistant commanders directly

7 subordinated to you as the corps commander or whoever the corps commander

8 was?

9 A. The ones that I've mentioned would have been directly in touch

10 with the corps commander or, rather, subordinated to him.

11 Q. What about the assistant for security? Was he subordinated both

12 to you and to the military security service?

13 A. Unlike all these assistants, the assistant for security --

14 Q. We have had some evidence on this --

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Don't interrupt the witness, please.

16 MR. RE: Well, I object to my friend's -- the witness is going to

17 give us an explanation of something we already have had a significant

18 amount evidence on. I just want a very, very short answer.

19 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, Your Honours, I submit that the witness be

20 giving a chance to give a responsive answer to the question that he's

21 asked.

22 JUDGE LIU: It depends on whether the witness has finished his

23 answer or not.

24 MR. MORRISSEY: I agree Your Honour, we should ask him.

25 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We may ask the witness whether he has finished

Page 143

1 his answer or not.

2 MR. RE:

3 Q. It would appear that you haven't actually finished your answer,

4 but I would very much appreciate a very brief answer to the -- to the

5 proposition I put to you.

6 A. If you look at all the assistants that report to the corps

7 commander, the assistant commander for security was the most peculiar

8 position on account of the nature of this person's work, of the

9 incumbent's work. When I say peculiar, what I have in mind is one very

10 important matter. All the assistants, for example, within a corps command

11 in one way or another reported to their superiors, to their relevant --

12 respective superiors at a higher command level, but only as far as

13 professional matters go. However, the assistant for security, and I'm

14 talking about an institution that on a personal level, as a military

15 professional, I never approved of. But this is how it worked, the

16 security service.

17 The assistant for security would only inform the corps commander

18 about whatever he -- he saw fit and whatever he believed was relevant. He

19 had no duty or explicit obligation to inform about everything. However,

20 he would send all of the information to his own superior within the

21 security service to a higher level position and in turn he would receive

22 instructions from his own superior. Bottom line, in addition to the

23 official chain of command within the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However,

24 the situation must be similar in a lot of other armies throughout the

25 world, a lot of other military forces, there was another chain of command

Page 144

1 that was peculiar to the security service and practically ran parallel to

2 the official or main chain of command, if you like.

3 Q. Were you able to give directions or orders to your assistant for

4 security?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Did he have to obey them?

7 A. He did, yes, and this was most often the case but by no means

8 always.

9 Q. What circumstances did he not obey your orders?

10 A. It's difficult for me to say. Specifically, I as commander of the

11 1st Corps in a great number of situations was in no position to know what

12 my assistant for security was doing specifically, what sort of task he was

13 performing at a given time. It was only much later once everything was

14 over and done with that I would learn.

15 Q. Going back to the structure, did you have a military police

16 battalion attached to the corps command as opposed to at the brigade

17 level?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Who was that subordinated to and what was its strength?

20 A. Military Police Battalion was in the same category as any other

21 unit that was attached to the staff. Every corps had several units

22 attached to the staff, units of four or five different types. The

23 Military Police Battalion was only one of those units that were attached

24 to the staff.

25 As a norm, a Military Police Battalion would number, although you

Page 145

1 have to take into account the fact that manpower levels were never quite

2 identical, but usually it was between 300 and 400 men, sometimes more,

3 sometimes less. This changed over time.

4 When I say units attached to the staff, I mean that in a formal

5 sense. Those units were under the command of the corps, but they also

6 reported to the chief of staff, to his chiefs for the different branches

7 and arms and services. Specifically talking about the Military Police

8 Battalion, the Military Police Battalion was a unit meant to carry out

9 tasks, to carry out instructions given by the assistant chief for

10 security. They are the ones who know the situation, who are in a position

11 to give good, well-founded instructions on what the Military Police

12 Battalion should be doing.

13 Q. You said they reported to the chief of staff. Do you mean the

14 chief of staff of the corps?

15 A. In the case of many other units attached to the staff, yes, to the

16 chief of the staff of the corps, but the military police battalion

17 commander answered or reported to the chief of security and to the corps

18 commander too.

19 Q. Could you issue orders or directions to the military police

20 directly or did that have to go through your assistant -- sorry, your

21 chief of security?

22 A. Yes, but this was not done in practice. The reason was that it

23 was highly unclear what the competence was of a chief of corps to impart

24 good and clear orders to the military police battalion to carry out

25 such-and-such investigation or perhaps an on-site investigation or other

Page 146

1 such tasks. So the corps commander would do it through his own chief of

2 security.

3 Q. Was your chief of security Mr. Sacir Arnautovic?

4 A. For a while, yes.

5 Q. When you say when the corps commander would do it through his own

6 chief of security, can you please explain? Do you mean that you would

7 direct or ask or task or order the chief of security to do it or would

8 something else happen?

9 A. Precisely. I would order my chief of security to do this or that,

10 and then he would use his own officers from his own department and carry

11 out the tasks. And in order to execute any other tasks he would always

12 have the military police battalion at his disposal.

13 Q. Who was the chief of staff of the 1st Corps in 1993?

14 A. At the beginning, I think, but I'm not sure for how long, it was

15 Asim Dzambasovic, followed Alija Ismet, who in turn was followed by Nedzad

16 Ajnadzic, and I'm talking about 1993. So three different chiefs.

17 Q. All right. Let's move to the brigades. How many brigades were

18 subordinated to the 1st Corps command in 1993? First I just want the

19 number, and then I want you to name them. That's all I want you to tell

20 us.

21 A. We talk about units, the level doesn't matter whether we're

22 talking about a brigade or a battalion. Throughout 1993, the 1st Corps of

23 the BH army, although this changed over time, had nearly 30 units

24 reporting to it, including those in Sarajevo as well as those outside

25 Sarajevo.

Page 147

1 If I take into account -- well, and depending on when exactly,

2 because I think it was in the spring that the East Bosnian Operations

3 Group Gorazde was detached from the organic composition of the 1st Corps,

4 then obviously the number shrank. Up to that point, there had been about

5 30 brigades alone that reported to the corps. It was on account of the

6 practical impossibility to go on working like that because, according to

7 every single doctrine, if you look at any of the military forces

8 throughout the world --

9 Q. I am loath to interrupt, but I really have to focus this. I

10 really only want to know the number and the names. So in terms of

11 brigades could you please tell me how many brigades you had subordinated

12 to you as opposed to units in 1993. Let's make it spring or summer.

13 A. I would have to count them first and then I could give you the

14 exact figure, but the rougher estimate, over 20. And I'm talking about

15 brigades, here. I can enumerate them for you, if you like. The 1st

16 Motorised Brigade, the 2nd Motorised Brigade, 1st Mountain Brigade, 2nd

17 Mountain Brigade, 3rd Mountain Brigade, 7th Mountain Brigade, 10th

18 Mountain Brigade, and in the spring the 3rd and the 7th were merged to

19 make up the 9th, the 101st Motorised, the 104th Motorised, the 105th

20 Motorised, and the 9th Mountain Brigade outside Sarajevo, the Delta

21 Brigade, the 2nd Independent Battalion.

22 Q. Thank you. Just moving to the strength of those brigades, what

23 was the average strength of those brigades, or did it vary?

24 A. The battalions would average between 300 and 500 soldiers. The

25 mountain brigades averaged about 2.000 soldiers or more. The motorised

Page 148

1 and mechanised brigades averaged between 3.000 and 4.000 soldiers.

2 Q. Did each of these brigades have their own area of responsibility,

3 geographical area of responsibility within the 1st Corps zone?

4 A. The answer is yes in relation to most of those brigades but not

5 all of them.

6 Q. Did the Delta brigade have an area of responsibility, a

7 geographical one? Geographical one?

8 A. No.

9 Q. What was its role?

10 A. Perhaps at one time it did, for a brief while.

11 Q. What was its role within the 1st Corps?

12 A. In the spring and summer, but I can't remember the exact date, it

13 was merged with the 1st Corps. Up until that point in time it had

14 functioned as a mobile brigade, and it continued to do so but within the

15 1st Corps.

16 Q. What about the 2nd Independent Battalion. Did it have its own

17 area or zone of responsibility?

18 A. Generally speaking, no. Maybe at one time or another throughout

19 the war it did.

20 Q. What was its role within the corps?

21 A. It was also functioning as a mobile unit. It was a reserve unit,

22 an intervention unit, all meaning the same.

23 Q. What does that mean? I mean, what did it do?

24 A. That means that these units were not busy in combat, they would

25 normally be training, but they were always ready and prepared to be used

Page 149

1 anywhere along the defence line and whenever our defence lines were

2 attacked by the enemy, they would be sent right there to stop the enemy.

3 Or, if we talked about offencive operations, it was often the case that

4 these units were used alongside with other units, other brigade units,

5 because these were the units that were best prepared to deal with these

6 situations.

7 Q. The 2nd Independent Brigade -- sorry, Battalion, that was

8 commanded by Adnan Solakovic; is that correct?

9 A. Solakovic, yes.

10 Q. Where was it based?

11 A. This battalion evolved from Juka Prazina's brigade that's. How it

12 came into existence, and Juka Prazina's brigade in 1992, the summer of

13 1992, at one time, if I'm not mistaken, reported to the Supreme Command

14 itself and then it reported to the Main Staff of the Territorial Defence

15 or, rather, the BH army. When Juka Prazina left Sarajevo, the brigade

16 fell apart and was made over into a new brigade due to a shortage of

17 manpower, and then there was this Independent Battalion. It was based in

18 a variety of different locations in Sarajevo. Their main, so to speak,

19 headquarters was --

20 Q. That's what I'm after. Where were they based?

21 A. It was near the faculty of medicine in Sarajevo. I could show it

22 to you on the map, but I'm not sure about the name of the building itself.

23 Q. What about, firstly, the 9th and then the 10th Brigades? Did the

24 9th have its own geographical area of responsibility? That, of course, is

25 the 9th Motorised Brigade.

Page 150

1 A. The 9th Motorised Brigade came into existence by merging the 3rd

2 and the 7th Mountain Brigade. The commander of the 3rd Brigade had been

3 Ramiz Delic, Celo, and the commander of the 7th --

4 Q. I will come to that but I just want to know at the moment whether

5 it had a geographical area of responsibility.

6 A. Yes. Yes.

7 Q. And what was that, which area?

8 A. Most of the southern half of the Stari Grad municipality and the

9 centre, the centre point of which was Grdonj. That was in the central

10 point of their entire area of responsibility.

11 Q. Where were the headquarters of the -- or was the 9th Motorised

12 Brigade based?

13 A. The 9th Motorised Brigade or, rather, its command was based in a

14 building near the police centre, civilian police, but I forget the

15 building's name or who it belonged to.

16 Q. What about the 10th Brigade? Did it have its own geographical

17 area within Sarajevo?

18 A. Yes. Likewise it had its own area of responsibility throughout

19 the war, much like the 9th Brigade. Their area of responsibility was

20 behind the 9th Motorised Brigade, in actual fact. The borderline between

21 them as the Miljacka river. Its area of responsibility was on the slopes

22 of Mount Trebevic, the northern sector or the north-western sector of the

23 city of Sarajevo, the area known as Centar or Centar municipality,

24 depending.

25 Q. Did both of those brigades occupy or have borders with the front

Page 151

1 line, with the Serb positions?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. You were telling me a few moments ago before I asked you to pause

4 about the creation of the 9th Brigade. I just wanted to take you back

5 to -- you mentioned Ramiz Delalic, Celo, was the commander of the 3rd

6 Brigade before it was merged with the 7th Mountain Brigade to become the

7 9th Motorised Brigade. I'm interested at the moment in the activities of

8 Celo when he was the commander of the 3rd Mountain Brigade and the

9 circumstances of the merging of the two brigades.

10 A. Ramiz Delalic, Celo, as I said, in 1992 and until the beginning of

11 1993, I'm not sure about the exact date, was commander of the 3rd Mountain

12 Brigade. To put it in one word, he was an excellent soldier, an

13 experienced soldier. He was well-loved by his people. He was followed by

14 his people. However, later on towards the end of 1992, there were

15 frequent complaints being sent to the corps command, complaints about the

16 commander of the 3rd Mountain Brigade. These complaints, for the most

17 part, involved a lack of consistency in carrying out orders issued by the

18 corps command.

19 Q. What were --

20 A. No hard facts were provided, however, but viewed in context

21 together with a number of other occurrences involving the corps, I think

22 there were on the whole two reasons for the 9th Motorised Brigade to be

23 set up like that. One reason was to merge these units to make it easier

24 for the corps commander to exercise command and control. There were too

25 many lines of communication leading to the corps commander, and this

Page 152

1 significantly reduced the amount of confusion that came about in this way.

2 The other reason was probably to remove Ramiz Delalic, Celo, as

3 the number one man and leader of the brigade. For this reason, he was

4 assigned a new position with the 9th Motorised Brigade as deputy

5 commander.

6 Q. I heard you use the word "rukovedjenje" in your last answer, which

7 is translated as "command and control." You said one reason was to merge

8 these units to make it easier for the corps commander to exercise command

9 and control. What was this lack of consistency in carrying out orders

10 issued which the corps command that you referred to a moment ago? I mean,

11 what was he doing or not doing?

12 A. When it came to different issues, control and command issues, by

13 the 1st Corps when the corps members returned from the 3rd Mountain

14 Brigade there would often be complaints to the effect that they would

15 challenge the members of the corps commander in terms of executing their

16 tasks for the execution of which they had been assigned to the 3rd

17 Motorised Brigade. That was, for instance, one thing.

18 Then secondly, in terms of intelligence data that would be

19 gathered and security service data that would be obtained, allegedly Ramiz

20 Delalic, Celo, though I never established this for a fact nor has this

21 been established in any court proceedings, he was on the take. He

22 actually forced people to do various things in order to give voluntary

23 donations for the brigade and things of that kind.

24 Q. Who made the decision to merge the two brigades?

25 A. The Supreme Command, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is

Page 153

1 the competent body for the forming of brigades, for the extinguishment of

2 brigades, and for the appointment of brigade commanders.

3 Q. Was that decision made when Sefer Halilovic was in the position of

4 the Supreme Commander or when Rasim Delic was?

5 A. I believe that this was when General Sefer Halilovic was man

6 number one in the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

7 Q. I note that my learned friend is going to say. I just

8 inadvertently called Mr. Halilovic "supreme commander," and I withdraw

9 that. It wasn't Supreme Commander. He was in effect number one in the

10 army. It was just a loose use of the term.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

12 MR. RE:

13 Q. Now, how did Ramiz Delalic take the decision to remove him as the

14 commander of a brigade and make him deputy commander of another? How did

15 he react to it?

16 A. I think that I myself was involved to a great extent in this

17 brigade reorganisation, and the essence of the talks was as follows:

18 Namely, Ramiz was told that appreciating his personal ability, his

19 courage, his instinct, his fighting instinct, appreciation of that was one

20 thing and we respected that and appreciated that. However, at the helm of

21 a brigade the kind of a -- that that motorised brigade was with 3.000 to

22 4.000 people, we would have to have, seeing that we already had such an

23 officer, a professional officer who was capable in every respect to

24 exercise quality control and command of such a brigade. So we brought --

25 we appointed to that post Sulejman Imsirovic, an officer, a former colonel

Page 154

1 of the Yugoslav People's Army. And after several talks with Ramiz

2 Delalic, I do not remember the exact number of these conversations, he

3 actually accepted the post of deputy commander of that brigade.

4 Q. And how effective was Sulejman Imsirovic as a commander while

5 Ramiz Delalic was his deputy commander?

6 A. Generally speaking, he was the brigade commander, but how

7 efficient he was is hard to say. The bottom line is that he and Ramiz

8 Delalic were two different people, two different types of people in terms

9 of their all, all of their traits. Sulejman Imsirovic was a first and

10 foremost serious person, an educated person who wanted to do everything

11 that he did reasonably in harmony with others, with the rest of the

12 people, whereas Ramiz Delalic, Celo, was a quite different person in

13 relation to him. And frequently in given situations he, Sulejman

14 Imsirovic as the brigade commander would actually comply with the requests

15 of Ramiz Delalic and his desires, et cetera. Of course, this was not

16 always the case.

17 Q. Did the -- what was you of information about who the soldiers in

18 the 9th Brigade regarded as the true commander of that brigade?

19 A. I would say that a considerable part of the brigade I cannot tell

20 you the exact percentage of the men and soldiers of that brigade,

21 considered Sulejman Imsirovic their commander.

22 Q. Any other --

23 A. However, others, fewer men and soldiers of the brigade, probably

24 those who remained in different brigade companies and units and came from

25 the former 3rd, Celo's brigade, they respected and appreciated more Ramiz

Page 155

1 Delalic, Celo. At least that is my opinion.

2 Q. Was the commander of the 9th Brigade subordinated directly to you

3 as the corps commander?

4 A. Until the operational groups, i.e., divisions were formed, yes.

5 I'm not sure whether -- when it was exactly that the operational groups

6 were formed, in 1993, and after that, no.

7 Q. Was that after or before Operation Neretva or Trebevic?

8 MR. MORRISSEY: [Microphone not turned on]

9 MR. RE: Well, it's one question. I'm entitled to ask the same

10 question, the two things in the one question is. The intelligent and

11 educated witness who can surely answer whether it was after Neretva

12 or --

13 JUDGE LIU: We haven't heard the objection. Let's hear it.

14 MR. MORRISSEY: The objection is it should be made sequential. If

15 it's -- if ti's -- if the witness is to be asked to locate this in time,

16 he can ask it in relation to any operation that the Prosecutor wants to

17 ask him, but he should just say, Is it before Operation Trebevic or after

18 Operation Trebevic and then before or after ... I don't know why the two

19 of them have to be linked, and it leads to potential ambiguous answers,

20 so -- and frankly I can't see why he doesn't just ask him when and ask the

21 simple non-leading question and that's what I submit should be done.

22 JUDGE LIU: Yes. I believe that in the question we should have

23 that clarified.

24 MR. RE:

25 Q. You've already told -- you've told us a few moments ago that

Page 156

1 you're not sure whether it was exactly -- when it was exactly the

2 operational groups were formed. I'm trying to orient you to one or two

3 possible things that happened in 1993 that may help to revive your memory

4 on this. One of them is Operation Neretva. The other one is Operation

5 Trebevic. Firstly, in relation to Operation Neretva, was it before or

6 after Operation Neretva?

7 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, was what before or after Operation

8 Neretva. It has to be made clear what it is that my learned friend's

9 asking the witness.

10 MR. RE: It's pretty clear from the transcript; it's when the

11 operational groups were formed.

12 JUDGE LIU: That's my understanding, at least.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that that was after the

14 Operation Trebevic. The end of 1993 and the beginning of 1994.

15 MR. RE:

16 Q. What was the relationship like or the -- sorry. What was the

17 relationship between the 1st Corps command and the 9th Motorised Brigade

18 in 1993 in terms of command and control? That is, the issuing of orders

19 by the corps command and how they were responded to by the 9th Motorised

20 Brigade?

21 A. All orders issued during 1993 to the 9th Motorised Brigade by the

22 command of the 1st Corps were issued to the commander of that brigade. I

23 can say that all those orders which refer and which referred to the

24 execution of combat activities in terms of defending the defence lines in

25 the zone of responsibility and/or the execution of all kinds of combat

Page 157

1 operations that were ordered, were carried out for the most part by the

2 9th Motorised Brigade, so that there were no real serious problems in

3 respect of the execution of the basic tasks, the basic missions of the

4 brigade. There were no such problems.

5 Q. What about other areas apart from the basic combat tasks? Were

6 there problems?

7 A. Well, now, this is a different question, a different matter which

8 is when it was that -- actually, when I assumed the post of corps

9 commander and after returning from Igman to the city of Sarajevo and

10 assuming this post, I believe that I issued the first order on the 18th of

11 August, 1993, and that was for us to expel or, rather, locate a number of

12 units outside Sarajevo, the perimeter of Sarajevo in order to halt the

13 defence lines at the external perimeter around Sarajevo. And I did this

14 for a basic reason, because I had too many soldiers in the city of

15 Sarajevo proper due to the overconcentration of the city's population, and

16 there were many -- there was quite a number of soldiers outside Sarajevo

17 at this external perimeter. And at that time, I issued this order to many

18 brigades, including the 9th Motorised Brigade. They should actually take

19 over the compartmentalised parts of the defence line and man those parts

20 with a company each which in keeping with their own timing schedules they

21 would rotate from time to time, and of course execute the combat missions

22 assigned them.

23 At that time, most frequently the units from the 9th Motorised

24 Brigade, whether there was according to orders issued by the commander of

25 that brigade or not, I'm not quite sure, I cannot say, Ramiz Delalic,

Page 158

1 Celo, was the one who was most often in charge. And during August in

2 1993, it was precisely Ramiz Delalic, Celo, at Igman who gave a very great

3 contribution to prevent Sarajevo from falling into the hands of the

4 aggressor. But at the same time, because of some arbitrary actions on his

5 part, there were also certain problems which cropped up from time to time.

6 Q. That's what I asked you about. Can you tell us what the problems

7 were as a result of these arbitrary actions?

8 A. Ramiz Delalic, Celo, is someone who is very lively by nature and

9 someone who will brook no commanding and strict subordination. That is

10 the kind of person that he is. But he will do everything and anything

11 that you nicely ask him to do. So -- and he is fidgety. He cannot stay

12 in a single spot for five minutes. He's given to arbitrary actions which,

13 in fact, disrupt or erode control and command. And so this perpetuates

14 problems of that kind.

15 Q. What were these arbitrary actions? What did he do that

16 constitutes an arbitrary action?

17 A. Well, that is hard to say without actually consulting papers and

18 notes. For instance, if a mission was assigned to the -- in a sense, do

19 that and that, stay there for 24 hours around the clock, he would not be

20 able to do that. He would have to leave the spot in question to attend to

21 some business of his, and he would leave the men alone there, and the

22 things of that kind.

23 MR. RE: It's 4.00, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE LIU: Yes. It's time for today.

25 Witness, I'm afraid you have to stay in The Hague for a few days,

Page 159

1 so during this period you have to understand that you are under oath. So

2 do not talk to anybody, and do not let anybody talk to you about your

3 testimony.

4 And we will resume at 9.00 tomorrow morning in the same courtroom.

5 The hearing for today is adjourned.

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.01 p.m.,

7 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 19th day of

8 April, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.

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