1 Wednesday, 3 May 2000

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.35 a.m.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

7 WITNESS: DARKO GELIC [Resumed]

8 [Witness answered through interpreter]

9 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Cont'd]

10 Q. Major Gelic, a number of documents to look at

11 quickly to identify the sort of documents you were

12 preparing.

13 May we distribute 2818, which is a clip of

14 documents covering several months.

15 While they are being distributed: Major, do

16 you speak English?

17 A. Well, as much as is sufficient for me. I can

18 understand English, but to speak it, well --

19 Q. Did you have an interpreter or translator in

20 your office able to interpret into English on your

21 behalf?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. His or her name?

24 A. Tanja Saric.

25 Q. Would you look, please, at these documents.

1 Save for one -- I think they've all got translations

2 now, and I wanted you to have a look at them simply to

3 confirm that this is the range of written

4 communications that were being received and sent.

5 Your Honours will find that they are page

6 numbered in the bottom right-hand corner, so if the

7 witness looks at page 2 and we look at page 1, this is

8 September 1992, a report on enemy forces deployed in a

9 particular area.

10 We can see at the bottom that there's a

11 handwritten remark that you should prepare a detailed

12 report. That's the sort of tasking that you

13 occasionally received, was it?

14 A. Yes, I sent such reports.

15 Q. Pages 3 and 4, please. You look at page 4,

16 Major. This is a handwritten document in your own

17 hand, with instructions to people in Zepce and Kiseljak

18 in November of 1992. So although you were then in

19 Zenica, you were already requiring people as far away

20 as Kiseljak; correct?

21 A. Yes. From what I can see, this is one of the

22 meetings that I mentioned yesterday about being held in

23 the Operative Zone, Central Bosnia, and this is the

24 invitation to those people in the intelligence service

25 to report to the meeting.

1 Q. Pages 5 and 6, instructions to Vitez, Novi

2 Travnik, and Travnik, November 1992, to complete

3 reports on the ground, signed by you?

4 A. It isn't signed.

5 Q. Pages 7 and 8, this one is signed, and it

6 says so in hand, dated the 1st of December, with a

7 December reference number in the region of Serici. "No

8 significant changes on behalf of the aggressor," and so

9 on. A typical document you would have sent?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Pages 9 and 10, the last document for 1992.

12 You remember telling the Judges yesterday that

13 documents were renumbered as from the beginning of

14 December 1992. You'll notice that at the top of this

15 one, as with the previous ones, there's a serial number

16 for 1992.

17 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice,

18 could you tell the Chamber, what is the purpose of

19 showing these documents to the witness, so we can

20 follow you?

21 MR. NICE: Certainly, Your Honour. As I

22 indicated, it's to show the range of documents that

23 would exist, if we had access to all of them, and the

24 range of responsibilities of this witness. And I'm

25 doing it as a quickly as I possibly can.

1 I also have to deal with, as you'll see from

2 the last document, a rather important document, the

3 date of which may have been uncertain yesterday but

4 will be certain today.

5 Q. So we see on the 24th of December, still with

6 a 1992 serial number, commission of equipment for the

7 reconnaissance squadron, of which you were, what, the

8 commander?

9 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice,

10 yesterday you reacted rather lovely to the mention of

11 time, but I should nevertheless like to say that time

12 is important in a case. And here we're not questioning

13 the responsibility and functions of the witness;

14 perhaps his credibility, but we already discussed it.

15 So you should follow the Chamber when you're asked to

16 put together your evidence in cross-examination and to

17 try to cut it shorter, to make it more succinct.

18 MR. NICE: I am doing so, and it is succinct,

19 I trust. I can't deal with documents much more

20 quickly.

21 Q. Now, if we come to the next document, page 11

22 and 12, you can just confirm that that's another

23 document directed to you.

24 Page 13 is a translation of some significance

25 of a document that recurs on several occasions. It's

1 attached at the back of Your Honours' bundles, page

2 13. We've seen lots of these documents, and we had no

3 translation of them yesterday.

4 This is a document at your page 14, Major,

5 which says there was no combat activity in the zone of

6 responsibility of your brigade until a particular

7 hour.

8 If we look at pages 14, 15, and 16, we see

9 three such documents for the same day. At page 17, we

10 see a similar document for the 28th of February. Pages

11 18 and 19, we see another document simply signed by

12 yourself, and I'm not going to take time on these. I

13 just need them to be in evidence for later argument.

14 At page 20, we see another document saying there was no

15 activity. At 21 and 22, another document by yourself.

16 And then at 23, a document as late as the 28th of

17 March, saying that there was no activity in the area of

18 the brigade. And then finally, and this is for

19 completeness, pages 24 and 25, we see the document of

20 which we had an inferior copy yesterday, which makes it

21 quite clear that it was indeed on the 16th of April of

22 1993 that you were seeking data regarding the

23 developments in Vitez. Now, that was the 16th of

24 April.

25 Is the position that you knew that things

1 were developing in Vitez in accordance with a plan,

2 Major?

3 A. Your Honours, I should first like to answer

4 the questions asked regarding the numbers of these

5 documents.

6 JUDGE MAY: No. Would you answer the

7 question, please, rather than answering the questions

8 which you'd like to answer.

9 Would you repeat the question, Mr. Nice?

10 MR. NICE: Certainly.

11 Q. Is the position on the 16th of April that you

12 knew things were developing in Vitez in accordance with

13 a plan?

14 A. I did not know what was going on, and that is

15 why I sent this invitation. But you should know that

16 it is very, very close, so that you can hear everything

17 that goes on. And that was why I requested

18 information, to really know what was going on.

19 Q. You were subsequently to work for Blaskic.

20 Were he to have described you as his eyes and ears,

21 would that accord with your understanding of your

22 position?

23 A. If I did, or had I been involved in those

24 matters, I would have probably understood it that way.

25 Q. After this war was over, on the 24th of

1 December of 1996, you received a very high award,

2 didn't you?

3 A. What date, excuse me?

4 Q. Christmas Eve 1996.

5 A. I wouldn't really know whether that was the

6 date, but I was not awarded only one declaration; I was

7 awarded several declarations.

8 Q. One of the declarations you were awarded was

9 awarded by President Tudjman; correct?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. It was the order of the Croatian trefoil,

12 which is the eighth most senior of all military

13 declarations awarded; correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. It's conferred on Croatian and foreign

16 citizens for exceptional contributions to the Republic

17 of Croatia made in war, under an immediate threat of

18 war, or in extraordinary peacetime circumstances. Can

19 you explain, please, if you have the citation in mind,

20 what it was that you had done to benefit Croatia in the

21 time of war?

22 A. Well, as for that part, I suppose my role in

23 liberation operations that were performed in

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina, liberating the Croat territories

25 and Muslim territories from the Serb aggressor.

1 Q. Is it your position that your role, described

2 as a liaison officer, was still in fact an important

3 intelligence role, Major, even when you were working

4 for Blaskic?

5 A. Look, when I worked for Colonel Blaskic, I

6 was the liaison officer with international

7 organisations. And afterwards, after that, I was again

8 posted to another place. I was transferred to the post

9 of the commander of the intelligence department, so

10 that these two parts of my role in the war do not have

11 much in common.

12 Q. Had you been trained in intelligence before

13 the war?

14 A. No. I did not have any contact with military

15 establishments, or was I involved in any military

16 occupation.

17 MR. NICE: Can we distribute 1146.2?

18 Q. While that's being distributed, as to the

19 Convoy of Joy, just to save time, do you agree with

20 Mr. Whitworth's assessment that there was an element in

21 the reaction of the Croats at the Convoy of Joy; there

22 was an element of trying out the new British battalion

23 to see how far they'd let you go?

24 A. This is not correct to say.

25 Q. So far as Whitworth is again concerned, and

1 dealing with the killing of Dobrila, do you accept that

2 although a paper was prepared at some stage about that

3 killing, and he says waved in front of him, it was

4 never actually presented to him, the report?

5 A. As for that part, I've already said. The

6 murder of Dobrila, we never managed to bring that

7 investigation to a close, because we simply could not

8 gain access to all the necessary evidence.

9 Q. The Croat side maintained that a Muslim had

10 crossed the lines, gone to a Croat area to fire on the

11 woman, and then returned, and that was a version that

12 the British would never accept, wasn't it?

13 A. I don't know what the investigating team was

14 explaining, because I was a coordinator during the

15 investigation of that murder, so that I --

16 Q. If you're going to say you don't know, that's

17 all I'm going to ask you.

18 A. -- finish my answer, Your Honours.

19 Q. -- 6.2, a milinfosum for the 18th of July, in

20 the middle of the page:

21 "Darko Gelic, the Operational Zone Central

22 Bosnia liaison officer, has confirmed that the HVO are

23 attacking Stari Vitez and that the artillery barrage

24 was the preliminary phase."

25 Do you remember giving that information, and

1 was it correct?

2 A. This kind of information is all in all

3 correct.

4 Q. Number 3, you also confirmed the helicopter

5 flight into Vitez reported on the day before was

6 bringing in some very -- some piece of very important

7 equipment. Helicopter flights were used for ammunition

8 as well as for personnel, weren't they?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. On a regular basis? On a regular basis?

11 A. It wasn't on a regular basis. It depended on

12 the possibilities.

13 Q. The killing of the UNHCR driver was said by

14 Duncan to have been committed with a 12.7 millimetre

15 rifle of a type seen in possession of the HVO from a

16 position Whitworth was able to identify -- sorry, at a

17 position Whitworth was able to identify and from a

18 position that Duncan said was an HVO position. You

19 don't challenge any of that, do you?

20 A. To begin with, sir, in the British battalion,

21 immediately after, that is, immediately after, two or

22 three minutes later, after the murder of the driver, I

23 was told that I had killed him. If you compare it with

24 what you are saying now, then -- could somebody draw

25 the conclusion after two or three minutes who was the

1 murderer?

2 Q. Very well. 1147.3. You see, you've

3 presented a picture to the Judges that really all the

4 attacks were by the BiH. You would accept, wouldn't

5 you, as this document is now going to confirm, there

6 was both the attacks, as we've seen, and also the

7 threats of attacks, here on a document of the 26th of

8 July: You, Darko Gelic, claim that if the BiH attack

9 Vitez, the HVO will retaliate by shelling Zenica. Is

10 that accurate?

11 A. Well, I don't know. All these documents you

12 are showing to me, they are all interpretations of

13 somebody's words. These are not my words. And it

14 never occurred to me to use such words, simply because

15 at that time we had neither ammunition, nor a

16 possibility, nor an opportunity to do such things.

17 Q. In which case it may have been incorrect

18 information but nevertheless given by you. Did you say

19 anything to the officers at the time along the lines of

20 "There would be the shelling of Zenica," please?

21 A. No.

22 Q. Very well. We've heard from an officer

23 called Verhoeven that you didn't cooperate in the

24 movement of persons from Stari Vitez by the Red Cross

25 and that you held it up for a time. True or false?

1 A. It all depended on the conditions and the

2 circumstances we found ourselves in.

3 Q. So that might be true?

4 A. It couldn't be true. I said it all depended

5 on the possibilities and situation on the ground,

6 because you must know that we had hundreds of wounded

7 we had to transfer, and it depended on such moves. If

8 we do not let one, they will not let others. So the

9 Muslims were blackmailing us, whether they would allow

10 our wounded to pass through, and that is what

11 everything hanged on.

12 MR. NICE: May we have Exhibit 1187.2,

13 please. I'm sorry not to have given you earlier

14 notice. Yes. Can you put it on the -- can you

15 withdraw that and I'll come back to it in a minute.

16 1201.1, please. We can deal with these now

17 quite quickly.

18 Q. 121.1, a milinfosum for the 14th of

19 September, makes it quite clear, doesn't it, Major,

20 that you are reported as saying that: "The HVO troops

21 involved in the recent fighting to capture the Grbavica

22 feature were from the 2nd Battalion of the Viteska

23 Brigade," although you declined to say whether those

24 troops came from Busovaca. So that would be Cerkez'

25 troops; correct?

1 A. Could you repeat the question, please?

2 Q. Yes. You're recorded as saying that the

3 troops involved in fighting to capture the Grbavica

4 feature were from the 2nd Battalion of the Viteska

5 Brigade. Cerkez' troops?

6 A. I don't know. I cannot remember this

7 document. I cannot recall saying exactly that. I

8 might have said something like that or what the

9 document says here, but I can't really remember what I

10 said.

11 Q. Was it true that Cerkez' troops were involved

12 in the attack on the Grbavica feature; "yes" or "no"?

13 A. Perhaps a part of them.

14 Q. Now we come back to the other documents.

15 Sorry, can that go back on the ELMO, please, on the

16 second page? That's 1187.2. It's an earlier document,

17 but not -- it's August.

18 This is another summary, a daily summary

19 prepared by a Mr. Watkins, and he makes the point on

20 the second sheet, VI -- sorry, 6, that:

21 "VI was refused permission to pass Kruscica,

22 and when the HVO operational command was informed, the

23 liaison officer stated that Colonel Blaskic had

24 problems with the Viteska Brigade commander, Mario

25 Cerkez, obeying orders. "

1 Do you remember telling them that?

2 A. Now, the question is whether Mr. Mario Cerkez

3 put it that way. I don't believe it, because his

4 brigade had its area of responsibility and had its

5 commander there.

6 Q. So can you think of anything you may have

7 said to this reporting officer that he may have

8 misinterpreted to suggest that Blaskic had problems

9 with Cerkez obeying orders?

10 A. I already said that the Vitez Brigade had --

11 was posted to a particular place. It had its area of

12 responsibility. Every battalion commander had his area

13 of responsibility.

14 When I went to individual areas to organise

15 the passage for some international organisation, then

16 each one of those commanders would logically try to

17 deny such passage at first. But then either at my

18 urging or Colonel Blaskic's insistence, they would

19 permit that. But perhaps it may not have happened

20 within the particular segment of time that they asked

21 for it, and shall we say 1300 hours, but it did happen

22 later the same day or perhaps the next day.

23 Q. I'm not going to go any further than to draw

24 to your attention that this is a suggestion that he had

25 "problems" with Mario Cerkez, not "a problem". That

1 doesn't help you at all, does it?

2 A. No, it doesn't, because I'm telling you such

3 things did not happen only in the area of

4 responsibility of the commander of the Vitez Brigade;

5 it happened all over the place. On repeated occasions,

6 we had to travel with UNHCR trucks which transported

7 not only food but also some other equipment, and our

8 police could also establish that at some checkpoints.

9 And that was why we simply did not -- we showed less

10 trust at some checkpoints.

11 Q. Do you accept, Major Gelic, that you made it

12 clear that the Vitezit factory would be blown up, if

13 necessary?

14 A. Yes, I did say something in that vein.

15 Q. You made a comment here to an officer called

16 Verhoeven; do you accept that?

17 A. Yes, but it was not a threat, sir. This was

18 just a psychological influencing of someone. This is

19 called psychological warfare.

20 Q. I see. There was, what, no serious intention

21 to do this?

22 A. Had we done so, none of us would have

23 survived it.

24 Q. But you accept that this was a threat that

25 you were making on behalf of Blaskic on a regular

1 basis?

2 A. Let me repeat again. This was not a threat,

3 and it was not done on a regular basis. I said it once

4 during certain Muslim offensives against the Lasva

5 Valley.

6 Q. You accept that you said it to Verhoeven?

7 A. I don't know if that was his name.

8 MR. NICE: The documents, Your Honour, are

9 1207.1. That is one document which is already in

10 evidence. I shan't trouble with it. 1315.3, which

11 deals with entries related to this witness on both the

12 8th and 9th of November, where the claim was he would

13 blow up the Vitezit factory.

14 Can we play a video now very shortly? It's

15 2238.

16 [Videotape played]

17 MR. NICE: Thank you very much. That's all.

18 That's enough on that. Thank you very much.

19 Q. That was a little earlier in October. That

20 was a real threat, wasn't it, Major?

21 A. What had happened was a defensive position.

22 That was to destroy one part of the hill in order to

23 defend our forces. That is, the Muslim forces had

24 taken about 100 metres of terrain there and in such a

25 way that they had control over the town of Vitez. They

1 could shoot at anything moving in the town, and this is

2 why this operation was carried out.

3 Q. Two other documents and then I'm done, 128 --

4 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

5 MR. NICE: Two other documents. 1286.1,

6 please.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

8 MR. NICE: Yes.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'd like the witness to

10 explain a little more what he meant by "a defensive

11 position". Is he saying that the words that he spoke

12 which came across in the video explaining the attack

13 were -- is he saying that this was by way of the Croats

14 acting in defence? Would you explain that for me?

15 A. Yes, that is exactly correct, Your Honour.

16 In that area, the Muslim forces had carried out an

17 attack and taken a position which was slightly above

18 the position which had been attacked. This was part of

19 their overall effort to take the Vitezit factory. They

20 broke through our lines. We had to withdraw to a lower

21 position.

22 But in order to gain some kind of a tactical

23 advantage, we had to move our forces there, but we were

24 unable to do so because there was open terrain there.

25 So any soldier that would attempt any movement would be

1 killed. So we had to destroy that area of the hill so

2 that we would level the field, so to speak, so that we

3 could continue with the defence of the terrain that we

4 controlled.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. 1286.1, the 5th of November, front page.

8 Over half the way down, a report, Major, the beginning

9 of November, that you told the ECMM monitors that the

10 HVO did not fight for Vares because of the superior

11 forces of 2 and 3 BiH Corps, and that according to you,

12 the BSA did not interfere because of an agreement they

13 had made with BiH about territory taken in the past.

14 Then there was a problem about whether the BSA would

15 let civilians or military pass.

16 But it's true, isn't it, that there was an

17 agreement, of which you were aware, between the BSA and

18 the HVO that led to the failure to fight for Vares?

19 A. I'll repeat what I had said before.

20 Unfortunately, Your Honours, I find myself forced to

21 repeat things. This is an interpretation of someone's

22 words. I certainly did not put it that way.

23 Q. Well, then how should you have put it?

24 A. I perhaps have --

25 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, if I might object,

1 I think the question is misleading because the English

2 actually says: "According to him, the BSA did not

3 interfere because of an agreement they made with the

4 BiH." Not "with the BSA", "with the BiH about

5 territory taken by the BSA in the past." So I just

6 object to the question on the grounds that it's

7 misleading and it mischaracterises the contents of this

8 particular document.

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. The second sentence reads like this, and I'll

11 read it slowly:

12 "According to him, the BSA did not interfere

13 because of an agreement they had made with the BiH

14 about territory taken by the BSA in the past. A

15 problem that the HVO is facing in this area at this

16 moment is the fact that BSA permits the passage of

17 civilians out of Vares but does not allow all of the

18 HVO forces to pass, so that some are still in the Vares

19 pocket."

20 Is that accurate?

21 A. Your Honours, the interpretation was very

22 fast, so I didn't quite catch all of it. Can I please

23 have it read one more time?

24 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I wonder if we're going

25 to be assisted much by this.

1 MR. NICE: Very well. I put it in as part of

2 the background, but it's there documented.

3 The last document, 1296.2, please.

4 Q. Major, you've heard me suggest that you had

5 made references to this threat to blow up the Vitezit

6 factory on several occasions, not just the once of

7 which you speak. Here is a document dated the 10th of

8 November, an ECMM document. On the second page,

9 please, item 3: "BritBat was informed by Darko Gelic

10 they would blow up the Vitez ammunition factory before

11 the BiH were able to take it. HVO say they will give

12 BritBat two hours' notice before doing so." And then

13 there was a comment by the reporting officer.

14 Did you tell BritBat that they had or they

15 would be given two hours to evacuate?

16 A. Look. Can you please just refer me to the

17 date again?

18 Q. Of course. This is a report dated the 10th

19 of November, and whether it reports events that day or

20 the previous day is perhaps not always entirely clear,

21 but it certainly dates it as the 10th.

22 A. That is exactly right, Mr. Prosecutor, this

23 could have been a day or two -- actually, two or three

24 days earlier.

25 Your Honours, this was the situation: As I

1 said, these were not threats. This was part of

2 psychological warfare which had to be conducted in that

3 area, and this was uttered at the time when we were

4 brought at such risk that we had no way out. And it

5 was clear that Alija Izetbegovic had ordered that

6 nobody was to be let -- leave the Lasva Valley alive if

7 he was captured, that they all had to be killed or

8 their throats cut.

9 And again these were not threats, this was

10 psychological activity. And we knew that the British

11 were also visiting with the Muslim side and they would

12 be able to convey this message. This --

13 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation

14 continues] ... threat. What was it intended to be?

15 What was the purpose of it, if it wasn't a threat?

16 A. This was made as a psychological -- for

17 psychological effect.

18 JUDGE MAY: What was the psychological effect

19 to be?

20 A. The effect was to stop the Muslim forces from

21 advancing.

22 JUDGE MAY: By means of a threat; isn't that

23 right?

24 A. Not a threat. A message.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

1 MR. NICE:

2 Q. Were you, as his eyes and ears, aware of

3 Blaskic having the detonators and so on at the factory

4 filmed by independent television news; were you?

5 A. Your Honours, again I have to tell the

6 Prosecutor I was not Mr. Blaskic's eyes and ears at the

7 time. I was his liaison officer.

8 Q. Well, were you aware that he was filmed

9 showing how the thing was going to be blown up?

10 Please, "yes" or "no". You seem to have dealt with a

11 lot of the -- what is it -- messages, knowing of the

12 messages.

13 A. No.

14 Q. Did you know of this particular message by

15 Colonel Blaskic?

16 A. No.

17 Q. You told Sir Martin Garrod, on about the 28th

18 of December, as he thought, that Kordic had assumed a

19 new function and that that function related to

20 General Roso. Do you remember telling Sir Martin

21 Garrod, one of the ECMM monitors, that?

22 A. Maybe Sir Martin Garrod interpreted it to

23 himself, because Mr. Kordic never got such a function,

24 never had one. And you said that this was on the 28th

25 of January. I do not wish to comment on Sir Martin

1 Garrod's state at the time.

2 Q. You say he interpreted it because Mr. Kordic

3 never got such a function. Never got what function,

4 please?

5 A. The one that you're referring to.

6 Q. I haven't identified if yet. What do you

7 understand me to be referring to, please?

8 A. You said that he was appointed to something

9 with Roso. That is, I believe, what you had said.

10 Q. I didn't spell it out. Do you remember now

11 what it was that he was apparently appointed to,

12 please?

13 A. I will repeat again: Mr. Kordic was not

14 appointed to any military function or duty.

15 Q. And so you couldn't explain, I suppose, how

16 you would have said -- or how you would have been

17 understood by Sir Martin Garrod as saying that he,

18 Kordic, was Assistant Chief of Staff to General Roso,

19 thus making him number 3 in the military hierarchy?

20 A. As I said, I do not want to comment on Sir

21 Martin Garrod's state of mind, but whenever we would

22 sit in the office -- I have to say this, unfortunately

23 -- we consumed certain drinks and we held

24 conversations while doing this.

25 Q. Don't hold back. If you want to say that one

1 of the witnesses who gives evidence is under the

2 influence of drink, nobody's going to mind your saying

3 it. Is that what you want this Tribunal to think,

4 please?

5 A. In that way.

6 Q. You do? You want to say that Sir Martin

7 Garrod's perception was affected by drink?

8 A. Yes.

9 MR. NICE: May the witness finally have, for

10 completeness, what we've had before but now has the

11 front page, 1147.6. It's in the English translation

12 still only at the moment, but we will obtain the

13 original.

14 Q. Although you only speak limited English,

15 Major, if you'd like to look at it, you'll see that,

16 although only in translation, this deals with the

17 various orders of declarations provided for members of

18 the Croatian army, and we can see that number 2 was the

19 order in respect of which Mr. Kordic was to be

20 honoured, and you were number 8, conferred on Croatian

21 and foreign citizens for exceptional contributions to

22 the Republic of Croatia made in war, under an immediate

23 threat of war, or extraordinary circumstances in

24 peacetime.

25 You knew that what you were doing for

1 Herceg-Bosna, or for the HVO, was also doing something

2 for Croatia, didn't you?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Was that because you all understood,

5 certainly at the beginning, that the aim was to unite

6 this part of Central Bosnia with Croatia?

7 A. I would not want to confirm such a

8 statement. We were fighting to create an area where

9 we -- the Bosnian Croats would have a decent and safe

10 life, not to unite with Croatia.

11 Q. You knew, of course, that Croatia was

12 providing troops and senior officers to this fight,

13 such senior officers including people like Roso and

14 Praljak; correct?

15 A. Sir, and Your Honours, Messrs. Praljak and

16 Roso were the HVO officers. And not only did the

17 Croatian troops not come, but I don't have any

18 information that they ever did. They certainly did not

19 come to Central Bosnia.

20 Q. Finally, let me just confirm, because various

21 bits of the material you provided yesterday were

22 entirely fresh to this Tribunal. It's not accepted

23 that there was an attack on Zenica when you say there

24 was. There was no reason for the Bosnian Muslims to

25 attack Zenica, in which they held a majority. The only

1 attack on Zenica, I'm going to suggest to you, was a

2 limited one by the HVO initially.

3 A. I said that it was not so. First of all,

4 they attacked the Croatian Defence Council in Zenica,

5 and it is perfectly well-known when and how.

6 MR. NICE: Thank you.

7 MR. SAYERS: Sorry, Mr. President.

8 Re-examined by Mr. Sayers:

9 Q. Major, just a few questions. You've been

10 asked about a lot of materials which we didn't cover

11 with you, but let me just ask you this. First of all,

12 with respect to the matter of military declarations,

13 were you aware that the order of the Croatian trefoil

14 was also conferred upon President Izetbegovic, Prime

15 Minister Haris Silajdzic, and Minister Ganic?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Was this in connection with military

18 activities that occurred in 1995?

19 A. No.

20 Q. When was it?

21 A. I don't know. I think it was for the

22 cooperation between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the

23 Republic of Croatia. I don't know exactly why they

24 received them.

25 Q. Thank you. Now, you gave some testimony in

1 connection with the death of the UNHCR driver, Boris,

2 who we believe to be Boris Zevracic, but you couldn't

3 identify his surname. You said that, and I'm

4 paraphrasing what you said, "I was told that I had

5 killed him." What did you mean by that?

6 A. Those were the exact words Mr. de la Mota

7 from UNHCR, in the presence of Mr. Duncan, two or three

8 minutes after the killing, told me this. He said,

9 "Sir, you killed him."

10 Q. Do you mean you personally or the HVO?

11 A. He was referring to me personally. He

12 pointed a finger at me and he said, "Sir, you killed

13 him."

14 Q. And this was just two or three minutes after

15 the incident?

16 A. Yes. If I can explain the reason why I was

17 there with BritBat. I went there to seek assistance

18 regarding the attack by the Muslim forces from the

19 Zabilje area. I arrived in a vehicle in front and I

20 drove to the camp and the Muslims there took it away

21 from me. I was protected by my driver, and we almost

22 forced our way in. The British soldiers did allow us

23 in. And this is when the killing in Stari Vitez took

24 place. De la Mota was on the way. And two or three

25 minutes passed, and he pointed his finger at me and he

1 said, "Sir, you killed him."

2 Q. Did he tell you why he had come to that

3 conclusion?

4 A. He made no further comment, and he said that

5 he will have no further cooperation with the HVO.

6 Q. You were interrupted in giving an answer

7 related to the killing of Dobrila Kolaba. Could you

8 just tell the Court what you had wanted to say when you

9 were cut off, sir?

10 A. The investigation indeed tried to determine

11 all the facts. When I arrived at the house where she

12 had been killed, there was no body there. I talked to

13 the British officers who were there. They said that

14 they had removed a body, that they were very sorry that

15 she was killed. I asked about what other houses were

16 around and from which of the surrounding houses a shot

17 could have been fired. Then they pointed approximately

18 the direction from which the shot or the burst of fire

19 had come. And according to them, she was shot by us, a

20 single bullet, even though we saw several pock marks on

21 the facade. And I told them, after they had shown me

22 the direction that they thought that the shot had come

23 from, I told them that our forces were not in that

24 area.

25 Q. Thank you. Now, you were asked some

1 questions about various documents that you were shown,

2 and I wonder if the registrar might put before you

3 Exhibit Z672.2A. You were also asked some questions

4 about the enumeration on these orders, and I wonder if

5 I can ask the registrar to locate Exhibit D17/1.20

6 while you're looking at that document, Major.

7 Now, Major, have you ever seen this document

8 before? Can you confirm for the Court whether it is or

9 it is not authentic, a real document. Can you help us

10 out on that?

11 A. As far as this document is concerned, I can

12 say that I sent a similar document to this one, or

13 perhaps this one; however, there is no signature of

14 mine there. But a document similar to this one I did

15 send to the chief of counterintelligence.

16 And if I may just add one more thing

17 regarding the registration numbers. I did not use a

18 single protocol book. The Prosecutor didn't allow me

19 to elaborate. You see that the duty operations officer

20 uses one code number, and I used one for reports, one

21 for information, one for daily reports. So they are

22 not from the same log book or protocol book.

23 MR. SAYERS: All right. I wonder if the

24 registrar could put on the ELMO the Croatian version,

25 first page of the Croatian version, of an order signed

1 by Commander Totic on the 5th of April of 1993.

2 Q. As we can see on this document, sir, it's

3 dated April 5th, 1993, but the number is 703/93. Can

4 you throw any light on that for us, because that

5 appears to be a number which is later, sequentially,

6 than the number that appears on Exhibit Z672.2A,

7 although that document is dated apparently 11 days

8 later.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Can you tell the Court how that change in

11 sequence or how that apparently illogical sequence came

12 to be, the numerical sequence?

13 A. It's the same as the clarification that I

14 have just given. There were several books of protocol,

15 or log books, and the brigade commander has his own log

16 book. And if he personally produced a document, it

17 would be entered there; and if it wasn't, then it would

18 be logged in another one. However, there is also a

19 joint log book. So there is not a single log book

20 where the documents are entered, so the numbers do not

21 necessarily reflect the sequence in which these

22 documents were sent out.

23 MR. SAYERS: Thank you very much. I'm

24 through with that document. Just three other sets of

25 questions, and I'll be done in just a minute or two. I

1 wonder if you could be shown a copy of the photograph

2 that was identified as Exhibit Z2546. I actually have

3 a copy of it here. We can just put it on the ELMO, if

4 I may. Thank you.

5 Q. The person on the left of the picture, sir,

6 who's that?

7 A. I believe that it was one of the British

8 officers who was with us. I cannot recall exactly

9 who. This was a long time ago, and thousands of faces

10 have gone through my mind, but I think that this was

11 one of them.

12 Q. And the person to the right, around whom you

13 have your arm, I believe, is the British officer's

14 interpreter, a Muslim lady; correct?

15 A. My arm is actually on the side; and yes, it

16 is an interpreter.

17 Q. Very well. Just one question in connection

18 with Exhibit Z812.1, which was an ECMM weekly summary

19 for the week of April 17th to the 24th, 1993. Let me

20 just read out to you, sir, a section on page 2, a very

21 short section. I just invite your comments on this, if

22 I may.

23 "The regional centre in Zenica was requested

24 by a so-called group of Mujahedins in order to mediate

25 in the negotiations to exchange the Croat hostages for

1 the Arabic prisoners. The Muslim extremist factions in

2 Zenica were working in the town without any apparent

3 control, people arrested, actions against CRO, or

4 Croatian or Croat buildings, assault to CD radio."

5 Were there any Muslim extremist factions

6 actually arresting people and basically operating

7 without any visible control in Zenica at the time that

8 you say the attack was launched by the ABiH on that

9 city, sir? Or to be more accurate, upon the HVO and

10 Croat civilians in that city.

11 A. As far as the prewar situation is concerned,

12 that is, before the Muslims attacked Croats in Zenica,

13 on a number of occasions they were killing our men,

14 either in cafes or in front of coffee bars, in

15 intersections. They threatened people, either that

16 they would expel them, that they would kill them, or

17 something like that, and especially after the attack of

18 the ABiH forces, which together with the Mujahedin

19 attacked Croats in Zenica.

20 Not only did it result in Croats being

21 arrested, but I can tell you about a case which

22 happened before my brother was arrested. About 15

23 Mujahedin got out of a van in Mala Broda, near Cedomir

24 Jonic's house. They fanned out in the area of three to

25 four hundred meters, they searched houses, and there

1 are women and children almost in every house. They

2 made them leave their houses, they frightened them,

3 they ransacked homes, and this was something that was

4 happening day and night.

5 The Muslims who lived in the surrounding

6 houses would send messages out to the Mujahedin, and

7 then the special police or some police would show up to

8 allegedly protect people and calm things down.

9 However, whenever the Mujahedin would show up, these

10 police would just withdraw, so there was no protection

11 whatsoever.

12 Q. And one final set of questions relating to

13 Exhibit Z881.1, about which you were asked, if I may.

14 I actually have a copy here.

15 MR. SAYERS: With the Court's permission, we

16 can just put page 2 on the ELMO.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

18 MR. SAYERS: Thank you.

19 Page 2, please. Page 2, please.

20 Q. Now, Major Gelic, I appreciate this is in

21 English, so I'll read it slowly. And let's go over

22 each one of these things here. It says:

23 The Vitez LO, that's liaison officer,

24 confirms the following details on the 4th Battalion HVO

25 MP, meaning military police, aka, which means also

1 known as, Jokeri, and in brackets appear the words

2 "Black Knights."

3 First, isn't it true that the Jokers were

4 actually a subunit of a company known as the 4th

5 Battalion of the military police?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. It's true, therefore, the comment that's made

8 that the 4th Battalion of military police is also known

9 as the Jokers. Is there any substance to that, sir?

10 A. This whole excerpt is not correct.

11 Q. And the comment that the Jokers are also

12 known as the Black Knights, or I believe it's in

13 Croatian, Crni Vitezovi, that's not correct either, is

14 it?

15 A. Correct.

16 Q. And the Vitezovi were actually not even

17 military police, were they, as far as you know?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And the comment goes on to say that if this

20 is the case, then certain conclusions could be drawn,

21 after the observation that this unit apparently comes

22 under the direct control of Dario Kordic and is under

23 the local control of Tihomir Blaskic.

24 Let me ask you, sir: Was Dario Kordic ever

25 in a position of responsibility or authority with

1 respect to either the 4th Battalion of military police,

2 its subunit, the Jokers, or the Vitezovi, as far as you

3 know, from all of your experience in the headquarters

4 of the HVO for approximately nine months?

5 A. No. Mr. Kordic never had any authority, nor

6 could he command any of these units.

7 MR. SAYERS: Thank you very much indeed,

8 Mr. President. No further questions.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Major, I'd like to ask you a

10 question. If Mr. Kordic had given you an instruction

11 to do something, what would be your reaction?

12 A. Well, Your Honours, I would first have to

13 report to my superior and seek his permission; that is,

14 it would have to be my superior commander who would

15 have to authorise me to comply with the orders of

16 somebody else.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

18 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honour, could I put one

19 unusual request, Your Honour?

20 JUDGE MAY: Another question, no.

21 MR. KOVACIC: It was just when this document

22 was presented. Just one simple question. I may avoid

23 a couple of witnesses. Just asking one simple

24 question, the same which was asked based on the

25 document.

1 JUDGE MAY: What is the question you want to

2 ask?

3 MR. KOVACIC: The question should be whether

4 Mr. Cerkez was in any command position towards the

5 mentioned units on those documents.

6 JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to allow you to ask

7 it, but you've heard the question, Major Gelic. Was

8 Mr. Cerkez in any command position in relation to the

9 Jokers or any of those other units which were mentioned

10 in the document?

11 A. No.

12 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you for

13 coming. You are released, free to go.

14 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honours.

15 [The witness withdrew]

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Naumovski.

17 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

18 our next witness is Colonel Zvonko Vukovic. However,

19 while we're waiting for him to be brought in, I should

20 like to say that when Colonel Vukovic agreed to testify

21 here in The Hague, he also asked that he be placed

22 under -- he asked for some protective measures, for

23 reasons that were listed in the motion that was

24 submitted. However, meanwhile, Colonel Vukovic has

25 said that he gave it a second thought, changed his

1 mind, and should like the hearing to be public, and

2 therefore we should like to withdraw our motion for

3 protective measures.

4 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

5 MR. NICE: While he's arriving, can I tell

6 the Chamber this: First of all, Mr. Scott will be

7 dealing with this witness, and unless the Chamber

8 expresses disapproval, I shan't necessarily be in for

9 all the evidence, because there are things to do.

10 The second thing: We've received a summary

11 this morning of the next witness the Defence intend to

12 call. For some reason, a letter of which we've now

13 been given a copy notifying us, I think, last Friday

14 that they were going to call him this week as opposed

15 to next week, it hasn't yet been traced in the

16 building. It may be in the building or it may not yet

17 have arrived, I don't yet know, a fax.

18 But in any event, I will just alert the

19 Chamber to the fact that we're in considerable

20 difficulties, not being in any sense alerted to the

21 fact that that witness was going to be called next.

22 But I'll see what the position is when I've been able

23 to attend to the papers that I have in relation to

24 these witnesses.

25 Mr. Scott is now here.

1 MR. SAYERS: If I may, Mr. President, we sent

2 a fax last Friday to the Prosecution, I believe, and it

3 outlined the anticipated order of witnesses for the

4 next two weeks. And that followed on an earlier

5 communication that we had sent regarding the expected

6 witnesses for the next three weeks. And this witness

7 was identified, I think, in all of those faxes, and in

8 our last Friday fax, as witness number 3 for this

9 week.

10 We've also provided the summary of this

11 witness's evidence by fax to the Prosecution yesterday,

12 and I believe we sent a copy to the Court as well.

13 JUDGE MAY: How long do you anticipate this

14 witness will be, Mr. Naumovski?

15 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Well, Your

16 Honours, between half an hour and an hour. I don't

17 think that the examination-in-chief will take more than

18 an hour.

19 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the

20 declaration.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly

22 declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,

23 and nothing but the truth.

24 WITNESS: ZVONKO VUKOVIC

25 [Witness answered through interpreter]

1 Examined by Mr. Naumovski:

2 Q. Colonel Vukovic, before we begin, I have

3 already explained to Their Honours that you thought

4 about it and decided to testify in public, so that we

5 are now in open session.

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Could you give us your full name?

8 A. My name is Zvonko Vukovic.

9 Q. You were born on the 26th of January, 1964,

10 in the village of Potkraj?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. That is, the Travnik municipality?

13 A. Yes, Travnik municipality.

14 Q. And you are married and have three children?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Before this war broke out in

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, you lived in your native village,

18 in the village of Potkraj, which is about seven

19 kilometres away from Travnik?

20 A. Yes, west of Travnik.

21 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel and the

22 witness please pause between question and answer.

23 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Naumovski, we are getting a

24 request from the interpreters for a pause.

25 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] It's been a

1 long time since I conducted examination, and I slightly

2 lost touch. I'm sorry. I shall do my best not to

3 repeat that mistake.

4 Q. Colonel, will you please also wait a little

5 bit after you've heard my question, until it is

6 interpreted, and then answer it?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. So I was about to ask you: You and your

9 family and other Croat families were expelled from your

10 native village by the army of Bosnian Serbs?

11 A. Yes, that is correct, in November 1992.

12 Q. And your house was burnt down, and you lost

13 all the property that you had been acquiring for years?

14 A. Yes. We lost everything, I and my family, we

15 lost everything there.

16 Q. If I understood you properly, with the help

17 of the community at large, you are repairing now your

18 house and are planning to go back to your native place?

19 A. Well, yes, I'm planning to bring all these

20 works to an end and go back.

21 Q. A few words about your earlier military

22 service.

23 You served your regular military service with

24 the JNA between February 1985 to March 1996?

25 A. Yes, that was the period of time.

1 Q. 1986, sorry. And then between June 1988 to

2 September 1991, you worked in Travnik for the Yugoslav

3 People's Army as a professional noncommissioned

4 officer. You were under a contract with them, weren't

5 you?

6 A. Yes. I applied when they had the public

7 competition, and during that period of time I worked

8 for the Yugoslav People's Army. I had a technical job.

9 Q. However, in September 1991, when the war

10 broke out in Croatia, you left the JNA, didn't you?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And you were one of the first members of

13 the -- first JNA members who left the barracks in

14 Travnik?

15 A. The first one.

16 Q. And when you left the JNA when the HVO began

17 to take shape, you were one of the first members and

18 organisers of the HVO in the area, weren't you?

19 A. Yes. When I left the former JNA, I

20 immediately placed myself at the disposal of the

21 lawful, legal authorities in the municipality of

22 Travnik, and the authority was shared by Croats and

23 Bosniaks. In the municipality of Travnik, I had no

24 contact with the Serb side during that period of time.

25 Q. So at the time, at the time when you joined

1 in the organisation of the HVO in Central Bosnia, you

2 were captured by the Bosnian Serb army when you went to

3 participate in negotiations on the 26th of April,

4 1992. They were to take place on the Vlasic mountain?

5 A. Yes. On the 26th of April, 1992, being a

6 member of the army which had then already got the name

7 of the Croat Defence Council, and Mr. Boris Matisic,

8 president of the executive board of the municipality of

9 Travnik, we together went to Vlasic after a previous

10 agreement to talk to representatives of the Bosnian

11 Serb army about the turnover of the barracks in Travnik

12 and the military depot in Slimena. However, rather

13 than to do as agreed, they tricked us. They

14 immediately bound us up and escorted us to the prison

15 in Stari Gradiska. And while we were there, we were

16 ill-treated and beaten. When I returned, I immediately

17 went for treatment in the Travnik hospital.

18 Q. So you were being treated for a heavy beating

19 and the effects of that heavy beating that you were

20 exposed to during your captivity by the Bosnian Serbs?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And the last thing, I'm now referring to

23 paragraph 7, about your military service.

24 Between the 8th of August, 1997, to the 6th

25 of September, 1999, you were the head of the Department

1 for Rules of Conduct and Development in the Ministry of

2 Defence in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in

3 Sarajevo?

4 A. Yes. During that period of time, 1997, I

5 left my duty in the command of the 3rd Corps in Vitez

6 and went to the Ministry of Defence of the Federation

7 of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

8 Q. You had the rank of Colonel in the Federation

9 army, you still have it, and at present you're on sick

10 leave, aren't you?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Now we shall move on to the organisation and

13 chain of command in the military police of Central

14 Bosnia at the time when you served with it.

15 A moment ago, you told us that you were

16 treated in the Travnik hospital for injuries you

17 suffered when you were beaten by Serbs during your

18 captivity. However, towards the end of May 1992, you

19 nevertheless joined the HVO again?

20 A. Yes. As soon as I recovered or even before I

21 was fully recovered, I left the hospital and went home

22 for house care, so that about a month after my release,

23 I joined the HVO again and placed myself at their

24 disposal.

25 Q. And you then became deputy commander of the

1 HVO military police, which was then about to be set up

2 for the whole area of Central Bosnia?

3 A. True. After I reported to them, I made

4 contact with Mr. Ivan Lalic, who had already been

5 appointed the commander of the regional military police

6 for Central Bosnia.

7 However, during that period of time, there

8 was no command, that is, that commanded the regional

9 police. The only one I found there at the time was

10 Ivan Lalic, who had been designated -- who had been

11 appointed the commander and nothing else.

12 Q. Yes. Well, it had not yet taken shape.

13 There wasn't even the command, that was not in

14 existence yet. However, Mr. Ivan Lalic was then

15 transferred, and in October of that year, that is, on

16 the 15th of October, 1992, you replaced Mr. Ivan Lalic

17 and became the commander of the regional military

18 police in Central Bosnia; is that so?

19 A. Yes, it is. When Mr. Ivan Lalic went to take

20 a new duty in Mostar in early October 1992, I was

21 appointed the commander of the regional military

22 police. And at that same time, the new commander, that

23 is, myself, was tasked with reorganising the regional

24 military police into the 4th Battalion of the military

25 police.

1 Q. In other words, it was only when you became

2 the commander that the proper organisation of the

3 military police began. And you were involved with this

4 organisation until the end of 1992, and by that time

5 you managed to form not only your command but also to

6 bring together quite a number of the force, so that the

7 4th Battalion of the military police had some 550 to

8 600 members by the end of November?

9 A. Well, yes. When I was appointed on the 15th

10 of October, 1992, we first undertook the setting up of

11 the command itself, and then trying to use the existing

12 military police forces which existed in municipalities

13 alongside municipal commands. So we reorganised that

14 military police into the 4th Military Police Battalion,

15 and it now had the command of the 4th Battalion of the

16 military police and it was --

17 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Naumovski, it's time for the

18 break. Would that be a convenient moment?

19 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Absolutely,

20 Your Honour.

21 JUDGE MAY: Half an hour.

22 --- Recess taken at 11.02 a.m.

23 --- On resuming at 11.35 a.m.

24 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Naumovski.

25 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Thank you,

1 Your Honours.

2 Q. Colonel Vukovic, we may take up where we

3 stopped. So you began to tell us about the

4 establishment, the instatement, of the 4th Battalion of

5 the military police, and in paragraph 10 of our summary

6 you say that first five companies were set up, and you

7 indicated which were their areas of responsibility and

8 you were asked something about that. You can then

9 answer his questions in detail, all right?

10 A. I see.

11 Q. So you will agree with this approach?

12 A. Fully.

13 Q. You will agree with me that this

14 organisation, the organisation, was an ongoing

15 process. When Jajce fell, one of the companies ceased

16 to function, but others were set up. So this was a

17 process that underwent many changes; isn't that a fact?

18 A. Yes, it is.

19 Q. As for these companies which were set up,

20 very briefly, every company had its commander?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And who do they account to, these commanders?

23 A. The commanders, during that period of time,

24 accounted, administratively and logistically speaking,

25 to the commander of the 4th Battalion of the military

1 police, that is, myself, and in their daily work the

2 company commanders, on the ground -- that is,

3 commanders of platoons, commanders of squads --

4 accounted to commanders of companies, or rather at that

5 period of time brigades began to grow at the municipal

6 level; that is, municipal brigades began to be formed

7 at the time.

8 Q. To make it quite clear, it means that in

9 places there were companies formed, and in some places,

10 where there would be several platoons from different

11 areas, they would all make one company; is that so?

12 A. Yes. That is, companies and platoons were

13 formed on the territorial principle, like before; that

14 is, municipal headquarters, subsequently brigades.

15 That is, say, depending on the area of the municipality

16 and the size of the population which lived in the

17 territory at the time. So depending on that, we tried

18 to assess the necessary strength of the military police

19 unit in those areas of responsibility.

20 Q. We can move on to the next item, paragraph

21 12. You commanded the 4th Battalion of the military

22 police between the 15th of October 1992 and until the

23 18th of January, 1993?

24 A. Yes. That is, I was the commander of the 4th

25 Battalion of the military police during that period of

1 time. And on the 17th I was issued a decree from the

2 head of the administration of the military police from

3 Mostar that I would not be a commander any longer, that

4 my successor would be Pasko Ljubicic, and that I should

5 turn over the duty immediately, which I did, and that I

6 showed that report in agreement -- pursuant to the

7 previous agreement. That is, I knew one month in

8 advance that this would happen, that I shall report it

9 to the administration of the military police for

10 further posting. And the head of this administration

11 intended to appoint me to one of the offices in the

12 administration of the military police, and I had agreed

13 to that almost a month before it actually happened.

14 Q. Colonel Vukovic, on the last day that you

15 still had the post of the commander before Pasko

16 Ljubicic took it over, an unfortunate incident

17 happened, and a person, an individual who was working

18 in close cooperation with you, was killed. That is

19 your driver, isn't it?

20 A. Yes. On the 18th of January, 1993, Beber was

21 killed. He was the driver of the 4th Battalion of the

22 military police, who served as my personal driver. And

23 that same evening, the criminal investigation

24 department of the service of the 4th Battalion,

25 together with the MUP of the municipality of Travnik

1 and the military police of the Army of

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time conducted the

3 investigation, but it never came to a court hearing.

4 According to some information that I received

5 later, I believe that I was to be assassinated that

6 same day when he was killed. It happened on January

7 18th, in Travnik. At that time the BH army already was

8 fully controlling those parts, that is, that part of

9 the municipality of Travnik.

10 Q. Colonel Vukovic, so although you were to go

11 to a new duty in Mostar, you did not take up that

12 office, did you?

13 A. I did not take up that office, because when I

14 received the decision that I was to hand over my

15 previous duty, I was to report, and I was to report

16 within a reasonable period of time, that is, of some 15

17 or 20 days, to my new duty. But in late January, after

18 I turned over my previous duty, a conflict, fighting,

19 broke out between the BH army and the Croat Defence

20 Council in Kacuni, that is, in the municipality of

21 Busovaca. And it took some time, so that I could not

22 report then, because all the roads had been blocked by

23 that time and one could not safely go through to

24 Mostar. And I therefore reported about that to the

25 administration where I was to go, where I was to

1 report.

2 Q. And my last questions are about this in

3 chapter E, which says subsequent assignments, paragraph

4 14. So you could not leave to take up your new duty

5 and Colonel Blaskic, as the commander of the Central

6 Bosnia Operative Zone, he appointed you to a different

7 duty, didn't he? What was that?

8 A. Yes. On the 18th of January, 1993, when the

9 fighting had ended, the fighting that began in the end

10 of January, in late January 1993, in Busovaca, at that

11 time General Blaskic was in Kiseljak, and that day he

12 was not in Vitez, at the headquarters in Vitez. And I

13 was then appointed by Colonel Blaskic at the time to

14 become the assistant commander of the Operative Zone of

15 Central Bosnia for Home Guards.

16 Q. That was a new office. It did not exist

17 before that, did it? So you were tasked with forming a

18 service which had not been in existence before that; is

19 that it?

20 A. Yes, because I also had said that I would

21 rather stay there and not change the decision and go to

22 Mostar, so that I was at the free disposal. And this

23 newly-established office, I think it was the commander

24 of the Main Staff about to be formed on the basis of

25 the organisation which was being developed at that time

1 by the Main Staff of the Croat Defence Council.

2 Q. Did you manage to organise the Home Guards

3 force in the Operative Zone, Central Bosnia?

4 A. Home Guards force, as it was conceived and as

5 it was supposed to be organised, that was never brought

6 to an end. This process was only begun.

7 On the 18th of February, when I was ordered

8 to do that, we first, as instructed, undertook to set

9 up Home Guard formations. We held several meetings

10 with officers who were to command those units and

11 defence officers which were to mobilise men for these

12 units. Meanwhile -- and that was the period of time --

13 that was about a month, month and a half. What we know

14 already happened, that is, that fighting broke out in

15 Vitez on the 16th of April, so this process came to a

16 halt and there was no way -- there was no possibility

17 to proceed with this organisation.

18 Q. So the beginning of the fighting in Travnik

19 in 1993 put an end to what you had begun to do,

20 organising the Home Guard units?

21 A. Yes, that is correct.

22 Q. The Chamber has already heard a great deal

23 about the joint command which was set up towards the

24 end of April 1993 after a ceasefire agreement had been

25 reached. That is paragraph 15 in our summary.

1 However, after this joint command of the

2 forces of the HVO and the army of BH was set up at the

3 level of the Operative Zone of the 3rd Corps of the

4 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, you became one of its

5 members, didn't you, of that command?

6 A. Yes. Well, in the beginning, I referred to

7 the 3rd Corps and the Operative Zone of Central Bosnia

8 set up a commission, and it included, at the outset,

9 Mr. Zoran Pilicic and Mr. Marko Prskalo, who later on,

10 after returning from one of those meetings, were both

11 wounded.

12 After that, that team -- or, rather, later on

13 an understanding was reached between the 3rd Corps and

14 the headquarters of the Operative Zone of Central

15 Bosnia to appoint me to the joint command, and its seat

16 was in the municipality of Travnik or, to be more --

17 and Mr. Franjo Nakic was appointed to the same

18 commission, Mr. Vlado Juric, and my humble self was

19 also appointed to it. And Mr. Vlado Juric worked

20 together in this joint command. We were operations

21 officers.

22 Q. And at the head of the command of this joint

23 command were Franjo Nakic, on one side as the HVO

24 representative, and Dzemal Merdan as an officer of the

25 3rd Corps of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, isn't it,

1 and there were several of his officers too?

2 A. Yes. So Mr. Franjo Nakic and Mr. Dzemal

3 Merdan headed it. And in addition to Dzemal Merdan,

4 there were two more operations officers in the 3rd

5 Corps and one liaison officer from each side who were

6 responsible only for establishing communication. That

7 is, there was one liaison officer on the BH army side

8 and one on the HVO side.

9 Q. In view of the developments on the ground in

10 spite of the ceasefire agreement, eventually resulting

11 in the fact that the joint command could not obtain any

12 good results because you had to deal with a number of

13 minor incidents, and so that the whole idea about

14 setting up the joint command was somehow diverted to a

15 different course?

16 A. Yes. When we formed this joint command

17 representing the 3rd Corps and the Operative Zone, the

18 commanders of the Operative Zone of Central Bosnia and

19 the commander of the 3rd Corps had signed an order, and

20 that order said that the aim was to plan military

21 operations in relation to the army of Republika

22 Srpska. And in that -- we began, therefore, to draw up

23 a plan for a joint operation which was to be carried

24 out in [indiscernible]. It, however, never took place

25 because daily at that time, and that was already May

1 1993, from one day to the other incidents began to

2 occur, all sorts of problems arose, so that some

3 problems jointly and with the [indiscernible] of the

4 International Community, that is, ECMM and UNPROFOR, we

5 had to go out into the field every day. And Mr. Nakic

6 and Mr. Merdan would always go out together.

7 Q. Let us move on to the next topic, that is,

8 persecution.

9 In this case, Colonel Vukovic, we've heard a

10 great deal about persecutions. At the beginning, when

11 you gave us your particulars, you mentioned your

12 example and told us how you had been expelled from your

13 home. Tell us, please, throughout the period of time

14 when you held different military offices and while you

15 commanded the 4th Battalion of the military police, did

16 you receive any order at all that the HVO should

17 persecute either Muslims or members of some other

18 ethnic groups or peoples?

19 A. I can claim, under full responsibility as an

20 officer, that at that time the command of the Operative

21 Zone, Central Bosnia, never. And not from anyone, not

22 from my military superior or from a civilian

23 politician, did I get any order in writing or oral

24 which would show the desire to expel or duty to expel

25 Muslims from the areas in which we lived.

1 Q. Tell us, please, have you ever heard that

2 anyone publicly or privately advocated or promoted

3 inadvertent comments on this specific policy?

4 A. I can repeat it only that nobody ever asked

5 me to do that or ordered me to do that, nor did I order

6 or instruct my subordinates while I was with the 4th

7 Battalion military police, nor after I turned over that

8 duty. So I never heard any such thing, never told me

9 any such thing, nobody ever requested any such thing

10 from me.

11 Q. We've mentioned military and political

12 factors, and this brings us to paragraph 18.

13 Tell us, please, while you commanded the 4th

14 Military Police Battalion, who issued orders to you?

15 A. Well, as I said, in the beginning I told you

16 how companies and platoons were organised, the

17 operative daily orders, who issued operative daily

18 orders, and what were my powers in terms of the

19 organisation of the military police, the 4th Battalion,

20 and then its organisation and companies. So in my

21 daily work, I accounted to the commander of the

22 Operative Zone of Central Bosnia, but all the tasks,

23 all the orders that were issued, were issued through

24 the commanders of platoons, that is, squads on the

25 ground.

1 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation]

2 Mr. Naumovski, I would like to ask the following

3 question of the witness: Considering his rank within

4 the military hierarchy -- he was a colonel -- does he

5 seriously think that the military live -- cut off from

6 the rest of the world amongst themselves without any

7 relations with politicians, with political structure,

8 political objectives that are set out by the political

9 structure, and that's the case in all countries in the

10 world? Colonel Vukovic, you knew what were the

11 objectives you were fighting for, and you knew who was

12 setting these objectives? You were not just fighting

13 for the sake of fighting.

14 MR. NAUMOVSKI:

15 Q. Did you understand the question?

16 A. Yes, of course. Your Honours, at that time I

17 was not such a high-ranking officer to have any contact

18 with the political life. As an officer, as a

19 commander, at that time I was nowhere near them, nor

20 was I under their orders. That is what I wanted to

21 say. That is one thing.

22 Secondly, I was not a colonel at the time in

23 1991. I was an NCO, a noncommissioned officer in the

24 former army, and it was gradually -- in the course of

25 this war, which was not to our liking, I gradually was

1 promoted, I moved up, and this is what I am today.

2 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Very well.

3 So you were a part of the military hierarchy. You were

4 a commander, you were receiving orders from your

5 superiors. So my question is the following: The

6 people that were above you at any level in the army you

7 belonged to, did these people, these superiors, did

8 they have contact with politicians? Were you aware

9 that they had contact with politicians and there was,

10 indeed, a political objective that was being pursued in

11 what we have to call a war?

12 A. As regards political objectives, I did not

13 have an opportunity to listen to them. What we had

14 were our daily tasks and problems we solved, and my

15 goal or my primary goal was to first join those units.

16 And when the HVO was formed, then my prime goal was the

17 defence against the Serb aggressor, because I lived in

18 an area which was completely surrounded, that is, the

19 Serb enemies surrounded them from three sides.

20 And on Mount Vlasic, Mount Vlasic, the Serb

21 aggressor, the former Yugoslav People's Army, their

22 reservists had already taken possession of that

23 mountain in February 1993, so that our movement in the

24 area where I lived was restricted not due to the

25 beginning of the war in April or May -- it depends --

1 but in early February 1992. As of early February 1992,

2 I had to use completely new paths to get to my home, so

3 as of the latter half of February.

4 Now I'm trying to explain with regard to our

5 points of contact with the Serb army, and that was the

6 hostile army, my family, my wife, my parents, we were

7 all there, and what I was concerned with was only to

8 resist the Serb aggressor at the time.

9 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] The

10 territory you were defending, how did you define that

11 territory?

12 A. In the early days of the war, the front

13 against the enemy army, the army of Bosnian Serbs, we

14 took up those front lines. We did not have to go eight

15 or ten or twelve kilometres from home. We took our

16 positions immediately above our homes, when we tried to

17 set up guards and to form the front line. At that

18 time, we dug a trench here and there. We introduced

19 duty. We tried to chose some commanders, to post

20 commanders, and it was that we spent most time and

21 effort doing that.

22 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Thank you,

23 Your Honour.

24 Q. Colonel Vukovic, let us go back to where we

25 were and to add to what His Honour has just asked you.

1 Before His Honour began to ask you questions, you were

2 telling us that the orders for military operations, for

3 military actions, you were receiving through your chain

4 of command. Is that so?

5 A. Well, that is, as I already told you, during

6 the period when I was active there, I wish to say, and

7 I believe it is important to say, the following: That

8 is, between early October, when I was appointed the

9 commander, or rather the 15th of October, 1992, when I

10 was appointed the commander of the 4th Battalion of the

11 military police, that month I immediately embarked on

12 setting up, on establishing, the military police and

13 the command, and at that time I was alone. After a

14 month -- we needed a month or a month and a half or so

15 to form the 4th Battalion of the military police. And

16 the command of the 4th Battalion of the military police

17 and the military police were my doing; that is, I

18 organised it, and the whole process took about two

19 months.

20 I want to say what else we had to face up to

21 during that period of time. In late October, or the

22 29th of October, Jajce fell, and this gave rise to

23 numerous problems, because through Travnik, where we

24 were, all those refugees went through it, so we had to

25 accommodate them. People were going through, and so on

1 and so forth. And meanwhile, after the fall of Jajce,

2 17 days later, my village, Potkraj, fell, and that was

3 a purely Croat village with purely Croat population,

4 2.600 inhabitants it had. And the Bosnian Serb army

5 took that village, and with my own eyes I saw on

6 television how a Serb major says that they've taken yet

7 another Serb village.

8 So that was that period of time when I had

9 problems; that is, for seven or eight days I had to

10 deal with my personal problems, accommodations, and

11 everything else. And my operative orders to company or

12 squad commanders were issued after the fall of Potkraj,

13 when sectors were formed against the Army of Republika

14 Srpska to defend ourselves, to prevent them from

15 entering Travnik. My first combat order was to set up

16 defence resistance points to prevent the breakthrough

17 of the Serb forces.

18 Q. I wanted to interrupt you. Let me take you

19 back to -- I wanted to not interrupt you because you

20 could lose your train of thought. So let's try to keep

21 a break between the answers and questions.

22 Now, when we talk about the structure here,

23 there was the Main Staff and there was the Operative

24 Zones below it. The head of the Main Staff, and at

25 first it was Milivoj Petkovic, was the top military

1 person?

2 A. Milivoj Petkovic, to my knowledge, was the

3 chief of Main Staff and he was the top officer of the

4 armed forces. And from the rules of the armed forces

5 of Herceg-Bosna, the commander-in-chief was the late

6 president Mr. Mate Boban. He was the

7 commander-in-chief.

8 Q. But he was not a soldier; he was the

9 president of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and

10 later president of the Croatian Republic of

11 Herceg-Bosna?

12 A. Yes, I'm aware of that.

13 Q. Mr. Vukovic --

14 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation]

15 Mr. Naumovski, the witness has just told us that

16 Mr. Mate Boban, if I read correctly on the transcript,

17 that Mr. Mate Boban was the actual commander-in-chief

18 of the HVO. You've corrected that. We would like to

19 have not your opinion, but the opinion of the witness.

20 He says that Mr. Petkovic is the top commanding officer

21 of the armed forces and that above him the

22 commander-in-chief, i.e., the politician, the one who

23 sets the strategy, is Mr. Mate Boban.

24 Can you, Witness, can you confirm what you've

25 just said, Colonel Vukovic?

1 A. I can confirm, according to my knowledge, to

2 the extent that I know, that the commander of the Main

3 Staff of the HVO was at that time Brigadier Milivoj

4 Petkovic. And I only am saying what I was able to see

5 and read. In the rules of the armed forces of the HVO,

6 which was published in 1992, and a certain number of

7 copies were produced at the time, there it said

8 commander-in-chief, and I believe that I am referring

9 to what I remember.

10 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Yes, but Your Honour asked you who was the

12 commander-in-chief. You never mentioned his name.

13 A. Oh, I said that the commander-in-chief, as I

14 said previously, was Mr. Mate Boban.

15 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honour,

16 that is not in dispute. I did not say otherwise, and I

17 don't know what was entered in the transcript. I may

18 have misspoken. I don't know. But this is a fact that

19 is not in dispute.

20 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Thank you.

21 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Let me complete the paragraph 18. Your

23 experience with the military police, at the time while

24 you were its commander, did any politician from Central

25 Bosnia ever issue any military order to you?

1 A. While I was the commander of the military

2 police, no politician ever issued any order to me, oral

3 or written.

4 Q. Did you ever hear that any politician in

5 Central Bosnia -- Mr. Kordic, Kostroman, Valenta,

6 Santic, or anyone else -- had issued any kind of order

7 to anybody in the military police?

8 A. I did not have any such information, nor did

9 anyone tell me about it. And for myself, I can say

10 with certainty that nobody issued me any orders.

11 Q. We're getting close to finishing the

12 examination-in-chief. My apologies.

13 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation]

14 Mr. Naumovski, the witness has just told us that,

15 according to him, the supreme commander of the HVO was

16 Mr. Mate Boban. I would like to ask the witness

17 whether he heard about the kind of relation there was

18 between Mr. Mate Boban and Mr. Kordic.

19 A. I cannot speak to this. I was never close to

20 Mr. Dario Kordic or Mr. Mate Boban. I never attended

21 any meeting, no planning session, I was never briefed

22 on any of that, and I don't even know what meetings

23 were held in that regard. I was not in their vicinity

24 to be able to say anything positive or negative. I

25 never received orders from any of those. I had my own

1 chain of command while I was in the military police.

2 And also, later, when I became assistant commander for

3 Home Guard, I was not at that level that I could say

4 anything very specific about that.

5 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Let us turn to Mr. Kordic. You know that he

7 held certain duties in the Croatian Democratic Union of

8 Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the main political

9 party of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

10 A. I know that at first he was a fairly

11 high-ranking official in the HDZ. I don't know exactly

12 what post he held and I don't know when he held which

13 post, but at some point he became a vice-president of

14 the HDZ. I don't know whether there was one such post

15 or several, but I know that he was one.

16 Q. At that time he was relatively popular. He

17 was also covered in the media. You had an opportunity

18 to hear him?

19 A. Yes, I did, in public places.

20 Q. Have you ever heard him, in cases when you

21 were present, when Mr. Kordic spoke publicly, that he

22 used any derogatory terms against Muslims or against

23 any ethnic group?

24 A. I was not present at many of these speeches,

25 but on the occasions when I was present, which was

1 early on, I never gained an impression, nor did I ever

2 have a reason to suspect that Mr. Kordic had any hatred

3 towards any ethnic group or that he spoke badly about

4 them. Again, I did not attend many of those, and when

5 he did address people, I did not hear such things, or

6 maybe I did not understand it, but I am not aware of

7 it, anyway.

8 Q. While you were in the military police, and

9 later on when you were in the Operative Zone, that is,

10 when you were Bahic's [phoen] assistant commander for

11 Home Guard, did you ever hear that Mr. Kordic held any

12 military positions?

13 A. As far as I know, in the military

14 establishment there was the Central Bosnia Operative

15 Zone, and its commander at the time was Colonel Tihomir

16 Blaskic. As far as Mr. Kordic is concerned, I am not

17 aware of his having held any military post. And as an

18 officer in the Operative Zone and in the military

19 police, I never had any meetings with him. He never --

20 I never saw him wearing weapons. I saw him in uniform,

21 but it was only from afar. And as far as military

22 duties are concerned, I don't think that he had any.

23 Q. Did you want to add something? I may have

24 interrupted you.

25 A. Nothing special. Just what I said.

1 Q. Very well. Thank you. Mr. Vukovic, very

2 briefly, the last topic. My learned colleague has

3 announced yesterday that Zivko Totic is going to come

4 here and give evidence, but we need to just touch on

5 this topic, because you were involved in the exchange

6 which took place on 17 May 1993, in front of the

7 Intercontinental Hotel in Zenica, when the Mujahedin

8 liberated Commander Totic, the former commander of the

9 Jure Francetic Brigade, and several other officers.

10 Were you present there?

11 A. I was present at the exchange on that day,

12 and as far as I know, the exchange took place at three

13 different points. The first was unknown to us. There

14 were four officers from the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade

15 who for a long time were detained, and we did not know

16 their fate, but they were with the Mujahedin in

17 Rostovo.

18 The second point of exchange was Zenica,

19 where Brigadier Zivko Totic was to have been released.

20 And the third point of exchange was at

21 Kaonik, at the intersection of the

22 Busovaca-Kiseljak-Zenica road. I think this was near

23 the Medijapan factory. An exchange of prisoners was

24 supposed to take place, the foreign citizens who were

25 at that time kept at the Kaonik prison. I was tasked

1 with going to Zenica, which I did. I did not

2 participate in the negotiations, but I was there at

3 12.00, as was agreed. I went with members of the

4 British battalion at Stara Bila who were there at the

5 time: one officer, two soldiers, and then there were

6 some ECMM monitors. I think one of these men's name

7 was Eric. And I was there.

8 Q. In addition to the officials who were present

9 at the exchange, you saw some other people there who

10 were dressed in an unusual way. Could you tell us how

11 many people did you see, what did these people wear,

12 and did they have weapons, and so on?

13 A. When I went to Zenica to get Brigadier Totic,

14 the colleagues who had arranged for the exchange

15 previously told me that I would not be leaving the APC,

16 that we were all going to communicate through the radio

17 to signal the beginning of the exchange. However,

18 something happened which complicated things, and I

19 think that there were these officers from Novi Travnik

20 who had to come a long way from Travnik, so the

21 exchange was delayed by four hours. So it took place

22 at 4.00 p.m. instead of 12.00. And I asked to leave

23 the Hotel Intercontinental, where I was waiting for

24 almost four hours for Totic and for signals to happen.

25 And I asked for the phone to be brought to

1 the APC, and when I did so, I saw 20 to 30 armed

2 soldiers. Some of them even had anti-armament

3 weapons. Some of them were -- they were all wearing

4 masks, and I couldn't recognise any one of them.

5 Q. My colleague is showing something. You said

6 that you had -- that they were wearing -- that they

7 were carrying weapons, that that was anti-armament?

8 A. Well, some of them had small arms and some of

9 them had RPGs and Zoljas. So it's anti-armour. And I

10 think this can be confirmed by the gentleman from the

11 European Monitoring Mission who was there.

12 Q. Before Brigadier Totic was released, you

13 received a letter written by the Mujahedin. Who

14 delivered you this letter?

15 A. While I was a member of the joint command in

16 the post office in Travnik, Mr. Merdan brought me this

17 letter and told me that I should give it to someone who

18 was involved in the exchange of Zivko Totic and the

19 foreign nationals. I asked him who this letter was

20 from, and he said, "From the Mujahedin, but I was asked

21 to give it to you. See, I'm only a mailman today."

22 Later on I gave the letter to Ante Pulestin

23 [phoen]. It was translated at some point. I don't

24 know where it ended up. I know that it was handwritten

25 and I believe that it was in English. For us it had

1 interest because it had a different date, which was the

2 Islamic calendar, and that was unusual to us, so that's

3 how I remember it.

4 Q. Do you have any knowledge whether Dzemal

5 Merdan had any connections with the 7th Muslim Brigade?

6 A. We had opportunities to hear such things, and

7 I heard it on several occasions the 7th Muslim Brigade

8 for a while had a battalion, and I know that they were

9 in Medresa [phoen], which was in a part of Travnik.

10 And as early as October 1992 the commander of the

11 Municipal Staff of Travnik, Ivica Stojic, was killed,

12 and people were saying that Dzemal Merdan was linked

13 with them and that he had influence over them.

14 Q. You mentioned Ivica Stojic. He was killed at

15 a checkpoint manned by the Mujahedin in Travnik. Is it

16 that incident you're referring to?

17 A. As far as I know, there were members of one

18 of the battalions of the 7th Muslim Brigade. They had

19 foreign nationals among them, but there were also some

20 local people.

21 Q. Thank you, Colonel Vukovic.

22 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpreter] Your Honours,

23 usually I am not a very great forecaster of the time

24 that I need, but I think that this time I was pretty

25 much in bounds.

1 MR. KOVACIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

2 Cross-examined by Mr. Kovacic:

3 Q. Good afternoon, Colonel Vukovic. We met each

4 other. My name is Bozidar Kovacic, and along with my

5 colleague, Mr. Mikulicic, represent Mario Cerkez. I

6 have only a few questions for you and I would like you

7 to clarify the points that I raise with you.

8 In order to clarify matters, at the very end

9 of 1992, that is, late November and December 1992, you

10 mentioned that in that period in Novi Travnik there was

11 the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade which was established at

12 the time; is that correct?

13 A. Yes. I know that soldiers from Vitez and

14 Novi Travnik were joined into a single brigade, and I

15 know that its command post was at the Novi Hotel in

16 Novi Travnik.

17 Q. Mr. Vukovic, would you agree that at least in

18 Central Bosnia, this was the only case of an

19 intermunicipal brigade, that is, that there was an HVO

20 brigade that covered two municipalities?

21 A. I don't know.

22 Q. You mean that the brigade was composed of

23 soldiers from both Novi Travnik and Vitez?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Do you know of any other cases where such

1 brigades were established?

2 A. I'm not sure, but perhaps in Zepce, where in

3 early 1992 a number of Croats were expelled from

4 Maglaj, Novi Seher, and even parts of Usara. I don't

5 know. Perhaps in that area they may have established

6 such a brigade, but in the Lasva Valley, Vitez, Novi

7 Travnik, that was the only one which covered both.

8 Q. And you said that its headquarters were in

9 Novi Travnik. You know that first the commander of

10 this brigade was Mr. Borivoje Malbasic?

11 A. I know that for a time it was Mr. Malbasic,

12 but I don't know what period it was and I couldn't

13 place it in time. But I know for certain that he was a

14 commander.

15 Q. So do you know that Mario Cerkez replaced

16 Mr. Malbasic at some point?

17 A. I recall vaguely.

18 Q. What do you recall?

19 A. I know that Mr. Cerkez came to Novi Travnik

20 for certain tasks, that his command post was there, but

21 I again don't know when it was, what period it was.

22 But I know that Borivoje Malbasic was its commander.

23 Q. You know that at that time the HVO was

24 holding the front line against the BSA above Travnik.

25 That was from August 1992, and this was the sector

1 Karagaj [phoen], Kostolac, Palisa [phoen], and that

2 this is where the HVO volunteers would come in shifts,

3 including those from Vitez?

4 A. That is correct, and it is correct that

5 people from the brigade, which was composed of Novi

6 Travnik -- from people of Novi Travnik and Vitez, went

7 to those front lines, and that is about 10, 12

8 kilometres, as the crow flies, from my house, and I

9 know that they suffered some casualties there. This is

10 how I remember it. I believe that they lost two

11 soldiers, two members of the brigade that you're

12 referring to.

13 Q. You will agree that the HVO units from those

14 two places were manning these front lines even before

15 that brigade was established, that is, in the summer of

16 1992?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Regarding the organisation or the

19 establishment of the military police and, more

20 specifically, the 4th Battalion of the military police

21 in Vitez to which you referred, I would only like you

22 to make one clarification.

23 You said that you worked on this

24 establishment for less than two months in an effort to

25 establish it, that you started from basically ground

1 zero, and you said that you established the companies

2 and platoons and you worked with the local units, and

3 this was all part of a plan. You had a plan of the

4 establishment which you set up; is that correct?

5 A. Yes. This is how it was conceived for that

6 period. The plans which were projected for later, for

7 three, four months, this was after my time, but at that

8 time when I was there, we were only devising short-term

9 plans because we were trying to improve things on a

10 day-to-day basis.

11 Q. Specifically, there were no brigades

12 everywhere, so if there were no brigades in the area,

13 you could not proceed with these plans, you could not

14 implement them; is that correct?

15 A. Could you perhaps repeat the question?

16 Q. My apologies. The plan was that wherever

17 there was a local brigade, that a small military police

18 unit would be hierarchically in the chain of command of

19 the battalion but would be detached to the, let's say,

20 Vares Brigade, but if there was not such brigade there,

21 it would not be possible to detach it anywhere?

22 A. Yes. At the time, one brigade was composed

23 of three battalions, and these battalions had its own

24 command post. But parallel with the establishment of

25 the 4th Battalion of the military police, we also

1 started the reorganisation of the municipal staffs, and

2 we converted them into brigades.

3 Q. Very well. Now it's clear.

4 I would like to take this opportunity to ask

5 you: You said that in January you stopped working in

6 your post with the military police and you were

7 transferred to the Home Guard post. I would just like

8 to clarify one issue to the end.

9 This was also part of a plan -- this is what

10 you told us today -- which, in fact, was never

11 implemented; this is not in dispute?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Is it not clear from all the documents we

14 have, but as the person in charge, could you tell us

15 whether the original idea was that in parallel, the

16 Home Guard units be established and the brigades be

17 established?

18 A. Yes. At that time, that is, the period

19 during which I was assistant commander for Home Guard,

20 and insofar as we could discuss this and receive

21 instructions, in all municipalities small units were

22 envisaged, but they were not at the level of brigades.

23 They were smaller units. And I'll take an example.

24 For Vitez, a company was planned, and this

25 was to be done through the Defence Department. It's

1 for people who were the second and third category of

2 military ability.

3 Q. Is it true that the activities or the work

4 that these Home Guard units were supposed to carry out

5 were security-type? Let's say, more specifically,

6 providing security for certain buildings, for certain

7 villages.

8 A. Yes, exactly. That was the purpose of their

9 establishment.

10 Q. In order to avoid any misunderstandings

11 later, because this was also not quite clear, after the

12 Dayton Agreement and after the war, the HVO underwent

13 another transformation and these Home Guard brigades

14 became Home Guard regiments, so I'm referring to these

15 Home Guard regiments. Did they have anything to do

16 with the Home Guard units which you were planning in

17 1993?

18 A. I believe that they had nothing in common.

19 And I don't know more specifically about it, but I do

20 not believe that there is any connection between the

21 two.

22 Q. And as for the joint command that you were

23 also part of in April and May 1993, the high level was

24 Nakic/Merdan, wasn't it?

25 A. I already said Nakic, Ljubicic, and myself

1 represented the HVO. It was the same level, but they

2 were the heads of it. And we had a higher level at the

3 level of the Main Staff and the headquarters of -- and

4 the staff of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

5 Q. Yes. But if need be, you set up commissions

6 for individual matters, and you would delegate to it

7 members from both sides but at a lower level? Would

8 that be the general approach?

9 A. As a general approach in municipalities where

10 it would be assessed to have been more problems, where

11 somebody had to come to grips with those problems, yes,

12 that was done. I believe it was done in the

13 municipality of Travnik and the municipality of Vitez,

14 and I'm not sure, but I'm quite certain about Travnik

15 and Vitez municipalities. I don't know about other

16 municipalities. I think there was one such in Novi

17 Travnik too.

18 Q. Right. But do you remember how, in Vitez,

19 the late Boro Jozic was appointed to the Commission for

20 Missing and Prisoners of War?

21 A. I know for certain that Mr. Boro Jozic was on

22 that commission and that at one of the meetings which

23 took place in the building where ECMM, so Stara Bila,

24 were accommodated, he was also present there, and yes,

25 that is what happened.

1 Q. And so other people would also be appointed,

2 depending on the need?

3 A. Yes, that is so.

4 Q. And those men did not represent the units

5 they came from; they were simply asked to do it because

6 they could solve the tasks before them?

7 A. Yes, it was believed that they could really

8 resolve the tasks before them.

9 Q. So the key factor was their individual

10 abilities, their skill, their knowledge?

11 A. Well, especially in connection with the late

12 Boro Jozic, who you mentioned, I think, he was a man

13 who was mature, who had the necessary skills to do the

14 job, and I can also say that he was a very honest man,

15 a man of integrity.

16 Q. Would you be surprised if I told you that a

17 witness here, and he was an intelligence man of the BH

18 army, that he thought Boro Jozic to be a war criminal?

19 A. Yes, it would come as a surprise to me,

20 because I don't see -- or rather, I know of no reason

21 why he would say that Boro Jozic could be that.

22 Q. From what I can see here, you knew Boro Jozic

23 very well, and you believe he was an honest soldier,

24 don't you?

25 A. I met Mr. Jozic shortly before the war, and I

1 met him through his brother. I knew his brother better

2 than Boro. And when I heard about Boro, perhaps I

3 heard more about him from his brother Dragan, because I

4 used to meet him more often and talk with him more

5 often than Boro. Boro I saw from time to time in 1992,

6 before his death.

7 Q. Did you hear how he was killed?

8 A. I know he was killed near the building he

9 lived in, and I know that he was immediately -- taken

10 to the health centre immediately, but he was already

11 dead.

12 Q. Do you know what was the cause of his death?

13 A. I don't know the cause of his death. I don't

14 want really to guess, to make any guesses, but it was

15 said that he was talking to some women there. I think

16 he wanted to show them that his family was there or

17 something like that.

18 Q. But he was hit by a sniper from Mahala?

19 A. Oh, yes, he was hit by a sniper from Mahala.

20 Q. Thank you.

21 A. I was there -- I wasn't there on the spot. I

22 came later and I could see that, because I was at the

23 headquarters. There was only a street between the

24 building he lived in and the command.

25 Q. So his building faced the Mahala, didn't it?

1 A. Yes, yes, the front door faced the Mahala.

2 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Thank you very

3 much, Colonel. I have no further questions.

4 MR. SCOTT: May it please the Court.

5 Cross-examined by Mr. Scott:

6 Q. Colonel, my name is Ken Scott, and we've

7 never met before; is that correct?

8 A. No, we haven't.

9 Q. During the time of the events that you've

10 talked about this morning, sir, in fact any time during

11 your military involvement in Bosnia during the years

12 from about 1991 to 1995, did you at any time serve in

13 the HV or the Croatian army in any capacity?

14 A. I served the HVO, and HVO only, since the

15 beginning of 1992; that is, its formation until 1995.

16 That is the period that you mentioned.

17 Q. And at any time during that same period, did

18 you serve on the territory of the Republic of Croatia

19 in any military or police or armed force capacity with

20 whatever unit, actually served on the territory of the

21 Republic of Croatia?

22 A. I can claim the full responsibility in

23 September 1991, when I left the former JNA, and I left

24 it principally because of the war in Croatia, I think.

25 I did not spend a single day fighting a war in Croatia,

1 nor was I a member of the Croatian army or the Croatian

2 police, nor did I spend any time in the Croatian

3 territory. That is, I stayed at home, that is, in

4 Bosnia.

5 Q. Sir, let me ask you a few questions about

6 your coming here to testify today.

7 Did you review any documents or materials in

8 coming to testify, in preparing to come to testify?

9 A. In relation to what I testified about, I

10 think that that particular segment of time and

11 territory that I remember, I did not have any

12 particular documentation, nor did I have any notes in

13 January this year, when I talked to the Defence for the

14 first time, and we met for the second time here when I

15 came 15 days ago to testify and then did not.

16 Q. And at any time in that process, let me be

17 clear, were you shown or asked to review any documents

18 or materials in preparing to testify?

19 A. I was not given any documents except for a

20 document which I saw, I think -- that is, I don't think

21 it is my document, and it was issued in late 1992 to

22 the military police in Kakanj about the hand-over of

23 duty of the commander of the military police in

24 Kakanj. So that particular document, I was shown that;

25 nothing special. They told me they didn't have any

1 interesting slides for me or any particular documents.

2 Q. And in the course of these apparently two

3 sessions or meetings with the Defence, did you provide

4 any written statements or sign any documents or

5 statements that they may have prepared or put in front

6 of you?

7 A. During the interview in Split, that is -- and

8 I went there when I met the Defence, and we had the

9 interview there, and they were taking notes only.

10 Last time when I came here to give evidence,

11 we drew up a statement and I signed it, because I was

12 ready to appear before you on a Friday and so I signed

13 it.

14 But when I returned, there was the statement,

15 and I think we supplemented it. I don't know if this

16 is important or not, if this is material or not, but I

17 supplemented it only, where we put companies and

18 squads, I added municipalities which were closer to the

19 enemy, to the Serb forces, simply to make it clearer,

20 nothing else. And I signed that statement. I have it

21 in my pocket. I have it in both the Croatian and the

22 English version.

23 Q. Very well. That's the summary that we have

24 all been handed, I assume.

25 A. Yes, that's it.

1 Q. Before I continue on, let me just be very

2 clear, though, and very specific.

3 In the course of those sessions, apart from

4 this statement, did you sign any other interview

5 statement prior to this document?

6 A. I did not sign anything else for the Defence

7 apart from the statement which I have. So it is

8 identical, I signed it then, and I'm telling you what

9 changes I made in it.

10 Q. And do you live in Split now, sir?

11 A. No.

12 Q. And do you know how this interview with the

13 Defence came to be in Split, Croatia?

14 A. I was in Split, and I went to attend this

15 interview at a hotel. I can't remember which one, but

16 it was a restaurant, or a hotel, or something like

17 that. And when I came there, they invited me through a

18 colleague who also came to testify, Mr. Darko Gelic,

19 and he told me about that. At that time, I was

20 absent. We were -- I'm not quite sure, but in the

21 latter half of January I was away for Christmas

22 holidays there and I came back, and after that I

23 learned about it. So it was through Mr. Gelic that I

24 learned that we should go and that he was told to tell

25 me if I was willing to go, so I went to that interview

1 of my own free will.

2 Q. Were you and Mr. Gelic in Split at the same

3 time?

4 A. In January, yes, we were there at the same

5 time, but we did not talk together. We had separate

6 interviews, but we arrived together in one vehicle

7 because of the costs and all that, and we went back

8 together because it was too far to wait for two hours,

9 so to avoid any unnecessary costs.

10 Q. Let me be clear, though. You didn't just

11 happen -- if I understand you correctly, sir, it wasn't

12 that you just happened to be in Split, but you were

13 invited by someone to come to Split for the purpose of

14 meeting with someone on behalf of the Defence; is that

15 correct?

16 A. You understood me well. Mr. Darko Gelic

17 called me, and he must have been in Vitez, but I did

18 not ask him where he was. But I think that the Defence

19 had given their mobile phone, because they spoke on one

20 occasion, because he had to call them because he told

21 them that we would be late.

22 It was a very harsh winter. We were going

23 across [indiscernible] and we were late, and he was

24 told that there would be no problem if we arrived

25 late. So I realised then that he was in contact with

1 the Defence lawyers, because he had their mobile

2 telephone number.

3 MR. SCOTT: All right. Thank you, sir.

4 Mr. President, just so the record is clear,

5 we would request that any -- if there are, in fact, any

6 prior statements from this witness, other than the

7 summary that's been provided to the Prosecution and the

8 Court in court, that any such prior statements be

9 provided to the Prosecution.

10 Q. Colonel, in terms of your dealings with

11 Mr. Kordic, could you tell the Court, please,

12 approximately how many occasions did you have any

13 face-to-face dealings with Mr. Kordic at any time?

14 Starting, well, since 1992, let's say.

15 A. Since early 1992, that is, late February or

16 early March, so in about -- so during those two months

17 before the Serb aggression continued, that is, before

18 they attacked my village with shells, my area, and the

19 war began in my area in mid-April, but before open

20 fighting began, so I would, that is, from time to time,

21 see Mr. Kordic. We met -- well, we used to meet from

22 time to time. I also, in a way, in a part, belonged to

23 that staff which was set up in early 1992.

24 Q. And what staff was that, sir?

25 A. That was in 1992, through municipal

1 authorities. Mr. Boris Matisic at the time and

2 Mr. Franjo Petrovic, they notified me, because I had

3 talked to them before and told them that I had left the

4 former JNA, I was looking for a job. And they were

5 trying to find me a job before the war in 1992, they

6 tried to find me a job with the police, and somehow it

7 did not progress as fast as it should have. But they

8 knew that I was a military man, and they told me if I

9 was ready -- I think it was the 29th or the 30th, but

10 at any rate the end of February -- to go to a meeting

11 where we elected -- where we all -- where we met from

12 the municipality, where we tried to organise ourselves,

13 and where we set up the regional staff, made

14 representatives of all federal Bosnian municipalities,

15 that is, except Zepce and that part, so when it comes

16 to Kiseljak and the Lasva part.

17 And a large number of people from those

18 municipalities who were invited attended that meeting,

19 and at that meeting we elected the commander of that

20 staff. What should I call it? Regional staff or staff

21 for Central Bosnia. So Mr. Pasko Ljubicic was elected

22 the commander then, and I was elected the head of that

23 staff, of that command, to begin with, that is.

24 Q. And who called this meeting at which Pasko

25 Ljubicic was made the commander in Central Bosnia?

1 A. That meeting -- I don't know how to put it.

2 There was Mr. Marijan Skopljak, perhaps late Ivica

3 Stojak. I think that perhaps -- whether Franjo

4 Sliskovic or -- I can't be sure. That is, I know I

5 came then and I met a large number of people there for

6 the first time, because I did not know them before.

7 Q. All right. Well, let's move on for now,

8 please.

9 So you had some dealings with Mr. Kordic in

10 the first few months of 1992. In the interests of

11 time, sir, let me go specifically --

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. -- let me go specifically to late 1992, and

14 then if I can also direct your attention to the full

15 calendar year 1993.

16 Can you please tell the Court, during that

17 time period, let's say an approximately 14- or 15-month

18 period, how many face-to-face dealings, if any, did you

19 have with Dario Kordic?

20 A. Between late 1992 until the end of 1993,

21 during that period of time, is it, until the Washington

22 Accords, I could have seen Dario Kordic in passing some

23 ten times. Face to face, never alone, only when he

24 would pass us by. He would simply greet us and

25 proceed.

1 On two or three occasions in late 1992, I had

2 the opportunity to see him in the municipality of

3 Travnik when the sectors against the Serbs were being

4 organised, when Rupa [phoen] Potkraj fell. Could be

5 then.

6 Be that as it may, I know that Mr. Kordic had

7 his place in Busovaca. And of course he could be

8 passing somewhere else, and that could be all that I

9 saw him. It could have been up to 20 times, but not

10 more than that, and it wasn't very often.

11 Q. All right, sir. Let's be very clear here.

12 You're saying that you saw Mr. Kordic on a number of

13 occasions throughout this time that I've described, but

14 as I hear you, this was on a passing in the street kind

15 of circumstance: casual, nothing substantive. Is that

16 correct?

17 A. Yes. We did not meet, we did not talk about

18 meeting, nor did we try to agree about a meeting. What

19 I can say, dealings that I had with Mr. Kordic, a brief

20 meeting, but not one-on-one. There was Mr. Ljubo

21 Jurcic, there was another man, when I was to go to

22 Mostar. So that was mid-January 1993. So that was an

23 opportunity to say hello to one another, and that was

24 that. And in 1992, that is, and we skipped that, so in

25 the beginning of 1992 we used to meet more often.

1 Q. Colonel, I'm not going to cut you off too

2 often. I'll try not to. But I'm sure everyone in the

3 courtroom is anxious to move along, and I think some of

4 your answers perhaps could be more directly responsive,

5 if I can suggest. And perhaps if I want some

6 additional explanation, if you'll allow me, I'll ask.

7 I want to ask now, very specifically, not

8 about your face-to-face dealings with Mr. Kordic, but

9 during this same approximately 15-month period from

10 late 1992 through 1993, did you have any occasions to

11 talk to Mr. Kordic on the telephone or on a radio, and

12 again in any sort of substantive way, in terms of

13 having any conversation with him about anything?

14 A. Telephone conversation? I'm not sure. I

15 cannot deny, nor can I confirm. It is possible that I

16 had a conversation here and there. As for radio

17 communication, I affirm that we never had any

18 communication by radio.

19 Q. All right. Sir, I think you may have

20 answered this, but again let me be clear. During that

21 same time period, did you have any meetings with

22 Mr. Kordic? And not necessarily just the two of you,

23 but was there any time when you were involved in a

24 meeting with Mr. Kordic, either the two of you or with

25 anyone else, during that time?

1 A. I was not present at the meetings with

2 Mr. Kordic during this period of time. We are talking

3 about late 1992, end 1993.

4 Q. And approximately -- when you expressed your

5 opinion about Mr. Kordic's views and about speeches,

6 can you tell approximately how many times have you

7 heard Mr. Kordic make a speech or make some sort of

8 public presentation?

9 A. As for the public ones, in 1993 I was the

10 commander of young soldiers sent to Nova Bila, and

11 Mr. Kordic dropped by for a very short while. I don't

12 know how long exactly. And there could have been a

13 number of those conversations or meetings. I was in

14 Zenica too. I don't know how much I followed the

15 oath-taking ceremony, the swearing-in ceremony. In

16 Busovaca I attended the oath-taking ceremony. I was a

17 little late there. But those were more or less his

18 addresses that I could hear, and I'm not really sure I

19 understood them really, you know.

20 Q. So would it be fair to say they were talking

21 on perhaps -- looking at your answer, you may have

22 heard him make some sort of speech or presentation two

23 or three times?

24 A. Well, I'm saying I'm not really sure. I'm

25 not sure I remember it all. But it could have been on

1 five or six occasions, at various public venues, in

2 various public places.

3 Q. Very well. Before we break, Colonel, let me

4 just touch on a couple of other points, and then we can

5 continue on.

6 Jajce, you've indicated -- at paragraph 10 of

7 your outline, you say that Jajce fell --

8 THE INTERPRETER: Would you come closer to

9 the microphone, please.

10 MR. SCOTT: Sorry.

11 Q. You've indicated that Jajce fell to the

12 Serbs, and that's the specific word, was "fell" to the

13 Serbs. And isn't it true, sir, that Jajce was

14 surrendered, or given over to the Serbs, by agreement?

15 A. Some interpretations are unofficial. They do

16 not reach an aide from political or military

17 authorities. But maybe with some people who are from

18 Jajce and whom I met a little later and so on and so

19 forth, I think the fall of Jajce -- perhaps, let me

20 say, perhaps the relations between the BH army and the

21 HVO had the reflection and the fighting in Novi Travnik

22 which broke out. But that it was surrendered, I have

23 no information about that.

24 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I see the time. If

25 the Court will allow me just to finish on this point.

1 Q. Sir, I'm not sure you understood my question,

2 and it's very specific. Were the Croats forces, if you

3 will, driven out of Jajce by active combat operations

4 and fighting in the town or, in fact, and I put it to

5 you that it was the case that I'm about to tell you,

6 that it was surrendered or given up to the Serbs by

7 agreement?

8 A. What kind of fighting there was, I don't

9 know, because I was not there. But I have no

10 information, and I cannot confirm, that Jajce was

11 turned over, surrendered, to the Serbs.

12 Q. So in fact you don't know the circumstances?

13 What you're telling us today is you don't know the

14 circumstances by which Jajce was turned over or came

15 into possession of the Serbs?

16 A. I had my view, and that is that the poor

17 relations between the army of BH and the HVO and the

18 conflict in Travnik on the eve of the fall of Jajce

19 happened, and that that was bound to find its

20 reflection in Jajce, but I have not heard what you are

21 saying from anyone, nor do I know anything about it.

22 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, we can stop there,

23 if it please the Court.

24 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, to assist us, do you

25 have much more of this witness?

1 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. I think it's

2 fair to say that I expect it will take the afternoon.

3 JUDGE MAY: Let's try and get through the

4 afternoon. We've got two more witnesses, at least, to

5 try and finish this week.

6 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE MAY: Colonel Vukovic, we're going to

8 adjourn now. Could you be back, please, at half past

9 2.00. During this adjournment and any others there

10 might be, don't speak to anybody about your evidence

11 until it's over and don't let anybody speak to you

12 about it. That does include the members of the Defence

13 team.

14 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.03 p.m.

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 --- On resuming at 2.34 p.m.

2 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Scott.

3 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

4 Q. Colonel, you mentioned in your testimony this

5 morning that a Lalic, an officer by the name of Lalic,

6 had been the first chief of the military police, at

7 least in your area; is that correct?

8 A. That is correct. He was there as commander

9 of the military police when I arrived.

10 Q. And do you know who appointed Mr. Lalic, or

11 named him to that position?

12 A. I don't know who appointed him, and we never

13 talked about it, and I don't even know whether he had

14 an order of appointment to that position.

15 Q. You're suggesting that it was possibly just a

16 position that he assumed; do I understand you then

17 correctly?

18 A. I wanted to say that before I arrived at the

19 military police, I was in other jobs and I was also --

20 I had been captured by the Serbs. And after my

21 treatment, I reported to the office in Busovaca, and

22 that is where I found Mr. Lalic. His duty was the

23 commander of the regional military police.

24 Q. All right. Let's not stay on that much

25 longer, except to say that you said that he then left

1 Central Bosnia at some point and took on some other

2 duties in Mostar; is that correct?

3 A. That is correct, on the 1st of October, 1992.

4 Q. And do you know what duties he undertook in

5 Mostar, please?

6 A. I don't know exactly what duties these were,

7 but I know that he was an economist by education, and I

8 believe that he may have taken up a job in that field,

9 but in what sector or what particular job it was, I

10 don't know.

11 Q. Very well. In terms of the organisation of

12 the military police, sir, and we'll probably come back

13 to that this afternoon, but if I heard you correctly,

14 during your direct examination you said that the 4th

15 Battalion of the military police was initially

16 comprised of five companies. Each company would report

17 to the command of the 4th Battalion of the military

18 police for -- I believe your words were "administrative

19 and logistical purposes." But in terms of their

20 day-to-day activities or operations, or for operational

21 purposes, these companies reported and took direction

22 from the HVO brigade commands; is that correct?

23 A. That is correct, but it was not the companies

24 that received it. Companies were comprised of

25 platoons, and platoons were attached to the municipal

1 headquarters, and then, only then, to the brigades,

2 later on when they were formed.

3 Q. Very well. So they were taking direction

4 from the brigade commanders at the level of platoons;

5 is that correct?

6 A. That is correct.

7 Q. And that arrangement continued throughout at

8 least the end of 1993; isn't that true?

9 A. I cannot speak to 1993. This is why I cannot

10 give you a simple "yes" or "no" answer. I can only

11 talk about till 18 January 1993, and following that I

12 just am not certain enough to be able to say anything.

13 Q. All right. Very well. We'll take it in

14 pieces, then. But at least up until the 18th of

15 January, that continued to be the arrangement; yes?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Now, can I also confirm that you indicated

18 that even though you went on Colonel Blaskic's

19 Operative Zone staff for the purpose of forming Home

20 Guard units, that in fact was not done at any time

21 during 1993; is that correct?

22 A. That is correct. Nothing was done during

23 that period.

24 Q. And in fact, sir, the Vitez Brigade that was

25 commanded by Mario Cerkez, that was not a Home Guard

1 unit, was it?

2 A. That was a unit -- I will describe it to the

3 best of my knowledge. Partly it was comprised of

4 volunteers, people who already possessed weapons, so

5 they came during the general mobilisation, because in

6 that period there was general mobilisation. Some

7 municipalities had incomplete lists, and this situation

8 was less than professional. I explained what the

9 difference was between the Home Guards and the

10 brigades.

11 Q. All right, sir. When you say "volunteer",

12 let's make sure that we're using the same terminology.

13 These were people who were mobilised or conscripted;

14 isn't that true?

15 A. People were called up to join the units, but

16 the circumstances were such that we didn't need all

17 that manpower, because we did not have enough weapons

18 to distribute. I think that mostly it went by calls,

19 but I think that for the most part people would just

20 report themselves.

21 Q. Sir, let me try one more time on this point.

22 Of course the people who made up the Vitez Brigade came

23 out of the surrounding community, but the Vitez Brigade

24 at no time in 1993, sir, was a Home Guard unit; isn't

25 that true?

1 A. I could not describe it, but it was not a

2 Home Guard unit. It was called the Viteska Brigade.

3 Q. Colonel, can you tell me who Ivo Rezo was and

4 what his role was in Central Bosnia in 1993?

5 A. I met Mr. Ivo Rezo in June 1992, perhaps

6 towards the end of June 1992, and his role, after his

7 arrival in Travnik, was -- and this is information that

8 I had -- was to try to establish the civilian police,

9 and I believe that he was the chief of civilian police

10 administration.

11 Q. And is it correct that what became known as

12 the Travnik police administration was a regional, if

13 you will, Central Bosnia administration, not limited to

14 Travnik municipality?

15 A. I believe it was not limited in their

16 activities, to the best of my knowledge.

17 Q. And was there a similar regional

18 administration for something called the defence

19 administration that was headed by Anto Puljic?

20 A. A correction. Anto Puljic, I knew Anto

21 Puljic, and it did exist, but I believe this was 1993.

22 I don't know when it started operating, this

23 administration. The administration for defence, that

24 was headquartered in Vitez. This is -- I know this

25 from the heading that they had.

1 Q. But is it not correct, sir, that that

2 administration was also organised on the basis of

3 across Central Bosnia?

4 A. I don't know how much I can speak regarding

5 its establishment. But when it was conceived, I don't

6 think that it was realised -- I mean I don't know how

7 far they got with the process, but I think that it was

8 meant to cover all of Central Bosnia.

9 Q. Colonel, going back to your dealings or

10 knowledge with Mr. Kordic -- and I think these

11 questions are capable of a "yes" or "no" answer. In

12 the interests of time, I'm going to ask you to please

13 give a "yes" or "no" answer, if you can. My question

14 is very specific.

15 At any time in 1993, did you participate in

16 any meetings involving Dario Kordic and Pasko Ljubicic?

17 A. I did not participate in such meetings.

18 Q. In 1993, did you participate in any meetings

19 involving both Dario Kordic and Anto Sliskovic?

20 A. In several meetings, which was basically

21 morning briefings, Anto Sliskovic was there. That was

22 in the Operative Zone, and I was there while I was

23 involved in the activities regarding the Home Guard

24 units. After the establishment of the Home Guard

25 units, I stopped going to meetings of that level.

1 Q. Sir, again my question was specific to did

2 you attend or participate in any meetings involving

3 both Mr. Sliskovic and Mr. Kordic? Was Mr. Kordic at

4 these morning briefings?

5 A. No, I never saw him during the morning

6 briefings.

7 Q. So I take it, sir, the answer to my question

8 is you did not participate in any meetings with

9 Mr. Kordic and Mr. Sliskovic at any time during 1993.

10 A. In the course of 1993, I did not participate

11 in such meetings.

12 Q. All right. Now, going back to the spring of

13 1992, sir, you were involved throughout that time, up

14 until the time where you were unfortunately detained,

15 in various efforts to essentially establish a Bosnian

16 Croat armed force in Central Bosnia; is that correct?

17 A. It is correct that there was a regional

18 staff. We still did not have HVO units, but given the

19 situation which we had, we organised ourselves in the

20 best way possible, given who we had to work with.

21 Q. Sir, Colonel, I'm going to cut you off there

22 so we can proceed on, please.

23 You say, in your summary and the summary that

24 was provided this morning, you say when the HVO began

25 organising itself early in 1992, you joined in;

1 correct?

2 A. That is correct.

3 Q. And, in fact, you were involved in efforts to

4 train Bosnian Croat soldiers and helped establish a

5 training camp in Central Bosnia; isn't that also

6 correct?

7 A. It is not correct that we organised the

8 training centre, but we did work on the organisation of

9 personnel. But I never had any training centre, nor

10 did I ever go to one.

11 Q. Did the army of Republic of Croatia set up

12 training centres in Bosnia-Herzegovina during that time

13 to train Bosnian Croat armed forces in 1992?

14 A. In the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that

15 is, in Central Bosnia, no such centres existed. But I

16 believe there were such centres in the Republic of

17 Croatia, one or several, and I don't know who went

18 there. We did not send anybody there, those of us who

19 had joined these regional staffs.

20 Q. Perhaps we'll come back to that.

21 You mentioned the Central Bosnia regional

22 command, and again I think that's, if I correctly

23 understand, your words. What was it about the Central

24 Bosnia command in the spring or the first few months of

25 1992; what do you mean by that?

1 A. I mean the following: Even before my

2 arrival, certain organisation was started and certain

3 people had been working on preparations. I was -- I

4 showed up at a meeting in late February 1992, and I was

5 appointed the commander of that staff. However, we

6 only had a month before the war broke out, and we spent

7 most of that time in trying to assess the situation,

8 the manpower, the availability of weapons. But we

9 could not get very accurate information on that.

10 Then the war broke out. Then General

11 Filipovic showed up in April. He became the commander,

12 and he took over the authority of the staff.

13 Q. Let me stop you there.

14 A. He became then the commander of the regional

15 command or staff.

16 Q. There was also something during this time

17 called the crisis committee or the Crisis Staff;

18 correct?

19 A. That is correct.

20 Q. Is that the same as the Central Bosnia

21 command or was that in addition to the Central Bosnia

22 command?

23 A. I believe that it was a command, because in

24 this regional staff, where I also was briefly, there

25 were people from different fields. There were

1 politicians, there were logistics people, and so on.

2 But from this regional staff, which remained until it

3 was renamed some kind of a bureau for Central Bosnia or

4 office for Central Bosnia, I don't know that they

5 issued any orders to the local commanders in the field.

6 Q. All right. Sir, isn't it true that Dario

7 Kordic was extensively involved on both the Central

8 Bosnia command and the Crisis Staff or crisis committee

9 for Central Bosnia during the first six months of 1992?

10 A. I came to this regional staff, and I used to

11 go there -- it was about 25 kilometres away from where

12 I lived, so I didn't go there on a daily basis. I went

13 there occasionally. I would go there and then would

14 come back, and later on I -- what happened happened and

15 I was on sick leave, so this was in --

16 Q. My question is --

17 A. -- May or June.

18 Q. I apologise for interrupting you. Isn't it

19 true, sir, that Dario Kordic was very substantially

20 involved in the activities of the Central Bosnia

21 command and the Crisis Staff in the first half of 1992;

22 "yes" or "no"?

23 A. Yes, until the arrival of the commander,

24 General Blaskic.

25 Q. Let me ask you to look at the --

1 MR. SCOTT: If the usher could hand you and

2 place on the ELMO Exhibit Z61.

3 Q. Sir, this is a record of a meeting of several

4 municipal HDZ boards in Central Bosnia on the 17th of

5 March, 1992. There are various -- we're only going to

6 touch on this briefly, in the interests of time. Item

7 number 3 talks about the command of the Travnik

8 regional community. And let me ask you, sir, and the

9 questions that I've been asking you about in the last

10 few minutes: Are these the type of meetings, the type

11 of Crisis Staff or command staff, the types of meetings

12 that were taking place in the first half of 1992?

13 A. I see this document for the first time, and I

14 don't know to what extent I can comment on it. I was

15 not present there and I can't even read it quite

16 properly. But what I am noticing is that it says

17 "command", and this is the term that is not familiar

18 to me from that period.

19 Q. Sir, the document -- I'm looking at the

20 Croatian language, or B/C/S language, original. I do

21 apologise for the quality of the copy, but it appears

22 to be signed by Dario Kordic for the municipal board in

23 Busovaca. Do you see that?

24 A. I see it. I see that it was signed by Dario

25 Kordic.

1 Q. When you look at paragraph number 3, toward

2 the end it talks about a meeting between the command of

3 the Travnik regional community and the command of the

4 Zenica municipality, about a meeting with the HOS, or

5 Croatian Defence forces. And then below that it says

6 Mr. Dario Kordic will coordinate this activity. What

7 did you know about Mr. Kordic's role and relationship

8 between these groups -- that is, for instance, the

9 Travnik regional community -- and the HOS?

10 A. I cannot comment on this document, because I

11 see it for the first time, and I don't know its meaning

12 and its purpose.

13 Q. Well, apart from the document, then, sir,

14 isn't it true that people like Mr. Kordic were

15 interested, very interested in that time, and also in

16 joining forces, if you will, with another Croatian

17 group called HOS, for the purposes of carrying out this

18 Central Bosnia command activity?

19 A. I believe that the objective was to create a

20 single army of all of us.

21 MR. SCOTT: Let me direct the usher to please

22 hand you Exhibit Z62, and also put that on the ELMO, if

23 you would, please.

24 Q. Sir, this appears to be a record -- or a

25 letter coming from -- excuse me -- the Central Bosnia

1 command, dated the 21st of March, 1992, indicating a

2 list of people who should attend the meeting with the

3 defence minister of the Republic of Croatia,

4 Mr. Susak. You were one of the people listed to meet

5 with Mr. Susak; is that correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And Mr. Kordic was identified here as the

8 head of the crisis committee for Central Bosnia, and

9 vice-president, and it was also suggested that he be

10 part of this group to meet with Mr. Susak from Croatia;

11 is that correct?

12 A. Correct.

13 Q. And do you know, in fact, whether any members

14 of this group about this time did in fact meet with

15 Minister Susak?

16 A. I know that I certainly did not go, and this

17 document did not materialise. I know how this document

18 came about. Mr. Dario Kordic was not there. Our

19 conclusion was -- and I was present in that meeting --

20 it was insisted that Mr. Dario Kordic should go,

21 because at that time he was the president of the Crisis

22 Staff for Central Bosnia. But this never materialised,

23 and I was not a part of that group. I never met

24 personally with Mr. Gojko Susak.

25 Q. And sir, whether or not the meeting in fact

1 occurred, the people attending this meeting decided

2 among themselves that the representative to Minister

3 Susak should be Dario Kordic; is that correct?

4 A. It is correct that we agreed that those

5 listed here should go, and that was accepted by myself

6 and Mr. Pasko Ljubicic. And later on, I talked to

7 Mr. Boris Matisic, who came from my municipality, and

8 he gave his consent to go, and Mr. Pasko [sic], because

9 Mr. Kordic was not there, so perhaps he talked to him

10 about this later.

11 Q. Did you understand that the person among this

12 group that was in consultation, or the contact person

13 for Mr. Kordic, was in fact Pasko Ljubicic?

14 A. Well, it's clear to me, because I did not see

15 Mr. Dario Kordic then. And when this meeting was over,

16 I went to Travnik immediately.

17 Q. Sir, among the people listed here and that

18 you knew were on this Crisis -- the Central -- as it's

19 titled here, the Central Bosnia command, was it your

20 understanding that it was Mr. Pasko Ljubicic who,

21 assuming for the moment that Mr. Kordic wasn't at a

22 meeting, that it would be Mr. Ljubicic that would be

23 having dealings and having contacts with Mr. Kordic?

24 Yes or no?

25 A. Perhaps it was Mr. Pasko Ljubicic, but I

1 should rather think it was Mr. Ivo Brnada, who at that

2 time was the defence coordinator in the municipality of

3 Busovaca.

4 Q. All right, sir. We'll go ahead.

5 Just by way of reference -- actually, before

6 we leave Exhibit Z62, what's the difference between

7 Mr. Ljubicic's role as commander of the Central Bosnia

8 command and your role as head of the Central Bosnia

9 command?

10 A. Well, the distinction was the commander is

11 the first man in the command, the head of the

12 headquarters; and the latter one, the second in

13 command. To set up this headquarters, of course it

14 couldn't be done by one man, so I was there too. And

15 when Pasko was elected the commander, then it was more

16 the professional line that was followed, because Pasko

17 had fled the former JNA and he had already completed

18 the military academy. I believe he was a lieutenant at

19 the time when he left the JNA. And I was an inferior

20 noncommissioned officer. I didn't have complete

21 military education. And I'd worked for the former army

22 less than four years, and even then I was doing

23 technical jobs.

24 Q. Now, sir, that relationship became reversed,

25 did it not, when you became commander of the 4th

1 Battalion of the military police. In the fall of 1992,

2 you were the commander and Pasko Ljubicic was your

3 deputy; is that correct?

4 A. In 1992, Pasko was not my deputy, in

5 September 1992.

6 Q. At any time in 1992, was Mr. Pasko Ljubicic

7 one of your deputies or subordinates then -- perhaps

8 the word is confusing you -- in the 4th Battalion

9 military police?

10 A. When it comes to the 4th Battalion of the

11 military police, I was at its head and I was its

12 commander. At the time when I took up the office of

13 the commander, a company of the military police had

14 already been formed, and it was commanded by Pasko.

15 That company was -- did not account to the 4th

16 Battalion of the military police, either in

17 administrative or military or logistical terms. He was

18 a company [sic] of a battalion which was to be there.

19 And I don't know how replenish -- whether they were

20 getting any replenishments or whether it was in full

21 strength, but they had three tasks: the security for

22 the regional headquarters in Vitez, where people took

23 shifts --

24 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to interrupt you.

25 Let's try to get through this evidence more quickly.

1 Yes, move on, Mr. Scott.

2 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 Q. Let me ask you this. In terms of that issue,

4 and actually you touched --.

5 Your Honour, he did touch on something there

6 that I did want to ask him about in terms of security.

7 As I understand it, one of the job

8 descriptions of the military police was to provide

9 security for various senior officials and political

10 leaders; is that correct?

11 A. I was not distributing tasks, nor deciding

12 whom the military police would guard. The military

13 police operated in the municipalities --

14 Q. First, my first question is a general one.

15 Part of the job description -- we can go to a number of

16 documents if you like. I hope that won't be

17 necessary. Part of the job description of the military

18 police was to provide security for various officials of

19 Herceg-Bosna or the HVO; correct?

20 A. Correct.

21 Q. And do you know who, during the latter part

22 of 1992 and continuing over into 1993, who provided

23 security for Dario Kordic?

24 A. The security for Dario Kordic was provided by

25 men who were on the list of the regional headquarters

1 as an integral part of the force there. There was a

2 certain number of men who provided security for the

3 regional headquarters and Mr. Dario Kordic.

4 Q. Were these members of the 4th Battalion --

5 Mr. Kordic's bodyguard, were these members of the 4th

6 Battalion military police; yes or no?

7 A. No, at least while I was with the military

8 police.

9 Q. All right, then. What military policemen

10 provided security for Mr. Kordic, then?

11 A. A certain number of men whom I found there

12 when I came, and I know they were on the list of the

13 regional headquarters as the guards, as the security

14 men for regional headquarters, I do not know that they

15 were of the military police.

16 Q. What regional headquarters are you talking

17 about, then?

18 A. This one which was in Busovaca, where

19 Mr. Dario Kordic was in the former half of 1992. I

20 don't know how long he was there, because in the latter

21 half of 1992, I moved to the headquarters with

22 General Blaskic.

23 Q. In Vitez?

24 A. In Vitez.

25 Q. Do you remember the names of any of the

1 individuals who made up this security detail for

2 Mr. Kordic at that time?

3 A. I remember the names of two or three men.

4 There was Bogdan. Another one was called Damir.

5 Milenko was another one. I remember those first names.

6 Q. You know the name Vlado Cosic, don't you?

7 A. I know the name Vlado Cosic.

8 Q. He was a military policeman in Central

9 Bosnia, in the Busovaca area, wasn't he?

10 A. He was a military policeman in Busovaca.

11 Q. And do you know what his relationship was

12 with Mr. Kordic in the latter part of 1992 and

13 continuing into 1993?

14 A. In 1992, I can say that they must have known

15 one another. But how often they met, I -- Mr. Vlado

16 Cosic never gave me any information about that. In

17 1993, I wasn't in Busovaca very often, so I don't know

18 what happened.

19 Q. Well, how do you know they knew each other in

20 1992?

21 A. They knew each other? Well, since Mr. Cosic

22 was the military police commander in Busovaca and that

23 they simply could meet in Busovaca.

24 MR. SCOTT: All right. Your Honour, if you

25 would give me a moment, please. I assure the Court I'm

1 eliminating a substantial amount of material, but I

2 don't want to eliminate anything particularly

3 important.

4 If I could have the witness shown Exhibit

5 Z284.1 and have that placed on the ELMO, please. Oh, I

6 think it's -- it's a new packet, I'm told. As far as

7 I'm concerned, Your Honour, to facilitate speed, if the

8 entire packet, which is in the order of my

9 examination -- I'm sure the Court will not want to go

10 through all of those, Your Honour. I've already

11 eliminated a number.

12 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, we really must speed

13 up.

14 MR. SCOTT: If the Court doesn't want this

15 practice, we won't do it that way. It was my

16 suggestion that it might be faster --

17 JUDGE MAY: If we don't have the packet, of

18 course we can't [realtime transcript read in error

19 "follow all of it"]. But I must ask you to bear in

20 mind the burden of information that's being put upon

21 us.

22 MR. SCOTT: I do understand that, Your

23 Honour.

24 JUDGE MAY: Now, do these relate to this

25 witness?

1 MR. SCOTT: Yes, they do, Your Honour.

2 Q. Do you have that, sir? This is an order --

3 it appears to be an order that you signed --

4 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. The transcript

5 needs putting right. It reads, when I said we would

6 have the packet, line 7, "we can't follow all of it,"

7 what I said was that we can't follow without it.

8 Perhaps that could be put right.

9 Now, let's move rapidly.

10 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

11 Q. Sir, this is an order, if you look at the

12 bottom of the page, appears to be an order signed by

13 you as commander of the 4th Battalion military police

14 on the 18th of November, 1992, directed, among others,

15 to Mr. Cosic. Do you see that, sir?

16 A. This is a document, yes, issued by me and

17 signed by me.

18 Q. And the Mr. Cosic who is the commander of the

19 3rd Company of the military police is the same

20 gentleman you spoke about a few minutes ago; correct?

21 A. Commander of the 3rd Company of the military

22 police, yes.

23 Q. And he was located in Busovaca; correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Now, you're indicating here that: "Based on

1 an order received from General Slobodan Praljak." Who

2 did you know General Praljak to be at that time?

3 A. I saw Mr. Praljak for the first time with my

4 own eyes on that particular day, on the 18th of

5 November, 1992. I heard that he had come to Travnik

6 after the fall of Jajce and Zupa, my Zupa, Potkraj. I

7 was requested to go and see him. I received

8 instructions. I can read them, if you want me to. And

9 I wrote this and acted accordingly.

10 Q. Where did you meet General Praljak on the

11 18th of November, 1992? Where were you?

12 A. I met him at a command post in the Travnik

13 municipality. To be more exact, I think it was the

14 command of the municipal headquarters in Travnik. And

15 in addition to General Praljak, General Blaskic was

16 also there.

17 Q. Sir, isn't it true that General Praljak had

18 been sent to Bosnia from the army of Croatia, that he

19 was an HV general?

20 A. He came there. Who had sent him, I don't

21 know.

22 Q. You have no information about where

23 Mr. Praljak -- what army he was an officer of or where

24 he had come to -- excuse me -- come from before the

25 18th of November, 1992?

1 A. I've heard, after he came to Travnik, that he

2 had come from Croatia. But I did not know him before

3 that, nor had I heard about him before that.

4 MR. SCOTT: Skipping over an exhibit, Your

5 Honour, I'm skipping to Exhibit 289, please.

6 Q. Sir, this was a report of the regional

7 military police unit in Kiseljak, dated the 20th of

8 November, 1992, and that Kiseljak military police fell

9 under your command also at that time, didn't they?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Just simply to put some context on the

12 document, toward the bottom of page 1, at least in the

13 English translation, there's a reference to someone

14 having talked with you on the phone about a particular

15 incident. In B/C/S, I think it's about the middle of

16 the second page.

17 In the interests of time, sir, again let me

18 ask you to go to -- I'll try to find it for you first

19 on the B/C/S. On the B/C/S version, about three

20 fourths of the way down the second page, you'll see the

21 name -- I believe you'll see the name "Dario Kordic".

22 Can you explain to us, please, whatever you

23 can help us with about this matter where Mr. Kordic

24 intervened in order to have a Citroen van returned to

25 the Bosnian army?

1 A. Well, I'd have to read this, and I still

2 can't find my way around this document. This report

3 was sent to me. Whether I received it, I couldn't

4 confirm.

5 Q. Well, do you recall any information of an

6 incident where Mr. Kordic became involved in recovering

7 a vehicle about this time in November of 1992?

8 A. I can't remember.

9 Q. Can you shed any light on why someone you

10 describe as a political figure would become involved

11 with the military police in arranging the return of a

12 vehicle?

13 A. Perhaps it is misrepresented. I do see that

14 Mr. Dario Kordic is mentioned here, but I really cannot

15 comment on this document because I would have to read

16 it. But perhaps he intervened through somebody else.

17 I did not have the information that he interceded,

18 intervened, directly.

19 Q. Just below that, sir, before we leave the

20 document, it says: "On the 17th of November, 1992, the

21 military police were in charge of the security of the

22 staff, the Presidency, and logistics."

23 I take it, sir, that at this time the

24 Presidency included Mr. Kordic. Is that correct?

25 A. This is related to the report?

1 Q. Yes, sir. It's right under the earlier

2 reference -- immediately following the earlier

3 reference to Mr. Kordic.

4 A. Yes, I've read that. I see that this

5 document is military police from -- it was sent by the

6 military police in Kakanj to the military police in

7 Kiseljak, and the Kiseljak military police, the

8 commander of the military police company. And in

9 Kakanj, there was only one platoon of the military

10 police, so they report to the commander of the company,

11 and I think --

12 Q. Colonel, I'm going to cut you off at this

13 time. I think we're going to have to move forward. If

14 Mr. Kordic's counsel thinks something needs to be

15 clarified, they'll have a further chance to do that. I

16 think we have to move on.

17 If we could go down to Exhibit 356, Z356.

18 Colonel, this appears to be again an order by

19 you, dated the 11th of January, 1993, apparently only a

20 few days before you were succeeded in this position by

21 Pasko Ljubicic. You referred to each of the listed

22 municipalities naming five members to special-purpose

23 units of the military police. Do you see that?

24 A. If I may, I should really like to read it,

25 not just scan it. But if you want me to comment on it,

1 I should really read it carefully. May I?

2 Q. I don't want to cut you off, sir, but if I

3 could direct your attention to the first paragraph.

4 The rest of it, I can assure you, I will not ask you

5 about the lower part of it. I want to be fair to you,

6 but we also have to move along, sir.

7 A. Yes. I recall this document. This was a

8 proposal to form an active-duty battalion of military

9 police. We wanted to have some men and were planning

10 to train them, and we thought that eventually we would

11 have fully-trained military police -- well, checked

12 that it's military police, and so on and so forth.

13 Q. And again, sir, the authority of the command

14 of the 4th Battalion of the military police extended

15 throughout Central Bosnia to each of the municipalities

16 listed at the top of this order; is that correct, sir?

17 A. Yes.

18 MR. SCOTT: On the original -- Your Honour, I

19 haven't -- as you know, I haven't been in the courtroom

20 for all the testimony. I don't know if another witness

21 has explained this or not, but the Court can tell me if

22 they have.

23 Q. Looking at the bottom of the original, sir,

24 is that information that was put on a document that

25 shows that it was sent by something called packet

1 communications?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Is it fair to say, sir, that was a system

4 that was essentially like a combination of radio and

5 fax machine?

6 A. In the command of the 4th Battalion of the

7 military police, I did not have the packet link. But

8 when the need arose, I used the facility in Vitez,

9 because they had it.

10 Q. That was on Colonel Blaskic's headquarters

11 when you say that?

12 A. Yes, yes.

13 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott,

14 when you use these documents and when you refer us to

15 these documents, could you please specify the relevance

16 of your questions to the witness in relation to the

17 direct examination? Thus we could establish the

18 link between cross-examination and direct examination,

19 because here you're asking the witness to confirm a

20 document. You ask specific questions, but we don't

21 really see the relevance. So it would be a good idea

22 if you could introduce the document in advance and tell

23 us the relevance. Therefore, we could proceed more

24 rapidly.

25 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour. In part,

1 Your Honour, this document goes to -- there has been

2 disputes throughout the case, as I understand it, as to

3 the exact organisation of the military police and to

4 the command of the various command groups in Central

5 Bosnia, to such areas as Vares and Zepce and other

6 places. That is one way in which this particular

7 document is relevant.

8 It's also relevant in that, Your Honour, I

9 think other evidence in the case may tie up the

10 involvement of some of these military police units and

11 another of the incidents that the Court has heard

12 about. I can't necessarily get all of that from this

13 witness. In fact, given the nature of the long answers

14 and the time, I can only tell the Court that some

15 points on these documents are not being developed. But

16 I will try to move -- I'm trying to move as quickly as

17 possible.

18 With that in mind, Your Honour, I think I can

19 skip over, if you'll give me a moment, please, the next

20 several exhibits, or at least the next exhibit which

21 would be offered, Your Honours, largely again to show

22 the inner relationship between the various military

23 police units and the fact that authority did reach out

24 to such places as Vares, referring now -- I suppose I

25 might as well say it for the record -- to Exhibit Z362,

1 to have certain Serb prisoners brought to Vitez for

2 purposes of questioning.

3 Q. Let me move on, sir, to something called the

4 Security Service or SIS. Now, that was part of the

5 military police; is that correct?

6 A. No.

7 Q. What was the SIS?

8 A. Would you please repeat the question?

9 Q. Well --

10 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

11 my apologies. I would not like to interrupt you at the

12 time, but I never mentioned SIS in my

13 examination-in-chief, and I fully support what Judge

14 Bennouna said.

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll apply the rule.

16 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour.

17 Q. Do you know, sir, when you left the command

18 of the 4th Battalion military police in January of

19 1993, who selected Pasko Ljubicic to replace you?

20 A. I don't know whether there was a previous

21 nomination, but on the 18th of November, the

22 appointment came from Mr. Valentin Coric, head of the

23 military police in Mostar, that he was appointed a new

24 commander and that I should report to a new duty in the

25 military police administration.

1 Q. Did you know what your new duties in the

2 military police administration in Mostar were going to

3 be?

4 A. I believe that I was supposed to be one of

5 the officers in the general services of the military

6 police.

7 Q. When Mr. Ljubicic became the commander, his

8 deputy became -- well, did his deputy become a man

9 named Marijan Nukic?

10 A. I don't know exactly, but when I turned over

11 the command of the 4th Military Police Battalion, I was

12 the commander, and the second man was the assistant for

13 the traffic police, and he was also my deputy. That

14 was Dobrica Jonjic, and I did not follow his subsequent

15 career development.

16 Q. All right. Very well. When Mr. Ljubicic

17 moved up from the 1st Active Company military police,

18 was he replaced by Vlado Santic?

19 A. I don't know about that.

20 MR. SCOTT: All right. Very well.

21 Forgive me, Your Honour. In light of the

22 time and the Court's ruling, I'm eliminating, just

23 going through my outline.

24 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, have the time you

25 want.

1 MR. SCOTT: I appreciate that, Your Honour.

2 Your Honour, I'll simply explain to the Court that in

3 light of this person's senior position on Colonel

4 Blaskic's Central Bosnia staff, there are certain

5 matters of general relevance to the case which may

6 fall, strictly speaking, outside of the scope that the

7 Defence chose to include in their direct, that I would

8 ask this witness, because I think he's in a

9 knowledgeable position. But as I go through my

10 outline, I'm now essentially eliminating much of that

11 information -- or questions, excuse me.

12 Q. All right. Let's go to, sir, if we can --

13 can you tell me where you were in mid-April 1993? By

14 this time you were on Colonel Blaskic's immediate

15 staff. You were based in Vitez, I take it, sir; is

16 that correct?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And let me direct your attention starting

19 about the 14th or 15th of April, 1993. Where were you

20 at that time? What were your duties on Colonel

21 Blaskic's staff at that time?

22 A. At that time, on Colonel Blaskic's staff, I

23 had an office where I worked on the establishment of

24 Home Guard units and establishing books on it. And I

25 had my office hours, and after the office hours I would

1 go back home, unless I was on duty, in which case I

2 would stay at the headquarters for 24 hours at a time.

3 Q. And where were you, sir, on the morning of

4 the 16th of April, 1993, as an assistant commander in

5 the Central Bosnia Operative Zone?

6 A. On the 16th I was in an apartment where I

7 temporarily lived in Vitez. That was on the 16th, in

8 the morning.

9 Q. And did you go into headquarters in Vitez

10 that day?

11 A. A little bit in the afternoon and a little

12 bit in the morning.

13 Q. At any time after the 16th of April, 1993,

14 did Colonel Blaskic ever talk to you about the events

15 at Ahmici?

16 A. At that time I did not speak to Colonel

17 Blaskic about Ahmici at all, because immediately after

18 that, on the 23rd or the 24th, I joined that

19 commission, which after the agreement was established,

20 that was the joint command, and this is where I went on

21 a regular basis. And I joined this commission after

22 Mario Prskalo and Zoran Pilicic were wounded after they

23 were coming back from the negotiations, and there were

24 two members of this commission.

25 Q. Sir, my question is this: You remained --

1 whatever your day-to-day duties on the joint command,

2 you remained a member of Colonel Blaskic's senior

3 staff. At any time after the events at Ahmici, did he

4 ever talk to you about what had happened at Ahmici; yes

5 or no?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Did you ever see any reports or

8 investigations of what had happened at Ahmici, in your

9 role as a member of the senior staff?

10 A. I remained a member of the staff. I was not

11 at the headquarters. I did not receive any

12 information. I did not take part in an investigation

13 of what happened in Ahmici. And our duties were such

14 that every morning, from 8.00 on, we were in our

15 offices in Travnik, and we would come back after 5.00,

16 or sometimes even later. So I have very little

17 information regarding events of that period.

18 Q. Sir, did you ever hear anyone in the

19 Operative Zone's command staff voice the opinion, or

20 the conclusion, or make the statement, that Pasko

21 Ljubicic was involved in the crimes committed at Ahmici

22 on the 16th of April?

23 A. All I heard about Ahmici -- and I mostly

24 heard about it from the joint commission, that is, from

25 the joint command, where we would meet with the

1 colleagues from the 3rd Corps, and I cannot say who

2 participated and who did not, but the people with whom

3 I talked were appalled by what had happened.

4 Q. My question remains, sir: During that time

5 did you hear the opinion stated in the Vitez

6 headquarters, in or about the Vitez HVO headquarters,

7 that Pasko Ljubicic was one of the military leaders

8 involved in the atrocities at Ahmici, as a member of

9 the senior staff?

10 A. I did not hear this, that he was directly

11 pointed out in that regard.

12 Q. Was he directly pointed out?

13 A. Nobody did directly, but as I said, when we

14 talked to the people who were there in that joint

15 command, they all would always say something. But

16 there were no arguments offered, so I was not able to

17 really enter into discussions with them.

18 Q. Sir, I'm going to ask you similar questions,

19 but I think they can be "yes" or "no" answers, if

20 possible, about two more individuals, or several. Did

21 you hear that Mr. Anto Sliskovic was involved in the

22 incident at Ahmici? Was that a subject of conversation

23 in the Vitez headquarters, or among Blaskic's staff?

24 A. No.

25 Q. How about Vlado Cosic?

1 A. Cosic. No.

2 Q. How about Darko Kraljevic?

3 A. I didn't hear about that.

4 Q. And finally, how about this Marijan Nukic?

5 A. No.

6 Q. Sir, let me put it to you that I think

7 there's no question at this point that the events at

8 Ahmici received worldwide attention; it was a

9 tremendous atrocity by whoever committed it. All sorts

10 of people -- the UNPROFOR, the ECMM, the European

11 community -- were interested in knowing what had

12 happened. There were communications with the Croatian

13 government to know what had happened. You want this

14 Court to believe that at no time after the events at

15 Ahmici on the 16th of April, no one among Colonel

16 Blaskic's senior staff talked about what happened at

17 Ahmici?

18 A. I cannot answer you this question, because I

19 don't know.

20 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott,

21 I'd like to ask the witness how he came to know about

22 the events in Ahmici.

23 MR. SCOTT: You heard the Judge's question,

24 sir? Can you answer that?

25 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] How did you

1 hear about the atrocities in Ahmici?

2 A. For the crimes in Ahmici, and the scope of

3 it, but not specifically, I mostly heard from the

4 colleagues from the 3rd Corps, with whom we were later

5 on in the commission. And that was later on, on the

6 24th, 25th. I'm not exactly sure when, when it

7 started. So most information I received from the

8 colleagues from the 3rd Corps. They said that over 100

9 civilians, women and children, were killed there. But

10 I wasn't there. I didn't hear about it from anyone.

11 Perhaps there were some stories, until we saw the

12 pictures and were able to verify it, because it was

13 not -- at that time you couldn't believe everything,

14 because there were -- people were telling all kinds of

15 things then. We went to the church to see whether

16 there were some prisoners of war. They were saying

17 there were some prisoners of war kept in the church,

18 but we saw that there were none there. But most

19 information -- I got most of the information from the

20 press and some from television, because that was a

21 topic that was at that time present, unfortunately.

22 MR. SCOTT:

23 Q. Sir, I asked you if you had seen any reports

24 or investigations about Ahmici. There was a particular

25 report to Colonel Blaskic, allegedly, about the latter

1 part of May 1993, from the SIS, and I believe the

2 record would show presented to him by Ante Sliskovic.

3 Is it your testimony, sir, that you never saw that

4 report?

5 A. Yes. I state that I never saw any report

6 from Ahmici, about Ahmici, compiled by anyone.

7 Q. Did you have occasion to work with Darko

8 Kraljevic while you were on the senior staff in Vitez?

9 A. I didn't know him. We would rarely meet, and

10 we never did anything together.

11 Q. Did you consider him to be a -- what some of

12 your colleagues might consider among the criminal

13 element of the HVO in Central Bosnia?

14 A. I could say that some of his personnel could

15 have been -- I don't know what they were all involved

16 in, but I don't know exactly what I could tell you

17 about it.

18 Q. Do you recall the name of the unit that Darko

19 Kraljevic commanded?

20 A. They were called Vitezovi.

21 MR. SCOTT: If the usher could show you

22 what's been marked as Exhibit Z1075.1.

23 And for purposes of the stack or bundle,

24 Mr. President, we've now jumped down several documents,

25 I believe, but they should nonetheless be in order.

1 If you go down till you hit 1075.1, please.

2 I'm told the registrar has that, Your

3 Honour. I'm sorry.

4 If that could be placed on the ELMO, please.

5 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

6 without wanting to interrupt, I think it's another

7 SIS-related document.

8 JUDGE MAY: Let's wait and see.

9 MR. SCOTT: Well, it is. I'll say it, Your

10 Honour; it is. It relates also specifically to

11 Mr. Kraljevic, a man that this Court has heard

12 extensive evidence about, I believe, among others. And

13 I think if there's a relevant question that someone in

14 the role of Mr. Vukovic -- or, excuse me, Colonel,

15 should -- he may not be able to, but I can't know

16 that -- shed some light on.

17 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

18 MR. SCOTT:

19 Q. Sir, if you will look at Exhibit 1075.1.

20 This appears to be a promotion of Mr. Kraljevic

21 dated -- the document is dated the 18th of June, 1993,

22 in which Mr. Kraljevic is being appointed as deputy

23 chief for the Central Bosnia SIS centre. Do you have

24 any information, sir, about why this Mr. Kraljevic

25 would be promoted to the deputy chief of the Security

1 Service in June 1993? Can you help us with that,

2 please?

3 A. I don't know about this. I cannot comment on

4 it.

5 Q. Did you know at that time of any relationship

6 between Mr. Kraljevic and Mr. Anto Sliskovic?

7 A. I don't know what the relations were.

8 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour. I'll

9 move on.

10 Your Honour, I'd advise the Court that it

11 probably hasn't been very pretty, but with a lot of

12 on-my-feet editing, I think we have a chance of

13 finishing the cross by 4.00.

14 Q. Sir, let me go back to the mention of

15 Slobodan Praljak, who you indicated that you knew at

16 one point had come from Croatia. Did you know, sir,

17 that on the same time that you were on Colonel

18 Blaskic's staff, that there were other -- at least one

19 representative of the HV, the Croatian army, in Colonel

20 Blaskic's headquarters? Excuse me.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 A. I believe that I can state with full

23 responsibility that during my time in the headquarters,

24 that no officer from Croatia was in the Central Bosnia

25 Operative Zone command.

1 MR. SCOTT:

2 Q. Did you know a man named Miro Andric? Isn't

3 it true, sir, that he was an HV officer?

4 A. I don't know whether he was. I don't have

5 information about him.

6 Q. You don't know Mr. Andric at all? You didn't

7 have any interactions with him in the Hotel Vitez

8 headquarters?

9 A. No, I didn't have, but if we're referring to

10 the same Andric, I know an Andric who was a Deputy

11 Chief of Staff to Mr. [Realtime transcript omitted name

12 Perkovic]. I cannot recall his first name.

13 Q. I'm sorry, to who? To -- I'm sorry. I don't

14 want to suggest a name to you if it wasn't correct, but

15 who did you -- on whose staff?

16 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Scott.

17 MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry. I'll look over here.

18 Q. You said that you thought that he perhaps was

19 a Deputy Chief of Staff to Mr. -- and even the

20 transcript is blank. What did you say, sir?

21 A. If we're referring to the same person, I

22 think his first name was Mario Andric. I don't know

23 what his rank was. He was in the HVO Main Staff

24 headquarters in Mostar. And at one point he stayed

25 briefly in Central Bosnia. I only know that he was

1 captured in Ravno Rostovo.

2 Q. And what was he doing in Central Bosnia, sir?

3 A. I don't know. He didn't talk to me and he

4 never interacted with me or with my job. That may have

5 been around January 1993, or even December.

6 Q. All right. Now, going back to the time we

7 talked about earlier this afternoon, when you were

8 involved with Mr. Kordic and in the Central Bosnia

9 command, was there someone named -- was there an

10 officer named Zarko Tole -- I may be pronouncing the

11 last name wrong. Forgive me -- that was the, if you

12 will, the commander, the military commander, for what

13 was being referred to as Central Bosnia, that preceded

14 Colonel Blaskic? Do you remember that name, sir?

15 A. I only remember that Zarko Tole was

16 appointed. This is information that I received. I

17 never saw him. And I know that very shortly, he was

18 captured by the Serb forces in Bugojno municipality.

19 So he was there briefly. I never had an opportunity to

20 meet him or to see him.

21 Q. Sir, let me ask you to look to Exhibit

22 2360.18, and I don't know if it's in the bundle or --

23 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour. In the

24 interests of time, I'll simply put the photocopy on the

25 ELMO, and if the witness could be provided the B/C/S

1 version.

2 Q. Were you aware, sir, that when Brigadier Tole

3 was put in this position of the command of the Central

4 -- what was then being called Central Bosnia, that

5 that was on the order of General Bobetko of the army of

6 Croatia?

7 A. I'm not familiar with that, but I know that

8 he was appointed. But I see for the first time now who

9 it was that appointed him.

10 Q. The commander of the southern front, General

11 Janko Bobetko, the Croatian army command; is that

12 correct, sir?

13 A. I don't know. I cannot comment at this time.

14 Q. And in addition to appointing the brigadier,

15 it also established an IZM Central Bosnia in Gornji

16 Vakuf; is that correct, sir?

17 A. I see that in paragraph 1, and I know that in

18 Gornji Vakuf there was some command post, but I never

19 knew how and under whose orders this was established.

20 Q. Well, perhaps you can help the Court in terms

21 of just IZM. Do you know what, in Croatian military

22 parlance, what is an IZM?

23 A. That would be a command post, a forward

24 command post that was detached for specific tasks on a

25 temporary basis.

1 Q. And if you look at the attached chart, sir --

2 we'll close with this -- this indicates a command post

3 for Central Bosnia and the number of municipalities,

4 including such places as Busovaca, Vitez, Novi Travnik,

5 et cetera.

6 My question to you, sir: Isn't this, in

7 fact, the Central Bosnia command that we've talked

8 about today and what continued to be -- throughout

9 these events, what really became then the Central

10 Bosnia Operative Zone, originally established by

11 Croatian General Bobetko? Is that true, sir?

12 A. I cannot say whether this is true.

13 Q. Do you have any reason to believe this

14 document is not true, the document that's marked before

15 you? Do you have any reason to think this is not a

16 true and authentic order by Janko Bobetko?

17 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

18 a technical objection. This document has been tendered

19 under a different number, without this chart. Now,

20 shall we treat this as a new document? This is

21 2306.18. We have it in our files but without the

22 attachment, so to me this attachment would seem to be a

23 new document; at least we see it for the first time.

24 MR. SCOTT: I understand, Your Honour, that

25 the attachment is with, I hope -- if Ms. Verhaag is

1 correct -- with the registrar's copy. It would have

2 been tendered some time ago. I'm in the Court's

3 hands. If it was not tendered then -- this is the form

4 which I was using the document -- have been using the

5 exhibit. If it hasn't been tendered, I would tender it

6 now.

7 JUDGE MAY: The registrar says it's in the

8 international armed conflict bundle, as it is here. It

9 may be that the Defence haven't got it for some

10 reason.

11 MR. SAYERS: If I may presume, Mr. President,

12 I think the point that Mr. Naumovski was making, that

13 the exhibit that we have, Exhibit 2360.18, does not

14 have any chart attached to it.

15 JUDGE MAY: Well, the original does, so your

16 copy, it was omitted for some reason. Yes.

17 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, with that, I

18 conclude. That's my cross-examination.

19 JUDGE MAY: Thank you, Mr. Scott.

20 Mr. Naumovski, time is short because one of

21 our number has to attend a meeting. Do you want to be

22 very long with this witness?

23 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] I'll do my

24 best, Your Honours. I am in a somewhat embarrassing

25 position. There are quite a lot of documents here and

1 some of them are quite new, but I shall try to be as

2 brief as possible.

3 Re-examined by Mr. Naumovski:

4 Q. Mr. Vukovic, only a couple of questions

5 more.

6 You were asked a number of times, quite

7 unnecessarily, I think, where did we have the interview

8 in Split. It was in my room, in my suite, at Marjan

9 Hotel?

10 A. Yes, I said it was at a hotel, but I couldn't

11 remember --

12 Q. Yes, yes, yes, quite fine. But we have to

13 remember the interpreters.

14 So these were the beginnings of an organised

15 resistance across the Serb aggression; that was the

16 time frame. And you spoke about the headquarters,

17 about the Crisis Staff, and so on and so forth. So

18 this is the spring of 1992, April, May, June; is that

19 so?

20 A. It is.

21 Q. Do you agree, then, that in May, for

22 instance, the only lawful army in the Republic of

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina was the JNA?

24 A. Yes, it was.

25 Q. Would you agree with me that in May, the JNA

1 still kept the barracks at Travnik, at Kiseljak,

2 Slimena, Kaonik, and so on and so forth?

3 A. Correct.

4 Q. The Crisis Staff was mentioned today, but

5 that was a political body, wasn't it?

6 A. Political body.

7 Q. You mentioned Mr. Matisic, who was a

8 politician, a highly-appreciated politician in the town

9 of Travnik?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And he attended with you some meetings where

12 efforts were made to organise men, materiel, raise

13 funds, and so on and so forth, because you had begun

14 the organisation from scratch, isn't it?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. So that is the period of time when people

17 like you volunteered to help with the organisation,

18 because you knew that unfortunately war would break out

19 in your areas, and you pooled your knowledge, some

20 military, some logistical, some some other, in order to

21 try to lay the foundations for what later came to be

22 called the Croat Defence Council?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Very briefly about these documents, you were

25 shown one document, Z61. You looked at the

1 signatures. You seem never to have seen it before, but

2 it doesn't really matter. But you yourself mentioned

3 that it transpired from this document that that meeting

4 was of the basic organisations of the Croat Democratic

5 Community in Zenica, Busovaca, Vitez, and Travnik and

6 that it took place on the 17th of March, 1992. And

7 among the signatures, we see featuring the signature of

8 Mr. Dario Kordic and others and representatives of the

9 municipal HDZ organisations or from relevant

10 municipalities?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Another document is Z62, where you agreed at

13 a meeting that you should go and talk to Minister of

14 Defence Susak in Croatia, and this is the period of

15 time we're talking about?

16 A. The 21st of March, yes. March 1992.

17 Q. So that is the beginning of what you were

18 about to do in Central Bosnia, but when it is still at

19 its embryonic stage, isn't it?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. At the time, you were making preparations

22 because you realised that there would be an aggression

23 by whom?

24 A. By the Serb or Chetnik army.

25 Q. And the JNA, isn't it?

1 A. Yes, and the JNA too, which still existed.

2 Q. But that meeting, to your knowledge, did not

3 take place?

4 A. To my knowledge, it never took place.

5 Q. Thank you. There was also mention of another

6 document, Z289, and the Prosecutor read out to you a

7 part of it. You couldn't find your way around it, but

8 it says something to the effect that Mr. Kordic is

9 requesting that a car be returned to the command of the

10 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina at a locality called

11 Zivinice, and that document was signed by the commander

12 of the military police, Zeljko Karic. I think I'm

13 reading it correctly. Yes, Karic from Kakanj, isn't

14 it? That is in Kakanj, isn't it?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And there, as it says in it, you said you had

17 no knowledge of it, but this is something that is

18 written by this gentleman from Kakanj, isn't it?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. You wanted to say something?

21 A. Yes, I wanted to say something. I think I --

22 this document became clear to me. This is a platoon of

23 the military police in Kakanj, and that platoon was a

24 part of the 4th Company from Kiseljak, and it was the

25 platoon commander who was reporting to the company

1 commander. He reported to him daily on the activities

2 of the platoon, and then it was the company commander

3 who reported to me. So I really can say that I never

4 laid my eyes on this document before. Perhaps I saw

5 another document of a similar content, but I wouldn't

6 really know.

7 Q. Right. I won't ask you any questions about

8 this document. But the Prosecutor read it, wanting to

9 show that it was Mr. Kordic's office. That's why it

10 was said. But it said here that the military police

11 were in charge of the security of the staff and so on

12 and so forth, and it is a man in Kakanj who writes

13 that. So these are somebody's in Kakanj, aren't they?

14 A. Yes, they must be in Kakanj.

15 Q. Thank you. And, excuse me, just one more

16 question.

17 The recovery of this car that had been seized

18 from the Muslims, that was no military operation; it

19 was simply kind of a gesture? It wasn't a military

20 operation, could I call it, even if it was so as this

21 man says it is?

22 A. Well, if it had happened, there would have

23 been an order to return it to its owner.

24 Q. No, but I didn't really understand why did

25 the Prosecutor show you this document, Z365. But some

1 training in Capljine is mentioned, and Capljine is a

2 town in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the Republic of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, isn't it?

4 A. Yes, it is.

5 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

6 I may have omitted something, Your Honours,

7 but I think that the witness must be already tired, and

8 I would conclude therefore with this.

9 Thank you, Colonel Vukovic.

10 JUDGE MAY: Thank you, Colonel Vukovic.

11 Thank you for coming. That concludes your evidence,

12 and you are free to go.

13 [The witness withdrew]

14 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now until half past

15 9.00 tomorrow morning.

16 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

17 4.12 p.m., to be reconvened on

18 Thursday, the 4^th day of May, 2000,

19 at 9.30 a.m.

20

21

22

23

24

25