1 Tuesday, 14 March 2000
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 9.40 a.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good
6 morning, ladies and gentlemen; good morning to the
7 technical booth and the interpreters. Can you all hear
8 me? Thank you very much. Also for the Prosecution,
9 for the Defence, General Krstic, good morning.
10 I believe we are once again here to resume
11 our work. Will you call the case, please?
12 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes, thank
13 you. This is case IT-98-33-T, the Prosecutor versus
14 Radislav Krstic.
15 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So today we
16 shall continue to listen to the testimony of the
17 witness for the Prosecution, and I believe we have to
18 call back again Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez. Is that so?
19 Mr. Harmon, you have the floor.
20 MR. HARMON: Yes. Thank you. Good morning,
21 Mr. President. Good morning, Your Honours. Good
22 morning, counsel.
23 [The witness entered court]
24 MR. HARMON: Hopefully we have resolved our
25 slight technical problem and we're ready to proceed
1 without interruption.
2 WITNESS: JEAN-RENE RUEZ [Resumed]
3 Examined by Mr. Harmon:
4 Q. Mr. Ruez, turning your attention to look to
5 Prosecutor's Exhibit 5/6, because that's where we ran
6 into the numbering problem yesterday, and what I would
7 like you to do is pick up on your testimony, continue
8 to inform the Judges about the significant locations in
9 Potocari and events that are important in this case.
10 You can proceed, please.
11 A. I will need some electricity on the ELMO.
12 Now it's fine, it's working fine.
13 So on this exhibit, one can see the factory
14 which is called the Zinc -- no, sorry, the Energoinvest
15 Building, which is also referred to as the Zinc
16 Factory. The next one is also Energoinvest, but the 11
17 of March Factory.
18 You can also see in this photograph that in
19 behind the factory is an open area with a house. These
20 kinds of details might come up often in witness
21 testimonies of persons who have been through the
22 Potocari events.
23 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez, for the record, the photograph
24 that's on the ELMO is photograph 5/7; is that correct?
25 A. Yes, that is correct. This is 5/7.
1 Q. All right. Thank you.
2 A. I go, indeed, to 5/6, where we had stopped,
3 but the interest here is that we are talking about the
4 same factory, so it fits, in fact, quite well in the
5 chronology. We're now on 5/9, am I correct, or ...
6 Q. Mr. Ruez, proceed in the order that you think
7 is best to narrate the events.
8 A. No. Sorry. Indeed, there was one before,
9 5/8. So starting on this photograph, I'm going to be
10 more precise and I'm going to give you indications
11 which are relevant to the major crime scene which we
12 have identified in Potocari.
13 As I told you yesterday, a number of murders
14 have been committed in this place and reported by
15 witnesses. All of them are small-scale events compared
16 to all the rest we are currently exposing to you, but
17 this one is quite significant. The initial assessment
18 of the person who will talk about this event is 80
19 persons who had been killed in the vicinity of this
20 factory.
21 I will, in fact, describe to you the
22 location. Allegedly, on 12 July, in the afternoon,
23 when the Bosnian Serb army entered Potocari, there were
24 a lot of refugees in this factory. Groups of soldiers
25 started to mix among the crowd. The main crowd was a
1 bit further on the right, on this road [indicates],
2 which goes towards the separation line. The soldiers
3 started to mix among the people and separated men,
4 which, according to the witness, were taken to the back
5 of the factory. So following on this photograph, that
6 path here [indicates]. The witness was hidden in a
7 shed which is in the woods behind the White House,
8 which is just at the other part, on the right of the
9 factory; this house here [indicates], the shed being
10 under the tree line, somewhere in the hill.
11 I'm going to pass on another photograph. I
12 would like you first to notice on this one the corn
13 field in front of that house. It will be an important
14 detail for the following.
15 Exhibit 5/9 is a view of the same area, seen
16 from above the area where the witness was seeing the
17 events. You can see the same factory, the first one on
18 the right, in the middle of the picture, but seen from
19 the back. The same area of concrete here [indicates].
20 At the back of the picture, you can see the Express
21 Compound, the bus company, which was also an area
22 crowded with refugees.
23 The group of soldiers who was taking the men
24 away from this factory allegedly passed the fence which
25 is separating the factory compound from the garden of
1 this house.
2 I will present you with another view. This
3 is another view of the same location, but this time
4 seen from the angle a person which had been separated
5 in that location would have seen before reaching the
6 area of execution.
7 Just having passed this corner, the persons
8 had to turn left and were directed towards this little
9 wooden shed, which is before the White House, where the
10 soldiers cut a hole through the fence in order to pass
11 with their victims.
12 Q. Mr. Ruez, you've just been testifying about
13 photograph Prosecutor's Exhibit 5/10; is that correct?
14 A. 5/10, that is correct. All these photographs
15 are dated June 1996.
16 When we came to visit this location in June
17 1996, we followed the indications given by the witness,
18 and indeed in the area where he had described the
19 soldiers passing, escorting their victims towards the
20 back of this house, we could notice that the wire of
21 the fence had been cut, reattached with other bits of
22 wire. And on this photograph, to show how it was
23 possible to go through this fence, we put a wooden
24 stick to block the fence. The hole is quite large, and
25 it is very possible for anyone to go through this
1 hole.
2 What I would also like to point out on this
3 photograph is it is a random situation, but it happens
4 that a truck is parked just in front of this house,
5 which happens to be a strange coincidence, since at
6 that same location, the witness describes the presence
7 of a truck which came after the execution to collect
8 the bodies. I will turn on this, but here you have the
9 best view of this truck. This truck is of the type of
10 TAM trucks we already mentioned. Very common trucks in
11 this area, multi-purpose trucks.
12 Q. Mr. Ruez, this is 5/12; is that correct?
13 A. This is Exhibit 5/12. This is a view from
14 the wooden shed under which the person who witnessed
15 the event was hiding. Again here on the right of the
16 picture you can see the corner of the concrete ground
17 of the Zinc Factory. Then a bit more on the left you
18 have a little wooden shed, next to which was the hole
19 in the fence. In the area left to this shed is also
20 the area where the execution of these men is supposed
21 to have happened.
22 The next photograph is Exhibit 5/13, and
23 shows the shed under which the witness was hiding and
24 was witnessing the events. He was in the little -- in
25 the part -- little bit on the right of this shed,
1 according to what he told us.
2 The next exhibit, number 5/14, is the left
3 part of the view that we just have seen and which shows
4 the area, the precise area where the execution took
5 place. I won't go into the details of the execution.
6 The witness will talk about them. The area is more or
7 less behind the house and on this part of the house.
8 You can see here the truck parked more or less in the
9 same position which the witness indicated.
10 According to the witness, once these events
11 were over -- they lasted awhile because the people were
12 taken in little groups -- a truck came, and some
13 prisoners who had been kept alive were forced to load
14 the dead bodies on the truck, and then the witness
15 moved away. He doesn't know where the truck went.
16 On the next exhibit, Exhibit number 5/15,
17 this photograph is an aerial imagery dated 12 July
18 1995. The quality of your originals might be better
19 than this photocopy if you have them, but still on the
20 photocopy you can observe interesting things which
21 match with the situation.
22 First of all, here you can see the house, and
23 in front of the house, the 12 July 1995, indeed there
24 is a cornfield. The corn is high. When you take the
25 little dot which was pinpointed on the overall exhibit
1 of Potocari, the circle around this little dot was a
2 vehicle. This is a vehicle. At the left of the
3 vehicle you can see a black line. This is the shadow
4 of the cornfield the separation line where the people
5 are starting to assemble is exactly at the end of this
6 cornfield.
7 Q. You're pointing to the centre of the road?
8 A. To the centre of the road where there is this
9 accumulation of black dots and a straight line. This
10 is exactly the separation line. Not the separation
11 line but the line which was formed just before the
12 buses were coming here.
13 On the next photograph -- sorry. On this
14 photograph still, before seeing the next one, the house
15 where the event was taking place is this house here.
16 Next to it is a vehicle parked, a large vehicle.
17 On the next exhibit, which is 5/16 -- the
18 photograph is dated 13 July 1995 -- the truck -- the
19 large vehicle which was parked next to the house is no
20 more on the photograph, and the vehicle which was
21 behind it, might have had an engine failure or some
22 sort of mechanical problem and had to be pushed inside
23 the cornfield so that the other vehicle could quit this
24 area.
25 This is the house, in the middle of the
1 picture, a bit on the right, just before the wooded
2 area, and the shed is under the trees just above this
3 house, above on the right. On this photograph you also
4 have the Zinc Factory visible with the truck that the
5 people were, in fact, here taken.
6 Regarding the photographs of Potocari with
7 all the factories, we provide you with markings on
8 them, arrows pointing on all the names of colour
9 photographs to have better possibilities of referencing
10 the colour photographs with the aerial photographs.
11 Q. Mr. Ruez, have you finished your description
12 of that particular set of events?
13 A. Yes, absolutely.
14 Q. We're going to move to another part of
15 Potocari?
16 A. Potocari.
17 Q. Please proceed.
18 A. Exhibit 5/17 is a photograph of the White
19 House. The photograph is dated January 1996. You can
20 see the access path to the house. The location here
21 where these wooden logs are on the ground is an area
22 where Major Kingori, United Nations military observer,
23 was standing together with a group of VRS soldiers and
24 was complaining about the condition of the detention of
25 a man inside the house. It is the precise location
1 where he's on the film saying that the men are sitting
2 on top of each other and this is not good. This is
3 also the house in which General Mladic went to visit
4 the prisoners.
5 This same house is the one which I told you
6 previously had been erased from the Zoran Petrovic film
7 for the reason that a lot of men apparently were to be
8 seen on the balcony, according to Robert Block, an
9 American journalist who had an opportunity to view this
10 film before editing.
11 On the left of the picture, you can see a
12 blue construction. Not entirely but you see its right
13 part. This is the so-called Blue Building.
14 These are the only interesting elements on
15 this photograph.
16 Q. This is photograph 5/18, Mr. Ruez?
17 A. Photograph 5/18 is a photograph taken from
18 inside the White House, from the balcony where the men
19 were sitting. Just in front you can see the Faros
20 Building, and the blue structure which can be seen
21 behind the Faros Building is the so-called Blue
22 Factory, in which we have no reports at all of any
23 presence of refugees since that place was sealed off by
24 the Bosnian Serb army.
25 Just at the left side of the Faros building
1 was the UN Compound.
2 The Exhibit 5/19 is a general view of this
3 area where all these buildings can be seen. In fact,
4 this is a photograph taken on the hill just behind the
5 house where the execution of these 80 persons is
6 supposed to have happened.
7 On this picture you can see the White House.
8 It's difficult to describe exactly where it is. It is
9 on the left part of the picture. Just in front of the
10 White House is the Faros Building. At the right of the
11 Faros Building -- that building seems on it very close,
12 but in reality there is a distance between the two --
13 is the so-called Blue House, the Blue Building, with
14 the parking lot visible in front of it. On this
15 parking lot was filmed the sequence in the Zoran
16 Petrovic film where the water tank can be seen and
17 where Zoran Petrovic is asking the Dutch officer, "What
18 is going on here?" And he gets the answer, "You know
19 very well what is going on here." This is the precise
20 location where this little bit of interview was
21 attempted by Zoran Petrovic.
22 JUDGE RIAD: Was this Blue Building a
23 headquarters or something?
24 A. We don't know exactly. It was possibly a
25 place where they were staying overnight or possibly a
1 place where persons were taken for interrogation. We
2 have no information about what happened inside. No one
3 came to give us any report about this.
4 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you.
5 A. And as a reference point again, I return to
6 the White House. In front left of the White House, the
7 huge structure, completely occupying the top left of
8 the picture is the Akumulator Factory, so the UN base.
9 One element to notice already yet on this
10 factory is construction which is on top of the building
11 and which can be considered as a kind of watchtower of
12 this military compound. We will talk about that point
13 a bit later.
14 The Exhibit 5/20 is a photograph taken very
15 close from the location where Major Kingori and a group
16 of Serb officers were standing, and this shows the
17 proximity of the UN compound from that place. This is
18 a view of the UN compound from that intersection of the
19 road and the path leading to the entrance of the
20 house. And again here you can see the watchtower on
21 top of the Akumulator Factory.
22 Before presenting the next exhibit, one main
23 question which happened was due to the number of
24 reports of crimes committed there, even individual
25 murders or murders of two people, the result of all
1 this activity should have been that several dead bodies
2 would have to be taken from this area and buried
3 somewhere. So there was a necessity to find some
4 potential graves in this area in case the bodies would
5 not have been buried at a long distance away from
6 Potocari.
7 The Exhibit 5/21 shows an area behind the
8 Express Compound, which on the photograph is dated 13
9 July 1995, and the arrows are pointing towards areas of
10 open field. At this moment on the photograph there is
11 nothing special to notice.
12 On the next exhibit, the 5/22, the arrows now
13 are pointing towards areas of obvious disturbed soil.
14 There are some reports of men taken away from this
15 building at the time it was packed with refugees, and
16 taken in and unknown direction behind this facility.
17 So following the information received
18 indicating this disturbed soil, we went to the location
19 in order to find out what it could be, if it was
20 nothing, if it could be a mass grave site. I already
21 informed you that this would not be the case. There is
22 no mass grave here.
23 I will show you again briefly Exhibit 5/22.
24 The exhibit shows three areas of disturbance. From the
25 bottom of the picture, area number 1, and the arrow
1 above it shows area number 2. In reality, this is only
2 one area of disturbance. What seems to cut this site
3 in two, in fact, is the tree, which is just where the
4 arrow is [indicates]. In reality, on the ground, this
5 is only one area. The third arrow, the one which is at
6 the top of the picture, marks, indeed, another area of
7 disturbance, which is approximately 50, 60 metres away
8 from the first one. We will call, for the sake of this
9 presentation, the site which is at the bottom of the
10 picture, site number 1, and the one above, site number
11 2.
12 The information I was referring to was dated
13 1999. So that year we went to the location, first,
14 location number 1, and trenched the entire area in
15 order to find out if some mass grave was located
16 there. Absolutely nothing was found, but there is an
17 interesting situation still here [indicates]. You will
18 have a report about that probe by Professor Richard
19 Wright, who was the one present that day. There was,
20 indeed, a hole dug by machinery at this location, but
21 only a hole, and absolutely nothing was put inside this
22 hole. The only question so far would be, why dig such
23 a big hole in that location at that moment?
24 The information is also -- other information
25 in this area is that someone saw a pile of dead bodies
1 in the vicinity of this location, so the two elements
2 could have been connected. But, I repeat, this hole is
3 absolutely empty; there is nothing inside.
4 For the possible reason for this, I will show
5 you Exhibit 5/24 now, which is a photograph taken
6 approximately two months later. This is a photograph
7 dated 11 August 1996. This is a photograph taken just
8 standing in front of where the hole has been identified
9 by Professor Wright. The hole was going from the
10 photograph -- from where I'm standing when taking the
11 photograph towards this corner [indicates]. So all
12 this area here [indicates] was the area of the hole.
13 If you look in between this tree and in
14 between the back of this Express Compound, you can
15 observe that you are exactly in a straight line with
16 the watchtower of the UN base. So this is really not a
17 good location to dig holes in order to deposit bodies
18 into it. There is a fair possibility that someone
19 could be on the watchtower with a video camera and film
20 all these events. This is only a suggestion.
21 The next exhibit is 525 and shows the area
22 just close to what we call now site number 2, which was
23 the arrow on the aerial imagery which was at the
24 topmost of the picture. The arrow, in reality, is just
25 at the left in this picture. This one was taken on
1 purpose, retrieved from the site in order again to see
2 what kind of view one could have on the watchtower or
3 from the watchtower. At the location this photograph
4 was taken, one has a view on the watchtower. But if
5 you move on the left, where the area of disturbance was
6 seen, we have then Exhibit 526. This is a view from
7 site number 2, in the direction of the watchtower,
8 which is totally impossible to see since the view is
9 blocked by this line of trees. The disturbed site,
10 which is visible on the photograph, is the area in
11 front of these trees, a little bit on the left.
12 The area was thoroughly scooped. Absolutely
13 nothing has been dug there. The only possibility to
14 justify the presence of this disturbed soil on the
15 picture is that some machinery went to collect items
16 behind this location. What kind of items, no one has
17 an idea about it. The only thing is that people report
18 disappearances and men taken toward these kinds of
19 locations. The persons are not very precise when they
20 talk about directions where the people were taken,
21 since no one had dared to follow to try to see what was
22 happening after that.
23 The conclusion is that so far we have not
24 found a mass grave in Potocari.
25 MR. HARMON:
1 Q. Mr. Ruez, now that you've completed your
2 presentation on Potocari, could we turn to Bratunac.
3 First of all, could you orient the Judges with the map
4 that you have and inform the Judges of the approximate
5 distance between Potocari and Bratunac.
6 A. So we have, in fact, finalised the
7 presentation of the exhibits related to the area here
8 [indicates], where I had marked an area of a
9 concentration of prisoners and the symbol for
10 small-scale executions.
11 We are now going to move towards Bratunac
12 town. The distance between Potocari and Bratunac is
13 roughly three kilometres, it's a very short distance.
14 In between the two locations is a point which is called
15 Yellow Bridge, which is just the border, the formal
16 border, let's say, between the Srebrenica enclave and
17 the Bratunac area. It is not a bridge; in fact, it is
18 just a yellow ramp alongside a road with a little brook
19 underneath. But this is a point that many people refer
20 to, since there was a checkpoint at the Yellow Bridge,
21 that many witnesses will talk about, including Dutch UN
22 soldiers.
23 Exhibit 6A is a photocopy of a 1:50.000 map
24 of the area of Bratunac. It shows, in fact, the
25 distance between Potocari and Bratunac town, each
1 square being one kilometre.
2 The next exhibit is 6/1. This is an aerial
3 photograph of Bratunac town, dated 12 July 1995.
4 The next exhibit will mark on this photograph
5 a certain number of locations which will most probably
6 come up later. The exhibit number is 6/2 and will mark
7 a few interesting locations in Bratunac town, not all
8 of them. Unfortunately, we don't have a picture which
9 has a larger frame and would enable us to plot more
10 locations.
11 The road coming from Potocari, from
12 Srebrenica, is the road which is at the lop left of the
13 photograph. When one comes from Potocari, driving in
14 the direction of the town, you arrive at an
15 intersection where you have the location of the Hotel
16 Fontana, which is the hotel where Mladic and his staff
17 had meetings with representatives -- first, with the
18 Commander of the UN Battalion; then with Nesib Mandic,
19 the Muslim representative of the population who went to
20 Bratunac on the 11th, in the evening; and where the
21 next morning, the 12th, discussions or orders were
22 passed by General Mladic to the three Muslim
23 representatives which were found and willing to
24 represent the people at that moment. These events
25 happened in the Hotel Fontana, marked on the
1 photograph.
2 Regarding detention facilities in Bratunac
3 town, there are still things that have to be finalised
4 regarding that topic, but so far the information that
5 we can forward to you is the following:
6 Initially, some people, but probably not in
7 numbers, were taken towards the soccer field on the
8 12th. We do not have confirmation that these people
9 stayed long on this soccer field. So that location was
10 probably only used initially, but very quickly the
11 prisoners who were on that field were probably taken to
12 facilities.
13 These facilities are potentially the Vuk
14 Karadzic school. We do not have any survivor who
15 stayed inside the Vuk Karadzic school, but we have
16 information from Mr. Miroslav Deronjic who was the
17 President of the SDS at the time for this area, and
18 also the Civilian Commissioner for Srebrenica,
19 designated by President Karadzic. We had information
20 from him that, indeed, one classroom, according to his
21 declarations, was used in the Vuk Karadzic school. We
22 know from survivors that there was a line of buses and
23 trucks parked in front of the Vuk Karadzic school. So
24 here we have two possibilities: Either, in fact, the
25 Vuk Karadzic school was full, the reason why people had
1 to stay on board the buses and trucks; or the ones who
2 were taken inside the school were taken there because
3 they had to receive some special treatment. We have no
4 explanations about this, and we have no one who
5 survived his or her stay inside this Vuk Karadzic
6 school.
7 Also behind the Vuk Karadzic school is the
8 Old school, so-called Old school. Survivors stayed in
9 this location from 12 July until 15 July. This is the
10 location from which some were later on taken to the
11 Pilica school and the Branjevo farm.
12 There is a hangar next to this old school,
13 which we initially suspected being a detention
14 facility. A search was conducted there, a few IDs were
15 found, but it's impossible at this point to draft
16 conclusions on them. This building might have been
17 used, but we have absolutely no guarantee that this is
18 the one referred to by one of the key survivors as
19 being the hangar. We will probably soon know exactly
20 where this hangar is, but as of today, I cannot
21 pinpoint that for you on the photograph.
22 The Vihor Compound Company is also marked on
23 this photograph; not because people were detained
24 inside. This might have happened, but we don't know
25 about it. The only thing we know here is that there
1 was a line of buses and trucks waiting, full of
2 prisoners, which spent the night between the 13th and
3 the 14th, lined up in front of this Vihor Company.
4 Another line of buses and trucks was at the exit of the
5 town, towards the direction of Konjevic Polje.
6 One very important location which does not
7 appear on this photograph because it is just underneath
8 the blank window in which the title of the photograph
9 is written is the Bratunac Brigade headquarters. One
10 can see a little bit of it just above the photograph,
11 so it still gives an indication of a distance. It is
12 a big factory called Kaolin Factory, and in front of
13 that is a little structure which is the headquarters of
14 the Bratunac Brigade.
15 Q. Mr. Ruez, let me ask you a question. Are you
16 able to tell the Judges your best estimate of the
17 distance between the Hotel Fontana, for example, and
18 the Vuk Karadzic school?
19 A. I would say a bit less than 500 metres.
20 Q. What is the distance between -- your best
21 estimate between the Hotel Fontana and the football
22 field?
23 A. One kilometre maximum.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 A. The Exhibit 6/3 is the photograph of Bratunac
1 town, zooming in where you can see lines of trucks.
2 The photograph is dated 12 July, 1400 hours. This is
3 the moment where the deportation is going to start, and
4 the buses are assembling in Bratunac in order to begin
5 the transportation. You can clearly see them on the
6 photograph. They are all parked here along this centre
7 part of the town and where the bus station is.
8 Q. And they also appear to be marked near the
9 Hotel Fontana; isn't that correct?
10 A. Yes, this is correct. Probably more buses
11 are already arriving at this moment. This number of
12 buses is not the number which was used to conduct this
13 operation. Buses were still called in in the area at
14 that moment.
15 The following one, Exhibit 6/4, is even a
16 closer shot, close-up on these buses.
17 Q. Mr. Ruez, these last two photographs show
18 1400 hours. Is that an approximation? That's not an
19 exact time, is it?
20 A. This is approximation. It is not a precise
21 time.
22 We have a very short video from the
23 helicopter to show you of Bratunac in order to have a
24 feeling of the size of this small town, and the various
25 locations can be briefly seen on the film. It is a
1 very short videotape.
2 Q. That is videotape -- is it 6/5, Mr. Ruez?
3 A. I hope so. I don't have the reference of
4 it.
5 Q. All right.
6 MR. HARMON: Could we dim the lights, please,
7 and play that particular video?
8 A. A2B indeed, 6/5.
9 [Videotape played]
10 A. This is the Akumulator Factory. UN base in
11 Potocari. This is the road going towards Bratunac.
12 This is another factory which was not occupied by any
13 of the refugees. It is much more south -- sorry,
14 north. This is the area more or less where the border
15 was -- no border, the limit. There was no fixed limit
16 anyhow for the enclave. No borders had ever been set.
17 Here you can see the big structure in the
18 middle of the picture is the Kaolin Factory, which is
19 the headquarters of the Bratunac Brigade.
20 This is the centre of town. This is again
21 the factory. All this is, in fact, the town. The town
22 is just constructed around the centre.
23 This is the soccer field. Here you can see
24 the Hotel Fontana, the Vihor Compound.
25 Q. Does that complete the presentation on
1 Bratunac?
2 A. Yes. This is all what we could show you on
3 Bratunac for the moment.
4 Q. We're about to enter into Sandici; is that
5 correct?
6 A. Yes. The next --
7 Q. Again, would you orient the Judges with your
8 pointer on the map.
9 A. From now on, in fact, we are going to enter
10 the series of events which leads to the final chain of
11 massive killings. The situation we're going to talk
12 about now starts the 11th, in the evening, where the
13 people assembled in the Susnjari area, and during the
14 night begin to cross the lines and the minefields and
15 take the direction of several villages in the direction
16 of Kravica in order then to reach the area of Konjevic
17 Polje and try to break through the lines.
18 Q. Okay. Please have a seat.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Could the Prosecutor please
20 speak into the microphone.
21 MR. HARMON: Yes. No problem.
22 Q. All right. Mr. Ruez, why don't you show the
23 Judges Exhibit 7A first, the map, and then we'll
24 proceed with the video.
25 A. On this photocopy of the map of the area,
1 scale 1:50.000, the circle is on the location of
2 Sandici. This is the location which can be seen on the
3 film which was filmed by the journalist Zoran Petrovic,
4 and on which we will also turn.
5 The other interesting parts of this map are
6 here you have the assembly area of Susnjari, at the
7 bottom right of the picture.
8 Q. For the record, you've put a red circle
9 around the area; is that correct?
10 A. Absolutely. I have put a red circle. In
11 between the grid reference 5791 and 5891. It's roughly
12 the grid reference of this assembly area. It was not
13 one precise location. It was all this area which was
14 used and from which then the trail started.
15 I would also circle the village of Bare,
16 which is a reference for many of the people who had a
17 knowledge of the area and knew a little bit where they
18 were going and not only following the person in front
19 of them.
20 And I would also circle the little hamlet
21 named Kamenica, which is the area where a massive
22 ambush took place. Bare is also an area where an
23 ambush took place and shelling. Many people were
24 wounded in this location also. And these are the
25 situations which then led to the massive surrender of
1 the people who were blocked in this area, didn't know
2 any longer what was happening in front of the column.
3 In reality, at that moment, at 12 in the
4 evening, the head of the column was already passing
5 through the intersection of Konjevic Polje, and they
6 already said once the spearhead of the column with the
7 armed forces in front has passed, this area of
8 Konjevici, towards Nova Kasaba, all this area was
9 blocked with military forces and nearly no one managed
10 to go through. Some managed to go through the
11 night, but as you will see later on on photographs of
12 this area, it is open terrain and very difficult to
13 manage to go through such a place when soldiers are
14 blocking it.
15 So from that point then, the 13th, in the
16 morning -- also during the night the people report
17 infiltration of soldiers among the groups, murdering of
18 wounded, a certain number of situations, would then the
19 next morning lead to the surrender, and I repeat again,
20 encouraged by Serb forces lined up along this stretch
21 of road using stolen UN equipment and luring people out
22 of the area by providing them with fake safe
23 guarantees. We have again the photograph of the VRS
24 soldier wearing the UN helmet, who can be seen on the
25 Zoran Petrovic film.
1 Q. Mr. Ruez, stay with the map for just a
2 moment. Are there power lines that went along the
3 ridge that are evident in this particular map? Can you
4 indicate to the Judges the location of the power line?
5 A. Yes. Unfortunately, this one is not -- it is
6 a black and white copy so it's less obvious, but I'm
7 going to mark the power line. The power line is the
8 important feature as a Fil d'Ariane, to follow by the
9 people who were trying to escape this area.
10 Q. Did the power line orient the people in the
11 direction that they were supposed to flee?
12 A. Yes. The power line was supposed to lead
13 them towards the intersection of Konjevic Polje, but
14 the power line was only a reference point, since the
15 power line is, in fact, between the road and the top of
16 a hill. So this is an area where the men, in fact,
17 avoided to walk. They walked on the south ridge in
18 order not to be visible from the asphalt road.
19 But you can see these straight lines on the
20 map. This is one power line but it's not the one we're
21 talking about. You have another one that goes from
22 west to east like this, and this is the one that people
23 were attempting to follow. In fact, in this area
24 here.
25 Q. All right. Mr. Ruez, please continue.
1 A. We are now going to show again the
2 extracts -- an extract of a videotape filmed by
3 Mr. Zoran Petrovic.
4 MR. HARMON: And for the record,
5 Mr. President and Your Honours, that's Prosecutor's
6 Exhibit number 3. We showed that yesterday. If we
7 could dim the lights, we will now show a portion of
8 that video.
9 Tell the Judges what particular significance this
10 portion of this video is to your presentation.
11 A. The interesting part of this is that since we
12 came in 1996, just after the winter, at the moment the
13 snow had melted and before the grass grew up, we
14 managed to identify the place quite easily and mainly a
15 lot of items were still available for observation. So
16 this would not have been the case if we had returned
17 them there in 1997 or 1998. You will see that on the
18 chronology of the photographs also.
19 MR. HARMON: Could you start the film,
20 please?
21 [Videotape played]
22 MR. HARMON:
23 Q. Is this the Sandici meadow?
24 A. This is the Sandici meadow. There are
25 several elements here that have to be noted. We'll
1 have to show stills extracted from it. Here was a
2 destroyed house and a pylon on the right-hand side of
3 the meadow.
4 Q. Did this man survive, Mr. Ruez?
5 A. No. This man has disappeared. He's calling
6 his son to surrender, to come out of the woods and
7 surrender. This is the beginning the surrendering
8 process. These people are probably among the first
9 ones arrived on the meadow.
10 I have nothing on my screen.
11 Q. We're waiting.
12 [Videotape played]
13 A. Okay. So here you can see again the Serb
14 soldier wearing the blue helmet. Here there is a tank,
15 which is to be noted. One man, plus two others,
16 following him, surrendering on this meadow. This one
17 being directed -- passing by the edge of a big house,
18 then walking on a concrete path, going down on the
19 road. This is a trial going from downhill uphill.
20 Here it seems flat. In reality it goes downhill. You
21 will see later on that view without people on it.
22 Here piles of clothes. At the right hand
23 here you will have the big White House. This is the
24 trail of the people just before arriving on the asphalt
25 road. The asphalt road is 50 metres behind -- in front
1 of them. That's the path that comes down from the
2 ambush. It is also just very nearby the asphalt road,
3 the last metres before arriving on the asphalt road.
4 This young boy managed to escape from this
5 area, was identified by a journalist from the BBC,
6 Enver Husic. He was supposed to go and fetch some
7 water at some point for the wounded and managed to get
8 on board of a bus which was passing by and escape the
9 area.
10 This man is going down. The house is behind
11 us. He's going down the asphalt road, and he's going
12 to be directed towards the meadow where the other ones
13 are sitting and waiting. The wounded are taken towards
14 destroyed houses which are on the left of the meadow,
15 looking in that direction.
16 Q. Thank you. Mr. Ruez, why don't you now
17 commence your presentation on Sandici meadow.
18 A. First of all, we're going to view the video.
19 The video we have put together is starting, in fact,
20 from the ambush sites. In fact, it starts with a film
21 from a helicopter, starting in the vicinity, in the
22 area of the village Bare, which was circled on the map,
23 on the photocopy of the map, where shelling took
24 place. The column was ambushed in that area, and there
25 is still clothing to be seen on the film from the
1 helicopter. It was a helicopter -- it was an IFOR
2 helicopter at that time who did this mission, on our
3 request, with map references.
4 In that same area where this clothing can be
5 seen, in fact, there are even bones inside the
6 clothing, and you will see a skull also seen from the
7 helicopter.
8 This area has been processed in 1996 by a
9 team of experts from Finland who were operating in that
10 area in 1996, totally disconnected from our activities,
11 they were collecting surface remains. But it's
12 important to note that 600 bodies have been collected
13 in that area. These are bodies of victims killed in
14 combat, in ambushes, in shelling, and possibly also in
15 other circumstances which are impossible to sort out
16 between -- I mean, for us, at least, between combat and
17 other situations.
18 MR. HARMON: Mr. Ruez, we're going to pause,
19 I believe, for a break, and we'll continue with your
20 presentation after the break.
21 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes. I
22 think it's a good idea because it will take us quite
23 some time to view this. It's much better to prepare
24 ourselves adequately.
25 We shall have a 20-minute break, and we will
1 resume after that.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.45 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 11.13 a.m.
4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]
5 Mr. Harmon.
6 MR. HARMON:
7 Q. Mr. Ruez, we're going to start. We will
8 start with a video, and the video number, for the audio
9 booth, is 7/12.
10 MR. HARMON: If we could have the lights
11 dimmed, Mr. President, we'll start with the video, and
12 Mr. Ruez will explain this particular video as it
13 progresses.
14 [Videotape played]
15 A. So this is the area of Bare. It is a hilly
16 area behind the road Bratunac-Konjevic Polje. So it is
17 on the trail of the column, nine months after the
18 fact. No. This video, I think, is dated June 1996, so
19 nearly one year after the facts. It's an area where a
20 lot of personal items are scattered. In fact, the main
21 concentration of items and bodies are in the trees, the
22 line of trees.
23 The number of bodies collected there in 1996,
24 as I said, is around 600, and this is important
25 information in order to check, in fact, the ability of
1 many of the witnesses to assess numbers. In this
2 location, the assessment of victims provided by the
3 witnesses is much more than what has been collected.
4 The numbers usually announced in this area are 1.500 to
5 2.000 victims, but there is a natural inflation of the
6 assessment of numbers in these circumstances.
7 Here, in fact, these traces are shelling
8 traces on the ground. These are the shell impacts of
9 1996.
10 Here you can see, in fact, human remains.
11 Here you have part of a skull here, another skull
12 here. This is an area where many bodies are under the
13 line of trees. So all this is still part of what we
14 consider combat operations. These would be the last
15 bodies related to combat operations.
16 This is a general view of the area. This is
17 the road that goes from Sandici towards Bare. The road
18 turning left, behind this hill, will be in the
19 direction of Sandici. The film will continue by road,
20 a little piece of the road. No, sorry, I only used
21 helicopter views for this one. This is the road going
22 down to Sandici, the path going down.
23 Here we can have the volume a bit higher.
24 This is the area where -- this is the area where there
25 are bones in the field. I will have to repeat some of
1 the sentences that Peter Nicholson is giving. In 1996,
2 Peter Nicholson is a colleague from the Office of the
3 Prosecutor who was together with us on missions at that
4 time. All the videos from 1996 have his voice on it.
5 For the sake of the French record, I will have to
6 repeat from time to time the key elements he is giving
7 because the translation room will not translate these
8 words.
9 Here you have a view on Sandici from the top
10 of the hill where the people came down to surrender.
11 This feature here [indicates], this White House, is the
12 key element on the ground in this location. It will be
13 a constant reference point. This is the White House
14 again.
15 The people who were surrendering were going
16 up this slope, arriving at the White House. Going
17 towards Bratunac, Kravica/Bratunac. This is the path
18 that people took when they were directed, in the film
19 of Zoran Petrovic, to go towards the meadow. They were
20 going down this slope, arriving on the road, and then
21 going toward the meadow. This is the path going uphill
22 in the meadow. The houses in front are the houses
23 where the wounded were taken.
24 This is a stretcher still lying on the
25 ground. A lot of clothing which was abandoned before
1 the people were taken away from this location. We
2 collected numbers of items on this field, mainly
3 identification cards. Many of them were illegible, but
4 several of them still had very clear names on it.
5 This is the side of the house where on the
6 film the people were directed to go down. This is the
7 location where at one point a group of people are
8 helping a wounded, carrying a wounded uphill. Men were
9 taken towards this house. No one knows what happened
10 to them once they were inside. They didn't come out.
11 All this was an area of heavy fighting in
12 1993, so many of these traces are impossible to date.
13 Shell casings were found in this location but they
14 could have been fired at any moment.
15 This is a location behind the house. This is
16 the trail that the refugees were taken, and on the
17 Zoran Petrovic film, this is the place where the people
18 were moving uphill carrying the wounded, where the man
19 was interviewed, asked if he was afraid, and he said,
20 "Who would not be?" And this is the location of the
21 former Muslim cemetery behind it.
22 Here all the items are very visible. At that
23 time it was all high grass and one ID could have been
24 collected in this location.
25 At the time of the events there was high
1 grass and the trail was just making a path. On this
2 view now here, since it is just after the snow melted,
3 the entire area is with very short grass. So
4 everything is visible. The concentration of items is
5 getting even more concentrated when one reaches the
6 house.
7 This is exactly the location where one man,
8 who was dressed in brown with a bloodstain on his
9 backpack, had to walk along this side of the house.
10 This is one of the IDs collected on that
11 spot. Mehmedovic, Hasim, born in 1943.
12 There were several 20-millimetre shells
13 scattered in this area. Most probably ...
14 We had one body on the film. This is not the
15 location where this body was. This is another body.
16 We don't draft any conclusion on his presence there.
17 We don't know the date of the death. We don't know the
18 cause of the death. He's just there.
19 Q. All right. If we could have the lights
20 raised. Mr. Ruez, you can continue your presentation
21 on the Sandici meadow.
22 A. I'm going to show you the Exhibit 7/1. This
23 is an aerial photograph dated 13 July 1995 at
24 1400 hours, approximately 1400 hours. What can be seen
25 on this photograph, before I show you the one with
1 markings on it, is the path on top of the picture going
2 from where it is written "group of people" is the road
3 we were driving on by vehicle and that the people who
4 were surrendering in this location took, walking down
5 that path, arriving in this curve where the elevation
6 of the ground starts, getting up this hill, walking
7 along -- across this field, arriving at this house,
8 walking along the edge of the house, then getting down
9 on the asphalt road just here, turning right, walking
10 towards this group of destroyed houses which can be
11 seen here on the photograph, house 1, house 2, house
12 3. Then they had to sit on the meadow, which is just
13 here.
14 I'm going on the next exhibit, which is the
15 7/2, where these reference points are now marked. You
16 have a trail, you have a destroyed house which we also
17 call here the White House because it's white, big, and
18 destroyed. You have a group of prisoners marked on the
19 photograph. At this moment, this group is not
20 extremely large. It's very difficult to assess how
21 many people are on this -- on this meadow. There would
22 be a possibility to do some estimate, but it would be
23 very fuzzy just for one reason. When you look at the
24 situation here, in fact, it is a slope. So there is a
25 problem of perspective here to have a real idea of what
1 size is occupied on the field. But there is no doubt
2 that this is only the beginning of the process. Much
3 more people will be concentrated on this meadow at a
4 later stage. This is the beginning of the process.
5 Q. Mr. Ruez, let me ask you a question about
6 this particular exhibit. There are, on the road, a
7 number of white rectangular objects. What are those?
8 A. Yes. This one I will show you them on the
9 next exhibit, 7/3, which is a blow-up of this area.
10 Exhibit 7/3, you have a closer view of the meadow with,
11 again, the White House, destroyed building, the group
12 of people, and these bars, white little bars on the
13 road, are buses.
14 There are additional items of interest also
15 which I will show you on another photograph which is
16 marked and which is at the same scale than this one.
17 It is the Exhibit 7/4.
18 On this photograph the same elements already
19 described can be seen, but in addition you can observe
20 that there is one small vehicle parked in the vicinity
21 of where the truck is going to the meadow is starting.
22 On the right of that white dot, which is a light
23 vehicle, is an unidentified vehicle, which is
24 apparently probably a military object, but it is very
25 difficult to assess what it could be.
1 You have, on the right of the concentration
2 of prisoners on the meadow, also another unidentified
3 vehicle on this photograph. You have destroyed houses,
4 and in front of the destroyed houses, not marked on the
5 picture, is a black spot with a triangular shape. This
6 is the shadow of a pylon on the meadow. You will see
7 photographs of this pylon. It is an important
8 reference point to ensure where we are at this
9 location. This will be shown to you later.
10 The vehicle which on this vehicle is
11 unidentified is, in fact, a tank which we can see on
12 the Zoran Petrovic film. The tank is parked just in
13 front of the group of prisoners. We have made this
14 identification extremely recently, and this is a very
15 interesting corroborating point for one of the persons
16 you will hear talking about his or deal from this
17 meadow and how he survived the events in the Kravica
18 warehouse. He doesn't know where he was, he's still
19 not informed where he was, but there is no doubt for us
20 that this is exactly the location where he was sitting
21 on the meadow.
22 You have received a statement of this person
23 and a sketch he's attached to it. The sketch marks
24 indeed the building which is on the photograph but not
25 on the opposite side of the road, which is quite a
1 logic one. I will show you later on a photograph which
2 is a view the people had when they are sitting on the
3 meadow. On some locations, once you are sitting, you
4 do not see the asphalt road any more. You only have
5 the sight of the big White House which is on the
6 opposite side of the road, that can give a feeling to
7 someone staying several hours on that location that, in
8 fact, this house is on the same side of the road as the
9 meadow and not on the opposite side of the road. That
10 would be the only discrepancy between his description
11 of the location and the elements we have now compiled
12 to assess if indeed this was or not the location.
13 Q. Mr. Ruez, what is the name of that witness
14 you've just --
15 A. (redacted).
16 Q. Thank you.
17 A. We will maybe use the opportunity at this
18 moment to show a photograph of a -- no. We can show
19 that later.
20 One other additional element here. Where it
21 is marked "large trucks," indeed if you compare the
22 size of these trucks with the size of a bus, for
23 example, it is clear that it's not a bus who can move
24 its markings. These markings are caterpillar tracks.
25 It can come from a bulldozer, for example, but it can
1 also come from a tank, and these tracks are indeed
2 tank-size large. This is indeed the position where the
3 tank is supposed to be parked. So one can logically
4 assume that these large tracks are, in fact, the tracks
5 left by the tank that was parked in this location and
6 that we have on photograph in the Zoran Petrovic
7 video.
8 This Exhibit 7/5 is a colour photograph from
9 the same meadow. This was filmed from the helicopter
10 in 1999. So long after the events.
11 Some of the traces are still visible on the
12 ground with an attentive eye. The interest of this one
13 would also be to help in assessing the numbers. This
14 is viewed from another angle. If we had to reproduce
15 on this photograph the position where the people were
16 sitting the shape would be different, because on the
17 other one, the angle gives another view of this. If we
18 had to mark on this photograph the position of the
19 people who are on the aerial photograph, they will be
20 much more lined along this part, facing the direction
21 of the house and sitting in a stretched direction
22 towards the bottom part of this picture going uphill.
23 But at one moment the slope is steep. So photographed
24 from behind, it is impossible to make an assessment,
25 because people would hide those who are sitting in
1 front of them.
2 So this assessment is very hard to make and
3 is not really interesting because the aerial photograph
4 is just one instant shot. It doesn't give any
5 indication on what happened before, how many people
6 were there just before or just after, since from that
7 meadow, at one point, people are moved away from the
8 site towards Bratunac. And we don't know in what
9 sequence all these events happened. After, the only
10 people who could give us information about that were
11 taken away, but these ones were taken towards the
12 Kravica warehouse.
13 The next photograph is Exhibit 7/6. This is
14 a view, dated end of April, early May 1996, and shows
15 again the items which can be found at the back of the
16 White House. This is a view that one would have if you
17 would walk down the hill, which is south of Kravica,
18 towards Sandici, in order to surrender. This is
19 exactly the trail followed by these persons, and they
20 had to walk at the left part of this house. This is
21 the location where the man, who, in the Zoran Petrovic
22 film, is dressed in brown and is carrying a backpack
23 with a bloodstain on it, is walking, and one soldier is
24 pointing a finger towards the Sandici meadow, just
25 behind that house.
1 The additional interest of this photograph is
2 to provide you with the feeling of what items on the
3 ground looked like once photographed from the air and
4 with maximum enlargement on it.
5 What you will see on the next photograph,
6 which is Exhibit 7/7, this is again, at the bottom of
7 the picture, the White House we were talking about, and
8 at the left side of this house, all these white dots
9 are the personal items which can be seen on the film
10 and on the photograph. These are the kinds of traces
11 these items leave on the ground. So this is not of
12 immediate relevance for the events which happened
13 there, but it's a good indication to enable you to
14 determine what can be the objects which, on this
15 photograph, in the end only appear like little dots.
16 But this concentration of little dots here [indicates]
17 is personal items and clothing.
18 On the other side of the road, you can see an
19 area of disturbance. This is trash and abandoned
20 material. The large tracks that you can see on the
21 left part of it are, again, the traces left by the
22 heavy machine which was positioned on this meadow and
23 that we now are certain is the tank which can be seen
24 on the Zoran Petrovic video. That tank, according to
25 witnesses, was moving from time to time from that
1 location. There was also an anti-aircraft gun mounted
2 on top of a vehicle present in the vicinity of this
3 meadow, and it is described by the witnesses who were
4 sitting on the meadow.
5 The next photograph, 7/8, is a view of the
6 Sandici meadow but photographed the year after, in
7 1997, April 1997. Next to these two HUMVEE vehicles
8 parked in front of the meadow, you can see piles of
9 trash. This trash occurs in addition to the trash
10 which can be observed on the aerial imagery which was
11 just previously shown; it was not there in 1996.
12 What you can also see is the shape of the
13 meadow, where the corn field is here [indicates]. Just
14 in between where the two vehicles are parked is more or
15 less the size of -- occupied by the people who are on
16 the aerial photograph. It is roughly the terrain that
17 they occupied in terms of how large the group was. But
18 then, how long is very difficult because, as you can
19 see, you have this elevation of the ground just behind
20 the corn field, and on the photograph, the people
21 reached that part. So it's very hard to assess at one
22 point how many are on the meadow.
23 It's also interesting to note that in 1997 --
24 this is a corn field, so all the items which could be
25 observed there in 1996 would never have been observed
1 had we gone there in 1997. Mowing an entire corn field
2 and then trying to find pieces of identification would
3 not be feasible.
4 The following exhibit is a panorama of
5 several pictures pasted together and which offers a
6 view of 90 degrees of area just in front of the
7 meadow. So this is the view that a prisoner sitting on
8 the meadow would have if he was sitting on the right
9 part of this meadow. I will have to pass it under the
10 ELMO from right to left.
11 Q. I think if you just reference it by number,
12 it's sufficient. I don't think you're going to be able
13 to --
14 A. I think I can. I think I can, yes. We can
15 try, at least. Can we zoom in?
16 Q. I'm going to have my assistant help you on
17 this. If we can have the --
18 A. This will be fine.
19 MR. HARMON: Could the image be played on the
20 ELMO, please.
21 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for counsel,
22 please.
23 A. So looking from the right to the left, which
24 is from the west towards the east, the first things you
25 can see here are the group of destroyed houses, three
1 destroyed houses. This is the location where the
2 wounded were taken. It's hard to believe that it was
3 to protect them from the heat, since there is
4 absolutely no roof on top of these houses. But this is
5 a picture dated 1999, and these houses are no more in
6 the shape which they were in 1995 and 1996. So, in
7 fact, just forget about this comment, I should not have
8 made it, because we have no clear indication of exactly
9 how these places were. And who knows? There might
10 have been a little bit of shade available here. No one
11 knows what happened to the ones who were taken towards
12 these houses, at least none of the survivors we talked
13 with.
14 I'm going to move the picture now towards the
15 east. Then you have the corn field. There is an
16 additional feature here on this part, because this is
17 the part which I will then use to show you the ground
18 details which enable us to make sure that this is,
19 indeed, the location of the Zoran Petrovic film. You
20 have here this pylon, which I already indicated is
21 visible on the aerial imagery, and on top of this house
22 here [indicates], you can see there is a hill going up
23 with one tree, like this [indicates]. The other items
24 which can be seen on the film are some pylons which are
25 on top of the hill. In fact, one is not visible on
1 this photograph because the hill is too high, but there
2 is a pylon on top of it which can be seen also on the
3 Zoran Petrovic film.
4 So this continues to show the meadow, the
5 house. The valley from which the people are coming
6 from is the valley which is behind this hill, turning
7 right here [indicates], and then it goes towards the
8 left. So people who would be sitting on the left part
9 of the meadow here [indicates], for example, would only
10 see the top of vehicles, they would not see the asphalt
11 road. That could give the feeling that this house is,
12 in fact, on the same side of the road that they are
13 sitting and not on the opposite one. And here is
14 another pylon, but we don't use it as a reference
15 point.
16 MR. HARMON:
17 Q. One question, Mr. Ruez, on this particular
18 panorama. Which direction is Bratunac?
19 A. Bratunac is on the left, direction east. The
20 intersection of Konjevic Polje is the direction west,
21 on the right of this photograph.
22 Q. Thank you.
23 A. I have to change a little bit if the
24 chronology of presentation to add the three exhibits we
25 have just created in order to implement the part I'm
1 talking about, which is the certainty that we are,
2 indeed, talking about the same location. Now, it is
3 Exhibit 7/15, which is a photograph of a man standing
4 in a meadow, a poor-quality printout.
5 MR. HARMON: Mr. Dubuisson will distribute
6 those in just a moment, Your Honours.
7 A. The man on the photograph is not the
8 important part, so the light reflection, it is not a
9 problem.
10 It's a poor-quality printout. We could do
11 better than that. But all the things that are visible
12 on this photograph can also be seen in the Zoran
13 Petrovic video, in a much more clear way. The house
14 here [indicates] is to be compared with the house on
15 the meadow, on the panorama photograph. The first
16 house on the right, the recognisable features are the
17 two windows. On this one, you can see that there are
18 still some pieces of wood which form part of the roof.
19 They don't exist anymore in 1999. Here on the
20 photograph you have the pylon. It's hard to see, but
21 you can see here these dark areas that go above the
22 hill. This is the pylon.
23 Q. And you're referring to the upper left-hand
24 corner, under the time --
25 A. Yes, on the left side of the head of the man,
1 just underneath the date -- not the date, the time,
2 11.44.10, it's just under the "11". It's much more
3 clear on the original footage.
4 You can also see that this hill, which was
5 easily identifiable on the right hand of the panorama
6 picture, the hill going up. Unfortunately, the frame
7 is just underneath the other tree, but I have no doubt
8 that if we change a little bit of this frame, this will
9 be -- the tree will be there in the same position.
10 The next exhibit is 7/14. This is a printout
11 of the tank we were talking about. The only thing is
12 that in reality, on this photograph, the tank had moved
13 and is in another position. We could take a still
14 which is a better view of that, and -- where the tank
15 is on the meadow. This is not, unfortunately, not the
16 correct one. It is most probably the same machine but
17 filmed at another moment in the video and could even be
18 different. But we have on the Zoran Petrovic video the
19 tank clearly visible, as well as an armoured personnel
20 carrier which is visible nearby the big White House.
21 In that same vicinity is also an army truck
22 which is visible, which is the Exhibit 7/13. So that
23 can be one which can be seen on the aerial photograph,
24 but the main reference on this meadow is the tank.
25 We'll take a proper extract of that tank.
1 The next exhibit is 7/10, which is, in fact,
2 just a view for recollection of the video regarding the
3 number of items scattered on this meadow. We have full
4 video footage of all these things. It would have been
5 a bit lengthy to cut and paste all these, but all the
6 items have been filmed at the moment we were collecting
7 them, and several of them are kept in evidence.
8 One important piece of information regarding
9 any kind of IDs that could be found at such locations
10 is that aside from confirming that the persons are
11 declared missing, there is not much one can conclude
12 from it. Knowing that many people carried IDs on
13 behalf of others, that someone could have dropped also
14 IDs at any moment in that area, so the only thing that
15 we could say about an identification found there is if
16 a person is declared missing or not, but more than that
17 would be difficult.
18 One ID was shown during the footage, it was
19 the identification of Hasim Mehmedovic, born in 1943.
20 So as an example, for this person, a weapon permit
21 issued to this person was also found in Sandici. So we
22 have not been able to identify this person or any
23 relatives. However, Mehmedovic, born 4 March 1943 in
24 Kamenica appears as reported missing from Kamenica on
25 14 July 1995 by a daughter.
1 These are the kinds of elements we could
2 collect following discoveries of identifications in
3 these circumstances, but there are so many people who
4 crossed through that area that we won't use this for
5 our final demonstration.
6 The next photograph is the Exhibit 7/11.
7 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez, I'm go to ask you, in respect
8 of 7/11, to take your pen and circle the important
9 feature of this photograph.
10 A. This photograph is taken from the east side
11 of the White House, so on the south part of the road
12 Bratunac-Konjevic Polje, looking in the direction of
13 Bratunac. The first area one can see is, in fact, the
14 area in between Sandici and the village of Kravica, the
15 village of Kravica being the village which suffered an
16 attack of Muslim forces coming from the Srebrenica area
17 and who raided that village during the celebrations of
18 the orthodox eve and destroyed a number of buildings
19 there and killed yet an unknown, undetermined number of
20 people, but very heavy casualties were suffered by this
21 locality at that time.
22 If we zoom in this part of the photograph,
23 you can see the asphalt road in the middle of the
24 picture. This road continues inside this valley, and
25 at the end of this road here, you can see a White
1 Building which is just at the left of the house which
2 is in the middle of the picture, which has a very white
3 wall with a red roof. Just at the left of it are two
4 white structures. These structures are the
5 agricultural warehouse complex of Kravica, the
6 so-called Kravica warehouse. This is the distance
7 between the meadow of Sandici and the Kravica
8 warehouse.
9 Q. Mr. Ruez, would you put a circle around the
10 agricultural buildings? Can you estimate for the
11 Judges the approximate distance between Sandici meadow
12 and those particular warehouses?
13 A. I will return to the map for that. Say
14 roughly one kilometre. One kilometre.
15 This is what we needed to say regarding the
16 Sandici meadow before arriving to the next crime scene.
17 Q. Okay. The next crime scene, Mr. Ruez, is the
18 location of the agricultural buildings that you've
19 circled in Prosecutor's Exhibit 7/11; is that correct?
20 A. That is correct.
21 Q. All right. Why don't we move to Kravica
22 then. Again, if you could orient the Judges on the big
23 map first.
24 A. So on the main --
25 Q. You need to put on the microphone.
1 A. On the main map, here again is the location
2 of Sandici, with the symbol we have determined to mark
3 concentration area for prisoners, and the location of
4 the village of Kravica. The red dot is marking an area
5 of mass execution, which is the event we are going to
6 unfold now, what happened inside the Kravica
7 warehouse.
8 Exhibit 8A is again a photocopy of a scale
9 1:50.000 of the area. The circle is around the
10 location where the Kravica warehouse is. To be more
11 precise, the warehouse -- it's not visible on this
12 photograph, but the warehouse is just on the south part
13 of the road just along the asphalt road and the meadow
14 of Sandici is very nearby, approximately one kilometre
15 away from it towards the west.
16 Q. Mr. Ruez, the events that you're going to be
17 describing that occurred at the Kravica warehouse
18 occurred on what date?
19 A. On 13 July 1995. Again, the massive
20 surrender started the 13th in the morning, continued
21 during the day. People were moved away from that
22 meadow the beginning of the afternoon. The general
23 direction taken by this group of prisoners should be
24 Bratunac, since that was the final destination of most
25 of those who were captured and were not executed at the
1 moment. They had their first contact with the forces
2 who were in this vicinity.
3 At some point, a series of events happens is
4 that a first group is taken on board of buses and
5 driven towards Bratunac. They stop in front of these
6 agricultural warehouses. They turn right to enter the
7 warehouse complex, and they unload the prisoners inside
8 one part of the warehouse, which is the east part of
9 the warehouse.
10 Sometime later, apparently another group, a
11 much more larger group, is walked toward Bratunac, but
12 the same situation, these ones will never reach
13 Bratunac. They stop at the Kravica warehouse and they
14 are entered into another part of this warehouse which
15 is the west part of the warehouse.
16 So we have at that moment two groups of
17 prisoners, 13th of July in the afternoon in the Kravica
18 warehouse, one very large group which is inside the
19 west part and which arrived second, and one first group
20 which is occupying one part of the east part of the
21 warehouse.
22 I will show you an exhibit which is the
23 Exhibit 8/1, which is an aerial imagery dated 13 July
24 1995, at 1400 hours.
25 Q. Again, that's a proximate time, is it?
1 A. An approximate time, not a precise time. On
2 this photograph, we can consider that we have a perfect
3 implementation of the testimony of (redacted), who,
4 on the sketch which is attached to the statement which
5 was provided to you, you can see that he marked a
6 position of a bus which was transporting him to that
7 warehouse exactly where the first bus in the middle of
8 this photograph is positioned, just in front of the
9 opening of this warehouse. There is a second bus just
10 behind it.
11 The second group, the large group, was
12 taken -- the arrival -- the access route for these
13 buses -- in fact, I need to tell you that also. On the
14 right of the photograph is the direction of Konjevic
15 Polje. On the left of the photograph is the direction
16 of Bratunac. Just coming from Konjevic Polje, in fact
17 from Sandici meadow towards the agricultural warehouse,
18 the vehicle of the people is coming from the right of
19 this picture.
20 Just passing the first main warehouse,
21 parallel to the road, is the access to the warehouse
22 complex. The vehicle has to turn right and then enter
23 the complex to park in front of the agricultural
24 warehouse.
25 Sorry. I return to this exhibit. Other
1 elements have to be noted on this photograph. The
2 surroundings are important, because they also enable us
3 to check the credibility of the people who are talking
4 about the events in that location.
5 At that moment, on this photograph, there are
6 cornfields, cornfields around the warehouse. You can
7 note that, for example, if you look just at the angle,
8 a bit of the road, and the entrance to the warehouse,
9 just at the corner here you have a field and you have a
10 black little line here and you have another black
11 little line here, which is, in fact, at some point
12 entering the cornfield. This is the shadow made by the
13 high corn. If there would be no shadow here, there
14 would be probably no corn, but this shadow indicates
15 that there is corn, and you have the same situation
16 behind it as well.
17 So if we consider that someone could manage
18 to escape this place, there are not many solutions, in
19 fact. Since the logic is that the people who committed
20 the things are anyhow occupying the road, no one would
21 most certainly take the chance to go to this road. So
22 either someone would go directly straight at the back
23 of the warehouse toward these trees, tree, line and
24 then arriving behind where there is a hill and a forest
25 or would have to cross the cornfield which is behind
1 the warehouse, cross that line of trees and enter other
2 cornfields just behind, which would reach up to the
3 hill. I will show you that on colour photographs.
4 Q. Mr. Ruez, this is Prosecutor's Exhibit 8/2;
5 correct?
6 A. Yes. So it happens at random again here that
7 this photograph, despite of the fact that it is taken
8 in 1999, shows, in fact, the ground very similar to the
9 time of the events. There is high corn on this field.
10 You also can see here, and this can give you
11 some indications and reference point in terms of
12 sizes. You have here on the asphalt road a little
13 truck, and you can see also parked in the vicinity of
14 the right entrance of the warehouse the west entrance.
15 You can see also a truck parked on it. This is a good
16 way to understand the link between aerial imagery and
17 ground imagery.
18 On this photograph, you can better see how
19 the warehouse is structured. We will talk, in fact,
20 mainly -- I mean, only about this main warehouse, which
21 is parallel to the road. This is the only one where we
22 know for sure events happened, since we have survivors
23 from the two events. It is not impossible that other
24 events happened in other places but there are no traces
25 of it.
1 The warehouse, which is on the opposite of
2 the main one which is parallel to the road and the one
3 which is now, in fact, parallel to the little river
4 which is behind the road and the hill, is a little
5 pigsty. This one on his -- at his left at the back and
6 so on the top left of the picture, was apparently --
7 was, at least in 1996, used to store goods of
8 humanitarian aid, and the one which is at the left of
9 the picture, at the bottom left, was a kind of
10 administrative building. Nevertheless, in the part
11 which is closest to the road, there were some -- the
12 place had been freshly repainted and there were some
13 bullet holes visible on the ceiling, but it is
14 impossible to date these holes. They could have
15 happened at any moment, also between whenever, 1992 and
16 that date.
17 Here the two parts of the warehouse are
18 visible, but we'll have a closer shot on this one.
19 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez, with Prosecutor's Exhibit 8/3,
20 if you'd like to take that dark pen and with an arrow
21 just point to the part of the warehouse facility that
22 is the site of the mass execution.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. So the record is perfectly clear each of
25 these buildings we're talking about.
1 A. Exhibit 8/3 shows a view of the warehouse
2 complex seen from a little elevation on the hill just
3 in front -- on the front left of it.
4 Q. Mr. Ruez, just put a circle around the
5 building that we're talking about.
6 A. This is the arrow marking the east part of
7 the warehouse with the entrance door here, and on the
8 same building -- sorry, I said east. It is west. The
9 right part of it on this photograph is the west part of
10 the warehouse, and this entrance here leads to the east
11 part of the photograph. These two parts of the
12 warehouse were occupied with prisoners. There is a
13 central part. You will have more details about it
14 later. We have no idea of the presence or no presence
15 of prisoners here since no one survived to give us
16 information about that precise spot.
17 Q. So the record is perfectly clear, Mr. Ruez
18 has put two arrows and a circle on the building that
19 we're going to be talking about.
20 A. Interest also of this photograph is to set
21 the surroundings of the warehouse complex. The
22 interesting parts to observe here are indeed an open
23 space of former cornfield just behind this warehouse.
24 The photograph here is dated June -- sorry, I have to
25 check it. Yes, June -- probably June 1996. Not sure
1 1996 -- yes. I might have to confirm that date. It's
2 the same date of the film we're going to see later and
3 the date is announced on the film.
4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Excuse me.
5 The date here is the 12th of April.
6 A. [Previous translation continues] ... date of
7 the photograph. Yes. The date of the event was
8 13th of July. The date this photograph was taken is
9 probably, yes, end of April, early May 1996. It might
10 be June 1996. I'm not certain about it, but we'll have
11 a certain date on the video.
12 So here one can see the big hill which is
13 just behind the warehouse and also a path leading
14 uphill. On the screen it's very hard to see, but on
15 the photograph it's clear, the path going up this
16 hill. Then there is an open area on top of this hill,
17 an open, flat area. It is a ground reference for one
18 of the persons who managed to survive that location.
19 The next exhibit is a panorama. Exhibit
20 number 8/4. The photograph is dated January 1996, the
21 first entrance we made in Republika Srpska.
22 On this panorama, you have nearly the entire
23 facade of the warehouse, seen from the road. Starting
24 from the west is the former entrance through which the
25 prisoners who were marched towards the warehouse had to
1 enter.
2 At that moment, the east part of the
3 warehouse, where the people who arrived by bus, was
4 already occupied. The first group was the one who
5 arrived by bus. The ones who arrived by bus, as you
6 can see on the photograph, the bus was just parked just
7 in front of these three large openings. The prisoners
8 who were getting out of these buses were sitting at the
9 extreme east part of this building. They did not
10 occupy the entire size of this warehouse, they occupied
11 only the complete left part of it. The central part,
12 where I said we don't know what happened there, is this
13 one [indicates]. That opening leads to a little
14 room --
15 Q. When you say "this one," Mr. Ruez, you're
16 pointing to the large opening on the right-hand side of
17 the photograph?
18 A. Yes. In fact, it would be more or less on
19 the left -- just under the letter "A," which is on top
20 of this building, some blue inscription.
21 Then next to it is another opening with some
22 markings on top. This is another entrance to the west
23 part of the warehouse, but this was not used to enter.
24 The one which was used to enter is the one at the
25 extreme east. But obviously it was probably used for
1 some to try to exit.
2 So far I cannot tell you more details about
3 the destruction here, since the assumption at this
4 point has always been that it might have been caused by
5 the excavator, who later on entered this place to clean
6 up the bodies inside. But we have to check that, we
7 have a possibility to have a check on this, so for the
8 moment, we cannot draft that conclusion.
9 Q. Mr. Ruez, before you move from that
10 particular exhibit, the small door that has what
11 appears to be pockmarks all around it, can you tell the
12 Judges what those are?
13 A. Yes. As I just said, this is also an opening
14 which enables someone to get inside the west part of
15 the warehouse, but as far as we know, this was not used
16 to enter the location. The men had to enter from the
17 door which is at the complete -- extreme east. The
18 last one to enter said that this was completely jammed,
19 the people were pressed each against another, he had
20 hardly space to get in. So we can make the assumption
21 that the men were probably standing and compressed each
22 with another. But there is a possibility, I will have
23 to show you on the -- to return to the exhibit later
24 on, and there is a possibility to have a quite
25 precise -- not precise, but an assessment of how many
1 people could be in this place.
2 Q. Mr. Ruez, my question is, what are these
3 marks that are around this door frame?
4 A. All the pockmarks which can be seen on the
5 facade are caused by bullets, either small-arms bullets
6 or heavy type of machines, like machine-guns.
7 We have no pictures of this warehouse from
8 before July 1995, so we cannot say if all these traces
9 are connected with the July 1995 event. Some could
10 very well be connected with the previous events of
11 1993. But there are so many other elements here which
12 confirm the chronology of events as we know it happened
13 that our assumption at this stage is that probably all
14 these bullet holes are caused by the event we are going
15 to describe.
16 Q. Mr. Ruez, why don't we stop now your
17 presentation for a few minutes for a break, and we'll
18 return to it after.
19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes,
20 Mr. Harmon. We will have a 20-minute break. Maybe,
21 Mr. Harmon, you should focus a little bit on what we
22 have and leave aside what we do not have. If you could
23 go directly to the photograph and tell us exactly what
24 it means, what it represents, and proceed a bit faster.
25 MR. HARMON: Yes.
1 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So a
2 20-minute break.
3 --- Recess taken at 12.20 p.m.
4 --- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]
6 Mr. Harmon.
7 MR. HARMON:
8 Q. Mr. Ruez, we're going to continue. The two
9 exhibits that I'm going to ask you to show next are
10 Exhibits 8/5 and 8/5A, which show different aspects of
11 the same location within the warehouse. Can you
12 explain the significance of these two exhibits?
13 A. Exhibit 8/5 is a photograph taken 12 April
14 1996, the date is on the picture. This is a photograph
15 taken inside the west part of the warehouse, and the
16 traces you can see on the wall here [indicates] mark,
17 in fact, the former location of a structure inside this
18 warehouse which was referred to by a survivor as a
19 guardhouse inside this warehouse.
20 When we initially came to this place in
21 January 1996, there was hay covering all the ground,
22 there were many elements of destruction, and for a very
23 short visit of five minutes, this location was not
24 seen. The witness informed us that the structure he
25 saw inside did not exist and that maybe the location
1 was wrong. In fact, when we returned there later in
2 April, we discovered this location.
3 One of the elements, aside from the traces on
4 the wall which clearly mark that there was, indeed,
5 some construction here, the other element of interest
6 is on the Exhibit 8/5A, and these are the little blue
7 tiles that one can see at the bottom of the wall and
8 which were -- which make a clear difference between the
9 rest of the warehouse. Only probably the inside of
10 this so-called guardhouse had these little blue tiles
11 at the bottom of the wall. This is a location which
12 was used by a person to sneak inside and survive the
13 explosions which occurred inside the building.
14 Q. Who was that, Mr. Ruez?
15 A. I don't have his name by heart.
16 Q. You can come back to it in a moment.
17 A. Yes. We would also need to check the
18 requirements these people have in terms of
19 confidentiality.
20 Q. All right.
21 A. Exhibit 8/6 is a photograph taken inside the
22 west part of the warehouse and which shows a stain of
23 blood in the corner, which is the corner at the
24 north-west of the main warehouse, in the west part.
25 Just an example. You will see more of that on the
1 video footage which summarises the main observations
2 which could be done in these locations at the end of
3 April 1996.
4 The next exhibit is 8/7. The video put
5 together unfortunately does not film the ceiling of the
6 warehouse. The ceiling is approximately three metres
7 high, and this is a photograph taken in the west part
8 of the warehouse and shows the ceiling. There are
9 several very clear bloodstains on this ceiling. The
10 reason why we can assume it is blood is that the rest
11 of the samples have been analysed and confirmed as
12 blood. No samples were taken on the ceiling, but we
13 have these pictures.
14 The next exhibit is photograph 8/8, which is
15 a photograph taken inside the east part of the
16 warehouse. This is the east wall of the warehouse.
17 The location which can be seen here is the area where
18 the persons who were taken inside the east part were
19 sitting. On my left, when you look at this picture,
20 would be the beginning of the opening of the warehouse
21 which entitled those who were sitting in there to see
22 what was going on outside. They could have a view on
23 the asphalt road from this part of the warehouse.
24 Q. And what are the marks on the wall?
25 A. The marks on the wall are bullet hole
1 traces.
2 The following exhibit is 8/9. It shows again
3 the warehouse parallel to the road, the back of the
4 warehouse, where one can see corn -- the remnants of a
5 corn field behind it and also openings. One can see
6 through these two first windows, starting from the
7 right of the picture going towards the left, these two
8 windows, one can see the landscape behind there. The
9 reason is that there are these three large openings in
10 that part of the warehouse through which one can see.
11 So those inside have also the ability.
12 The first window on the right is a window
13 where one survivor declares having jumped through and
14 stayed lying exactly at the bottom of this picture, and
15 describes features that you will recognise from the
16 previous photographs I indicated and terrain features,
17 cornfields, lines of trees. This person will probably
18 return on these elements.
19 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez and Your Honours, we're going
20 to play a film. It's approximately 25 minutes long.
21 It shows the investigation inside the warehouse and
22 shows significant features in it.
23 MR. HARMON: Could we have the lights dimmed,
24 please, and could we have video 8/13.
25 A. With -- the sound can be high, because the
1 information provided by Peter Nicholson in this film is
2 exactly what I would repeat if I had to comment on it.
3 He will probably have to do it for the sake of the
4 French translation record.
5 MR. HARMON:
6 Q. Mr. Ruez, you don't have to repeat. We can
7 take the -- submit a film for translation, and there is
8 no reason for you to interfere then with it.
9 A. Perfect.
10 [Videotape played]
11 A. So this is the first view of the Sandici
12 meadow. It is the same view than the one on the
13 exhibit which was shown previously and where I marked
14 the warehouse, where I'm currently zooming in. That is
15 film I took in August 1997. What follows is dated
16 early 1996. This is first an aerial view filmed in
17 1999 which puts in relation Kravica village, which we
18 just passed. This is now the Kravica warehouse. So
19 also approximately one kilometre away from Kravica
20 village, even less than.
21 On the right here it goes towards Sandici.
22 Here you can see all the terrain around it, the hill
23 behind, the cornfields, the lines of trees.
24 This is another film from another date, which
25 is 1997. At that moment, the building was used to
1 store building equipment. The inside has never been
2 cleaned, still today.
3 You can see the access road to the inside of
4 the warehouse compound. This is zooming in on the east
5 entrance. This is now the west entrance.
6 The date which appeared is wrong. At that
7 time we didn't know how to use this dating.
8 This is an exit door, not the entrance door
9 of the west part. The entrance of the west part is
10 just here. The persons who were taken towards this
11 place were coming from that direction. They didn't
12 make the complete tour. So they didn't pass in front
13 of the ones who were inside the east part. That's the
14 reason why those inside the east part didn't see what
15 was going on on the other side. This is the west
16 part. This is the location where the guardhouse was
17 previously located.
18 All the traces you can see are residues,
19 human residues, traces of bullet holes and grenade
20 explosions and a lot of bloodstains, a lot of hair peel
21 covering the entire surface of all these walls.
22 The shooting is coming from all directions.
23 All these windows are open. Even from behind, someone
24 could stand on a specific part of the wall and just
25 fire at random inside and throw grenades inside.
1 There is a hole here which is caused by an
2 anti-tank rocket, but it's impossible to known if it is
3 connected with these events or with previous events.
4 There is the shell casings next to it.
5 This is the little pigsty which is behind the
6 warehouse.
7 There are bullet holes also at the back of
8 the warehouse, which makes sense due to the fact that
9 many people tried to jump out of the windows once the
10 execution started inside. Grenades also were thrown
11 from the outside towards the inside.
12 Shelling casing in the cornfield behind the
13 warehouse.
14 Now he's entering the east part of the
15 warehouse where the second execution took place. The
16 first ones to be killed were in the west part. The
17 soldiers made the ones sitting inside the east part
18 believe that they were under attack from the column.
19 They probably were not in numbers enough to commit the
20 execution simultaneously, so they first killed those in
21 the west part. Once the killing was over, and they
22 were shouting that they were under attack and tried to
23 make the people believe that it was combat activity
24 going on just at that moment, and once everything was
25 over in the other part, they went to kill those in this
1 part. And the bullet holes match the direction of fire
2 for people who are shooting from the outside towards
3 the inside, and the shell casings found outside also
4 match with that possibility.
5 All the inside was cleaned when we arrived
6 that day, but indeed some of the things which were
7 inside have then just been dumped outside and a few
8 items were found in there.
9 This is a live grenade found just in front of
10 this warehouse. This is melting residue of a shape
11 charge, forming armour.
12 The yellow markings mark the positions of
13 shell casings in front of the warehouse. These tin
14 boxes are used to put tobacco in it. Handles of
15 grenades are called "spoons," for the French
16 translation.
17 The presence of wallets can also be linked
18 with searching the dead bodies for money. There is a
19 lot of robbing going on in this. Systematically the
20 prisoners, wherever they were, were requested to hand
21 over their valuables. Whatever they had, gold,
22 Deutschemarks, watches. Anything that had of some kind
23 of value was taken from them.
24 This is the area where the people who
25 survived from this location tried to escape, going
1 towards the hill.
2 Our forensic expert at that moment is William
3 Hagland from Physicians for Human Rights. The cause of
4 death determined on the spot was a gunshot wound to the
5 head.
6 That is a grenade holder which has been
7 rolled over by a vehicle, so it is flat. A lot of
8 bullet holes also at the entrance of this location, but
9 we have no report of anyone who was inside.
10 The site was processed for blood samples and
11 explosives residues that day, but later on, a team from
12 the US Navy Forensic Service, in September 1996,
13 processed the entire place. This report is already
14 introduced, I believe.
15 Q. Mr. Ruez, why don't you continue now with
16 your presentation, we've concluded with the film, and
17 continue with the photographs, please.
18 A. Just one important detail, important
19 information regarding the forensic report of the
20 processing of all the evidence inside the west part of
21 the warehouse is that when the forensic investigation
22 was conducted, the east part of the warehouse was not
23 processed. The reason is that at that time we didn't
24 know about any survivor from the east part, so the
25 persons who did the analysis of the warehouse didn't
1 take any sample from the east part. The reason why, in
2 1997, I returned to that location -- I won't show you
3 any of the pictures related to that mission -- but I
4 collected two blood samples, two samples in the east
5 part, at the most eastern part of the building, where
6 people were jammed and compressed when the shooting
7 started, and these two samples, I have results from the
8 lab, were human blood.
9 Exhibit 8/11 is a shoeprint. The
10 reference -- I should return to another exhibit to show
11 you exactly under which window this one is, but it is
12 the -- not the back of the warehouse, it is the front
13 of the warehouse, and it is the first window at the
14 eastern most facade of the warehouse. This is a
15 shoeprint which is under the window, and as you can
16 see, it is reversed. It's not going up towards the
17 window, it's going down. So it's obviously someone who
18 tried to jump out of this window.
19 I mixed it up, I'm sorry. I had to start
20 with Exhibit 8/10 which puts this shoeprint in context
21 with the window. This same shoeprint is the one just
22 where the bullet hole is. This person did not
23 survive. We never talked with him.
24 The last exhibit of the Kravica warehouse is
25 Exhibit 8/12, which is a photograph of a live grenade
1 which was found in front of the warehouse. The reason
2 for it is only to give you a very brief explanation
3 about these grenade holders, called "spoons" in French;
4 that is, depending on the motors -- but on these ones,
5 apparently this is the case -- once you pull out the
6 pin of this type of grenade, the spoon flies off the
7 grenade, it doesn't stay with the body of the grenade.
8 The body is the part that the person will throw away,
9 but the spoon will be left behind. This is the reason
10 why we have found all these grenade handles behind the
11 warehouse, and also in front. They don't go where the
12 grenade is thrown. So at the moment the warehouse was
13 cleaned of its contents, these elements stayed
14 outside.
15 JUDGE WALD: Could I ask a question there of
16 the witness?
17 The picture of the grenade has some writing
18 on it, and I'm wondering if that in any way identifies
19 whether it's an army grenade or if it's just the
20 manufacture, or what.
21 THE WITNESS: The markings on them are not
22 really relevant. They provide the type of the object,
23 but they probably have all the same style of markings.
24 They would not entitle us to find out where it comes
25 from. I mean, yes, the factory, but that would be it.
1 MR. HARMON:
2 Q. Mr. Ruez, have you completed your
3 presentation on that part?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, we're going to turn our attention to
6 Glogova, and, as we have done in the past, Mr. Ruez, if
7 you would approach the large map on the easel and just
8 orient the Judges to where Glogova is in relation to
9 the Kravica warehouse and Bratunac.
10 A. This is a photocopy of the map of the area,
11 where we can see Bratunac town.
12 Q. Mr. Ruez, why don't you just use this big
13 illustration. It's clearer for everybody.
14 A. So on this map that we have here --
15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
16 A. So on this map, we have the marking of the --
17 the mass execution marking for the Kravica warehouse.
18 The assumption was, and it will be confirmed later,
19 that the bodies killed here [indicates] were
20 transferred to be entered in the area called Glogova,
21 which is in between -- a distance in between Bratunac
22 and Kravica.
23 MR. HARMON:
24 Q. Thank you.
25 A. Everyone can see on the map the distance
1 between Glogova and Kravica is approximately four to
2 five kilometres.
3 I have to say a very brief word about
4 Glogova. As I indicated for Kravica, Kravica had been
5 the subject of an attack of Muslim forces in early
6 1993. Glogova is a different situation. In Glogova,
7 the claim is that Glogova was a Muslim village which
8 had been eradicated in 1992, with the people who were
9 living there, either killed, either taken to Bratunac,
10 and some of them at that time killed in Vuk Karadzic
11 school. That's the rough context about the location.
12 In fact, most of the locations we will talk about have
13 some "historical connection". The places were never
14 selected at random.
15 The next exhibit is 9/1 --
16 Q. Let me just stay with that exhibit, I'm
17 sorry, Mr. Ruez. This exhibit has two green dots on
18 it, so just for the record, these two green dots are
19 going to be the areas about which you're going to be
20 discussing?
21 A. Yes, absolutely. The two green dots mark the
22 locations of what we call the Glogova site, which, in
23 fact, consists of two sites and is the reason why I
24 have put two markings on the map. When I say "site,"
25 it doesn't also mean mass graves. The fact is that
1 Glogova site 1 is, in fact, five mass graves. So this
2 is why we call the area a primary mass grave area, it's
3 not necessarily only one grave.
4 Exhibit 9/1 is an aerial photograph which
5 enabled us to find this location. Without these
6 photographs, this location would not have been found
7 through the means we had available, nor from any
8 available source so far. So this photograph is dated
9 July 5 and shows the destroyed village of Glogova,
10 where nothing special is to be observed, except the
11 destruction of the houses. All these houses are
12 totally trashed.
13 The next exhibit, 9/2, is an aerial
14 photograph dated 5 July, the same one, on which I have
15 marked the positions on which we will have to focus on
16 the next photograph. On this photograph, there is
17 nothing special to be observed here. One site is at
18 the right of this road, which is, in fact, south, and
19 the one which is at the left is, in fact, north-west.
20 We will now have -- I want to --
21 Q. Mr. Ruez, let me just clarify a particular
22 point on this. This photograph is dated the 5th of
23 July, and it says in the caption "disturbed earth." Is
24 this supposed to represent the locations where, later,
25 disturbed earth was found, or does this show disturbed
1 earth on the 5th of July?
2 A. No. It is a wrong label, indeed. There is
3 no disturbed earth to be seen on this photograph. The
4 reason why "disturbed earth" is written is that this
5 photograph has to be looked at in connection with a
6 photograph dated later in which, indeed, disturbed
7 earth is visible. But on this precise photograph,
8 there is no disturbance at all.
9 Q. Does that also apply to Prosecutor's Exhibit
10 9/1, dated the 5th of July, saying "disturbed earth"?
11 A. Yes, it does. It is exactly the same
12 photograph that we used in order to add the yellow
13 markings. As I said initially, at the beginning of my
14 testimony, all the white markings are markings which
15 were initially on the photographs provided by the US
16 State Department. The yellow markings are markings
17 which I personally added on them, and it's my
18 responsibility if something is wrong in these
19 markings.
20 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez, Prosecutor's Exhibit 9/2 is
21 then going to relate to Prosecutor's 9/3; is that
22 correct?
23 A. I'm sorry. I didn't --
24 Q. Okay. The area that is in Prosecutor's
25 Exhibit 9/2 that has yellow shapes identified on the
1 exhibit itself is going to relate, then, to the next
2 exhibit.
3 A. Yes, absolutely.
4 I will have to change just a little bit the
5 chronology. The next exhibit was 9/3, but I would
6 prefer at this moment to show you 9/4, which is, in
7 fact, the following sequence of the one I just showed
8 you. Exhibit 9/4 is dated 27 July 1995, it shows the
9 very same areas as the one on the 5th of July, but as
10 you can see on this one, there are very clear
11 disturbances on the ground, fresh disturbances.
12 Another photograph, which is, in fact, 9/3,
13 was in Glogova because of the dates, which I didn't
14 check before. Putting them on the ELMO, this one is
15 dated -- 9/3 is dated 17 July. On 17 July, the
16 excavation work is already -- at this moment, sorry, is
17 ongoing, it is ongoing, it is still not completed. One
18 site is already apparently finished, but the site which
19 is at the bottom right of the picture, there are some
20 mounds of soil visible on it. That could indicate that
21 the work was still not finalised at that location.
22 On the top right of the picture, there is a
23 device to be seen which is a heavy machine, a heavy
24 digger.
25 Q. And that is indicated in the rectangle.
1 A. The rectangle which is then blown up.
2 The next exhibit is 9/5. It shows again the
3 two areas of disturbed soil, labelled according to the
4 names we give to these sites for the sake of the
5 exhumation process. The site currently marked
6 Gulf-Lima-1 for "Glogova 1" is site 1; for the moment,
7 it's untouched, not exhumed. The site named GL-2, the
8 exhumation has started in 1999 and is not finalised
9 yet. It's a site which on -- as the marking on the
10 main exhibit says, it's a site which has then been
11 later disturbed, bodies have been robbed to be hidden
12 in other locations. That happened at the end of
13 September, beginning of October, and will be part of
14 the next demonstration. But so far here we can say
15 that here were five graves, robbed graves, but the
16 content of it, like in all these robbed graves, there
17 are still a lot of elements present and even bodies
18 there.
19 The next Exhibit is 9/6, and it's a view
20 dated 1999. The photograph is dated 1999, and shows
21 these locations but on a colour copy. So I will circle
22 the areas of interest on these ones [marks]. This is
23 the site of Glogova 2 and Glogova 1 for the picture.
24 Q. For the record Prosecutor's Exhibit 9/6,
25 Mr. Ruez has put two circles, and in each of those he
1 has put letters, one set of letters GL1, and a second
2 set of letters GL2.
3 A. One interesting point also to observe on this
4 photograph is that it shows that the location has been
5 selected because not only probably because of its
6 historical significance, but also because it's a very
7 good hiding place. From the air, the sites are clearly
8 visible, but from the road it is absolutely impossible
9 to see that there is something in this location. It's
10 completely a deserted place where people could not go.
11 There is also a constant threat for mines in these kind
12 of areas. So people don't move around these places for
13 pleasure. And it's a location where, the fact is,
14 without any kind of a possibility of access to aerial
15 imagery. It would be certainly mission impossible to
16 find something.
17 The next exhibit is 9/7. It shows the site
18 as it was in the end of April 1996. So this is, in
19 fact, exactly how the site looked like after the
20 disturbance was done, and the second disturbance of
21 this place. This is the site GL1, this one.
22 On that site, there were still at that time a
23 certain number of items to be seen on the surface, and
24 I will just show a very brief example of it, which is
25 the Exhibit 9/8, which shows human bones which were
1 found on the ground at the location shown on the
2 previous picture.
3 The next photograph, the Exhibit 9/9, is a
4 view of the Glogova 2 site. The area of the grave is
5 very clear on this photograph. At that moment of the
6 year, the terrain is -- the grass had no time to grow,
7 so everything on the ground is very visible, and you
8 can see the depression caused by the grave where
9 currently there is water.
10 One element here to note also, and it's a
11 reference point which I will use for the following
12 photograph, not the following but one after that, is
13 the gravestone on the right of the picture. This is
14 the grave of Mr. Merdic or the family Merdic. So that
15 location was apparently a former cemetery. And this
16 area here is precisely the one which I circled on the
17 Exhibit as GL1 -- GL2, sorry.
18 Exhibit 9/10 is the view of the same site,
19 GL2. The first time we accessed was in January but it
20 was covered in snow. This is in April. I will just
21 pinpoint on this one aside the fact that it shows again
22 the clear disturbance due to the depression that it
23 caused, the presence on that photograph I will circle
24 of a shoe and a bone next to it just lying on the
25 ground [marks]. I have circled the photograph at the
1 bottom left to pinpoint the precise location of this
2 shoe and the bone next to it.
3 The Exhibit 9/11 is a blow-up, a close shot
4 on these two items, the shoe and the bone.
5 As I just said also, exhumation started on
6 this site in 1999, summer 1999, and Exhibit 9/12 is
7 again a photograph of a site, Glogova 2, which shows
8 the location of the grave, which is, in fact, in front
9 of this group of people at the left of the picture, and
10 again you have here the gravestone of the Merdic family
11 which enables you to have a reference point on the
12 site.
13 Q. Mr. Ruez, I believe that concludes your
14 presentation on Glogova, and now we're going to turn to
15 another location that's relevant in this indictment,
16 and that is Luke school. So when you organise those
17 objects in front of you, will you then approach the big
18 map on the easel and will you orient the Judges to that
19 location.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Harmon,
21 we work until 2.30, and that seems to be quite a long
22 period of time, so that we could make a break.
23 But another thing, I believe that Mr. Ruez
24 could really have the photographs already taken out of
25 their plastic sleeves so that it would make it faster.
1 There are things which you are saying which we see
2 here, bones and shoes. We see them. So that I do
3 believe we could move on somewhat faster. But let us
4 now make a 10-minute break, and if you could organise
5 all the photos in advance so we could move on at a
6 somewhat faster pace.
7 Would that be all right, Mr. Ruez?
8 Ten minutes.
9 --- Recess taken at 1.40 p.m.
10 --- On resuming at 1.53 p.m.
11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Harmon,
12 yes.
13 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President.
14 Q. Mr. Ruez, we're now going to turn our
15 attention to the Luke school, and I'd like you, first
16 of all, to orient the Judges, on the large map, where
17 the location of the Luke school is.
18 A. So on this exhibit, the Luke school is
19 completely at the west of the map, just at the border
20 of the former confrontation line. The distance between
21 Bratunac and Luke is 60 kilometres by the road. Air
22 distance would be 40. I also give the opportunity to
23 give total length, in fact, of this crime scene. It's,
24 by air, 40 kilometres large, and from south to north
25 70 kilometres long air distance. So by road, 60
1 kilometres from Bratunac to Luke.
2 So Luke is the final destination for all the
3 people who are deported from the enclave, from Potocari
4 driving to Bratunac and to Luke, the 12th and 13th.
5 The along the way, some checkpoints are set
6 up where soldiers get on board of buses and request
7 money and a threat to the women on board and take out
8 men. The last point where these things happened is
9 indeed just before crossing. The men who are separated
10 before crossing the canyon, which leads then to
11 Kladanj, are taken to the elementary school of Luke.
12 Q. Mr. Ruez, start with, please, Prosecutor's
13 Exhibit 10A, which is a map. Place that on the ELMO.
14 Is the green dot that is on that map the location of
15 the Luke school?
16 A. Yes. On Exhibit 10A, the green dot is
17 pinpointing the precise location of Luke school, and
18 the other markings on the map, the dotted lines going
19 from the top of the picture bottom, is the position of
20 the former confrontation line and, in fact, the
21 no-man's land between Muslim-held territory and
22 Serb-held territory at the time.
23 So the same events probably happened during
24 these two days, 12th, in the afternoon, the night
25 between the 12th and the 13th, as well as the 13th.
1 The information we have about the location is events
2 dated 13th, at night, from 13th to 14th.
3 Exhibit number 10/1 is a view of the Luke
4 elementary school. The left of the picture shows the
5 direction of the canyon which reads to Kladanj. On the
6 building, the white building on the right of the
7 picture, is the elementary school.
8 The Exhibit 10/2 is the same school. At the
9 left of the picture is the access path that goes
10 downhill. At the back of the building where the two
11 vehicles are parked, the prisoners taken there walked
12 along this building.
13 Exhibit 10/3 shows the initial location where
14 these prisoners were staying, which is the area next to
15 the tree.
16 Q. Mr. Ruez, this school was a detention
17 facility?
18 A. This school was used as a detention facility
19 at the time of the events. These are the stairs which
20 lead to a door which enables the people to enter in
21 that school. There are several classrooms inside.
22 Exhibit 10/4 is a photograph of the first
23 classroom on the right when entering. We came to that
24 location together with the person who survived the
25 events which happened there and later, and this is the
1 classroom he pinpointed as being the one in which he
2 was detained, beaten, and then in the night between
3 13th and 14th, taken on board of a truck, driven back
4 from the Luke school towards Vlasenica.
5 He talks about elements that we could confirm
6 were present at the time, some lamps at the entrance of
7 the town, some trash sites that were at the edge of the
8 town which were still there when we were in the area in
9 April 1996.
10 Nevertheless, this is the situation which I
11 described at the beginning of my statement, where then
12 the truck turned left along the soccer field of
13 Vlasenica and enters an area of hills where at some
14 point after a drive of approximately 15 to 20 minutes,
15 the truck stopped in a location where an execution
16 squad was apparently waiting for those people, but we
17 could never find this location. We intended to find
18 the location and collect shell casings. We,
19 unfortunately, couldn't do that since in this area the
20 terrain resembles very much every area which is
21 nearby. So we couldn't identify that place and imagery
22 was of no help to find it.
23 Q. Mr. Ruez, that concludes your presentation on
24 the --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
1 MR. HARMON: I'm sorry.
2 Q. Mr. Ruez, that concludes your presentation on
3 the Luke school. Could we now turn to the Konjevici
4 intersection, and could you again, as we have done in
5 the past, orient the Judges on the big map to the
6 Konjevici intersection and tell the Judges the
7 significance of it?
8 A. We will talk no longer about better
9 deportation road. The last element about it was indeed
10 the Luke school.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
12 MR. HARMON:
13 Q. I think we've had a sun spot.
14 A. I just said that I will no more talk about
15 the deportation road and what happened -- what are the
16 locations of interest along this road. Since we are
17 now going to return to an area which is of interest
18 mainly witnessed by people who tried to flee
19 cross-country towards Tuzla through Nezuk and who were
20 then trapped on the hills which are just east of the
21 strategic road that goes from Konjevic Polje to Nova
22 Kasaba, which is a -- I say a strategic road because it
23 is a kind of blocking position with military forces
24 preventing anyone then to cross towards the valley of
25 Cerska, Udrc Mountain, and to reach Muslim-held
1 territory.
2 So this intersection is a very good reference
3 point for many people since the trek of these refugees
4 led them to flee Susnjari towards Kamenica, as we said,
5 then follow the power line towards Konjevic Polje, and
6 most of them arrived in this area here, just east of
7 the area between Nova Kasaba and Konjevic Polje.
8 From there they could witness -- they had a
9 very good viewpoint and many people witnessed events
10 happening there, events I will not enter into the
11 details. It's small-scale executions, one individual,
12 two individuals, three individuals, situations on which
13 the investigation cannot provide additional details.
14 The important aspect here will come later.
15 The only massive -- yes, massive execution we
16 could locate in this area is happening from the same
17 viewpoint, and it is the only way one could have a
18 chance to implement with forensics. We will discuss
19 that just after.
20 Q. Now, Mr. Ruez, have a seat, and then I'd like
21 you to just orient the Judges with the next set of
22 exhibits as to the physical features of the landscape
23 and explain to the Judges the importance of this
24 particular area.
25 A. Exhibit 11A is a photocopy of a map of the
1 area. Some roads have been redrawn. Important road
2 here is one at the bottom right which is the road that
3 goes towards Bratunac. The circle is the circle around
4 the intersection of Konjevici. Sometimes it is called
5 Konjevici for the intersection. Konjevic Polje is the
6 little hamlet above, but many people also refer to this
7 intersection as the intersection of Konjevic Polje.
8 The road going south is the road that goes to Milici
9 and then to Vlasenica and Kladanj. The road going
10 north is the road that goes towards Zvornik.
11 Exhibit 11/1 is a photograph, dated 8 April
12 1996, and is a view of the intersection when coming
13 from the road coming from Zvornik. So this is a view
14 from north towards south, and the hill in front -- the
15 hill in this picture is the hill on which all these
16 people who didn't manage to cross in the evening of the
17 12th were trapped, and they moved along the ridge of
18 this hill, from north to south, observing the road and
19 trying to find a weak point in the Bosnian Serb army
20 blocking position here [indicates] in order to reach
21 the opposite side of that road, which then could have
22 enabled them to try to cross towards Muslim-held
23 territory.
24 Q. Mr. Ruez, just orient us on this big map the
25 orientation this photograph illustrates.
1 A. This is the road that goes towards Zvornik,
2 so this road goes to that road, to the south --
3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone. Will the
4 witness take the microphone?
5 A. Yes. This photograph is taken from, say,
6 just above the intersection of Konjevici, looking
7 towards the south, it's a view in that direction
8 [indicates].
9 And on this hill is also -- there are pylons
10 to be seen, power lines which are at the bottom of the
11 hill, but also pylons on the hill. Just above the
12 sharp pointed roof of this white building, which is
13 just above this pink construction, just above this roof
14 is a pylon, which is a reference point for one
15 witness.
16 Exhibit 11/2 is a view of the Konjevici
17 intersection seen from the hill. This is the view one
18 would have when trying to cross this asphalt road, when
19 he is at the bottom of the hill.
20 MR. HARMON:
21 Q. Mr. Ruez, would you kindly again orient the
22 Judges to this particular perspective.
23 A. This photograph here would be taken just at
24 the south of the intersection, on the hill, looking
25 towards Konjevic Polje, and at the very end of this
1 photograph, at the lop left of it, you can see the
2 canyon of Jadar Drinjaca. This is a canyon that leads
3 towards Zvornik.
4 All this area, all this floodplain of the
5 Jadar River is the area of Konjevic Polje. This
6 document is dated 1997, and there is an Orthodox church
7 in the middle of the intersection here [indicates]
8 which did not exist at the time of the event. The
9 construction started in 1996 and was finalised in
10 1998. So any presentation of this photograph to
11 witnesses will have to mention that this church did not
12 exist at the time.
13 The interesting building also to be seen on
14 this photograph, it is interesting because it is
15 later -- it later disappears, is just in front of the
16 road coming from the right, which is the road that
17 leads towards Bratunac. When coming from that road,
18 from Bratunac, and arriving at the intersection, just
19 in front is this two-storey ruined construction. This
20 is a location which then was erased. Now there is a
21 gas station at that same place. But this is a
22 reference point for some witnesses, mainly one of them
23 who was captured in this location, taken to that place
24 where he was beaten before being taken on board a bus,
25 towards the canyon which I just showed before, and
1 survived an execution there.
2 The next exhibit is 11/3. We will probably
3 need to refer to this panorama on several instances for
4 the next part because this one, in fact, has in its
5 frame several areas of interest.
6 Q. Mr. Ruez, would you orient us again on the
7 large map, so the Judges have a clear reference as to
8 what direction this photograph faces.
9 A. So this panorama is taken in a view going
10 from west to east, taken on the hill which is the
11 entrance of the Cerska Valley, looking east, so looking
12 at this part of the road where the blocking position
13 was set. And the hill in front is the same big hill on
14 which all these people were staying and trying to find
15 a way to exit this area.
16 The interesting point here is that since
17 these people were quite constantly moving from north to
18 south, trying to find a reference point, this ended up
19 confusing some of them, mainly the person who provided
20 the information regarding the execution site, who
21 confused a ground feature which is located at the north
22 of this hill with the same ground feature located at
23 the south of the hill, and this caused us a severe
24 problem to find the location he was talking about. But
25 I will refer to that later on.
1 This view is also of interest to show you the
2 destruction in this area. All this is a former area of
3 combat, there was combat going on here in 1993, and all
4 the houses in this area were destroyed. Along this
5 stretch of road -- we will probably have to come back
6 to it at some point.
7 Q. Mr. Ruez, is the road leading to the Cerska
8 Valley in this particular panorama?
9 A. The road leading to the Cerska Valley in this
10 panorama is in the middle of the picture, where the
11 bridge is. It turns here [indicates] left, continues
12 along the line here [indicates], and will later on
13 enter the valley on the left side.
14 So this is the area where all the people
15 describe their attempts to cross. As you can see, it
16 is really flat ground, so it's a very difficult area to
17 cross in these types of circumstances. The only ones
18 who managed to do it successfully did it by
19 night-time.
20 Q. Mr. Ruez, does that conclude that particular
21 part of your presentation, and can we move now to the
22 football field at Nova Kasaba?
23 A. Yes, we will move to the football field at
24 Nova Kasaba, and we will start with --
25 Q. Mr. Ruez, if we can start again with the
1 large map, and just indicate to the Judges on this
2 large map the location of Nova Kasaba, and then we will
3 go to the small map and your presentation.
4 A. The 13th of July, more or less at the same
5 moment people have started to surrender at the Sandici
6 area, the same situation is happening in the area
7 between Nova Kasaba and the intersection of Konjevici.
8 Many people started to surrender, they couldn't cross
9 the line in the evening of the last day, when the army
10 managed to cross, and the surrendering process starts
11 in this location as well.
12 The main area of collection of these
13 prisoners is the football pitch or the soccer field of
14 Nova Kasaba, which is just one kilometre north of Nova
15 Kasaba, which is a small place. We will see a film
16 from the helicopter which will give you a much better
17 appreciation of what this whole area looks like. The
18 flight will be from the intersection towards Nova
19 Kasaba, so we will also have an assessment of the size
20 of Nova Kasaba town. Nova Kasaba town was also the
21 location where there were elements of the 65th
22 Protection Regiment billeting.
23 The triangle which marks a concentration area
24 of prisoners is approximately positioned on the map at
25 the spot where the soccer field is located.
1 The best would be to start with the video.
2 No, we're not there yet.
3 The next exhibit is 12A. It is the same map
4 of the area, but this time used to pinpoint the
5 position of the soccer field. I have added a red cross
6 inside the circle, which was marking the location of
7 the soccer field, in order to have a more precise
8 pinpointing of where exactly this soccer field is
9 located.
10 Q. Mr. Ruez, should we now go to the video?
11 A. Yes. I will also -- just for the sake of
12 getting more familiar with the map, on the road going
13 from south to north, at one point, you have the
14 marking, grid reference 00, on the road. If you turn
15 left in that location, this is the entrance to the
16 valley of Cerska. The line going towards the -- along
17 the Cerska Potok is the track which leads towards the
18 valley of Cerska.
19 MR. HARMON: Now, for the audiovisual room,
20 if we could show the video, Exhibit 12/6. If we could
21 dim the lights and play that.
22 [Videotape played]
23 A. So this is the entrance to the Cerska Valley,
24 the road that we saw on another exhibit. This is the
25 road going towards Nova Kasaba. Now we are already out
1 of the area of the hill. The hill was on the left here
2 [indicates]. The main hill was going down, more flat,
3 so there's no longer a hill, but all this area is very
4 visible from the hill. That same footage will be used
5 later to pinpoint the location of mass graves.
6 This is a view of the arrival at Nova Kasaba,
7 and we zoom in on the soccer field. At the top of the
8 picture is the Nova Kasaba town. August 1996. Sorry,
9 August 1997.
10 All these holes are at a man's height.
11 This is the location of a possible mass
12 grave, next to the soccer field. This is another view
13 of the soccer field, flying above Nova Kasaba.
14 MR. HARMON:
15 Q. Mr. Ruez, now, please, continue with your
16 presentation.
17 A. Exhibit 12/1 is an aerial photograph, dated
18 13 July 1995, approximately 1400 hours. On this
19 photograph, one can see the same features we already
20 saw, so the soccer field with this line of trees around
21 it and buses on the road. We do not know in what
22 direction these buses are travelling. Either these
23 buses are buses transporting people from the enclave
24 towards Kladanj or they are transporting prisoners from
25 the soccer field towards Bratunac.
1 We saw bullet holes which could indicate,
2 indeed, that executions took place in that location.
3 These executions are described by witnesses who talk
4 about individuals or very small groups, two or three
5 individuals, people who were taken away towards the
6 river, and then they hear shots. This is the only
7 indication we have about executions in that place. So
8 whatever, indeed, happened there, for sure, we're only
9 talking about small-scale executions.
10 The bodies which are under the ground at the
11 edge of the river have not been exhumed yet. We have
12 the knowledge that these bodies were not buried there
13 immediately after the events. There was no disturbance
14 in that area before the month of August. So the bodies
15 to be found in that location, once we will do this
16 exhumation, which is far from being top priority on our
17 list, will be done later.
18 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]
19 Mr. Prosecutor, will you ask Mr. Ruez on which side of
20 the road the traffic in Yugoslavia travels.
21 THE WITNESS: People drive on the right-hand
22 side of the road in Yugoslavia.
23 A. On the next photograph, which is Exhibit
24 12/2, I have marked the size of the football field, as
25 well as the groups of prisoners which are visible on
1 this field. There will be one possibility to try to
2 make assessments of numbers on this photograph, but we
3 didn't do this exercise. The number was, anyhow,
4 moving. This shot is an instant moment. Maybe half an
5 hour later, there were no more people there, and two
6 hours later, it was jammed; we don't know about this.
7 The next exhibit is 12/3 and is a blow-up of
8 a soccer field with the groups of prisoners there. We
9 have the knowledge that at the beginning of the process
10 of assembling prisoners here, there was a table set up
11 and names of prisoners were -- lists of names of
12 prisoners were taken by Bosnian Serb army
13 representatives. We don't know what's happened with
14 this list. The process probably didn't last too long.
15 The next photograph is Exhibit 12/4 and is a
16 view of -- a colour view of the soccer field. It's an
17 extract, in fact, of the video.
18 The next view is a photograph which was taken
19 the very first day of our end of April 1996 mission,
20 when we were driving from Vlasenica towards Zvornik,
21 and as Prosecutor Harmon referred to it in his opening
22 statement, there is an aspect in this case where dog
23 handlers and dogs were launched on wounded in the
24 forest, chasing people and wounded. These are dog
25 handlers with their military dogs who are on a parade
1 on the soccer field that day.
2 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I notice that
3 we're about three minutes to the end of our regularly
4 scheduled session. I am at your disposal; we can
5 either proceed with the next set of photographs or we
6 can conclude.
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I think it
8 would be better to conclude. How much more time?
9 MR. HARMON:
10 Q. Mr. Ruez, if we continue, we're going to go
11 on to the Nova Kasaba execution field, and if you could
12 move through that rapidly, then we can conclude
13 Volume I of the Prosecutor's exhibits.
14 A. Yes. The execution site we are going to
15 briefly present now is a very important site for the
16 reason that, as I already said, we have no possibility
17 to implement with forensics or any kind of observations
18 the individual stories, the numerous stories about the
19 very small-scale executions which took place in this
20 area.
21 The only massive execution we know about
22 which occurred there is dated 13 July, and the date
23 could be wrong. It is a series of executions of at
24 least three groups; a first group of 30, a second group
25 of 30, and a third group larger than that one. The
1 reference point for the person talking about this is
2 that the person was close to a pylon and could observe,
3 in between two destroyed houses, the crime scene.
4 When we presented initially the photograph to that
5 person, I presented the exhibit number -- the first
6 exhibit of the Konjevici presentation, where, indeed,
7 there is a pylon to be seen on top of the house with a
8 sharp roof, and I misled the witness by presenting him
9 this photograph, because he thought then that this was
10 the location and had already designated to us a
11 location on the video just south of this intersection.
12 We searched the place thoroughly, we never
13 found anything. We then decided to try to find other
14 locations which could, in fact, match his description,
15 so in between two groups of houses -- two houses. We
16 found three of these locations which could also match
17 his description. We processed all these three sites
18 during the years 1997 and 1998. We still didn't find
19 anything.
20 Finally, in 1999, we realised that, in a
21 location which was not north but exactly opposite the
22 location he was telling us about, we had exactly the
23 same ground features. There was a pylon, and someone
24 from that pylon, due to a difference of angle, had the
25 feeling that this site was in between two houses; but
1 from the road, it didn't look like that. So we
2 processed that site and we found a lot of elements
3 which seemed to confirm, indeed, that this event
4 happened in that precise location, and these are the
5 elements I'm going to show you now.
6 The first exhibit is 13A. The green dot
7 inside the red circle marks the position of this
8 execution field. Just above the green dot will be the
9 position where the person was standing and observing
10 the events. There is an electrical pylon in that
11 environment. The other ground features are not visible
12 on this map. The only thing is that initially, the
13 viewpoint of a person that we supposed -- what we
14 supposed was a viewpoint was north of the hill, so just
15 south of the intersection, and relatively just south of
16 this hill looking from north to south.
17 Exhibit 13/11 --
18 Q. I'm sure you mean 13/1.
19 A. 13/1. My photograph is glossy so it is
20 shining on this screen, but still...
21 On the left of this photograph, it is
22 invisible from the ELMO but -- yes. At the very left
23 of this photograph, a bit uphill, you see this
24 electrical pylon here. Then at the bottom of this
25 pylon is one destroyed house, and on the right of this
1 destroyed house, going uphill, is another destroyed
2 house. Execution is supposed to have happened from the
3 road by people standing on top of APCs, among them one
4 white UN APC, a stolen APC, and people were mowed down
5 with hand-held machine-guns.
6 The location of the execution site on this
7 photograph would be right here [indicates], which seen
8 from the road is at the right of these house, but seen
9 from the pylon is right in the middle.
10 Q. When you say the execution site is here,
11 you're referring to the left of the --
12 A. The right -- I will use the paper exhibit and
13 I'm going to mark it on the exhibit. It is the same
14 photograph as the paper.
15 Viewed from the pylon, a straight line more
16 or less in between these two houses leads to the area
17 marked here. The description of the execution site is
18 that behind the people who are lined up, like if they
19 were watching a football match, a steep hill where no
20 one could escape from. Indeed on this one, it's quite
21 clear that someone who would run away from this site
22 would not have much chance to go very far.
23 The next photograph is the Exhibit 13/2.
24 Mr. Manning with a team member, and Mr. Derek who is a
25 de-miner who was under contract with ICTY for the sake
1 of the exhumation program, conducted the analysis for
2 this crime seen and formally searched the meadow for
3 shell casings and bullets. What they found, they
4 marked with yellow markers, and the result of this is
5 this photograph.
6 All these markers pinpoint either bullets or
7 shell casings. A more detailed report for sure is
8 available on that matter. All these markings give the
9 approximate size of the execution area.
10 So going from where this memorial is -- this
11 memorial is not dated from the events. It's probably
12 dated end of 1996 or early 1997. It is a memorial for
13 someone who had a road accident here, so totally
14 unrelated with of these events.
15 Q. The memorial is the small black rectangle on
16 the right hand of the image?
17 A. Yes. Totally disconnected from the events
18 here. There is a larger concentration of yellow
19 markers in this area here.
20 Q. Referring to the centre of the photograph.
21 A. Referring to the centre of the photograph at
22 the left of the UN vehicle parked on the access path.
23 So these are the elements that we can present
24 and which we believe give full credibility to the
25 witness who saw this execution.
1 MR. HARMON: Mr. President and Your Honours,
2 that concludes our presentation for today. We have
3 concluded with Volume 1 of the Prosecutor's exhibits,
4 and tomorrow we will turn our attention to Volume 2.
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.
6 And has the testimony of Mr. Ruez been completed?
7 MR. HARMON: [Previous translation
8 continues] ... portion of his testimony with the
9 conclusion of the volume.
10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I should
11 like to remind you, Mr. Harmon, that you announced
12 eight hours for this testimony.
13 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Harmon.
14 Microphone for the counsel.
15 MR. HARMON: We're going a little longer than
16 we expected with Mr. Ruez, but bear in mind,
17 Mr. President and Your Honours, that the use of these
18 exhibits will be used with every other exhibit, and we
19 expect the front end of the procedure to be a little
20 longer, the back end to be a little shorter, and we
21 hope to come in on the time we have estimated.
22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.
23 We, therefore, expect that Mr. Ruez's testimony will be
24 an investment in future testimonies, because he's
25 explaining to us the majority of things that others
1 will be contributing to, clarifying. If that is so,
2 then it is up to you, Mr. Harmon, to conduct your
3 examination-in-chief.
4 We shall adjourn now. I should like to thank
5 the interpreters and the audio booth who have kindly
6 agreed to stay a little longer. I believe there will
7 be some compensation for all this work later on.
8 So we shall adjourn now. We shall be here
9 tomorrow at 9.30, and I should like to remind you that
10 on Thursday and Friday there should be no hearings.
11 This is merely to remind you of that. Until tomorrow
12 then.
13 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned
14 at 2.38 p.m., to be reconvened on
15 Wednesday, the 15th day of March, 2000
16 at 9.30 a.m.
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