1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (The witness withdrew)

13 (Open session)

14 JUDGE CASSESE: While we are waiting for the

15 witness, I will ask the Prosecutor when they think we

16 will receive the list of witnesses for the next week.

17 Friday or tomorrow?

18 MR. MOSKOWITZ: We will try tomorrow, but it

19 may be Friday.

20 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you.

21 (The witness entered court)

22 JUDGE CASSESE: Good morning, Captain

23 Woolley. Could you please stand and make the solemn

24 declaration?

25 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

1 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

2 truth.

3 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. You may be

4 seated. Counsel Pavkovic?

5 MR. PAVKOVIC: I'm sorry, Mr. President,

6 because you have already moved on, but we would kindly

7 request the following: We have been informed that

8 tomorrow and the day after tomorrow are not working

9 days, so could the Prosecutor please provide us with a

10 list so that the Defence could prepare itself for these

11 witnesses that are to be heard next week. Why not

12 today rather than on Friday? Why not provide a list of

13 witnesses earlier?

14 MR. MOSKOWITZ: In response to that, we are

15 still evaluating which witnesses are going to be called

16 and when, and we will provide it, if possible,

17 tomorrow. I think today it is probably not going to be

18 possible because we still haven't finalised our list

19 for next week. Part of the problem is that this last

20 witness went on quite a bit longer than we anticipated

21 and we have other witnesses who are here and then other

22 witnesses who have obligations, so we are trying to

23 balance things out. We will meet today after court to

24 try to finalise that list, and hopefully by tomorrow we

25 will have a list.

1 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes. Tomorrow morning, could

2 you try to provide it --

3 MR. MOSKOWITZ: We will try.

4 JUDGE CASSESE: Tomorrow. By the way, you

5 know that we have now two more weeks, even less.

6 MR. MOSKOWITZ: This is also part of our

7 thinking.

8 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes. And don't forget that

9 next week, we intend to call the lady, the witness, we

10 mentioned before.

11 MR. MOSKOWITZ: This will be next week.

12 JUDGE CASSESE: Next week, yes.

13 MR. MOSKOWITZ: Do we know which day or what

14 day at this point?

15 JUDGE CASSESE: One day after she is here in

16 The Hague so that she is not obliged to stay too long.

17 MR. MOSKOWITZ: Thank you.

18 JUDGE CASSESE: All right. We will see -- I

19 hope that by tomorrow both Defence counsel and the

20 Court will receive this list.

21 MR. SMITH: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 WITNESS: MATTHEW ROBERT WOOLLEY

23 Examined by Mr. Smith:

24 Q. Major Woolley, you've just recently been

25 promoted, is that correct?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. Since making this statement you were, in

3 fact, a Captain but in the last few months have been

4 promoted to Major?

5 A. That's correct, yes.

6 Q. Can you tell the Court your occupation at the

7 moment?

8 A. I'm a Major in Her Majesty's armed forces in

9 Britain. I'm squadron leader of a reconnaissance

10 Squadron of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers.

11 Q. When did you join the British army?

12 A. In July 1987.

13 Q. And in November 1992 did you attend in

14 Bosnia?

15 A. Yes, I was deployed there.

16 Q. And what was the purpose for going to Bosnia?

17 A. It was for providing humanitarian aid to

18 beleaguered people within Bosnia as part of UNPROFOR.

19 Q. Where were you based?

20 A. Throughout most of the time in Vitez.

21 Q. How long was your tour in Bosnia?

22 A. Six months.

23 Q. And prior to going to Bosnia can you give the

24 Court an idea of any other field operations that you've

25 been involved in?

1 A. I served with the United Nations in Cyprus in

2 1990. I was called back from there to go to the Gulf

3 in 1991, and then I was deployed to Bosnia in 1992.

4 Q. Can you describe to the Court the training

5 that you received in relation to being an officer in

6 the British army?

7 A. I spent a year at the Royal Military Academy

8 Sandhurst. Of course, that's general training. And

9 prior to going to Bosnia, received a couple of months

10 of training. And each year we conduct army training

11 directives which include things such as first-aid and

12 the law of armed conflict.

13 Q. When you arrived in Bosnia, and more

14 specifically at about March/April 1993, can you explain

15 to the Court the general military situation in the

16 Vitez area, the Vitez opstina, and the ethnic origins

17 of the people who lived in that municipality and

18 nearby?

19 A. The ethnic origins of the people of the Vitez

20 opstina were pretty much 50 per cent Croat and 50 per

21 cent Muslim. When we arrived in November'92, the two

22 ethnic groupings, I think socially and militarily, were

23 pretty much in loose alliance. Their common aggressor

24 was the Bosnian Serbs.

25 Q. And the particular names of the military

1 groupings that related to the Bosnian Muslims and the

2 Bosnian Croats?

3 A. The Croat army was known as the HVO or the

4 HVO (pronounced phonetically), and the Muslims as the

5 Bosnian armija.

6 Q. In terms of the Vitez municipality and

7 nearby, can you explain to the Court where any

8 confrontation lines may have been with the Bosnian

9 Serbs?

10 A. In that area, the Bosnian Serb frontline was

11 pretty much to the north-west of Vitez in an area called

12 Turbe, just north-west of Travnik.

13 Q. Can you tell the Court whether there was any

14 presence at all of Bosnian Serb military forces within

15 the municipality of Vitez or the immediate area outside

16 of that?

17 A. No, there weren't. No, there weren't.

18 Q. In April you attended a village called

19 Ahmici; is that correct?

20 A. That's correct.

21 Q. Had you been familiar with that village prior

22 to attending there?

23 A. I'd driven past it but was unaware, like so

24 many of the other small villages around there, that it

25 was just another village.

1 Q. Can you tell the Court what the predominant

2 population was in relation to ethnic group?

3 A. Predominantly Muslim, quite clearly. And a

4 minaret stands -- or stood very prominent in the front

5 part of the village.

6 Q. And the general situation in the Vitez

7 municipality in April 1993 before you attended Ahmici,

8 can you explain to the Court what that situation was in

9 military terms?

10 A. As a military -- as a young man, as a young

11 military commander, I wasn't quite as aware of the

12 broad nature of what is going on in that there was not

13 so many significant examples that I was aware of that

14 showed a Muslim-Croat or Croat-Muslim aggression. They

15 seemed to be fairly in loose alliance. But on the

16 night of the 15th there were tangible -- there was

17 tangible evidence that clearly there was a Croat

18 aggression starting.

19 Q. Can you tell the Court where you went to on

20 the night of the 15th and what facts have enabled you

21 to come to that conclusion?

22 A. I was asked by my company commander to go to

23 a rendezvous point at a junction just short of a

24 village called Putis, which is just slightly beyond the

25 Busovaca junction. And I met him there with a Muslim

1 commander from Zenica, and we entered the village of

2 Putis because we had heard that there was some HVO in

3 the area.

4 We drove up into the village and there was a

5 series of firings -- firing taking place over our heads

6 until we got into the village. It then stopped, and we

7 then saw, through our night sights, soldiers in the

8 woodland, which we had our own guns trained on, but

9 they'd stopped firing so we were unable to take any

10 action.

11 Q. It was possible for you to identify who, in

12 fact, these soldiers were that were firing towards you?

13 A. No, not at the time.

14 Q. You said that you were in the village with a

15 Muslim military commander; is that right?

16 A. That's right, yes.

17 Q. Is that area, the village of Putis, anywhere

18 near a Serb frontline or stronghold?

19 A. No. No, no.

20 Q. So is that what led you to your conclusion

21 that it was from the HVO?

22 A. Yes. I understood the village to be, from

23 charts, demographic charts in our operations room, that

24 this was a Muslim -- predominantly Muslim village, and,

25 therefore, it would be unusual for Muslims to be

1 shooting at themselves or their families or friends.

2 Q. Apart from this incident of the shooting, was

3 there anything else significant in that village in

4 relation to damage, or destruction or --

5 A. Not at that time, no. Not at that early

6 stage.

7 Q. And you -- how did that situation resolve

8 itself with the Muslim commander?

9 A. Our presence seemed to create a stalemate,

10 and, therefore, we withdrew. It was night and it was

11 difficult, obviously, to see, and, therefore, we

12 withdrew and recorded the incident as it happened and

13 left it at that.

14 Q. Can you tell the Court what happened on the

15 morning of the 16th of April? Was there anything of

16 significance that you heard of whilst you were at the

17 Vitez base that morning?

18 A. I had got up, and I was sitting in the

19 officer's mess waiting to be tasked as part of the A

20 Company 1 Cheshire, the battle group company that was

21 on duty. And as I had been attached to the Cheshires,

22 I had a different type of vehicle, I had a Scimitar

23 vehicle, which is a lot less armoured than the Warriors

24 which the Cheshires use, and, therefore, had been

25 instructed not to go into town where there were

1 reports -- I say "town" meaning Vitez -- there were

2 reports there that an action or some sort of aggression

3 was taking place with regard Croat and Muslim.

4 Therefore, I sat in the mess unable to go out, rather

5 frustrated. And a friend of mine, colleague, a

6 commander from the Cheshires, came back from Vitez

7 telling us that the area was generally a battle zone, a

8 lot of civilians and soldiers dead in the streets,

9 houses burning, explosions, gunfire. Generally an

10 unsavoury situation taking place in Vitez and the

11 surrounding areas of Vitez.

12 Q. Does this morning stick out in your mind

13 quite significantly compared to the rest of our tour?

14 A. Absolutely and very vividly. Up until that

15 point, the local area had pretty much been in some sort

16 of -- well, there was nothing significant that stood

17 out in that area up until this point. And the morning

18 of the 16th, with the background of the night of the

19 15th, there had seemed to be this sort of explosion of

20 activity between the Croats and the Muslims that

21 previously had not been there.

22 Q. You heard reports from a colleague of yours

23 as to what was occurring in Vitez. Did you

24 subsequently leave the base and go to the village of

25 Ahmici?

1 A. It was not long after he told me about this

2 that I was then called to the operations room by the

3 Operations Officer of the Cheshire battle group, and

4 tasked to go to a small village called Ahmici, because

5 they understood that there was some action or activity

6 going on there that needed to be investigated and

7 reported upon, and, therefore, I was dispatched down to

8 the village with two of my Scimitars and one Warrior,

9 with an interpreter, a photographer and two Irish

10 ranger soldiers on board.

11 Q. Can you briefly explain to the Court the

12 difference between a Scimitar vehicle and a Warrior

13 vehicle and what they're used for?

14 A. A Scimitar vehicle is an 8 tonne light

15 aluminium vehicle, with three crew stations, which is

16 obviously used for reconnaissance, whereas a Warrior is

17 a 35 tonne, very heavily built infantry fighting

18 vehicle that can take three crew stations but also

19 seven infantry men in the back. They have the same

20 guns however.

21 Q. And can you describe the situation as you

22 drove towards the village of Ahmici, what was happening

23 on the way, and when you received your first

24 impressions of what was occurring or what had occurred

25 in the village of Ahmici.

1 A. From deploying from the base of Vitez and

2 taking the ring road around the edge of Vitez through

3 to Dubravica, it was quite clear from looking at the

4 general landscape that there was a series of plumes and

5 pillars of smoke coming from areas, group of houses,

6 none that I can specify, and also outlying villages,

7 and general battle noise, explosions and gunfire.

8 Q. I would like to show you now a copy of an

9 aerial photograph which is, in fact, a reduced copy of

10 the large photograph behind you which has been marked,

11 and if you can explain to the Court where, in fact, you

12 got your first impressions of what was occurring in

13 Ahmici.

14 THE REGISTRAR: The document will be marked

15 Exhibit 229.

16 MR. SMITH:

17 Q. Major Woolley, is that area familiar to you?

18 A. Yes, it is. It's pretty much the area of

19 Ahmici.

20 Q. You can see on that exhibit, so that's

21 Exhibit P229, you can see on that exhibit there is a

22 number of markings. Did you provide the information

23 that led to those markings being placed on the

24 exhibits?

25 A. That's correct.

1 Q. And if you can briefly explain to the Court

2 what the Roman numerals mean in terms of chronology?

3 A. From I to VI they signify significant places,

4 buildings and situations that I conducted -- where I

5 had conducted various actions throughout the day,

6 basically regarding first-aid of injured civilians.

7 Q. Now, on the day of the 16th of April, you

8 attended the village on one occasion, and then did you

9 attend there on a second occasion or near to it?

10 A. I attended the village in the morning for

11 about four hours, and then in the evening I was on the

12 main road of the village, in this area here.

13 Q. And in relation to the duration of your first

14 visit, can you till the Court which points relate to

15 your first visit?

16 A. Point I here -- do you want me to explain it

17 in detail?

18 Q. Not in detail, but just the points that

19 relate to --

20 A. Point I is a house where I got involved with

21 a casualty. Point II is a place where I stopped and

22 observed some soldiers. Point III is a house where I

23 dealt with another casualty. Point IV is a place where

24 I dealt with five casualties.

25 Q. Can you explain to the court Point VI?

1 A. Point VI is a place just off the main road

2 where I recovered five bodies, with the assistance of

3 another Lieutenant, in the evening of the 16th of

4 April.

5 Q. And Points A and B relate to?

6 A. A and B are two houses which, at about 3.00

7 on the 16th, were very clearly and freshly on fire, two

8 civilian houses.

9 Q. If we can go back to the time that you first

10 approached the village. From about what location on

11 that map did you obtain your first impression of what

12 was occurring or what had occurred?

13 A. This road here is the road from Vitez, and

14 this road bends round into a small river or ravine. It

15 was on this high ground here that I, at first,

16 identified, from looking at my map relating to the

17 ground, that this was the village of Ahmici. And

18 looking over to my left, I could see that it was a

19 village that had plumes of smoke rising from it, and,

20 therefore, obviously had been in some kind of

21 activity.

22 Q. Could I ask you to mark that location with a

23 red texter that's in front of you, with an X?

24 A. (Marks).

25 Q. Was there anything further you can state to

1 the Court that will help them understand your first

2 impressions? You mentioned plumes of smoke rising from

3 houses.

4 A. Yes. As I approached the turnoff to the

5 village -- sorry, the turn into the village, generally

6 speaking there was -- the area was deserted. There was

7 sporadic gunfire, the odd explosion, houses alight and

8 mainly smoking, which generally told me that there had

9 been some sort of destruction, whether military or not,

10 and I was unaware at this point, but probably.

11 Q. And at about what time did you obtain your

12 first impression? What time did you arrive in the

13 village?

14 A. It was about 11.00 in the morning.

15 Q. And what was your view as to what was

16 occurring or what had occurred? What was the

17 impression that you got?

18 A. I did not adopt an impression until I

19 actually -- I was under the impression that there had

20 been some action and some destruction, but I didn't

21 adopt a particular impression with regard to any ethnic

22 grouping until I spoke to a woman in the village.

23 Q. You said the village was deserted when you

24 arrived. Can you explain how this woman approached you

25 when you first arrived in the village?

1 A. As I approached the village along this small

2 track, or actually driving through the village or the

3 first part of the village. I got to this point here on

4 the track, and had my three vehicles, and I had a woman

5 and a couple of people behind her beckon --

6 particularly the woman, beckon me from behind -- or,

7 shall I say, from the archway of her door to come and

8 speak to her. She was reluctant to take -- to remove

9 herself from the cover that the door provided her.

10 Therefore, because I was unaware of what she was trying

11 to tell me, I took the prudent measure of going to talk

12 to her in case it was an ambush or a mine up ahead that

13 I was unaware of.

14 Q. And the house that she came from was the

15 house marked with the circle with the 14 next to it; is

16 that correct?

17 A. That's correct, yes.

18 Q. That's the house near the lower mosque?

19 A. That's right, yes.

20 Q. Looking at these two exhibits that I produced

21 to you now, P81 and P79, I ask they be produced to

22 him. Can you tell the Court who, in fact, is in those

23 exhibits? I think that may be the wrong exhibit. P79

24 and P81.

25 If you can look at Exhibit P81. You

1 mentioned that this woman beckoned you and you attended

2 at the house. With the use of that exhibit, can you

3 explain to the Court what happened inside that house,

4 what you did and what you saw?

5 A. I spoke to the woman. I had an interpreter

6 with me at the time, and you can see the interpreter on

7 the left-hand side of the picture. We went inside the

8 house and she, the woman who you can see here in the

9 picture, showed me her friend or relative, I am not

10 aware of who he was, the man in the centre here, who

11 was injured on the bed -- shall I say the sofa.

12 This is the house, house 14, in question.

13 This is the woman who beckoned me. And the man had

14 received a gun-shot wound to the back, which I

15 discovered when I removed a jersey -- sorry, removed

16 his jersey up his back and saw an entrance and an exit

17 wound, and what I believe the round had gone into his

18 elbow, causing him basically two injuries from the same

19 bullet. No dressings had been placed on him, and,

20 therefore, I took out a field dressing, which you can

21 see in the exhibit, and placed one on his elbow and one

22 around his waist and his back.

23 Q. Was the man saying anything to the

24 interpreter?

25 A. Not particularly. He was in a lot of pain.

1 I can't remember him actually saying anything

2 specifically, but he was in a lot of pain, moaning a

3 lot.

4 Q. Can you describe the clothing the man was

5 wearing?

6 A. He was wearing a jersey. You can see in the

7 picture a diamond-patterned jersey.

8 Q. And what was the result of your first aid?

9 What did you --

10 A. Well, it was clear from -- that the injury --

11 he'd been bleeding, and they had not made much of

12 attempt to stem the bleeding. And having looked at the

13 sofa which was saturated with a lot of his blood, quite

14 a lot, I would say he'd been there a few hours, also,

15 which the nature of the blood, the darkness of a lot of

16 the blood which had congealed, we, therefore, placed,

17 first of all, a dressing on his elbow, and then put a

18 dressing around his back.

19 Q. And what was the general atmosphere in the

20 house like at that time, what was the mood?

21 A. One of shock and panic and fear. And in the

22 back of the house there was another room where the

23 majority of the family, mainly women, old ladies and

24 some children, were hiding, and were quite clearly in

25 shock and were very scared, and really didn't come out,

1 but you can see in this picture a couple of the elder

2 members of the family who had.

3 Q. And looking at the other exhibit, P79. Is it

4 P79, if I can ask the usher? You're looking at P79.

5 That further describes the scene; is that correct?

6 A. That's correct, yes. This is one of my

7 soldiers, and as you can see we have a dressing around

8 the waist of the injured man.

9 Q. And what subsequently happened to the injured

10 man? Was he taken away or did you leave him at --

11 A. We attempted to put a drip in him but

12 failed. We couldn't get a vein, he was quite cold,

13 having lost a lot of blood. And we were focusing too

14 much on one incident, where I had not conducted a full

15 clearance or reconnaissance of the village, and,

16 therefore, having done probably as much as we could for

17 him, I felt it necessary to push on up to the village

18 to ensure our own safety rather than put ourselves in

19 jeopardy.

20 Q. And what was the expectation of you in

21 relation to you attending the village -- in relation to

22 you attending the village regarding the UNPROFOR base?

23 A. The expectation or the task I was given was

24 simply to observe and report on the conditions and the

25 activities in the village, but it was only through, I

1 suppose, a human conscience that we get involved in

2 first-aid and probably took out focus off the overall

3 task, which was just reporting the incident.

4 Q. And you drove up the village, is that

5 correct, up the main road of the village?

6 A. That's right, yes.

7 Q. And can you explain to the Court, using the

8 exhibit, the aerial map, where in fact you went?

9 A. From the first house, as I've already just

10 mentioned, 14, we then drove up the village, which is

11 generally a northerly direction along here, to this

12 area, which was not actually there at the time, it was

13 a lot narrower, and then along up the track heading

14 roughly north-east to Point II where there's a fork in

15 the track and a tarmac clearing where we could turn

16 the vehicle, and that was the limit which I explored it

17 to.

18 Q. You mentioned that that was an area that is

19 on the aerial photograph that is not -- was not in that

20 state as it appears in the aerial photograph back in

21 1993. Is that that white patch in the middle of the

22 aerial photograph?

23 A. That's correct. That's now been bulldozed.

24 Q. What type of area was it, if you remember?

25 A. It was a similar sort of area, but it was

1 just not as large. It was a small tarmaced area and

2 it's now been increased by, I imagine, two or three

3 times.

4 Q. As you went up towards the location at the

5 top of the village, location II, can you tell the Court

6 whether your first impressions as to what you believed

7 had occurred was still the same or had they changed by

8 the time you got to the top of the village?

9 A. My opinions weren't changing at that point,

10 because I'd spoken to the Muslim lady in this Muslim

11 village, and from what she told me and from what I saw

12 myself, it was quite clear that there had been a Croat

13 offensive in the early morning, about 6.00, and that

14 there were many injured civilians, and some dead ones

15 as well, and that's the only evidence I had of injured

16 civilians and burning civilian houses.

17 Q. And from the route you took to the top of the

18 village, can you explain to the Court the amount of

19 damage, if any, that you saw within that village?

20 A. Yes. Houses were burning. Probably I'd say

21 in the region of 20 per cent of the houses appeared to

22 be burning -- or, sorry, were burning. It appeared to

23 be about 20 per cent. And the road and the area was

24 deserted to, my view anyway.

25 Q. In terms of that figure of 20 per cent, what

1 was your field of view as you went up the road? Was it

2 to the left and right, or was it further than --

3 A. It was mainly to the right, which is mainly

4 to the north-east. There were a lot of houses that we

5 can see on this aerial photograph which, to me, were

6 then in dead ground. But from what I could see, there

7 was probably a larger percentage of 20 per cent, but

8 overall now, looking at aerial photograph, I would

9 assess it to be about 20 per cent.

10 Q. When you got to the top of the village, what

11 did you do, what did you see?

12 A. I went to the top of the village to make sure

13 that I had cleared this sort of whole area for my own

14 safety and also in order that I could report back to my

15 superiors and give a report on what I had seen. I

16 deemed the Point II on the map of the exhibit that we

17 can see as the necessary limit of what I had to move

18 to.

19 When I got -- sorry.

20 Q. Excuse me for one moment. Did you see any

21 military activity as you attended to Point II at the

22 top of the village?

23 A. I saw no military activity up to Point II.

24 Just smoking houses, burning houses.

25 Q. What did you see at Point II?

1 A. At Point II, I stopped there for about ten

2 minutes because our attention was caught by soldiers in

3 the woodlands, which you can see here in this goose

4 egg, to the north-east. The woodland at the time was --

5 in April, it was -- there was no foliage, and therefore

6 it was quite easy to see five or six men, soldiers, who

7 were dressed in green, with no distinctive badge,

8 actually in the woods.

9 Q. Are you able to say from which military group

10 those soldiers belonged to, despite the fact that you

11 didn't see the badges on their sleeves?

12 A. Well, first of all, I knew they were soldiers

13 as they were carrying Kalashnikov rifles. I would say

14 that -- I say that they are HVO soldiers, and this

15 assumption was brought -- I concluded as a result of

16 their position. They were looking into the village.

17 The village is Muslim and they were on the periphery of

18 the village and they were looking into it. It would

19 seem that if you were a Muslim soldier, you would be

20 looking out in order to defend the village, and their

21 position was at the bottom of what I called a reverse

22 slope, this slope where the wooded feature is here

23 (indicating). So if the men were Muslim, they would

24 either need to be closer into the village in order to

25 defend it or need to be out, up on this high ground, in

1 order to gain a good field of view in case any further

2 aggression occurred from the Croats.

3 However, if a Croat force had come through

4 this village, clearing it, it could very easily have

5 formed up at the edge of the village in order to

6 observe prior to any further attack or to assess the

7 damage that it actually had achieved.

8 Q. So that it's on the record, the area which

9 you identified as five soldiers which you have

10 concluded were HVO soldiers, that's the area with the

11 oval circle above the Point II?

12 A. That's correct, this goose egg shape here.

13 Q. Everything that you saw that day or any

14 significant events that you saw that day, did you

15 record them in a diary?

16 A. Yes, I did. I had a diary that I filled out

17 every day, at the end of every day, throughout the

18 whole of my tour.

19 Q. In relation to producing a statement that was

20 requested of you by the Tribunal and coming to court

21 today, have you used that diary to refresh your memory

22 as to what you saw?

23 A. I have.

24 Q. And in relation to your conclusion about the

25 HVO soldiers being at the edge of the forest just above

1 Point II, was that fact recorded in your diary?

2 A. That was. On that day, it was recorded as

3 HVO soldiers on that point.

4 Q. At that stage, were you aware of a War Crimes

5 Tribunal in operation or going to be in operation?

6 A. No, I was not.

7 Q. You were at Point II for about ten minutes;

8 is that correct?

9 A. That's correct.

10 Q. And just to put the Court in some sort of

11 time frame, you said you arrived at the village at

12 11.30. How long were you in the first house for when

13 you were attending to the man with the gunshot wound?

14 A. Myself, probably between 30 and 45 minutes.

15 Q. And then you drove to the top of the

16 village. You were there for ten minutes?

17 A. Approximately.

18 Q. You observed the HVO soldiers, and then did

19 you go to another house?

20 A. I did. On my way up to Point II, I had

21 noticed on my right-hand side an elderly man beckoning

22 me from his doorway into his house, but I ignored him

23 because my task at the time was to ensure that the area

24 was clear and that it was safe for my own men, and

25 therefore, I carried on to Point II. But on my return,

1 thinking my task done and that I had reported back what

2 I had seen with regard the destruction of civilian

3 houses and the one casualty we had seen so far, I then

4 came across the man again who was beckoning, I

5 submitted to, and jumped off my vehicle and entered his

6 house.

7 Q. Did he explain to you, before you entered the

8 house, what he wanted you to do?

9 A. No, he didn't, no. But I could see from the

10 distress on his face and his gesticulations that he was

11 obviously in a state and that there was something very

12 wrong.

13 Q. Apart from seeing this man beckoning you into

14 the house, was this the only person that you saw as you

15 drove from Point I, down by the lower mosque, to Point

16 II at the top of the village?

17 A. Yes, that I can recall.

18 Q. Looking at Prosecution Exhibit P222, I'll ask

19 you what that, in fact, is an exhibit of, but can you

20 explain to the Court what you saw inside the house and

21 what you did?

22 A. This is an area of the village where -- just

23 short of the house which you would see off to the left

24 of this breeze block building here, and this is one of

25 my vehicles covering the route downwards for our own

1 security, and this is an armoured ambulance which came

2 some time after because, if I explain what happened, I

3 went into the house that the man beckoned me into, and

4 lying on a makeshift stretcher, makeshift out of

5 clothes and two branches, was a person who was a

6 casualty, a large person, elderly, which I initially

7 believed to be a man, subsequently found to be a woman,

8 who had --

9 Q. Go on.

10 A. -- who had got an injury in the head. As I

11 went into the house and dealt with this casualty, I

12 took what was something like a towel, it was a towel, a

13 tea towel, from around her head to find an exposed

14 wound, a large wound at the top right rear of her head

15 which did not have any skull remaining but really just

16 had brain matter, blood and sinew and what I can only

17 describe as brain matter, having never seen anything

18 quite like this before.

19 Q. What did you do in relation to that wound?

20 A. Sorry, yes. I took the dirty, saturated

21 field dressing -- sorry, towel, off the women's head

22 and replaced it with a fresh field dressing around her

23 head. She was also suffering -- her breathing was very

24 weak and very shallow and very slow, and therefore, we

25 put a plastic airway to assist her breathing into her

1 mouth, which was quite a struggle. She had one eye

2 open, her right eye open, and her left eye was closed

3 with a lot of bruising, which I think was peripheral to

4 the main injury, and her jaw was very difficult to pry

5 open in order to get this airway in. We also attempted

6 to put a drip in her, but she was so cold and her veins

7 were so -- well, they were not obvious, they were very

8 further in her, that we couldn't get a drip in her.

9 Q. Apart from the elderly man and the woman that

10 you attended to, were there any other people inside

11 that house?

12 A. Not inside that house -- sorry. There was

13 the casualty, the woman, the man who was the husband,

14 and then there was a few other older men and women in

15 the house who were obviously distressed but were taking

16 cover by remaining in the house.

17 Q. I would ask that you look at Exhibits 215,

18 216, and 221, and I believe these will describe the

19 scene which you've just mentioned. Exhibit 215 first.

20 Can you explain what you see in that

21 photograph in relation to what you, in fact, did?

22 A. Okay. This is the woman on a makeshift

23 stretcher. We can see here the private soldier with

24 his hand over the airway to see whether she is

25 breathing or not. You can see the fresh field dressing

1 that I put around her head, and this is one of my

2 corporals who is medically trained to a higher level

3 than anybody else on the team.

4 Q. What is his name?

5 A. Lance Corporal Priestly. He was conducting

6 the majority of the first aid, and here is another

7 private soldier also in attendance.

8 Q. Looking at Exhibit 221; can you explain

9 what's happening in that scene?

10 A. This is the elderly man had who beckoned me.

11 This is me conducting some first aid. I think we were

12 supporting her head or finishing off the tying of the

13 field dressing. And this is the soldier, again, just

14 attending generally, and this is my interpreter, and

15 this is one of the other elderly occupants of the

16 house, and we are trying to assist her in her

17 situation.

18 Q. Looking at Exhibit 216, can you explain that

19 scene, please?

20 A. This is Ranger Farmer, the private soldier

21 just assisting the woman, having gotten the plastic

22 airway into her mouth and getting her breathing, and,

23 she, as you see, conscious, although I would describe

24 her as semiconscious, quite clearly badly injured, as I

25 say, in the top right-hand part of her head from what

1 I, with my limited experience, could identify as some

2 kind of individual shot, a gunshot wound, and nothing

3 else that I could imagine had caused this.

4 Q. I would like you to look at two further

5 photographs which are new exhibits, being marked 394

6 and 397. That's an internal marking.

7 THE REGISTRAR: The photographs are marked

8 230 and 231.

9 MR. SMITH:

10 Q. If you look at Exhibit 231 in a moment, can

11 you explain to the Court that scene?

12 A. Again, this is me here (indicating) just

13 attending generally to the first aid of the woman

14 having had the field dressing on her head. This is the

15 soldier again assisting, and clearly the interpreter

16 here was helping with the situation through his ability

17 to interpret the language, and one of the relatives or

18 friends in distress of the situation.

19 Q. Can you describe the atmosphere in that house

20 to the Court? What was the mood?

21 A. The mood was shock, fear, panic. I think,

22 really, "shock" sums it up in that the family, up and

23 to that point, three hours ago, had their friend, their

24 relative, going about her normal daily business and had

25 then been shot in the head, putting her in the

1 situation we see her now.

2 MR. SMITH: I would ask that the usher

3 produce Prosecution Exhibit 230.

4 Q. And if you could explain that scene to the

5 court? Sorry, 231.

6 A. When we had done as much as we could in the

7 way of first aid in that we had dressed her head and

8 put an airway in her and failed to get a drip in her,

9 we then had called an ambulance from the UNPROFOR base

10 at Vitez which had come up and we had seen in one of

11 the earlier exhibits, an armoured ambulance, and we

12 were now placing the woman from her makeshift stretcher

13 onto a proper army stretcher that you can see here in

14 order that we can evacuate her from the area of Ahmici

15 to Travnik hospital.

16 JUDGE CASSESE: I'm afraid we must break now

17 because we had a meeting at half past 12.00 with other

18 Judges.

19 We will resume at 2.00.

20 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.35 p.m.

21

22

23

24

25

1 --- On resuming at 2.02 p.m.

2 JUDGE CASSESE: Good afternoon. While we are

3 waiting again for the witness, may I suggest that if

4 the Prosecutor has some difficulty in handing in a list

5 of witnesses for next week, they may probably prepare a

6 list of those witnesses they intend to call, you intend

7 to call; however, not in the right order, the order may

8 be sorted out maybe on Monday, so that Defence counsel,

9 in any case, know who is going to be called next week

10 and they can prepare over the weekend. We discussed

11 this matter at lunchtime and we thought that probably

12 Defence counsel may wish to go back to their own

13 country or, anyway, take some time off.

14 (The witness entered court)

15 MR. TERRIER: Yes, Mr. President. During the

16 lunch break, we have established a list of the

17 witnesses. We will hand it over to Defence counsel

18 this afternoon, but, of course, we may change the order

19 of appearance of these witnesses.

20 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Mr. Smith?

21 MR. SMITH: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 Q. Welcome back, Major Woolley. I hope you had

23 an enjoyable lunch.

24 A. Thank you.

25 Q. Where we left off earlier, you visited the

1 village of Ahmici, and you went to the house, the first

2 house, where a man was shot, and then you stated that

3 you went up to the end of the village and had a look

4 around and saw what you thought to be HVO soldiers.

5 Then you went down to another house, a house where

6 there was a woman that was shot in her head. We

7 started to go through a few photographs, and you were

8 describing what the atmosphere was like in that

9 particular house.

10 At that second house that you went to, can

11 you explain to the Court about how long you were there?

12 A. I would say up to an hour.

13 Q. What was the result of that incident? After

14 you had given her some first aid, what did you decide

15 to do and what happened at that point?

16 A. Having given her first aid to our maximum

17 ability, we then had her casuvacced, casualty

18 evacuation, and we then gave a situation report of what

19 we had conducted and then decided to withdraw from

20 Ahmici back to Vitez.

21 Q. Before we move on from this house and

22 understand the route that you took down further down

23 the village and what happened to you after that, I

24 would like to show you two further exhibits which

25 haven't been tendered in evidence.

1 The first one is a copy of a house with a

2 vehicle in front of it which, in fact, Your Honours

3 have copies, the black and white copies that were given

4 previously, and the second one is of a destroyed house,

5 and I would like you to have a look at them, please?

6 THE REGISTRAR: The photograph with the

7 house, with the vehicle in front, will be Exhibit 232.

8 You have a black and white copy of that one. And the

9 other photograph, Exhibit 233, 2-3-3.

10 MR. SMITH:

11 Q. If I can ask the usher to show you the

12 Exhibit P232, the undestroyed house, and if you can

13 explain to the Court what that picture is of?

14 A. This is the house which we came across which,

15 on our way up to the top of the village, had the man

16 outside coaxing us to help him and who then we

17 subsequently helped. It had a number 43 outside the

18 doorway, and you can see of note is this Rayburn-type

19 cooker and the breeze block building on its left-hand

20 side, and here is one of our Warrior vehicles parked in

21 front of it.

22 Q. So the assistance that you and your

23 colleagues gave occurred just inside the front door of

24 that house?

25 A. Yeah, just to the right as you go inside the

1 front door. This is a photograph from the 16th of

2 April.

3 MR. SMITH: Right. For Your Honours'

4 reference, that's the house marked 202.5 on this

5 witness's exhibit.

6 Q. If you look at P233, can you explain to the

7 Court what that is a picture of?

8 A. This is a photograph I took on the 26th of

9 April, having been sent back into Ahmici for subsequent

10 patrolling, and it's the same house as that in the

11 previous exhibit. This is the same doorway and this is

12 the room where we attended the woman's needs. You can

13 see again the Rayburn cooker and the breeze block

14 building on the left-hand side of the house, and the

15 fence as well is quite prominent.

16 Q. So that it is recorded in the transcript, can

17 you describe the damage to the house?

18 A. Well, clearly it had been set alight, either

19 by fire or some incendiary device, removing it of all

20 its timbers, leaving the brickwork. You can probably

21 just see beneath that branch the number 43, which

22 confirms, for the record, that it is actually the very

23 same house, although the other factors, like the cooker

24 and the walls and the wall here clearly also show that

25 that is the same house.

1 Q. So that house was destroyed between the 16th

2 and the 26th?

3 A. This house that the civilian woman lived in

4 was destroyed between the 16th and the 26th of April

5 for some extraordinary reason.

6 Q. This woman was taken away from the house, was

7 she?

8 A. She was, yeah.

9 Q. Was she taken away in an ambulance?

10 A. In an armoured ambulance.

11 Q. Was she the only civilian that was taken away

12 in that ambulance?

13 A. That's right, yes, she was.

14 Q. After leaving that house, I think you said

15 you stayed at that house for approximately an hour?

16 A. About an hour, yeah.

17 Q. Where did you go from there?

18 A. I then drove back down the road from which we

19 had come up on our way out of Ahmici, but, of course, I

20 only travelled some 300 or 400 metres before I came

21 across another house where a woman coaxed me to help

22 her.

23 MR. SMITH: I would ask that Exhibit 229, the

24 aerial photograph, be placed on the ELMO, please.

25 Q. With a pencil, could you briefly describe the

1 route you took from the house where the woman was shot

2 or where the injury was to where you went?

3 A. This is the house where the woman was shot,

4 and we then drove back down this narrow part of the

5 road past a very prominent religious building here onto

6 this slope here where, from the house marked IV, in

7 Roman numerals, a woman coaxed me from sort of

8 the leeside of the building, that is, the sort of

9 northern side of it, to come and assist her.

10 Q. I think I've just misled you a little bit a

11 moment ago. It's not the house where the woman was

12 shot, it was the house where you attended to the woman

13 with the injury; is that correct?

14 A. Sorry.

15 Q. House number 202.5.

16 A. 202.5 is the house where the woman had been

17 shot in the head, the elderly woman, yes.

18 Q. You don't know whether the woman was, in

19 fact, shot?

20 A. Well, I think that the injuries were

21 consistent with something like a gunshot.

22 Q. I think I've --

23 A. I'm sorry.

24 MR. SMITH: I think I've led this

25 misunderstanding.

1 Q. You don't know where, in fact, she received

2 the gunshot wound?

3 A. I subsequently heard that she had received

4 the gunshot down the hill, somewhere down the hill, and

5 she had been carried by her family or friends up the

6 hill to her house where she was then under cover.

7 Q. Thank you. When you arrived at this next

8 house, the house marked 70 on the aerial photograph,

9 can you explain what the woman -- a woman said to you

10 and what you did after that?

11 A. Yeah. Her gestures really said it all in

12 that she needed help quite urgently, and the background

13 of our two previous incidents led me just to follow her

14 and go into the back of the house, if you like, the

15 cellar of the house, where the group of people in the

16 cellar led me to just continue my actions; in other

17 words, I didn't actually necessarily have a

18 conversation with her, neither personally or with any

19 interpreter, because the injured people in the back of

20 the house led me to continue my actions.

21 Q. About how many people were in that cellar and

22 what was the atmosphere like in the --

23 A. The cellar was very dark; there was no

24 lighting. There was an awful smell generally of, I

25 suppose, wounds, and there was also smoke from people

1 smoking. There were crying children, there was a woman

2 breast-feeding, there were elderly people, children,

3 and women, and there was about up to 30 people probably

4 in the cellar, five of whom had significant injuries.

5 Q. Did you do anything about those wounds?

6 A. Yes. The one nearest the door was a small

7 girl who I believe was about 12 or 13 years old. She

8 had injuries on her left leg, on the lower limb of her

9 left leg, and an injury on the inside of her thigh, on

10 her right thigh, which again I -- were consistent with

11 some sort of, well, an entry wound that I thought was

12 either a low calibre, slow calibre bullet or maybe

13 shrapnel, and we then carried out some first aid of the

14 left lower limb and the right thigh, the inner thigh.

15 Q. Did you record that injury in your diary?

16 A. Yes. I talked about the injuries.

17 Q. You mentioned the injury of the young girl.

18 Can you explain the other injuries of the others?

19 A. Yes. The other one was in the far left-hand

20 corner of the cellar, it was an elderly gentleman, and

21 he, when we tried to move him -- well, he was screaming

22 because -- whenever we tried to move him because of the

23 pain, but it was something like a pelvis or a hip

24 injury, somewhere in his midriff that he was injured

25 either through shrapnel or more probably gunshot

1 wounds.

2 Q. What about the other three?

3 A. The other -- the third man -- sorry, the

4 third was a man, an elderly man who had got a gunshot

5 wound to the -- if I recall correctly, the left

6 shoulder, up in this sort of region here (indicating),

7 and those three were the most significant, and

8 therefore we evacuated them in the back of the Warrior,

9 which has got space for infantry personnel.

10 There were two others, and I think they were

11 both men, who had other sort of smaller injuries. We

12 didn't manage to evacuate them in the end.

13 Q. Did you record that in your diary as well?

14 A. Yeah, I talked about five people being

15 significantly injured from this cellar.

16 Q. Can you explain to the Court the average age

17 of these men and what they were wearing?

18 A. They were wearing civilian clothing, they

19 were anywhere between maybe 45 and 65 years old. There

20 was not many men anyway, but they were of that age.

21 The rest were women and children and elderly women as

22 well, and, you know, even children or, should I say,

23 babies of breast-feeding age. All very scared, all

24 very shocked in this dingy, dark cellar where they were

25 taking cover.

1 Q. Did any of the men that you saw, these men

2 that were injured, did any of them have weapons?

3 A. Not in the cellar, no, no.

4 Q. About how long did it take you to tend to all

5 of these injuries?

6 A. Probably about a further hour.

7 Q. Was any drug given to any of these men?

8 A. Yes. The man in the -- the second man I

9 talked about who had the hip-type injury or the midriff

10 injury, we gave him morphine in his thigh because he

11 was in such pain that when we tried to evacuate him or

12 move him, he just yelped and screamed, and therefore,

13 by administering some morphine, it enabled us to then

14 move him using a sleeping bag, one of our own, as a

15 stretcher, and we then put him in the back of the

16 Warrior.

17 Q. Three -- the most severe casualties went in

18 the Warrior and the other two stayed at the house; is

19 that correct?

20 A. That's correct, yes.

21 Q. I'd like to show you a photograph in relation

22 to this location -- or a few photographs, and would you

23 be able to describe that in relation to what you've

24 just described to the Court?

25 A. Yes.

1 THE REGISTRAR: The first photograph is

2 marked 234.

3 MR. SMITH:

4 Q. Can you try and relate that photograph to the

5 incident that you've just referred to and the aerial

6 photograph which you have provided the information?

7 A. Okay. In the foreground, you can see these

8 three white boxes. These are the periscopes of my own

9 scimitar vehicle, and I had climbed back onto the

10 vehicle -- having already been in the house, I was

11 climbing back on the vehicle in order to get some more

12 first aid kit. I then took the opportunity to take a

13 photograph as a record.

14 At that time, I had gone forward initially,

15 discovered this, and the Warrior, as we see in the

16 middle of the picture, followed me up. I called it up

17 because we needed some more first aid, as in first aid

18 kit, and here you can see two soldiers who are running

19 to the assistance. The house in question is to the

20 right of this fence, down a slope here, a grass -- a

21 hillside -- a slope, and we've come down the track from

22 House number 2 that we talked about up here.

23 Q. Could you relate that photograph to the

24 aerial photograph by just replacing the aerial onto the

25 projector?

1 A. Yeah.

2 Q. And can you put the approximate location

3 where that photograph was taken?

4 A. Yeah. That is this house here (indicating).

5 The photograph was taken just on the -- on the slope

6 just off the bend here. Along the edge of that road is

7 where that concrete trellis fence is, and this is the

8 green slope I talked about here, and this is the house

9 where there was a cellar with these 30-odd occupants --

10 not occupants but injured civilians.

11 Q. For the transcript, you've pointed a location

12 on the main road, the main Ahmici road, in front of the

13 house marked number 70; is that right?

14 A. Sorry. I've -- yes, that's the house there

15 marked 70. Did I misunderstand your question?

16 Q. Your vehicle was parked in the vicinity --

17 A. It was parked, yes, exactly where that pencil

18 is pointing now.

19 MR. SMITH: Thank you. I'd ask that Exhibits

20 193, 74, 194 and 195 be produced to the witness?

21 I'd ask that the witness look at Exhibit 193

22 first. Thank you.

23 Q. Looking at Exhibit 193, can you explain to

24 the Court what this picture is of?

25 A. This is of the back of the house. The

1 previous picture had been taken up here on the

2 hillside, and this is -- because we had no further

3 ambulance, the ambulance had been tasked and gone, we

4 then used the back of the Warrior personnel carrier to

5 take these three, the most significantly injured

6 people, and put them in the back. So it's in the back

7 of this house on this, if you like, below-ground-level

8 cellar that all this activity took place.

9 Q. Looking at Exhibit number 74, can you

10 describe that, please?

11 A. This is the girl who had the two injuries I

12 talked about, the inner thigh -- I think you can see

13 just here the injury on the inner thigh where we've

14 bandaged it, and she had an injury on her left leg.

15 She, as you can see by her face, is in quite a lot of

16 distress. I think she was about 12 or 13 years old.

17 Other members of the family, and as you can see,

18 civilians, elderly people, women, and children. This

19 is Lance Corporal Priestly who is giving her some

20 bandages, some civilian here giving some light to the

21 situation, our interpreter who is helping console the

22 girl, and in the background here is the man that had

23 the injury around the waist. Because of our limited

24 resources, we were still dealing with the girl who

25 seemed to be most severely injured. This injury, when

1 Lance Corporal Priestly and I arrived, was still

2 bleeding. This man, we then subsequently attended to

3 and gave him the morphine in order to move him.

4 Q. And the other men that you assisted, the

5 other men with injuries, do they appear in that

6 photograph?

7 A. I can't see them. There was a man toward --

8 in this direction here sitting to his right, to this

9 man's right-hand side, but I can't see him in that

10 picture.

11 Q. In any event, at this location, I think you

12 mentioned there are about 30 people.

13 A. Yeah.

14 Q. Is that in the cellar or in and about, behind

15 the cellar?

16 A. That was in the cellar initially. They were

17 all cowering from what had been taking place, but, of

18 course, our arrival with three armoured vehicles, with

19 our 30-millimetre guns, I'm sure provided them with a

20 degree of confidence, in that they then, a few of them,

21 came out of the back of the cellar. Those sort of more

22 -- slightly younger adults had the confidence to come

23 out and assist and to see what was going on.

24 Q. If you can just briefly describe the

25 atmosphere in this cellar?

1 A. Dark, dingy, smoky, frightened people crying,

2 babies crying, people shaking, elderly people shocked,

3 I think disbelief at what had happened with their

4 friends and family, you know, injured in front of

5 them. Helpless is probably the thing, helpless, until

6 we arrived and evacuated them.

7 Q. Looking at Exhibit 194, I think you appear in

8 that exhibit.

9 A. Yes. That's me here. I think I had just

10 come from out of the cellar, and I think we're all

11 looking at one of the injured people being removed and

12 put in the back of the Warrior.

13 Q. And looking at Exhibit 195?

14 A. This is the young girl on this mattress,

15 makeshift stretcher, being placed into the back of the

16 Warrior, which had reversed up to the house, and as you

17 can see, the people, women, and probably slightly

18 elderly men had had the confidence to come out and

19 watch what was going on to their family and friends.

20 Q. And the Warrior left with the three most

21 serious casualties?

22 A. And Lance Corporal Priestly went with them in

23 order to continue his attendance.

24 Q. If you can place the -- if I can ask the

25 usher to place the aerial exhibit on the projector?

1 Can you tell the Court what you did once you

2 left this house?

3 A. Once we had dispatched the Warrior fighting

4 vehicle with the three injured people, I then returned

5 from the house here to the road here. In fact, further

6 down the road, about 200 metres, my two scimitars had

7 moved further down to spread out in order that they

8 protect themselves a little bit better. We, having

9 finished our job, having given some army rations to the

10 remaining people in the cellar, then decided that we

11 had done as much as we could, and therefore we returned

12 to the vehicles.

13 However, at that time, there had been a --

14 this is about quarter to 3.00, 2.45, there had been

15 sort of an increase in the intensity of peripheral

16 gunfire and explosions, and most significantly was, at

17 this time, this house with the arrow and the letter "A"

18 which was fully and freshly ablaze, and because of the

19 surrounding danger, the four of us, and that is the two

20 private soldiers I've discussed and the interpreter and

21 myself, if you like, manoeuvred back in pairs to the

22 vehicles in order to ensure maximum cover and, in fact,

23 such was my awareness of this danger that I hid behind

24 a wall, reluctant to expose myself to any gunfire, and

25 I called or I shouted to the driver of my scimitar

1 vehicle to reverse up and collect us so that we did not

2 have to expose ourselves. But because he had his

3 engine running, he was unable to hear us, and

4 therefore, I dashed about 50 yards, 30, 40, 50 yards,

5 down to the vehicle and jumped in, and then we reversed

6 up and picked the remaining three men. So there was

7 five of us in a turret that was designed for two people

8 taking shelter in this environment which had a burning

9 house and gunfire and what have you.

10 Q. You talk about peripheral gunfire. When you

11 say "peripheral," where do you mean? Outside of the

12 village? Within the village?

13 A. I mean possibly in the village, outside the

14 village as well, but gunfire that was 200 metres or

15 more away. A lot of time the gunfire can echo around

16 buildings in built-up areas, but -- and also in this

17 slightly valley-type area.

18 Q. You said that when you came out of the house,

19 the vehicles, your vehicles had moved down the road

20 somewhat, and you had to attract their attention to try

21 and take cover in the vehicles. About how long did

22 that take before you were in a more protected position

23 within the vehicle?

24 A. About three, three or four minutes.

25 Q. Was there a problem with one of the vehicles?

1 A. Subsequently. The vehicle that I had got

2 into with the four men was fine and reversed in order

3 to pick them up, but the vehicle in front had some fuel

4 carburettor problem, probably as a result of sitting on

5 the slope for a long time, and it then broke down, it

6 was unable to start; and sitting in the vehicle, we

7 then called for a recovery vehicle to come and collect

8 the scimitar.

9 Q. The two vehicles had to stay together; is

10 that correct?

11 A. Yes. Most of the time they were about a

12 hundred yards apart.

13 Q. And in relation to the map, where were those

14 vehicles whilst you were waiting for assistance with

15 the breakdown?

16 A. For the majority of the time I was sitting in

17 a vehicle just slightly astride the A pointer. In

18 other words, the house ablaze. I've got photographs of

19 me sitting next to a coach, which is astride this house

20 which is ablaze.

21 Q. During that time did you see another house on

22 fire? A house or another building?

23 A. There were lots of houses that were smoking

24 as a result of being on fire previously, but this was

25 the most significant which caught my attention. It

1 could not have done anything other than catch my

2 attention as I sat 20 or 30 yards from it.

3 Q. And where was this second house --

4 A. The second house is --

5 Q. -- on that particular map?

6 A. -- is on the pointer with the mark B. The

7 picture that I have of this, it was taken when we were

8 recovered and we made our way down the village, and it

9 was of a house that had been on fire, its remaining

10 timbers blackened by the fire and smoke coming from

11 it. And adjacent to it was a barn, which was fully

12 ablaze. And this is at about 3.00.

13 The most significant thing is that this

14 wooden barn was freshly ablaze, which suggested to me

15 it had only just been set fire to at about 3.00,

16 because wooden barns don't burn for very long.

17 Q. Than wooden barn is at location about B?

18 A. B, yes.

19 Q. And the other house that was on fire was in

20 location A?

21 A. That's correct.

22 Q. In terms of the state of destruction of the

23 other house or the state of the fire, can you give an

24 estimate of when that would have been set alight?

25 A. Well, again, the wood is the bit that burns,

1 and the roof, the timbers, are the bits that burn, and

2 they burn, from my experience, of which I have got

3 quite a bit now, quite quickly. And within the space

4 of my wait in the vehicle, at that point, which was

5 about 40 minutes, the house had been fully ablaze and

6 had burnt out, completely gutting it of its floor, and

7 timbers and roof. The roof had fallen in.

8 Q. I would now like to show you some

9 photographs, four photographs, of this particular

10 incident. And can you explain to the court how, in

11 fact, you came into possession of these photographs?

12 How is it that you can provide these to us? Perhaps if

13 you can explain to the Court how you took these

14 photographs.

15 A. I took them with my own camera on the day in

16 order to keep a log and a record of the situation.

17 Q. And other photographs you are referring to in

18 your evidence generally, where would they have come

19 from?

20 A. All the photographs I am aware of were either

21 mine or Corporal Penfound, who was the military

22 photographer whom I went into the village with, and I

23 gave my camera to him to take these pictures.

24 Q. He followed your route through the village?

25 A. That's right. Up until the point when he

1 went back with the Warrior.

2 Q. That's with the three injured people?

3 A. Yes, with the three injured people.

4 Q. Your Honours, as these photographs form a

5 series with other photographs that have been tendered

6 in evidence, I would ask for Exhibit number 137 and

7 134.

8 Major Woolley, if once the other two exhibits

9 are brought to you, if you could put them in some sort

10 of chronological order as events occurred for you, and

11 then we'll describe each photograph in detail.

12 A. This is the house which had the arrow with

13 the A pointing to next to the coach I was talking

14 about. And this is the hatch of my own vehicle, and

15 you can see another vehicle behind here. The house

16 quite clearly alight. This is at about 3.00. In the

17 distance you can see what I believe is that religious

18 building I pointed out earlier.

19 Q. If you can turn the exhibit over and just

20 state the exhibit number?

21 A. 237.

22 Q. If you could put the aerial exhibit back on

23 the ELMO and relate, again, where that house is?

24 A. Where the arrow A points is the house and

25 just next to it is the track.

1 Q. And that's the house marked -- pointing --

2 A. To A (indicating).

3 Q. And for the record, that's Exhibit P229. And

4 the next photograph. If you can look at the rear

5 and state the exhibit number as well.

6 A. It's 137. This is a better shot of the

7 house. I think we can see quite clearly how the house

8 is ablaze, the roof is falling in and the timbers are

9 burning.

10 Q. Was that photograph taken whilst you were

11 stationery?

12 A. That is right, yes.

13 Q. Show the next exhibit.

14 A. Exhibit 236. As I've stated, I was only

15 sitting here for about half an hour, and within that

16 time, this is all pivoting around 3.00, the house quite

17 clearly has burnt out, pretty much burnt out.

18 Q. When did you see the house first ablaze?

19 You've obviously seen it whilst the fire was in full

20 force. Did you see the beginning of that fire?

21 A. I didn't see it being set fire to, but as we

22 advanced across the field it was quite clearly ablaze.

23 And, in fact, I apologise, but I've put this exhibit

24 slightly out of order, because you can see that this is

25 before the house was ablaze. At this point I'm on the

1 vehicle most upward -- most uphill, and I had swapped

2 vehicles when the other vehicle was broken down. The

3 previous pictures you saw were when I was just below

4 this bus, and you can see here the smoke from the house

5 quite clearly.

6 This trellis type concrete fence is the fence

7 that I took cover behind. You can't see it here on the

8 picture. And at that point my vehicle that I'm sitting

9 on now was here and had reversed up with me in order

10 that we picked up the other chaps.

11 Q. And the house that was set alight is to the

12 right of the picture, behind that house you see in the

13 foreground?

14 A. That's right. It's just behind here, yeah.

15 Q. So the photographs that have been shown by

16 yourself are photographs taken from the opposite

17 direction --

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. -- facing up the hill?

20 A. Yes. I'm sorry.

21 Q. And in the background --

22 A. Sorry.

23 Q. If you can replace that exhibit. In the

24 background to the left, that white structure.

25 A. That's the minaret of Ahmici, still standing

1 on the 16th.

2 Q. This is about 3.00 in the afternoon?

3 A. About 3.00.

4 Q. And if you can state the number of that

5 exhibit.

6 A. 235.

7 Q. If you can show the next photograph.

8 A. This is Exhibit 238. This is from what I

9 believe is roughly the same position. So to the right

10 of this tree we have -- or a bit further up from this

11 tree we have the house that I talked about already on

12 the A pointer. In the distance I can obviously see

13 another light alight, which is on the pointer B, the

14 second house, a white house, very significant -- very

15 clearly you can see a grey drainpipe here, ablaze.

16 That is about it, I think, for that.

17 Q. Are you driving past this house --

18 A. I believe this is --

19 Q. -- when that was taken or static?

20 A. I believe this was static at this point. I

21 don't believe I took any pictures while moving.

22 Q. You've stated the exhibit number for that?

23 A. Yes. That was 238. Exhibit number 134.

24 This is the same house, a white house, and you can see

25 this grey drainpipe again. Burnt out now. This is all

1 within, as I say, 30 to 45 minutes, and yet this barn

2 to the left-hand side is quite clearly ablaze, freshly

3 ablaze.

4 The reason why I took this picture was

5 because here, on the front doorstep, is a man who

6 appeared to be dead. Well, he was very static anyway,

7 and he'd either had a nasty fall on the steps or had

8 been shot as he exited the house.

9 Q. It's not so clear from the photograph that

10 that is, in fact, a man. Did you have a better view

11 when you were there?

12 A. Well, no better view than that other than the

13 zoom of my the camera, but on the original photograph

14 it's quite clear a man has been killed somehow on the

15 steps.

16 Q. I think there's another exhibit that we

17 haven't looked at.

18 A. I think that's it.

19 Q. Do you have exhibit -- I asked for Exhibit

20 155.

21 A. Yes. This is, again -- we've obviously moved

22 about 30 metres down the road. This is my vehicle

23 hatch, and the house is burnt out and the barn is still

24 ablaze but shot as significant as it was. And you can

25 see the cars showing it was the same house.

1 Q. Did you see any soldiers in and about that

2 area where those houses were alight?

3 A. There were no soldiers around there.

4 Q. Where did you go from there? After you saw

5 this burning barn, where did you head?

6 A. Soon after this point we were recovered by

7 the engineers who then took us back to Vitez to recover

8 the vehicle.

9 Q. Whilst you were in Ahmici, you mentioned in a

10 statement that you provided to the Tribunal that you

11 saw, I think, some men with weapons, which you believed

12 to be Muslim. You haven't mentioned them in your

13 testimony. Where did you see -- or did you see any

14 Muslim men with any weapons, and if you did, where did

15 you see them?

16 A. The only men who were Muslim who had weapons,

17 and I know that they were Muslim because they were

18 talking to the Muslim lady who -- and this is the first

19 incident I'm talking about with the injured man, were

20 about four men who were middle-aged, and a couple who

21 were reasonably young, 25 or 6, who were not

22 particularly dressed as soldiers, although I understand

23 that not all soldiers out there were dressed in

24 uniform, and they carried Kalashnikov rifles.

25 MR. SMITH: I'd like to show you a

1 photograph, and can you tell the Court what this is a

2 photograph of?

3 We have no photocopies of this, but we can

4 supply them on the break. Black and white for today.

5 THE REGISTRAR: This is Exhibit 239.

6 A. Yes. If we go back to about 11.00 in the

7 morning, not long after I'd arrived, that is the woman

8 you may recall who last an injured friend or relative

9 in the house. At this point, obviously with my

10 interpreter, with the woman we were discussing issues,

11 and you can see here two young men who have got rifles,

12 who could have been soldiers, although I believe they

13 were sort of a local defence sort of outfit, and

14 another man here, soldier, and one here. And all

15 around that house there were about five men who I would

16 describe as of fighting age.

17 And at this time, you see this woodpile here,

18 there was a small outhouse here, and the two private

19 soldiers, when I was talking here, were then carrying

20 over dead bodies of old men from the front fields just

21 at the T-junction of the main road and delivered them

22 to the outhouse. And I asked what was wrong with

23 them. This is right at the start. I asked, "What is

24 wrong with them?" And he said, "These are dead," which

25 is a small shock.

1 Q. Are you saying dead bodies? Are you saying

2 two or are you saying more than that?

3 A. I remember seeing two.

4 Q. And these particular people, Muslims with

5 weapons, were they picking those dead bodies up?

6 A. No, they hadn't bothered. I don't know why.

7 I was distracted by the incident and the woman, and as

8 I was talking, my soldiers had taken it on themselves,

9 I don't know why, but they ended up picking these two

10 bodies up and put them over by the barn.

11 Q. And what did these men in the photograph,

12 with rifles, appear to be doing?

13 A. I think they'd been the local defence of the

14 village, and I don't know whether they'd come there as

15 a result of the action in the morning at about 6.00, or

16 whether they had been there, but if there had been

17 action of a military action rather than a civilian

18 slaughter, then I assume they would have been -- while

19 defending their friends and relatives they would have

20 probably been injured or killed themselves.

21 Q. And apart from that location, and I think the

22 location you're referring to is marked by number 1 on

23 the map, with the house ringed with the 14 numeral next

24 to it, that is the house where you saw these --

25 A. That's the very house, yeah, there

1 (indicating).

2 Q. And this is the house where the man was

3 assisted because he had a gun-shot wound to his back?

4 A. To his back and arm, yes.

5 Q. Are there any other locations that you saw

6 Muslim men with weapons, apart from this particular

7 location?

8 A. This is the only one.

9 Q. What was your impression when you left the

10 village? And this might tie into your impression when

11 you arrived. Did you feel that an action had taken

12 place or were you caught in the middle of one? Can you

13 give the Court some understanding of when the tempo of

14 this action, whatever it was, occurred to cause the

15 damage that you've referred to, the 20 per cent of

16 houses you saw burnt within your field of view along

17 side of the road, what was your impression about when

18 that, in fact, occurred? Do you have one?

19 A. My impression was based, after my arrival, on

20 talking to the woman, and on seeing the injured man and

21 by the nature of his wound in his back, the quantity of

22 blood on the sofa, and the congealed nature of the

23 blood and the abating of the bleeding, although not

24 completely, that he'd probably been there for about

25 three hours, four hours. No less than two, no more

1 than four. Basically these were the things that made

2 me believe -- sort of put a time on it, but also the

3 woman had commented that it was a morning offensive.

4 And most deliberate offensives conducted by military

5 men are done at dawn, because that's the time when the

6 people are at least alertness, probably in their beds.

7 Q. So in relation to what the woman told you,

8 was that consistent with what you saw?

9 A. Exactly.

10 Q. And you headed back to the Vitez base; is

11 that correct?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And you were in the village for about three

14 or four hours; is that correct?

15 A. Four hours.

16 Q. And you mentioned there was an increase in

17 gunfire, if not peripheral gunfire, when you were

18 travelling the route or waiting for the vehicle, the

19 recovery vehicle, to fix up one of the vehicles that

20 had broken down. What about the rest of the four

21 hours? What sort of gunfire was heard, if any, during

22 that time?

23 A. Again, I'll describe it as peripheral in that

24 I was aware that there was gunfire going on. Whether

25 that was nearby or echoing gunfire I could not specify,

1 but certainly there was gunfire in and around the

2 periphery of the area. But really because of the

3 nature of what we came across, I was more focused on

4 the problem there, and this, I suppose, distracted me

5 from other concerns like the gunfire.

6 Q. But there wasn't any sort of offensive

7 occurring whilst in front of you or near you whilst you

8 were in the village?

9 A. There was no offensive. The only thing that

10 made me believe that some fresh action of sorts had

11 taken place was that a wooden barn and a house -- and,

12 in fact, two houses, were freshly ablaze. They were

13 not ablaze when I entered the village at 11.00, but

14 they were ablaze at 3.00 and burnt out quite quickly.

15 So obviously something had taken place from the sort of

16 western -- north-western edge of the village. Maybe

17 using an approach from the hillside towards further up

18 the hill, or maybe down towards Santici, which is a

19 Croat village.

20 Q. Thank you. You went back to the Vitez base

21 and then at some later time did you re-attend the

22 village or near to the village?

23 A. Yes, we then -- we went back to reorganise

24 ourselves and to change the vehicle that had broken

25 down, and then I was tasked to join Lieutenant Dooley

1 who had spent his afternoon recovering dead bodies, and

2 I assisted him later at about 6.00 in the evening.

3 Q. And that's what he told you he had been

4 doing?

5 A. Yes. He'd been doing it since about 12.00 or

6 about midday.

7 Q. And you met him, and what time did you --

8 sorry, I might have missed that, but what time were you

9 back at the village, outside the village?

10 A. At about 6.30. We rendezvoused at Dubravica,

11 at the junction, at about 6.00, and we must have been

12 on the main road, on this road along here, there was

13 four Warrior vehicles and two of my Scimitars, at about

14 6.30.

15 Q. Did you see anything of significance when you

16 arrived there, in relation to casualties?

17 A. Yes. You'll see the figure 6 with a circle

18 around it. This is an area of a field just on the

19 eastern edge of a house where there were five bodies,

20 civilian and elderly bodies, lying on the grass at what

21 appeared to be where they had fell whilst being shot.

22 In fact, they had several injuries to their bodies.

23 They had not just been shot once from the injuries that

24 I saw. And it was those five bodies that we were

25 tasked to recover.

1 So with four Warriors and with my two

2 Scimitars, we picketed this road to ensure our own

3 safety. Corporal Ramsden, my other Corporal, was at

4 the bottom by this cemetery here, and I placed myself

5 here at the top end by the junction of Ahmici, and the

6 four Warriors were placed along the road here to

7 provide security, so that the armoured ambulance could

8 reverse onto this field as close to the dead bodies as

9 possible in order to collect them and put them in the

10 back of the ambulance. And then our task really was to

11 remove them and take them to the edge of the village so

12 that if any Muslim people wanted to collect them they

13 could do more safely. That was the concept of what we

14 were up to.

15 Q. That circle with the 6 represents the place

16 that you feel that the bodies were located and

17 retrieved from?

18 A. Yeah. That's -- by the nature of how they

19 were lying, it appeared that they were lying where they

20 had fell whilst being shot.

21 Q. Now I produce a few exhibits to you that may

22 assist in describing this incident. They're Exhibits

23 53, 54, 55, 56 and 57.

24 If we can look at Exhibit 53 first, please.

25 A. This white block is the periscope of my

1 vehicle, and this is the field. As you can see, the

2 bodies are lying here. This is where the circle that's

3 drawn on the map with the mark 6 is. You can see in

4 the distance some of the smoking buildings of Ahmici.

5 This is the edge of Ahmici, and you can see the

6 destruction of some of these houses. This line along

7 here is the main road, which you can't obviously see,

8 but clearly the dead bodies are there.

9 Q. Can we look at Exhibit 54?

10 A. This is the -- excuse me. This is the

11 armoured ambulance. These are some Cheshire soldiers

12 taking cover or covering us as we reversed, opened the

13 door and then put the bodies in the back. Here is a

14 dead man, a civilian.

15 Q. Exhibit 55.

16 A. Here is another dead man. And another man

17 next to him here, slightly more -- middle-aged. We

18 were about to pick these bodies up and put them into

19 the back of the ambulance.

20 Q. And Exhibit 56.

21 A. This is the ambulance door and the

22 entrance -- the back of the ambulance, and these are

23 the bodies. There's obviously one, two, and here is

24 the feet of a third. There was a couple more on the

25 stretcher up here. This man I personally lifted into

1 the ambulance.

2 Q. That's the man with the purple jacket?

3 A. Yes. He's got a bad injury to his arm, and

4 he has a couple of other injuries that suggested to me

5 that he'd probably been engaged with automatic fire or

6 with several sort of single-aimed shots. Probably

7 automatic fire, because after the first shot you tend

8 to fall down.

9 Q. And Exhibit 57.

10 A. Here is probably a better view of one, two,

11 three, four, five people. A soldier here with his

12 rubber gloves on. Yep.

13 Q. Now, I would just like you to describe all of

14 the men. Were any of them in any sort of obvious

15 uniform?

16 A. None of them were in any obvious uniform or

17 any -- my experience was that most Bosnian solders had,

18 if not any uniform, had one or two items of uniform,

19 what I would call mixed dress, but none of these had

20 any green jacket or sleeveless black top or anything

21 signifying anything military whatsoever.

22 Q. Were there any weapons next to these --

23 A. There were no weapons anywhere near them.

24 Q. I think you've described one or two of the

25 bodies and how you believed they, in fact, were

1 killed. Can you describe the others? Are you in a

2 position to?

3 A. I'm not really in a position to describe them

4 other than they were all dead and they sustained more

5 than one shot.

6 Q. And so those bodies were subsequently taken

7 further up the village, I think you said?

8 A. Yeah. They were taken to the east -- I

9 shall, if you like, point on the map where we took

10 them.

11 Q. If you could? And that's pointing on Exhibit

12 229. If you can mark the location with an X with the

13 red pen of the place where the bodies were taken?

14 A. (Marks). Took them to the small lay-by there

15 just north-east of the cemetery here.

16 Q. I think you said that you took those bodies

17 to that location so to enable Muslim people to pick

18 these bodies up --

19 A. That's right.

20 Q. -- in more safety?

21 A. That's correct.

22 Q. I'd like to show you another photograph, and

23 if you can explain to the Court what that is? It's a

24 new exhibit.

25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit 240.

1 A. This is -- you can see three of the four

2 Warriors here parked on the road. You can see, between

3 these two Warriors, Corporal Ramsden's scimitar at the

4 end of the road further towards the cemetery, you can

5 see here my vehicle just off the road, and you can also

6 see that the headlights are on -- it's quite -- it's

7 getting dark or getting darker, and we had actually

8 completed the removal of the bodies and we're now on

9 our way.

10 I recall that we had been distracted by

11 gunfire in the Ahmici area, and therefore, you can see

12 these three barrels over to the right-hand side of the

13 decks of the vehicles.

14 Something I also recall -- I have a

15 photograph somewhere, but I can't find it -- of direct

16 fire being shot from this hillside here, which I

17 believe to be a Croat position, it's on the western

18 side of the Busovaca sort of area, Busovaca being

19 further into this valley, and it was a series of tracer

20 rounds with gaps between them. They're obviously

21 automatic, but the gaps between them were consistent

22 with that of something like an anti-aircraft gun being

23 used in the direct role, the surface role of probably

24 20 or 30 millimetres and sufficiently fast and flat

25 trajectory to tell me that they were of that nature,

1 and they were being fired from the top of this hill

2 across into Ahmici, into the village area.

3 Q. About how many firings did you see?

4 A. There were a couple of bursts. In fact, I

5 remember trying to take a picture of them, and every

6 time there was a burst, I managed to -- I failed, and

7 finally caught a picture on the last burst of

8 ammunition of fire.

9 Q. Was there any burst back?

10 A. Not that I was aware. I didn't see any, not

11 on their return.

12 Q. With the red marker, could you put the

13 trajectory or what you saw onto that last exhibit, 240?

14 A. (Marks). That's really behind that house but

15 from the top of this hill across, into the back of

16 here. That's in the distance rather than in the

17 foreground. Difficult to show, really.

18 Q. Looking at that photograph, there's a damaged

19 house that appears to be at the corner of the

20 junction. Did you notice whether that was damaged when

21 you arrived there or left there earlier that day?

22 A. It wasn't damaged when I arrived there, but I

23 didn't notice it on the exit of the village at about

24 3.30.

25 Q. So it could have been --

1 A. It could have been done --

2 Q. -- destroyed any time after your arrival?

3 A. Yeah.

4 Q. Could you put an arrow on the direction of

5 the trajectory for the record on that exhibit on which

6 way --

7 A. Sorry, direction.

8 Q. -- which direction it was actually heading.

9 A. (Marks)

10 Q. And if you put Exhibit 229, which is the

11 aerial of the village, can you explain what the white

12 arrow generally reflects?

13 A. Yes. That white arrow is the direction of

14 the fire, and this is actually a hilly feature, which

15 is difficult to see from this two-dimensional picture,

16 but when I took the picture that you've just seen in

17 the last example, I was sitting here (indicating).

18 That house that was destroyed, that we just talked

19 about, is here, the Warriors are lined along here, and

20 Corporal Ramsden and his vehicle down here, and that

21 fire that I saw came across here into the back of

22 Ahmici.

23 Q. You were only involved in one body pick-up;

24 is that correct?

25 A. That's correct.

1 Q. But is it your belief that there were other

2 body pick-ups by other people?

3 A. That afternoon, I understood that Lieutenant

4 Dooley had conducted a series of pick-ups something

5 like two or three, of about four to six bodies each

6 time and taken them somewhere. I don't know where.

7 Q. After that pick-up, you headed back to base

8 again?

9 A. That's right, yeah.

10 Q. About how long did that take?

11 A. It was -- I'd say the whole thing wrapped up

12 within about an hour, probably a bit over an hour.

13 Q. Looking at this photograph that I'll produce

14 to you -- it's a new exhibit -- could you explain to

15 the Court what that is?

16 THE REGISTRAR: The exhibit is marked 241.

17 A. This is a picture of Vitez. You can see the

18 Catholic church here, the Catholic end of -- the Croat

19 end of town, and this is the Muslim end, and if you

20 could see through the smoke, you'd see a minaret around

21 here somewhere. This is my vehicle periscopes, this

22 is -- that's pointing east, that direction. So what

23 we're doing is we're going along the ring road to

24 Dubravica late in the day, although it's not a very

25 good, clear shot. Because we're going east, I

1 understand it to be my second journey to Ahmici that

2 day, so this is not the morning but the second journey

3 to go and pick up the bodies, and as I can see, the

4 area of Vitez is still smoking from its activity that

5 morning or that day.

6 MR. SMITH:

7 Q. That's the area I'd like to briefly discuss

8 now, is putting what you saw in Ahmici in some sort of

9 Vitez-wide, municipal-wide context. Did you go into

10 Vitez on the 16th of April?

11 A. No.

12 Q. So the route you took was always a ring route

13 around --

14 A. Yeah, the northern route around Vitez. There

15 was no reason for me to go into Vitez and, in fact, the

16 intensity of what was going on in Vitez was the first

17 reason why I was left in a mess in the morning and was

18 only then sent to Ahmici to investigate what apparently

19 at the time was some activity, unspecified.

20 Q. After the 16th of April, did you visit some

21 other villages that had received some substantial

22 damage?

23 A. Yes, I did, yeah.

24 Q. I believe on the 30th of April, you visited a

25 village called Jelinak?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. About how far away is that from Ahmici?

3 A. It's probably -- it's -- if you take a

4 circular route up to the north-east, it is about 8

5 kilometres, 10 kilometres.

6 Q. What was the predominant population in

7 Jelinak, what --

8 A. It was a predominantly Muslim village.

9 Q. Why did you go to Jelinak?

10 A. Because I was, on the 30th of April, I was

11 handing over my responsibility to a lieutenant from the

12 light dragoons who were the regiment taking over from

13 us in Bosnia, and I visited -- Jelinak is part of

14 routine patrols or a routine handover, although I had

15 never actually been there before. I had been to Putis,

16 which is just east of Jelinak, but then decided to

17 venture into Jelinak with Lieutenant Rennick.

18 Q. So it was a general patrol; is that correct?

19 A. A general patrol as well as a handover

20 patrol.

21 Q. Why did you pick that particular village?

22 A. Just coverage of the area, a random coverage

23 of the area, in some respect, and also more specific

24 coverage of the area with regard Ahmici and other

25 places.

1 Q. And what of significance did you see in that

2 village?

3 A. Well, I drove from Putis up into the village

4 to the first house on my left-hand side, and there I

5 stopped when a couple of men came out of the building

6 and asked me to stop, stop to talk to them, and they

7 asked me to jump down and come and look at something,

8 so I decided to jump down, took my rifle with me, and

9 the one soldier, who was a grey-haired man but quite

10 strong-looking, maybe in his late 40s, showed me where

11 three people had been killed and which -- the bodies

12 were still there, or the remnants of the bodies.

13 He showed me against the side of the

14 building, the back of the house, three splotches, three

15 marks of blood where it was very evident three people

16 had been shot. The red marks were at head height, so

17 there had been three men shot in the head. The blood

18 had trickled down the wall, and then where the men had

19 been dragged away onto some grass, there was a trail of

20 blood, congealed blood, you could see the trail to

21 where the bodies then lay. I say "bodies." The first

22 was pretty much a head, charred head, skull, quite easy

23 to recognise as a human skull; the second was a skull

24 and shoulders and a bit of torso, again charred

25 completely; and the third was a full torso and head

1 with absolutely perfect features of a human being and

2 arms other than the fact that they were absolutely jet

3 black as that cloak, having been burned. What was most

4 extraordinary was the fact that next to the black and

5 burnt torso were two knee-length black leather boots,

6 what I've described as jackboots, which had the legs

7 inside them, which were not burnt, which is

8 significant, I think. You could see the bones, the

9 knee bones and the flesh, where they had obviously been

10 chopped off before they had burned the bodies.

11 Q. Where were these bodies? Were they in a

12 house? Were they outside?

13 A. They were outside the house next to -- you

14 could follow the blood trail from the three spots on

15 the wall -- I say "spots" -- patches of blood this

16 large trickled down, follow the blood. The three

17 remains of the bodies were outside on the grass on the

18 eastern edge of a house in Jelinak.

19 Q. And about how many houses were in Jelinak;

20 have you got any understanding --

21 A. Jelinak was very stretched out, and it sort

22 of merged into Loncari. It's not a large village,

23 maybe 40 houses.

24 Q. Was there any damage to the houses?

25 A. The houses -- typical burnt-out roofs,

1 beams. The roofs had collapsed where they had been set

2 on fire, doorways and windows blackened.

3 Q. What percentage of the village appeared to

4 have been destroyed in that manner?

5 A. I think about 40 or 50 per cent of it had

6 been destroyed, and this is sometime after, and it was

7 absolutely deserted apart from the couple of guys who

8 came from some hide where they had been.

9 Q. Do you know the date in which this

10 destruction occurred and killing?

11 A. Well, it can only really -- the last time I

12 was anywhere near there was the 15th of April, on the

13 night when I was in Putis, and I was there then on the

14 30th of April, so it was anywhere between those two

15 dates.

16 Q. So you've got no specific knowledge?

17 A. No, although most of the activity I

18 understand went on between the 16th and the 25th of

19 April I understand just from my knowledge.

20 Q. This village was predominantly Muslim; is

21 that correct?

22 A. That's right, that's right.

23 Q. And the Serb frontlines in relation to

24 Jelinak, can you explain to the Court where they would

25 be? Would they be nearby?

1 A. Well, from Jelinak, the Serb frontline is not

2 even significant, there's no weapon. This was -- in

3 that theatre would be able to be launched from a Serb

4 position, certainly not to the east but to the nearest

5 Serb frontline to the west and north-west was Turbe

6 which was about 20 miles away.

7 Q. Bearing that in mind, what was your

8 presumption as to which military force generally

9 inflicted that damage on that village?

10 A. It was the HVO that had attacked that

11 village.

12 Q. But you didn't see the particular attack.

13 A. No, no.

14 Q. This is a conclusion.

15 A. This is a Muslim village. Serbs are miles

16 away. Conclusion: Croats attacked this village.

17 There was also some -- there was also two pigs in the

18 village that were still smouldering, in fact, when we

19 arrived there, and I don't think pigs smoulder for 15

20 days when lit. I think they were put -- I assume they

21 were put there just to desecrate or soil, make a point

22 about Muslim faith, in that they were brought along and

23 destroyed there to sort of desecrate the village, if

24 you like, and they were still smouldering when I

25 arrived there, suggesting they had been lit or shot or

1 something like that only a few days before.

2 Q. Was the village populated or was it empty?

3 A. It was deserted.

4 Q. There's a village near Jelinak called

5 Loncari. You visited that on that --

6 A. Yeah.

7 Q. -- same day; is that correct?

8 A. I arrived in Jelinak from the east along

9 through Putis and I exited Jelinak through Loncari.

10 Q. What did you see in Loncari of significance,

11 if anything?

12 A. It was very similar to Jelinak, really. It

13 was a continuation. Again, houses burnt, blackened

14 timbers, burnt windows and door frames, and

15 livestock -- there's a lot of livestock, horses, and

16 some cattle that had been killed and had -- rigor

17 mortis had set in because their legs were stretched out

18 straight as they were lying on their sides, a general

19 bad smell.

20 Q. Can you give the Court some sort of

21 understanding of the size of the village, how many

22 houses, what type of village was it?

23 A. A rural village, quite a long, thin village.

24 I'm not sure if it didn't follow a small stream, but a

25 linear village, I'd say, maybe of -- between 30 and 50

1 houses.

2 Q. Can you give an estimate of the number of

3 houses that appeared to be in a burnt, destroyed state

4 from which you mentioned earlier?

5 A. Probably anything between a quarter and half

6 of the houses.

7 Q. Was there any sign of death in that village?

8 A. The animals. Apart from the -- in Loncari --

9 Jelinak aside and the other three bodies I've talked

10 about -- in Loncari, all I witnessed was dead animals,

11 particularly a horse I remember very clearly, dead.

12 Q. Can you explain to the Court the predominant

13 ethnic group that lived in that village?

14 A. I understood the ethnic grouping to be

15 Muslim.

16 Q. This village falls into a similar situation

17 in terms of Jelinak in that it was quite a way away

18 from the Serb frontline, Bosnian Serb frontline; is

19 that correct?

20 A. Yes, very much so, yeah.

21 Q. And what conclusion do you have in relation

22 to the military group or that would have been involved

23 in that attack on that village?

24 A. Well, I'm not very clear on the Muslim or

25 Croat intent at the time, their intentions, their

1 concept of operations, but the relevance of taking that

2 village, a Muslim village, so a Croat offensive on that

3 village seemed to bear no relevance, militarily, as

4 there was no fortifications in that village, there were

5 no trenches, there were no sangars or defended houses

6 that I saw.

7 Q. From your experience in Bosnia on that tour

8 and your tour following, can you offer another

9 alternative if, in fact, a military group organised an

10 attack on this village of Loncari other than the

11 Bosnian Croat military, apart from a Bosnian Muslim

12 military group?

13 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes, Counsel Radovic?

14 MR. RADOVIC: I don't think that this has

15 anything to do with the indictment, and I have an

16 objection. For example, the village of Loncari, what

17 has that to do with Ahmici, and the pigs that were

18 mentioned, the slaughtered pigs which were several

19 kilometres from Ahmici and it has nothing to do with

20 this case, and all this happened 15 days later, whereas

21 the indictment concludes with the 16th of April. I

22 think that we were tolerant enough, but I think things

23 have gone too far now.

24 JUDGE CASSESE: Mr. Smith?

25 MR. SMITH: In relation to that, Your Honour,

1 the main focus of this witness's testimony has been

2 Ahmici, and in relation to the crimes against humanity

3 count, we must prove that what occurred in Ahmici was

4 part of a widespread or systematic attack on the

5 civilian population, and that's obviously why it's

6 being led, and as far as the dates of when this

7 village -- these two villages were attacked, the

8 witness didn't say the 30th of April, he said that's,

9 in fact, when he visited, and he believed that the

10 attack on those villages was between the 16th and

11 25th.

12 In any event, I'm going to be moving off this

13 topic, but it is an important point for the

14 Prosecution.

15 JUDGE CASSESE: I agree, yes. But you should

16 try to phrase your questions in such a way that they

17 are not leading.

18 Yes, Counsel Radovic?

19 MR. RADOVIC: Your Honours, I accept this

20 theory, that the indictment would like to prove broader

21 aspects, but for our aspects, for our clients, for them

22 to prove that they were -- a broader aspect, that they

23 should show that they had a higher position in politics

24 or elsewhere. So when they step outside the frameworks

25 of Ahmici, that is, people who had no military or

1 civilian authority, I don't think this comes within the

2 frameworks of the indictment as it stands.

3 JUDGE CASSESE: Sorry, Counsel Radovic. With

4 all due respect, you are wrong from the viewpoint of

5 international law. You were referring to command

6 responsibility. We are not dealing with the question

7 of command responsibility, we are dealing with the

8 question of whether or not the alleged crimes committed

9 by the accused may be characterised as crimes against

10 humanity.

11 Now, as you know, one of the ingredients of

12 crimes against humanity is that they are part of a

13 widespread practice or systematic practice, whatever

14 the position of responsibility in a command structure

15 of the accused. A rape committed by a soldier may be

16 classified as a crime against humanity if it is part of

17 a widespread practice; so therefore, their position of

18 responsibility is not relevant.

19 MR. SMITH: I'm moving off this topic. Just

20 one last question, Your Honour.

21 Q. Who was -- who do you believe, based on the

22 circumstances that you had at hand, was responsible for

23 the attack on Loncari?

24 A. Based on what I saw, on my understanding of

25 the Croat and Muslim dispositions, based on what the

1 woman at the start of the village told my interpreter

2 and therefore me, it was clear that there was an HVO

3 offensive that had taken this village, Muslim village,

4 which had a minaret very clearly standing on the 16th

5 of April at the front of the village.

6 Q. Sorry, I was referring to Loncari.

7 A. I beg your pardon. Again, as a result of my

8 understanding of dispositions, in our operations room,

9 we had a demographic or ethnic chart, and from that, I

10 knew this area to be predominantly Muslim, and it had

11 received destruction of a nature similar to that of

12 Ahmici.

13 Q. The civilians had gone from Loncari; is that

14 correct?

15 A. Correct, yes.

16 Q. You said in the beginning of your testimony

17 that you received training and education in the law of

18 armed conflict, the rules that apply to war. In

19 relation to the principles of protection of civilians

20 and protection of civilian property, can you give the

21 Court an opinion on the nature of the attack, whether

22 you, as an educated, experienced military soldier,

23 believe it was an unlawful operation or the damage and

24 the injuries that you saw was legitimate?

25 JUDGE CASSESE: Sorry to interrupt you.

1 Could you maybe rephrase this question because actually

2 it's not important -- it is for the Court to decide

3 whether it was lawful or unlawful. The question is

4 whether it was a military operation or -- let me see,

5 the words used by the witness. He said there was, in a

6 way, a choice between military action or civilian

7 slaughter.

8 So without classifying the action as lawful

9 or unlawful, whether it was, rather, a military action

10 or a civilian slaughter, to use his own words.

11 MR. SMITH: I'm happy with that question,

12 Your Honour.

13 A. Again, from what I saw, from what I was told

14 by the woman, from the smoking houses, from the smoking

15 civilian houses, the dead -- couple of dead men of what

16 I would describe as non-combatant age, from a man who

17 was in civilian clothing in a jumper who had got a shot

18 in the back, in the back, suggesting he was withdrawing

19 or running away or something, from a woman who saw --

20 with a very nasty face, who was probably about 50 or

21 60, a woman with a head wound, which is a gunshot, a

22 single shot on her head, and from a whole cellar of

23 anything from old men to children, a small girl of 12

24 years old, from seeing that and seeing no defences,

25 only a few men earlier on in the day of combat age with

1 rifles, my impression was that whether there had been

2 any soldiers in this village at all, of which there was

3 only a very, very small example, these few men I've

4 talked about, at the end of the day, these houses,

5 these civilian houses, had been burnt down, were on

6 fire - these were not houses that had any signs of

7 being defended by soldiers or had any fortifications -

8 and I think when you see 12-year-old girls with bullet

9 wounds and even men who could fight with gunshot wounds

10 in their backs or women with gunshot wounds in their

11 heads, it tells me that this is a slaughter of

12 civilians.

13 MR. SMITH: I have no further questions, Your

14 Honour. I apologise for being lengthy with this

15 witness, but because he was very much involved on the

16 day, it does take a little time.

17 I would like to tender Exhibits 229 to 241.

18 JUDGE CASSESE: All right. So we now take a

19 break, 30-minute break. We will reconvene at 4.00.

20 --- Recess taken at 3.30 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 4.00 p.m.

22 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Pavkovic.

23 MR. PAVKOVIC: Your Honours, I would like to

24 inform you that the witness will be questioned by

25 counsel Ranko Radovic.

1 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Counsel Radovic.

2 Cross-examined by Mr. Radovic:

3 Q. Tell me, Major, as far as I was able to

4 understand, you are an infantry man, or armoured units,

5 or what is your category, in fact? What is your rank?

6 A. I'm from a reconnaissance armoured unit,

7 cavalry.

8 Q. In your specialist training -- does artillery

9 come under your specialist training?

10 A. Not under my specialist training, no.

11 Q. And what about anti-aircraft guns, is that

12 part of your training too?

13 A. ... I'm trained in, but I have a good

14 all-round knowledge of the all-arms battle, and that

15 includes air defence and artillery, and infantry work

16 and armoured work.

17 Q. Did you see anti-aircraft guns, the ones that

18 the HVO had at their disposal in the surroundings of

19 Vitez, did you personally see them?

20 A. I didn't see the guns, but I saw fire from a

21 gun, from a HVO area, which with its rate of fire, the

22 size of the tracer, the trajectory of the gun, made me

23 understand that they were clearly anti-aircraft guns,

24 and I can further confirm that if you wish me to.

25 Q. How did you know that it was a 30-millimetre

1 anti-aircraft gun?

2 A. I didn't know it was a 30-millimetre gun, I

3 said it was between 20 and 30 millimetres, because

4 anti-aircraft guns are normally anything between 23

5 millimetres, 20 millimetres, sometimes as little as

6 12.7 millimetres and sometimes as much as 40. That's

7 why I said between 20 and 30, roughly.

8 Q. Very well. Do you know, in concrete terms,

9 what anti-aircraft were against at the disposal of the

10 HVO and the Muslim side, the army of

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

12 A. I think most of the units out there had

13 former JNA weapons, and most of these weapons are based

14 on Russian or Soviet type weaponry, the ZPU or ZSU

15 type anti-aircraft guns. Mainly ZPUs, ZPU-4 12.7

16 millimetre, 20 millimetre, some 23 millimetres and even

17 57 millimetres in some cases.

18 Q. Very well. I'm now interested in knowing how

19 you decided upon this category between 20 and 30

20 millimetres.

21 A. The rounds that were fired over the hillside

22 had firing intervals in that I'm saying the rate of

23 fire showed me that they were, first of all, not

24 machine gun, which puts them in a larger bracket.

25 Okay? They were also not of a rate of -- do you want

1 me to continue, or are you going to talk?

2 Q. Yes, you can carry on. I can ask you the

3 next question in that regard. Do you know that

4 anti-aircraft guns are conceived in such a way as to

5 have limited possibility for reducing the barrel

6 downwards, just like with tanks, you can't raise the

7 barrel upwards, which is the case with Russian tanks,

8 for example. And this one can't go downwards. Do you

9 know of that fact?

10 A. That's not correct. You can depress an

11 anti-aircraft gun to fire in a direct role, and in

12 fact, I was fired on by Serb guns in January over near

13 Kladanj, where anti-aircraft guns were fired at me in a

14 direct role from the other side of a valley, and I had

15 this confirmed to me by the Bosnian Serbs when I

16 visited a town over their border some weeks later, and

17 we had a good laugh about it.

18 Q. But do you know whether it was the same type

19 of weapon, because I imagine that not all types have

20 the same combat possibilities.

21 A. Anti-aircraft guns can fire in the direct

22 role and they can be depressed. It is the simple case

23 of letting a gun lower. They all fire from the

24 horizontal with either a series of hand controls,

25 winches, and they can be elevated up to the vertical

1 and, in fact, beyond it, all around 360 degrees.

2 Because when you're firing at an aircraft, it may be

3 coming towards and you're firing like this, and they're

4 coming up like that and you might be going around and

5 beyond. Soviet anti-aircraft guns fire in all

6 directions, including on a flat trajectory on the

7 horizontal.

8 The flat trajectory of the ammunition going

9 across the valley in that it wasn't like this but it

10 was flat like that, shows that the rounds were of a

11 high velocity, and they were being fired at a rate of

12 fire where there were about up to, say, ten tracer

13 element or rounds in the air at any one time, and this

14 is consistent with an anti-aircraft gun. Tanks fire

15 rounds one at a time. Machine-guns fire with a rapid

16 rate of fire where you have a lot of rounds in the air

17 of a much smaller nature.

18 My training -- I'm a gunnery officers in the

19 Royal Armoured Corps, and this is why I know about

20 ballistics.

21 Q. Tell me what the time was when you filmed the

22 men carrying the weapons.

23 A. Which men carrying which weapons?

24 Q. On the photograph that was shown to you. One

25 photograph shows people not wearing uniforms with

1 automatic rifles, and I'm interested in knowing when

2 that picture was taken.

3 A. That picture, if you're referring to the

4 picture that has two men in brown jackets carrying

5 AK-47s, that was taken at about 11.00, 11.30 in the

6 morning.

7 Q. On their civilian clothing did they have any

8 signs showing that they belonged to any army?

9 A. No, they didn't.

10 Q. What, according to the rules of the British

11 army, would you do with individuals carrying firearms,

12 without having any insignia as belonging to an army?

13 Which category would you place those individuals in?

14 A. Depends how they are dressed.

15 Q. Like the people dressed that you took the

16 photo of. If the British army were to meet men dressed

17 like that in the operation zone, what would you

18 think -- who did you think these men belonged to, what

19 category?

20 A. If that's a general question, if I came

21 across --

22 Q. I am asking -- yes, tell us. Go ahead,

23 please.

24 A. If that's a general question, if I came

25 across, in any war, men dressed in civilian clothing,

1 with a rifle --

2 Q. In any war, yes.

3 A. Yes. It depends which side they were on. If

4 I could speak to them and establish they were on my

5 side, I would take no action. If they were firing at

6 me and they were wearing civilian clothing, I would

7 shoot them. I don't really understand what you're

8 trying to get at.

9 Q. I am trying to get at whether you would

10 consider them to be soldiers.

11 A. In this specific case I would regard them as

12 soldiers because --

13 Q. No, I'm asking you in general terms.

14 Generally speaking, if the British army were to

15 encounter an adversary firing at them without military

16 uniforms or military emblems, who would you consider

17 them to be?

18 A. Well, I wouldn't know because they would have

19 no emblems on them. The point is here, and what I

20 think you're trying to say is these soldiers are or are

21 not soldiers. Because these men are in Bosnia, and

22 because Bosnia doesn't have a professional army with

23 professionally trained soldiers, my experience is that

24 you have any man with any weapon dressed in any

25 clothing can be a soldier. So I don't see what you're

1 trying to say.

2 Q. Very well. I would like an answer. I'm not

3 trying to say anything. I just would like to have an

4 answer to the question, are they soldiers without

5 uniforms with weapons, and without having any signs on

6 their civilian clothes as showing that they belonged to

7 an army of any kind? Would you not agree with me if I

8 say that if they are civilians they would have to have

9 emblems showing that they belonged to some army, or a

10 five pointed star or something else. This is just an

11 ad hoc, random example. Anywhere on their clothing.

12 A. If a man is wearing civilian clothing, he

13 could be anything from a civilian to a soldier. This

14 situation, whether it was the same for another British

15 army situation somewhere else in the world, at the end

16 of the day if you have somebody with a rifle, whatever

17 they're wearing, then I would regard them by looking at

18 the weapon and not looking at what they were wearing,

19 and especially in Bosnia. What they were wearing was

20 irrelevant, because I would say these two are soldiers

21 is the point. I never doubted that they were

22 soldiers. But what sort of soldiers they were, whether

23 they were professional frontline soldiers or whether

24 they were local defenders, I don't know. I don't know

25 whether they were there in the morning or whether

1 they'd come as a result of the engagement in the

2 morning. The fact that they were standing there and

3 they had no -- I had no -- I was not aware of them

4 having taken part in any fighting, suggests to me that

5 they probably came afterwards, unless they hid while

6 their friends, and families, and old people and

7 children were slaughtered.

8 Q. Well, I'm not asking you for your

9 conclusions, I'm just asking you what you saw with your

10 very eyes and heard with your very ears. What you

11 conclude is your own conclusion, but in court it is

12 customary for witnesses to set out the facts and then

13 the Court decides on those facts. That is to say,

14 whether it was so or not so. So let us keep to what

15 you saw and heard.

16 A. Before you asked me my opinion of what they

17 were -- looked on as by the British army of any

18 battle. Okay? So that's an opinion, isn't it.

19 So if you want the facts, these two men were

20 two men of combat age, they were wearing civilian

21 clothing but were carrying rifles --

22 JUDGE CASSESE: Mr. Smith.

23 MR. SMITH: Your Honour --

24 MR. RADOVIC: That's right. And the part of

25 my question -- I asked that part of my question because

1 it belongs to your professional expertise.

2 JUDGE CASSESE: Let Mr. Smith speak.

3 MR. SMITH: I want to raise one point. I

4 think there is a difficulty arising in this

5 cross-examination, and the difficulty is I think there

6 is confusion. The witness may well be confused from

7 general questions to specific fact questions, and in

8 the beginning my friend was asking questions of a

9 general nature and only wanted to ask from a general

10 point of view. This witness was trying to keep it in

11 relation to what he saw and what he did, but my friend

12 wants it had in a general way. Now the witness, when

13 answering a question in a general way, that general

14 question is being criticised by my friend for not

15 relating it to the specific facts. So it's a mixture

16 of concept and what he saw and what he heard.

17 JUDGE CASSESE: Let me try and rephrase the

18 question put by Counsel Radovic, with Counsel Radovic's

19 permission. I think you -- probably the gist of your

20 question was that you were keen to know from the

21 witness whether under, you said, British rules, British

22 military law, British rules, a civilian in civilian

23 clothes, with no distinctive emblem but carrying

24 weapons, would be regarded as a lawful combatant or as

25 an unlawful combatant. I think this was probably the

1 sense of this question.

2 A. Okay. Generally speaking, an unlawful

3 combatant if he's got no uniform or insignia, or is

4 quite clearly not a soldier. But the point is, going

5 back to specifics, is that --

6 JUDGE CASSESE: So far this is the general

7 question. I wonder whether --

8 A. Can I continue?

9 MR. RADOVIC: That is precisely what I wanted

10 to hear.

11 JUDGE CASSESE: I wonder if you are

12 interested now to take up the point taken by Mr. Smith,

13 in classifying the actual behaviour of those two

14 people.

15 MR. RADOVIC: Let me put it this way: First

16 of all, I wanted to hear that these were unlawful

17 combatants because they did not have any insignia on

18 their clothes showing that they belonged to an

19 organised unit. And we stopped at that point, as far

20 as I'm concerned.

21 A. Can I continue with that? I'd like to be

22 more specific, to be honest.

23 JUDGE CASSESE: Why not?

24 A. Yeah. I think we all know from the theatre

25 of operations in Bosnia, whether the side is Serb --

1 or Bosnian, Serb, Croat or Muslim, the nature of how

2 the war came about, you do have situations where men of

3 combat age, and any age, in fact, can pick up weapons

4 and become part of forces. Some are police forces,

5 some are the army, but generally, if they have a weapon

6 they are, in many cases that I was aware of, part of

7 armies. They might not be on the frontline with a

8 formed unit, but they might be part of a local defence,

9 defending their families and children from being

10 slaughtered by opposition. That's how I see it, and

11 that's my experience of my time out there. Just

12 because somebody didn't have a uniform on didn't mean

13 he was a soldier defending something like a village,

14 for example, Ahmici.

15 MR. RADOVIC:

16 Q. Tell me, witness, are you an interested party

17 in any way in this case?

18 A. I am not an interested party in any way. Why

19 do you ask that question?

20 Q. I'm asking you this question because you go

21 far beyond what you are asked.

22 MR. SMITH: I object, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE MAY: I object to this line of

24 questioning. Just a moment.

25 This line of questioning is wholly

1 unjustified, in my view. The witness was, first of

2 all, asked his opinions by the Prosecution about

3 military matters and he gave them. You, Mr. Radovic

4 asked him his opinion and he gave it. Now you choose

5 to allege that he's somehow an interested party.

6 It may well be he's interested in the sense

7 that he has reported what he saw that day, but apart

8 from that, I do not see that he's an interested party

9 and I regard it as an objectionable question.

10 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Radovic, could you

11 move on to another question, please?

12 MR. RADOVIC:

13 Q. As far as detonations are concerned, and

14 shooting and similar sounds that are heard in a closed

15 room, you mentioned that identification of a place that

16 this sound may come from is affected by resonance, by

17 echo. So my question would be: The identification of

18 a place of explosion from a closed room, at what range

19 is this? And also, to what extent does echo affect

20 this adversely? That is to say this place that it came

21 from, especially in an open space where there is an

22 echo?

23 A. That was absolutely clear. The --

24 Q. I'm trying to put my questions clearly.

25 A. Yes, it was very technically put.

1 At the end of the day, when I was in the

2 village of Ahmici, my experience of what was going on

3 around me was obviously visual and audio, the audio.

4 And what I heard while focusing on a problem like an

5 injured woman, or girl or whatever, was noises in the

6 background, whether automatic fire or the odd explosion

7 in and around the area. And it was very difficult,

8 while focusing on first-aid and what have you of these

9 injured civilians, to quantify or to be specific about

10 the nature of this battle noise, because, of course,

11 you do have echoes, and I'm not being specific at all

12 about any direction of any weapon noise or gunfire, and

13 I'd rather leave it at that, because I can't be exact

14 about it and it would be unfair to be saying anything

15 other than it was just general background or peripheral

16 noise explosions in a sporadic and occasional manner.

17 Q. I didn't exactly put this question in

18 relation to your own personal experience, but I really

19 asked because of some other witnesses who said that

20 they had identified where a sound had come from,

21 although they were in a closed room. So I asked you

22 because you were an expert in this field, and can you

23 tell by an echo how far some sound came from? So I'm

24 asking you this as an expert question rather than in

25 view of your personal experience.

1 A. Okay. I understand. What you do is you

2 measure the distance between the crack of the rifle, or

3 the gun or whatever is firing and the thump of the

4 incoming round or bullet or whatever. The larger the

5 gap between the crack and the thump suggests the

6 farther the range of the weapon is away from you, and

7 the shorter, obviously the opposite.

8 Q. Now, I would kindly ask you to look at this

9 map and tell me -- you can look at the photograph

10 behind you, the big one, but could the other --

11 Mr. Usher, could you please remove the other map that

12 is on the big one?

13 So this is the main road that leads from

14 Vitez up to Zenica, et cetera, right? I'm interested

15 in the following: To the best of your knowledge, do

16 part of the houses of the village of Ahmici go across

17 this road?

18 A. I understand that -- I'm not sure whether the

19 houses go to the south side of the road. I

20 generally -- yeah, I think they do. The name of Ahmici

21 is actually on the north side of the road on the map,

22 and all my references have been really to a map -- my

23 experience is from the map, and the problem with the

24 houses in Bosnia is that you can have small groups of

25 houses that don't even have a village name. So it

1 would be speculation for me just to say now that the

2 houses south of the road were Ahmici or that they

3 weren't Ahmici.

4 Q. All right. In your opinion as an officer who

5 is a Major now, was this road of strategic importance

6 for the HVO in case of an armed conflict with the

7 Muslims, of strategic importance?

8 A. This road runs basically east/west. And let

9 me first say that any road is of importance for lines

10 of communication and supply, but generally a road

11 running east/west, from what I understood the situation

12 to be, was not quite as relevant as a road running

13 north/south, because generally your operations, the HVO

14 operations, were south/north leading out of the

15 Busovaca area and that linear sort of frontline running

16 from Busovaca across to the west, south of this sort of

17 area.

18 So if I was a Croat wanting to advance,

19 depending on what my objective was, I'd be going north,

20 and, therefore, to have this road would be nice, but I

21 wouldn't have thought necessarily essential, other than

22 distributing logistics across my frontage to the east

23 and to the west.

24 Q. And tell me, this road, doesn't it link Vitez

25 and Busovaca?

1 A. Correct. Yes. So there you go. You've

2 answered the question. It is of some importance,

3 because it's nice for the HVO headquarters in Vitez to

4 have a little bit of a link with that of the bases in

5 Busovaca. Very good.

6 Q. Tell me, if there were a group of HVO in

7 Vitez and a group of HVO in Busovaca, is cutting off a

8 line of communication between these two groups part of

9 warfare strategy in any battle?

10 A. It could be, yes.

11 Q. I mean, to separate these units and then to

12 destroy each group separately; isn't that correct?

13 A. That is a very typical way of conducting

14 operations. Yes, that could be done.

15 Q. You said that you did not notice in Ahmici

16 any significant presence of the BH army. What did you

17 mean by that when you said that? That is to say, this

18 should be elaborated in two directions.

19 First of all, did you notice any presence of

20 the BH army? And, if so, because you said you did not

21 notice a significant presence, how was this presence

22 that was there manifested?

23 A. What I saw, as I said earlier, was no

24 evidence -- there was no evidence of any formed Bosnian

25 or Muslim army. There was no defences that I saw.

1 There was no barbed wire, there was no trenches, there

2 were no sangars, there were no houses which were

3 fortified. The only thing I saw that I knew was Muslim

4 and that resembled anything to do with fighting, were a

5 few gentlemen in and around, as you see on this picture

6 here, carrying Kalashnikov weapons. That's all I saw

7 in the way of Muslim men of fighting age in Ahmici.

8 Q. If I understood you correctly, you base your

9 conclusion on what you saw precisely that day, on the

10 16th of April?

11 A. That's correct, yes.

12 Q. That is to say that before that you did not

13 come to the village of Ahmici?

14 A. No. I drove past the village of Ahmici, but

15 I saw from the main road, if you use that as a

16 confrontation line, no defences at any point. Had I

17 seen any defences or build-up of forces, I'm sure,

18 anywhere along that frontline I would have noticed

19 them.

20 Q. Tell me, when with your armoured vehicles you

21 got into Ahmici, did you move exclusively along the

22 road or did you go apart from the road? Did you go

23 into the fields?

24 A. No, I didn't, but what we did do when we

25 advanced is we advanced and stopped occasionally, and

1 using our times ten magnified sights did look into

2 woodland in order to see any activity, because it's

3 very important to look after ourselves. We didn't go

4 off the road because you don't know whether there are

5 any mines off the road. But as I say, therefore, we

6 stuck to the road but stopped occasionally to scan the

7 woods and the area for any threat to us.

8 Q. And tell me, when you were looking through

9 the periscopes of your armoured vehicles, wasn't your

10 ability to see what was around you limited after all?

11 Couldn't you see much better if you would get out of

12 the turret rather than only watch through the devices

13 you had in the vehicle?

14 A. No, what you do generally when you're

15 conducting reconnaissance is you use your eyes and, a

16 great deal, your ears as well, and you look around and

17 scan and look for movement, and then when you see

18 anything that's of interest, you then use your

19 times-ten magnification, your very powerful sights,

20 which are far more powerful than any binoculars, and

21 you pinpoint anything of concern.

22 So "No" is the answer. Having said that, you

23 know, my vehicle has a 360 capability, 360-degree

24 capability. General awareness is far greater if you

25 have your head out of the turret, however.

1 Q. Tell me, on the basis of which facts did you

2 conclude that there was danger of minefields?

3 A. I didn't conclude that there was any danger,

4 I was just being prudent because if you stick to

5 tarmac, if you stick to tarmac, you have less chance of

6 being blown up. I was not in any way trying to risk my

7 life or that of my soldiers or my government's

8 property, in fact; and therefore, we stuck to the

9 tracks, as we do today and as I did when I was recently

10 in Bosnia.

11 Q. In the part of Ahmici that is just by the

12 road and part of Ahmici is on the other side of the

13 road, after all, could you exactly identify every house

14 that would be Muslim as opposed to houses that would

15 be, for example, Croat?

16 A. All I had was an understanding that,

17 generally speaking, houses with four-sided roofs,

18 pyramidal shaped were generally Muslim and that

19 houses with Swiss-style two-sided roofs were generally

20 Croat, and that was a good rule to go by. It wasn't

21 necessarily 100 per cent, but it was a good way of

22 adding to your confirmation.

23 Q. But you do allow that there were exceptions?

24 A. Absolutely. But generally speaking, houses

25 all around a minaret tend to be Muslim 'cause it's easy

1 to get to your prayer.

2 Q. One thing that I'm not quite clear on in your

3 conduct, when you went with your armoured vehicles and

4 before you picked up the dead bodies, did you check

5 previously whether there were any other wounded, or did

6 you start picking up the dead bodies once you had

7 asserted that there were no other casualties, wounded?

8 A. Referring to the specific task in the

9 evening, at about 6.00, I was tasked just to assist

10 Lieutenant Dooley and therefore we, rather than

11 creeping in our mission, we just conducted the removal

12 of those five bodies and then finished with that task

13 and went back to our base in Vitez. So to answer the

14 question, I didn't -- we didn't make a point of going

15 into any more buildings to try and find people that

16 were injured because that was not our task.

17 Q. The dead bodies that you found, did you

18 inspect each of them individually, or what did you do?

19 Because you spoke of the possibility of wounding from

20 one position or another, back wounds, and so on. For

21 example, the body where you found that the wound came

22 from, the entrance wound was from the back. Did it

23 have an exit wound?

24 A. I did not have the time to just -- because we

25 were vulnerable, I did not have the time to inspect

1 bodies. What I do remember of the bodies that were

2 lying in the way I believe they fell, I -- on their

3 front or on their back or whatever, they were not there

4 as a result of being piled up or anything, they were

5 there having either been running away, it was that

6 there was several splotches of blood on those bodies in

7 most cases which suggested to me that they had been

8 engaged maybe with automatic fire.

9 Q. Very well. I've understood that. But I'm

10 not quite clear whether you looked for an exit wound

11 or, if not -- let me ask this more exactly: How do you

12 know that the back wound was an entrance wound?

13 A. I don't remember talking about any back wound

14 in this particular case. I talked about a back wound

15 in the morning at Ahmici, which is the first man I

16 spoke to. He had a back wound. The men that were

17 dead -- sorry, the man in the morning, at 11.00 --

18 Q. He was wounded --

19 A. -- he was very alive, although very annoyed,

20 and he had a back wound. The men that were dead lying

21 -- the five men in the field, they had all sorts of

22 injuries, and I didn't have the time to particularly

23 inspect them because the entry wound seemed to have

24 done significant damage and a back wound -- an exit

25 wound seemed irrelevant, really, because they were not

1 moving.

2 Q. Very well. Then we agree, with regard to the

3 dead bodies, that you cannot say whether they were shot

4 from the back or from the front.

5 A. No, but they were -- from what I could see,

6 they were shot -- where they lay was where they had

7 been shot or within yards of where they had been shot

8 because they were lying in a way that was random; in

9 other words, they might have been fleeing or whatever.

10 Q. Tell me, please, the opinion you have just

11 given us belongs to the area of forensics, the

12 mechanisms of the wound, but what I'm interested in is

13 in what you saw with your own eyes, that is to say,

14 whether they were entry/exit wounds and whether all the

15 wounds were in the back.

16 You said just now that you did not inspect

17 the bodies and that quite possibly they could have been

18 entry wounds, that is to say, from the front; is that

19 correct?

20 A. They could have been any wounds. As I just

21 said, I didn't have the time to inspect them. There

22 were five civilian --

23 Q. That's right, yes.

24 A. -- lying in the field, and they were lying

25 where they had been shot, and the fact is that there

1 were dead men, some elderly, who were very dead. As a

2 result of entry or exit wounds, it seemed irrelevant.

3 I didn't have the time to look at them either.

4 Q. That's right, yes. Okay. That's all right.

5 Tell me, do you know whether, on that day, there were

6 dead Croats as well?

7 A. I didn't see any dead Croats, so I had no

8 need -- I have no understanding or belief that there

9 were any.

10 Q. Very well. Believe it or not, it doesn't

11 matter; the facts are what interests us.

12 On the basis of what indices were you able to

13 differentiate between dead Muslims and dead Croats?

14 A. The houses. The dead people that we picked

15 up were sitting next to houses that had been burnt

16 out. You can make an assumption that maybe the houses

17 were set fire to and they exited and were shot, but

18 that aside, I didn't see that, so we can't presume

19 that. But there were dead people next to houses in a

20 Muslim village, the houses having been destroyed, the

21 houses all very near a minaret, and these are the facts

22 that led me to believe that these were Muslim people

23 who were dead in a Muslim village next to a minaret and

24 next to burned-out houses. These are facts. And also

25 evidence from earlier in the morning where the woman

1 had told me, you know, that she had witnessed an attack

2 by Croats early that morning and that -- she was

3 obviously Muslim, with her house, which is about 15

4 yards from a minaret, et cetera, et cetera.

5 Q. Very well. But the people you found in the

6 field that you mentioned, they were neither at home --

7 and the woman that you talked to couldn't have told you

8 anything about them.

9 A. No. I agree, yeah.

10 Q. That means that, in fact, you are giving a

11 conclusion whereas you have not got a concrete

12 incident, and the conclusions are on the basis of what

13 you heard from the Muslim woman and from the other

14 stories, but no measures were taken for the

15 identification of those individuals. Have I understood

16 you correctly?

17 A. That's right, no specific identification of

18 them, but as I say, the series of facts which I've

19 described led me to believe that these were Muslim --

20 Q. That's all right. You've already told us

21 that, yes.

22 And now my final question -- perhaps I've

23 already asked it, perhaps not -- but it has to do with

24 the five men that were mentioned, at the beginning that

25 you mentioned, that you met with Kalashnikovs at around

1 11.00 a.m. Did you in any way inform yourself of

2 whether they were from Ahmici or whether they had come

3 from outside Ahmici?

4 A. No. And as I said earlier, I wasn't sure

5 where they had come from, I didn't speak to them,

6 specifically those men, and if you remember, I did say

7 I was surprised that they were still in one piece,

8 having had no combat, because they were there in the

9 village, and had they been there when the attack went

10 in, they would have probably got involved in it so ...

11 MR. RADOVIC: Thank you. I have no further

12 questions.

13 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you, Counsel Radovic.

14 Mr. Smith, any re-examination?

15 MR. SMITH: Just a few questions, Your

16 Honour.

17 Re-examined by Mr. Smith:

18 Q. Major Woolley, I just have a few questions to

19 clear up in relation to the questions that Mr. Radovic

20 just asked you regarding the dead bodies that you

21 picked up from the side of the road.

22 You don't know the addresses -- you didn't

23 know the addresses of where they, in fact, lived, did

24 you?

25 A. No, I didn't.

1 Q. So it's quite possible they could have lived

2 in the area just next to where they were found?

3 A. Correct, yeah.

4 Q. And my friend also asked you some questions

5 in relation to the legitimacy of an operation such as

6 Ahmici, and he mentioned the topic of -- the importance

7 of routes as far as being legitimate military

8 objectives in terms of securing them, and you agreed

9 with that, that some routes can be legitimate military

10 objectives and thus can be secured or can be secured

11 within the meaning of the laws of war?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. The villages of Loncari and Jelinak, how far

14 off the main road are they, off the main route between

15 Vitez and Busovaca?

16 A. They're quite a way off the Busovaca-Vitez

17 route, but the route then bends round towards Zenica,

18 obviously a Muslim area, and therefore I would say

19 they're of less relevance to the Croats, to the HVO.

20 Q. If I can produce to you this map, it's a

21 1:50.000 map of the general area of Vitez and Busovaca,

22 and you'll see the villages of Jelinak and Loncari, and

23 can you relate that map to that main route --

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. -- between Vitez and Busovaca?

1 Your Honour, that map has some markings on it

2 which are quite irrelevant, so I would just ask that

3 that be noted in the transcript, irrelevant to the

4 particular point.

5 THE REGISTRAR: The map is marked 242.

6 MR. SMITH:

7 Q. Looking at that map, can you point out the

8 villages of Loncari and Jelinak?

9 A. There is Loncari and here is Jelinak

10 (indicating), and I understand -- let's have a look --

11 Busovaca I think is down this route, down here, this is

12 the junction and this is the road that links Vitez --

13 sorry. This is the road that links Vitez and Busovaca

14 down here, and, of course, here we have Ahmici. So

15 this is the road that we've been looking at all day,

16 and yet here is Loncari and here is Jelinak which, with

17 regard this line of communication, are pretty

18 irrelevant with regard picketing or securing of this

19 route here.

20 Is that the question you wanted answering?

21 Q. Would it be militarily necessary to cause the

22 damage that you saw -- you've given evidence --

23 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Slokovic-Glumac? An

24 objection.

25 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Mr. President, in

1 relation to this part of the witness's testimony which

2 keeps returning to the two villages, I must say that

3 these events are outside the duration and time of the

4 incrimination and the events of the HVO. These places

5 are not mentioned in the indictment, and we hear for

6 the first time that for this particular part on the

7 16th, that the indictment is being expanded to include

8 these two places because they are not included in the

9 indictment, we hear them for the first time, we don't

10 know the time at which they are happening, and I think

11 that this line of questioning should not be allowed

12 because it outsteps the framework of the indictment.

13 We also consider that we cannot reply to this

14 because we hear of it for the first time as the region

15 of HVO activity. They have not been put forward. This

16 is the first time that this is being done. Thank you.

17 JUDGE CASSESE: The objection is overruled

18 for the reasons I set out before when responding to the

19 objection raised by Counsel Radovic. It is relevant,

20 the facts relating to these two villages are relevant

21 to the indictment to the extent that it relates to

22 crimes against humanity and widespread practice.

23 Widespread practice cannot last one day. It must, of

24 course, last a few days or a few months or a few years.

25 You may respond when it comes to the Defence

1 case. In any case, we are now in the course of

2 re-examination. So I would allow the Prosecutor to put

3 his question.

4 MR. SMITH:

5 Q. If the HVO wanted to secure the route between

6 Vitez and Busovaca, is it militarily necessary to cause

7 the destruction, and in the particular case of Jelinak,

8 the killing to secure that route?

9 A. No. Jelinak is a long way away from that

10 route. Jelinak is here (indicating), and this is the

11 main route linking Vitez and Busovaca, and all that you

12 would require to do to ensure the security of that

13 route is push out up to the highest ground in order

14 that you have a good field of view and field of fire,

15 in order to picket that route as we've described, and

16 therefore, Jelinak, I think, is far to far to the

17 north, with several hills between it and the road, to

18 be of any relevance, certainly with regard burnt bodies

19 with limbs chopped off, et cetera, dead livestock and

20 burnt-out civilian houses.

21 Q. Can you ring the villages of Jelinak and

22 Loncari on that exhibit? Thank you. Probably with a

23 red --

24 A. Sorry. I beg your pardon. (Marks)

25 Q. I would like to ask that same question of you

1 in relation to the village of Ahmici. Was it, in your

2 opinion, militarily necessary to cause the damage and

3 the killing that you saw right into the village of

4 Ahmici and right up the road, in fact where you went,

5 in order -- if that was an objective, in order to

6 secure that route? Was that damage and that killing

7 and that injury militarily necessary? Is there another

8 way of doing it?

9 A. It is absolutely unnecessary to destroy

10 civilian houses, especially undefended ones that have

11 no signs of fortification, should I say. Certainly not

12 necessary to maim or injure or attempt to kill or kill

13 children or old people, or livestock, for that matter.

14 The way to do it is to basically close with and destroy

15 any armed units that are in that village, take any

16 prisoners of war; and any civilians or refugees who are

17 causing a disturbance, to use a provost unit to secure

18 them so that they don't interfere with the security of

19 your operation and the lines of communication. I don't

20 see any point in destroying a village and its people to

21 conduct that intent.

22 Q. Apart from those four men that you saw with

23 rifles at the beginning of the village, were there any

24 other obvious legitimate military targets within the

25 village, like military installations, communications

1 centre, anything that would tend to suggest that it was

2 an obvious military target?

3 A. In the village on the day of the 16th, I

4 saw -- and subsequently anyway, I saw no dug-in

5 positions, sangars, communication centres, any

6 weapons. All I saw which gave me a feeling of anything

7 military was four or five men at about 11.00 who were

8 not in uniform and were carrying AK-47s.

9 Q. And if only for my own clarity, can you

10 explain to the Court what a sangar is?

11 A. A sangar is an Indian name for a defensive

12 position which is built up from the ground with a

13 series of stones or rocks or sandbags, a defensive

14 post.

15 MR. SMITH: No further questions, Your

16 Honour.

17 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. I assume there is

18 no objection to the witness being released.

19 Major Woolley, thank you so much for coming

20 here to court to give evidence. You may now be

21 released.

22 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much.

23 (The witness withdrew)

24 JUDGE CASSESE: Let me thank the Prosecution

25 for kindly providing us with this list of witnesses.

1 It is agreed that it is not in the proper order. You

2 will sort out the order maybe on Monday so that Defence

3 counsel will know how you will start. I wonder whether

4 you have already included the witness, the lady that

5 the Court is going to call? I had no time to check.

6 So we will have to include -- it's not on the list. We

7 will include -- yes?

8 MR. TERRIER: No, Your Honour, it is not on

9 the list, and another witness does not appear on the

10 list, a gentleman who is waiting in the witness room.

11 We had planned to hear him this afternoon, but I don't

12 think it will be possible. It is rather late already.

13 So I think we should add the name of this witness to

14 the list, in fact his name should appear in the first

15 place on the list of the witnesses to be heard Monday.

16 JUDGE CASSESE: In the old list,

17 No. 5. Actually, he has not requested any protective

18 measures, so we can mention his name. No. 5?

19 MR. TERRIER: I believe it is, yes, Your

20 Honour. He has asked for protective measures, Your

21 Honour. Although it is not mentioned on the list, he

22 has asked for protective measures, so let us not

23 mention his name. Yes, No. 5.

24 JUDGE CASSESE: He was scheduled for this

25 afternoon, and then -- he will be the first one Monday

1 morning.

2 MR. TERRIER: Yes, he will be the first one.

3 JUDGE CASSESE: We will also add the name of

4 the lady who should come over here probably on Tuesday,

5 Wednesday, I don't know. We will make sure through the

6 Unit for the Protection of Victims and Witnesses.

7 All right. Thank you. I hope that soon we

8 will receive the submissions, the Defence counsel

9 submissions or suggestions concerning the visit to

10 Ahmici if, of course, you are prepared and willing to

11 submit those suggestions.

12 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Today.

13 JUDGE CASSESE: Today? Wonderful. Thank

14 you. So we will adjourn until next Monday at 9.30.

15 --- Whereupon proceedings adjourned at

16 4.53 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,

17 the 5th day of October, 1998, at

18 9.30 a.m.

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