Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 1979

1 Monday, 21 August 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Ms. Fazliu.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: At the beginning of your evidence you made a solemn

9 declaration to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

10 That declaration continues to apply to your evidence this morning, and you

11 will now be cross-examined by Mr. Aleksic.

12 WITNESS: HADIJE FAZLIU [Resumed]

13 [Witness answered through interpreter]

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Aleksic?

15 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. Your Honour, we won't

16 have any questions for this witness. We've consulted with other Defence

17 attorneys over the weekend and no questions for this witness, thank you.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Mr. Visnjic? Do you have any questions

19 or Mr. Sepenuk?

20 MR. SEPENUK: No questions, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

22 Mr. Fila?

23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] No questions, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: And Mr. Cepic?

25 MR. CEPIC: Yes, Your Honour, I shall have some questions.

Page 1980

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

2 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 Cross-examination by Mr. Cepic:

4 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Ms. Fazliu.

5 A. Good morning.

6 Q. I'm Djuro Cepic, Defence counsel for General Lazarevic, and

7 together with Mr. Bakrac and Mr. Milos Cvijic, we are the Defence team of

8 General Vladimir Lazarevic in this courtroom.

9 You made a statement on the 21st of October 2001, and on page 4 of

10 the B/C/S version, English is page 4, last paragraph, and the Albanian

11 version is page 5, paragraph 3.

12 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel please slow down?

13 JUDGE BONOMY: You're being asked to slow down with your question

14 by the interpreters; if you could just speak a little more slowly, thank

15 you.

16 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

17 Q. [Interpretation] You stated that when you were just before

18 Djakovica, you saw that the entire town was in flames. Is that correct?

19 A. It was the neighbourhood where I was going through. It was in the

20 direction of the centre, because the police would not allow us to go

21 towards the outskirts, and I saw that, the buildings there were burned.

22 Q. You will agree with me that it would not have been safe to go

23 through a part of town that was in flames; is that not a logical

24 conclusion?

25 A. But it was the police that told us to go in that direction. I

Page 1981

1 don't know the town well. The police gave us a direction.

2 Q. Thank you. In the following paragraph, you say that you know that

3 there were girls from that village or from other villages that were taken

4 out and raped. You are not a witness to that. You just heard about it.

5 Is that right?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to move back to the 26th of March

8 1999, that is referred to in several different places. You also referred

9 to it in your own testimony before this Trial Chamber. Do you know that

10 on that day, around 1600 hours, or to be more precise around 1630 hours in

11 the village of Likovac, the following persons got killed, a policeman, or

12 rather policemen in the plural, Milan Pavlovic, Dusan Trifunovic, Ljubovir

13 Zivkovic, Dragivoj Gajic, and Radisa Krikovic [phoen], and that several of

14 them were seriously wounded. Are you aware of that?

15 A. No, I don't know that. They live in a different area from where I

16 live.

17 Q. Thank you. Do you know that on the 1st of April 1999, in the

18 village of Bracina [phoen], that is also near your village, policeman

19 Rasevic [phoen] was killed and two other policemen were seriously wounded?

20 A. I did not understand the name of the village. What was the

21 village?

22 Q. Brocna [phoen]?

23 A. There is no village with that name close to my village or around

24 my village.

25 MR. CEPIC: Give me just a minute to find the name of that village

Page 1982

1 in the Albania language, thank you.

2 Q. [Interpretation] Broje [phoen] is the name of the village in

3 Albanian.

4 A. I don't know about that case, no.

5 Q. And do you know that in that village, or rather in that region,

6 there were two big brigades of the so-called KLA? Namely the 101st [as

7 interpreted] in Srbica.

8 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] For the sake of the transcript, page

9 4, line 2, I said the 111th Brigade. I didn't say the 101st Brigade.

10 I said the 111th. Okay. Thank you. Then the 113th Brigade in

11 the village of Likovac. Are you aware of that?

12 A. In Broje there was no such brigade as you mentioned, 111th,

13 because the police were there, stationed there. I don't know whether they

14 were anywhere else but I don't know that they were in Broje.

15 Q. I mentioned Srbica, not Broje, as far as the so-called KLA was

16 concerned, the 111th Brigade.

17 A. I don't think it's possible that a brigade existed in Skenderaj at

18 that time. I don't believe that was the case.

19 Q. Are you knowledgeable about military formations generally

20 speaking?

21 A. No. Just what I heard through the media.

22 Q. Thank you.

23 MR. CEPIC: No further questions, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Cepic.

25 Mr. Hannis?

Page 1983

1 MR. HANNIS: Nothing from me, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Ms. Fazliu that brings your evidence to

3 an end. Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it. You are now

4 free to leave.

5 [The witness withdrew]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, your next witness?

7 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, our next witness is Abdullah Salihu.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, I wonder if I can ask you at this stage to

9 assist me in one respect in this, in relation to this witness. The

10 statement that we have been given starts with references to events in

11 1998. Can you direct me to the part of the indictment that relates to

12 these?

13 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I don't have that in front of me.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: I was having difficulty matching dates and places

15 in the statement to the specific averments about 1998 in the indictment

16 and I was hoping you could clarify that for me.

17 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I think his evidence regarding 1998 was

18 not tied to a specific incident but rather related to, I think, paragraph

19 96 which talked about from approximately February 1998 until May 1998, or

20 approximately 15.000 Kosovo Albanians with fled. Then by mid-October,

21 United Nations estimated that approximately 285.000 persons had been

22 internally displaced within the province. There was not a specific

23 reference to his municipality or those 20.000 that he refers to.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. I note in fact, Mr. Hannis, the figure

25 in the statement is 200.000. Is that a misprint?

Page 1984

1 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, he made a correction to that in his

2 testimony in Milosevic that it should be 20.000 instead of 200.000.

3 [The witness entered court]

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Salihu.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Would you please make the solemn declaration by

7 reading aloud the document which is to be placed in front of you just now.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

9 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

10 WITNESS: ABDULLAH SALIHU

11 [Witness answered through interpreter]

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.

13 Now, Mr. Salihu, we have already in front of us a statement and a

14 transcript of evidence you gave before, so we have quite a lot of

15 information already about the evidence you can give. At this stage in the

16 proceedings, is to give the counsel representing the Prosecution and also

17 representing the various accused in this case the opportunity to ask you

18 further questions. These may be to clarify your evidence or to expand

19 upon it and also to challenge it because it's part of the process under

20 which these proceedings are conducted that counsel have an opportunity

21 also to challenge you about the evidence, so don't be surprised if you're

22 asked some questions which challenge what you've said. The first counsel

23 to pose questions will be on behalf of the Prosecution, Mr. Hannis.

24 Mr. Hannis?

25 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.

Page 1985

1 Examination by Mr. Hannis:

2 Q. Good morning, Mr. Salihu. Would you state your name for us,

3 please? Your full name.

4 A. Abdullah Salihu.

5 Q. And from your statement, Mr. Salihu, I understand that you were

6 born and lived all your life in the village of Baks, in Skenderaj or

7 Srbica municipality; is that correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And to start with I'd like to show you a copy of your statement

10 which is Exhibit P2255. And if I may hand a hard copy to the witness.

11 And sir I would ask to you take a look at that and let us know if you

12 recognise that as a statement you gave to the OTP?

13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter could not hear the answer.

14 MR. HANNIS:

15 Q. The interpreter could not hear your answer. Could you repeat that

16 for us, please?

17 A. It's okay. Yes.

18 Q. And can you confirm to the Court now that that is correct and is

19 your evidence in this case?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Now, I know previously when you testified in the Milosevic case

22 you did make -- you pointed out one correction on the first page where you

23 talked about the number of people gathered in the area of Cicavica in your

24 written statement it was listed as 200.000 but that number is not correct?

25 A. Yes. The number was 20.000, so it has to be 20.000 instead of

Page 1986

1 200.000.

2 Q. Thank you. We would like to tender that at this time,

3 Your Honour?

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Is it simply the statement or are you tendering the

5 transcript as well?

6 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I think it would be useful to tender the

7 transcript as well. I'm not sure of the -- may I consult for a moment?

8 Thank you.

9 [Prosecution counsel confer]

10 MR. HANNIS: No, Your Honour. I apologise. I'm sorry, we had

11 intended to proceed with this as an 89(F) statement based on his written

12 statement only and not his prior transcript.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: That's what I understood was the position but -- so

14 we'll note that this is now part of the process, Mr. Hannis.

15 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

16 Q. Mr. Salihu, how big was your village in 1998? How many houses,

17 approximately?

18 A. Before 1998, our village had about 130, 140 households.

19 Q. And do you know approximately how many people lived in those

20 houses?

21 A. About 2.000 inhabitants.

22 Q. And what was the ethnicity of the villagers?

23 A. Albanian.

24 Q. I see from your statement that you were the hodja?

25 A. Yes.

Page 1987

1 Q. And what do you do in that job?

2 A. An hodja is a cleric. He leads the people. He is a Muslim

3 cleric. In Kosovo, there are Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox people but I am

4 a Muslim.

5 Q. Thank you. And in your statement you describe the events of 1998?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Could you tell us where the Cicavica area is related to your

8 village of Baks?

9 A. The Cicavica area is about three kilometres from my village, to

10 the east of the village where I live. There are several villages around

11 that area, Kozica, Kasniaus [phoen], Kasalic [phoen], and other villages.

12 Q. Now, you describe how it came to be that most of your villagers

13 left the area and were living in the mountains, in the forest. At the top

14 of page 3 of the English, you mention that about 80 per cent of the people

15 had no place to stay and international organisations provided some basic

16 aid like plastic covering. What international organisations were helping

17 you at that time?

18 A. Yes. There were international organisations, Caritas was one.

19 There was an organisation from Switzerland. There were several

20 organisations that helped. They brought food, flour, they brought

21 material to cover the roofs of the houses because they were damaged.

22 Q. Was there any KLA presence in your village in the fall of 1998

23 through the spring of 1999?

24 A. There were nine members from our village.

25 Q. And were they staying in the village at that time?

Page 1988

1 A. They stayed close to the village, not in the village. They had

2 guard duty. They did guard duty. They just guarded the village. They

3 stayed in various houses.

4 Q. In the spring of 1999, you mention that the OSCE --

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. -- left the area. Do you recall how long before the NATO bombings

7 started that they left the area?

8 A. Well, I can't remember exactly but two or three months before

9 that. It was after the OSCE left that the people all got weapons, got

10 armed, especially in the municipality where I lived, and in Qires. People

11 got weapons and we had to go to the mountains.

12 Q. And when you say people all got weapons, especially in the

13 municipality where you lived, which people are you talking about?

14 A. I did not understand you.

15 Q. I'm sorry. Your previous answer, you said --

16 A. I meant the Serbian army. They came with weapons, tanks, APCs,

17 trucks, and they came to the municipality of Qires. There were buses,

18 there were paramilitaries.

19 Q. Yes. In your statement in the second paragraph in the English on

20 page 3, you mention that the paramilitaries came. Can you describe what

21 you define as paramilitaries, versus, for example, the regular army, the

22 VJ, or the police? How did these paramilitaries look different, if they

23 did?

24 A. Yes. They were different. During the whole time, until the war

25 ended, I saw three kinds of clothes, I can call them, they were wearing.

Page 1989

1 One of them was the regular uniform. I had been before a member of the

2 Yugoslavian army, a long time ago. I had seen that uniform. Normally,

3 the normal soldiers are young in age, while the paramilitaries, they were

4 35 years old, 40 years old, even 50 years old, and they had long hair and

5 beards and they had painted faces, bandanas around their heads. And part

6 of them were reservists, because when we were held hostage in the village

7 of --

8 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the name of the

9 village.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Close to Kamarana [phoen] and they

11 explained to us that the army has forcefully recruited us and told us to

12 come and fight in Kosovo.

13 MR. HANNIS:

14 Q. Let me stop you there and ask you a couple of questions. Could

15 you repeat the name of the village where you were held by the reservists?

16 A. Vukovc.

17 Q. And was there any way you could distinguish what you described as

18 the reservist from paramilitaries? Or are you talking about VJ reservist?

19 A. Yes. The reservists had the same uniform. It was kind of grey

20 uniform.

21 Q. The same kind of uniform as the regular VJ?

22 A. No, no.

23 Q. I'm sorry, I'm confused. Can you explain for me the difference

24 between the regular VJ, full-time VJ, the professional VJ, on the one

25 hand, the reservists you've told us about, and paramilitaries, three

Page 1990

1 different kinds of groups?

2 A. Yes. The Yugoslav army, the regular army, had a uniform that had

3 three colours, camouflage green and grey and yellow. The paramilitary had

4 the same uniform but they had long beards, long hair. They had bandanas

5 and they had armed bands, red, blue, yellow. Reservists had grey

6 uniforms.

7 Q. Okay. Thank you. I understand much better now.

8 Now, in your statement, you mentioned that after the OSCE left and

9 paramilitaries came into your area, that you, you and the other villagers

10 sought shelter in the forest. Near the middle of page 3 of the English

11 you indicate on the 28th of April --

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. -- NATO attacked the Feronikel factories in Gllogoc. First of

14 all, can you tell us how you were aware of that? Did you actually see it

15 yourself?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And what were the Feronikel factories? Do you know what they made

18 there?

19 A. The Feronikel factory, it was a factory where they processed

20 nickel, smelt nickel, from the nickel ore. But after the Serbs expelled

21 the workers from the factory, it was used as a kind of a barracks.

22 Q. By whom?

23 A. After the workers were expelled, before the war started, so the

24 workers were expelled, were fired from their jobs, and the Serbian army

25 and the Serbian paramilitaries used that factory as their barracks.

Page 1991

1 Q. Thank you. You describe in your statement how the day after that

2 happened, that on the 29th of April, you and a small group of men were

3 captured in the area you describe as Fush e Molles. F-u-s-h and then the

4 single letter e and then M-o-l-l-e-s. What is that? Is that a river, a

5 mountain, a village? What is Fush e Molles?

6 A. This place, it's a mountain, it's -- on one side there is a

7 mountain and on the other there is a hill and there is a field in

8 between. And that's what it's called Fush e Molles, which means "the

9 apple field." It is between Vrboc [phoen], Baks, Qires, Dushets [phoen],

10 Likoshan, Novo Sel [phoen]. I've got a map here if I can help you with

11 that map to see where these places are, to see more clearly where these

12 places are.

13 Q. I have -- I have a map we'll put it up and ask you to take a look

14 at it and see if you can show us where some of these places are.

15 If we could have P615? And I believe it's at page 18. This is

16 the Kosovo atlas.

17 And Mr. Salihu, hopefully you'll have a map up on your screen in a

18 minute.

19 Could we go to about the middle of the page? Yes. That's good.

20 I don't know if you can see on there, Mr. Salihu, do you see your

21 village of Baks?

22 A. Yes. There it is, Baks.

23 Q. And there is a pen that the usher has there which you can use to

24 actually touch the screen and draw on the screen. If you would, could you

25 draw a circle around your village? Just draw a small circle.

Page 1992

1 A. This is where it is.

2 Q. And could you also draw a circle around Qires? And I believe you

3 described there was a triangle formed by those two villages and a third

4 village called Vrboc?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. If you could draw a circle around it as well?

7 A. I can't see Vrboc here. Must be here somewhere but I can't see

8 it.

9 Q. I don't know. I can't tell from my view but if you would look

10 directly south of Baks and to the left, is that the village you're talking

11 about? I can't read the printing quite that well but it seems to --

12 A. Yes. Oh, there it is, Vrboc is here and also Stutica, Dushets,

13 Likoshan, Glanasella, and this part here is Fush e Molles. Skatova

14 [phoen], here it is here, while we were here, in between.

15 Q. Okay. Can you put a little X with a circle around it to show the

16 approximate location where you were captured?

17 A. [Marks]

18 Q. Thank you.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: The one of these that would not be clear I suspect,

20 Mr. Hannis, would be Fush e Molles, which doesn't have that name in the

21 circle.

22 MR. HANNIS: I see your point, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Could we actually have read out what is in the

24 circle that represents Fush e Molles?

25 MR. HANNIS:

Page 1993

1 Q. Yes. Do you understand that, Mr. Salihu? When you mentioned Fush

2 e Molles, you drew a circle around something that on the map has a

3 different name. Could you read us that name where you indicated Fush e

4 Molles is, approximately?

5 A. Fush e Molles is here between these two villages, in the middle,

6 where the X is. That's what is called Fush e Molles.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: That's clear now.

8 MR. HANNIS: I think I understand now, thank you. Could we take a

9 screen shot of that and give it the next IC exhibit number?

10 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit IC 13, Your Honours.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

12 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

13 Q. Now, Mr. Salihu, you tell us in your statement about how you were

14 captured and what happened to you and the other men. How you were

15 eventually taken with a bigger group and went to the mosque in Qires, and

16 you detail what happened to you and the other men there. You state in

17 your statement, at the top of page 5 in the English version, that the

18 mosque was burned from a previous offensive. Was the roof still intact at

19 that time?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And I'd like to show you an exhibit now, if we could. This is a

22 photograph and it's Exhibit P1801. This will be coming up on your screen

23 in a moment and I'll ask if you recognise what that is.

24 A. This is the mosque of Qires village, where we were detained for

25 one night after we were captured at the Fush e Molles. It was around 3

Page 1994

1 p.m. they brought us here. It's about three kilometres from the place

2 where we were captured. When we came to the mosque, the mosque was

3 burned. The windows, the doors, everything wooden had been burned. We

4 were kept there for one night, and it was a Friday, it was the Friday

5 night. Then the next day, on Saturday, when they took us to Gllogoc we

6 went to a place about four kilometres close to Gllogoc called Shavarina.

7 We were ill treated. We were beaten up --

8 Q. Before we --

9 A. -- in the mosque.

10 Q. Before we go to that I need to ask you another picture about the

11 photograph. The night you were detained at the mosque on the 29th of

12 April 29, 1999, did it look like it looks in that picture?

13 A. Yes, it did.

14 Q. The walls were already down?

15 A. No, no, they weren't down yet. They were damaged about 15 days

16 before the Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo. The mosque was burnt, the

17 windows were gone, the doors, everything wooden was burnt. But the walls,

18 the tile walls, brick walls, survived, and the minaret was destroyed.

19 Q. So did the damage that appears to the walls in this picture, did

20 that occur then after you were there on the 29th of April?

21 A. Yes. It was about the end of April. Or, no, in May, it was,

22 rather, that it was destroyed.

23 Q. And how did you know about that damage that occurred later?

24 A. I heard about it because it was -- I knew about my village and the

25 villages surrounding Cicavica. We were in -- under tents. It was, I

Page 1995

1 think, the third day that they destroyed it, with mines, with bombs.

2 Q. And who did you hear that from?

3 A. From my cousins, uncles, other people in the village. I did not

4 see it myself when -- at the moment it was destroyed but I just heard that

5 it was.

6 Q. Thank you. Now, during the time that were you detained there, I

7 think you said that there were 176 of you. How do you know the precise

8 number?

9 A. I know we were gathered in three groups. The first had about 50

10 people, the second about the same, and in the evening, we were all in the

11 mosque in the evening, and they told us that the next morning we would all

12 be shot if anyone is missing. So I know how many we were. We were 176.

13 They counted us.

14 Q. All right. Now you describe in your statement how the next day a

15 portion of you were put on three trucks and driven in the direction of

16 Gllogoc and you went to a place you called -- is it Shiverina [phoen]?

17 A. Shavarina.

18 Q. Thank you. And you describe in your statement the execution of a

19 group of men from the first truck and then how a man arrived in a military

20 jeep and had a conversation with the shooters or the man in charge. Can

21 you describe that person who arrived in the jeep and spoke with the men

22 who had been in charge of you and did the killing? Was he a paramilitary

23 or a VJ or a policeman? Could you tell?

24 A. When they brought us from Qires to Shavarina, as I said, there

25 were three trucks of us there. The first truck, the people were taken out

Page 1996

1 of the truck, were lined up, it was a big group.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Salihu, the question is a very specific

3 question and it would be helpful you could listen again to the question

4 and answer the question that's actually being asked. Mr. Hannis?

5 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

6 Q. Mr. Salihu, for the moment, I would just like to know if you can

7 describe for us the person who arrived in the jeep after that group of men

8 who were shot at the pit. Was he a paramilitary or a VJ or a policeman?

9 What could you tell about him from his appearance?

10 A. He wasn't a policeman. Nor was he a paramilitary. He was a

11 member of the regular army. And he went -- I don't know what he said to

12 them. I couldn't hear. But after he talked to them, to the group, the

13 shooting stopped. Some of them, I think 30 people, were killed and the

14 other two trucks were taken away to Drenica.

15 Q. Then in your statement --

16 A. I don't know if that is clear what I said.

17 Q. Yes. Thank you. And then in your statement, where you give some

18 details about this, you mentioned that the two truckloads of you that were

19 still alive were taken to Gllogoc, and you tell us what happened to you

20 and your group. You were taken to the police station and then to the

21 cinema building and how you were beaten. You mention the killing of one

22 individual in your group named Rhaman Topilla. Do you recall that?

23 A. Yes. Yes. I can remember. We were taken to Gllogoc and were

24 beaten all day, chained to the wall with our hands behind our backs and

25 around our heads. And on the third day, a paramilitary came from the

Page 1997

1 train station, about 100 metres away, and talked to a policeman near us in

2 Serbian. "Give me the people who belong to me." The paramilitary had

3 raki in one hand and a rifle in the other, and they took Rahman Topilla

4 away, ten metres away from us, and shot him there on the spot.

5 Q. Let me ask you a couple of questions about that. Do you speak and

6 understand Serbian?

7 A. Yes, I do.

8 Q. And you say the paramilitary asked or said, "give me the people

9 who belong to me." And then you say they took Rahman away. Who is "they"

10 that took him ten metres away and shot him? Was it just one person or

11 more than one person?

12 A. Yes. It was just Rahman who was taken away and he was shot, and

13 we stayed there for six days.

14 Q. My question was how many people took Rahman away? Was it just

15 one person who took him away or more than one person?

16 A. It was just one. It was a Serb paramilitary, as I said, who came

17 from the train station Gllogoc. He had an automatic rifle in one hand,

18 raki in the other. It was only one. And he talked to the policeman and

19 said, "Give me the person who belongs to me." And the policeman

20 said, "Take whoever you want." And they -- he took Rahman away, about ten

21 metres away from us, and shot him. It was only one person.

22 Q. And the policeman who spoke with him, can you describe him for us?

23 What kind of uniform was he wearing?

24 A. He had a normal police uniform.

25 Q. And can you explain to me what you mean by a normal police

Page 1998

1 uniform? We've heard testimony about different kinds of police uniforms.

2 What do you mean by "normal"?

3 A. It was blue, it was a bit mixed in colours, with some black.

4 Q. So some police uniforms we've heard described as having plain or

5 solid-colour blue and we've heard some described as camouflage.

6 A. Yes. It was a camouflaged. That's what I mean.

7 Q. Thank you. Now, you tell us about your stay at the police station

8 and being beaten and being questioned and that on the seventh day, trucks

9 came and took you away to Vukovc, where you stayed until the end of the

10 fighting in mid-June 1999. And you describe how you were treated by the

11 VJ reserve where you were doing work by the open trenches, et cetera.

12 Did you have any conversation with the VJ reserve who were in

13 charge of you there?

14 A. Yes. We did. To tell you the truth, when they took us to Vukovc

15 they gave us food when we were staying there because we hadn't had any

16 food for eight days. They gave us cigarettes and treated us well, with

17 the exception of four people who were paramilitaries in that group of

18 reservists. The reservists treated us well. We were about 37 to 40 days

19 there.

20 Q. Yes, in your statement you describe that the -- I'm sorry, was

21 there --

22 A. And we did talk to them and they told us that we didn't come to

23 liberate this region, we came to occupy it. We were forced to come here.

24 We didn't want to. It's -- they said, "It's your country and we don't

25 want to force you to dig ditches but we have to," and they gave us food.

Page 1999

1 They said that they were forced to come there and fight against the

2 Albanians. And I have respect for the people I talked to there. They --

3 as I said, the others treated us brutally but not there. Right until the

4 end, we got along well with them.

5 Q. Okay. I just have a couple more topics with you and then I'll be

6 finished, Mr. Salihu. Do you suffer any long-term effects as a result of

7 the beatings you suffered after you were captured?

8 A. I'm not the only one who suffered. I have four ribs -- had four

9 ribs broken. My foot or my leg was injured. To put it briefly, when they

10 sent me to the mosque to be executed, I would rather have been executed

11 than to have survived all this, but thanks to NATO, thanks to God, things

12 turned out well.

13 Q. The last thing I want --

14 A. But I'm still suffering.

15 Q. The last thing I want to ask you, if we could show you a map one

16 more time. Again this is P615 at page 18. And on this map, Mr. Salihu,

17 when it's up, I would like to ask if you can locate on there area where

18 the shooting of the men from the truck took place. If we could go a

19 little closer to Gllogoc, scroll down a bit. Okay, that's good.

20 On that map, are you able to see the area where you saw the men

21 executed? Where the pit was?

22 A. It was here, in Chatova Vijetera [phoen]. That's the place.

23 Q. And in your statement, you describe how the men were shot and fell

24 over the edge of the pit. Did the shooters do anything after the men were

25 shot and had fallen into the pit?

Page 2000

1 A. When they shot them, they put them in three lines, and those who

2 shot them, each one was responsible for one line, and after they were all

3 shot, and they threw two or three grenades at them to make sure that no

4 one survived.

5 Q. Now, one other location on this map I'd like you to mark because

6 Gllogoc is clearer to us but the location where you were taken and worked

7 on the trenches with the reservists, I think you said Vukovc. Does that

8 appear on this map?

9 A. Yes. It's the road between Kamaran and Peja or Pristina-Peja, on

10 that road.

11 Q. Could you draw us a circle or a box in that approximate area where

12 that was, if you can tell?

13 A. I don't think it's here. You'd have to enlarge the map on one

14 side, Drenac [phoen] the lower part of it.

15 Q. Can you see the village of Kamaran [phoen] down there. Is that

16 the village you mentioned before?

17 A. The village of Kamaran, yes, it's here, yeah, and it's right

18 near -- yeah, there is Vukovc in the valley of Lapusnik.

19 Q. Thank you. If we could have a screen shot of that and give it the

20 next IC exhibit number? And then I have no other questions for you at

21 this time, Mr. Salihu. Thank you.

22 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit number IC 14, Your Honours.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Mr. O'Sullivan?

24 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I have no questions. We will

25 proceed in this order: General Pavkovic, Mr. Sainovic, General Lukic,

Page 2001

1 General Lazarevic, and General Ojdanic.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Mr. Ackerman?

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours. At the very beginning

4 I'm going to want to have P1801 re-displayed on the screen.

5 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman:

6 Q. And Mr. Salihu, good morning, my name is John Ackerman. I

7 represent General Pavkovic in this proceeding. I have a -- very few

8 questions I'm going to ask you. We'll get through this very quickly if

9 you just answer precisely the questions I ask you, we will be finished in

10 a very, very short period of time, okay?

11 A. What I said in my statement, you can ask me anything about that.

12 Q. You told us during your testimony here today, if I remember it

13 properly, that there were approximately 176 of you who were captured at

14 this Fush e Molles place. Is that --

15 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I don't think that's what he said as far

16 as the captured. That was the number in the mosque.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: All right.

19 Q. When you got to this mosque at Qires that you should be able to

20 see on your screen right now, do you see it?

21 A. Yes, I can see it.

22 Q. And it's your testimony that 176 people spent the night in that

23 building?

24 A. Yes. That's true.

25 Q. I now want to ask you just very briefly about that incident you

Page 2002

1 described where a paramilitary came with a -- with raki in one hand and a

2 gun in the other and asked for somebody and killed him. I just want to

3 clarify a matter, when you say "raki" or the transcript says "raki" you're

4 referring to alcohol, liquor, a bottle of liquor; is that correct?

5 A. Yes, alcohol.

6 Q. I now want to talk to you very briefly about some testimony you

7 gave in the Milosevic case. You told the Chamber in the Milosevic case

8 that you now regret not being a member of the KLA. Does that remain your

9 position?

10 MR. HANNIS: Could we have a page reference, please?

11 MR. ACKERMAN: 4621.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that is true.

13 MR. ACKERMAN:

14 Q. And --

15 A. I would just like to explain something, though. If I --

16 Q. If you want to explain something that would be up to the

17 Prosecutor to ask you perhaps or -- I think you've answered my question,

18 that that remains your position.

19 You also told the Milosevic Chamber that the KLA was not

20 dangerous. Those are your words, "not dangerous." 4613. You said, "I

21 know that the KLA defended the people as much as they could and were

22 capable of." So I take it it's your position that the KLA was a

23 peace-loving organisation simply defending the people. Is that your

24 position?

25 A. Yes.

Page 2003

1 Q. In your view, they were not a group of dangerous rebels seeking to

2 create an independent state of Kosovo?

3 A. They were not rebels or extremists. They were people helping the

4 poor population, the population, they did what they could to help people,

5 old people, children, to help the suffering population. They were not

6 paramilitaries.

7 Q. Isn't it the case that the KLA was a military organisation

8 rebelling against the government of Serbia and killing people in the

9 process, seeking independence for Kosovo? Isn't that true?

10 A. No, that's not true. They didn't kill people. They didn't go to

11 Serbia to attack people and kill them there. It was the Serbs who came to

12 our country to attack us, to expel us from our houses, to kill. You can't

13 change history around. They didn't -- we didn't do it in their country.

14 They did it in our country. They came to Kosova. They expelled us from

15 our own country, over a million people. We were forced to leave Kosovo.

16 It's --

17 Q. Well, sir, you can't change history either. Kosovo was not a

18 country. Kosovo was a province of Serbia.

19 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, is that a question or a speech?

20 MR. ACKERMAN: It's not a speech. It's a question.

21 Q. Kosovo was part of Serbia, wasn't it? They didn't come to your

22 country, they came to their country. It was part of Serbia. Isn't that

23 true?

24 A. No, that's not true. I never had my house in Serbia. I had my

25 home in the village of Baks. I wasn't sent to Belgrade. It was the

Page 2004

1 people from Belgrade who came and expelled me from my house. It was never

2 a part of Serbia and never will be.

3 Q. The name Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, it stands for Kosovo

4 Liberation Army, doesn't it? That's what those letters mean. Not Kosovo

5 Defence Army. Right?

6 A. The president of Kosova, Mr. Ibrahim Rugova, explained that very

7 well. It was a group of people protecting their own houses, their own

8 homes, and they called it the Kosovo Liberation Army. I can't tell you

9 any more than that.

10 Q. I just have one more question for you. I want to know that, if in

11 giving your testimony here today and in the statement you gave to the

12 Office of the Prosecutor you had the same regard for the truth as the

13 testimony you have given about the character of the KLA. Did you?

14 JUDGE BONOMY: That's an impossible question to answer, Mr.

15 Ackerman. It's a comment, really, and that will be better made at the

16 appropriate time, I think.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: That ends my questioning then, Your Honour. Thank

18 you.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

20 Mr. Fila?

21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, in actual fact I only have

22 one question that is actually aimed at clarifying a particular term and

23 that will be useful to all, won't it?

24 Cross-examination by Mr. Fila:

25 Q. Sir, on page 3, the one-but-last paragraph in the B/C/S -- will

Page 2005

1 you understand me if I speak to you in B/C/S? I mean, in Serbian? You

2 said that this paramilitary group that had surrounded you and taken you

3 prisoner had a Seselj emblem on their right sleeves. What is this Seselj

4 emblem?

5 A. Yes, yes.

6 Q. Could you please describe this for us?

7 A. It was smaller than this here, metallic, and it said, "Seselj

8 grupa" or "militarska grupa." [Realtime transcript read in error, "Q."]

9 That is how they were calling out to each other? I saw that with my own

10 eyes during the 40 days I was with them.

11 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note it was all the answer but

12 in two languages.

13 MR. VISNJIC: There is problem in transcript. Page 27, paragraph

14 3 is line -- is a question, that's how they were calling out to each

15 other. I think that was answer of the witness.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah, you're saying that the whole of 27, line 1 to

17 4 is an answer.

18 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] English, yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: That no doubt will be corrected in the final

20 version of the transcript. Mr. Fila?

21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]

22 Q. In conclusion, so you saw this metal badge where it said Seselj's

23 army or something like that?

24 A. No. It wasn't written on the badges. There was an eagle, when

25 they were called into action they were called, "Hey, come on, Seselj's

Page 2006

1 group, military group." In Serbian. That's how they called them. It was

2 a metal badge, metallic badge with an eagle and the flag of Yugoslavia on

3 it.

4 Q. So you understood their conversation to mean that it was Seselj's

5 group?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. All right. So these are the people with whom you spent 40 days?

8 40 days, you said that you spent 40 days with them?

9 A. Yes, I was among them for 40 days, or about 37 to be exact, I

10 think.

11 Q. All right. When you said that they stole 600 deutschmark from you

12 and your documents, you said that the Serbs simply threw them away. Now,

13 who are these Serbs? Are they Seselj's men or some other Serbs?

14 A. They were Seselj's people, they were Seselj's people there. There

15 were paramilitaries there and other groups, three different types were

16 there. When we were taken prisoner in Fush e Molles I had 600 deutschmark

17 in my pocket and tobacco, and a watch.

18 Q. I just wanted to clarify something. You use this word "Serbs."

19 It was 8 million of Serbs, 8 million Serbs, and I'm one of them. And in

20 your statement the say, "the Serbs threw away my documents." You do not

21 say paramilitaries. Do you understand? That is the clarification I

22 sought. I'm trying to explain to you what it was that I was asking you

23 about, and I have no other questions.

24 A. I called the paramilitaries Serbs. It's -- you can write

25 paramilitary, normal army but they were all Serbs, weren't they? Were

Page 2007

1 they not Serbs? Sir?

2 Q. But there are Serbs who are not members of paramilitary

3 formations, right?

4 A. But all those who were --

5 Q. I know, all of these who were paramilitaries were Serbs. I

6 understood that so that is the clarification I sought.

7 A. All of those who came to Kosova were Serbs. They were

8 paramilitaries, normal army members, and Seselj's army in the place which

9 I called Fush e Molles. And they took 600 marks, they took my watch, they

10 took my cigarettes.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Fila.

12 Mr. Lukic?

13 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

14 Cross-examination by Mr. Lukic:

15 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Salihu. I'm Branko Lukic,

16 together with Mr. Ivetic and Mr. Ogrizovic, I am Defence counsel for

17 General Lukic before this Tribunal.

18 I will have a few questions related to your statement as well as

19 to your testimony before this Tribunal in the Milosevic trial. But I

20 would like to start with what you were talking about today.

21 On page 9, line 8, you referred to the area of Cicavica.

22 Your own village and the villages that you marked today, do they

23 all belong to that area?

24 A. The villages I mentioned around Fush e Molles, there are four

25 villages, from the municipality of Skenderaj and four from the village of

Page 2008

1 Drajnoc [phoen]. They were all around Cicavica.

2 Q. Thank you. On page 9, line 23, you talked about nine members of

3 the KLA.

4 Did those people live in your village while they were members of

5 the KLA? Did they sleep there in that village?

6 A. They -- yes, they lived with the population. They were part of

7 the population and lived and slept there. But they couldn't stay there

8 during the offensive of Cicavica but they -- no one was there during the

9 fighting but they had lived there for 30 years beforehand because they had

10 all been expelled.

11 Q. Thank you. We'll go back to the fighting later.

12 On page 12, line 23, you refer to the Feronikel factory. Were all

13 the workers laid off, all the workers of that factory?

14 A. Yes, yes, they were.

15 Q. So regardless of their ethnic background, because the factory

16 simply went out of operation, right?

17 A. The factory was closed because of the enforced measures introduced

18 by Serbia. That's why it was closed. I know that. I know very well what

19 was going on in Kosova before the war. There were all these imposed

20 measures from Serbia.

21 Q. Thank you. What is a normal police uniform, as far as you're

22 concerned? Please tell me.

23 A. I can describe it quite easily. Normal police -- I mean as long

24 as the Albanians were in the police there. But when the Albanians were

25 expelled from the police force, the uniforms were changed. They were blue

Page 2009

1 and then later they were camouflaged. They were sort of bluish camouflage

2 colours. I don't know who was responsible for expelling the policemen

3 from the police force. Perhaps you could explain that to me? Who

4 expelled the Albanians from the police force.

5 Q. Unfortunately, I cannot explain anything to you from here but you

6 are supposed to give explanations to me. Is it correct that Albanian

7 policemen left the police force and that Serbia tried to keep the ethnic

8 Albanian policemen on the force but that they refused to do so? And we

9 heard testimony about that before this Chamber.

10 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, that's a compound question and we don't

11 have a time period that we are talking about. And is he asking him to

12 agree that we had testimony about that?

13 MR. LUKIC: I'll rephrase it, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Lukic.

15 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Mr. Salihu, do you know that ethnic Albanian policemen in Kosovo

17 left the police force after 1989?

18 A. Yes. From what I've heard, I saw what happened on television.

19 They were forcefully expelled. They did not leave the police force of

20 their own free will. In my statement, I refer to a policeman. He was a

21 civilian, U-d-b-a, and he tried to help the Albanians and help me, Momir

22 Piljevic. I think now he lives somewhere --

23 Q. I didn't ask you about that. I would like to ask you on what TV

24 was it that you saw and heard that ethnic Albanian policemen were expelled

25 from the police force. Can you also give us a date or at least an

Page 2010

1 approximate date?

2 A. The whole world heard about it. I can't give you any specific

3 details. I don't know the date but the whole world heard about it. It

4 was reported on the BBC, on the Voice of America, in a lot of stations.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Lukic, it's a matter for you whether you

6 wish to go down this particular road which seems to have --

7 MR. LUKIC: I would, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Been directed by a question that was rightfully

9 identified should not have been asked of you. But we are departing from

10 what this evidence is mainly about. It's a matter for you, of course.

11 You're entitled to do so but I wonder if we are going to be assisted by

12 this witness's evidence on the matters that you're asking at the moment.

13 However, you can reflect on that and we'll resume in 20 minutes

14 after the break.

15 --- Recess taken at 10.28 a.m.

16 --- On resuming at 10.52 a.m.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic?

18 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Salihu, I would kindly ask you to provide as

20 brief answers to my questions as possible. If we may need a

21 clarification, it can be asked of you by the Chamber or perhaps later on

22 by the Prosecutor, and I'm doing this in order to save time and to go

23 through your statement as quickly as possible.

24 On page 21, line 5, you said you were digging trenches. Were you

25 able to carry out that work the same way the other people who were digging

Page 2011

1 alongside you were?

2 A. Yes. Everybody was digging trenches. We were -- there were 16 of

3 us in the same place, a group of 16, and we were asked to do the same

4 thing. We all worked the same way.

5 Q. Therefore, the four broken ribs did not bother you and you said

6 your leg was hurt as well but nevertheless you were digging trenches as

7 well as the other people and you said you had sustained those injuries

8 immediately before that.

9 A. It is true, and I can show you my ribs, and the injury in my leg,

10 but I have to tell you that we worked as much as we could. The army

11 behaved very well towards us at that place.

12 Q. Thank you. Do you know whether anyone from your village was

13 killed as a member of the KLA?

14 A. No. They were there to help the people, not to kill them. No,

15 nobody killed anyone.

16 Q. I asked you if you knew whether anyone from your village was

17 killed as a member of the KLA, fighting for the KLA.

18 A. Yes. By the Serbian army. Two.

19 Q. Thank you. You probably know that in the fall of 1998, the Kosovo

20 Verification Mission arrived, headed by Mr. William Walker. Is that

21 correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. In paragraph -- on page 3 of the English and paragraph 1, and page

24 3, paragraph 1 of the Albanian --

25 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: In the Albanian page

Page 2012

1 3, paragraph 3, and in the B/C/S page 3, paragraph 11.

2 MR. LUKIC:

3 Q. [Interpretation] -- you say in the winter of 1998 and 1999 you

4 say, "we were in constant fear because there was shelling every day."

5 Do you believe we can reconfirm that if we went through the Kosovo

6 Verification Mission reports?

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, how do you think -- how do you think this

8 witness will answer that question?

9 MR. LUKIC: I'll rephrase, Your Honour. Thank you.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. In the area where you lived, did you used to see any Kosovo

13 Verification Mission members?

14 A. Yes, yes, there were some, and they were welcome because we

15 thought we were going to be liberated. We felt as if we were liberated

16 when we saw them.

17 Q. Did you know that the Serb forces were unable to conduct any

18 activities unless they had previously notified the Kosovo Verification

19 Mission?

20 A. I did not ask any of those verification missions what they did.

21 However, they -- the Serbian forces did not care whether the verification

22 mission was there or not because villages, some villages away from where

23 the mission was, they did what they wanted.

24 Q. Therefore, you believe that there were actions undertaken by Serb

25 forces without the prior knowledge of the Kosovo Verification Mission? Is

Page 2013

1 that what you're stating today?

2 A. Yes. That's what I'm saying.

3 Q. Thank you. Did you know that in the Cicavica area, the 114th

4 Brigade was active, the 114th Brigade of the KLA?

5 A. Yes. I know. I did know. It was not called a brigade. I think

6 you're wrong in calling it a brigade. I think it was called Group 14,

7 because every four or five villages, they got together and they tried to

8 protect -- some people tried to protect that part of the population in

9 those villages.

10 Q. Samir Lushtaku, Beqim Jashari [phoen], and Nuredin Lushtaku, do

11 these names mean anything to you?

12 A. I know Sami Lushtaku. He's a friend. Nuredin Lushtaku, I -- he's

13 just an acquaintance. Sami Beqiri [phoen], I'm not sure about the name.

14 I don't think I know this person, Sami Beqiri. It's not Samir, it's Sami

15 Lushtaku.

16 Q. Precisely, sir, Sami Lushtaku?

17 A. Yes, I know him.

18 Q. Did you know that he commanded the 114th Brigade?

19 A. No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't a commander. I don't think you have

20 the right information.

21 Q. Could we please show D -- 6 D67 to the witness? Page 27. But

22 first of all, let us see the first page.

23 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: It is 6 D67.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. We have it in both English and Albanian but we were unfortunately

Page 2014

1 unable to locate the Albanian text since this -- these are newspaper

2 articles. Therefore, the paragraph numbering does not correspond between

3 the statements.

4 On page 1, it is stated that this is an interview conducted with

5 Sulejman Salimi [phoen] [Previous translation continues] [In English] ...

6 "army commander and current Kosova Protection Force deputy commander."

7 [Interpretation] Therefore, we have an interview here with one of the

8 leaders of the KLA. At page 27, the last paragraph, I will read it out in

9 English so that you would receive appropriate interpretation. [In

10 English] "The units of all the brigades around took part in the attack

11 that was carried out against the Serbs, Serb forces, that started from

12 Skenderaj. A unit of 114 Brigade led by Sami Lushtaku, Beqim Jashari, and

13 Nuredin Lushtaku took part in the attack in Prekaz and in the first wars

14 of Skenderaj."

15 [Interpretation] Mr. Salihu?

16 A. Yes, sir. I don't understand this very well. Did they fight in

17 Prekaz or where?

18 Q. Here, the fighting in Prekaz is mentioned but judging by this part

19 of the statement by a high official of the KLA, it becomes clear that Sami

20 Lushtaku as well as Beqir Jashari and Nuredin Lushtaku led or commanded

21 the 114th Brigade.

22 MR. HANNIS: That's not correct, Your Honour. It says, "a unit of

23 the 114th."

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, Mr. Hannis, this doesn't say that he's the

25 leader of the 114th Brigade.

Page 2015

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. A unit that was part of the 114th Brigade.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: We've started off on the wrong leg. It's difficult

4 to get back on to the right one after that.

5 MR. LUKIC: I'm standing on one leg, Your Honour, that's why.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What you read to me, you can ask the

7 right person. I'm not the right person to ask me this question. I have

8 made a statement. I have given here an account of what I've seen and what

9 I have heard but I don't know what answer to give to this question.

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Thank you. I accept your answer.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Perhaps it can be clarified to some extent.

13 You said that, Mr. Salihu, that you knew Sami Lushtaku.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I do.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you know him to be a member of the KLA?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: And did you know whether he led a part of the 114th

18 Brigade?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know what part he led or

20 whether he led a part. As I said, there were people who got together to

21 protect the population but I don't know who was leading. I wasn't part of

22 that group so I couldn't tell you.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much. Thank you.

24 Mr. Lukic?

25 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

Page 2016

1 Q. [Interpretation] On the next page, page 28, the first paragraph,

2 since you also mentioned the Feronikel factory --

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. In the second sentence, the text reads as follows, and yet again I

5 will read in English to reduce the number of languages used. [In

6 English] "The shelling of the villages around Cicavica started from the

7 Feronikel factory. Our soldiers resisted continuously but the huge Serb

8 forces managed to advance from Oshlan, close to Qires, on the third day.

9 They managed to advance to Qires only on the fourth day of the attack."

10 Therefore, Mr. Salihu, can we see from this that the KLA was not

11 exactly an organisation which dealt only in humanitarian activities but it

12 participated actively in fighting the Serb forces?

13 A. No. That's not true. They did not have the weapons, the armament

14 to fight. They were with the people, with the population, to the last

15 day. They might have had only a Kalashnikov or light weapons. They did

16 not have any tanks or heavy weaponry. They just defended, protected their

17 homes until the end. They did not have the weapons with which to fight

18 and the main point was the gunpowder factory in Skenderaj.

19 Q. Mr. Salihu, we will attempt to prove here that the KLA actually

20 possessed heavy armaments but I wasn't going to go into such questions

21 with you. What I'm asking you is the following: Isn't it obvious that

22 the Serb forces could not advance for three or four days because the KLA

23 engaged in fighting these forces, or is it your view that this person here

24 is simply not telling the truth?

25 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I don't think this witness is in a

Page 2017

1 position to answer that question.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I agree, Mr. Hannis.

3 The witness has made clear that his knowledge would not allow him

4 to deal with the specific question that's now been asked, Mr. Lukic, and

5 I'm encouraged by my colleagues to take advantage of this opportunity to

6 make it clear to you that we are not in the business of trial by

7 newspaper. A great deal of reference is made to newspaper articles and

8 other trials before this Tribunal. It may be appropriate if an individual

9 who has actually given an interview is faced with a challenge of his

10 evidence from the interview he has given. That would be perhaps a

11 reasonable use of a newspaper. But to use newspaper interviews of other

12 people to cross-examine the witness is unlikely, in our view, to be

13 productive. I appreciate that the rules may allow it in certain

14 circumstances, but it's something we are keen to discourage and -- rather

15 than have the task thrust upon us, of trying to verify the accuracy of

16 newspaper reporting throughout the war.

17 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour. I'll just -- I just have one

18 more question and I think that you'll allow that one.

19 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Salihu, when the Serb forces were advancing

20 towards your village, were you able to observe yourself from the Feronikel

21 factory, that they were held back by KLA fire and they did not manage to

22 advance for three or four days?

23 A. This is a very confusing question. How can you shell from 15

24 kilometres away and then the KLA be able to attack them? When they were

25 shelling us, we just left. We couldn't fight the army. We just had to

Page 2018

1 flee with our own lives. The army, before entering, before the infantry

2 entered the villages, first the villages were shelled for four or five

3 hours, and then the infantry came in. We had to leave. We couldn't see

4 anything.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic, the part of this article you were

6 referring to starts by saying, "the shelling of the villages around

7 Cicavica started from the Feronikel factory," suggesting that Serb forces

8 were at the Feronikel factory, whereas the question was seemed to be posed

9 on a different basis which might explain why the witness would say this is

10 very confusing.

11 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, I have in this article somewhere that

12 they were talking that forces were stationed in that area.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: The Serb forces?

14 MR. LUKIC: That's right.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's what it sounds like, yes.

16 MR. LUKIC: But I'll move on. I'll abandon this article and try

17 to --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Which would, of course, also explain why NATO would

19 bomb it.

20 MR. LUKIC: Obviously. But in this article.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's how it was.

22 MR. LUKIC: Talks about the cooperation of NATO and KLA but I'll

23 act according to your instructions and leave this aside.

24 Q. [Interpretation] The English page 4, paragraph 2, in the Albanian

25 page 5, paragraph 1, and the B/C/S page 4, paragraph 3, you talk about

Page 2019

1 NATO airplanes circling around the place where you were.

2 At what height were those NATO planes circling around?

3 A. Yes. That's what I said in my statement. When we were taken at

4 the place called Fush e Molles, they took us to a meadow and the Serbs

5 beat us, and after they beat us, they lined us up in two rows, then they

6 asked us to lie down.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: The question has nothing to do with the detail of

8 the events. The question is whether you can help us with the height at

9 which NATO planes were flying.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I started to explain the case when

11 the NATO --

12 JUDGE BONOMY: You don't need to do that. You just need to tell

13 us how high the planes were. We've got your statement about what was

14 happening in front of us but it doesn't tell us how high the planes were.

15 So that's what we would like to know.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, they were high, flying high,

17 because they looked small. They were quite high up in the sky.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

19 Mr. Lukic?

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. How come they were circling at such height? To make a circle at

22 that height it would probably take a plane to go as far as Romania and

23 back.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, perhaps you should ask the people who might

25 know the answer to that question, Mr. Lukic. It's not a question the

Page 2020

1 witness can answer.

2 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. It is the view of our defence, Mr. Salihu, that the planes could

4 not circle over that area, NATO airplanes, precisely because they were at

5 great height, over 10.000 metres.

6 MR. HANNIS: There has been no evidence of this over 10.000

7 metres.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, they may be flew at 10.000

9 metres but they had their objectives, their targets down where we were

10 so --

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. What I'm putting to you is the following: That it was not

13 possible for NATO aircraft to circle?

14 JUDGE BONOMY: I think you can move on, Mr. Lukic. That's not a

15 question for this witness to deal. You've got his evidence about what he

16 claims to have seen and the fact that you think it may not be right or you

17 even think it may be ridiculous is a matter that can be dealt with later.

18 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. [Interpretation] We heard from you, Mr. Salihu, that you were not

20 a member of the KLA. Isn't that right?

21 A. No. I wasn't a member.

22 Q. Did you know all members of the KLA in the Cicavica area?

23 A. No, I didn't. Some of them, a few, I would say, because there

24 were not many in our area.

25 Q. When you refer to those 186 [as interpreted] men in the mosque,

Page 2021

1 when you say that they were all civilians --

2 MR. HANNIS: [Previous translation continues] ...

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All of them were civilians, all of

4 them were civilians

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, I didn't hear your comment.

6 MR. HANNIS: 176, I believe is his testimony.

7 MR. LUKIC: 176, that's what I said.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's been recorded as 186. Any way could you

9 ask your question again, Mr. Lukic?

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Mr. Salihu, since you do not know who the members of the KLA were,

12 you can not assert that among these 176 men there were no members of the

13 KLA.

14 A. No. That's true. Because those who were members of the KLA, they

15 wouldn't be there alive, because if somebody who had a weapon, they would

16 much rather get killed than fall into their hands. So that's why I'm

17 saying it was us civilians, women, children, old people, that we were

18 gathered together. They couldn't catch members of the KLA. All of us

19 were civilians, not members of the KLA, not armed. And that's why I told

20 Milosevic that I regretted not having been a member of the KLA, because I

21 wouldn't have suffered four broken ribs or an injured leg or being beaten

22 like I was. Those who were in the mosque were simple people.

23 Q. Also you said to Milosevic, as you had put it at the trial, that

24 at Cicavica, there weren't any KLA fighters and you said that on page

25 4611.

Page 2022

1 A. Yes. I said it then and I say it now. That the population in

2 Cicavica was expelled from Gllogoc to Skenderaj, all the villages, about

3 20 of them, were expelled. And that went on for two days, 170 people were

4 killed in Cicavica, all of them civilians, a one-month old baby was

5 killed.

6 Q. Mr. Salihu, really, I shall have to ask you to try and focus on

7 the questions and please answer the questions.

8 In the area of Cicavica, before these events that you're talking

9 about just now, were there any members of the KLA?

10 A. In the Cicavica area, during the offensive of September 1998,

11 there were no members of the KLA, no army, only expulsion of the

12 population from the whole area, Gllogoc, Skenderaj, people left because of

13 the shelling, went to Cicavica and then we were blocked at the place and

14 we were captured at the place I told you.

15 Q. Thank you. But it will do if you just give me your position, that

16 is that there were no members of the KLA there. Now we know what your

17 motion is and we can move on.

18 On page 4615 of the Milosevic trial transcript, you say that the

19 KLA was always outside the village. How come that something that is not

20 there at all, that does not exist, is outside the village?

21 A. They were outside the village because if -- if those armed people

22 were there, then the whole population would be killed. There was no

23 fighting there going on. There was only shelling. I mean the September

24 offensive, September 1998.

25 Q. Can we now go back to part of your evidence, when you say that in

Page 2023

1 the area of Cicavica there weren't any members of the KLA? Do you still

2 abide by that position, Mr. Salihu?

3 A. Well, do you know what Cicavica is, first of all? Cicavica is a

4 mountain. It's 14 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. The expulsions

5 that occurred during the September --

6 Q. Thank you, Mr. Salihu. I just asked you about this Cicavica that

7 you described to us and you explained that it was 14 kilometres long and

8 10 kilometres wide. Were there any KLA fighters there?

9 A. No. There were no soldiers there. They were in the villages but

10 not in the Cicavica mountain. There were people who were expelled there

11 in the Cicavica mountain.

12 Q. Just a moment, please. Now we have the following position: That

13 members of the KLA and their units are actually in the villages, not in

14 mount Cicavica. Is that your testimony today?

15 A. No. I told you today, and I will say this again, in Prelloc there

16 was a group, the 114 that you mentioned, Baks, Qires, Kresmir Ote [phoen],

17 all the villages around Cicavica had a point altogether and that was not

18 in Cicavica but it was in Prelloc. Cicavica was the place where people

19 went when they were expelled, from Skenderaj and other places. So that

20 army could not mix with the people because if the Serbs had seen an armed

21 person they would kill 100, 200, 300 people on the spot.

22 Q. So these points, they are combat points, aren't they?

23 A. The points had guard duties because the Serbs sometimes came

24 during the night and we don't call them units, we call them points.

25 Q. While they were on this guard duty, the members of the Pika

Page 2024

1 [phoen] were in the villages; isn't that right?

2 A. They went to their own homes and then when they had guard duty

3 they went to the place. As I said, the whole villages -- all the villages

4 in that area, they were three or four kilometres away from each other, and

5 they had this organisation, this arrangement. They couldn't fight because

6 they only had some light weapons like Kalashnikovs. They couldn't find

7 the shelling.

8 Q. Thank you. Now I'm going to take you to page 4616 of the

9 Milosevic transcript. You said to him on this page that you do not know

10 about a single KLA soldier that got killed. Today we heard that you knew

11 of at least two cases when KLA soldiers got killed.

12 MR. HANNIS: I'm not sure from reading the transcript whether

13 that's for all time or during the September offensive or which,

14 Your Honour.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic, can you clarify that?

16 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

17 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Salihu, you tell us today about those two

18 persons you mentioned today as being killed, as KLA fighters. Did they

19 actually lose their lives as members of the KLA and when?

20 A. The two I mentioned -- Milosevic did not ask me who was killed and

21 when. His question was, how many soldiers were there in your village?

22 These two were killed on the 30th of April at the Fush e Molles and they

23 were not fighting.

24 Q. Thank you. Also on page 4618 of the transcript from the Milosevic

25 trial, you said that KLA fighters did not fight. Is that still your

Page 2025

1 position today?

2 A. Yes. The same position. It's not true that I've -- I said they

3 did not fight, because they did, but they defended their own homes. You

4 don't need to ask me this question.

5 Q. Unfortunately, I have to, Mr. Salihu. And I see that you have

6 changed your position in relation to what you said in the Milosevic trial.

7 What is correct now, in your view? Were the KLA members fighting against

8 the Serb forces or not?

9 A. I'm not changing my position.

10 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, can we have a line from that page that

11 counsel is referring to where he said they did not fight?

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Which line is it, Mr. Lukic on.

13 MR. LUKIC: Line 6 on page 4618 from line 6 until line 8, very

14 short part and I can read it. Judge May asked, "Did the KLA at this

15 period, as far as you could see, did they fire any shots? Did you see any

16 firing from the KLA?"

17 The witness: "No, fire was not opened."

18 MR. HANNIS: That's my point, Your Honour. That's not the same

19 thing.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, it's quite different.

21 MR. LUKIC: But -- because in the area he was residing and he was

22 present. He must have seen fire opened against the Serb forces.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: That's a specific question about a specific set of

24 circumstances. I don't think you can draw the conclusion from that that

25 he was saying KLA fighters did not fight. However, you have other

Page 2026

1 evidence from today that you might want to explore on that basis. I don't

2 think it assists you going back to the transcript of the -- that you've

3 identified but that doesn't stop you asking the question you want to ask.

4 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Salihu, did you personally see KLA fighters

6 opening fire, returning fire, to Serb positions and Serb forces?

7 A. I saw them -- as I said, I knew Sami Lushtaku, you asked me about

8 him earlier.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: We are not going off on a different journey that

10 you may wish to take us on. We are wanting an answer to the question

11 that's being asked. Have you personal experience of seeing KLA members

12 either opening fire or returning fire to Serb positions? Simple question.

13 We don't need an answer about anyone else. We just need to know about

14 your personal knowledge.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I didn't see any, because we

16 were unarmed, the population was unarmed, so we weren't together with the

17 KLA.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Amazing how simple these questions can be to

19 answer, you know.

20 Carry on, Mr. Lukic.

21 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 Q. [Interpretation] Did you hear from anyone, Mr. Salihu, that there

23 was fighting taking place between the KLA and the Serb forces?

24 A. Everything that you're saying is not true.

25 Q. I'm just asking you whether you heard that from somebody else.

Page 2027

1 A. I didn't have any time.

2 Q. So you did not hear from anyone that there was fighting between

3 the KLA and the Serb forces?

4 A. Well, the Serb forces were shelling at us. There was fighting, of

5 course there was fighting. It would be impossible for there not to have

6 been fighting. But we were the civilian population. We were not able to

7 fight against the Serb army.

8 Q. I'm not asking you about whether civilians were fighting against

9 the Serb forces. Did you hear of the KLA force fighting against the Serb

10 forces? Did you hear of that? Yes or no? "Yes," if you heard; "no," if

11 you didn't.

12 A. I did hear about it.

13 Q. Is it correct that you heard about fighting after having gone to

14 Glogovac where they kept you in the cinema and then you heard from people

15 who had come from the ground that there was fighting under way? Is that

16 right?

17 A. I heard about it before we went to Gllogoc, but in -- we were --

18 had been taken prisoner there. How could I hear anything there? You

19 couldn't speak to the Serbs and ask them because they were beating us all

20 the time.

21 Q. When were you in Glogovac, they transferred you to the cinema,

22 isn't that right?

23 A. Yes. It was the municipal building beside the cinema, and there

24 was -- the main police station was right there, too, across the street.

25 Q. Were you inside the building?

Page 2028

1 A. Yes, it was in the corridor of the cinema all day, and at night,

2 they took us down to the basement.

3 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: We were told to lie

4 on the floor, on the concrete floor.

5 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. So you were lying on the floor while you were in that building,

7 right?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. What did the policeman who was guarding you look like? What kind

10 of uniform did he have? What kind of insignia? Can you tell us about

11 that a bit?

12 A. They were normal camouflage uniforms, camouflaged.

13 Q. Did he have a rank?

14 A. Yes. He had a rank. I did military service but we had different

15 ranks at that time. They had changed. I didn't know what kind of rank he

16 had but he did have some sort of rank insignia on him, yes.

17 Q. On his shoulder or on his chest?

18 A. On his chest pocket.

19 Q. Did he have a cap?

20 A. Yes. He had a cap. A type of hat.

21 Q. Did he have a police badge and what did it look like?

22 A. For a policemen from Gllogoc police station, from the

23 municipality. Everyone knew them there. But -- but I didn't see the

24 colour of their eyes. I couldn't go and take a picture of them.

25 Q. Did you know that policeman?

Page 2029

1 A. Momir Piljevic, he's the one I knew. Momir Piljevic, was the one

2 who interrogated us.

3 Q. He interrogated you but who was it that was guarding you? I'm

4 interested in the incident when that man was taken away.

5 A. There are people who know who he was. There were many of -- who

6 knew him.

7 Q. You're lying on the floor and a man with a rifle comes and a

8 bottle of an alcoholic drink and he takes one of you out. As you were

9 lying on the floor, what could you see out of all of this?

10 A. Well, some were outside lying on the cement floor and some were

11 inside lying on the cement floor, and I saw it very clearly with my own

12 eyes, how he was shot. And there are other witnesses who saw the incident

13 too.

14 Q. You said to us just now that you were inside the building, that

15 you were lying on the floor, and just now you said that you saw with your

16 very own eyes how this man was killed. How is that possible?

17 A. It was possible because I was not only one hour there, I was seven

18 days there, and on the third day, when they took us there, we were on the

19 cement floor but it was outside and they were beating us --

20 Q. Please, please, please, just a moment.

21 Are you claiming just now that you were outside the building?

22 A. In the beginning I said that all day we were outside; only in the

23 evening we were put inside. And when the person was killed, Rahman

24 Topilla, he was killed about 10 or 11 in the morning, shot between the

25 eyes. There was concrete floor, both outside and inside.

Page 2030

1 Q. I'm going to remind you of part of your statement from page 49,

2 line 10. The question was: [In English] "Were you inside the building?"

3 [Interpretation] You answered: [In English] "Yes, it was in the corridor

4 of the cinema, all day. And at night they took us down to the basement."

5 According to this part of your --

6 JUDGE BONOMY: The basement was a mistranslation, if you remember.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I didn't say basement.

8 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. We see here, according to this part of your evidence, that you

10 were in the corridor in the cinema all day. Now you are claiming to us

11 that you were outside throughout the day all the way up to the evening.

12 One of the two is not true. Which one is not true, Mr. Salihu?

13 A. No. What you're saying is not true. I explained very well and I

14 can explain it again.

15 Q. I'm not claiming anything, Mr. Salihu. I'm just reading part of

16 your very own statement.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Let the witness now explain, then, to clear it up

18 for you.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My witness statement is very clear.

20 MR. HANNIS: I'm looking at page 49 and when he's talking about

21 them being in the basement there is no specific reference to that being at

22 the moment the individual was taken out and killed.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, but the witness now wants to explain the

24 position to us, I think. Carry on, please, Mr. Salihu.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They took us to Gllogoc, to that

Page 2031

1 municipality, and it was about 4.00 in the afternoon. They beat us until

2 about 7.00, until the evening. Then they put us inside, into the film

3 auditorium. The floor of the auditorium was cement and the people who

4 were outside, there was cement too. The next day they took us out and

5 they tied us up and started beating us with our hands behinds our heads.

6 All day they held us there and then in the evening they forced us back

7 into the cinema. That's what I said in my statement and I will never

8 forget it. That's the way it was.

9 Rahman Topilla, when he was killed, he was killed at about 10.00

10 in the morning and we were not inside at that time of day, we were

11 outside. This went on for six or seven days until we went on to Baks, all

12 day, we were outside, until -- until the women told us to go back inside

13 and forced us back in, and they spit at us all the time, and cursed us.

14 Terrible words, they said, and I heard that. I saw that with my own eyes.

15 And what I said in my statement, I experienced that all personally. And

16 if you say, "you were inside, you were outside," I think I explained very

17 clearly that at night we were inside; in the daytime we were outside. It

18 was only in the evening that we were put back into the building and this

19 happened, went on for seven days.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Salihu, the person who was killed, Topilla,

21 when he was killed, where were you?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We were all outside. There was no

23 one inside at that time. We were forced out. They were beaten all day.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Just concentrate on the question, please. When you

25 say outside, where do you mean outside?

Page 2032

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the courtyard of the police

2 station and of the municipal building. There was only a street which

3 separated the two.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: What position -- what position were you in when he

5 was actually killed?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We were sitting down on the floor in

7 a circle.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic?

9 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. I wanted to ask you something, Mr. Salihu, something pertaining to

11 yourself. Have you ever been convicted in a trial proceedings?

12 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: In a criminal

13 proceedings.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There was one case. Not for

15 anything to do with the KLA or anything.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Can you tell us the exact spelling of your name?

18 A. My name is Abdullah Salihu.

19 Q. When one of the officers of this Court made the attestation, and

20 he probably referred to your official document, we realised that your name

21 was not spelled the same way as it was on the statements.

22 There are even differences between what was written in the

23 Albanian version and in the B/C/S and the English versions on the other

24 side.

25 As regards the attestation, your name is spelled A-v-d-u-l-l-a

Page 2033

1 Salihu. Is this the correct spelling of your first name? Your first name

2 is actually Avdulla and not Abdullah?

3 A. It's not Avdulla; it's Abdullah. And in all my papers my ID, I

4 have it as A-b-d, et cetera. Abdullah.

5 Q. Your father's name is Nebih; is that correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. You were born on the 17th of January. What year?

8 A. 1955.

9 Q. By a judgement by the municipal court in Pristina, were you

10 convicted on the 24th of March 1971 [as interpreted]?

11 A. Yes, I said so. I don't know, don't remember the date any more.

12 Q. Were you also convicted by a district court in Pristina?

13 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, if I may interject here. May I inquire

14 whether these documents have been disclosed to us?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I wasn't.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic?

17 MR. LUKIC: The documents haven't been disclosed because we don't

18 have any. We just inquired and we don't have the documents yet. We don't

19 have the document.

20 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, then I'm concerned about the good faith

21 basis for asking this question if we don't have these documents in hand.

22 If they refer to convictions in 1971 when he would have been 16.

23 MR. LUKIC: 81, 81.

24 MR. HANNIS: I apologise, that's what I heard. It's in the

25 transcript.

Page 2034

1 JUDGE BONOMY: The transcript is clear.

2 MR. HANNIS: He would have been a juvenile.

3 MR. LUKIC: I asked about 81. I apologise. I didn't check the

4 transcript. Can the witness answer, Your Honour? Or --

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you've got an answer. The answer was, "No, I

6 wasn't." So the matter has been dealt with.

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. In 1997, was a criminal report submitted against you based on the

9 law on ammunition and firearms? And was any -- were any weapons seized

10 from you back in 1997?

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Let us have an answer to the first part of that

12 question, first of all.

13 MR. HANNIS: And again, may I inquire whether or not we have that

14 document, that it's been disclosed to us?

15 MR. LUKIC: I'm asking the witness.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you have the document, Mr. Lukic?

17 MR. LUKIC: No, I don't. I just have an inquiry.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: You must have a basis for asking there question.

19 MR. LUKIC: I do have a basis but I don't have a document.

20 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, if he doesn't have a document then I

21 don't know who he's got the information from and I have a concern about

22 this. Those kind of questions being asked without a better basis for the

23 question ...

24 MR. LUKIC: That's why I'm asking this witness. He knows if the

25 weapon is confiscated. He knows about the event. That's -- I'm asking

Page 2035

1 him. If he does not know about the criminal proceeding, he has to know

2 about --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Why don't you just go directly to the question,

4 then? Let's have that, whether any weapons were seized from him in 1997.

5 MR. LUKIC: I didn't mention any document. I just asked the

6 witness --

7 JUDGE BONOMY: You did. You said, "In 1997, was a criminal report

8 submitted against you?"

9 MR. LUKIC: Does he know? Is he aware of it?

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Now that's a document, if I'm not mistaken.

11 MR. LUKIC: It is, Your Honour, but I don't have it.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: But you also say you didn't mention it. Now let's

13 be frank about it, Mr. Lukic. That's where you start, and you don't have

14 the document. What you actually want to know is whether he's ever had a

15 weapon seized.

16 MR. LUKIC: Yes, that's right.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: In 1997.

18 MR. LUKIC: Yes, yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Hannis, can he ask that question, do you

20 think?

21 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, my concern is --

22 JUDGE BONOMY: I know what your concern is but what's wrong with

23 that question?

24 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, because it borders on the, "Isn't it

25 true you still beat your wife," when all he may have heard is somebody

Page 2036

1 say, "So and so beats his wife." If there's a document, then he should

2 have the document.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: I repel that objection.

4 You may ask the question and whether a weapon was confiscated.

5 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Mr. Salihu, in 1996 or 1997, were there any weapons seized from

7 you?

8 A. That's not true.

9 Q. Thank you. I have no further questions and I would like to thank

10 you for your answers?

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Lukic.

12 Mr. Bakrac?

13 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. As a matter of

14 fact, with a view of the cross-examination that had already been

15 conducted, all I have are three to four questions and, by your leave, I

16 wanted to ask them of the witness.

17 Cross-examination by Mr. Bakrac:

18 Q. Mr. Salihu, I'm an attorney at law, one of the counsel for

19 General Vladimir Lazarevic. In your statement and in your testimony today

20 you mentioned the September offensive in 1998 at Mount Cicavica. Did you

21 know that the Serb forces at that time arrested 420 KLA members, out of

22 which most have been instigated, proceedings against?

23 A. No. I didn't hear about that. I don't know how many were

24 arrested. I would think about 40 people were arrested and they were

25 released too late -- two days later in Gllogoc. They beat them up and let

Page 2037

1 them go two days ago, two days later. About 80 people killed. But about

2 400 KLA, I don't have information on that. I don't know. I don't know.

3 Q. Thank you, Mr. Salihu.

4 A. Could I add something, please?

5 JUDGE BONOMY: No, just wait for the next question, please,

6 Mr. Salihu.

7 Mr. Bakrac?

8 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Mr. Salihu, in your statement, on page 5 in the English, the third

10 paragraph on page 6, the first paragraph of the Albanian, you stated, the

11 next morning, the 30th of April 1999, four military jeeps arrived before

12 the mosque, three were of green colour and there was a white Land Rover as

13 well. My question is whether there were any markings on those jeeps.

14 A. No, they didn't have any.

15 Q. You said that the white one was a Land Rover. As for the other

16 three, what brand, what make were there?

17 A. I just know that they were army vehicles. I don't know -- and the

18 white one didn't have any licence plate or sign on it.

19 Q. Mr. Salihu, if those three jeeps had no markings, and since you

20 don't know what make of jeep they were, how could you tell that these were

21 military jeeps?

22 A. Yes. Military jeeps had registries on them. That was clear. I

23 was in the army. I know what the registries are, with a J, with an N, and

24 the numbers. I couldn't read the numbers, so I can't give you exact

25 information.

Page 2038

1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Salihu. In the continuation of the same paragraph,

2 you say that the Serb officer who commanded had long, black hair, and his

3 major feature was that he had only one tooth in his upper jaw. He was

4 skinny, 192 centimetres tall, of dark complexion, black eyes, and had a

5 red scarf over his head. Wouldn't this description tally with a

6 description of a paramilitary, for example, as you had already said

7 before?

8 A. More or less, I would think so. He was a paramilitary, yes.

9 Q. Thank you, Mr. Salihu.

10 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] I have no further questions,

11 Your Honour.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You're welcome.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Bakrac.

14 Mr. Sepenuk?

15 MR. SEPENUK: No questions, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis?

17 Re-examination by Mr. Hannis:

18 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. Mr. Salihu, when Mr. Ackerman was asking you a question about your

20 statement in the Milosevic testimony about your regret in not joining the

21 KLA. At page 24 line 10 of today's transcript, you said you would like to

22 explain something. Do you recall what that was and do you want to do that

23 now?

24 A. I wanted to say that if I'd been a member of the KLA, I would not

25 have been captured like that because they didn't capture any members of

Page 2039

1 the KLA alive, and to save myself, I would have been in a better position

2 now, if I had been a member.

3 Q. Thank you. One other question I had for you. Mr. Bakrac, who

4 just finished asking you a few questions, asked you about whether you knew

5 about the 420 KLA arrested after the Cicavica offensive, and after

6 answering that question you asked if you could add something, please. Was

7 there something you wanted to add to that?

8 A. No. It was just that I hadn't understood the question as being in

9 relation to my statement. I have said that about 170 or 180 were killed

10 and 40 or 50 were taken over a period of two days.

11 Q. Thank you. Yes, that's in your statement.

12 MR. HANNIS: I have no further questions, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.

14 Judge Chowhan has a question for the witness.

15 Questioned by the Court:

16 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I just wanted to ask you, were you an imam of the

17 mosque?

18 A. I started working at the mosque in 2001 or - sorry - 2003, because

19 in 2001 we built the mosque and I started serving there in 2003. I worked

20 in the month of Ramadan, and I worked in Jashanica - that is a village

21 near Klina - for a year, about a year. And now I work in the mosque there

22 in that village, in my village.

23 JUDGE CHOWHAN: What sort of work are you doing with the mosque?

24 A. Well, there are special Islamic rites that we deal with, once a

25 week on Fridays, et cetera.

Page 2040

1 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Can you elucidate? Can you tell what you're doing

2 in the mosque?

3 A. We pray in the mosque, five times a day, and then we return home,

4 we are free after prayer.

5 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I'm talking about the work you're doing in the

6 mosque. Are you a muezzin or are you doing some other things?

7 A. No, I'm an imam.

8 JUDGE CHOWHAN: You lead the prayers?

9 A. Yes. I lead the prayers.

10 JUDGE CHOWHAN: My next question would be what happened to Mirsad

11 for whom they came looking in the village, Mirsad.

12 A. The police captured us and took us to Qires and there, there was a

13 photograph of a Bosnian, a man from Bosnia.

14 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Is he the man called Mirsad? Was he named

15 Mirsad?

16 A. The police had the photograph in their hands and they said, this

17 is a person called Mirsad and he must be returned to Bosnia.

18 JUDGE CHOWHAN: He was not caught, then, no?

19 A. But that wasn't the person.

20 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I see. What happened to those nine persons who

21 were members of the KLA in your village? Did you find out about them

22 later on? Two you said were killed but what happened to the rest?

23 A. They are still alive today and are at home.

24 JUDGE CHOWHAN: You mean the seven of them?

25 A. Yes.

Page 2041

1 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Did you have your medical examination for the ribs

2 and the leg which were broken, as you allege?

3 A. Yes. Yes, I did.

4 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Do you still have the scars? You still have the

5 signs of those injuries?

6 A. Yes, I do.

7 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Both on the chest and the leg?

8 A. Yes.

9 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I'm grateful. Thank you.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: That completes your evidence. Thank you for coming

11 again to the Tribunal to give evidence, and you are now free to leave.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much for listening to

13 me.

14 [The witness withdrew]

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Hannis, is the next witness Emin Kabashi?

16 MR. HANNIS: He is, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Perhaps we could take him after the break.

18 MR. HANNIS: I would request that.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: We would resume at quarter to 1.00.

20 I wonder if with this witness and any other -- well, all others,

21 you would please direct our attention to the paragraphs of the indictment

22 that the witness is speaking to.

23 MR. HANNIS: Okay. Would you like us to do that at the beginning,

24 before the witness comes on?

25 JUDGE BONOMY: It would be helpful if you were able to do that.

Page 2042

1 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: It's been quite difficult with this last witness to

3 try to relate his evidence to the indictment. And we would be assisted

4 therefore by guidance in advance of the witness's giving evidence.

5 MR. HANNIS: In that regard, Your Honour, I can tell you the next

6 witness, Mr. Kabashi speaks to 72(G) and 72(G)(i).

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Hold on. 72(G). I would call that one but I think

8 it's a Roman, it's a small Roman numeral rather than a letter.

9 MR. HANNIS: I may have misread the handwriting.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: It gets complicated, actually, if you do refer to

11 it as a letter rather than a number. It may sound trivial but it can

12 begin to become complicated.

13 All right. Thank you very much. Well, the witness should be in

14 place when we resume at quarter to 1.00.

15 --- Recess taken at 12.16 p.m.

16 --- On resuming at 12.47 p.m.

17 [The witness entered court]

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Good afternoon, Mr. Kabashi.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Please make the solemn declaration by reading aloud

21 the paper which will now be placed in front of you.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

23 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

24 WITNESS: EMIN KABASHI

25 [Witness answered through interpreter]

Page 2043

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.

2 Now, Mr. Kabashi, we have a full statement of your account of

3 events and we also have the written record of evidence which you gave when

4 you came to the Tribunal before, so we already have a lot of information

5 about what you can tell us. The purpose of today is for counsel to

6 explore matters that they wish to ask you further questions about, whether

7 to expand what you've said or perhaps to challenge what you've said. And

8 don't be surprised if you're challenged because that's part of the

9 exercise that takes place under the system we operate in this Tribunal.

10 The first of the counsel to ask questions will be on behalf of the

11 Prosecutor, Mr. Hannis.

12 Mr. Hannis?

13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. We are proceeding with this

14 witness as a 92 bis witness and the transcript is Exhibit P2251 and his

15 statement that was tendered as part of his testimony is P2250. We would

16 tender those at this time.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: That's noted, Mr. Hannis, and you regard him as

18 giving evidence under paragraph (D) of 92 bis?

19 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 Examination by Mr. Hannis:

22 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Kabashi. I want to confirm a few things --

23 A. Good afternoon.

24 Q. -- that are in your written statement. Sir, can you tell us what

25 your title is? I understand you have a Ph.D. in Philology. Can you tell

Page 2044

1 us what that is?

2 A. I am a doctor of philological sciences. I got my degree from the

3 University of Pristina.

4 Q. Dr. Kabashi, before you came to testify today, did you have a

5 chance last week to meet with representatives from the OTP to go through

6 your written statement and note any changes or corrections that you felt

7 needed to be made?

8 A. Yes. But there was no need to make any correction or changes.

9 Q. Other than a few minor things that were discussed which I'll ask

10 you about shortly I wanted to start by asking you your statement starts

11 with the 25th of March 1999, a day after the NATO bombing started, when

12 you described a bomb being thrown into your own home on the 25th of March.

13 Your home was located where?

14 A. My house was and still is, after being repaired, so it is in the

15 Fushe Kosova town. It is in the northwestern part of Pristina, about

16 seven kilometres from Pristina.

17 Q. And is the Serbian name for that town Kosovo Polje?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. You mentioned that before the bomb was thrown in your house, you

20 received an anonymous call. Can you tell us any details about the call

21 you received before the bomb was thrown?

22 A. That day, I had gone to my home because of my mother's ill health.

23 Nobody was there to take care of her, and during the time I was at home,

24 while I was caring for her, I had several phone calls. Nobody spoke at

25 the other end of the line but on one of those calls, somebody spoke to me

Page 2045

1 in Serbian and said, "You people who are waiting for NATO, you will be

2 killed, you have to go to Albania and such things".

3 Q. Do you speak and understand the Serbian language?

4 A. Yes, very well.

5 Q. Now, you detailed that event in your statement. And I want to go

6 to page 3 of the English version, the first paragraph. You mention that

7 that night you heard that there were 44 people killed in your

8 neighbourhood. What was the ethnicity of those people who were killed on

9 the 25th of March?

10 A. My neighbourhood was mainly inhabited by Albanians and all the

11 killed people were Albanians. Among them were old people, women,

12 children. Some of them I knew personally because they were my neighbours.

13 Q. Do you know what percentage of non-Albanians lived in that part of

14 town, in your neighbourhood?

15 A. In my neighbourhood, 80 per cent or even 85 per cent of the

16 inhabitants were Albanian.

17 Q. Now, in your statement you describe how after that event you went

18 to stay with a neighbour and then you went to Pristina, and you and your

19 group went to the Dragodan neighbourhood of Pristina. I'd like to show

20 you a map, if we could put up Exhibit P13.

21 Mr. Kabashi, Dr. Kabashi, you should see on your screen in a

22 moment a map. I want to know if you recognise what's depicted there. I

23 don't know if we need to blow that up a little bit. Perhaps I should say

24 enlarge.

25 Can we take it down a little bit?

Page 2046

1 A. Yes. This is a map of Pristina. It has to go a little bit down

2 in order to be -- to be able to see Dragodan, even more.

3 Q. I think that's the end of our map for Pristina.

4 A. If you could go a little lower, please.

5 Q. I don't know if Dragodan appears on this particular map.

6 A. No. Dragodan is not here.

7 Q. If the bottom of the page is south, in what direction would

8 Dragodan be from this map?

9 A. Dragodan should be in the direction of the north, between

10 Lakrishta, the neighbourhood, and Lahja e Ymerajve [phoen] neighbourhood.

11 Q. Okay. Could we move toward the top of the --

12 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Excuse me, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Visnjic?

14 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] If this map were to be taken down to

15 the bottom, I think it does have the actual name there, if I understood it

16 correctly.

17 MR. HANNIS:

18 Q. We can move now to the top of the map. I think --

19 A. Yes, now I can see it. Yes. Here is Dragodan here. This is

20 hilly neighbourhood of Pristina. It was built after the 1970s.

21 Q. And you stayed there for, I think you said, three days before the

22 army and the special police came and broke in the front door. Can you

23 explain to us what you mean by the term "special police"? In terms of

24 uniform, appearance, equipment, how would you distinguish them from

25 regular police?

Page 2047

1 A. They were together with the army, but the door was broken by the

2 police, the special police. They were different in uniform, armament, the

3 masks they were wearing, painted faces. This was the -- how they were

4 different from the normal police that we had seen at other times in Fushe

5 Kosova.

6 Q. Can you describe in what way the uniforms were different, if you

7 recall?

8 A. The uniforms were darker than the normal police uniforms. They

9 also had painted faces, some wore masks. The other ones who did not have

10 masks had painted faces. We were not able to recognise them because of

11 that. Some of them had automatic guns and knives, and they were wearing

12 also baseball caps or caps that were similar to baseball caps.

13 Q. Did the --

14 A. And we knew that these were the special Serbian police force.

15 Q. Did any of those men wear any insignia or ranking or badges on

16 their uniforms?

17 A. I'm not sure about the ranks. I did not observe them very

18 closely. But they had on their sleeves, they had the police insignia, as

19 opposed to the army, that the soldiers had army insignia.

20 Q. And when you say the army, are you referring to the VJ?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Could you describe their uniforms?

23 A. It was lighter in colour, lighter than the police uniform, and it

24 was camouflage, so more patches on the uniform. They were not masked.

25 And on the left side, they had this insignia, this thing that wrote,

Page 2048

1 "soldier of the Yugoslav army."

2 Q. Now, before these police and soldiers came to the place where you

3 were staying in Dragodan, during those three days, did you have a chance

4 to observe what was happening around that part of town in the Dragodan

5 suburb of Pristina?

6 A. Although I was in Dragodan for those three days and three nights,

7 in fact, it was three nights and two days because in the morning we were

8 taken out of that place. I moved about a little bit. I knew the terrain,

9 the area. I saw that the people were being expelled from their own homes.

10 I saw that the house of a very well known doctor in Pristina had been

11 bombed. I saw intellectuals who had left their homes and gone elsewhere,

12 professors, doctors, people like that.

13 Q. Were you able to see how the people were being expelled and by

14 whom?

15 A. Usually the people were expelled by the police, but in Dragodan,

16 the army was there too. They went into certain neighbourhoods, they

17 surrounded it, and then went into the homes where there were still people

18 living there. They told them to go out into the street and showed them

19 the direction where to go. This was normally what happened. This was the

20 procedure that was followed at that time.

21 Q. Did you see any other uniformed men moving around Pristina other

22 than the army and the special police that you've told us about?

23 A. Not only in Pristina but also in Fushe Kosova and other parts of

24 Pristina, including Dragodan. We've seen -- we saw during those days

25 other kinds of uniforms and other kinds of people who were armed, who,

Page 2049

1 according to the information we had, including the Serbian press and

2 television. So we knew from those that these were Arkan's men, Frenki

3 Simatovic's men, and so on. These were different from the other

4 formations, also because of their uniforms.

5 Q. And did you see any of those yourself, and in what way were they

6 different from the other formations?

7 A. I did not see just one or two. I saw several formations, several

8 units, I would say. They had darker uniforms. On their heads they wore

9 caps differently from the Frenki's men who had berets with a red ribbon

10 around their berets. And their armament, their weapons, were different

11 from the normal police.

12 Q. In what way were the weapons different, if you can tell us?

13 A. They mainly had automatic guns, probably Kalashnikovs, sniper

14 rifles, with a telescopic sights.

15 Q. Now, in your statement, you indicate that after the men came and

16 took you out of the house in Dragodan, that you went elsewhere and were

17 taken in for a while. How long did you stay at that second location?

18 I believe you say in your statement it was with the family of Qamil

19 Berisha.

20 A. As far as I can remember now, after seven years, it must have been

21 one night. The next day, by mid-day, we were told to leave. We went to

22 the -- to a house in the same neighbourhood, in Ajazi's house - he was a

23 correspondent of -- a reporter for Radio Pristina - and the next morning,

24 the police and the army came and took us out of there, after the fighting

25 that had happened in this part of the neighbourhood where we were.

Page 2050

1 Q. And where did the police take you or send you on that occasion?

2 A. The police had told all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood to go

3 to the main street, to the centre of Pristina. This is the neighbourhood

4 called Kodra e Diellit in Albanian or Venrac [phoen]. From that

5 neighbourhood we were told to go down to the main road. On the left it's

6 the Madrasah, the Islamic seminar, and on the right it's the train

7 station. In Venrac over the railroad there is a bridge where I could see

8 a tank on that day and the convoy I was part of was divided into two by

9 the -- by an order released from that -- issued from that tank. My part

10 of the convoy was told to go to Albania.

11 Q. And then we see in your statement that you eventually made your

12 way to the train station after a few --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask you one question about that, Mr. Kabashi?

14 Which train station was it?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Pristina train station.

16 Pristina has got only one train station.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there also a train station at Fushe Kosova?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Fushe Kosova train station is an

19 international line. The international trains pass there, while the

20 Pristina train station, it's before you get to Fushe Kosova to -- so from

21 Pristina to Fushe Kosova.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

23 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

24 Q. You describe in your statement how eventually you were put on the

25 train and made your way with all the other people that were being forced

Page 2051

1 out to the border with Macedonia where you had to get off the train and

2 walk across the border; is that correct?

3 A. Yes. That's how it happened. Well, you can say things in two

4 sentences but what happened there and what we experienced there, the

5 horror of the displacement, of the expulsion, of leaving your own country,

6 is something that you can just not express in two sentences. But it was

7 like what you -- like you said. After two or three days, that we had

8 stayed at the station, I was in the last group that got on a freight

9 train. We were sent towards Hani i Elezit they told to us get off there

10 and walk along the line, along the tracks, because if we went outside the

11 tracks, the terrain was mined.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Rest assured, Mr. Kabashi, we have a very full

13 account of what you have to say on these matters, as well as the written

14 record of the evidence you gave before. So there is no question of a

15 couple of sentences simply being used to try to explain your whole

16 evidence. Thank you.

17 Mr. Hannis?

18 MR. HANNIS: Yes.

19 Q. I understand your point, Dr. Kabashi. You understand the Judges

20 do have your written statement and your prior testimony and I'm just

21 trying to move quickly through that because they do have more details. I

22 did not mean to denigrate your experience in any way.

23 You also, in your statement, you make a statement about the NATO

24 bombing. You say the NATO bombing did not affect residential areas in

25 Pristina. How were you able to observe that or come to that conclusion?

Page 2052

1 A. It's not that I came to certain conclusions. I did not make a

2 certain analysis. I can only tell you about the things that I saw in

3 Pristina. The only building that was damaged in Pristina was the police

4 station, and that happened during the second night, when I was in

5 Dragodan, and as the crow flies, I was only 500 metres from the police

6 station and I could see and I could hear the people's voices, mainly the

7 policemen's voices that were withdrawing.

8 Q. Okay. Thank you.

9 A. In the whole of --

10 Q. I'm sorry, did you start to say something?

11 A. Yes. I was saying that in the city of Pristina, the whole of the

12 city, and this was -- excuse me -- where there were no military buildings,

13 the only thing that was bombed was the Pristina police station and the

14 prison.

15 Q. In your statement, there is a reference to the courthouse being

16 bombed as well. Is that part of the police station or the prison?

17 A. They are next to each other. Even after the renovation, the

18 reconstruction, of this building, they are still together, the courthouse,

19 the prison, all of them.

20 Q. Now, you describe in your statement, on page 5 of the English, at

21 the last paragraph, the chaos that was at the train station when you were

22 there for three days and three nights. You mention that there were so

23 many people being forced on the trains that some people died in the crush.

24 How do you know about that?

25 A. I saw them with my own eyes, because I was one of the, if I can

Page 2053

1 call myself, spectators of this drama happening there. People were forced

2 to get on the trains so that wouldn't be killed and beaten, and there was

3 such chaos, the people crushed each other. Sometimes they got run over by

4 the train. So I have seen with my own eyes how, after the train got on

5 its way, people were run over.

6 Q. During that time you mentioned that between five and 12 trains

7 were leaving each day. Is that correct?

8 A. Yes. I counted them during those days I stayed there. I couldn't

9 count all the buses but I counted all the trains, because I was in the

10 last group of people that was forced to leave Pristina, and every day

11 there were five to 12 trains with lots of cars.

12 Q. Are you able to give us any rough estimate of the numbers of

13 people that were shipped out on the trains during those three days? Are

14 we talking about hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?

15 A. Well, this is not a matter of hundreds of thousands -- hundreds or

16 thousands. It's tens of thousands of people who were expelled from

17 Pristina during those three days.

18 Q. And among the people being put on the trains and the people that

19 you met when you crossed the border and went to the refugee camp that you

20 told us about, were there any Serbs in that group or on the trains? Or

21 was it only Albanians, as far as you know?

22 A. I remember the event well, even today, because I still experience

23 it. No, I didn't meet any Serbs among the people, and I was very

24 surprised, when I met three gypsies in Bllaca. They were the only three

25 people and I still can't understand why they were there with us.

Page 2054

1 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I have no more questions for Dr. Kabashi

2 at this time.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.

4 Mr. O'Sullivan?

5 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I have no questions for this

6 witness. We will proceed in the following order: General Pavkovic,

7 Mr. Sainovic, General Lazarevic, General Lukic, and General Ojdanic.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ackerman?

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honours.

10 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman:

11 Q. Mr. Kabashi, my name is John Ackerman. I represent

12 General Pavkovic in this proceeding. I have some questions to ask you

13 that I hope will be easy for you to answer simply and briefly. If you can

14 do that we will get through this rather quickly. If not, then it's going

15 to take us much longer. And so I'm depending on your cooperation. Can I

16 count on that?

17 A. It depends on the level of cooperation you wish.

18 Q. Well, I think that answer makes a lot of sense. I agree with you.

19 Let me start with that period right after you say that your home

20 was attacked. You went to Pristina and you stayed at the home of a Qemal

21 Avdiu, and this was in the Dragodan area of Pristina; is that correct?

22 A. Yes, that's true.

23 Q. And the Dragodan area of Pristina, as you have told us earlier

24 today and showed us on a map, is an area that's located on the edge of

25 Pristina, up on a hill, isn't it?

Page 2055

1 A. Yes. It's at the edge of town at the northwestern side, and it's

2 very -- it was very populated at the time.

3 Q. And I think you said in your statement that it was an area from

4 which you were able to view the town of Pristina pretty easily.

5 A. Yes. That's true.

6 Q. Is there an oil storage facility of some kind located in the

7 Dragodan area, on that hill?

8 A. At the time there wasn't near that area. Before you enter the

9 Dragodan area you cross a bridge and then you turn left, and near the

10 bridge there, on the right side, there was a gas station but it was not

11 really part of the Dragodan neighbourhood. It was called the hospital

12 neighbourhood.

13 Q. Well, do you know of any oil storage facility in the Dragodan area

14 that was bombed by NATO?

15 A. No, I don't.

16 Q. Okay. You had been at the home of this Qemal Avdiu for about

17 three days when you claim that the army and the special police broke in

18 the front door of the house. I want to know how many army and police

19 there were who did that.

20 A. In the house where I was staying, there were eight policemen and

21 four soldiers. I counted them myself because I had time, and on the two

22 sides of the road, in that neighbourhood where we were expelled, the

23 direction we were expelled, there were dozens more. I can't tell you

24 exactly how many there were but I would think 40 or 50 in all on the

25 street.

Page 2056

1 Q. I want to talk to you about the four soldiers that you say you saw

2 there. I think you've said that they were wearing blue camouflage

3 uniforms, light blue camouflage uniforms?

4 A. Yes, they were.

5 Q. And how old would you say they were? Their ages, what would you

6 say, their ages, these four?

7 A. They could have been from, say, 22 to 27 years old.

8 Q. Any of them have beards or long hair, anything like that?

9 A. Not the soldiers, no.

10 Q. Any scarves or arm bands?

11 A. They did have helmets, but I didn't see any scarves around their

12 heads.

13 Q. You must know, don't you, that the VJ doesn't have any blue

14 uniforms, light blue uniforms. Don't you know that?

15 A. No, I didn't say that they had blue uniforms.

16 Q. Well, page 4 of your statement in English, at least, near the top,

17 what you said was, "the soldiers wore blue camouflage uniforms which were

18 lighter than the police uniforms." So according to the information I've

19 been furnished about your statement, which you swore to, you did say that

20 they were wearing blue camouflage uniforms.

21 A. They were camouflage uniform, and because of the camouflage, they

22 seemed lighter than the normal police uniforms.

23 Q. You said "blue." Do you now contest they were not blue? That's

24 what I want to know now.

25 A. No. I don't contest that. But it wasn't the same blue as the

Page 2057

1 police uniforms. They were camouflage and they had different insignia and

2 the whole uniform was different. And it seemed to be of a lighter colour

3 than the normal blue of the other uniforms.

4 Q. Well, again I'll ask you: You know, don't you, that the VJ does

5 not wear light blue uniforms, light blue camouflage uniforms, those are

6 not VJ uniforms, correct?

7 A. They told us themselves that they were soldiers, they said, "We

8 are soldiers," and they had on their shoulders, they had the insignia of

9 the Yugoslav army.

10 Q. Well, do you know that paramilitary groups used to wear insignia

11 of the Yugoslav army just to confuse people? Don't you know that?

12 A. I've read and heard about that but I have never met any such

13 groups.

14 Q. Well, you may have without knowing it. Isn't that true?

15 A. It's possible.

16 Q. I want to go now to the time you went to the railway station. You

17 say on page 4 in the English of your statement that you -- at the railway

18 station you saw a list that had been compiled on a computer. So you

19 actually saw a computer screen with a list on it? Is that what you're

20 saying?

21 A. No. There were no computer screens in the road at that time. But

22 a policeman took out of his pocket a list which had been printed on a --

23 by a computer, but an English-language computer programme with a large "I"

24 on it, which wasn't either Albanian or Serbian, and there was a list of

25 names on the list. That was before we went to the train station, when we

Page 2058

1 were in the column. The police had check-points from time to time and

2 would ask people things.

3 Q. So this police officer showed you this list?

4 A. They asked us about the names and then I saw the list and I saw

5 the names on that list.

6 Q. Well, did he show you the list? Did he hand you a list and

7 say, "Look at this list"? Did you get it from him and look at it? What

8 happened? How did you happen to see your name on it?

9 A. I saw it. It was in his hand and I was standing right beside him.

10 The officer had stopped us, or a policeman had stopped us rather, and the

11 other policemen had this list of names and was asking about people's

12 names.

13 Q. So you were looking over his shoulder, standing next to him,

14 looking at the list, is that -- is that how that happened?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Must have been a pretty friendly policeman to stand there next to

17 you and let you look at the list. Would you say that?

18 A. No. I wasn't behind his back, if you mean that. I was beside

19 him, standing beside him. I don't know what sort of fellow he was, but

20 the fact that he let us pass alive means that he was a nice guy, and I'm

21 talking about pure survival here.

22 Q. You have no idea what that list was for or what it meant, do you?

23 A. I know. It's not only that I have a speculation but I know

24 exactly what it was. In Pristina and in other towns at that time, people

25 were being sought, and if they were caught, they were either killed or

Page 2059

1 imprisoned at the time. And in the group of names on the list, I saw the

2 names of several people I knew and my name was on the list too.

3 Q. Did it say "liquidation list" or something like that at the top?

4 Is that how you knew what it was?

5 A. No. I didn't read the title at the top of the page.

6 Q. So maybe you just sort of guessed that that's what that list was

7 about, that it was some kind of a list where they were trying to capture

8 you specifically.

9 A. Well, I knew that because there were many such cases in Pristina.

10 People were being sent away to prison.

11 Q. So --

12 A. If they got caught.

13 Q. You're guessing that based on the fact that there were many such

14 cases in Pristina, not upon actual knowledge. Isn't that a fair

15 statement?

16 A. I suppose you could say that if you want.

17 Q. Well, and I suppose you'd agree with me, wouldn't you?

18 A. At that time, it wasn't a question of whether I wanted or didn't

19 want. Convictions were made on -- personal convictions were made on the

20 basis of what was happening. People were being arrested. They were being

21 killed. They were being sent away.

22 Q. Well, I don't know how many. I think three times before this

23 moment, you claim that doors of houses you were in were broken down and

24 you were thrown out of those houses, and if they were looking for you it

25 seems to me on those three occasions they found you, didn't they?

Page 2060

1 A. Yes. On two cases -- two cases, not the third. On two occasions

2 the police talked to me and on -- the third case was the case where I saw

3 the list of names at the check-point.

4 Q. Okay. Let's go forward here.

5 On your -- in your statement, page 6 in the English version, at

6 least, you say that the -- talking about Kosovo and leaving Kosovo and

7 things of that nature. You say the population was totally undefended,

8 correct?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. If a witness has told us that the KLA was defending the people,

11 was that wrong? Were they not being defended by the KLA?

12 A. Not the columns of people. They were certainly not being

13 defended. The columns of people weren't-- no one was defending them.

14 Those who were protected by the KLA were in other areas of Kosova.

15 Q. Let's try to be a little more precise, then, about this issue. If

16 I look at the part of the statement that I was referring to, it appears to

17 me that you're talking in general terms about Kosovo. You say this: "I

18 did not want to leave Kosovo. We left because we were forced by the

19 actions and words of the Serb police and army to leave. As a family we

20 were not organised to fight. I do not know who can stay in Kosovo when

21 threatened by guns." Now, you're not talking about large columns of

22 people; you're talking about the general population. And that's when you

23 say the population was totally undefended. Now, they either were totally

24 undefended or they were defended by the KLA as we've been told by another

25 witness, and I just want to know which of those you think is the case.

Page 2061

1 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I think that's argumentative. He said,

2 I left, we all left as a family we were not organised to fight. I don't

3 think it's clear from reading that, that it refers to the entire

4 population of Kosovo.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: It's also clear from the previous answer that the

6 witness accepts that the KLA were present in Kosovo.

7 So, Mr. Ackerman, it's difficult it see what's to be achieved by

8 this.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm finished with that, Your Honour.

10 Q. You were a member of the KLA, were you not?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Do you know how many members there were of the KLA at its highest

13 point? Do you have any idea?

14 A. No, I don't. I have -- I was never interested in those such

15 statistics.

16 Q. When you testified in the Milosevic case, and I'm at page 4018,

17 you told the Trial Chamber there that you became a member of the KLA

18 because, "I saw that the only way for our people to win their freedom was

19 by means of the gun." That was your testimony, was it not?

20 A. As far as I remember, yes. But the thought expressed is exact.

21 Q. And you also said that from 1997 when you joined the KLA, you

22 prepared a lot of literature, and, as you said, you made every effort to

23 explain to others that the only -- only the path of war can bring us

24 freedom. True?

25 A. Yes. The -- what I said to others may not be totally valid but I

Page 2062

1 did say that to the students in the few years I was allowed to be a

2 teacher. And this was the main reason, and that's what I said to my

3 students. That was the reason I gave for having joined the KLA.

4 Q. Do you think you may have inspired a number of your students to

5 take up arms and make that war against the Serbs?

6 A. I think that all the soldiers I met were probably my students. I

7 know them from that age group. Most of them were my students.

8 Q. So I guess you were successful in your quest to make that point.

9 And the purpose of the KLA then in your view was to make war against the

10 Serbs and win freedom for Kosovo Albanians by force of arms, by the gun.

11 Right?

12 A. Not against the Serbs. Against the occupants, the occupiers.

13 Q. Who were the occupiers if they weren't Serbs? Was it the gypsies

14 and the -- those people or who are you going to make war against?

15 A. What I mean is the Serb government, the state and military

16 authorities.

17 Q. That's fine. I accept that clarification.

18 I want to go back now to the attack on your home, back at the

19 beginning. You say a bomb was thrown at your home. And you say it was

20 done by police and by local residents, correct?

21 A. Yes, that's correct.

22 Q. And were you able to see the people who threw this bomb at your

23 home before they threw the bomb?

24 A. No. I didn't see them before they threw the bomb. If I had seen

25 them, I would have done something.

Page 2063

1 Q. So you must agree that it's fair to say that you don't know who

2 threw the bomb at your home if you didn't see them before.

3 A. No. I'd have to make an explanation here. I did not see them

4 before they threw the bomb but I did see them after they threw the bomb

5 because my house is constructed in such a way that I can see the road from

6 various positions. You can see the road where the people are leaving the

7 house, getting away from the house. And aside from that, I heard the

8 voices of people whom I knew because they had been my neighbours for a

9 long time. And on top of that, I knew people who worked there.

10 Q. So you're saying it could have been one of your neighbours who

11 threw the bomb at your house?

12 A. Not one of my neighbours. Several, two or three. I don't know

13 which one of them threw the bomb because they were all around the house.

14 Q. You then said - this is at page 4039 of the Milosevic transcript

15 and your testimony there - that after they had thrown the bomb they then

16 shot at the window. And then you say this: "Thinking that I or someone

17 else from my family will be standing." Now there is no way you would know

18 what they were thinking, is there?

19 A. I don't remember the exact wording as to which of us would have

20 been standing but I do remember the events and I've described them and I

21 can repeat them, if you wish. I was in the corridor --

22 Q. You don't need to repeat them because the Judges can read them.

23 What I'm trying to -- I think you didn't mean to tell the Milosevic Trial

24 Chamber that you knew what the people outside were thinking. Am I right

25 about that? Or did you know what they were thinking?

Page 2064

1 A. They knew that I was a member of the KLA.

2 Q. Well --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: I think, Mr. Ackerman, this may be another example

4 of what inferences a person might start to draw from the circumstances

5 against their own background knowledge.

6 In any event, you'll see the time and my question is, is this a

7 convenient moment to interrupt until tomorrow?

8 MR. ACKERMAN: I assume we can't go further, so it probably is.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Unless, if you wanted to complete something then

10 you can do that but otherwise we are stuck with the stop watch, I'm

11 afraid.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Judge, I have ten questions that will probably take

13 more than 10 or 15 minutes so I think probably stopping is the thing to

14 do.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Hannis.

18 MR. HANNIS: Could I inquire of the Defence team, an estimate on

19 their remaining time for cross in this witness for planning purposes.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there someone in the position to answer that

21 question with overall knowledge of how long the Defence cross-examination

22 will take?

23 MR. O'SULLIVAN: We can meet with Mr. Hannis when we break.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. O'Sullivan. Mr. Kabashi we have to

25 break there for the day because another case occupies the afternoon here

Page 2065

1 so we have to adjourn until tomorrow. And in our case we will be here in

2 the afternoon tomorrow. So we break now until 2.15 tomorrow. You need to

3 come back ready to resume giving evidence at 2.15 tomorrow. Meanwhile,

4 it's vital that you should not discuss your evidence with anyone at all,

5 and that refers to both the evidence you have already given and any

6 evidence you may yet give in the case. You can talk about anything else

7 with anybody you meet, except the evidence in this case.

8 Do you understand that?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I read that in the regulations

10 of the Court.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. So we will see you again tomorrow at

12 2.15.

13 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m.,

14 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 22nd day of August,

15 2006, at 2.15 p.m.

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