Page 10085
1 Monday, 30 March, 1998
2 (Motion Hearing) (Open session)
3 --- Upon commencing at 10.15 a.m.
4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Good morning, ladies
5 and gentlemen. We are back here now today and we are
6 starting with the Defence in earnest. We have before
7 us a motion -- I see Ms. Residovic is not getting the
8 translation.
9 MS. RESIDOVIC: I am sorry, we did not have
10 the translation straight away, but it is all right now.
11 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Can we have the
12 appearances, first, for the Prosecution?
13 MR. NIEMANN: If your Honours please, my
14 name is Niemann and I appear with my colleagues
15 Ms. McHenry and Mr. Turone. We have a new case manager
16 to assist us at the bar table now, Ms. Udo, if your
17 Honours please.
18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Could we have the
19 appearances on the Defence?
20 MS. RESIDOVIC: Good morning, your Honour.
21 My name is Edina Residovic, attorney from Sarajevo,
22 appearing on behalf of Mr. Zejnil Delalic, along with my
23 colleague, Mr. Eugene O'Sullivan, professor from
24 Canada.
25 MR. OLUJIC: Good morning, your Honours. My
Page 10086
1 name is Zeljko Olujic attorney from Croatia appearing
2 on behalf of Mr. Zdravko Mucic along with Mr. Michael
3 Greaves, attorney from the United Kingdom of Great
4 Britain and Northern Ireland.
5 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You are still having a problem?
6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Yes. We are hearing a
7 terrible noise in our headphones and all the languages
8 are mixing in together.
9 MR. KARABDIC: Good morning, your Honours.
10 My name is Salih Karabdic, attorney from Sarajevo,
11 appearing on behalf of Hazim Delic, along with
12 Mr. Thomas Moran, attorney from Houston, Texas.
13 MS. McMURREY: Good morning, your Honours.
14 My name is Cynthia McMurrey and I represent Esad
15 Landzo. It is my pleasure to introduce to you new
16 co-counsel, Nancy Boler, who will also be representing
17 Mr. Landzo.
18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.
19 I am sorry, I might have anticipated things much
20 earlier when I started talking on the question of the
21 motion which we have before us. We have a motion
22 before us brought by the Prosecution seeking an order
23 for appearance of Defence witnesses and the order of
24 cross-examination by the Prosecution and counsel for
25 the accused. We have already had reactions to this
Page 10087
1 motion by the Defence. The Trial Chamber has tried to
2 accommodate it and we find that we do not intend to
3 call on the Defence in respect of the first part, that
4 is, an order of appearance of the first witnesses. We
5 think it will not be necessary for the Defence to argue
6 that issue.
7 We would call on the Prosecution to move the
8 second part, which is the order for cross-examination
9 and we would now like to hear Mr. Niemann argue that.
10 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, may I just seek
11 a point of clarification; did you say you did not wish
12 to hear us in relation to the first part?
13 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, because we do not
14 think it is really necessary in relation to the first
15 part.
16 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, in relation to
17 the second part, we, in large measure, rely on our
18 written submission of the matter. Your Honours, the
19 submission that we make in relation to this is that it
20 is more a common-sense issue than anything else, because
21 we submit that the role of cross-examination of the
22 Prosecution is something that can be quite distinct and
23 separate from that of the accused. I do not suggest
24 anything sinister or wrong in this, but what I am
25 saying is that there are often many issues which the
Page 10088
1 Defence have in common and those issues can be --
2 because cross-examination is at large and not
3 restricted to merely that which arose in the course of
4 evidence-in-chief, there is a considerable opportunity
5 available to the Defence to introduce new material in
6 the course of cross-examination.
7 When I say "new material", it does not have
8 to be in the form of written exhibits or anything of
9 that nature; it could be new material elicited through
10 the process of questioning.
11 In our respectful submission, this has an
12 unfair advantage on the Prosecution, because what can
13 happen is that the Prosecution, if it has to go first,
14 cross-examines on the material that has been raised in
15 evidence-in-chief and deals with that and it may deal
16 with other wider issues as well, because, as I said,
17 cross-examination is at large, but it deals with the
18 ambit of matters that primarily are raised in
19 evidence-in-chief.
20 If then what happens is that a series of
21 co-accused counsel then proceed to cross-examination,
22 the potential to raise a whole lot of new matters is
23 very considerable. If that happens, the Prosecution is
24 left in a position where it either must apply to your
25 Honours to further cross-examine, because of this new
Page 10089
1 material, or, alternatively, it is left in a situation
2 where it is unable to address matters which have been
3 raised. If it is left in a situation where it cannot
4 address them, it has to do it in a process either by
5 way of a rebuttal case -- and that in itself may be
6 difficult because it has not had a chance to confront
7 the witness and, indeed, it may even be unfair to the
8 witness, because in a situation where the Prosecution
9 is not able to confront the witness with an issue
10 because it cannot cross-examine, it then has to deal
11 with it in rebuttal, and we have never heard the
12 witness's view of the matter, which may resolve it and
13 may preclude it.
14 It is really just a practical common-sense
15 question, in my respectful submission, because we do
16 not share the same interests that the accused do. I am
17 not saying that they are totally ad idem on all points
18 -- that is obviously not the case -- but they have a
19 much greater potential to do that. This is the reason
20 why your Honours are in a situation to say to them,
21 during the course of the Prosecution case, "Counsel
22 will determine the order that they are going to take
23 cross-examination" and they go off, and have very
24 successfully and with great cooperation been able to
25 determine the order of cross-examination, and come back
Page 10090
1 and present that to your Honours -- I think, in all
2 cases -- I do not recall one instance where there was
3 in fact a dispute that was left to your Honours to
4 resolve. But it potentially existed, that your Honours
5 may have had to decide that issue where the Defence
6 come back and say, "We cannot resolve this and we must
7 call upon your Honours to assist us by making a
8 decision on that." That in itself, in my respectful
9 submission, demonstrates clearly your Honours' capacity
10 to do this, because, if the co-accused could not agree
11 amongst themselves, obviously you would have to decide
12 it.
13 Likewise, it is no different to your capacity
14 to order the order of cross-examination vis-à-vis the
15 co-accused Defence counsel and the Prosecution.
16 Clearly, your Honours can do that -- you can do it in
17 the interests of a fair trial, you can do it in the
18 interests of an orderly trial. In my respectful
19 submission, it does touch very much upon the issues of
20 a fair trial, because if the Prosecution is unable to
21 address these additional issues, which I do expect to
22 arise, then they are going to be left dangling, as it
23 were, and can only be resolved by rebuttal and that may
24 not be a fair way of dealing with it, because, as your
25 Honours are aware, one of the objects of
Page 10091
1 cross-examination is to confront the witness with the
2 issues that are raised.
3 For that reason, it is our submission that
4 the most effective resolution of this problem is to
5 allow the Defence to determine amongst themselves the
6 order of cross-examination in the way that they did it
7 during the Prosecution case, and I am very optimistic
8 they will be able to reach agreement on that, and then,
9 finally, to allow the Prosecution to cross-examine at
10 the end of all their cross-examinations.
11 I genuinely submit to your Honour that this
12 would be a much more efficient process and will avoid
13 multiple applications for reopening cross-examination
14 by the Prosecution.
15 JUDGE JAN: May I say a few things? I am
16 sure you have seen the Defence response and the
17 argument which you just presented has been offered in
18 just the opposite way. This is a paragraph in the
19 Defence response. Supposing the cross-examination by
20 the Prosecution a witness makes a statement which is
21 damaging to the other co-accused who, if your prayer is
22 accepted, have already exhausted their right to
23 cross-examination. Should that statement remain
24 unchallenged? It is your argument, but just put the
25 other way.
Page 10092
1 MR. NIEMANN: There is some truth in that,
2 but the potential for it to happen in relation to the
3 Prosecution is far greater. My emphasis and the
4 difference that distinguishes us from the Defence is
5 that it is obvious they have many more things in common
6 than we have with them, so the potential is much
7 greater for differences between what the Prosecution
8 has to deal with than what the co-accused do. So, it
9 is my submission that it is really a balancing act --
10 it is a question of looking at it and saying, from a
11 common-sense perspective, what is more likely to create
12 a situation where a party seeks to further
13 cross-examine because an issue has arisen.
14 For example, if you have evidence-in-chief
15 which commences, and then the first cross-examination
16 by a Defence counsel raises a new issue, there is no
17 reason why that cannot be dealt with by the next
18 counsel and so on down the line until you get to the
19 end.
20 It is possible, and I am not denying that,
21 I see that it can work both ways, but it is a question
22 of balance. It is a question of saying: where is it
23 most likely to create difficulty? I am saying that it
24 is on the Prosecution side, because there is no
25 commonality of interest.
Page 10093
1 JUDGE JAN: If such a situation arises,
2 maybe the accused, who has so suffered on account of
3 new material being brought by the witness against him,
4 should be given the right to further cross-examination.
5 MR. NIEMANN: That may happen. I think we
6 have to be sensible. I can imagine if it is a
7 sensibly-based request on a totally new issue that has
8 come up and the Defence says: look, we want to
9 re-cross-examine on this, because it has taken us by
10 surprise, I would be hard pressed to turn around and
11 say no, they should not be given that right. I can
12 imagine, in those circumstances, that it would be an
13 exceptional case, I think, for us to be opposing that.
14 What I can see is that it is less likely for
15 them to be doing it, because of their commonality
16 interest, than we. It may happen in almost every case,
17 because I anticipate genuinely to see a whole lot of
18 new issues raised through the process of
19 cross-examination, and we are just going to be
20 confronted with it, so it is a practical, common-sense
21 thing.
22 JUDGE JAN: If your motion is allowed, it
23 will have to be subject to this reservation?
24 MR. NIEMANN: Yes.
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Before you sit down,
Page 10094
1 I think the misapprehension is that there can be no
2 right to further examination by counsel -- there is
3 such a right. There is such a right where any new
4 material has been raised in cross-examination, the
5 person who could be prejudiced by leaving such a matter
6 at large, would be entitled to further
7 cross-examination on that matter.
8 MR. NIEMANN: I perceive that from the
9 response from the Defence that somehow or other it was
10 suggested that we were denying that, in any
11 circumstances, there is no right of
12 re-cross-examination. That is not our position. I say
13 that -- our position clearly is that, if new matters
14 arise and it would otherwise cause prejudice, clearly
15 there is a right of re-cross-examination, in our
16 respectful submission, subject to the order of the
17 court, obviously, in all cases.
18 But, we are not trying to deny that. All we
19 are saying is that, if the Defence go first, our
20 applications are going to be much more restricted and
21 it is going to be much easier to argue that, if we did
22 not deal with it, we should have. The other way
23 around, I suspect it will just prolong the process.
24 Unless there are any other matters?
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.
Page 10095
1 Any reaction?
2 MR. O'SULLIVAN: If your Honours please,
3 I will make my submissions from here and not from the
4 podium.
5 Your Honours, I wish to address you on behalf
6 of Mr. Delalic in response to this matter and my
7 submissions will be brief and in support of the jointly
8 filed motion by Delalic and Delic. We invite your
9 Honours to reject the request by the Prosecution and to
10 order that, after examination-in-chief of a witness is
11 completed, the Prosecution should complete its
12 cross-examination before co-counsel for the co-accused
13 examine the witness.
14 Let me begin by responding briefly to
15 Mr. Niemann. With all due respect to my learned friend,
16 who was not here at the beginning of this trial, we
17 know if order of cross-examination by the Defence was
18 not agreed upon, we followed the indictment order and
19 that is why it worked smoothly, I think. I reject the
20 fact that he claims that there is commonality between
21 the co-accused necessarily -- that is obviously a
22 supposition which cannot be founded in any kind of a
23 joint trial.
24 We rely on Article 21(4)(e) of the Statute,
25 which guarantees the right of cross-examination to the
Page 10096
1 accused person. Your Honours, it is only after the
2 examination-in-chief and the cross-examination by the
3 Prosecution that a co-accused will know whether the
4 witness has become adverse to him or has implicated
5 him. It is at that point that the co-accused's right
6 under Article 21(4)(e) is triggered. The co-accused
7 must not be precluded of that right. Our request is
8 grounded in Article 21(4)(e). The way to ensure the
9 full protection of the right to cross-examine of the
10 co-accused is to hear examination-in-chief and then the
11 cross-examination by the Prosecution.
12 So, we say that, contrary to the Prosecution,
13 who is not relying on any Rule whatsoever, the Statute
14 clearly contemplates our position, examination-in-chief
15 followed by the Prosecution and then the co-accused
16 should know whether or not they have an interest in
17 cross-examining that witness.
18 There is discretion there if the Prosecution
19 thinks they have to reopen, but we say our request is
20 grounded in Article 21(4)(e). There is nothing more to
21 add. We have stated our position in our response to
22 the Prosecution. Unless you have any further questions
23 of me, I have no further submissions.
24 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am assuming here that
25 you have taken the position that the accused person,
Page 10097
1 apart from giving evidence, also calls witnesses.
2 There are two situations -- either he is the only
3 witness, or, in addition to him, there could be other
4 witnesses. It depends on the position you are taking
5 -- whether, in any event, he is the only witness, the
6 position you are taking was to be the same.
7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Correct; I am addressing you
8 on the order of cross-examination.
9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, I agree; it
10 depends on what type of case you present, whether he is
11 the only witness, or he also calls witnesses in
12 addition to his own evidence.
13 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I do not see two situations
14 where the order of cross-examination would change, your
15 Honour.
16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: It could always be the
17 same, whether he calls witnesses in addition to his
18 evidence, or whether he alone gives evidence, or even
19 if he decides not to say anything?
20 MR. O'SULLIVAN: We say the Prosecution should
21 go first in cross-examination, yes.
22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am only giving you
23 the different alternatives open to an accused person.
24 He may not even give evidence if he does not want to.
25 He may alone give evidence, or in addition he may call
Page 10098
1 other witnesses.
2 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, your Honour.
3 MR. MORAN: A couple of thoughts and I will
4 sit down. I think Judge Jan hit it right on the head
5 -- any argument I make will be the same argument
6 Mr. Niemann makes. Let me suggest this: the first
7 thing is that Rule 82(A) provides essentially that we
8 are not having one trial here -- we have four separate
9 trials at the same time at the same place. We are all
10 guaranteed, as defendants, the same rights we would
11 have in an individual trial.
12 The procedure I am used to is that, in a
13 multiple defendant trial, first the Prosecutor
14 cross-examines, then the defendants cross-examine, and
15 then the Prosecutor is allowed to re-examine on new
16 issues -- limited to those new issues.
17 As a practical matter, because the arguments
18 are the same, I think that adopting that kind of
19 procedure would probably be just as efficient as any
20 other way around.
21 The other thought I have is that the Statute
22 is full of rights of the accused and the most important
23 right for the accused, aside from the right to counsel,
24 I think is the right to confront and cross-examine the
25 witnesses against him. Frankly, picking a witness off
Page 10099
1 the witness list that was filed today, I have no idea
2 what a lot of those witnesses are going to say and
3 I have absolutely no idea whether Mr. Niemann has a file
4 folder full of statements those people made that would
5 incriminate my client. I cannot know whether he is a
6 witness against my client --
7 JUDGE JAN: He is talking about the
8 reservation, if during the cross-examination by the
9 Prosecutor, a witness says something that is damaging
10 to another accused, he should have the right to further
11 cross-examine him. That will be of greater advantage
12 to you coming at the end -- with the further right to
13 cross-examine.
14 MR. MORAN: One thing the court has to
15 remember is that, presumably, the lawyers know their
16 cases better than the court does at this point.
17 JUDGE JAN: You know your case much better
18 than I do.
19 MR. MORAN: At this point, I sincerely hope
20 so.
21 What I may think may be incriminatory of my
22 client, Mr. Niemann may disagree with, or you may
23 disagree with, because I may know something that is
24 coming later. That is the problem I can see
25 developing, that there may be some question about
Page 10100
1 whether or not this witness, Witness A, is a witness
2 against my client. My client's name may never come up,
3 but it may be something that is, in my opinion, knowing
4 more about the case, inculpatory of my client.
5 With those few thoughts, unless the court has
6 any questions, I am going to sit down.
7 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.
8 MR. OLUJIC: Your Honours, I shall be very
9 brief in presenting my arguments in response to what we
10 have heard from the Prosecution. In our written
11 response, we opposed the motion and we abide by that,
12 that we request that both be rejected, but my learned
13 colleague, Mr. Niemann, conscious in the absence of a
14 precedent in terms of Rules of Procedure, in order to
15 support his thesis, he uses logic and common-sense.
16 This thesis cannot be acceptable for the
17 simple reason that it proceeds from the presumption of
18 the accused's guilt, which is impermissible. This
19 Tribunal is both competent and qualified to judge
20 itself the course that the proceedings are taking.
21 Therefore, we would like to abide by our motion. We
22 consider that the Prosecution's motion is unacceptable,
23 and that both the proposals should be rejected. Thank
24 you.
25 MS. McMURREY: Your Honour, we also would
Page 10101
1 like to join in Mr. O'Sullivan's arguments on the point
2 about cross-examination. Furthermore, Mr. Moran had
3 explained that we know a little bit more about what to
4 expect in the witnesses, as the four cases are
5 developed, as we go along. It might not be perceived
6 by the court or the Prosecution that we would need to
7 re-cross-examine, which would force us all to recall
8 these witnesses at a later time, because of the
9 misunderstanding about what was inculpatory at that
10 time. I think, in the interest of the proceedings and
11 the expeditious procession of this case, that we should
12 be able to cross-examine after the Prosecution.
13 Furthermore, under Article 21, when we are
14 arguing the flip side of what Mr. Niemann is arguing, of
15 course he has the equal right, if new material is
16 presented to re-cross-examine, if the court so deems
17 that it is proper at that point. When there is a tie
18 as far as whose rights might be affected, Article 21
19 and all the presumptions under the Statute would say
20 that the tie should go to the defendant and the
21 accused. At that point, we believe that, since it is
22 almost equal right now, that the presumption should go
23 to the accused and we should be allowed to
24 cross-examine after the Prosecution.
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: So you are tossing a
Page 10102
1 coin, are you?
2 MS. McMURREY: When you toss the coin, it
3 should fall on the side of the Defence.
4 JUDGE JAN: In respect of each of the four
5 accused, the main opposite party is the Prosecution.
6 The Prosecution should have the right to last
7 cross-examination then in respect of each of the four
8 accused. If a witness makes a statement which is
9 detrimental to the interests of any of the other
10 accused, you said they would be given the right to
11 further cross-examination.
12 MS. McMURREY: Your statement that the main
13 opponent in this trial is the Prosecution --
14 JUDGE JAN: In respect of each of the four
15 accused.
16 MS. McMURREY: We filed a motion for
17 severance early on in January --
18 JUDGE JAN: In respect of each of the four
19 accused -- not collectively -- in respect of each of
20 the four accused the main opposing party is the
21 Prosecution.
22 MS. McMURREY: That should be the fact, but
23 because it appears we will have inconsistent defences
24 as we go along, it is not only the opposition party
25 that is the Prosecution, but it could possibly be the
Page 10103
1 other testimony of the other witnesses, so therefore I
2 believe that during these adversarial proceedings that
3 the defendant should have the right to cross-examine
4 after the Prosecution, because we may not have
5 consistent Defences during the rest of the case. Thank
6 you.
7 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The Trial Chamber will
8 adjourn and come back at 12 o'clock and give our
9 ruling.
10 (10.53am)
11 (A short break)
12 (12 noon)
13 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: We have a short
14 ruling. We rely entirely on all you have said here and
15 our consideration of the case as a whole. The motion
16 filed on 18 March 1998 has sought leave for an order of
17 (a) appearance of the Defence witnesses; and (b) the
18 order of cross-examination by the Prosecution and
19 counsel for the accused.
20 All counsel for the accused have opposed the
21 motion in writing. The motion has come up for argument
22 this morning, but, when it came up, the Trial Chamber
23 considered it unnecessary to hear argument on the first
24 part of the motion, namely, calling on the Trial
25 Chamber to determine the order of appearance of the
Page 10104
1 Defence witnesses. We considered that it was
2 reasonably self-evident.
3 The Prosecution has considered, and we agree,
4 that the matter is not directly governed by the Statute
5 of the Tribunal or the Rules of Procedure and
6 Evidence. However, reliance on the practice of some
7 common law jurisdictions, such as England and Wales,
8 Nigeria, South Africa and Canada informs that the
9 better practice is that where the accused gives
10 evidence and calls witnesses, he should first give his
11 testimony before calling his own witnesses.
12 We agree with the view of the Defence that
13 the proposition relied upon by the Prosecution will
14 offend against the provisions of Article 20, which
15 enjoins us with issues of trial and 21(4)(d), which
16 entrenches a quality of arms in the conduct of the case
17 between the Prosecution and the Defence.
18 The strong implication in Rule 85(A), which
19 enables an accused to give evidence and to call
20 witnesses, is that the accused, by Rule 85(C), is not
21 compellable and cannot be compelled to appear as a
22 witness in his own Defence. Accordingly, the order in
23 which the Defence gives evidence and calls evidence is
24 entirely an arrangement between him and his counsel, if
25 any.
Page 10105
1 The Trial Chamber cannot interfere. In the
2 opinion of the Trial Chamber, this is consistent with
3 the provisions of Article 21(4)(d) and accords with the
4 justice and fairness of a trial. It will be against
5 the interests of justice for the Trial Chamber to
6 determine an order when a witness is to testify and
7 probably who the witness is. The accused is obliged to
8 answer the charges against him to the best of his
9 ability in his own way.
10 I will come to the second part. The
11 Prosecution seeks an order to cross-examine the witness
12 of the Defence after the Defence has examined in chief,
13 and the co-accused have cross-examined the witnesses.
14 The Defence object to this arrangement on the ground
15 that the Prosecution's cross-examination may reveal
16 circumstances in the case of an accused which may
17 affect their case. Again, facts may arise from
18 cross-examination which may require further
19 cross-examination. This may be lost to accused persons
20 if the order were to be granted.
21 It is elementary to appreciate that the case
22 now being presented is part of the case of the
23 Defence. The question of joint Defence apart, the
24 Prosecutor is facing the case of the Defence. It is
25 therefore understandable that each accused is first to
Page 10106
1 examine the accused person who testifies. At the end
2 of the cross-examination of the accused persons, the
3 Prosecution may cross-examine. The Prosecution is
4 entitled to speak last.
5 There is no statutory provision in our Rules,
6 but, fortunately, we have Section 190 of Nigerian
7 Evidence Law, which makes such a provision in purely
8 identical terms and I quote:
9 "Where more than one accused is charged at
10 the same time, a witness called by one accused may be
11 cross-examined by the other accused and, if
12 cross-examined by the other accused, such
13 cross-examination shall take place before
14 cross-examination by the Prosecution."
15 There is considerable common sense in the
16 arrangement. The consideration that the
17 cross-examination by the Prosecution of the accused is
18 part of an accused's case is not lost on an accused who
19 still has a right of further cross-examination and to
20 give evidence on his own behalf. The objection of the
21 Defence to the second part of the motion is therefore
22 refused.
23 The Trial Chamber therefore rejects the
24 motion for an order of appearance of the Defence
25 witnesses, but grants the motion for the order of
Page 10107
1 cross-examination. This is our ruling.
2 We received an application for the Bajram
3 holidays, which is indicated to be how many days
4 between the 7th and 8th --
5 MR. KARABDIC: Your Honours, I have submitted
6 for 7 and 8 April, even though Bajram lasts for four
7 days. However, I have only asked for the first two
8 days and I think this is fully justified -- the two
9 major Muslim holidays are the two Bajrams and I think
10 that it falls well within the rights of both the
11 accused and their Defence counsel.
12 JUDGE JAN: Has the month of the Haj started
13 -- I think it is starting today or tomorrow. Is it
14 today or is it tomorrow?
15 MR. KARABDIC: Your Honour, it is neither
16 today nor tomorrow -- it is on 7 April.
17 JUDGE JAN: That is what I asked you; has
18 the month of the Haj started?
19 MR. KARABDIC: In our calendar, it says that
20 it is really the 7th and the 8th, and here in The Hague
21 the Turkish community has also issued a calendar which
22 starts on 7 April, and lasts for four days. I am not
23 aware of any other dates and I think that this year
24 this calendar is not controversial in any way. As far
25 as I know, the Hajis have already embarked on their
Page 10108
1 trip and, as far as I know, it is 7 and 8 April.
2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Do you not think the
3 7th alone should be sufficient, instead of stretching
4 it too far? You can have the 7th. Do you understand
5 me?
6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, may I make
7 several comments? Mr. Karabdic filed a request on
8 behalf of all the accused and Defence counsel who
9 celebrate this holiday, and I believe that it is
10 reasonable that, out of four days, which constitute
11 this holy festival, only two days are being requested,
12 and I think that Mr. Karabdic has fully taken into
13 account the wishes and feelings of all the accused and
14 Defence counsel, as well as trying to balance it
15 against the needs of the court.
16 MR. KARABDIC: Your Honours, we also would
17 like to know whether you can rule on it now so that we
18 could proceed with making arrangements regarding the
19 witness testimonies and order of witnesses and such,
20 thank you.
21 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I suppose if you have
22 both the 7th and the 8th, then you are expected to be
23 here on the 9th. You will be here on the 9th?
24 MR. KARABDIC: Thank you, your Honours.
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: We will have the 7th
Page 10109
1 and the 8th and then you appear for your matters on
2 9 April.
3 We should continue with the proceedings after
4 lunch. Then we will hear what your opposition is,
5 Mr.s Residovic. We will start at 2 o'clock. We will
6 come back at 2 o'clock and continue with the Defence.
7 (12.14pm).
8 (Luncheon adjournment)
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 10110
1 (2.00pm)
2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Good afternoon, ladies
3 and gentlemen. We are back now and we will start with
4 the Defence. Yes, Mr.s Residovic, I hear that you are
5 starting with an opening statement.
6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.
7 Before calling the first Defence witness, I should like
8 to avail myself of the right, according to Rule 84 of
9 the Rules of Procedure, to make a brief opening
10 statement.
11 Pursuant to Rule 84 of the Rules of Procedure
12 and Evidence, the Defence counsel of Mr. Zejnil Delalic
13 will begin with an opening statement in which we shall
14 briefly indicate the method and aims of the
15 presentation of evidence in this part of the criminal
16 proceedings. Article 21 of the Statute of the
17 International Criminal Tribunal establishes the right
18 of the accused to examine, or have examined, the
19 witnesses against him under the same conditions as
20 witnesses against him. This is Article 21(4)(e) of the
21 Tribunal's Statute.
22 Upon the completion of the part of the
23 Prosecution case, the Defence counsel of Mr. Delalic has
24 prepared evidence in Defence of the accused as the
25 first among the four accused in this case. Evidence in
Page 10111
1 favour of Mr. Zejnil Delalic's Defence begins precisely
2 after Mr. Delalic has spent two years and 12 days in
3 detention.
4 Your Honours, this very fact is a clear
5 indicator that Mr. Delalic has not been afforded the
6 right to an expeditious trial. The rejection of his
7 request for a separate trial, which is today already a
8 Rule in proceedings in relation to other superior
9 persons in cases before this Tribunal, Zejnil Delalic
10 is in a position to participate in a trial which is far
11 longer than would be necessary to establish his
12 possible personal responsibility or to acquit him.
13 There are other characteristics which we wish
14 to draw the court's attention to with respect to
15 Mr. Delalic. Only two persons have been arrested in
16 accordance with Rule 40 of the Rules of Procedure and
17 Evidence in this Tribunal, that is, before an
18 indictment was issued and confirmed against them --
19 Zejnil Delalic is one of those two persons.
20 The arrest of Zejnil Delalic was carried out
21 at the request of the Prosecutor, even though, as we
22 have heard from the Prosecution witnesses during the
23 time of arrest, there were no criminal charges made
24 against him, nor was a warrant for his arrest issued by
25 any country, nor by any domestic or international
Page 10112
1 institutions. Zejnil Delalic was immediately --
2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Would you please excuse
3 me. I thought your opening speech relates to the
4 evidence that you are leading in support of the case of
5 the Defence. You do not go on to make comments or
6 criticisms of matters which have already been done.
7 What you are now to do is to tell the Trial Chamber the
8 evidence you are leading. This is what an opening
9 speech is made for. You should have had enough time to
10 criticise the Prosecution's case and whatever has been
11 time and you have sufficient time. You are still in
12 charge of your case. Nothing stops you doing that
13 subsequently. Outline before the Trial Chamber the
14 evidence you are leading. If you do not think that is
15 necessary, then call the accused person to give his
16 evidence. It just does not make any sense going
17 through what you might say later or subsequently.
18 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, it is my
19 intention to say how and why the Defence will present
20 the evidence it intends to call, but the volume,
21 quantity and quality of evidence is based on a prior
22 period, which has put us in a certain position
23 regarding the presentation of evidence. I have only
24 two more facts to refer to regarding Mr. Delalic's
25 position so far, and then I intend to go on to what we
Page 10113
1 intend to present by way of evidence.
2 I did not consider a short comment on the
3 procedural position of my defendant would not be
4 acceptable as the introduction to the presentation of
5 its evidence. I therefore appeal to you to allow me to
6 refer to these two additional facts and then to proceed
7 as you have suggested. May I?
8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may do so. I do
9 not think it is really necessary as part of your case.
10 This is what I am saying. It has nothing to do with
11 your case.
12 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. As I just said,
13 Zejnil Delalic was interrogated immediately after his
14 arrest without the presence of an attorney, though it
15 was assumed that the acts for which he was charged
16 under Article 21 should entitle him to legal assistance
17 -- in any case where the interests of justice so
18 require, and this is a right that the accused could not
19 waive. Availing himself of the right according to
20 89(C) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the trial
21 has accepted much of the evidence requested by the
22 Prosecutor and, finally, the Prosecutor submitted to
23 the Defence on 25 March this year 11 documents
24 indicating that it intends to use it as evidence, which
25 means only five days before the beginning of the
Page 10114
1 Defence case new evidence has been presented, which
2 clearly shows that the Prosecutor is continuing the
3 investigation, even after the completion of his case.
4 All the above mentioned places the Defence of
5 Mr. Delalic in a position that, even today, at the
6 beginning of the presentation of the Defence case, it
7 cannot determine completely neither the quantity of the
8 evidence nor the time it will require to present it.
9 The Defence of Mr. Delalic will present as
10 much evidence as is necessary for Mr. Delalic to present
11 a full Defence and to ensure a fair trial, fully
12 convinced that this Trial Chamber will devote full
13 attention to the right of the accused and ensure a fair
14 trial as it is obliged to do under Article 20 of this
15 Tribunal's Statute.
16 Your Honours, the Defence will present
17 evidence before this Trial Chamber which will show that
18 Zejnil Delalic is innocent. The Prosecutor charges
19 Zejnil Delalic of coordinating the activities of forces
20 in the area of Konjic somewhere from April 1992 until
21 September 1992, and that he was the commander of the
22 first Tactical Group of the Bosnian forces, and that,
23 in that period, and in those capacities, he was
24 responsible for the work of a prison and held a
25 position of superiority in relation to all guards in
Page 10115
1 the camp and other individuals who entered the camp and
2 mistreated the prisoners.
3 Establishing the position of Zejnil Delalic
4 as a person with superior responsibility over the
5 prison, the Prosecution goes on to allege that Zejnil
6 Delalic knew, or had reason to know, that his
7 subordinates were committing criminal acts without
8 taking the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent
9 such acts and punish the perpetrators.
10 The Prosecutor cannot succeed, for the simple
11 reason that Zejnil Delalic does not have the status of
12 a superior. For these reasons, it is understandable
13 that the Prosecutor should, in the opening statement,
14 say that there was a great deal of discussion as to the
15 authorisations Delalic had in paper in his opening
16 statement. This is no wonder, because a coordinator is
17 a new function that was established due to the
18 complicated situation in Konjic at the time and there
19 is no particular body that established competence over
20 Celebici. Similarly, in his opening statement the
21 Prosecutor alleged that others may share this
22 competence, but that this cannot be a Defence for
23 Zejnil Delalic.
24 By this position, before presenting its own
25 case, the Defence has a rather dangerous thesis before
Page 10116
1 it for a criminal procedure. If we do not know who is
2 responsible, then it is Zejnil Delalic. If we do not
3 know which organ is responsible, then it is Zejnil
4 Delalic. If others are responsible, then Zejnil
5 Delalic is certainly as well. I am quite confident
6 that this Trial Chamber will resolutely resist such an
7 approach, and confirm here the supreme principle of any
8 criminal proceedings in dubio pro reo, which means that
9 in case of doubt, one must always take the side of the
10 accused.
11 The Defence will assist the Trial Chamber in
12 establishing that Zejnil Delalic was never, in the time
13 indicated in the indictment, responsible over the
14 prison, nor its personnel. The Defence will present
15 the following evidence before this Trial Chamber.
16 First, it will invite and hear expert
17 witnesses in the areas of history and military
18 doctrine. It will call and hear witnesses who are
19 familiar with the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
20 Konjic. It will call and hear evidence who are
21 familiar with the activities of Zejnil Delalic. It
22 will tender a large number of documents for admission.
23 It will show a number of videotapes and present other
24 evidence in order to establish that Zejnil Delalic is
25 not responsible for the charges brought against him.
Page 10117
1 Though, in conformity with the Statute of the
2 International Tribunal, individual responsibility is
3 being tried, it is impossible to establish that
4 individual responsibility without a broader
5 understanding of the context of the conflict in
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Konjic itself, so that the
7 Prosecutor, rightly, invited three expert witnesses,
8 with the help of whom he tried to establish matters of
9 significance for this case.
10 The Prosecutor acted similarly in the Tadic
11 case and other cases that are being tried before this
12 Tribunal. In order to facilitate understanding of the
13 overall situation and the actual events in Konjic in
14 1992, when allegedly the acts described in the
15 indictment occurred, the Defence will call at least two
16 expert witnesses -- Professor Iljas Hadzibegovic, an
17 expert on the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
18 Brigadier General Mohamed Vejzajic, a military expert,
19 regarding the behaviour of the former JNA and the
20 development of the BiH army after the proclamation of
21 its independence.
22 Both experts will present an overview of the
23 general and military situation in Konjic in 1992 on the
24 basis of their expertise and their own research on the
25 ground. With the help of this and other evidence, the
Page 10118
1 Defence will show that Bosnia and Herzegovina sought to
2 establish its statehood over the centuries, that
3 nurturing its way of life at a cross-roads between
4 different civilisations Bosnia-Herzegovina has
5 preserved its multi-ethnic, multi-religious and
6 multi-cultural character as an essential characteristic,
7 that it is impossible to divide Bosnia-Herzegovina
8 according to ethnic criteria, without terrible
9 violence; that the aspirations of neighbours to
10 appropriate parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina or in its
11 entirety have been present in history; that Bosnia and
12 Herzegovina was attacked on the day that it proclaimed
13 its independence; that the towns of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
14 including Konjic, were exposed to horrendous
15 destruction and killing, that the legal organs of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina waged a battle and created their own
17 army, that the legal authorities in Konjic invested a
18 maximum of effort to avoid a conflict and, when the
19 town was surrounded and attacked, they exerted maximum,
20 one might say, superhuman efforts to ensure minimum
21 conditions for the survival of the population, for the
22 accommodation and nutrition and treatment of refugees
23 from other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to extend
24 minimum medical assistance to numerous casualties and
25 to ensure fairness, as much as possible, to people who
Page 10119
1 were in detention.
2 The evidence will show that the persons
3 detained in Celebici were nationals of
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina, residents and, in most cases, of
5 many years standing in Konjic, that at the time of the
6 proclamation of an immediate threat of war they
7 purchased and owned armaments, blocked roads, or
8 participated in attacks against their own legal
9 authorities, whereby there were reasonable grounds to
10 suspect that they committed serious criminal offences
11 under the criminal code of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is,
12 that they were rebels; that criminal proceedings were
13 instituted against at least 100 such persons; and that
14 the persons detained in Celebici were not persons
15 enjoying protection under the Geneva Conventions.
16 With respect to Zejnil Delalic, the evidence
17 which the Defence will present will show that as of
18 April until at least 27 July he had absolutely no
19 functions which would be a function of military or
20 civilian superiority; namely, the evidence will show
21 that Zejnil Delalic, until he took over the function of
22 commander of Tactical Group number 1 after 27 July
23 1992, engaged only in logistical affairs and, as of
24 18 May 1992, he was also a coordinator as a
25 predominantly civilian duty to which he was appointed
Page 10120
1 by a civilian body, that is, the war presidency of the
2 Konjic municipality.
3 As a regular soldier, evidence will show that
4 Zejnil Delalic spent the whole month of July 1992 in
5 remote mountainous regions in combat activities without
6 having any functions in the military sense and with a
7 very concrete combat assignment.
8 Throughout his stay in Konjic from April
9 until the end of November 1992, the evidence will show
10 that Zejnil Delalic was not a member of any political
11 Party in Konjic and Bosnia-Herzegovina; that he was not
12 elected or appointed to any State or any other body;
13 that he was not a member of the war presidency, nor was
14 he a member of bodies of political Parties or other
15 institutions.
16 The evidence will show that, in 1992, he was
17 not a commander or a member of the municipal staff of
18 Territorial Defence, which later became the army of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina, or a member of the joint command of
20 the TO and the HVO in any period of time that year.
21 The Defence evidence will also show that,
22 after 27 July, Zejnil Delalic was appointed to a
23 military function, that is, the commander of Tactical
24 Group 1, with the military assignment to participate in
25 lifting the blockade around Sarajevo under siege. In
Page 10121
1 that capacity, he had forces and resources subordinated
2 to him in the border area from Dreznica to Igman.
3 However, the evidence of the Defence will show that,
4 holding this military function, he did not have any
5 superiority over the region, nor did he have any
6 jurisdiction over the district staff or corps, nor did
7 he have any jurisdiction over staffs and institutions
8 in that area.
9 All the evidence that the Defence will
10 present before this Trial Chamber will show that Zejnil
11 Delalic was at no time a person with superior command
12 over the Celebici prison and its staff. Through the
13 presentation of evidence we will also show the true
14 Serbs who were subordinated to him while he was
15 commander of Tactical Group 1 were not guards, nor
16 Celebici prison staff, nor did any of his subordinate
17 soldiers commit any of the alleged criminal offences
18 according to the indictment.
19 The evidence will also show that, as of April
20 1992, the defensive forces that were active in Konjic
21 were the Territorial Defence, the Croatian Defence
22 Council and the Ministry of the Interior, and that
23 Zejnil Delalic never had a command position in relation
24 to these bodies.
25 We shall also show that the legal authorities
Page 10122
1 from April 1992 organised the defence, and that there
2 were no private armies or groups operating in this
3 area.
4 The Defence will establish all the above
5 mentioned facts by calling witnesses, presenting
6 documents, and showing videotapes of relevance in
7 support of the Defence of the accused, Zejnil Delalic.
8 In this stage, the Defence will not request protective
9 measures for its witnesses, but if this should be in
10 the interests of the protection of witnesses, such a
11 request will be submitted to the Trial Chamber in due
12 time.
13 I do not wish to argue the particular points
14 of the indictment, because Mr. Delalic's Defence already
15 referred to those points in its motion for no case, and
16 the same will be referred to during the presentation of
17 evidence. Therefore, in concluding my opening
18 statement, your Honours, the Defence will, availing
19 itself of its rights under Article 21 and other
20 provisions of the Statute, and the Rules of Procedure
21 and Evidence, present its evidence and thereby show
22 that the accusations against Zejnil Delalic are
23 unfounded. Thank you, your Honours.
24 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.
25 I think you are leading evidence, not putting up
Page 10123
1 arguments at this stage. You are entitled to lead
2 whatever evidence you can in support of what subsequent
3 arguments you want to put up.
4 What else? Who is your first witness?
5 MS. RESIDOVIC: I should now like to call the
6 first Defence witness, an expert witness in history.
7 Could the witness be brought into the courtroom,
8 please?
9 MR. NIEMANN: May I raise a matter at this
10 stage, please?
11 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, let us hear what
12 you want to say.
13 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, last Thursday at
14 2.45pm the Defence served upon us all this material
15 that your Honours see on the table here behind me -- an
16 extensive amount of material which relates to the two
17 expert witnesses that Madam Residovic has indicated she
18 wishes to call, and, according to her order of list of
19 witnesses, will be the next two witnesses in order.
20 It has been impossible for the Prosecution to
21 absorb all of this material. It is highly complex;
22 there is large amounts of it which we will have to make
23 decisions on in respect of whether or not it is
24 material that we will object to or whether we consent
25 to. There were three videotapes provided at 5pm on
Page 10124
1 Friday by the Defence, for the first time. I have not
2 seen them. As I understand, one of them could go for
3 as long as two hours. One of them I have no idea what
4 is contained in it -- I have not seen them, as I said.
5 Your Honours, you will recall that we were in
6 a similar position; we called two expert witnesses, and
7 Mr. Ackerman addressed the court in relation to what he
8 saw or said were our misdeeds concerning this issue of
9 notice. In that case, what the Defence were
10 complaining about was the fact that a CV had been given
11 late, and a document had been given late, which was not
12 intended to be tendered by the Prosecution and we never
13 said it was intended to be tendered by the Prosecution,
14 but it was merely made available for their assistance.
15 Notwithstanding that, Mr. Ackerman said -- and I might
16 just quote, because I think it is instrumentive to see
17 what they said to us in situations which were far less
18 grievous than what we are now confronting. He said:
19 "I think it is a violation of all the
20 obligations of the Prosecutor under the Rules of this
21 court, and under the interpretation of those Rules by
22 the court in the Blaskic case, to be providing us with
23 us with this material in effect five minutes before the
24 witness is to take the stand. This makes it absolutely
25 impossible, and if not impossible certainly unlikely,
Page 10125
1 that the Defence counsel have had any opportunity to
2 prepare for a comprehensive and efficient
3 cross-examination of this witness. I have no idea, and
4 I will not suggest, that this was done intentionally by
5 the Office of the Prosecutor so as to prevent us having
6 information. I do not know this. But the Prosecutor's
7 Office notified this court I think well over a month
8 ago of their intentions to call this man."
9 Your Honours, we have understood that this
10 expert witness was going to be called by the Defence
11 and they knew that they were going to call their expert
12 witness much longer than a month ago. He goes on:
13 "It is very difficult for me to accept that
14 this material could not have been provided to us until
15 five minutes before he is to take the stand. I think
16 there is a number of remedies available to the court.
17 One of those is to totally refuse to permit
18 him to testify, because of the Prosecutor's violations
19 of their obligations under the Rules, a second is to
20 adjourn the court for a reasonable period of time to
21 permit us to assimilate and explore the new information
22 provided to us this morning. There is a wealth of
23 information about this witness contained on the eight
24 pages that we received."
25 He is referring here to a CV. So, your
Page 10126
1 Honours, in relation to a document that we had no
2 intentions of tendering, and in relation to a
3 curriculum vitae, Mr. Ackerman had that to say. As a
4 consequence of that, your Honours gave the Defence
5 relief in terms of the time that the Defence had to
6 prepare for their cross-examination.
7 We are in a much worse position. We are not
8 dealing with the curriculum vitae, we are not dealing
9 with a document which is merely background material --
10 we are dealing with material which, from the opening
11 address, Madam Residovic has made clear she intends to
12 tender. We are dealing with complicated issues, and we
13 were given them in such an impossibly short period of
14 time that there is no way that we could get ready, in
15 that short time, to prepare an effective and efficient
16 cross-examination.
17 However, we are not seeking to delay these
18 proceedings; we are not seeking to delay the calling of
19 this witness. Our position is this: we submit that,
20 if the Defence were entitled to an extensive period of
21 time -- I can go into them, because your Honours know
22 both Professor Economides, and Professor Gow, a
23 considerable lapse of time passed between when they
24 gave their evidence-in-chief and when they were
25 ultimately finally cross-examined -- we are not asking
Page 10127
1 the witness not be called, we are asking for the same
2 indulgence in terms of the postponement of our
3 cross-examination. We are not seeking anything
4 extensive, we are merely asking that the
5 cross-examination take place at the conclusion of the
6 witnesses that have been arranged to testify this week,
7 and no more and, in relation to the documents that are
8 sought to be tendered, we ask that they do not seek to
9 tender them until such time as the cross-examination is
10 completed.
11 We say that because we are hopeful that if we
12 are given a sufficient period of time to examine these
13 documents, that we can consent to some of them, and we
14 can reduce the amount of time spent, which would
15 otherwise be taken up in individually arguing and
16 objecting to them as they arise. If we are given
17 sufficient time, we believe that we can achieve this,
18 which will be considerably more efficient from the
19 point of view of court and far less tedious in terms of
20 having to deal with them one document at a time.
21 We will do everything in our best endeavours
22 to accommodate the Defence in not objecting to
23 documents if we can conceivably do so, in the interests
24 of the Prosecution case, and in the interests of
25 presenting before the court reliable and credible
Page 10128
1 evidence.
2 But, your Honours, we have been placed in
3 this impossible position -- placed in it by the Defence
4 -- and we are merely asking that we be extended the
5 same considerations as were extended to them in a far
6 less ingredious circumstance.
7 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much for
8 giving us a forewarning of what you are likely to
9 meet.
10 Mr.s Residovic, what is your reply to this
11 service on the Prosecution --
12 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I reject all
13 the objections made by the Prosecutor with respect to
14 any failure to respect the obligations that the Defence
15 has towards the Prosecution. According to the court's
16 ruling, the Defence informed the Prosecution in time
17 that it would call this witness and provide it with his
18 CV. The Defence also informed the Prosecutor that it
19 would be calling a military expert and, since that
20 military expert was also a participant in the events,
21 at their request we renounced calling this particular
22 military expert.
23 A month ago, we informed the Prosecution of
24 the name of a new military expert, and thereby,
25 respecting the ruling of this Trial Chamber, informed
Page 10129
1 the Prosecution in a timely fashion regarding our
2 expert witnesses.
3 As for the right of the Prosecution to
4 prepare for the cross-examination, I cannot speak about
5 that at length, because both parties have the right to
6 prepare for the cross-examination, but I would like to
7 remind you, your Honours, that this case started on 10
8 March last year and the Prosecutor, which has at its
9 disposal numerous institutions and resources, which is
10 not the case with the Defence team, provided us with
11 the expert finding of Professor Calic on 4 March, which
12 means only six days prior to the beginning of the
13 proceedings before this Trial Chamber.
14 For this reason, I feel that the Defence has
15 done nothing that would be in violation of the Rules of
16 the Tribunal and that is why I reject such an
17 objection.
18 However, I do understand that the Prosecutor
19 may need to review all the material and to prepare, but
20 the Prosecutor is offering something that the Defence
21 cannot accept and that is that, while examining this
22 witness, we cannot tender documents for admission. In
23 this way, we are placed in an unequal position
24 regarding -- as compared to their own witness,
25 Dr. Calic, who provided us, only six days before her
Page 10130
1 appearance, extremely voluminous documentation and
2 literature, which served as a basis for her testimony.
3 Therefore, your Honours, if you accept the
4 reasons presented by the Prosecutor that he needs time
5 to prepare for the cross-examination, I propose that we
6 postpone the testimony of our witnesses until the end
7 of the week, that is, until the Prosecutor is ready to
8 undertake the cross-examination.
9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not think we have
10 any intention of doing so. You may proceed with your
11 witness and I think we will find a way of seeing when
12 the cross-examination will take place. Just lead your
13 evidence.
14 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.
15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Would you call your
16 first witness. Would you please have the witness
17 brought in.
18 MS. RESIDOVIC: My apologies, but could the
19 usher please help me to have the witness brought in,
20 thank you.
21 (The witness entered court)
22 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that
23 I will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
24 the truth.
25 ILJAS HADZIBEGOVIC
Page 10131
1 Examined by MR.S RESIDOVIC
2 Q. Sir, would you please state your name for the
3 Trial Chamber -- and state your full name and last
4 name?
5 A. My name is Iljas Hadzibegovic.
6 Q. How old are you?
7 A. I am 59 -- I will be 60 this year.
8 Q. Where were you born?
9 A. I was born in a town called Bugojno, 135
10 kilometres south-west of Sarajevo.
11 Q. Can you tell us a few words about your
12 profession -- can you tell us what you are by
13 profession?
14 A. I am a historian by profession -- I work as a
15 university professor.
16 Q. At what university do you teach?
17 A. I work at the University of Sarajevo -- the
18 School of Philosophy.
19 Q. Where did you study, please?
20 A. I completed my studies at the Sarajevo
21 University, and graduate studies I completed in
22 Belgrade in 1967.
23 Q. What is the highest degree of education that
24 you received?
25 A. I received a Ph.D. in 1977, and in 1986
Page 10132
1 I became a full-time professor at the Sarajevo
2 University.
3 Q. Professor, how many professors with the Ph.D.
4 titles were at your school before the war?
5 A. We had 12 departments before the war in our
6 school and we had about 150 Ph.D.s -- professors.
7 Q. Professor, can you tell me how many
8 professors are there left today?
9 A. Between 50 and 60.
10 Q. Could you please tell us, when did you defend
11 your thesis?
12 A. This was in 1977.
13 Q. What was your doctoral thesis?
14 A. My doctoral thesis was the emergence of the
15 working class in Bosnia and its history until 1914.
16 This was a thesis covering both the social and economic
17 history.
18 Q. Since when have you been with the University
19 of Sarajevo, School of History?
20 A. I first worked as an assistant at the
21 historical institute for five years between 1964 --
22 starting in 1964, and starting on 1 January 1970
23 I moved to the School of Philosophy and that is where
24 I have been since. I became a docent in 1978 and,
25 after three years, I was elected an associate professor
Page 10133
1 and since 1986 I am a full-time professor and that is
2 the capacity now in which I work to date.
3 Q. Professor, in this period, you probably
4 conducted research work. Can you tell us, where did
5 you do your research -- at what universities and at
6 what institutes?
7 A. We have a tradition, to research the archives
8 that are the closest to us, and that was among the
9 Yugoslavs, it is the Sarajevo one which has about
10 20 million documents and then Belgrade -- Zagreb,
11 Dubrovnik and so on. Since Bosnia was for about 40
12 years under the Austro-Hungarian rule, I spent time
13 researching in Vienna, and the archives in Vienna, the
14 National Library for (INAUDIBLE) Archive and other
15 libraries are very important for all of the Balkan
16 history.
17 I also did some research briefly in Budapest
18 in the Hungarian State archive and in the National
19 Library in Budapest. I also did some research in
20 Prague and I also had an opportunity to spend an
21 extended period of time in Munich in the Institute for
22 South Eastern European Studies, as well as in Vienna,
23 where I was, for a while, I was invited to work as an
24 expert -- I had a grant to do study on a population
25 which unfortunately I have not yet completed.
Page 10134
1 Q. Thank you, professor. Is it true that you
2 have published about 100 articles from the area of your
3 expertise?
4 A. Yes, that is correct. It is true that I have
5 published around that number of units and I have not
6 counted in all the articles and studies that have not
7 yet been published.
8 Q. Professor, what is your narrower area of
9 interest?
10 A. It is the -- my narrow expertise is the
11 history of Bosnian people in the late 19th and 20th
12 century as well as the south Slav people of that same
13 period.
14 Q. Is it true that you have published two books?
15 A. Yes. I first published in 1980 the book that
16 bore the title of my doctoral thesis and my second book
17 was published in 1991, "The towns of Bosnia-Herzegovina
18 in the late 19th and early 20th century", which was an
19 attempt to study the dynamics between the tradition and
20 modern development in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
21 Q. Is it true that you are the author and
22 co-author of numerous publications which have been
23 provided as an annex to your expert report?
24 A. I have only given select bibliography in the
25 annex of my expert report and I believe that this is
Page 10135
1 proper information given that -- the nature of the
2 report. I have -- the major topics that I have
3 included were the political movements and social
4 movements in Bosnia-Herzegovina. More recently, I have
5 researched migration and its impact on the ethnic
6 relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is very closely
7 related to the most recent events in both
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the ex-Yugoslavia territory.
9 Q. Professor, could you please tell the Trial
10 Chamber when did you publish your first expert work?
11 A. I published it in 1962 while I was still a
12 student.
13 Q. And when did you publish your last work?
14 A. My last work was published early this year
15 and its title was, "Civic Society in
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina: its Origins and its Historical
17 Context."
18 Q. Professor, is it correct that your research
19 directly relates to the history of the former
20 Yugoslavia as well as the contemporary history of
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
22 A. Yes, that is correct.
23 Q. Professor, would you please tell me where did
24 you spend the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 to
25 1996?
Page 10136
1 A. Between 1992 and mid August 1994, I was in
2 the besieged Sarajevo. After that, I left due to
3 family and health circumstances and I went to Vienna.
4 I worked there for a while, while my family stayed in
5 Munich.
6 Q. Professor, can you confirm to this Trial
7 Chamber that, as an eminent expert and scholar from
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina, you are able to objectively view
9 the events that you have been involved in and that you
10 can provide a balanced judgement on them?
11 A. Yes, I can. I am a historian by profession
12 and the historian that does not respect the truth
13 cannot work as a historian.
14 Q. In compiling this report, can you tell us
15 what sources you used?
16 A. When compiling this report, I first -- I used
17 my own work, then the work of a number of experts in
18 this field, that is, the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina
19 in the 19th and 20th century. I also used the relevant
20 material which is archived at the institute for the
21 research into war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which
22 provided precious material to me. Also, the
23 statistical institute provided me very valuable
24 material and from them I received very valuable
25 statistical information. I have also used material
Page 10137
1 that has been published in Sarajevo in this period, and
2 in the Sarajevo media, as well as media elsewhere.
3 I also used video material that was provided
4 to me through the TV Sarajevo as well as the TV in
5 Konjic and Srebrenica. I also used material that was
6 provided by my colleagues, Docent Marie-Janine Calic
7 and Dr. Gow. I also used documents that were provided
8 to me by the Defence team.
9 Q. Professor, through your -- did you try to
10 verify certain documents that you received from various
11 sources through your own research?
12 A. Verification of documents is a continuing
13 process -- it is an activity that has to go on and
14 until each document's authenticity has been fully
15 confirmed, this is an ongoing process.
16 Q. Professor, finally, can you tell me, do you
17 base your report and your testimony today on the facts
18 that have been adequately verified and confirmed?
19 A. I believe that -- I have based my report on
20 trustworthy facts, because there were many facts --
21 there were many documents which I have not included,
22 because I did not feel that they were adequately
23 verified. However, everything that I have included,
24 I have put into this report, I believe that, at least
25 at this stage of the research process, I think that
Page 10138
1 they have been adequately confirmed.
2 Q. On the basis of this answer, can you tell me,
3 did you encounter any difficulties during your efforts
4 to draft this report?
5 A. Of course. This is something that any
6 historian finds himself fighting against in a situation
7 when you have contemporary events. Many events have
8 not been fully developed or completed, because we had a
9 war some documents are missing. However, over a period
10 of time and despite all the difficulties, I think that
11 we can compile adequate and valuable facts. I believe
12 that of course, in time, certain conclusions will be
13 further confirmed in details.
14 Q. Professor, were you approached by the Defence
15 for Mr. Zejnil Delalic at some point last year and asked
16 to appear here as an expert witness in these
17 proceedings?
18 A. Yes, the Defence did approach me to appear
19 here as an expert witness.
20 Q. Obviously, you accepted to come here since
21 you are here today. Can you now please tell us how
22 long a time did you spend preparing this report?
23 A. I think that I was first approached about a
24 year ago, but I think that I have spent the last six
25 months fully involved in the project, whereas the first
Page 10139
1 six months was probably less intensive.
2 Q. Professor, I would now like to ask you to
3 identify what it was that you worked on the last six
4 months and that we have provided to the Defence and
5 what we are offering to the Trial Chamber today. So,
6 I would like to ask you, professor, is it true that you
7 compiled an expert report?
8 A. Yes, that is correct.
9 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I would like to
10 offer this report for identification and show it to the
11 witness. The Defence has provided enough copies for
12 the Trial Chamber. (Handed).
13 MR. NIEMANN: I assume it is only being
14 marked for identification at this stage, your Honour --
15 yes, your Honour.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Defence document 135/1.
17 MR. NIEMANN: I would like to indicate we
18 will have an objection to the tendering of this
19 document.
20 JUDGE JAN: In evidence?
21 MR. NIEMANN: Yes.
22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, is this the report
23 that you compiled?
24 A. Yes. This is the report that I have
25 compiled.
Page 10140
1 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I tender the
2 expert's report by Dr. Iljas Hadzibegovic into evidence.
3 MR. NIEMANN: I object to the tendering of
4 the report. The basis of my objection is, firstly,
5 that the witness is here to testify and seemingly what
6 is sought to be done by the Defence is to not only
7 proceed with the witness through evidence-in-chief by
8 way of oral testimony, but to cover the same ground in
9 the form of a statement, which, in my submission, your
10 Honours, is an inappropriate way to proceed. The best
11 evidence that your Honour can receive is what the
12 witness says. There are numerous issues and points of
13 objection that are contained in this report, which the
14 Prosecution would have to then deal with individually
15 before it could in any way agree to its admission,
16 whereas these matters are much better and effectively
17 dealt with by the witness being taken through the
18 evidence in the usual fashion, and asked the questions
19 and then, should matters arise at that stage, the
20 Prosecution can take its objection, if necessary.
21 But just to simply, through the back-door,
22 try and put this report in, simply on the basis that it
23 is identified as an expert report, in our submission,
24 is objectionable.
25 Furthermore, the report itself is based on
Page 10141
1 the large volumes of documents that we were given so
2 belatedly last week, to which there are numerous
3 objections that we, at this stage, would wish to make,
4 because we have not had anywhere near a sufficient
5 amount of time to finally decide whether or not we can
6 agree to their admission.
7 As such, our position is at the moment we
8 have to indicate that we find the exhibits
9 objectionable. So, the report itself makes reference
10 and purports to rely upon the very material that we
11 seek to object to. Your Honours, on that ground, it is
12 the equivalent of calling a witness and endeavouring to
13 tender a statement at the same time. We find that
14 process objectionable.
15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I really do not
16 appreciate this objection. Are you doubting whether he
17 prepared it, or the basis under which he did it, or its
18 usefulness?
19 MR. NIEMANN: The basis of the objection is
20 that it contains material that we would wish to take
21 objection to and that the witness is here and that the
22 usual and ordinary course is for this witness or for
23 any witness, whether it be an expert or an ordinary
24 fact witness, to be taken through the evidence. One
25 does not call a witness, tender their statement, and
Page 10142
1 then seek to examine them. That is not the appropriate
2 course to take.
3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I will admit it for
4 identification at this stage.
5 MR. NIEMANN: If your Honours please.
6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You can carry on with
7 the witness.
8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Before I proceed, your
9 Honours --
10 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may proceed.
11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Before I proceed, your Honour
12 -- yes.
13 Mr. Professor, did you prepare this report on
14 the basis of documents contained in this folder?
15 A. Yes.
16 MS. RESIDOVIC: I should like to ask this
17 folder, on the basis of which this report was compiled,
18 to be identified. We have sufficient copies for your
19 Honours. Then we can see whether the witness
20 recognises the documents on the basis of which he
21 compiled his report and prepared for testifying.
22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am not sure it is
23 being disputed that he prepared the report which is
24 admitted for identification. Nobody is disputing that.
25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I appreciate
Page 10143
1 sincerely the experience of this Trial Chamber and of
2 the Prosecutor. I am following the same procedure that
3 the Prosecutor applied when calling Dr. Calic. I have
4 no other experiences with this Tribunal, and I think
5 I am acting correctly and in order with the procedure
6 determined for this Trial Chamber.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Defence document D136/1.
8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, will you please
9 look at the table of contents of this folder that you
10 have on the table? Is it the folder containing
11 materials which you used in preparation for this
12 testimony and for your report? Are you having problems
13 with the interpretation?
14 A. I am hearing the English interpretation.
15 Q. Professor, will you please open this binder
16 and tell me whether these are the documents that you
17 based your expert opinion on?
18 A. Could you please repeat the number?
19 Q. Are these the documents that you worked with
20 when drawing up your report and your opinion?
21 A. Yes.
22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Could these
23 documents be admitted into evidence?
24 MR. NIEMANN: I object to the documents
25 being admitted into evidence, if your Honours please.
Page 10144
1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Why you objecting to
2 it? They are not documents on which he relied for his
3 report.
4 MR. NIEMANN: No, I am not basing my
5 objection on that. I am basing my objection on
6 numerous of the documents that are contained in here
7 (a) because we do not know the source of them so
8 therefore are in no position to make any assessment as
9 to their reliability; (b) some of the documents are in
10 the form of statements or ways of avoiding statements,
11 because they are letters written to Madam Residovic
12 saying, "I am informing you the following things have
13 taken place," or, "the following position is correct."
14 Under no basis could I see that as admissible. There
15 are some documents which presumably, if we understood
16 the relevance of them, then we may not have any
17 objection to them at all. What is sought to be done
18 here, your Honours, is that there is a process going on
19 that the statement and a huge binder of documents, are
20 sort to be just thrown in and we are sitting here try
21 to say whether we are object to some and not the
22 others. We are not given the opportunity -- it is goes
23 in as one blanket document.
24 If they are marked for identification, that
25 is a different matter because we can deal with them in
Page 10145
1 the appropriate way. If they are sought to be
2 tendered, we object to them being tendered in this way.
3 We have indicated we have not had an opportunity to
4 fully assess them and make a final determination. We
5 must object --
6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Is it your argument
7 that you can object to a document that somebody relies
8 upon for his opinion?
9 MR. NIEMANN: I am not seeking to object to
10 it on that basis. If it is sought to be tendered as to
11 the truth of the contents, then I object.
12 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not think they are
13 saying that is the truth of what is being tendered.
14 They are merely saying they are the documents on which
15 he relied for what he did.
16 MR. NIEMANN: If they are not sought to be
17 tendered as to the truth of the contents --
18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Not necessarily, no.
19 JUDGE JAN: This is a report. He has
20 indicated the sources upon which he has based his
21 report. There are so many statements in this
22 document. You can question him with regard to the
23 source upon which he has based that opinion. It is
24 merely his opinion. He was not present there
25 personally. This is a report. You can cross-examine
Page 10146
1 him with reference to the document which is the basis
2 of a particular statement in this report. He has given
3 a list of all these documents.
4 MR. NIEMANN: That is depriving me of the
5 right to object to the documents being tendered into
6 evidence -- the very thing the Defence spent many, many
7 hours doing. The documents seized in Vienna were
8 objected to. I had to go through individually and
9 establish the relevance and admissibility of each one.
10 The Defence come here and hand up a huge binder of
11 documents --
12 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: They are not saying
13 those are documents which he now uses -- they are
14 documents on which he relied. It does not mean those
15 documents are correct. It does not tell you that they
16 have been authenticated by anybody. It is documents he
17 relied on. That is a different thing.
18 MR. NIEMANN: My objection falls away to
19 some extent so long as there is no attempt whatsoever
20 for the Defence to rely on them for the truth of their
21 contents. If the Defence are trying to rely on them
22 for the truth of their contents, then I have to object
23 at this stage, because it is too late after they are
24 admitted into evidence.
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: They could not have
Page 10147
1 relied on them as the truth of what they contain --
2 that is a different matter. He relied on them for what
3 he was saying. It does not necessarily mean that those
4 things are correct. Somebody else might draw a
5 different conclusion from what he has said.
6 MR. NIEMANN: One wonders why it is
7 necessary to tender them. They could be marked for
8 identification for that purpose.
9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: On the same basis as
10 the report which he has produced.
11 MR. NIEMANN: Madam Residovic said she was
12 tendering them. If they are only going to be marked
13 for identification, I am sorry, yes.
14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: They cannot be superior
15 to what he has produced from them.
16 MS. RESIDOVIC: I should now like to ask you,
17 professor, to look at these maps first and then to tell
18 us whether these maps were used by you as a basis for
19 compiling your expert opinion and report. We have a
20 sufficient number of maps for the Trial Chamber and the
21 witness. Could they be marked for identification,
22 please?
23 THE REGISTRAR: Defence document D 137/1.
24 (Handed).
25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, I shall now, after
Page 10148
1 the identification, show you three videotapes and I am
2 asking you to tell me whether these tapes, too, were
3 used by you as a basis for compiling your report and in
4 the preparation for your testimony here.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Defence exhibit number
6 138/1, 139/1, and 140/1.
7 (Handed).
8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Those, Sir, are they the
9 videotapes that you used in compiling your expert
10 report?
11 A. Yes, these are the tapes that I used when
12 preparing my report.
13 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Could they be
14 marked for identification and admitted as the basis on
15 which the expert witness compiled his expert report and
16 which serves as a basis for his testimony before this
17 Trial Chamber?
18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: They have been admitted
19 for identification.
20 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, I shall try to
21 clarify through your testimony the historical,
22 political and other events that occurred in the
23 territory of the former Yugoslavia after 1980 and in
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the town of Konjic after 1990.
25 However, in view of your expert finding and in view of
Page 10149
1 the fact that we all understand that current events do
2 not occur in an historical vacuum, I will also put to
3 you some questions from the more distant past. I am
4 familiar with the historical principle that the present
5 is the daughter of the past and the mother of the
6 future, and that, without an understanding of some more
7 distant events which decisively affected the fate of
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as events in the recent
9 past, it is not possible to understand it.
10 MR. NIEMANN: I object. We either ask
11 questions or we do not. This is nothing more than just
12 a speech and I object to it.
13 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Kindly put your
14 question to him.
15 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you.
16 Professor, will you please tell us briefly
17 when Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed as a State and
18 what happened in that first initial period in the
19 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
20 A. Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned for the
21 first time in the middle of the 10th century in the
22 work of the Byzantine King in 904, Constantine. It is
23 mentioned on a small area of a small area of the banks
24 of a river of the same name as an area which changed
25 hands from the weaker to the more powerful neighbours.
Page 10150
1 Q. Professor, to be able to be as brief as
2 possible, would you put on the ELMO map number M1, and
3 indicate very briefly the main points of that
4 historical period that are related to the current
5 events or the latest events.
6 A. We have before us a map of the medieval
7 Bosnian State. This is a map of the medieval
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina, or rather, the changes that
9 occurred from the 10th century, because the area marked
10 in red is the area called Horjon Bosnijonen mentioned
11 by King Constantine in the 10th century. This large
12 area in pink is Bosnia in the 12th century, and the
13 line in dark red is indicative of Bosnia at the peak of
14 its power when it became a kingdom and this was in
15 1377, and this line in dark green indicates the borders
16 of present day Bosnia-Herzegovina (indicates).
17 Q. Professor, can you tell us where
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina is situated -- did its position
19 affect its present-day history?
20 A. Bosnia-Herzegovina is a land whose geographic
21 and historical position was determined by history,
22 because it was situated at the cross-roads of a number
23 of civilisations -- originally, it was at the division
24 between the eastern and western empire, that is, the
25 division between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Then,
Page 10151
1 again, it found itself on the border between the
2 Ottoman empire and the Habsburg empire, one bringing
3 Islam and the other Catholicism.
4 In modern history, again, a third line of
5 division crossed Bosnia and the Yugoslav lands, and
6 that was that it was between the eastern and western
7 block and that it was always between two worlds -- the
8 eastern part of it being inclined towards Orthodoxy and
9 Islam and the western towards Catholicism.
10 In more modern history and the political
11 divisions that occurred, the eastern and western block
12 met in Yugoslavia and therefore in Bosnia-Herzegovina
13 this coincides with the present situation, because
14 again the eastern and western part of Yugoslavia was
15 divided, in this sense in terms of religion,
16 civilisation and culture.
17 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor --
18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Let us rise. We will
19 come back at 4 o'clock.
20 (3.30pm)
21 (A short adjournment)
22 (4.00pm)
23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Can we have the witness
24 brought back in, please?
25 (The witness entered court)
Page 10152
1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Mr.s Residovic, you may
2 continue.
3 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you.
4 Professor, I would like to apologise to both
5 you and the Trial Chamber that I forgot to forewarn
6 you. We both speak the same language. However, all
7 that we are saying needs to be heard by the Trial
8 Chamber, so we need to allow the interpreters to convey
9 it to them. So, I would like to ask you now -- you see
10 a set of headsets on your desk -- will you please
11 listen in just for the sound of it and, when that is
12 done, then please proceed with your answer?
13 A. Yes, I understand that.
14 Q. Professor, could you tell us briefly what are
15 the main characteristics of the relations between the
16 different religious groups during the Ottoman period,
17 which continued to date?
18 A. Bosnia and Herzegovina during the middle ages
19 was a multi-religious and multi-ethnic province. This
20 multi-ethnic feature continued after the fall of the
21 medieval Bosnian State in 1453. After the Turkish
22 take-over, the history of Islam ensues in addition to
23 the Orthodox and Catholic religions and this produces
24 the population of today, known as Bosniaks.
25 At the end of the 15th century, a fourth
Page 10153
1 religion is added -- the Jews from Spain resettled in
2 Sarajevo and that is where they stay to date.
3 This mosaic continues in Bosnia for 415 years
4 and, later on, it would expand during the
5 Austro-Hungarian period.
6 Q. When the Ottoman empire withdrew from the
7 Balkans, did this have significant consequences to the
8 local population?
9 A. The withdrawal of the Ottoman empire lasted
10 for almost two centuries, and it also implied
11 withdrawal of the Muslim population, predominantly the
12 Turkish population and out of Europe through the
13 Bosphorous and into Anatolia. My apologies, this
14 withdrawal was caused by one -- to transfer the
15 population from the lost territories and in the other
16 case, it was the annihilation of all the heritage --
17 this is the case in Greece, in Vlaska, Moldavia and
18 later on in Serbia and still later in Bulgaria.
19 Q. Can you tell us, what was the status of
20 Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Austro-Hungarian
21 monarchy? I would like to especially draw our
22 attention to the creation of the constitution for
23 Bosnia and Herzegovina?
24 A. Bosnia came under the Austrian rule in 1878
25 and its status was -- in fact, it was Austria that
Page 10154
1 received the mandate from the European powers through
2 the Berlin Congress, and the relationship between
3 Austria and Hungary was set out in a separate contract
4 and Bosnia was annexed to the Austro-Hungarian empire
5 in 1908 and it received a separate constitution and its
6 first provision was that it was a corpus separatum, it
7 did not belong to Austria or Hungary so it was a corpus
8 separatum, and the Bosnian becomes part of political
9 life of that empire. It has no legislative powers but
10 it could cooperate with the legislative bodies in
11 Vienna.
12 Q. Thank you. Can you tell me, did
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Austro-Hungarian rule as
14 a corpus separatum, did it cover predominantly the
15 current borders?
16 A. During the Berlin Congress,
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina had 51,027 square kilometres and
18 these are the borders that Bosnia had when it entered
19 Yugoslavia in 1918.
20 Q. The State constitution which you just
21 mentioned, is a copy of this constitution included in
22 this report as annex A1? (Handed). Could we just take
23 a look at a copy of this State constitution and I think
24 that you have already explained what it was.
25 A. Here we also have a translation -- an English
Page 10155
1 translation --
2 Q. Yes, this is part of the file that you have
3 provided.
4 Professor, how was Bosnia included into the
5 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes after the
6 breakdown of Austria-Hungary after World War I and what
7 was its status?
8 A. The first Yugoslavia State, or the Kingdom of
9 Serb, Croats and Slovenes, was formed on 1918, on
10 1 December. Bosnia-Herzegovina became part of that
11 State together with the lands that were under
12 Austria-Hungary, including Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia
13 and Herzegovina. They formed a single entity and they
14 united with the Kingdom of Serbia, which also included
15 Montenegro and Vojvodina and on 1 December they all
16 united and, within its territorial borders, which were
17 guaranteed by the first constitution of 1920, provision
18 135, guaranteeing its borders under the
19 Austro-Hungarian rule, and it was not established --
20 constituted as a separate unit.
21 Q. Professor, the article 135 of the
22 constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
23 Slovenes that you just quoted, is this the document
24 which was marked as annex A2 in your folder -- your
25 supporting folder?
Page 10156
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Thank you. Professor, can you tell me, what
3 was the territorial and administrative division in
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina during the period of Kingdom of
5 Yugoslavia; that is, what were the reasons for such
6 divisions, if they took place?
7 A. The most significant division in Yugoslavia
8 was introduced by the dictatorship of 6 January 1929,
9 when the dynasty, that is, the court and the Serbian
10 oligarchy attempted to create a unitarian State to
11 obliterate the historical borders and, at that time,
12 the State was divided into nine Banovinas, and the
13 historical names were not respected, but the Banovinas
14 drew their names from the names of rivers -- all
15 provinces bore the names of different rivers, and
16 Bosnia was split into four different Banovinas whereby
17 its century-long tradition -- both the tradition as a
18 State and as of its autonomy was thereby annihilated.
19 MS. RESIDOVIC: I would like to ask the
20 technical booth to display the map, page 1/3. I would
21 like you then to elucidate the points you have just
22 made to us when this map is displayed. Could you
23 please just wait until the map is displayed on the
24 ELMO.
25 What does this map represent?
Page 10157
1 A. This is the map of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
2 of 1929 in which you can see nine Banovinas and the
3 district of Belgrade. I would please like to ask to
4 have the current borders of the State of
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina to overlap this over the map that is
6 displayed on the ELMO.
7 Q. Can we please have the technical booth do
8 that for us?
9 A. In red line are indicated the borders of the
10 present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is the territory
11 which we saw in the previous map of 1918, and the
12 current one. We can see that Bosnia was divided
13 between Drinska, Vrbaska, Primorska and Zetska
14 Banovinas, so we can see that part had been annexed to
15 Serbia and so on.
16 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, why is the
17 agreement Cvetkovic-Macek often mentioned during the
18 analysis of this period? Could you please explain to
19 us the map marked as 1/4, and I would like the
20 technical booth please to display this map?
21 A. We have according to the Banovinas and the
22 larger map is the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement-based map
23 of Bosnia, which was signed 26 August 1939 and that
24 means four days before the beginning of World War II.
25 What this map reflects is the fact that the unitarian
Page 10158
1 concept of Yugoslavia did not work and that Serbs and
2 Croats proceeded to adopt an agreement. They wanted to
3 create a Yugoslavia with three units -- one would be
4 Slovenia, one Croatian Banovina and one the Serbian
5 lands.
6 Q. Based on map H 1/4/1, would you comment on
7 the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina according to this
8 division?
9 A. You can see that Bosnia-Herzegovina was
10 partly in the Posavina region, the three counties have
11 been annexed to the Croatian Banovina and in the
12 south-western part of Bosnia, several additional
13 counties were annexed to the Croatian Banovina. The
14 remaining territory was supposed to be part of the
15 Serbian lands. This was a compromise between the
16 Serbian and Croatian national movement leaders.
17 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, in your report, and
18 this is a frequent case in the scholarly analysis, you
19 mentioned the project of Greater Serbia. Can you
20 please explain what this concept means and what is
21 particularly -- in particular, what it means for
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
23 In order to facilitate that, could the
24 technical booth please display the map H1/5?
25 Also, could the technical booth display
Page 10159
1 H1/5/1 right away so that we can see how
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina looks there.
3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Mr.s Residovic, I am not
4 sure what you intend to show by this. What do you want
5 to flesh out? It is an interesting historical
6 discussion -- I do not deny that. What, in terms of
7 your case, do you think this is intended to do?
8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, in the
9 beginning, I said that we called an expert witness, a
10 historian, to give us a very brief summary of a
11 thousand years of history, which were some of the root
12 causes for the conflict which took place in the early
13 90s, with a breakdown of Yugoslavia, and since my
14 client has been associated with the activities of the
15 Bosnian forces during the events, and I believe that we
16 have covered 900 years very fast -- I think that we are
17 arriving at 1990s any moment -- I think that it would
18 be helpful if we provided a full context and covered
19 the historical facts.
20 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am not saying
21 anything about your style or what you intend to do. My
22 apprehension is what all this meant. You understand
23 what your case is and what you expect it to do? I do
24 not see the relevance. That is speaking for myself.
25 I am not talking about my colleagues. They might have
Page 10160
1 their own attitude towards proving what you are
2 asserting. A lot of the historical incidents are not
3 in dispute -- nobody is denying that. If there is any
4 dispute at all, it might relate to the current areas --
5 not the history before this time.
6 It is your case. I have always preferred a
7 tidier and more expeditious way of getting at where we
8 are going.
9 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, that is my
10 endeavour, too. I think that the witness's testimony
11 will focus on Konjic, but you will recall about the TO
12 and HVO, the Republika Srpska. In order to understand
13 all these categories in case, it is not so easy --
14 maybe even for us who have lived through this period.
15 I think that it will assist you when you make final
16 determinations if you are able to get the full context
17 of all the events that took place there. I am really
18 trying to be brief. I will do my utmost to get there
19 fast.
20 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am trying to avoid
21 being not confused by too much detail -- this is my
22 problem.
23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you.
24 Professor, you said that this was a project
25 known as Greater Serbia. Does it include parts of the
Page 10161
1 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
2 A. Yes, all of it, except the part that was
3 attached to Croatia in the south-west and in the north,
4 in the Sava River valley. The rest of Bosnia was
5 attached to Serbia, or rather to the Serb lands, as
6 they were known.
7 MS. RESIDOVIC: The concept of a Greater
8 Croatia is also customary in your historical and
9 scholarly reviews. Could you tell us, please, on the
10 map, H1/6 -- could you show us what that idea means for
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
12 Could the technicians show us H1/6?
13 A. This map shows in yellow the area of the
14 independent State of Croatia established on 10 April
15 1941 as a puppet State created by fascist Germany and
16 Fascist Italy.
17 Q. Would you please show over this map the
18 borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina -- H1/6/1, and will you
19 please tell us how the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina was
20 affected by this project?
21 A. Here we see that the whole territory of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina was included in the independent
23 State of Croatia. This marked the fulfilment of the
24 concept of a Greater Croatia and, when a debate is
25 going on between Yugoslav and world historians as to
Page 10162
1 the borders between Serbia and Croatia, the Serbian
2 extremists wished to attach Bosnia to Serbia, then the
3 border is on the Una River. When on the other hand a
4 Greater Croatia thesis is advocated, then the boarder
5 is on the Drina River, so that these two interests
6 collided throughout history at the expense of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina and this can be seen also on this
8 map, because, in its entirety, it was included in that
9 State.
10 May I add in this connection that all these
11 changes were accompanied by extreme suffering of the
12 population, both Serbs, Croats and Muslim populations,
13 and, during the Second World War, ethnic cleansing was
14 already introduced in programmes and in practice.
15 Hence, we feel it is necessary to draw attention to the
16 roots of the evil, which was repeated in the 20th
17 century and Bosnia-Herzegovina was rebuilt three times
18 from the ashes, with vast human and material
19 destruction and that is why we think it is not -- it
20 would be a good idea to try and find some solution so
21 that such things should not be repeated.
22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, this radical
23 Ustasha concept has, on the other extreme, the Chetnik
24 concept of a Greater Serbia, so would you please
25 explain to us that concept on map H1/7?
Page 10163
1 Can I ask the technicians to show us number 7
2 and, again, H1/7/1, could you overlay
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina on top of this map so that we see
4 how it is affected by this project?
5 A. This is a map of Yugoslavia -- the area in
6 white shows that the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina is
7 included in Greater Serbia -- actually, in Serbia --
8 which was designed in such a way that it came to life
9 in this war. The idea was that it would stretch to
10 Karlobag in the north and include all these territories
11 not only in Bosnia-Herzegovina but also in Croatia
12 where the Serb population was residing so that is the
13 root of the idea of all Serbs in one State, and this
14 corresponds to present-day history.
15 Q. Could you tell us, please, briefly what the
16 programme of the Chetnik movement was, because their
17 Honours were listening to some witnesses and wanted
18 this concept to be clarified for their benefit. You
19 have discussed this in your documents and in annex
20 number 6, in particular.
21 Annex A6?
22 A. Here you have the most important abstract
23 from the Chetnik programme translated into English.
24 The author of this programme was Draza Mihajlovic, who
25 was a colonel of the Yugoslavia army, and commander of
Page 10164
1 the Chetnik army in the country. He was, for a time,
2 also Minister of the King in exile -- a Minister in the
3 Government in exile.
4 Q. Professor, does that programme imply the
5 disappearance of the Muslim population from the
6 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
7 A. There is reference here to the creation of
8 Serb territories and these are listed. It is stated
9 that they have to be ethnically pure and it is also
10 envisaged that the non-Serb population should be
11 removed. There are all kinds of possibilities
12 envisaged, from killings to persecution and banishment
13 and expulsions, so that this programme actually served
14 as a basis in this war, too.
15 Q. Professor, could you tell me, in view of the
16 fact that these two projects, the Chetnik and the
17 Ustasha, came to expression in the Second World War,
18 what was the attitude of the Muslim population and
19 their intellectuals towards the crimes committed
20 against the Serbs, the Jews and other peoples?
21 A. I wanted to show, through the resolutions
22 passed by the Muslim people in the most important towns
23 in 1941, whereby it denounced the crimes committed
24 against the Serb people, and it also disassociates
25 itself from the Muslims in the Ustasha movement who
Page 10165
1 participated in the commission of those crimes.
2 Therefore, this is something that was set in motion by
3 Muslim priests in Sarajevo and then such resolutions
4 were passed in Sarajevo, Mostar, Zenica, Bijeljina and
5 other towns. This was one of the rare anti-fascist
6 moves taken against fascism in those days in Europe.
7 Q. What is the importance for the State of
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina of the anti-fascist struggle of the
9 peoples of Yugoslavia and of Bosnia-Herzegovina during
10 the Second World War?
11 A. In the course of the Second World War, three
12 ideas came together -- one was the greater Croatian
13 idea; the second the greater Serbian; and the third
14 idea was the anti-fascist national liberation idea
15 which sought to unite the peoples of Yugoslavia and of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina. It emerged victorious in
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Second World War.
18 Q. Professor, could we now see map H8/1 for you
19 to explain to us what that meant as a result of the
20 anti-fascist struggle of the people of
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
22 A. This is a map of Yugoslavia created in the
23 course of the Second World War and, finally, regulated
24 as a State -- a Federal State with six equal republics
25 -- not only were they equal -- not only were the
Page 10166
1 republics equal but so were the Yugoslavia peoples.
2 All the republics had certain ethnic characteristics,
3 whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a multi-ethnic
4 State, also acquired a -- it was also an independent
5 republic on a completely equal footing with the other
6 Yugoslavia republics.
7 This is a map that remained in force until
8 1992.
9 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, with this we
10 come to the end of the brief review of the history of
11 the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the peoples living
12 in it and we would now like to ask the professor to
13 move on to latter-day history, which we have asked you
14 to testify about before this Trial Chamber.
15 Will you please, professor, explain to us the
16 main characteristics of the crisis in the former
17 Yugoslavia after 1980, that is, after the death of the
18 President of SFRY, that is Josip Broz Tito. So as not
19 to go into excessive details, will you please tell me
20 first whether the crisis was first initially an
21 economic or political crisis?
22 A. The death of Josip Broz Tito, the President
23 of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia at the
24 time speeded up the crisis and the destruction of the
25 Yugoslavia society. It started as an economic crisis,
Page 10167
1 which was particularly expressed in the form of very
2 high external debts of Yugoslavia, which amounted to
3 $US22 billion, and even though attempts were made
4 through a crisis commission, and long-term programmes
5 of economic stabilisation, the crisis was too deep and
6 it could not be overcome, so that it soon developed
7 into a social and political crisis.
8 The ideology of Communism was called in
9 question and solutions had to be sought in the form of
10 new ideas.
11 Q. Professor, were there differences in terms of
12 ways of dealing with the crisis among the individual
13 Yugoslavia republics?
14 A. Of course there were differences and they
15 were not only due to that crisis, but to previous
16 history due to which there were different outlooks
17 regarding social development. In the first place,
18 Slovenia and Croatia wanted to develop a democratic
19 society with a market economy, with more democracy, and
20 with the ultimate goal of forming national States,
21 whereas Serbia and Montenegro wanted to create a State
22 which would be a centralised State and which would be
23 controlled from Belgrade.
24 Q. Professor, under those circumstances, what
25 did the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences
Page 10168
1 issued in 1986 mean?
2 A. The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of
3 Sciences was actually an analysis made by prominent
4 intellectuals, members of the Serbian Academy headed by
5 Antonije Isakovic. That document said that Serbia was
6 a loser since the 1974 constitution, because, as
7 opposed to the period before that, in 1974, it became
8 only one of six equal republics. As a way out of the
9 crisis, the intellectuals proposed three stages -- in
10 the first stage, Serbia proper should strengthen its
11 authority; then the second stage would consist of a
12 centralisation in Serbia; and the third stage would be
13 the creation of a Greater Serbia.
14 In the first stage, Slobodan Milosevic and
15 people who thought like him first tried and succeeded
16 -- I beg your pardon -- something first had to be done
17 to achieve greater homogeneity and to do that Milosevic
18 went through various institutions -- first of all he
19 cleansed the media from disobedient editors. Then he
20 carried out changes in the Party leaderships, that is,
21 removing the moderates and then, when he gained control
22 of the media and strengthened his position in the
23 Party, he then sought and dealt with the problem of
24 disobedience.
25 Then came the second stage -- the stage of
Page 10169
1 centralisation of Serbia. This meant abolishing the
2 autonomies of the two autonomous provinces, i.e.
3 Vojvodina and Kosovo. It also involved changing the
4 leadership in Montenegro so as to form a territory for
5 Serbia, which would serve as a basis for further
6 expansion and for control over Serbian lands outside
7 the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro.
8 Through the media, of which he already had
9 control, and which were run by his followers, public
10 rallies were organised, massive rallies in cities, and
11 the moderate leaderships were removed and in their
12 place Slobodan Milosevic's followers were appointed.
13 Q. To speed up things, did the forces in Serbia
14 succeed in their centralisation efforts and in
15 abolishing the autonomies of Kosovo and Vojvodina?
16 A. There was a parallel process going on. The
17 strongest resistance was put up by the Albanians who
18 did not wish to give up their autonomy. They had
19 90 per cent of the population in Kosovo which was
20 Albanian. They had their formed national institutions
21 and they did not wish to give up that autonomy.
22 There were fierce clashes between the army
23 and the police, which sought to stifle the
24 demonstrations in Kosovo. As a result of all these
25 clashes was the failure of the Albanians to retain
Page 10170
1 their autonomy, the constitution was amended and, on
2 28 March 1989, Serbia acquired a new constitution, a
3 centralised Serbia. Slobodan Milosevic was elected
4 President of Serbia and, in Novi Sad, Podgorica and
5 Pristina, the leaderships were loyal to Slobodan
6 Milosevic. That was the upshot of the memorandum, as
7 well as of the other political tendencies that were in
8 evidence in the country at the time.
9 Q. Professor, after 1990, and the democratic
10 elections in Slovenia and Croatia, new democratic
11 forces appeared on the political stage. How did
12 Belgrade react to those changes and what is the
13 substance of the proclaimed slogan in Belgrade, "All
14 Serbs in one country"?
15 A. After these changes, it became clear, and
16 especially after the failed 14th Congress of the League
17 of Communists of Yugoslavia, which was interrupted and
18 then resumed -- at that Congress, the League of
19 Communists made a statement that it no longer wanted to
20 have a monopoly over political power in the country.
21 This was followed by a process, during which the League
22 of Communists disappeared from the historical scene, as
23 did the single-Party system.
24 This meant that processes were set in motion,
25 the aim of which was to establish a balance between
Page 10171
1 various political concepts. The concepts advocated by
2 Slovenia and Croatia, which wanted to develop
3 democratic societies and to form their own national
4 States, and another concept advocated by Serbia and
5 Montenegro and that was to preserve Yugoslavia, which
6 would have a centralised federation, the centre being
7 in Belgrade.
8 Q. Professor, the question that I put to you
9 regarding the slogan, "All Serbs in one State", was it
10 a call for changing the boundaries of the existing
11 Yugoslavia republics?
12 A. Yes. Milosevic said at the time that he
13 would not recognise republican boundaries if Yugoslavia
14 fell apart. This meant that he would create a State
15 following ethnic lines rather than historical
16 boundaries. Therein lay the basis of the idea of all
17 Serbs in one State. This, after all, was drawn into
18 the plan called "framework", which covered the whole of
19 Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Croatia in
20 which the majority of the population were Serbs.
21 This was a situation in which, when all this
22 existed and had been plotted, efforts were made to
23 achieve greater homogeneity of Serbs in other
24 territories, and the Serbian national movement in
25 Croatia became more radical, with the assistance and
Page 10172
1 protection of the Yugoslavia People's Army, which
2 increasingly acquired the characteristics of a Serbian
3 army.
4 In 1990, 60 per cent of the armed forces were
5 Serbs -- even though Serbia constituted a far smaller
6 proportion of the population.
7 Q. Professor, so as to avoid going into the war
8 in Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia, I should like
9 to ask you to tell us, after the withdrawal of the JNA
10 from the territory of the Republic of Slovenia and
11 Croatia, where was the majority of the forces of the
12 former JNA deployed?
13 A. The majority of those forces were withdrawn
14 to Bosnia-Herzegovina. All the forces that had
15 withdrawn from Slovenia and from Croatia were deployed
16 in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- even three additional corps
17 were brought in from Montenegro, Serbia and Vojvodina,
18 the Novi Sad, Uzice and Podgorica Corps, so that Bosnia
19 was overpopulated by the army, and this actually
20 constituted what some people called "a quiet
21 occupation", but in fact it was covering the entire
22 territory and establishing full control over all
23 resources, all communication lines, within
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, in your brief
Page 10173
1 review of the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina, you
2 ascertained that, throughout this long period in
3 history, it was a multi-ethnic State. Could I please
4 ask you to look at map H1/9 and 9/1, and to show us
5 what the actual ethnic situation was in
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina before the war broke out in 1992, so
7 could the technicians please show us these maps?
8 A. This is an ethnic map of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
9 based on the 1991 population census. We see the ethnic
10 composition of the population in Bosnia-Herzegovina --
11 the blue indicating Muslims/Bosniaks; the brown are
12 Croats; the yellow are Serbs; and the pale blue, the
13 others. So, this map shows that, in
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, there was not a single municipality
15 -- and there were 109 of them-- that were ethnically
16 100 per cent pure.
17 Q. Professor, you have just told us that each of
18 these circles represents one municipality, reflecting
19 the colours of the three dominant peoples. Were they
20 the only peoples living in 1992 just before the
21 outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
22 A. No, they were not the only peoples, because,
23 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to the 1991 census,
24 there were about 70 different statements regarding
25 ethnic origin, but, in realistic terms, in addition to
Page 10174
1 Serbs, Croats and Muslims, there were another 20 ethnic
2 groups residing in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Therefore, this
3 was really a multi-ethnic community -- multi-ethnicity
4 was a permanent characteristic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
5 from the middle ages to the present day.
6 Q. What was the result of the elections that
7 were held in 1990 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and which
8 political Parties won most seats in the Bosnian
9 assembly?
10 A. At the elections held in November 1990, the
11 national Parties were victorious -- the Party of
12 Democratic Action, the Muslim Bosniak Party won the
13 most votes. In a Parliament with 240 deputy seats, it
14 won 86, or 35.83 per cent. The Serbian Social
15 Democratic Party won 72 seats, or 30 per cent of the
16 total number of seats in Parliament. The Croatian
17 Democratic Alliance won 44 seats, or 17.33 per cent,
18 I think. So that the national Parties won an absolute
19 majority of seats, that is, 202 out of a total of 240.
20 All the remaining Parties won a total of 38 seats, or
21 -- I cannot remember what that was percentage wise.
22 Q. Professor, since the period that you are
23 talking about right now is the period of the
24 dissolution of Yugoslavia, could you tell us whether
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina, as one of the Federal units within
Page 10175
1 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its
2 political leadership, had a significant influence on
3 the dissolution of Yugoslavia and can you tell us what
4 was the thrust of the resolution proposed by President
5 Izetbegovic and Gligorov and which you used in your
6 report?
7 A. I have already stated the differences which
8 existed between different republics within Yugoslavia,
9 that the concepts of Slovenia and Croatia were
10 different than the positions of Serbia and Montenegro.
11 The two weakest republics, that is Bosnia-Herzegovina
12 and Macedonia, were attempting at that time to do
13 something in order to avoid the war. The Presidents of
14 republics and autonomous provinces met six times in
15 order to try to resolve this constitutional crisis.
16 The last attempt was made by the Presidents Gligorov
17 and Izetbegovic -- they attempted to find a compromise
18 between the two concepts. They proposed to preserve an
19 alliance of States or republics -- that is, a
20 Yugoslavia identity be preserved. Slovenia and Croatia
21 adopted decisions to proclaim their independence and to
22 create national States.
23 Q. Did this position yield any results?
24 A. This platform did not yield any results, and
25 peace could not be preserved.
Page 10176
1 Q. Professor, the things that you just stated,
2 is this platform part of your supporting material as
3 annex D1?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Professor, let me take you back to certain
6 issues regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina of this period.
7 Can you tell me what was the position with respect to
8 the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina of the three
9 main political Parties? That is, the Serbian SDS, the
10 Bosniak SDA and the Croat HDZ Parties?
11 A. The national parties cooperated in questions
12 of winning the elections and removing the communists
13 from power. Following that, their positions followed
14 their own courses. They did not have the same
15 positions with respect to the survival of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17 Q. The Social Democratic Party -- you mean the
18 SDA?
19 A. No, I am sorry, I mean the Party of
20 Democratic Action, and the Croatian Democratic Union,
21 from the very beginning, cooperated very closely, and
22 they wanted a sovereign and independent
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina, while the SDS advocated for
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina to remain within Yugoslavia.
25 Q. Professor, what are the key elements or
Page 10177
1 factors in the establishment of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a
2 sovereign independent State towards the end of 1991 and
3 in early 1992?
4 A. There are several factors which contributed
5 to the establishment of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an
6 independent State. First of all, it is a long
7 historical period -- a long period of history -- of its
8 identity as a State and its long survival within the
9 borders of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.
10 Another factor which is also very significant
11 is the referendum through which the majority of the
12 population elected for Bosnia-Herzegovina to become
13 independent, and the third would be its struggle to
14 preserve the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This
15 would be some of the main elements that contributed to
16 the establishment of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an
17 independent State. One of the key factors is obviously
18 the international recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina by
19 the European Union and other nations and its acceptance
20 by the United Nations.
21 Q. What was the role of the former JNA in the
22 dissolution of Yugoslavia and the war that ensued and
23 I would like you to be very brief there and illuminate
24 it for me, the historical rather than the military
25 perspective?
Page 10178
1 A. The JNA, first of all -- in fact, it was
2 permeated by nationalism -- not just Yugoslavia
3 People's Army but also the Yugoslavia political
4 leadership, so the JNA started arming and protecting
5 only one segment of the population by becoming a single
6 ethnic group-based army -- it lost its Yugoslavia
7 character. It protected one ethnic group only, and
8 therefore stopped being the factor which used to be the
9 guarantee of the constitutional arrangements in
10 Yugoslavia.
11 It protected the Serbs in Croatia and Serbs
12 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It armed them and it prepared
13 them for a creation of a Greater Serbia -- to put it in
14 a nutshell.
15 Q. Professor, you said that SDS was one of the
16 victors of the election in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990
17 and was against the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina
18 as a republic, that it opposed the status of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina that would put it on equal footing
20 with the rest of the republics. Can you tell us what
21 did the SDS leadership do in the months following the
22 elections and especially on the eve of the war of 1992?
23 A. The Serbian Democratic Party, after the
24 elections, and seeking support from Belgrade,
25 endeavoured to create a State within a State in
Page 10179
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. It developed a relationship with
2 the JNA, and was one of the political actors in the
3 preparation for the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4 They started establishing in
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina wherever there was a Serbian
6 population or wherever there was a Serbian majority --
7 they started establishing the independent autonomous
8 regions. Five such autonomous regions were formed in
9 1991. After that an assembly of the Serbian people was
10 established in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which adopted
11 several decisions on further build-up of political
12 structures of Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
13 After these Serbian autonomous regions --
14 Serbian municipalities are being established. These
15 municipalities were supposed to be established in two
16 kinds of ways. According to one, it would be where the
17 Serbs formed a majority within the territory or
18 municipality and, also, where there was Serbian
19 minority within a municipality, they also formed their
20 own Serbian municipality. All these together were to
21 form a unified Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
22 Also, SDS announced a programme how the
23 Serbian people should act in a crisis situation, and
24 this was adopted both in the municipalities with the
25 Serb majority and minority. The plan was to, first of
Page 10180
1 all, establish all structures of power, to organise
2 self-defence, and that all these municipalities join
3 according to a plan, which I have provided as a
4 document, and there are further documents that give
5 specific details of how this territorial expansion was
6 going to take place. All this was done in secrecy,
7 that is, wherever the Serbian population was in a
8 minority, this process went on secretly, and, in
9 secret, local boards were established. There were
10 municipal boards and then they created further
11 institutions -- committees and advisory boards -- and
12 it went down to the local commune levels and everybody
13 had their own tasks to organise people -- first, to
14 organise watches, to control communication lines, to
15 control the traffic of goods and such.
16 JUDGE JAN: You are saying the same thing
17 what Dr. Calic told us. Do you not think the statement
18 is sufficient for that part of your case,
19 Mr.s Residovic?
20 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honour, it is possible
21 that one part of the expert report coincides with the
22 findings of Dr. Calic's report. However, there are
23 parts which are different and this is why we felt the
24 need to provide our own expert's opinion on the same
25 topics.
Page 10181
1 Professor, you said that in the period of
2 1991, the SDS implemented the plan of ethnic
3 homogenisation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in secret. Can
4 you tell me, did the representatives of SDS go public
5 with respect to these intentions at some point?
6 A. Yes. There was, by now, a notorious
7 appearance of the President of the Serbian Democratic
8 Party, Radovan Karadzic, in the Parliament of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
10 MS. RESIDOVIC: Before you comment on this,
11 could we please ask the technical booth to play us tape
12 marked 1, which is a part of the video material on
13 which you based your expert report. Could we please
14 have the technical booth run tape clip number 1?
15 (Videotape played)
16 (Videotape stopped)
17 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you.
18 Professor, could you tell us what was the
19 goal of this message of Radovan Karadzic -- how do you
20 see it as an expert?
21 A. First of all, I think that it was to serve as
22 attempt to dissuade the Parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina
23 from proclaiming independence and I think, secondly, it
24 was a warning to the Serbian population as to what they
25 were supposed to do.
Page 10182
1 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, we have seen a
2 short excerpt from the video material provided by
3 Mr. Hadzibegovic's testimony. I would like now to
4 tender this particular excerpt into evidence.
5 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: What is the evidence
6 you want to tender -- the videotape?
7 MS. RESIDOVIC: The speech of Radovan
8 Karadzic in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina on
9 14 October and I want to tender it as the basis and as
10 a foundation for the expert opinion and I think that
11 the relevance of this material is incontrovertible in
12 light of the subsequent developments in
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You might as well
15 attempt to, but I do not know how you got the tape --
16 how did you get the tape?
17 MS. RESIDOVIC: The professor laid the ground
18 and provided information on this piece of material.
19 I think the professor quoted all the sources which it
20 came from. A professor is a witness of those days. He
21 is also a historian and this also served as a basis for
22 his research and I believe that it is relevant to the
23 events that are the matter of these proceedings anyway.
24 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: It is relevant to what
25 he has been talking about -- I do not dispute that.
Page 10183
1 Did he make the tape? How did he get it? Is it his
2 own tape himself, or did he produce it? How was it
3 produced?
4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I have tried to
5 explain -- I think this is an original tape from the TV
6 Sarajevo and I think it was provided to us by the
7 Institute for Research of War Crimes, and this is how
8 it was provided to us.
9 The professor was also a witness to this
10 particular period -- the professor is a witness of the
11 speech, as we were all at that time. The TV outlets
12 around the world showed this.
13 Your Honours, this excerpt has been
14 introduced in the Tadic case already, and I think that,
15 given that it concerns Dr. Karadzic, I think that it is
16 relevant to this Tribunal.
17 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: It depends on how it is
18 introduced -- who did it and who makes the claim and
19 these are the areas for introducing it. It is
20 admissible, I do not deny that -- it is relevant but it
21 depends on through whom it is introduced.
22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Pursuant to Article 89, you
23 are admitting it into evidence -- is that my correct
24 understanding of what you have just said?
25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: If this witness claims
Page 10184
1 to have produced the videotape itself and was also a
2 witness to what happened, obviously he could himself
3 tender it, if he made such claims.
4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, were you a witness
5 of this speech of Radovan Karadzic as a citizen of
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
7 A. I was in Sarajevo when this took place and
8 I was a witness of it, not only of what happened. At
9 that time we did not have electricity, so I could not
10 see it, but during the period of time when we did have
11 electric power, we were able to see this -- it was
12 rerun and it was a speech that shocked the citizens of
13 Bosnia and Herzegovina. If a President of a Party
14 which has no links to both Belgrade and the JNA, and
15 that the JNA had overrun Bosnia -- we were all shocked,
16 and very soon, on 6 April, when independence of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina was proclaimed, I was present when
18 the people in the streets were shot at. I was a
19 witness of the sniping of the people and this is what
20 happened after this speech.
21 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: As I said, it is not
22 that you were not a witness of it being run, but that
23 is a different thing from producing a videotape
24 itself.
25 I agree -- you said it was submitted to you
Page 10185
1 by the Institute -- a member of the Institute who took
2 the videotape. He is a member of the Institute from
3 which it has come, and introducing it as such from the
4 Institute -- that is a different matter -- unless that
5 is the basis on which he is doing that.
6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, the witness
7 provided the tape as part of his research. It is not a
8 tape that was given to the witness by the Defence.
9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That is acceptable,
10 yes.
11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Can you please
12 tell us what the exhibit number is.
13 THE REGISTRAR: The exhibit will be marked
14 Defence Exhibit D141/1.
15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Is it one of those
16 tendered for identification -- there are three tapes
17 you tendered for identification -- D138 to D140. Does
18 it belong to that group?
19 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, it belongs to that
20 group, on my understanding, but I do not know which one
21 of these and I do not know if these videotapes are the
22 other exhibits. I prefer to give it a separate number.
23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Your Honours,
24 I need to remind you of the time. I do not know if
25 this would be a good moment to break?
Page 10186
1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.
2 That is a good point to stop, but, in addition to that,
3 before we resume tomorrow, we would like to continue in
4 a closed session for a status conference so we know
5 exactly how things will be for the rest of the period.
6 We will come back in five minutes now for a closed
7 session and then carry on in a status conference
8 tonight.
9
10
11
12
13 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
14 5.28 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,
15 the 31st day of March, 1998 at
16 10 a.m.
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