Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 10187

1 Tuesday, 31 March, 1998

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 10.05 a.m. in case IT-96-21-T

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Good morning, ladies

5 and gentlemen. Can we have the appearances?

6 MR. NIEMANN: My name is Niemann. I appear

7 with my colleagues, Ms. McHenry, Mr. Turone and Ms. Udo

8 for the Prosecution.

9 MS. RESIDOVIC: Good morning, your Honour,

10 I am Edina Residovic, Defence counsel for Mr. Zejnil

11 Delalic. Mr. Delalic is also defended by my colleague,

12 Eugene O'Sullivan, professor from Canada.

13 MR. OLUJIC: Good morning, your Honours, I am

14 Zeljko Olujic, representing Mr. Mucic today, along with

15 Mr. Michael Greaves, attorney from the United Kingdom.

16 MR. KARABDIC: Good morning, your Honours.

17 I am Salih Karabdic, Defence attorney for Mr. Hazim

18 Delic, along with Mr. Tom Moran, attorney from Houston, Texas.

19 MS. McMURREY: Good morning, your Honours,

20 I apologise for being late. I am Cynthia McMurrey and,

21 along with my colleague Nancy Boler, we represent Esad

22 Landzo.

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Could we have the

24 witness, please?

25 (The witness entered court)

Page 10188

1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: May I remind the

2 witness, you are still on your oath.

3 THE REGISTRAR: I remind you, Sir, that you

4 are still under oath.

5 ILJAS HADZIBEGOVIC (continued)

6 Examined by Ms. Residovic (continued).

7 Q. Thank you, your Honour.

8 Professor, have you had some rest?

9 A. Yes, a little bit.

10 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, before we continue

11 today, I am going to just draw your attention to --

12 please wait for the interpretation of my answer through

13 those earphones and then answer my question, thank

14 you.

15 Yesterday, you testified before this Trial

16 Chamber that the call of Mr. Karadzic in the Bosnian

17 Assembly in October 1991 amounted to a call to arms or

18 an invitation to start a war and you said that you

19 witnessed that and you were a witness to these events.

20 May I now ask the technical booth to play the

21 tape number 2, the excerpt 2. I would like, after

22 that, to ask you a question, professor.

23 (Videotape played)

24 THE INTERPRETER: (Translating videotape).

25 This is what unarmed people are, not armed, the ones

Page 10189

1 over there, this is impossible.

2 (Videotape stopped)

3 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, could you tell us

4 what city this is?

5 A. This is the city of Sarajevo.

6 Q. What location in Sarajevo was this?

7 A. This is the Liberation Square in front of the

8 Bosnian Assembly and this is 6 April 1992, the day when

9 the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina was proclaimed.

10 The citizens of Sarajevo gathered in the square that

11 day, demonstrating for peace. They were asking -- they

12 demanded peace and the shots you heard, these shots

13 were fired by snipers who were placed in surrounding

14 buildings among others on the Holiday Inn.

15 Q. Thank you, no further details are needed. Is

16 this incident considered the beginning of the war?

17 A. This event is not the beginning of the war.

18 The war had started earlier, on 6 April in fact the

19 army had already taken positions all around Bosnia,

20 before that time, along with the extremist paramilitary

21 formations from Serbia and, including the Seselj people

22 and the Arkan people. They were already on the ground

23 and they were taking over control of towns.

24 From 27 March until 30 April, a whole string

25 of cities in Posavina, which are the municipalities

Page 10190

1 along the Sava River and the Drina River were taken

2 over and the ethnic cleansing was already under way.

3 Q. Thank you, professor. You said this

4 yesterday but I am reminding you of it today. You were

5 a participant of this mass popular demand for peace; is

6 that correct?

7 A. Yes.

8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I would like to

9 tender this excerpt, which was used by the witness and

10 which he personally recognised and in which --

11 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not see its

12 relevance at all. It has nothing to do with the

13 charges for which your client has been charged. It has

14 nothing to do with it. It is background which

15 everybody admits.

16 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours --

17 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You are just wasting

18 the time of everyone.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: Obviously, you have the right

20 to deny me any single question I ask. My client has

21 been charged as a commander of a Tactical Group and the

22 reason why this Tactical Group was established was

23 Sarajevo. So I would like to request you to listen to

24 me carefully and I am not submitting anything that is

25 not relevant to my client's Defence.

Page 10191

1 I think that, without understanding the

2 situation in Sarajevo at the time, I believe that it

3 would be impossible to understand why Tactical Groups

4 were established, and this is in response to the

5 evidence presented by the Prosecution.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: If it is part of your

7 case, go ahead. I do not see the relevance -- you can

8 prove it.

9 JUDGE JAN: We can take judicial notice of

10 the fact that Sarajevo was under siege -- under

11 Rule 92, we can take judicial notice of the fact that

12 Sarajevo was under siege by the Serb forces, whatever

13 they were. Under Rule 92 we can take judicial notice

14 of that. You do not have to get this tape on the

15 record. In fact, we have seen this tape before also --

16 I think while you were cross-examining some of the

17 Prosecution witnesses, we saw this portion.

18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Whether Sarajevo was

19 under siege is not disputed, is it? The fact that

20 Sarajevo was under siege has never been disputed --

21 nobody is arguing that.

22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I had tried to

23 offer this into evidence through a Defence witness, and

24 then I was told that I was to do this through the

25 Prosecution witness and I was told to do it during my

Page 10192

1 own case, so I am trying to speed up these proceedings

2 as much as I can, but, hangar 6, for instance, is very

3 important for this case, but it is not that important

4 for my client in the sense that he was never there. We

5 must discuss matters that my client was involved in.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I am not opposing it if

7 you think it is part of your case, go ahead.

8 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, might I indicate

9 something -- the fact that there was an armed conflict

10 is not disputed -- it has never been disputed. This is

11 only evidence of that.

12 I should say that I do not know what is going

13 to happen with these tapes but one of them goes for two

14 hours. Are we going to sit and watch it for two

15 hours?

16 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, this is why

17 I am showing two minutes so that we would not be

18 looking at two hours, so I would like only to introduce

19 this excerpt and maybe another two more. This is all

20 that I am trying to do, but I am going to tender the

21 entire tape in the same manner that Dr. Calic's tapes

22 were produced.

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The facts are not in

24 dispute -- it is unnecessary to bring it into issue.

25 Nobody is arguing it.

Page 10193

1 JUDGE JAN: There are at least two

2 Resolutions of the Security Council talking about the

3 siege of Sarajevo, one of 15 May and the other of

4 30 May. We can take judicial notice of the fact that

5 Sarajevo was under siege and efforts were being made to

6 lift that siege. We do not need an expert witness to

7 tell us that. These facts are well known. The

8 Resolution of the Security Council is something of

9 which we can take judicial notice.

10 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I feel very

11 awkward to start discussing this with you, but, in the

12 Tadic case, the Trial Chamber watched six or seven

13 hours of the BBC programmes on Yugoslavia. Maybe it

14 was not as necessary for Omarska, but I am just trying

15 to do the relevant things for my client. I cannot

16 repeat whether he was responsible for Jablanica, Prozor

17 or Igman. This is what we have to demonstrate through

18 our evidence, whether he was involved and what he was

19 doing. We are trying to show why he was part of this

20 Tactical Group -- because of what was going on in

21 Sarajevo. I only need five minutes of videotape rather

22 than two hours like my colleague is saying, so I am

23 trying to present it as rationally as possible, and not

24 make it just a part of general information on what was

25 going on in Bosnia. So, I do apologise for this

Page 10194

1 discussion with you, but I would urge you to allow me

2 to present it.

3 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, I object if the

4 tape -- the whole tape is sought to be tendered on the

5 basis of a four-minute excerpt being played, because

6 the whole of the tape -- if Madam Residovic is trying

7 to get in a whole tape just on the basis of a

8 two-minute excerpt, I object to that.

9 I also wish to indicate that I sat through

10 the Tadic case and at no stage do I remember six hours

11 of videotape being played by the Prosecution.

12 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I was trying to

13 tender this particular excerpt into evidence rather

14 than a two-hour tape. I am only going to introduce

15 three excerpts from this tape into evidence.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Frankly, any portion

17 about the siege of Sarajevo does not prejudice your

18 case. These are accepted facts and undisputed. I do

19 not see why you make so much fuss about it. Nobody is

20 arguing that Sarajevo was under siege. Nobody is

21 arguing that there was an effort to lift the siege.

22 Why do that?

23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, there is

24 opposing views that there were no Tactical Groups, so

25 this is just by way of introducing our defence of where

Page 10195

1 our client was and what he was doing. This is what the

2 Prosecution had started with, the context --

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The videotape will not

4 demonstrate whether or not there was a Tactical Group.

5 It cannot show that. It will not be evidence of that.

6 That is a different situation.

7 JUDGE JAN: By alleging that Mr. Delalic was

8 commander of the Tactical Group, the Prosecution

9 concedes there were Tactical Groups.

10 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: If all you are

11 interested in is to give a story -- perhaps this is

12 what you are trying to do here, you are trying to tell

13 a story -- the story is interesting if it is relevant

14 to what you are saying and if it is disputed. There is

15 no dispute here. I have avoided this argument not to

16 waste time -- if you want to get it in, that is okay,

17 but it is not relevant at all -- it has nothing to do

18 with the issue. It is only disputed issues that ought

19 to be proven. If they are not disputed, they have been

20 accepted, so what is the point?

21 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, allow me to say

22 just one thing. I would like you to respect our right

23 to defend provided in Article 21 of the Statute. You

24 have admitted a number of tapes that are not relevant

25 for this issue, and which have nothing to do with the

Page 10196

1 Tactical Groups or their existence. You said that you

2 will evaluate its probative value, but if the

3 Prosecution tendered it, you have at least accepted to

4 rule on it. I also would like you to apply the same

5 criteria to what we are trying to tender.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not like the

7 imputation that one is favouring one party to the

8 other. There is no such thing. If you really

9 understand the case you are building, you would have

10 understood what I have said. I have said this is not

11 disputed, and there is no point telling the story.

12 But, if you still think that your story is palatable to

13 your own case, yes, go ahead, but I do not see the

14 basis for it.

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: May I ask you whether the

16 excerpt that we just played is being admitted?

17 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: As giving the story of

18 certain people making protests in Sarajevo.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: As the reason why the

20 military authorities adopted the decision to change,

21 that is, as part of an attempt to come to a solution of

22 this.

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Go ahead. Carry on

24 with your case. Go ahead with your case, present it as

25 best you can.

Page 10197

1 MS. RESIDOVIC: Will you please tell me the

2 number of this exhibit?

3 THE REGISTRAR: This is Exhibit D142/1.

4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, in your report and

5 the documents attached, you mentioned the concept of

6 "ethnic cleansing". What did that actually mean in

7 1992?

8 A. "Ethnic cleansing" entered a political

9 programme during the Second World War; that is, the

10 expression itself. In that programme, it implied

11 cleansing of territories, which were considered to be

12 of Serb interest, of all non-Serb inhabitants. The

13 same term appeared in this war, except that it is an

14 euphemism for killing and brutal expulsions of non-Serb

15 populations from certain territories.

16 MS. RESIDOVIC: I would now like to ask the

17 technicians to show the map H1/10, for me to be able to

18 put the next question to the witness.

19 Can we see the map, please -- H1/10?

20 Professor, could you explain this map for us?

21 A. This is a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina drawn by

22 a professor at the faculty of law in Sarajevo -- a

23 prestigious expert on the basis of his analysis of two

24 documents of the Serbian and Croatian extremist

25 leadership, that is of the SDS and the HDZ. You saw

Page 10198

1 the map that I showed yesterday about the ethnic

2 composition of Bosnia. It was coloured in different

3 colours. On this map you see the red and white areas

4 with no other colours. Then you see the blue colour,

5 which indicates territories captured by Herceg-Bosna --

6 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.

7 The red and white ones -- areas were captured

8 by Serbs and Serb autonomous regions were formed,

9 whereas the yellow colour indicates areas where the

10 interests of both political groupings overlap, whereas

11 the white enclaves are still territories shared by

12 everyone.

13 Q. Thank you, professor.

14 A. If we compare these two maps, we see that, in

15 order to obtain one colour, other colours had to be

16 deleted.

17 Q. What did that really mean in those wartime

18 days?

19 A. It meant the creation of ethnically pure

20 territories.

21 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, after this

22 question, I have only two clips to show from the

23 videotape which I have offered, but, before that, let

24 me put a question to the professor.

25 At the beginning of May, was Sarajevo

Page 10199

1 completely cut off from the rest of the world?

2 A. Yes.

3 MS. RESIDOVIC: I should now like to ask the

4 technical booth to show us clips 5, 6 and 7, and you

5 will see from the questions that they are directly

6 related to the defence of my client. May I ask the

7 technical booth to show clips 5, 6 and 7, please? Can

8 we see the video clips, please?

9 Before they start, will you please tell me

10 whether the central and main post office in Sarajevo

11 was destroyed at a certain point in time?

12 A. Yes, on 2 May, the main post office was set

13 on fire and about 50 to 60 telephone lines were cut.

14 Q. Did this result in the city of Sarajevo being

15 totally cut off from the other parts of the republic

16 and the world?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Were other important cultural establishments,

19 archives, et cetera, also destroyed?

20 A. Yes, a little later, in August, the National

21 and University Library was set on fire; then the

22 Oriental Institute was burned down, with its archives

23 of original 250,000 documents and its library as well

24 as other institutions, especially the Presidency was

25 exposed to shelling, the 20-storey building of the

Page 10200

1 Government, the university departments, hospitals --

2 all these institutions were exposed to heavy shelling

3 from the surrounding hills.

4 Q. Tell me, after those events, how could a

5 message be sent -- a message or an order -- from

6 Sarajevo?

7 A. With the help of a few radio amateurs that

8 existed, all of our citizens who had our children

9 elsewhere sent messages through radio amateurs, if we

10 were lucky to find them.

11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Could we now be shown these

12 video clips 5, 6 and 7, please.

13 (Videotapes played)

14 Q. Can you recognise this building?

15 A. It is the main post office in Sarajevo.

16 (Videotape continues)

17 A. One of the most beautiful buildings in

18 Sarajevo.

19 (Videotape continues)

20 Q. Professor, can you recognise this building,

21 please?

22 A. This is the National and University Library

23 in Sarajevo.

24 (Videotape continues)

25 A. Hundreds of thousands of books went up in

Page 10201

1 flames. It is a building constructed at the end of the

2 19th century, in pseudo-Moorish style.

3 Q. Thank you, we do not need those details,

4 professor.

5 (Videotape continues)

6 MS. RESIDOVIC: I should now like to tender

7 these three clips into evidence -- that is all that we

8 ask from this videotape and the grounds are the

9 position of my client regarding the receipt of certain

10 orders and this videotape is indicative of the

11 conditions that existed in respect of communications

12 between Sarajevo and other parts of the republic. So,

13 may I please tender these three clips into evidence?

14 MR. NIEMANN: I object on the grounds of

15 relevance.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: They are not really

17 relevant, but, if you want to tender them, let us admit

18 them.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Will you please

20 tell me the numbers of the exhibits that have been

21 tendered into evidence just now?

22 THE REGISTRAR: They will be part of

23 Exhibit D142/1 and will be specifically marked as

24 segments 2, 3 and 4.

25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, let us now go on

Page 10202

1 to another subject. Can you tell me, from the

2 beginning of the war until the end of 1992, what was

3 the policy of the Croatian Democratic Unity, that is,

4 one of the winning Parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

5 A. The Croatian Democratic Alliance in

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina cooperated with the Party of

7 Democratic Action, the SDA, and they entered the war

8 together. At a referendum, they voted together and

9 their interests coincided, because, had the referendum

10 failed, Bosnia-Herzegovina would have been within the

11 frameworks of a Greater Serbia and this did not suit

12 either of them. So, they had common interests at the

13 time.

14 Q. Professor, could you tell me how this overall

15 situation, bearing in mind the history we referred to

16 since 1980, affect relations and events in Konjic?

17 But, first, I should like you to tell us something

18 briefly about the geopolitical position of Konjic?

19 A. Konjic is one of the oldest towns in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in fact, in the whole of the

21 former Yugoslavia. It is situated in the area of upper

22 Herzegovina, that is, northern Herzegovina, on both

23 banks of a river linking Bosnia with the Adriatic, or,

24 rather, linking the Danube basin, the centre of the

25 Balkans, with the Mediterranean.

Page 10203

1 Konjic, due to its great significance in

2 terms of communications, strategy and trade, became

3 very important in the political plans of both Croatia

4 and the Serbian side.

5 MS. RESIDOVIC: Could you tell us, what are

6 the ethnic characteristics of Konjic municipality?

7 To illustrate this, I should like to ask the

8 technicians to show us map H1/11?

9 A. This is an ethnic map of the municipality of

10 Konjic, using the same procedure as the other ethnic

11 map that you saw yesterday, and it uses the same

12 colours, reflecting the multi-ethnic composition of

13 Konjic municipality. According to the 1991 census, the

14 municipality of Konjic had a population of 43,878

15 inhabitants, out of which about 48 per cent -- sorry,

16 54 per cent were Bosniaks, 26 per cent were Croats, and

17 15 per cent were Serbs.

18 Q. Thank you. Was the majority of settlements

19 within the Konjic municipality with a mixed population?

20 A. Yes. This is typical of Konjic. It is a

21 municipality which is hilly -- it has 148 settlements,

22 but most in 1879 and 1910, according to the censuses of

23 those days, most of the settlements were ethnically

24 mixed.

25 Q. Will you show us map H1/12 to explain what

Page 10204

1 you are just telling us?

2 A. This is also a map of Konjic municipality

3 showing the communes that were ethnically pure -- the

4 communes or settlements that were ethnically pure. The

5 blue indicates the Bosniaks; the red or brown -- I do

6 not know what it looks like as you see it -- are

7 Croats; and the yellow are Serbs and the pale blue

8 colour indicates mixed populations in the territory of

9 this municipality.

10 Q. Professor, could you tell us whether you know

11 what the results of the assembly elections for the

12 municipal assembly of Konjic were in 1990?

13 A. They roughly corresponded to the victory of

14 the nationalist parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The

15 same occurred in Konjic. The SDA won 28 out of the 60

16 seats, SDA -- I am sorry, SDS in 9 -- in percentages

17 the SDA had 35.-something, the Croats had 17.-something

18 and the Serbs 15 per cent.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: Very well, I think I have the

20 percentages wrong. The percentages are not so

21 important. They can be found in the evidence already

22 admitted.

23 In order to put my next question, could the

24 professor be given this binder, so that we could

25 comment on the organisation of authority in the

Page 10205

1 municipality? (Handed)

2 Will you please, professor, look at your

3 annex D7? We have the table that you made, so could

4 you please place it under the ELMO, or, since we all

5 have a copy, we can look at it together. It is D7 --

6 have you found it, professor?

7 A. Yes, yes.

8 Q. This annex that is being shown is marked

9 D136/1 and, within the binder, it is D7. Could you

10 please explain what this chart depicts?

11 A. This chart depicts the pre-war organisation

12 of Government in the municipality of Konjic.

13 Q. Was that organisation different from the same

14 institutions in other municipalities?

15 A. It was more or less the same as in other

16 municipalities. There are some minor differences --

17 not in Konjic but in some other municipalities, which

18 were smaller and they had fewer bodies.

19 Q. Can you tell me, please, which were the

20 executive bodies and which were the regulatory or

21 legislative bodies in the municipality?

22 A. In the constitutional legal reforms, which

23 lasted and which were carried out from 1980 until 1991,

24 there was tripartite authority introduced in

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina, legislative executive and

Page 10206

1 judiciary. On this chart we see the municipal

2 assembly, which had the function of a regulatory

3 institution, that is, one that passes regulations.

4 Then the executive powers were held in the executive

5 board, which had its own administrative bodies, or the

6 municipal administration.

7 Then we have several vertical lines here

8 (indicates). First, the public security service or the

9 police, which was directly subordinate to the centre of

10 security services, and the Ministry of the Interior of

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is not subordinate to the

12 municipal assembly, but only cooperates with it.

13 The second vertical line shows the defence

14 department. It, too, was subordinate directly to the

15 Defence Ministry of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

16 and this dotted line going towards the municipal

17 assembly indicates the cooperation between the

18 municipal assembly and this department.

19 The third vertical line is the basic court --

20 it is the municipal court which was completely separate

21 from the municipal assembly and it was subordinate to

22 the higher court and the supreme court, or, rather, the

23 Ministry of Justice.

24 All these institutions that were subordinate

25 to the ministries were financed out of the republic's

Page 10207

1 budget and did not depend on the municipality. The

2 judges were appointed by the Ministry of Justice in the

3 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, we see that there

4 was also a rather special court, and that is the

5 Magistrates Court, which is an administrative court,

6 which tried minor offences and misdemeanours and its

7 jurisdiction was to sentence someone to 60 days in

8 prison and fines, for traffic offences and the like.

9 Q. Thank you. So that is the organisation of

10 authority before the war broke out. Tell us, since you

11 told us that the SDS was also one of the victorious

12 parties in the Konjic municipality, did the SDS of

13 Konjic implement the policies of the SDS of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina that you spoke about yesterday?

15 A. Yes, it implemented the policies of the SDS

16 and it was also incorporated into the legal organs of

17 authority. If I may, it was incorporated until the

18 last session, the 9th session of the municipal

19 assembly, after which, two days after that, they walked

20 out of the municipal assembly bodies -- all the bodies,

21 except the public security service, which they

22 abandoned later on and formed their own service.

23 Q. Thank you. Could you tell us, professor,

24 whether your research has shown that, in their illegal

25 or semi-legal activities the SDS passed decisions

Page 10208

1 proclaiming parts of the municipality Serb territories?

2 A. On 22 March the so-called assembly of the

3 Serbian municipality formed the territory of the

4 Serbian municipality. It did so on the basis of two

5 principles. It took the settlements with a Serb

6 majority -- that was that Serbs accounted for more than

7 50 per cent of the population -- that was one principle

8 -- and the other principle was property ownership.

9 Wherever there was any property owned by Serb

10 households, these were proclaimed Serb territories, and

11 these villages were registered as being in the Serbs'

12 interests and such villages and settlements in the

13 municipality of Konjic were a total of 40, taking both

14 principles as a basis.

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, you have made a

16 chart of these decisions of the Serbian municipality,

17 so could we please see that map, too, H1/13?

18 A. I do not have that map.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: Has the technical department

20 shown us this map -- H1/13?

21 That is the new map -- do you have this map

22 now on the monitor?

23 A. Yes, yes, thank you.

24 Q. Does this reflect their decision to divide

25 the municipality and to take control of areas as you

Page 10209

1 have just told us?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Very well, thank you. Could you tell me

4 whether your research has shown that the legal

5 authorities in Konjic municipality, after the decision

6 of the Presidency of the republic to proclaim an

7 immediate threat of war -- did they undertake certain

8 defensive measures? What do you know about those

9 measures?

10 A. The constitution envisaged that, when an

11 immediate threat of war is proclaimed, or a state of

12 war, the conditions were in place for a different

13 organisation of authority. After the proclamation of

14 an immediate threat of war, changes were introduced in

15 the organisation of authority, and a war presidency was

16 formed. Prior to this, a crisis staff existed for a

17 short while, but the war presidency was introduced

18 later, and this was provided for in the constitution,

19 so this was automatic, and this war presidency was a

20 substitute for the municipal assembly, because it had

21 regulatory powers -- what the municipal assembly had

22 before that -- but the war presidency, or the

23 presidency of the municipal assembly -- it was referred

24 to as the war presidency -- it held its meetings and

25 passed regulations with the effect of law for as long

Page 10210

1 as the conditions were such that the assembly could not

2 meet.

3 If conditions were normal, then the assembly

4 had to confirm those decisions.

5 Q. Can you tell us, after the beginning of the

6 war on 6 April, was a meeting of the assembly held?

7 A. The 9th session was the last to be held with

8 all the elected deputies taking part -- not all of

9 them, but at least all the parties that won seats

10 participated and this meeting was held on 17 April and

11 that session had a large agenda, but most important

12 among the items were two. One regarding the abolition

13 of the former Territorial Defence leadership and the

14 formation of a new one, and the appointment of a new

15 head of the Territorial Defence staff, whose

16 appointment needed to be confirmed by the republic.

17 The Serb deputies also participated -- out of

18 9 elected members, six participated. They voted

19 against the formation of the Territorial Defence.

20 Q. Professor, can you tell me whether, after the

21 new Territorial Defence was formed, which you have just

22 spoken about, the changes of the organisation of local

23 government also took place and since you drafted

24 another chart, could you please show us what changes

25 took place, looking at that chart which is D9?

Page 10211

1 A. Here is the chart of the organisation of

2 Government in the municipality during the war and

3 during the immediate threat of war. So, the municipal

4 assembly has now been replaced by the war presidency

5 and, as you can see, these full and broken lines

6 remained where they were before, which means that the

7 key change was really the substitution of the municipal

8 assembly, which was unable to meet.

9 So, only a smaller number of people could

10 meet and this war presidency takes over the powers

11 which had the municipal assembly. The other bodies, as

12 far as their subordination and their co-operation,

13 pretty much remained the same.

14 Q. Professor, in this chart I see an additional

15 body, which earlier was not separate, and I guess it

16 was because it was peace time?

17 A. Yes, this is the Territorial Defence and the

18 municipal staff of the Territorial Defence.

19 Q. You said that the assembly reorganised the

20 power and created this new body and its commander.

21 Could you tell me what this line then signifies there?

22 A. This perpendicular line shows that the

23 municipal staff of the Territorial Defence and

24 Territorial Defence units are not subordinated to the

25 presidency, but, rather, to the district staff of the

Page 10212

1 Territorial Defence and the main staff of the

2 Territorial Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

3 Q. Professor, can you tell us, in 1992 in

4 Konjic, was the district headquarters staff in Mostar

5 in existence?

6 A. No.

7 Q. To whom then was this staff subordinated?

8 A. It was subordinated directly to the

9 republican staff or the main staff of the Territorial

10 Defence.

11 JUDGE JAN: Just a minute. This map, there

12 is one line missing, the one you said that was directly

13 responsible to the TO -- not the district staff.

14 MS. RESIDOVIC: As far as I can tell, there

15 is a line here.

16 JUDGE JAN: There is one missing in the

17 chart supplied to me. This line is missing here.

18 MS. RESIDOVIC: It is possible -- your

19 Honours, do you have the line that is being shown on

20 the ELMO?

21 JUDGE JAN: No, I do not have it.

22 MS. RESIDOVIC: This is the TO units. My

23 apologies. Can we substitute it with another copy? My

24 apologies, this would just be a mistake.

25 JUDGE JAN: Show it to Madam Residovic.

Page 10213

1 He will show you the line which is missing to

2 which you are referring -- subordination to the

3 district staff.

4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Yes, the usher can show it to

5 me.

6 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, may I raise a

7 matter?

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, you may.

9 MR. NIEMANN: My understanding is that this

10 material which is now being shown to the professor was

11 admitted on the basis that it represented what he

12 relied upon in order to prepare his report. By showing

13 it to him now and going into the detail in which they

14 are going, it is certainly going beyond that basis of

15 admissibility and going into the area of the document

16 being admitted for the truth of its contents.

17 JUDGE JAN: This is a document prepared him

18 just to show what the organisation was in Konjic, and

19 he has prepared it himself. That is why she is

20 introducing it into evidence -- something he studied

21 and the chart which he prepared himself, just like we

22 admitted certain charts made by Dr. Calic.

23 MR. NIEMANN: I understand that, but the

24 position is that, somehow or other, the basis of

25 admissibility seems to have changed.

Page 10214

1 JUDGE JAN: I am not sure. We admitted

2 Dr. Calic's charts, which she prepared herself.

3 MR. NIEMANN: I am not talking about

4 Dr. Calic. What happens with another witness, depending

5 on the position taken by the Defence and the ruling of

6 your Honours, cannot automatically just apply.

7 JUDGE JAN: Not automatically, no. This is

8 material provided for us and to you to support the

9 basis on which he prepared his report so you can

10 cross-examine him with reference to that material.

11 MR. NIEMANN: In my submission, it is going

12 beyond that now, by this witness speaking to it in the

13 way that he has.

14 JUDGE JAN: You will notice that was missing

15 from the chart which I got.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The witness has not

17 said anything about the document he relied upon -- he

18 said nothing about it, if that is what he relied upon.

19 MR. NIEMANN: When he said this line here

20 represents the fact that the public security station is

21 subordinate to the Minister of the Interior and drawing

22 attention to those lines there, that goes beyond

23 saying, "This is a document which I relied on in order

24 to express my opinion." He is asserting by that that

25 this document is admitted for the truth of its

Page 10215

1 contents, namely, that the Ministry of the Interior is

2 superior to the public security station. It takes it

3 into a different category of evidence.

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Not if he is the author

5 of this particular document itself. He is presenting

6 what he has done.

7 MR. NIEMANN: I was under the

8 misapprehension that all of this material, which was

9 admitted in bulk, was admitted on the basis that it

10 merely went to show the basis upon which he relied upon

11 it. I am not so concerned about this chart, but I

12 notice the way it is being handled suggests that it is

13 being admitted for the truth, so there has been an

14 automatic jump to that point without any basis being

15 presented by the Defence as to why it should be.

16 There has not been one word said, as far as

17 I can recall, about the fact that he himself prepared

18 it, other than it is written on the document. I do not

19 recall him saying that, your Honour.

20 JUDGE JAN: Take it as a whole, made by --

21 MR. NIEMANN: I could have done that. That

22 would not have made it so -- I could have typed it on

23 myself.

24 JUDGE JAN: The reliability of this document

25 depends on the reliability of the witness.

Page 10216

1 MR. NIEMANN: That is so, but there are

2 numerous documents in here which we challenge. I am

3 just wishing to make the point that, when it comes to

4 those documents, I wish to raise my objection.

5 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think you are

6 perfectly right. When a document is represented for a

7 particular purpose, we have to know the authority under

8 which it is being represented. So if he is the author

9 of that document, then he could say so, and then we

10 treat it as such.

11 MR. NIEMANN: As far as I know, he has not

12 said so.

13 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, my apologies to

14 you, because obviously one of the lines was obviously

15 omitted on one of the copies of the charts, and as

16 I pointed out, the professor did consult all the

17 relevant documents when preparing these charts. I have

18 still not tendered these documents -- I have just had

19 them marked for identification. Right now we are going

20 through them and the witness is explaining how he

21 arrived at certain charts.

22 Now that we have, I believe, resolved the

23 technical problem relating to the chart -- do you have

24 the good copy of it?

25 JUDGE JAN: I have it now, thank you.

Page 10217

1 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, I would like now

2 to take you to the material which you used to prepare

3 your report and which relates to the war presidency and

4 the activities in Konjic in early 1992. Can you tell

5 us whether, during your research, you found documents

6 relating to the war presidency activity -- decisions of

7 that period?

8 A. In the supporting materials, I have provided

9 a document which is very characteristic of their work

10 and it is dated 3 June 1992. From these minutes of the

11 meeting of the presidency, you can glean the range and

12 the scope of questions that the war presidency handled

13 at that time.

14 Q. Could you please quote some of the issues

15 that were handled by the war presidency in early 1992?

16 A. It handled various issues relating to the

17 daily life of the local population. This was a session

18 held after the events in Bradina and Donje Selo -- the

19 presidency, the presidency orders that these areas be

20 repaired, that the medical care be provided -- and

21 examination be provided to the prisoners there, that

22 blankets be provided for them, and this is in Celebici

23 and then, as far as the town itself is concerned,

24 various economic issues -- the provision of food.

25 Since there is no money, the food stamps are

Page 10218

1 introduced, so the presidency tackles a whole range of

2 issues and I have provided a document -- the document

3 which states what decisions were taken at that time and

4 who was to implement them.

5 Q. The minutes of that session, which you have

6 just mentioned, are enclosed in the supporting

7 materials -- there are 22 decision that were taken

8 there. Were any decisions taken then which relate to

9 the commanding of the units of the Territorial Defence

10 there?

11 A. No, I did not find any such decisions. These

12 were only decisions that related to the accommodation,

13 provision of food, acquiring of uniforms -- so, these

14 are the types of decisions. There is no decision on

15 control and command. It would be something that the

16 civilian government would do in a situation like that,

17 as set out by law.

18 There is not a single decision that relates

19 to the control or command of the military units.

20 Q. Professor, during the research that you

21 conducted in preparation of this report, did your

22 research provide you with an answer to the question as

23 to whether the war presidency was a civilian or a

24 military structure?

25 A. From these minutes, it is clear that the

Page 10219

1 municipal assembly is a civilian body and the war

2 presidency is also by extension a civilian body and so

3 it only handles the issues that the municipal assembly

4 handled in peace time. Obviously the conditions have

5 changed now -- they were wartime conditions -- but the

6 essence did not change; they only adopted the decisions

7 that belonged to the civilian government.

8 Q. Professor, by researching different documents

9 from archives in Konjic, could you determine whether

10 the war presidency in this period was highly involved

11 in these civilian-type matters?

12 A. Yes, it was very involved in such matters,

13 because, in Konjic -- Konjic was a cross-roads. The

14 refugees were coming through from both eastern Bosnia

15 and eastern Herzegovina, which additionally burdened

16 the already stretched resources for both accommodation

17 and food and also, in this period, this town was

18 heavily shelled and it was considered one of the four

19 or five worst affected towns in Bosnia that way.

20 There was a large number of refugees. This

21 included people who had been ethnically cleansed and

22 who found refuge in and around the town, so there was

23 an unbearable pressure being exercised and there were

24 these large numbers of people from eastern Bosnia, who

25 did not know where to go and what to do.

Page 10220

1 Q. Professor, among the documents that you have

2 submitted, there are also some documents which were

3 provided to you by the Defence, including a document of

4 18 May as to the appointment of Zejnil Delalic as a

5 co-ordinator of the Territorial Defence and war

6 presidency. My question to you is does this position

7 of co-ordinator imply a position of superior authority?

8 A. In the material that I have discovered,

9 I have not found -- I could not find anything that

10 would show me that, within the structure of any kind of

11 power, there is provision of co-ordination, so the

12 position of co-ordinator that Mr. Delalic was appointed

13 to is something that was created out of a desperate

14 situation that the town found itself in. So, you have

15 major problems of feeding the population, a huge number

16 of refugees, and also the war presidency had a major

17 task of organising the defence. You had --

18 JUDGE JAN: Just a minute. The witness is a

19 professor of history. How did he know who was a

20 co-ordinator?

21 MS. RESIDOVIC: I am satisfied with his

22 answer that he could not find a document which would

23 define the position of "co-ordinator" and I believe that

24 it is not necessary to go further into it.

25 A. I have consulted the documents. There are no

Page 10221

1 provisions for a co-ordinator, but there is nothing that

2 prevents it. It was something that was usual, to

3 co-ordinate in conditions when the regular institutions

4 have broken down.

5 Q. You just answered my next questions. I was

6 going to ask you whether, in this report or in this

7 research of yours, you found whether this was provided

8 by law and then, given the conditions, were some new

9 bodies created which assisted the war presidency and

10 which involved these co-ordinators?

11 A. There were other bodies as well, like the

12 civilian protection -- there were other bodies which

13 had the right and task to assist. But I am afraid

14 I may not have fully understood your question.

15 Q. Very well, professor, you created these

16 charts. You were looking at the very recent history

17 relating to the activities of the war presidency and,

18 in this capacity, could you tell me whether this

19 civilian body which appointed Zejnil Delalic could

20 appoint him to any military position?

21 A. No, it could not have done so, because the

22 military authorities would make such appointments.

23 Q. Very well. The next question could be

24 answered by just about anyone, so I am not going to ask

25 you whether a body can appoint someone who would be its

Page 10222

1 superior. However, let us move on.

2 In your research, have you found information

3 that, in 1992, a certain group of people was detained

4 in Celebici?

5 A. Through the Institute for Research of War

6 Crimes, I was able to see a document relating to the

7 list of people who were questioned in Celebici, because

8 this was actually a significant part of my report.

9 Q. Had you heard of Celebici before this

10 research?

11 A. I had not heard of Celebici as a prison

12 before I undertook this research.

13 Q. Do you know that the army of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, during the war, had some prisons --

15 are you aware of any of them?

16 A. Yes, I am aware of it, because I had one

17 right across the street -- it was the military prison

18 and military court in Sarajevo, which was in the

19 barracks, and it was also the Military Geographic

20 Institute, so I am away of the fact that there was a

21 military court and a military prison in Sarajevo during

22 the war.

23 Q. Professor, in researching the conditions in

24 the country at the beginning of the war and as a

25 historian, were you able to find any documents which

Page 10223

1 would show that the legal authorities of

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- the Government of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- had introduced any type of camps?

4 A. I agree with what the Bassiouni Commission

5 found. I think it was a very fair report, where it

6 says that all three sides in the conflict, that is, it

7 states that the Serbian forces, through the systematic

8 violations, it was part of their plan to conduct ethnic

9 cleansing; that also the Croatian side led by the

10 extremists also engaged in this.

11 Of course, Bassiouni's Commission also

12 contains a view that the legal forces of

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Bosniak forces, which are the

14 Defence forces of the legal authorities, that they,

15 too, were engaged in serious violations, but that it

16 was not out of a plan -- it was not a plan of their

17 waging the war, that is, the violation of international

18 law, to engage in ethnic cleansing, to commit crimes

19 against innocent populations and such. So, my

20 conclusion is that these were exercises rather than a

21 plan.

22 Q. My question was a bit different. As a

23 historian, you have the right to rely on any source in

24 submitting your views, and so you mentioned the

25 Bassiouni Commission report, but did you find any

Page 10224

1 document which would speak to the fact that the legal

2 authorities in Konjic had created a camp -- did you

3 find any such document?

4 A. No, I did not find any such document, nor do

5 I believe -- no, I did not find any such document which

6 would speak of camps. In Konjic it was a problem of

7 space. Konjic did not have a prison; they had to

8 accommodate a large number of people somewhere.

9 Q. So, professor, did you find any decision on

10 the establishment of a prison?

11 A. No, I did not find it.

12 Q. You said that you consulted with the

13 institute for the investigation of war crimes. Can you

14 say, based on the documents you saw, how many people

15 were detained in Celebici?

16 A. Regardless of the fact that I wanted to

17 establish this fact, I was not able to do so.

18 According to what I saw, and it is possible that I did

19 not find all the existing materials -- it could be that

20 certain documents were either destroyed or lost

21 relating to certain prisoners, but, based on what

22 I saw, there could have been about 200 to 250 prisoners

23 there -- up to 300 at the most. Obviously, the number

24 varies. The number was largest after the events in

25 Bradina and Donje Selo and later it diminishes, so it

Page 10225

1 could have been up to 300.

2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think we can break

3 now and come back at 12 noon.

4 -- recesses taken at 11.30 a.m.

5 -- on resuming at 12.04 p.m.

6 [Open session]

7 [The witness entered court]

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Kindly remind the

9 witness he is still under the oath.

10 THE REGISTRAR: May I remind you, Sir, that

11 you still under oath?

12 A. Yes, I am aware of that.

13 MS. RESIDOVIC: Professor, you said that

14 reviewing the documents of the institute for

15 investigating crimes in Sarajevo, you found a quantity

16 of data on persons detained in Celebici. Please, can

17 you tell me, by reviewing those documents, were you

18 able to reach a conclusion as to who those persons

19 were, about whom those documents were that you saw?

20 A. They were citizens and inhabitants of the

21 municipality of Konjic, mostly from the village of

22 Bradina, Donje Selo and Podunavlje - mostly.

23 Q. Among those documents, did you find data as

24 to whether any criminal proceedings were being

25 conducted against those people?

Page 10226

1 A. Yes. There are quite a number of reports on

2 investigations and then, later on, there are 105

3 criminal charges against persons for criminal offences.

4 Q. Attached to your report are a number of court

5 rulings on the discontinuation of those proceedings.

6 Can you tell us what they are?

7 A. This was an amnesty proclaimed by the legal

8 authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- not because those

9 people were not guilty, but because they did so out of

10 mercy.

11 Q. Professor, will you please tell me, on the

12 basis of your research and study of the material at

13 your disposal, could you see whether those people were

14 members of the Yugoslavia People's Army?

15 A. No, they were civilians.

16 Q. Were they in uniform -- are there data about

17 such things?

18 A. Some of them had uniforms, but they did not

19 have any insignia. It is not recorded anywhere that

20 anybody had any rank or anything like that.

21 Q. And did you see among those documents whether

22 they were armed?

23 A. They were brought there on charges that they

24 had been armed, and it was recorded that most of them

25 had military weapons and that they were putting armed

Page 10227

1 resistance against the legal army, that is the

2 Territorial Defence, the HVO and so on.

3 Q. Did your research, professor, lead you to

4 make any conclusions whether those persons were

5 citizens of Konjic or did they come from other towns?

6 A. They were mostly local people -- villagers

7 and some people from town. There were parts of the

8 town where they lived -- they were people whose

9 families had lived there for 100 years, some of them

10 even longer, so there is no doubt as to that. They

11 were local inhabitants of the municipality of Konjic.

12 Q. Did your research answer the question whether

13 those people were citizens of the Republic of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

15 A. I am not an expert for citizenship issues.

16 As far as I am concerned, I was a national of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina and a national of the Socialist

18 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and, according to the

19 1974 Bosnia-Herzegovina constitution, the citizens of

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina are citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina

21 and of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

22 MR. NIEMANN: I object to that. The witness

23 has said that he is not an expert then proceeds to give

24 an opinion.

25 JUDGE JAN: He is talking about himself

Page 10228

1 now. He said so far as he is concerned he is a citizen

2 of Bosnia-Herzegovina and also under the 1974

3 constitution, he was a citizen of the Socialist Federal

4 Republic of Yugoslavia.

5 MR. NIEMANN: I do not want to pursue it.

6 He was called as an expert witness. Then he says he is

7 not an expert and then proceeds to give an opinion on

8 something.

9 JUDGE JAN: As to himself.

10 MR. NIEMANN: So long as it is limited to

11 that, your Honour.

12 MS. RESIDOVIC: The professor has explained

13 his position by referring to a certain document and he

14 is able to say that as a scholar. He said that the

15 1974 constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina -- could you

16 repeat what that constitution says?

17 A. The constitution stipulates that the citizens

18 of Bosnia-Herzegovina are citizens of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina and also citizens of the Socialist

20 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. From the Defence

21 department, I received certain certificates on the

22 citizenship of individual detainees, and I checked them

23 in the Konjic municipality, where they are registered

24 as citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and this can be

25 checked -- there is no problem there.

Page 10229

1 According to the Dayton treaty, there is this

2 nationality of Bosnia-Herzegovina which has continuity

3 -- whose continuity has been recognised.

4 Q. Professor, did your research lead you to

5 conclude anything about the kind of prison Celebici

6 was? Was it a civilian or a military prison?

7 A. To tell you the truth, I am not an expert on

8 prisons, but I was not able to establish it -- I think

9 there were several agencies that had competence over

10 that prison, so it is very difficult to establish. For

11 a time it was a civilian prison, then a military one,

12 then, later, it became a prison over which the police

13 and the army had control, then the higher court, which

14 grants amnesty and so on, so it is really very

15 difficult to be very specific about that and I do not

16 feel competent to go into any further details regarding

17 that, or to make any far-reaching conclusions.

18 If I may, if you wish --

19 Q. But you said that you were not competent on

20 this area. I cannot expect an expert to voice an

21 opinion about things he is not competent for. You have

22 told us what your conclusions were on the basis of your

23 research and I thank you for it.

24 As you said earlier on, you went to the

25 Konjic municipality to do your research in various

Page 10230

1 institutions. Professor, can you please tell us

2 whether you learned what the general situation was in

3 the recent history, that is, during the six months

4 while the prison existed, what was the situation like

5 in Konjic and what were the conditions under which the

6 inhabitants of Konjic lived?

7 JUDGE JAN: I think he answered this

8 question yesterday. He said there were food shortages

9 and there were refugees coming in and there were

10 shortages of everything. I think he said that

11 yesterday.

12 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you for reminding me.

13 I will now ask a more specific question, which was not

14 answered yesterday. There was yesterday mention of

15 food and today of refugees but now I should like to ask

16 you whether, in that period of time, there was a

17 certain number of civilians exposed to injuries,

18 wounding, killings -- did you discover any facts along

19 those lines?

20 A. The hospital in Konjic provided data on the

21 persons who were wounded and killed. They gave data on

22 civilian and military casualties. These data are

23 incomplete, because there were several hundred in the

24 group of soldiers -- I cannot recall exactly the

25 numbers -- they can be found in my report. I think

Page 10231

1 about 400 or 450 civilians and about 1,200 wounded or

2 killed soldiers.

3 Q. Thank you. Professor, we have seen the

4 videos and we also have discussed Sarajevo under

5 siege. Could you tell us, on the basis of your overall

6 research, including what you did in preparation of this

7 report, why was the lifting of the siege of Sarajevo so

8 important?

9 A. Sarajevo is, above all, the centre and the

10 capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is where the central

11 State institutions are situated, and the question of

12 Sarajevo was really the question of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

13 Q. How many people were living in Sarajevo at

14 the time?

15 A. 300,000 in a cauldron surrounded by hills and

16 from it was impossible to leave -- the only way out was

17 across the runway controlled by the UNPROFOR. At the

18 same time this is an open space exposed to Serb snipers

19 who were killing people.

20 Q. So your final conclusion, please, linked to

21 this fact of the surrounded Sarajevo, tell me, do you,

22 as a scholar, consider that all the human, military and

23 other reasons existed for each individual and State

24 body to try and lift the siege of Sarajevo?

25 A. Those of us who were in enclosed Sarajevo

Page 10232

1 felt that most acutely. I think this is something that

2 is self-evident. Both people inside and outside wanted

3 and kept trying to lift the siege, but the system was

4 so firm that it was simply impossible to make a

5 breakthrough without international aid.

6 Q. Professor, we will now move on to the last

7 group of questions that I intended to put to you. As

8 we go through your report and the supporting material

9 that you relied on in preparing that report and your

10 testimony, tell me, professor, before this engagement,

11 did you know any of the persons who are accused in this

12 case?

13 A. No, I did not know any one of the accused and

14 I saw them for the first time here in the courtroom.

15 Q. In the course of the war, or before the war,

16 had you ever heard of Zejnil Delalic?

17 A. No, I had not heard of Zejnil Delalic.

18 Q. In preparing your expert report and leafing

19 through the documents that you found on the ground, did

20 you come across any data about Mr. Zejnil Delalic.

21 Actually, I am asking whether you checked in any way

22 the fact whether Zejnil Delalic was a member of any

23 body in the Konjic municipality?

24 A. According to the information I received in

25 Konjic, he was not officially a member of any

Page 10233

1 organisation.

2 Q. Did you learn whether he was a member of any

3 political organisation in Konjic?

4 A. That is what I am talking about -- he was not

5 a member of any political organisation.

6 Q. In view of the fact that you have attached

7 the Statute of the war presidency, some of its

8 conclusions and decisions, did you come across any

9 information that would indicate that Zejnil Delalic was

10 a member of the war presidency of the Konjic

11 municipality?

12 A. He could not have been a member of the war

13 presidency, because that was prescribed by law. He

14 could only have been invited to attend a meeting of the

15 presidency, but he certainly was not a member of that

16 presidency.

17 Q. Reviewing the documents in the possession of

18 the Defence, you probably learned some other facts.

19 Did you at all go into the question of Zejnil Delalic's

20 appointment to any military function?

21 A. As far as I know, and I saw the order

22 appointing him commander of Tactical Group 1, and his

23 subsequent appointment to another post, I saw that

24 order, too -- as deputy commander for logistics in

25 Group South. That is all that I saw.

Page 10234

1 Q. Did you come across any data that would lead

2 you to believe with certainty when Zejnil Delalic left

3 Konjic and why?

4 A. I did not go into that issue. He simply

5 disappeared from Konjic and I was not able to follow

6 that from the materials I examined -- perhaps a

7 military expert could do that better than I.

8 Q. Did the documents at your disposal refer to

9 subsequent activities of Zejnil Delalic after he left

10 Konjic?

11 A. In my expert report, I did not take that into

12 consideration, because I did not have the relevant data

13 for that. That would have to be investigated where

14 Mr. Delalic was, and I did not go into that.

15 Q. Professor, could you please tell me whether

16 you know that, in Austria, there is an association of

17 Bosnians of the Party of Democratic Action?

18 A. I know that there is a club -- I even visited

19 it once in Vienna -- we called it the Bosnian club.

20 That is what people told me -- it is a Bosnian club.

21 I did not even know what its exact name was. We just

22 went to see the place where Bosnians gathered. But I

23 did not know it was a club of Democratic Action. It

24 was a club that Bosnians frequented .

25 Q. Tell me, as you had personal experience, did

Page 10235

1 you, on that occasion, or later, in preparation of this

2 report, know that that club was a political Party of

3 the SDA?

4 A. As far as I know, there is no SDA in Austria,

5 because there cannot be a foreign political Party

6 working legally in another State. Therefore, the

7 Democratic Action Party could not, either, and I read

8 that Alija Izetbegovic, that there are no parties but

9 there are other forms of activity, cultural

10 associations and so on, but no political activity.

11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, professor.

12 Your Honours, I have completed my examination

13 of this witness. I should now like to, in line with

14 the procedure applied by this Trial Chamber when

15 adopting the report and documents of witness Dr. Calic,

16 I would now tender into evidence the report, the expert

17 report of professor Dr. Hadzibegovic, that we take

18 judicial notice of the list of documents as already

19 admitted evidence from the report of Dr. Calic, which

20 this expert has referred to, because attached to his

21 expert report, there is a review of the documents that

22 he used and included in his own documents as the basis

23 for his own expert opinion.

24 Third, that we admit into evidence the maps

25 and all the charts, which have been clarified by the

Page 10236

1 witness in this courtroom and, finally, that we admit

2 into evidence the other documents contained in the

3 folder as documents on the basis of which this expert

4 has compiled his expert report and opinion.

5 MR. NIEMANN: I object, your Honours.

6 I object. At least some of the documents have been

7 shown to the professor and, insofar as they are

8 concerned, we now have some understanding perhaps of

9 the source of some of them. The vast bulk of the

10 documents, we do not anything about the source of them;

11 we know nothing about the truth of their contents. All

12 we know is that they are material which the professor

13 says apparently he has relied upon for the purposes of

14 his opinion.

15 Again, at this stage, we have said that our

16 objection is not directed to that basis of

17 admissibility. Our objection is directed to them being

18 admitted and, in particular, with respect to specific

19 documents, to them being admitted for the truth of

20 their contents.

21 Your Honours, if we are to comply with what

22 happened in relation to Dr. Calic -- as I understand it,

23 I was not here at the time -- but as I understand it

24 the documents were not admitted until after

25 cross-examination, so it is not in accordance with what

Page 10237

1 happened there, and it is simply not appropriate to

2 say, "Well, there was no objection in relation to

3 Dr. Calic, therefore we rely on that practice and they

4 automatically become admissible."

5 That is not the appropriate basis. If an

6 objection is raised, as your Honours know, the Defence

7 must deal with the objection, and, your Honours, our

8 position has been, right from the outset, that it is

9 because we were confronted with all this material that

10 we have not had, and still have not had the opportunity

11 to finally determine which ones we are prepared to

12 simply say, "We have no objection to them going into

13 evidence." Indeed, in relation to a number of them, we

14 would not have any objection -- in some cases we fail

15 to see the relevance of them, but, if the Defence feel

16 that they somehow or other are central to their case

17 and want to argue that, that is a matter for them. It

18 increases the burden of work for your Honours, but we

19 will not raise serious objection to it.

20 There is a category of these documents which

21 are nothing more than Madam Residovic writing to some

22 institution, whether it be in Konjic or somewhere else,

23 asking for information and getting a letter in reply

24 from them saying, "Zejnil Delalic is not a member of

25 the SDA" or some similar such thing, and she is trying

Page 10238

1 to seek to tender it in this way. We object to that,

2 and we object to it because if they want to establish

3 that, and it is important for them to establish that,

4 then they should call the person from that particular

5 institution who can come along and tell us that. We

6 are then given the opportunity to cross-examine on it.

7 So, your Honours, my suggestion at this stage

8 is that at least the admissibility issue be determined

9 after cross-examination is completed and, hopefully, we

10 can be slightly more helpful in terms of being able to

11 say to you, "Well, in relation to all of these

12 documents, we have no objection, and we just ground our

13 objection in relation to the following ones." That is

14 our submission, your Honours.

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, if you recall,

16 there were many objections regarding the evidence of

17 Dr. Calic. I remember I objected to all the charts of

18 Dr. Calic regarding the position and mutual

19 relationships of bodies and the question of a

20 co-ordinator. You admitted those documents, but you

21 said that we could establish those facts in our case

22 and each time you admitted evidence, you reminded us of

23 the Rules of this Tribunal, according to which, if a

24 party is able to contest the document, that it can

25 always do so by referring to Rule 89 and 92

Page 10239

1 subsequently.

2 I have again studied very closely the

3 procedure we went through at the time, and I think, by

4 tendering the evidence in this way, I am fully

5 respectful of your rulings in that case. There is no

6 difference here with respect to the previous expert.

7 The only difference is that this expert has been called

8 by the Defence and the last time it was the Prosecution

9 who called the witness. But I think from the

10 standpoint of the Trial Chamber, this is identical and,

11 as you have said many times, we are absolutely equal

12 before this Trial Chamber.

13 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Is that your answer to

14 the criticisms? Is that your answer?

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: Yes, your Honour.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: There are still so many

17 open-ended things. There is the expert report, which

18 the expert himself has produced. In addition to that,

19 there are the annexes to that report. If you look at

20 the annexes, there are so many areas you might have

21 mentioned in your examination-in-chief which you might

22 have relied upon, and there are other areas which have

23 not been touched and there are also areas where they

24 have been in a different language, which do not appear

25 to have been translated, or, if translated, there is

Page 10240

1 nothing to show that they have been.

2 The difficulty is how you relate this to the

3 report and, for the purposes of admissibility, whether

4 you can rely on this -- not only by the expert himself

5 but also by each of those who want to rely on these

6 annexes for the purposes of his report. I do not

7 think the question of his report would be very

8 seriously challenged, because he is here himself to

9 authenticate it and admit that he is the author of the

10 report.

11 When it comes to the annexes and maps --

12 some produced by him, others perhaps not by him -- they

13 also have their own difficulties. I am not prepared to

14 go into what you said about Dr. Calic and the like,

15 because my recollection of Dr. Calic is that the chart

16 was produced by the expert herself. I do not see you

17 can argue with somebody who said, "I produce this chart

18 and I rely on it for the purposes of my report." They

19 are quite different things.

20 Here, there are annexes which perhaps might

21 require explanation. It is not the same thing. You

22 might be able to distinguish the expert report itself

23 from the documents which you now rely upon for the

24 purposes of the reports and those documents which you

25 have not even referred to at all. You referred to some

Page 10241

1 of them and, as the Prosecutor has pointed out, some of

2 the reports might have been letters in reply to your

3 own queries and written by somebody who is not here to

4 say whether he wrote them or not.

5 There is quite a lot of explanation to make

6 in respect of it. To take a document like this

7 (indicating) and admit it without knowing exactly what

8 it is, that is a fairly difficult thing to do. As

9 I said, it is a different thing with the expert

10 reports.

11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, as you have

12 asked me whether that was my complete answer before

13 your comments, I thought that I had answered, but now

14 I understand you better. I am tendering the report as

15 evidence straight away, because the witness has covered

16 the whole report through my questions.

17 Secondly, I really have to refer again to the

18 previous procedure, and I immediately propose that

19 although this witness has confirmed that he has checked

20 each of my letters in the municipality, I propose that

21 those documents should not be admitted at all -- there

22 are four or five of them.

23 Thirdly, in Dr. Calic's binder, there are

24 documents which I personally gave to the Prosecution

25 and which the Prosecution gave to Dr. Calic, and no-one

Page 10242

1 at that stage checked how come Dr. Calic had a document

2 which I had given the Prosecution. So, that was the

3 attitude towards the relevancy of documents which she

4 used to base her opinion on.

5 Briefly, in annex 1, which has been submitted

6 to you, it contains literature, laws and all the things

7 that Professor Hadzibegovic has told us about. It is

8 the historical materials he has been working with for

9 years, and which he used to make an assessment of the

10 present period.

11 Therefore, annex 1 only, under item 11, has a

12 table, which, as can be seen from that table or chart,

13 is one that the professor himself made on the basis of

14 his own research. Therefore, that annex, in its

15 entirety, can be admitted already today.

16 As for annex B, in this annex, taking into

17 account the explanation he gave, the professor said

18 that he used the specific documents used by Dr. Calic,

19 and he incorporated them in his expert report and those

20 are official gazettes and the material of the Institute

21 for the Study of War Crimes in Sarajevo, which Dr. Calic

22 also relied upon in a part of her expert opinion.

23 Annex C contains documents which the

24 professor received in the Institute while working on

25 this issue and under item 2 is the population

Page 10243

1 composition of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna,

2 a list that this professor made himself on the basis of

3 data obtained.

4 As for annex D, it includes a number of

5 official gazettes of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which were

6 already submitted to this Trial Chamber in Dr. Calic's

7 list, and were used by the professor as well, and this

8 also contains a part of the documentation that the

9 Defence gave to this expert and which he, as he just

10 said in answer to my last question, checked partially

11 and partially felt that it was a sufficient basis for

12 him to make conclusions. As I said at the end, there

13 are four or five documents given to the professor by

14 the Defence and it sought replies in 1992 from these

15 institutions. The professor verified these, but if

16 these four or five documents are an obstacle to the

17 admission of this folder, the Defence proposes

18 immediately that all the documents requested by the

19 Defence from some other institution should be excluded

20 from this folder after which all the documents could be

21 admitted as a basis for the expert's report and

22 opinion.

23 MR. OLUJIC: Your Honours, my client has

24 asked for a five-minute break, if he may beg the

25 court's indulgence, please.

Page 10244

1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: In any event, we should

2 be stopping at 1 o'clock. If it is too much for him to

3 wait, very well. Is it that pressing? If it is not,

4 we will stop at 1.

5 MR. OLUJIC: I have been so informed by my

6 client. Thank you very much for your understanding,

7 your Honour.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think we will rise

9 and let him -- how long would it take him to be ready?

10 We will come back at --

11 MR. OLUJIC: Five minutes, your Honours. If

12 necessary, he can leave and we can continue the

13 discussion. He is just asking permission to leave for

14 five minutes. The Trial Chamber need not rise.

15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not know what it

16 might turn out to be. We will rise for 10 minutes.

17

18

19 -- recess taken at 12.40 p.m. to 12.50 p.m.

20 whereupon luncheon adjournment taken

21 -- on resuming at 2.30 p.m.

22

23

24

25

Page 10245

1 [Open Session]

2 MS. BOLER: Your Honours, may I address the

3 court? Nancy Boler, co-counsel along with Cynthia

4 McMurrey. Ms. McMurrey has felt bad all morning and has

5 got sicker during lunch. With your permission, she has

6 gone back to the hotel to try and get better.

7 Secondly, also during lunch, Mr. Blizzard came

8 in and told me that Mr. Landzo is having some dental

9 problems and that they had arranged for him to see a

10 dentist the day after tomorrow at noon and that he was

11 going to make a request through the Registry that we

12 adjourn court at 11.30 Thursday morning and resume at

13 2 p.m., to accommodate the dentist. I am sure you will get

14 it in a more formal manner. That is what I was told a

15 few minutes ago.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much for

17 your information.

18 (The witness entered court)

19 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Remind the witness he

20 is still under oath.

21 THE REGISTRAR: I remind you, Sir, that you

22 are still under oath.

23 A. Yes, thank you, I acknowledge that.

24 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, before breaking

25 for lunch, I had offered these exhibits into evidence.

Page 10246

1 I have no new arguments for the Trial Chamber

2 concerning these exhibits.

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

4 I think perhaps at the end of the cross-examination you

5 may renew your application and we will consider it.

6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. I have completed

7 my examination-in-chief of this witness.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Any questions?

9 Cross-examined by MR. MORAN

10 Q. If I can have your indulgence to get situated

11 for a second. You have always been very good about

12 that.

13 May it please the court, good afternoon,

14 professor. We have met. I do not think I have

15 formally introduced myself. My name is Tom Moran.

16 I represent a man named Hazim Delic. He is the last

17 man sitting over there. You do not know Hazim, do you?

18 A. No, I do not.

19 Q. Sometimes I talk a little fast and sometimes

20 my questions are not as clear as they could be, and so,

21 if you do not understand something I say, will you stop

22 me and we will work with it, and one other thing, if

23 you look there is a lady in black over there and there

24 is a lady in orange over there. They are what are

25 called court reporters. They have to write down

Page 10247

1 everything we say to make a record of the trial, and

2 they cannot write down a nod, so you have to answer

3 "Yes" or "No". You have to answer out loud so

4 historians in the future can look at our record and be

5 able to know what we did here. Okay, professor?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. In general I want to discuss with you some

8 things in general and I will go through some of these

9 documents that were presented to you, but just in

10 general I want to talk to you about what historians do

11 and how they work. Sometimes, for instance, you might

12 have what we would call in America an oral history --

13 you might actually be able to talk to some person who

14 was part of an event. You might be able to talk to

15 George Bush, or Margaret Thatcher and other times you

16 might have to rely on documents; is that right?

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. So, for instance, if you were doing something

19 on the history of ancient Rome obviously you would have

20 to rely on nothing but documents?

21 A. That is correct.

22 Q. And, when an historian is trained, he is

23 trained to look at documents and determine which

24 documents are reliable, which are relevant, and

25 basically separate the wheat from the chaff; is that a

Page 10248

1 fair statement?

2 A. That is correct.

3 Q. And, as an historian, you would rely on

4 documents prepared by others in reaching your opinions;

5 is that a fair statement?

6 A. I did not understand the question.

7 Q. Okay. That is good, thank you for stopping

8 me. If you were preparing a class, a lecture, writing

9 a book or giving an opinion about something, it would

10 be very common for you to rely on documents that were

11 prepared by other people in reaching those opinions; is

12 that not fair?

13 A. You obviously use documents which have been

14 used by other people, including the historians, of

15 course.

16 Q. Sure. You might go to the -- if you were

17 doing a history of London, you might go to the British

18 Museum or the British libraries and look at original

19 documents, archives, from years ago, and rely on those

20 kinds of documents to reach your opinion?

21 A. That is correct.

22 MR. MORAN: If the usher could give the

23 witness the volume of maps and the volume of documents

24 and the volume with the report, we might be able to get

25 through this a little bit quicker. (Handed)

Page 10249

1 Professor, let us just start with the volume

2 of maps, because it was on the top of my pile. Let us

3 go to the first map, map M1. You did not prepare that

4 -- I understand -- I know exactly what you are doing,

5 I have been there, looking for the glasses. Map M1,

6 you did not prepare that map, did you, doctor?

7 A. No, this is a map that was taken over -- it

8 was borrowed from the military encyclopaedia.

9 Q. This map is the kind of thing that a person

10 of your profession would rely upon in reaching an

11 opinion; is that correct?

12 A. (Witness nods head) Yes.

13 Q. Even though you did not prepare it yourself?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Let us go to map 2, you did not prepare this

16 map, either, did you?

17 A. This map was taken from an atlas compiled by

18 a professor in Zagreb, Mr. Ljubo Boban, a member of the

19 academy and I used several of the maps from this atlas,

20 because I considered them reliable and I considered

21 them very well made indeed.

22 Q. It is the kind of thing that a person in your

23 profession would rely on in reaching an opinion?

24 A. Yes, because there is no need for me to

25 create new maps when there is something already

Page 10250

1 available, which has been an excellent quality work and

2 it contributes to our science and I also knew

3 personally this man, who has since died, but he was an

4 excellent scholar.

5 Q. And, in fact, we would call that reinventing

6 the wheel -- you do not have to reinvent the wheel

7 every time you want to use one; right?

8 A. That is correct.

9 Q. Let us go to map 4, professor. You did not

10 prepare map 4, did you?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Do you know who prepared it?

13 A. I borrowed this map from another book, which

14 is a published work and I think it reflects the

15 situation as it actually is. It is not as detailed of

16 a map, but it is still detailed enough with respect to

17 what we wanted to show here, which was this project of

18 Serbian lands.

19 Q. And that is the kind of thing that a person

20 in your profession would rely upon in reaching an

21 opinion?

22 A. Yes, absolutely, of course.

23 Q. And map 5, again, you did not prepare this,

24 did you?

25 A. No, this is a map from the same atlas which

Page 10251

1 I have mentioned before, compiled by Mr. Ljubo Boban.

2 Q. And it is still the kind of thing that a

3 person in your profession would rely upon in reaching

4 an opinion?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Let us go to map 6, M6. Again, this is

7 something that someone else prepared?

8 A. Yes. This map has been published in a book

9 by Suad Arnautovic entitled, "How Bosnia Was Defended".

10 MR. MORAN: This, again, is the kind of thing

11 that a person in your profession would rely upon in

12 reaching an opinion.

13 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Mr. Moran, if you looked

14 at it carefully, the source of each of these have been

15 indicated on the maps themselves.

16 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, what I am doing is

17 replying essentially to the objection made by

18 Mr. Niemann and I want to show that each and every one

19 of these documents was one relied upon by this man and

20 secondly is the kind of thing that is relied upon by

21 people in his profession in reaching an opinion.

22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The maps themselves

23 have the sources indicated.

24 MR. NIEMANN: We have never disputed at any

25 stage these documents are documents that were relied

Page 10252

1 upon. Right from the very outset I said that. If that

2 is what Mr. Moran is doing, I do not know why, because

3 I have already said it and said it from the start. It

4 has never been disputed that the professor relied on

5 it.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: There is no problem

7 about this.

8 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, I think to meet his

9 objections to the admissibility of the documents

10 I think I have to go through each and every one of them

11 and prove not only did he rely upon them but they are

12 the kinds of things a person in his profession would

13 rely upon and they in fact were relied upon in his

14 opinion.

15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

16 I think none of this is disputed by even the

17 Prosecution.

18 MR. MORAN: If that covers both the maps and

19 the documents in this book --

20 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I would not say the

21 same thing as to the documents, but for the maps, I can

22 see.

23 MR. MORAN: At this point I would move

24 admission of the book of maps, whatever the exhibit

25 number is.

Page 10253

1 Let us go to the big book and annex A. The

2 first document in annex A is A1, which is a portion of

3 the Bosnian constitution; is that correct?

4 A. Yes, that is correct -- that is exactly it.

5 Q. And is that the current constitution, or is

6 that an earlier constitution?

7 A. This is a version of the constitution under

8 the Austro-Hungarian rule -- this is the Austrian

9 constitution and I think this is actually the original

10 first edition of this constitution.

11 Q. Professor, obviously you did not prepare that

12 -- it is a constitution of 1880, and obviously someone

13 else prepared that document?

14 A. This is a constitution which was printed as

15 an official version of the Bosnian constitution in

16 1910. This is not a later edition and, even if it were

17 a later printing, it would be beyond any doubt -- it is

18 something that originates from that era, so this is an

19 historical document.

20 Q. It is clearly the kind of thing that an

21 historian would rely upon in reaching opinions, is it

22 not, professor?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And in fact you relied upon it in reaching

25 the opinions that you gave in your report; is that

Page 10254

1 correct?

2 A. Yes, yes.

3 Q. Let us move to document A2, which purports to

4 be the constitution of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and

5 Slovenians -- it has a version in what appears to be

6 Serbian and behind it is an English translation?

7 A. Yes, there is also a stamp there -- the stamp

8 of the archives of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that means

9 that a copy was used that is deposited in the archives

10 of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an historical document and

11 I would like to point you to the front page.

12 Q. Yes, I have noticed that, professor. The

13 Bates stamp number on that --

14 A. So that means it has been registered.

15 Q. That would be the page that has the stamp at

16 the bottom that says 00013?

17 A. Yes, of the archives of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

18 that is correct.

19 Q. That is the kind of document that an

20 historian would rely on in reaching opinions -- yes?

21 A. This is an original document.

22 Q. And you in fact relied upon that in reaching

23 the opinions that are recorded in your report?

24 A. Yes, of course.

25 Q. Now, the next document appears to be a

Page 10255

1 breakdown by population -- that would be document A3 --

2 which appears to be a breakdown by population group of

3 various religions?

4 A. Excuse me, what number are you referring to?

5 Q. A3, and the page would be 20 -- the stamp

6 down at the bottom, 20. Professor I will hold it up

7 and show it to you -- will that help you find it --

8 this one (indicates).

9 A. These tables were prepared on the basis of

10 the official census between 1850 and 1991. All

11 official census data were shown here in which the

12 official State sources were used. There were no

13 private data used -- you can see that 13 different

14 census-taking data were used and I have also given all

15 the pertinent sources for each one of them.

16 Q. And you prepared that chart?

17 A. Yes, I prepared this table.

18 Q. And it is prepared based on the kinds of

19 documents that people in your profession would rely

20 upon in reaching opinions or giving data; is that a

21 fair assessment, doctor?

22 A. That is correct.

23 Q. And, in fact, you relied on that chart in

24 reaching the opinions that are included in your report?

25 A. Yes, yes.

Page 10256

1 Q. Let us go to document A4, which I understand

2 is a resolution of the city of Mostar Muslims in 1941?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Obviously you did not prepare that document?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. But it appears to have come from a printed

7 source of some kind. Is that printed document, the

8 book that this came from the kind of thing that

9 historians would rely on in reaching opinions and in

10 writing books and articles and giving classes?

11 A. This is the latest edition of a series of

12 resolutions of the Muslim citizens addressed to the

13 authorities in 1941.

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I thought the source

15 was indicated at the top.

16 MR. MORAN: I wanted to make sure it is the

17 kind of thing that an historian would rely upon in

18 reaching opinions, your Honour.

19 MR. NIEMANN: I do not know whether it helps

20 to repeat my position. I thought I made it clear on

21 numerous occasions that the Prosecution has not at any

22 stage suggested that any of this material is not

23 material upon which the professor relied in order to

24 express his opinion. Our objection goes to the truth

25 of the contents of some of the documents -- that is the

Page 10257

1 only issue. So if the exercise that Mr. Moran is now

2 embarking upon is to establish that this material is

3 material that the professor relied upon in order to

4 express his opinion, he is wasting everybody's time.

5 MR. MORAN: I am also going to the fact that

6 it is the kind of document that historians and people

7 in his profession rely upon in reaching their opinions.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Well and good.

9 MR. MORAN: If the Prosecutor wants to

10 stipulate that in fact each one of these documents in

11 this book is a document that was relied upon by this

12 witness in reaching his opinion, in fact has included

13 in his opinion and is the kind of document that people

14 in his profession rely upon in reaching opinions, then

15 I think I can stop -- as long as Mr. Niemann is willing

16 to stipulate to all of that.

17 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: He is not objecting

18 that these were matters on which an opinion could be

19 based. It is when you rely on it for the truth of what

20 you are saying, then that is where perhaps the problems

21 might arise. He is not disputing that you can rely on

22 it for forming an opinion. The Prosecution is not

23 disputing that.

24 MR. MORAN: Your Honour --

25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: He cannot choose for

Page 10258

1 you what you decide to use for your opinion.

2 MR. MORAN: That is true. I want also to

3 show the Trial Chamber, unless Mr. Niemann wants to

4 stipulate to it, that these are the kind of documents

5 that professional historians rely upon in reaching

6 opinions.

7 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That is a different

8 matter. We are speaking about this particular

9 historian, and how he reached his opinion.

10 MR. MORAN: I am doing I think two things.

11 One is, did he rely upon it and secondly, is it the

12 kind of documents that professionals in his field --

13 historians -- rely upon in reaching opinions. If

14 Mr. Niemann is willing to stipulate that it is that,

15 that he relied on them, that they are included in his

16 opinions, then I can stop.

17 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That is up to him.

18 MR. MORAN: He apparently does not want to,

19 so let me continue, your Honour. As to document A4.

20 MR. NIEMANN: I am prepared to stipulate as

21 long as it is not tendered in evidence as the truth of

22 the contents. I will go further and say that documents

23 -- annexes A through to C, we do not have any

24 particular problems with at all. So, it is the

25 documents that appear in annexe D that we have quite

Page 10259

1 a bit to say about, but up until that point, we have no

2 problems with them either as something that this man

3 relied upon -- which we have never disputed -- or

4 secondly, it is the sort of thing that historians would

5 ordinarily rely on in order to express an opinion.

6 I am not in a position to stipulate to D because I have

7 several arguments about the documents that appear in

8 that category.

9 MR. MORAN: I think we have taken care of A,

10 B and C. Let us go to D.

11 Professor, if you would flip to annex D way

12 at the back of the book, I believe there are 39

13 documents in annex D and we will go through them.

14 The first one, which appears to be on

15 document D1 which starts on page 228 -- it appears to

16 be both a Bosnian version and an English translation of

17 a thing called the Izetbegovic/Gligorov platform -- are

18 you familiar with that document?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Is that the kind of document that historians

21 and people in your profession would rely upon in

22 reaching opinions?

23 A. Yes. They were published in full in the

24 media.

25 Q. And, in fact, you did rely upon that document

Page 10260

1 in reaching the opinion that is included in your

2 report?

3 A. Yes.

4 MR. MORAN: Let us go to document D2. That

5 purports to be the declaration of the European

6 Community, recognising Bosnia-Herzegovina, an excerpt

7 from it. Behind it, there seems to be a printed

8 version in English. Is that the kind of document that

9 historians rely upon in reaching opinion -- historians

10 in general -- people in your profession?

11 JUDGE JAN: It is common ground that the

12 European Community recognised it immediately after the

13 referendum of 29 February and 1 March. It is an

14 admitted position.

15 MR. MORAN: Actually, this is dated 6 April

16 -- this document is dated 6 April.

17 JUDGE JAN: Immediately after the

18 referendum?

19 A. On 6 April.

20 JUDGE JAN: Bosnia declared itself a

21 Republic in the first week of February -- I think

22 5 February and the European Community recognised it.

23 MR. MORAN: Immediately?

24 A. Yes.

25 MR. MORAN: The only reason I am doing this is

Page 10261

1 because there seems to be some question about whether

2 these are the kind of documents -- annex D are the

3 kinds of documents that historians rely upon in

4 reaching their opinions.

5 JUDGE JAN: Some of these documents you will

6 find in Dr. Calic's report, also.

7 MR. MORAN: That is correct, but Mr. Niemann

8 has not designated which specific documents in annex D

9 he thinks are not the kinds of documents historians

10 rely upon in reaching their opinions, or that this man

11 relied upon in reaching his opinion. Without knowing

12 otherwise, I think I have to go through all 39

13 documents.

14 JUDGE JAN: Almost all of them are public

15 documents.

16 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour, I agree with

17 you.

18 JUDGE JAN: Published in the gazette of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- published there.

20 MR. MORAN: I agree with you 100 per cent.

21 I think that they are clearly the kind of documents

22 that historians would rely upon in reaching opinions,

23 and that this witness relied upon in reaching his

24 opinion as an historian. I think that -- I absolutely

25 agree with you, your Honour. But given the

Page 10262

1 Prosecution's position, I am afraid I have to do this.

2 MR. NIEMANN: I cannot understand why

3 Mr. Moran has to do this. The documents are sought to

4 be tendered by Madam Residovic. Is this some sort of a

5 cooperative effort in an extension of

6 evidence-in-chief?

7 MR. MORAN: Could we go into private session

8 for a second? I want to discuss what we discussed last

9 night in closed session for about two minutes.

10 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, let us go into

11 private session.

12 (In private session)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

Page 10263

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Page 10264

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Page 10265

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 [Open session]

5 MR. NIEMANN: I can indicate the ones to

6 which we would want present argument as to why they

7 ought not be admissible. They are Exhibit D21, and all

8 of the documents contained in Exhibit D21 -- not

9 Exhibit D21, document D21; D31; D32; D33; D34; D35;

10 D36; D37; D38; and D39. We are not objecting, but we

11 believe that there has been no foundation laid in terms

12 of the source of documents D8, D10 and D12 to 22. They

13 are not necessarily objected to, that last group, but

14 there is no indication of the source of them at all.

15 If that assists the Chamber, your Honour.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I suppose this can be

17 established in cross-examination.

18 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour. Then I am

19 presuming, if I understood correctly, and I hope the

20 Trial Chamber corrects me if I misunderstood, it seems

21 to be everybody's position that documents 1 through 7,

22 9, 11, 23, 24, 25, and then 26 through 30 are the kinds

23 of documents that historians would normally rely on in

24 reaching their opinions and that this man in fact did

25 do that, and that there is not going to be any

Page 10266

1 objection to those coming in. Did I understand that

2 correctly, your Honour?

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I suppose what the

4 Prosecution is saying -- not only that, all of them --

5 but he is objecting to the source and authority of

6 these other documents which he complains about. Any

7 other document which might have been used could be used

8 for that purpose.

9 MR. MORAN: Let me go through them quickly

10 and see if we can take care of those. Let us start

11 with document D8. The first page of that has number

12 293 on the bottom of it. That purports to be the

13 minutes of the 9th session of the Konjic municipal

14 Parliament. Where did you get those documents,

15 professor?

16 A. It has -- this document has been

17 authenticated, it has the registration number, the

18 stamp of the municipal assembly -- it is an authentic

19 document that one can rely on, in my opinion.

20 Q. It is the kind of document that appears to be

21 authentic -- it does not appear to be a forgery, does

22 it?

23 A. Yes, yes.

24 Q. It is the kind of document that an historian

25 would rely upon in reaching his opinion -- historians

Page 10267

1 in general?

2 A. These are valuable documents.

3 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

4 your opinion?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Let us skip to document D10, professor. D10

7 purports to be the conclusions from the joint meeting

8 of the war presidency in Konjic defence force's command

9 dated 18 May 1992. I notice that that has a seal on

10 it, also -- the original in Bosnian. Do you know where

11 this document came from, professor?

12 A. This document is a document I received from

13 the institute, and I think it is authentic, and I used

14 it because it is an invaluable document which can

15 easily be checked -- it is signed by the president of

16 the presidency, with the stamp and date.

17 Q. When you say "the institute", what do you

18 mean by "the institute" -- which institute?

19 A. I mean the Institute for the Investigation of

20 War Crimes -- crimes against humanity and international

21 humanitarian law.

22 Q. And who runs that institute, professor -- who

23 funds it, who pays for it, who is in charge of it?

24 A. It is an institute financed by the State.

25 Q. And it collects documents related to

Page 10268

1 allegations of war crimes and atrocities?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And the history of the war?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And it is put together so that historians in

6 future years can go there and see what happened in

7 Bosnia from 1991?

8 A. That is right.

9 Q. And so these documents would be the kind --

10 document D10 would be the kind of document that an

11 historian -- not only today but maybe 100 years from

12 now, would rely upon in reaching an opinion?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

15 your opinions that are contained in your report here;

16 is that correct, doctor?

17 A. Yes, I also believe it to be an authentic

18 document and a very valuable one for future studies.

19 MR. MORAN: And let us go to document number

20 D12. That purports to be the order of the war

21 presidency to Radio Konjic dated 21 May 1992.

22 I notice that -- your Honours, it is page 323

23 in the book. It also has a seal on it?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And where did you get this document?

Page 10269

1 A. I received this document from the Defence

2 council offices, and I think it is an authentic

3 document.

4 Q. Why do you think it is an authentic document?

5 A. I think so because I have reviewed several

6 such documents and I have that much experience to be

7 able to tell what is authentic and what is not. This

8 is a document which has all the necessary

9 characteristics of documents of this type that were

10 issued at the time. There is a heading, who is sending

11 it to whom, the registration number, the date, a

12 signature -- it has all the characteristics of an

13 authentic document.

14 Q. And so it is the kind of document that an

15 historian would rely upon in reaching opinions?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And it is in fact a document you relied upon

18 in reaching your opinions that are contained in the

19 report that has been tendered to the court?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Let us go to document number D13.

22 A. Yes.

23 MR. MORAN: That purports to be the decision

24 on establishment of the commission for the issues of

25 killed, injured and missing persons from the Konjic war

Page 10270

1 presidency, dated 25 May 1992. Do you know where that

2 document came from?

3 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, may I just

4 comment? This exhibit has already been admitted into

5 evidence and it is a document that the witness was

6 given by the Defence, but it is already included in the

7 evidence -- admitted by this Trial Chamber.

8 JUDGE JAN: As exhibit what -- what is the

9 exhibit number?

10 MS. RESIDOVIC: Through witness Djajic. I am

11 afraid I cannot remember the number, but we will look

12 it up and let you know.

13 MR. MORAN: While they are looking that one

14 up we will skip that one and go to the next one and

15 save some time.

16 Let us go to document D14. That purports to

17 be the conclusions of the war presidency dated 3 June

18 1992. Where did you get that document, professor?

19 A. I got this document, too, from the Defence

20 counsel. And I consider it, too, to be authentic.

21 Q. Does it have the indicia of authenticity for

22 documents that you would normally see in the Bosnian

23 Government -- things like seals and registration

24 numbers?

25 A. I hold it to be an authentic document.

Page 10271

1 Q. And that is based on your experience and

2 training in dealing with documents from the Bosnian

3 Government?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And this is the kind of document that

6 historians would rely upon in reaching conclusions --

7 A. Yes, yes.

8 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

9 your conclusions?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. The conclusions that are in your report?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Let us go to D15. That purports to be the

14 order of the war presidency to provide the necessary

15 number of blankets for the prisoners at the Celebici

16 facility, dated 3 June 1992. Where did you get it?

17 A. The next group of documents was also given to

18 me by the Defence counsel and they follow on to the

19 document we have previously discussed, so that all the

20 decisions were typed separately as instructions to

21 certain institutions, which are required to carry out

22 the tasks assigned to them, so that this is nothing new

23 that is being referred to; it is just a specification

24 of the individual tasks for various municipal bodies,

25 so it is nothing new that they contain. If the

Page 10272

1 previous one is admitted, then there is no point in

2 questioning these.

3 Q. I am afraid I have to. So D15 bears the

4 indicia of being an original -- a copy of an authentic

5 Bosnian Government document?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And this is the kind of document that

8 historians rely upon in reaching opinions and --

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

11 your opinion?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Professor, let us go to D16, which will be on

14 page 339. That is the order of the war presidency to

15 send detainees to medical checks, dated 3 June 1992.

16 Again, does this bear the indicia of reliability, that

17 it shows -- it has got the form that a Bosnian

18 Government document would have?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And an historian who was handed this document

21 would find it sufficiently reliable to base his

22 opinions, at least in part, on that document?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And you in fact relied upon that document in

25 reaching your opinions?

Page 10273

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Let us go to D17. This purports to be the

3 order of the Konjic war presidency to the Konjic

4 ministry of the interior on the control of vehicles,

5 again dated 3 June 1992. Again, I presume this came

6 from Ms. Residovic's office -- that is how you got it?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. But looking at this document, it bears the

9 indicia of reliability; that is, it looks like what a

10 Bosnian Government document would look like?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And it has the seals and it has the

13 registration numbers?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And it has -- for someone who is used to

16 dealing with these documents, they would accept this as

17 an authentic document?

18 A. Yes, yes.

19 Q. And --

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And an historian could base his opinions on

22 this document?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And you in fact also did -- you based your

25 opinions at least in part on that?

Page 10274

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. D18 purports to be the decision of the Konjic

3 war presidency on the making of a list of civilians in

4 Donje Selo and Bradina and it is dated 3 June. Again,

5 this document came from Ms. Residovic to you?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And from looking at it and from looking at

8 the registration numbers and the way it is laid out and

9 the signatures and such things, does that appear to you

10 to be an authentic document from the war presidency in

11 Konjic?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And it is the kind of document that a person

14 in your profession would rely upon in reaching

15 opinions?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

18 your opinions that are contained in your report?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. The next one is D19 and that is the decision

21 of the Konjic war presidency on the members, dated 26

22 October 1992. Where did you get this document?

23 A. I received this document, too, from the

24 office of the Defence.

25 Q. And, from looking at the document, it looks

Page 10275

1 like an authentic Bosnian Government document?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And it has enough indicia of reliability that

4 an historian would rely upon it in reaching an opinion?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And you in fact relied upon it in reaching

7 your opinion?

8 A. Yes.

9 MR. MORAN: Document D20, that purports to be

10 a BiH army pamphlet on the obligations to respect the

11 rules of war and the Geneva Conventions.

12 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, we seem to have

13 skipped a document.

14 MR. MORAN: We have? Which one did we skip?

15 MR. NIEMANN: There seem to be two documents

16 in D19. It starts 349 through to 356.

17 MR. MORAN: Professor, can you go to page 348

18 in the documents? It is a copy of the Bosnian

19 original?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Does that appear to be --

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. An authentic Bosnian document?

24 A. Yes.

25 MR. MORAN: If I read you part of an English

Page 10276

1 translation and I will just -- just a couple of lines,

2 could you check it against the Bosnian to make sure we

3 are reading off the same thing. I am going to be

4 reading from page 353 in the book. It starts off:

5 "Dear Sirs, having in mind your duties and

6 responsibility during the war ......"

7 I know that Bosnian is very hard to read.

8 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters do not

9 have a text, so there might be slight differences.

10 MR. MORAN: I have been informed because we

11 did not provide a text to the interpreters there might

12 be slight differences in translation.

13 The document on 348 and the document on page

14 353 appear to be the same -- just translation --

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: I apologise, your Honours,

16 but I am not getting the interpretation for a couple of

17 minutes now.

18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Do the interpreters

19 themselves have these documents? I am not sure they

20 do.

21 MR. MORAN: I was not planning on reading any

22 of them. Apparently what we have is a cover letter

23 followed by a longer letter -- the longer document --

24 I wanted to make sure everybody agreed --

25 JUDGE JAN: It gives the membership of the

Page 10277

1 war presidency.

2 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour and then there

3 is a document behind it -- the first is a cover letter,

4 and the second is a decision on who is the war

5 presidency.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That is 349.

7 MR. MORAN: In the Bosnian version it starts

8 off at 349 and runs through page 352. The English

9 translation would be on page 354 and runs to page 356,

10 your Honour.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Those are the same documents?

13 A. Yes, yes.

14 Q. I believe we were on D20. Just so the record

15 is clear, on annex D, document 19, both the cover

16 letter and the decision appear to be authentic

17 Government documents from the Government of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And they bear sufficient indicia of

21 reliability that an historian would rely upon those in

22 reaching his decisions and opinions?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And you in fact did on yours?

25 A. Yes.

Page 10278

1 JUDGE JAN: This document is dated 26

2 October 1992.

3 MR. MORAN: That is correct, your Honour.

4 Document D20, where did you get that?

5 A. There are several similar documents to --

6 similar to this in the archives. These are the

7 leaflets being handed out to the soldiers in an

8 exercise or in preparation for a particular operation

9 where the soldiers are warned of the Geneva Conventions

10 and respecting them, because our Government issued

11 several orders in that regard and even trained its

12 personnel in order to prevent any kind of violation of

13 international humanitarian law.

14 Q. So these would be handed out to combat troops

15 right before an operation, or people going through some

16 sort of a training programme -- is that where these

17 were used?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. This is the kind of document that a person in

20 your profession would rely upon in reaching opinions?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. You are starting to get used to the questions

23 -- you are anticipating me and you are doing it

24 correctly. You in fact relied upon this document in

25 reaching your opinion?

Page 10279

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Let us go to D21. That is the order of the

3 TO defence municipal headquarters and the Croat Council

4 of Defence restricting entrance into the houses of

5 Serbs, plunder of property and cattle, dated 6 June

6 1992?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Where did you get the Bosnian version?

9 A. I received it from the Defence counsel.

10 Q. Looking at the document as a whole, does it

11 appear to be an authentic document or a copy of an

12 authentic document from the Bosnian Government?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And it has sufficient marks and indicia of

15 reliability, the way it is laid out and the signatures

16 and everything that an historian would take --

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. -- this document to be an authentic document

19 and rely upon it in arriving at opinions?

20 A. Yes.

21 MR. MORAN: Behind that, there appears to be a

22 second document which somehow apparently was not

23 marked, at least in my copy. It is on page 364. There

24 is another document on page 366, 367, 368, 369, 370,

25 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381,

Page 10280

1 382, 383, 384, 385 -- it looks like it goes back

2 through about page 466.

3 MR. NIEMANN: Indeed, there are 130 of them,

4 your Honour, and some of them are totally illegible.

5 None of them are in the English language or the French

6 language. So, I cannot see how we can have any

7 discussion of them until we know what they have to say.

8 THE WITNESS: These are authentic documents,

9 which have been given to us by the Institute for

10 Research of the War Crimes and Violations of

11 Humanitarian Law. They have all been authenticated and

12 they have all been registered, all of these documents,

13 to the last one.

14 MR. MORAN: They are the kinds of

15 documents --

16 THE WITNESS: These are all authentic

17 documents.

18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Which ones are you

19 discussing now -- authentic documents -- we do not know

20 what kind they are.

21 MR. MORAN: What kind of documents are they?

22 MR. NIEMANN: I object to this. This is

23 highly irregular. We are discussing documents and we

24 have no idea what they are. Counsel knows full well

25 these documents are supposed to be translated into an

Page 10281

1 official language of the Tribunal and made available to

2 the parties. He cannot come here --

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Mr. Moran, you cannot

4 defend that. You can see that there is no way of

5 knowing what these documents represent.

6 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour. At this point,

7 all I am attempting to prove through this witness --

8 remember, this is not my exhibit, I got this exhibit

9 Monday.

10 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I accept that.

11 MR. MORAN: All I am trying to prove through

12 this witness is that they are the kinds of documents --

13 the basic kinds of documents they are, and his

14 familiarity with them.

15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Are you really

16 seriously yourself saying that? You do not even know

17 what they are.

18 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, that is correct.

19 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: How can you say that?

20 MR. MORAN: I cannot say they are authentic

21 documents, your Honour. I have absolutely no idea.

22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes. Why do you put up

23 such a proposition to him?

24 MR. MORAN: We will jump ahead to document

25 D22, your Honour, which purports to be the report of

Page 10282

1 the BiH army military police on the transfer of

2 detainees from the Celebici prison into the sports

3 gymnasium prison. The Bosnian version would be on page

4 450 and the English translation is on 451 and 452.

5 THE WITNESS: Let me look for 450 and 451.

6 Very well -- 450 and 452.

7 MR. MORAN: 452 would be the English

8 translation of the Bosnian document in 450.

9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: This is a continuation

10 -- 450, 452 are the same document.

11 THE WITNESS: Yes.

12 MR. MORAN: In fact the index on this is

13 wrong, is it not -- this is not the report of the BiH

14 army police, but in fact it is a constitutional

15 amendment to the Bosnian constitution; is that not

16 right? It is a decision from the presidency of the

17 Republic of BiH --

18 A. Yes, of the presidency, yes.

19 Q. And it appears to be out of, what, the

20 official gazette?

21 A. Yes, yes. It is a decision on the

22 establishment of a State commission on collecting facts

23 on war crimes.

24 MR. MORAN: And that is the kind of

25 document --

Page 10283

1 MR. NIEMANN: We are not objecting. Our

2 concern was that we could not understand what the index

3 meant in relation to this document. Now that has been

4 clarified, we have no further problems with this

5 document.

6 MR. MORAN: Let us jump ahead to document

7 D31, which would be on page 509. That purports to be a

8 certification from the Konjic municipality related to a

9 man named Zejnil Delalic. Does that appear to you to

10 be an official document, or a copy of an official

11 document from the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

12 A. This document is authentic.

13 Q. Is it the kind of document --

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. -- that an historian would rely upon?

16 A. (Witness nods head)

17 Q. You have to answer out loud.

18 A. Yes.

19 MR. MORAN: You in fact relied upon it in

20 arriving at your opinions that are contained in your

21 report.

22 Your Honour, it is on page -- the English is

23 on page 511, your Honours. In fact, what this document

24 says is that there is no record of certain events

25 occurring; is that not what document D31 says?

Page 10284

1 A. It is an authentic document.

2 Q. And you relied upon it in reaching your

3 decisions and your opinions?

4 A. Yes, yes.

5 Q. And it is the kind of thing historians in

6 general would use to write books or articles, to reach

7 opinions?

8 A. This is an official source. Therefore, it is

9 based on particular books and certain registries, which

10 are of the official type.

11 Q. And historians rely on those kind of records

12 in reaching opinions?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And it does not make any difference whether

15 you are an historian from the United States, from

16 Bosnia, from England or Germany or Russia -- wherever

17 -- these are the kinds of documents that --

18 A. No, there is not.

19 Q. -- a trained historian might use?

20 A. That is correct.

21 Q. Let us go to D32, which purports to be a

22 document from the district military court in Mostar

23 dated 16 May 1996. It appears to be a certification

24 from the President of the court -- the chairman of the

25 court, excuse me -- related to a man named Zejnil

Page 10285

1 Delalic. Does the Bosnian original bear the indicia of

2 reliability?

3 A. Yes, yes it has.

4 Q. This would be the kind of document -- the

5 kind of public official record that historians would

6 rely upon in reaching their opinions?

7 A. Yes.

8 MR. MORAN: And you in fact relied upon it to

9 reach your opinion that is given in this --

10 MR. NIEMANN: I am just wondering whether

11 Mr. Moran intends to seek to admit this in his own

12 case. That is what he said the basis of these

13 questions are -- this and the other documents that

14 relate to Zejnil Delalic.

15 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, I am not sure what

16 I intend to admit but I sure want to prove them all up

17 before I let this witness go. I cannot prove up the

18 authenticity of these documents and their

19 admissibility, and given that, once this witness has

20 gone, we cannot -- I guess we could get him back but it

21 would be a waste of time if I missed one of these

22 exhibits that I wanted to admit, that there seemed to

23 be some dispute over, and then we would have to send

24 him another plane ticket from Sarajevo and bring him

25 back here and slow the whole process down. At this

Page 10286

1 point all I am doing is proving the admissibility of

2 evidence -- I am not moving it, your Honour.

3 MR. NIEMANN: I would observe, your Honour,

4 that it does not prove the truth of the contents of the

5 document. It merely proves that he relied on it and,

6 as your Honour observed on numerous occasions, if this

7 sort of evidence is to be admitted, then the people who

8 are best competent to admit it should be called to

9 testify.

10 MR. MORAN: May I proceed, your Honour?

11 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes.

12 MR. MORAN: Thank you very much.

13 Let us go to D33. That seems to be another

14 document related to a man named Zejnil Delalic from

15 Jablanica. Does that appear to be an official

16 document?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And is it the kind of document that is

19 sufficiently reliable that an historian would rely upon

20 it in reaching an opinion?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And, in fact, did you rely upon it in

23 reaching an opinion?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Document number 34 purports to be from the

Page 10287

1 Jablanica SDA saying that they do not have a record

2 that someone is a member -- a named individual is a

3 member?

4 A. I received this from the Defence counsel's

5 office and I believe that it has all the features of an

6 authentic document.

7 Q. I notice just from looking at it that even

8 the SDA Party seals documents and it seems to me that

9 at least in the former Yugoslavia everybody had a seal

10 and they were used much more than they are in my

11 country to authenticate documents; is that correct --

12 every different office has its own seal?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And that is one of the indicia of

15 reliability, that --

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And did you rely upon this letter in reaching

18 your opinions?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And it is the kind of thing that an historian

21 would rely upon?

22 A. Yes, because there is no counter document, or

23 an opposing document, as far as I know.

24 Q. Document number D35 is another letter from

25 the -- it appears to be the Muslim Bosnian cultural

Page 10288

1 circle to Ms. Residovic. This appears to be what it

2 purports to be, does it not -- a letter from the Vienna

3 Community of Democratic Action?

4 A. (Witness nods head)

5 Q. You have to answer.

6 A. Yes, yes.

7 Q. And it is the kind of document that is

8 reliable enough that if an historian would rely upon it

9 in reaching an opinion?

10 A. Yes, yes.

11 Q. The next one is D36, which purports to be an

12 excerpt from the SDA Vienna cultural circle statute.

13 In fact, all that anyone is tendering is an excerpt

14 from that, which is on -- the English version is on

15 page 535 -- that is all anyone is interested in. Does

16 this document, D36, appear to be a document that is

17 sufficiently reliable that an historian would rely upon

18 it in reaching his opinions?

19 A. I do not have all the elements for

20 authentication here. I did not study this document.

21 It only has a title but nobody signed it, nobody

22 registered it -- it is not clear as to when it was

23 recorded and so on.

24 Q. Did you rely upon it in reaching any

25 opinions?

Page 10289

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Is that because --

3 A. This was interesting for the expert study,

4 but I did not go into this period very much, so, if

5 needs be, this document can also be eliminated.

6 Q. Okay. Jumping ahead to the next group of

7 documents, which are D37. They appear to be

8 certificates from the secretariat for general

9 administration in Konjic related to --

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. -- people's citizenship?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. If you do not know the answer to this, "I do

14 not know" is a fine answer. In different countries,

15 the evidence that you were born some place or your

16 citizenship is somewhere may come from different

17 Government agencies. I will give you an example. My

18 birth certificate which proves where I was born is kept

19 by the Health Department, but my passport would come

20 from the State Department, our foreign ministry. On

21 the other hand, if someone were a naturalised citizen

22 in my country the records would come from the Justice

23 Department, so there are all various different places.

24 Is this Government organisation the

25 secretariat for general administrative inspection the

Page 10290

1 kind of Government agency that would keep records

2 relating to a person's citizenship and nationality. By

3 "nationality" I do not mean ethnic group; by

4 "nationality" I mean a tie to a State or Government.

5 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honour, I object to the

6 question on the grounds that the document relates to

7 citizenship, not nationality.

8 MR. MORAN: Fine.

9 Is this organisation, the secretariat for

10 general administrative inspection, the kind of

11 Government agency in Bosnia-Herzegovina that would keep

12 official Government records of whether or not a person

13 was a citizen of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

14 A. The certificates of citizenship are issued by

15 the municipal Governments and one of the agencies there

16 is the general administration department and, to me, it

17 is an authentic document, as such.

18 Q. So, if you went to wherever your citizenship

19 is registered, and wanted a document to prove that you

20 were a citizen of BiH, that you would get a document

21 that looks something like this?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And there are several of them in here.

24 I would ask you to flip through them. They refer to

25 various people. I will not read their names for

Page 10291

1 several reasons, not the least of which I think at

2 least one of them is a protected witness. If you would

3 look through those documents in those copies, would you

4 tell me if those are -- if they appear to be what they

5 purport to be, that is, documents of citizenship --

6 showing citizenship in the Republic of

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

8 A. I verified these documents in the Konjic

9 municipality -- I did verify these documents, and

10 I consider them to be authentic documents. I verified

11 them there, in the municipal building.

12 Q. So you went to the municipal building

13 yourself and looked at the original records?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And, in your opinion, these things are the

16 real McCoy -- the real thing?

17 A. This is it.

18 Q. And are these the kinds of documents that

19 historians in general would rely upon in arriving at

20 opinions?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And did you rely upon these documents?

23 A. Yes.

24 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, while we are between

25 documents, I think it is 3 minutes to 4. This may be a

Page 10292

1 convenient time to break for half an hour.

2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Have you got to the

3 last document?

4 MR. MORAN: I will hang in there and get them

5 all done before the break.

6 D38, this purports to be a report of the

7 general hospital in Konjic?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Involving casualties. Where did you get this

10 document?

11 A. This is a document that the Defence received

12 from the general hospital in Konjic on the number of

13 people who were injured, wounded or killed during the

14 war, who were treated in the hospital -- whether they

15 were brought to the hospital or whatever -- in

16 whichever way they had been brought there, and who were

17 treated there, whether they were civilian or military,

18 including the killed ones, so this is not the total of

19 all casualties in the area -- only those who were

20 processed through the hospital, who in some way were

21 registered there. For instance, a total number of

22 injured civilians and the total number of injured

23 military personnel, and so on.

24 Q. And this looks like the kind of document that

25 a hospital would generate -- would make -- it has the

Page 10293

1 seal, it has again those indicia of reliability?

2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: He says it was issued

3 to him.

4 MR. MORAN: I thought he said it was -- he

5 got it from the Defence lawyer. I may have misheard.

6 It was issued to you by the hospital?

7 A. No.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: How did you get it?

9 A. I received it from the Defence counsel's

10 office, but I believe it is an authentic document.

11 MR. MORAN: In fact there are some things

12 that you can look at inside the document to aid you in

13 determining whether or not it is authentic, not just

14 the seal but the numbers for instance, the total number

15 of people who were treated, given the other knowledge

16 you have about the Konjic area during the war, would

17 those be reasonable numbers?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And it would be the kinds of numbers you

20 would expect?

21 A. Yes.

22 MR. MORAN: And, if the numbers were well away

23 from anything you expected, then you would not consider

24 the document reliable; is that right? Maybe I phrased

25 that question badly. Let me try again, okay,

Page 10294

1 professor?

2 If the numbers of wounded reported were much

3 higher or much lower than you would expect --

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I do not know the need

5 for that. Whether he disputes it or not he based his

6 opinion on it.

7 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour. I was also

8 trying to get to the reliability of the document. We

9 can skip on to the next one.

10 The last one is document number 39, which

11 appears to be something from the Konjic municipal

12 secretariat for displaced persons. Does that appear to

13 be --

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. -- an authentic document?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. From the Government?

18 A. Yes, yes.

19 Q. Did you rely upon this in reaching your

20 decision, your opinions?

21 A. Yes, yes.

22 Q. And an historian, just in general, who was

23 presented with this document, would he rely upon it in

24 reaching his opinion?

25 A. Yes, yes.

Page 10295

1 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, I have a few more

2 questions, but I think I have got to the end of this

3 book. This may be an appropriate time.

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think we will rise

5 now and return at 4.30.

6 -- recess taken at 4.03 p.m.

7

8 -- on resuming at 4.32 p.m.

9 MR. MORAN: While the witness is coming in,

10 your Honour, there seemed to be some question about at

11 least two of the documents -- I think the Prosecution

12 questioned their authenticity. The two I am thinking

13 about right off the bat are D13 and D19, the ones that

14 are in this as documents D13 and D19. D13 as

15 I understand it is a document which was seized at

16 INDA-BAU and was D71/1. Document D19, where the

17 Prosecutor also questioned the authenticity, has

18 previously been introduced into evidence as Prosecution

19 Exhibit 72.

20 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours --

21 MR. MORAN: As to Prosecution Exhibit 72,

22 I will not vouch for its authenticity. I will let

23 Mr. Niemann do that.

24 (The witness entered court)

25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, there was a

Page 10296

1 minor confusion. I asked my colleague, Tom, to comment

2 on D13. It has already been admitted into evidence as

3 D71/1 through Fadil Zebic. It is not a document coming

4 from INDA-BAU, whereas D19 has been admitted as

5 Prosecution Exhibit 72 through the witness Dr. Calic.

6 MR. MORAN: I stand corrected, your Honour,

7 as to D13. I must have must understood and I apologise

8 to the court for any misunderstanding I may have had.

9 I thank Ms. Residovic for correcting me.

10 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

11 I think the witness is now in the stand, so you can

12 continue with him.

13 MR. MORAN: Professor, a couple of other

14 things and I will direct your attention to a series of

15 documents, starting at D31, and running through

16 I believe D35. I may have some more beyond that.

17 These, on their face, purport to be documents provided

18 by officials of the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to

19 Ms. Residovic at her request. Page 510 is the first

20 one, professor. We will just start at that one and use

21 that one for an example and I will go through the

22 others very, very quickly.

23 Professor, I am going to give you an example

24 from my country and see if you know the answer to this

25 and, if you do, fine and if you do not, that is fine,

Page 10297

1 too. It is possible, in my country, to go to a

2 Government agency and say, "Has Tom Moran ever been

3 convicted of a crime?" So, for instance, I could go,

4 or you could go to the court clerk's office in my home

5 county and, for the grand total I think of $5 get a

6 letter addressed to you, saying that the district clerk

7 had searched the records and found that I have never

8 been convicted -- no record that I have ever been

9 convicted of a crime. They would seal it. That would

10 be an official record of the court. Can you do that

11 kind of thing in Bosnia, go to a court clerk, or a

12 Government official and say, "We have searched our

13 records and we do not find a record of this."

14 A. Yes, one can obtain such a document.

15 Q. And basically what it is, it is a certificate

16 from the Government custodian of records that certain

17 records do not exist?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And so, for instance, on D31, which we just

20 looked at, it says that there is no records of

21 Mr. Delalic occupying any position in the Government of

22 Konjic in 1992. That does not mean that he did not --

23 that just means there is no record of it; right?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And the next one, D32, appears to be a

Page 10298

1 certificate from the district military court in Mostar

2 that there are no criminal records in that court

3 involving a man named Zejnil Delalic?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And the next one, which would be D33, is from

6 the Mostar security police, Konjic police station,

7 saying that they have no criminal records involving a

8 man named Zejnil Delalic?

9 A. Yes.

10 MR. MORAN: And those would be the kinds of

11 things that anybody could go in and pay, whatever the

12 fee is -- whatever the set fee is and get it on

13 anybody. Let me phrase that a little clearer. You

14 could go into the clerk's office in the court in my

15 home town and, for $5, get a letter from the clerk --

16 MR. NIEMANN: I object. I do not think the

17 witness has shown any evidence at all that he knows

18 anything about the United States or the practice there

19 in relation to the issue of certificates.

20 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I suppose this is

21 merely using it as a comparison.

22 MR. MORAN: That is correct.

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: What is the purpose of

24 that.

25 MR. MORAN: The Prosecutor has had some

Page 10299

1 objection to these documents based on the fact that

2 they are addressed to Ms. Residovic and I am just

3 trying to show through this witness that these are the

4 kinds of documents that anybody can get from the

5 appropriate Government official saying that records do

6 not exist. It is irrelevant whether they are addressed

7 to Ms. Residovic or Mr. Niemann or --

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I suppose what the

9 Prosecutor is saying, you might have got such documents

10 from her and he might have based his opinion on them,

11 but the fact whether the contents are true is a

12 different matter, which he is not prepared to argue.

13 That is a different matter.

14 MR. MORAN: What I am trying to prove up is

15 that these kinds of documents showing the lack of a

16 public record, or a business record -- the next one

17 I have is a record of a business -- that those kinds of

18 records or documents are commonly available and that

19 these appear to be documents that show the custodian of

20 records searched for records and could not find them.

21 We will use this one as an example. The next

22 one is D34, of which the Bosnian version is on page

23 519. It appears to be a certificate under seal from

24 the SDA Party that a man named Zejnil Delalic is not a

25 former member of the Party, has not been elected to the

Page 10300

1 Party -- there are no records of that. Things other

2 than governments, like businesses in

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, do they commonly give certificates

4 that, "We have searched our business records and we

5 find no record of so and so," whoever it is?

6 A. I do not know about that, because I am not a

7 member of the Party and I never asked for such

8 certificates, so I do not know.

9 MR. MORAN: Professor, I do not know -- unlike

10 one of your exams in your classes, "I do not know" can

11 be a very proper answer in a courtroom, if you do not

12 know.

13 At this point I will pass the witness and

14 I thank the court very much for its indulgence.

15 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Any other

16 cross-examination by Defence counsel?

17 MR. OLUJIC: Yes, your Honours, may it please

18 the court.

19 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may proceed.

20 Cross-examined by MR. OLUJIC

21 Q. Thank you, your Honours.

22 Good afternoon, professor.

23 A. Good afternoon.

24 Q. My name is Zeljko Olujic. I am Defence

25 counsel for Mr. Zdravko Mucic. We will not take long.

Page 10301

1 You must be tired by now, but let us just clear up a

2 few points that emerge from your testimony before this

3 honourable court.

4 You spoke about the escalation of the crisis

5 in SFRY, so I should like us to clear up something that

6 cannot be seen from your written report or from your

7 oral testimony in court. Who had the majority in

8 Kosovo in 1988, could you clear that up a little?

9 JUDGE JAN: Kosovo?

10 A. The Albanians are in a majority in Kosovo --

11 90 per cent.

12 MR. OLUJIC: Would you agree that Milosevic's

13 gain of control over Kosovo, Montenegro and Vojvodina

14 resulted in fundamental legal and political changes,

15 but that it had repercussions throughout the territory

16 of the former Yugoslavia, could we say that?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Tell us, professor, who was the BiH

19 representative in the presidency of Yugoslavia by

20 ethnicity?

21 A. He was a Serb.

22 Q. Regarding the culmination of the crisis, as

23 you described it in your statement, could you explain

24 the emergence of the Serbian Radical Party led by

25 Vojslov Seselj with a little more detail?

Page 10302

1 A. The role of the Radical Party of Vojslov

2 Seselj, which was based in Ruma and in Belgrade, was

3 one of the elements of the policy of Slobodan

4 Milosevic. He sought, through such radical elements,

5 to interfere in the crisis in Bosnia, to radicalise

6 elements in Bosnia, to send paramilitary formations

7 there. Arkan and his men played a similar role .

8 Q. Tell us, professor, regarding the Serbian

9 paramilitary organisations, they existed in

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina, but can we say that they existed in

11 Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, and in the Republic of

12 Croatia?

13 A. Yes, correct. If I am not mistaken I said in

14 my testimony that they existed in the Knin, Krajina, in

15 Eastern Slovonia, in Western Srem and in Baranje, this

16 encouragement of radical tendencies.

17 Q. One further point, professor, regarding the

18 chapter dealing with the influence of neighbouring

19 States on the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, could you

20 tell us who was the first in the world to recognise

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

22 A. The European Union.

23 Q. After that, among the States?

24 A. The United States of America and the Republic

25 of Croatia.

Page 10303

1 MR. OLUJIC: Thank you, your Honours, I have

2 no further questions. Thank you, professor.

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much

4 Mr. Olujic. Any cross-examination?

5 MS. BOLER: No questions, your Honour.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Mr. Prosecutor, have you

7 any cross-examination?

8 Cross-examined by MR. NIEMANN

9 Q. Professor, in your report at page 14, and

10 I have the English version of it only, so I am not sure

11 that the -- if your version is in English or in

12 Bosniak, but perhaps you might take the report?

13 A. I do not have either version.

14 Q. Perhaps you might be given your version of

15 the report. (Handed)

16 Is your version in the English language,

17 professor?

18 A. No, I have it also in Serbo-Croatian.

19 Q. Do you read English, professor, or do you

20 only read Serbo-Croatian?

21 A. No, I do not.

22 MR. NIEMANN: On page 14, the first paragraph

23 -- the first full paragraph -- starts, "as an answer

24 the Serb representatives in the Parliament".

25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may start by

Page 10304

1 reminding him of the heading -- I think that is a

2 continuation.

3 MR. NIEMANN: It is under (b), "Development

4 of the Situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the

5 Election in 1990" -- thank you, your Honour.

6 Then, on page 14, in the English version, "As

7 an answer the Serb representatives in the Parliament of

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina" -- do you see that paragraph?

9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: The second paragraph on

10 14.

11 THE WITNESS: Unfortunately, page 14 of my

12 document does not seem to be what you are talking

13 about.

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That is why we preferred

15 using the title heading.

16 THE WITNESS: The difference, the culmination

17 of the crisis.

18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Go to, "The Political

19 Processes in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1990 to 1992."

20 THE WITNESS: Yes.

21 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: (b), "Development of

22 the Situation in BiH after elections 1990". It is from

23 there that you can trace it to the second paragraph.

24 THE WITNESS: Yes.

25 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You can take over from

Page 10305

1 there.

2 THE WITNESS: At the first free elections?

3 MR. NIEMANN: Yes, this is the tenth

4 paragraph in my English version. I have not been given

5 a Serbo-Croat version -- not that I could read it

6 anyway, but I cannot assist by going to that. Perhaps

7 I can come at it another way, rather than showing you a

8 report. In my version it says:

9 "As an answer the Serb representatives in the

10 Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina founded the assembly

11 of Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina on

12 24 November."

13 The date 24 November, can you help me with

14 where you got that date from?

15 A. It says 24 October.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: November here.

17 JUDGE JAN: I think it is a mis-translation.

18 MR. NIEMANN: "November" has been

19 mis-translated, thank you.

20 Going into the next section, do you see the

21 heading, (c), "International Recognition of Bosnia and

22 Herzegovina" and then there is seven paragraphs and

23 then you mention the Ram Plan. You say:

24 "In media there were pieces of information

25 about the Ram Plan by which the State and military

Page 10306

1 leaders."

2 Et cetera. Do you see that?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Professor, have you ever seen the Ram Plan?

5 A. No.

6 Q. Do you know of anyone who has actually

7 studied it or produced any material on it?

8 A. This Ram Plan figured in the press and its

9 borders, its frameworks were mentioned, but

10 I personally have not seen the original text.

11 Q. Do you know of anyone who has?

12 A. I do not know. I know quite a number of

13 people from -- even some people from the general staff

14 -- the former general staff, but I did not have

15 occasion to discuss this with them, because these are

16 people who have left the army a long time ago, so

17 I could not really testify to the effect that I know

18 exactly what the Ram Plan envisaged, though it was

19 referred to in the press and even in some books,

20 according to which this Ram Plan was a programme of

21 Greater Serbia, which was to be achieved and the

22 border, which went as far as Karlobag, Virovitica,

23 Karlovac, that that actually was that plan, covering

24 the Serbian people in Yugoslav territories and in fact

25 this is an old programme designed for the creation of

Page 10307

1 Greater Serbia and it is almost 200 years old.

2 MR. NIEMANN: This is something that you

3 acquired from looking at the media reports.

4 JUDGE JAN: That is what he says.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes. But it reflects the

6 historical territory that the Serbs claimed for their

7 land, for their State.

8 MR. NIEMANN: You mention further on, four

9 paragraphs down from there, you make mention to the

10 proclamation of the referendum results by President

11 Izetbegovic and then you say on the 4 April the

12 European Community recognised Bosnia, et cetera. Are

13 you saying there that, in your opinion, that is when

14 Bosnia became an independent sovereign State, or are

15 you not saying that?

16 A. Bosnia -- not when the referendum was held

17 but when it was internationally recognised and it was

18 internationally recognised on 6 March. President

19 Izetbegovic asked the international community to

20 recognise the sovereignty and independence of

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina. A month after that, that is, on 6

22 April, the European Community actually recognised it --

23 the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that is the

24 independence day which Bosnia-Herzegovina is

25 celebrating to this day, and the following day it was

Page 10308

1 recognised by the United States of America and the

2 Republic of Croatia and then other States followed.

3 Today, there are more than 200 that have recognised

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

5 Q. Moving on to the next paragraph, paragraph

6 (d), "Beginning of War Operations against the Republic

7 of Bosnia-Herzegovina," and the second to last

8 paragraph in that section there, you speak of the

9 transformation of the JNA in the territory of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina in mid May; do you see that section?

11 A. This change brought about nothing --

12 Q. That is right.

13 A. Middle of May, middle of May?

14 Q. Yes?

15 A. The middle of May the JNA was transformed

16 into the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. On 27 April,

17 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed and

18 it recognised the army, which was in Bosnia, to be its

19 proper army. However, since then, the soldiers who

20 were born in Bosnia but served in the JNA, were

21 transferred to the army of the Republika Srpska, so,

22 according to the testimony of General Kadijevic,

23 between 60,000 and 80,000, and according to the

24 commander of the second military district, General

25 Kukanjac --

Page 10309

1 Q. Perhaps I could stop you for a moment,

2 because my question is a very short one. I do not want

3 you to recite the whole history of that. I really want

4 you to tell me, in your opinion, what was the impetus

5 that brought about that transformation -- why did it

6 take place -- that is all I want to know?

7 A. This came about because, at that time, this

8 army had to withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The

9 United Nations called for its withdrawal and then only

10 the soldiers who were born in Bosnia-Herzegovina stayed

11 behind.

12 Q. That is your answer?

13 A. Yes, that is my answer.

14 Q. Further in your report, and under the heading

15 (f), "Measures and Activities of the Legal Power,

16 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina"?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. It is the ninth paragraph of that report, you

19 talk about the problems of printing and distributing

20 the official gazettes in which the laws and provisions

21 were published; do you see that?

22 A. (Witness nods head) Yes, I do see.

23 Q. You also make reference to the constitutional

24 court intervening with a decision that the laws would

25 be applied from the moment they were delivered. I just

Page 10310

1 ask you, professor, some of these laws were printed and

2 distributed very late, were they not, in 1992 -- in

3 some cases, they were several months in getting out

4 because of the siege of Sarajevo that was going on?

5 A. Yes. But I included in the material a

6 report, which concerns this problem, where the

7 constitutional court asked for an explanation, that is,

8 the official gazette was asked why these laws are being

9 delayed, why their publishing was being delayed and the

10 difficulties were of a different nature. On the one

11 hand --

12 Q. In those cases?

13 A. -- it was impossible to print, so the

14 printing itself was a problem. There was a problem of

15 procuring paper, a problem of electric power, different

16 kinds of shortages and problems that could not be

17 solved, so that the official gazette was late -- either

18 30 days because of certain reasons, three months

19 because of different other reasons, and these copies

20 were arriving very late and different methods were used

21 for them to be brought out of Sarajevo. At one point,

22 they were printed in Zenica and so on, so different

23 methods were used in order to get the official gazette

24 through to the institutions which were supposed to get

25 them. So, there were major problems there and there

Page 10311

1 were delays, even of several months.

2 Q. In those cases, the municipality would have

3 either had to operate under old law, or to improvise

4 and function as best it could -- would you agree with

5 that?

6 A. That is correct.

7 Q. Indeed, I think you go on in the next

8 paragraph to say that the problem was even further

9 exacerbated by the communication difficulties from

10 particularly Sarajevo to the municipal regions?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Indeed, it would be true to say, would it

13 not, professor, that, in some areas, in the early

14 stages, the municipal authority was the only available

15 authority to deal effectively with the whole range of

16 matters that confronted the municipality, including

17 military matters?

18 A. I believe that the military communications

19 are something else and I think that they should be

20 distinguished from the distribution of the official

21 gazette.

22 Q. Professor, why then, on page -- my page 23,

23 under the heading (5), "Organisation of Civil

24 Authorities in the Konjic Municipality", (a),

25 "Peacetime Authorities", you see a reference there:

Page 10312

1 "Along with passing regulations, municipal

2 assembly had a very important role in regard to

3 appointing municipal leading officials."

4 Et cetera. Then you say:

5 "The officers in the municipal bodies,

6 magistrates and commander of the OSTO."

7 Or the municipal Territorial Defence

8 headquarters -- that is a military matter, is it not?

9 A. I apologise, I did not follow you, I could

10 not find the text. I do not know what it is about.

11 Could you please repeat it?

12 Q. By all means. You were saying --

13 A. What is the title, by the way?

14 Q. It is called heading (5), "Organisation of

15 Civil Authorities in the Konjic Municipality" and

16 then, "Peacetime Authorities Organisations"?

17 A. Right.

18 Q. It is true, is it not, that you say there --

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. -- that the commander of the municipal

21 Territorial Defence is appointed by the municipal

22 assembly?

23 A. No. He is proposed by them, but further on

24 it states that he is confirmed by the republic.

25 MR. NIEMANN: Are you saying that my

Page 10313

1 translation is wrong, that it does not say that, "along

2 with the passing of regulations, the municipal

3 assembly," et cetera, "had a role in regard to

4 appointing" and then it mentions a number of bodies and

5 then it says, "the commander of the municipal

6 Territorial Defence and the commander of the municipal

7 headquarters of civil protection and others" -- is my

8 translation wrong there, is it?

9 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, I object. This

10 relates to the peacetime circumstances and this is what

11 I see both in the original and in the translation.

12 There is another heading, another chapter, which

13 discusses these issues in wartime circumstances.

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Do you not think that

15 the expert can handle that himself? It is a simple

16 thing.

17 THE WITNESS: This was only in March and

18 April. What I provided in my chart for the

19 organisational structure of the authority was only for

20 March and April, that the municipal assembly is in

21 charge of appointing the military personnel, whereas,

22 later on, it is moved to the republican authorities.

23 MR. NIEMANN: When you say "later on",

24 perhaps you might help us with the time. Are you

25 saying that the municipal authorities, if I may call

Page 10314

1 them that, did not appoint the commander of the TOs, is

2 that what you are saying?

3 A. Yes, not then.

4 Q. When was that, when did they cease to appoint

5 the commanders of the TO?

6 A. They stopped appointing the commander of the

7 Territorial Defence when the old Territorial Defence

8 ceased to exist and the new Territorial Defence was

9 established. That is the Territorial Defence of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina. At that time, the municipal staff

11 of the Territorial Defence -- and the general staff of

12 the Territorial Defence was established and this was

13 later transformed into the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

14 so this was valid for a very short period of time. It

15 was valid only in the beginning. However, later on, it

16 becomes part of the republican staff for the

17 Territorial Defence authority.

18 Q. I might come back to that in a moment.

19 Going on to page 25, under paragraph (6),

20 "Plans and Activities of the SDS" et cetera, the first

21 paragraph there, you say that:

22 "The local Serbs counted on a very important

23 support of the Yugoslav People's Army and they assumed

24 that central SDS bodies in Bosnia-Herzegovina would

25 help them."

Page 10315

1 It is true, is it not, that many of the Serb

2 people regarded the JNA as their legitimate army -- as

3 the legitimate army?

4 A. I am sorry, but there is a discrepancy

5 between -- okay, the activities of the Serbian

6 Democratic Party is the activity of the SDS at the

7 beginning of the war -- is that the heading that you

8 are looking at?

9 Q. Yes, do you want me to repeat my question?

10 A. Yes, please.

11 Q. What I am saying to you is that many of the

12 local Serbs went further than just relying on the

13 support of the Yugoslav People's Army -- many of them

14 in fact regarded it as their legal, legitimate army,

15 did they not?

16 A. Yes -- while they were arming it.

17 Q. And, in a similar vein, they considered the

18 territory that they occupied as part of either a

19 federation of the old Socialist Federal Republic of

20 Yugoslavia or as part of Greater Serbia, did they not?

21 A. No, they were still within Bosnia-Herzegovina

22 -- they were still not talking about a Greater Serbia

23 -- they were still in Yugoslavia, so they were playing

24 a double game. They were for a long time within the

25 institutions of the whole system, but secretly they

Page 10316

1 were working on organising their own power and to

2 protect their own interests, so a question phrased in

3 this way is partial and it would require a lengthier

4 explanation.

5 MR. NIEMANN: It is an important matter,

6 professor, so if you think that you need to give a

7 lengthier answer, please do.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: If you expanded your

9 question properly -- whether their wish is merely an

10 intention or they were actually demonstrating

11 sufficient activity to justify the fact that they

12 preferred a Greater Serbia.

13 MR. NIEMANN: Yes. My question was directed

14 perhaps to a slightly different issue, your Honour, but

15 I will ask the question perhaps again, but in a

16 slightly different way.

17 My question, professor, is that many of the

18 local Serbs considered themselves either to be part of

19 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or,

20 failing that, that their territory was part of Greater

21 Serbia?

22 A. What I say here is that the Serbs do not talk

23 openly of a Greater Serbia -- they are talking about

24 the organisation of power within Bosnia-Herzegovina and

25 they want to join Serbia. That is their goal. What

Page 10317

1 kind of a State that will be, whether that would be

2 Yugoslavia, Greater Serbia, in the final analysis it

3 would be a Greater Serbia, just as the others wanted,

4 as these autonomous districts in Croatia wanted. It

5 was a similar case to that in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- a

6 whole system of power is being built there and they are

7 trying to build a position in Bosnia, because they were

8 aware that they could not change the decision on the

9 independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was adopted

10 in April and that the borders can only be changed by

11 means of war, so this war started and it was not -- and

12 what they wanted to achieve was not possible without a

13 war, so that is the crux of the problem.

14 MR. NIEMANN: I am aware of that, professor.

15 I do not want to cut you off, but the point that I am

16 getting to was that not what you would say was the

17 legal reality in terms of borders. I am asking you

18 questions about what the intention of the Serbian --

19 local Serbian people was, particularly in the Konjic

20 municipality -- sorry, I withdraw that -- the local

21 Serbian people in Bosnia was -- not all of them, but

22 some of them. Perhaps I can assist you. What other

23 meaning can be given to that than what you say in the

24 last paragraph of the section (a), "Activities of the

25 SDS Before the Attack Against the Republic of

Page 10318

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina" -- and that is on page 27, if your

2 Honours please -- where you say:

3 "The SDS intention to divide the Konjic

4 municipality and to include the area called the Serb

5 Konjic municipality into the Greater Serbia project was

6 acknowledged in the form of an official document by the

7 above mentioned decision."

8 What else could you mean by that?

9 A. My apologies, but again I am unable to find

10 this. I believe that our different copies are

11 completely differently numbered, so could you please

12 maybe point me to the heading again and then ask your

13 question again?

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Paragraph 6, the last

15 paragraph in 6 before you get to (b) -- the last

16 paragraph. (6) is, "Plans and Activities of the SDS

17 Before and at the Beginning of the War in 1992". Then,

18 before you get to (b), the last paragraph.

19 THE WITNESS: "By this decision and the SDS

20 is trying to divide the territory of the municipality

21 of Konjic and annex it to the Serb republic" -- is

22 that --

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: That paragraph, yes.

24 THE WITNESS: Could you please restate your

25 question?

Page 10319

1 MR. NIEMANN: Is that not an expression of

2 an intention by the local Serbian people to be part of

3 Greater Serbia?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. It is a fact, is it not, professor, that the

6 JNA armed many of the Serbian people?

7 A. Is this a question?

8 Q. Yes.

9 A. Yes, it is a fact.

10 Q. And that happened not only -- and that

11 happened in places such as Konjic as well as other

12 parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And, in fact, there was very direct contact

15 and relationship between the local Serbian people --

16 some of the local Serbian people -- and the JNA?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Professor, I wish to move on to the next

19 section, which is paragraph (7), "The Plans and

20 Activities of the HDZ" et cetera and I will ask you

21 some questions about that, if I may. What was the

22 State or Republic of origin of the HDZ?

23 A. The HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but there was

24 also the HDZ as a national ruling Party in Croatia that

25 won the elections there -- it has the same name. But,

Page 10320

1 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the HDZ started not as a branch

2 but as the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is a Party of

3 the Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

4 Q. And the HVO is the military arm of the HDZ;

5 is that right?

6 A. The HVO was not the military arm of the HDZ;

7 it is the military and civilian factor of authority of

8 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, which, again,

9 was organised under the leadership of the HDZ.

10 Q. Was it legal under the constitution of

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time for political parties or

12 communities to have their own armies?

13 A. No. The legal authorities and the Parliament

14 of Bosnia proclaimed both paramilitary formations that

15 were illegal and unconstitutional.

16 Q. And so --

17 A. First, the Republika Srpska on which the

18 Parliament passed a decision and the constitutional

19 court proclaimed that the decisions taken by the

20 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna on 19 November 1991

21 and on 3 July 1992 were unconstitutional and nine such

22 documents were specified and they were proclaimed to be

23 unlawful, unconstitutional, but the Bosnian authorities

24 did not take any steps to remedy the situation that had

25 occurred with the foundation of the Croatian Community

Page 10321

1 of Herceg-Bosna. Why? Because the legal authorities

2 were under very heavy pressure of the combat against

3 the Serbs and they did not wish to open up a second

4 front. That is one reason.

5 A second is that Croatia was among the first

6 to recognise Bosnia-Herzegovina; it accepted refugees

7 from Bosnia-Herzegovina; and we had to rely on Croatia

8 if we wanted to receive humanitarian aid, food, or

9 armament -- we had to rely on Croatia. The legal

10 authorities did not wish to engage in a conflict with

11 the HVO, or Herceg-Bosna, or with the HDZ.

12 Q. But the expediency and perhaps justifiable

13 expediency of not taking action against military or

14 paramilitary organisations such as the HVO did not

15 affect the question of its illegality -- am I right in

16 that?

17 A. The HVO and the Croatian Community of

18 Herceg-Bosna continued to exist via facti -- in fact --

19 but things will change when the first conflicts start

20 and those were those that affected Konjic, the attack

21 on Prozor, and that was when the situation became very

22 strained between the HVO and the legal authorities in

23 Konjic, and this would later, in 1993, lead to a

24 conflict between the HVO and the BiH Army, which,

25 again, would be an extremely difficult problem for the

Page 10322

1 legal authorities and for the Defence of

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

3 MR. NIEMANN: Is that a convenient time,

4 your Honour?

5 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: We might adjourn and

6 start at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

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8

9

10

11 --- Whereupon the matter adjourned at

12 5.30 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,

13 the 1st day of April 1998, at 10 a.m.

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