Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 341

 1                           Thursday, 2 October 2008

 2                           [Pre-Trial Conference]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The accused entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 10.12 a.m.

 6             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Good morning to everybody in and around the

 7     courtroom.

 8             Madam Registrar, may you please call the case.

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Good morning, Your Honours.  Good morning,

10     everyone in and around the courtroom.  This is case number IT-04-81-PT,

11     the Prosecutor versus Momcilo Perisic.

12             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

13             Could we have the appearances, please, starting with the

14     Prosecution.

15             MR. HARMON:  Good morning, Your Honours.  Good morning, counsel.

16     My name is Mark Harmon.  Appearing with me are Barney Thomas, Dan Saxon,

17     and Carmela Javier, the case manager.

18             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

19             MR. HARMON:  Thank you.

20             MR. HARMON:  For the Defence.

21             MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.  Good

22     morning to all the participants in this trial.  My name is Novak Lukic.

23     I'm an attorney from Belgrade, and with me is Mr. Gregor Guy-Smith,

24     attorney from San Francisco.  We will be representing General Perisic.

25     And with us are our legal assistants, Tina Drolec, Chad Mair, and our

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 1     case manager, Danijela Tasic.

 2             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

 3             General Momcilo Perisic returned to the UNDU on Monday, the 18th

 4     of September, after having been on provisional release following the

 5     Trial Chamber's decision on 9 June 2005.

 6             Mr. Perisic, can you hear the proceedings in a language that you

 7     understand?

 8             THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I can.

 9             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.  And, once again, how is your

10     health situation today?

11             THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's fine.  Quite well.

12             JUDGE MOLOTO:  You don't have any complaints that you'd like to

13     make the Chamber aware of?

14             THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, not for the time being.

15             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Perisic.  You may be

16     seated.  Thank you.

17             Today, this Bench was composed by the order of Judge Orie, the

18     presiding judge of Trial Chamber I, following the order of the 2nd of

19     October, 2008, by the president of the Tribunal assigning Judge David and

20     Judge Picard to the Trial Chamber.  Just for those of us who are probably

21     seeing Judge David and Judge Picard for the first time, Judge David sits

22     to my right and Judge Picard is to my left.

23             The opening statements are scheduled to begin today.  Now, the

24     Prosecution informed the Chamber through the senior legal officer that

25     its opening statement would take approximately three hours.  This will be

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 1     followed by the accused's statement, pursuant to Rule 84 bis, which would

 2     take 30 to 45 minutes.  Given the parties' submissions, the Prosecution

 3     should be ready to call its first witness tomorrow, the 3rd of October.

 4             In this Pre-Trial Conference, the Trial Chamber has to determine

 5     the length of the Prosecution case.  In this respect, Rule 73 bis (C)

 6     provides that after having heard the Prosecution, the Trial Chamber shall

 7     determine how many witnesses the Prosecution may call and how much time

 8     will be available to the Prosecution for presenting its evidence.

 9             On the 26th of September, 2008, in response to the Trial

10     Chamber's invitation, the Prosecution filed its revised witness list

11     indicating that it intends to call 150 witnesses and taking 355 hours in

12     total for the examination-in-chief.  The Trial Chamber grants this

13     proposal and sets the number of witnesses to be called by the Prosecution

14     at 150.  The Trial Chamber also determines that 355 hours will be

15     available to the Prosecution for the presentation of evidence, and this

16     time reflects the time available for examination-in-chief.

17             Are there any other matters that the parties would like to raise,

18     starting with the Prosecution?

19             MR. HARMON:  One matter, Your Honour, and that is that -- it

20     relates to the opening statement, and if I may go into private session

21     for just a minute, then I can discuss with Your Honours something.

22             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Mr. Harmon, I guess that's a stage after

23     transition into trial.

24             MR. HARMON:  Fine.  That's fine, Your Honour.

25             JUDGE MOLOTO:  For pre-trial purposes, is there something that

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 1     you would --

 2             MR. HARMON:  No, there is not, Your Honour.  Thank you.

 3             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Nothing.  Very well.

 4             The Defence, Mr. Lukic?

 5             MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I don't know if we're

 6     going to devote any time now to discussion about guidelines or whether

 7     this will be dealt with after the Pre-Trial Conference.  I believe that

 8     these guidelines are a potential topic for the Pre-Trial Conference.

 9     Given the time that you allotted to the Prosecution for their case, now,

10     if we are to say anything about that, we would like to note that the

11     Defence would like, in relation to several witnesses listed by the

12     Prosecution and the time it intends to devote to their

13     examination-in-chief, to ask that the cross-examination of those

14     witnesses -- well, we anticipate that it might take longer because of the

15     topics that we want to deal with in the cross-examination.  We're talking

16     about just a couple of witnesses that, according to the Prosecution,

17     require less time than we anticipate.  We would be in the position to

18     provide you with the names of those witnesses or the number of the

19     witnesses that we anticipate would take longer for cross-examination.

20     These are all viva voce witnesses.

21             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you, Mr. Lukic.  Would it be possible,

22     perhaps, as we get to those witnesses to indicate that that's the witness

23     that you'd like to take longer with, and we'll make note of the point at

24     that point?  Anything else?  I see Mr. Guy-Smith is trying to get your

25     attention, is trying to pull you by your robe.  Maybe you want to confer

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 1     with him before you talk.

 2             MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Well, I would actually like to give

 3     the floor to Mr. Guy-Smith because we have full cooperation here in the

 4     courtroom, but we fully accept your proposal.  It will, indeed, be quite

 5     useful.

 6             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Lukic.

 7             Mr. Guy-Smith.

 8             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Yes.  Considering the manner in which we are

 9     starting and some of the difficulties that we've had just in terms of the

10     time for starting, it seems, if it's available to the Court, that after

11     opening statements and before we start the presentation of evidence

12     tomorrow, there are perhaps a number of housekeeping matters that we

13     might attend to and deal with it at that period -- at that time as

14     opposed to dealing with it now.

15             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Guy-Smith.  Can we then

16     do that and deal with them at that time.

17             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Fine.

18             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.  All right.  Then it looks

19     like that brings us to the end of the pre-trial stage.  We need now to

20     make a transition to the trial.

21             Madam Registrar, would you like now to call the case now for

22     trial purposes.

23             THE REGISTRAR:  Yes, Your Honours.  This is IT-04-81-T, the

24     Prosecutor versus Momcilo Perisic.

25             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.  There is no need for

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 1     appearances to be made.  We are aware of the appearances.

 2             May the Chamber please move into private session.

 3                           [Private session]

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11                           [Open session]

12             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

13             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

14             Mr. Harmon, opening statement.

15                           [Prosecution Opening Statement]

16             MR. HARMON:  Your Honour, counsel, thank you very much.  Before I

17     beginning my opening statements, I would like to inform the members of

18     the public that I will going -- I will be making exceptional requests to

19     the Trial Chamber to go into closed session because I need to refer to

20     protected documents.  I will do so infrequently, sometimes briefly, but I

21     wanted to inform the public of that situation.

22             If I may begin, Your Honours.

23             JUDGE MOLOTO:  You may.

24             MR. HARMON:  War, which had lain dormant on this continent for

25     half a century, was reawakened in the 1990s, and its scourge was visited

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 1     on the peoples of Bosnia and Croatia.  New benchmarks of human depravity

 2     were added to history's long list of horrors:  Srebrenica, the siege of

 3     Sarajevo, ethnic cleansing.  The ambitions and ethnocentric fantasies of

 4     politicians fuelled the war, and this war laid waste to parts of Bosnia

 5     and Croatia.

 6             During this period, Slobodan Milosevic sought to deceive his

 7     international interlocutors, the international community, and the public

 8     with false claims that the governments of which he was a member and the

 9     instruments of those governments, including the army, were not

10     interfering in the affairs of Bosnia and not providing material support

11     and aid to the Bosnian Serb army and to the Bosnian Croat army.  His

12     deceits and the deceits of his associates fooled no one.

13             This case, Your Honour, will pierce the veil of elaborate

14     deceptions and will expose the roles of Momcilo Perisic, one of

15     Milosevic's principal collaborators, and will expose his unstinting

16     support for Milosevic's policies to establish a single state of the

17     Serbian people.

18             Now, throughout my remarks, Your Honour, I'm going to be using a

19     number of acronyms.  I'm going to be referring to the Federal Republic of

20     Yugoslavia as the FRY; the Socialist Federative Republic as the SFRY; the

21     Yugoslav People's Army as the JNA; and the Yugoslav Army as the VJ.

22             The accused, Your Honour, was the highest ranking member of the

23     Yugoslav Army chief -- of the army.  He was the VJ Chief of the General

24     Staff.  He was appointed to that position on the 26th of August, 1993,

25     and he remained in that position until the 24th of November, 1998.  In

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 1     his capacity as Chief of the General Staff, he had the overall authority

 2     and responsibility for the functioning of the army.

 3             General Perisic was a career military officer, having graduated

 4     from the military academy in 1966.  He held a number of important

 5     positions in both the JNA and the VJ throughout his career, including

 6     serving as the commander of the JNA Artillery School Centre in Zadar.

 7     Now, that position should be borne in mind, Your Honours, when

 8     considering the charges in this indictment, allegations that relate to

 9     the 44-month siege and the artillery bombardment of the densely populated

10     city of Sarajevo.

11             In November of 1998, following a disagreement that he had with

12     Slobodan Milosevic over the use of the army in the Kosovo crisis, he was

13     removed from his position as the head of the VJ.

14             Under Yugoslav law, the president of the Federal Republic of

15     Yugoslavia, in accordance with decisions of the Supreme Defence Council,

16     or SDC, commanded the army in times of war and peace.  The SDC was the

17     decision-making body.  It was composed of three members - the President

18     of the FRY, Zoran Lilic; the President of the Republic of Serbia,

19     Slobodan Milosevic; and the President of the Republic of Montenegro,

20     Momir Bulatovic.  The SDC debated important and critical issues and

21     formulated state policy.

22             Although not a member of the SDC, Momcilo Perisic attended every

23     session during his tenure as Chief of the VJ General Staff.  He

24     participated fully in debates relating to military matters, and he

25     advised members of the SDC on the security situation that affected his

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 1     government and his nation.  He did so because he had the paramount

 2     responsibility for both defence and security.  He was well informed.  He

 3     had access to international media.  He had access to his colleagues in

 4     the adjacent countries of Croatia and Bosnia.

 5             In order to implement the policies of the SDC and the President

 6     of the FRY, General Perisic issued orders and commands, and we intend to

 7     present to Your Honours in our case in chief documents of commands and

 8     other sorts of documents that will sustain and will demonstrate his

 9     position as Chief of the General Staff.

10             Now, as Chief of the General Staff, General Perisic commanded the

11     army.  He did so by issuing orders to his subordinates and to subordinate

12     units.  He determined the organisation and establishment of units in the

13     army, and this is particularly important because I will be discussing

14     later in my opening remarks two formations - the 30th and the 40th

15     Personnel Centres - and you'll hear a considerable amount about them

16     during my remarks.

17             General Perisic appointed officers up to the rank of colonel; he

18     retained in the army service officers up to the rank of colonel; he could

19     transfer them; he would issue decisions about their service; he could

20     decide on their termination up to and including the rank of colonel; and

21     he appointed judges and presidents and military disciplinary prosecutors

22     in the military disciplinary court.

23             Outside of the formal sessions of the SDC, General Perisic was a

24     close and frequent collaborator with Slobodan Milosevic, Zoran Lilic,

25     Momir Bulatovic, and his friend General Ratko Mladic.

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 1             The accused is charged with 13 counts in the present indictment.

 2     Those counts relate to events that occurred in Sarajevo, in Srebrenica,

 3     and in Zagreb.  The Prosecution alleges that he is responsible under both

 4     Articles 7.1 and 7.3 for the crimes associated with Sarajevo and

 5     Srebrenica, and he is responsible under Article 7.3 for the crimes

 6     associated with Zagreb.

 7             Now, we focus on the Sarajevo crimes, counts 1 to 4 of the

 8     indictment.  General Perisic is charged with two counts of murder - one

 9     is a crime against humanity, and one is a violation of the laws or

10     customs of war; one count of inhumane acts - injuring and wounding

11     civilians as a crime against humanity; and one count of attacks on

12     civilians, a crime against humanity.  All four counts relate to the

13     protracted campaign of shelling and sniping in Sarajevo that resulted in

14     the deaths and killings of thousands of civilians.

15             We allege in the indictment, Your Honours, that these crimes were

16     planned, instigated, ordered, committed and aided by General Perisic's

17     subordinates in the VRS, the Bosnian Serb army, including General Ratko

18     Mladic, including General Stanislav Galic and General Dragomir Milosevic,

19     both of whom were commanders of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps, both of --

20     the latter two have been convicted by this Tribunal.  The indictment

21     alleges that General Perisic aided and abetted the commission of these

22     crimes with the knowledge that the assistance he provided would

23     contribute substantially in the commission of those crimes.

24             Schedules A and B of the indictment set forth specific incidents

25     of shelling and sniping, all of which have been litigated in the trials

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 1     of Generals Galic and Milosevic.

 2             In respect of the crimes in Srebrenica, General Perisic is

 3     charged with five counts.  Those five counts include two counts of murder

 4     as a crime against humanity and a violation of the laws and customs of

 5     war; one count of inhumane acts, inflicting serious injuries and wounding

 6     and forcible transfers as a crime against humanity; one count of

 7     persecutions as a crime against humanity; and one count of extermination

 8     as a crime against humanity.

 9             These five counts relate to events that occurred in July of 1995

10     in the UN protected area of Srebrenica and its environs, where the VRS,

11     members of the VRS massacred between 7 and 8.000 Bosnian Muslim men and

12     boys and forcibly transferred approximately 25.000 Bosnian Muslims from

13     the enclave.

14             The Prosecution in the indictment alleges that the crimes were

15     planned, instigated, ordered, and aided by General Perisic's associates,

16     subordinates, in the VRS, including General Mladic, whom I've mentioned,

17     General Radislav Krstic, Dragan Obrenovic, Dragan Jokic, Colonel

18     Blagojevic, all of whom have been convicted in this Tribunal for crimes

19     committed in Sarajevo.  His other subordinates who've been identified in

20     the indictment include Vinko Pandurevic, Ljubisa Beara, Vujadin Popovic,

21     all of whom are currently on trial for those very same crimes in this

22     institution.

23             Finally, Your Honour, General Perisic is accused of four counts

24     in respect of the events in Zagreb:  Two counts of murder, a crime

25     against humanity and a violation of the laws or customs of war; one count

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 1     of inhumane acts, injuring and wounding civilians as a crime against

 2     humanity; and one count of attacks on civilians as a crime against

 3     humanity.

 4             The charges relate to the missile attacks that took place on the

 5     city centre of Zagreb that occurred on the 2nd and 3rd of May, 1995.  The

 6     missile attacks were ordered by the President of the Republic of Srpska

 7     Krajina Milan Martic and executed by General Perisic's subordinates who

 8     served in the Bosnian Croat army.

 9             Your Honours, the criminal acts that have been identified in the

10     indictment have been the subject of previous trials in this institution.

11     In fact, many of the facts and events have been judicially established,

12     obviating the need for us to call as witnesses once again people who

13     suffered from those crimes.

14             In pre-trial motions we filed a number of requests asking that

15     the written testimonies and the written statements of witnesses who had

16     testified in previous trials be admitted before Your Honours.  The Trial

17     Chamber granted many of those motions, and to the extent that victims are

18     required to testify before Your Honours, we have summoned them to testify

19     and present their evidence to Your Honours in person.  In fact, Your

20     Honours, you will hear from some of them very early, at the start of this

21     trial.

22             Our intention, Your Honours, not to call a large number of

23     victims to testify in our case in chief is not out of disrespect or

24     indifference to the victims' sufferings.  Their eloquent voices have been

25     repeatedly heard in this institution.  Their recorded testimonies and

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 1     past statements will be introduced to Your Honours for your

 2     consideration, and we are indebted to the victims and to the witnesses

 3     for the remarkable dignity and courage they displayed when publicly

 4     bearing witness to the crimes, the unspeakable crimes, that were

 5     inflicted upon them when confronting their tormenters in the courtroom

 6     and when recounting the long-lasting effects that those crimes had on

 7     their lives.  We intend to rely, therefore, in large part on the

 8     substantial public record created by their testimonies, their past

 9     testimonies, to establish the facts relating to the events underlying the

10     charges.

11             Instead, Your Honours, our evidence will focus on the role of

12     General Perisic in aiding and abetting the commission of crimes alleged

13     in the indictment and on his failure to prevent his subordinates from

14     committing the crimes alleged in the indictment and his failure to punish

15     them for having committed them.

16             In assessing the role of General Perisic, it's necessary to be

17     cognizant of political and military developments that led to the

18     disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and to understand the common

19     objectives of the political and military leaders of Slobodan Milosevic's

20     Serbia and Yugoslavia and their Serb counterparts in Bosnia and in

21     Croatia.  I will endeavour to provide Your Honours with a very brief

22     framework.  It's not intended to be comprehensive.  You will be receiving

23     evidence of expert witnesses.  You will be receiving reports of expert

24     witnesses that will touch upon those events in greater depth.  In the

25     limited amount of time that's available to me, however, I would like to

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 1     highlight some of the points that I think will enable you to put the case

 2     we're presenting against General Perisic into context.

 3             Prior to the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of

 4     Yugoslavia, it consisted of six republics and two autonomous regions.  In

 5     the aftermath of the death of President Tito, latent nationalistic

 6     impulses surfaced, and the existence of the Federal Republic of

 7     Yugoslavia as a federal state was questioned.  Certain factions favoured

 8     independence or a reform of the federal state.  Opposing views favoured

 9     the preservation of Yugoslavia.  The persons who favoured the

10     preservation of Yugoslavia were principally the Serbs of the Socialist

11     Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, led by Slobodan Milosevic; the Bosnian

12     Serbs, led by Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik, and Biljana Plavsic;

13     and the Croatian Serbs, led by Milan Babic, Goran Hadzic, and Milan

14     Martic.

15             The antagonists were unable to resolve their differences

16     peacefully and instead settled them by force of arms.  A 10-day war in

17     Slovenia led to the withdrawal of the JNA from that republic, but the

18     armed conflict spread to Croatia where the Croatian Serbs seized and

19     occupied parts of Croatia with the assistance of the JNA and proclaimed

20     the Croatian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska Krajina, or RSK as I'll

21     refer to it.  Before that date, in April and May of 1991, the Serb-held

22     territories in Croatia proclaimed themselves a part of Serbia and

23     Yugoslavia.

24             In Bosnia, the developments were different.  In Bosnia, in

25     anticipation of multi-party elections that were to occur in November and

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 1     December of 1990, political parties formed, and the three main political

 2     parties were formed principally along ethnic lines.  The three parties

 3     were the Serb Democratic Party, the SDS, which was led by Radovan

 4     Karadzic; the Party of Democratic Action, or the SDA, which was led by

 5     Alija Izetbegovic and which was the party of the Bosniaks; and the

 6     Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, which was the main political party of

 7     the Bosnian Croats, which was led by Stjepan Kljujic.  The SDS opposed an

 8     independent Bosnia, opposed being separated from other Serbs in

 9     Yugoslavia, and were prepared to use force if necessary to prevent that

10     from happening.

11             By October of 1991, the issue of prospective Bosnian independence

12     came to a head at a joint session of the assembly of Bosnia and

13     Herzegovina where a memorandum on independence was to be considered.  The

14     Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims favoured the adoption of that

15     memorandum.  Radovan Karadzic at that session warned the Muslims that if

16     they pursued independence, they would disappear.  After a considerable

17     debate on the issue, the SDS deputies walked out of the assembly, and the

18     deputies who remained - the SDA deputies, the HDZ deputies, and others -

19     voted in favour of the memorandum for independence.

20             Almost immediately after the walkout, the Bosnian Serbs set up

21     parallel bodies of authority, including a Bosnian Serb assembly.  They

22     set it up in the same month, October 1991.  On the 24th of October, 1991,

23     Karadzic explained to Slobodan Milosevic the following, and I quote:  "We

24     are moving on.  We will establish full authority over the Serbian

25     territories in Bosnia and none of his lawyers," referring to the lawyers

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 1     of Alija Izetbegovic, "will be able to show their nose there.  He will

 2     not be able to exercise power.  He will not have control over 65 per cent

 3     of his territory.  That is our goal."

 4             At the same time, the Bosnian Serbs prepared to seize power in

 5     large areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina that they considered vital to their

 6     interest.  As the evidence will show, Your Honours, they did so with the

 7     assistance of the JNA.

 8             Now, as it became apparent that the federal Yugoslav state would

 9     not remain intact and that the republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and

10     Croatia would not remain in it, the authorities in Belgrade did not

11     remain indifferent.  The Belgrade leaders favoured the creation of a

12     state encompassing as many of the Serb inhabitants of the Socialist

13     Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and as much land that they inhabited as

14     possible.  The goal of the Serb leaders in the SFRY was the formation of

15     a common Serb state or a union of states.

16             One of the most powerful institutions in the SFRY was the

17     Yugoslav People's Army, or JNA, of which the accused was a high-ranking

18     officer member.

19             According to article 240 of the SFRY constitution, the JNA was

20     the common armed force of all nations and nationalities of the country,

21     meaning he was the common army of the Serbs, the Croats, the Muslims.

22             By December of 1991, with the conflict in Croatia raging and with

23     ethnic relations in Bosnia deteriorating and considerably polarised, the

24     JNA's commitment to ethnic impartiality or neutrality vanished, and the

25     army metamorphosed into the hammer by which Serb interests were to be

Page 358

 1     protected and advanced.

 2             Two documents illustrate, Your Honour, the JNA's historic and

 3     important shift favouring the Serbs.

 4             The first document, if we could have that on the screen, please,

 5     the first document was issued -- it should appear on the screen.  Yes, it

 6     does.  The first document, Your Honour, was issued by the Federal

 7     Secretariat for National Defence for the SFRY.  It is a -- classified as

 8     a military secret.  It was issued by General -- Army General Veljko

 9     Kadijevic, who was the federal secretary of national defence, and it is

10     entitled:  "On the Use of the Armed Forces for the Preparation and

11     Performance of Combat Activities in the Forthcoming Period."  It leaves

12     absolutely no doubt as to which ethnic group the JNA favoured.

13             You will see, Your Honours, an excerpt from the text of that

14     document.  It says:  "Our armed forces are entering a new period of

15     exceptional significance for accomplishing the ultimate aims of the war:

16     The protection of the Serbian population ..." and it goes on.

17             The second document, Your Honour, was issued four months later,

18     approximately four months later, on the 20th of March, 1992, and it is

19     entitled:  "The Conclusions of the Evaluation of the Situation on the BiH

20     Territory in the Zone of Responsibility of the 2nd Military District."

21     This document, Your Honour, is a military secret.  This document was sent

22     directly to the attention of the chief of the JNA General Staff.

23             It reflects -- if you can turn to the next portion, it reflects,

24     Your Honours, that the directive of General Kadijevic was swiftly

25     implemented in Bosnia, and you will see before Your Honours an excerpt

Page 359

 1     from that document issued by General Kukanjac, who was the head of the

 2     2nd Military District, a JNA general.  And if you turn to the caption,

 3     this is:  "Volunteer Units in the Zone of the 2nd Military District."

 4     Subpart B says there are 69.198 volunteers.  And in subpart C, you'll see

 5     that the volunteer that he is referring to are not part of the formation,

 6     construction of the JNA or Territorial Defence.  These are people who

 7     were outside of the army.  If you go to subpart V, the JNA distributed

 8     51.900 pieces of armament; 75 per cent in the SDS, which was the

 9     political party of Radovan Karadzic distributed 17.298 pieces.  That's a

10     total of 69.198 pieces of arms.  G, subpart G reflects that 300 automatic

11     rifles had been distributed in Sarajevo and others were going to be

12     distributed in Sarajevo.

13             Now, there was a key attached to General Kukanjac's report that

14     described geographically where these volunteers were located; and you

15     will see, Your Honour, it doesn't come up on one page, unfortunately, but

16     in this attachment there are 75 municipalities in Bosnia or areas within

17     municipalities where these arms were distributed.  And appearing on the

18     screen before you, you will see those areas where the arms and where the

19     volunteers were.  And if we go to the end of that particular document,

20     you will see that this is 69.198.  That's the number of arms that were

21     distributed, and what's interesting to note about this document, Your

22     Honours, is that one can see that arms were distributed by the JNA to

23     Serb volunteers on a systematic and a widespread basis.  It covered a

24     large area of Bosnia, areas that -- many of which became part of the

25     Republika Srpska.

Page 360

 1             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Mr. Harmon, do we have this document in the

 2     English language?

 3             MR. HARMON:  We should have it, Your Honour, in the English

 4     language.

 5             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Will the Chamber be provided with a copy?

 6             MR. HARMON:  Of course.

 7             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

 8             MR. HARMON:  Now, if I may go, very briefly, into closed session,

 9     Your Honour.

10             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

11                           [Closed session]

12   (redacted)

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Page 361

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 7                           [Open session]

 8             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

 9             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

10             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

11             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours, let me now fast-forward to Bosnia six

12     weeks after the report that was issued by General Kukanjac showing the

13     distribution of arms in the 75 areas in Bosnia.

14             On the 12th of May, six weeks after the Kukanjac report was

15     issued, the Bosnian Serbs held the 16th Session of the Bosnian Serb

16     assembly.  It was an important assembly session.  It was important

17     because it was at that session Radovan Karadzic announced the

18     establishment of the VRS and announced that Radovan -- that Ratko Mladic

19     would be serving as its head, and the announcement was made by Radovan

20     Karadzic of the six strategic objectives of the Bosnian Serb people.

21             Now, the six strategic objectives which are before Your Honours

22     on the screen were the core political and military goals of the Bosnian

23     Serb leadership.  General Mladic, who attended the 16th Session,

24     addressed the members of the assembly, and he said that he, too, had been

25     involved in the formulation of these objectives, both with the "top

Page 362

 1     leadership" of the Republika Srpska and "an even more select political

 2     leadership in Belgrade."

 3             Now, for purposes of this trial, Your Honours, the strategic

 4     objectives that are the most important are strategic objectives 1, 3, and

 5     5.  Strategic objective 1 was to -- an objective to separate the Serb

 6     communities from the non-Serbs in Bosnia.  Strategic objective number 3 -

 7     if we could have the map in front of Your Honours - strategic objective

 8     number 3, Your Honours, is the establishment of a corridor in the Drina

 9     River Valley, that is, eliminate the Drina River as a border that

10     separates Bosnia from Serbia.  And strategic objective number 5 was to

11     divide the city of Sarajevo into Serbian and Muslim parts and to

12     establish effective state authorities in both parts.

13             Now, Your Honours, the announcement of these strategic objectives

14     was not an epiphany because a month and a half before their announcement,

15     violent attacks had taken place against the Muslim community in the city

16     of Bijeljina.  Bijeljina, Your Honours, for your information, relates to

17     strategic objective number 3.  If you see the word "Semberija" on the

18     right-hand side, slightly above the letter A, you'll locate the city of

19     Bijeljina.  What happened in Bijeljina was that paramilitary formations

20     led by the notorious paramilitary leader Arkan attacked the Muslims in

21     that community, took control of the municipality, and the JNA stood idly

22     by and did not intervene.

23             You'll receive evidence, as well, during the course of this trial

24     that the JNA took an active role in ethnic cleansing, in cleansing

25     non-Serbs from the territory that was coveted by the Bosnian Serbs.

Page 363

 1             For example, on the 9th of May, in the Bratunac municipality --

 2     and Bratunac, for your information, can be located next to the number 3

 3     that says "Drina SO3."  It sits along the border between Bosnia and

 4     Serbia.  The JNA participated in the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim

 5     village of Glogova and the Muslim settlements in and around Bratunac.

 6             Elsewhere in Bosnia - this is before the strategic objectives

 7     were formally announced at the assembly - the pattern was the same.  In

 8     the municipality of Bosanska Krupa, which is located in Western Bosnia -

 9     it's located above the word "Una" on the left-hand side of the map - the

10     Bosnian Muslims were ethnically cleansed from the territory with the

11     assistance of the JNA.

12             At the 16th assembly session when the strategic objectives were

13     announced, the assembly deputy from Bosanska Krupa, Miroslav Vjestica,

14     reported to the fellow members of the assembly that "on the right bank of

15     the Una river, there are no more Muslims in the Serbian municipality of

16     Bosanska Krupa."

17             The Prosecution evidence, Your Honour, will establish that the

18     JNA played a critical role in that ethnic cleansing operation.

19             Those are just some examples, Your Honour.  We will present

20     additional evidence relating to this topic.

21             Now, these large-scale crimes, these ethnic cleansings that had

22     happened along the eastern part of Bosnia and in other parts of Bosnia

23     did not go unnoticed by the international community.  Pressure was

24     brought to bear on Belgrade authorities to withdraw the army from Bosnia,

25     and on the 19th of May, 1992, the FRY, the Federal Republic of

Page 364

 1     Yugoslavia, in compliance with UN Resolution 752, withdrew their

 2     personnel, JNA personnel, from Bosnia and their equipment from Bosnia.

 3     Shortly thereafter, the JNA was renamed the Yugoslav Army, or the VJ.

 4     However, the withdrawal of the JNA was a sham.  It did not end the agony

 5     in Bosnia as key Serb gains had to be solidified and other objectives had

 6     been obtained.

 7             In order to implement the state policy of the rump Yugoslavia of

 8     "creating conditions for the establishment of a single state of the

 9     Serbian people," the JNA left behind immense military reserves of

10     equipment for use by the VRS; and thereafter, the Federal Republic of

11     Yugoslavia and the VJ provided the Bosnian Serbs and the Krajina Serbs

12     with covert military assistance in violation of Yugoslav domestic law, in

13     breach of UN resolutions, and contrary to public pronouncements by FRY

14     political and military leaders.  I intend to discuss this in greater

15     detail later in my remarks.

16             Now, I have presented this brief overview, Your Honour, so we

17     could put into context the case against General Perisic when he, Your

18     Honours, became the Chief of the General Staff and when he faithfully and

19     without reservation implemented the policies of the FRY.

20             Now, let me address, Your Honours, General Perisic's criminal

21     responsibility under article 7.1 of the Statute.

22             His criminal liability under 7.1 is based on his aiding and

23     abetting the crimes charged in respect of Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

24     Within the policies of the SDC and within the limitations set by the SDC,

25     he provided extensive military aid to the VRS, which had a substantial

Page 365

 1     effect on the commission of the crimes.  The evidence will show that

 2     General Perisic was aware of the substantial likelihood that the military

 3     assistance provided to the VRS would assist in the commission of crimes.

 4             He aided and abetted these crimes in Sarajevo and Srebrenica in

 5     four ways:  By supplying large quantities of weapons, ammunition, and

 6     other logistical materials without which the Bosnian Serb army could not

 7     have prosecuted the war; he deployed and supported -- and supported

 8     senior officers in the VRS; he sent regular VJ troops stationed in the

 9     FRY into Bosnia; and he aided and abetted the commission of crimes by

10     consistently failing to fulfil his duty to prevent, investigate, and

11     punish breaches of international law perpetrated by his subordinates

12     serving in the Bosnian Serb army and the Serbian -- the Croatian Serb

13     army, of which he was fully aware.  And through this omission, this

14     series of omissions, he created an environment of impunity wherein his

15     subordinates were encouraged and did persist in committing crimes,

16     knowing that there would be no consequences for their derelictions.

17             Now, as I've stated earlier, Your Honours, the policy of Slobodan

18     Milosevic's Yugoslavia was to support the war efforts of their Serb

19     brethren in both Bosnia and in Croatia.  They did so by providing massive

20     quantities of military aid to the VRS and the SVK, including artillery

21     weapons, small arms ammunition, small arms, communications equipment, and

22     the like.  This assistance was a carefully guarded state secret, since it

23     was in breach of UN resolutions prohibiting the FRY from interfering in

24     the affairs of Bosnia.

25             The vital military assistance that was provided to the two armies

Page 366

 1     in Bosnia and in Croatia occurred in two phases.  The initial phase was

 2     that large volumes of material were left for the Bosnian Serb forces when

 3     the JNA officially left Bosnia in May of 1992.  Thereafter, and until the

 4     end of the war, the VJ supplied the VRS with their essential military

 5     needs.  This phase included the phase when General Perisic was Chief of

 6     the VJ General Staff.

 7             Now, what quantities am I talking about?  Focusing solely on the

 8     infantry ammunition left behind by the VJ -- by the JNA, General Mladic

 9     at the 50th Session of the Bosnian Serb assembly, which was held on the

10     15th and 16th of April, 1995, estimated that 42.2 per cent of the total

11     infantry ammunition consumed since the beginning of the war, which was

12     9.185 tonnes, had been inherited or found -- inherited from the JNA or

13     found in the barracks.

14             Now, in addition to that 42.2-per cent infantry ammunition,

15     General Mladic specified the volume of material assistance the VJ had

16     provided to the VRS.  So in addition to the 42 per cent, he said that

17     47.2 per cent of the total infantry ammunition consumed from the

18     beginning of the war was aid from -- received from the Yugoslav Army;

19     34.4 per cent of the 18.151 tonnes of artillery ammunition used by the

20     VRS was from VJ aid.

21             As the Chief of the VJ General Staff, General Perisic ordered a

22     substantial amount of that military support be furnished to the VRS.

23             Now, once again, Your Honour, I need to go into closed session.

24     I'll do so briefly, but I need to refer to two exhibits.

25             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session

Page 367

 1                           [Closed session]

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Page 368

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 5                           [Open session]

 6             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

 7             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

 8             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

 9             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours, the Prosecution evidence will show

10     that the VJ was the sole supplier of critical munitions during certain

11     periods of the war, including 155-millimetre artillery ammunition, the

12     type of ammunition that was used during the shelling of Sarajevo.

13             Now, the Prosecution evidence will link munitions provided to the

14     VRS to crimes alleged in the indictment.  Expended ammunition, shell

15     cartridges that were recovered by the Office of the Prosecutor at various

16     execution sites identified in the schedule relating to Srebrenica, the

17     massacre sites, were produced in the FRY at the that General Perisic was

18     Chief of the VJ General Staff.  Likewise, artillery fragments recovered

19     at the sites of some of the scheduled shelling incidents and other

20     incidents were produced in the FRY at the same time.

21             Now, the fearsome war engine of the Bosnian Serbs would have

22     collapsed without the assistance, the massive military assistance

23     provided from the VJ and from the FRY.

24             Again, I need to go into closed session very, very briefly.  If I

25     could have the Court's permission, Your Honour.

Page 369

 1             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

 2                           [Closed session]

 3   (redacted)

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21                           [Open session]

22             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

23             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

24             Mr. Harmon.

25             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours will receive evidence that, according

Page 370

 1     to the accused, the volume of military assistance the VJ provided to the

 2     Bosnian Serb army and the Bosnian Croat army was so great that it

 3     imperilled the combat-readiness of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

 4             Now, let me turn to another element of -- where General Perisic

 5     aided and abetted.

 6             The indictment alleges that General Perisic continued the

 7     practice of providing, deploying, and supporting senior officers to the

 8     VRS.  In order to achieve by military means the objectives that were

 9     sought by the leaders of the Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbian

10     Krajina, new armies had to be created, and they were created.  The VRS

11     was established on the 12th of May, 1992, and the SVK, Bosnian Croat

12     Army, was established on the 16th of October, 1992.  Their ranks filled

13     with volunteers, many of whom had served in the Territorial Defence or

14     who had served in the JNA.  But these nascent armies were not capable of

15     survival without substantial manpower and financial assistance from the

16     FRY; and in order to sustain them, the JNA, and later the VJ, ordered its

17     personnel to serve in those armies.  In many cases, Your Honours, the VRS

18     and the SVK requested the services of specifically identified officers,

19     and they were given; or they requested officers who could fill specific

20     needs of the army, and they were given.

21             When General Perisic became Chief of the General Staff of the

22     Yugoslav Army, he continued the FRY policy of providing officers to serve

23     in those armies, in deploying them to those armies, and in supporting

24     them.  He proposed - and I'll discuss this later - he proposed two

25     temporary personnel formations be created:  the 30th Personnel Centre and

Page 371

 1     the 40th Personnel Centre.  The 30th Personnel Centre was for persons

 2     serving in the Republika Srpska, and the 40th Personnel Centre was for VJ

 3     personnel serving in the SVK.  The structure and the purpose of these

 4     personnel centres was an elaborate deception.  It was a deception to

 5     disguise the provision and payment of these officers to those armies.

 6             If we turn to the next document, Your Honour, the 30th and 40th

 7     Personnel Centres, you'll see on the organigramme in front of you was

 8     part of the VJ General Staff.  The 30th and 40th Personnel Centres are

 9     the two boxes that appear at the bottom of the organigramme.  They are

10     part of the personnel administration, and they are part of the

11     recruitment and mobilisation organ of the VJ.

12             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Can we zoom in?  We can't read what is there.

13             MR. HARMON:  Now, Your Honours, the Prosecution evidence will

14     show that the VRS and the SVK command structures were made up of members

15     of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres.

16             In its pre-trial brief, the Defence asserts that "The members of

17     the VRS Main Staff and the VRS core commanders were not members of the

18     VJ."  That's found at the Defence pre-trial brief, page 44, subpart J.

19     This is significant, and let me explain why.

20             If we can -- the first document, the document that is before you,

21     Your Honours, is the 30th Personnel Centre; and although the font is

22     quite small, we can zoom in on it if you would like.  It identifies VJ

23     personnel who served in the 30th Personnel Centre and who made up the

24     Bosnian Serb army command structure.  So if we go -- if I can focus your

25     attention, Your Honours, down to the first parallel group, these are the

Page 372

 1     various organs of the VRS.  These are the Department for Security and

 2     Intelligence Affairs, for example, the various staff organs of the VRS.

 3     And if we go down one lower, then Your Honours will see that the VJ

 4     personnel also made up a substantial part of the corps of the VRS,

 5     including the Drina Corps, whose area of responsibility was where the

 6     Srebrenica massacres took place, and the Sarajevo Romanija Corps, whose

 7     commanders were General Milosevic and General Galic.

 8             Now, without members of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres of

 9     the VJ making up part of the command structure, let me show you what the

10     VRS command structure would look like.  So in front of you is an

11     organigramme showing you what the VRS command structure looked like

12     without VJ officers from the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres.

13             If we turn, Your Honours, to the next organigramme, which shows

14     the 40th Personnel Centre officers or VJ officers within the SVK command

15     structure, Your Honours will see this organigramme is set up in a similar

16     way to the previous one, the first going from the bottom up.  The long

17     column going from left to right are the corps of the SVK.  Above that are

18     the organs of the SVK, and above that is the Superior Command of the SVK.

19     I can blow that up if Your Honours wish.

20             These are the corps, Your Honour.  These are the VJ personnel

21     from the 40th Personnel Centre who were in the SVK command structure.

22             Your Honour, if we go up a level, these officers -- these are

23     officers in the various organs of the SVK, and if we go up to the two

24     levels -- the two levels above that, Your Honours will see this is the

25     higher echelon of the SVK.  The command at the top is the commanders of

Page 373

 1     the Main Staff of the SVK, and the box to the lower -- to the left are

 2     the assistant commanders and the Chief of the General Staff of the SVK.

 3             Now, Your Honours, what would that command structure look like

 4     without VJ officers from the 40th Personnel Centre?  The next

 5     organigramme shows Your Honours what that command structure would look

 6     like without VJ officers from the 40th Personnel Centre.

 7             We also allege, Your Honour, in the indictment that General

 8     Perisic aided and abetted the crimes in the indictment by, in some

 9     instances, ordering regular VJ troops stationed in the FRY into Bosnia.

10             We will lead evidence, Your Honour, about one such operation.

11     "Pancir-2" was the name of the operation.  It occurred in late 1993 and

12     early 1994.  And the purpose of Pancir-2 was to take the high ground,

13     Mount Zuc that overlooked Sarajevo.  It was important for the VRS in

14     their efforts to achieve military control over Sarajevo.

15             We'll take a look, Your Honour, at the first exhibit before you.

16     This is as -- or the first piece before you, Your Honour.  We have

17     identified the location of Mount Zuc, and Your Honours can see in the

18     much -- toward the bottom the much denser area below the dark is the city

19     of Sarajevo.

20             So Mount Zuc, if we can go to the next document, you'll have a

21     better view of Mount Zuc.  You'll see in this aerial image the city of

22     Sarajevo, which runs diagonally, and there's a large mountain formation

23     to the left of the city overlooking the city.  That's Mount Zuc.

24             And in order to achieve, in order to take that mountain, General

25     Perisic ordered members of the VJ special forces to the Sarajevo front.

Page 374

 1     The VJ special core units, including the Guards Brigade, the 72nd Special

 2     Corps Units, the 72nd Brigade, and the 63rd Parachute Brigade, were

 3     directly subordinated to the VJ of the General Staff, to General Perisic,

 4     and he had authority to order their engagement and use in combat.

 5             Now, the Office of the Prosecutor asked General Perisic about the

 6     participation of VJ troops in Bosnia and in Sarajevo.  In written

 7     responses to questions put to him about that subject, in his recorded

 8     suspect interview, and in his pre-trial brief, General Perisic denied

 9     that the VJ was involved in operations in Bosnia during the time he was

10     Chief of the VJ General Staff or that he ever ordered VJ units into

11     operation in Bosnia.  He stated that "volunteer or renegade troops" may

12     have left the FRY and operated in and around Sarajevo, but they did not

13     commit any crimes alleged in the indictment.

14             General Perisic was untruthful in his responses.  If we can turn

15     to the next document, Your Honour, the next document -- if we turn to the

16     next document, Your Honour, this is a document from the Sarajevo Romanija

17     Corps command, and it is an order to carry out an operation.  It's dated

18     the 3rd of November, 1993, and it's to all the commanders, and you'll see

19     in subpart 1 the units that will be taking place -- taking part in that

20     operation.  You'll see it says at the end of the -- the bottom of that

21     page, it says:  "VJ Special Forces up to 120 people and a helicopter

22     squad."  And if we go further down in that order, you'll see that the

23     operation was to be carried out in two stages.  The first stage was the

24     capture of Zuc.

25             Now, Your Honours, the presence of VJ troops operating in Bosnia

Page 375

 1     approximately seven months after the JNA had officially withdrawn from

 2     Bosnia was a flagrant violation of undertakings made by Slobodan

 3     Milosevic, one that could have exposed the FRY to grave - graver, I

 4     should say - consequences.  For that reason, the FRY and the VRS took

 5     considerable efforts to hide the participation of VJ units in Bosnia.

 6     This is reflected in the next document I'm going to present.

 7             This next document, Your Honour, it is -- you'll see from the --

 8     I'm going to show you different parts of this document.  The first part

 9     of this document, Your Honour, this is from the Main Staff of the Army of

10     the Republika Srpska.  It was issued by the Deputy Commander of the VRS,

11     General Milovanovic, and it is very urgent.  If we go to the next part of

12     this document, you'll see what it was that was very urgent.  It is a

13     warning, and the warning says, and I go to the second sentence:  "In

14     order to protect confidentiality and other measures and activities that

15     we have been undertaking, I forbid the use of or any reference in regular

16     and telephone communications to the term Yugoslav Army units."

17             It goes on to the next page to say at the top:  "The Yugoslav

18     Army units shall be treated as reserve forces of the General Staff, the

19     VRS Main Staff, regardless of their size, type, or strength."  In other

20     words, don't refer to the VJ troops; refer to them as VRS reserve units.

21             Now, normal circumstances, I suspect, the Sarajevo Romanija Corps

22     commanders would have respected that warning.  But if we turn to the next

23     document, you'll see that they did not.  When members of the VJ Special

24     unit, the 72nd Special Brigade, participated in the attack on Mount Zuc,

25     Your Honours, they suffered considerable casualties, and the Sarajevo

Page 376

 1     Romanija Corps commander, General Galic, reported that.

 2             This is a report from General Galic.  It's dated the 27th of

 3     December, 1993, and it says:  "On the 27th of December, in accordance

 4     with Operation Pancir-2, a planned attack by combat groups under the

 5     command of Colonel Stupar, commander of the 72nd Brigade of the VJ," the

 6     Yugoslav Army, "was carried out."

 7             Now, if we go down to the next part of this document, General

 8     Galic then reports that they sustained casualties, and you'll see in this

 9     section that I'm illustrating on your monitors that seven members of the

10     72nd Brigade were killed, and the rest of them managed to pull out with

11     difficulties.  It also goes on to say that ten of them were wounded.

12             Now, these casualties -- VJ casualties were recorded in VJ

13     military documents, and they were recorded in obituaries that were in --

14     that appeared in newspapers in Belgrade.  One example, Your Honour, I'll

15     show you of this is an obituary for a captain of the Yugoslav Army whose

16     obituary you have before you on the monitor.  According to one of the

17     obituaries, it says that this young man, who was a captain in the

18     Yugoslav Army, "who died a heroic death on 27 December 1993, defending

19     his country, the Greater Serbia."

20             Our evidence will show, Your Honour, that on the 27th of

21     December, 1993, when the VJ special units were assaulting Mount Zuc - and

22     you've seen their proximity to Sarajevo -- Mount Zuc's proximity to

23     Sarajevo - that the VRS conducted an artillery barrage on the city centre

24     itself of great intensity.  Approximately 600 shells fell on the centre

25     of Sarajevo, and at least 7 persons were killed and 58 others were

Page 377

 1     wounded.

 2             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Mr. Harmon?

 3             MR. HARMON:  Yes.

 4             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Would it be possible in the next five minutes to

 5     get to a convenient time?

 6             MR. HARMON:  Yes, it will be, Your Honour.  I'm just about done,

 7     and we can take a break.

 8             Your Honour, shortly after the failed assault on Mount Zuc,

 9     General Perisic, on the 8th of January, 1994 - in other words, about two

10     weeks later - flew to Sarajevo, and he met with Miodrag Panic, the

11     then-commander of the Special Units Corps of the VJ General Staff, with

12     General Mladic, with General Galic, and others, and he was briefed on the

13     situation in and around Sarajevo.

14             With that, Your Honour, this is a convenient time to take a

15     break.

16             JUDGE MOLOTO:  We will take a break and come back at 12.00.

17                           --- Recess taken at 11.36 a.m.

18                           --- On resuming at 12.01 p.m.

19             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Yes, Mr. Harmon.

20             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours, I have previously addressed the fourth

21     manner in which General Perisic aided and abetted in the commission of

22     the crimes, that is, by consistently failing in his duty to prevent, to

23     investigate, and to punish breaches of international law committed by his

24     subordinates serving in the VRS and the SVK, and I won't go further on

25     that topic.

Page 378

 1             Instead, I'd like to turn to General Perisic's responsibility

 2     under Article 7.3 of the Statute of the Tribunal.  General Perisic is

 3     charged in all counts with 7.3, criminal responsibility.

 4             Now, quite obviously his responsibility to prevent the criminal

 5     conduct of his subordinates extended until the war ended, which was the

 6     signing of the Dayton Agreements.  His criminal liability to punish,

 7     however, extended for a considerable period longer.  It extended

 8     throughout the period he was Chief of the VJ General Staff, that is,

 9     through November the 24th, 1998.

10             In order to establish his criminal responsibility under Article

11     7.3, the Prosecution has to establish three elements:  That a

12     superior-subordinate relationship existed between General Perisic and his

13     subordinates who committed the crimes; that General Perisic knew or had

14     reason to know that a criminal act was about to be or had been committed;

15     and that he failed to take reasonable and necessary measures to prevent

16     the criminal act from occurring or to punish the perpetrators who

17     committed them.

18             Now, one of the principal issues that will be before Your Honours

19     in this case is whether a superior-subordinate relationship existed

20     between General Perisic and the officers who were members of the 30th and

21     40th Personnel Centres, the special formations that I've identified that

22     were part of the VJ General Staff structure.  Our position is that they

23     were; the Defence position is that they were not his subordinates.

24             Now, his subordinates, as you have seen from the organigrammes

25     that I have presented, included General Mladic, General Krstic, General

Page 379

 1     Milosevic, General Galic, and others.

 2             In order, Your Honour, to prove a superior-subordinate

 3     relationship, it's incumbent on the Prosecution to establish that General

 4     Perisic had effective control, meaning that he had the ability -- the

 5     material ability to prevent or punish the commission of the offences.

 6             Now, when assessing the various elements in the evidentiary

 7     matrix that make up effective control, I want to draw Your Honours'

 8     attention to one point, and that is that General Perisic did not exercise

 9     operational control over his subordinates in the SVK and VRS -- the VRS

10     and the SVK.  And by "operational control," what I mean is exercising

11     command and control through issuing orders, commands, instructions,

12     directives for military combat operations being conducted in the field.

13     In fact, operational control had de facto been delegated to the

14     commanders of the VRS and the SVK, and this created a situation where

15     they, as well as Perisic, had the material ability to prevent and punish

16     the criminal conduct of seconded VJ officers.

17             In other words, General Perisic's material ability to prevent and

18     punish criminal conduct of VJ officers was parallel and concurrent to the

19     material ability held by the commanders of the VRS and the SVK who had

20     operational control of these officers and who also had a

21     superior-subordinate relationship with them.

22             For example, Radovan Karadzic was the Supreme Commander of the

23     VRS.  He had the material ability to punish his subordinates in the VRS,

24     including soldiers seconded to that army from the VJ.  If General Perisic

25     was aware that his subordinates had committed crimes while serving in the

Page 380

 1     VRS and he was aware that President Karadzic failed to sanction those

 2     offenders, General Perisic's responsibility to do so was not extinguished

 3     because of Karadzic's indifference or his inaction.  General Perisic was

 4     obliged to take action against his VJ subordinates.

 5             Now, you've heard a lot about the 30th and the 40th Personnel

 6     Centres.  Let me turn to the creation and the purpose of those centres.

 7     This has a direct bearing on both General Perisic's criminal

 8     responsibility under Article 7.1 and also 7.3.

 9             Before General Perisic became Chief of the VJ General Staff,

10     members of the JNA and members of the VJ had volunteered to serve in the

11     two armies in Bosnia and Croatia, or they were transferred from the VJ

12     and the JNA to serve in those armies.  The salaries of those officers

13     were paid to them by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia throughout the

14     period of the war with one exception, and that is following the Republika

15     Srpska's failure to accept the Contact Group Peace Plan in 1994.  There

16     was a brief interruption in the payment of salaries.

17             The law on the VJ permitted an officer in the VJ to serve outside

18     the borders of the FRY in two circumstances:  as part of an international

19     peace-keeping force or in diplomatic postings.  General Perisic was aware

20     that neither one of those conditions applied to VJ personnel who were

21     serving in the VRS or the SVK or would apply to soldiers he was going to

22     deploy there in the future.

23             In his suspect interview, General Perisic said, and he

24     acknowledged that those -- and I'm quoting, those who would be

25     dispatching VJ soldiers to participate in the war in Bosnia "would be

Page 381

 1     breaking a law."  To rectify this problem, General Perisic proposed that

 2     special personnel centres be created.

 3             One of the important issues that Your Honours will deal with in

 4     this case was what was the nature of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres?

 5             In his suspect interview, General Perisic described the personnel

 6     centres.  He said it was merely "one office" that was based in the

 7     personnel administration of the General Staff and was staffed with "2 or

 8     3" men.

 9             According to General Perisic - and I'm putting up on the screen,

10     Your Honour, an excerpt from his written responses to questions that were

11     put to him - according to General Perisic, these -- and I'm quoting,

12     "These centres were formed in late 1993 by order of the VSO" -- that's

13     Supreme Defence Council -- "for the purpose of drawing up complete

14     records indicating which individuals, former JNA/VJ members born in

15     Croatia and Bosnia joined the Army of Republika Srpska and Republic of

16     Serbian Krajina as volunteers."  And also:  "... all other JNA/VJ members

17     that joined these armies on a volunteer basis.  Precise records were

18     needed for the following reasons..." and he then lists the reasons.

19             In his suspect interview, General Perisic went on to define the

20     term "volunteer."  He defined it this way:  "People who voluntarily,

21     without any influence of anyone but out of their will, want to go and

22     perform a certain job and task."

23             Now, Prosecution evidence will show that the nature of the 30th

24     and 40th Personnel Centres was considerably different.  The 30th and 40th

25     Personnel Centres were created as legal cover to hide the fact that the

Page 382

 1     VJ was ordering its personnel to serve in Bosnia and in Croatia in

 2     contravention of FRY law and in contravention of international

 3     undertakings and obligations.

 4             If we can go into closed session, please.

 5             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

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14                           [Open session]

15             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

16             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

17             Mr. Harmon.

18             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours, secrecy was absolutely vital for this

19     deception.  In front of you on the screen, Your Honour, is the

20     instructions on the functioning of the programme of activities of special

21     personnel centres.  It was issued by General Perisic on the 8th of

22     December, 1993, and it's quite a revealing document.  You'll see in the

23     section before you the "General Work Principles of the Special Personnel

24     Centres," and it says under paragraph 1:  "These Instructions shall

25     establish the functioning and work of special personnel centres for the

Page 385

 1     complete execution of missions set out in special orders from the

 2     relevant state and military organs."

 3             If we go to -- under that same chapeau to paragraphs 12, 13 --

 4     and 13, it reads:  "Personnel service organs and other command organs and

 5     officers cannot provide copies, photocopies, or extracts from decisions

 6     or orders except in administrative proceedings to the individuals to

 7     which these documents refer.  The decisions and orders regulating service

 8     will only be given verbally to such individuals."

 9             Paragraph 13:  "For professional soldiers and civilians in the

10     personnel centre records department, the protection of secrecy of

11     information contained in decisions, orders, and other documents and acts

12     relating to all service status and the service itself is of special

13     interest and significance to the Yugoslav Army.

14              "Any individual in the personnel centre records department or

15     group of individuals in the Yugoslav Army who threaten the protection of

16     secret information as described under paragraph 1 herein in a prohibited

17     manner shall be subject to regular disciplinary or criminal

18     responsibility depending on the degree and means of endangering the

19     secrecy of the information."

20             Now, following the creation of these personnel centres, our

21     evidence will show, Your Honour, that in fact these personnel centres did

22     perform administrative functions.  They did regulate the paperwork for VJ

23     soldiers serving in the armies of Bosnia and Croatia, and they regulated

24     their benefits.  However, they were more than mere administrative

25     centres.  When a VJ officer was transferred to the 30th Personnel Centre,

Page 386

 1     his duty post was designated to be Belgrade; but in fact, Your Honour,

 2     his assignment to a duty post in Belgrade was at the seat.  Moreover, his

 3     assignment to the 30th Personnel Centre or the 40th Personnel Centre

 4     wasn't an assignment to perform clerical work, administering the benefits

 5     and payroll of VJ or SVK members.  Transfers to the 30th Personnel Centre

 6     and the 40th Personnel Centre were transfers to the Army of the Republika

 7     Srpska and the Bosnian Croat army.

 8             During this period -- I will illustrate this with three orders of

 9     a single individual, Your Honour.  The first of these appears on the

10     screen in front of you, Your Honour.  It is an order -- it is an order of

11     the Chief of the Personnel Administration of the General Staff of the

12     Yugoslav Army.  It's dated the 15th of February, 1994, and it is based

13     on, in part, an order of the Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army.  And if

14     we turn to the next portion of this same document, you'll see, Your

15     Honours, that this relates to an individual named Bogdan Sladojevic, who

16     was a colonel in the army, and his appointment is to the General Staff of

17     the Yugoslav Army 40th Personnel Centre as a commander.  And if we go to

18     the bottom of that very document, you'll see that he's been reassigned

19     and appointed as per the service requirements.  So as to the needs of the

20     service, he's been appointed to the 40th Personnel Centre.

21             If we turn to the next document, Your Honour, this is a -- this

22     is an order, so if we go to the top of this -- Your Honours, can you read

23     that document or should it be -- this document or -- why don't you

24     enlarge it.

25             This document, Your Honour, is an order from General Perisic

Page 387

 1     himself, and it pertains to the same officer.  This is dated the 4th of

 2     October, 1994, and this redeploys Colonel Sladojevic to the 1st Army of

 3     the VJ, the Novi Sad Corps, as a commander.

 4             If we go down to the next part of this document, Your Honour, the

 5     bottom of this document, it says that Colonel Sladojevic was a commander

 6     in the 2nd Corps of the 40th Personnel Centre of the VJ General Staff.

 7     At the bottom, it says:  "He is being re-deployed and assigned according

 8     to the service requirements."

 9             Following the career of Colonel Sladojevic, Your Honour, we now

10     move forward to the 3rd of July, 1995.  This is an order -- this is an

11     order, Your Honour, that was issued on the 3rd of July.  We'll get this

12     on the screen, Your Honour.  This is an order that was issued on the 3rd

13     of July pursuant to an order by the Chief of the General Staff of the

14     army temporarily assigning Colonel Sladojevic to the 30th Personnel

15     Centre --

16             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Excuse me, Mr. Harmon.  I do hate to interrupt.

17     We've just sent your case manager a message with regard to these

18     documents.  I think they may be matters that are more appropriately dealt

19     with in --

20             MR. HARMON:  They are not.  We've examined the documents.  These

21     are documents -- this document we've received from a very reliable

22     source.

23             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Very well.  I just wanted to make sure this is

24     not a closed-session document since it was a personnel -- I do apologise

25     for interrupting.  I apologise to the Court as well.

Page 388

 1             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you, Mr. Guy-Smith.

 2             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Just because of the concern you'd raised earlier

 3     concerning --

 4             MR. HARMON:  I appreciate your concern, but we looked at this

 5     meticulously.

 6             MR. GUY-SMITH:  Excellent.  I'm so pleased.

 7             MR. HARMON:  So this document -- this, Your Honours, is the -- a

 8     document that is -- shows that Colonel Sladojevic, having been

 9     transferred to the 40th Personnel Centre, then ordered back to the VJ by

10     General Perisic, he's now ordered to the 40th Personnel Centre.

11             Your Honours, the system of transfers from the VJ to the VRS or

12     the SVK wasn't a one-way street; it was a two-way street.  These armies

13     inter-changed their personnel.

14             If we turn to the next document, the screen in front of you, it's

15     dated the 7th of April, 1994, and this is from the General Staff

16     Recruitment and Mobilisation Section to the Main Staff of the 40th

17     Personnel Centre.  And this document indicates that a particular -- the

18     army of the Military School Centre requests that a particular individual

19     be returned as soon as possible to that particular centre for -- based on

20     the needs of the service.  He's currently in the 11th Corps of the 40th

21     Personnel Centre where he was sent temporarily, and they ask then that

22     authorisation be issued to permit him to come back from the SVK to the

23     VJ.

24             Now, Your Honours, our evidence will include documents that show

25     the involuntary nature of transfers to the 30th and 40th Personnel

Page 389

 1     Centres.  One such document -- one such document, Your Honour, is a

 2     record of an official talk between General Zivanovic, who was the

 3     then-commander of the Drina Corps of the VRS, with an individual who's

 4     identified in this document.  It's an official talk about this particular

 5     officer's transfer to the VRS.  And if you go to subpart A, you will see

 6     the following:  "No one asked me for an opinion regarding my transfer to

 7     the 30th Personnel Centre."  He goes on to say:  "I should not have been

 8     transferred to the VRS without my personal consent.  I have refused to be

 9     transferred ..."

10             If we go to the next page of that document, Your Honour, you'll

11     see the remaining portion of this particular talk, in subpart F:  "Based

12     on the above, I request to be returned to the Zrenjanin garrison, from

13     which I have been transferred to the VRS as soon as possible."  At the

14     end, he says:  "In case my request is not granted, I will be forced to

15     ask for my right at the Court of Law."

16             Now, consistent with the evidence I have described earlier about

17     an individual who refused an order to go -- an assignment to go to the

18     30th and 40th Personnel Centres and that that would have consequences,

19     let me show you the following document.  And if we could ...

20             This is a document, Your Honour, that was issued on the 10th of

21     July from the 3rd Army.  And you'll see under "Urgent," it says:

22     "Pursuant to the order of the VJ General Staff," and it gives a number

23     and a date, "and after interviews of the professional officers and

24     non-commissioned officers with the VJ General Staff Chief regarding

25     transfer and appointment to the 40th Personnel Centre, I order ..."

Page 390

 1             And then this document, if we can go to the next portion of this

 2     document, there's a subpart 1 of the document that is not highlighted.

 3     It says:  "Transfer the following eight individuals to the 40th Personnel

 4     Centre."

 5             If we go to the highlighted portion next, which is subpart 2, it

 6     says:  "Initiate the procedure for termination of military service for

 7     the following," and it identifies two individuals.  "On the meeting held

 8     with the Chief of the VJ General Staff, the above-mentioned persons had

 9     stated that they would like to terminate their professional military

10     service with their right for retirement."

11             On the following page, the document reads in respect of these two

12     individuals:  "In case the above named do not want to terminate their

13     professional military service upon their request, they are to be referred

14     to report to units of the 40th Personnel Centre ..."

15             Now, Your Honours will also receive information and evidence

16     about promotions and a process called "verification."  The crux of the

17     problem was this:  If a VJ soldier who had been ordered to go to serve in

18     the VRS received a promotion, would that promotion automatically be

19     recognised in the VJ?  That was the problem.  To resolve that problem,

20     the verification process was developed, and it was this:  For officers

21     who were promoted up to the rank of general, a recommendation by the

22     Chief of the General Staff to the SDC would be made and the SDC would

23     decide.  For officers up to the rank of -- promoted to the rank of

24     colonel, General Perisic could decide on those promotions.  However, the

25     issue of promotions in the VJ was also a matter of secrecy, and General

Page 391

 1     Perisic was instructed to maintain secrecy on those promotions.  There

 2     should be no paper-trail reflecting that the promotion in the VJ was

 3     based on service in the VRS or the SVK.

 4             If I could go into, very briefly -- I apologise, but if I could

 5     go into closed session, Your Honour.

 6             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

 7                           [Closed session]

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11                           [Open session]

12             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

13             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

14             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

15             MR. HARMON:  Earlier in my remarks, Your Honours, I discussed the

16     concern that possible legal actions would expose the President to the

17     presence of VJ soldiers serving in the VRS and the SVK.  In fact,

18     lawsuits were filed by VJ members who were seeking compensations for

19     their services and entitlements while serving in the VRS.

20             We're going to present to Your Honours judgements from the

21     Supreme Military Court and the Federal Court of Yugoslavia confirming

22     that members of the personnel centres were members of the VJ ordered to

23     serve in the VRS.

24             One such example of that lawsuit -- of such a lawsuit, Your

25     Honour, involved an individual by the name of Colonel Lubojevic, who was

Page 394

 1     a member of the VJ who had been sent to serve in the VRS, and he made an

 2     administrative claim for compensation for unused annual leave from the

 3     years 1992 to 1995 while he was serving in the VRS.  But his claim was

 4     denied by the 30th Personnel Centre, and he appealed.  He appealed on the

 5     basis that he took part in military operations in Bosnia as a member of

 6     the VJ on orders of his superior officer, and as a VJ member he was

 7     entitled to compensations for his annual leave.  The Supreme Military

 8     Court agreed with him and reversed the decision made by the 30th

 9     Personnel Centre.

10             This extract, Your Honour, is from that particular judgement I

11     cited, and it says as follows:  "In this specific case, the key facts on

12     which a lawful ruling hinges in this legal matter are not in dispute by

13     the parties.  No one disputes that the plaintiff was away from the

14     Yugoslav Army force during the time for which he seeks the compensation

15     in question, i.e., he was in a part of the former SFRY," Bosnia, "as a

16     member of the Yugoslav Army on orders from his superior officer and did

17     not take annual leave in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995, as can be seen from

18     the confirmation by the superior officer."

19             Now, this legal conclusion and conclusions like this are

20     important because they were relied on to award compensation to numerous

21     other members of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres who sought similar

22     relief.

23             One person who sought similar relieve was General Mladic.  The

24     document in front of you -- in this document, Your Honours, this is dated

25     the 17th of May, 2001, and this is a request by General Mladic, who was

Page 395

 1     serving in military post 3001 Belgrade, to receive compensation for his

 2     unused leave for the years 1991 to 1995.  The court awarded him that

 3     compensation based on the judgement number 1690/2000, which is the

 4     Lubojevic judgement I just showed you an extract of.

 5             If we turn to the next page, the reasons for awarding this

 6     judgement, this compensation to General Mladic, this says, the request is

 7     founded "based on the legal opinion of the Supreme Military Court from

 8     Belgrade.  The legal status of a serviceman who was deployed outside the

 9     Yugoslav Army by his superior officer and did not use his annual leave

10     must be brought in line with the position of serviceman whose annual

11     leave was deferred or terminated by the Chief of the General Staff due to

12     extraordinary needs of the service."

13             We will present to Your Honours other judgements of this nature.

14     In conclusion, on this aspect of the evidence we will present Your

15     Honour, we will present you with evidence that there was a

16     superior-subordinate relationship that existed between General Perisic

17     and members of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centres.

18             I'd like to turn, Your Honour, to the second element of 7.3

19     criminal responsibility, that is, whether General Perisic knew or had

20     reason to know that the crimes were about to be committed or had been

21     committed.

22             The law for command or responsibility/liability and the mens rea

23     standard for that responsibility, superior responsibility, has been set

24     forth in the Strugar appeals judgement, and it is as follows, that there

25     be "sufficiently alarming information putting a superior on notice of the

Page 396

 1     risk that crimes might subsequently be carried out by his subordinates

 2     and justifying further inquiry..."  Now, this information "may be general

 3     in nature and does not need to contain specific details on the unlawful

 4     acts which have been or which are about to be committed."

 5             Your Honours, should I pause here for a moment?

 6             JUDGE MOLOTO:  That's fine.

 7             MR. HARMON:  All right, Your Honour.

 8             The Defence, in its pre-trial brief, at page 42, paragraph 135 C,

 9     asserts that there is no evidence that General Perisic knew or was aware

10     that there was a substantial likelihood that crimes that are alleged in

11     the indictment would be committed by members of the VRS.  Therefore, one

12     of the central issues for you to decide in this case is whether General

13     Perisic received sufficiently alarming information to put him on notice

14     that his subordinates might commit crimes.

15             Now, our evidence that we will present will demonstrate that

16     General Perisic did have sufficient notice, and it comes from a variety

17     of sources:  His military experiences in Bosnia at the outset of the war

18     and his personal contacts with Radovan Karadzic and other Republika

19     Srpska leaders; his visits to Bosnia after he became chief 1 of the

20     General Staff and his ability to observe firsthand the effects of Bosnian

21     Serb military operations in the area.  Those visits included visits to

22     Sarajevo, visits to the Drina Corps in Eastern Bosnia, visits in and

23     around Bihac and elsewhere.  He received notice, Your Honour, through UN

24     resolutions and UN reports; discussions with representatives of the

25     international community who complained to him directly about crimes being

Page 397

 1     committed in Bosnia; discussions with FRY military and political leaders;

 2     communications from diplomats; media source material; and he received

 3     direct reports about crimes committed by his subordinates from Slobodan

 4     Milosevic.

 5             Now, Perisic's Bosnian experiences provided him with information

 6     that would and should have put him on notice.  He gained insight into the

 7     thinking of the leaders of the Republika Srpska when he served as a JNA

 8     commander in Mostar, which was in Bosnia, at the beginning of the

 9     conflict.  In April of 1992, Radovan Karadzic asked General Perisic to

10     become the commander of the VRS.  He rejected the offer.  In his suspect

11     interview, he said why he rejected the offer.

12              He said:  "The members of the Republika Srpska, both political

13     and military leaderships, knew well that" -- and then there's an

14     indiscernible word -- "against any persecution of civilians and

15     destruction of property.  And Karadzic asked me to be commander of the

16     Army of Republika Srpska, when I was a corps commander in Mostar, or

17     rather in Bileca.  I refused that for three reasons.  The first reason

18     was that they wanted an ethnically cleansed army and myself, in Bileca

19     Corps, had as members the representatives of all the national minorities

20     and peoples living in Bosnia.  Secondly, because they wanted the army to

21     be influenced by the SDS," -- that's Radovan Karadzic's party -- "the

22     ruling party.  Thirdly, because I saw that their concept was unacceptable

23     to me; and fourthly, because I was not born in the area of the Republic

24     of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

25             Now, if we can go very, very briefly again into closed session,

Page 398

 1     Your Honour.

 2             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

 3                           [Closed session]

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20                           [Open session]

21             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

22             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

23             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

24             MR. HARMON:  General Perisic also had alarming information

25     available to him through UN reports and UN resolutions.  The events that

Page 399

 1     had taken place and were taking place in the former Yugoslavia were of

 2     urgent concern to the members of the United Nations Security Council

 3     because of the risk that those events posed to peace and security.  The

 4     United Nations issued a number of resolutions and a number of reports

 5     condemning both the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia interference in the

 6     conflicts in Bosnia and condemning serious violations of war that had

 7     taken place there, including violations that had occurred in Sarajevo and

 8     violations that occurred in Srebrenica.

 9             Pursuant to UN Resolution 757, the UN Security Council, on the

10     30th of May, 1992, imposed sanctions on the FRY because it had not

11     complied with Security Council demands that interference in Bosnia ceased

12     immediately and that forcible expulsions and attempts to change the

13     composition of the population cease immediately as well.  Because those

14     sanctions impacted seriously on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's

15     economic well-being, its political leaders and its military leaders,

16     including General Perisic, were particularly concerned and attentive to

17     the UN debates and reports that were emanating from that body.

18             Let me turn to some of the types of information that was

19     available to General Perisic in respect of the crimes being committed in

20     Sarajevo.

21             By the time General Perisic became the Chief of the General Staff

22     in August of 1993, Sarajevo resembled a battered city from the second

23     World War.  Heavy artillery and other weapons had been pounding Sarajevo.

24     The crimes that were being perpetrated by the VRS against its inhabitants

25     were notorious and well-known and, frankly, better reported than any

Page 400

 1     other crimes in any other war, probably, in the history of mankind.  Both

 2     reported in print media and reported in the broadcast media, sometimes in

 3     very near realtime.  Your Honours may recall the many disturbing images

 4     that appeared on CNN and SkyNews and the BBC:  among other things, dead

 5     and maimed people in marketplaces in Bosnia in the streets, destroyed

 6     buildings, desperate people who were cold and hungry, terrified by the

 7     campaign that was being waged by General Perisic's subordinates.

 8             We will present evidence, Your Honour, of some of the persons who

 9     suffered that violence.  We will present them early in the case.  We will

10     present evidence to you of some of these broadcasts.

11             Now, neither General Perisic nor Slobodan Milosevic lived in an

12     information-free bubble.  Very early in the war, on the 30th of March,

13     1992, before the date General Perisic became Chief of the General Staff,

14     Slobodan Milosevic characterised the bombardment of Sarajevo as "a bloody

15     criminal bombardment."  He said, and I quote, "While he could understand

16     fighting in self-defence, there was no justification for the continued

17     bombardment of the civilian population of Sarajevo."

18             General Perisic received notice from his international

19     interlocutors who complained to him directly, and you'll hear from some

20     of those people who will testify for the Prosecution.  And as the head of

21     the -- as the former head of the JNA artillery school in Zadar, Perisic,

22     more so than others, knew the devastating effects of artillery in a

23     densely populated urban area.

24             Our evidence will show that after he became Chief of the VJ

25     General Staff, he travelled to Sarajevo where he had an opportunity to

Page 401

 1     personally observe the effects of what had happened and what was

 2     happening in Sarajevo.

 3             If we could go very briefly into private session.

 4             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the session please moved into private --

 5             MR. HARMON:  Or closed session.  I'm sorry.

 6             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Closed session.

 7                           [Closed session]

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16                           [Open session]

17             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

18             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

19             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

20             MR. HARMON:  In respect of Sarajevo, Your Honour, the Prosecution

21     evidence that we will be submitting to Your Honours will show that

22     General Perisic was fully apprised of the situation in Sarajevo, fully

23     apprised of the crimes being committed against civilians in that city by

24     his subordinates both before and after he became Chief of the General

25     Staff.  Those crimes continued throughout his tenure.

Page 403

 1             If I can turn now to Srebrenica, Your Honour.  In Srebrenica,

 2     Your Honour, the crimes differ from those committed in Sarajevo in this

 3     sense:  The Sarajevo crimes were a series of crimes on a continuum over a

 4     period of years.  The Srebrenica crimes were crimes that happened in July

 5     of 1995, well after General Perisic became Chief of the VJ General Staff,

 6     although the antecedents from that crime -- although the antecedents to

 7     the Srebrenica crimes predated his tenure in the VJ General Staff.

 8             One of the contested issues in this case, Your Honour, is whether

 9     or not General Perisic was aware that there was a substantial likelihood

10     that crimes against the Muslim population were likely to occur during and

11     after the attack on Srebrenica.  The Defence has raised that point in its

12     pre-trial brief - page 48, subpart CC - asserting that there's a lack of

13     evidence to support that allegation.

14             Now, the Prosecution evidence, Your Honour, will establish that

15     General Perisic was aware that Muslims in Bosnia were at considerable

16     risk and that a Bosnian Serb takeover of the safe area would result in

17     the substantial likelihood that the Muslim inhabitants would be

18     persecuted, would be forcibly transferred, and would be killed.

19             In considering the evidence in this case, Your Honours must place

20     the VRS takeover of Srebrenica in the context of events that had occurred

21     in Bosnia from the beginning of the war.  Since the beginning of the war,

22     large swaths of territory were conquered and occupied by the JNA and the

23     VRS forces, and once those territories were taken over, the non-Serb

24     populations in many of those municipalities were forcibly transferred.

25     They were detained in camps, killed.  Their religious and cultural sites

Page 404

 1     were destroyed.  I've already described some of those events to Your

 2     Honours in Bijeljina, in the village of Glogova near Bratunac, in

 3     Bosanska Krupa.  I won't belabour a description of those events at this

 4     point.

 5             But this pattern became known as ethnic cleansing.  It was

 6     notorious, and it was well-documented, and it was one that garnered the

 7     opprobrium of the international community.  As the former Polish Prime

 8     Minister Minister Tadeuz Mazowiecki, who was the Special Rapporteur at

 9     the Commission on Human Rights, stated in his 27 October 1992 report that

10     was transmitted to the UN General Assembly and to the Security Council,

11     he said the following:

12              "Ethnic cleansing does not appear to be the consequence of the

13     war, but rather, its goal.  This goal to a large extent has already been

14     achieved through killings, beatings, rape, destruction of houses and

15     threats.  Recent events ... prove that Serbian leaders in Bosnia and

16     Herzegovina are not ready to desist in their plans.  The Muslim and Croat

17     populations in the territory controlled by the Serbian authorities live

18     under enormous pressure and terror.  Hundreds of thousands of people are

19     being forced to leave their homes and to abandon their belongings in

20     order to save their lives."

21             If we could go into closed session very briefly, and if the usher

22     could stand by the button, this will be a very brief closed session, Your

23     Honour.

24             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

25                           [Closed session]

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18                           [Open session]

19             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

20             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

21             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

22             MR. HARMON:  Your Honours, in early 19 -- late 1992 and early

23     1993, the VRS and the JNA conducted a military operation in and around

24     the area of Srebrenica.  It was in the Podrinje area.  It was a very

25     important area, as Your Honours have seen earlier, because it was the

Page 406

 1     area continuous with the Drina River and strategic objective 3, which was

 2     sought to be eliminated as a border.

 3             If I can direct Your Honours' attention to a document that's on

 4     the screen.  This is the top part of the document.  This is an army

 5     directive that was issued by General Mladic.  It was issued on the 19th

 6     of November, 1994, and it was directed to the various units who were

 7     under General Mladic's supervision -- under his control.

 8             JUDGE MOLOTO:  If I may just interrupt you a little bit,

 9     Mr. Harmon.

10             MR. HARMON:  Yes.

11             JUDGE MOLOTO:  You said it is dated the 19th of November, 1994 --

12             MR. HARMON:  No, I made a mistake, Your Honour.  I apologise.  It

13     should be 1992.

14             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

15             MR. HARMON:  Now, this directive, Your Honour, you'll see - if we

16     could go to the next part of the document - issued commands to various

17     corps who were subordinated to the Main Staff, and you'll see the

18     directive that was issued to the Drina Corps.  And the Drina Corps was

19     directed to -- from its present position -- and I quote:  "From its

20     present positions, its main forces shall persistently defend Visegrad

21     (the dam ), Zvornik and the corridor, while the rest of its forces in the

22     wider Podrinje region shall exhaust the enemy, inflict the heaviest

23     possible losses on him, and force him to leave the Birac, Zepa, and

24     Gorazde areas together with the Muslim population."

25             We will be presenting Your Honours with other orders that flowed

Page 407

 1     down through the Drina Corps to subordinate units directing them to

 2     eliminate and remove the Muslim population.  This order is an order to

 3     ethnically cleanse, and the consequences of the Drina Corps operation --

 4     I mean the operation in the Podrinje resulted, Your Honour, in thousands

 5     of Muslims being concentrated into an area and resulted -- as a result of

 6     the shocking developments in the Podrinje area resulted in the United

 7     Nations passing Resolution 819, which created Srebrenica as a UN safe

 8     area that was supposed to be free from armed attack or any other hostile

 9     act.

10             Now, the UN safe area, if we could go to the map, Your Honour,

11     the UN safe area, once again to relocate this, because this is

12     significant as it relates to strategic objective 3, which was the

13     elimination of the Drina as a border, this -- the Srebrenica enclave and

14     the Zepa enclave and the Gorazde enclaves were areas that posed a major

15     impediment for the Bosnian Serbs to realise their goal of having a state,

16     one, with the populations being separated - that was strategic objective

17     number 1 - and the elimination of the Drina as a border because the

18     presence of these enclaves in the heart of Bosnian Serb territory with

19     tens of thousands of Muslims in them was an impediment to the realisation

20     of the objectives; and therefore, it is a factor that Your Honours should

21     consider when assessing whether or not General Mladic would have --

22     General Perisic would have known that the elimination of these enclaves

23     would have resulted in the forcible displacement of the populations in

24     light of what had happened throughout Bosnia in the previous three years

25     and in light of other events.

Page 408

 1             Now, General Perisic contests our assertion that we made in our

 2     pre-trial brief that he was aware that a major military operation against

 3     Srebrenica was to be undertaken and was -- and he contests that he was

 4     aware of its progress.  I refer Your Honours to the Defence pre-trial

 5     brief, page 48, subpart AA.  He also claimed ignorance of the VRS

 6     operation to attack the protected enclaves in Eastern Bosnia in his

 7     suspect interview.

 8             We will tender evidence, Your Honour, to show that General

 9     Perisic, as Chief of the General Staff and the person who was most

10     responsible for the defence and the security of the Federal Republic of

11     Yugoslavia, was kept well aware of the events that were taking place in

12     Bosnia because they directly affected the interest of his country.

13             On the 4th of July, 1995, two days before the VRS launched its

14     offensive operations into Srebrenica, General Ojdanic, the commander of

15     the 1st army of the Yugoslav Army and a direct subordinate of General

16     Perisic, publicly stated, and I quote:  "The two Muslim enclaves of

17     Srebrenica and Zepa are situated in the heart of Serb territory, and it

18     should not have been allowed to form them.  It is impossible to remain

19     this way.  It has to be solved militarily."

20             The VRS attack was directed at a highly sensitive target, the

21     UN-protected enclave; the attack on that enclave would have enormous

22     consequences, both politically and economically, for the FRY; the attack

23     was being directed by General Perisic's subordinates; General Perisic

24     held monthly coordination meetings with the commanders of the VRS and the

25     SVK at the General Staff building in Belgrade; he had direct channels of

Page 409

 1     communications with General Mladic before, during, and after the attack;

 2     General Mladic, in fact, came to Belgrade on the 14th of July, 1995,

 3     while the attack was in progress and met with Slobodan Milosevic, in

 4     addition to which domestic and international media reported extensively

 5     on the attack on the UN safe area.

 6             Your Honour, I have, in an earlier session -- Your Honour, if we

 7     could go into closed session, very briefly again.

 8             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

 9                           [Closed session]

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Page 410

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 8                           [Open session]

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

10             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

11             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

12             MR. HARMON:  Again, focusing on the type of information that

13     might alarm a superior officer, Your Honour, the Prosecution will lead

14     evidence to show that General Perisic received direct information about

15     the murders committed in Srebrenica at the time they were being

16     committed.

17             In his suspect interview with the Office of the Prosecutor,

18     General Perisic stated that Slobodan Milosevic told him sometime between

19     the 15th and the 20th of July, 1995, that mass murder had taken place in

20     the wider area of Srebrenica.  Milosevic linked those murders to General

21     Mladic.  Your Honours will note the time period, the 15th to the 20th of

22     July, was the same period when, in the schedules to the indictment, the

23     murders were taking place.  According to General Perisic, he did nothing

24     about it.  As he said in his interview:  "When I heard from Milosevic

25     about the terrible crime, believe it or not, since then I did not want to

Page 411

 1     know anything about it.  I distanced myself from that because it is

 2     unbelievable that something like that happens ... at the end of the 20th

 3     and the beginning of the 21st century."

 4             Now, focusing, Your Honour, on a notice that relates to the last

 5     set of crimes described in the indictment, the Zagreb missile attacks.

 6             Our evidence will show, Your Honour, that following the

 7     commencement of Operation Flash, which was a Croatian offensive to retake

 8     Serb-occupied parts of Western Slavonia, the SVK fired Orkan rockets

 9     fitted with cluster bomb warheads into the city of Zagreb, which was the

10     capital of Croatia.

11             We will tender as evidence intercepted communications that show

12     that General Perisic was informed about the first missile attack almost

13     immediately after it had occurred, and he discussed it with Slobodan

14     Milosevic and with his subordinates.  He was also informed the following

15     day of the second missile attack; and despite that information, he did

16     nothing in respect of his subordinates.

17             If I may turn, Your Honours, to General Perisic's failure to

18     punish his subordinates.

19             This is an issue that is not contested.  General Perisic does not

20     contest the fact that he failed to punish the persons who were named in

21     the indictment as members of the VRS and the SVK.  You'll find that at

22     Defence pre-trial brief, page 47, subpart V.  What Perisic does contest,

23     however, is whether he had the ability and the authority to discipline or

24     punish his subordinates in those armies.  Again, Your Honours, I refer to

25     the Defence pre-trial brief, page 47, subparts V and W.

Page 412

 1             The Defence asserts that General Perisic didn't have the ability

 2     or the authority to implement -- institute criminal proceedings before

 3     military disciplinary courts in the Republika Srpska or the Republika

 4     Srpska Krajina for the commission of war crimes.  Those courts, the

 5     Defence asserts, would have been the proper courts in which to prosecute

 6     members of the VRS and the SVK.

 7             However, Your Honours, the issue of General Perisic's authority

 8     to initiate proceedings in the SVK or the RS military courts is not the

 9     issue in this case.  What is at issue in this case is his ability and his

10     authority to institute disciplinary proceedings against his subordinates

11     before the FRY military courts and to initiate investigations or take

12     other measures that would have sanctioned them for the commission of

13     crimes he knew they had committed.

14             We will present to Your Honours texts, legal texts, statutes, and

15     regulations that set forth in explicit terms General Perisic's duties,

16     his responsibilities, and his obligations as a member of the VJ, and you

17     will hear expert testimony on that topic.

18             The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had adopted the international

19     legal obligations of its predecessor, the SFRY.  It adopted regulations

20     that authorised and, in fact, indeed, compelled General Perisic to take

21     actions against his subordinates upon being informed that they had

22     committed violations of law -- the laws of war.

23             I'll give you an example.  If you take Article 21 of the

24     instructions on the application of the International Laws of War in the

25     Armed Forces of the SFRY, it states -- very much like -- in some

Page 413

 1     respects, like the law of the Tribunal:  "An officer shall be personally

 2     liable for violations of the laws of war if he knew of or could have

 3     known that units subordinate to him or other units or individuals were

 4     planning the commission of such violations, and, at the time when it was

 5     still possible to prevent their commission, failed to take measures to

 6     prevent such violations."

 7             It goes on to say that an officer shall be personally liable who,

 8     if he's aware of those violations, fails to institute disciplinary and

 9     criminal proceedings against the offender; and it goes on to say that

10     such an officer would be answerable as an accomplice or an instigator if

11     by failure to take action against his subordinates who violate the law he

12     contributes to the repeated commission of such acts by units or

13     individuals subordinated to him.

14             Article 36 of those same instructions indicate that:  "A Yugoslav

15     officer who learns of violations of the laws of war shall order that the

16     circumstances and facts surrounding them are investigated and necessary

17     evidence collected ..."

18             So, Your Honour, I will summarize briefly.  As Chief of the VJ

19     General Staff, the competencies that General Perisic had will be

20     supported by the evidence we will present.

21             He had the ability to investigate -- initiate investigations for

22     breaches of military discipline.  Following the completion of an

23     investigation for a disciplinary offence, he could pronounce a

24     disciplinary sentence for minor disciplinary offences, or he could

25     forward the case to have charges filed before the military disciplinary

Page 414

 1     court.  He could remove from duty an individual who had committed a

 2     disciplinary offence if the disciplinary offence was of such a nature

 3     that it would be damaging to the interest of the service.  Now,

 4     committing genocide, Your Honour, would be damaging to the interests of

 5     the service.  He could decide on the termination of service of

 6     non-commissioned officers up to the rank of colonel.  He could appoint

 7     and transfer officers up to the rank of colonel.

 8             Our evidence will show, Your Honour, that at all times relevant

 9     to the period of the indictment the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had a

10     fully functioning military disciplinary court system.

11             Now, General Perisic believed he had the disciplinary authority

12     that I've described, and he actually exercised it vis-a-vis members of

13     the 40th Personnel Centre, but he exercised it selectively, not because

14     his subordinates in the SVK or not because his subordinates in the VRS

15     had committed crimes, war crimes, but because their derelictions of duty

16     had resulted in a loss of territory that was occupied in the Serbian

17     Krajina, or he -- because of a breach of VJ administrative regulations.

18             Now, the events in the Krajina that stimulated General Perisic to

19     sanction his subordinates serving in the SVK with the events that

20     followed Operation Storm, Operation Storm was a stunning success.  SVK

21     defences collapsed, SVK troops were quickly routed, and significant

22     territory occupied by the Croatian Serbs was lost.  This incensed both

23     General Perisic and Slobodan Milosevic.

24             If we could go into closed session, please.

25             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

Page 415

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Page 419

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 9                           [Open session]

10             MR. HARMON:  All right.  Your Honour, then I will be brief.

11             Our evidence will also show that the FRY military disciplinary

12     courts did in fact exercise jurisdiction over VJ personnel who had

13     committed disciplinary infractions while serving in the VRS.  One of

14     those files relates to Vinko Pandurevic, who had violated a housing

15     infraction, who had committed a housing infraction in -- while serving in

16     the VRS.  His commanding officer in the VRS, General Talic, informed the

17     General Staff of that violation, it had been committed, and military

18     disciplinary proceedings in the military court of the VJ General Staff

19     were then conducted against Vinko Pandurevic.

20             Finally, Your Honour, I want to touch upon another element

21     relating to General Perisic's criminal responsibility under Article 7.3,

22     and that is his assistance to General Mladic.

23             On the 24th of July, 1995, and the 16th of November, 1995,

24     General Ratko Mladic was indicted by this institution for crimes

25     committed in Bosnia, including crimes committed in Sarajevo and in

Page 420

 1     Srebrenica.  General Perisic was aware of those indictments.  He took

 2     affirmative steps to protect General Mladic from accountability before

 3     this institution.  Two examples will suffice, Your Honour.

 4             During the NATO bombings that took place before the end of the

 5     war, two French pilots had been shot down.  They were captured.  They

 6     were in possession of the VRS, and there was enormous pressure brought to

 7     bear on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to have those pilots returned

 8     safely, but they were in General Mladic's custody.  As a condition for

 9     General Mladic returning those pilots -- as a condition for General

10     Mladic returning those pilots, General Mladic insisted that he be

11     protected from being arrested and prosecuted by this Tribunal.

12             We will introduce two intercepts - a number of intercepts,

13     frankly, but I was planning to show you two - two intercepts in which

14     there is a conversation between General Perisic and President of the FRY,

15     Zoran Lilic; and General Perisic, in one conversation dated the 9th of

16     December, 1995, at 2300 hours, says the following:  General Perisic,

17     referring to Mladic, he says the following:

18             "If they exempt him from the Tribunal, that should not be a

19     problem.  He will solve it at once.  I told him we ..." Lilic then says:

20     "Do my word and your word and Chirac's and Slobodan's word suffice?"

21     Perisic:  "Well, all right, then.  I will do it now."  Lilic:  "That is

22     sufficient.  He hasn't got a chance, Momo."  Perisic:  "I will call him

23     again now, and I will tell him."

24             Twenty minutes later on the same date, another conversation took

25     place between General Perisic and President Lilic, and in that

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 1     conversation President Lilic says:  "To bring them together with us, he

 2     can.  Look, Momo, I understand him.  He does not trust anybody, and

 3     that's normal.  He can leave them in Zvornik, somewhere close in

 4     Bijeljina, wherever he wants.  He does not have to tell us, Momo.  He has

 5     your guarantee and my guarantee if that means anything.  Fuck it.  And in

 6     writing, not just our word.  I will write the letter now on a FRY

 7     memorandum that we guarantee him that he will not be extradited to the

 8     Tribunal.  He has Chirac's and Slobodan's guarantee.  I don't know what

 9     else.  And you and I will go there and give it to him."  And Perisic

10     responds:  "Then he should come here with us."  Later in the

11     conversation, President Lilic says:  "Whatever you like, call him and let

12     me know.  Explain to him nicely that the FRY guarantees on a memorandum

13     with a stamp and my signature on it."  General Perisic says:  "Very

14     well."  Lilic:  "Mine and yours, he won't be extradited anywhere.  He has

15     guarantees that Slobodan and Chirac will do the same.  Therefore, he only

16     has to surrender those men to us if he wants."

17             Do I have a few more minutes, Your Honour, just five minutes?

18             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Under five minutes.

19             MR. HARMON:  Under five minutes.  Well, I have to go into a

20     closed session, which I will ...

21             JUDGE MOLOTO:  May the Chamber please move into closed session.

22             MR. HARMON:  I should add, Your Honour, that -- I don't know

23     where we are in between.

24                           [Closed session]

25   (redacted)

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16                           [Open session]

17             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, we're back in open session.

18             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much.

19             Yes, Mr. Harmon.

20             MR. HARMON:  Your Honour, this concludes my review of the issues

21     that will be before Your Honours at trial and a brief description of some

22     of the evidence that we will be tendering in the course of the trial.

23             Your Honours, we are about to embark on a long and difficult

24     journey together.  We understand that trial is an arduous process in an

25     effort to find the truth; and during that process, there will be

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 1     frustrations, perhaps anger, and surely moments that will test our

 2     patience both inside and outside of the courtroom.

 3             In our efforts to discharge our responsibilities to the

 4     international community to ensure that persons responsible for serious

 5     violations of the law are vigorously and fairly prosecuted and to ensure

 6     that justice is done, it is our intention to present the evidence in this

 7     complex case expeditiously but in a manner that does not sacrifice our

 8     ability to present the evidence comprehensively and effectively.  You

 9     deserve it, nothing less; the victims deserve nothing less; and justice

10     demands nothing less.

11             We look forward to the journey, Your Honours.  I appreciate your

12     patience and your consideration during my lengthy opening remarks.  Thank

13     you.

14             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Harmon.

15             Because of the lateness of the hour, the court will stand

16     adjourned until tomorrow morning at 9.00.  I'm not just quite sure in

17     which courtroom.  Courtroom I.  Court adjourned.

18                           --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m.,

19                           to be reconvened on Friday, the 3rd day of

20                           October, 2008, at 9.00 a.m.

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