Page 13609
1 Tuesday, 7 September 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness takes the stand]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.01 a.m.
6 JUDGE MOLOTO: Good morning to everybody in and around the
7 courtroom. Mr. Registrar, will you please call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to
9 everyone in and around the courtroom. This is case number IT-04-81-T,
10 the Prosecutor versus Momcilo Perisic. Thank you.
11 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you so much. Could we have the appearances
12 for the day, starting with the Prosecution, please.
13 MR. THOMAS: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to
14 everybody in and around the courtroom. Carmela Javier, April Carter, and
15 Barney Thomas for the Prosecution.
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. And for the Defence.
17 MR. GUY-SMITH: Good morning, Your Honour. Chad Mair, Tina
18 Drolec, Oonagh O'Connor, and Gregor Guy-Smith appearing on behalf of
19 Mr. Perisic.
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.
21 Good morning, Mr. Kadijevic. Just to remind you that you are
22 still bound by the declaration you made at the beginning of your
23 testimony to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing else but the
24 truth. Thank you so much. Mr. Guy-Smith.
25 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you, Your Honour.
Page 13610
1 WITNESS: RADOJICA KADIJEVIC [Resumed]
2 [Witness answered through interpreter]
3 Examination by Mr. Guy-Smith: [Continued]
4 Q. Mr. Kadijevic, I had an opportunity to go over the transcript of
5 the proceedings yesterday and in reviewing them I came across something
6 which I believe may well be a translation error, and I'd like to
7 double-check something with you. Yesterday at page 13533, lines 7
8 through 14, with regard to the question of what your responsibilities
9 were while you were in the position of assistant minister of defence, you
10 stated:
11 "The main task in that position was to co-ordinate within the
12 sector for military economic activities in order to fulfill the duties
13 and obligations of the Army of Yugoslavia when it comes to funding
14 equipment and weaponry. In order to complete my task, I was superior to
15 the Institute For Research And Development of the Army of Yugoslavia, and
16 it dealt with research and development as well as the development of the
17 special military industry, special-purpose military industry which was to
18 produce the equipment and weaponry needed for the military."
19 My question to you, sir, is with regard to the language that is
20 contained herein, in order to complete your task when you say you were
21 superior to the Institute For Research And Development, was that for the
22 Army of Yugoslavia
23 because I believe that it would have been for the development of the
24 Ministry of Defence?
25 A. That was the most important research and development institution
Page 13611
1 and it was on the strength and it was subordinated to the Army of
2 Yugoslavia
3 Q. When you say what was the most important research and development
4 institution, what I'm trying to get an understanding of here is with
5 regard to what you told us yesterday -- I'm told now that there
6 definitely was a translation error, by my colleague who speaks B/C/S, and
7 I was told that he said -- his answer was that it was subordinate to the
8 Federal Ministry of Defence. Once again I'm trying to get some
9 understanding here as to whether that's the Army of Yugoslavia or the
10 Federal Ministry of Defence.
11 JUDGE MOLOTO: May I suggest --
12 MR. GUY-SMITH: I'll ask the question again.
13 JUDGE MOLOTO: May I suggest that when you are told that there
14 was a translation error, rather than tell us what the error was, get the
15 witness to repeat himself before you say what the error was.
16 MR. GUY-SMITH: Sure.
17 Q. Could you repeat yourself, please?
18 A. The Military Technical Institute, as the most important research
19 and development institution, was part of the Federal Ministry of Defence
20 and it was directly subordinated to it.
21 Q. With regard to your duties in terms of the issue of research and
22 development, from what I understand of your testimony yesterday, would it
23 be fair to say that research and development involved the participation
24 of the special-purpose industries?
25 A. The special-purpose industry only partially participated in
Page 13612
1 research. They didn't have staff for research. There were exceptions.
2 For example, the Crvena Zastava company, which had its own design
3 institute.
4 Q. With regard to the specific issue of research and development,
5 can you identify for us some of the facilities that were involved in
6 research and development which you have testified were subordinated to
7 the Ministry of Defence?
8 A. In addition to the Military Technical Institute which was the
9 main -- most important institution for research and development, the
10 entire special-purpose industry implemented together with the institute
11 all of the projects that were designed.
12 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter would kindly ask the witness to
13 either come closer to the the microphone or for his microphones to be
14 adjusted, please.
15 JUDGE MOLOTO: Can we help the witness, please.
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Maybe I can provide an explanation.
17 The Military Technical Institute did not have any manufacturing
18 facilities. It only had research facilities, and when it comes to the
19 development stage, it was done with the special-purpose industry, namely
20 with those companies that would later on, in the later stages of project
21 development, be involved in the manufacturing of the design product.
22 MR. GUY-SMITH:
23 Q. With regard to the the Military Technical Institute, between the
24 years 1993 and 1995 was the Military Technical Institute one body or a
25 series of bodies subordinated to the Ministry of Defence?
Page 13613
1 A. In the previous state there were three Military Technical
2 Institutes. The first one was of the land army in Belgrade --
3 Q. Let me stop you there, because you said "In the previous state."
4 And when you say "In the previous state" I take it that you are talking
5 about --
6 JUDGE MOLOTO: Let him tell us what he is talking about. What
7 are you talking about when you say "In the previous state"?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm talking about the Socialist
9 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where three different institutes existed.
10 The one was of the land army in Belgrade
11 in Belgrade
12 which was located in Zagreb
13 existence, the one of the land army and the other of the air force. As
14 for the navy institute, only one department for shipbuilding was
15 established within the Military Technical Institute of the land army.
16 Later on, within the process of transformation in 1994, all the three
17 institutes were merged into one institute whose name was the Military
18 Technical Institute subordinated to the Ministry of Defence. I apologise
19 if --
20 MR. GUY-SMITH:
21 Q. Excuse me. After 1995, did the institutes that had been merged
22 into the Military Technical Institute, the one Military Technical
23 Institute subordinated to the Ministry of Defence, did that change, after
24 1995?
25 A. No, that didn't change. That Military Technical Institute
Page 13614
1 remained as one single institution.
2 Q. When I use the term "Military Technical Institute," since
3 yesterday one of the things that was causing some confusion were
4 acronyms, could you please give us the acronym for Military Technical
5 Institute.
6 A. The acronym for that institute actually was made up of the first
7 letters of each of the words in the title. So the acronym was VTI.
8 Q. Now, I want to shift the discussion from the Military Technical
9 Institute with the acronym of VTI subordinated to the Ministry of Defence
10 to the issue and subject matter once again of special-purpose industries.
11 With regard to the production that occurred between 1993 and 1995 of the
12 the special-purpose industries, could you tell us, first of all, whether
13 or not there were special-purpose industries that operated in the
14 Republika Srpska and the Republika Srpska Krajina?
15 A. The special-purpose industry is actually one complex which leaned
16 on the Federal Ministry Of Defence when it came to the production of
17 weapons and military equipment. Otherwise, those companies were an
18 integral part of the industry of the Republic of Serbia
19 of the Republic of Montenegro
20 Those were not military companies. They did not receive allocations from
21 the budget. They were not subordinated to the Ministry of Defence, only
22 when it comes to --
23 Q. Mr. Kadijevic, clearly you did not understand my question and let
24 me ask you my question again. I'll put it slightly differently and
25 perhaps that will be of further clarification for you.
Page 13615
1 After the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, you have told us
2 that, at least geographically, special-purpose industries existed outside
3 of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Now, my question -- and by
4 "existed," I mean just that they existed, they were physically in other
5 areas. My question is, between the specific years of 1993 and 1995 could
6 you tell us whether or not those special-purpose industries that were
7 physically in Republika Srpska and the Republika Srpska Krajina were
8 operating? And I take it you understand what I mean by the word
9 "operating." Did they produce things or not, if you know?
10 A. Of course I know. All those companies that had existed before
11 the break-up of Yugoslavia
12 the control of different forces, and in this particular case Republika
13 Srpska and Republic of Serbian Krajina, they kept those companies and
14 used them for their own purposes and there were even some civilian
15 companies which received new technologies, new equipment, in order to be
16 able to substitute for those things that could no longer be produced.
17 Q. With regard to the special-purpose industry in the Republic of
18 Srpska, the Republic of Srpska Krajina and the Federal Republic
19 Yugoslavia
20 special purpose industries could autonomously conduct their production
21 and maintenance of technical means or not? Were they autonomous or were
22 they interdependent? If you know.
23 A. I know that those companies co-operated with the adequate
24 companies in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Before the break-up of
25 Yugoslavia
Page 13616
1 technical complex. When the country [Realtime transcript read in error
2 "company"] was broken up, most of the companies still depended on
3 co-operation with other companies from the former republics of the former
4 Yugoslavia
5 Q. I'm looking at line number 23. It says here "When the company
6 was broken up, most of the the companies still depended ..." Is that the
7 correct language there, "When the the company was broken up," or were you
8 referring to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, when the country was
9 broken up?
10 A. Of course I was not talking about the break-up of any companies,
11 I was talking about the break-up of the country. The companies remained
12 existing in that same state and they continued co-operating.
13 Q. Yesterday when we were discussing the production of the
14 special-purpose industries within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, you
15 told us that there was a diminution of work that was contracted with the
16 special-purpose industry in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. To your
17 knowledge -- and I believe you used the term that sometimes they engage
18 in illegal means. To your knowledge can you tell us, now once again if
19 you know, whether or not the special-purpose industry for the Federal
20 Republic of Yugoslavia
21 materiel outside of the authority of the Ministry of Defence or not?
22 A. I believe that in your question there is an ambiguity in terms of
23 the end users of those products. Let me try and answer. When it came to
24 the requirements of the Army of Yugoslavia, companies couldn't and indeed
25 did not clinch deals with the army. They did it with the Ministry of
Page 13617
1 Defence. And if they produced for other end users, they behaved as any
2 other economic subjects, and when it comes to the authority over
3 special-purpose industry, the Ministry of Defence had the control
4 function. It issued permissions. And the production range and annual
5 production plans were all within the hands of the management, so those
6 companies were completely autonomous, completely independent from the
7 Ministry of Defence.
8 Their obligation towards the Ministry of Defence was to keep the
9 same production range and they couldn't change it without the consent of
10 the Ministry of Defence. For example, they could not destroy a
11 production line or sell it and say, this is something we will no longer
12 produce because the Ministry of Defence had invested its own resources
13 into the purchase of all those production lines and technological lines.
14 Q. You have indicated on line 3, page 9, that their obligation
15 towards the Ministry of Defence was to keep the same production range and
16 they couldn't change it without the consent of the Ministry of Defence.
17 With regard to the production range, first of all, would it be fair to
18 say, or not, that the production capacity of these facilities was greater
19 between 1993 and 1995 than the contract requirements of the Ministry of
20 Defence?
21 A. During that period, and even during the existence of the SFRY,
22 the production capacities of the entire special-purpose industry
23 surpassed the requirements of the former state of the SFRY and the
24 exports that were envisaged. They had been created as the result of a
25 desire to benefit from the period of favourable production and exports,
Page 13618
1 and the trend was hoped to continue.
2 When the country was broken up, all those capacities became too
3 big because there was no longer export. Bearing that fact in mind, the
4 Ministry of Defence together with the special-purpose industry
5 established the minimum capacities which were needed for the Army of
6 Yugoslavia
7 permission to convert their military purpose production in order to
8 satisfy the needs of civilian production.
9 Q. With regard to the last statement that you've made, the surplus
10 of production capacities, which you say you gave them permission to
11 convert their military purpose production in order to satisfy the needs
12 of civil production, with regard to the issue of the surplus of
13 production capacities, to your knowledge did the special-purpose
14 industries in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia independently contract
15 with either the Republic of Srpska
16 regard to the issue of the production of materiel that would be military
17 purpose production? And by that I mean independent of the Ministry of
18 Defence.
19 A. Such contracts existed back in the SFRY, and as a result of that,
20 these companies continued co-operating among themselves, not only in
21 Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbian Krajina, but also with the
22 Muslim Croat Federation.
23 Q. Let's spend a moment on that particular issue, the Muslim Croat
24 Federation. I'm not sure I understand precisely what you mean by that.
25 Could you explain what you mean when you say that these companies
Page 13619
1 continued co-operating with the Muslim Croat Federation.
2 A. Perhaps I wasn't specific enough. I meant the companies which
3 were located in the territory within the Muslim Croat Federation. To be
4 more specific, there was a plant in Gorazde which produced certain parts,
5 and then there was the plant producing ammunition in Konjic where
6 companies traded raw materials among themselves without us knowing about
7 that. They simply took a pragmatic, practical approach to solving their
8 problems and contacted each other.
9 Q. When you say "without us knowing about it," who are you referring
10 to?
11 A. I was referring to the Ministry of Defence first of all, because
12 the Ministry of Defence had the jurisdiction to issue permits for
13 production and for exchange, movement of these goods. It was the
14 Ministry of Defence.
15 Q. You also had indicated that the companies continued to co-operate
16 among themselves, not only in Republika Srpska but Republic of Srpska
17 Krajina. To your knowledge, did the special-purpose industry in FRY
18 privately contract with the Republic of Srpska Ministry of Defence, the
19 VRS, the Republic of Srpska Krajina Ministry of Defence, or the SVK?
20 A. I think that there were contracts with all partners, starting
21 with the Ministry of Defence Main Staffs and the units at a lower level.
22 It was an unregulated system where the procurement and the movement of
23 goods was conducted among various participants.
24 Q. With regard to the issue of movement of goods, yesterday I
25 believe we took a look at an example of certificates that were necessary
Page 13620
1 for goods to be moved from one area to another. I think they were called
2 Certificate Of Passage. What I'm trying to understand here is in order
3 for the movement of goods to occur, for example, let's say between
4 special-purpose industry and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the
5 plant in Gorazde, how would those goods get there, if you know?
6 A. As far as I am aware, they did not use legal channels. Directors
7 of these companies would agree upon these transactions among themselves
8 and involve local MUP organs to ensure unhindered passage. They did not
9 seek permits for these activities from the the Federal Ministry of
10 Defence.
11 Q. You've used the acronym here MUP and you've said "local MUP
12 organs." Could you please identify for the Chamber what the acronym
13 "MUP" stands for.
14 A. MUP is the acronym for the Ministry of the Interior and their
15 organs, which are located all over the territory.
16 Q. I understand that what you've just discussed with us would be at
17 best a grey-market and probably black-market activity. What I'd like to
18 -- between the special-purpose industries and the organs that you've
19 identified. I'd like to now discuss, if we could, what the proper
20 procedure and methodology would be for the purpose of obtaining goods
21 through the Ministry of Defence. If you could just explain the
22 methodology and use, let's say, for example, if it's of assistance, the
23 Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Srpska
24 would the methodology be; how would that work?
25 A. The specified procedure when it comes to delivery of military
Page 13621
1 equipment within the FRY was as follows: If Republika Srpska via its own
2 Ministry of Defence approached the Federal Ministry of Defence with a
3 request for armaments and military equipment to be delivered to them,
4 specifying all the details, then, depending on the products that they
5 sought, the Ministry of Defence would approach the companies within the
6 special-purpose industry and inform them about the request for
7 manufacture and delivery.
8 Then these companies would draw up an offer. They would say what
9 they could manufacture, they would quote the price, and the dead-lines.
10 MR. GUY-SMITH: If we could, could we have P511 up on the screen,
11 which would be tab number 5 in your binder, sir.
12 Q. Now, taking a look at this document, if we just take a look at it
13 for a moment and then I'll ask you a question after you've had a chance
14 to look at the entire document.
15 A. Yes, fine.
16 MR. GUY-SMITH: Taking a look at this document, and if we can
17 scroll to the second page so that the Chamber is in a position to see the
18 entirety of the document and then we'll go back to the first page because
19 I don't want to dwell terribly long on this document. If the Chamber
20 could note the document is signed by Minister Kovacevic, Republika Srpska
21 Defence Ministry. If we could go back to the first page.
22 Q. Is this generally an example of the kind of procedure that you
23 were just referring to as being the proper procedure that would exist
24 with regard to a request from the Ministry of Defence or from
25 special-purpose industries attempt to engage with some production
Page 13622
1 contract that would include more than one?
2 A. This document is just one element of the transaction and it
3 pertains to the procedure conducted in Republika Srpska. This means that
4 this company here, Pretis Holding, addressed its own Ministry of Defence,
5 that is to say the Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska, for
6 permission to be issued to them to enter into barter agreement with the
7 Kragujevac Institute for Repairs in order to repair -- to have some of
8 their equipment repaired. And in return, they offered some of the raw
9 materials that could be used in some new manufacturing lines.
10 At the end of this document, you can see that the ministry which
11 issued the permission for this deal was the Ministry of Defence of
12 Republika Srpska, and they say that they would issue a permission for the
13 parity of prices in order to avoid any kind of misuse or abuse, any kind
14 of fraud, when such a barter agreement is concluded.
15 MR. GUY-SMITH: We can take the document off the screen. If we
16 could now have P604 on the screen.
17 Q. I am sorry, that would be tab 9 in your binder, sir. I
18 apologise. I'd like you to take a look at this document, if you could,
19 please. My question to you: Is this a document that falls within the
20 proper procedure or outside of the proper procedure with regard to the
21 special-purpose industry Pretis?
22 A. It is evident that this document does not reflect the regular
23 procedure in Republika Srpska. This is their document, coming from
24 Republika Srpska. The director of the Pretis company writes to
25 General Mladic, asking that General Mladic contact General Perisic so
Page 13623
1 that he could intercede on their behalf with the chief of the
2 administration for military economic activities.
3 Normally, the director of this company, Motika, would need to
4 approach Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska and they in turn would
5 need to contact Ministry of Defence of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
6 and that would be the end of the procedure.
7 If I may add here, General Mladic and General Perisic appear here
8 as, to put it crudely, couriers who were supposed to be a contact for
9 something that is neither within their jurisdiction nor could they deal
10 with it and resolve it.
11 Q. Looking at this document, from this document can we conclude
12 safely that General Perisic - and I'm appreciative of your last answer -
13 that General Perisic has any authority or ability to be --
14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Madam Carter.
15 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, I would object to the leading nature of
16 this question.
17 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith.
18 MR. GUY-SMITH: I'll rephase.
19 Q. Does the document as it stands there give us any guidance with
20 regard to the authority that General Perisic may or may not have in terms
21 of the particular request being made by Mr. Motika?
22 A. One can see from the document that General Perisic did not have
23 any competencies and authorities in this matter, no. He was asked to
24 contact the assistant minister for the military economic activity within
25 the Ministry of Defence, and that was below his position and below his
Page 13624
1 responsibilities and competencies. It would have been less of a mistake
2 had this director, Motika, directly contacted this assistant federal
3 minister for military economic activity. That type of communication
4 would have been acceptable, and the only deficiency in that procedure
5 would have been that the two ministers of defence have no knowledge of
6 what the lower organs were doing.
7 MR. GUY-SMITH: I now would like to take a look at a series of
8 documents that I believe all touch upon the the same transaction. And
9 the first document is P1139. Also included, to make life easier for all,
10 would be P1142, P--
11 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry.
12 MR. GUY-SMITH: There are six documents that all deal with the
13 same transaction, so I'm telling Mr. Registrar the documents that we are
14 going to be dealing with in terms of this entire transaction. P1139 is
15 tab 13 in your binder. Yes, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Let's deal with 1139 first, unless we are able to
17 look at them all at the same time.
18 MR. GUY-SMITH: That, unfortunately, we are not. That is the
19 difficulty with the cyber world, or the electronic world.
20 Q. Looking at this particular document, what I'd like to, do if we
21 could, is first of all, could you please tell us the date of this
22 document?
23 A. The date is the 26th of January, 1994.
24 Q. And when was this document received, because I believe there's an
25 indication of it being received in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Page 13625
1 General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia
2 A. Yes. It was received by the General Staff of the Army of
3 Yugoslavia
4 Q. Now, before we go any further, is this document concerning a
5 subject matter that you are familiar with?
6 A. Yes, I'm familiar with this.
7 Q. And could you tell us how you are familiar with the subject
8 matter?
9 A. I was not familiar with the initial document, and based on the
10 correspondence on the first page, you can see that it was not addressed
11 to the Ministry Of Defence. However, in the second document where the
12 ABHO administration, which was in charge of the substance CS, we see that
13 they received from the Federal Ministry of Defence information about what
14 had up until that time the federal ministry done concerning the
15 production and development of this substance.
16 MR. GUY-SMITH: I believe that we are going to need to turn to
17 page 3 of the document so that the Chamber is caught up with
18 Mr. Kadijevic in his explanation in hard copy.
19 Q. I believe you mentioned ABH, I believe this is the document you
20 are referring to. It's page 2, it's here. Now, I'm looking at this
21 document and referring to paragraph number 2. Is that what you are
22 referring to with regard to the Ministry of Defence being involved in the
23 production and development of this substance?
24 A. Yes. The Ministry of Defence, or rather, the administration for
25 research, development, and manufacture had begun this development
Page 13626
1 programme together with the company called Miloje Zakic in Krusevac. At
2 this point in time it was in the final stage, this programme.
3 Q. Let me stop you there. The company that you have mentioned,
4 Miloje Zakic, was that a special-purpose industry or was that another
5 kind of company?
6 A. Yes, this is a special-purpose industry company, although part of
7 their facilities manufactured tires and various other rubber products for
8 the civilian sector.
9 Q. Just for a moment, since you've now mentioned in two separate
10 places the fact that the Ministry of Defence had granted, and where
11 appropriate, a special-purpose industry could deal with civilian
12 production needs, and you mention once again this is a company that is
13 dealing with both military production needs and civilian production
14 needs, in looking at any particular document, can you tell whether or not
15 the facility, the company, is engaged in military production or civilian
16 production if it's not specifically identified? Is there a way of
17 knowing that?
18 A. It is not stated explicitly. This here was a large company.
19 Later on they were renamed into Trajal Corporation, and they had several
20 segments and only one segment dealt with the special-purpose production
21 and we invested only in that segment of that company.
22 Q. Let me tell you why I ask you the question, because you mentioned
23 tires and you mentioned that tires were being produced as a civilian
24 production. Now, tires are something which have a universal need, both
25 for the military and for the civilian population, so with regard to those
Page 13627
1 kinds of products that are -- can be equally applied to a civilian use or
2 to a military use, how are we to determine whether or not the production
3 that occurred happened from the civilian part of the plant or from the
4 military part of the plant? Is there a way of determining that by
5 looking at any of these documents?
6 A. Based on this document we cannot establish that because we are
7 not referring to the entire company, Miloje Zakic company, later on
8 Trajal Company. I agree that tires could be produced for the needs of
9 the military but Trajal developed tires autonomously, and if the military
10 needed to purchase tires, then they bought it as regular civilian goods
11 rather than as military equipment. They would conclude regular
12 commercial contracts with them to purchase these tires.
13 The tires were also purchased from a company called Tigar in
14 Pirot. This portion that produced for special-purpose industry was
15 completely separate, and in some instances their facilities were
16 completely separate as well.
17 Q. What I understand -- would that same situation be true if, for
18 example, the VRS was purchasing tires or the Republika Srpska MOD was
19 interested in purchasing tires? Would they be engaged in the same -- if
20 you know, would they be engaged in the same kind of contractual
21 relationship which you just discussed here, which would be a regular
22 commercial contract?
23 A. Irrespective of who the buyer was, those tires were on the market
24 and the Ministry of Defence did not have anything to do that. They
25 couldn't issue permits, they could not ban the sale of those products.
Page 13628
1 Those products were produced from the resources of the company and those
2 tires did not enjoy the status of a military product. Any other product,
3 in order to become part of the military equipment or armament, had to
4 undergo a procedure of testing, and if the testing criteria were met, a
5 decision was issued which stated this particular piece of equipment,
6 nomenclature number and so on and so forth, is hereby adopted as part of
7 the armament and military equipment of the former SFRY and its armed
8 forces and subsequently the Army of Yugoslavia. Without that document,
9 without the preceding prescribed procedure, no equipment could enjoy the
10 status of either military equipment or military armament.
11 Q. I don't want to run through an extensive laundry list of items,
12 but take for example one other item, and that would be the production of
13 batteries. Were batteries considered to be an item that would fall
14 within the regular commercial contract that you've discussed, or would
15 batteries fall within some other bailiwick?
16 A. Krusik, based in Valjevo, had a department called Krusik
17 Batteries and that department produced all sorts of batteries for
18 different purposes, both domestic and foreign. Only a few types of
19 batteries were exclusively for military use for some pieces of equipment
20 of Russian origin and those batteries were developed in order to replace
21 imports. All the other batteries produced by that company were
22 commercial goods on the market and you could purchase those batteries in
23 any specialised shop selling batteries.
24 The Ministry of Defence, when it came to ordering batteries,
25 could order those directly without any special procedure. The batteries
Page 13629
1 produced by that company could be exported without any permits from the
2 Ministry of Defence.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 MR. GUY-SMITH: We can take this document off the screen. If we
5 could have up on the screen P1142. And that's going to be tab number 14
6 in your binder.
7 Q. At the very top of the document there's something that is
8 handwritten. Could you read that, please, for us.
9 A. "Not without the VSO," which means not with the permission of the
10 Supreme Defence Council. And as for the signature, as far as I'm
11 familiar with the documents that I myself received, I would say that this
12 is the signature of General Perisic.
13 Q. Taking a look at this particular document, could you please
14 explain to us what part of the process is occurring here in terms of the
15 request for the issuance of ammunition, mines, and explosives free of
16 charge.
17 A. This document was preceded by an application of the Ministry of
18 Defence of the Republic of Serbian Krajina which was sent to the Federal
19 Ministry of Defence of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. You can see
20 from the document that a procedure was being put in place within the
21 jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Defence
22 of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
23 Since the Ministry of Defence of the Federal Republic
24 Yugoslavia
25 capacities of the Army of Yugoslavia whether there were any surpluses or
Page 13630
1 not, it addressed the office of the Chief of Staff, requesting the Chief
2 of Staff's opinion with this regard. And the General Staff then provides
3 its position, which could be either positive or negative. It informed
4 the Ministry of Defence which thereby prepares a document for the Supreme
5 Defence Council of the Army of Yugoslavia
6 Q. With regard to this document, two other matters: Could you
7 please tell us what the date is of this document?
8 A. This document was registered with the Federal Ministry of Defence
9 on the 6th of December, 1994. It was registered with the office of the
10 minister.
11 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you, that document could be taken off the
12 screen. Could we then please have P1143 up on the screen, which is the
13 next tab in your binder, which would be tab 15.
14 Q. Now, the date of the last document, as you have testified and as
15 indicated on the document, was the 6th. Can you tell us the date of this
16 document, please.
17 A. The number -- or the date is 7 December 1994.
18 Q. Okay. And there is a line where it indicates what this is
19 regarding, and could you tell us what it's regarding. By that I mean
20 just what it says there.
21 A. As prescribed by the procedure, there is a --
22 Q. Mr. Kadijevic, it says "Re" there. What is it regarding, this
23 language? I just want you to read the language, nothing more for the
24 moment.
25 A. "Regarding your document highly confidential number 1005-3 dated
Page 13631
1 6 December 1994
2 Q. And as you understand this, is this referring to the document
3 that we were just taking a look at? By that I mean P1142.
4 A. This refers to the previous document, and if you collate the
5 numbers, you can easily see that.
6 Q. When you say "collate the numbers," what number are you referring
7 to?
8 A. I'm referring to the number which was registered with the
9 Ministry of Defence, 1005-3, and also the date, 6 December 1994. And the
10 two serve for a complete identification of the two documents.
11 Q. In this document could you read what it says concerning the
12 position of the Chief of General Staff.
13 A. The position of the Chief of Staff of the General Staff is that
14 the final decision should be issued by the Supreme Defence Council.
15 Q. And since in this situation the Chief of the General Staff has
16 deferred the decision-making process to the Supreme Defence Council, what
17 needs to occur? What does this document tell us has to happen? I think,
18 looking at the document, it indicates what the following procedure should
19 be.
20 A. Yes. In the last paragraph it says in that sense it is required
21 that the use of military cabinet of the president of the FRY to the
22 necessary material in order to include the issue on the agenda of the
23 next session of the Supreme Defence Council.
24 MR. GUY-SMITH: Your Honour, this would be an appropriate time.
25 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much, Mr. Guy-Smith. We'll take a
Page 13632
1 break and come back at quarter to 11.00. Court adjourned.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.14 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 10.46 a.m.
4 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Guy-Smith.
5 MR. GUY-SMITH: That document can be taken off the screen. Thank
6 you very much.
7 Q. If you could turn to tab 41 in your binder, sir.
8 MR. GUY-SMITH: And that would be 65 ter 561D. If we could have
9 that document up on the screen.
10 Q. In your previous testimony you had mentioned the Ministry of the
11 Interior and the Ministry of the Interior having authority with regard to
12 certain matters. I'd like, if you could, to first of all explain to the
13 Chamber, once again if you know, in general terms the types of authority
14 that the Ministry of the Interior exercised within the Federal Republic
15 of Yugoslavia
16 A. The Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia
17 general competences as any other ministry of any other state, primarily
18 the safety and security of the citizens and their property as well as all
19 the material assets of the state. The ministry maintains order in the
20 territory of the state. That would be the general task of the Ministry
21 of the Interior. Obviously there are also tasks regarding border issues,
22 the movement of hazardous matters, anti-fire protection, and all the
23 other areas where the Ministry of the Interior has a goal to play.
24 Q. One of the themes that seems to be prevalent in your testimony is
25 the appropriate procedure that should exist as between a requesting party
Page 13633
1 and a potentially granting party. And I'd like you to take a look at
2 this particular document and tell us if you can, recognising that it's
3 addressed to the Ministry of the Interior, but tell us if you can if the
4 procedure that is set forth herein is, in your estimation based upon your
5 experience, an appropriate procedure?
6 A. This is not an appropriate procedure. This is a forced
7 procedure. The initiator of the document, the person who requested
8 certain resources or documents is not familiar with the address to which
9 to write, and when they don't know that, they will most often write to
10 the office of the Chief of Staff and the logic is they will know what to
11 do and they will know who to forward this to. This may be the result of
12 the fact that there is so many re-organisations and transformations and
13 change of competencies. And whenever there is --
14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Madam Carter.
15 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, I would argue that the witness is
16 speculating in regard to this document. We have no indication that he is
17 familiar with the inner workings of the FRY, VJ, General Staff, nor the
18 Ministry of the Interior, and for him to then go into the mind of who is
19 actually writing these documents I think would be inappropriate.
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith.
21 MR. GUY-SMITH: Well, let me work with him for a moment.
22 Q. In your work in the Ministry of Defence, did you have occasion to
23 have contact with the Ministry of the Interior for the Federal Republic
24 of Yugoslavia
25 A. Of course I had direct contacts with the high officials of the
Page 13634
1 Ministry of the Interior. For example, General Obradovic who also
2 testified here in The Hague
3 disarmament. Moreover, General Spasic was in charge of anti-fire
4 protection, and together with him I personally dealt with the problem in
5 Milan Blagojevic Lucani company after an incident that resulted in a
6 number of dead and injured. So we dealt with the problem together. We
7 communicated very often because we were the ones to approve the
8 procurement of weapons for the Ministry of the Interior. And they --
9 Q. Go ahead, you may finish your answer.
10 A. And they also needed to co-operate with us, hence there was a
11 constantly opened channel of communication. These two ministries, by
12 virtue of their tasks and duties, are forced to engage in very close and
13 constant co-operation.
14 Q. Did you or did you not have experience with and familiarity with
15 the inner workings of the Ministry of the Interior?
16 A. I'm not aware of any details, but while I worked at the General
17 Staff I co-operated and I assisted with the equipping of the special
18 brigade of the Ministry of the Interior. I was directly involved in that
19 exercise.
20 Q. With regard to requests that were made concerning materiel and
21 technical equipment, were you familiar with the manner in which the
22 Ministry of the Interior dealt with such requests when made?
23 A. All the ministry's work was regulated by regulations both at the
24 federal level and at the republican level. There were documents which
25 described the competencies of each of the ministries and person who was
Page 13635
1 in charge of every -- of all the ministries had to establish an
2 organisation that was also regulated and also discharge duties and tasks
3 within their respective purviews. As far as I know, the procedure and
4 organisation is very similar in all the ministries.
5 Q. With regard to your knowledge and understanding of the General
6 Staff of the VJ, did you have experience in working with the General
7 Staff of the VJ from 1993 and after in your capacity as working within
8 the Ministry of Defence?
9 A. I said yesterday that before 1993 I was in the General Staff of
10 the VJ. I was the chief of technical administration, and I was
11 immediately subordinated to the organs of the General Staff. That's why
12 I'm familiar with the technology and procedure of work in the General
13 Staff, both the internal organisation and competencies as well as
14 competencies vis-a-vis other republican federal organs. When I joined
15 the Ministry of Defence of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that
16 co-operation was on a daily basis. I cooperated with General Staff
17 constantly because we co-ordinated in order to draft plans and in order
18 to implement those plans. The same applied to the preparations for the
19 next year's budget.
20 Q. Page 25, line 1 you stated -- this is referring to the document
21 that's up on the screen:
22 "This is not an appropriate procedure. This is a forced
23 procedure. The initiator of the document, the person who requested
24 certain resources or documents, is not familiar with the address to which
25 to write, and when they don't know that, they will most often write to
Page 13636
1 the office of the Chief of Staff and the logic is they will know what to
2 do and they will know who to forward this to. This may be the result of
3 the fact that there is so many re-organisations and transformations in
4 change of competencies of the -- and whenever there is --" and you were
5 not in a position to complete your answer because an objection was made.
6 Could you complete your answer at this time?
7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Madam Carter.
8 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, again argue that the foundation has not
9 been laid. He has spoken in relation to the federal MUP. We've not
10 discussed at all the entity or his understanding of the Republic of
11 Serbia MUP, and it's still speculation as to the writer himself.
12 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith.
13 MR. GUY-SMITH: Very well. It's a bit of a waste of time, but
14 fine.
15 Q. With regard to --
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: I think, Mr. Guy-Smith, that is an inappropriate
17 remark to make.
18 MR. GUY-SMITH: Very well.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
20 MR. GUY-SMITH:
21 Q. With regard to the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of
22 Serbia
23 which ministries existed in 1993, and specifically with regard to the
24 issue of the Ministry of Defence with regard to in fact the Republic of
25 Serbia
Page 13637
1 occasion before the ministries in the Republic of Serbia
2 into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as you testified to yesterday,
3 did you have opportunity to have contact and experiences with individuals
4 in the Ministry of the Interior for the Republic of Serbia
5 A. I just gave you the names of two generals, Obradovic and Spasic.
6 They were not from the Federal Ministry of the Interior but from the
7 Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia
8 accident in Lucani, the minister of the interior of Serbia was engaged in
9 the investigation and finalising the procedure. And the director,
10 although a colonel in the Yugoslavia
11 that investigation.
12 Q. And were you, as you've answered with regard to the Ministry of
13 the Interior for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, were you aware of
14 the procedures and workings that were utilized by the Ministry of the
15 Interior for Republic of Serbia
16 A. The Federal Ministry of the Interior had no special competencies
17 because the republics had taken over those competencies. They were
18 mostly focused on protecting foreign diplomatic premises in Belgrade, and
19 in the beginning they had one brigade of the federal MUP. It was the
20 republics who carried the bulk of the work and they had a completely
21 independent system of the Internal Affairs, both Montenegro and Serbia
22 Q. With regard to the Ministry of the Interior for the Republic of
23 Serbia
24 A. Only to the extent to which I had contact with them. I
25 co-operated with them on the tasks that we carried out jointly.
Page 13638
1 Q. To your knowledge --
2 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry, sorry, I just want to clear something here
3 which I don't understand. I think I might as well go to a page I can
4 control. Mr. Kadijevic, at page 29, line 7, let's go to line 8, you were
5 asked:
6 "Were you aware of the procedures and workings that were utilized
7 by the Ministry of the Interior for the Republic of Serbia
8 Your answer was:
9 "The Federal Ministry of the Interior had no special competences
10 because the republics had taken over those competences."
11 Now, in 1993, which republics are you referring to in the
12 Republic of Serbia
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the Republic of Serbia there was
14 just one republic, the Republic of Serbia
15 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Republic of Montenegro
16 consisted of two republics.
17 JUDGE MOLOTO: You see, you confuse me. You are taking me back
18 to yesterday's problem. We are talking here about the Republic of
19 Serbia
20 the parties talk about the Republic of Serbia
21 about. Can you just tell me what you are talking about, because I really
22 don't follow you.
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, yesterday I tried to exclude
24 from the SFRY all the republics that had left, which left --
25 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just hold it there. We are talking here in 1993.
Page 13639
1 What was the Republic of Serbia
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In accordance with the
3 constitution, the Republic of Serbia
4 provinces, Vojvodina, Kosovo, and it had the central Serbia. Those parts
5 comprised the Republic of Serbia
6 JUDGE MOLOTO: And are you saying then that the Federal Ministry
7 of the Interior had no competences because all those competences had been
8 taken by those three republics, by the two republics and that Vojvodina?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Vojvodina remained within the
10 composition of the Republic of Serbia
11 only competency it kept was the security they provided to the diplomatic
12 offices in Belgrade
13 competencies of the Federal Ministry of the Interior were taken over by
14 the member republics, republics members of the Federation, and those were
15 Serbia
16 The Federal Ministry of the Interior remained in place only to
17 co-ordinate the work between the two republican ministries of the
18 interior.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Guy-Smith.
20 MR. GUY-SMITH:
21 Q. Could you tell us, if you know, who did the MUP of Serbia buy NVO
22 from? First of all, do you know what I mean when I say "NVO"?
23 A. "NVO" stands for armaments and military equipment. I have
24 already explained that something could be termed to be NVO only if
25 previously they -- those goods were put on the list of armaments and
Page 13640
1 military equipment of the Army of Yugoslavia. The ministry used some of
2 the equipment that came from that list and they also had some other
3 additional equipment that did not exist within the Army of Yugoslavia.
4 Q. When you say "ministry," because we've been dealing with a number
5 of different ministries, which seems to be causing some level of
6 confusion, the term that you just used there "ministry" refers to which
7 ministry? When you said, "The ministry used some of the equipment that
8 came from that list," what ministry are you referring to?
9 A. Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia
10 Q. And when the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia
11 used some of the equipment that came from that list, where did they go to
12 to get that equipment? Who did they request that equipment from?
13 A. According to the procedure, they were supposed to request this
14 from the Federal Ministry of Defence, which is what they did; however,
15 there were cases when they would conclude contracts directly with
16 companies from the special-purpose industry using the same procedure used
17 by the Army of Yugoslavia
18 with them and purchase these products with their own money.
19 Q. That is understood. With regard to the document that is up on
20 the screen, the second paragraph states:
21 "Since their request does not come under the authority of the
22 Yugoslav Army General Staff, we are asking for your opinion, if you are
23 unable to grant the request within your authority."
24 Can you tell us, looking at this document - if you can that's
25 fine, and if you can't that's fine - why the position would be taken by
Page 13641
1 the Yugoslav Army General Staff that this request does not come under its
2 authority?
3 A. First of all, the Ministry of the Interior of Republika Srpska
4 from Bijeljina should not communicate directly with the General Staff of
5 the Army of Yugoslavia
6 The Ministry of the Interior of Republika Srpska was supposed to send its
7 request to the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia
8 was the proper channel that the ministries -- identical ministries deal
9 with each other. That is to say Ministry of the Interior deals with the
10 Ministry of the Interior.
11 Q. Okay. Is -- if you know, is that why this states that their
12 request does not come under the authority of the Yugoslav Army General
13 Staff because, as you just said, a Ministry of the Interior has to deal
14 with the Ministry of the Interior and not to deal with the General Staff?
15 A. Yes, precisely so. In this particular case, the General Staff
16 could have acted differently. They could have sent back to the sender
17 this document, this letter. That would not have been professional and
18 that would not have been fair, though.
19 Q. And with regard to the language at the end of the sentence
20 dealing with granting their request within your authority, can you expand
21 at all on what the meaning of that particular language is in regards to
22 this document? If you can, that's fine, and if you can't, that's fine.
23 A. You mean the final portion of the second paragraph?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. This portion means this: If the republic Ministry of the
Page 13642
1 Interior is unable to grant this request, then they were supposed to
2 inform the office of the Chief of the General Staff so that they could
3 respond to the person initiating this request and close the circle thus.
4 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move the admission of this document.
5 MS. CARTER: No objection, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE MOLOTO: The document is admitted into evidence. May it
7 please be given an exhibit number.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
9 Exhibit D452. Thank you.
10 MR. GUY-SMITH: Go to tab number 44.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
12 MR. GUY-SMITH: If you could go to tab number 44 in your binder,
13 which would be 65 ter 704D.
14 Q. I'd like you to take a look at this document, and after you've
15 had an opportunity to look at the document, I believe the document is a
16 number of pages long. It's three pages in English, it may be only two in
17 B/C/S. After you've had a chance to take a look at this document, do you
18 recognise this document?
19 A. Yes, I do, because I held it in my hands. This is the plan for
20 implementation of the conclusion of the 21st session of the Supreme
21 Defence Council.
22 Q. And with regard to this plan, were you or were you not present at
23 the 21st session of the Supreme Defence Council?
24 A. No, I did not attend a single session of the Supreme Defence
25 Council.
Page 13643
1 Q. And with regard to this plan being predicated on the conclusions
2 of the 21st session of the Supreme Defence Council, how did you become
3 aware of what those conclusions were?
4 A. Based on the conclusions of the Supreme Defence Council, the
5 Ministry of Defence as a competent organ vis-a-vis certain conclusions
6 received this document. The office of the minister of defence drew up a
7 document based on this and sent it to various organs within the Ministry
8 of Defence indicating who is supposed to carry out which task and within
9 what time-limit.
10 Q. And could you tell us what the date of this document is, please?
11 A. This document is dated 29th of July, 1994.
12 Q. If you could turn to the next page, please, which is entitled
13 "Plan," which is the plan itself. And taking a look at item number 3,
14 which indicates some involvement with the Russian Federation, could you
15 explain to us what was occurring with regard to item number 3.
16 A. Item 3 reads:
17 "Assess possibilities for importing weapons, military equipment,
18 and spare parts from the Russian Federation, charging it to the current
19 balance, and propose a way to perform the task."
20 Q. With regard to item number 4, could you explain to us what is the
21 plan with regard to item number 4.
22 A. Item 4 reads:
23 "Pursuant to the proposal of the Federal Ministry of Defence on
24 co-operation with the People's Republic of China, the Supreme Defence
25 Council decided to accept the proposal of the Federal Ministry of Defence
Page 13644
1 with the requirement that the interests of the Federal Republic
2 Yugoslavia
3 should oblige the People's Republic of China not to provide information
4 on the MPG 1200 horsepower to Pakistan
5 Q. And could you explain to the Chamber, if you know, why the
6 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was concerned about being protected with
7 regard to a contract that was being entered into with the People's
8 Republic of China
9 A. The Federal Ministry of Defence developed the motor and fuel
10 group of 1200 horsepower, which was an improvement on the Russian model
11 which had 1000 horsepower and it was used for tank 72 and M-84 tank.
12 When a number of countries learned of this technical improvement of the
13 tank motor which enabled it to have a much better performance, there was
14 suddenly a great surge in demand for this motor of 1200 horsepower. We
15 had a request from the Federal Republic
16 The Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued us permission to
17 co-operate with the Federal Republic
18 conditions in relation to co-operation with regard to Pakistan. And we
19 were not given subsequently green light to continue negotiations. By way
20 of this conclusion, the Supreme Defence Council allowed us to engage in
21 negotiations with the People's Republic of China concerning the motor of
22 1200 horsepower.
23 Q. Taking a look at the next paragraph, I'd like to focus your
24 attention on the following sentence, which is the second sentence in that
25 paragraph, that says:
Page 13645
1 "No direct agreements and deliveries of NVO can be made and
2 special-purposes industrial enterprises cannot deliver or sell NVO to
3 anyone without the approval of the SMO with the exception of planned
4 deliveries for the VJ."
5 Now, you previously, I believe, defined each of these acronyms,
6 so there should be no confusion. I'd like for you to explain the very
7 last clause in that sentence which is, "with the exception of planned
8 deliveries for the VJ."
9 A. This formulation is perhaps a clumsy one. This is how it was
10 drawn up in the office of the federal minister for defence because it
11 says in addition to planned deliveries for the Army of Yugoslavia where
12 we do not issue separate permit because we had negotiated this ourselves,
13 we, the Ministry of Defence.
14 Q. Thank you. In looking through this document, there's another
15 acronym here that exists in all but one of them which is, under the
16 responsible party, it says SVPD of the SMO. Could you please define that
17 acronym for us.
18 A. This is an acronym for the sector for military economic activity
19 of the Federal Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence had a number
20 of sectors, this is how it was organised, so this was the sector for
21 military economic activity.
22 Q. And for purposes of completion of understanding, there is another
23 acronym in this document, and that's in paragraph number 2 and that's
24 UFiB of the SMO. Could you please tell us what that acronym stands for.
25 A. This is an acronym for administration for finance and budget.
Page 13646
1 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you. I would move its admission.
2 MS. CARTER: No objection, Your Honour.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's admitted. May it please be given an exhibit
4 number.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
6 Exhibit D453. Thank you.
7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
8 MR. GUY-SMITH:
9 Q. I'd like you to now go to tab 45.
10 MR. GUY-SMITH: Which is 65 ter 814D.
11 Q. First of all, when it comes up, the document is entitled, at
12 least in English, "Session Agreement." And I'd like to know whether or
13 not you are familiar with these types of documents.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Could you please tell the Chamber what a session agreement is?
16 A. This is an agreement whereby a contractual party transfers a debt
17 on to another third party with which it negotiates a new deal.
18 MR. THOMAS: I am sorry --
19 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would appreciate the assistance of --
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Thomas.
21 MR. THOMAS: I am sorry, Your Honours, I have nothing on my
22 screen and I'm struggling to find the document.
23 MR. GUY-SMITH: That's what I was just about to comment on.
24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Welcome to the club.
25 MR. GUY-SMITH: I was just about to say that I would appreciate
Page 13647
1 the assistance of the technical staff in making black screens have some
2 kind of image.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's been reported to the technical staff and I
4 can tell you I'm also in the same boat.
5 MR. GUY-SMITH: You beat me to the punch, Mr. Thomas. I am a bit
6 hard-pressed to continue. I'm going to be dealing with a number of --
7 directly dealing with documents for the moment.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: To what extent does that inconvenience you,
9 Mr. Thomas and Madam Carter? I have no way of knowing what we are
10 talking about.
11 MR. GUY-SMITH: I'm also informed that Mr. Perisic is without
12 screen.
13 JUDGE MOLOTO: I think he is the most important person here.
14 Mr. Lukic -- Mr. Guy-Smith, I'm sorry, with the hard copies are you not
15 in a position to carry on?
16 MR. GUY-SMITH: I still have the same problem for Mr. Perisic.
17 THE INTERPRETER: Could the document also be provided to the
18 interpreters, please.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: Madam court usher.
20 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
21 JUDGE MOLOTO: Does everybody who has to see the document now
22 have it before them?
23 THE INTERPRETER: We do, Your Honours.
24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. I assume that if you do, all
25 the other booths have, and a nod will help me from this booth. You do
Page 13648
1 have it? Thank you so much. Mr. Guy-Smith.
2 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you.
3 Q. You were explaining what this type of a document was and you
4 indicated on page 38 at line 10: "This is an agreement whereby a
5 contractual party transfers a debt on to another third party with which
6 it negotiates a new deal."
7 Now, looking at paragraph 1, there is a name there, could you
8 read it and tell us if you recognise that particular name.
9 A. The name is the Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska at Pale.
10 Q. I believe that's item number 2. Item number 1?
11 A. Under 1 is the [indiscernible] production in Uzice and the
12 abbreviation at the beginning stands for the First Partisan and that was
13 the name of that particular factory.
14 Q. Okay. Looking at this particular document, are you familiar with
15 this particular transaction?
16 A. I was not familiar with this particular transaction because it
17 involved the Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska and the First
18 Partisan company in Uzice.
19 Q. In your experience in the Ministry of Defence for the Federal
20 Republic of Yugoslavia
21 special-purpose industries?
22 A. Yes, the Ministry of Defence, or rather, its administration for
23 procurement, which was in charge of all contracts, also negotiated
24 session deals with various suppliers and producers. This is an aspect of
25 business which is put in place in order to make payments or receive
Page 13649
1 payments for the services provided.
2 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move the admission of this document for
3 the limited purpose of an example of a session agreement since the
4 witness has indicated that he has no familiarity with this specific
5 transaction, but is familiar with the document and the purpose of these
6 types of documents.
7 MS. CARTER: As an exemplar, I have no objections, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you. It's admitted. May it please be given
9 an exhibit number.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that document shall be assigned
11 Exhibit D454. Thank you.
12 MR. GUY-SMITH:
13 Q. Tab number 48, good sir, which will be 65 ter 983D. I'd like you
14 to take a look at this document and then I'll discuss it with you.
15 Could you first of all tell us the date of this document.
16 A. The date is 29 July 1994
17 Q. And the author of this document is who, sir?
18 A. The author of this document is at the office of the Ministry of
19 Defence, in its final version, and the document was, drafted or rather,
20 prepared by the sector for military economic activity.
21 Q. I'd like to take a look at the second full paragraph, which I
22 believe starts off with the language, "Regardless of how the situation
23 develops ..." Could you read -- could you read the first sentence.
24 A. "Irrespective of the developments, the federal government has to
25 redistribute resources in the federal and republican budgets in order to
Page 13650
1 provide an additional 35.300.000 dinars to finance the adopted measures
2 and procure materiel and technical equipment necessary to raise the
3 combat readiness of the Yugoslav Army."
4 Q. Okay. And were you at all involved in this particular concern,
5 which is the need to redistribute funds for the procurement of materiel
6 and technical equipment to raise the combat readiness of the Yugoslav
7 Army?
8 A. The sector for military economic activities, together with
9 administration for finances and budget, we were aware of the surpluses of
10 the special-purpose industry and we arrived at the amount of 35.300.000
11 dinars which corresponded to the request of the General Staff of the Army
12 of Yugoslavia
13 raise the combat readiness of the army. Those are not normal
14 requirements. Those requirements were meant to meet just the minimum
15 needs of the Army of Yugoslavia.
16 Q. If we could now turn to the next sentence, which I believe starts
17 with the language, "Engaging these funds ..." could you please read that.
18 A. "The Federal Ministry for Defence will engage these and the
19 financial resources provided by the Republika Srpska and the Republic of
20 Serbian Krajina, to service their needs, will organise the production and
21 procurement of materiel and technical equipment."
22 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would ask this document be marked for
23 identification, and the reason for that is that two places in the English
24 there's the word "earmark." The first time Mr. Kadijevic said that the
25 federal government must "redistribute" an amount, and the second time he
Page 13651
1 used the word "provided." And earmarking and providing and earmarking
2 and redistributing are vastly different concepts, so I think if we could
3 have this marked for identification, because this document needs to be
4 double-checked with regard to the issue of translation. Other than that,
5 I move its admission.
6 MS. CARTER: No objection to the MFI status, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you. The document is admitted. May it
8 please be given an exhibit number and marked for identification.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
10 Exhibit D455 marked for identification. Thank you.
11 MR. GUY-SMITH: Tab number 49, please, which would be 65 ter
12 984D.
13 Q. Have you had an opportunity to take a look at this document,
14 Mr. Kadijevic?
15 A. Yes, I've had an opportunity to do that.
16 Q. First of all, can you tell us the date of this document.
17 A. The date is 5 August 1994
18 Q. And this document, as I understand it, was signed by a gentleman
19 by the name Sava Pustinja. Do you know that gentleman?
20 A. Yes. At that time Lieutenant-General Sava Pustinja was the chief
21 of sector for military economics activity and on this particular occasion
22 he was acting on behalf of the federal minister of defence, who was
23 absent.
24 Q. Could you please read for us the very first paragraph.
25 A. "Please find enclosed a decision by the federal government on a
Page 13652
1 cessation of political and economic relations with Republika Srpska."
2 Q. Perhaps I'm a bit confused. The document that we just were
3 looking at that's been marked for identification is dated the 29th of
4 July 1994. And it seems what this document is in fact talking about
5 economic relations with the Republika Srpska, and here, about a week
6 later, there seems to be an about face on this issue. Do you have any
7 knowledge about what happened here? Can you help us out at all in terms
8 of what happened with regard to this document dated the 5th of August,
9 1994?
10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Madam Carter. Sorry, Mr. Kadijevic. Yes,
11 Madam Carter.
12 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, while the end of the question is
13 certainly not leading, I would argue that having Defence counsel compare
14 and contrast two separate documents and then ask the witness to do the
15 same thing is an inappropriate use. It's leading.
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith.
17 MR. GUY-SMITH: I fail to understand the objection in the manner
18 that it's been put because I think that Ms. Carter misapprehends the
19 question itself.
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith, am I wrong to say that the previous
21 document was a session between Republika Srpska and a company in the --
22 MR. GUY-SMITH: Yes, the last document we discussed was the
23 document that we MFI'd because there were two issues concerning the word
24 "earmarked." That was the last document.
25 JUDGE MOLOTO: But that was --
Page 13653
1 MR. GUY-SMITH: It's a document between the Federal Ministry of
2 Defence -- it's a document about the Federal Ministry of Defence for the
3 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It has nothing to do with Republika
4 Srpska with regard to any interactions as between them.
5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, but what did it deal with, I'm sorry, I still
6 don't --
7 MR. GUY-SMITH: It dealt with redistributing 35.300.000 dinars to
8 finance adoptive measure and engaging these funds and funds provided by
9 the Republika Srpska for their own needs, that the Federal Ministry of
10 Defence will organise the production and procurement of materiel and
11 technical equipment. So this is a document, this was a ministry --
12 Federal Ministry of Defence of the FRY internal document, discussing what
13 they are going to be proceeding to do. The next document is a Federal
14 Ministry of Defence document in which there's an indication that there's
15 going to be a cessation of political and economic relations with
16 Republika Srpska and my question is can you be of any help here? Can you
17 be of any help here? There's a week in between these two documents, can
18 you be of any help? I don't see anything particularly leading about
19 that. They are two --
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
21 MR. GUY-SMITH: Two acts that occurred, can you help us out?
22 That's what is going on.
23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you, okay. The objection would be
24 overruled, Madam Carter.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The time period is very short and
Page 13654
1 it is obvious that they were convergent positions in the state leadership
2 and the Ministry of Defence. The previous document was the result of
3 work and preparations that had been going on for months in order to
4 secure funds from the federal government. The process took its course.
5 The second document, however, was the result of the opinion of
6 the Supreme Defence Council and political leadership that sanctions
7 should be imposed on Republika Srpska, which means all the activities
8 that had been going on or should have been launched had to be stopped.
9 So this is a complete stop of all the activities, not only the ones that
10 the previous document dealt with, but all the other economic activities
11 as well.
12 MR. GUY-SMITH: I move its admission.
13 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's admitted. May it please be given an exhibit
14 number.
15 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
16 Exhibit D456. Thank you.
17 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
18 MR. GUY-SMITH: If we could go to tab number 51. 65 ter 1041D.
19 Q. If you could first tell us the date of this document. It would
20 be up on the -- yes, excellent.
21 A. The date is 22nd December, 1992.
22 Q. Now, I'm looking at this document and I'm wondering if you could
23 be of any help with regard to the very last paragraph, which starts off:
24 "We did not ..." First of all, if you could read that so we know
25 what it says.
Page 13655
1 A. "We did not receive the above materiel as per agreement 13-12/92
2 of 14 December 1992
3 Q. Okay. And with regard to the issue of payment, can you tell us
4 who payment was to be made to?
5 A. Clearly the payment was to be made to Krusik, the special-purpose
6 industry in Krusik, which was the producer of the said materiel and
7 equipment.
8 Q. And the payment was to be made by?
9 A. It arises from the document that the payment was to be made by
10 the Main
11 logistics part of the Main Staff was to make the payment.
12 Q. With regard to the kinds of examples that we've discussed in
13 terms of contracts between special-purpose industries and other entities
14 such as armies or ministries of defence, is this an example -- and if you
15 can say, fine, if you can't, that's fine as well -- is this an example of
16 such a negotiation and transaction?
17 A. Yes, this is an example of a transaction, although the contracts
18 had to be signed by the Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska, however
19 what happened there was that whoever had the funds and resources entered
20 into procurement deals.
21 MR. GUY-SMITH: I note the time and I would move its admission.
22 I should probably do that in reverse order. I would move this document's
23 admission, and I note the time.
24 JUDGE MOLOTO: The document is admitted into evidence. May it
25 please be given an exhibit number.
Page 13656
1 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
2 Exhibit D457.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you so much. We'll take a break and come
4 back at half past 12.00. Court adjourned.
5 --- Recess taken at 12.00 p.m.
6 --- On resuming at 12.30 p.m.
7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Guy-Smith.
8 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you, Your Honour.
9 Q. Go to tab number 52 in your binder, sir, which is 65 ter 1124D.
10 I'd like to have you take a look at this document, if you could. And my
11 first question to you after you've looked at the document is, are you
12 familiar with this document itself?
13 A. Yes, I am.
14 Q. And how were you familiar with this document, sir?
15 A. I was involved in drafting this document for the federal minister
16 of defence.
17 Q. Looking at the document that we have in front of us and going to
18 the very last page, if we could.
19 MR. GUY-SMITH: Which would be page 3 in the English. I think
20 it's page 3 also in the B/C/S. You have it in hard copy.
21 Q. Could you tell us whether or not this document was signed?
22 MR. GUY-SMITH: I guess this is page 4, I apologise. 5, 5.
23 Thank you, Mr. Mair.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This document was not signed. This
25 is simply a draft.
Page 13657
1 MR. GUY-SMITH:
2 Q. With regard to this draft, were you present at the time that the
3 agreement and co-operation between the federal government of the Federal
4 Republic of Yugoslavia
5 signed? Were you present at the signing?
6 A. Yes, I was present and I was a member the delegation headed by
7 the federal minister of defence, Pavle Bulatovic.
8 Q. In reviewing this draft, can you tell us whether, to the best of
9 your recollection, whether this draft embodies all that was contained in
10 the final agreement that was signed and whether or not there were any
11 additions or deletions that were made to it?
12 A. As far as I remember, this draft was co-ordinated with the
13 Russian side, and when the time came for the two ministers to sign it, it
14 had already been fully agreed upon by the two ministers and they
15 initialled it. I think it was done in four copies; two in Russian, two
16 in Serbian. That's what I remember.
17 Q. And can you tell us the date of the signing of this agreement, if
18 you remember?
19 A. I've already had trouble with years, as you could see here. I
20 usually need to link an event to something that happened in my personal
21 life, so let's say that it was in 1997.
22 Q. Okay.
23 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move its admission.
24 MS. CARTER: Given that the document is supposed to have been
25 entered into well after our indictment period, I would ask the relevance.
Page 13658
1 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith.
2 MR. GUY-SMITH: Well, our indictment period seems to cover before
3 1993 up to and including the year 2000. We've had myriad documents that
4 have been introduced that come well before the time that General Perisic
5 became Chief of Staff of the VJ in the late summer/early autumn of 1993,
6 and documents well after he had left the government entirely; documents
7 in 1999, 2000, 2001, and I believe you even have documents in 2004. This
8 document shows the continuing work that this gentleman did and the
9 continuing nature of the co-operation that existed as between the
10 Ministry of Defence for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Soviet
11 -- Russian Federation and I take it it's relevant on those grounds.
12 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, while many of the documents do
13 post-date our indictment period, they generally tend to be tied back to
14 events that are relevant to the indictment period. Now, Mr. Guy-Smith
15 has made an implication that this somehow addresses a continuation of a
16 relationship. However, there's been no foundation laid for a
17 continuation argument to be made, so unless he can tie it back to the
18 relevant time-period, I would still object to its relevance.
19 MR. GUY-SMITH: If I could have but a moment, there was a
20 document that we saw earlier today that dealt both with the Russians as
21 well as the Chinese, certainly within the indictment period. It was one
22 the paragraphs, so give me a moment, I'll --
23 JUDGE MOLOTO: I think I can't remember that document but --
24 MR. GUY-SMITH: D453.
25 JUDGE MOLOTO: My only problem actually, Mr. Guy-Smith, is if you
Page 13659
1 could tie it down to the case before us, that would help me. I'm not
2 quite sure how it ties up with the case itself.
3 MR. GUY-SMITH: I really can't take it any further at this point
4 in time, Your Honour. And rather than counter with a discussion about
5 the number of documents that this Chamber has admitted through bar table
6 and through other means that are well outside the indictment period which
7 have myriad difficulties, I think evidentially and with relevance, I'll
8 leave my submission as to where it is and abide by your ruling as it may
9 be.
10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Okay.
11 [Trial Chamber confers]
12 JUDGE MOLOTO: The objection is upheld.
13 MR. GUY-SMITH: Thank you. Could we please have your tab number
14 54, which will be 65 ter 1169D. Let me take that back, let's do this a
15 slightly different way. If we could take that document off the screen.
16 Q. And if could you go to tab number 55 in your binder.
17 MR. GUY-SMITH: And pull up 65 ter 1198D.
18 Q. If you could take a look at that document. And initially while
19 we are waiting for the English to come up, could you please tell us the
20 date of this document.
21 A. The document has the date of 1st of June, 1998.
22 Q. Thank you. And could you tell us what the document -- right now
23 I'm still dealing -- I'm still dealing with first page. Could you tell
24 us what this letter refers to.
25 A. This letter comes from the Krusik holding company and in this
Page 13660
1 letter they request that the debt owed by military post Vlasenica Han
2 Pijesak be settled, that is to say, that this military post owed money to
3 the Krusik company.
4 Q. Okay. So now we have two dates; we have the date of 1998 when
5 the letter is sent concerning an overview of the claims as of the 31st of
6 December, 1997.
7 Could you go to the next page, please, sir. The next page
8 indicates -- and you've already indicated who the debtor is. Before we
9 go any further, where is Han Pijesak geographically located, if you know?
10 A. Han Pijesak is in Republika Srpska.
11 Q. Okay. With regard to the debts that are owed, what calendar year
12 are the debts owed from?
13 A. On the second page, in the overview of debts, you can see that
14 this money was owed based on invoices from 1994.
15 Q. Could you explain to us why this particular company, which is the
16 -- as I understand it, looking at the first page, the holding company for
17 Krusik Valjevo, would be having you involved in debts owed to them for
18 invoices in 1994 in 1998? Why would the Ministry of Defence for the
19 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia be involved in debts owed by Han Pijesak
20 which is geographically located in the Republic of Srpska
21 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just before the witness answers, for me to be able
22 to follow, Mr. Guy-Smith, maybe it might be mentioned on the previous
23 page, where is the federal government of FRY mentioned in this document?
24 MR. GUY-SMITH: Federal Ministry of Defence. If I said federal
25 government, I misspoke myself. I said why would the Ministry of Defence
Page 13661
1 for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
2 JUDGE MOLOTO: Is it on the previous page?
3 MR. GUY-SMITH: On page 52 at line 9 and 10.
4 JUDGE MOLOTO: I see what you are saying at page 52 but my
5 question arises precisely from what you said, page 52. What is the basis
6 for saying the witness is involved in this case together with the
7 government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? And I'm trying to find
8 out if there's something I missed on the first page.
9 Can we have a look at the first page of this document, please.
10 Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Guy-Smith.
11 MR. GUY-SMITH: My pleasure.
12 Q. My question was, could you explain to us why this particular
13 company, Krusik Valjevo, would be having the Federal Ministry of Defence
14 for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia involved in debts owed to them by
15 military post 711 Vlasenica, Han Pijesak, which is geographically located
16 in the Republic of Srpska
17 the calendar year 1994?
18 A. These activities that gave rise to the document I'm familiar
19 with. I personally ordered to the procurement administration to send a
20 request to all companies within the military industry of money owed to
21 them by various entities. Everybody that they had a contract with.
22 Because they claimed to us that they couldn't continue working because
23 they had a lot of uncollected debts. Such a formulation did not mean
24 much for us, for the ministry. This is why we ordered them to make a
25 list of all debts owed to them, partners, contracts signed, et cetera.
Page 13662
1 You can see that in their document they refer to the order issued
2 by the Ministry of Defence administration for procurement, based on which
3 they produced this document. And only when they put together all of the
4 documents needed did they come up with this overview of all money owed to
5 them based on which we had discussions with the federal government.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 MR. GUY-SMITH: I move its admission.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's admitted into evidence. May it please be
9 given an exhibit number.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
11 Exhibit D458. Thank you.
12 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
13 MR. GUY-SMITH:
14 Q. If you go to tab 58 of your binder, which would be 65 ter 1203D.
15 If you could take a look at this document. This is a -- if I understand
16 it, a different organ which is the -- as the document reads, Ministry of
17 the Interior Special Brigade of the Biljana police. Once again it's
18 dealing with invoices in 1994. First of all, in a general sense, in
19 relation to the document we've just seen, is this a similar type of
20 document concerning the same subject matter or is this something
21 different?
22 A. It's a similar document but the other debtor in this particular
23 case, the Special Brigade from Bijeljina owed to Krusik money based on
24 various contracts dating back to 1994.
25 Q. Could you please tell us geographically where Bijeljina is.
Page 13663
1 A. Bijeljina is in the north-east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the
2 territory of Republika Srpska.
3 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move this document's admission.
4 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's admitted. May it please be given an exhibit
5 number.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
7 Exhibit D459. Thank you.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
9 MR. GUY-SMITH:
10 Q. What was the name of the street that the Ministry of Defence and
11 the Chief of Staff of the VJ was located on? What was that street
12 called?
13 A. It was and still is the so-called Nemanjina Street, which we
14 colloquially refer to as Drina
15 Q. Why do you colloquially refer to that street as Drina
16 A. We called it Drina
17 frequently the General Staff and the Ministry of Defence had different
18 views about various issues and co-operation. These problems arose mostly
19 because the competencies were not strictly defined and divided, on the
20 one hand, and on the other hand, the personnel of both General Staff and
21 the ministry was not experienced enough to work in such high
22 institutions. They didn't know the proper methodology of work and this
23 is why frequently there were disputes and other problems.
24 Q. And what is the significance of it being called "Drina
25 does that have any particular kind of significance? I'm thinking of some
Page 13664
1 kind of --
2 A. Yes, this was a connotation of disagreement between the
3 leadership of Republika Srpska and the leadership of the Federal Republic
4 of Yugoslavia
5 Q. Now, that's one connotation of disagreement. And as between the
6 MOD and the VJ General Staff, what would the connotation of disagreement
7 be with regard to Drina Street? Would it be the same as a disagreement
8 between, as you said, the leadership of Republika Srpska and leadership
9 of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or would it be different? Are you
10 once again talking about disagreements as between two bodies?
11 A. No, it's not the same connotation. In this particular case,
12 something else was at hand, whereas in the other case it referred to the
13 political disagreement between the leadership of two countries. In our
14 case, the disagreement arose when the ministry and the General Staff were
15 re-organised as a result of which an institution that used to work in a
16 unified way before was split into two parts, and as a result of this
17 split and of the fact that these two institutions became completely
18 independent of each other, problems arose.
19 The General Staff was linked to the ministry -- to the Supreme
20 Defence Council, whereas the Ministry of Defence was linked to the
21 federal government, and it took a lot of effort and a lot of co-operation
22 to resolve problems at various levels. The Federal Ministry of Defence
23 had to communicate with the Chief of General Staff, and then all lower
24 levels had to communicate among themselves, and this communication and
25 co-operation was required on a daily basis in order to keep things going.
Page 13665
1 Q. I promised you at the outset that we would discuss further the
2 issue of demilitarisation.
3 MR. GUY-SMITH: Could we please have 65 ter 3387D, which is -- I
4 believe it's -- which is a document which is not in your binder, but it's
5 been translated in e-court, so you are going to have to look at this
6 document on the screen. Okay. I'd like you to -- it's a number of
7 pages, if you could quickly flip through it on the screen if we could
8 because I don't need to go through the entirety of the document with you,
9 chapter and verse, but if we could just have him go through the document
10 quickly on the screen, look at each page to see whether or not he is
11 familiar with this document.
12 I just realised something, that it runs into a fair number of
13 pages.
14 Q. Let me ask you this question in a slightly different fashion.
15 Did you -- were you -- you told us previously that you were involved in
16 the demilitarisation process post-Dayton. Were you aware of the
17 agreement that was entered into on the subregional arms control by the
18 Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Mission
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
20 A. I was familiar with that agreement. It was signed by Minister
21 Milutinovic in Florence
22 Q. And I think you gave us a brief description at the outset of your
23 testimony that you were appointed the chairman of the commission which
24 was tasked with implementing in full this agreement. Can you tell us who
25 was on the commission with you?
Page 13666
1 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly switch off all unnecessary microphones.
2 Thank you.
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I remember, the federal
4 government issued a decision appointing a commission consisting of nine
5 members altogether. I was appointed as the president of that commission.
6 On behalf of the General Staff, the commission had General Kodzopeljic as
7 a member. He was the chief of the technical administration of the VJ.
8 The Ministry of the Interior was represented by General Stevanovic. The
9 Ministry of the Interior of Montenegro was represented by an inspector
10 whose name I can't remember at the moment. The Ministry of Justice of
11 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was represented by a member as well.
12 And as I sit here, I can't remember all of the members, but I'm sure that
13 there was a total of nine of them. I'm sure of that.
14 Q. Very well. With regard to your answer on behalf of the General
15 Staff, you indicated the commission had General Kodzopeljic as a member.
16 Was that as a member of the General Staff of the VJ that he was
17 representing? Was that the General Staff that you were referring to or
18 were you referring to some other General Staff?
19 A. Precisely so, the General Staff of the VJ. At that time he was
20 the chief of the technical administration of the VJ General Staff.
21 Q. With regards to the efforts to demilitarise, can you tell us, if
22 you know, what if any involvement General Perisic had in terms of the
23 demilitarisation process after Dayton
24 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly switch off unnecessary mikes, thank you.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, General Perisic played a very
Page 13667
1 important role in the implementation of this agreement. First of all,
2 General Perisic issued an order to all the subordinate bodies to get
3 involved to the extent required by the commission within their respected
4 remits.
5 Secondly, General Perisic issued an order to set up a commission
6 for the control of the disarmament agreement. That administration was
7 comprised of people who were appointed by establishment and they were
8 there to control the implementation of the agreement and those people
9 were inspectors who, pursuant to OSCE plan, went to the Republic of
10 Croatia
11 Srpska in order to perform spontaneous or plan controls of the
12 implementation of this agreement per stages.
13 Like-wise, the administration took it upon themselves to organise
14 the receipt of inspectors from the Republic of Croatia
15 Croatian Federation, as well as from Republika Srpska whenever they came
16 to control our units and depots.
17 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move for the admission of the last
18 document, please.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: It's admitted into evidence. May it please be
20 given an exhibit number.
21 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
22 Exhibit D460. Thank you.
23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
24 MR. GUY-SMITH: Finally, could we have 65 ter 3386D up on the
25 screen. I have this document in English, Your Honours. I do not have
Page 13668
1 this document in B/C/S. It comes from the Yugoslav Daily Service 1997,
2 February 20th. We still don't have it in B/C/S and we will -- I'm going
3 to read portions of this document to him.
4 Q. This is a newspaper report entitled Yugoslavia Successfully Meets
5 All Arms Reduction Obligations. It starts off by saying:
6 "OSCE co-ordinator for the realisation of the agreement on
7 subregional arms control, General Piero Bonabella paid a three-day visit
8 to Yugoslavia
9 Lieutenant-General Radojica Kadijevic, the defence ministry said on
10 Wednesday."
11 Did you have such a visit with General Bonabella?
12 A. I did indeed. I invited him and he came.
13 Q. It goes on to say, and I'm not being to read the entirety of the
14 second paragraph:
15 "General Bonabella said the OSCE believed Yugoslavia
16 exceptionally successfully carried out all of its obligations from the
17 plans for inspection and reduction of excess arms envisaged under the
18 first phase of the Florence
19 And with regard to this language here, the Florence agreement is
20 what you were talking to us about at the beginning of your testimony; am
21 I correct in my understanding?
22 A. Yes, precisely so.
23 Q. I'm going to go to the last paragraph, which says: "During the
24 visits to Yugoslavia
25 Army premises and saw that all tasks planned by the agreement were being
Page 13669
1 realised with expert skill and responsibility, the statement said."
2 Did General Bonabella, visit when he was with you, various
3 Yugoslav Army premises with an eye towards making a determination whether
4 or not the tasks planned by the agreement were being carried out?
5 A. Yes. As a host, I took him to the Knezevac logistics base in
6 Belgrade
7 combat vehicles. According to the plan, they were supposed to be
8 destroyed or decommissioned. All those APCs were lined in several rows
9 and General Bonabella asked me whether the APCs were in a good working
10 order. And I told him, General, sir, they all came on their own in a
11 good working order, pick any one to check if you wish. And then he told
12 me that he had been a member of armoured units, that he was familiar with
13 APCs. He chose an APC that he wanted to inspect, he got into it, he
14 started the engine, and to avoid any doubts, he picked another one and
15 started it again, and when he was convinced that what we had told him
16 before we had set off for the logistics base he was happy. I offered him
17 to check any of them although we were under no obligation to keep them in
18 good working order. Our obligation was to destroy them.
19 The General Staff did everything; they prepared everything, they
20 transported APCs by train, by road. They transferred them all to the
21 logistics base and made them available to inspection. Having showed his
22 satisfaction, General Bonabella promised me and finally delivered on his
23 promise when the Republic of Italy
24 Yugoslavia
25 that by sending us special equipment for cutting steel and men who used
Page 13670
1 that equipment.
2 We received the equipment and we were very grateful to General
3 Bonabella and the Republic of Italy
4 accordingly.
5 Now, if it means anything, for the second inspection, I went to
6 Belgrade
7 plane to the Stevan Sindjelic barracks in Nis where there were weapons of
8 war to be decommissioned. All the pieces of equipment and APCs for
9 decommissioning had been brought there and all the military envoys were
10 convinced that they were all there, ready for decommissioning, and on
11 that same evening, together with all of them, I returned to Belgrade
12 the same plane.
13 When it comes to the decommissioning of those pieces of
14 equipment, I have to be honest and say that we received assistance from
15 the USA
16 talk to me. When they realised that we had problems with budgetary
17 allocations in order to decommission the equipment, they decided and they
18 transferred to us $200.000 via an Austrian bank, and that helped us to
19 decommission the equipment. We carried out all of our obligations on
20 time without any objections on the part of either the OSCE members who
21 came for inspections or any of the inspectors from the neighbouring
22 republics.
23 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would move the admission of the last document.
24 JUDGE MOLOTO: The document is admitted into evidence. May it
25 please be given an exhibit number.
Page 13671
1 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be assigned
2 Exhibit D461. Thank you.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
4 MR. GUY-SMITH:
5 Q. You have given us some information with regard to General
6 Perisic's efforts in terms of the demilitarisation process. Would it
7 have been possible for the demilitarisation process to have occurred
8 without the active participation and involvement of the Chief of the
9 General Staff of the VJ?
10 A. In order to answer your question, sir, I need to say a few
11 sentences. When General Bonabella came to Belgrade for the first time
12 and when I first met him, I explained to him the way we saw we could
13 execute our task. At first he was taken by surprise. He did not believe
14 that we would be able to carry out the task the way we wanted because he
15 had been involved in a similar task in Italy and he had 700 men at his
16 disposal, and they had a lot of problems, that they encountered a lot of
17 difficulties during the performance of the task. In our case we opted
18 for a different concept; we decided to use the existing military
19 organisation rather than establish new bodies, train new men, and even if
20 we had established a new unit, we would have had to engage in daily
21 correspondence with the General Staff to allow us to perform certain
22 tasks.
23 We didn't do that. We used the existing organisation, especially
24 technical administration and maintenance depots, we used all those
25 because General Perisic had issued an order and made it possible for us
Page 13672
1 to carry out our tasks in a timely and planned manner. If that hadn't
2 been done, not even one-tenth of the task could have been carried out.
3 That's how we managed to reduce the cost upon the state to a minimum.
4 The resources of the army made it possible for the tasks to be
5 accomplished.
6 MR. GUY-SMITH: I thank you for your time and your candour,
7 General.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you, Mr. Guy-Smith.
9 Madam Carter.
10 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, in light of the numerous topics that
11 we've covered today, the Prosecution would request an early recess in
12 order for us to actually narrow down the number of exhibits that we were
13 going to show the witness as well as some of the topics that he has
14 covered has required a review of a number of new documents that I need to
15 undertake before I can adequately cross-examine the witness. So we would
16 ask for an early break.
17 MR. GUY-SMITH: This poses a bit of a procedural problem. I
18 certainly would not in the first instance object to the notion of a --
19 excuse me, Your Honour, I apologise.
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: You don't seem to be well yourself, Mr. Guy-Smith.
21 MR. GUY-SMITH: I've been better.
22 I certainly would not object to an early termination of today's
23 proceedings, but Ms. Carter introduces a new issue and that is that "a
24 review of a number of documents that I need to undertake before I can
25 adequately cross-examine the witness." If the Prosecution is presently
Page 13673
1 in possession of documents that they intend to use, then I would
2 appreciate that we receive that list now and that no new documents be
3 added to that list because the procedure is such that we get a list of
4 those documents that are going to be relied upon by the Prosecution at
5 the time that they begin their cross-examination. What will occur is we
6 are now going to have a hiatus for some period of time which will change
7 the nature of the procedure that's being used and I think constitutes an
8 unfair advantage with regard to the cross-examination of this particular
9 gentleman.
10 However, if what Ms. Carter is asking for an early break and she
11 can send to us those documents that they intend to use with the
12 cross-examination and we are limited to those documents, then I have no
13 objection to the idea that we proceed, otherwise I would take the
14 position that we should proceed with the cross-examination at this point,
15 at least start it because that will fix the procedural integrity of the
16 cross-examination.
17 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Guy-Smith, I'm not quite sure the Chamber is
18 aware of the kind of documents that Madam Carter is going to produce.
19 What Madam Carter is asking for at this stage is just an early
20 adjournment and if at the time when she begins her cross-examination she
21 comes with documents that the Defence is of the view that it needed
22 advance notice of and didn't get it, I guess the Defence would have
23 recourse to rules of procedure.
24 MR. GUY-SMITH: The difficulty is this, Your Honour: Until
25 cross-examination starts, the documents are not sent to us. They are
Page 13674
1 sent to us by e-mail. We'll have them immediately. If Ms. Carter at
2 this point would direct Ms. Javier to send us those documents identified
3 for cross-examination, in event there are additional documents which are
4 used tomorrow, then we are in a position to raise the very issue you are
5 talking about. Otherwise, we are not in a position to raise the issue
6 because we have no idea what documents are going to be used because we
7 haven't been given notice of those documents and wouldn't be until the
8 cross-examination began.
9 JUDGE MOLOTO: Isn't that something that you can discuss with
10 Madam Carter?
11 MR. GUY-SMITH: I would prefer to have the formality of the list
12 sent to us, because once I have the list, then there won't be any --
13 JUDGE MOLOTO: But that formality sounds like something you can
14 discuss with Madam Carter outside court.
15 MR. GUY-SMITH: Technically I could, but if she says no -- and
16 she may actually say yes, but if she says no, then I'm left in the same
17 position I'm concerned about being in, which is why I'm raising the issue
18 now.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: If she says no now, what can the Court do?
20 MR. GUY-SMITH: Then I can say that I object to the idea of a
21 early termination and I suggest we proceed and use the additional 20
22 minutes that we have so we don't -- 25 minutes that we have so we don't
23 waste precious court time, at which point I would immediately get the
24 list and we would use that period of time. I'm trying to reach some kind
25 of accommodation here, the accommodation being allowing her time to
Page 13675
1 prepare in a fashion more than she would normally get as well as ensuring
2 my client's rights that he has notice of that, which is going to be
3 contemplated by the Prosecution being used.
4 JUDGE MOLOTO: Madam Carter.
5 MS. CARTER: Your Honour, first and foremost, I'd like to take
6 this opportunity to discuss the procedure that Mr. Guy-Smith has just
7 spoken to. In respect to delivery of documents, it is a bit rich for
8 that argument to be made with this specific witness. We were entitled to
9 the exhibit list for this witness on Thursday evening. We didn't receive
10 the first list until late afternoon on Friday. We received additional
11 documents later that day. We received additional documents over the
12 course of the weekend. So for Mr. Guy-Smith to stand here today and cast
13 aspersions, I find completely inappropriate.
14 Now, as to the documents that we have in hand, the documents that
15 I'm referring to, I do have a much bloated list for him because we had
16 to, to use a very home-spun phrase, shoot blind in many of the topics
17 because we had such a late start of actually having the exhibits from
18 this witness. And on top of that, the documents that I'm looking for are
19 documents [indiscernible] that are already in our system, either on as
20 admitted exhibits or as exhibits that were on our 65 ter list that have
21 been brought to my attention from our investigators during the course of
22 these proceedings.
23 So I'm not seeking to bring in loads of material that the Defence
24 has not been able to see or would not have time to adequately prepare
25 for. So I'm just merely asking to be able to tailor this examination in
Page 13676
1 order to reserve court time for the things that are truly at issue.
2 MR. GUY-SMITH: Two things arise. One is that I would appreciate
3 Ms. Carter sending me the list, whatever it may be, bloated or otherwise;
4 and second of all, and I'm normally not in a position where I spread my
5 personal life on the record, but Ms. Carter is well aware of the fact
6 that I have been hopitalised during this period of time right before this
7 witness came and I apologised profusely then for the tardiness which was
8 a result of my own personal indisposal.
9 JUDGE MOLOTO: Well, it does seem as if this whole question of
10 disclosing the list or not disclosing the list is an issue that is
11 usually regulated between the parties by the parties themselves. It has
12 never been where, whenever the parties have come to the Court, the Court
13 has always encouraged the parties to settle it between themselves, and I
14 think I encourage the parties now to continue to do that. There are a
15 number of issues that have been raised, there's a tit-for-tat argument
16 here and then there's the argument of hospitalization over which the
17 Trial Chamber will not be in a position to adjudicate or even resolve in
18 the next 15 minutes. I think the only way we can do it is to grant the
19 early adjournment and the parties can discuss the matter amongst
20 themselves outside court and try to get the list, if they can get it, and
21 unbloat it if it's bloated, and do whatever is necessary.
22 Mr. Kadijevic, once again we haven't finished with you. We need
23 you to come back tomorrow at 9.00 in the morning, same courtroom. And
24 again you are being reminded not to discuss the case with anybody, least
25 of all the Defence counsel. The court adjourns to tomorrow 9.00 in the
Page 13677
1 morning, Courtroom II.
2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.28 p.m.
3 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 8th day of
4 September, 2010, at 9.00 a.m.
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