Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 13160

1 Monday, 25 June 2007

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning, Madam Registrar, and good morning

6 everybody. Could you call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case number

8 IT-05-88-T, the Prosecution versus Vujadin Popovic et al.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, ma'am. For the record, all the accused

10 are here. From the Defence teams I notice the absence of Ms. Condon,

11 Mr. Meek, Mr. Josse, and Mr. Haynes.

12 Prosecution, we have Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Nicholls, Ms. Soljan, no

13 one else.

14 So let me start from here. There is a Prosecution motion for

15 leave to amend the 65 ter exhibit list with five expert reports. At

16 least - not at least - one of the expert witnesses, to my knowledge, is

17 due to start testifying soon after the current -- the witness that we'll

18 be having today. Is that correct?

19 MR. NICHOLLS: That's -- the next witness is Kate Barr,

20 Your Honour. That's correct.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. So you will understand that we can't wait the

22 usual time limit provided by the rules to run to have a response. If you

23 are in a position to give us a response, your response now, I think it

24 will be the best thing. If not, we would like to have a response, at

25 least as far as Kathryn Barr is concerned, by the end of today's sitting

Page 13161

1 so that we'll be in a position to decide the issue, but I will ask first

2 whether you are in a position to give us a response -- your response now.

3 We're talking of the 65 ter motion of the Prosecution filed last Friday.

4 Yes, Mr. Ostojic.

5 MR. OSTOJIC: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. I'm not

6 prepared to respond to the balance, with the exception of Ms. Barr. The

7 only thing with Ms. Barr I would request is that the Prosecution produce

8 to use the entire file which contains her analysis within the report that

9 she's actually -- she's generated, I think five reports so we need to know

10 the basis upon which she made her analysis. And specifically, since it's

11 a handwriting expert, I'd like to see the chart that she created which

12 showed which documents, and specifically which words she looked at in the

13 duty officer log and the unofficial notebook, and made this comparison

14 between similarities, and what they call dissimilarities or differences,

15 in handwriting styles.

16 So if they can produce that by the next break, I think we'll be

17 able to proceed with at least Ms. Barr this morning.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ostojic. Mr. McCloskey.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. All the material that was used that we have

20 has been -- have been provided, and so I'm not sure exactly what

21 Mr. Ostojic is asking for, but if there are -- if there's anything else

22 that she has, that she's used we will gladly provide that, but we have

23 provided what we have, as far as I know, and these reports have been

24 around for a long time. They're 94 bis reports and so we'll gladly

25 provide counsel with things, but she's due to testify any minute, so ...

Page 13162

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ostojic.

2 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Mr. President. To be more specific, for

3 example, this morning we were tendered two pages, I think from the

4 Prosecution, was sitting on our desk which has one page with the

5 questioned specimen as they call it, and then the next questioned writing,

6 and the next page, which is the second page which is the specimen writing,

7 which is supposedly from one of the individuals that the report was

8 generated against or for.

9 We don't have that for the entire process that Ms. Barr was

10 engaged in or involved in. With -- these two pages are obviously limited.

11 Her report considers a complete overview of the entire Zvornik Brigade

12 logbook and the unofficial notebook that we do have, that we expect to

13 question her on however I don't have her specimens, specifically the

14 question and the specimen that she pulled out to show us how she made this

15 comparative analysis that she did. So this was handed to us this morning

16 on our desk and we didn't have it other than this morning but I'm sure

17 that there's more, and this is what experts rely on and they look at each

18 specific word to make correlations or comparisons to person's handwriting.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Can't this be elaborated in the course of the

20 examination-in-chief and the cross-examination?

21 MR. OSTOJIC: It could, I guess. It may take a little longer.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: I mean, in each case that I have been involved here

23 there has always been handwriting experts and most of the time these

24 questions have arisen obviously, but they arise in either the course of

25 the examination-in-chief or the cross-examination, and sometimes you find

Page 13163

1 that the expert witness has the necessary documents in his or her

2 briefcase, which then come out. I don't know, because obviously I haven't

3 gone into her report or whatever because --

4 MR. OSTOJIC: Well, neither do we. All we're asking for,

5 Your Honour, with all due respect, is that we be given that. And we can

6 handle it just if we give it during her testimony. If they want to give

7 it to us late, that's, I guess, not acceptable, but we'll have to live

8 with it. But giving it to us piecemeal is not acceptable to me and I

9 think there's other specimens that they can provide to us, but we can

10 proceed with her if that's what the Court desires.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, the two documents that were

13 provided were the documents that Ms. Barr used in the Blagojevic trial and

14 are referred to in the testimony and it was used as an example for her

15 testimony to illustrate what she did. I don't believe she did -- it's the

16 only example that we have. What she keeps -- I don't know if she keeps

17 anything else, but these were the publicly used documents before and so

18 there's -- there's no mystery to them. But if there is material, we'll

19 gladly try to get whatever we can for the accused but this is what we know

20 of.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Let's go -- yes, Mr. Ostojic.

22 MR. OSTOJIC: I'm sorry.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: And then I'll give you the floor Mr. Bourgon.

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Your Honour, I just want to correct the record from

25 what Mr. McCloskey says. That's just not an accurate statement. They

Page 13164

1 have listed in their 65 ter list other sample specimens of questioned

2 writing and specimen writings. To suggest that these are the only two is

3 not accurate. What I'm requesting is that we get the complete file. They

4 have given us some for one report, they have given us some this morning

5 that was not provided to us earlier, and there's obviously others based on

6 her report. So to suggest that she only has these two -- they've listed

7 in their prior 65 ter list, we have those specimen copies, I still believe

8 that it's inadequate but just to make the record clear.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: These are not specimen copies. What we provided

11 was what she used as an exhibit to help show the court her comparison of

12 the Jokic handwriting last time. Of the specimen copies, meaning old

13 writing from various people have been provided to the Defence for a long

14 time as far as I know, but again, we haven't had a -- we haven't -- this

15 is the first time the Defence has really talked to us about this and we'll

16 get together with them.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Bourgon.

18 MR. BOURGON: Good morning, Mr. President. This is just to say

19 that we received from the Prosecution a list of Prosecution exhibits for

20 this witness in order to allow us to, of course, prepare. And as far as

21 this Defence team is concerned, we only have one issue that we'll raise

22 with this expert and this has to do with the third person, which is Jokic

23 and not the first two because we already filed a notice about that.

24 However, in the material in the list that was given to us there

25 are items that have not been disclosed to us. They have not been given to

Page 13165

1 us. We were told they were disclosed, we have looked for them, we

2 couldn't find them. Three of those appeared this morning, and the others,

3 I'm talking about items 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, have not yet been found by

4 us, in order to at least look at it and prepare for the testimony of

5 Ms. Barr.

6 Thank you, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Will you look into that, Mr. McCloskey, please.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. Yes, of course, Mr. President.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: And perhaps you can deal with it tete-a-tete during

10 the first break.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Let's go into private session for

13 a moment, please.

14 [Private session]

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 [Open session]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session. Any preliminaries? Yes,

24 Mr. Nicholls.

25 MR. NICHOLLS: Your Honour, I don't know, I'm trying to recall if

Page 13166

1 there are exhibits we needed to deal with.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: This is not preliminary. That would be part of the

3 agenda. I'm coming to that. No preliminaries. So the next matter that

4 we need to deal with is the exhibits tendered with the evidence of

5 Mr. Acimovic. Do you have any exhibits, Mr. Nicholls.

6 MR. NICHOLLS: No, Your Honour. I used 65 ter number 295 with him

7 but that has been previously admitted.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Zivanovic, and Mr. Bourgon in particular. Yes,

10 Mr. Zivanovic.

11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: We'll not have anything else but also 295, same

12 exhibit tendered by the Prosecution.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Bourgon. Yes, Mr. Bourgon.

14 MR. BOURGON: We do have --

15 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Mr. Zivanovic, are you not tendering

16 312?

17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: 312, yes.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

19 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Sorry. Sorry. We ask to tender Exhibit 312

20 through 808, and 295.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: You have one. Okay. All right. Sorry,

22 Mr. Bourgon.

23 JUDGE KWON: For the record, I don't think this is 312 through

24 801, but they are the identical exhibits.

25 MR. ZIVANOVIC: It was marked -- 312. All right.

Page 13167

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Any objections on the part of the Prosecution?

2 MR. NICHOLLS: No, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: On the part of any of the other Defence teams? So

4 this is admitted.

5 Mr. Bourgon, again my apologies to you.

6 MR. BOURGON: Good morning again, Mr. President. Just one

7 document that we would like to tender - and if my colleague consents,

8 I did not approach him yet - and that's the Drinski magazine article, The

9 Unbreakables or The Untouchables, I don't know which one it was again, but

10 if my colleague consents to that. Because I did discuss it with the

11 witness without ever showing it to him for the sake of expediency.

12 MR. NICHOLLS: No objection.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: No objection. Does it have --

14 MR. BOURGON: That is, 3D has a translation, and it's on 3D171

15 [Realtime transcript read in error "3D1171"].

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bourgon. Any objection by

17 anyone? No objection so it's standard and admitted. All right. Can we

18 proceed with the next witness? No protective measures for this witness,

19 no?

20 [The witness entered court]

21 WITNESS: KATHRYN JEAN BARR

22 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. Good morning to you, ma'am.

23 Yes, Mr. Bourgon. It's -- I don't know if you are surprised.

24 MR. BOURGON: Quick correction, Mr. President. Just on -- at

25 line -- page 8, line 6 should read 3D171 and not 1171.

Page 13168

1 Thank you, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you for that correction, Mr. Bourgon.

3 Madam Registrar, please take note of that. What happened to Mitar

4 Lazarevic? That's why I asked whether there were protective measures. I

5 was under the impression that --

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: That was the witness today.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, Lazarevic and Milosevic are here. However,

9 Ms. Barr is -- is an expert from the UK, had a schedule that we had been

10 planning on having her this Monday and we've been -- there's been several

11 e-mails about that and it got slightly confused and I believe the Court

12 was in on those e-mails which may have confused it even more, but --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: My Senior Legal Officer this morning did tell me

14 that Ms. Barr is the next witness, but I imagined he meant after

15 Lazarevic. So in my mind, it was still Lazarevic.

16 JUDGE KWON: We are not informed that.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: You have been informed, in other words. I take it

18 that you were -- yeah.

19 JUDGE KWON: I was not. I was not.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I wasn't from that. And in fact, for a moment I was

21 is surprised because I thought that Mitar is not the name of a -- of a man

22 but the name of a woman.

23 MR. McCLOSKEY: I apologise about this --

24 JUDGE AGIUS: It's okay, it's okay.

25 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- confusion I know the word went out to

Page 13169

1 Mr. Cubbon.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, yeah, Mr. Cubbon did tell me this morning.

3 But I understood that to mean after Lazarevic. So it's okay, you have no

4 problems with procedure. Yes, Madam Bourgon. Madam Fauveau. Well, you

5 are exchanging opinions all the time, so that's why -- that's why the

6 confusion.

7 Yes, Madam Fauveau.

8 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] I would like to inform the Chamber

9 that in fact we were informed but only on Friday evening and there was an

10 exchange of messages between the OTP and the Defence because it was total

11 confusion amongst us as well. Until last evening I was not at all certain

12 which witness we are going to hear today. So I would like to ask you to

13 ask the Prosecutor to give us more notice in the future. Thank you.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Mr. McCloskey, you've heard that.

15 Ms. Barr, good morning, to you, and welcome to this Tribunal.

16 You're about to start giving evidence. It's not your first time here, so

17 you know what the procedure is.

18 Madam Usher is going to hand you the text of the solemn

19 declaration that our rules require. Please let's proceed with that and

20 that's your solemn undertaking with us, that you'll be testifying the

21 truth.

22 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

23 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Please make yourself comfortable.

25 Yes, Ms. Soljan will go first for the Prosecution, and she will

Page 13170

1 then be followed by the Defence teams on cross-examination.

2 MS. SOLJAN: Thank you. Good morning, Your Honours.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Good morning.

4 Examination by Ms. Soljan:

5 Q. Good morning, Dr. Barr. Could you please begin by telling the

6 Trial Chamber your full name?

7 A. Yes, Kathryn Jean Barr.

8 Q. And what is your educational background for us briefly?

9 A. I've got a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts and I'm also --

10 I've got a Ph.D.

11 Q. And your Ph.D. is in what precise area?

12 A. Plant pathology.

13 Q. What is your first job upon receiving your Ph.D.?

14 A. I became a forensic documents examiner.

15 Q. And when was this?

16 A. In 1992.

17 Q. And what kind of work did a forensic document examiner do or does

18 a forensic document examiner do?

19 A. Most of the work that we do involves using handwriting and

20 signatures as a means of identification of specific person, or grouping

21 documents as having been written by one person. We also do other

22 examinations involving documents, for example, typewriting, printers,

23 counterfeit documents, indented impressions, alterations, obliterations.

24 Q. And in order to become proficient in the work that you're doing,

25 what kind of training, if any, did you undertake?

Page 13171

1 A. When I started work, we undertook a six-week initial training

2 course to learn the basics of forensic document examination and then

3 undertook a two-year mentoring or tutelage, whereby we gained experience

4 of doing actual case work, and we were taught the basics and the

5 intricacies of doing the work.

6 Q. And during this training period did you undertake handwriting

7 comparisons already during this time?

8 A. Yes, we undertook them on a daily basis.

9 Q. Now, what was the institution that you first worked for upon

10 receiving your Ph.D.?

11 A. I joined the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory.

12 Q. And how long did you stay at the metropolitan laboratory?

13 A. Until -- it was taken over by the Forensic Science Service and I

14 worked for that organisation until 1999.

15 Q. And where did you go in 1999?

16 A. I left to join the company I'm with now, which is Document

17 Evidence Limited.

18 Q. And what kind of an organisation is this?

19 A. Again, it's a forensic document examination. It's all the work

20 that we do, primarily for police forces within the UK but also civil work,

21 defence work, work for corporations.

22 Q. And what -- what is the title of your position there?

23 A. I'm a forensic document examiner.

24 Q. And what exactly does this position entail in your day-to-day

25 work?

Page 13172

1 A. It involves examining documents for, as I said before, handwriting

2 signature comparisons and all the aspects of forensic document

3 examination.

4 Q. And would a forensic document examiner have a specialisation among

5 the various tasks you've listed?

6 A. No. Generally, we would say that to be a good forensic document

7 examiner you need to be able to examine all the documents. It's no good

8 being able to examine a signature and then not realise the page it's on

9 has been inserted. So most forensic document examiners specialise in the

10 totality.

11 Q. So in the course of your career you yourself have undertake all

12 the task you have listed for us so far?

13 A. I have, yes.

14 Q. And you have therefore been working on forensic document analysis

15 since 1992?

16 A. I have, yes.

17 Q. And during these 15 years how many handwriting comparisons have

18 you done would you say?

19 A. I've no idea. Many thousands.

20 Q. Could you please describe briefly what sort of documents are

21 involved in the comparisons that you do on a daily basis?

22 A. On a daily basis it can be any type of document. Obviously, fraud

23 is an obvious one, so cheques and credit cards, but also literally any

24 document that has handwriting on it, from anonymous letters, confessions,

25 signatures on mortgage documents, wills, legal documents, anything.

Page 13173

1 Q. And, Dr. Barr, have you previously given evidence in court on the

2 basis of your document examination work?

3 A. I have, yes.

4 Q. Approximately how many times?

5 A. Probably about 50 times.

6 Q. And you have also given evidence before this Tribunal in the

7 Prosecutor versus Blagojevic case; is that correct?

8 A. I have, yes.

9 Q. Now, are there other professional activities you undertake in

10 addition to the work that you do?

11 A. Yes. I do lecturing to other financial organisations, other

12 investigators, training of forensic -- other forensic scientists both in

13 the UK and abroad, and I'm also involved in -- as a supervision of a Ph.D.

14 student, and in research, government-funded research with the university

15 as well.

16 Q. Do you have any accreditation as a forensic document examiner?

17 A. Yes. I'm also a member of the Council for the Registration of

18 Forensic Practitioners, which was an organisation set up in the UK to

19 accredit forensic scientists.

20 Q. Now, I'm going to ask you to explain the field of handwriting

21 analysis and comparison and the methodology that's involved in that.

22 Could you please give us a brief definition of what is handwriting?

23 A. Handwriting is basically using character shapes as a

24 representation of language to enable people to communicate.

25 Q. And are there -- can you describe what the fundamental concepts

Page 13174

1 are in the field of handwriting analysis?

2 A. Generally a handwriting comparison will take three main parts.

3 Initially there will be an analysis of the writing. In that case it's

4 determining actually how the characters have been constructed, so how the

5 pen has moved across the paper to form them. As a part of that you will

6 also look at things like how the characters slant, how they join from one

7 to the other, how fluently they're written.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Sorry to interrupt, but perhaps we -- we can

9 deal with this in the beginning. There is a European organisation set up

10 that brings together forensic experts from all over Europe with a view to

11 fostering exchange of expertise, but also standardising the practices. Do

12 you belong to that organisation? Have you participated in its activities?

13 THE WITNESS: Yes. The company as a whole are associate members

14 of it, and I've been to conferences, and a part of the subgroups of it,

15 yes.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead. Thank you.

17 MS. SOLJAN:

18 Q. So you were just mentioning certain terms, including "slant" and

19 how fluently words are written. Could you explain a little bit in more

20 detail what fluency means, what slant is?

21 A. Slant is obviously whether the characters are written in an

22 upwards or whether they slant forwards or backwards. Fluency is

23 indication of the speed with which the writing occurs.

24 Q. And you began your explanation of the process by saying that there

25 are three main parts to the analysis. You just mentioned that there was

Page 13175

1 construction.

2 A. So you would look at the analysis, you'd work out the

3 construction. You'd also work out the range of variation, because

4 obviously people don't -- they're not robots. Every time they write there

5 will be a variation in their handwriting. But it will only vary within a

6 defined range. You need to be able to assess what that range is. If you

7 were only examining very small amounts of handwriting and you saw

8 differences, you wouldn't be aware of whether they were differences due to

9 two different people or just simply part of a person's natural variation.

10 So basically you work through the alphabet from A to Z, upper case and

11 lower case, and numbers, work out the method of construction, the fluency,

12 and the range of variation.

13 Once you've done that for the writing that's known, you would do

14 exactly the same thing for the questioned writing and then compare the two

15 to determine -- to determine whether there were any similarities or

16 differences. Once that bit's done, then you have to determine whether

17 there are any significance as to those similarities or differences,

18 because obviously within one person's writing or two people's writing

19 there will also be -- there will always be similarities because -- simply

20 by chance because you can't make up your own characters; they have to

21 conform to recognised shapes.

22 Similarly there will always be differences within one person's

23 writing simply by natural variation. So you have to assess whether you

24 consider that the similarities are significant enough to indicate it's one

25 person, or whether the differences indicate that you've got two different

Page 13176

1 writers.

2 Q. And so when you're going through this analysis, you are doing it

3 by going through the individual characters or are you doing it by going

4 through words as a whole?

5 A. Literally going through individual characters.

6 Q. So that means you analyse letter by letter?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Is there a specific way you document your analysis, as you proceed

9 through it?

10 A. I use what we would call a tick sheet, which is literally the

11 alphabet written out so just as a means of making sure that you do it in a

12 thorough way, so that you go through literally from A to Z and don't miss

13 characters out.

14 Q. And does the tick sheet capture the totality of the analysis?

15 A. No. It's part of the analysis. It acts as an aide-memoire and a

16 means of constructing the analysis in a way that not only I can go back to

17 it, but other document examiners could also examine to make sure I

18 followed the direct procedures.

19 Q. And you produce a tick sheet for both sets of documents, both the

20 specimen and the questioned document?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And once you've gone through both sets of documents, what's the

23 next thing you do? You had mentioned, I believe, the word "range of

24 variation" or the expression. What does that mean?

25 A. As I say, generally, everybody has a range of variation because

Page 13177

1 they will differ on each occasion that they write but they won't suddenly

2 change -- they don't suddenly change character constructions. They may

3 have different ones in different parts of the word so a character at the

4 middle -- in the middle of a word may be constructed slightly differently

5 from one at the beginning and the end. They're all part of the range of

6 variation of that character.

7 Q. Can you maybe give us an example of some types of variation,

8 whether it be a similarity or a difference that would be significant at

9 this stage of the analysis?

10 A. Yes. For example, with an upper case E in English, it could be

11 written as an L with two cross strokes or it could be written as a curved

12 character with just a middle stroke, or it could be written as an upside

13 down L with two cross strokes. So within that one character, you have a

14 lot of variation. Similarly, with a simple character like an O or a zero,

15 sometimes some people will write them in a clockwise direction, some

16 people will write them in an anti-clockwise direction.

17 Q. After comparing two sets of documents, and after you've undertaken

18 the assessment process that you just explained to us, how do you as a

19 forensic document examiner express your conclusions?

20 A. We express them on a verbal scale because as yet nobody has been

21 able to work out the statistics to be able to come up with a numerical

22 scale so all document examiners use a verbal scale which starts off with

23 conclusive evidence which would indicate either positive or negative, that

24 you could exclude somebody else from being the writer. Then we would have

25 strong evidence that, for example, two people had written a document and

Page 13178

1 it would be unlikely to be anybody else. Where you have weak evidence,

2 obviously you can't exclude the possibility that somebody else could write

3 in a similar way. And then in the middle we have inconclusive, where we

4 are unable to determine whether or not the same -- whether it was written

5 by one or two people.

6 Q. So how many levels of opinion are there all together?

7 A. Seven.

8 Q. And all these seven form a spectrum of whether it is somebody's

9 handwriting or whether it's not?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Is there quality control that a forensic document examiner

12 undertakes at the conclusion of her analysis?

13 A. Yes. All our work is peer reviewed by another scientist to

14 basically check the results, check -- and check the level that you're

15 coming with, that you've answered the questions that have been asked.

16 Q. Is it necessary to understand the language of a tested handwriting

17 in order to conduct handwriting comparison?

18 A. No. In a sense, we're looking at the how the characters are being

19 constructed rather than what the words say.

20 Q. So would the principles and the methodology that you've explained

21 to us before differ in any way when you're doing analysis of handwriting

22 in a foreign language?

23 A. The principles would be the same. The difficulties with the

24 foreign language is you've got to be aware that you are looking at the

25 right character, because obviously some people slur from one character

Page 13179

1 into another. In your native language, you can normally tell what a word

2 is from its context. You lose that when you can't actually read it. So

3 you've got to be careful to ensure that you are examining exactly the same

4 character. The other point is that there are certain -- one of the parts

5 of being a forensic document examiner is being aware of what the

6 significance of similarities and differences are and those can vary from

7 nationality to nationality. So you've got to be aware that certain

8 characters may be more common in certain nationalities than they are in

9 your own language.

10 Q. And so are there special precautions a document examiner should

11 take, or measures that the document examiner should apply differently in

12 the case of analysing a document in a foreign language?

13 A. In essence, it's taking more care and making sure you, as I say,

14 are comparing like with like, and that you're taking into account that

15 certain characters will be more common, and it probably is best to err on

16 the side of caution.

17 Q. Dr. Barr, do you understand the language that's referred to as

18 Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian or B/C/S?

19 A. No, I don't.

20 Q. And were you able to compare handwriting in B/C/S?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Is this the first time that you examine handwriting in a language

23 that you do not understand?

24 A. No. Obviously, we see documents from other European languages,

25 French, Dutch, Spanish, German. Obviously, some I have more knowledge of

Page 13180

1 than others, but again, the principle of the document examination is the

2 same for all Latin languages, Roman language characters.

3 Q. And for these foreign languages, could you say in what context you

4 were doing handwriting analysis, for what kind of cases?

5 A. Again, off the top of my head it would be all kinds of cases.

6 Often, it will be things like drug importation when you're looking at

7 driver logs or delivery of -- of goods into this country.

8 Q. Okay. Now, the Prosecution has requested over the last few years

9 that you conduct a number of handwriting comparisons; is that correct?

10 A. It is, yes.

11 Q. And these requests have resulted in five reports; correct?

12 A. That's correct, yes.

13 Q. Now, I notice that you have brought some documents with you today

14 into the courtroom, and if you wouldn't mind identifying them for the

15 Trial Chamber.

16 A. Yeah. There are five reports that I've produced dated 16th of

17 July, 2003; 22nd of August, 2003; 22nd of January, 2004; 29th of June,

18 2006; and the 10th of January, 2007.

19 Q. Thank you. Just for the record, the 10 January 2007 report is

20 Exhibit number P02844; 29 June 2006 report is P02845; the 16 July 2003

21 report is P02846; the 22 August 2003 report is P02847; and the final 27

22 January 2004 report is P02848.

23 Now, in order to produce the -- these reports you were provided

24 with certain documents; is that correct?

25 A. I was, yes.

Page 13181

1 Q. What kinds of documents were these in general? What kinds of

2 groupings?

3 A. I was provided with writings that were identified to me as bearing

4 known or specimen writing of certain individuals and then certain

5 documents that we would call questioned, where I was asked if certain

6 people had produced the entries within those documents.

7 Q. Now, could you briefly summarise for the Trial Chamber what you

8 were asked to do with respect to the handwriting analysis of Dragan Jokic

9 in the Prosecutor versus Blagojevic case?

10 A. Yes, I was asked if he had written certain entries within the

11 unofficial duty officer's notebook, specifically, entries on the pages

12 0293-5743 to 0293-5753.

13 Q. And can you summarise for us your conclusions?

14 A. Yes. I found that from the entries of 0293-5744 down to 5753 that

15 there was strong evidence that he had produced those entries.

16 Q. And this conclusion -- which report was this conclusion reached

17 in?

18 A. That was my first report, the one dated the 16th of July, 2003.

19 Q. Okay. Now, you also wrote two additional reports concerning the

20 handwriting of the same individual, Mr. Jokic; is that correct?

21 A. That's correct, yes.

22 Q. And those two -- what was the purpose of these two reports?

23 A. The second report was to give a bit more detail behind my

24 conclusions from the first report. In the third report I was provided

25 with specimen handwriting that had been produced recently to see if that

Page 13182

1 would enable me to come to a stronger conclusion. And while it enabled --

2 it enabled me to confirm my opinion, I wasn't able to change my opinion

3 from strong to conclusive.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Just a moment so that we clear this up. Page 21,

5 line 20. Yes. "I was asked if he had written certain entries in the

6 unofficial duty officer's" -- is it unofficial or official? Unofficial.

7 And could we have the ERN number of that document, please?

8 MS. SOLJAN: Yes, Your Honours. It's -- just a moment. I can

9 give you the 65 ter as well as the ERNs. The 65 ter for it is 377 and the

10 range for the whole notebook is 0293-5619 to 0293-5806.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.

12 MS. SOLJAN: You're welcome, Your Honours.

13 Q. Now, Dr. Barr you had the opportunity to go through large portions

14 of this unofficial duty officer's notebook; is that correct?

15 A. Yes it was.

16 Q. And can you tell the Trial Chamber, if you recall, what kind of

17 writing implement was predominantly used in this notebook?

18 A. Ball-point pen.

19 Q. Did you notice, however, in some instances pencil writings?

20 A. Yes. Inasmuch as from my report I excluded the pencil writings

21 from my conclusions regarding Mr. Jokic.

22 Q. And why was that?

23 A. Because they appeared to be written by a different person.

24 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now I'd like to turn with you to the two

25 reports that you've written more recently. We've already referred to

Page 13183

1 these a bit earlier but for the record, again, the report dated 10 January

2 2007 is P02844, and the report dated 29 June 2006 is P02845, could you

3 briefly describe for the Trial Chamber again what it was that you were

4 asked to do, in other words what the purpose of this report was, or these

5 reports were?

6 A. Again, it was to identify whether the three individuals had

7 written entries within the unofficial duty officer notebook, the official

8 duty officer logbook, the IKM logbook and also two typed reports.

9 Q. Could you provide us with individual by individual summary of your

10 conclusion? So perhaps let us begin with your findings concerning the

11 handwritings of Mr. Drago Nikolic?

12 A. Yes, for Mr. Nikolic, I found that within the official duty

13 officer logbook, that there were various entries that showed many

14 significant similarities to his handwriting and signatures and that there

15 were conclusive evidence that he had written those entries. Do you want

16 me to go through them --

17 Q. If you --

18 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Soljan, I'm sorry to interrupt you but I'm being

19 confused with the terms "unofficial" and "official".

20 MS. SOLJAN: Yes, Your Honours.

21 JUDGE KWON: Have you dealt with it so far.

22 MS. SOLJAN: I believe we had dealt with this in the past and we

23 had come to an agreement with the Defence. The -- if it's more helpful, I

24 can -- we have -- we have called the unofficial duty officer --

25 JUDGE KWON: I remember the difference between notebook and

Page 13184

1 logbook, but have we dealt with the issue whether they are official ones

2 or unofficial ones?

3 Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

4 MS. SOLJAN: I'll let Mr. McCloskey --

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Your Honour. These were terms that we had

6 adopted from the Blagojevic case that we had passed on to the expert. So

7 she's using these -- these terms as she had used them before. If we can

8 just for our purposes drop the official or unofficial, then we'll be back

9 to what we have agreed on with the Defence or try to -- it.

10 JUDGE KWON: So now I understand. I take it she's sticking to the

11 instructions she was given at the time.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. We -- we -- that's what we called it at the

13 time and since that time we have dropped those official -- so-called

14 official designations, but she's talking about the notebook and the

15 logbook that we -- that we're used to.

16 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Thank you. Thank you for the

17 clarification.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead, Ms. Soljan.

19 MS. SOLJAN:

20 Q. So if you could perhaps recap what you were just saying.

21 A. So with the logbook, I found that there were certain entries that

22 showed a number of significant similarities to the writing of Mr. Nikolic,

23 such that there was conclusive evidence that he had produced them. Those

24 were the entries for the 1st of May 1995, 15th of May, 1995, 29th of May,

25 1995, 10th and 11th of June, 1995, 24th of June, 1995, 7th of July, 1995,

Page 13185

1 and 15th of July, 1995.

2 Q. Can you indicate for us, please, what page of your report --

3 A. That's on page 8 of my report dated the 29th of June.

4 Q. And for the record, this is ERN 06064359. Could you summarise the

5 rest of your conclusions, please?

6 A. For the IKM logbook, I was asked to look at entries for July the

7 11th to the 21st. There are four entries for those dates and I found that

8 there was conclusive evidence that Mr. Nikolic didn't produce any of the

9 entries on those specified dates.

10 Q. And how about the notebook?

11 A. For the notebook, I found that for the entry for the June the 21st

12 there was conclusive evidence that he didn't produce those entries. Also,

13 he didn't produce the entries for June the 30th or July the 10th. As

14 regards the entries for July the 12th to the 17th, I found that there are

15 entries on July the 15th that show significant similarities to his

16 handwriting such that there's conclusive evidence that he produced those

17 entries and those are the only entries within those dates that he

18 produced.

19 Q. Were there any other conclusions you reached regarding -- or were

20 there any other questioned documents?

21 A. Yes. I was also shown a two-page typed report which was dated the

22 26th of July, which had two carbon copies and also a two-page typed report

23 dated the 25th of July, 1995, which had four carbon copies. These

24 documents were typed reports with signatures on them, and I found that

25 there was conclusive evidence that Mr. Nikolic had signed all the reports.

Page 13186

1 JUDGE AGIUS: For the record, Mr. Josse is now present in the

2 courtroom.

3 MS. SOLJAN: Also for the record, the two reports that Dr. Barr

4 has referred to are 65 ter numbers 345 and 385 and the IKM log is 65 ter

5 935.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Soljan.

7 MS. SOLJAN: You're welcome.

8 Q. Dr. Barr, could you summarise for the Trial Chamber now your

9 conclusions with respect to the handwriting comparisons concerning the

10 handwriting of Ljubislav Strbac?

11 A. Yes. As regards Mr. Strbac, for the logbook I found that there

12 were a number of entries that showed significant similarities to his

13 signature and handwriting such that there was conclusive evidence that he

14 had written them, and that was the entries for 29th of June, 1995, 17th of

15 July and 18th of July, 1995; 28th of July, 1995, and the 6th of August,

16 1995.

17 Similarly I was asked, regarding entries for July the 11th to the

18 21st in the IKM logbook, and again there were significant differences

19 between his writing and those four entries and there was conclusive

20 evidence that he had not produced any of the entries in that logbook.

21 For the notebook, I again found that there was conclusive evidence

22 that he hadn't produced the entries for June the 21st, June the 30th, or

23 July the 10th. For the entries for July the 12th to the 17th, I found

24 that there were significant similarities between entries on July the 17th

25 and his handwriting, and there was conclusive evidence that he'd produced

Page 13187

1 those entries, but also conclusive evidence that he hadn't produced any of

2 the other entries for the period July the 12th to the 17th.

3 Q. And finally, can you briefly summarise for us your findings from

4 your reports regarding the handwriting of Mr. Milorad Trbic?

5 A. As for Mr. Trbic, I found there were similarities and differences

6 between a group of entries in the notebook but that I was unable to assess

7 the significance of those similarities or differences and the result of my

8 conclusion was inconclusive, by which I mean that I can't determine

9 whether or not he produced those entries.

10 Q. And can you clarify a little bit for the Trial Chamber why -- what

11 were the difficulties? Why was it not possible to assess the

12 significance?

13 A. There were a number of difficulties. Primarily the specimen

14 writing I was provided with for Mr. Trbic was predominantly in the block

15 capital writing style, whereas most of the entries in the notebooks are in

16 a lowercase style and therefore there was an only limited comparison

17 possible between the two.

18 Q. And did you see the originals or photocopies of the totality of

19 the documents that you have been reviewing?

20 A. The vast majority of the documents I saw were the original

21 documents.

22 Q. And in conducting your examination as a forensic document

23 examiner, do you normally deal with originals?

24 A. We would always ask to see originals if originals exist because

25 you can get more detail of the writing from an original than from a copy.

Page 13188

1 Q. Now, Dr. Barr, could we go perhaps in a little bit more detail

2 through the methodology that you used in conducting your handwriting

3 comparison for this case? Just a general question first. Has your

4 analysis here for these two reports been consistent with the methodology

5 you would normally use to compare handwritings?

6 A. Entirely consistent.

7 Q. And what did you do in this case to address the problem of

8 comparing handwriting in an unknown language?

9 A. It was a mix, really, of doing some background reading on the

10 characters within the B/C/S language and also I had translations of some

11 of the entries and transliterations of other entries to ensure that I was

12 looking at the right characters within the words. In this case, it also

13 helped because there were a lot of writers, some of them, especially

14 Mr. Jokic, wrote in a scribbled manner, so sometimes it was difficult to

15 determine where one character finished and another ended. But equally,

16 there are other writers within the book who were producing very similar

17 entries, that were much more legible, and so I was able to work out what a

18 lot of the words were from cross-comparison between different entries.

19 Q. And you were therefore able to work out a range of variations for

20 each character?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And after concluding your analysis and comparing the two sets of

23 handwriting, did you then continue to follow the methodology concerning

24 quality control?

25 A. Yes.

Page 13189

1 Q. And the colleagues who checked your reports are persons who are

2 experienced in the methodology and in handwriting comparisons; correct?

3 A. Yes. More experienced than me.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Soljan and Dr. Barr, we're noticing that the --

5 some of the interpreters, especially in the B/C/S booth are really having

6 difficulties to try and chase -- to catch up with your speed so slow down

7 a little bit, allow short pauses.

8 MS. SOLJAN: My apologies to the interpreters.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

10 Q. Now, could I get the usher's assistance to place an exhibit on the

11 ELMO, please? It did not make it into the -- this would be P02850.

12 Dr. Barr, do you see -- if we could place both documents side by

13 side. It's not possible. Then I think ELMO is going to be preferable,

14 please.

15 Dr. Barr, if you could please describe for us what these documents

16 are and we may find a different, a better way to show the whole pages

17 shortly.

18 A. Yes. It was produced for the trial of Mr. Jokic, and it was

19 what -- basically a means of illustrating how I undertook the examination.

20 So on the left-hand side there are selected entries taken from the writing

21 that was in question, and on the right-hand side there are entries from

22 his specimen writing.

23 Q. And could you please explain to us some of the salient features

24 that you analysed for purposes of handwriting analysis? What I'd like you

25 to do first is maybe discuss your analysis leading to a conclusion that

Page 13190

1 the questioned document and the specimen document match. And I think a

2 good way to do it is if you could grab a red pen, which is right behind

3 the computer screen here and circle the portions or the letters that

4 you're analysing which you're saying to be -- yeah?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Dr. Barr, do you think zooming out would help us

6 understand better what process you're going to go through now?

7 THE WITNESS: I think as it's up on the computer screen, it would

8 be easy.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Because what we can see at least on the monitor --

10 yeah, okay. All right. I think we can work with that. Yeah, okay. Go

11 ahead.

12 MS. SOLJAN:

13 Q. So what I'd like you to do if you would, please, focus on the

14 individual points or letters that you're using as a part of your analysis,

15 circle those on each of the pages that you're looking at and maybe put a

16 number next to it once you've explained to us your analysis, please.

17 A. The purpose of this really is to sort of illustrate the type of

18 examination that -- that we would do. So it's a case, as I say, of

19 looking for similarities and differences within the writing and so some of

20 the similarities that are present between the specimen writing and the

21 questioned would be if you look at the Z of -- of Zvornik, if you mark

22 that one A probably because we've got 1 to 3, you can see that it's

23 written very similarly on the 2 in both specimen and the questioned, with

24 very obvious loops both at the top and the bottom.

25 Similarly, the "G" in the 2 is of the same -- same construction

Page 13191

1 between the 2, written similarly to a 6 with a loop to enable it -- be

2 coming out.

3 Other similar would be, in effect, the whole word on the 2. The

4 nice features of that are the angle, the very narrow "S", the way it joins

5 up to the top of the "T", the "T" to the "A" join, and the "J" within

6 that. And so on, across the two documents.

7 Q. Could you give us some examples of instances where letters or

8 features do not match?

9 A. Yep. Obviously there are -- the point of this is illustrating

10 both similarities and the differences. So, for example, the capital A in

11 the specimen tends to be written separate strokes, whereas in the

12 questioned it's written as one stroke, and then the additional stroke for

13 the crossbar.

14 There are also, in the questioned writing, the -- the I dots, so

15 for example, there are much more pronounced than they are in the

16 specimens.

17 So there are features that can't be matched between the two sets

18 of writings, which is why I came to the qualified opinion that there was

19 strong evidence that the two sets of writing were by one person.

20 Q. Now, when you -- when you do your analysis and you're looking and

21 comparing the ways in which the letters are written, the fluidity or the

22 fluency, the connectivity and so on, when would something be a significant

23 difference as opposed to just a difference that could be accidental?

24 A. Again, I would use my experience to interpret the significance of

25 those differences, but, for example, generally, for example, most people

Page 13192

1 do their -- the I form as a simple down stroke. Consequently it is very

2 easy for that to match simply by chance, whereas more complicated

3 structures it's less obvious that you would get chance matches.

4 Q. And if one person writes the same text on two different occasions,

5 would that text be identical or would the handwriting be identical?

6 A. No, it wouldn't.

7 Q. And why not?

8 A. Because nobody's able to reproduce their handwriting identically

9 from one occasion to another. Simply by a natural variation, there will

10 always be differences within the handwritings of one person.

11 MS. SOLJAN: Thank you very much. I have no more questions,

12 Your Honours.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Soljan. Who is going first?

14 Yes. We are going to save so she needs to date it and sign it.

15 MS. SOLJAN: If you could just sign and date it at the bottom of

16 the page?

17 JUDGE AGIUS: That can be saved as one document, Madam Registrar.

18 THE WITNESS: Sign and date it on the screen?

19 MS. SOLJAN: Yes.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: We were going to suggest, Mr. Ostojic, that we have

21 the break now instead of in 15 minutes' time. Right. It will help

22 everyone reorganise a little bit because I asked for all the documentation

23 and what I got was definitely not all the documentation. So we need a

24 break ourselves too.

25 So we'll have a 25-minute break, and we'll start after that.

Page 13193

1 --- Recess taken at 10.14 a.m.

2 --- On resuming at 10.45 a.m.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I understand you're going first, Mr. Ostojic.

4 MR. OSTOJIC: Yes, Mr. President. Thank you.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Could you introduce yourself to the witness, please.

6 MR. OSTOJIC: I will.

7 Cross-examination by Mr. Ostojic:

8 Q. Ma'am, my name is John Ostojic, I represent Ljubisa Beara. Good

9 morning.

10 MR. OSTOJIC: May I proceed, Your Honour?

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, go ahead.

12 MR. OSTOJIC:

13 Q. I'd like to first discuss your qualifications, if I may, with all

14 due respect. I note that your CV -- do you have a copy of your CV with

15 you here?

16 A. Not the most current one, no.

17 Q. Well, I have one of the old ones. You testified today under oath

18 on page 10, lines 24 and 25 that you received a Ph.D. in plant pathology;

19 is that correct?

20 A. That's correct.

21 Q. Why is that not reflected in your CV?

22 A. Is it not?

23 Q. Well, I didn't know it was going to be an issue, but I have your

24 CV with ERN number 06055075 through 06055077, which is three pages and it

25 doesn't reflect that you received a doctorate in plant pathology at all.

Page 13194

1 A. Then it's not something that's ever been an issue.

2 Q. Okay. Well, you'll agree with me that your qualifications are

3 important in order for someone to judge the amount of weight they should

4 give your testimony as a purported expert, would you not?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Now, why in your CV do you state that you received a doctorate or

7 Ph.D. in philosophy in 1993?

8 A. Because that's my qualification; it's a Ph.D. I've merely not

9 stated what subject it's in.

10 Q. Okay.

11 MR. OSTOJIC: Let me have, with the Court's permission, because I

12 didn't know it was going to be an issue until the witness testified, if

13 she can tender to the witness her curriculum vitae with the ERN numbers

14 and of course, show it to the Prosecution first.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: By all means, Mr. Ostojic. Same advisory as before.

16 We have again noticed that the B/C/S booth is having difficulties. You're

17 going a little bit too fast. So please allow a pause between question and

18 answer. This time it's more you than the witness actually.

19 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Your Honour, and I'll try to do that. So

20 if Madam Usher would please -- okay. We do have it in e-court. Thank

21 you. If we can enlarge it just briefly.

22 Q. Is that your CV, Ms. Barr?

23 A. It is, yes.

24 Q. And who prepared that CV for you?

25 A. I did.

Page 13195

1 Q. And when did you prepare it?

2 A. Some time this year.

3 Q. And can you show me where it says that you received a doctorate or

4 a Ph.D. in plant pathology?

5 A. The qualification is the doctor of philosophy. The subject matter

6 is what's missing from there, but it would be a Ph.D. in whatever subject.

7 Q. Is philosophy not a subject?

8 A. The doctorate is a doctorate of philosophy. That's what it's

9 called in the UK in whatever subject it's in.

10 Q. Is plant pathology a science or an art?

11 A. It's a science.

12 Q. And the reason you tell us now that you have plant pathology, is

13 it not, because in order to be considered qualified as a forensic document

14 examiner you must have at the very least some sort of degree in a

15 scientific field; isn't that correct?

16 A. That's correct, yes.

17 Q. And although your resume doesn't reflect it, you're saying that

18 your scientific field is plant pathology; correct?

19 A. Yes. Well, my original degree, although it states it's a master

20 of arts is actually in a science degree.

21 Q. And what degree was that?

22 A. Botany.

23 Q. Now, you discussed briefly today on page 11 of your transcript

24 other things that a forensic document examiner would do in the course of

25 their normal duties, such as counterfeit documents, typewriting and

Page 13196

1 printer evaluations, indented impressions and alterations of impressions

2 among other things; do you remember that?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, share with me, if you will, more what does it mean when you

5 say "an indented impression"?

6 A. When you write on a piece of paper you get indentations on the

7 sheets below and those are, obviously depending on how much pressure you

8 use to write, those impressions are normally visible on the sheet below

9 but will be present probably up to six sheets below the one that it's

10 actually written on.

11 Q. Could you determine as a document examiner, ma'am, whether an

12 addition was made on a certain page by looking at the indentations of that

13 particular piece of paper?

14 A. Possibly.

15 Q. Okay. But isn't that what indented impressions are, to determine

16 if it was an add-on or a late addition to a various document?

17 A. No, more to determine what was written on a page that was resting.

18 For example, if you have a notepad what was written on the sheet that's

19 missing.

20 Q. And how would you determine -- what sources or what tools would

21 you use to determine if something was an indented impression or not?

22 A. We would normally either use an oblique light source or a piece of

23 equipment called Electrostatic Detection Apparatus.

24 Q. And that's the ESDA?

25 A. It is, yes.

Page 13197

1 Q. The same question with the alterations of impressions, how would

2 you detect an alteration of an impression?

3 A. Normally by using specialised lighting equipment.

4 Q. And that's ultraviolet red lighting?

5 A. Yes, the ultraviolet light or infrared light and using different

6 filters to determine.

7 Q. This Electrostatic Detection Apparatus and the infrared video

8 equipment, that's something that's available in your company that you work

9 at today; correct?

10 A. Correct.

11 Q. And it had been available in your company from the time that

12 you've been there, correct?

13 A. Correct.

14 Q. Did you use any of those tools in order to make any assessment as

15 you reflected in your five reports that you shared with us this morning?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Did the Prosecutor at any time give you any intercept books to

18 determine whether there were any additions, deletions, modifications or

19 alterations of any intercept books or writers?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Do you or your company have an agreement with the Office of the

22 Prosecutor that Defence attorneys cannot utilise you without their

23 permission?

24 A. Not that I'm aware of.

25 Q. Are you aware of the department of forensic -- the Forensic

Page 13198

1 Examiners Institute with the Ministry of Justice here in the Netherlands?

2 Are you familiar with that institution?

3 A. I'm aware of the forensic institutes in the Netherlands.

4 Q. And do you know if they've worked for the Prosecutor from time to

5 time?

6 A. I don't know.

7 Q. Have you given any reports or offered any consultations with the

8 Prosecution on any other matters on any other matters other than these

9 five reports that you've generated --

10 A. No.

11 Q. -- that we've discussed today?

12 A. No.

13 Q. How would you as a forensic document examiner be able to determine

14 if there was an addition to a page by another person if they wanted to add

15 a name or add a section to a specific document? What's the methodology

16 that you would utilise?

17 A. If it was a reasonable amount of handwriting then from the

18 handwriting comparison. If it was, for example, just, say, a stroke

19 changing one character into another, then you could look at the

20 differences in inks.

21 Q. Did you utilise any ink comparisons or inter-comparisons of papers

22 or inks while you prepared any of these reports?

23 A. No.

24 Q. Why not?

25 A. Because it wasn't an issue.

Page 13199

1 Q. According to who?

2 A. I was asked to examine the handwriting and that's what I did.

3 Q. Well, did the Prosecutor orally or verbally advise you of what

4 your task was or was it reduced in writing?

5 A. It was initially in writing.

6 Q. Do you happen to have that initial correspondence?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. May I see it?

9 A. It's in my notes, which I would have to get.

10 Q. Okay.

11 MR. OSTOJIC: Well, maybe we can do that later with the Court's

12 permission or indulgence.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, perhaps we can go one step further. Are

14 your notes in The Hague or are they in London?

15 THE WITNESS: In The Hague.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Here in The Hague. Okay. Go ahead.

17 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

18 Q. Is there a way that a forensic document examiner can determine the

19 date or the age of a paper, a piece of paper?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Is there a way that a forensic document examiner can date an ink

22 block or splatter?

23 A. No.

24 Q. Can a forensic document examiner determine if there's a difference

25 in the ink that's utilised on a piece of paper?

Page 13200

1 A. If the inks are different, yes, providing they react differently

2 under different light sources, yes.

3 Q. Different not just by colour but also by the thickness of the pen,

4 for example, or the ink itself?

5 A. It would be the ink itself rather than the thickness.

6 Q. And what analysis, if any, did you in formulating your reports,

7 did you use to determine if the ink was different that was utilised in,

8 let's say, the duty officer - I want to get the right word here -

9 notebook? Which is I think 377, just for the record.

10 A. I didn't. I think there are from recollection different inks

11 being used in it.

12 Q. Do you know if there were different inks being used on the same

13 given day?

14 A. Off the top of my head, no.

15 Q. Do you know if there were -- you mentioned pencils in your direct

16 examination. Why didn't you evaluate who or how or when these pencil

17 entries were made for dates?

18 A. As to who, I was asked specifically -- the only specimen or

19 writing I had at that time was Mr. Jokic's writing, so I couldn't evaluate

20 who. As to when they were added, it's not possible to do that.

21 Q. Yes, but your first three reports were involving Mr. Jokic. Did

22 you not take a specimen or have a specimen to determine if he actually

23 made those entries?

24 A. I excluded them from that.

25 Q. Where is that in your report?

Page 13201

1 A. On page 8, I think, which is when I -- page 3 of my first report.

2 Q. Oh, the report dated the 16th of July, 2003?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Can you point it out to me, please?

5 A. Paragraph 5.3. It starts, "I have found similarities between the

6 specimen writing of Dragan Jokic and the following questioned entries for

7 0293-5744", it says excluding the pencil date and name.

8 Q. As well as 5745; correct?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. How about any other pencil dates? Did you examine those?

11 A. No.

12 Q. I note on 5753 that you only found his handwriting to be the first

13 four lines; correct?

14 A. Correct.

15 Q. Immediately underneath that there's another date. Do you know who

16 wrote that date?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Did you ever learn from the Prosecutor who wrote those dates in?

19 A. Only yesterday.

20 Q. Okay. And that was during what we call your proofing session?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And who advised you of that?

23 A. Mr. McCloskey.

24 Q. And what did Mr. McCloskey tell you?

25 A. He told me that those had been added after the book had been --

Page 13202

1 when it was being used, before somebody else had taken the book and added

2 entries to it.

3 Q. Did he tell you by whom?

4 A. No.

5 Q. Did he tell you there were any other changes or additions made to

6 the duty officer notebook?

7 A. No.

8 Q. Did you ask him?

9 A. No.

10 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters kindly ask the speakers to make

11 pauses and slow down. This is highly technical.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Did you hear that, Mr. Ostojic?

13 MR. OSTOJIC: I did, Your Honour, and I'm pausing. I apologise to

14 it the interpreters.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: And Dr. Barr.

16 MR. OSTOJIC:

17 Q. And just generally, and we'll get to some of the specifics later

18 today, you discussed briefly quality assurance this morning?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. In your report, it doesn't indicate who the person was that

21 purportedly reviewed your work; correct?

22 A. That's correct.

23 Q. Now would you agree with me that when we discuss quality assurance

24 that the best practice and the reasonable practice is to have an

25 independent person, forensic document examiner, review the work that you

Page 13203

1 have conducted; correct?

2 A. Independent, yes.

3 Q. Now, if you could tell me who the person was that reviewed your

4 work and that agreed with you on the work that you performed.

5 A. It was one of my colleagues.

6 Q. At the same company --

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. -- or a different company?

9 A. At the same company.

10 Q. Well, how independent is that?

11 A. As independent as it could be.

12 Q. How about this as an alternative, that you use some other

13 different forensic document examiner from a different company, in order to

14 evaluate your work. Wouldn't that be just as independent?

15 A. It would but it wouldn't be practical.

16 Q. And why is that?

17 A. Because it would take too long and nobody would be willing to

18 undertake it.

19 Q. With whom did you check when you made that determination?

20 A. It's not standard practice.

21 Q. Are you familiar that the Ministry of Justice here in the

22 Netherlands in their forensic department suggest that it should be done by

23 an independent forensic examiner?

24 A. No, I'm not aware.

25 Q. Are you aware of what the European standard is for quality

Page 13204

1 assurance and verifying whether a document examiner's report is actually

2 accurate in order to determine what weight, if any, to give them?

3 A. I'm not aware of the of details of it but I am aware that there is

4 a European standard and as far as I'm aware that is checking with another

5 document examiner, not necessarily one from another company.

6 Q. Who -- but an independent nonetheless; correct?

7 A. A different document examiner.

8 Q. Doesn't have to be independent?

9 A. It depends what you mean by independent.

10 Q. I'm just using your word. You have said it's --

11 A. Independent of me.

12 THE INTERPRETER: Please slow down for the interpretation.

13 MR. OSTOJIC:

14 Q. Can you describe for me, ma'am, what's the difference between peer

15 review checking of each case, and quality assurance by an independent

16 examiner of each case? Would you draw a distinction between the two?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Now, in any of the five reports did you utilise any tools such as

19 those that we've discussed, the infrared video equipment or the ESDA,

20 which is the Electrostatic - is that right, static - Detection Apparatus?

21 A. No, I didn't.

22 Q. Who was the person who did your peer review checking of your five

23 reports here?

24 A. There was actually a mix. One was my -- originally my colleague,

25 Dr. Baxendale for the first three reports, and then my colleague

Page 13205

1 Mr. Coslett did it for the -- the two later ones.

2 Q. I'm sorry, the transcript didn't quite catch their names. If you

3 could just maybe spell them for us, if that wouldn't trouble you too much?

4 A. The first one is Baxendale, which is B-a-x-e-n-d-a-l-e, and

5 Coslett, which is C-o-s-s-l-e-t-t.

6 Q. Thank you. Did they generate a report as well?

7 A. No.

8 Q. Why wouldn't they?

9 A. Again it's not standard practice to do that.

10 Q. Do you have any evidence in your file that you have here in

11 The Hague that they actually conducted this peer review checking or

12 analysis on each of the reports that you generated?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Can you share with us and we're hopefully getting that, with the

15 Court's permission of course, not to be presumptuous, what's contained

16 within your binder or file that you brought with you here today?

17 A. My notes.

18 Q. Your handwritten notes?

19 A. Handwritten notes.

20 Q. And what do they consist of?

21 A. My handwritten notes, my analysis of the work, my tick sheets.

22 Q. So it includes, not only your tick sheet, but the number of

23 documents that you may have reviewed. It includes the specimens that you

24 may have drawn out from those documents in order to make your comparative

25 it analysis between the similarities and the differences from the various

Page 13206

1 letters, if you will, that you analysed; correct?

2 A. Correct.

3 Q. Now, do you have a chart or do you remember if you drew a chart to

4 determine how many similarities versus how many differences you noted in

5 your analysis of any one of these reports?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Does that exist in your folder?

8 A. No.

9 Q. As you sit here, do you know how many you used on the first report

10 generated on the 16th of July, 2003, with Mr. Jokic?

11 A. How many similarities?

12 Q. Yes.

13 A. No, but then it's not done on a number basis.

14 Q. What's it's done on?

15 A. My evaluation of the significance of the similarities and the

16 differences.

17 Q. And that's contained in your notes as well; correct?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. How many differences did you detect?

20 A. Same point.

21 Q. Same answer?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. We'll be looking forward to getting ahead today to discuss it.

24 Looking at your July 16th, 2003 report, I have a couple of specific

25 questions if you don't mind. And if I could direct your attention to page

Page 13207

1 3, paragraph 5.4. We're going to focus on the next page, which is page 4,

2 although I think you need in order to keep it in proper context read the

3 prior page, to yourself, of course. Whenever you're ready?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. I'd like to focus on the last five or so words of page 3 and going

6 forward to page 4 without taking it out of context. You discuss in that

7 paragraph the factors that have restricted your comparisons to some

8 extent, and then you talk about there are some features of the questioned

9 writing that cannot be matched in the specimen.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Okay. Which features were those?

12 A. Predominantly, as I showed on the chart, there were differences

13 in, for example, the capital As, which were more split up in the

14 questioned than in the specimen. And also, the "I" dots were much more

15 pronounced.

16 Q. And what do you call that as a documents examiner, diacritic? Is

17 that what it is?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And what does that mean?

20 A. It means an "I" dot.

21 Q. And in fact, just so that I understand it better, is that the

22 letter or small letter "I", some people merely impress the pen to create

23 what's called the dot and some create what's known as a circle or

24 diacritic over the small letter "I"; correct?

25 A. I think if a dot, it would still be a diacritic, but some people

Page 13208

1 do small dots, some people do more obviously circles.

2 Q. Now, how many samples, specimen samples, from Mr. Jokic did you

3 use in order to evaluate whether this difference in A or this diacritic

4 with the circle over the "I" was found?

5 A. I used his personal information form and also some pages from --

6 which I originally described as the operational diary, which I had been

7 told were his specimen writing.

8 Q. Do you have any doubt about that?

9 A. Only that I think it's actually the official notebook judging by

10 the IRN numbers.

11 Q. Well, the ERN numbers --

12 A. ERN, right.

13 Q. That's okay. I'm confused a little bit about your answer.

14 A. Sorry.

15 Q. Maybe because I just don't understand it. That's okay I'll try to

16 maybe -- or you can help me understand it. You have the official notebook

17 which has the 10 pages of ERN numbers that you highlight in most, if not

18 all of your reports, that start with the number 0293-5743, and they

19 conclude at 0293-5753; correct?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Why were you limited in evaluating merely those 10 pages of the

22 notebook?

23 A. That's what I was asked to look at.

24 Q. Do you know why?

25 A. No.

Page 13209

1 Q. Do you know if you ever received a sample specimen from Mr. Jokic

2 where he specifically at the request of the Prosecution handwrote out, I

3 believe verbatim, those 10 pages?

4 A. I did, yes.

5 Q. Okay. So you took a specific specimen sample and compared it to

6 the same 10 pages that we call the questioned sampling, if you will?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And when was that done?

9 A. That was done and is detailed in my third report. So it will be

10 January 2004.

11 Q. So, let's take that one which was his personal sampling of all 10

12 of the ERN numbers that you were asked to evaluate and you started to tell

13 me, and I apologise if I interrupted you, that you also had some

14 independent sampling from Mr. Jokic which was such as an application you

15 were starting to say or --

16 A. I had his personal information form.

17 Q. Okay. And what other documents did you have?

18 A. I had pages from the IKM logbook.

19 Q. And anything else?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Now, did you at any time --

22 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, Mr. Ostojic.

23 In total how many specimens, signatures and handwriting, let's

24 keep them separately, of Dragan -- of Jokic did you have available for

25 comparison purposes?

Page 13210

1 THE WITNESS: I had no signatures. I had his personal information

2 form. I had three entries from the IKM logbook, and I had the sample

3 writing that he provided on request.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: And according to acknowledged, accepted practices in

5 your field of expertise, would such an amount of samples, specimens, be

6 sufficient for comparative purposes or -- or would you normally require

7 much more?

8 THE WITNESS: It's difficult to give a definitive answer because a

9 lot of that will depend on, for example, how distinctive the handwriting

10 is and whether you get all the characters in the specimen writing that

11 occur in the questions. In general, it would be sufficient. The problem

12 was that the sample handwriting that he produced on request, while it was,

13 as far as I recall, a writing out of what was the questioned writing, it

14 was obviously produced in 2004, so was post-dated quite considerably the

15 actual questioned writing. So obviously that has to be taken into

16 account.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated] The other question I had

18 for you but more or less you have dealt with it. Back to you Mr. Ostojic.

19 MR. OSTOJIC:

20 Q. Let's take the converse of that last statement --

21 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

22 MR. OSTOJIC:

23 Q. Sorry, I can never get it right. Let's take the converse of your

24 statement just now. Because it happened so long ago, isn't it true that

25 just by that very fact, that the likelihood that you were able to find any

Page 13211

1 similarities would have decreased?

2 A. No, because generally once you reach mature adulthood, your

3 writing will stay reasonably constant over a long period of time.

4 Q. And you didn't find that as any impediment or a problem to compare

5 it, even though it was eight or so years later compared to the actual

6 notebook that you reviewed?

7 A. The problem is it's taken in context with the other writing as

8 well.

9 Q. Who -- did you recommend to the Prosecution that they request that

10 Mr. Jokic give a sampling of those 10 pages verbatim?

11 A. I can't remember whether I requested it or if it came up in

12 discussions.

13 Q. Now, what other features in the questioned writings could not be

14 matched? We covered of them, I think the letter "A" you said, and then

15 also the diacritic or the circle over the small "I." What other --

16 A. Those were the only two that were clear, not -- things that you

17 couldn't match at all.

18 Q. So in fact -- just so that I'm clear, those aren't just features

19 that you found differences in, those are absolutely no match; correct?

20 A. The diacritic was, yes. The match within the block capitals was

21 closer in the sample handwriting than it had been in the writing that I

22 took from the IKM logbook.

23 Q. Now, if I could just direct your attention to the same report

24 which is 16th of July, 2003, the last paragraph, paragraph 5.4 on page 4,

25 I have a couple of questions about that. You start by saying: "I would

Page 13212

1 add that because of the nature of the entries, and I just want to break it

2 down; although, I don't want you to be misled, obviously you continue in

3 your paragraph. What about the nature of the entries were you concerned

4 about when you generated this report?

5 A. That -- from looking at the book, the writing appears to be lots

6 of the short entries rather than -- although it covers a number of pages,

7 it doesn't look as though it's written all at one time period straight

8 after the other.

9 Q. Okay. So in fact, as you suggest in your report, the writings may

10 have been added at a later date; correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Well, what analysis, if any, did you do in order to determine

13 whether or not any of the writings may have been added at a later date?

14 A. It was more that things have been overwritten. If things have

15 been overwritten since you can't date inks you can't tell at what date

16 they've been added.

17 Q. So you've done no analysis whatsoever; correct?

18 A. No. Correct.

19 Q. Now, continuing on paragraph 5.4 of your report, you say something

20 that I find at least personally curious. You state that if any small

21 amount of writing was taken in isolation, then the strength of the

22 evidence linking to Drago Nikolic would necessarily be reduced. What does

23 that mean?

24 A. To be able to do a handwriting comparison, you need to have enough

25 writing to be able to reach a conclusion. For example, if I only had one

Page 13213

1 character, then I wouldn't be able to reach a conclusion.

2 Q. I read this a little differently, with all due respect, and maybe

3 we can -- you could help me probably that I was inaccurate but we'll see.

4 When you say if any amount of writing was taken in isolation, would that

5 mean, perhaps, that if we took only the absolute differences that you

6 denote that's in the letter "A" and in the diacritic and if we were --

7 just to compare those two points, you would find that taking that in

8 isolation would decrease the strength of evidence linking it to

9 Dragan Jokic, would it not?

10 A. It would, but that would be only if you took, for example, the "I"

11 on its own out of context and out of the other characters within the word.

12 Q. You mentioned today in your direct examination that on page 28,

13 line 19, that Jokic wrote in a scribbled manner. I don't think you have

14 it.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. That was just for the Prosecution.

17 A. Yes, all right.

18 Q. That's okay. That he wrote in a scribbled manner. Do you

19 remember that?

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. What does that mean?

22 A. As I said in my examination, people write differently on different

23 occasions, so I had entries that were in the notebook and I had entries

24 that were in the IKM logbook. The ones in the IKM logbook looked neater.

25 They were more clearly formed characters. The ones that were questioned

Page 13214

1 looked in essence like they're scribbled in the same way that when you

2 fill in a form that you know somebody else has got to read and is

3 important to you, you write slowly and neatly. When you're just making

4 notes for yourself then you tend to write faster, especially if you're

5 getting other information.

6 Q. What are the other characteristics of writing other than being

7 neat or scribbled. There's block writing; right?

8 A. Yes. There's block writing and lowercase writing.

9 Q. What else?

10 A. I'm not quite sure I understand.

11 Q. Well, let's talk about each of those. You considered Mr. Jokic to

12 have scribbled writing as opposed to neat writing; correct?

13 A. Scribbled writing within the notebook. It was more scribbled, but

14 he has neat writing as well.

15 Q. In the IKM book?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. But within the notebook itself during -- or based upon those 10

18 pages that you evaluated, you found that his writing was scribbled as

19 opposed to neat; correct?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And would you find his writing to be in lowercase or in block

22 form?

23 A. A mix of both.

24 Q. Okay. And how -- did you do a comparison as to how many were in

25 block form versus how many were in --

Page 13215

1 A. No.

2 Q. -- small? Why not?

3 A. Because you can't compare -- well, if you're talking about numbers

4 how many were in block and how much there -- I don't know. If you're

5 talking to did I compare the block with the lowercase, you can't compare

6 block with lowercase.

7 Q. Why not?

8 A. Because they're different forms of the same character.

9 Q. And -- pardon me.

10 MR. OSTOJIC: Your Honour, just for the record, I misspoke on page

11 52, line 17, and I apologise to Mr. Nikolic. And just so that I think

12 it's clear that I'm referencing Dragan Jokic and it says Nikolic on the

13 record, and I apologise to counsel and to their client.

14 Q. We were talking about Dragan Jokic at that time, and we're still

15 talking about Dragan Jokic?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Okay. Now, what I'd like to do is to go through some of your

18 analysis, or actually I want to talk about your range of opinions first;

19 I'm sorry. Do you know if these are the seven standard range of opinions

20 that the European and other industrialised countries use for their

21 document -- forensic document examiners?

22 A. I would imagine probably not. They're not even the standard

23 within the UK.

24 Q. And who came up with these range of opinions?

25 A. The organisation I work for.

Page 13216

1 Q. The company that you work for; correct?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And why are they different from other companies and other

4 countries or other standards that people see from time to time?

5 A. They're different simply in the wording of them and some other

6 organisations maybe have more conclusion scales. The use of a verbal

7 scale starting with conclusive and inconclusive in the middle is standard.

8 Q. And then if inconclusive is in the middle, what's below that?

9 A. It's a mirror image.

10 Q. Right.

11 A. So you have the positive when you're saying somebody wrote it, and

12 you're having the negative.

13 Q. If we were to discuss these range of opinions, in my view based on

14 how the forensic institute here in the Netherlands does it with the

15 Ministry of Justice, would you use at any point the word certainty?

16 A. I would say conclusive evidence, yes.

17 Q. And what would you say for inconclusive?

18 A. I would say I couldn't say one way or the other.

19 Q. Now, I'd like to show you if I may the notebook which is 377. And

20 my learned friend has the original and that might be helpful for Ms. Barr

21 if she needs it. And I --

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Is it available here?

23 MR. OSTOJIC: Yes.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.

25 MR. OSTOJIC: And if we could put it on the ELMO or if the Court

Page 13217

1 wishes we can place the page which is ERN number 0293-5752 on e-court.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. McCloskey, I just want -- I don't want to have

3 any tragedies happening. Is this the book which had one or two pages? I

4 think that had a brown -- brown cover. I don't think it's this one.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: No, this isn't that the one that had the page

6 about to fall out. That was the IKM book.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. So still handle it with extreme

8 care, because these documents are very fragile having gone through a war.

9 MR. OSTOJIC:

10 Q. Ms. Barr if you don't mind can we place that with the Court's

11 permission on the ELMO so that we can see the original together?

12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

13 MR. OSTOJIC: With the Court's permission if we could place the

14 original on the ELMO.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: By all means.

16 MR. OSTOJIC:

17 Q. Now, if you look at this document and you're welcome to look to

18 your right, you can turn your chair or whatever, the bottom portion is

19 obviously written in what kind of script?

20 A. The page on the left?

21 Q. 027935752, the page on the left, correct.

22 A. It's written in lowercase writing.

23 Q. And is it done in print form or is it a different form?

24 A. I would say it's in cursive handwriting.

25 Q. And where does it start, if you will, to become a cursive in

Page 13218

1 lowercase?

2 A. After the words, "126 Pozedina".

3 Q. Now, if we focus on the top portion you would agree with me that

4 that's written in what type of -- is it cursive or how?

5 A. The writing above the number?

6 Q. Right.

7 A. Again, it has obviously block capital writing and lowercase

8 writing that is more script.

9 Q. Do you know why there's a distinction or a difference there?

10 A. No.

11 Q. Did you find that by way of an example anywhere else in the pages

12 or books including notebook, logbook, and IKM that you reviewed?

13 A. Did I find what, sorry?

14 Q. An inconsistency of purportedly the same writer having written on

15 the same page differently?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Where?

18 A. There are other ones within here, where he writes. In essence

19 that was my point about the entries made at different times, because

20 you've got the different styles of writing.

21 Q. But do you notice, ma'am, in the top portion of that document that

22 there is this diacritic over the letter I that you're never able to match

23 with any other writing from Mr. Jokic; correct?

24 A. Correct.

25 Q. But don't you see a diacritic over another letter there?

Page 13219

1 A. The "J".

2 Q. The "J". Now, did you see that there's a similarity or a

3 difference in that letter as well?

4 A. To each other or to Mr. Jokic's writing?

5 Q. Well, obviously to Mr. Jokic's writing.

6 A. Again, it's a diacritic.

7 Q. Well, what I'm looking for is to get your entire opinion, and I

8 thought I understood it, and you said that the differences that you found

9 that you were unable to match were limited to two, the "A" and also the

10 diacritic over the letter "I"; correct?

11 A. I possibly misled you. I think I said in my original report the

12 diacritic for which I would be meaning over other characters as well.

13 Q. Well, how many other characters would the diacritic appear on?

14 A. The "J" and the "I", plus there are also other marks on there.

15 For example --

16 Q. You're flipping the pages so we can keep up?

17 A. Sorry.

18 Q. That's okay.

19 A. For example, on the line below, five points out there are -- there

20 are additional marks, for example, there that occur throughout this

21 writing that don't occur in the specimen writing.

22 Q. And thank you for that. And what other differences do you note?

23 A. Those were the differences.

24 Q. Was the writing above the 126 in the same ink pen as the writing

25 below the 126?

Page 13220

1 A. I didn't do an examination. There's nothing to indicate it's not,

2 there.

3 Q. Do you think it would be beneficial or helpful given that there's

4 differences - one's cursive, one's not; one is in black letters, the other

5 part is not - to do such an evaluation.

6 A. No, because it still fits in within the entirety of the writing

7 that I'm looking at within there.

8 Q. How long would it have taken you to do such an analysis or

9 evaluation, if I may ask?

10 A. The actual analysis itself of -- of that one entry would not have

11 taken very long, but then I would have had to do it for every single entry

12 within that, which would have taken -- well, then -- then you get to the

13 point of at what point do I stop doing it? So if I had to do it for every

14 single word to indicate that it was the same pen, then I have no idea how

15 long that would take.

16 Q. Did you evaluate the letter "B", for example, with respect to

17 Mr. Jokic's handwriting?

18 A. I would imagine so, yes.

19 Q. Okay. And what were your conclusions?

20 A. Without my notes, I couldn't tell you.

21 Q. Do you know if, as we're looking on this exhibit here of

22 0293-5752, do you see the way in the first line how the letter "B" is

23 written?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Did you find that letter "B" written as it's written there in any

Page 13221

1 of Mr. Jokic's sampling -- sampler documents such as that which he

2 provided you where he copied verbatim these 10 pages that you analysed or

3 any of his application or other forms that you may have reviewed?

4 A. I honestly don't know without recourse to my notes.

5 Q. Well, that -- can you look here if he wrote anywhere another

6 letter "B" on the page before, maybe if we take a look at 0293-5751? On

7 that in the middle of the page the "B" is written almost, although I'm not

8 a document handwriting examiner, it looks similar right in the middle of

9 the page, does it not, where it says 155?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Now, right below that there's another word that's written,

12 "Badem". Do you think that that's the same "B" or you can't really tell

13 right here on the spot in court?

14 A. It looks similar.

15 Q. Okay. What would you do to evaluate those two Bs? What's the

16 methodology that you would utilise?

17 A. I would look to see that they're the same construction and roughly

18 the same proportions.

19 Q. How would you go about doing it?

20 A. Using a microscope or in that case -- yeah, using a hand lens.

21 Q. But is it safe to say, ma'am, that in your notes that are -- not

22 your office but the Office of the Prosecution somewhere, that you have

23 this analysis with respect to the letter "B" as well; correct?

24 A. I would imagine so, yes.

25 Q. Going back to 0293-5752. Sorry. Do you -- can you tell by

Page 13222

1 looking at this without the use of the electrostatic apparatus that you

2 talks about and the ultra-red video equipment, can you see if this was

3 written after or before the material that's provided below it?

4 A. Neither of those two bits of equipment would allow you to do that.

5 Q. What equipment would?

6 A. There is no equipment that would.

7 Q. What about the indent impressions that you talked about? Wouldn't

8 you be able to analyse the original document and detect by looking at how

9 it was indented on the previous, prior pages whether or not it was a late

10 add-on or an addition at some time later?

11 A. It's a possibility dependent on whether -- how many intersections

12 you would get between the -- that writing and the writing underneath.

13 Q. Did you perform any such analysis or evaluation?

14 A. No.

15 Q. Why not?

16 A. Again, I wasn't asked to, and it wouldn't be standard practice.

17 Q. But given that you knew that the dates were written in by someone

18 other than Mr. Jokic, did that raise your level of suspicion that there

19 were perhaps other additions or add-ons made to these 10 entries that you

20 evaluated in the notebook?

21 A. That raised my suspicions because of the handwriting. In this

22 case the handwriting didn't appear to be by somebody else. Therefore, no,

23 it didn't.

24 Q. Now, if we look at the page to the right of this page which has

25 the ERN number 0293-5753; do you have that?

Page 13223

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Would you be kind enough just to move it over to your left so we

3 could --

4 A. Sorry.

5 Q. Sorry. Now, according to your report of the 16th of July, 2003,

6 the first four lines of this page you attribute to Mr. Jokic. The balance

7 or the rest of this page starting with the date and everything below the

8 date you do not attribute to him; correct?

9 A. Correct.

10 Q. You seem to be hesitating.

11 A. Only because I was told to go up to that date.

12 Q. And why is that?

13 A. Those were my instructions.

14 Q. But did you ask for any reasons or the basis for those

15 instructions?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Now, I'd like to just ask a couple of questions on your other

18 report that I found interesting. Just bear with me so I can find it.

19 Do you remember if the letter "H" was not a match in your

20 comparisons of Mr. Jokic's writing?

21 A. I don't remember.

22 Q. Okay. Well, how about we turn to the August 22nd, '03 report.

23 I'm sorry.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. I should direct your attention to page 2, and that would be

Page 13224

1 paragraph 4 of that report. Do you see that?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Did you find that the "H" was not well matched as well?

4 A. I clearly found that it was not so well matched as some of the

5 other characters.

6 Q. But you would agree with me and I think I've read some of your

7 articles actually, you always say that the "H" is not well matched, don't

8 you? I mean, even in your article you find that as a common non-match, if

9 you will.

10 A. Not that I'm aware of.

11 Q. We'll get to your article in a little bit. Let's stay with this

12 paragraph 4. And you state there that there are a few characters that are

13 not so well matched. For example, the "A", the "H", and the relative

14 proportion of dots with circular diacritics. Do you see that?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. You only give two examples there, but I'd like to know what other

17 characters are not so well matched.

18 A. Again, off the top of my head I couldn't tell you.

19 Q. But it's in your folder and file; correct?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Okay. We'll get through some of it and then if the Court permits

22 we'll take a look at your folder to get your complete testimony here.

23 A. You continue on page 2 of this report of the 22nd of August, 2003,

24 paragraph 4, to state the following: "In general, there are more

25 diacritics in the questioned writings than in the specimen writings."

Page 13225

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Okay. That's not true, is it?

3 A. In what way?

4 Q. Well, because there are not more diacritics, there are no

5 diacritics in the specimen writing and that the only diacritics you found

6 were in the questioned writing. So you seem to give us a kind of relative

7 opinion there, but in fact as you earlier testified, in none of

8 Mr. Jokic's documents or samplings, if you will, that you reviewed did you

9 find a diacritic; correct?

10 A. I didn't find the circular -- the large circular dot over the "I"

11 but there were still additional marks to the characters.

12 Q. I thought when we talked about diacritics that you said that's

13 what it was, that it was the "I" --

14 A. Sorry.

15 Q. I mean the circle over the "I" and then we added the "J" for

16 practical purposes, and I just want to focus on that and your testimony

17 earlier today. Is this statement that in general there are more

18 diacritics in the questioned writing than in the specimen writings?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Where in the specimen writing did you find a diacritic which was

21 above the "I" or above the "J"?

22 A. I was talking -- sorry, I may have misled you. For example, the

23 additional what I would call accents that I pointed out on the "B".

24 Q. Do you consider an accent to be a diacritic?

25 A. The diacritic is a mark above a letter. That's the term -- that's

Page 13226

1 the way I was using it.

2 Q. But I'm still correct, though, that if we -- let me just rephrase

3 that. Sorry. Nowhere in Mr. Jokic's sampling did you find a diacritic of

4 a circle over the letter "I" or the letter "J"; correct?

5 A. Again, I would have to refer to my notes to say nowhere.

6 Q. Okay. Let's go to your next report. I have a couple questions on

7 that. And that's the report of the 27th of January, 2004; correct?

8 A. Correct.

9 Q. Just so we're on the same page. I get the impression when I read

10 your three reports, ma'am, that you were asked by the Prosecution to

11 elevate or to try to see if you can elevate your opinion from second to

12 the top to the top. Would you agree with me on that? And that's why they

13 asked you to look further into other documents and to examine other

14 samplings and to give additional opinion, and you, as the professional as

15 you are, refused and stuck with your opinion that that which was -- which

16 it was, which was the second level as opposed to the top tier of your

17 reasoned opinions; correct?

18 A. I can't express an opinion on what their desire was.

19 Q. Well, why didn't they, if you know, ask you to do further reports

20 on the other three individuals whose handwriting you evaluated?

21 A. I don't know.

22 Q. Now, looking at this 27th of January, 2000, report, I have a

23 couple of questions and if I can direct your attention to page 2, and

24 again it's paragraph 2.4. I'm sorry.

25 The first sentence there you say: "There are some features of

Page 13227

1 the --" and I'm just leading you to it. I think you can see it. I'm not

2 trying to take it out of context, but you talk about similarities and then

3 you talk about differences. You say there are some features of the

4 questioned writings that cannot be matched in the specimens. Do you see

5 that?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. What are those?

8 A. Again, I go on to clarify that in my second -- in the sentence

9 that follows.

10 Q. Yeah, but do you really clarify it or do you just regurgitate or

11 restate what you said in your article, in your prior reports?

12 A. In that sentence I'm merely repeating what I said in my prior

13 report, to put into context, put it into context.

14 Q. Now, if I can direct your attention to the next paragraph which is

15 2.5 of page 2 of your 27th January 2004 report. You talk about the

16 additional handwriting sample that you received. Can you tell me what

17 that was?

18 A. That was what we referred to before, the sample handwriting that

19 was produced by Mr. Jokic on request.

20 Q. And that was where he actually reproduced all 10 pages of the

21 notebook in which you were evaluating; correct?

22 A. That's correct.

23 Q. The second sentence there you state that "there remained some

24 features that differ between the specimen and the questioned writing." Do

25 you see that?

Page 13228

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Third line and fourth line of paragraph 2.5. What are those

3 differences?

4 A. Again, it's the additional marks to the characters.

5 Q. The diacritics?

6 A. The diacritics, yeah.

7 Q. You don't want to call them that any more?

8 A. No.

9 Q. How about the accents?

10 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel and witness please make pauses

11 between question and answer.

12 MR. OSTOJIC: I did hear it. Thank you. I apologise, Your

13 Honour.

14 Q. Now, what is -- you talked a little bit about fluency in your

15 direct examination, and what is rarity? Do you know what rarity is?

16 A. No.

17 Q. A criteria known as a rarity value?

18 A. It's not a phrase that I've heard.

19 Q. Did you -- what would you call it, a valuation? How often a

20 letter or word comes up, did you do any evaluation based on that?

21 A. How often the letter comes up or how often the construction of

22 that letter comes up?

23 Q. Probably the latter.

24 A. So an evaluation, yes.

25 Q. Now, did you -- and in your notes do you reflect the number of

Page 13229

1 times certain letters appeared and how you evaluated them, from this 10

2 pages of the notebook?

3 A. I would reflect the different constructions of the characters,

4 yes.

5 Q. And would you look at the quality of those characters?

6 A. What do you mean by "quality"?

7 Q. Well, if they were written with a more depressed manner as opposed

8 to a light writing?

9 A. That would be part of the fluency.

10 Q. Okay. So what is the criteria other than fluency, if you're not

11 familiar with the rarity value? What is the criteria that you would

12 utilise in addition to fluency to make your evaluation?

13 A. To make my evaluation of what?

14 Q. Of the task that you were given to determine whether a

15 handwriting -- questioned handwriting sample is that of a specific

16 individual or not.

17 A. I would determine the construction of the characters, how they've

18 been constructed by the pen movement and then additional features like the

19 fluency, the slant, how they connect from one to the other.

20 Q. Anything else?

21 A. Those would be the main ones.

22 Q. Now, isn't all this that you talked about construction, pen

23 movement, I think you mentioned basically the same, fluidity, the slant,

24 et cetera, isn't that all that goes into your initial step, which we

25 identify generally as the analysis of the handwriting specimen?

Page 13230

1 A. Correct, yes.

2 Q. Was there another step process that you would do which is

3 comparison of the observed handwriting characteristics?

4 A. You would do the same -- the same bit that you just described for

5 both sets of handwriting.

6 Q. And then is there another step after that?

7 A. Then you would determine whether you considered that they were

8 similar or different.

9 Q. Which is normally in your profession called the assessment of the

10 similarities and differences; right?

11 A. That's one way of describing it.

12 Q. Okay. And how would you describe it?

13 A. That's what I do.

14 Q. Okay. That's fair enough. And then do you also in your notebook

15 have that as one of your tick sheets or in your notes that you actually

16 analysed and made an assessment of the similarities and difference and

17 that you actually observed or considered the comparisons of the

18 handwriting characters? Is that broken down in your notes?

19 A. To some extent.

20 Q. And then finally I think in your process, the fourth step would be

21 drawing a conclusion; correct?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. Okay. Now, talking or getting back a little bit about this

24 independent quality assurance or review, what material would these two

25 individuals, although separate, looking at different reports, did they

Page 13231

1 look at when they gave their peer review for your reports?

2 A. The same documents that I looked at.

3 Q. Did they look at your notes?

4 A. I would imagine --

5 THE INTERPRETER: The counsel and the witness will have to make

6 pauses between question and answer.

7 MR. OSTOJIC: I know. And I apologise again, Your Honour. I will

8 really make an effort to go slower.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Please appreciate that --

10 MR. OSTOJIC: I do.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: -- everybody's job in this courtroom is difficult

12 but that of interpreters is particularly difficult. So please show some

13 understanding.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE AGIUS: We have used this before. Perhaps this applies to

16 both of you, Dr. Barr and Mr. Ostojic, wait until you see the scrolling of

17 the transcript finished before you put your question or give your answer.

18 I think that usually helps a lot. Thank you.

19 MR. OSTOJIC: If I may proceed, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. By all means, slowly.

21 MR. OSTOJIC: Of course.

22 Q. I started to ask you, ma'am, if they looked, meaning the peer

23 review persons that you identified whether they looked at your notes and

24 you were starting to give us an answer.

25 A. They would have my notes, yes.

Page 13232

1 Q. What else, if anything, would they have other than your notes?

2 A. They would have my notes and the writing that I'd looked at.

3 Q. Anything else?

4 A. Not that I'm aware of.

5 Q. Well, what about your report? Do you think they would need that

6 if they would have to evaluate whether or not what you're purporting to be

7 an opinion, whether that would be something that they can rely on and

8 accept?

9 A. Sorry, I misunderstood. I was taking -- yes, obviously they would

10 have my report. I was taking that as being part of my notes.

11 Q. Anything else? You might have to answer out loud for the record?

12 A. Sorry. Not that I'm aware of.

13 Q. Would they share their opinion with you in writing or verbally?

14 A. A mix of both.

15 Q. Do you have their written evaluation or assessment of your

16 analysis for Mr. Jokic?

17 A. If they wrote something down I would have it.

18 Q. And it would be in your file?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. We're still going too fast, I think. I'd like to direct your

21 attention back to the 16th of July, 2003 report, page 4, if you will. And

22 let me know when you ...

23 And I know we covered it a little bit. I'm just not sure if I

24 understand that paragraph in full. And just if I may read it because I'm

25 not sure if everyone has it, with the Court's permission. 5.4 states as

Page 13233

1 follows: "I would add that because of the nature of the entries, to which

2 writings may have been added at a later date, if any small amount of

3 writing was taken in isolation then the strength of evidence linking it to

4 Dragan Jokic would, necessarily, be reduced."

5 And I don't want to repeat the same question, ma'am, but I still

6 don't understand what that paragraph means. What's it supposed to be

7 telling us?

8 A. It's supposed to be saying -- if I could use the book it would be

9 easier to demonstrate rather than say in words.

10 Q. It's not my book and the Court has suggested that we just be very

11 careful because it's an original, so I don't know what you're going to do.

12 A. Just to have it up on the screen.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't take what Dr. Barr has just stated to be

14 that she would be marking the book. She will just be using the book to

15 indicate what she needs to tell us.

16 MR. OSTOJIC: If the Court permits, that's fine.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: I think we can proceed.

18 THE WITNESS: That's fine. I think what I was trying to explain

19 was that for example here we have an entry here, an entry here, and an

20 entry here. It looks to be the same handwriting, and it looks to be the

21 same ink, but I can't say whether they were done at one time or on three

22 separate occasions and what time differences. So what I was trying to say

23 was if, for example, you just took that line, then obviously there are

24 only eight or nine characters in there, and therefore there is much less

25 writing available for comparison than if you look at the writing in its

Page 13234

1 totality.

2 MR. OSTOJIC:

3 Q. Okay. I'll review that and see if I understand it somewhat

4 better. Did you ever conduct any microcharacteristics analysis of the

5 writings in this notebook by Mr. Jokic?

6 A. Again, could you clarify what you mean by "microcharacteristic

7 analysis".

8 Q. Well, you just now seem to evaluate and give an opinion and within

9 seconds you felt that it was the same ink and the same writing. Do you

10 agree with me that that analysis that you just offered is really woefully

11 inadequate without using, at the very least, a microscope in order to

12 determine whether or not the characteristics or the characters of various

13 letters would or would not be considered a match?

14 A. Yes. I was using that for illustrative purposes.

15 Q. Okay. I just didn't want --

16 A. Yeah.

17 Q. -- anybody to misunderstand?

18 A. No.

19 Q. I think I understood you. Thank you. Now, you discussed briefly

20 a range of variation in your direct examination. Could you share with me

21 what was the range of variation in Mr. Jokic's writing from the questioned

22 documents and the specimen document or writings?

23 A. It would be the range of variation of the characters of each

24 individual character. So I -- again that's part of my examination notes.

25 There are a range of variation. In effect, we've seen it ourselves. When

Page 13235

1 you pointed out the Bs on the previous page, each one is slightly

2 different to the other. That is the range of variation that I'm talking

3 about. Obviously, looking at more than just the ones on that page.

4 Q. With all due respect, I don't think that we covered all the Bs

5 that I would like to cover with you.

6 A. Yep.

7 Q. But with the example that I gave you, those two and then the third

8 one added, I may disagree with your opinion, but I look forward to reading

9 your notes on that.

10 Can you tell us what the spectrum is when you talk about range of

11 variation, like what is the two end points that you utilise in order to

12 determine what that range was between the questioned writing on the

13 specimen writing?

14 A. There is no spectrum. I'm merely assessing how a person varies

15 their writing.

16 Q. Well, what's the level that you would use to determine if the

17 range was wide or narrow?

18 A. That would be my experience.

19 Q. There's no terminology that you can utilise to say that something

20 is outside the range or within a range of variation?

21 A. I would say something was outside the range of variation if it

22 was.

23 Q. And do you know if from document examiner to document examiner,

24 since you say it's based on their opinion, that these ranges of variation

25 can differ quite significantly?

Page 13236

1 A. The ranges of variation aren't to do with the document examiner.

2 They're to do with the writing.

3 Q. Okay. Well, who evaluates the writing?

4 A. The document examiner.

5 Q. And who analyses the writing?

6 A. The document examiner.

7 Q. And one of the features and criteria for you to ultimately draw

8 conclusion, you would examine the range of variation from the questioned

9 writing and the specimen writing, would you not?

10 A. I would, yes.

11 Q. Okay. So would it vary, this range of variation from document

12 examiner to document examiner when they make their analysis?

13 A. They may think that certain characters are more variable than

14 others.

15 Q. So are you telling me that there's no standard range of variation,

16 that's widely accepted whether in your country, the United Kingdom, or in

17 Europe?

18 A. I think we're mixing up terminologies.

19 Q. What terminology, range or variation are we mixing up?

20 A. Range of variation reflects an individual person's writing so that

21 would be the range of variation for that individual piece of writing. So

22 it can't be standard across Europe or ...

23 Q. But when you make that assessment for that person's range of

24 variation, my question is can it differ from document examiner to document

25 examiner? One might consider it to be significant. Another examiner may

Page 13237

1 consider it to be less significant, and a third one perhaps even

2 insignificant. Would I be correct?

3 A. That would be the comparison of the ranges of variation, not the

4 ranges of variations themselves.

5 Q. And that analysis is also found hopefully in your notes; correct?

6 A. Yes. Whether it's -- again, it's a personal thing, so I would

7 have what I consider to be my range of variation, but the range of

8 variation, as I say, is sort of inherent in the writing. So it's the

9 evaluation, I think, of the ranges of variation that I think you're saying

10 are they standard.

11 Q. I think I understand now. Thank you.

12 A. Yeah.

13 MR. OSTOJIC: Your Honour, at this time I would request that we

14 have or we get a copy of Dr. Barr's notebook, unless she objects of

15 course, and I don't see why that wasn't produced to us, as we initially

16 stated to the Court, this morning. We were told after 8:30 on Friday that

17 she would be a witness given her schedule, but given that we don't have

18 any of the bases for some of these opinions that we believe is necessary

19 for further examination, we request a break at this point and to obtain a

20 copy of those or the originals of her notebook so that we could examine it

21 here today.

22 And I find it odd that --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: As I understand it, I don't believe that these were

24 in the possession of the Prosecution. They were in the possession of the

25 witness herself. So that's how I -- that's how I understand it. And

Page 13238

1 having been a Judge in my life for so many years, that's how it's always

2 been.

3 MR. OSTOJIC: I'm not accusing them of anything, but I think they

4 gave us two copies this morning of some of the things that she highlighted

5 and --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: You had an explanation of that. I think it's fair

7 enough that these notes be made available. I don't suppose you have any

8 objection yourself, Dr. Barr.

9 The question is -- I was going to ask you myself as you were

10 approaching -- when you were approaching the end of your cross-examination

11 actually whether it was your intention to recall at some point -- not

12 recall, to put further questions later on to the witness after having had

13 the opportunity to see these notes. So the question is whether -- we can

14 always have a break now. That's no problem. It's only 10, 12 minutes

15 before it's scheduled in any case. The question is I suppose your

16 colleagues would be able to have of a look at these notes too. Second

17 thing is custody of these notes, and third, how much time is needed, I

18 because I wouldn't like to have a ping-pong game going on. I don't wish

19 to have the same position arising when we deal with the cross-examination

20 by the other lawyers.

21 MR. OSTOJIC: To answer your question, if I may, on some of them,

22 it's difficult to assess until we see the extent of the notes. I don't

23 have an appreciation for how detailed or how many there are. With the

24 chain of custody, I think that obviously the Prosecution can be present or

25 they can just photocopy if it's not too much trouble, or we can go with

Page 13239

1 them and --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: What volume are we talking about, Dr. Barr?

3 THE WITNESS: A considerable volume.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: A considerable volume. I would have imagined so.

5 MR. OSTOJIC: And just so the record's clear --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment because I need to consult with my

7 colleagues of course. I've been dealing with it almost on a personal

8 basis.

9 [Trial Chamber confers]

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's try to approach it in the most practical way

11 that we can think of. We'll start a 30-minute break now. In the

12 meantime, I would suggest that immediately after we leave the courtroom

13 you have mutual consultations in which Dr. Barr has obviously to be

14 included, for the availability of these documents. Do you have them here

15 in the building?

16 THE WITNESS: Yes.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: So that makes things easier. And then more or less

18 how much time is required. We will reconvene in 30 minutes' time. Then

19 you will enlighten us on -- you will come back to us with this

20 information, and we'll decide accordingly. Thanks. Thirty minutes.

21 --- Recess taken at 12.06 p.m.

22 --- On resuming at 12.43 p.m.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. What are the good tidings, Mr. Ostojic?

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you Mr. President, and Your Honours. We've

25 had an opportunity, and we to thank Dr. Barr for sharing with us during

Page 13240

1 the break her notebook, and she actually highlighted or showed us what

2 each thing generally meant, the general areas with the Prosecution

3 obviously being present, and I think although I'm not a hundred per cent

4 certain that although we initially thought Dr. Barr had scheduling

5 problems, they are not problems presently and she is available to come

6 back tomorrow. There are in fact two separate notebooks, one larger than

7 the other. We didn't count the pages, but there's quite a significant if

8 not overstated a substantial amount of material including her tick sheet

9 and some personal handwritten notes that we think is important, at least

10 for my client, because it highlights where we'd like to establish some

11 differences in various letters in the word.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: And.

13 MR. OSTOJIC: So we've proposed, in essence, that we can continue

14 asking for -- to the extent that the court allows us to come back

15 tomorrow, and then I think my learned colleague, Mr. Bourgon, is going to

16 ask about 20 minutes, if I can have 15 or 20 minutes to ask -- Bourgon, I

17 listen to Mr. Meek to too often. So I think I have about 15, 20 minutes.

18 I just want to finish what I thought I had prepared and then come back to

19 it tomorrow with your leave.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Ostojic.

21 Who else will be cross-examining Dr. Barr apart from Mr. Bourgon?

22 No one else? No one else.

23 Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Ostojic.

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you.

25 Q. Doctor, once again thank you very much for accommodating us during

Page 13241

1 the break and making your notes available. We appreciate it.

2 I'd like to ask you in the -- with respect to the three Jokic

3 reports that you created and tendered, did you at any point set out the

4 letters or characters that you deemed to be similar as opposed to those we

5 discussed to be different?

6 A. In my notes, yes, there would be.

7 Q. But how about in your report?

8 A. Yes. In the second report I gave some examples.

9 Q. And that's the 22nd of August report?

10 A. It is, yes.

11 Q. Okay. And that's on page 2, being correct?

12 A. That's correct, yes.

13 Q. Now I know that it's not an exhaustive list, but nowhere in this

14 sampling that you give us do you have the letter "B" either in upper or

15 lowercase; correct?

16 A. Correct.

17 Q. Nowhere in this sampling --

18 A. I do have the "B" lowercase, sorry.

19 Q. Nowhere -- and I have it highlighted. Nowhere in this sampling do

20 you have a lower or uppercase E; correct? And this would be a sampling of

21 similarities, just so that we're on the same page; correct?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. Nowhere in your examples or samplings for similarities do you have

24 an uppercase A; correct?

25 A. Correct.

Page 13242

1 Q. And nowhere in your examples or sampling do you have an upper or

2 lowercase R; correct?

3 A. Correct.

4 Q. Now, do you know, although I know we're going to get your notes,

5 but if you know off the top of your head having done three reports, do you

6 know if you found those characters to be similar or as -- or different?

7 A. As you say, without my notes --

8 Q. Okay.

9 A. -- it would be difficult. I do know that with the "A" that in the

10 original handwriting I had he tended to do a more angular -- with the two

11 strokes were separate.

12 Q. And we're talking about -- sorry to interrupt --

13 A. Sorry. The uppercase "A". Where -- whereas -- that was in the

14 questioned writings. In the specimens it tended mean more joined up, and

15 I know I was able to match that feature better when I got the additional

16 handwriting from him.

17 Q. Thank you. I'd like to see if you have in front of you his

18 application, which is a document that was dated the 15th of August, 2001,

19 and that is from Dragan Jokic. Do you have that with you perhaps?

20 A. No, not here.

21 Q. Did you utilise that to evaluate whether there were similarities

22 or differences in the letters, upper and lowercase, of "B", "E", "A", "R",

23 for example?

24 A. I would need to see it.

25 Q. Okay. If I can -- with the Court's permission, it's ERN 02096264.

Page 13243

1 And with the Court's permission, if the usher would be kind enough to just

2 show it to Dr. Barr. The only problem is that I highlighted some of it so

3 she should show it to the Prosecutor first, and then if it's okay with

4 them.

5 And, Dr. Barr, directing your attention to the ELMO, this is the

6 "Zapisni" [phoen], as they call it of Dragan Jokic; correct?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Did you utilise his writing style from this form that happened to

9 be in your file that was produced to us by the Office of the Prosecutor a

10 couple of weeks ago?

11 A. Yes, I did.

12 Q. Do you note anywhere there any of this diacritic that you were

13 talking about with respect to specifically the "J" and the "I", where

14 there would be a circle above it?

15 A. No, there's not.

16 Q. Do you notice anywhere there this accent or as we've discussed

17 this embellishment you noted earlier or accent that can also be called a

18 diacritic on the form?

19 A. No, there's not.

20 Q. Would that be indicative of anything, to say where you see an I

21 with a diacritic such as a circle over it or a "J", that it would be

22 dissimilar or different and therefore not the handwriting of Dragan Jokic

23 whereas, as he writes in his application, he clearly, at least in this

24 form, doesn't use the diacritic with the circle over the "I" or the "J" or

25 any other accent for that matter?

Page 13244

1 A. Sorry, what was the question to start off?

2 Q. Is that indicative of anything?

3 A. It is a difference that I have taken into account in expressing a

4 lower level of opinion, strong evidence rather than the conclusive

5 evidence.

6 Q. And that would be the extent of it?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Now, going back, if you will, to the notebook, 377. Yes, it's

9 right there. I'd like to ask you whether, when you reviewed the 10 pages

10 given to the Prosecutor, whether you reviewed the originals or copies.

11 A. I think originals.

12 Q. Okay. So how did you get the originals? Was it this complete

13 green notebook that you have before you?

14 A. Sorry, when you say the originals, did you mean the originals in

15 this notebook or the original sample handwriting from Mr. Jokic.

16 Q. I'm talking about the notebook first.

17 A. Sorry.

18 Q. That's okay. And then we'll talk about his handwriting?

19 A. I received the original of the notebook.

20 Q. Did you go through the notebook for other pages other than those

21 10 pages that you were instructed to examine?

22 A. No.

23 Q. Since you had the notebook available to you? Sorry.

24 A. I may -- I mean, obviously I looked through it, but I only

25 concentrated on the pages that I was asked to look at.

Page 13245

1 Q. So you don't know if Mr. Jokic made any other entries in this

2 notebook because you haven't done any analysis or evaluation but for those

3 10 pages; correct?

4 A. Correct.

5 Q. Now, in your opinion would you agree that the more samples of

6 writings or characters that you would -- characters that you would examine

7 from an individual, the more reasonable you can make an opinion?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Okay. So if you'd had 20 pages your opinion may have been

10 enhanced or you may, in the alternative, altered your opinion to a lower

11 standard or level of confidence. Would that be true?

12 A. I may have done, yes.

13 Q. Now, looking in the book, it's not that significant or exhaustive,

14 is it?

15 A. The whole book?

16 Q. Yeah?

17 A. For other examples of his writing?

18 Q. Yes.

19 A. There would be a substantial amount of work involved.

20 Q. Do you know how many pages are in the book roughly?

21 A. No.

22 Q. Okay. Given that your opinion is the more samples we can have the

23 stronger our opinion may become in terms of the weight that we can

24 attribute to it, would it be unreasonable to have a handwriting expert

25 examine 50 pages of documents?

Page 13246

1 A. No.

2 Q. What level would be unreasonable if we wanted to strengthen the

3 weight that the opinion we're trying to derive from an expert?

4 A. No amount would be unreasonable.

5 Q. And no amount would be unreasonable if, specifically, it was a

6 criminal trial would you agree with me on that?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Because the stakes are higher as opposed to a civil action?

9 A. That's not really for me to say.

10 Q. Now, I'd like to direct your attention, if I may, to 0293-5748.

11 Did you find it?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Is that within the group of documents that you reviewed from this

14 notebook?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Now, just looking at this and I know you -- and we have your

17 report on that, is -- can you tell from this writing if there was more

18 than one person who wrote on this page 5748? And honestly, if you can't

19 give us an opinion that would be fair. I don't mean to put you on the

20 spot.

21 A. Well, from my reports, yes, there would be two writers.

22 Q. And can you distinguish where these two writings would appear,

23 below or above a certain line?

24 A. Yeah, below including that line.

25 Q. Okay. We don't see the full -- there we go. So everything below

Page 13247

1 the first quarter starting with the letter "S", or the word that starts

2 with the letter "S"; correct?

3 A. Correct.

4 Q. And above that is someone else, or is above that line Mr. Jokic?

5 A. Above that line is someone else.

6 Q. Now, you've also done the evaluation, handwriting evaluation, for

7 other duty officers at the Zvornik Brigade, Trbic and Mr. Drago Nikolic

8 and the other guy, Strbac. I think he was mentioned. Did you conclude

9 whose handwriting that was of those four? I think if you look at your

10 report you'll find that neither of those three, at least in your opinion,

11 made that entry, to be fair or to try to summarise it.

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. But you're welcome to look at it if you don't take my word for it.

14 A. I'm sure you're right.

15 Q. Well, do you know who wrote it?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Do you know when it was written?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Do you know if it was something that was added at the top of the

20 page at a later date?

21 A. No.

22 Q. Did you do any evaluation or analysis to determine any of those

23 questions in conducting your review and analysis of these 10 pages from

24 the notebook?

25 A. As I've said before, assuming that I've said it's not any of those

Page 13248

1 four, I would have done the handwriting bit. The bit as to when it was

2 added, as I say, it's -- from just looking at the inks it would not be

3 possible to do.

4 Q. Can you tell me within these 10 pages how many different purported

5 writers there were for the contents of the material?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Was it more or less than six?

8 A. I don't know.

9 Q. Do you know if it was more or less than 10?

10 A. I don't know.

11 Q. Who would know that information?

12 A. I have no idea.

13 Q. But when you evaluated these 10 pages, did you mark out to say

14 this section or this sentence or this page is not any of the four

15 individuals that the Prosecution asked you --

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Okay.

18 A. Sorry.

19 Q. That's okay. Do you think it's important in order to give an

20 objective opinion as a handwriting document examiner, given the limited 10

21 pages with respect to this notebook at the very least, to give us an

22 indication as to the number of different handwritings you observed in this

23 notebook 377?

24 A. For me being objective -- I think for me being objective it makes

25 no difference how many writers there are there.

Page 13249

1 Q. And why is that?

2 A. Because I'm looking at the writers I'm asked to look at. How many

3 others are there as well is immaterial.

4 Q. But would it be immaterial if you knew that there were more than

5 10 different -- or 10 different writings within these 10 different pages

6 for you to be able to determine or make this comparative analysis that you

7 do with like-to-like comparisons?

8 A. No.

9 Q. Why not?

10 A. Because I'm simply looking at the number of writers. I'm looking

11 at the writings of all the individual ones. So whether there's one extra

12 one or 10 extra ones doesn't really make any difference.

13 Q. Now, staying with this page 5748, I think we have it there, do you

14 see the date that's in the middle of the page there? "13.7.95."

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Can you just share with it whether that was written in pen or

17 pencil?

18 A. Pen.

19 Q. Do you know if it was the same pen as the ink generated below it?

20 Meaning the words that follow it and immediately the three lines below

21 that.

22 A. I don't know.

23 Q. Because we didn't do any ink analysis or anything?

24 A. Yes, and you specifically asked if it was the same pen. I could

25 tell you whether it was a different pen. I probably couldn't tell you

Page 13250

1 whether it was the same pen, just because obviously ball-point pens are

2 made in vast numbers and pens from the same box will probably contain the

3 same ink. So if they were different, they would be different. If it was

4 similar, I would say it was a similar ink. I couldn't say it was the same

5 pen.

6 Q. Does the fact that there's a date written in pen versus a date

7 written in pencil influence or impact your opinion as to whether or not

8 there was additions or modifications made to these 10 pages of the

9 notebook?

10 A. Clearly, if something's -- there are writings in pencil then it

11 indicates that something has been added because it's not all in the same

12 pen. To that extent, yes, but then -- yeah. That's --

13 Q. I think two pages of on 0293-5745 we have a date on the top

14 left-hand corner which is"14.07."; do you see that?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Is that in pen or pencil?

17 A. Pencil.

18 Q. Is that significant in any way?

19 A. To what extent?

20 Q. To the extent that you're giving an opinion based on handwriting

21 expertise.

22 A. I've excluded it from, I think -- 4, 5. I've excluded it from my

23 opinion.

24 Q. But isn't it true, Doctor, that you excluded it because the

25 Prosecution asked to exclude it, and you didn't exclude it but they told

Page 13251

1 you that these things were additions with pencil?

2 A. No.

3 Q. What about the page prior to that where it has the date again

4 "14.07." and then the name Jokic?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Did you exclude that as well?

7 A. I was asked to go from that date.

8 Q. I understand that. So did you look at that entry at all?

9 A. To a limited extent.

10 Q. Did you look at that specific writing, "14.07. Jokic"?

11 A. Not as part of my examination, no.

12 Q. Why not?

13 A. Because I wasn't asked to look at it.

14 Q. Do we know as we sit here whose handwriting that is?

15 A. I don't know.

16 Q. Do we know who other than Mr. Jokic would have wrote his name

17 there?

18 A. I don't know.

19 Q. Is the name Jokic in pen or in pencil?

20 A. Pencil.

21 Q. As is the date; correct?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. So did you look at the entry three lines immediately below this

24 date that we're discussing and the name in pencil, Jokic?

25 A. Yes.

Page 13252

1 Q. Just a couple more questions on this if you don't mind. Doctor,

2 we reviewed briefly your notebook, and I just want to make sure when we

3 talk about peer review and quality assurance, do you understand them to be

4 the same -- the same things?

5 A. I think this would depend on whether -- what you mean them to be

6 by, whether I think they're the same.

7 Q. Why don't you help me and tell me --

8 A. Sorry.

9 Q. And I apologise for cutting you off. Tell me what, if you believe

10 there's a difference between peer review and quality assurance, first of

11 all.

12 A. Again it would depend on your definition. Sorry, not trying to be

13 awkward, but --

14 Q. That's fine.

15 A. What -- what -- there are quality assurance procedures within the

16 organisation, for example, relating to our management aspect, how we type

17 up the statements, correcting spellings as far as possible and that type

18 of thing. That would be --

19 Q. So --

20 A. -- quality assurance, which is part of -- of our quality assurance

21 procedures. We also have peer review, which is when your findings are

22 checked by a colleague.

23 Q. The quality assurance is -- are sometimes used the ISO 9000; is

24 that correct?

25 A. Correct.

Page 13253

1 Q. Then are there any other standards for quality assurance other

2 than for those management systems such as the ISO 9000?

3 A. There are qualities assurance systems in place, yes.

4 Q. And what are those?

5 A. I know that there is a UK accreditation system that is also in

6 place.

7 Q. For document examiners; correct?

8 A. I don't know for certain. As far as I'm aware there are no

9 document examiners qualified to that standard.

10 Q. To the extent that you say this logbook, it would take a lot of

11 time to re-evaluate, can you give me a guesstimate to the best of your

12 experience and training as to how long it would take to evaluate the

13 entire notebook that you have before you? Yes.

14 A. For what would be the question, how many writers or whether it's

15 one particular writer?

16 Q. Both.

17 A. No, not off the top of my head. I'd need to think about it.

18 Q. Now, I know that you've told us you didn't look at any intercept

19 communications that were purportedly reduced to writing, but I'd like to

20 show you one if I may and that would be 65 ter number 1164. If we can

21 have the English version on the e-court.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: The document is under seal.

23 MR. OSTOJIC: Oh. And I wrote down that I should ask the Court

24 for permission, and I apologise. I didn't check that.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: It's under seal anyway. But it's okay. We can

Page 13254

1 handle that.

2 [Trial Chamber confers]

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into private session for a moment.

4 [Private session]

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 [Open session]

22 JUDGE AGIUS: So we are in open session.

23 Mr. Ostojic, Ms. Soljan has questioned the relevance of this part

24 of your testimony. What's your comment to that?

25 MR. OSTOJIC: Well, I disagree with her, and quite candidly, I

Page 13255

1 think if we relate back - two points, 1, the documents were obviously

2 released to them --

3 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please switch the microphone

4 on. Thank you.

5 MR. OSTOJIC: The documents were released to them in a timely

6 manner. They've had notice of that. They knew that I was going to use

7 the documents. But more importantly -- more importantly, if we -- they're

8 saying no now, but I know we -- I have indication I released them last

9 night, so I'll check on that. And that was my understanding that they

10 were released to my learned friends.

11 More importantly, if we compare that to the testimony of

12 Stefanie Frease who came to this court in connection with some of these

13 intercepts and the fact that there were unavailability of certain experts

14 purportedly from the OTP, without having a page citation I think it's

15 important at least to draw from this expert, to establish with the changes

16 specifically made to this document, as to what weight she would give, if

17 any, that had various - as we've coined them from time to time -

18 modifications, alterations and changes within the document.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment.

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Before we decide -- before we are in a position to

22 decide, Mr. Ostojic, I think it would help us if we knew what your next

23 question will be, your next question to the witness so that we can address

24 the objection.

25 MR. OSTOJIC: It would be as follows: To the extent --

Page 13256

1 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

2 MR. OSTOJIC: To the extent that a writer to a certain document

3 would acknowledge that there were changes or modifications to the

4 document, would that strengthen or weaken an opinion if the document was

5 actually authentic or original in its form. And I think the doctor can

6 answer that without even looking at this document.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: That's what I was going to say. I mean, I don't

8 think she would need to look at this document, specially if you are

9 proposing to show her the English version thereof, but -- yes,

10 Mr. McCloskey.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Excuse me, Mr. President. If we're going to my

12 witness, which I believe he is, we're talking about an intercept operator

13 that said he went through and as he listened to the intercept he was, as

14 you know -- I don't need to tell you. You remember. He was hearing

15 things better. That has nothing whatsoever to do with this as I see it.

16 It's apples and oranges. This witness has nothing to do with that.

17 [Trial Chamber confers]

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I think we are unanimous on this. We think that

19 this goes beyond the scope of what Dr. Barr is here for, so we suggest

20 that you proceed to your next question instead of focusing on this one.

21 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

22 Q. Thank you, Doctor --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

25 Q. Thank you, Doctor, for your patience. And let me ask you for a

Page 13257

1 general premises: If a document is altered would that -- and it's known

2 to be altered, whether by an initial or by word, would that weaken or

3 strengthen the conclusion that the document is authentic in your view?

4 A. It would depend on a lot of other factors.

5 Q. Such as what?

6 A. I could give no opinion on whether something was authentic

7 depending on whether it's got alterations or additions to it.

8 Q. Now what if there was a two-page document, hypothetically --

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Soljan.

10 MS. SOLJAN: My apologies for the interrupt but I believe, page

11 96, line 2 the witness said I could give no opinion. I guess it just got

12 corrected. My apologies for that.

13 But while I'm still standing up I'd like to make the same

14 objection about the scope of examination.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: I think so. Actually, you put the same question

16 again, phrasing it differently when we told you that this is beyond the

17 scope of what Dr. Barr is here for.

18 MR. OSTOJIC: I may have misunderstood the Court. I thought we

19 just couldn't use that document.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no.

21 MR. OSTOJIC: Fair enough.

22 Q. Doctor, why couldn't you give an opinion on whether something was

23 authentic or not?

24 MR. OSTOJIC: I'm following up on her answer, Mr. President, if I

25 may.

Page 13258

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, but it was an answer given to a question that

2 we had indicated shouldn't be put in the first place.

3 MR. OSTOJIC:

4 Q. Can you share with us --

5 MR. OSTOJIC: May I proceed?

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Of course.

7 MR. OSTOJIC: I just wanted to make sure the Court was --

8 Q. Can you share with us what factors you would look at in order to

9 determine whether or not a document is authentic?

10 A. It would depend on what document it was and what you were meaning

11 by the words "authentic" because authentic can mean is it authentic,

12 somebody's handwriting or is it a genuine document, a passport, a driving

13 licence, something like that.

14 Q. Well, given that your training and experience is in handwriting,

15 let's limit my question to this question of authenticity to be merely for

16 handwritings. What are the factors that you would look to to determine

17 whether a handwriting was authentic?

18 A. What I said before. You would need samples of a person's known or

19 specimen writing to enable you to compare it with what was in dispute.

20 MR. OSTOJIC: Through, Dr. Barr. Your Honour, I don't have any

21 further questions other than those that may be derived from the notebooks

22 or notes.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. So we'll take that up tomorrow.

24 Mr. Bourgon.

25 MR. BOURGON: Thank you, Mr. President.

Page 13259

1 Cross-examination by Mr. Bourgon:

2 Q. Good afternoon, Doctor.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: I heard you before stating that you would limit your

4 cross-examination to one particular part of her reports.

5 MR. BOURGON: Well, actually, Mr. President, my cross-examination

6 deals with the report that deals with my client but those are practical

7 considerations that I need to clarify from the report.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

9 MR. BOURGON: Of the expert.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead.

11 MR. BOURGON: Thank you.

12 Q. Regarding your report, Dr. Barr, dated 29 June 2006, I'd like to

13 refer you to paragraph 6.11 of that report. I take it you have the report

14 with you.

15 A. I do, yes.

16 Q. At paragraph 6.11, you refer to the date of July the 15th, and you

17 also refer to one of the pages that is there, and I refer here to page

18 0293-5760. And where you say that all the writing, excluding the last two

19 lines fall in a category for which you say there are significant

20 similarities to his handwriting.

21 Now, my first question is: When you did those comparisons

22 concerning the duty officer notebook, of which this page was part of, and

23 I refer now to the title that is just over -- above paragraph 6.8, did you

24 ask for an English translation of those pages to help you out in your

25 analysis?

Page 13260

1 A. I had a translation of some of the documents. I can't remember

2 whether I had the translation of this one in particular.

3 Q. Actually because my question really is really something of

4 practical consideration but I need to highlight this out so you can

5 confirm with us. And if I can have on e-court please this page, which is

6 the page 5760, and that's in B/C/S. And if I can have that side by side

7 with the English page in the same document, and that's page 23 or ERN

8 9355. And it's the P377. Sorry for not mentioning that. If I can have

9 this side by side on the e-court.

10 And, Doctor, my question is simply when you produce your expertise

11 and your conclusions in this paragraph 6.11, I take it that your expertise

12 is based solely on the original document that you look at and not a

13 consideration whether the lines match the English translation?

14 A. No.

15 Q. Would that be a fair statement?

16 A. When I refer to lines, it's from the original document.

17 Q. Now, the reason I wanted to -- if we can scroll up a bit, the left

18 side. If we get the bottom part of the document.

19 Now, in your report you say that those last two lines of this

20 document are excluded from those for which there was significant

21 similarities; is that correct?

22 A. That's correct, yes.

23 Q. Now, if I look on the right side of the of screen, which is the

24 English translation, I would just like you to confirm that those last two

25 lines do not correspond to the last two lines in the English version.

Page 13261

1 A. I don't know.

2 Q. And maybe if we can get somebody to read -- and the only thing I

3 want to bring up to the Court's attention it, Mr. President, is that the

4 last two line actually in the English version actually start where it

5 says, "In the Memici sector," and before that it's not the last two lines.

6 That's what I wanted to confirm. So if we look on the right side, it

7 says, "Died today, duty officer from Zlatar reported." That's not part of

8 the last two lines in the original version. In the original version the

9 last two lines begin with "In the Memici sector."

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I think the Prosecution could agree to that. I

11 mean, it's -- it's clear from the screen itself.

12 Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: The translator tried to mirror as best they could

14 this -- to try to avoid this issue. It's not always perfect, but, yeah,

15 we agree that that's -- that's correct, and we're getting an exhibit of

16 this and we'll try to work that out so it's better.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Bourgon.

18 MR. BOURGON:

19 Q. Going on from the next page where, again, that's page 10 of your

20 report, but then you refer to the next page 5761 and you say - and if I

21 can have both of these pages up going one page further, both in the B/C/S

22 version on the left and the English version on the right - in this part

23 you say that all of this page falls in a category where there were

24 similarities, but it says "From and including," and I guess the right

25 pronunciation is "Zetjevi" [phoen], or in English "Request."

Page 13262

1 Now, my question to you is: Were you asked by the Prosecution or

2 did you at any time try to see whether the person who wrote

3 above "Request", that's the part that you do not attribute to Mr. Nikolic,

4 and is that -- did that person who write -- who wrote on this page is the

5 same person who wrote the last two lines on the previous page?

6 A. I didn't make that examination.

7 Q. And were you ever asked at any point to draw this conclusion?

8 A. No.

9 Q. Going on. I'd like to -- I refer you to paragraph 6.4 of the

10 report. Well, maybe if I would ask you today to do that would be able to

11 do that for us and to tell it us whether the last two lines of page 5760

12 were written by the same person as -- who wrote on the top of page 5761?

13 A. I can try, yes.

14 Q. Can we have both of these pages side by side to have 5760 and 5761

15 side by side all in B/C/S?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Soljan.

17 MS. SOLJAN: Your Honours, the witness also has the original book

18 at her disposal that she can take a look at.

19 THE WITNESS: And I wasn't going to say now. I could do it, but

20 I'd need to --

21 MR. BOURGON:

22 Q. What would you need?

23 JUDGE AGIUS: She needs time obviously.

24 MR. BOURGON:

25 Q. So it's not something that can be done immediately?

Page 13263

1 A. No.

2 Q. Okay.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: It is something that you can come back to us

4 tomorrow.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes.

6 MR. BOURGON:

7 Q. Let us move on to paragraph 6.4 of the report which refers to the

8 duty officer logbook, and you were asked to look at the duty officer

9 logbook, and you were asked to look at pages 6603 until 6754. I take it

10 that this is some 150 pages you were asked to look at in the duty officer

11 logbook.

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Now, in paragraph 6.4 you conclude that a number of entries would

14 have significant similarities to the handwriting and signatures of

15 Mr. Nikolic, and then you list those entries and the specific pages on

16 which they are found.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. So I'd just like to confirm with you that from all those pages you

19 looked at, those 150 pages or so, that any entry before the 1st of May,

20 1995, any entry between those dates that you list and any entries after

21 the 15th of July, 1995, do not present any significant similarities to the

22 handwriting of Mr. Nikolic.

23 A. That's correct.

24 Q. If we move to paragraph 6.6 and 6.7 of your report. And this time

25 you are referring to the forward command post duty officer notebook, and

Page 13264

1 the period you were asked to look at was 11 July to 21 July; is that

2 correct?

3 A. That's correct.

4 Q. And more specifically, you found -- you said that there were four

5 entries or four series of entries. There was 11 July, 12 July, 13 to 15

6 July, and then 21 July, and that's at paragraph 6.6 of your report.

7 A. Yes, that's correct.

8 Q. So I'd just like to confirm that any other entries -- that none of

9 these entries, sorry, were produced by Nikolic. That's your conclusion at

10 paragraph 6.7.

11 A. Yes, that's my conclusion.

12 Q. So did you do any analysis of any other entries outside of these

13 two dates, that is 11 July to 21 July? Did you look in that book anywhere

14 else to find if there was any writing by Mr. Nikolic that maybe you could

15 use as an additional sample?

16 A. No, because it's not up to me to decide that it was his writing.

17 So I looked at what I was asked to look at.

18 Q. So this -- those conclusions are drawn on the material that you

19 had in terms of the writing samples that was provided to you.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Last question is concerning your conclusions with Mr. Trbic, and I

22 refer you to paragraph 8.7 of your report. And again paragraph 8.7 refers

23 to all the documents that are listed in paragraph 8.6, which you looked

24 at.

25 A. Yes.

Page 13265

1 Q. And your conclusion at paragraph 8.7 is that all these documents

2 at paragraph 8.6 are likely to have been written by one person.

3 A. Yes. There's strong evidence they were by one person.

4 Q. And if I look at the words or the phrases that you use with your

5 expertise, that means that you cannot exclude the possibility that more

6 than one person was involved.

7 A. That's correct.

8 Q. And you are unable to say whether these entries, and I refer now

9 to paragraph 8.9, I believe, or again 8.8 but later, that you were unable

10 to say whether these entries were indeed produced by Mr. Trbic.

11 A. I was unable to express that opinion.

12 Q. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Doctor.

13 MR. BOURGON: Thank you, Mr. President.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. I take it there is no one else going to

15 cross-examine this witness, which means we need to adjourn until tomorrow.

16 However, before we do so -- yes, Mr. McCloskey.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, I have another witness, Your Honour, if you

18 want to use the 15 minutes.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, yeah. Then we could start with another

20 witness.

21 Dr. Barr can be escorted. Thank you, madam. We'll reconvene

22 tomorrow and continue with your testimony.

23 [The witness stands down]

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Bourgon.

25 MR. BOURGON: I'd just like to return, Mr. President, to the issue

Page 13266

1 on Friday concerning the intercept, the responses we have to --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm coming to that.

3 MR. BOURGON: Because we only have 15 minutes left. Thank you,

4 Mr. President.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: But you have made your submissions. So -- yes.

6 Last week there were two submissions that were made, one by Mr. McCloskey

7 asking for an adjournment of the case, particularly that we will not have

8 sittings the first two weeks of July, and the other one, a matter which

9 was raised by Mr. Bourgon and supplemented by Mr. Josse plus others,

10 namely as to the extension of the time limit for the filing of the Defence

11 position on -- document on the intercepts following the Prosecution

12 filing.

13 Let's start with the first one. We, of course, fully understand

14 your concerns. They are not only the concerns of the Prosecution but the

15 understanding of this Trial Chamber is that they are also the concerns of

16 the Defence, and we do appreciate that the known factors attached to

17 the -- to joinder motions do present you both with problems, particularly

18 when it comes to organising, planning your witnesses and planning the case

19 in general.

20 At the same time, I'm sure that you appreciate that we also have a

21 role to play, and once I've stated that we do appreciate the predicament

22 that you find or at least you declare you find yourself in, it is -- it

23 becomes incumbent on us to find a proper balance taking into account the

24 possible scenarios, possible circumstances that would arise if joinder is

25 granted or if joinder is not granted.

Page 13267

1 We've given this a lot of thought over the weekend, and that's why

2 we didn't come with a response last Friday. We have given it a lot of

3 thought. We met again this morning to continue discussing, and as things

4 are at the moment, we do not think that it is appropriate to break for a

5 whole entire three weeks immediately prior to the recess, which is planned

6 to start as from the 21st of July in any case. On balance, however, we do

7 concede that a short break is necessary, which would allow the

8 Prosecution, in particular, to reorganise itself and also focusing on the

9 evidence that can be adduced before the recess, summer recess, pending the

10 determination of the joinder motions.

11 We've therefore decided as follows: We will not be sitting on the

12 following days, that is, this coming week, that is from the 2nd to the 6th

13 of July. And then we will not sit on the 13th of July, which I think

14 would also meet the request of three Defence teams who have got something

15 urgent and important to attend to on that day. And we will also not sit

16 on the 16th of July. So we will be sitting the other days, and you,

17 Mr. McCloskey, need to plan of a little bit, I think. This strikes a more

18 or less a -- what we consider to be a reasonable -- more reasonable

19 approach to the problem than stopping for an entire three weeks and then

20 to be followed immediately afterwards by -- by summer recess.

21 We have also given a thought about your submission, Mr. Bourgon,

22 and also the submission by Mr. Josse in particular that it would be more

23 appropriate if the filing of the Defence document on intercepts be delayed

24 until after the joinder motion is determined -- are determined. We have

25 thought about that. We are not in a position, as at the moment, to know

Page 13268

1 when the joinder motions will be decided, and even more so if we will be

2 in a position to decide them before the summer recess, because there are

3 so many imponderables and unknown factors, particularly not knowing what's

4 going to happen in the Tolimir case, which has its additional initial

5 appearance on -- fixed for the 3rd, 3rd of July. We don't know if counsel

6 has been assigned to him. We don't know if he has a position on joinder.

7 We don't know if the problem that was pointed out by the Defence teams in

8 relation to your remuneration, if there is a hiatus, is going to be met

9 with satisfactorily. So there are many questions, and we did not think

10 that delaying the filing of the Defence position on intercepts till after

11 the decision on the joinder motion would be appropriate. So -- we also

12 understand that if you have problems in filing it immediately, that is

13 something that we need to attend to as well and give attention to.

14 So the conclusion we have come to is that we are extending the

15 time limit until the 9th of July. That's Monday, a fortnight from today,

16 which should give you ample time, et cetera. If later on we come to a

17 joinder, which I don't know if we are ever going to come to, but in that

18 case we'll obviously have to discuss what Tolimir's position will be.

19 So that's the position. I hope it meets you halfway, both of you,

20 and that it is satisfactory to -- these arrangements are satisfactory to

21 both of you.

22 We adjourn until tomorrow. Tomorrow we are sitting in the

23 morning, 9.00 a.m. Thank you.

24 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.42 p.m.,

25 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 26th day

Page 13269

1 of June, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.

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