Page 21539
1 Tuesday, 3 June 2003
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.
7 MR. NICE: Before the accused resumes cross-examination, may I
8 explain something to the Chamber in private session for a minute or so.
9 [Private session]
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Page 21542
1 [redacted]
2 [Open session]
3 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Now we're in open
5 session.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Yesterday, you gave the following explanation: Since you had not
8 been in your village for 17 years, you could not remember more people. We
9 established yesterday that you remembered only four names; is that right?
10 Because you had not been in your village for many years, and that was the
11 explanation why you could not remember more names; is that right?
12 A. I don't know which names you have in mind.
13 Q. Doesn't matter which names. My question was how come you could
14 not remember any more names, only these four names?
15 A. Because I did not recognise any more people than that.
16 Q. You did not recognise them because you hadn't lived there for 17
17 years; is that right? And was that the explanation?
18 A. Yes, it was.
19 Q. That explanation is rather flimsy in view of the first thing
20 that was shown here yesterday. I'm not going to mention your village.
21 I'm not going to refer to it specifically, but we do have here your
22 details, and we looked at them or, rather, you looked at them when we
23 started, that is, 023 -- 0293543. It's tab 1, actually. That's easier.
24 Tab 1. That's where your details are. And then you say under point 2,
25 from 1975 until mid-1990, during the week I lived in Belgrade and during
Page 21543
1 the weekend, and then you give the name of your village.
2 So during all those years, you went to your village, and it was
3 only during workdays that you went to work in Belgrade. How do you
4 explain this then? How do you explain what you said, that you hadn't been
5 in the village for 17 years and that's why you didn't know people when you
6 were there every week?
7 A. I would be at home. I would work.
8 Q. Oh, so you didn't have contact with other villagers?
9 A. Rarely.
10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. The population of that village is a couple of hundred people.
13 A. Mr. Milosevic, I know the people who live in my village, but they
14 are not the ones who took part in this.
15 Q. And then I asked you and you said that you did not mention this at
16 all but you did manage to recognise the Serbs, the guards, soldiers,
17 whichever way you want to call them. And then you asked me where it said
18 so that you knew them, and I'm going to read this to you now where it says
19 so. Of course I have the English version, in all fairness of that
20 statement. That is page 5. And the number is 00453878.
21 In the last paragraph it says: "[In English] Throughout our
22 detention in the hangar, we noticed the guards worked in three shifts of
23 eight hours each. Each shift had eight guards and out of the total number
24 of the guards, I recognised three. They were Ratko Spasojevic from the
25 village of Setici, Vlajko Jovanovic from the village of Petkovci, and
Page 21544
1 Mujo [sic] (LNU)," [Interpretation] I don't know what that means, "[In
2 English] from Trsic or Celopek and everybody called Mujo as Captain."
3 So that's what you wrote here, that you knew these people?
4 A. I didn't know that man. It isn't "Mujo," it's "Mijo."
5 Q. All right, "Mijo."
6 A. But the men from Trsic who were detained addressed him by his
7 name. They knew his name was Mijo, and the rest called him Captain.
8 As for Vlajko, I saw him once when he came and when he said, "How
9 come there is so much vermin around here? If somebody wants to kill
10 himself I will help them immediately." And then she left. As for Ratko
11 Spasojevic, I did not see him at all. I had seen him only in town before.
12 So that's the explanation.
13 Q. You didn't see him?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Here at the end there's a sentence that reads as follows, because
16 you say you saw this man once and he said how come there is so much vermin
17 around here and then you never saw this other man that's what you say.
18 "[In English] I knew Ratko and Vlajko very well because we had played
19 football together as youngsters."
20 [Interpretation] So you knew them well. It's not that you saw him
21 once. You said that you knew them well. And now you say that you saw one
22 of them only once and the other one you say that you never saw. What is
23 the truth?
24 A. The truth is that I know both of them but I did not see Ratko. I
25 saw Vlajko.
Page 21545
1 Q. What do you mean you saw Ratko?
2 A. I said that Muradif saw him. That's what it says here. That's
3 what it should say there. This is what it says.
4 Q. "[In English] I recognised three." [Interpretation] "I recognised
5 three, that's what it says. Ratko Spasojevic from Setici, Vlajko
6 Jovanovic from Petkovci, and Mijo from Trsic or Celopek." So that is what
7 is written here. Please tell me, Mr. 1098, what is the truth?
8 A. The truth is what I said only awhile ago.
9 Q. But how come this is written here?
10 A. I don't know how come, but obviously they didn't understand me
11 properly. I don't know English, you see.
12 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
13 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I don't know --
14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Nice, please.
15 MR. NICE: I don't know if the Chamber would like copies of the
16 statement without prejudice as to whether it is ultimately to be produced
17 as an exhibit to follow this sort of text or argument by the accused,
18 because I think the text really needs to be seen for the witness to be
19 able to respond fairly.
20 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we'll see a copy. Which was the passage again?
21 MR. NICE: Page 5 at the foot.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. So you claim that all of this was mistranslated, that you
24 recognised them, that you knew their names and then you explained that you
25 had played football together as youngsters with these two. So all of this
Page 21546
1 is due to mistranslation. Is that your assertion, Mr. 1098?
2 A. As for Ratko Spasojevic and Vlajko, it is true that I used to play
3 football with them. And Ratko Spasojevic was born the same year I was.
4 But it is also true this is what is written here. And I gave the
5 correction because of what the translator said then. I said that it was
6 not written properly.
7 Q. So that's what you said and then you denied it.
8 A. I did not deny it. The interpreter did not understand me.
9 Q. So the interpreter invented Ratko Spasojevic?
10 A. No, the interpreter did not invent Ratko Spasojevic. I said that
11 Muradif had seen Ratko Spasojevic.
12 JUDGE MAY: Just remember, both of you, allow the other one to
13 finish asking the question and that includes you, Mr. Milosevic, but
14 Witness B-1098, would you watch the accused's microphone and make sure
15 it's off before you answer. Yes.
16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Now, in this correction, yet again you have this statement
18 0304841 -- 8141, and you correct what it says here, and you say: "I
19 mentioned that Ratko Spasojevic was a guard." And then you say: "I did
20 not see Ratko Spasojevic personally. [redacted]
21 [redacted]
22 A. Right. That is the kind of statement I made.
23 Q. So that's the correction you made. So you heard from your nephew
24 Muradif that he was one of the guards.
25 A. Muradif.
Page 21547
1 Q. And then you correct yourself and you say that you never saw him
2 come and take prisoners out of room 1 and --
3 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the question
4 has given a full name in a few lines back of the nephew. I was careful
5 not to use full names. Can the passage be redacted, please?
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes. I think it may be safer to go into private
7 session for these questions.
8 While you're asking questions about these people, we'll go into
9 private session.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. I'm not going
11 to put any more questions, but no doubt --
12 JUDGE MAY: Well, if you come to any occasion you're going to ask
13 questions about individuals, we'll go into private certification but we'll
14 stay in open session for the moment.
15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Tell me, please, what kind of uniforms were these men that you
17 mentioned wearing?
18 JUDGE MAY: Yes, if you'd like to answer.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They wore camouflage uniforms.
20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. All right. You say -- I mean, since you mentioned the men you
22 knew from your village, the men you knew were there, do you consider them
23 to be the JNA or these reservists from your village, what do you consider
24 them to be?
25 A. I do not consider them to be the JNA, but I do consider them to be
Page 21548
1 the reserve force of the JNA.
2 Q. The men from your village?
3 A. No, they're not from my village.
4 Q. They're from the surrounding area?
5 A. Yes, the surrounding area.
6 Q. And then on page 5, in paragraph 6, you say that you know this
7 Mijo, nicknamed Captain, and you don't know his last name, and you don't
8 know --
9 JUDGE MAY: We'll go into private session now. You've been told
10 if we were mentioning the names we'll go into private session.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But he spoke about this.
12 JUDGE MAY: We are going into private session, and we're going to
13 stay there. Yes. We'll stop all this.
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17 [Open session]
18 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Mr. 1098, on page 7 of your statement you claim that during this
21 alleged execution that you describe in that small room, 3 by 3, you were
22 shot at from two machine-guns; is that right?
23 A. Two of the guards.
24 Q. Those two guards with two machine-guns shot at you in this small
25 room 3 by 3 and you say that there were 20 of you in that room?
Page 21551
1 A. I said around 20. And now whether both were shooting in that room
2 3 by 3, I mean, if I were to shut people into a room 3 by 3 and if I were
3 to start shooting, I wonder whether anybody's going to notice who was
4 actually doing the shooting, both people or just one man.
5 Q. But this is in line 1. You say 20 detainees. That's what you
6 say. So as they were shooting from two machine-guns at close range in a
7 closed area, they allegedly carried out an execution, and you're the only
8 one who was not hit. They managed to kill the rest, the 19 remaining
9 people.
10 A. It doesn't say two machine-guns here.
11 Q. Well, since you can't see it, I'm going to tell you where it is.
12 You say -- this is the first paragraph, if you disregard the paragraph
13 that started on the previous page. "There were two guards who were
14 wearing SMB uniforms and were armed with machine-guns." And then you say:
15 "As soon as we had our backs towards the guards, they started to shoot at
16 us with their machine-guns."
17 A. That's exactly the way it was.
18 Q. So why do you say I don't see machine-guns in the statement?
19 A. No, no, no. That's not what I meant. I didn't mean this
20 paragraph, the one that you just referred to now.
21 Q. I understand. All right. Is it correct that on that occasion
22 although you were not hit you passed out? You say out of fear.
23 A. I still don't know until the present day what it was really like,
24 whether I had passed out or not.
25 Q. Well, that's the last sentence in this paragraph. "I was not hit
Page 21552
1 by the bullets but probably out of fright I fell unconscious." That is
2 what is written here.
3 A. I put it quite properly, that most probably I passed out during
4 the shooting, and I fell. And when I came to, which means that I did pass
5 out, then I heard moaning, screams, cries, and what not.
6 Q. While you were unconscious? How can you then claim on page 7 in
7 paragraph 3 that the guards, afterwards, shot from two machine-guns, and
8 you claim that they killed 19 men? They did not hit you. You were not
9 even wounded. And then they immediately entered the next room and then
10 they shot detainees there, and you were unconscious in the meantime. How
11 do you know that?
12 A. That was only this period of crisis. Perhaps it was only a minute
13 or -- a second or two.
14 Q. You were unconscious for only a second or two?
15 A. Only a couple of seconds.
16 Q. That's a very interesting explanation. A man passes out and then
17 I knows that he was unconscious only for a second or two and then he hears
18 everything else. Very interesting?
19 JUDGE MAY: Are you suggesting, Mr. Milosevic, that this didn't
20 happen, that the witness wasn't there and didn't hear and see these
21 things? Is that what you're suggesting?
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What I'm suggesting, Mr. May, is
23 this witness is not telling the truth at all.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't think you're saying it
25 either, telling it either. I'm not a politician. All I'm doing is
Page 21553
1 telling the truth and the truth.
2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Witness 1098, you're talking here. I'm not doing the talking.
4 On page 7, paragraph 4, you say that you heard a truck starting,
5 and you peeped outside the room to see whether they had left; is that
6 right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And you weren't unconscious then already at that time?
9 A. Yes, that's right.
10 Q. All right. Give me the names of those 19 people. Which of those
11 19 people who were with you do you know by name, of the ones who were
12 killed, of those 19?
13 A. I know four, four of them.
14 Q. So you know those four men, and they were altogether with you over
15 there in that group.
16 A. Yes, in that group.
17 Q. And then you go on to say that, "I was too scared to inspect the
18 crime scene." That seems to be the language and terminology you use.
19 "But I know that all those who were brought there with me were killed
20 because they have never been seen since." That's what you said, isn't it?
21 A. Well, it's not only that those have never been seen since. Seven
22 hundred of those people have never been seen since.
23 Q. My question is very specific.
24 A. And so is my answer.
25 Q. Well, how can you say that they have never been seen since when
Page 21554
1 you don't know who they were?
2 A. What do you mean I don't know who they were? I know who was
3 killed.
4 Q. You said you know four of them, which means that you don't know
5 who the other 15 were. So how can you say they were never seen again when
6 you don't know who they actually were?
7 A. Well, Milosevic, their families know very well who they were, the
8 families that remained alive behind them.
9 JUDGE MAY: The witness is being provoked by these kind of
10 questions and the way they're being put.
11 Now, Mr. B-1098, I realise you're being provoked by this sort of
12 questioning, but don't get angry, please, and don't address him by his
13 name. You're giving evidence to the Court, so address us and not him.
14 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. All right. We seem to have cleared that up. So you claim that
17 they have never been seen again although you don't know who they were. So
18 you don't know that the people, who you don't know who they were, were
19 never seen again?
20 JUDGE MAY: He's answered these questions.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Fine.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Now, you claim that you were in a panic and jumped over a concrete
24 fence of some kind, ran towards the Drina River which was about 2 to 300
25 metres from the house; is that right?
Page 21555
1 A. Well, I don't know whether there is exactly 2 to 300 metres. It
2 might have been 500 metres.
3 Q. Right. Maybe 500.
4 A. Well, I didn't measure the distance.
5 Q. Then, tell me this then, please, how long did the drive in the
6 truck last from Pilici up to the house that you were taken to, the
7 so-called house that was called Gero's slaughterhouse where the executions
8 took place? How long did you drive in the truck for? How long did that
9 take?
10 A. All I know is that we were escorted by police car. Now, how long
11 it lasted, none of us had watches, all of them were confiscated, so we
12 weren't able to look at the time and see exactly how long, but you know
13 how many kilometres it is.
14 Q. Well, give me a rough estimate. How long were you driven in the
15 truck for? I don't want you to use a stopwatch to measure the time.
16 Roughly, a rough estimate.
17 A. Well, I don't know. It could have lasted half an hour, 45
18 minutes. I really can't say.
19 Q. And how long were you hidden in this place where you took refuge
20 by the Drina River?
21 A. I was in hiding -- I was in hiding by the Drina River from about
22 10:00 in the morning until dark fell. It was June, so that would make it
23 around 9:00 in the evening. That's when it gets dark. So from 10:00 a.m.
24 to 9:00 p.m., 2100 hours.
25 Q. All right. Now you're quoting a figure, the number of people, and
Page 21556
1 you say a total of 193 people. You were within a distance of 500 metres
2 and between you and them was this concrete fence which you say you jumped
3 over. And then you go on to say in that same paragraph, in the previous
4 sentence, that because of the concrete fence you weren't able to see the
5 men getting out of the truck; is that right?
6 A. I said that I was 500 metres away from that place, and I said that
7 I was roughly 500 metres away and heard the truck arrive and heard a
8 repeated burst of gunfire. Then I heard the truck leave, and I heard it
9 come back the way it came the previous time, bringing the first load or
10 first lot.
11 Q. Yes. You said that very nicely, and you said that, "Because of
12 the concrete fence, I wasn't able to see the people." That's what you say
13 on page 7 now, tell me this, please. How is it possible for you not to be
14 able to see the people but nevertheless you were able to count them from
15 this distance of 500 metres where you were? How come you were able to
16 count the people which you say you didn't see?
17 JUDGE MAY: He did not say he counted them. He made an estimate
18 about the number of people on the truck.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. All right. Now, on page 7, paragraph 6, you claim that besides
21 yourself, another man, and I'm not going to name names here, survived
22 because I assume we would have to go back into private session. But I'm
23 sure you know who I'm talking about because you can look at it.
24 A. Yes. I am bearing that in mind, and I do know who the man is whom
25 you mean. But he survived in that third tour, in that third lot.
Page 21557
1 Q. However, neither he nor anybody else is able to bear out your
2 assertions and allegations. Am I right in saying that? Can somebody --
3 JUDGE MAY: The witness can't say what anybody else may know or
4 not. Now, he's giving his evidence and he can tell you what he knows, but
5 he can't say what other people know.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Yes. All right. But what happened to that man? Tell us that.
8 He survived, didn't he?
9 A. May I answer that, Your Honours? That man did survive, and he
10 reached free territory and was killed during the war later on,
11 subsequently.
12 Q. So he was killed later on during the war; is that right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Explain this to me please now. You say, and I don't want to read
15 the man's name out, that you learnt this fact later from some soldiers in
16 Zaseok so witness at that time you didn't know of the man's existence and
17 yet you claim that he was brought in for execution in that third group of
18 people. So how could you say that at all? How can you claim that in the
19 first place?
20 A. I can claim that because there is a statement by him the same year
21 he escaped just as I gave my statement the first year I escaped in.
22 Q. So you're not testifying to that. You say that a statement by him
23 exists, is that it? Fine. Now, then you go on to say on page 7,
24 paragraph 7, that the next day you tried to go to your own village but you
25 got lost, and then due to circumstance, you had to go back to the house
Page 21558
1 where the execution was conducted. Is that what you say? Near the house
2 where the execution took place, is that it?
3 A. Yes, that's right.
4 Q. Now, tell me this --
5 THE INTERPRETER: May we hear the witness, please.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. How were you able to find -- if you were not able to find the path
8 to your own village, how were you able to reach this particular house?
9 A. I wandered around where all that was going on. I was wandering
10 around during the night in the rain. I'd like to ask anybody whether
11 they'd be able to find their way at night in a downpour.
12 Q. Mr. 1098, further down that page once again in paragraph 7, page
13 7, as you were there for the second time in that particular spot when it
14 got dark you say that you started walking towards your village, and a name
15 is mentioned there. I don't want to mention the name of the village. Is
16 that right?
17 A. Well, I explained a moment ago that I was walking around at night
18 and that I lost my way. And the day I spent hiding in the meadow, in the
19 high grass, I stayed there the whole day hiding then came out when it was
20 dark and found myself in that spot.
21 Q. I'm asking you about what happened later on once you had seen the
22 bulldozers and all the rest that you described having seen. You described
23 it at length. Afterwards, when it got dark, you say that you tried to go
24 to your village.
25 JUDGE MAY: That is what the witness has said. Now, your time is
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Page 21560
1 really up. What is the question? You can ask one more after this.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I have several more questions,
3 Mr. May.
4 JUDGE MAY: The time is up, so you can ask this question and then
5 one more. It's difficult to see what the question is at the moment.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Well, explain to me, because you were not able to find the way to
8 your village during daylight, how were you able to find it at night, in
9 the dark?
10 A. After those two nights spending -- spent wandering around Karakaj
11 and once I had passed Celopek on that second night, I started climbing the
12 mountain. I spent the night in the forests, and the next day I started
13 out at daylight.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] One more question. May I ask it,
15 please, Mr. May? I have several but please allow me enough time to ask
16 one. I think it's essential.
17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Twice during your oral testimony here yesterday in this courtroom
19 you mentioned some women. On one occasion you said that women were crying
20 out, the locals, the local women, along the roadside, and they shouted out
21 to the men there, "Kill the balijas." And then on another occasion you
22 say that one woman was shouting out through an aperture in the cinema
23 hall. She said that if her brother was killed, she'd kill all of you.
24 So tell me this now, please: Was that the reaction on the part of
25 the women and the general atmosphere that prevailed after the crimes that
Page 21561
1 the Muslim forces perpetrated against the Serb civilians in that region
2 and then you were captured in those operations? Is that how it came
3 about? How can you explain this reaction on the part of the women that
4 they shouted out, "Kill the balijas," and the women who said if her
5 brother was killed she would kill you. Who would kill her brother? What
6 was going on that somebody was going to kill her brother?
7 JUDGE MAY: Can you answer that at all?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I can answer it. May I?
9 When we arrived in Karakaj, there was -- there were a lot of women
10 there, and they were all shouting, "Kill the balijas." Now, the woman who
11 was looking out of the window, that woman was from Pilica. So these are
12 different places; different villages. And she said that if her brother
13 were to be killed, she would kill us.
14 Now, I don't know, and may I ask a question, may I be allowed to
15 ask a question, what were those people looking for in Kovacevici and
16 Vitinci [phoen] when that is a purely Muslim settlement? Whereas they
17 went to expel them and we were loyal citizens, Milosevic, down there. I
18 wasn't captured during a battle or during any fighting.
19 JUDGE MAY: No. No. Mr. Tapuskovic.
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I should
21 like to start off by asking the witness to explain to the Trial Chamber
22 several points linked to Exhibit 456, tab 4. I can't see the witness at
23 all behind the screen.
24 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
25 Q. [Interpretation] Witness, yesterday in response to a question from
Page 21562
1 Mr. Nice, you explained this document, so I don't want to go back to those
2 questions. You have the document before you, don't you?
3 A. Yes, I do.
4 Q. Now, tell me, did you see the document for the first time in the
5 Office of the Prosecutor, the OTP, or did you know about it later?
6 A. I saw it here yesterday.
7 Q. I didn't understand what you said. What did you say?
8 A. I saw it here yesterday.
9 Q. Did you happen to notice that the title on the document is as
10 follows: It says review of transport of refugees as ordered by the
11 interim government of the Serbian municipality of Zvornik and the
12 Territorial Defence Staff of Zvornik. No mention is made of the JNA. It
13 says here that everything was compiled on orders from the interim
14 government of the Serbian municipality of Zvornik. Did you happen to note
15 that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Is that how it really was, that everything was organised by the
18 Zvornik municipality, in fact?
19 A. I don't know.
20 Q. Well, at all events, you don't know that it was organised by the
21 JNA, do you?
22 A. I don't know who organised it. All I can -- all I do know is what
23 I was able to read in the document, that -- the passages that follow.
24 Q. Very well. Now I should like for a moment to go back to your
25 statement, the one that you gave to the investigators of the Tribunal on
Page 21563
1 the 24th of November, 1996, and I'd just like to focus on one particular
2 paragraph which you explained to us yesterday. Let me just remind you of
3 it. You said that most of the soldiers who had surrounded your village,
4 and I'm not going to mention the name of your village, wore JNA uniforms;
5 is that right?
6 A. There were all kinds.
7 Q. All right. Fine. And you said that you personally saw on that
8 particular day, on the 1st of June, two tanks; is that right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And then you go on to say quite clearly, "I think that the
11 soldiers in the olive-green uniforms were members of the regular forces of
12 the JNA, whereas the soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms were locals,
13 Chetniks"; is that right?
14 A. Well, I'm not sure that I put it that way, but I said something
15 similar.
16 Q. Well, that's what is says in the statement, but never mind. That
17 was the statement you gave on the 24th of November, 1996, to the
18 investigators of the Tribunal.
19 Now, along with that statement I received from the OTP, from the
20 Prosecution, Your Honours, pursuant to Rule 66, your own statement of the
21 17th of June, 1992, to the security centre of Tuzla, the Republic of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the sector of the state security department. Do you
23 remember that on the 17th of June, 1992, you did in fact give a statement
24 to this body?
25 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I have the
Page 21564
1 statement translated by the OTP in English, and the number of it is the
2 Serbian version, 0024672 --
3 MR. NICE: Copies are available as I indicated yesterday and
4 coming your way.
5 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Do you have that statement in the Serbian language?
7 A. I don't need this. I know what I said.
8 Q. I just wish to remind you. Look at the beginning of that
9 statement. You said the following: "As far as I can remember, about a
10 month ago the village of Kula was attacked by the Chetniks." I won't read
11 out the name of your village. And then the volunteers from your village,
12 the 37 of them, went to defend Kula, that is, 37 volunteered and another
13 five from another village. And since you didn't succeed in your defence,
14 they returned home. Is that right correct, that from your village and
15 other villages armed volunteers went to defend Kula one month before the
16 17th of June, 1992?
17 A. It is true that they went there. I don't know exactly whether
18 there were 37 of them, but they did go to defend Kula. I'm not denying
19 that.
20 Q. I understand. But tell me this now. I read your statement very
21 carefully, this particular statement. I don't have time to go into the
22 details. There are many things that you have already said here. But you
23 mostly said that all this was done by Chetniks. You even recognised a
24 young man. And then in ten or so places you keep referring to the word
25 "Chetniks," which means locals according to the statement you gave to the
Page 21565
1 investigators of the OTP. Now, explain to me, please, how come that in
2 this statement you didn't mention anywhere JNA members?
3 A. Because I call them Chetniks too. It's not written anywhere, but
4 I didn't mention it.
5 Q. But yesterday you even mentioned the police.
6 A. Yes. I mentioned the police, and I even said that there was a
7 Muslim among them.
8 Q. I understand all that, sir. But just explain to me why you didn't
9 say that on the 17th of June, 1992, only five or six days after those
10 events? But it was only to the investigators that you said that. Just
11 explain that, please.
12 A. I will explain. I would like to ask you after such a trauma what
13 you would have told if you would have experienced the disaster that I did.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I have
15 no further questions.
16 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I think it may be helpful if we review a
17 little bit more of that statement that's been put in, preferably in
18 private session.
19 [Private session]
20 [redacted]
21 [redacted]
22 [redacted]
23 [redacted]
24 [redacted]
25 [redacted]
Page 21566
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17 [redacted]
18 [Open session]
19 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
20 MR. NICE:
21 Q. You say a few lines further on after hearing the man say "Let them
22 suffer," speaking of the man who asked to be killed, you say: "I slowly
23 pulled myself out from under the dead bodies." Did you find yourself
24 under dead bodies as you've described in detail in this statement?
25 A. That is true. That is where I found myself, because when they
Page 21568
1 started shooting people in the back, people were turning around and
2 falling. And this relative who held me by the hand was on top of me.
3 Q. Now, there are two passages I want your comment on that you
4 haven't been asked about by the accused or Mr. Tapuskovic. You describe
5 going off to the brush wood and waiting for night to fall, and then you
6 say in this statement or it's recorded that you said: "From there I saw
7 two more trucks loaded with people arrive and I heard machine fire." Did
8 you in fact see the trucks arrive but only hear the machine-gun fire?
9 A. I heard the trucks very well when they arrived. True, on that day
10 there were three trips. In the group I was in, there were 64 of us. Then
11 they brought two more lots. And they opened fire at the same spot. I
12 heard the fire, and I heard the trucks arriving. I wasn't far away.
13 Q. The question is: Did you actually see the trucks as this
14 statement suggests or only hear them?
15 A. Maybe it says I saw them. I just heard them coming to the same
16 stop from which I had escaped the execution.
17 Q. Two lines further on where you calculated the number of people
18 that would have been killed. You said this, and I'd like your comment on
19 it: "I assumed that was done by the residents of Pilica." Why did you
20 make that assumption and what did you mean?
21 A. I don't know where it says that. I may have said about these 300
22 that stayed behind down there, that this may have been done by the locals
23 of Pilica, by the inhabitants of Pilica.
24 Q. And then finally on this topic, although one other question after
25 it on the statement, a little bit further on after you deal with the
Page 21569
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Page 21570
1 people who'd been speaking of the murderers of the young man called Sane,
2 you deal with, you're going to the house where the execution had taken
3 place, and you say or your statement records you are saying that in the
4 bushes, you saw them using forklift trucks to load the dead bodies onto
5 the trucks, and you assume there were about 400. Did you actually see
6 them loading bodies onto the trucks or did you deduce that that's what had
7 been happening?
8 THE ACCUSED: [No translation].
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can I answer that?
10 JUDGE MAY: What is it, Mr. Milosevic?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The point is that the witness in his
12 statement doesn't speak of a loader but of a bulldozer.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The interpreters, Mr. Milosevic,
14 don't know what a loader is and they used the word bulldozer, and I'm sure
15 you know what a bulldozer is.
16 JUDGE MAY: One at a time.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I assume you were giving your
18 statement in your own language.
19 JUDGE MAY: One at a time, Witness B-1098.
20 Mr. Nice, would you care to take over and straighten this out.
21 MR. NICE:
22 Q. What your statement, if you've got it there in front of you
23 B-1098, appears to say at this passage is that you saw them using forklift
24 trucks to load dead bodies into the trucks, and you assume that there were
25 about 400. Now, when you were giving evidence yesterday you spoke of your
Page 21571
1 deduction that there were bodies in the lorry with the tarpaulin around
2 the side of it. Can you help us? Did you actually see loading of bodies
3 onto the truck or did you simply deduce that in the way you suggested
4 yesterday?
5 A. You see, when I was watching, it was a big truck with a -- like a
6 container behind covered with a tarpaulin. And this same bulldozer was
7 standing right next to the truck. The forklift would be loading the
8 bodies. Then they would cover the struck with tarpaulin across the sides
9 and thread it -- thread the rope through to tie it down.
10 Q. Is this something you actually -- is this something you actually
11 saw, that procedure, or is this something that you deduced, something that
12 you inferred from what you did see?
13 A. You see, this forklift, it was working all the time. And just
14 then, people in civilian clothes were tying down the tarpaulin. So I
15 thought that they were loading those bodies onto the truck.
16 MR. NICE: Thank you.
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, the witness certainly
19 didn't give his statement in the English language. That is what I assume.
20 And in the statement in the Serbian language on page 7, one but last
21 paragraph it says, I'm reading the whole sentence up to the full stop: "I
22 returned close to the house where the mass killing had taken place, and I
23 saw a bulldozer loading bodies onto a truck," full stop.
24 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we have the point. We have the point and the
25 witness has explained. Let's move on?
Page 21572
1 MR. NICE: My last question on the statement is at the foot of the
2 page, Your Honour. It deals with a person who the witness did name in
3 open session yesterday.
4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. B-1098, you said this in your witness statement, during your stay
6 in Medjedje, you heard that Vejsil Hamzic from Durokovci [phoen] had
7 survived the execution because he had supposedly found himself in a group
8 that was killed in the truck. He was still in Medjedje.
9 Is that the process whereby you learned of this other survivor,
10 although he was a survivor subsequently killed elsewhere in the war?
11 A. Well, when I reached Zaseok, that is in free territory, I was told
12 straight away by the inhabitants of Zaseok that another man had come from
13 the execution. They had arrested him thinking he was someone else.
14 Afterwards I found that Vejsil, but unfortunately he was killed during the
15 war. I wish he were an alive and that he could testify because he
16 survived the same as I did.
17 Q. This is the statement that you made just days after finding
18 yourself in free territory, a statement you made in hospital, and you're
19 giving an account there of how you learnt of Vejsil Hamzic. Is the
20 account you give about learning about him a true one?
21 A. Correct. I explained a moment ago that when I reached Zaseok on
22 free territory, the people in Zaseok told me that another man had arrived
23 and he was in the third group for the execution.
24 Q. Finally these two or three questions. You heard me inform the
25 Chamber this morning that you were interviewed in the hospital and that
Page 21573
1 you'd been interviewed for television or something on a subsequent
2 occasion at least once since. On those interviews, have you given the
3 history of this massacre?
4 A. It's probable that I didn't say everything on television for my
5 own safety.
6 Q. Yes. But you gave a general account of all these people being
7 killed?
8 A. I knew about these 400, but I said I didn't believe anybody had
9 survived. And you have a recording, you can play it so that he should
10 know what they did.
11 Q. Has anybody until the accused started cross-examining you
12 yesterday suggested to you that your account of these events is
13 fabricated, fictional, made up?
14 A. Never has anyone done that prior to Milosevic.
15 Q. Finally this, but answer it in general terms, please: To your
16 knowledge, is the area where the people who you say were killed lived
17 recently been re-populated by such of the people who lived there
18 originally as have been able to return home?
19 A. The area now, I think, is being re-populated. Not a hundred per
20 cent, but I believe 90 per cent it has been re-populated .
21 Q. Has there been any suggestion in the course of that re-population
22 that these hundreds of people, hundreds of men you described as having
23 been killed at Karakaj are not dead at all and are actually in a position
24 to come home and retake their properties?
25 A. The women and children have come back and those who were killed
Page 21574
1 will never come back to regain their property. They're done with. If I
2 could now ask a question, if possible, please.
3 Q. Not of me because I've finished the questions I want to ask you,
4 but if you ask the question of Their Honours, they may or may not indulge
5 you. I don't know.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Quite a few of these returnees of
8 ours, Your Honours, went back there. As I said awhile ago, 90 per cent of
9 the population has returned. And again, people are getting closer to each
10 other, Serbs and Muslims. Any Serb you ask about these people, where they
11 are and how they fared and where the graves are at least, they say, "How
12 should we know? It's people from Yugoslavia who came." That's the kind
13 of question or answer you'll get from any Serb who lives there. They say,
14 "No way. We have no idea about this." And now he's telling me that the
15 Yugoslav People's Army didn't take part in this. What about the Uzice
16 Corps? What about all these other corps? That's what I can't understand.
17 And now according to Milosevic, it's the witness who is making all
18 of this up.
19 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, do you want to exhibit these statements?
20 MR. NICE: I think if I may respectfully say so, all the
21 statements including the first statement that the accused was
22 cross-examining on, the corrected statement that I think is included in
23 the package you've got, it's about one page with the corrections on the
24 interpretation, and the earlier statement made by the witness should
25 probably be before you given that he is the sole survivor of these events
Page 21575
1 and although there will be other evidence that will support it, I think
2 insofar as it touches on movement of people to and from Karakaj and
3 thereabouts and insofar as indeed it's supported by the evidence of the
4 movements of the vehicle from Drinatrans, nevertheless, it is the material
5 of the sole survivor and probably should be available to you.
6 JUDGE MAY: The statements are those, first of all to the public
7 or, rather, security services centre, Tuzla, 17th of June, 1992, to the
8 Office of the Prosecutor, 24th of November, 1996, and a third statement is
9 the corrected statement is the 9th of July, 2002. It might be convenient
10 if all three of exhibited together.
11 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution Exhibit 457.
12 MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, we will make arrangements if possible
13 to retain the witness here until tomorrow. We will provide copies of the
14 two interviews today. I can't say that we'll be able to have transcripts
15 of what is on those videos by tomorrow, but we'll do whatever we can to
16 provide a written summary of what they contain, and perhaps we can deal
17 tomorrow morning with the release of the witness finally from court.
18 JUDGE MAY: Witness B-1098, for the moment that concludes your
19 evidence. There has been, as you know, this material which has been
20 found, this interview, and it may be that there are one or two questions
21 that you may have to be asked about that. So if you can, we're going to
22 ask you to remain here to deal with it, and you can talk to the
23 Prosecution if there's anything relevant about it. But subject to that,
24 you are free to go, and thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give your
25 evidence.
Page 21576
1 Yes. Yes.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In relation to this additional
3 examination, there is one thing that is quite unclear, Mr. May. There is
4 one question that is totally unclear.
5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Mr. 1098 --
7 JUDGE MAY: You can't ask the witness any questions, he's finished
8 giving evidence.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not answering any more
10 questions.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Now what is the point you're making.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is it. I want to say that
13 Mr. Nice asked the witness to explain to him what he wrote in his
14 statement. I assume that this was done by the villagers from Pilica.
15 That's what it says in the statement. And if the witness said in response
16 that this probably pertains to those 300 rather than to what he had
17 testified about, which is not correct. So could you please be so kind as
18 to take the translation. The translation is a good one.
19 On page 3 of this statement that you looked at just now, just like
20 I did, on page 3 of the English statement you will see that it is not
21 correct, that the explanation refers to those 300 in Pilica.
22 Somewhere around the middle of this big paragraph, in English, you
23 have under quotation marks "Let them suffer." It will be quite obvious.
24 You can see it on the left-hand margin. "Let them suffer." It's about
25 after the second-third of that paragraph. And then the text: "[In
Page 21577
1 English] [Previous translation continues] ... which Chetniks had left.
2 And so that there was nobody around, I slowly pulled myself out from under
3 the dead bodies, left the building and hid close by in some --"
4 JUDGE MAY: We can read this. You cannot take up more time with
5 these arguments. We have seen -- we have seen -- wait a moment. These
6 documents have been exhibited and you can address us on it in due course,
7 but we cannot waste more time now.
8 [The witness withdrew]
9 JUDGE MAY: Let us move on to the next witness, please. No,
10 Mr. Milosevic, we have the point. We can read it. It's all in front of
11 us, and now is not the time to make it.
12 Yes. Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, are you calling the next witness?
13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. Yes, Your Honour. The
14 witness --
15 JUDGE MAY: Would you call the witness.
16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. I think the usher is already on her
17 way.
18 Your Honour, the next witness is the Witness C-047, and he is also
19 a protected witness with image -- pseudonym and image alteration.
20 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, this witness also has voice
21 distortion.
22 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's have the witness, please.
23 [The witness entered court]
24 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Just a moment. Let the witness take the
25 declaration.
Page 21578
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
2 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
3 JUDGE MAY: Yes. If you'd like to take a seat.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Tapuskovic.
6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I have a request.
7 I think it would be all right if this screen could be moved just a little
8 bit. I cannot see the witnesses when I examine them, and I think it
9 really wouldn't matter if the screen would be pulled just about 20 metres
10 to the other side, please.
11 JUDGE MAY: Perhaps we could see about that during the
12 adjournment. We'll see what can be done.
13 WITNESS: WITNESS C-047
14 [Witness answered through interpreter]
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Thank you, Your Honour. Your Honour,
17 could we briefly go into private session for some particulars related to
18 the witness.
19 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
20 [Private session]
21 [redacted]
22 [redacted]
23 [redacted]
24 [redacted]
25 [redacted]
Page 21579
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8 [redacted]
9 [redacted]
10 [redacted]
11 [redacted]
12 [Open session]
13 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
14 JUDGE MAY: We're now going to adjourn for 20 minutes. Witness
15 C-047, during this adjournment and any others there may be, don't speak to
16 anybody about your evidence until it's over, and that does include the
17 members of the Prosecution team. Could you be back in 20 minutes, please.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very well.
19 --- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.
20 --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.
21 THE ACCUSED: Mr. May.
22 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should just like to draw your
24 attention to one particular fact so that that is clear. While the
25 previous witness testified, I heard through the headsets, it probably came
Page 21584
1 from the technical booth where they were looking through their interviews,
2 but I was able to hear all the particulars, names, surname, and all these
3 other particulars, but I assume that this was in closed -- in private
4 session. But my associate who sits outside in the public gallery heard
5 this interference, which means that his name was in fact disclosed. So I
6 should like you to bear that in mind. I don't want there to be any
7 mystifications as to who disclosed his name. You could hear it quite
8 clearly. I also heard it through my headsets in the background. However,
9 I did believe it was in private session.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We've had a report that the name did get out
11 that way, and steps are being taken to ensure it doesn't happen again, and
12 there will be suitable redactions, of course, in the transcript, and I'm
13 sure the press won't report it.
14 Yes.
15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Thank you, Your Honour.
16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Witness, did you meet Vojislav Seselj in the last part of 1990 in
18 a gathering in a restaurant?
19 A. Yes. I met Vojislav Seselj in 1990 in a place called Mali Stapar
20 in a restaurant there owned by Aleksandar Nikolic. He was the proprietor
21 there.
22 Q. Why did you attend this gathering?
23 A. From my friends in Civac, I heard this was somebody who was a
24 royalist, who favoured the monarchy, who was opposed to communism and that
25 he was coming to Mali Stapar to gather around him some people. We all
Page 21585
1 knew that there would be a war, but as I said, he was an advocate of the
2 monarchy. He was a Royalist at that time.
3 Q. What did Seselj on this gathering speak about?
4 A. Seselj said there would be a war and that he was in favour of a
5 monarchy, that an army should established, that we should fight communism
6 and topple communism in Yugoslavia, in Serbia.
7 Q. Did he refer to Croatia and what was going on there?
8 A. Yes, he did. He said that there was unrest in Croatia and that
9 the Croats were exerting pressure on the Serbs in a number of ways,
10 through killings and in other ways, and that there would be a war and that
11 the army, his army, Seselj's army or, rather, the Chetniks already had
12 units that part of Backa. It is actually Western Backa with Jovo Ostojic
13 at their head and that those Chetniks were being trained close to that
14 locality.
15 Q. At that time, did you have information of what was actually going
16 on in Croatia and how the Serbs were treated?
17 A. Yes. Via the media I was able to follow the situation there, and
18 there were news reports all the time that the Serbs were -- that maximum
19 pressure had been exerted against the Serbs, that atrocities were being
20 committed, that they were threatened. In a word, that they were in
21 jeopardy, generally speaking, from the Croats, endangered from the Croats.
22 Q. At that gathering, did Seselj ask you to do something? Not you
23 personally, but the people present to do something in your region?
24 A. Yes. We discussed it, and he said that in Subotica there were two
25 men who were organising the Serbian Radical Party or, rather, collecting
Page 21586
1 up a membership for the party from the North Backa district. And the goal
2 of that rallying was to set up the Serbian Radical Party in those regions.
3 Q. You mentioned that Seselj was a royalist and was actually very
4 much arguing against communism. Did you share these views?
5 A. That's how he introduced himself and presented himself as being.
6 He showed a different side to him later on.
7 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness repeat the latter half of what
8 he said?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I am a royalist myself.
10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
11 Q. The interpreters didn't get the last half sentence that you said.
12 Could you repeat your answer?
13 A. I am also an advocate of royalism. I am for the monarchy. I am
14 for the King.
15 Q. In the period that followed, did you actually observe Seselj
16 being -- opposing communism and parties related to communism?
17 A. Yes. At that time he did do so via the media. And of course at
18 these meetings and rallies he always spoke out against communism, saying
19 that it should be overthrown, put a stop to, and if necessary, this should
20 be done through force of arms.
21 Q. In the time that came, was the SRS party, the Serbian Radical
22 Party, actually fighting the SPS policy?
23 A. For a time, yes, it did, but later on he joined the politics and
24 policies of the SPS.
25 Q. What is "later on"? Which period do you refer to?
Page 21587
1 A. That means straight away in 1991. Towards the end of 1991, I
2 realised that he was not in fact a royalist and that everything that he
3 was doing he was in fact doing under the commands of the state in cohorts
4 with the state and in agreement with the JNA and the police force.
5 Q. Did you notice any difference in what Seselj said publicly and
6 what he actually did when it comes to communism?
7 A. Yes. I noticed a maximum amount of differences. He would say one
8 thing and do something quite different. He joined the communists and
9 socialists, in fact.
10 Q. Did he oppose the Serbian government, the policy of Milosevic?
11 A. Not after 1991, no.
12 Q. You have already mentioned that Seselj suggested to form a branch
13 of the SRS party in the region. Did this indeed happen, and did you join
14 that party?
15 A. Yes. I went to Subotica, which is where I resided. I came into
16 contact with Bozidar Vujic and Milan Stojanovic who had already
17 established the Serbian Radical Party for the North Backa district with
18 its centre and headquarters in Subotica, and I joined the two of them in
19 organising the party, rallying members for the party. And at the same
20 time, the Serbian Chetnik movement.
21 Q. You have already mentioned that in that first gathering that
22 Seselj mentioned a person Jovo Ostojic. What did he say about him and who
23 was he?
24 A. He mention that had there was a man called Jovo Ostojic who was a
25 great patriot, a Serb, who was rallying volunteers from the area of
Page 21588
1 Western Backa, that he was training them and preparing them for war in
2 Croatia.
3 Q. Did the same thing -- was the same thing then also organised in
4 Subotica, without going into details, please?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. These volunteer forces that Jovo Ostojic established and that also
7 were established in Subotica, are they usually referred to as Chetniks?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can you explain briefly what is a Chetnik?
10 A. Well, during the Second World War, the King's officers who were
11 opposed to communism were called Chetniks, and they were led by a general
12 named General Draza Mihajlovic. So for the most part, they were people
13 who were monarchist, who were in favour of the King, who supported the
14 King. And this tradition has persevered. It had to work illegally,
15 underground, the Serbian Chetnik movement until 1990 or 1991, when
16 Vojislav Seselj created the Serbian Chetnik movement within the Serbian
17 Radical Party.
18 Q. In relation to their appearance, how can they are distinguished or
19 could they be distinguished from other armed formation -- formations? Is
20 there a special sign in?
21 A. They were people, men who were Serb oriented. They did not have
22 any uniforms. They were not people who had graduated from regular army
23 training or military -- had military experience and training. Usually
24 Chetniks wore beards and the cockades which was a national emblem with the
25 two-headed eagle and crown, and also they had a skull with the two bones
Page 21589
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Page 21590
1 which was the Chetnik emblem, insignia.
2 Q. Is there a difference in appearance between the SRS Chetniks and
3 the so-called White Eagles of Mirko Jovic? Could they also be
4 distinguished from each other?
5 A. Well, first of all, they could be distinguished by virtue of the
6 insignia and symbols they wore and by virtue of their appearance I would
7 say too.
8 Q. Yes. What was different?
9 A. The difference is that the White Eagles, as the name says, had the
10 white eagle insignia. The Chetniks had the skull and bone insignia, the
11 bones being crossed. So that was their symbol.
12 Q. I would like to show you now a few documents related to the SRS
13 party and the SCP, the Serbian Chetnik movement. The first one is tab 2.
14 We have it also on Sanction. Just have a brief look at it and tell us
15 whether you are familiar with the document called "Manifesto of the
16 Serbian Radical Party for 1991."
17 A. Yes, I have seen this. I had it in my hands and I am familiar
18 with the contents.
19 Q. I just want to briefly address a few points in this manifesto, and
20 in the introduction on the first page there is a reference to the founding
21 Assembly in Kragujevac on the 23rd of February, 1991. Are you familiar
22 with the fact that it was established officially then?
23 A. Yes, I am familiar with that.
24 Q. And in paragraph 1 you find a reference to -- that, "This party
25 has in mind the restoration of the free, independent, and democratic
Page 21591
1 Serbian state in the Balkans which will include the whole of Serbdom, all
2 the Serbian lands, which means that within its frontiers will be, besides
3 the current, imposed federal unit of Serbia itself, Serbian Macedonia,
4 Serbian Montenegro, Serbian Bosnia, Serbian Herzegovina, Serbian
5 Dubrovnik, Serbian Dalmatia, Serbian Lika, Serbian Kordun, Serbian Banja,
6 Serbian Slavonia, and Serbian Baranja."
7 Were you aware of that territorial claim?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And just one other fact I want to refer you to, and that's
10 actually paragraph 25. Would you please go forward to paragraph 25.
11 Paragraph 25 deals with Kosovo and Metohija and actually lists a
12 lot of measures referring to the Kosovo Albanian population and including
13 to expel 360.000 immigrants from Albania and their descendants related to
14 that any state financial subsidy to the ethnic Albanian minorities be
15 prevented. You see that the Albanians are addressed as Siptars. Was
16 Kosovo an issue at that time for you and for the people?
17 A. Yes, I am familiar with this. I was in Kosovo on a number of
18 occasions as a police officer and I saw what was going on there, the
19 repressive measures against the Albanians.
20 Q. And there is at the last page of this document there is a
21 reference to the support that the SRS supports the political efforts of
22 the Serbian Democratic Party in the area of the current Croatia and the
23 Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina inter alia. These are
24 the SDS parties in these countries, in these regions?
25 A. Yes.
Page 21592
1 Q. The next document I would like to have you look at is the statute
2 of Serbian Radical Party, and it's a document which has attached to it on
3 the last page a decree, a decree of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of
4 Justice referring that it is entered in the register political
5 organisation in Serbia. Were you aware that it was registered?
6 A. Yes, I was aware of that.
7 Q. And if you please now look at the statute of the Serbian Radical
8 Party, the newer one from, as it says on the last page, 1994. Are you
9 also familiar with this document?
10 A. Yes, I am.
11 Q. And I would like you to briefly look at the Articles 1, 2, and 3.
12 They all deal with the fight for the state unity and the struggle for
13 unification of all Serbian lands, and there as also a reference to Serbian
14 ethnic areas. Were you aware that this was one of the goals?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. I would only now in relation to this statute refer you to
17 paragraph 79 -- Article 79. If you please look at Article 79. There is a
18 reference to collective members of the party, and it says here:
19 "Collective members of the party are the Serbian Chetnik movement," and
20 then something else follows. Does this mean that the members of the
21 Serbian Chetnik movement were automatically also SRS members?
22 A. The members of the Serbian Chetnik movement had to be members of
23 the Serbian Radical Party.
24 Q. And in Article 81, it says that the Serbian Chetnik movement, as a
25 collective member, rallies its members for the following purposes, and
Page 21593
1 then four of the purposes listed, basically organising, volunteers,
2 organise assistance for fighters and the like. Is that what the Serbian
3 Chetnik movement actually did?
4 A. Yes. That was the basic task.
5 Q. And in Article 82, you see here the reference to the highest organ
6 of the SGP. It's the council of vojvoda consisting of all the vojvodas
7 headed by the one who held the rank the longest. Could you say who that
8 was?
9 A. Yes. That was Vojislav Seselj who gained the title of vojvoda
10 from the Chetnik vojvoda during the war, Vojvoda Djujic, Momcilo Djujic.
11 And he was the oldest one in the movement.
12 Q. And what is a vojvoda?
13 A. It is the highest title in the Serbian Chetnik movement.
14 Q. And in Article 85, you have actually listed who the conditions for
15 a vojvoda. It says here the rank of vojvoda may be awarded to a person
16 who fulfils all the following conditions, and there are the conditions.
17 Does that mean a vojvoda usually is a fighter?
18 A. It doesn't have to mean that, no.
19 Q. Who else could --
20 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, I wonder if we could get the
21 literal meaning of vojvoda in Serbia through help with the interpreters.
22 THE INTERPRETER: Vojvoda means "duke," Your Honour.
23 JUDGE KWON: Duke. Thank you.
24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It says here rank of vojvoda may be awarded
25 to a person who fulfils all the following conditions it says distinguished
Page 21594
1 fighter the next line also says distinguished fighter and the fourth
2 condition is participant in combat.
3 Q. But you said that is not necessarily a vojvoda. Who else could
4 get such a position?
5 A. Somebody who worked to organise the Serbian Chetnik movement. For
6 example, in Northern Backa, rallying aid and assistance to Krajina,
7 Slavonia, and Baranja. Somebody who had set up the military section of
8 the Serbian radical movement, rallying supporters, sympathisers or
9 fighters, volunteers, train them, et cetera.
10 Q. Now I would like to put to you the diagram, tab 4. It's the
11 structure of the SRS in Vojvodina.
12 This chart, was it actually prepared by the Prosecutor --
13 Prosecutor's office with your assistance?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And we have Vojislav Seselj on the top of it and there is also the
16 Main Board. Did it include Main Board members from other regions outside
17 of Serbia?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you have highlighted here also a person, Jovan Glamocanin. He
20 had a special function. What was that?
21 A. Mr. Jovan Glamocanin was the coordinator. That is to say he
22 helped set up the district boards, local boards of the Serbian Radical
23 Party. He gave instructions, that kind of thing.
24 Q. And the structures below this central level in Belgrade, we have
25 it here for Vojvodina and Subotica. Would such a similar structure be
Page 21595
1 established in other regions as well?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. That should be enough. I would like now to go to tab 5, which is
4 a policy platform of the Serbian Chetnik movement. Are you familiar with
5 this document?
6 A. Yes, I am.
7 Q. In the English we cannot actually see from which time period it
8 is, but in the Serbian first page could you see at what time this platform
9 was actually published?
10 A. I can't see that, but as far as I know, in 1991.
11 Q. Obviously the witness was not given the first page. We could
12 perhaps put it on the ELMO or just show it to the witness. I think we
13 have to put it on the ELMO because Their Honours do not have it. Can we
14 put the first page on the ELMO?
15 From the first page, can you see a date? It's a little bit
16 difficult to see, but can you see -- or when you look at the original, do
17 you see a date there in the Cyrillic language?
18 A. Yes. That is July 1990.
19 Q. And looking at the emblem, what is that? What emblem is that?
20 A. It is the emblem of the Serbian Radical Party, Greater Serbia, the
21 journal that was published by the Serbian Radical Party.
22 Q. Thank you. That is enough for the ELMO, but I would like to
23 address a few points in the platform.
24 In paragraph one of the platform we have the restoration of a free
25 independent democratic Serbian state in the Balkans, and we have also the
Page 21596
1 reference to the various regions that belong to this state. And is that
2 the same as in the SRS programme?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Then I would like to refer you to paragraph 11. There is a
5 reference to World War II genocide. And after this reference to the world
6 war genocide -- World War II genocide, it then also says: "To do so
7 requires a detailed and comprehensive registration of the victims and
8 identification of the perpetrators of the crimes, particularly taking into
9 account the restoration of the independent State of Croatia and the
10 appearance of the new Ustasha leaders as well as the general protection of
11 the Serbian population who are presently endangered by the new genocidal
12 policy."
13 Was that the point of view the Serbian Chetnik movement and the
14 SRS party, that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And I also would like to refer you to paragraph 20 where we again
17 have also the special methods and measures in relation to Kosovo and
18 Metohija. You're familiar with this?
19 A. Yes, I am.
20 Q. And just another document, statute of the Serbian Chetnik
21 movement. I just would like you to have a look at it briefly and tell us
22 whether you are aware and familiar with this statute.
23 A. Yes, I am familiar with this statute.
24 Q. Thank you. That should be enough. And I would like to go briefly
25 into private session, Your Honour, because we have to review a -- a chart
Page 21597
1 with a name on it. It's tab 7.
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13 [Open session]
14 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
16 Q. And just one more document in relation to a structure that we saw
17 in the last diagram. In the last diagram, we saw the war -- the War
18 Staff, and here is a document, minutes of the Crisis Staff meeting of the
19 1st October, 1991, Crisis Staff meeting of the Serbian Radical Party, and
20 we see here the name from Crisis Staff is changed to War Staff, as you
21 mentioned before. Are you familiar with this?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Yes. Thank you. And now I would take you to some insignia?
24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And, Your Honours, it would be Exhibit 349,
25 tab 14.
Page 21601
1 Q. Where we have two -- we have actually the first insignia on the
2 screen. What is it?
3 A. Yes. It is the patch of the Serbian Chetnik movement, the emblem
4 or insignia that is worn on the left sleeve of the uniform.
5 Q. Did you also have a flag of that kind?
6 A. Yes. The flag is black with this same emblem in the middle.
7 Q. And then the next emblem. What is -- can you say what we see
8 here?
9 A. This is the emblem of the Serbian Radical Party. For a while it
10 was with a crown. Later on the crown was removed.
11 JUDGE MAY: I think we better have a separate tab number.
12 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.
13 JUDGE KWON: Tab 15.
14 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Thank you.
15 Q. And now a -- another exhibit. It's actually a map indicating in
16 red dots the places that the witness will now speak about. And it's just
17 as an assistance to everyone to find the location easily without having to
18 find it in an atlas.
19 Witness, there's no need to explain this map now. You just have
20 it there at your convenience. Thank you. And we would need to have a tab
21 number from the Croatian map binder, and it is the Exhibit 326, and it
22 would be tab 27.
23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Can I continue? Yes? Okay.
24 Q. Witness, did Seselj hold a rally in Subotica in late 1990?
25 A. Yes, he did.
Page 21602
1 Q. Did he say anything related to non-Serbs at this rally?
2 A. Yes. Seselj held a rally in the centre of Subotica, in the
3 square, when he declared that he would take out eyes with rusted forks and
4 spoons of non-Serbs, the Croats and Hungarians living in Subotica that
5 were not loyal to the current authorities.
6 Q. Witness, I may have misled you with my question. Do you recall
7 when that was, in which year?
8 A. In 1991.
9 Q. Yes. I made a mistake in my question. Sorry.
10 Did he make any suggestion of what to do against the non-Serbs in
11 the region?
12 A. Yes. He said that they -- all Croats should be chased out to
13 Croatia, whereas the Serbs who had fled from Croatia should come to their
14 homes. And the same applied to the Hungarians.
15 Q. During this rally, did he also speak about state borders?
16 A. Yes, he did. The borders that we saw mentioned in the statute of
17 the Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Chetnik movement. Those are the
18 borders.
19 Q. Was there a name that Seselj used for this Serbian state?
20 A. Greater Serbia with its borders from Karlovac to Karlobag and
21 Virovitica as far as Croatia is concerned.
22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we would need now to go into
23 private session, because --
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, before that could we get the year? In 1991.
25 Yes. Thank you.
Page 21603
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15 [Open session]
16 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
17 Q. Did such a campaign that was suggested take place in Subotica and
18 the region?
19 A. Yes, it did take place. There were two terrorist attacks. The
20 cathedral, the Catholic church in Subotica, was blown up, and also a
21 plaque with the name of Dusan Stipanovic, a Hungarian name given to a
22 school. That plaque was removed also.
23 Q. Were non-Serbs thrown out -- dismissed from the police or other
24 government offices?
25 A. Yes, from the police, the police became Serbian police. Serb
Page 21605
1 refugees were hired. And I was told by the volunteers that I had rallied
2 that I should select capable people to become active members of the police
3 force and members of the reserve force. This same applied to personnel of
4 hospitals and other institutions. There were dismissals.
5 Q. Were Croats and Hungarians, were they intimidated in their houses?
6 A. Yes, they were. Many families moved out of Subotica.
7 Q. Did the police prevent any of these occurrences?
8 A. No, it didn't prevent them.
9 Q. Did policemen actually engage in such activities?
10 A. Yes. They engaged in terror, in physical harassment of citizens
11 of Croat and Hungarian ethnicity.
12 Q. Was there a local SPS structure in Subotica?
13 A. Yes, in Subotica there was an SPS. The president was Dusko
14 Stipanovic of that branch.
15 Q. Was this SPS structure involved in the campaign against the
16 non-Serbs or was it not?
17 A. Yes, it was.
18 Q. And in which way?
19 A. In the same way as the radicals. The Presidency of the Serbian
20 Radical Party and the Presidency of the Serbian Radical Party collaborated
21 on a daily basis, first through dismissals. That was the beginning. Then
22 there were the groups that I mentioned who put explosives in the church,
23 who harassed citizens.
24 Q. You said they collaborated on a daily basis. Where were the
25 offices of both those parties?
Page 21606
1 A. The offices were at the Workers' University in Subotica.
2 Q. Were any of the perpetrators investigated, disciplined,
3 prosecuted, or convicted to your knowledge?
4 A. No, they weren't, though the perpetrators were known, at least of
5 these bomb attacks. He was temporarily in hospital, but there were no
6 reprisals against them. And the judge in the Subotica district court,
7 Raseta, I don't know his first name, and Mile Kosanovic, one belonged to
8 the Serbian Radical Party and the other to the SPS.
9 Q. You have already mentioned that non-Serbs fled the region after
10 these occurrences. Do you -- can you give us an estimate on how many
11 people -- non-Serbs fled or don't you know?
12 A. As far as I know, from the territory of Vojvodina, about 20.000
13 Hungarians and a large number of Croats were expelled.
14 Q. And how do you know this figure?
15 A. I know from the SUP, there the documents, from the bulletin we
16 received every morning.
17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we need to go into private
18 session just briefly for two questions to get into the next subject.
19 [Private session]
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Page 21607
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11 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
13 Q. You said it was a military shooting range, military -- a JNA
14 facility or what?
15 A. It was a JNA facility, a shooting range, yes, where the troops are
16 trained in the use of firearms.
17 Q. You said that -- you said that you saw Seselj there and Ostojic
18 and Mihalj Kertes. How did you know -- did you know Mihalj Kertes?
19 A. I knew Mihalj Kertes also from the media. In those days he was
20 Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.
21 Q. What were they doing at this military facility?
22 A. When I was approaching that facility, I saw a lot of people there.
23 I spoke to them. They were people from Ilok, a place in Croatia. And
24 they were distributing firearms, automatic rifles, semi-automatic rifles,
25 and ammunition.
Page 21608
1 Q. When you say "they," whom do you mean?
2 A. I'm referring to Vojislav Seselj, Mihalj Kertes, Jovo Ostojic was
3 there, JNA officers.
4 Q. You mentioned the people from Ilok that received firearms. What
5 kind of people? What ethnic background did they have?
6 A. They were Serbs.
7 Q. You mentioned JNA officers being there. Did they distribute the
8 arms?
9 A. Yes. They were present there next to the boxes.
10 Q. Did you see any senior police officers there as well?
11 A. Not over there.
12 Q. And can you describe the scale on which this distribution
13 happened? Just a rough estimate of how many people received arms.
14 A. I would say about 150 to 200 people.
15 Q. Yes.
16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, I will now move on to the
17 Serbian Chetnik movement, and we briefly need to go into private session.
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21 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
23 Q. Were -- how many volunteers were actually recruited? Do you
24 recall?
25 A. Well, about 300 volunteers were registered in Subotica.
Page 21610
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Page 21611
1 Q. And were the -- you said that the JNA and the police members were
2 a prime target for this recruitment. What -- did they actu ally join?
3 A. There were very many members the Serb Chetnik movement from the
4 ranks of the police and the army, both commissioned and non-commissioned
5 officers.
6 Q. Did at the same time the SPS recruit volunteers? Do you know?
7 A. Yes. I am aware of that. I saw Dusko Stipanovic recruiting
8 volunteers from the SPS. And he took them to the Dubrovnik frontline, to
9 Krajina, to Lika. They went through the army, through the JNA.
10 Q. What -- when the Chetnik volunteers were recruited, what was --
11 what were they told? What were they supposed to do?
12 A. Well, the task was the struggle against communism. That was the
13 basic objective of that unit in Subotica.
14 Q. And the other Chetnik units?
15 A. The other Chetnik units were -- operated more in the zone of war
16 operations, that is to say in Croatia. They fought against the Croats
17 along with the Yugoslav army together with other units.
18 Q. After the war in Croatia ended, what was the purpose of the units
19 then?
20 A. The units from the Northern Backa district were still intended to
21 fight against communism until 1993. And are you now referring to the
22 beginning of the war in Bosnia? There were other Chetnik units that were
23 transferred to Bosnia then.
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. I didn't quite understand at first.
Page 21612
1 Q. Yes. At that time when the Chetniks were recruited for, let's
2 say, Bosnia -- sorry, for Croatia in the beginning, what did you and those
3 people who volunteered knew of what was going on in Croatia? What did you
4 hear?
5 A. Well, as I said, most of my knowledge came from the media, TV,
6 radio, newspapers. For the most part that the Serb population was
7 jeopardised to a maximum, that they were being massacred, that crimes were
8 being committed against them.
9 Q. Did you subsequently find out whether these reports were correct?
10 A. Yes. I went to the war operations zones and I saw that for the
11 most part this was not true.
12 Q. What did happen? What was the truth that you saw?
13 A. Well, I saw -- let me put it briefly -- that our army was the
14 aggressor in the territory of the Republic of Croatia. That is to say,
15 they were committing killings, the destruction of houses. They were
16 taking possession of territories, villages, towns. Territories were being
17 ethnically cleansed.
18 Q. Did you also go to Bosnia? And what did you see happening there?
19 A. Yes, I did go to Bosnia. I saw the same thing there where I was,
20 that is.
21 Q. We'll come to the details where exactly you were, but let me ask
22 you one thing. The volunteers that joined the SP movement and the
23 volunteer units, what -- were files kept on them, and if so, who would do
24 that and where were they kept?
25 A. Yes. Records were made when people joined the Serb Chetnik
Page 21613
1 movement first. The volunteer would bring in his military booklet along
2 with his military assignment, that is to say, what he had been trained
3 for. And then he went to the offices of the Serb Chetnik movement. And
4 then in the field, in the zone of war operations, they belonged to the
5 Territorial Defence and to the JNA command. Again records were kept on
6 these men, the number of personnel engaged, names and surnames, et cetera.
7 Q. Who would keep these records?
8 A. Well, in Subotica, at the offices of the Serb Chetnik movement, I
9 was the one who kept this. In Belgrade it was Vojislav Seselj and Zoran
10 Drazilovic that kept the archives and in the field where the war
11 operations were, the commands of the TO and of the JNA.
12 Q. Where were the volunteers trained in Subotica?
13 A. In the area of Subotica, volunteers were trained at the military
14 training grounds and also at the police training grounds.
15 Q. Who gave the permission for these trainings?
16 A. The top people of the SUP, Milan Jerinkic
17 Q. And in relation to the JNA facility where they trained, who gave
18 the permission and who did the training?
19 A. Permission was given by Colonel Jovanovic, an officer of the 1st
20 barracks in Subotica. He was the one who gave permission for that.
21 Q. Did the JNA in Subotica also provide weapons or uniforms to the
22 volunteers during the training and in case they went to the frontline?
23 A. During training uniforms were not handed out, but it was at the
24 military exercise and training grounds that people were trained to use
25 weapons. So that is where there was a shooting range and where they
Page 21614
1 actually were engaged in shooting. At other locations they actually did
2 give uniforms as well.
3 Q. And when the volunteers went to the frontline, how did they
4 receive a uniform?
5 A. Well, it depended on where people were going. For the most part
6 they went to Bubanj Potok. This is a military facility near Belgrade.
7 That is where they were issued with complete uniforms, that is to say,
8 clothing and footwear and also training in the use of firearms was
9 conducted there as well.
10 Q. When -- Bubanj Potok is near Belgrade; is that correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Did volunteer units also go directly from Subotica to Croatia to
13 combat?
14 A. Well, not necessarily. People were mostly transferred to Belgrade
15 first. Bubanj Potok, those were not trained to shoot, then they would
16 trained there and then they were issued equipment. And there were also
17 cases when people went directly from Subotica to Croatia.
18 Q. When they did the latter, that is directly to the front line,
19 where would they get their uniforms and their weapons?
20 A. Weapons and equipment, they would get it at the command where they
21 would report, the command of the TO and the commander.
22 Q. In the field where they would join combat?
23 A. Yes, in the field, yes. Yes.
24 Q. And the uniforms, what kind of uniforms were they, JNA uniforms or
25 different?
Page 21615
1 A. Those were camouflage uniforms of the army of Yugoslavia, of the
2 JNA.
3 Q. We have seen insignias from -- you have explained insignias. Did
4 these -- did the volunteers put their Chetnik insignia on the uniforms?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Did that cause any problems on the front lines? I mean with the
7 JNA officers or the TO officers that received them.
8 A. No. There were absolutely no problems.
9 Q. How did -- how did the -- the structure in Subotica get aware of
10 the need for volunteers? Did you explain how it came about that
11 volunteers ended up, for instance, in Croatia? Can you just explain the
12 way how it went?
13 A. The Main Staff was in the office in Belgrade of the Serb Radical
14 Party. They would inform the office of the Serb Radical Party in
15 Subotica, and they would inform the officers of the Serb Chetnik movement,
16 and that is how preparations would be carried out to have people sent to
17 the frontline.
18 Q. The initial request for volunteers, would it come from the regions
19 where the combat took place, and who actually would put such a request?
20 A. Yes. Requests mostly came from the field, from the zone of war
21 operations to the office of the Serb Radical Party, and then they would
22 send it to the local committees in the various municipalities.
23 Q. Would the local command get detailed information to which part of
24 the front the volunteers had to go?
25 A. No.
Page 21616
1 Q. What would be the information that you got, you, the people in the
2 command in Subotica as an example? What information exactly would they
3 get?
4 A. Well, for example, that an area, a town was jeopardised by Croats
5 or Muslims in Bosnia and that it was necessary to send assistance and
6 manpower from our side and then food, medicine, footwear, clothing.
7 Q. And how would the volunteers then get to these places where they
8 were needed? How would they be transported?
9 A. We had sponsors, companies, firms that gave us buses free of
10 charge to Belgrade or to the war operations zone.
11 Q. When you say "companies," does that include public companies?
12 State-owned organisations?
13 A. Yes, that's what I meant.
14 Q. And would these buses be accompanied -- escorted by any
15 authorities such as police or army?
16 A. Yes. We would have an escort, military buses escorted by the
17 police or civilian buses escorted by the military.
18 Q. When you arrived -- when these units arrived in the place where
19 they were supposed to go, to whom would they report and from whom would
20 they get their orders?
21 A. They would report to the command, the army command in that
22 territory. For example, the Novi Sad Corps, the Kragujevac Corps and also
23 in Bosnia, the command in the field, to the officers of that command where
24 they would arrive.
25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I would like to go briefly into private
Page 21617
1 session for one matter, Your Honour.
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24 --- Recess taken at 12.18 p.m.
25 --- On resuming at 12.44 p.m.
Page 21620
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Page 21621
1 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Thank you. Your Honour, before I
3 continue, Mr. Nice has asked me to raise a very brief matter in relation
4 to the previous witness. He actually -- he said that the transcript will
5 only be available tomorrow, and he asked for permission to show the two
6 videos to the previous witness if that is possible.
7 [Trial Chamber confers]
8 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you.
10 Q. Witness, you said that you went to Vukovar. My question is, was
11 that before or after it fell?
12 A. Before the fall of Vukovar. I mean, I'm sorry, after the fall of
13 Vukovar.
14 Q. How much time later? Was it in 1991, in November or December? Do
15 you recall?
16 A. Right after the fall. That is to say a few days after the fall of
17 Vukovar.
18 Q. And you mentioned the Leva Supoderica detachment, and in this
19 context you also mentioned a person, Kameni. This detachment, was that a
20 Serbian volunteer detachment? And Kameni, who was he?
21 A. Yes. This was a Chetnik volunteer unit. Milan Lancuzanin,
22 nicknamed Kameni in 1992 was proclaimed a Chetnik vojvoda. He was
23 commander of that detachment, Leva Supoderica.
24 Q. In relation to this detachment Leva Supoderica, I would like to
25 show you now tab 9 of your exhibit binder. And it's also in Sanction.
Page 21622
1 And it's an address of the chief, Ljubisa Petkovic of the Serbian Radical
2 Party War Staff of 9th of November, 1991 to that same detachment, and it
3 says here in the first line: "All the volunteers of the Serbian Radical
4 Party has sent you, are being placed under your command and the protection
5 of the Vukovar TO. The SRS War Staff has appointed Slobodan Katic, a
6 brave and experienced soldier from Belgrade as the commander of the
7 volunteers in Vukovar."
8 Do you know this person Slobodan Katic and was he indeed in charge
9 of all the volunteers?
10 A. Yes. I know him personally. I met him at the command at Milan
11 Lancuzanin's, and he was commander of all the volunteers in that area.
12 Q. And was he also a vojvoda?
13 A. No. He introduced himself as Major Katic at that time in 1991.
14 Q. And we find also another person mentioned in the next paragraph.
15 That's Branislav Vakic from Nis who is also appointed a commander of the
16 platoon of the volunteers from Nis and Leskovac. Who was this person?
17 A. I know him through the media. I think I saw him once. Branislav
18 Vakic, in 1992, was proclaimed a Chetnik vojvoda.
19 Q. And we find, first of all in the quote that I just made, we find
20 the reference to the Vukovar TO. It says here they're under the
21 protection of the Vukovar TO. What does that mean?
22 A. Every volunteer unit, when it would go to the war zone, would have
23 to report to the TO and to the command of the army of Yugoslavia. For me
24 that is one and the same thing.
25 Q. And we have in the last paragraph, we have an administrative issue
Page 21623
1 that is addressed as follows: "Issue two certificates to all the
2 soldiers, one immediately on their entry into the unit and on which the
3 date of arrival and the notation until further notice are entered, and the
4 second on their return on which the up to date is entered. We would like
5 to point out that only your certificates are valid to certificate absence
6 from place of work."
7 Are you familiar with these certificates and why they were needed?
8 A. Yes. These certificates were issued anywhere, wherever one would
9 go to the war operations zone. These are certificates that are then taken
10 to the company where a person worked, and in this way one would make up
11 for one's leave of absence. In this way, he would receive a salary. He
12 would not have to pay his electricity bill. And then on the other hand
13 this would certificate one's participation in the war. It would be
14 counted as double years of service and it would be part of the retirement
15 scheme.
16 Q. Was that -- was that similar for the regular soldiers? Did they
17 have a similar -- similar rights. Was there any difference between the
18 volunteers and regular soldiers in regards to these benefits?
19 A. They had the same benefits. However, volunteers, reservists of
20 the army of Yugoslavia could become active soldiers. They could join the
21 JNA service.
22 Q. And there is one more sentence following the previous one that I
23 have quoted. It says here: "Please inform us in writing about the
24 soldiers that you have sent back due to lack of discipline or any other
25 reasons," and so forth.
Page 21624
1 Was it indeed a very strict discipline among the Chetnik units?
2 Was that actually done?
3 A. I am not aware of any such thing, of having any Chetniks returned
4 from the frontline.
5 Q. And looking at the document as such, in particular the stamp and
6 the signature, is that an authentic document?
7 A. Yes. Yes. I know the stamp. It's the stamp of the Main
8 Committee of the Serb Radical Party in Belgrade. I also know the
9 letterhead of the Serb Radical Party and also head of the War Staff,
10 Ljubisa Petkovic, Vojvoda Ljubisa Petkovic.
11 Q. Are you familiar with his signature?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. In -- in relation to Vukovar and your being there, did you ever
14 hear complaints by a JNA officer about violent behaviour of Chetnik
15 volunteers?
16 A. Well, I saw that there were conflicts between the military police
17 and the officers of Leva Supoderica. However, the Chetniks were looting.
18 They were caught as they were looting, and I saw them rape and kill a girl
19 then.
20 Q. When was that?
21 A. On that occasion when I was at the command in Leva Supoderica in
22 1991, in November.
23 Q. Did you see any other crimes that Chetnik volunteers committed on
24 the front?
25 A. Not far away from that command there was a big house. They took
Page 21625
1 me there. They took me to the bathroom and they boasted of having killed
2 three Croats, that they had slaughtered three Croats, actually, and the
3 entire bathroom had bloodstains all over. It was a horrible sight.
4 Q. What were your reactions to such things that you got to know and
5 see?
6 A. Well, specifically that girl, I don't know her name and surname,
7 when they brought her to the command, to Major Katic's command, in front
8 of all of us they said they would take her so that she would show them
9 where weapons and money were buried and that they would rape her and kill
10 her. I reacted to that. I found this a bit strange that Major Katic and
11 Kameni did not react to this. And when I jumped up and I said that they
12 shouldn't touch her, then they cocked their automatic rifles and they said
13 they would kill me.
14 Q. Such atrocities or crimes that you saw, did you report them to --
15 within the Chetnik structure or the -- within -- or did you report it to
16 the police?
17 A. I talked to men. I talked to officer from the police. Also, the
18 president of the Serb Radical Party in Subotica, Bozidar Vujic who is now
19 a MP. However, they reacted to that as a completely normal thing that
20 happened during wartime.
21 Q. While you were in Vukovar, did you see or hear about a Chetnik
22 with the nickname Svaba.
23 A. I heard about him but I don't know who he is.
24 Q. What did you hear about him?
25 A. Specifically about Svaba, about Kinez.
Page 21626
1 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note, the Chinaman.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] These were Chetniks who were killing
3 Croats in a cruel way, perhaps I should put it that. They were killing
4 civilians in a cruel way.
5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
6 Q. Is there a particular way of killing that would indicate it was a
7 Chetnik volunteer?
8 A. Well, what I saw was slit throats and noses and ears that were off
9 cut off, massacres.
10 Q. Were you aware whether any of the Chetnik volunteers was
11 disciplined, sent back from the front, prosecuted or convicted for such
12 war crimes?
13 A. I am not aware of any such thing.
14 Q. I would like to show you now actually two related documents. It's
15 tab 10 and tab 11, and they are both actually relating to the same event.
16 It's a public announcement by the Serbian Radical Party of north-eastern
17 Bosnia, and it's from the commander of the Serbian Chetnik of
18 north-eastern Bosnia, Vojvoda Blagojevic of the 27 September 1992. And
19 they strongly protest in this document -- in this announcement against an
20 incident that happened in September on the 24th and the 25th of September,
21 1992, and it says here: "That night during the curfew, special units of
22 the MUP of Republika Srpska made up of people who are not from Semberija
23 took away 14 members of the Zaherilic [phoen] family and eight members of
24 the Sejmenovic family and liquidated them." And it's here actually a
25 protest note.
Page 21627
1 And looking at that second, it's actually a repetition of this
2 protest note, and there is also a stamp.
3 If you look at the first document, can you identify the stamps on
4 this first document?
5 A. Yes, I can. It is the stamp of the command of the Serbian
6 Chetniks for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it was signed by Vojvoda Mirko
7 Blagojevic. This is the old church insignia, the stamp on the first page.
8 On the other is the stamp of the security police centre of
9 Bijeljina, the CSB of Bijeljina.
10 Q. And do you know this Vojvoda Blagojevic?
11 A. Yes, I do know him.
12 Q. But this protest note, given your own experience, what could have
13 been the reason to make such a protest note? What could be the underlying
14 thing?
15 A. I have just read through it. What it's about is that the special
16 units of Republika Srpska, to my mind, perpetrated a crime. On the basis
17 of the surnames I would say they were Muslim families. And the Chetniks
18 say that it was not them who were the perpetrators but that it was the
19 Serbian police.
20 Q. Were the Chetnik volunteers --
21 A. They disassociated themselves from the crime.
22 Q. Were the Chetnik volunteers used as scapegoats for crimes of
23 others? Do you know of any such thing?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. With the help of the -- no. We have the Sanction. But I would
Page 21628
1 like to put to the witness now a few -- a few documents, but they need to
2 be in private session because a certain name appears.
3 [Private session]
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Page 21629
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24 [Open session]
25 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
Page 21631
1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.
2 Q. And I would like to show to the witness now tab 15. It is a
3 report on the situation on the front on the 11th and 12 December 1991.
4 It's a report from a person I cannot identify to the War Staff of the SRS
5 party, Ljubisa Petkovic, describing the situation at that time.
6 Are you familiar with reports of that kind coming to -- coming in
7 to the War Staff in Belgrade?
8 A. I am familiar with that, and specifically I received this report
9 in Subotica, a photocopy of it.
10 Q. How would you receive it when it is addressed to the War Staff in
11 Belgrade?
12 A. At that time, Ljubisa Petkovic would get it in the War Staff, and
13 he would photocopy the documents and send them on to the local boards of
14 the Serbian Radical Party in the centres.
15 Q. To do what?
16 A. Well, in concrete terms, this particular document is asking for
17 assistance, reinforcements in men, fighters, to round up volunteers to
18 send them to Western Slavonia.
19 Q. There is -- this document is actually coming from the SAO Krajina,
20 Okucani is in particular mentioned here, TO Okucani. Can Subotica
21 actually send volunteers to Okucani?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And here we have as the last paragraph of this document there is
24 the following: "We expect your help in manpower as soon and as urgently
25 as possible and would ask the Ministry of Defence in Serbia to approve
Page 21632
1 clothing, footwear, weapons, and ammunition for ..." The rest wasn't
2 readable. "At the same time, we ask the ministry, because it is very
3 important to fulfil the request for material and technical equipment which
4 we sent a few days ago."
5 Are you aware that the Ministry of Defence of Serbia was involved
6 in those kind of matters?
7 A. I am aware of that.
8 Q. Do you know in which way they were involved? Would you know the
9 details?
10 A. Well, I can give you a concrete example of the officers of the
11 army of Yugoslavia whom I've known for many years. I met them in Bosnia
12 with all the equipment and materiel. That means they took an active part
13 from Serbia in Croatia, Bosnia as well.
14 Q. I would like you now to look at tab 16. It's an order of the
15 chief of the War Staff, Petkovic, of the 18th of November, 1991, in which
16 he orders that all volunteers sent to Western Slavonia be put under the
17 command of Radovan Novacic from Loznica as members of TO. Are you
18 familiar with this person Radovan Novacic and his role in Western
19 Slavonia?
20 A. I've heard of him, so in that way I do know him. And he led
21 volunteers from Serbia that were being sent to Western Slavonia. However,
22 they were duty-bound to report to the Territorial Defence in the area of
23 Western Slavonia once they arrived.
24 Q. Where -- you have already mentioned that volunteers from Subotica
25 were in Okucani. Do you know where else -- whether volunteers were in
Page 21633
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Page 21634
1 Western Slavonia?
2 A. Well, in every place and locality where there were war operations
3 going on. So they were present everywhere.
4 Q. Were SRS volunteers in Vocin?
5 A. Yes. I heard about that.
6 Q. Did you hear what happened in Vocin? Did you hear anything in
7 relation to the treatment of Croat people in that place?
8 A. As far as I remember, a massacre was committed of the civilian
9 Croatian population in Vocin.
10 Q. How did you hear about it?
11 A. They were information that reached me via Belgrade or through my
12 colleagues up at the front.
13 Q. When you say "via Belgrade," does it refer to the SRS party or the
14 Chetnik movement or to whom?
15 A. The Serbian Radical Party and the command of the War Staff of the
16 Chetnik movement as well.
17 Q. I would like now -- just -- I would like now to look at tab 17.
18 It's also an authorisation from that same period of Mr. Petkovic in
19 relation to a Milan Dobrilovic. Those two -- actually, those two
20 authorisations that I just showed to you, are they authentic, giving the
21 stamp and signatures?
22 A. Yes. The stamp is the same, which means the stamp of the Main
23 Board of the Serbian Radical Party with the signature of the chief of the
24 War Staff, Ljubisa Petkovic, and as the letterhead is the Serbian Radical
25 Party, the War Staff, and the address.
Page 21635
1 Q. And --
2 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
3 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I think that
4 there's been a mistake, that we're talking about two authorisations.
5 There is actually only one authorisation, and that is issued to the name
6 of the individual listed here who lives in Perocetkovic [phoen] number 42
7 street. The second name is in fact the name of a street, not the name of
8 a person. So they're not two authorisations. It's one authorisation.
9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I was actually -- sorry. Yes, just to
10 clarify, I was actually referring to the previous one. The previous one
11 is an authorisation, and I had forgotten the witness to ask him --
12 forgotten to ask whether this is authentic and I just wanted to combine
13 it. Sorry for this misunderstanding.
14 Q. In this document, the authorisation from the 10th of December,
15 1991, there is mentioned a Colonel Jovan Trbojevic. Who was he? What was
16 his position?
17 A. As far as I know, colonel Jovan Trbojevic was the commander of the
18 TO in Okucani.
19 Q. Was he a professional officer?
20 A. As far as I know, yes, he was.
21 Q. Was he a JNA officer?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And let us briefly look at the third authorisation. That is tab
24 18. It is again December 13, December 1991. Mr. Petkovic authorising
25 again the dispatch of volunteers. And it refers now to Banja Luka. And
Page 21636
1 my question to you is: Were volunteers from Bosnia actually sent to the
2 Western Slavonia theatre?
3 A. Yes, because the Serbian Chetnik movement existed over there too.
4 Q. Did the -- did there come a time when the SRS and the SCP received
5 a request from Belgrade, SRS headquarters, to dispatch volunteers to
6 Markusica in Eastern Slavonia to reinforce the Serb positions?
7 A. Yes. An order arrived over the phone - that's how I'd put it -
8 from the War Staff that a certain number of people were to be dispatched
9 to Markusica to the TO, to report there, because it was the demarcation
10 line, separation line, Markusica with the Croatian army. And we were to
11 dispatch people to secure the line because there had been an incident
12 there.
13 Q. And when was that? Do you recall which year it was and which
14 time?
15 A. 1992, as far as I remember.
16 Q. And what time from the season, giving the season. Was it in
17 summer or winter or when?
18 A. I think it was the middle of the year. Spring/summer,
19 thereabouts.
20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Can we briefly go for one question into
21 private session?
22 [Private session]
23 [redacted]
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Page 21637
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8 [Open session]
9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, just for your information, you
10 can have a look at the first map where we have actually indicated this
11 Markusica and another place that the witness is now -- will now speak
12 about. And you can see Subotica as well and how they went.
13 Q. Were you stopped in the village of Tordinci?
14 A. Yes, we were stopped. First of all in the village of Bobota by
15 the police there, the police of Srpska Krajina, where we were told that
16 there was fighting in and around the village of Tordinci. We entered the
17 village of Tordinci in actual fact and we entered the war zone and stopped
18 there.
19 Q. Tordinci, is that a Croatian village?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What did you see when you came there?
22 A. Once we had parked the truck on the side of the road I saw Arkan's
23 Tigers. I saw soldiers too belonging to the Serbian Krajina, and I saw
24 killings, the killing actually of two civilians. And in the distance some
25 150 -- 100 to 150 metres away, that was truck carrying dead bodies.
Page 21638
1 Q. Those -- how could you identify Arkan's? Were you familiar with
2 their outfit or how?
3 A. Yes. They wore -- actually on the right-hand side of their arms
4 they had the Serbian Volunteer Guards insignia, and on the left-hand side
5 they had the emblem with the Tiger on it and it said "Tigers" on the
6 patch. They had black hoods, camouflage uniforms.
7 Q. Having seen that, did you afterwards see any prominent politicians
8 or perhaps Arkan himself?
9 A. Yes. We arrived precisely at the time the battle was over, and
10 there was strong fighting around the village of Lastija [phoen]. And not
11 far from the centre I came across a television crew belonging to
12 Radio/Television Belgrade, and Goran Hadzic and Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan.
13 Q. What were they doing?
14 A. I just came across them. They were congratulating each other and
15 shaking hands, and they shook hands with me too. And later on I heard
16 Arkan ask, "Who is this man?" But as I was wearing battle dress, he
17 assumed he should shake hands with me.
18 Q. How much distance was between the scene where you saw Arkan's kill
19 civilians and where Arkan and Hadzic were interviewed or filmed? Can you
20 say how much distance there was between these two events?
21 A. Well, I would roughly say it was between 150 to 200 metres, not
22 more. A hundred and fifty metres let's say.
23 Q. Do you know whether they say what was going on or couldn't you
24 say?
25 A. Well, they must have seen because the shooting was done from an
Page 21639
1 automatic weapon. It was quite near. They must have turned round to see
2 what was going on.
3 Q. You mean those civilians were shot?
4 A. Yes. That's who I'm referring to.
5 Q. Did those Arkans say something when they did it?
6 A. Well, before that they passed me by, two soldiers belonging to
7 Arkan's Tigers, and they were taking away an elderly man. His hands were
8 tied in front and there was another younger man and they were taking the
9 two of them off. And I saw -- I heard them swearing at their -- and
10 cursing their Ustasha Croatian mothers. And then I heard shots and saw
11 the two of them lying down on the concrete paving dead, shot dead.
12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, I would like to show to the
13 witness -- unfortunately, we don't have this video which was made in
14 Markusica -- Tordinci. We couldn't get hold of this, but we have a rather
15 similar encounter between Arkan and Hadzic, and we would like to play it.
16 It's very brief.
17 [Videotape played]
18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And maybe, Witness, you can show --
19 A. This is Arkan and Hadzic. Could you go back a little? That's
20 Arkan on the right-hand side.
21 Q. Yes, and Hadzic?
22 A. This one behind with the beard is Hadzic.
23 JUDGE MAY: This was taken after the fall of Vukovar.
24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Exactly, Your Honour.
25 JUDGE MAY: It's the one taken in Velepromet or somewhere like
Page 21640
1 that on the 20th of November.
2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.
3 Q. And Witness, one question. Did you review rather -- did you
4 review the entire tape or big parts of that tape after the fall of
5 Vukovar, and could you see what it was, what was shown?
6 A. Yeah. After that, I went there and saw.
7 Q. Thank you. I --
8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, I have actually now in the
9 proving summary, as you can see, events in Subotica related to in a public
10 appearance of the Chetnik unit, but as it is not crucial and time is
11 running, I would rather drop now the chapters 29 to 31, and we may anyway
12 come back to this during cross-examination.
13 Q. Just one question. The detachment in Subotica, did it have a
14 name?
15 A. Yes. It was called Jovan Nenad Crni.
16 Q. You have already mentioned in relation to this second meeting
17 with -- with Vojislav Seselj that the village Hrtkovci was mentioned, and
18 are you familiar with this village and who was living there in 1991/1992?
19 A. Yes. I visited that village. It's a village with a majority
20 Croatian population with a few Hungarians and Serbs.
21 Q. Was a Special Police Unit placed in that village at some point in
22 time?
23 A. Yes. A Special Police Unit from Sremska Mitrovica was there,
24 which was to have prevented forcible expulsions and physical attacks and
25 harassment and even killings of people.
Page 21641
1 Q. And did this special unit actually protect anyone?
2 A. As far as I know, it did not. They even assisted the leaders of
3 the Serbian Chetnik movement at the time in moving the Croats out and
4 escorting them out.
5 Q. When you refer to expulsion, physical attacks, harassment and even
6 killings, does that refer to Croats or to whom?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you -- did Seselj hold a rally in Subotica in May 1992, and if
9 so, what was the gist of his speech?
10 A. Yes, did he hold a rally in Subotica and in Novi Zednik. It was
11 like a part of the electoral campaign in those days. He was speaking and
12 referring to Hrtkovci as an example of how things should be done, how the
13 Hungarians and Croats should be forced to leave on their own. And if they
14 failed to do so, then other methods should be resorted to, other coercive
15 methods.
16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Private session, Your Honour.
17 [Private session]
18 [redacted]
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25 [Open session]
Page 21646
1 THE REGISTRAR: We're now in open session.
2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Sorry.
3 Q. Who received you in Bubanj Potok and dealt with you during your
4 stay?
5 A. The Chetnik volunteers was met by the officer on duty, a JNA
6 colonel.
7 Q. The Bubanj Potok, is that a JNA barracks or what is it?
8 A. It is a military facility for training of the troops.
9 Q. An official army barracks, place?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did you stay there overnight?
12 A. Yes, we did.
13 Q. Did an issue arise involving a flag, a Chetnik flag?
14 A. Yes. The Chetnik volunteers wanted their black flag to be hoisted
15 on the mast, but the JNA officer would not allow that. And he said the
16 road was nearby, and a foreigner could pass by, and a Chetnik flag could
17 not be hoisted next to the state flag, official flag.
18 Q. Did he tell you why that was not proper, why that should not be
19 done?
20 A. First of all, this was a military facility of the army of
21 Yugoslavia, and secondly, this was a Chetnik flag and someone might see
22 it. A foreigner might see it. That is what we were told.
23 Q. Did you receive equipment and uniforms in the barracks?
24 A. Yes, we did.
25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, I would now go into actually
Page 21647
1 several exhibits, and I think that would take another five minutes
2 perhaps. Perhaps we could just see the -- a very brief video clip.
3 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
4 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. It's the video clip related to Seselj,
5 and it says already on the -- on Sanction that it is May 13, 1995.
6 [Videotape played]
7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: So what Seselj -- what Seselj said here on
8 the video, is that correct? At least as far as Bubanj Potok and getting
9 equipment there is concerned.
10 A. Yes, absolutely so.
11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, I think that's a convenient
12 time to stop.
13 JUDGE MAY: Yes, it's a convenient moment. We will adjourn now
14 until 9.00 tomorrow morning. Witness C-047, would you be back then to
15 conclude your evidence.
16 How much longer do you think you might be in chief
17 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.
18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Approximately an hour.
19 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.
20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,
21 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 4th day of June,
22 2003, at 9.00 a.m.
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