Page 23785
1 Tuesday, 8 July 2003
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.
6 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, the Prosecution calls Andras Riedlmayer.
7 JUDGE MAY: Yes. He's a witness who's already given evidence in
8 these proceedings, so there'll be no need for him to take the declaration
9 again.
10 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I would ask at this time, while we're
11 waiting for the witness to be brought into the chamber, if three exhibit
12 numbers could be assigned to three separate binders of exhibits that will
13 be given. The first is to the expert report itself.
14 THE REGISTRAR: That will be P486.
15 MR. GROOME: The next is a two-part exhibit, Your Honour. It's
16 the database which underlies the report. And the Prosecution is providing
17 both a hard copy as well as an electronic, searchable copy of that to the
18 Chamber.
19 THE REGISTRAR: P487.
20 MR. GROOME: And finally, Your Honour, there's a binder of four
21 different exhibits that will be used during the course of the examination
22 of this witness.
23 THE REGISTRAR: P488.
24 MR. GROOME: Thank you.
25 Your Honour, I'm reminded by Ms. Wee: After speaking with the
Page 23786
1 legal officers of the Chamber, it was agreed that we would provide only
2 one hard copy of the entire database and we'd provide three electronic
3 copies. If the Chamber would like additional hard copies, of course we
4 can provide them.
5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll let you know if we do, but thank you.
6 [The witness entered court]
7 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Riedlmayer, in fact you've already taken the
8 declaration in these proceedings when you gave evidence before. You are,
9 of course, still subject to it. If you'd like now to take a seat.
10 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
11 WITNESS: ANDRAS RIEDLMAYER
12 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.
13 Examined by Mr. Groome:
14 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, the last time you testified, you gave an account
15 of your educational and professional background. Could I ask you to begin
16 your testimony here this morning by amplifying or adding to your previous
17 testimony with respect to particular qualifications you have with respect
18 to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
19 A. Yes. With respect to Bosnia-Herzegovina, I can add that I
20 specialised in the history of the Balkans in my undergraduate training in
21 history at the University of Chicago, wrote my BA thesis on
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Congress of Berlin.
23 More specifically, over the past ten years, I've written
24 extensively on cultural history of Bosnia-Herzegovina and on the subject
25 of the destruction of cultural heritage during the recent wars. I've been
Page 23787
1 invited to present papers at a number of international conferences, and I
2 have, in addition to the Tribunal, given presentations before US
3 congressional committees and other bodies.
4 MR. GROOME: I would note, for the record, that Mr. Riedlmayer's
5 full resume or curriculum vitae was Prosecution Exhibit 89.
6 Q. Sir, if I could draw your attention to the period between 1992 and
7 1996, did you become aware of reports coming from Bosnia indicating that
8 there was some large-scale destruction of cultural and religious property?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Can you summarise briefly the sources of that information and what
11 the information was.
12 A. Information in general came from news reports, from publications
13 of international bodies such as the Council of Europe, and from reports by
14 the Bosnian government.
15 Q. And more recently, were you commissioned by the Office of the
16 Prosecutor to do a comprehensive study of the destruction of cultural and
17 religious property, of Muslim and Catholic property, in
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Can you please summarise the parameters of that report.
21 A. Yes. Following the presentation of my evidence on Kosovo, I was
22 asked by the Office of the Prosecutor if I would be willing to conduct a
23 similar study for Bosnia. The parameters were to look at the destruction
24 of the cultural and religious heritage of non-Serb communities in at least
25 15 and up to 19 municipalities in Bosnia.
Page 23788
1 In order to do this, I needed to do some field research in Bosnia
2 for which the Office -- for which the Tribunal provided transportation and
3 other facilities. I spent time in Bosnia in July of last year, covered
4 4.600 kilometres, and saw more than 230 sites.
5 Q. I want to draw your attention to the monitor in front of you. You
6 should see displayed there a page from your report listing 19
7 municipalities, that report being identified now as Prosecution Exhibit
8 486. Are those the 19 municipalities that you visited during your mission
9 last July?
10 A. Yes, they are.
11 Q. I'm going to ask that the witness be shown Prosecution Exhibit
12 486. And my question to you: Is this the report that resulted from your
13 study of Bosnia?
14 A. Yes, it is.
15 Q. Now, underlying this report -- thank you. Underlying this report,
16 did you create a database to record the information that you collected
17 during your study?
18 A. Yes, I did.
19 MR. GROOME: And I'd ask that the witness be shown Prosecution
20 Exhibit 487.
21 Q. I'm sorry, we don't have a copy to show you. Was that printed on
22 CD-ROMs?
23 A. Yes, it was printed on CD-ROMs.
24 Q. And will you be using that during the course of your testimony
25 here today?
Page 23789
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And was a copy made of the database that you will use during your
3 testimony --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- was a copy made -- several copies of that database made with
6 your assistance?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Now, in addition to visiting sites yourself, were there other
9 sources of information you used in creating the report that you've --
10 we've just tendered?
11 A. Yes, there were. And they are described in annexes to my report.
12 Q. Can you please summarise those sources for us, or the types of
13 sources.
14 A. The types of sources, in addition to my own field research,
15 included the Roman Catholic and Islamic religious communities, which had
16 done some of their own documentation on destruction of their houses of
17 worship and other sites. In addition to that -- that was at the Bosnia
18 level. In addition to that, the local communities had often collected
19 documentation, photographs, and other materials, which we were able to
20 draw on. Also, the Council of Europe, to which I referred earlier, had
21 sent a mission to Bosnia in 1997/1998 to examine heritage sites with a
22 view to identifying priorities for restoration after the war, and they
23 collected a lot of photographic material which was made available to me.
24 The Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Bosnia had done some
25 documentation since the end of the war, despite their limited resources,
Page 23790
1 and they were in particular able to provide me with pre-war photographs of
2 some of the sites.
3 Q. Can you estimate for the Chamber, what percentage of your report
4 is based upon your personal observations during your visit to Bosnia and
5 what proportion of your report is based upon the work of other
6 organisations?
7 A. Approximately three-fifths of the entries, 60 per cent, are based
8 on personal site visits, about 40 per cent on information from other
9 reliable sources.
10 Q. Now, would you explain your methodology or the approach you took
11 to locating destroyed sites of cultural and religious property.
12 A. The methodology was as follows: Before going to Bosnia, I perused
13 all available published and unpublished information to identify in each
14 municipality a list of sites that might be useful to look at. In
15 addition, I made contact with the local religious communities and with the
16 Institute for the Protection of Monuments in order to secure people who
17 knew these sites and who would be able to guide me to particular
18 locations. This was particularly useful in the case of sites where the
19 structure had been completely destroyed and where locating it otherwise
20 would have been very difficult.
21 Q. When you visited these sites, did you have some assessment
22 labelling or some assessment criteria that you applied to what you found
23 there?
24 A. I used the same criteria for assessment that I used in my Kosovo
25 study; essentially, a five-step series of damage scale.
Page 23791
1 Q. Can I ask you just to simply list them at this stage.
2 A. Yes. One is "undamaged"; two would be "lightly damaged," which is
3 any structure that had not suffered significant structural damage to its
4 main structure. So the top of the steeple could be shot off, but if the
5 main structure was okay, it was lightly damaged. "Heavily damaged" is any
6 structure that had suffered significant impairment of its principal
7 elements. "Almost destroyed" is a structure that still had some
8 identifiable parts remaining above ground but was essentially damaged
9 beyond repair. And "completely destroyed" means just that, a site that
10 had been completely levelled.
11 Q. Now, of the 19 municipalities that you visited, can you estimate
12 for the Chamber how many of the sites that you set out to find you were
13 able to find.
14 A. In most of the municipalities, we were able to visit the vast
15 majority of sites. In a few municipalities, such as Visegrad, time
16 constraints and the site -- state of the roads made it impossible to visit
17 all of them. But in virtually every municipality, we -- we have
18 representation of the majority of sites.
19 Q. Now, before I ask you to summarise your findings with respect to
20 Muslim religious and cultural property, could I ask you to describe the
21 different types of buildings that you set out to examine, and describe
22 what the function of those buildings were.
23 A. Yes. The Muslim cultural property tended to include, first of
24 all, mosques, which were used for daily and weekly communal prayers. Then
25 there were Dervish Lodges, which were the meeting places for rituals of
Page 23792
1 the Sufi lay brotherhoods. Then in addition, there were Qur'an schools,
2 or mektebs, which were also often used for communal worship. And finally,
3 Muslim religious libraries and communal archives.
4 Q. And if I could ask you now to focus on --
5 A. And shrines.
6 Q. If I could ask you to focus on mosques alone in the 19
7 municipalities, approximately how many mosques did you -- or mosque sites
8 did you visit during your -- your study?
9 A. We documented 277 mosques in the study.
10 Q. And of those 277 mosques, how many were undamaged?
11 A. None.
12 Q. Could I ask you now to -- to describe your findings, your general
13 findings, with respect to the other buildings that you've described for
14 us.
15 A. Okay. Well, of the mosques that we looked at, 92 per cent were
16 found to be heavily damaged or almost entirely destroyed. Of the 71
17 mosques that were historic buildings and under legal protection before the
18 war, 93 per cent were either heavily damaged or entirely destroyed. A
19 similar number of the shrines and Dervish Lodges were also destroyed.
20 Q. You've said that 93 per cent or -- I'm sorry, 71 of the buildings
21 were under some form of legal protection. Can you summarise the types of
22 legal protection that these -- that was applied to these different sites.
23 A. Yes. Before the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as in most places,
24 there was an official body called the Institute for the Protection of
25 Monuments, which proposed buildings of particular historic, architectonic,
Page 23793
1 or cultural importance for legal protection. The legal protection was
2 then extended through legislation and sites were categorised according to
3 whether they were of national, regional, or local importance. The
4 protection in effect meant that alterations to these buildings were
5 prohibited without the express approval of the competent government bodies
6 and that these sites then received some state support for restoration.
7 Q. And can I ask you to describe in general terms your findings.
8 When you went to some of these sites, what did you find? Did you find the
9 remains of buildings, or did you find the -- the remains of these
10 buildings removed from some of the sites? Can you give us some general
11 idea about what you found when you went to the sites.
12 A. In the majority of sites that we visited which were located in
13 what is now Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb-controlled part of Bosnia,
14 the mosques and other Islamic sites had been severely damaged or
15 destroyed. The destroyed buildings in many cases had been not only burnt
16 or blown up but the ruins had been bulldozed and the rubble removed from
17 the site. One could tell that the building had been there often only by
18 looking carefully for traces of foundations, and in a few cases even the
19 foundations had been excavated.
20 Q. I now ask you to turn your attention in a summary way to your
21 findings with respect to property belonging to the Catholic community of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina and describe your findings there generally.
23 A. The Catholic community in Bosnia-Herzegovina is largely
24 co-extensive with the Bosnian Croat community. It is numerically much
25 smaller than either the Orthodox or the Muslim community, and therefore
Page 23794
1 the number of monuments is correspondingly smaller. The survey covered 57
2 Catholic churches in the 19 municipalities visited, of which none were
3 undamaged and only 14 were lightly damaged, approximately a quarter of
4 them. The lightly damaged churches were largely located in territory held
5 by Bosnian government forces during the war, or in some cases were
6 churches that were under construction at the time the war broke out. Many
7 of the Catholic churches were -- had been razed to the ground and the
8 construction materials removed from the site. In many places, this
9 occurred in locations where the Catholic church was in the immediate
10 vicinity of an Orthodox church which stood undamaged. Of the 57 Roman
11 Catholic churches, three-quarters were either heavily damaged or totally
12 destroyed.
13 Q. Did the specifications of the study you were asked to undertake by
14 the Office of the Prosecutor, did it ask you to go visit every Serbian
15 Orthodox church in Bosnia?
16 A. No, it didn't.
17 Q. It was limited to property belonging to the Muslim community and
18 the Catholic community.
19 A. That's right.
20 Q. Can I now ask you to turn your attention to your general findings
21 with respect to archives and libraries in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
22 A. In addition to the houses of worship, I also looked at the fate of
23 archives and libraries, particularly those belonging to the religious
24 communities, and found that in 13 of the 19 municipalities surveyed, the
25 local representatives of the Islamic community had reported that community
Page 23795
1 religious archives had been either confiscated or destroyed by the local
2 Serb authorities or Serb forces. In a number of these municipalities,
3 there were also collections of Islamic religious books and ancient
4 manuscripts which had also been destroyed. Similarly, in the case of the
5 Roman Catholic communities, there were several reports of the confiscation
6 or destruction of religious archives and religious libraries.
7 Q. Are you familiar with what types of records would have been kept
8 in the archives, first of the Muslim community?
9 A. The archives of the Muslim community were of significance,
10 primarily because they contained the records of the vakuf, the religious
11 endowments, which support the activities of the Muslim community, so these
12 are property deeds and other records pertaining to these. Both the
13 records of the Islamic and the Catholic community would contain the
14 historical data for members of the community. In the case, for example,
15 of the Catholic community, there would be baptismal register, registers of
16 marriages and burials from the parish. You have to consider that in
17 Bosnia as much as -- as in many other places in Europe, civil registration
18 of births and marriages is a relatively recent innovation, and therefore
19 the history of the community is often tied up with these religious
20 archives.
21 Q. If I can now ask you to turn your attention to the Institute of
22 Oriental Studies in Sarajevo. Can I ask you to summarise your findings
23 with respect to that building.
24 A. The destruction of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Sarajevo,
25 which according to numerous eyewitness reports was shelled and burned on
Page 23796
1 the night of 17 May 1992, was probably the single largest loss of archival
2 materials in Bosnia. The Institute of Oriental Studies held the former
3 Ottoman provincial archives with more than 200.000 documents. It also
4 held cadastral registers, which recorded land holdings in Bosnia at the
5 end of the Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century, and the country's
6 richest collection of Islamic manuscripts, the record of more than 500
7 years of Bosnian Muslim cultural history.
8 Q. To your knowledge, was that a one-of-a-kind collection?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 Q. And was any of it able to be retrieved after the building was
11 destroyed?
12 A. Virtually none of the collection was saved. It burned in its
13 entirety. There had been plans to evacuate it to shelters, but it was
14 early in the war and an alternative location could not be found.
15 Q. I now ask you to draw your attention to the National Library in
16 Sarajevo. Can you describe your findings regarding that building.
17 A. The National Library is in the centre of the old town in Sarajevo,
18 at the bottom of the valley. It's located in the former Austro-Hungarian
19 era city hall and therefore still referred to as Vijecnica town hall by
20 Sarajevans. It had been the National Library since World War II and was
21 to Bosnia what the British Library is in respect to Britain; it was the
22 library of record. On the 25th of August, shortly after nightfall, it was
23 bombarded from multiple locations, from the Bosnian Serb army lines
24 overlooking Sarajevo. Eyewitnesses described that it was hit by more than
25 40 incendiary shells, which caused intense fire. The fire brigade -- and
Page 23797
1 I talked to members of the fire brigade that were called out -- found
2 itself under fire with anti-personnel weapons, such as heavy machine-guns.
3 The city water supply had been cut off just prior to the shelling, and in
4 short, the building burned for nearly three days and close to 90 per cent
5 of the collection was destroyed.
6 Q. What quantity of books were destroyed in that fire?
7 A. The estimate is close to one and a half million volumes.
8 Q. I'm going to ask you to -- to speak to a certain -- a few
9 particular sites that you visited. Before I draw your attention to the
10 first site, I'm going to ask that you be shown Prosecution Exhibit 488,
11 tab 1, and ask you if you recognise what this chart is. It's a chart
12 including some pictures and some summary information.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And what is that document?
15 A. This is a -- this document is simply a selection of photographs
16 from the database.
17 Q. And did you assist members of the Office of the Prosecutor in
18 compiling that summary list?
19 A. Yes, I helped select them, and I provided the images for the
20 display.
21 Q. Now, the Chamber has heard evidence about the destruction of
22 religious property in Janja and Bijeljina. Could I draw your attention to
23 the Atik mosque in Janja, and could I ask you to summarise your findings
24 with respect to that mosque.
25 A. This is a pre-war photo of the Atik mosque or old mosque in the
Page 23798
1 centre of Janja. I obtained in the photo from the president of the
2 Medzlis of the Islamic community of Janja during my visit there.
3 Next, please. This is a photo taken the morning after it was
4 blown up in April of 1993. You can see a bulldozer at right working on
5 clearing the ruins. You can see that the surrounding buildings are
6 completely intact. You can also see by comparison with the previous image
7 that the top of the tree in front has been blown off by the blast. You
8 can also see that the site has not been roped off as a crime scene. The
9 destruction is continuing unimpeded.
10 Q. Did you attempt to ascertain from any documentation whether there
11 was conflict in the town of Janja during the time that the mosque was
12 destroyed?
13 A. According to both the informants I interviewed and press accounts
14 of the period, Janja was securely under the control of Serb forces since
15 the beginning of the war. There was no fighting in the area.
16 MR. GROOME: Let me see the next photo.
17 Q. Can you please describe what we are looking at.
18 A. I'm sorry. This is the photo I took at the site. When I visited,
19 a new mosque was under construction on the site of the old destroyed
20 mosque.
21 Q. If I could now ask you to look at this photograph. Do you
22 recognise the mosque depicted in this photograph?
23 A. Yes, this is the Dzedid mosque, or new mosque, in Janja. It's a
24 few hundred metres away. It's a pre-war photo from a publication.
25 MR. GROOME: Can we see the next photo, please.
Page 23799
1 Q. And can you describe what's in this photograph.
2 A. This is a photograph I took. It's just the bare foundations of
3 the same mosque. It was destroyed the month after the old mosque was
4 destroyed, according to the local informants I interviewed.
5 MR. GROOME: Just so perhaps the record is clear, I would note for
6 the record that I am moving down the photographs in the same order that
7 they are referred to in the summary, so should anybody wish to compare
8 Dr. -- or Mr. Riedlmayer's testimony against the summary, in future time.
9 I'm going to ask that a video now be played. I'm going to ask you to take
10 a look at the screen in front of you.
11 I'd ask the usher perhaps to check whether there has been to be
12 any adjustment to the monitor to see that video.
13 THE WITNESS: It looks fine.
14 [Videotape played]
15 MR. GROOME:
16 Q. Can you describe what we are seeing, Mr. Riedlmayer?
17 A. Yes, what you are seeing is some footage taken by an ITN news
18 camera team, with Gaby Rado of the British ITN network. What you're
19 seeing is the clearing of the remains of the Atik mosque in the centre of
20 Bijeljina. And what you saw in the video briefly was people going about
21 their business. There was no fighting going on in Bijeljina. You can see
22 in addition to the earth-moving equipment busily moving up and down, a
23 number of people wearing Bosnian Serb army uniforms and civilians walking
24 past the site.
25 MR. GROOME: Okay. We're finished with the video. Thank you.
Page 23800
1 A. This was -- just to briefly recap, this happened in March of 1993,
2 when five mosques in Bijeljina were destroyed in a single night.
3 Q. Can I now draw your attention to the municipality of Brcko. I'd
4 ask that you look at the next photo and tell us, do you recognise what's
5 in this photograph?
6 A. Yes. This is a photograph of the Savska mosque in Brcko. It is a
7 250-year-old mosque, the oldest in Brcko. Please note just to the right
8 of the mosque the beginning of a steel bridge. If you go to the next
9 photo, you can see the same steel bridge and the empty site of the Savska
10 mosque. According to the local Islamic community, the Savska mosque was
11 destroyed in the summer of 1992, the very foundations dug up, and the
12 rubble trucked outside of town to a site which was also a mass grave, into
13 which the remains of a large number of Brcko's Muslim inhabitants had been
14 thrown, and the rubble of the mosque was deposited on top of the mass
15 grave.
16 Q. Was this one of the buildings that enjoyed legal protection, as
17 you've described earlier in your testimony?
18 A. Yes, it was a listed monument. You can see in the little window
19 on top of the screen, you can see that the foundations had been dug up.
20 There's a big depression still on the ground; but otherwise, all traces of
21 the mosque have been removed.
22 Q. Can I now draw your attention to the municipality of Kotor Varos
23 and ask you to look at the following photograph. Do you recognise the
24 mosque depicted in this photograph?
25 A. Yes, this is the mosque in the village of Hanifici, just outside
Page 23801
1 of Kotor Varos, a photo taken before the war from a publication.
2 Q. And do you recognise the picture that is appearing now on the
3 right-hand portion of the screen?
4 A. Yes, on the right-hand portion of the screen is a photograph I
5 took of the mosque. You can tell by looking at the mosque, first of all,
6 that the roof is missing and the minaret is missing. You can also see
7 marks of soot above the window. The interior of the mosque has been
8 completely burned out. To orient you, the little projection that you see
9 is on the right of the pre-war photo. It's actually a prayer niche,
10 pointing towards Mecca. The minaret has been destroyed by explosives, and
11 you can tell that if you look more closely, as I did, by the fact that the
12 material is splayed out. This is a modern structure with reinforced
13 concrete, and the metal bars are bent outwards in a very characteristic
14 fashion. Not only was the mosque burnt out, but according to the
15 secretary of the Islamic community who took me to the site, a number of
16 residents of the village had taken shelter in the mosque, and they were
17 burnt alive in the mosque when it was burned.
18 Q. Now, you described the damage that you found on the mosque.
19 During your examination of this mosque, did you see any evidence of bullet
20 pockmarks or evidence of small arms fire on the walls of the mosque?
21 A. None whatsoever. There clearly had been no fighting in the area.
22 Q. If I can now draw your attention to a mosque in the Foca
23 municipality. Do you recognise this mosque?
24 A. This is the Aladza Dzamija or multicoloured mosque in Foca. Built
25 in 1550, it was considered one of the jewels of Balkan Muslim
Page 23802
1 architecture. It was in the centre of the old town of Foca.
2 Q. Did this particular building enjoy legal protection?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And can you describe what you found when you visited the site in
5 the course of this study.
6 A. The mosque had been completely demolished, according to
7 eyewitnesses, by explosives. I have a series of photographs taken in 1996
8 at my behest by a graduate student, and they show explosive damage to the
9 surrounding buildings. It's clear that the destruction had been the
10 result of an explosion. You can see the white marks all around the
11 foundations of the mosque. The circular trace in the front is the remains
12 of the marble ablution fountain. Remains of the rubble of the mosque were
13 discovered after the war in the nearby Ceotina River.
14 Q. And when to the best that you were able to tell was this
15 particular mosque destroyed?
16 A. According to eyewitnesses, the mosque was destroyed in 1992, after
17 the occupation of the town by Bosnian Serb forces.
18 Q. Now, the Chamber has heard some substantial evidence with respect
19 to the Zvornik municipality. I'm going to draw your attention to several
20 sites there and ask you to describe your findings with respect to these
21 sites. I'd ask you to look at the picture on the screen now before you.
22 Do you recognise that photograph?
23 A. Yes. It's the Dervish Lodge, or tekke, at Divic, a village just
24 south of Zvornik. The photo comes from a 1989 illustrated magazine and
25 shows a religious ceremony at the site.
Page 23803
1 Q. I'd ask you to take a look at this photograph and tell us, do you
2 recognise this photograph?
3 A. Yes. This is a photograph I took July last year. It's the
4 foundations of the shrine. You can see the scale of it by the people
5 standing in the background. The red truck is parked on top of the tombs
6 of the two holy men who were the focus of the shrine.
7 Q. I draw your attention to the next photograph.
8 A. Yes. This is the mosque at the same village of Divic, a pre-war
9 photograph from the 1980s.
10 Q. And then the next photograph.
11 A. This is a Serbian Orthodox church build on the site of the
12 destroyed mosque. Before the war, the village had an almost entirely
13 Bosnian Muslim population. After the war, it was renamed Sveti Stefan, or
14 St. Stevens, and the church was built on the site, despite the protests of
15 the Islamic community, which sued in the Human Rights Chamber to try to
16 recover its rights.
17 Q. That particular suit that you've just referred to, was there any
18 dispute with respect to the facts of this particular mosque about the
19 impropriety of building this church on the site of the destroyed mosque?
20 Was there any dispute regarding those facts, that that had occurred?
21 A. The destruction was not disputed.
22 Q. I draw your attention to the next mosque.
23 A. This is the Zamlaz mosque in Zvornik. It was the oldest surviving
24 mosque in Zvornik, about 200 years old. This is a photo taken before the
25 war in the late 1970s. I draw your attention to the modern building at
Page 23804
1 the right of the picture with the characteristic dark stripes next to the
2 windows.
3 Next, please. This is a photograph taken after the war. Not only
4 has the mosque been destroyed - you can see the same pre-war structure to
5 the right of it - but on the site of the mosque a four-storey modern
6 apartment building is under construction.
7 Next.
8 Q. The next photograph depicts?
9 A. The finished building which stood on the site when I visited last
10 summer.
11 Q. Did you speak to the local Imam regarding when this mosque was
12 destroyed?
13 A. Yes. The person who showed me the site, which I would not have
14 found otherwise, was the Imam of the main mosque in Zvornik, now living in
15 exile in Tuzla. And he described how the mosque was destroyed and
16 bulldozed in the spring of 1992, following the occupation of Zvornik.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Who is responsible for the construction that is
18 now taking place on top of what was the mosque?
19 THE WITNESS: The construction is being carried out by a local
20 private company, which is connected, apparently, with the current
21 Municipality of Zvornik, which is run by Bosnian Serbs. The Islamic
22 community protested the construction, and the Republika Srpska authorities
23 in their response claim that under the old Yugoslav law, which had
24 expropriated village's properties, the Islamic community had rights to the
25 use of the site as long as the mosque existed, but since the mosque no
Page 23805
1 longer existed, their contention was that the rights of the Islamic
2 community to the site had been extinguished. The Human Rights Chamber
3 found otherwise and ordered that the Islamic community be provided with
4 compensation and possibly another site. Nothing has occurred since then,
5 as far as I know.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: What Human Rights Chamber is this?
7 THE WITNESS: This is Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
8 which was established under the Dayton Accords as a body with a mixed
9 local and international membership to adjudicate cases involving human
10 rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks.
12 MR. GROOME: The Prosecution is in possession of that decision.
13 It was not our intention to tender it, but should the Chamber wish to see
14 those documents, we are in a position to provide them.
15 Q. If I could now draw your attention to the village of Kozluk in
16 Zvornik. Did you visit that village in the course of your study?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And can you describe what you found there?
19 A. Yes. Kozluk is located just north of Zvornik, and in the centre
20 of the village, there's a large open space where the mosque once stood.
21 The site since the war has been used as a rubbish dump and as parking for
22 busses. Quite recently, just before my visit, the rubbish had been
23 cleared. These are two photographs from the year before, from 2001.
24 Q. Can you describe which of the two photographs is the one that you
25 took.
Page 23806
1 A. Neither. I have a third one, which I didn't include. But I can
2 identify the site, having visited it.
3 Q. And can you tell us the approximately dates of these photographs?
4 A. Yes. They're 2000 and 2001, taken from opposite sides of the
5 square.
6 Q. Were you able to locate a photograph of the mosque as it stood
7 before it was destroyed?
8 A. Unfortunately not. I talked to people from Kozluk now living in
9 exile, and they said they had to leave in such a hurry when they were
10 expelled that they were not able to take possessions with them.
11 Q. If I can now draw your attention to the municipality of Nevesinje
12 and ask you to identify the photograph on the screen before you now.
13 A. Yes. Nevesinje is a municipality in the south, in Herzegovina, to
14 the east of the Mostar, and this is the Sarajeva [phoen] Dzamija or the
15 mosque of Sultan Bajezid, the saint, built more than 500 years ago and one
16 of the oldest in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is a photo from a guidebook
17 published in the late 1980s, just before the war.
18 Q. Was it a building that enjoyed legal protection?
19 A. Yes, it was.
20 Q. Can you describe what we're looking amount now on the monitor.
21 A. This is the same site, being used once again as a rubbish dump and
22 as a deposit for junk cars. According to the Imam of the mosque who
23 guided us to the site, the mosque was destroyed by JNA, Yugoslav National
24 Army reservists, in the spring of 1992, the rubble removed by truck to a
25 site called Ponor, 2 kilometres outside of town.
Page 23807
1 Q. If I can ask you to look at another photograph of Nevesinje. Can
2 you describe what's depicted in this photograph.
3 A. This is the Roman Catholic parish church in Nevesinje, a photo
4 taken before the war, also a building that enjoyed legal protection. It
5 was built in the Austro-Hungarian era at the beginning of the twentieth
6 century, a very handsome building.
7 Q. What is depicted now in this photograph?
8 A. This is the same site from the identical point of view. You can
9 tell that the building is completely gone. I spoke with the parish
10 priest, who now lives in Mostar. He described how the building had been
11 bulldozed -- destroyed with explosives, the site bulldozed, and rubble
12 also removed to the site mentioned previously, Ponor, 2 miles -- 2
13 kilometres outside of Nevesinje. Since the war, the local authorities,
14 disregarding protests from the Catholic church, have not only refused to
15 return control of the site and the adjacent parish house but are building
16 a road through the site. According to the parish priest, ten years later
17 not a single Catholic family has been able to return to Nevesinje or to
18 reclaim its property there.
19 Q. Was the priest present in Nevesinje at the time that the church
20 was destroyed?
21 A. No. He was expelled before.
22 Q. And were you able to ascertain whether there was fighting during
23 the time that the -- the church was destroyed?
24 A. Nevesinje, like a number of other municipalities, had been taken
25 over by the Serb nationalists before the outbreak of the war. There was
Page 23808
1 no fighting in Nevesinje.
2 Q. If I can now draw your attention to the municipality of Bosanska
3 Krupa. Can you describe the photograph that we're looking at here on the
4 screen now?
5 A. This is the centre of Bosanska Krupa, a small town in
6 North-western Bosnia. Like many towns in Bosnia, the town centre had the
7 houses of worship of the three principal religious communities right
8 facing each other in the centre. This is a photograph taken after the
9 war. Unfortunately, I don't have a pre-war photo. But just to identify
10 what you're looking at, on the right is the steeple of the Serbian
11 Orthodox church; in the foreground at level are the ruins of the Roman
12 Catholic church; and in the back is the minaret of the town's mosque,
13 which was destroyed during the war and had just been reconstructed. If
14 the photo quality were slightly better, you could see that the cupola on
15 the top of the minaret is brand new.
16 Q. So the minaret that we're look at is --
17 A. Post-war reconstruction.
18 Q. If we could look at the next photograph.
19 A. This is a pre-war photo of the Catholic church. You can compare
20 it with the post-war photo and you can see the extent of the destruction.
21 Q. Now, in this particular photograph, we -- of the Catholic church,
22 we are unable to see the minaret. Is that because of the angle of the
23 photograph?
24 A. Yes. You're looking at it from further to the left and much
25 closer to the trees.
Page 23809
1 Q. Now, if I can draw your attention to the photograph on the
2 right-hand side of the screen. Can you describe what's in that
3 photograph?
4 A. That is a photo of the mosque as it appeared right after the war,
5 the minaret blown up, the mosque itself burnt out. This also was a
6 monument under legal protection. It was built under Austro-Hungarian rule
7 and was remarkable as an eclectic building with a Gothic rose window.
8 Q. Now, these three houses of worship were in very close proximity to
9 each other. Were you able to compare the damage done to the three
10 buildings?
11 A. Yes. The Serbian Orthodox church was completely intact. Both the
12 Roman Catholic church and the mosque had been very badly damaged. The
13 town was under the control of Bosnian Serb forces from the beginning of
14 the war until the last weeks of the war.
15 Q. I'd ask you now to look at some photographs from Prijedor
16 municipality.
17 A. Yes. What you're looking at is a photograph taken in the last
18 year of the war, showing the rubble of the Catholic church, Catholic
19 parish church in the centre of Prijedor in Northern Bosnia. You can see
20 that the building has been demolished by some sort of blast, shattered
21 timbers, remains of walls sticking out. Please note the modern building
22 on the left, which is the parish centre, which you can also see in the
23 pre-war photo. Yes, you can see that. The steeple was a very modern
24 structure added not long before the war, but the church itself was quite
25 old.
Page 23810
1 Q. So the photograph that we see on the left-hand side of the screen
2 is the pre-war photo.
3 A. That's right.
4 Q. And the one on the right is as you found the site during your
5 study.
6 A. Well, by the time I went, the site had been completely cleared of
7 rubble.
8 Q. Now if I can draw your attention to the municipality of Bosanski
9 Samac. What is depicted in the photograph we are now looking at on the
10 screen?
11 A. What we're looking at is a model and a photograph of the Catholic
12 church in Bosanski Samac. It's a small town in North Central Bosnia. The
13 person holding the photograph is the Catholic parish priest.
14 Q. The next photo, please. And what are we looking at now?
15 A. This is the empty site of the parish church in Bosanski Samac.
16 You can tell by the date-stamp that the photo was taken in October of 1996
17 by ICTY investigators. The church was behind the fence, which you see at
18 the centre of the picture. In the background, you can see the Serbian
19 Orthodox church of Bosanski Samac right across the street, completely
20 undamaged.
21 Q. Were you able to ascertain when the Catholic church was destroyed?
22 A. Yes. I talked to the priest who was in Bosanski Samac at the
23 beginning of the war. He was forced to leave in -- early in the war in
24 1992, but a number of his parishioners were still in town when the church
25 was destroyed in the beginning of 1993. They told him that the demolition
Page 23811
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Page 23812
1 of the church was carried out with explosives but took a period of nearly
2 two months because they didn't want to chance damaging the Orthodox church
3 across the street.
4 Q. I now draw your attention to the municipality of Srebrenica. If
5 you could ask you to describe what we're looking at at the left-hand side
6 of the screen. What's in that photograph?
7 A. Okay. What you see on the left-hand side of the screen is a
8 photograph of the Carsiska Dzamija, the Market mosque in Srebrenica. The
9 photo was taken in the spring of 1995. It appears in the Dutch report on
10 Srebrenica. The right-hand photograph was taken in January of 1996 by an
11 Associated Press photographer. You can identify what you're looking at by
12 looking at the tall street light, which you can also see next to the
13 minaret in the left-hand photo. The mosque has been blown up. The
14 minaret is gone. But because it was a modern reinforced concrete
15 structure, the roof just pancaked down to the ground.
16 Q. So the dome that we see in the right-hand photograph is the same
17 dome that we can see in the left-hand, pre-war photo?
18 A. Yes, but lower to ground level.
19 Q. Are you aware of what happened, what damage was done to the
20 Serbian Orthodox church in Srebrenica during the time that it was held by
21 Muslim forces?
22 A. The Serbian Orthodox church still stands, as far as I'm aware.
23 The top of the steeple was damaged by shelling during the siege, but
24 otherwise the church was intact. And in fact, I have seen Bosnian Serb
25 videos showing General Mladic going to the church after his troops took
Page 23813
1 Srebrenica, so we know it was standing.
2 Q. Can I now draw your attention to the municipality of Bratunac.
3 A. This is a drawing of the town mosque in Bratunac as it was on the
4 eve of the war. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a photograph of the
5 mosque before the war. The drawing was done by an exiled former resident
6 of Bratunac and posted on a hometown website put up by homesick exiles.
7 Q. And I'd ask you to take a look at the next photograph. What is
8 depicted here?
9 A. This is the site of the town mosque in Bratunac, with the usual
10 deposits of rubbish. I could identify that it was a mosque by tracing
11 foundations in the grass. Also, to the right of the picture there were
12 some broken Muslim gravestones from the old graveyard next to the mosque.
13 Q. I now draw your attention to the next photograph. Can you tell us
14 what's depicted in this?
15 A. This is the cover of an Islamic religious monthly from the late
16 1980s. It shows the mosque in the village of Konjevic Polje, which is in
17 Bratunac municipality, as it looked a few years before the war.
18 Q. And the next photograph, please.
19 A. This is a photo I took of the same site. The gentleman is walking
20 along the foundations of the mosque, which was completely destroyed in the
21 spring of 1993, according to local eyewitnesses.
22 Q. Now if I can ask you to look at some photographs from the
23 municipality of Banja Luka. Do you recognise what's in this photograph?
24 A. Yes. This is the Ferhadija Dzamija in Banja Luka, a 16th century
25 mosque which was at one point nominated as a UNESCO protected site, a
Page 23814
1 photograph from an architecture book from before the war. You can see to
2 the left of the mosque a building in the background which you'll see in
3 subsequent photographs. That is a 19th century building which houses the
4 offices of the Islamic community.
5 Next photo, please. This is a photo taken the -- in the days
6 right after the mosque was destroyed in May of 1993. In the back you can
7 see the same building. The mosque is gone.
8 And here is a photo of the site as it looked after the war. You
9 can see the bare outlines of the foundations of the mosque and the
10 buildings of the muftistvo of the Islamic community offices in the
11 background.
12 Q. During your study, were you able to ascertain the circumstances
13 surrounding the destruction of this mosque?
14 A. Yes. I interviewed a number of people who were present in Banja
15 Luka at the time, including the president of the Council of the Islamic
16 Community at the time. And according to accounts, the area surrounding
17 the mosque had been cordoned off by Bosnian Serb army troops on the
18 evening before. After midnight there was a tremendous blast. The mosque
19 was largely destroyed, as you saw on the photo. Then despite protests by
20 the local Islamic community, the municipality of Banja Luka ordered out
21 work crews, who with blasting and air hammers destroyed all that was left
22 and moved all the rubbish, all the rubble to a rubbish dump outside of
23 town.
24 Q. Can I now draw your attention to the final few locations that I
25 will ask you to summarise in your testimony today, to the municipality of
Page 23815
1 Visegrad. Can you describe what we're looking at in the photograph before
2 us.
3 A. Yes. This is the old mosque, or Gazanferija Dzamija, in the centre of
4 Visegrad, a photograph taken before the war which I obtained from the
5 Institute of Protection of Monuments.
6 Q. Next photograph, please.
7 A. This is the same site. I took the photo myself last summer. And
8 I won't trouble you with it now, but close examination of pre-war and
9 post-war photographs identifies all the buildings in the background as
10 being the same ones. Otherwise, you could hardly tell, because it's gone.
11 Q. Did you during every site -- or at every site that you visited,
12 did you attempt to match locations that you could see in -- or buildings
13 that you could see in pre-war photographs? Did you attempt to identify
14 those buildings and orient your picture from the same angle that the
15 original photograph was taken?
16 A. Insofar as possible. Also, in addition to pre-war photographs, I
17 often had available extracts from cadastral registers with site plans.
18 Q. Now, earlier in your testimony, you referred to being aware of
19 reports coming out contemporaneous with the destruction of mosques. Was
20 Visegrad one of the places where you were receiving reports about the
21 destruction?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Can you please summarise the reports that were coming out about
24 Visegrad at that time.
25 A. This was in August of 1992. Maggie O'Kane, a British reporter,
Page 23816
1 visited Visegrad along with a colleague. They both filed stories
2 reporting what they had seen, namely disturbed earth and mounds of rubble
3 on the sites of two mosques in the centre Visegrad. They also reported
4 interviewing refugees from Visegrad huddled outside the city limits who
5 told them, "They destroyed the two mosques in the centre of Visegrad so we
6 would not come back."
7 Q. Now if I can now move to Sarajevo. Could I ask you to describe
8 the picture that we're looking at here.
9 A. This is a photograph taken of the interior of the Institute of
10 Oriental Studies in Sarajevo. At the bottom of the picture, you see
11 charred books and manuscripts. More than 5.000 manuscripts were destroyed
12 along with the archives. You can see the roof is open to the sky and the
13 building has been burned out.
14 Q. And photographs of -- the next photograph, can you describe what
15 we're seeing?
16 A. This is the building as it looked after the war. I looked very
17 closely at the buildings surrounding it and none of them had -- showed any
18 significant war damage. Very clearly, this building had been singled out.
19 The institute occupied the top two floors of the building.
20 Q. Can you describe for the Chamber what type of neighbourhood this
21 building is situated in. What surrounds this building?
22 A. Yes. This is in Sarajevo-Centar, the old centre of Sarajevo. It's
23 very densely built. In front of the building is the main street, Marsal
24 Tito Street, and then narrow side streets on the other three sides. It's
25 nineteenth century office and apartment buildings.
Page 23817
1 Q. Next photograph, please.
2 A. This is a pre-war photo of a reading room in the National Library
3 of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo, a photo from a picture book published
4 in the 1980s.
5 And this is the burnt-out interior of the National Library, a
6 photo taken in 1994 by a French photographer.
7 Q. Now, were there videos or video footage -- was there video footage
8 taken of the destruction of the National Library in Sarajevo?
9 A. Yes, there was.
10 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, at this time, I'm going to ask that the
11 witness be shown three short clips - they're just a few seconds each - but
12 it will take a matter of seconds to -- to load up each one.
13 Q. I'd ask you to describe, Mr. Riedlmayer, what we're seeing in the
14 photographs as the video plays.
15 [Videotape played]
16 A. What you're seeing is the National Library on fire. This is the
17 day after the shelling. This is the interior of the National Library.
18 You can see the blaze is intense. You can see pages of books dancing in
19 the flames and bookshelves in the background, skeletal. And so it's very
20 consonant with the accounts by eyewitnesses, of whom either I or
21 associates interviewed nearly a dozen, who describe exactly how the
22 building was first targeted with -- with multiple -- with shells from
23 multiple directions, that it was intense fire, that a lot of books went up
24 in flames, that the firemen were shot at.
25 Q. I'm going to ask you to look at the next clip. And after it's
Page 23818
1 completed, if I could ask you to describe what we've seen.
2 [Videotape played]
3 Q. Can you describe what we've seen in that clip?
4 A. These are interviews with Sarajevo firemen, intercut with
5 contemporary footage of the firemen fighting the fire. And what they
6 describe is the difficulties they faced. I interviewed several of these
7 firemen and they described how when they arrived on the scene they were
8 targeted with heavy machine-gun fire and with anti-aircraft weapons
9 pointed at street level, which cut up the hoses and injured a number of
10 the firemen. Because of the cutoff of water, they had to go to the
11 exposed banks of the Miljacka River right in front of the library to try
12 to pump water but it was all in vain because the library eventually burnt
13 out.
14 Q. When did they report that the water to this part of the city had
15 been disrupted?
16 A. This was earlier in the day. The shelling of the library started
17 after sunset.
18 Q. I'd ask you to look at the final clip and comment afterwards.
19 [Videotape played]
20 A. This is -- the gentleman you saw at the very end with glasses and
21 a goatee was the late Kurt Schork, a Reuter's correspondent who filed a
22 detailed report on the burning of the library, which I've included as an
23 annex to my report.
24 Q. And was that the library that we were looking at in flames?
25 A. Yes. This is television footage from that day.
Page 23819
1 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, the last exhibit that the Prosecution
2 will work with, or ask Mr. Riedlmayer to describe, is Prosecution Exhibit
3 488, tab 4. It's a map. The Chamber has copies of the map in the
4 materials that have been provided. If we could just take a moment to put
5 up a large version of the map, up on the easel, so Mr. Riedlmayer can
6 describe what's depicted in the map.
7 If it could just be rested on those clips.
8 With the Court's permission, could Mr. Riedlmayer stand up and
9 point to different portions of the map?
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
11 MR. GROOME:
12 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, if you could stand to that side of the map. Could
13 I ask you to describe generally what this map depicts.
14 A. This is a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Here's Sarajevo. This is
15 the Drina River. This is the Sava River.
16 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, could I ask you just to do it a little bit slower
17 so we can all follow along.
18 A. I'm sorry.
19 Q. Could you once again show us the Drina River?
20 A. Okay. The Drina River goes from the south -- the Drina River goes
21 from the south - here's Foca, and here's Zvornik - and up to the north.
22 The Sava River, which is the border with Croatia, goes this way.
23 The Dalmatian coast is down there. The large green dots are major urban
24 centres.
25 Q. And can you indicate where some of the major cities are? Can you
Page 23820
1 tell us where Sarajevo is?
2 A. Okay. Sarajevo is right here.
3 Q. Tuzla?
4 A. [Indicates]
5 Q. And Banja Luka?
6 A. [Indicates]
7 Q. Now, there are different coloured dots on this map that may not be
8 visible on the television, but the Judges do have a copy of this map. Can
9 you describe what the different coloured dots indicate.
10 A. Yes. The map attempts to plot the damaged, destroyed, and intact
11 mosques in Bosnia as of the end of the war. Green dots, which are
12 particularly dense in this north-west area, for example.
13 Q. That would be the Bihac region?
14 A. The Bihac region -- represent intact mosques. Yellow dots, which
15 you can see quite a lot around here in the area just south of Doboj, which
16 was along the confrontation lines, represent damaged mosques. And red
17 dots, which you can see pretty much everywhere, are destroyed mosques.
18 Q. Can you indicate for the Chamber where is the boundary line of the
19 Republic of Srpska?
20 A. You can largely draw it by drawing a line between the red dots and
21 all the others. The boundary pretty much goes -- if you start at
22 Sarajevo, it goes like this, and then jogs south, and then roughly like
23 that.
24 Q. So is it your testimony that the Republic of Srpska, the territory
25 of Republic of Srpska, is outlined by the presence of these red dots
Page 23821
1 indicating destroyed mosques?
2 A. Yes, largely. The present-day Republika Srpska is somewhat
3 smaller than the area eventually controlled during the war by Bosnian Serb
4 forces, so some of the red dots spill over.
5 Q. Are you able to approximate for us the number of red dots
6 indicating destroyed mosques that are contained on this map?
7 A. Yes. The number of red dots here is close to 900.
8 Q. And you yourself did not make this map.
9 A. I did not make this map. The map was made by Mr. Bekir Besic, who
10 is a refugee from Banja Luka currently living in Sweden.
11 Q. Of the 900 locations indicated on this map by a red dot, how many
12 of them did you personally visit during the course of your study?
13 A. I visited, I believe, close to 200.
14 Q. Now --
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: The red dots represent what percentage of the
16 total population of mosques?
17 THE WITNESS: The red dots represent -- well, first of all, in the
18 area occupied by Bosnian Serb forces, virtually every mosque was either
19 heavily damaged or destroyed, more than 90 per cent. In terms of the
20 total number of mosques in Bosnia, it's more than three-quarters.
21 MR. GROOME:
22 Q. During the course --
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: So that the green -- the green dots, which
24 represent those that were not damaged, that's a very small percentage.
25 THE WITNESS: It's a small percentage, and it is concentrated in
Page 23822
1 areas that remained under control of the Sarajevo government during the
2 war.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
4 MR. GROOME:
5 Q. During the course of your study, were you able to identify sites
6 of destroyed mosques that you were able to ascertain resulted from direct
7 involvement of the Yugoslav People's Army?
8 A. Yes, there were a number of them.
9 Q. Can you please give us some examples.
10 A. Yes. For example, in the area around Doboj, which is right here,
11 there were a number of sites where I interviewed eyewitnesses who
12 described how Yugoslav forces, in the first week of May, had a direct hand
13 in the destruction of mosques, in a place called Orasje, just on a hilltop
14 south of Doboj. They described how a Yugoslav army transporter had come
15 up the hill on Djurdjevdan, the feast of St. George, a Serb holiday, how
16 the soldiers had strung explosives inside the mosque, how the men
17 operating the plunger had taken the Imam ceremonial hat with the turban
18 and put it on his head as he blew up the minaret, and how they had driven
19 down the hill in the mostly Muslim neighbourhood, still wearing the same
20 hat, and singing anti-Muslim songs.
21 In other places, eyewitnesses described how mosques, and in one
22 case a Catholic church, up near Brcko had been rocketed by Yugoslav army
23 -- Yugoslav air force aircraft.
24 Q. And can I ask you to -- you've talked about a number of uses that
25 the sites had been put to during the course of your summary. Can I ask
Page 23823
1 you to indicate some of the locations and once again -- or summarise for
2 us the types of uses that these sites were put to after the mosques were
3 destroyed.
4 A. Yes. Down in Foca, which is this town over here, the sites of
5 former mosques in several instances were used as garbage dumps and places
6 where garbage was being burned, also as parking lots for busses and as
7 junk yards for abandoned cars. Your Honours have seen the site at Kozluk,
8 where this big open space in the centre of town where the mosque had been
9 was used for dumping rubbish. Similarly in Banja Luka, sites of mosques
10 were used for dumping rubbish and the ruins were scrawled with anti-Muslim
11 graffiti.
12 Q. With respect to Banja Luka --
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a second, Mr. Groome. You told us earlier
14 about a human rights council ordering compensation --
15 THE WITNESS: Yes.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- in respect of the destruction of one mosque.
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Was there any decision taken at a more general
19 level as to whether mosques should be rebuilt or whether compensation
20 should be paid?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour. There were a number of cases
22 between the -- before the Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
23 brought by the Islamic community in an effort to -- for secure control of
24 the sites of the destroyed mosque, to secure permission for rebuilding.
25 One of the cases involved 15 mosques in Banja Luka that had been
Page 23824
1 destroyed, five mosques in Bijeljina, and the mosques in Janja. The case
2 was brought in part because Bosnian Serb authorities used the permits
3 process in order to prevent any rebuilding from taking place. A number of
4 rulings on the admissibility and the merits were issued by the Human
5 Rights Chamber, and I've appended them to my report.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
7 THE WITNESS: But no, there hasn't been a case on a global level
8 addressing all of Bosnia.
9 MR. GROOME:
10 Q. In conclusion, I'd ask -- or like to draw your attention to the
11 case of Sacred Heart church in Doboj. And my question is: Are you aware
12 of at least one instance where local Serbs attempted to mitigate the
13 destruction of cultural property and records of their neighbours who were
14 of different faiths?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Please describe what you know about that situation.
17 A. This happened in Doboj. I had an interview with Don Pero Brkic,
18 who is the Roman Catholic parish priest in Doboj. He described how on --
19 at the beginning of May of 1992 the Roman Catholic parish church in Doboj
20 was destroyed. And in August of 1992, three Red Berets, wearing military
21 uniforms, broke into the parish house and demanded of the parish priest -
22 actually his aged predecessor, who has died since the war - that he turn
23 over the parish records. However, the parish records had been hidden at
24 the request of the priest by local people, Serbs, and -- at the beginning
25 of May when the first attack on the church took place. These local good
Page 23825
1 Serbs, as the priest referred to them, returned the records to the parish
2 after the end of the war.
3 MR. GROOME: I have no more -- further questions.
4 You may resume your seat, Mr. Riedlmayer.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Groome, I was wondering whether
6 Mr. Riedlmayer or whether anybody else had made an estimate in monetary
7 terms of the damage to the mosques.
8 MR. GROOME: If I may ask.
9 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, are you aware of any studies that have been done
10 that would estimate, as Judge Robinson has enquired, the monetary loss of
11 all this? Or can it be measured in terms of money?
12 A. Well, the problem with estimating monetary loss, of course, is you
13 can easily estimate reconstruction costs, but in the case of things of
14 great historic or artistic value, there's no way to compensate for the
15 loss. I know that there have been figures mentioned in the press of
16 various amounts. I don't know of any study that has been really
17 systematic.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: All right. Thank you.
19 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
20 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
21 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Riedlmayer, before I move on to my concrete
22 questions which have to do with your report and testimony, could you
23 please tell me whether you know whether during those wars in Bosnia and
24 Croatia -- because you're dealing with the period ranging from 1992 to
25 1995, are you not?
Page 23826
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Yes, I thought so. Now, during those wars, were any religious
3 sites or cultural monuments of Muslims or Croats on the territory of the
4 Republic of Serbia either destroyed or damaged?
5 A. I have not carried out any studies in Serbia, obviously. I have
6 read some reports, first of all, of a number of attacks on the Bajrakli
7 Dzamija in Belgrade in which explosives were set, grenades thrown over the
8 wall. Fortunately, neither injuries nor heavy damage resulted. However,
9 there were attacks on some mosques in villages in the Sandzak, I
10 understand. I hope that answers your question.
11 Q. Well, I didn't ask you whether there were any attacks. There are
12 always extremists who can launch an attack of some kind or other. What I
13 asked you was whether any of the facilities were destroyed at all. And
14 I'm asking you that because the authorities, the police force, protected
15 those monuments, because they knew of the existence of extremism which
16 could cause damage. And when you mentioned Bajrakli Dzamija in Belgrade,
17 that is a case in point. So I'm asking you: Was a single facility
18 destroyed during all that time in Serbia, any facility at all?
19 A. I don't know of any that were destroyed in the same way that these
20 mosques in Bosnia were, but I'm not basing this on personal knowledge; I
21 have not been to Serbia since the war.
22 Q. Yes. But do you know -- I'm not asking you about the ways. I'm
23 asking you whether -- do you know that a single mosque or facility,
24 religious site, was destroyed in any way? Do you have knowledge of that
25 at all?
Page 23827
1 A. I've told you what I know. That's about the limit of it.
2 Q. All right. Fine, Mr. Riedlmayer. Well, that is why I'm wondering
3 what this report of yours has to do with Serbia at all.
4 JUDGE MAY: It's never been suggested it has to do with Serbia.
5 It is a destruction -- a history, a report on destruction of community,
6 cultural, and religious sites in Bosnia. It's always been that. Now,
7 whether that has any connection with Serbia may be a matter which we will
8 have to determine. It's not for the witness.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. All right, Mr. Riedlmayer. Now, towards the end, just so that I
12 don't forget, you mentioned that the JNA -- you described -- you made an
13 astonishing statement that the JNA had destroyed some religious site in
14 Orasje, I believe. Is that what you said?
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. Where did you get that piece of information from?
17 A. I can tell you. I interviewed a resident of the village of Orasje
18 - this is not the town of Orasje but a village near Doboj - who watched
19 from his house which faces the mosque.
20 Q. All right. Fine. So somebody told you that over there. And when
21 you say "Orasje," I was wondering how that was possible, because the -- it
22 was the Croatian forces who had control of Orasje throughout the war,
23 never the Serb forces.
24 Now, Mr. Riedlmayer, the report that you compiled for the purposes
25 of Mr. Groome is called "Destruction of Cultural Heritage in
Page 23828
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-1996."
2 A. That's correct.
3 Q. And I assume that the contents should correspond to the title, the
4 heading. So we're dealing here with the destruction of the cultural
5 heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1996; is that right?
6 A. That's right. I would like to, however, correct something you
7 said in your previous question, where you claimed that Orasje was under
8 control of Croat forces. There's a town named Orasje in Northern Bosnia
9 which was under the control of Croat militia. This is a village called
10 Orasje in Doboj. It was not under Croat control.
11 Q. All right. Fine, Mr. Riedlmayer. Well, all of that geography, I
12 don't think we'll ever be able to learn the entire geography of it all.
13 But tell me this, please: Do you distinguish between cultural and
14 religious heritage, or rather, monuments of cultural and religious
15 monuments?
16 A. The two are obviously interrelated in any situation. The reason I
17 phrased it in this way is because there are cultural heritage sites that
18 have no direct connection with religion, like, say, the historical
19 archives and the National Library. Also, there are religious sites which
20 are very recent. Obviously they're manifestations of culture, but they're
21 not cultural heritage in the same way as an ancient site. It's semantics.
22 Q. Yes, doubtless a link does exist, but as you said, they were two
23 specific things. You said that there was a connection, a direct -- a
24 connection between those two things. Now, is it true - not to lose time -
25 that the international conventions insist upon the protection of cultural
Page 23829
1 monuments as the common heritage of mankind? So the protection of
2 cultural monuments is what they refer to, generally speaking; is that
3 right? Of course, the protection of religious sites is also necessary -
4 and I don't bring that into question at all - but I'm saying that
5 international covenants and conventions refer to the protection of
6 cultural monuments.
7 A. I'm not appearing as a legal expert. However, I would like to
8 point out that, in addition to The Hague Convention, which does speak of
9 the cultural heritage of mankind, there are also a number of other
10 international legal conventions that specifically address the protection
11 of religious monuments as well, ranging from the Geneva Conventions on
12 land and sea warfare to the Geneva Conventions enacted after World War II
13 and their protocols additional. The language of some of these is much
14 more inclusive than what you suggest.
15 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, of course nobody reasonable questions the need for
16 the protection of religious sites. I'm asking you this because your
17 report is entitled "The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina." That's the term you use. And you wrote it to lend
19 greater importance to it, and in your opinion this means that religious
20 monuments represent cultural heritage, which is untenable from the
21 professional aspects.
22 JUDGE MAY: I don't know what the question means. What's the --
23 what is the point? Are you saying that the religious monuments are being
24 downgraded in the report or something of the sort?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, Mr. May. What I'm saying is
Page 23830
1 that the title, "Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina,"
2 that is the wording of it, so I'm asking the expert whether that means
3 that religious monuments are without exception cultural monuments,
4 cultural heritage in conformity with international conventions. I'm not
5 bringing into question the need to protect religious sites and monuments
6 at all. I'm just saying that greater importance is being lent here to
7 what is being explained. So we're not only dealing with cultural
8 monuments here in the report.
9 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Riedlmayer, if you can comment on that, by all
10 means do, and then we'll adjourn.
11 THE WITNESS: Okay. All I can comment is, first of all, in my
12 report I specified which of these monuments were under legal protection
13 and, therefore, presumably of great cultural or historical importance. I
14 also had a breakdown by the age of the building. So I think if you get
15 past the title and look at the substance of the report, it should be quite
16 clear what is what.
17 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn now for 20 minutes.
18 Mr. Riedlmayer, you'll remember, please, not to speak to anybody
19 about your evidence until it's over. And that includes the Prosecution
20 team.
21 If the legal officer would come up, please.
22 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]
23 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.
24 --- On resuming at 10.57 a.m.
25 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.
Page 23831
1 MR. NICE: May I address you in private session on an
2 administrative matter?
3 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll go into private session.
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18 [Open session]
19 MR. GROOME: With the Court's permission, I'll withdraw and Mr.
20 Agha will be here for the Prosecution on the cross-examination.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
22 [The witness entered court]
23 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you can have up to one hour and a
24 quarter, if you require it, with this witness.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I only had under ten
Page 23836
1 minutes before the break, as you remember.
2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, from your report, I see that you covered only 19
4 municipalities out of all the municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina; is
5 that right?
6 A. Correct.
7 Q. And what were your criteria on the basis of which you selected
8 those particular municipalities? Because this is, after all, less than
9 half all the municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
10 A. I was given an initial list of municipalities that were of
11 particular interest, and I was given free choice for others to select. I
12 selected additional ones on the basis of a variety of factors, including
13 trying to assure some geographic spread and looking at areas of different
14 ethnic composition. I clearly, within the time available to me, did not
15 have time to cover all of Bosnia.
16 Q. So you don't have any particular criterion on the basis of which
17 you selected those 19 municipalities. Those were assigned to you, in a
18 sense, were they not?
19 A. The ones of particular interest, yes. Presumably there are the
20 ones where, you know, full proof is being sought.
21 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. Tell me, please: With respect to
22 those 19 municipalities at least, did you make an accurate list of
23 monuments of cultural heritage in those 19 municipalities?
24 A. Excuse me. I don't understand the question. What do you mean "an
25 accurate list"? I tried to be very accurate in my description of each
Page 23837
1 site visited and I tried to include every site of important -- I describe
2 in my report the very sources I had, amongst which were listings of sites
3 by the Institute for Protection of Monuments, by the various religious
4 authorities and others, so yes, I tried to have as accurate a compilation
5 as possible before I went.
6 A. I can't quite fully understand your whole answer. So let me
7 clarify my question. If you did have a complete list of all monuments of
8 cultural heritage, covering all monuments of cultural heritage, not just
9 religious structures, did you compare that list of all the monuments of
10 cultural heritage with the list of damaged or destroyed religious
11 buildings?
12 A. Again, I don't quite understand what you mean. Yes, I -- I had
13 the list of registered cultural monuments. A subset of those were
14 religious structures, and religious structures seemed to have suffered
15 disproportionate damage, which is why they figured to such a large extent
16 in the study. Also consider that in Bosnia-Herzegovina cultural and
17 ethnic identity historically has been tied up with the religious choices
18 of one's ancestors and that, therefore, a religious monument tends to have
19 an association with a particular cultural and ethnic group, which is
20 presumably also why they figured to such a large degree in the destruction
21 and this war.
22 Q. And what is the ratio between the total number of monuments of
23 cultural heritage and religious structures that were damaged?
24 A. The total number of monuments of cultural heritage includes a very
25 large number of sites of a sort that I didn't include in this study. For
Page 23838
1 example, medieval cemeteries, ruined castles, and so forth. For the most
2 part, these didn't suffer damage in the war; in any case I don't have a
3 calculation of, you know, what the percentages are.
4 Q. Don't you think it would be important to establish the overall
5 situation with all monuments of cultural heritage and the percentage of
6 religious structures destroyed? Because obviously these two categories
7 are not one and the same. They can be, but they need not be in the same
8 category.
9 A. Well, I based my judgement in part on surveys done after the war
10 by the Council of Europe, by the Institute for Protection of Monuments,
11 which, as you suggest, did cover monuments other than religious monuments
12 in a much more comprehensive manner. And the fact is that most of these
13 other categories of cultural monuments did not suffer to the same degree
14 that religious monuments did.
15 Q. Well, that is the crux of the issue that I addressed at the
16 beginning, because in your report entitled "Destruction of Cultural
17 Heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina," whereas now you yourself say that
18 most of the monuments of cultural heritage are not religious structures
19 or, rather, that it was the religious structures that were destroyed most.
20 Is that right or not?
21 A. Certainly the religious structures were the ones that were
22 destroyed to the greatest degree, yes.
23 Q. Very well.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, since you didn't quite
25 understand why I was asking this question, and now from the explanation of
Page 23839
1 Mr. Riedlmayer we see that what is called cultural heritage or monuments
2 of cultural heritage is a much broader category, I consider this matter
3 important because you as a lawyer certainly know that reciprocal
4 destruction of religious structures is the religious component of a civil
5 war, whereas destruction of monuments of culture would be tantamount to
6 genocide. That is why in Mr. Riedlmayer's report we see that it deals
7 with the destruction of religious monuments as the religious component of
8 the civil war that was being waged there, rather than the latter, that is,
9 destruction of monuments of culture. And that is why I made my remarks
10 and asked questions relevant to the title of this report, which is
11 "Destruction of cultural heritage." And of course, they did, all three
12 sides, destroyed each other's monuments in this civil war.
13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Let us move on, Mr. Riedlmayer. Is it true that the cultural
15 heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of monuments of culture of all
16 three ethnicities living in the area and who lived there for centuries
17 together? Therefore, it includes the monuments of the Serb people as
18 well, doesn't it?
19 A. Absolutely.
20 Q. However, your report is limited only to Roman Catholic and Islamic
21 religious structures. Why? Why is that?
22 A. I made that clear in the direct examination. These were the terms
23 of reference of the study I was asked to undertake. And therefore, I
24 limited myself to that.
25 I would like to point out, however, that in my writings, some of
Page 23840
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Page 23841
1 which are appended to the report, I have dealt with the issue of
2 destruction of Serbian Orthodox monuments in Bosnia-Herzegovina that -- I
3 would also like to say that I did observe during my survey the state of
4 Serbian Orthodox monuments. I did observe some destruction, especially in
5 village areas in Herzegovina and in North-Western Bosnia. However, the
6 fact is that in all major centres that I have visited that remained under
7 the control of Bosnian government forces during war, the Serbian Orthodox
8 monuments have survived; whereas, the same cannot be said of the
9 population centres under the control of Bosnian Serb forces. So I think
10 it's wrong to assume that there was some sort of equality of destruction.
11 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. You say that Serbian Orthodox
12 monuments have survived. I have a book here regarding the extermination
13 of Serbs. It covers 1992 and 1993. I don't have 1995. And if it is of
14 any interest to you, please have a look at it. It is provided also in the
15 Serbian language, in Cyrillic, and also in the English language,
16 "Destruction of Orthodox Religious Structures," and quite a long list is
17 contained in the book of those monuments. So please have a look from the
18 page I have opened the book on. And you can place it on the ELMO.
19 JUDGE MAY: Let's let the witness have a look.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes. I'm familiar with the book. I'm also familiar
21 with the structure on the ELMO. It's the Serbian Orthodox church in
22 Trnovo, which is a village on the road from Sarajevo to the Drina Valley
23 in the east. I also have photographs of my own taken in 1996 of the same
24 church. I passed through Trnovo last summer, and the church is now
25 repaired. It is one of roughly 20 such structures which are illustrated
Page 23842
1 in this book. As I say, I don't have any animus against describing and
2 condemning such destruction. All I'm saying is that was not in the terms
3 of my mission.
4 JUDGE MAY: Just before you go on, can you tell us, please, the
5 title of the book, who it's by, something of it.
6 THE WITNESS: The book is called "Iskorenjivanje Srba u
7 Bosnia-Herzegovine," "The Eradication of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
8 It was published in 1994 by Rad. And the authors are Drago Jovanovic,
9 Gordana Bundalo and Milos Govedarevic. I think it was originally
10 published by -- with support by Canadian Serb Immigration.
11 JUDGE MAY: And perhaps it might be helpful. You say you saw
12 about -- or you know of 20 such sites of Orthodox churches which were
13 damaged or destroyed. Is that right.
14 THE WITNESS: No, I'm saying there are about 20 that are
15 illustrated in this book. The book is about much more than just cultural
16 destruction.
17 JUDGE MAY: That we can see.
18 Well, Mr. Milosevic, do you want the witness to look at any more
19 photographs in the book?
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. Let him leaf through the book
21 further on from the page that we opened the book to.
22 JUDGE MAY: [Previous interpretation continues] ... The page he
23 was at. And just perhaps you would confirm that there are about 20.
24 THE WITNESS: There's --
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's not 20. There's a list
Page 23843
1 containing many more. I'm not talking about 20. The witness mentioned
2 20.
3 THE WITNESS: What I'm saying is -- I'm sorry. What I'm saying is
4 there are more listed, however, there are only 20 which are photographs.
5 That's all I'm saying.
6 JUDGE MAY: Then perhaps you could give us some idea of how many
7 there are listed.
8 THE WITNESS: Okay. The -- the list is -- includes 68 items.
9 Now, some of them are sites which I visited and I know from having visited
10 them that the damage description is not correct. I wouldn't doubt that,
11 however, as a range of magnitude that represents a good approximate count
12 of how many were damaged or destroyed in the war.
13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Could you just turn over a few more pages to show those
15 photographs on the ELMO, please.
16 A. Sure. This is Trnovo again, the same one you saw at the
17 beginning.
18 This is in Northern Bosnia, Luzine, some cemetery chapels in
19 Posavina. This is in Derventa. This is another cemetery chapel near
20 Brod. And this is the parish church in Bosanski Brod. So ...
21 JUDGE MAY: As far as you can see, have you any reason to think
22 that those are not accurate photographs?
23 THE WITNESS: No, the photographs I have no doubt are accurate.
24 What I'm saying is the verbal descriptions in some cases, especially of
25 sites for which there are no photographs, are inaccurate.
Page 23844
1 JUDGE MAY: In case we need it, for future reference, can you give
2 us the pages on which those photographs appear, please.
3 THE WITNESS: Yes. The section begins with page 205 and runs
4 through 220.
5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Do you want to ask any more questions about the
6 book, Mr. Milosevic?
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. But I would like to tender
8 those photographs into evidence, if possible. They could be photocopied,
9 perhaps.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And of course the list attached.
12 JUDGE MAY: We will exhibit the photographs subject to the -- if
13 somebody has them photographed -- photocopied for us, pages 205 to 220.
14 This will be subject to any objection which the Prosecution may make in
15 due course if they have reason to object. So can we do that, please, and
16 give it the next Defence number.
17 THE REGISTRAR: D157.
18 JUDGE MAY: And I'll ask the registry to photocopy the pages.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. I don't have the book in front of me now, Mr. Riedlmayer, but you
21 said there were about 68 sites listed, is that right, in the book?
22 A. That's correct.
23 Q. And you are aware of the fact that this is for 1993 -- 1992 and
24 1993, so this is only a partial report. It doesn't cover the whole
25 period. The war went on for another two years. And even then, they
Page 23845
1 didn't have all the data they needed for those two years. So do you have
2 any idea of the number of cultural sites and religious structures of Serbs
3 destroyed in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
4 A. As I indicated to you, I did not make a systematic survey.
5 However, I'm aware that there were Serbian churches that were destroyed in
6 the last year of the war. I saw some of them, in villages, for example,
7 near Sanski Most. The number was not very large, but the churches had
8 definitely been burned out. But I would hazard a guess that the total
9 number would not have more than doubled at the very most.
10 Q. Very well. We will have occasion to present evidence about that.
11 But for instance, in that book, under number 1, an old monastery is
12 listed, Zitomislic. Due to chance, it comes as number 1 in that book. You
13 will remember that you wrote - and I have this noted down - "On the
14 History, Significance, and Destruction of the Zitomislici Monastery
15 Complex" by Andras Riedlmayer. Is that right?
16 A. Yes, I did write a short article about it.
17 Q. Do you happen to recall, for example -- you say the following:
18 "In July 1992, an expedition of the [In English] Croatian Defence union
19 set out from the town of -- from town of Medjugorje, the popular
20 pilgrimage site for visions of the Virgin Mary"?
21 A. I recall the quotation you're reading. It, however, is not from
22 the section of that website that I wrote.
23 Q. [Interpretation] All right. Are they your words? You say, "The
24 force was allegedly accompanied by Dr. Vlado --"
25 A. As I say, that is -- that is not my section of that article. That
Page 23846
1 part of the article was written by someone else. The history,
2 significance, et cetera, is lower down on the same website. But just not
3 to get lost in details, I can tell you I don't contest the fact that the
4 monastery at Zitomislic was destroyed by HVO, the Croat nationalist
5 militia, in 1992. And I've written about it not only on that website but
6 in a number of other articles, some of which have been submitted as
7 annexes to my report. It is perhaps the single most significant Serbian
8 Orthodox site in Bosnia to have been destroyed during the war.
9 Q. All right. And are these your words -- or rather, is this
10 correct, that "The HVO attacked the ancient Serbian monastery of
11 Zitomislic, killing the monks, and systematically annihilating this
12 ancient and priceless sacral site. [In English] As this text is being
13 written, the HVO refuses to allow public access to the remains of the
14 Zitomislic monastery complex"?
15 A. Again, I don't disagree with the text but that part is not my part
16 of it. I didn't write that part. I wrote the historical section.
17 Q. [Interpretation] All right. We have here on the history,
18 significance, and destruction of Zitomislic by Andras Riedlmayer - it's
19 been highlighted - but you don't question that what I read out is correct;
20 is that it?
21 A. Yes.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You don't have to place this on the
23 ELMO, but I'd like to have it exhibited, just this page.
24 JUDGE MAY: Let us see what it is, first of all.
25 If you show it to the witness, first, to identify it.
Page 23847
1 THE WITNESS: Yes. As you can see, the section you highlighted is
2 authored by Michael Sells. At the bottom of the page is the header for my
3 part, which is on the following page. So it's not my words, but --
4 JUDGE MAY: Could you tell us what it is first.
5 THE WITNESS: Okay. What it is is Michael Sells, who's a
6 professor at Haverford College in the United States, has set up a website
7 dedicated to various cultural sites in Bosnia that were destroyed during
8 the war. One of his pages is devoted to Zitomislic, and I helped provide
9 photographs and a short historical abstract for the site. What Mr.
10 Milosevic was reading aloud is part of Michael Sells' introduction. The
11 section on the history follows, and it's not on this page.
12 JUDGE MAY: Nonetheless, we'll -- we'll exhibit the page. Thank
13 you.
14 THE REGISTRAR: D158.
15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, so you do have, if not the complete -- a complete
17 knowledge, at least partial knowledge about the destruction of religious
18 structures belonging to the Serb people. And as I can see, you wrote
19 something about the subject too. But you didn't include any of that in
20 this report of yours. How can you explain that?
21 A. I think I have explained it. It was not part of the terms of my
22 mission that I was asked to undertake.
23 Q. Fine. Quite clear, I think. Mr. Groome, or rather his side over
24 there, asked you exclusively for the Muslim and Catholic religious
25 structures that were damaged or destroyed; is that right?
Page 23848
1 A. The terms of the mission were to look at the religious and
2 cultural heritage of the non-Serb communities, in effect, in the
3 municipalities studied.
4 Q. When you say "the non-Serb communities," that means that your
5 mandate was to exclude the damage done on Serb religious structures and
6 sites and cultural heritage.
7 JUDGE MAY: The witness has dealt with this. He's explained the
8 position. He's here to give evidence about those subjects, which he has
9 done. Now, it doesn't seem to me we can take it any further. No, he
10 didn't give evidence and he hasn't given evidence about the
11 Serb -- destruction on the Serb side. He wasn't asked to.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. But Mr. Riedlmayer is
13 testifying precisely to the fact that his mandate or term of reference was
14 to exclude the Serb structures, religious structures, and cultural
15 structures which were damaged or destroyed.
16 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Because they cannot be relevant to the charges
17 which we're dealing with in this trial. That is why.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Fine, Mr. May. Fine.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Now, your research, Mr. Riedlmayer, does it indicate precisely
21 the fact that during the war in the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina that what
22 happened was a mutual destruction of religious sites of the two warring
23 sides, of the warring sides?
24 A. Could you repeat the question, please?
25 Q. Your overall research, does it indicate that during the war in
Page 23849
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, that there was a mutual destruction of religious sites
2 by the warring sides?
3 A. The answer to that is that yes, there were some elements of
4 tit-for-tat destruction. However, this did not all happen to equal
5 degrees, nor did it happen simultaneously. And as I explained, in the
6 areas that were under the control of Bosnian Serb forces during the war,
7 there seems to have been a nearly complete eradication of non-Serb
8 religious structures, whether Catholic churches or Muslim mosques. In the
9 areas under control of the Sarajevo government forces, especially in the
10 urban centres, by and large Serbian Orthodox sites survived intact. The
11 places where there were attacks on Serbian Orthodox sites tended to be in
12 rural areas and most often at the end of the war. In addition, in the
13 early phases of the war, in Herzegovina especially, to some degree in the
14 Posavina region of Northern Bosnia, Croat militias acting outside the
15 control of the Sarajevo government staged attacks on Serbian Orthodox
16 sites. I have seen and I indeed documented some of these, but not for the
17 purposes of this study.
18 Q. All right. Fine, Mr. Riedlmayer. I see that in your report, as
19 you selectively limited your research just to 19 municipalities. I see
20 you haven't gone further than that. Now, as you're speaking about two
21 sides, and during the war there were three sides, three parties to the
22 conflict and war, do you have any knowledge in view of that, any data, or
23 did you delve at all into the question of how far, for example, the
24 Catholic churches were destroyed by the Muslim forces, for example? How
25 many of them? Or how many Muslim religious sites were destroyed in
Page 23850
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Croatian forces, for example? Did you consider
2 issues of that kind and make an analysis on the basis of that kind of
3 data?
4 A. I'm aware that there was destruction of this sort during the
5 1993/1994 conflict between Croatian forces and Muslim forces; however,
6 none of the 19 municipalities that I studied fell into the area where this
7 fighting happened. As a result, I have no data or first-hand observations
8 to make. I don't know if this answers your question.
9 Q. Very well. Fine. Yes, it does answer my question, in fact, that
10 you're viewing it partially, just a part, which can be ascribed to the
11 Serb side.
12 Now, tell me this, please: For those 19 municipalities, before
13 you undertook your research work, did you attempt to ascertain exactly
14 which cultural monuments existed in each of those individual
15 municipalities, before the war began?
16 A. Yes, I had listings of various sorts from publications from the
17 republican level, heritage authorities, and also information from the
18 Catholic Church and the Islamic community regarding the religious
19 monuments that were not listed sites. So yes, I did have a pretty good
20 notion of what was there before the war.
21 Q. All right. Now, you speak about religious structures. But as we
22 noted the difference a moment ago between cultural structures and
23 religious structures, that they don't always coincide. They need not
24 always be one in the same thing, did you try and establish the ratio of
25 cultural structures and religious structures for each of those
Page 23851
1 municipalities, for instance?
2 A. I think we've been through this. But if you look at my report,
3 you can see that I carefully listed which of the particular monuments
4 enjoyed legal protection and which did not. I also had a breakdown by age
5 of monument, which doesn't always correspond. Not every old monument is
6 necessarily listed for legal protection. I don't have a breakdown by
7 municipality. But using my database, I could probably easily produce one.
8 If you have a printout of my database, you probably saw that it has a
9 field specifying whether a particular site was a listed monument, meaning
10 under legal protection.
11 Q. All right. But I hope we're not disputing the fact that the
12 difference between cultural and religious heritage is of substantial -- of
13 a substantial nature.
14 JUDGE MAY: We have been through this. Now, let's move on to
15 something else.
16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. In point 2.1 of your report, and it is entitled "Damage to Islamic
18 cultural heritage." "Damage to Islamic architectural heritage" is the
19 title,"Damage to Islamic architectural heritage." You say that of the 277
20 mosques in 19 municipalities in which the research was conducted, 71
21 mosques were registered as cultural heritage, a cultural monument under
22 the protection of the state; is that right?
23 A. That's right. Of the mosques surveyed, 71.
24 Q. All right. Now, does that mean that in this total mass of damaged
25 Islamic religious sites that cultural monuments make up 26.3 per cent?
Page 23852
1 And in view of the title of your research, it can refer to just a quarter
2 of the structures that you deal with in your report, in your survey,
3 right?
4 A. Well, if you refer cultural monument as a monument that has been
5 singled out for legal protection, yes. If you refer to it in a broader
6 sense, no. You will note also that of those mosques, 161 dated from the
7 Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian era, and therefore were monuments of some
8 antiquity and value, whether or not they had actually been singled out for
9 legal protection.
10 Q. All right. But then is it correct that in Bosnia and Herzegovina
11 there wasn't wide-scale, systematic destruction of cultural
12 heritage -- but rather mutual, reciprocal, which of course is also without
13 justification, can't be justified, but that it was the two -- the sides
14 mutually destroying each other's religious and cultural structures? Is
15 that right, Mr. Riedlmayer?
16 A. I do not agree, respectfully. The -- first of all, the cultural
17 heritage subsumes the religious monuments. And yes, there was a
18 wide-scale and systematic destruction of these. And the systematic
19 destruction was particularly severe in the areas controlled by Bosnian
20 Serb forces and targeted the structures of the non-Serb communities. So
21 yes, that is true. If you broaden the sample and include all listed
22 sites, many of them are archaeological sites, there would be no particular
23 reason or particularly easy means to target a -- an archaeological site.
24 I believe that the question here is not just buildings but their
25 connection with a particular group that has -- is alleged to have been
Page 23853
1 singled out for persecution. And therefore, the sites have value beyond
2 merely the -- their particular characteristics or antiquity.
3 Q. All right. I understand your explanation, Mr. Riedlmayer. Is it
4 true that the programme for Islamic architecture, the Aga Khan, at the
5 Harvard University that you --
6 THE INTERPRETER: We didn't catch the verb. Could the accused
7 repeat what he said, please.
8 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, you are asked by the interpreter to
9 repeat your question, please.
10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, I'm asking you whether it's true that you are a
12 bibliographer of the programme for Islamic architecture of the Aga Khan,
13 attached to the Harvard University.
14 A. That is correct.
15 Q. I assume that within the frameworks of that programme you also
16 dispose of a documentation centre. Who is financing that particular
17 programme?
18 JUDGE MAY: What's the relevance of this?
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The relevance -- it is relevant,
20 Mr. May, because of the obvious bias and prejudice of an expert with
21 respect to his professional orientation and his employment when it comes
22 to Muslim religious structures, and the report itself demonstrates that,
23 in fact.
24 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Riedlmayer, it's suggested you are biased in
25 favour of Muslim religious structures.
Page 23854
1 THE WITNESS: Well, I'm biased against the destruction of any
2 religious structures of any description.
3 As far as my employment goes, I'm employed by Harvard University,
4 but I am speaking here in my own capacity. The programme referred to is
5 one of a number of endowed programmes at Harvard University. This was
6 endowed by His Highness the Aga Khan, who was an old graduate of Harvard
7 University and who 25 years ago gave a donation to Harvard University to
8 establish a chair for the study of Islamic architecture, and as part of
9 the support structure for that chair, a documentation centre was set up,
10 which I've directed since 1985. That speaks to my specialisation as an
11 art documentation professional, but it doesn't have any bearing on whether
12 or not I can be impartial in the context of a study such as this. It
13 merely speaks to my qualifications, I believe.
14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. I assume that any civilised person is
16 opposed to the destruction of religious structures. That doesn't have to
17 do -- need not have anything to do with any expert qualities or
18 qualifications for cultural monuments as such.
19 Now, you quoted an example that some, as you called them, good
20 Serbs protected and defended the archives of a Catholic church, I believe,
21 if I understood you correctly. Is that right?
22 A. Yes. The term was that of the parish priest in Doboj, who said,
23 "good people, local Serbs," who, at his request, hid the archives after
24 the first attack on the Doboj Catholic church.
25 Q. All right. Now, I received information to the effect that the
Page 23855
1 leadership of Republika Srpska, on many occasions, issued strict orders
2 prohibiting the destruction or attacks on religious sites and structures.
3 Do you have any information about that, any example along those lines?
4 A. I have no information on that, but I must say that if -- if they
5 had in fact done so, it seems to have been spectacularly ineffective,
6 judging by the evidence on the ground.
7 Q. Well, all three sides were ineffective, as far as I can see. But
8 here among the many that we're probably going to be able to find in due
9 course, I have here a photocopy of an order by the president of the
10 Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, which was sent to the different
11 centres. This one in particular refers to -- it is sent to the Ministry
12 of the Interior, to Minister Ratko Adzic in person. "On the basis of
13 Article 80 of the constitution of Republika Srpska, I hereby order that
14 through the security services centre of Banja Luka strengthened patrols be
15 set up to secure all religious sites and protect them from repeated
16 terrorist actions. The order should be carried out forthwith and measures
17 taken and please inform me of the results." This can be placed on the
18 overhead projector.
19 So he qualifies this as being a terrorist attack, what took place
20 in Banja Luka, and hereby issues this order, according to which the
21 security centre should protect all religious sites, and this also referred
22 to other municipalities as well. But we can't now --
23 JUDGE MAY: Before it is exhibited, what language is it in,
24 Mr. Milosevic? Is it in the original?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, in Serbian.
Page 23856
1 JUDGE MAY: No point putting it on the ELMO. We'll mark it for
2 identification.
3 Perhaps you could just look at it, Mr. Riedlmayer, just to --
4 Just a moment. Just confirm it says what the accused says it says.
5 THE WITNESS: From a quick reading, it seems to say that, yes.
6 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll mark it. Give it an exhibit number,
7 mark it for identification only until it's translated.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, as far as I know,
9 Mr. Riedlmayer speaks Serbian. Isn't that right, Mr. Riedlmayer?
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, he's done that.
11 Mark it for identification, please.
12 THE REGISTRAR: D159 ID.
13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation].
14 Q. I'm doing my best to speed this up, Mr. Riedlmayer, the
15 cross-examination, I mean.
16 You say in your report that a commission for the protection of
17 national heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina was set up pursuant to the Dayton
18 Agreement, and it's annex number 8, in fact. Is that right?
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. Now, however, is it true that the commission was set up under the
21 auspices and along with the administrative support of UNESCO, in fact, and
22 that in that sense it worked from 1996 to the year 2000?
23 A. It was set up with representation from UNESCO. It's a mixed
24 body. Along with the Human Rights Chamber, it was one of two bodies
25 specified in the Dayton Accord to have jurisdiction over all of
Page 23857
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And like the Human Rights Chamber, it had mixed
2 international and local membership. Currently it operates under the
3 supervision of the Bosnia-Herzegovina joint presidency.
4 Q. Is it true that in its work - when I say "its," I mean the
5 commission's work - from the beginning, that the Republican Institute for
6 the Protection of Cultural and Historical Heritage of Republika Srpska
7 took part, is that right, and that it sent historical technical photo
8 documentation that it had to it?
9 A. I'm not privy to the deliberations of the commission, which has
10 never published any records of its proceedings. However, I do know that
11 there was a representative appointed from the Republika Srpska, as from
12 the federation.
13 Q. And is it true that on the basis of annex 8 of the Dayton
14 Agreement, as the framework, and the exclusive jurisdiction of the
15 commission was the fact that the decision be taken on the proclamation of
16 movables or immovables, being national monuments in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
17 A. Those were the terms of its reference, and the main task of the
18 commission during the first years of its existence was to arrive at a list
19 of so-called national monuments.
20 Q. All right. Now, do you know that this particular republican
21 institute for the protection of cultural monuments of Republika Srpska,
22 the one I mentioned a moment ago, in elaborating a proposal for including
23 in the list of national cultural monuments used methodology which implied
24 that each proposal had to be attended by basic data about the property,
25 such as location, historical data, evaluation, photo and technical
Page 23858
1 documents wherever possible, and so on and so forth? So methodology that
2 was prescribed, in fact, for this kind of work. Right?
3 A. As I said, I'm not really privy to the proceedings of the
4 commission on national monuments, which did not deliberate in public and
5 has not published any of its proceedings or terms of reference.
6 Q. What are you saying? That the -- you didn't have access to the
7 transcripts? Did you try to get them and somebody didn't give you access
8 to them?
9 A. The answer is affirmative. I tried to get them, and in fact they
10 were not made public, so I wasn't able to access them.
11 Q. And who refused to give them to you?
12 A. I did not make a formal request. I made inquiries and was told
13 that they were not public.
14 Q. All right. And do you know that the work of the commission was
15 interrupted at the point at which, according to my information, there were
16 777 monuments under investigation?
17 A. As I say, I'm not familiar with the work of the commission for the
18 reasons specified.
19 Q. All right. Do you at least know who made up the commission, in
20 addition to the two international representatives, as far as my
21 information tells me, the representative of the Muslim side, a man named
22 Rizvanbegovic, and the Croatian side was represented by a man called
23 Palameta, who was mentioned in connection with the destruction of
24 Zitomislici and the text that we exhibited a moment ago, because he was an
25 expert, and the representatives on the Serb side, Bradar and Rasul. Do
Page 23859
1 you remember perhaps -- do you at least have any knowledge as to the
2 members of the commission, two representatives from the international
3 community, one from the Muslim side, one Croat and two Serbs? And I gave
4 you the names of those people.
5 A. I know that the -- that was the national breakdown of the
6 commission. I don't recall the names, but I have no reason to doubt that
7 the names you mentioned are probably the ones who did serve on the
8 commission.
9 Q. Well, you saw in the text that you read out on the page on which
10 the title of your paper figures also, "The historical significance of
11 Zitomislic," that Vlado Palameta, an art historian from Stolac, became a
12 member of that commission. Do you have any reason to doubt the facts
13 listed over there that you read out, and also do you doubt that he was a
14 member of that commission?
15 A. I don't doubt that he was a member of the commission. As far as
16 his participation in the destruction of Zitomislici, I know that that was
17 alleged at the time. He was known to be closely linked to Mate Boban and
18 the ruling clique in the Croat nationalist para-state at the time, and it
19 may well be that he was indeed responsible, but I have no proof of it.
20 Q. Tell me, please: Do you believe that someone who took part in
21 razing to the ground a monastery of that kind, the church of which was
22 built --
23 JUDGE MAY: Stop. He can't comment on all this.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Page 23860
1 Q. Does that fact call in question the work and results of the work
2 of that commission?
3 JUDGE MAY: No. Not for the witness.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. And, Mr. Riedlmayer, is anything in your report based on data
7 collected by that commission?
8 A. No. As I told you, I had no access to the files of the
9 commission.
10 Q. So you have nothing as a source of your information that would be
11 traced back to that commission.
12 A. No.
13 Q. In view of the fact that its commission stopped working when it
14 had reached the figure of 777 monuments of cultural heritage, did that
15 study cover a somewhat broader area than your own report?
16 A. I assume that the commission was covering the whole territory of
17 Bosnia and not just the 19 municipalities that were the subject of my
18 study. And in addition, I assume that it was looking at a much broader
19 range of sites, including archaeological sites.
20 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. Tell me, please: Since on page 8,
21 paragraph 4 of your report you say that a member of your research team was
22 Professor Dr. Muhamed Hamidovic, dean of the faculty of architecture in
23 Sarajevo, a former director of the Institute for the Protection of
24 Cultural, Historical, and Natural Heritage of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that
25 right?
Page 23861
1 A. That's correct.
2 Q. Is it also correct that he was replaced in his position as
3 director of the institute?
4 A. Yes. He's now dean of the faculty of architecture.
5 Q. Yes. And is it true that the reason for his replacement was that
6 he didn't allow conservation work in Zavala, in Popovo Polje, in the
7 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
8 A. I have no knowledge of that.
9 Q. Such an act -- let us assume that it is correct. Would you
10 consider such an act to be a discriminatory one and not an objective
11 attitude to take?
12 A. As I say, I have no knowledge of why he may have disagreed with
13 that project, if he indeed did so. He may have had professional reasons.
14 I also know that the restoration work at Zavala is going forward.
15 Q. Of course, it's not thanks to him.
16 But tell me, please: Is it true that certain responsible
17 international bodies, like, for instance, the committee for cultural
18 heritage of the Council of Europe, compiled their reports containing data
19 on damage done to cultural heritage of Bosnian Serbs?
20 A. The Council of Europe's survey, which resulted in a report called
21 action plan, which is cited in my report here - let's see. Just a
22 moment - okay, I have an annex on sources, and this is listed under A1.2,
23 Council of Europe. And they did this study in collaboration with
24 authorities in both entities in Bosnia in 1997/1998, and in March 1999
25 they published a report called "Specific action plan for
Page 23862
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, preliminary phase." They had as their original
2 project the coverage of all listed monuments in Bosnia-Herzegovina of any
3 description. For a variety of reasons, they were not able to achieve that
4 goal in some municipalities due to difficulty of access and other issues.
5 I describe the project, which I used as one of my sources, and both its
6 merits and shortcomings. I stand on that.
7 Q. You have described the project as one of your sources, for the
8 reasons that you have already explained did you leave out everything that
9 belonged to the cultural heritage to the Serbs?
10 JUDGE MAY: You know, we've been through this. We really have.
11 And it's just wasting time. What's your next question?
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, is it true that your report has a clearly
15 discriminatory and selective approach to the topic. "Destruction of the
16 Cultural Heritage of Bosnia-Herzegovina" is its title, yet you are
17 limiting yourself to only two ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
18 JUDGE MAY: Now, you've asked him about bias, and he's given you
19 an answer. And you've asked him a great deal about -- about destruction
20 of Serb churches, and he's given you answers about those. Now, you've got
21 about a quarter of an hour left, if that, so you'll need to use the time
22 usefully, if you have any more questions.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I do. I do have a sufficient number
24 of questions that would even require a little more time. But as you say,
25 I asked him a lot about Serb churches; I asked him very little about
Page 23863
1 Serbian churches. I still plan to ask him about that.
2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, is it true that you had direct insight or actually
4 visited a little over half of the sites that you cover in your report?
5 A. 60 per cent.
6 Q. So for more than 40 per cent of the sites, you used other sources;
7 is that right?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Which other sources?
10 A. I specify them in my report. I have a detailed annex, and, you
11 know, if you want, I can read through them, but I don't see the benefit.
12 What I can say is that I used no information that was not supported by
13 photographs and, if possible, corroborated by second and even third
14 independent means of verification, and that I limited myself to sources
15 that I can considered to be reliable.
16 Q. Tell me, please, Mr. Riedlmayer: Incomplete sites, can they be
17 considered religious sites, and especially cultural heritage sites, if
18 they haven't been finished?
19 A. Well, an uncompleted building is -- if it's a religious building,
20 is a religious site. When you go to a place and you're looking for a
21 church or a mosque, you include, you know, every structure of that sort
22 that you might come across. So yes, an uncompleted one is a religious
23 site. It's not an active religious site, and I make a point in my study
24 in showing that inactive sites, meaning either a mosque or a church that
25 had yet to be dedicated, or, for example, as in the case of the Cuckova
Page 23864
1 Dzamija, a mosque in Nevesinje which had been disused since World War II,
2 these particular structures tended to escape destruction, even in areas
3 where every other religious structure had been damaged or destroyed. So
4 yes, including these made sense for the purposes of the study.
5 Q. My question was whether this -- I should like to leave aside for
6 the moment that absolutely not a single word of justification can be found
7 for the destruction of anybody's religious sites, but I'm asking you as a
8 professional whether an incomplete structure can be considered a cultural
9 site, regardless of the intention behind its construction.
10 A. If you define cultural sites as monuments under protection, I
11 don't know of any incomplete buildings that have been designated as such.
12 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. Since you had in mind, even though
13 that was not part of your assignment -- but you're an intellectual, a
14 professional, you must have learnt about various circumstances and events,
15 even though you didn't cover them, for the reasons that you have given and
16 explained. You did not cover any Serbian religious structures or
17 monuments of cultural heritage. Leaving that aside for the moment, my
18 question is: Did you have in mind the chronology of destruction, any kind
19 of chronology in the sequence of destruction?
20 A. Yes. Insofar as possible, obviously, first of all, I was visiting
21 these sites after the war. So I could not determine just from looking at
22 a site when it was destroyed. What I did try to do, insofar as possible,
23 is to find informants, contemporary first-hand media reports, and other
24 information which would indicate when the particular site had been damaged
25 or destroyed. While I didn't do a statistical compilation for the
Page 23865
1 purposes of the report, going through this study, which I've done
2 countless times, I can come to some general conclusions, one of which is
3 that the vast majority of the destruction of mosques and Catholic churches
4 happened in the first year, year and a half of the war. In most places,
5 it happened around the same time that there was the forcible expulsion of
6 minority populations. In some cases, it happened after the people had
7 been expelled. They report that the mosque or the church was still
8 standing when they left; and when they came back after the war, it was
9 gone.
10 In terms of -- since you asked, in terms of the Serbian Orthodox
11 churches, I can detect two phases that seemed to have taken place. In
12 rather limited areas, namely in the Neretva Valley in Herzegovina in the
13 south, and in the Posavina region in the north, where there was fighting
14 between Bosnian Serb forces and Croat militias, there was a good deal of
15 what you describe as the reciprocal attacks. Many of them seemed to have
16 targeted cemetery chapels, which were close to the battlefronts in any
17 case. Most spectacularly, in terms of really important monuments were
18 places like Zitomislic or the Serbian cathedral in Mostar. However, there
19 was no widespread attacks on Serbian churches in other parts of Bosnia.
20 There were isolated instances, like the church in Trnovo that you showed.
21 At the very end of the war, in the final weeks, especially in
22 Western Bosnia, as the Serbian military front collapsed and Croat and
23 Muslim forces surged forward, there was some burning of Serbian village
24 churches in Western and North-Western Bosnia, and I saw a number of those.
25 What is somewhat significant there is that this was not by any means
Page 23866
1 universal and it did not seem to occur in the major urban centres. So in
2 the centre of Kljuc, for example, the Catholic church and the town mosque
3 had all been destroyed while the Serbs were in occupation. When the town
4 was retaken by Croat and Muslim forces, the Serb church was left intact.
5 Similarly in Bosanska Krupa, which we showed earlier on the exhibit.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.
7 JUDGE MAY: Yes. It's in fact time to adjourn. We'll adjourn
8 now.
9 Mr. Milosevic, you've got ten minutes left.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can I have a little more, please,
11 Mr. May?
12 JUDGE MAY: We'll consider it.
13 Twenty minutes, please.
14 --- Recess taken at 12.18 p.m.
15 --- On resuming at 12.43 p.m.
16 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you can have 15 minutes more, a quarter
17 of an hour.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Microphone not activated]
19 THE INTERPRETER: I'm sorry.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Does that mean a total of 25
21 minutes?
22 JUDGE MAY: No, a quarter of an hour.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So you've given me five extra
24 minutes.
25 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
Page 23867
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Let us cover a few more questions, Mr. Riedlmayer. I don't doubt
4 that you consider the chronology of events to be of significance. Is that
5 right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you know, when you're talking about the destruction of the
8 mosque in Grapska, that there was a Serbian Orthodox church in that same
9 location and that the mosque was destroyed after the Serbian Orthodox
10 church was gravely damaged? Are you aware of that?
11 A. May I please check my database?
12 The site in Grapska is one which I didn't visit personally, so I
13 don't know what was in the surroundings. I only have photo documentation
14 on the site. I don't have any information for you on ...
15 Q. Very well. If you don't have information about that, do you know
16 that the Saborna Crkva [phoen] and the Metropol [phoen] in Mostar, the
17 Zitomislic in Klepci, the church in Derventa, the Ascension church, et
18 cetera, that these churches were destroyed by mining in June 1992, almost
19 a year prior to the destruction or damage to mosques and Catholic churches
20 in the area? Do you know that?
21 A. Mostar was not one of the municipalities in my survey. But as a
22 matter of fact, I know that the destruction of mosques and Catholic
23 churches in Mostar occurred prior to June 1992, during the April and early
24 May siege of Mostar by the JNA. It has been extensively documented, and I
25 have seen many photographs of destroyed heritage in Mostar. Almost all of
Page 23868
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13 English transcripts.
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15
16
17
18
19
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22
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Page 23869
1 the mosques in Mostar and both Catholic churches in Mostar were destroyed
2 in this siege.
3 Q. According to my data, both in Mostar and Klepci and Derventa, et
4 cetera, the churches were destroyed before the mosques or the Catholic
5 churches were destroyed. But you have obviously different information.
6 Is it clear -- is it clear that the revanchism under conditions of
7 war which has a religious component to it is something that triggers the
8 response of the other side?
9 JUDGE MAY: That is not for the witness to answer questions like
10 that.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. On page 15 of your report, you mention certain Roman Catholic
14 churches which were either intact or lightly damaged; is that right?
15 A. I do.
16 Q. Why didn't you mention there the Zupna church in Banja Luka, the
17 Catholic churches in Rogatica, Trebinje, Pale, which were not damaged, but
18 on the contrary, they were preserved by the Serbs?
19 A. I do mention the Banja Luka church. Trebinje and Pale were not
20 among the municipalities that I visited.
21 Q. And Rogatica?
22 A. Rogatica was also not among the municipalities in this survey.
23 Q. Very well. On page 10 of your report, in paragraph 1, you say
24 that it is possible that those who were destroying mosques were acting on
25 the basis of some sort of a list. Is that what you claim?
Page 23870
1 A. I merely suggest that this is one conclusion one could draw from
2 the fact that, number one, destruction of mosques in certain areas was
3 quite thorough and yet incomplete mosques were left alone. The other
4 reasons that led me to that conclusion are the following: One is that the
5 destruction of mosques was often carried out with the use of explosives.
6 I would assume that in wartime access to explosives and the knowledge to
7 use them and the organisation required -- and manpower required would
8 involve at the very least the acquiescence of the authorities in control
9 of the area. Also, the destruction in many places, especially urban
10 areas, took place while the area was under curfew. Again, it seems hard
11 to believe that this would be a spontaneous activity on someone's part.
12 Q. Very well, Mr. Riedlmayer. We have to save time. Do you believe
13 that the other two sides that were destroying each other's churches - and
14 I am talking about Muslim and Catholic and Serb Orthodox structures - also
15 acted on the basis of some kind of list?
16 A. As I have made clear, the reciprocal destruction of village
17 churches and mosques in the Muslim-Croat conflict of 1993/1994 was not the
18 focus of this study. I did not visit any of the municipalities where that
19 kind of fighting took place, and I have no data to rely on. Whether or
20 not people operated from lists, I don't know, but I can judge from the
21 fact that it probably was not a widespread policy, by the fact that, for
22 example, in Sarajevo or Tuzla or even Zenica the Catholic and Orthodox
23 churches have survived, which is certainly not the case of Catholic
24 churches and mosques in most towns in the Republika Srpska.
25 Q. Very well. But we also mentioned some towns and also some
Page 23871
1 buildings that remained intact. You also mentioned some. I must say not
2 comprehensively, but in passing only. Tell me, Mr. Riedlmayer, when
3 preparing your report, did you try to establish how many mosques or
4 churches or minarets or bell towers that were destroyed or damaged were
5 used for military purposes precisely by those who were using them as their
6 own religious temples?
7 A. Conducting the survey as I did, at some remove from the war
8 events, obviously there were some limits to what I could establish along
9 these lines. However, at each monument that I was able to visit or for
10 which I had good photographic documentation, I would note several
11 features. Whether or not there was any evidence that the building had
12 suffered small arms fire impact, which usually is an indication that there
13 was fighting in the area; also, I always took note of the context. If
14 there were surrounding buildings, whether they had been damaged or not.
15 Finally, it is indisputable - and I note it in my report - that in a
16 number of towns where large numbers of mosques and Catholic churches were
17 destroyed, for example, 15 mosques in Banja Luka and a couple in the
18 suburbs or 5 mosques in Bijeljina, that these -- or in Nevesinje, the
19 other municipality we used in the illustrations, there was no fighting of
20 any sort. These were all towns that had been taken over by Serb forces,
21 either before the war or very early in the war and the destruction
22 happened subsequently, when the Serb authorities were firmly in control.
23 Q. Very well. So you haven't established that any of these were used
24 for military purposes, any of these structures; is that what you're
25 saying?
Page 23872
1 A. I don't exclude the possibility, but I saw no evidence to suggest
2 that.
3 Q. I shall talk collectively. You mention the institute for oriental
4 studies, the library, the town hall in Sarajevo, Vijecnica. Do you have
5 information that these facilities were used either as shelter or as firing
6 positions by forces acting against Serb positions? Do you have any
7 knowledge at all? Just give me a yes or no answer, please, because we
8 don't have time.
9 A. I made inquiries, and as far as can be determined, neither the
10 Oriental Institute nor the National Library were ever used by military
11 forces. And if they had been, I would have expected allegation of this
12 sort to surface during or immediately after the war, and they didn't.
13 Q. But let me ask you, then, as a matter of principle: Do you
14 believe that the use of any of these sites for military purposes that were
15 destroyed or damaged, would they be considered legitimate military targets
16 in that case?
17 A. Again, I'm not appearing as a legal expert --
18 JUDGE MAY: No, no. That's not for the witness.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. And do you really believe that mosques, for instance, that were
22 destroyed or damaged were destroyed or damaged because they were monuments
23 of culture or in a war that also had a religious component to it?
24 JUDGE MAY: That's not for the witness to answer.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
Page 23873
1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Can you then give me an answer to the following question: If the
3 intention of the Serbs, for instance, was to destroy certain cultural
4 sites, why didn't they destroy the Hasanagica bridge in Trebinje, the
5 Turkish towers over there, or the Mehmet Pasa Sokolovic bridge in
6 Visegrad, another monument of culture, et cetera, et cetera? There are
7 endless examples.
8 JUDGE MAY: The witness can't answer why people didn't do it. You
9 must ask them.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. The fact that all these cultural sites which are sites of Muslim
13 culture and which remained intact, that I have listed, in the places held
14 by Bosnian Serb forces, is that evidence that they did not systematically
15 destroy cultural heritage sites?
16 A. In the sites you have listed, like Trebinje and Visegrad, in fact
17 all the mosques in town were destroyed. Why bridges were not singled out
18 in the same way, I don't know.
19 Q. I have also mentioned, for instance, the Turkish towers, which
20 were not damaged either. So I'm talking about cultural monuments, not
21 just bridges.
22 JUDGE MAY: Well, the witness has answered that.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Is it clear that this destruction is a reflection of the religious
Page 23874
1 component of the civil war that was being waged over there?
2 JUDGE MAY: You can't ask that question. It's been ruled out.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. And do you believe that the Serbs who were destroying mosques knew
6 which mosques are monuments of culture or part of the cultural heritage
7 and which were not? Because one might ask: When they destroyed the
8 mosque in Foca, why did they destroy it when it was known that it was
9 built over the foundations of a Serbian Orthodox church?
10 A. In Foca --
11 JUDGE MAY: You can't answer that. Well, if you can answer about
12 Foca, do.
13 THE WITNESS: No. All I wanted to say is that in Foca, not only
14 that mosque but every single mosque in the town, of which there were a
15 considerable number - I think more than 20 in Foca and its suburbs - were
16 all destroyed. I doubt that all of them were built over medieval
17 churches, and I don't, for a fact, know that the Aladza mosque was built
18 on a pre-existing church.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Very well. You yourself say on page 10, paragraph 3, that almost
21 60 per cent of the mosques that were damaged or destroyed were built
22 during Turkish rule. So does that mean that more than 40 per cent of the
23 mosques in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina were built during the
24 existence of Yugoslavia, that is, a period of just over 70 years, almost
25 half of the total number of mosques were built in the 70-year-long history
Page 23875
1 of Yugoslavia, as compared to five centuries of Turkish rule.
2 A. This simply is a matter of what survives. The -- many of the new
3 mosques were built to replace older mosques that had been damaged, for
4 example, in earthquakes, in wars, or through ancient decrepitude. I think
5 you would find very similar percentages in other parts of Europe of
6 historic and modern buildings.
7 JUDGE MAY: This must be your last question, Mr. Milosevic.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's very hard for me to choose.
9 But if it is my last, then:
10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Did you write to your president, President Clinton in those days,
12 Mr. Riedlmayer, asking him in your letter to lift the embargo on weapons
13 deliveries to the Muslims?
14 A. Yes, I did. This was in the summer of 1995. And I had, you know,
15 opinions about what was happening in the war in Bosnia, and my opinion was
16 that under the United Nations charter the arms embargo violated the right
17 of the -- the Bosnian government's right to self-defence. So yes, I did
18 write that. But fact that I have engaged in political discourse does not,
19 to my mind, affect my professional objectivity in reporting here.
20 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
21 Mr. Tapuskovic.
22 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
23 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
24 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Riedlmayer, I would like to ask you to
25 explain something to Their Honours with respect to the method you used in
Page 23876
1 your work. I understood it - and I don't want to go back to that - that
2 it was your job to ascertain the damages, according to the terms of
3 reference, your terms of reference. Is that right? However,
4 Mr. Riedlmayer, in your testimony today, when you were asked during the
5 examination-in-chief, for example, you said that five mosques were
6 destroyed in the course of one night, and then you went on to say that you
7 knew or established something linked to the burning of the people in the
8 mosque. Now, was that your job? Was it your job to delve into things
9 that could be established in other ways? Wasn't it just your job to
10 ascertain the damage done?
11 A. I considered it my job not only to do a physical description of
12 what the condition of these buildings was as of the summer of 19 -- of
13 2002 but also insofar as possible find out why -- I mean, when they had
14 been destroyed and how. One of the reasons is that I wanted to try to
15 exclude as far as possible any buildings that had actually been destroyed
16 before the war so as to limit it to war-damaged and war-destroyed
17 buildings. Also, just as in my other report submitted to the Tribunal,
18 while I did not go to great lengths to seek out and interview witnesses,
19 if witnesses -- local witnesses were ready and forthcoming, I was in a
20 position to simply write down what they stated. In the case of Bijeljina,
21 it is not a matter open to question that five mosques were destroyed in a
22 single night. It was widely reported at the time.
23 Q. I understand, Mr. Riedlmayer. But as my time is limited, I would
24 like to know the following: In your written report, you used expressions
25 of that kind: "To all intents and purposes," "perhaps," "it seems," "it
Page 23877
1 would appear," and I can find examples of this but I don't think I need to
2 do so at this point. But wasn't it necessary just to focus on the damage
3 without making any assessments in using these kinds of terms? Because
4 then it seems not that reliable for the Court to take this into
5 consideration.
6 A. I was very careful, both in the database and in my summary report,
7 to note what information I had on the basis of first-hand evidence and
8 what information was either the result of conjecture on my part, drawing
9 conclusions, or things which were reported to me. And so I used words
10 like "reportedly" or "it appears" to indicate --
11 Q. Thank you.
12 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I should like to
13 explain something now first. On the 30th of June, 2003, we received a lot
14 of material pursuant to Rule 68. Of that multitude of material, referring
15 to Mr. Riedlmayer - and this has direct bearing on the findings provided
16 by Mr. Riedlmayer - I'd like to look at two documents and see if I'll have
17 time for a third, to consider a third as well. May I look at two?
18 Q. Mr. Riedlmayer, the first document is an article by Matthew
19 Battles, and -- "The Library." That's the title. Do you know about that
20 article?
21 A. I do.
22 Q. Could you take a look at page 4, paragraph 1 of that article,
23 please.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And it says there that Riedlmayer documented the damage and
Page 23878
1 destruction of hundreds of other libraries, museums, and architectural
2 heritage throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina and in recent date Kosovo. And
3 he's quoting you on that; is that right?
4 A. Yes, he's summing up what I've written in numerous articles.
5 Q. Now take a look at page 4, please, paragraph 2, and here's what it
6 says. It says that you stated - and he goes on to quote you - "Riedlmayer
7 also considers - words that effect - that nationalist motives were more
8 than obvious or evident throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. He wrote libraries
9 archives, museums, and cultural institutions, they were the target of
10 destruction in an effort to wipe out the material evidence, books,
11 documents, and works of art, which could remind future generations that
12 the peoples of different ethnic and religious traditions once shared the
13 same heritage." Is that right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Now, this nationalism that you're referring to here - because you
16 don't mention any nation in particular - does it refer to all the ethnic
17 groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina, all the nations?
18 A. I think it refers to all those who profess exclusivist nationalist
19 ideologies, irrespective of ethnicity.
20 Q. Yes. But in that position taken by you, you don't differentiate
21 between any of the nations living there. It refers to all of them, all
22 the ethnic groups and nationalities living in the area.
23 A. I don't refer to nationalities; I refer to nationalists.
24 Q. You say, "Nationalist motives," that term.
25 JUDGE MAY: We can read that for ourselves in due course.
Page 23879
1 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
2 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I would point out that the phrase
3 "nationalist motive" is the author's words. The text that is attributed
4 to Mr. Riedlmayer is in quotations and that particular portion of text is
5 not in quotations.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes.
7 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters apologise. We do not have a
8 copy of the document.
9 JUDGE MAY: Give it back to Mr. Tapuskovic.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, would you pay
11 attention to this passage: It says, "Riedlmayer considers," and then it
12 says what he considers. So it's not what the author says, it's what
13 Riedlmayer says. That is my response to the Prosecutor.
14 Q. But let's leave it to Their Honours to decide, not to belabour the
15 point.
16 I have another document here. It was disclosed to me on the 30th
17 of June, 2003, pursuant to Rule 68, and it was published over the
18 Internet. I don't have the ERN number of the OTP, but you yourself are
19 the author of the article and it has to do with the Zitomislici monastery.
20 I won't dwell on the Zitomislici monastery - you've already spoken about
21 that - with respect to the document that was quoted, but not to disclose
22 pursuant to Rule 68 but from this particular document, which you yourself
23 wrote -- and here it is. I'll give you a copy of it. You say that "With
24 respect to --"
25 A. What page?
Page 23880
1 Q. Page 5, paragraph 1. You say that in connection with the
2 monastery that is being discussed, that you talked to the director of the
3 museum of the Serbian Orthodox church, Mr. Slobodan Mileusnic; is that
4 right?
5 A. I did not speak with him. I communicated with him through a third
6 party, and he was kind enough to supply some photographs.
7 Q. All right. Fine. And now it goes on to say in the next paragraph
8 that -- speaking about that, according to your information, which as you
9 say comes from several sources, the Orthodox church was inflicted the
10 greatest damages in the Neretva River Valley, when we take into account
11 the territory of the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And you refer to one of
12 those sources -- or rather, the book written by Mr. Slobodan Milevsic,
13 "Spiritual Genocide," is its title, as well as the report of Bishop
14 Atanasije, the bishop of Herzegovina. I'm sure you've had the book.
15 You've seen the book.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Now, I would like to conclude on this point, if we are able to
18 clarify it. And I must say that in the short space of time it was thanks
19 to the bishop of Banja Luka, Mr. Jefrem Milutinovic, that I was able to
20 come by the book that you had in your possession. Is this the book? Is
21 this it?
22 A. Yes. I believe I have an earlier edition of it.
23 Q. Could you take a look at the book, please. Page 234, where you'll
24 find this map and the facts or, rather, information as to the number of
25 churches and other structures which were destroyed from 1991 to 1995, and
Page 23881
1 they even mention a figure of 797 and 212 churches completely destroyed.
2 Do you know about all that?
3 A. First of all, as I indicated, what I had was the earlier edition
4 of this, which did not have the map or that number, for that matter. What
5 I do recall from looking at the book is that while it includes a lot more
6 photographs than the other book that was cited, it is also not terribly
7 careful in keeping apart allegations of World War II damage and
8 allegations of damage during the war. So I can't confirm this 797. The
9 797, as I see, also includes 212 churches alleged to have been destroyed,
10 367 alleged to have been damaged. As I say, I have no way of confirming
11 that figure, seeing as I haven't done a systematic study on it.
12 Q. Thank you. Thank you.
13 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.
14 MR. AGHA: If your lords please, it's first of all I'd just like
15 to say the Prosecution takes no objection to the exhibited photographs of
16 the book, largely on the grounds that they're not charged in the
17 indictment as destroyed Serbian property, so we're quite happy for them to
18 remain.
19 I just have a couple of questions to ask the witness in
20 re-examination, if I may.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Go ahead.
22 Re-examined by Mr. Agha:
23 Q. Now, Mr. Riedlmayer, there's been a lot of discussion and
24 questions as to what amounts to cultural property and heritage. Now, in
25 your view, can buildings, land, or other things amount to cultural
Page 23882
1 property or be a part of a country's heritage even if it's not listed?
2 A. Absolutely.
3 Q. Now, in your view, would it be correct that those religious sites,
4 libraries, and archives, mentioned in your report, would all amount to
5 being a part of the religious cultural heritage of the Bosnian people?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Now, having clarified that point, another point which the accused
8 again raised and which there were many questions was this concept of the
9 religious property mentioned in your report being destroyed by each side
10 mutually during war, tit for tat, if you like. Now, obviously based on
11 your research, the evidence you've gathered, and the witnesses you've
12 spoken to, would you think that is a fair conclusion?
13 A. I would not.
14 Q. Now, what are your grounds for saying this?
15 A. A number of things: Typically, when you have acts of retribution
16 taking place, they tend to be spontaneous acts, involving, for example --
17 the typical example would be a group of expelled people returns to their
18 village, finds their house of worship destroyed, those who destroyed it
19 have left, and so they, you know, turn their vengeance and their anger
20 upon the physical symbols of those whom they blame for their own
21 suffering. So that is a very typical kind of destruction. Generally, the
22 kind of tit for tat thing also tends to be sporadic. It depends on
23 circumstances and opportunity. So the one thing that speaks against it is
24 the systematic and uniform nature of the destruction that I saw and
25 documented.
Page 23883
1 The second one is the fact that much of this destruction occurred
2 not in the heat of conflict, but at times when the areas in question were
3 under control of the Bosnian Serb authorities, which suggests, along with
4 other factors that I mentioned, such as the use of explosives and the
5 amount of organisation involved, which suggests that this was not merely a
6 matter of mob anger but of some sort of directed policy.
7 And lastly, if you had a real tit for tat relationship, one could
8 expect the same pattern and degree of destruction on all sides. And as
9 I've explained, this is clearly not the case.
10 Q. Now, just two very particular questions on this: Is it correct
11 that to a large degree a majority of the religious sites you mentioned in
12 your report were destroyed whilst there was no fighting going on in their
13 vicinity?
14 A. That is certainly true.
15 Q. And would it also be correct from the sites you visited and other
16 evidence you gathered, photographic and so on, that in many instances the
17 mosques or other religious property appeared to be targeted on account of
18 the surrounding buildings being untouched?
19 A. Not only the question of the context of the surrounding buildings
20 being untouched. Very often you can judge this from the method of
21 destruction. For example, a very common way of destroying a mosque or a
22 church steeple was to place explosives within it. You can establish that
23 this happens by various factors. The structure balloons outward as a
24 result of the explosion. You can see radiating scorch marks, all kinds of
25 evidence. Although I'm not a military expert, at this point I have
Page 23884
1 probably seen several hundred such destroyed structures and can base my
2 conclusions on that experience. Now, it seems to me that it is very
3 unlikely that such a thing would happen in the context of a military
4 conflict, just to dislodge a sniper or something.
5 Q. Okay. Very briefly now, if I may, on a slightly different area.
6 The accused produced earlier a letter, which I believe has been marked for
7 identification. It wasn't actually in the English language. And that
8 letter, I believe, concerned the order for security forces to guard
9 mosques and religious buildings to a greater extent because they may be
10 under attack in Banja Luka. Now, can you remember the date of the letter
11 that you were shown?
12 A. Unfortunately not.
13 MR. AGHA: Perhaps we could be reminded. D159, I'm informed.
14 Thank you.
15 A. The date of the letter is 12 May 1993.
16 Q. Now, at that time, were there any mosques still standing in Banja
17 Luka?
18 A. There were several mosques still standing. At that point, three
19 had been destroyed.
20 Q. And did there remain -- did they remain standing or ...?
21 A. The other 13 were destroyed in the succeeding months. By December
22 of 1993, not a single mosque was left in Banja Luka.
23 Q. Okay. So despite this order which was clearly ignored and the
24 extra security that the mosques were destroyed totally in Banja
25 Luka -- and are you aware of anyone being prosecuted for that?
Page 23885
1 A. No.
2 Q. You're not.
3 Now, I just have two final questions for you. I'm trying to keep
4 this brief. The first is: Are you aware of St. Sava's church in
5 Belgrade?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Is that church completed?
8 A. No. It's been under construction for a very long time.
9 Q. And do -- does a congregation gather there for services?
10 A. Yes. It's used.
11 Q. And that being a part-built structure, church --
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. -- Would you regard that as being religious and cultural
14 property?
15 A. I would believe so. It's been used, among other things, for
16 memorial services for the late Prime Minister Djindjic recently.
17 Q. And if you were so instructed to carry out a similar survey in
18 respect of damage to Serbian cultural property in Bosnia, would you be
19 prepared to do that?
20 A. Absolutely.
21 Q. And just finally, the last question I have for you is that Judge
22 Robinson asked you if you could possibly put a monetary value on the
23 destruction of all the religious property in Bosnia. Is there anything
24 that springs to your mind that any witness may have mentioned to you
25 concerning the value of that destroyed property to them?
Page 23886
1 A. Well, that springs to -- brings to mind the question of what value
2 is in a nonmonetary sense. Consider in a village the local house of
3 worship even for people who are not actively religious. It is the site
4 where their parents and grandparents may have been buried. It is the
5 single visible reminder of the community's presence in that locality. And
6 it is also a major investment by the community, getting together to build
7 such a thing. So an attack on such a monument is more than just material
8 damage. It is -- it wounds the sensibility of the entire community. And
9 as I mention in my report, for the people who did this, it was very clear
10 what such destruction meant. You know, the police chief in Prijedor was
11 interviewed by a Western reporter and asked about it, and this is the late
12 Simo Drljaca, who was appointed by Radovan Karadzic as regional police
13 chief for Prijedor and five other municipalities.
14 Q. Sorry, Witness. Which page of your report?
15 A. This is page 12 of my report.
16 MR. AGHA: Does the Chamber have this, page 12?
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we have it.
18 THE WITNESS: And so he says: "With their mosques you must not
19 just break the minarets," he said. "You've got to shake up the
20 foundations because that means they cannot build another. Do that, and
21 they'll want to go. They'll just leave by themselves."
22 And similarly the victims were very conscious of this. And I can
23 cite you one statement from my database here. This is -- just a moment.
24 Yeah. Okay. Yes, this is a statement quoted by Tim Judah reporting from
25 Banja Luka on the 14th of May, 1993 after the sixteenth century Ferhadija
Page 23887
1 mosque had been blown up. Said one Muslim onlooker, "It is as though they
2 have torn our heart out. They wanted us to understand that we have no
3 place here."
4 And that is, I submit, the statement as to what the value of these
5 objects was.
6 MR. AGHA: Thank you, Mr. Riedlmayer.
7 I have no further questions.
8 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Riedlmayer, that concludes your evidence. Thank
9 you for returning to the Tribunal to give it. You're free to go.
10 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
11 [The witness withdrew]
12 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.
13 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, the next witness -- before the next
14 witness, I request that the next witness be brought in, there is the
15 matter of protective measures. If we could go into private session to
16 discuss these.
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll go into private session.
18 [Private session]
19 [redacted]
20 [redacted]
21 [redacted]
22 [redacted]
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Page 23888
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8 [Open session]
9 MR. GROOME: The Prosecution calls Ambassador Edhem Pasic.
10 Your Honour, could I just advise the Chamber that before we
11 adjourn today, if it's possible, there are about three or four minutes'
12 worth of procedural matters I would like to raise with the Chamber.
13 If I may ask the registrar to distribute the proofing summary and
14 the single exhibit while we are waiting.
15 [The witness entered court]
16 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
18 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
19 WITNESS: EDHEM PASIC
20 [Witness answered through interpreter]
21 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.
22 Examined by Mr. Groome:
23 Q. Ambassador Pasic, after a ruling by the Court, we will be
24 proceeding in open session and addressing you by your name. If there's
25 any portion of the testimony that you feel should be taken in closed
Page 23890
1 session because of security concerns, please advise me and I will make
2 that request of the Chamber.
3 I'd ask you to begin your testimony by describing for us your
4 current position.
5 A. I am now Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Kuwait.
6 Q. And how long have you held that post?
7 A. For two and a half years, about.
8 Q. And your presence here at the Tribunal today, is that in an
9 official capacity or as a private citizen that has relevant information
10 for this trial?
11 A. I am not here today in an official capacity. I am here in my own
12 behalf and in the name of all of us in the south of Europe who wish to
13 lead a normal life without discrimination.
14 Q. I want to draw your attention now back to the early 1990s. Can
15 you describe what position you held during that period of time.
16 A. In the 1990s, I was editor of the office for Arabic, Turkish, and
17 Chinese languages.
18 Q. And when did you begin such work?
19 A. I started performing that duty in 1977, as far as I can recall.
20 Q. And when did you finish or complete that work?
21 A. I stopped performing those duties de facto already in 1991/1992,
22 de facto. But de jure, I remained in that position until 1994.
23 MR. GROOME: Before I ask you for a further explanation of that
24 answer, I'm going to ask that the witness be shown a document, and I'd ask
25 that it be assigned a number at this time. It is the only exhibit that
Page 23891
1 will be tendered through this witness.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit Number P489.
3 MR. GROOME:
4 Q. Sir, is that a summary of your educational and professional
5 background?
6 A. Yes, it is.
7 Q. Now, in your last answer to my question -- to my last question,
8 you said that there was -- there was a change in how you perceived your
9 role. Could I first ask you to identify the time period during which you
10 perceived this change, and then please explain the change.
11 A. Yes. The changes occurred when the changes happened in the
12 Yugoslavia of the day. Those changes could be felt immediately after the
13 eighth session. There was a cleansing of all personnel that were not
14 considered politically suitable, not just non-Serbs but also Serbs that
15 were not loyal to the new course.
16 Q. And did you see such personnel changes among Serb co-workers and
17 colleagues in the departments that you worked in?
18 A. Yes, absolutely so. It's not clear to me to this day how many
19 people suddenly changed. There was such a campaign of the public opinion,
20 propaganda, the media, that people only spoke about what was coming from
21 the headquarters of the now-accused.
22 Q. Were you yourself demoted during this time period?
23 A. I was. I was returned back to the beginning. I had the post of
24 an ordinary translator.
25 Q. And when was that? When were you demoted?
Page 23892
1 A. As far as I can now remember, this was between 1991 and 1992. And
2 I was informed at the time that the plan had been to remove me from that
3 position. But as I said in my statement, fortunately I had quite a lot of
4 friends. One of my friends then had a very senior position in the federal
5 administration, and he protected me so that I could retain formally the
6 position I held until I fled from Belgrade.
7 Q. And when was it that you fled from Belgrade?
8 A. In 1994.
9 Q. During the period of 1991 and 1994, was your apartment in Belgrade
10 ever subject to searches?
11 A. Yes, very frequently. My wife and I would leave certain things to
12 be able to tell when we returned that the flat had been searched. And as
13 there were a lot of books in my apartment, especially in the oriental
14 languages that I speak, many of those books simply disappeared.
15 Q. Did there ever come a time during the early 1990s when you were
16 required to go to briefings conducted by the Serbian Ministry of Internal
17 Affairs?
18 A. Yes. I lived in an atmosphere - not just I, but all of us who
19 were in the same position - an atmosphere of terrible fear. I was asked,
20 but I never learned who those people were. They were always wearing plain
21 clothes. I never knew their names.
22 Q. And on how many occasions were you required to meet with these
23 people?
24 A. Very frequently, very frequently. They would intercept me in
25 public places sometimes. Usually this was on a Monday.
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Page 23894
1 Q. And what would happen when these people would approach you?
2 A. What would happen was that they would always caution me, because I
3 was working at confidential activities in the former Yugoslavia, as they
4 said, and that they wouldn't let me go, having state secrets in my mind,
5 that they wanted to keep me there under their control and that I mustn't
6 tell anyone about these requests made of me, not even my wife. And I
7 informed my wife about it only once we reached Cairo, when I had fled from
8 Belgrade.
9 Q. I want to draw your attention now to the summer of 1992. During
10 that time period, did you have occasion to be in the office of the
11 then-president, Dobrica Cosic?
12 A. I did. That is correct.
13 Q. And he was the federal president at that time; is that correct?
14 A. Yes, he was.
15 Q. Can you describe the purpose of your presence at his office.
16 A. Before I came to his office, some people came and told me that two
17 presidents wanted me to assist in a telephone conversation they were due
18 to have.
19 Q. And who were they to have this telephone conversation with?
20 A. It was a telephone conversation between the leader of Libya,
21 Moammar Gadhafi, and the then-president of the federal Yugoslavia,
22 Mr. Dobrica Cosic.
23 Q. And do you know why you were asked to assist in this telephone
24 conversation?
25 A. I don't know. But people I knew from before in Cosic's office,
Page 23895
1 that most probably Gadhafi, whom I had known, asked me to interpret
2 because I had interpreted frequently when he came to visit Yugoslavia and
3 vice versa, when the highest level officials of the former Yugoslavia went
4 to visit Libya.
5 Q. When you went to President Cosic's office, were you required to
6 wait for some period of time before you were able to assist in this
7 manner?
8 A. Yes. Yes. We waited a long time. Because to establish the
9 telephone connection between Tripoli and Belgrade took a long time.
10 Q. And can you approximate how long you waited before becoming
11 involved in the telephone call?
12 A. As far as I can recollect now, I think it was close to an hour,
13 maybe more, maybe less, but approximately that time.
14 Q. While you were waiting in the president's office, were there other
15 people in the office waiting as well?
16 A. There were. The then-federal Minister of Foreign Affairs was
17 present, Mr. Vladislav Jovanovic.
18 Q. Besides Mr. Jovanovic, were there any other people present in the
19 office?
20 A. The office is a big one. People were coming and going. But as
21 far as I can recollect now, also present from time to time was the
22 then-deputy of the chief of cabinet of President Dobrica Cosic, whom I
23 knew from before.
24 Q. Did you see any soldiers in the office?
25 A. In the office, I didn't see any soldiers, but there were a lot of
Page 23896
1 soldiers in the corridors, in the anterooms, when I was arriving, before I
2 entered this room where I was waiting.
3 Q. Can you describe the condition of the soldiers.
4 A. They had different uniforms and insignia from the so-called
5 Republic of Krajina - that is how it was called, I think - and also from
6 Bosnia.
7 Q. And were you able to hear any of the conversations of these
8 soldiers?
9 A. Yes, some of them. I heard those conversations before entering
10 this waiting room. They were talking about battlefronts that they were
11 coming from. Some of them had mud on their clothes even. And I remember
12 that a group who wore an emblem saying that it was a Cyrillic -- I think
13 it was in Cyrillic, the word "brigade." I think that was so, but I
14 couldn't see too well. It was quite dark in the corridor. And while I
15 was waiting to enter the waiting room, I heard some conversation about
16 killings in Bosnian villages, slaughters, et cetera.
17 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I'm about to embark on a rather lengthy
18 portion of the witness's testimony. Would this be a convenient place to
19 break for the day?
20 JUDGE MAY: Yes, it would be.
21 Ambassador, we're going to adjourn now until tomorrow morning.
22 Could you remember over the break not to speak to anybody about your
23 evidence until it's over. That's the warning we give all witnesses, of
24 course. And could you be back, please, tomorrow morning. Thank you very
25 much.
Page 23897
1 THE WITNESS: Yes, I will.
2 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness go. There are one or two
3 matters which Mr. Groome wants to raise.
4 [The witness stands down]
5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.
6 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, the first is the matter of Ambassador
7 Okun. If I could remind the Court, he completed his cross-examination
8 some time ago, and all that remained were for some questions to be put to
9 him by the amici. I've spoken with Mr. Kay earlier about how to proceed.
10 If you recall, the Chamber had suggested that possibly it was a matter
11 that could be dealt with by simply putting written questions to Ambassador
12 Okun and that he would respond to. It had been planned to bring him back
13 around this time period because it was believed that he would be
14 testifying in another case. That case has been indefinitely adjourned and
15 it does not appear that it will begin before the Prosecution case
16 concludes here.
17 I've spoken with Mr. Kay about it, and he is amenable, if the
18 Court still is, to presenting to Ambassador Okun some written questions,
19 receiving back a written reply, and then evaluating at that time whether
20 it's actually necessary to actually go through the expense to have
21 Ambassador Okun come back to the chamber.
22 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay.
23 MR. KAY: Yes. As the opportunity no longer presents itself for
24 him to return, there were five issues I was going to raise with him, which
25 would have taken only 15 minutes. But it would be the best way to proceed
Page 23898
1 in the circumstances.
2 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
3 MR. GROOME: The second matter, Your Honour, is next Monday the
4 Prosecution had intended to call Witness Nenad Zafirovic. A problem has
5 arisen regarding his ability to travel, and it is a problem that we cannot
6 resolve prior to the -- the summer break. So I would just notify the
7 Chamber, the accused, and the amici that he will not be here next Monday.
8 We will be advancing the witnesses later in that week up until Monday.
9 And similarly, there may be a difficulty with respect to Witness
10 B-150, who was scheduled to testify this Friday, that -- I cannot give
11 definite word yet, but I do want to give the Chamber, the accused, and the
12 amici as early notice as possible there may be some difficulty with his
13 testifying this coming Friday. And again, we will be advancing some of
14 the 92 bis witnesses that had been scheduled for next week to make the
15 best use of the court time.
16 That concludes the points I want to raise with the Chamber.
17 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn now. Tomorrow morning,
18 9.00, when we will expect - is that right - Mr. Lilic?
19 MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE MAY: So Mr. Milosevic, first thing tomorrow morning
21 Mr. Lilic.
22 Yes. We'll adjourn until tomorrow morning.
23 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned
24 at 1.49 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,
25 the 9th day of July, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.