Page 28197
1 Wednesday, 29 October 2003
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the witness would take the declaration.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
8 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
9 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.
10 WITNESS: JASNA DENONA
11 [Witness answered through interpreter]
12 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
13 MR. WHITING: Thank you, Your Honour.
14 Examined by Mr. Whiting:
15 Q. Could you please state your name.
16 A. Jasna Denona.
17 Q. Ms. Denona, in November of 2000, did you have occasion to give a
18 statement to the Office of the Prosecutor, and did you sign that statement
19 as accurate, and did you have occasion two days ago to review that
20 statement and verify that it was in fact accurate?
21 A. Yes, I did.
22 MR. WHITING: Your Honours, I would offer the statement of the
23 witness into evidence pursuant to Rule 89(F).
24 JUDGE MAY: This is not a statement which has been subject to the
25 92 bis procedure; is that right?
Page 28198
1 MR. WHITING: That's correct, Your Honours. We had applied for 92
2 bis, but we have not done the procedure.
3 JUDGE MAY: Yes. And so I have it right, the procedure under 92
4 bis had been granted.
5 MR. WHITING: That's correct, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE MAY: The order, rather, had been granted, but no procedure
7 had been followed. Very well. We'll consider that matter.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll give permission.
10 MR. WHITING: Thank you, Your Honour. I have no questions, but
11 I'll read just a very brief summary of the statement.
12 The witness lived her entire life in Bruska, which is east of
13 Skabrnja and can be found on page 30 of the atlas. She was 15 years old
14 at the time of the events in question.
15 Bruska was a predominantly Croatian village with a view Serb
16 houses, and was surrounded by predominantly Serb villages. She does not
17 recall any problems between Croats and Serbs in her village before the
18 events in question.
19 On 21 December, 1991, in the evening there was a knock at the door
20 of the house of the witness by men announcing themselves as the Krajina
21 militia. The witness and her mother and two other women in the house fled
22 out the back of the house. The men started shooting at the women, and the
23 witness was shot in the hip and in the arm. Several hours later, the
24 witness went to a neighbour's house and saw four men from her village who
25 had been killed; Petar, Roko and Dusko Marinovic, and Sveto Draca. The
Page 28199
1 witness later that evening had learned of others who had been killed in
2 her village; Dragan and Ika Marinovic, and Krste Draca, Stana and Masa
3 Marinovic. Aside from Sveto Draca who was a Serb JNA reserve, all of
4 those who were killed that night were Croatian civilians.
5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Whiting, we should have an exhibit number for the
6 89(F) statement.
7 THE REGISTRAR: 575, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.
9 MR. WHITING: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
11 JUDGE KWON: If the registrar could give the number again, please.
12 THE REGISTRAR: 575.
13 JUDGE KWON: What about the 92 bis (D) package of B-1345?
14 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Kwon.
16 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
17 Q. [Interpretation] Miss Denona, you are testifying about events that
18 took place at the end of 1991 when several citizens of Bruska, both Croats
19 and Serbs, were killed; is that right?
20 A. Yes. One gentleman was a Serb, the others were Croats.
21 Q. Is it true that on the day those men were killed they were doing
22 their normal housework, looking after cutting the meat?
23 A. Not the meat. They were doing the normal, regular chores.
24 Q. And then there was this armed attack when nine or ten persons were
25 killed.
Page 28200
1 A. Yes, that's right, in the evening.
2 Q. One of those attacked survived; is that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And is it true that the police arrived immediately, as well as
5 representatives of the judiciary, immediately after those events?
6 A. No. They came 22 hours later.
7 Q. So they came on the spot 22 hours after the event?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And is it true that the first to arrive on site immediately
10 transported the survivor to hospital?
11 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter isn't quite sure what the answer
12 was.
13 JUDGE MAY: Could you repeat your answer, please, for the benefit
14 of the interpreters.
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, they didn't transport anyone to
16 hospital then except me, when the police from Benkovac arrived.
17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. So they transported you to hospital.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And according to information collected by my associates, this one
21 person was transported to the Knin hospital where he was treated and
22 recovered, and after that he went to live in Zadar.
23 A. That gentleman went on his own to the first neighbouring houses.
24 Q. Is that gentleman Ante Marinovic?
25 A. Yes.
Page 28201
1 Q. He went to the neighbouring Serbian village of Kalanje, and from
2 there to hospital?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And a Serb was killed on that occasion too, wasn't he? Sveto
5 Draca. This is stated on the second page, paragraph 3, of your
6 statement.
7 A. Yes. That evening, Sveto Marinovic, among the other Croats, was
8 also killed.
9 Q. And this person who went to the Serbian village of Kalanje was
10 Ante Marinovic, and he was a Croat and he was taken to the Knin hospital;
11 is that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You describe some moving scenes on page 3, in the last paragraph,
14 when two neighbours, one a Serb and the other a Croat, cry over the bodies
15 of their dead sons; is that right?
16 A. No. I don't quite understand the question.
17 Q. I'll explain it in a moment for you.
18 Around midnight, you say in your statement on page 3, the father
19 arrived crying and said that he had found his wife and son Dragan killed
20 in front of the house. Soon after that, Dejan Draca arrived, the father
21 of Sveto Draca, and saw that Sveto had been killed too. So both Dragan
22 Marinovic's father and Sveto Draca's father - Dragan is a Croat, Sveto a
23 Serb - both of them had sons killed, they met there?
24 A. Yes, that is right. That is where they met, and they told us that
25 they had been killed and it was quite natural for them to be distressed.
Page 28202
1 Q. Yes. That's what I'm talking about.
2 A. Yes, that's right.
3 Q. And is it clear then from what happened that there was a killed
4 Serb and a Croat there, that this was done by -- I don't know what term to
5 use -- a madman who didn't do it on an ethnic basis but somebody who was
6 obviously disturbed?
7 A. That is not the impression I have. It was also possible that the
8 Serb man happened to be there by chance.
9 Q. Very well. But you were immediately transported to Knin.
10 A. Not immediately. Twenty-two hours after I was hit.
11 Q. You say: "The ambulance took me to the health centre in Benkovac,
12 and after that to the hospital in Knin. That night, they operated on my
13 hip and arm. I spent about a week in the hospital. After that, I was
14 discharged. With me in hospital was Ante Marinovic, and the Serb doctors
15 treated us well and professionally. They told me to come later for
16 further treatment. On the 10th of January, 1992, I went to hospital
17 again. As there were no vacant beds, they couldn't admit me immediately,
18 but I stayed with my former teacher until the 15th of March when I was
19 admitted into hospital because of my arm."
20 Then on the 17th, you were released from hospital and you returned
21 home to Bruska; is that right?
22 A. Yes, that's right. I was transported to the hospital in Knin.
23 The event we're talking about occurred on the 21st of December. I reached
24 the hospital, however, on the 22nd of December.
25 Q. So that's the next day.
Page 28203
1 A. Yes, that's right.
2 Q. And the police also came there, didn't they?
3 A. Yes, before the ambulance took me to the hospital.
4 Q. You say you spent the night in that house, "and the next day my
5 mother and I returned to our home, and the ambulance arrived from Benkovac
6 just before nightfall. With them was a woman who said she was from the
7 police, and she asked what had happened."
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. In any event, the police did come. That was the police of
10 Krajina, wasn't it?
11 A. Yes, it was.
12 Q. Do you know that in that connection the police and judicial bodies
13 instituted proceedings, an investigation to establish who was the
14 perpetrator of this crime?
15 A. No, I don't know that.
16 Q. And it was established by the investigators that only one person
17 had opened fire. That is why my assumption is that it must have been a
18 deranged person.
19 Do you know anything at all about the evidence pointing to a
20 deranged person from another village who was a Serb, but the evidence
21 seemed to point to him?
22 A. No. At that point in time, there were several persons.
23 Q. But you didn't see those persons shooting, when you say there were
24 several of them.
25 A. I didn't see them, but through -- while I was talking to them
Page 28204
1 through the closed door, and by the sounds, I concluded that there were
2 several of them.
3 Q. Do you know that there was absolutely no motive for any Serb
4 soldier to have done any such thing, because a group of Croats and two
5 Serbs were killed on that occasion?
6 A. One Serb was killed, and I can't talk about the motives. I don't
7 know what the motives were for whom.
8 Q. If you remember, and I assume this was an event that had a very
9 bad impact on the local population, both Serbs and Croats.
10 A. Yes, but only one Serb family was affected.
11 Q. Do you remember that political representatives and representatives
12 of the military of the Serbs in Krajina publicly condemned that crime?
13 There was an atmosphere of general condemnation of what had happened among
14 officials and the population, both Serbs and Croats. The majority
15 population there were Serbs.
16 A. No, there was no grounds for me to come to such a conclusion, nor
17 did I feel that people were disturbed by what had happened.
18 Q. Who did this crime is not known by the investigators nor the
19 neighbours. Do you know anything about who were the perpetrators? As
20 there was an investigation, my associates did not manage to discover the
21 outcome of that investigation.
22 A. They couldn't come to any results when probably there was no real
23 investigation.
24 Q. Do you know that there are people from Benkovac who would like to
25 come and testify here because they care very much about removing from
Page 28205
1 themselves and others the blame for such a crime?
2 A. I don't know anything about that.
3 Q. In the last paragraph on page 2, you say that someone knocked on
4 the door and the voice seemed familiar, and you first thought that it was
5 a joke.
6 A. That's right. That is what I thought, because I was a child and
7 naive, and I never expected anything so awful to happen.
8 Q. The voice sounded familiar. On that basis, could you have any
9 idea who it was knocking at the door?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Isn't it clear that the killer was a local person from the
12 village?
13 A. Somebody was saying something. It is not clear that he was a
14 local, that he had necessarily to be from the village of Bruska. The
15 inhabitants of the surrounding villages knew us as neighbours, neighbours
16 who were Serbs, and they did talk.
17 Q. I didn't quite understand what you were going say.
18 A. I was saying that the local inhabitants of surrounding villages
19 knew the distribution of the houses and knew who lived where in Bruska.
20 Q. In view of the fact that you heard that one voice of the person
21 knocking on the door and he sounded familiar, could that point to the
22 conclusion that the killer was alone?
23 A. No, it can't.
24 Q. Very well. You say on page 2, paragraph 2, that the Serbs in
25 Nadin and Skabrnja killed people in villages. Do you know at all what was
Page 28206
1 happening in Nadin and Skabrnja?
2 A. No, not too much. I was a child at the time, so I wasn't really
3 interested in politics, nor did I pay any attention to such things or
4 follow them with interest.
5 Q. Do you know anything about the fighting that was going on in that
6 area?
7 A. There was fighting, and I do know that civilians were killed, but
8 that's all.
9 Q. I fully appreciate the fact that you were very young at the time.
10 Had you heard of Marko Miljanic who was commander of an independent
11 battalion of Skabrnja and surrounding villages of Galovac, Gornica,
12 Zemunik, and Nadin?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Do you know, even though you don't know the name, that units,
15 these units that were in those localities numbered about 800 men under
16 arms?
17 A. No.
18 Q. Do you know anything about a conflict there between those units
19 and the JNA, which was passing through from the immediate vicinities in
20 Donja Zemunik? I assume there was a base there, there was a military JNA
21 airport there in those days.
22 A. No, I don't know anything about that because I didn't keep track
23 of such things.
24 Q. Do you know anything at all to the effect that before the actual
25 fighting, on the 18th of November, 1991, members of this battalion
Page 28207
1 captured more than 50 JNA soldiers and three officers?
2 A. No. That is the first I hear of it.
3 Q. And did you learn later, perhaps, that the commander of the Zadar
4 sector, Josip Tulicic [phoen], gave instructions to the defence commander
5 in Skabrnja, Marko Miljanic, that an attack be organised in the village on
6 the JNA wherever they may appear, and that the fighting went on for quite
7 some time?
8 A. No.
9 Q. This event that you describe, what date was that exactly?
10 A. The 21st of December, 1991.
11 Q. And these battles were on the 18th of November. Do you remember
12 that even though you were a child?
13 A. No, I don't remember. I remember the date, but battles ...
14 Q. You don't remember the battles?
15 A. No, I don't.
16 Q. And do you remember that in Skabrnja there were trenches dug out?
17 A. I didn't see them, so -- I know that a crime happened over there,
18 but I don't know anything about the trenches or what you're aiming at.
19 Q. I'm not aiming at anything. I'm -- you, in your statement, say
20 that in villages some civilians were killed.
21 A. Yes. This was on all TV stations, and one could see the victims
22 who had been killed. So this is something that I didn't have to go and
23 see for myself.
24 Q. Do you know that in the fighting, in addition to members of the
25 National Guards Corps, even civilians took part, including elderly people?
Page 28208
1 A. I don't know anything at all about that.
2 Q. I have here a report from the interview with the witness Marko
3 Miljanic. I assume it was in Zadar. It wasn't to any particular JNA
4 bodies, and it says: "From my battalion, out of the mobilised soldiers,
5 15 soldiers were killed and a certain number of elderly people who
6 formally were not mobilised but who had weapons and some of them joined in
7 at the right moment to defend the village," and so on.
8 A. I don't know why that statement needed to be truthful nor why it
9 could have been given.
10 Q. Well, it was given by Marko Miljanic, who was the commander of
11 those units there on the spot in that place, as it says here. The
12 municipal public prosecutor in Zadar, that means --
13 JUDGE MAY: We've had this several times already. There's
14 absolutely no point asking a witness about what another witness says or
15 the circumstances in which that other witness made a statement. All the
16 witness can do is comment on the question which you ask, as she has done.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I understand that, Mr. May, but what
18 I'm talking about are the circumstances, precisely because the witness has
19 talked about the fact that people were killed in the villages, and from
20 this statement we can see quite clearly that it wasn't given to the
21 institutions of Krajina, it was given to none other than the Croatian
22 authorities. And we can see that there was fighting there, how the
23 fighting was conducted, and this is a document which I was given here,
24 0202773 is the page number, the ERN number, in fact.
25 JUDGE MAY: The point is that the witness cannot help you on these
Page 28209
1 matters.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. So the witness does not
3 know that civilians took part in the fighting, including some elderly
4 people as well, and this commander talks about that.
5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Now, regardless of the fact that you were very young at the time,
7 did you have any idea at all about the fact that those forces used heavy
8 weapons, mortars, and so on and so forth, and that it was a large unit in
9 the area?
10 You don't know any of these names, the names of the people who
11 commanded those units at the time?
12 A. On what side do you mean commanded?
13 Q. On the National Guards Corps side and those units. You don't know
14 any of the names?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Very well. Now, do you know where Mate Drazen's house was?
17 A. I don't know.
18 Q. Do you know that before this fighting took place, the Zemunik
19 airport was shelled, the military airport where the soldiers of the JNA
20 were deployed?
21 A. I don't know, and as I said, I wasn't interested in things like
22 that, nor did I follow events and attacks or anything like that.
23 Q. Well, do you know that it was precisely the soldiers of the JNA,
24 when they were passing through the Croatian village of Gornji Zemunik,
25 which joins up with Skabrnja - and we have this from different statements
Page 28210
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12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
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15
16
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18
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Page 28211
1 presented here - didn't use any weapons? They didn't shoot at anyone,
2 they just passed by, and it was only when they reached Skabrnja that they
3 came across this unit and when they clashed with the unit.
4 A. I don't know that either, so I can't say anything about it,
5 because I wasn't there. I didn't pass that way at all.
6 Q. Well, they were just passing by and then a conflict broke out, and
7 a transport JNA vehicle was destroyed and that was in the frameworks of
8 the then-large scale attacks on the JNA throughout Croatia at the time.
9 Do you remember any of that or do you know about anything of that -- like
10 that?
11 A. No. Had I been there, I probably would have known, or had I
12 followed things like that, but like this I can't say.
13 Q. Did you hear anything about the JNA soldiers who were killed and
14 the officers who were killed during those conflicts at the time?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Later on, to go back to the incident which you describe, later on
17 was there an additional investigation undertaken of any kind with the
18 judiciary of Zadar or with the Zadar police, or any of the authorities,
19 and were they able to establish how the incident that you described came
20 about, what had actually happened and who the possible perpetrator of the
21 killing was?
22 A. The event happened, as I said, at the end of 1991, and the Zadar
23 police force could have come into the area just in 1995 to investigate, so
24 that they weren't able to conduct an investigation at the time, on the
25 spot, to see what had actually happened there.
Page 28212
1 Q. Well, many things here are trying -- people are trying to
2 reconstruct many things post festum, later on, but was an investigation
3 ever conducted, because a number of people were, after all, killed in the
4 incident. There were a number of casualties, people had lost their lives.
5 So without doubt, it wasn't any -- due to any war operations but a
6 classical crime had in fact been committed; isn't that right?
7 A. Yes. A great crime, that's right. A great crime.
8 Q. Yes, but a crime that has nothing to do with any military
9 operations; is that right?
10 A. I don't know whether it had anything to do with military
11 operations or patients or mentally deranged patients or whatever I can
12 call them. All I can say is what happened and what -- I described what
13 happened.
14 Q. Well, in view of the fact that the casualties were of mixed
15 ethnicity, I think the logical conclusion was that it wasn't a killing
16 that took place on a national ethnic basis but the way that I presented it
17 as being a possibility. Do you allow for that possibility, that that
18 might have been the way it happened?
19 A. But as I said, there was only one Serb who was actually killed,
20 and all the rest were Croats. And they came to a Croatian hamlet and not
21 to a Serbian hamlet.
22 Q. Very well, Ms. Denona, I have no further questions for you.
23 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
24 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
25 Q. [Interpretation] Madam Witness, I should just like to ask you a
Page 28213
1 few questions with respect to this specific event that you describe in the
2 last paragraph of the second page of your statement. The English version
3 is also on page 2. And you talk about the 21st of December, 1991, and you
4 say that you went to the door when you heard somebody knocking.
5 A. Yes, that's right.
6 Q. To see who it was; is that right?
7 A. Yes, that's right.
8 Q. You say: "I asked, Who's there? and heard a male voice say the
9 Krajina militia or police"; is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You say that, "the voice sounded familiar and I thought somebody
12 was joking." That's what you say; is that right?
13 A. Yes, that's right.
14 Q. So you didn't actually see who opened the door, and you don't know
15 whether it was actually the militia or the police or not.
16 A. No, I don't know whether it was the police, but the door was
17 opened.
18 Q. Yes, you explained that, but you don't know who was on the other
19 side of the door, and you don't know who the man at the door was who
20 talked to Dragan, do you?
21 A. No.
22 Q. And let me just ask you this: You said that only one Serb was
23 killed and that the other casualties were Croats; is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Now, in that village, as you say in the third paragraph, there
Page 28214
1 were only two houses inhabited by Serbs, the Draca family and another
2 family. So there were no other families in that village.
3 A. Draca and Dobre.
4 Q. How many families in all; just those two families?
5 A. You mean how many family members in those two families?
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. Well, perhaps 20, 25.
8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. I have no more
9 questions.
10 MR. WHITING: Very briefly, Your Honour.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
12 Re-examined by Mr. Whiting:
13 Q. Ms. Denona, you were asked some questions about Sveto Draca. Was
14 he mobilised into the JNA reserves?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. To your knowledge, was he mobilised willingly?
17 A. Not willingly, no.
18 Q. Do you know what he was doing at Roko Marinovic's house the night
19 he was killed?
20 A. Nothing. They were just -- they just had a friendly meeting.
21 They played some cards.
22 Q. What was -- was he there with his children?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You indicated that you thought that there was more than one person
25 at the door when there was a knock. Can you explain that to the Court?
Page 28215
1 A. I can. The voice who answered me when I asked who was at the door
2 was to my left. Judging by the sound of it, I came to the conclusion that
3 he was on the left, whereas through the glass partition of the door I
4 could see the outline, the silhouette, of another man. So I would say
5 that the third person who shot a burst of gunfire was perhaps one or two
6 metres away from the entrance door when they fired. So that I would say,
7 in my assessment, there were more than two of them in front of the door.
8 Q. When you ran out of the house and you were running in the yard, do
9 you recall hearing somebody say something?
10 A. Yes. A male voice said, "They're getting away from us. They're
11 running away." And that's when they started shooting after us, and that's
12 when I myself was hit.
13 MR. WHITING: Nothing further, Your Honour.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, for the record, there should be a
15 correction made. 575 is the transcript and exhibits for B-1345, and that
16 is under seal except for tab 1A which is a public redacted version of the
17 transcript. And the statement for Witness Denona pursuant to Rule 89(F)
18 is 576.
19 JUDGE MAY: Ms. Denona, that concludes your evidence. Thank you
20 for coming to the International Tribunal to give it. You are now free to
21 go.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you too.
23 [The witness withdrew]
24 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Whiting.
25 MR. WHITING: We have one procedural matter we could do while the
Page 28216
1 witnesses are changing.
2 JUDGE MAY: Let's deal with that now, yes.
3 MR. WHITING: We have a 92 bis, full 92 bis statement to offer
4 into evidence. It's of Witness C-1154 and it's full without
5 cross-examination, and we would just like to tender the statement and the
6 exhibits into evidence. There are protective measures, so I'm referring
7 to the person by pseudonym and it needs to be under seal.
8 THE REGISTRAR: 577, Your Honour, under seal.
9 JUDGE MAY: We'll call the next witness.
10 MR. AGHA: Your Honour, this witness has protective measures in
11 place.
12 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
13 MR. AGHA: Your Honours, before the witness is called, I'm afraid
14 I find myself in the same position as Mr. Whiting, my learned colleague,
15 in respect that Witness B-1780, who is coming, had actually been granted
16 permission to give his evidence by way of bis, but with the Chamber's
17 permission, I would kindly submit that he may have his statement submitted
18 through Rule 89(F).
19 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll admit that. While we're waiting, we'll
20 ask the registrar to give the exhibit number for the new package.
21 MR. AGHA: I'm grateful to the Chamber.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, 578 for the exhibit package.
23 MR. AGHA: In order to save some time, Your Honours, may I request
24 at this stage that the various exhibits to be tendered with this witness
25 be placed under seal.
Page 28217
1 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
2 MR. AGHA: I'm grateful.
3 [The witness entered court]
4 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
6 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
7 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.
8 WITNESS: WITNESS B-1780
9 [Witness answered through interpreter]
10 MR. AGHA: With the Court's permission, may I kindly show the
11 witness a pseudonym sheet, which you'll find at tab number 2.
12 JUDGE MAY: Let's wait until the blinds are up.
13 Yes.
14 MR. AGHA: With the permission of the Court, could I kindly show
15 the witness his pseudonym sheet, which you'll find in tab number 2 of your
16 exhibit.
17 Examined by Mr. Agha:
18 Q. Witness, could you please look at the pseudonym sheet where you're
19 named as Witness B-1780, and can you confirm that that is your name, and
20 the other matters listed there have been listed and signed by you.
21 A. This is my name.
22 Q. Thank you. Witness, did you give a statement before the Office of
23 the Prosecution on 25th September 1996?
24 A. Yes, I did.
25 MR. AGHA: This can be found at tab 2 of Your Honours' bundle.
Page 28218
1 Can the witness kindly be shown a copy of that statement.
2 Q. Now, Witness, if you could look at the last page of that
3 statement, can you please confirm that that is your signature.
4 A. This is my signature.
5 Q. And, Witness, for the purpose of certainty, you'll see by your
6 signature a typed date of 25 September 1966. Can you please confirm for
7 the Court that the year should, in fact, be 1996 rather than 1966.
8 A. 1996.
9 Q. And on your arrival in The Hague, did you make a few variations to
10 that statement, which is attached?
11 A. Yes, I did.
12 Q. Thank you, Witness.
13 MR. AGHA: With your permission, Your Honour, I'd just like to
14 read a brief summary of the witness's evidence to the Chamber.
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
16 MR. AGHA: At the time of the incidents mentioned in this summary,
17 the witness was living in Zvornik with his family. Branko Grujic,
18 nicknamed Brano, was chairman of the SDS in Zvornik.
19 The winter before the war, three or four unknown persons started
20 to work in a shed near Grujic's bakery, which was near the woods. The
21 witness saw these people practising their shooting in a nearby quarry.
22 When the witness was later detained at Ekonomija farm, he recognised these
23 people as being among Arkan's men. On the 12th of May, 1992, Niska, who
24 was one of Arkan's men, took the witness to Ekonomija farm for
25 questioning.
Page 28219
1 The witness was taken to a building full of beaten-up men. All
2 the men were naked. One man was dead, and the others were either moaning
3 or crying. There were about between 18 to 20 men in the room, which was
4 about 30 square metres in size. The witness recognised a number of the
5 men.
6 A man named Jasikovac, who had a Serbian accent, after speaking to
7 Niski, brought in sticks which used to form part of a fence. The witness
8 was beaten with these sticks until he became unconscious.
9 The witness was then revived with water, dragged out of the
10 building where he was about four feet away from one of his neighbours,
11 Mr. Softic, whom he saw being beaten with sticks, hands, and feet. One of
12 the Serbs who was beating Softic told him, "Death to the Muslims" was
13 written there. Close to the witness another man was lying dead with his
14 hand cut off, which the Serbs were kicking around on the ground.
15 The Serbs tried to make Softic get up and run but Softic was too
16 weak due to the meeting which he had received. On one occasion Softic
17 tried to get up and accidentally kicked something which rolled within a
18 few feet of the witness. It was a man's head.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel slow down, please.
20 MR. AGHA: Yes. I apologise.
21 Softic eventually managed to get up and run away, as ordered.
22 After he had run about 30 metres, the witness saw a person named
23 Hadjukovic shoot him in the back. Niski walked over to Softic and started
24 to kick his head, presumably to see if he was really dead. Niski walked
25 over to the witness and showed him the brain and blood on his foot and
Page 28220
1 told the witness that soon his brain would be on the other foot.
2 The Serbs then proceeded to beat the witness with cables, a
3 plumbing tube, and a stick with a nail in it. The witness still bears the
4 scars from this beating today. The witness declined to run when ordered,
5 as he did not want to be shot. Eventually, the witness fainted from the
6 beating.
7 For the next four days and nights, different groups used to come
8 into the building and beat all the detainees. The groups included Arkan's
9 men, Seselj's men, the Yellow Wasps, Beli Orlovi, and others. Detainees
10 were taken out of the room, ordered to run, and then machine-gun bursts
11 could be heard. The witness presumed that they were shot like Softic.
12 Each day at 1.00 p.m. the detainees were allowed, one by one, to
13 go to the toilet which was located about 30 metres away. Most had to
14 crawl because they had been so badly beaten. On one occasion the witness,
15 whilst crawling to the toilet, saw the detainee who had left before him
16 dead on the ground.
17 The witness was in a bad state on account of the beatings and
18 asked the guard escorting him to kill him. The guard, however, told the
19 witness that he could not do as the witness had asked because the witness
20 had been sentenced to death by torture and not by bullet.
21 During the four days which the witness spent at Ekonomija, seven
22 men were killed on the terrace on the way to the toilet. The witness was
23 glad when this happened, as he thought that he would be the next to be
24 shot.
25 On one occasion, four or five of Arkan's men, including Jasikovac,
Page 28221
1 a Serb from Loznica, came with a long wooden spit which was sharpened at
2 the top. Abdulah Buljubasic was ordered to kneel down with his head
3 against the wall. Two of Arkan's men then pushed the spit about 40
4 centimetres up into the anus of Buljubasic who screamed horribly before
5 fainting. The witness saw blood coming from Buljubasic's anus and later
6 heard that he was buried by his father.
7 On another occasion, four or five of Seselj's men came into the
8 building and took out Bego Bukvic. The witness heard him being ordered to
9 run and then heard shots. Bukvic, however, a few minutes later, was
10 dragged back into the room with a cross cut on his back, a bullet wound in
11 each leg, and a broken arm. He was then stabbed in his hand and shot in
12 the neck in front of the witness.
13 Once a dead body which had been blown up and shot by the Chetniks
14 was brought into the room. The detainees were ordered by four or five of
15 Arkan's men to get down on their hands and knees and lick the blood from
16 the body. The witness refused and had cigarettes put out on him and his
17 throat cut as a punishment. Another detainee who refused to lick the
18 blood had his ear cut off and was made to eat it. He was about 20 years
19 old.
20 A local Chetnik who was kinder to the detainees told them that
21 Arkan's men were leaving the next day so it would be better for them. He
22 also told them how they were sentenced. Basically, "Judge" Ilic took a
23 list of their names and then, without reading the list, decided that those
24 on page 1 would be shot to death, those on page 2 slaughtered, and those
25 on page 3 tortured to death.
Page 28222
1 This part concerns the release of the witness.
2 At 11:00 or 12.00 a.m., a JNA truck stopped in front of the
3 building and ten soldiers dressed in camouflage led by a captain entered
4 the building. The soldiers all had Serbian flag badges on their caps.
5 The men were ordered onto the truck. The first three men were so
6 weak that they had to be thrown on by the soldiers. The group were loaded
7 on top of each other. The witness was the last to be thrown on. Those
8 people on the bottom cried out in pain and tried to get out of the truck,
9 but the soldiers prevented them from doing so by hitting them with rifle
10 butts.
11 The truck headed towards Zvornik. The men below him stopped
12 crying and moving. This was because they were dead. The witness was
13 thrown out at the JNA barracks, and the truck moved off in the direction
14 of Divic.
15 At the headquarters, Sekanic and Pavlovic saw the witness and sent
16 him to the hospital for rehabilitation. Pavlovic met him at the hospital,
17 and he was treated by two doctors who spoke Serbian. His X-rays were
18 taken, and he was found to have four broken ribs, a broken arm, and severe
19 injuries to the head. He was kept in hospital for about four days.
20 On the third day, a Muslim nurse told him to run away as the
21 Muslims in the hospital were going to be killed and that he was marked by
22 his pyjamas. He noticed that all the Chetniks had blue pyjamas whilst his
23 were striped.
24 A little later, two groups of Serbs visited his ward. One group
25 was Captain Dragan and some of his men whilst the others were Chetniks.
Page 28223
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Page 28224
1 The witness pulled up the sheets to his nose so that they could not see
2 his pyjamas and was able to escape detection. A Muslim nurse told him he
3 was lucky as an ambulance driver and three children had been killed that
4 morning.
5 The witness left Zvornik hospital on 19th of May, 1992, and
6 returned to his village in Zvornik. On 15th of June, all the people in
7 his village were forced to sign a document saying that they had given up
8 their property to the Serb authorities by their own free will. One day
9 later, they were deported by the Chetniks to Vienna via Subotica.
10 At the end of May, beginning of June, the witness saw Serbs
11 unloading bodies from trucks into a mass grave at Ramin Grob, which was
12 close to his house.
13 Now, that, in essence, is the witness's statement.
14 I would not propose to offer any exhibits through this witness,
15 but I would, with the Court's permission, like to ask him a couple of oral
16 questions.
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
18 MR. AGHA:
19 Q. Witness B-1780, I'm now going to ask you a couple of questions
20 which you can kindly answer for me.
21 Now, in your statement, you mention that you were sentenced by a
22 Judge Ilic. Can you tell the Court where Judge Ilic's court was located
23 in Zvornik?
24 A. I don't know that.
25 Q. Did you ever appear before him and argue your case?
Page 28225
1 A. No.
2 Q. How, if at all, would the SDS leadership in Zvornik have been
3 aware of the activities of Judge Ilic?
4 A. He was the president of the SDS in his local commune.
5 Q. So according to you, there would have been communication between
6 him and the SDS leadership of Zvornik?
7 A. That's right, yes.
8 Q. Now, finally, Witness, you mentioned in your statement Marko
9 Pavlovic.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. What position of authority was Marko Pavlovic holding in Zvornik?
12 A. Marko Pavlovic was commander of the Zvornik Brigade.
13 Q. Thank you, Witness. I have no further questions.
14 MR. AGHA: That would conclude my evidence in chief.
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, before I start my
17 cross-examination, I should like to make an objection, because I believe
18 that it is absolutely impermissible the way in which Mr. Khan uses the
19 term "Serbs." He describes some tortures here that allegedly occurred.
20 He may talk about a formation, a military, paramilitary unit, a group of
21 bandits, but every time he uses the term "Serbs." I think it is your duty
22 to caution him that that is absolutely inappropriate.
23 JUDGE MAY: Counsel's name is in fact Mr. Agha. If he had done
24 anything wrong, he would have been cautioned. He's been told earlier
25 about not asking leading questions. And if he used terms which were
Page 28226
1 derogatory unnecessarily, again he would be cautioned. No doubt he will
2 avoid doing so if it were true that he did so. But in any event, it makes
3 no difference as far as this Trial Chamber is concerned. We're well able
4 to ignore anything of that sort.
5 Now, let's move on.
6 MR. AGHA: Your Honour, I'd just like to mention that my wording
7 is not actually meant to cause offence, it is actually the wording which
8 is gleaned from the statement of the witness. So I'm actually trying to
9 summarise what is written rather than add my own words.
10 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Yes.
11 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
12 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. 1780 --
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I understand that this is a
14 protected witness, so I cannot ask him about his positions in open
15 session. Rather, no questions that could reveal his identity; isn't that
16 right?
17 JUDGE MAY: That is right. If you want to ask him any such
18 questions, we must go into private session to do so.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very briefly, please.
20 [Private session]
21 [redacted]
22 [redacted]
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25 [redacted]
Page 28227
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4 [Open session]
5 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Mr. 1780, in your statement you mention various people, Branko
8 Grujic, the president in Zvornik, Ljubko Ilic, Dragan Tanic, et cetera.
9 Are they all people from Zvornik?
10 A. Yes, they are.
11 Q. And then at the very beginning -- or maybe it was Mr. Agha who
12 read out in the summary, but anyway, at the very beginning it was said
13 that three or four men were practising shooting in a quarry; is that
14 right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Are they from Zvornik too?
17 A. No, they're not.
18 Q. But they came to practice shooting in Zvornik?
19 A. They were working for Grujic. They were cutting wood in the
20 bakery.
21 Q. So they were workers from Grujic's bakery; is that right?
22 A. Yes. But later on, I saw them with Arkan's men.
23 Q. I'm not going into who you saw them with, but how did you know
24 whether they were linked to Arkan's men or not? I'm not asking you about
25 that either, but it is quite obvious that you cannot call them Arkan's men
Page 28229
1 if they were workers in a bakery in Zvornik cutting wood there; isn't that
2 right?
3 A. They came there a month previously. They didn't used to be there.
4 Q. So you noticed them a month earlier, working there and cutting
5 wood?
6 A. Yes, that's right.
7 Q. And you later called them Arkan's men, though you don't have any
8 evidence to say that.
9 A. They were all wearing uniforms, and they were acting in the same
10 way as they, and they spoke the Ekavian dialect.
11 Q. People from Zvornik were working in Serbia and speaking Ekavian
12 and this didn't mean anything. So the people cutting wood certainly were
13 not fighters but simple workers. If somebody is cutting wood, he's an
14 ordinary labourer.
15 A. That was just Grujic's trick. He brought them there earlier on to
16 get acquainted with Zvornik. They would walk around Zvornik.
17 Q. And how do you know that?
18 A. Well, we saw it. I saw them. Everyone saw them.
19 Q. I will come to that later. You say that you knew this Ljubko
20 Ilic, that you knew him well.
21 A. Yes, I did.
22 Q. You say that he threatened you.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you even say that he said that he hated his mother because she
25 was a Chetnik.
Page 28230
1 A. Yes. I heard him saying that. He was drunk when he said that,
2 and he started crying because he was in a drunken condition.
3 Q. Was this reaction of his part of a general climate that is typical
4 for a civil war that was under way there?
5 A. I don't know that.
6 Q. Tell me, were you in Muslim paramilitary units? Because according
7 to my information, you were later charged of killing people in Kula Grad.
8 A. That was the indictment against me. I didn't even go to Kula
9 Grad. I couldn't go there. I couldn't reach it.
10 Q. But that is not at issue, that you were charged of killing people
11 at Kula Grad; is that right?
12 A. They asked me which Serb I had killed at Kula Grad. I said that I
13 hadn't been there at all, and I hadn't. I didn't move anywhere from my
14 own house. I was at home.
15 Q. But you were active in politics, so surely you wouldn't engage in
16 political work in your own home.
17 JUDGE MAY: We'll go into private session.
18 [Private session]
19 [redacted]
20 [redacted]
21 [redacted]
22 [redacted]
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19 [Open session]
20 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Do you know the owner of the Rojal cafe, Sead Hadziabdic, in
23 Drinjaca?
24 A. No, I don't.
25 Q. You hadn't heard of him?
Page 28233
1 A. No, I hadn't.
2 Q. And have you heard of Saban Redzic and Esad Haskic?
3 A. Saban Redzic? I heard of him, and not of the other one.
4 Q. This one is owner of the Rojal coffee bar. You don't know of that
5 coffee bar?
6 A. No, I'm not familiar with coffee bars at all.
7 Q. Tell me, please, this one that you heard of, do you know that he
8 engaged in illegal arming of members of the SDA party?
9 A. He worked before the war in the municipality as a civil
10 construction inspector. I know nothing else about him.
11 Q. And do you remember the name Samir Nisovic, who had a nickname,
12 Captain Almir? Do you remember the name Samir Nisovic?
13 A. I only heard of Captain Almir.
14 Q. And was he the organiser of the Patriotic League in this area
15 based in Kula Grad?
16 A. I don't know.
17 Q. You don't know that either?
18 A. I don't know.
19 Q. And do you remember Midhat Grahic? Do you know that name?
20 A. There are several Grahics in Zvornik. I heard of him but I don't
21 know about this particular one.
22 Q. He headed a unit called the Dzamijski Golubovi, or the Mosque
23 Doves, and they were active as so-called fighters for the faith. Do you
24 know that?
25 A. And when was that?
Page 28234
1 Q. In the period you're testifying about; in the autumn of 1991 and
2 the beginning of 1992.
3 A. I don't know about that.
4 Q. Have you heard about the Masked Doves, the fighters for the faith?
5 You only heard about Grahic?
6 A. I heard of the Mosque Doves during the war.
7 Q. What did you hear about them during the war?
8 A. I just heard about them. I don't know what they did.
9 Q. I assume that you knew that they weren't doves but a military
10 unit. Surely you have an idea what they represented.
11 A. They were some sort of a military unit, but I wasn't there, so I
12 don't know.
13 Q. So you know nothing about this military unit and their activities.
14 A. I wasn't in Bosnia at the time.
15 Q. And are you familiar with another group known as the Kobras, under
16 command of a certain Suljo who used to be a teacher in Sapna? Sulejman
17 Terzic is his name. Do you know it?
18 A. I heard of the Terzic surname, but I don't know about Sulejman
19 Terzic.
20 Q. And did you hear that he was in command of this paramilitary group
21 known as the Kobras?
22 A. I don't know. I wasn't in Bosnia during the war.
23 Q. In this generalised climate of sabre rattling and the activities
24 of these groups, did this fan fear and hatred? Is that why your neighbour
25 threatened you?
Page 28235
1 A. He didn't threaten just me. He threatened others as well.
2 Q. How did he threaten you? Tell me, please.
3 A. He said, "He will be mine." That's what he said.
4 Q. Who did he say that to?
5 A. He told my other neighbours that.
6 Q. Did he say anything to you in particular?
7 A. No. He didn't dare say such a thing to me. He did it secretly.
8 Q. So he didn't threaten you, but he told your other neighbours in
9 secret that he would kill you.
10 A. He had a shop. He worked as a merchant. And when my neighbours
11 dropped in in his shop, then he would start talking politics. And if I
12 would happen to pass by, he would say, "That one there will be mine."
13 Q. Are you talking about Ljubko Ilic?
14 A. Yes, Ljubko Ilic.
15 Q. Mr. Agha asked you about him. Where was he a judge? Do you know
16 whether he was a judge at all, or maybe he wasn't?
17 A. I was told this by a Serb soldier in the camp, that Ljubko Ilic
18 was the judge who had condemned me to death by torture.
19 Q. He described that this alleged judge, this would-be judge, passed
20 judgement in such a way that going along the list, the first page to be
21 killed, the second page to be slaughtered, and the third page to be
22 tortured. So simply according to the names listed on each page. He
23 didn't examine anyone, he just decided like that. You described all that
24 in your testimony.
25 A. That's exactly how it was.
Page 28236
1 Q. But a moment ago, in answer to a question from Mr. Khan, you said
2 that you were never taken before that judge and that you never saw that.
3 You were never taken before the judge. Then how could you see him doing
4 -- passing judgement by page?
5 A. I said a moment ago I was told this by a Serb solder in the camp,
6 that I was on the list for torture. "That's how Ljubko Ilic, the judge,
7 has sentenced you," he said. That is how I know that.
8 Q. You describe with precision how this would-be judge passed
9 judgement by turning over pages, without looking at the names, saying this
10 first page to be killed, the second tortured, et cetera. Yes. And did
11 all this -- did this Serb soldier tell you all this about this judge?
12 A. He told me that I was on the list for torture.
13 Q. Well, where did you get this story from that this judge passed
14 judgement in this way by page, first page in one way, second page another?
15 A. I told you a moment ago that this soldier told me that. This was
16 a young man, he was a minor, who told me that.
17 Q. So not only did he tell you that you were on the list for torture
18 but he also explained the technology of work by this would-be judge.
19 A. Yes. And this soldier brought us bread in the prison, this Serb
20 soldier.
21 Q. Well, was the soldier there a guard at your prison?
22 A. Yes, he was.
23 Q. And his duty was to bring you food, was it?
24 A. Well, the others didn't, but he brought it in from his own home
25 and would just throw it in to us, just a bit, and he told us not to tell
Page 28237
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Page 28238
1 anybody about what he was doing.
2 Q. So he would bring in --
3 JUDGE MAY: That sounds like a suitable moment to adjourn. We're
4 going to adjourn now, Witness B-1780, for 20 minutes. During the
5 adjournment, would you please remember not to speak to anybody about your
6 evidence until it's over. We'll sit again in 20 minutes.
7 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.
8 --- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.
9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. The soldier you mentioned, saying he brought you bread, did he
12 bring you the bread every day?
13 A. No. Perhaps a couple of times. He didn't bring it in to me but
14 to all of us who were there, and that might have been half a kilo of
15 bread, and he would throw it in to us.
16 Q. Well, how many times did he bring you the bread?
17 A. Maybe a couple of times.
18 Q. So does that mean twice, three times?
19 A. I don't know. Two or three times. But it was stale bread, bread
20 several days old.
21 Q. All right. You say he threw the bread in to you.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Well, when did you have time to talk to him and for him to tell
24 you about these judgements and all the rest of it?
25 A. Well, he stood at the door.
Page 28239
1 Q. Did he only talk to you?
2 A. He talked to us because there was nobody else to talk to there.
3 Q. Was he there all the time with you?
4 A. No.
5 Q. How many days was he with you?
6 A. Well, sometimes he'd be there for a few hours and leave and come
7 back to take up his shift.
8 Q. How many days did you see him there actually?
9 A. I didn't count the days.
10 Q. Do you know what his name was, the soldier's name?
11 A. No. All I know is that he was underage, or at least he looked
12 like a minor.
13 Q. All right. Now, is it true that the conflict in Zvornik began on
14 the 8th of April?
15 A. Yes, on the 8th of April.
16 Q. Was that the day when the Republican Presidency of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina passed a decree with respect to the Territorial Defence
18 headquarters?
19 A. I don't know that.
20 Q. Well, do you know that the mobilisation of the Muslim police took
21 place, which the SDA, Abdulah -- member Abdulah Pasic and Nenad Sabic
22 [phoen], commander of the TO staff, made the decision?
23 A. I don't know. There was no mobilisation. I didn't hear about it
24 anyway.
25 Q. Was there any kind of organisation on the Muslim side at the time
Page 28240
1 on the 8th of April?
2 A. No, there wasn't, because they didn't believe there would be any
3 kind of aggression at all.
4 Q. Why, then, did the Serbs, if there was no mobilisation in the
5 village of Celopek, several kilometres downstream from Zvornik, set up a
6 unit of their own if there was nothing happening in Zvornik, no activities
7 on the part of the Muslim forces?
8 A. I don't know about Celopek. I wasn't there, so I don't know. And
9 it was a long way from where I was, and I'm hearing what you say for the
10 first time now.
11 Q. Was that a response to what was going on to Zvornik on the Muslim
12 side?
13 A. Well, nothing was happening in Zvornik on the Muslim side.
14 Q. Now, you talk about what you experienced and lived through at the
15 hands of your neighbours. Was that a sort of revenge for what had
16 happened before that? For example, do you know about the killing of the
17 soldier in Sapna on the 5th of April, 1992?
18 A. I heard about that over the radio. Now, whether it was
19 retaliation, I don't know. I don't think it was revenge.
20 Q. All right. You say that your neighbours took you off to Karakaj,
21 to an old factory farm called Stara Ekonomija.
22 A. That's right.
23 Q. And they asked you to write down how many Serbs you had killed at
24 Kula Grad.
25 A. Yes, that's right.
Page 28241
1 Q. Did they ask anybody else to do that?
2 A. I don't know. They just -- I just know that they asked me and my
3 neighbour Softic to do that.
4 Q. So they asked you and your neighbour to do that. Right. Now, do
5 you happen to remember what date that was?
6 A. The 12th of May, 1992.
7 Q. Very well. Now, do you know about the attack on the 17th of
8 April, 1992, when the armed forces of the SDA party launched an attack on
9 the Serbian village of Rastocnica in the Zvornik municipality, when Zoran
10 Bogdanovic, a Serb, was killed, born in 1971. Do you remember that?
11 A. No. It's a long way away from me. It's 20 kilometres away from
12 me and I know nothing about that. This is the first time I hear of it.
13 Q. All right. And what about the attack on the Serbian village of
14 Boskovici on the 5th of May, 1992 when nine civilians were killed? And I
15 have their names here. Do you know anything about that?
16 A. No, I don't. I'm hearing of that for the first time.
17 Q. And do you know about the 9th of May, 1992, of an attack on the
18 village of Gornja Boljkovica when 16 Serbs were killed? All this took
19 place after the Muslim mobilisation organised by the SDA party.
20 A. No. That's the first time I hear of it. All this is new to me.
21 Q. Do you know that on that particular occasion these SDA forces
22 completely destroyed and burnt down the village?
23 A. I've never heard of anything like that happening.
24 Q. You haven't heard of it?
25 A. No.
Page 28242
1 Q. Well, I have here, for example, a document from the committee
2 gathering data of the crimes committed against humanitarian law, and it
3 was compiled on May 2001 for the Zvornik municipality, and it lists 127
4 casualties, victims who were killed.
5 MR. AGHA: Your Honour, I don't think the witness has seen a copy
6 of this document, or even perhaps it's been exhibited before the Court,
7 and I'm not quite sure how he could comment upon it.
8 JUDGE MAY: He'll be asked about it. If he can't comment, he'll
9 say so.
10 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Very well. Now, we have here the victims of the first -- of the
13 period you're talking about, the last days of 1992 and the beginning of
14 1993, and there are 127 names on this list, and there are some markings
15 next to their names, next to their numbers, for comparison purposes,
16 comparison with other lists. They have no significance. But take a look
17 at this list, please, and tell me if you recognise any of the victims
18 listed here.
19 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could I ask the usher to hand the
21 witness this list, please.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. And starting with the events I've already listed, there were a
24 large number of people killed. This particular list has 127 names on it,
25 and they were killed precisely during the period of time that you're
Page 28243
1 testifying about.
2 A. Under number 99, Simo Savic from Gornja Boljkovica, the Zvornik
3 municipality. That man didn't live in Boljkovica, he lived in Zvornik,
4 and I know him as a pensioner. He was retired before the war. Now, where
5 he was killed, I really don't know. So I recognise that name, but I don't
6 know any of the others.
7 Q. So you only know that one man?
8 A. Yes, Simo Savic, under number 99.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Now, Mr. May, would you
10 be so kind as to include this list amongst the exhibits, please.
11 JUDGE MAY: The witness knows nothing of the list, and it would
12 seem to me more appropriate that this is produced by someone who can speak
13 as to what it is and speak to its authenticity. This witness has no
14 connection with it and knows nothing about it.
15 Let the document go back. You can call evidence about it during
16 your case, Mr. Milosevic.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, he did recognise one name on
18 the list.
19 JUDGE MAY: Yes, that's true. He's in no position to comment
20 further.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. So, on the 12th of May, your neighbours took you off, and you say
24 that they beat you; is that right?
25 A. On the 12th May, Ilic Ljubko took me away, and the other man was
Page 28244
1 Petko Hajdukovic. The third man was nicknamed Niski. He wasn't my
2 neighbour, he was a man from Serbia. There was a man called Tanic, also
3 from Zvornik. So they were the men who took me away.
4 Q. All right. So the three of them were from Zvornik; is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And then they beat you and tortured you, and you mentioned some
7 very monstrous things that were happening, as you claim. Don't you think
8 that had that actually happened, the whole country would have known about
9 it and news would have buzzed around about it?
10 JUDGE MAY: Let me just deal with this. Now, that is by way of a
11 comment, but we need to understand this.
12 Are you suggesting to this witness that those things that he
13 alleged happened at the farm building to these detainees did not occur?
14 Is that what you're suggesting?
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, these are such unbelievable
16 things that I do absolutely doubt that anything like that could have been
17 going on without anybody knowing about it. That's quite impossible.
18 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Very well. Wait a moment. The witness
19 should certainly have the opportunity to deal with that.
20 Witness B-1780, you hear what the accused suggests. He suggests
21 that these outrages which you have described to the detainees at that farm
22 did not take place at all. Now, this is your opportunity to answer and
23 comment upon it.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I saw it all and experienced the
25 same thing, and I have proof. I have scars on my body.
Page 28245
1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. All right, Mr. 1780. Now, what you described happened at this
3 factory farm, the Ekonomija, in a location which was not unknown; isn't
4 that right? It was a well-known locality in the area.
5 A. To whom?
6 Q. Well, I assume to all the locals. It was a factory farm, the
7 Ekonomija, in the vicinity, and people must have known what was going on
8 there.
9 A. It was situated in between two Serbian villages that factory farm,
10 and nobody could approach it.
11 Q. As you claim, this was done by your locals and some people in
12 various groups whom you didn't recognise, and you don't know where they're
13 from.
14 A. I know they spoke the Ekavian language. I know that.
15 Q. You say that on one of these days, you will tell me when, that a
16 group of JNA soldiers arrived.
17 A. Yes. Ten of them came with a captain.
18 Q. On what day was that?
19 A. This was on the fourth day.
20 Q. Tell me, please, since you said a moment ago that they had a Serb
21 flag on their caps --
22 A. Instead of the five-cornered star, they had a small tricoloured
23 flag.
24 Q. You know that JNA soldiers couldn't wear a Serbian flag. They
25 could only have worn a Yugoslav flag and not a Serb flag. Either they
Page 28246
1 were not JNA soldiers or they were not wearing a Serb flag, one of the
2 two.
3 A. Instead of the five-cornered star they had a tricoloured flag on
4 their cap.
5 Q. You said clearly that you saw them wearing a Serbian flag.
6 A. I said a tricolour flag instead of the five-cornered star.
7 Q. I won't argue with you as to what it is you said. However, let us
8 just compare some things from your statement. You say you were taken
9 away on the 12th of May.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And in paragraph 81, you say: "On the 15th of May I was taken to
12 the Zvornik hospital."
13 A. On the fourth day.
14 Q. You can count it from the 12th to the 15th of May, that's three
15 days. So you couldn't have spent four days there, as you say.
16 A. The 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th, that makes it four days.
17 Q. And all these events occurred in that short span of time?
18 A. Yes, they did.
19 Q. You say that you remember that one of them introduced himself as
20 an Arkan man, that his name was Rambo, though we all knew that Rambo had
21 been killed during the attack on the Kula Grad. Is that right?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So this was a false introduction, wasn't it?
24 A. I heard on the Serbian radio Zvornik that someone called Rambo had
25 been killed at Kula Grad, and then later on a man introduced himself as
Page 28247
1 being Rambo. Now, I know nothing more than that.
2 Q. I'm just reading from what you say in paragraph 39. "One of
3 Arkan's men called himself Rambo, although we all know that the real Rambo
4 was killed during the attacks on Kula Grad."
5 A. That's right. That is what was said on the radio, the Serbian
6 radio Zvornik. Later on, this man said that he was Rambo. I don't know
7 how many Rambos there were.
8 Q. Very well. You couldn't find out who all these men were. Now,
9 I'm looking at paragraph 38. You say,"Various groups came, they beat us."
10 And then you list "Arkan's men, Seselj's men, White Eagles, Yellow Wasps,
11 and Pejic's men. I did not know the difference, but some of the groups
12 had long hair and beards. Some others didn't."
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. It is quite clear that this was not the army of Republika Srpska
15 or the JNA. Is that clear at least, Mr. 1780?
16 A. The men who beat us, when they beat us, they would say, "You see
17 how Seselj's men beat?" Then the next group when they beat, they would
18 ask us, "Do you know who the White Eagles are?" And that is how I knew
19 who they were. They themselves revealed who they were.
20 Q. Very well. Tell me, please, since you talk about a certain
21 Sekanic, who is he?
22 A. A lieutenant in the JNA.
23 Q. And he was in Zvornik?
24 A. He came to Zvornik then.
25 Q. Before that, you said that you had handed your rifle to him.
Page 28248
1 A. I did.
2 Q. On what occasion?
3 A. This was sometime in April. He came with soldiers to our village,
4 and those of us who had weapons surrendered them. There were hunters
5 amongst us, and we handed in our rifles, and we had documents for those
6 rifles.
7 Q. Would you please explain to me now what you say in your statement
8 in describing that a couple of days later a truck, a military truck,
9 appeared, and you say that members of the army took you to the barracks.
10 Is that right?
11 A. What truck? What barracks?
12 Q. I'm reading paragraph 61 of your statement. "About 11:00 or
13 12.00, a JNA truck stopped in front of the building. Ten soldiers entered
14 the room headed by captain --"
15 JUDGE MAY: Has the witness a copy of his statement? If not, he
16 should have one. And if you would look at paragraph 61, you will see what
17 it is the accused is referring to. If you would find 61.
18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. It says in paragraph 61, without repeating what I've already said,
20 "A JNA truck stopped and soldiers entered headed by a captain who was
21 carrying an automatic rifle. All of them were wearing camouflage
22 uniforms. All of them had on their caps badges with the Serbian flag."
23 And you wrote down what you said orally a moment ago, which means
24 it's out of the question that they could have been JNA if they had the
25 Serbian flag on their caps.
Page 28249
1 Then towards the end of the paragraph, you mention a Colonel
2 Sekanic; now you say he's a lieutenant.
3 A. No, a lieutenant. This is a mistake. He was a lieutenant,
4 Sekanic.
5 Q. Very well. Then this is a mistake. And then you add, since you
6 say that this lieutenant was a JNA member: "Aleksandar Sekanic, known as
7 Aco, was born in Bijeljina."
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. So he is from your area.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. "This was in 1992 when I gave Aleksandar a hunting rifle. He was
12 together with Captain Cale from Sabac." So this man whose name was
13 Sekanic was from your area.
14 A. No, he wasn't from my area. He was from Bijeljina. He said
15 himself he was from Bijeljina, but I was an officer of the JNA. That's
16 what he said. So he was from before the war.
17 Q. Well, many were in the JNA before the war, even those who were
18 later of the -- belonged to the army of Republika Srpska, the army of
19 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the HVO. I assume you know that, Mr. 1780.
20 A. He told me that he was a JNA soldier from before, that he --
21 before the war, that he used to be a soldier of the JNA.
22 Q. Very well. And you say that a couple of days later, that is,
23 rather, when they took you away from the Ekonomija that they subjected you
24 to a normal interrogation by people who inquired about some killings.
25 A. Which people?
Page 28250
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Page 28251
1 Q. In paragraph 69 -- 68. You say: "He called me an Ustasha and
2 told me to put my hands on the table. He pointed his rifle at me and
3 asked me how many Serbs I had killed."
4 And then in paragraph 69, you say: "I told him that I had never
5 killed anyone. At that moment, Sekanic entered the office and asked me
6 what I was doing there, who had brought me, and why I was so beaten up. I
7 didn't dare tell him anything. So I just said I didn't know."
8 Is that your statement?
9 A. I didn't dare say that anyone had beaten me. I had to say that I
10 had fallen and hurt myself, because I know if somebody said that he had
11 been beaten, he would be killed straight away, and that is why I didn't
12 dare say that anyone had beaten me.
13 Q. So none of the horrors that you described as having taken place at
14 the Ekonomija previously, you didn't tell them?
15 A. No, I didn't tell them.
16 Q. Then you say: "At that moment another JNA officer entered the
17 room, gave me his hand and said he was Major Marko Pavlovic, the
18 commander."
19 A. That's right. He said, "I'm the commander here."
20 Q. But he wasn't a JNA officer either but a commander of the Zvornik
21 Brigade; is that right?
22 A. He came from Serbia. From Zrenjanin.
23 Q. Let's not go into where he had come from, but he was not a member
24 of the JNA. Is that clear or not?
25 A. He said that he was the commander there. And I know that he had
Page 28252
1 come from Serbia, from Zrenjanin.
2 Q. And then in paragraph 71, you say: [redacted]
3 [redacted]
4 [redacted]
5 [redacted]
6 [redacted]
7 [redacted]
8 [redacted]
9 [redacted]
10 [redacted]
11 [redacted]
12 [redacted]
13 [redacted]
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. So they took you to hospital. Major Pavlovic stood in front of
16 the hospital; is that right?
17 A. Yes, it is.
18 Q. And then you say they put you to bed, they gave you injections and
19 pills, and you spent four days in the prison hospital. Is that right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And then you say that in the prison hospital, they wanted to kill
22 you.
23 A. Yes, that's true.
24 Q. Now, explain, please, they take you to hospital, they treat you
25 there, they know who you are. Why would they treat you, take X-rays to
Page 28253
1 see whether you have any injuries, keep you in hospital, and then try and
2 kill you there?
3 A. They intended to send me back to the camp down there, and this was
4 a trick of theirs. They would pretend to be helping you and then they
5 would kill you. That's how it was.
6 Q. And these horrific events that you describe, it's quite illogical
7 that if they had wanted to kill you, they would have killed you over
8 there. On the contrary, they took you to the hospital and treated you
9 there and then released you home.
10 A. They intended to send me back there. I was saying this was a
11 trick of theirs. They would pretend to be helping you, and then they
12 would send you there to be killed. And it was thanks to the intervention
13 of my wife that I was saved.
14 Q. Tell me, how, then, did you manage to survive if they really had
15 intended to kill you and they treated you in hospital, and now you say
16 this treatment in hospital was a trick.
17 A. They didn't treat me at all. I didn't feel any better. They gave
18 me some injections, but I wasn't better at all.
19 Q. They gave you pills and injections.
20 A. Yes, they gave me some yellow pills, but they didn't improve my
21 condition at all. This was a trick. They would pretend to be treating
22 you for others to see, and then they would send you away to be killed.
23 Not just me, but everyone.
24 Q. I don't understand that. Will you please explain. Who did they
25 kill in hospital?
Page 28254
1 A. A nurse, a Muslim. They wouldn't let her go home. She worked
2 there before the war and she had to stay there, working. She whispered to
3 me that a group was going through the hospital killing all Muslims, and
4 she said that that was the order. And she told me, "Go to your room, put
5 a blanket over you so they wouldn't see your pyjamas, which were marked,"
6 and that is what I did. And that is how I survived. They came by later
7 on, they didn't recognise me. And I know that they killed a driver on
8 that occasion who was a driver in the hospital. He was wounded. He had
9 three children.
10 Q. You say that you spent four days in hospital, and for four days
11 they didn't try to kill you, and on the 19th of May they released you to
12 go home; is that right?
13 A. They didn't really release me.
14 Q. Did you escape from hospital?
15 A. No. This nurse told me that I had to escape. And as soon as they
16 left, I told the doctors, when they came visiting, I said I was feeling
17 better and that I could go. And they told me to get up. I got up and
18 left. I went outside. I was in the corridor, and they put another man in
19 my bed.
20 Q. Does that mean that they released you to go home or did you run
21 away?
22 A. The doctor told me to get up. I got up and walked to the
23 corridor.
24 Q. And you went home in pyjamas?
25 A. No. I saw another woman there who was working as a cleaning lady.
Page 28255
1 She was a Muslim too. And she found some clothes for me. She changed me,
2 because I couldn't do it myself, and that is how I walked out.
3 Q. So it's normal for a nurse to help you to dress as you were hurt;
4 but you didn't run away from the hospital, you were released, because you
5 said you felt better.
6 A. I said I felt better in order to leave.
7 Q. Didn't they have plenty of chances to kill you if they really had
8 wanted to kill you?
9 A. I'm telling you this was a trick. They would pretend to help you,
10 and then they would send someone else to kill you. That is how they
11 operated.
12 Q. You don't have a single example of somebody being treated by such
13 a trick and then someone sent to kill him.
14 A. They didn't send people to kill me but all the Muslims in
15 hospital, and I was one of them.
16 Q. Did they kill those Muslims in hospital?
17 A. I know they killed three children and a driver who used to drive
18 in the hospital, and he was wounded too.
19 Q. In paragraph 80, you say that: "Later on, the same nurse, Najfa
20 Delibajic, told me that I was lucky to be alive because they had killed
21 three children and a driver of an ambulance."
22 A. Yes, he was a driver in the hospital, I said that.
23 Q. It says, "Ramo, the X-ray technician who worked in the Zvornik
24 hospital, told me about those killings."
25 A. Yes, he did. He told me that. That's true.
Page 28256
1 Q. So the ambulance driver wasn't in the hospital at all when he fell
2 casualty.
3 A. He was lying in the hospital wounded. Now, where he was actually
4 wounded, I can't say.
5 Q. All right. So you went home and nobody stopped you going; is that
6 right?
7 A. I took the safe road home, another road, not the one I usually
8 take.
9 Q. And then after the 16th of June, you found yourself in Subotica in
10 Serbia; is that right?
11 A. Yes. On the 16th of June, I arrived in Subotica.
12 Q. So you found your salvation in Serbia.
13 A. Well, I didn't want to.
14 Q. So you didn't want to go to Serbia and go to Vienna via Serbia, is
15 that it?
16 A. On the 15th of June, 1992, we signed a piece of paper saying that
17 we voluntarily gave all our property to the Serb authorities, and they
18 rounded us up in two buses on the 15th of June. They came to my village
19 and deported us via Mali Zvornik, Sabac, to Subotica.
20 Q. So you were in a refugee camp in Subotica, were you?
21 A. Yes, I was.
22 Q. Were you given Yugoslav passports?
23 A. I wasn't. I had a passport from before.
24 Q. All right. So did you yourself decide to go to Vienna or were you
25 deported there?
Page 28257
1 A. They put us onto a train and let us leave. They didn't tell us
2 where we were going. We didn't know where we would go, but we ended up in
3 Vienna.
4 Q. So as a refugee, you found yourself in Serbia. You were a free
5 man there, free to walk around wherever you wanted to go?
6 A. I wasn't there of my own free will. They deported us as far as
7 Subotica and for us to go on further from there.
8 Q. I'm asking you, did anybody restrict your freedom in Serbia in any
9 way?
10 A. Yes, they did.
11 Q. In what way?
12 A. We weren't allowed to leave the camp anywhere, the Subotica camp.
13 It was at Palic, on Mount Palic, actually.
14 Q. How come you went to Vienna if you weren't allowed to leave?
15 A. An army escort and a police escort. There were some policemen
16 there and some soldiers there, and that's how it was.
17 Q. So they escorted you to Vienna, did they?
18 A. No, just to the train.
19 Q. That means they transported you from the refugee camp to the
20 train, and you were free to go where you wanted to.
21 A. Well, the train's destination was Hungary and then further on to
22 Vienna. Nobody asked us whether we wanted to get on, we just got onto the
23 train and went away.
24 Q. All right. But did anybody in any way whatsoever do any harm or
25 injustice to you in Serbia while you were there?
Page 28258
1 A. No, there were just threats. A man called Djuro. Djuro was a
2 guard in the camp. All I know is that they called him Djuro.
3 Q. You mean in the refugee camp? There were no guards who would
4 control refugees. You were taken care of there in the camp which was
5 under the supervision of the Red Cross.
6 A. It wasn't the Red Cross.
7 Q. What was it then? Was it a concentration camp, perhaps?
8 A. Well, I don't know what it was, but we got there and weren't
9 allowed to leave. And this man Djuro said, "I can kill anybody who
10 leaves." And I don't know any more than that.
11 Q. Mr. 1780, nobody in Serbia anywhere was ever killed, none of the
12 refugees from any of the staff members in a refugee camp or anything like
13 that, any refugee collection centre or whatever?
14 A. Well, we weren't refugees who wanted to go there. We were brought
15 in there for us to be sent further away.
16 Q. And you left further of your own free will?
17 A. No.
18 Q. So you didn't go to Vienna because you wanted to?
19 A. No. We were ordered to board the train and go further. Nobody
20 told us where we were going.
21 Q. Yes, but you crossed the border and found yourselves in Hungary.
22 Could you go to Vienna or any other place?
23 A. When we boarded the train it was already dark, night-time, and we
24 spent the whole night on the train. We reached Budapest, and we didn't
25 want to get out there in Budapest. So we continued our journey to
Page 28259
1 Austria, because we heard that it would be better for refugees to go to
2 Austria rather than stay in Hungary. Those were the rumours.
3 Q. Tell me, please, as you left hospital on the 19th of May, 1992,
4 where did you go after that, and how come you testified about watching
5 some burials take place? Were you at your home?
6 A. Yes, I was at home.
7 Q. As far as I understand it, that was several kilometres from
8 Zvornik, according to this information.
9 A. Yes, that's right. My house is several kilometres away from
10 Zvornik.
11 Q. Well, how were you able to watch these Serbs burying the Muslims?
12 How were you able to assess that?
13 A. It was our cemetery, the local cemetery in our area, and you can
14 see it clearly from my house.
15 Q. Well, did you make a diagram indicating the positions of some mass
16 graves at the mass cemetery? Did you do that?
17 A. Yes, I did, because some of my family members are buried there and
18 so are my neighbours, and I know the cemetery by heart.
19 Q. Did you watch the burials take place?
20 A. Yes, I did. I saw it all personally.
21 Q. Now, tell me, please, as you commented on the map of the -- and
22 the ethnic composition of Zvornik, drawn up by Himzo Tulic, what has that
23 map got to do with your testimony?
24 A. What's it got to do with it?
25 Q. Yes.
Page 28260
1 A. Well, it's a piece of information to show how many of the
2 different groups there were.
3 Q. Well, it says the municipality, 81.111 and 30.000-odd Muslims,
4 48.000 Croats, 120 Yugoslavs, 1.022 of the others.
5 A. That's what it says there.
6 Q. And what's that got to do with the events you're describing?
7 A. As I say, it's just a piece of information, facts and figures, to
8 show how many inhabitants belong to what ethnic group.
9 Q. Now, as you told me about your passport, in point 82 you say the
10 following: "They boarded us up into a bus and took us to Subotica where
11 we spent two days in the refugee camp." So you there for a total of two
12 days. And then you go on to say, "We were given Yugoslav passports." And
13 then you go on to say, "We arrived in Vienna on the 19th of June by
14 train."
15 A. Well, if anybody didn't have a passport, they must have had a
16 passport.
17 Q. Yes, but you used the first person plural and say, "We were given
18 refugee --" "We were given passports." So as refugees, you were given
19 passports, and all this procedure lasted for two days and then you went
20 where you wanted to go.
21 A. So what? What's strange there? You couldn't pass the border
22 crossing without a passport.
23 Q. All I'm saying is that I assume you're not challenging that they
24 helped you in Serbia.
25 A. That wasn't help. We paid for those passports. If you didn't
Page 28261
1 have a passport you paid for it, and we were made to go there. We didn't
2 go there because we wanted to.
3 Q. I'm not saying how you reached Serbia, but once you were in
4 Serbia, they treated you completely normally; isn't that right?
5 A. It wasn't normal.
6 Q. The fact that you were given accommodation and fed and given
7 passports that enabled you to go wherever you wanted to go, that wasn't
8 normal?
9 A. No, it wasn't normal.
10 Q. What should they have done, then?
11 A. Well, they threatened us there, that we weren't allowed to go out,
12 to move around, and they could kill us if we did, and so on.
13 Q. Very well. I'm not going to ask you any more questions about
14 that. There's no point in doing that.
15 In point 34, you refer to the following: A man wearing a light
16 brown uniform with police insignia on the arm, and you say: "I know that
17 that was not the normal type of Yugoslav police uniform that was worn"; is
18 that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. So this man wearing police insignia did not belong to the Yugoslav
21 police force.
22 A. He was wearing police insignia.
23 Q. Yes, but it wasn't a police uniform, was it? So that man couldn't
24 have been a policeman.
25 A. He just had a police insignia on him. Now, whether he was a
Page 28262
1 policeman or not, I really don't know.
2 Q. You say it wasn't the customary type of uniform worn by the
3 Yugoslav police force.
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. Tell me just this now, please: You say in point 36 that you don't
6 know how many of them "jumped on me." "There might have been ten to 15 of
7 them or maybe more." Now, how is that possible? How can anybody survive
8 ten to 15 people jumping on them?
9 A. They didn't only jump all over me but all over the others too, and
10 there were ten to 15 of them. Perhaps not every -- each single one of
11 them jumped all over me, but they could hit me, they kicked me. And I
12 have injuries and scars that are still visible on me.
13 Q. Yes, I do believe that you were hurt, but a moment ago when you
14 were asked about the officer that interrogated you and then took you off
15 to hospital, you said you didn't want to tell them what had happened to
16 you because you were afraid and that the explanation you gave was that you
17 fell and hit and hurt yourself. So those injuries on you must have been
18 terrible had 15 people jumped all over you, and yet you said that some --
19 that you hit yourself.
20 A. We didn't dare say that anybody had beaten us. You had to say
21 that you fell and hit yourself. That's what we were told. And if anybody
22 said who hit him, he would be killed on the spot.
23 Q. Can you give us an example of somebody who said he was beaten and
24 then was killed?
25 A. Yes, I do.
Page 28263
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Page 28264
1 Q. All right. Give us this example of somebody owning up to being
2 beaten and then being killed.
3 A. There's a man here, Bego Bukvic.
4 Q. Was he killed because he said that he had been beaten?
5 A. Well, when he told them who had beaten him, they killed him.
6 Q. Well, that's not what it says here. Read out what it says.
7 A. Well, I know that's how it was.
8 Q. But you didn't write that in your statement.
9 A. What I said was that he was taken out and killed, and I know the
10 reason why he was killed.
11 Q. Why didn't you say that in your statement?
12 A. Well, that's quite clear.
13 Q. I don't know how it should be clear to anybody reading your
14 statement if you don't actually write it down and say so in your
15 statement.
16 Mr. 1780, you spent four days in the camp, you say, and then four
17 days in the hospital; is that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You went to the camp on the 12th, and you were released from
20 hospital on the 19th. So from the 12th to the 19th is not eight days.
21 And you describe a series of events --
22 JUDGE MAY: This is a point where you misunderstand the
23 mathematics, I think. Anyway, it is a point of no significance at all.
24 Let us try and move on. Now, you've had longer than the usual
25 time for the reason that the Prosecution have not got sufficient witnesses
Page 28265
1 so we're not under the usual pressure of time, but there must come a time
2 when this cross-examination is brought to an end, and it's been fairly
3 circular. So the conclusion is that we'll give you another ten minutes
4 and then you must conclude your cross-examination.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. May.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. You say in point 38, towards the end, that members of certain
8 groups would enter the premises -- "for them to enter the premises, we
9 would have to sing Chetnik songs to welcome them." Is that what you
10 wrote?
11 A. Yes, I did write that, and I sang the songs.
12 Q. How come you know Chetnik songs?
13 A. Well, I know them.
14 Q. So what kind of Chetnik songs did you have to sing and did you
15 know?
16 JUDGE MAY: Does this really matter? He's explained in general
17 terms what the position was.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, it is important, Mr. May,
19 because quite obviously it's not true. That's why it's important, because
20 some things here can't be the truth, and then we come to the question --
21 the general question of what is the truth at all.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. So what Chetnik songs?
24 JUDGE MAY: It's suggested that you sang -- your saying that you
25 sang Chetnik songs is untrue. Perhaps you'd like to deal with that.
Page 28266
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is true. I did sing them. And I
2 had to make the sign of the cross and to make the sign of the three
3 fingers raised.
4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. So which Chetnik songs did you sing?
6 A. We sang Vojvoda Sindjelic, both songs. And, "Those who say that
7 Serbia is small are telling lies to us all." And we had to learn the
8 Lord's Prayer.
9 Q. So you had to do all that while they were torturing you?
10 A. Yes, all of that.
11 Q. As for this song Vojvoda Sindjelic, that is a popular song which
12 dates back to the -- it is a folksong about Vojvoda Sindjelic who fought
13 against the Turks.
14 A. Well, the Serbs sang that song, and we had to sing it too. And
15 you could hear the song being sung in Zvornik over the Serb radio.
16 Q. So why are you calling that song a Chetnik song?
17 A. Because the Chetniks sang it.
18 Q. And the people singing it were Chetniks?
19 A. Yes, that's right.
20 Q. You call them Chetniks.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Let me just have a look at my notes.
23 Tell me, please, in point 45, you say that four or five Arkan's
24 men arrived. How do you know they were Arkan's men, and did Arkan's men
25 go to those parts at all?
Page 28267
1 A. I do know because they had different uniforms and different caps.
2 Q. You enumerated Arkan's men, the White Eagles, the Yellow Wasps,
3 Pejic's men, Seselj's men, and so on. And then you -- actually, you
4 enumerate all these units. So tell me, how many men came to that factory
5 farm?
6 A. Well, anybody that could came by. So all those units came by.
7 Q. Yes. But how many people did you see there in all these units?
8 A. I didn't count, but they would come in groups of five, six, four,
9 ten, depending, 15.
10 Q. You mean the ten to 15 that jumped all over you?
11 A. They didn't jump only over me, they jumped all over everybody else
12 too.
13 Q. Now, tell me this, please: You say that Captain Dragan came to
14 visit you.
15 A. Yes. He didn't visit me. He came into the room I was in.
16 Q. So he came to visit the wounded in the hospital.
17 A. I don't know why he came.
18 Q. Well, what other reason could there have been apart from his
19 visiting the wounded in the hospital?
20 A. You would have to ask him that. I don't know.
21 Q. Well, you do know that Captain Dragan came?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. How do you know that?
24 A. When he left, one of the wounded asked the other, "Do you know who
25 that was?" And he said, "Yes, I do. That was Captain Dragan," and swore
Page 28268
1 at him, cursed his mother.
2 Q. So he cursed him?
3 A. Yes, he did. Well, it wasn't actually a swear word, it was just a
4 way of talking.
5 Q. But he was a Serb?
6 A. Yes, this is what he said. He said, "That's Captain Dragan, fuck
7 him."
8 Q. And what did Captain Dragan actually say? What was he doing in
9 hospital except for visiting the wounded?
10 A. Well, he asked them how they felt, how they were.
11 Q. So he came to visit the wounded to ask them how they were and then
12 left?
13 A. I don't know whether he came to tour them. All he did was to come
14 in and ask. Now, what his intentions in the hospital were, I don't know.
15 Q. Well, did he insult anybody or do anything that wasn't in keeping
16 with a hospital visit?
17 A. Well, who could he insult?
18 Q. Well, you were there, for example.
19 A. Well, he didn't say anything to me.
20 Q. Well, did he to talk to anybody especially?
21 A. No, he didn't.
22 Q. So he just went round visiting you and --
23 A. And he talked to some individuals.
24 Q. Well, did anything happen, any event happen or anything else that
25 you could say -- that you had some criticisms to make of? Did anything
Page 28269
1 untoward happen?
2 A. No. I don't have any criticisms to make, and he didn't come up to
3 me at all.
4 Q. Well, he didn't come to anybody special, he went to the hospital
5 to visit the wounded who were there.
6 A. I don't know why he came. He just came into the room and asked
7 individuals how they were, how they felt. Now, what his intentions were,
8 I really can't say.
9 Q. And he left.
10 A. Yes, he did.
11 Q. Well, then what other intention could he have had except to visit
12 you?
13 A. I don't know. I don't know what he did after that.
14 Q. Very well, Mr. 1780. Thank you.
15 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I would submit that
16 the witness before you is precisely one of the cases when, in accordance
17 with your ruling of the 6th of October, I could be of considerable
18 assistance in clearing up a few matters before you.
19 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
20 Q. [Interpretation] I would like to ask you, Witness, if you could,
21 to look at paragraph 65 of your statement that you have in front of you.
22 Have you found it?
23 A. Yes, I have.
24 Q. In the last sentence in that paragraph, you speak of the truck
25 which, together with the nine men that you mentioned when examined by the
Page 28270
1 Prosecutor, you said that the men who were at the bottom stopped crying,
2 but they also stopped moving. They had died. Is that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, on the 10th of July
5 of this year, together with the statement that is before the witness, I
6 also received a statement which the witness gave to the authorities of
7 Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly after these events on the 27th of December,
8 1992. I have a photocopy of that. I also have an English translation in
9 three copies as the statement has been translated into English. So could
10 this statement be shown to the witness.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes, let it be shown to the witness, and we'll look at
12 the copies.
13 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Mr. Witness, is this your statement, is this your signature at the
15 end of this statement, a statement given on the 27th of December, 1992, to
16 the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
17 A. It is my signature, yes.
18 Q. Is it your statement?
19 A. I don't know that until I read it.
20 Q. Would you please look --
21 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness just look at the statement, and
22 perhaps we could have the copies which you said were in English.
23 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I have three copies in English.
24 Q. You signed that statement at the bottom of each page. Isn't that
25 right?
Page 28271
1 A. Yes, it is.
2 Q. Is that your statement?
3 A. I need to read it out entirely to know whether it is mine.
4 JUDGE MAY: Perhaps you could just have a quick look at it --
5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry. Perhaps you could just have a quick look
7 at it, Witness B-1780, for these purposes. Do you remember making the
8 statement? Witness B-1780, do you remember making the statement or not?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did make this statement.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, counsel may be going to ask you about one
11 or two passages. Just see what he asks, and of course you can have a
12 chance to read then before you answer, but he'll refer you to the passages
13 he has in mind.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, in the English
15 version, it is the third paragraph, and in the Bosnian, Croatian, and
16 Serbian it is the second paragraph of the statement you have in front of
17 you. It is paragraph 2 on page 3. In the English version, third
18 paragraph from the end.
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: First page?
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Last page. From the end of the
21 English statement. So the third paragraph from the end.
22 Q. I won't dwell on this too much, Mr. Witness. You're referring to
23 the 16th of May as the day you went to the hospital. It's a mistake. I
24 won't insist on that. But I would like to draw your attention to the
25 following: You were speaking about some special units there. You didn't
Page 28272
1 mention the JNA. Could you tell us who those special units were.
2 A. That is the group of soldiers that came with the captain.
3 Q. You didn't mention the Yugoslav People's Army here. You called
4 them the specials. But that's not the reason why I'm asking you this.
5 Look at the following sentence: When you entered the truck, "the
6 prisoners were ordered to lie on the floor of the truck. The first three,
7 then the next three on top of them, and the last three on top of them."
8 Is that right? "I was the tenth, and I was ordered to sit on top of all
9 of them." Is that right? "They said they would get the other eight, that
10 they would come from the other eight." Is that right?
11 A. They said that they would come for the others. Maybe the eight is
12 an error.
13 Q. I don't know what happened to them or to the nine. You said that
14 you didn't know what happened to those nine, because you say here that,
15 "When we arrived in Zvornik, I was taken off the truck and the truck went
16 on its journey." So in this statement you said that you didn't know what
17 happened to those nine men, and today you were saying that those beneath
18 you all died. Now, what is true?
19 A. Both is true. When I say I didn't know where they went, I didn't
20 know where they took them.
21 Q. Very well. Now, next paragraph. How far is your house from the
22 hospital?
23 A. Couple of kilometres.
24 Q. How much time did it take for you to get home from the hospital?
25 A. Normally I would can get there in half an hour.
Page 28273
1 Q. You said here explicitly that you had escaped from the hospital,
2 which is different from what you said here today, but even that doesn't
3 matter. What I think you should explain to Their Honours from this
4 statement - two more points - because in two paragraphs above this in the
5 English version and in the last paragraph of the version in front of you,
6 you said -- in the middle it says: "They cut a cross on my cheek."
7 Today and in an earlier statement, you said that the cross was cut
8 for someone else, not on your cheek. Was it on your cheek? Did you --
9 did they see that at hospital?
10 A. No. This was more like a scratch. It wasn't very deep on my
11 cheek.
12 Q. But you said that a cross, the sign of the cross was cut into your
13 cheek.
14 A. Yes. Yes. And the same was done to Bego Bukvic, on his back, and
15 he was killed.
16 Q. And then further on - I won't dwell too much on that - but in
17 paragraph 55 of the statement you gave here, you say: "At the same time
18 while we were being punished, the others had to lick the blood from the
19 body of this young man," that they wanted you to do the same but you
20 refused.
21 However, in the statement you gave in 1992, after this business
22 with the cross, you say: "Then they would lick our blood." You didn't
23 say that anyone forced you to do that. How can you explain the
24 difference?
25 A. This man Niski, the man they called Niski who had the rank of
Page 28274
1 major, he made this cross with a knife on me, and then he licked the blood
2 off his knife, looking me in the eye. That's how it was.
3 Q. So let us now go back to the things that you testified about
4 today. For instance, paragraph 27. You spoke of the hand that was cut
5 off, and you stand by that?
6 A. Yes, I do. It was true.
7 Q. Then in paragraph 29, you speak of a head that was kicked around.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Then in paragraph 32, of the execution of a certain number of men.
10 Then in paragraph 44, the seven killed men; is that right?
11 A. There was a total of seven killed.
12 Q. And then in paragraph 52, you said that there were cases when the
13 skin between the fingers was cut with a knife. That was the punishment
14 for those who refused to lick blood. Then you speak of an ear, and then
15 in paragraph 54, you say that a man was scalped. Is that right?
16 A. Scalped?
17 Q. That is the term you used. Paragraph 54 I think it is. But never
18 mind.
19 Tell me, now if could you explain to Their Honours, do you have
20 the name of any one of these men?
21 A. Which men?
22 Q. The victims, except for the killing of Bego and Ramiz Softic. Do
23 you have the name of any of the perpetrators or any one of the victims who
24 lost their lives in that way? And is there any witness who saw these
25 things apart from you?
Page 28275
1 A. Abdulah Buljubasic was killed.
2 Q. Yes. I was going to ask you about that. He was the man who,
3 according to you, suffered a terrible death.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And you have his first and last name; Abdulah Buljubasic?
6 A. And his father buried him, Bego Buljubasic. He's alive in
7 Zvornik.
8 Q. The father of that man buried his own child.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And his grave is known?
11 A. I don't know it, but the father knows. The father does know.
12 Q. You gave this statement in 1996, and it could easily be
13 established what was the cause of death of that particular person. So the
14 Court could rule and decide without any doubt whatsoever. So even that
15 was not checked out by the Prosecution, and the Prosecution could have
16 done that.
17 JUDGE MAY: That's not a matter for the witness. Yes.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, everyone must be
19 responsible for his acts, and I'm sure that anyone who did such horrors
20 must be punished adequately, and I'm sure you will do that. But it is my
21 profound conviction that this Tribunal's prime role, or one of the most
22 important roles, is for all of us over there in those areas to reconcile.
23 And if such stories are presented here without a single piece of evidence
24 or proof, then one must ask what the point of all this is.
25 If there is proof - for instance, if he knew where these people
Page 28276
1 were buried, if he knew about this mass gave - why wasn't that checked
2 out? Why weren't the bodies exhumed? Even that was not done.
3 JUDGE MAY: It's not the time now for submissions. Yes. Now,
4 you've made your point. Anything else, Mr. Tapuskovic?
5 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. My last question, Mr. Witness: Aren't these stories that were
7 circulating in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that you're putting into your
8 statement as if you personally had seen it all and experienced it?
9 A. I saw and experienced all this.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Agha.
12 MR. AGHA: If I may very briefly just ask a few points in
13 clarification to the witness.
14 Re-examined by Mr. Agha:
15 Q. Witness B-1780, when was the first very first time that you were
16 accused of killings in Kula Grad? And where was this?
17 A. The first time when I was taken to the camp. That is what I heard
18 it for the first time.
19 Q. And in which language was the written accusation made against you
20 in?
21 A. These were not written accusations. They told me to write down
22 the number of Serbs I had killed at Kula Grad.
23 Q. Thank you. I will now just move to a different area, which is
24 Mr. Ilic who has been under much discussion in your evidence.
25 Now, if you could just kindly turn to paragraph 5 of your
Page 28277
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Page 28278
1 statement. I believe that it's written there that: "At that time, he
2 was -" and that's Mr. Ilic - "the president of the Serb court-martial in
3 the Serb community of Zvornik municipality." Is that correct?
4 A. A minor soldier told me that in the camp, a young soldier who was
5 under age.
6 Q. And which --
7 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic? Just a moment. Yes.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I see, and Mr. Agha too, used the
9 term "court-martial," which means a military Tribunal, and it's been
10 translated as "court-martial." I have no objection regarding Mr. Agha's
11 explanation, because he used the term to be found in the transcript, but
12 the proper translation of "court-martial" would be summary court, "preki
13 sud," summary court.
14 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We will have that checked out. It can be
15 done in due course. Yes.
16 MR. AGHA:
17 Q. The other area that I'd like to touch upon is that the accused
18 finds it incredible that the events which you describe in your statement
19 could have occurred, because everyone would have known about them. Now,
20 I'm hoping not to lead here. Would Marko Pavlovic have known; and if so,
21 how would he have known about Ekonomija farm?
22 A. Are you asking me that?
23 Q. Yes, I'm asking you that.
24 A. As he introduced himself as the commander, he should have known.
25 He must have known.
Page 28279
1 Q. But you mentioned that your wife had saved you. What was your
2 meaning by that? Had she done anything in particular to ensure that your
3 welfare was looked after?
4 A. This is how it was: When Lieutenant Sekanic came to collect the
5 weapons in the village, he said, "You are safe now, and don't worry at
6 all." Later on, my wife said to him, "You said that we would be safe, and
7 what kind of an officer are you when you're lying, when you took them all
8 away?" And that was reason why he took me out of the camp and to the
9 hospital.
10 Q. Thank you. Now, Witness B-1780, the accused has disputed the time
11 you spent in the camp, but you did go to the hospital. Now, how often did
12 the hospital come and treat people at Ekonomija farm, if at all?
13 A. They didn't come to treat. If somebody was bleeding profusely,
14 they would take him to hospital, and later on they would bring him back
15 with bandages.
16 Q. Where was this hospital located which they came from?
17 A. In Zvornik. That is where it was.
18 Q. Who would have been in charge of paying the salaries and
19 administering the hospital? Which authority would have been responsible
20 for this?
21 A. Well, since the SDS party was in power, everything went through
22 them. That is what I think.
23 Q. Thank you. And just one final question. When you were released
24 from the camp and the hospital and you went home, how many times did you
25 approach the authorities, the SDS authorities, to allow you to leave and
Page 28280
1 go to Vienna or anywhere else?
2 A. We didn't ask. I didn't ask them to let me go. I had to sign
3 that I would make a gift of everything to the Serb authorities, and they
4 organised the transportation for us to leave.
5 MR. AGHA: I have no more questions of the witness.
6 JUDGE MAY: We will exhibit the statement produced by
7 Mr. Tapuskovic. We'll get the next C number for it.
8 THE REGISTRAR: C15, Your Honour. If the registry could have a
9 copy, please.
10 JUDGE MAY: Have one of ours.
11 MR. AGHA: Your Honour, since the statement has been just admitted
12 by one of the amici, may I also request that that should be put in under
13 seal.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour, C15 under seal.
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, that should be done.
16 MR. AGHA: Thank you.
17 JUDGE MAY: Witness B-1780, that concludes your evidence. Thank
18 you for coming to the Tribunal to give it. You are now free to go, but
19 just wait a moment while the blinds are put down.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes. The witness can leave.
22 [The witness withdrew]
23 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I don't know if now or later would be more
24 convenient.
25 MR. NICE: Well, it's just about the rest of the day. The next
Page 28281
1 witness is a witness who may not take very long, I understand. I believe
2 you've been informed of our difficulties with the fourth witness, we'd
3 hoped, for today.
4 JUDGE MAY: No, we haven't.
5 MR. NICE: Well, then your legal officers were alive to it.
6 JUDGE MAY: We were told in very general terms, Mr. Nice, but I
7 would prefer that matters are dealt with openly, you know. It really is
8 much better.
9 MR. NICE: Certainly. I'm not seeking to deal with it in closed
10 session.
11 JUDGE MAY: No. What is it?
12 MR. NICE: The position is that the fourth witness we had hoped to
13 have available for today, who has been extremely cooperative on previous
14 occasions when set up as a filler, B-1524, simply can't come today.
15 There's been a change in personal circumstances and can't come at short
16 notice. Tomorrow's witness, I already explained, was the witness for whom
17 there were the passport difficulties, not of our creation at all, and I
18 think that your legal officers have heard of that as well from Victims and
19 Witnesses Unit. So we find ourselves in the position of not only having
20 no witnesses tomorrow, apart from Mr. Blewitt, but possibly not even
21 filling up the rest of today. I'm in a position to start Mr. Blewitt at
22 any time, today or tomorrow. He can free himself from his other
23 commitments, but I'm anxious, of course, not to, as it were, break into a
24 day and have that day counted as fully used when this would not be for
25 reasons that are within our control.
Page 28282
1 As to administrative matters that might merit attention in court,
2 there's a filing, I hope that will come your way by 2.00, in relation to
3 the matter that's pending and perhaps fairly urgent. The application for
4 additional witnesses will, I hope, be available this afternoon. There is
5 some further work being done on that. Ms. Wee is dealing with that.
6 I'm not aware of any other matters that necessarily require court
7 time to discuss.
8 JUDGE MAY: Let us first of all hear the next witness, then we
9 will hear Mr. Blewitt, and then we'll deal with administrative matters.
10 It would be a pity not to use what time is available for those matters
11 which we can.
12 One matter on which I would wish to be addressed tomorrow would be
13 the question of finalising the exhibit list. We have in mind issuing an
14 order to that effect, but we can discuss it generally tomorrow, and we
15 will discuss, of course, matters of the witnesses. We will then determine
16 how much of the day should count or not count against you.
17 MR. NICE: Thank you.
18 JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn.
19 --- Recess taken at 12.26 p.m.
20 --- On resuming at 12.51 p.m.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
22 MS. PACK: Your Honour, I'll be taking the next witness, B-1448.
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
24 [The witness entered court]
25 [The witness withdrew]
Page 28283
1 MS. PACK: Your Honour, by way of explanation, I think the wrong
2 witness was brought in.
3 [The witness entered court]
4 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
6 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
7 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 WITNESS: WITNESS B-1448
10 [Witness answered through interpreter]
11 Examined by Ms. Pack:
12 MS. PACK: Can the witness be handed the 92 bis package.
13 JUDGE MAY: Let's first of all get the blinds up and then we'll
14 deal with the other matters.
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Ms. Pack.
16 MS. PACK: Can the witness be shown the first page of his
17 statement in B/C/S, which is at the third page of tab 1.
18 Q. Witness, just look there at that page in front of you. Does that
19 page accurately set out your name and personal details?
20 A. Yes. Yes.
21 Q. Witness, have you signed two statements taken by investigators
22 from the OTP dated the 30th of March and the 18th of November, 2001?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And did you further sign a declaration dated the 18th of November,
25 2001, by which you declared the contents of your written statements to be
Page 28284
1 true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?
2 A. Yes.
3 MS. PACK: Your Honour, I'd ask for the 92 bis package and
4 associated exhibits to be assigned an exhibit number.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, 579 with tab 1 under seal.
6 MS. PACK: Your Honour, I'll read a very short summary.
7 Witness B-1448 gives evidence that he was involved in one of the
8 groups in the local communities in Brcko that formed to protect their
9 homes and families. The group was attacked by Serbian forces on 16th,
10 17th of May, 1992, and during fighting, a Serb soldier was shot and
11 killed.
12 The witness was involved in the recovery of the dead Serb
13 soldier's body. He found an ID card with the name Filipovic Branko on it,
14 and in a military-type bag found on the dead body, several documents
15 bearing the name Filipovic. He handed them in to an intelligence officer
16 at the brigade HQ.
17 The witness believes that six documents subsequently shown to him
18 by the OTP are copies of those documents found by him.
19 Your Honour, I have a couple of questions, additional questions
20 for the witness.
21 Q. Witness, the documents which you removed from the military-type
22 bag found by you and others, did you look at those documents each in turn?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Witness, did any of those documents stand out in your mind, having
25 looked at them?
Page 28285
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you describe to us broadly which of the documents stood out in
3 your mind.
4 A. One of those documents was similar to a travel log used before the
5 war in the firm that I worked for and where I was a driver. You -- I'm
6 sure you all know that if you drive for a company, you have to sign some
7 receipts. So that would be the second document, this receipt. And the
8 third document was a piece of information. And after I had taken this to
9 the security officers in the brigade command headquarters, I took a closer
10 look at those documents.
11 Q. Witness, pause there.
12 MS. PACK: Can the witness please be shown tab 2.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
14 MS. PACK:
15 Q. Witness, is this a travel log headed Military Post Number 9840
16 Brcko, and with the driver's name Branislav Filipovic written on it, valid
17 from the 8th of May until the 31st of May, 1992?
18 A. Yes. As I said, that is one of the documents. It says here a
19 travel log or a travel work document, but we called it travel
20 authorisation.
21 Q. Witness, look at the second page of that document. Does the
22 second page show the journeys undertaken by the vehicle about which this
23 travel log is concerned dated 13th of May, 1992, from Brcko to Belgrade,
24 and 14th of May, 1990 - although that must mean 1992 - from Bijeljina to
25 Belgrade, amongst other journeys?
Page 28286
1 A. Yes, that's it.
2 MS. PACK: Can the witness be shown tab 3.
3 Q. Witness, is this one of the documents that you recall taking,
4 recovering from the dead Serb soldier's body?
5 A. Yes, that's right.
6 Q. And is this a receipt headed Military Property Received for
7 Temporary Use, with handwriting Military Post 5055 Belgrade, with at the
8 bottom of the page a stamp for the military post number 5055 Belgrade, and
9 is it identified as being received personally by B. Filipovic?
10 A. Yes, that's right.
11 Q. Does the document identify ammunition, including M57-shaped charge
12 shells and other shells and hand grenades that were received personally by
13 B. Filipovic?
14 A. Yes, that's what it says.
15 MS. PACK: Can the witness be shown tab 6.
16 Q. Witness, is this an authorisation permitting Branislav Filipovic
17 to bring munitions from Belgrade to the Brcko garrison for the needs of
18 the garrisons in Brcko and Bosanski Samac?
19 A. Yes, it is.
20 Q. And does it say that it applies to types of ammunition, including
21 ammunition for anti-aircraft guns, and is it signed on behalf of the
22 garrison command in Brcko, Lieutenant Colonel Predrag Manojlovic?
23 A. Yes, that's right.
24 MS. PACK: Your Honour, those are the only questions I had to ask
25 of the witness.
Page 28287
1 Before I --
2 JUDGE MAY: We need to have the order which you refer to as
3 limiting the scope of cross-examination. We do not have it to hand at the
4 moment. We need it.
5 MS. PACK: Yes.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, is there anything else you want to ask, Ms. Pack?
7 MS. PACK: No, no further questions. Simply, if I could raise for
8 Your Honours' attention, at paragraph 2 of the proofing summary I've
9 simply identified there the sort of material that I would invite the
10 Chamber to hear in private session should it come to that.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Thank you. I have now in front of me the order
12 of the 10th of October to which you've referred.
13 MS. PACK: Your Honour, at paragraph 1 of the order, I think
14 that's the relevant paragraph.
15 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, it's now for you to cross-examine the
16 witness. Cross-examination in this case is limited, and has been by
17 order, to the evidence concerning the discovery of the documents on the
18 body of the dead soldier. That will, of course, include questions about
19 the documents themselves if you wish to ask them. Apart from that, no
20 other cross-examination. So this is a case of limited cross-examination.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, this is the first time I
22 hear about limited cross-examination. By stating that it is limited, it
23 is limited under 92 bis, and now this is a limitation of the limitation,
24 limited of the limited.
25 JUDGE KWON: It's better than admitting the written statement
Page 28288
1 without cross-examination.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, that is of course true, but I
3 don't see why the witness needs to appear here unless I can cross-examine
4 him. But anyway, very well. I assume you'll draw my attention to my not
5 asking him questions in that area, because the only limitation I
6 understood was the one hour that I had at my disposal.
7 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
8 Q. [Interpretation] Anyway, Mr. 1448, in the first paragraph, you say
9 that you were a member, and [redacted]
10 [redacted]
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And that group was a part of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army, was it,
13 or was it a paramilitary unit?
14 A. At the beginning of the war in Brcko, the group was not armed.
15 However, due to force of circumstance in the ensuing period or, rather, in
16 the month of May, a certain arming took place, a certain form of arming.
17 Q. You said that, "When the war began in Brcko, I joined a group as
18 were being set up in different communities for the protection of our homes
19 and families."
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. This is what Ms. Pack said.
22 A. Yes. May I be allowed to answer, to respond?
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that group was indeed formed,
25 but at the beginning of the war, it worked to pull out the infirm
Page 28289
1 population and the population of the local community south of Brcko, the
2 town itself, the territory of the Brcko municipality.
3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. All right. If this was just a group set up for defence purposes
5 and for protecting, as you say, the elderly and infirm, how come you had a
6 brigade headquarters, which you refer to in paragraph 7? This is too
7 large a formation for it just to be a collection of citizens defending
8 their own thresholds.
9 A. The brigade was formed later on in May.
10 Q. Well, you're testifying to May, aren't you?
11 A. Yes, but the second half of May.
12 Q. So in addition to weapons, you yourself say in paragraph 3 that
13 you had a Motorola radio station as well.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Well, isn't that a little unusual for a group of citizens
16 defending their threshold and taking out the infirm?
17 A. No, I don't consider that to be the case.
18 Q. [redacted]
19 [redacted]
20 [redacted]
21 JUDGE MAY: This is going outside the limitations. I've not
22 stopped you asking about the group because they were involved in the
23 search, but nothing else.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Now, the witness
25 mentioned arming.
Page 28290
1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Do you know that in the middle of 1991, the SDA party and the HDZ
3 party in Brcko were organising joint training and arming for their members
4 and that this arming was being done via the Savski Most-Sava bridge, in
5 that area there?
6 A. No, I don't know about that.
7 Q. Do you know that it was precisely for those purposes that at the
8 checkpoint at the Sava bridge that Brcko policemen were deployed there who
9 were members of the SDA and HDZ, and that they manned those checkpoints
10 and had received detailed instructions from the commander, the chief of
11 the public security station of Brcko and other officials, to provide
12 security and ensure safety --
13 JUDGE MAY: This is going beyond the area which I've allowed
14 cross-examination.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Now, do you know that in procuring weapons or, rather, in
18 financing the procurement, that private entrepreneurs from Brcko were
19 quoted, such as Uso Bakor, Ramiz Vilic, Fikret Husic nicknamed Sok, Nesad
20 Omerhodzic nicknamed Bedor [phoen], Meho Murhatovic [phoen], Dasko
21 Carucevic [phoen], Husein Carucevic [phoen], Sefket Lubinovic nicknamed
22 Lubin, and so on and so forth, and also some directors of socially owned
23 companies. Are you aware of that?
24 A. No, I'm not aware of that. I was a family man myself, and I
25 wasn't burdened by party politics, any party.
Page 28291
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Page 28292
1 Q. All right. Now, as you were within the armed formations and you
2 went to the brigade headquarters, as you say with respect to your
3 testimony here, in the distribution of weapons and the training of men,
4 were the main protagonists of Uzeir Hajdanovic, Badi Hajdanovic [phoen],
5 Sijos Kineskovic [phoen], Ramiz Pljakic, Kemal Hindic, and so on and so
6 forth? Do you know these men?
7 A. Yes, I do.
8 Q. And is it true that they saw to armament, the distribution of
9 weapons, training, and so on, matters of that kind?
10 A. As to what you're quoting Mr. Milosevic, I don't know about that,
11 because as I've already said, from the beginning I was at -- shall we call
12 it the front line. Now, what other people did, I really can't say.
13 Q. All right. Do you know that the distribution of weapons to other
14 local communes --
15 JUDGE MAY: First of all, it's beyond the limitation; secondly, he
16 can't answer it. So we're wasting time. Now let's go back to the
17 questions which you can ask this witness.
18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Do you know anything about the training of sabotage groups
20 conducted by Damil Suljic nicknamed Makija, Feto Mensur [phoen], Suljevic
21 Nermin nicknamed Guminito [phoen], Tursic Muhamed nicknamed Hare, and
22 others? Do you know anything about that? Do those names ring a bell?
23 A. I know the names, the men, but what you're saying, Mr. Milosevic
24 is not correct. There was no training. At least, I never saw any
25 training going on.
Page 28293
1 Q. All right. Now do you know about the continuous provocations when
2 the Serbs were leaving the Stari Rasadnik local commune, for instance?
3 JUDGE MAY: No. This is just wasting time. You know the
4 limitations. Now, if you want to ask this witness about the finding of
5 the documents, you can. If you do not, we will go on and deal with other
6 business.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I will ask questions referring
8 to the documents, [redacted]
9 [redacted] --
10 JUDGE MAY: You know what the limitations are.
11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Do you know that on the 1st of May, 1992, there was an escalation
13 towards the Serbs and the JNA when there was an armed attack on the
14 barracks in Brcko and the settlement called Srpska Varos?
15 A. Once again, incorrect information. What I do know is that on the
16 1st of May, by the JNA and the paramilitaries, the local commune of
17 Dizdarusa was attacked and the Brodusa local commune as well, and that
18 they were shelled.
19 Q. So there was no armed attack on the Brcko barracks and Varos
20 settlement, Srpska Varos settlement, is that what you're saying?
21 A. Yes, I say that with full responsibility.
22 Q. All right. Now, in your statement you say that the war in Brcko
23 broke out at the beginning of May 1992, when, as you said, bridges were
24 blown up across the Sava River. So who blew the bridges up and why?
25 JUDGE MAY: You know, Mr. Milosevic, you're not paying any
Page 28294
1 attention and I shall stop your cross-examination altogether. You heard
2 what the limitations were, and it's a matter for you whether you wish to
3 ask any questions with them or not.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. If this has been
5 unsuited so far, Mr. May, as far as limitations are concerned, then just
6 this soldier that was killed, only that.
7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. So tell me, please, Mr. 1448, in the pockets of that dead soldier
9 you found a personal ID card to the name of Branko Filipovic with a
10 photograph that corresponded to the image of the person killed; is that
11 right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And in his bag you found some other documents mentioning
14 Filipovic's name and the nickname Sumar.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. According to what you said, in the ID card, and I seem to be the
17 only one that hasn't been given it, it says Branko Filipovic in all the
18 documents, that was the name that was written down. But in the
19 photocopies I was given, it says Branislav Filipovic. Does that mean that
20 the documents given to us in photo copy are not authentic or are you
21 familiar with this dead Serb soldier and decided to give him this shorter
22 name of Branko?
23 A. No, I'm not familiar -- on familiar terms with him, and Branko is
24 what it said. Now, whether it was Branko or Branislav, I don't think that
25 is important. The sense of it, the meaning is the same.
Page 28295
1 Q. Well, you can't say that a name has any sense, it is how it is
2 written and articulated.
3 Now, all the documents, including the ID card and all the other
4 things from the bag, did you give it to the intelligence men in the
5 brigade or did you keep the ID card?
6 A. No, I didn't keep it. It disappeared somewhere. Somebody else
7 kept it, and I handed over all the other documents.
8 Q. Well, do you have an explanation of how it was only the ID card,
9 which was the only document with the picture, wasn't -- hasn't been
10 disclosed here with all the other documents, hasn't been handed over with
11 all the other documents?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Very well. So you describe in detail what the killed soldier had
14 on him and with him, and you say he had a rifle and a pistol without any
15 ammunition worthy of mentioning; is that right?
16 A. No, I didn't say not worthy of -- not worth mentioning. There
17 were two or three rounds, full rounds, in the rifle and in the pistol too.
18 Q. You say in your statement the man had a rifle and pistol and there
19 was no ammunition worth mentioning. I'm asking you that because that's
20 what you say in your statement. "To speak of" was the term. And now you
21 say that's not so. "He had a rifle and pistol, but there was no
22 ammunition on him to speak of." That's what you say in paragraph 5 of
23 your statement, at the beginning. "He had a rifle and pistol, but there
24 was no ammunition on him to speak of." It is the second sentence.
25 A. What I meant was he didn't have a large quantity of ammunition,
Page 28296
1 because as you yourself know, Mr. Milosevic, that one -- how many bullets
2 one clip has.
3 Q. All right. Very well. So that's why I was asking you, and you
4 said that you didn't say "to speak of," so I read the sentence out.
5 A. I apologise.
6 Q. Well, did you take the rifle and pistol for yourself or did you
7 hand it over to the brigade headquarters or any other place of authority?
8 A. No, I didn't, but I can't remember who did.
9 Q. So you don't know what you did with those weapons?
10 A. I said I didn't, but I don't know about the rest.
11 Q. Now, did the person killed have any money on him; and if so, did
12 you keep the money?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Did he have a radio station or any other radio communication
15 device?
16 A. No.
17 Q. So he only had the things you listed in your statement; is that
18 right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. In the third paragraph from the end of your statement, you said
21 that you heard on your Motorola, on the channel used by the Serbs, that
22 after this Serb soldier was killed, his comrades were trying to reach him
23 on the radio, calling out, "Sumar, Sumar." That is what it says in the
24 statement. So tell me, why would they call him over the radio if he had
25 no radio communication device on him, as you yourself said?
Page 28297
1 A. I wasn't with him, so I don't know where it was. He may have lost
2 it. We didn't find it. I didn't see it.
3 Q. Very well. You speak of negotiations about the exchange for
4 Filipovic, and you say the negotiations went on during the next 48 hours
5 with Mauzer. "I talked to Mauzer over the Motorola. I claim it was
6 Mauzer because he responded to that name when I called him on the radio to
7 discuss the exchange."
8 A. The man or the person who spoke to us about the exchange
9 introduced himself as Mauzer.
10 Q. So he introduced himself, and then you called him by that name.
11 A. He called us TO, and we called him Mauzer.
12 Q. So he referred to you as the Territorial Defence; is that right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Referring to the documents from the bag of this killed Serb
15 soldier, you say first, in paragraph 7: "Under those conditions, I didn't
16 pay too much attention to those documents." Then two paragraphs later,
17 you say about the documents that I have photocopies of here, that, "The
18 documents are familiar to me. As I said earlier, in 1992 when I found
19 them, I didn't pay too much attention to them, but I think that these are
20 copies of the documents I found in Filipovic's pocket, and later on that
21 day handed over to the intelligence officer at brigade headquarters." Is
22 that what you said?
23 A. Yes, but I was referring to the first moment when we found the
24 documents. However, when I was carrying these documents, these two or
25 three documents I had occasion to look at more closely.
Page 28298
1 Q. Tell me, where did you find those documents, in a bag of a
2 military type, as you say in paragraph 7, or in the pocket, as it says in
3 this last quotation?
4 A. Not in the -- not in his pocket but the bag, military bag, that he
5 had on him.
6 Q. But this is also a quotation from your statement when you said
7 that they were copies of documents that you found in Filipovic's pocket
8 and subsequently that day handed to the intelligence officer at brigade
9 headquarters.
10 A. No. I claim once again that all the documents found except the ID
11 card were documents that were in the bag. I repeat, in the military bag.
12 Q. I asked you that because in one place you refer to a pocket, and
13 in another in a bag. That's why I'm asking you about it, and now you say
14 it's in the bag. Is that right?
15 From what you say, it follows that you think that the documents
16 showed to you by Ms. Pack are the same as the ones you found on the killed
17 soldier. Does it mean that you think and that you're not quite sure? Is
18 my understanding correct?
19 A. No. I'm quite certain.
20 Q. I see. You're quite certain. And as you yourself say, in 1992
21 you didn't pay too much attention to those documents, and from then until
22 the moment you had talks here, it was nine years, and now it's already 11
23 years, and also you were shown photocopies. Do you consider that that is
24 a limitation on your ability to confirm that the photocopies shown to you
25 correspond to the documents you found on the killed soldier?
Page 28299
1 A. Mr. Milosevic, there is some things that is imprinted in one's
2 mind, and this is one such thing. And when I saw them again, I was quite
3 certain they were those documents.
4 Q. In the pass issued to him by the local authorities on the 7th of
5 May, 1992, it says that Filipovic Branislav is a volunteer from Bijeljina;
6 is that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you ever learn anything about Branislav Filipovic?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Was he perhaps ever in the service of the JNA?
11 A. I don't know.
12 Q. And if Serbs exchanged his body for 21 Muslims, I assume he --
13 they cared very much about him.
14 A. Yes, that is right.
15 Q. Now, if we were to establish his link with Belgrade, then things
16 would be ideal, wouldn't they?
17 A. It's not up to me to do that.
18 Q. Is it strange, Mr. 1448, that out of the six documents that we
19 have received, only two are dated; isn't that right?
20 A. I apologise, Mr. Milosevic. You're trying to persuade me that I
21 didn't find those documents, yet you are seeing them.
22 Q. As far as I can see, only two of these documents have a date. You
23 reviewed them, and surely you were able to see that for yourself.
24 A. But did you notice that they are stamped and dated?
25 Q. I'm saying only two are dated. As for the others, it says in this
Page 28300
1 binder that I received - gentlemen, you can see it in English - there's an
2 indication date, unknown, then the 13th of May, and then again unknown,
3 unknown, and then the 7th of May. So there are only two with a date.
4 Isn't that right?
5 A. Are you asking me anything?
6 Q. Yes, I'm asking you: Is it clear that only two have dates on
7 them?
8 A. I really didn't review the dates, and I'd rather not go into the
9 dates.
10 Q. Very well. The document authorising Branislav Filipovic and Milos
11 Blagojevic to bring ammunition to the Brcko garrison signed by Lieutenant
12 Colonel Predrag Manojlovic from the Brcko garrison doesn't have a date.
13 Isn't it clear that one cannot tell whether it dates back to the times
14 prior to the secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is the when the JNA
15 were still normally functioning in the territory of BH, or from the time
16 when the JNA had withdrawn from Bosnia-Herzegovina?
17 A. I really don't know that, but I do know that the JNA -- I don't
18 think it was called the JNA before that, it was just the JA.
19 Q. I'm afraid, Mr. 1448, you are wrong. The JNA was the JNA for many
20 decades, and it was JA only very briefly after the Second World War. But
21 never mind, that's not anything we need to prove here. It is common
22 knowledge and can easily be verified.
23 And then is it clear that the travel log for the Yugo doesn't say
24 much. Although it relates to the period of March to May, it has the Brcko
25 military post, and it says that Branislav Filipovic used the car to go to
Page 28301
1 Belgrade twice. This is the period when the JNA was withdrawing from
2 Bosnia and Herzegovina.
3 A. Is this just a statement on your part?
4 Q. Was this the period when the army of Republika Srpska was being
5 formed? And one cannot ascertain with certainty who owned that car and to
6 borrow a small civilian passenger car is of no significance militarily;
7 isn't that so?
8 A. I wouldn't agree with you. A car can be used for the purposes you
9 said, but this ammunition and materiel is brought in with trucks.
10 Q. Very well. Then we shall focus on that. The receipt on receiving
11 for temporary use a large quantity of ammunition and armaments on the
12 basis of an order by the commander of the city of Belgrade I assume is the
13 most serious document out of this set.
14 A. Well, Their Honours will decide about that.
15 Q. Its significance is not reduced by the fact that it says:
16 "Property received for temporary use."
17 A. Yes, I read that out, temporary use.
18 Q. So the obligation is to return it after use. So will you tell me
19 how you can return after use mines, hand grenades, and I don't know what
20 else.
21 A. No. They cannot be returned, but they are used. But the weapons
22 used to fire them have to be returned.
23 Q. Very well, Mr. 1448. Perhaps the significance is reduced because
24 in the column which should have the name of the institution receiving it,
25 it says the Territorial Defence of Brcko, which is an impossible
Page 28302
1 combination now, isn't it?
2 A. I really don't know which Territorial Defence you're referring to.
3 Q. The Territorial Defence of Brcko.
4 A. Probably on the Serbian side, not the Bosniak side.
5 Q. Mr. 1448, but what -- now, you look at it yourself. It shows that
6 this document is a forgery, or at least that it was signed by some other
7 Branislav Filipovic, and you didn't find it on the dead Branislav
8 Filipovic in that in the column the name of the unit or institution which
9 ordered the issuance of the mentioned materiel, it says by order of the
10 KOGB, the commander of the defence for the city of Belgrade, number
11 3-132/2 of the 20th of June, 1992.
12 So Mr. 1448 --
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, it is page 03005873 of the
14 English translation.
15 JUDGE MAY: It will be more helpful if we have the tab number --
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Tab 3. Tab 3.
17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. [In English] "On the order of KOGB Belgrade Municipal Defence
19 Command Headquarters -" that is within brackets - [interpretation] then
20 the number, et cetera, of the 20th of June, 1992.
21 Now, tell me please, Mr. 1448 --
22 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness have the document. Otherwise, he
23 can't follow.
24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Tell me, please, if the soldier whose body you exchanged was
Page 28303
1 killed on the 16th or 17th of May, 1992, is it possible that he should
2 have on him a document which is a receipt that he fulfilled an order
3 issued on the 20th of June? So a whole month after he was killed?
4 A. Mr. Milosevic, you can't persuade me of something that is not
5 true. All these documents that you have before you and which Their
6 Honours have I found on this late gentleman. So whatever you're trying to
7 do to persuade me of something that is not true, I really -- I apologise,
8 but that just can't be.
9 Q. Mr. 1448, are you saying that you exchanged this killed person on
10 the 16th or 17th of May, 1992?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Does it say quite clearly here that this is on the order of the
13 20th of June of 1992? Are these facts --
14 JUDGE MAY: You made the point. You made the point.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. May. As you have
16 limited my cross-examination to the documents, I have no further
17 questions. Thank you.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, in tab 3, I have a
19 photocopy of this receipt, and I see that the witness has in his hands the
20 original.
21 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
22 Q. [Interpretation] Is that right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. On the receipt that I have, one cannot see this date in the top
25 right-hand corner, 13th of May, 1992. And also, one can't see the date in
Page 28304
1 June. Can you see it on your copy?
2 A. Yes, both dates can be seen very well.
3 Q. And you believe that the date written in the top right-hand corner
4 and the date in connection with this order, that they correspond?
5 A. I don't think anything; all I can say is what I see.
6 Q. Very well. Could you now explain to Their Honours the document
7 found on this Serb soldier killed behind the front line where you were; is
8 that right? On the other side where units of this other army were.
9 A. I don't understand.
10 Q. You said here in the third paragraph: "We pulled out the body
11 from the place where he was killed and headed to our side of the line near
12 to the coffee bar called Elvis."
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. So you had to cross to the other side of the front line.
15 A. We are not understanding one another. Behind the line means the
16 rear, in the rear of our own line.
17 Q. Could you just explain to the Judges what was the reason for you
18 to expose yourself to the danger of bullets to pull out a dead Serb
19 soldier's body?
20 A. The reason is simple: At the beginning we didn't know whether he
21 was a Serbian soldier or our soldier because it was between houses and a
22 factory.
23 Q. Was he in a uniform or not?
24 A. Sir, I have to explain. Where this happened there are houses and
25 bushes, and when we came close up, we saw that he was a Serbian soldier in
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Page 28306
1 uniform.
2 Q. So you thought at first that he may be one of your men?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
5 MS. PACK: I do have a few questions in re-examination.
6 Can the witness be handed, please, tab 3.
7 Re-examined by Ms. Pack:
8 Q. Witness, you've been handed an original of the documents, copies
9 of which you were shown when you wrote your statement. Witness, look,
10 please, at the date at the top of the document in handwriting. Is it
11 handwritten on the top of the document the 13th of May, 1992?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Witness, do you recall anything about the condition of the
14 documents that you found in the bag on the dead soldier?
15 A. What do you mean?
16 Q. When you found the documents on the dead soldier, were they clean
17 documents, in a good condition, or what?
18 A. They were not quite clean.
19 Q. Tell us what condition they were in.
20 A. Well, the time has its effect, but roughly like this.
21 Q. Witness, is this one of the documents that stood out in your mind
22 when you retrieved documents from the bag?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Can you explain to the Chamber, please, why that was.
25 A. I'll try to be brief. When I moved from the front line to the
Page 28307
1 brigade headquarters, I saw figures of these assignments. Compared to
2 what we had in those days, this was rather big, and that is why it was --
3 it stuck in my mind.
4 Q. By "assignments," are you talking about the equipment that we see
5 listed on the receipt?
6 A. Yes, yes. Yes.
7 MS. PACK: Can the witness please be shown tab 6.
8 Q. Witness, please look at the part of this document, the
9 authorisation, which describes the types of ammunition that Branislav
10 Filipovic has permission to carry from Belgrade to Brcko, ammunition for
11 30-millimetre and 20-millimetre anti-aircraft guns.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Witness, are you able to assist us, and please say if you aren't,
14 as to how the ammunition identified here corresponds to the ammunition
15 described in the receipt that you were looking at earlier at tab 3?
16 A. Because on that occasion in that battle, we captured a
17 30-millimetre anti-aircraft gun, a three-barrelled one.
18 JUDGE MAY: Ms. Pack, we have to leave, so if you have any more
19 questions, could you deal with them fairly rapidly.
20 MS. PACK: I have no further questions, Your Honour. Thank you.
21 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have an observation to make.
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes, quickly, Mr. Milosevic.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very quickly. There is no
25 anti-aircraft three-barrelled, 30-millimetre gun.
Page 28308
1 JUDGE MAY: You can present some evidence about that in due
2 course.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Only 20-millimetre.
4 JUDGE MAY: Witness B-1448, thank you for coming to the Tribunal
5 to give your evidence. It's now over, so you're free to go. Would you
6 just wait, though, please, for the blinds to be drawn before you do so.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
8 [The witness withdrew]
9 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,
10 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 30th day of
11 October, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.
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