1 Friday, 20 February 2004

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.31 p.m.

6 JUDGE PARKER: Good afternoon. I'm sorry that it was necessary to

7 start a little late because the previous Chamber was delayed in completing

8 their morning sitting.

9 Good afternoon, Doctor, and once again, may I remind you of the

10 affirmation that you took at the beginning.

11 WITNESS: DJORDJE CIGANOVIC [Resumed]

12 [Witness answered through interpreter]

13 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Re.

14 MR. RE: Can Your Honours just excuse me for one moment. I'm

15 looking for something.

16 Thank you, Your Honours.

17 Examined by Mr. Re: [Continued]

18 Q. Good afternoon again, Dr. Ciganovic. Yesterday and the day before

19 you were telling the Chamber about your experience in diagnosing explosive

20 injuries when performing autopsies. How many bodies have you examined in

21 which you have determined that an explosive injury contributed to the

22 cause of death? And I obviously mean an estimate of how many bodies you

23 have examined.

24 A. I cannot recall the exact number, but the total number of persons

25 killed in the war in the months referred to was a bit above 100. Between

1 100 and 150 people.

2 Q. And in total?

3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

4 MR. RE:

5 Q. And in total, apart from those you examined during that part of

6 the war?

7 A. Generally speaking, in my entire practice up to that date, as I've

8 already said, I examined a total of about 8.000 cadavers, either

9 personally or in consultation with my colleagues. And a part of these --

10 a certain number of these had died owing to explosive wounds, but I cannot

11 recall the exact number.

12 Q. Are you able to give an estimate?

13 A. Well, explosive wounds are less frequent in peacetime conditions,

14 so that this number generally ranges around 1 per cent or under 1 per cent

15 of all forensic autopsies in peacetime conditions.

16 Q. What was the procedure in 1991 in Dubrovnik in Croatia -- I'm

17 sorry, in Dubrovnik for issuing death certificates following an autopsy?

18 A. After an autopsy was performed, in this period I would fill in and

19 sign a death certificate, which was an official document which would later

20 be transmitted to the registry which was located in the court building in

21 Dubrovnik, and then the clerk of the registry would issue an application

22 of death, would inscribe the dead person in the registry of deaths and

23 would issue a licence for the funeral.

24 MR. RE: Can the witness please be shown these two documents.

25 Q. There are two documents. Can you -- just a moment.

1 Turning to the first document, which is number 52 of 1992, dated

2 the 16th of January, 1992, turning to Mr. Urban, what is that document?

3 A. This is an extract from the registry of deaths. This is a

4 document which is issued by the registrar in the registry of the -- of

5 Dubrovnik municipality and which actually confirms that a certain person

6 has died.

7 Q. Well, is that a death certificate relating to the death of Pavo

8 Urban on the 6th of January -- sorry, 6th of December, 1991?

9 A. Yes, it is.

10 Q. What role, if any, did you have in having that certificate

11 prepared?

12 A. As I've already said, prior to this I would issue a confirmation

13 of death or a death certificate, which was then followed by a notice of

14 death which was issued by the registry and then also a death certificate

15 or an extract from the death registry. Without my own document, which is

16 a certificate of death, this other document could not be issued.

17 Q. Secondly, could you turn to the other document in front of you,

18 which is number 530 of 1992, dated the 18th of December, 1992. Can you

19 please tell the Trial Chamber briefly what that document is.

20 A. This is the same type of document as the previous one, so that I

21 have nothing to add.

22 Q. And does this relate to the death of Mr. Skocko on the 6th of

23 December, 1991?

24 A. Yes, it is. By this document Skocko Tonci was officially declared

25 dead.

1 Q. And from your last answer are you telling the Trial Chamber that

2 this death certificate would have been issued based upon the document that

3 you prepared?

4 A. Yes.

5 MR. RE: May those two documents be received into evidence?

6 JUDGE PARKER: They will be received.

7 THE REGISTRAR: First document pertaining to 1992 will be

8 Prosecution Exhibit P73, the second document, Prosecution Exhibit P74.

9 MR. RE:

10 Q. Dr. Ciganovic, you told the Trial Chamber at the beginning of your

11 evidence that you left for Pancevo at the end of 1992. Why did you leave

12 Dubrovnik for Pancevo?

13 A. I left for personal reasons. What I'm saying, that was -- that I

14 was not forced to leave Dubrovnik, and I believe that my personal reasons

15 are not of relevance to this court.

16 MR. RE: That's the cross -- sorry, the Prosecution's

17 examination-in-chief, Your Honours.

18 I'll just say in relation to the two documents -- three documents

19 which are in that file, I note the objection to their tender at the moment

20 and obviously will deal with that later.

21 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Re.

22 Mr. Rodic.

23 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. And I ask the

24 usher for the lectern, please. If he would be so kind as to bring it to

25 me.

1 MR. RE: Your Honours, with leave, my learned colleague Ms. Comers

2 has reminded me of a question which I neglected to ask of the doctor.

3 Could I seek leave to reopen before my learned friend starts?

4 JUDGE PARKER: Could I ask you to pause a moment, Mr. Rodic.

5 Mr. Re.

6 MR. RE: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Q. You were giving some evidence about viewing Mr. Urban's body when

8 it was brought to your hospital for the autopsy, and the report which you

9 -- and you've looked at the report. Can you tell the Trial Chamber about

10 any personal items Mr. Urban had with him or were near his body when it

11 was brought to the hospital.

12 A. When he was brought to hospital, apart from his clothing and his

13 footwear, I cannot exactly remember, but I don't think that he had any

14 other personal effects.

15 I apologise. No. I just remembered. There was a camera, a still

16 camera, and I believe that there was a bag for the camera, a photographic

17 one.

18 Q. Thank you.

19 A. And some documents were also found on him.

20 Q. Thank you, Dr. Ciganovic.

21 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Rodic.

22 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

23 Cross-examined by Mr. Rodic:

24 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Ciganovic, good afternoon, I'm Defence

25 counsel Goran Rodic, Defence counsel for Mr. Strugar, and I will be asking

1 you some questions on his behalf. These questions will have to do with

2 your testimony in this particular case.

3 As we speak the same language, would you be so kind as to pause

4 briefly after my questions so as to allow for the translation. Thank you.

5 So you graduated from the medical school in Zagreb in 1973; is

6 that right?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. After that, you worked as a general practitioner in Dubrovnik

9 until 1979?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. From 1979 to 1983, you pursued and completed your specialised

12 studies in pathology and cytology and obtained a master's degree in

13 pathology?

14 A. I enrolled in post-graduate studies as well as obtained my

15 master's degree in the field of pathology.

16 Q. Can you tell me whether cytology is a part of pathology.

17 A. At the Croatian university, cytology is a special, separate

18 specialised stream. These studies can be pursued separately or one can

19 complete these studies by first completing specialised studies in

20 pathology and then pursuing a post-graduate course in specifically

21 cytology, whereby one acquires the degree of specialist in pathology.

22 Q. Do you -- have you completed these studies as well?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. At the medical faculty in Zagreb, is it true that forensic

25 medicine is a separate subject which is studied at the fifth year of

1 studies while pathology is studied at the third year of faculty?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Are the forensic medicine building and the pathology buildings at

4 Salata in Zagreb separated?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Is there a difference, a distinction between a forensic medicine

7 specialist and a clinical pathology specialist?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Is it true that a clinical pathologist is not a forensic

10 pathologist, a forensic medicine specialist?

11 A. Yes, it is true.

12 Q. Then it is the case that these are two different specialisation

13 fields?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Did there exist at that time a separate specialised study stream

16 for forensic medicine in the former SFRY?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Did this specialisation course last three years?

19 A. At the university in Zagreb it lasted four years.

20 Q. You mentioned during the examination-in-chief, inter alia, that

21 over a certain period of time, you performed forensic medicine autopsies

22 at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Zagreb.

23 A. Yes, that's right.

24 Q. Is it true that Zagreb does not have a Forensic Medicine

25 Institute?

1 A. It does have an institute. It is called the Forensic Medicine

2 Institute, and the difference is only in name.

3 Q. It is called Institute for Forensic Medicine and the Crime of the

4 Medical University in Zagreb?

5 A. Yes, that is its name.

6 Q. So your specialised studies were in the field of clinical

7 pathology and not in the area of forensic medicine; right?

8 A. First I completed my specialised studies in clinical pathology and

9 later I also pursued my studies and completed my studies in forensic

10 medicine and cytology.

11 Q. How many diplomas do you have?

12 A. I have three diplomas, specialised degrees.

13 Q. From 1992 to 1996, did you work at the clinical centre in Belgrade

14 in Serbia?

15 A. From 1993, the second half of that year, I worked at the clinical

16 centre until 1997.

17 Q. When you sought employment, did you provide evidence of all of

18 these three specialisations of yours?

19 A. Yes, I did.

20 Q. Did you work at the first surgical clinic?

21 A. Yes, I did.

22 Q. Did you work at the gynecological clinic in that period?

23 A. No, I didn't.

24 Q. While you were working in the clinical centre of Serbia what was

25 your particular duty and job?

1 A. In the clinical centre of Serbia, I worked as a clinical

2 pathologist for the first surgical clinic, which is engaged in

3 gastrointestinal surgery and also for the emergency centre as well as for

4 the second surgical clinic which is specialised for cardiovascular and

5 endocrinological pathology and that was my work.

6 Q. So you performed autopsies there?

7 A. No, there I didn't perform any autopsies.

8 Q. Is it true that autopsies are done at the Institute for Pathology

9 there and if there is anything which is questionable then autopsies are

10 undertaken at the Forensic Medicine Institute?

11 A. Yes, that is so.

12 Q. Were you affiliated to any party in that period?

13 A. No, I wasn't.

14 Q. If I am not wrong, you said that you -- that after your first

15 specialised studies you continued working in Dubrovnik. Is that so?

16 A. Yes, it is.

17 Q. And you also said that you would occasionally depart for Zagreb,

18 when you referred to the Institute for Forensic Medicine, that you would

19 go there once a week. Is that correct?

20 A. Yes, it is.

21 Q. How is it possible while pursuing -- pursuing four years of

22 specialised studies on a part-time basis? That is not the customary

23 situation, is it?

24 A. No, it isn't, but I have to explain. To pursue specialised

25 pathological studies, which normally at the Zagreb university lasts four

1 years and specialised studies in forensic medicine which normally also

2 take four years, they have a common period of residency, which is a year

3 and a half, so that a person specialising in either of these two subjects

4 needs to pursue specialised studies in the other field for another two

5 years and a half. So in my particular case, this extended to four years

6 precisely because I was unable to be in Zagreb on a continuous basis to

7 pursue all those studies because I was working at the same time also in

8 Dubrovnik, as I've already explained.

9 Q. Was this not regular schooling, so to speak? Specialisation

10 lasting four years actually necessitates the presence of the trainee.

11 A. No, specialisation is not a part of regular education. It is a

12 training course which also involves sitting for colloquia and at the end

13 of the studies sitting for a specialised exam with mentors and professors

14 in the particular branch of medicine. Mentors and professors in that

15 particular branch conclude that the candidate is able to sit for such an

16 exam, but not prior to the expiry of the prescribed time for such studies.

17 Q. When I said regular full-time education, what I had in mind is

18 regular attendance during the four years of specialised studies. Isn't

19 that common practice when pursuing a specialised course of studies?

20 A. Yes, this is the established practice for most specialised courses

21 except in cases like mine, which is by no means rare, where people had to

22 continue working at the same time at their institution or in a clinic and

23 study at the same time.

24 Q. Was this in the best interests of the Health Ministry of Croatia

25 to approve this course of studies for you and to make it possible for you

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1 to attend part-time?

2 A. Yes. It was in the best interest of the Health Ministry because

3 there are not too many specials of that particular profile around. They

4 are a bit thin on the ground. In Croatia, and even in Yugoslavia, there

5 weren't too many of those around at the time.

6 Q. Currently you are working at the Pancevo hospital?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Which specific position do you occupy there?

9 A. I am the chief pathologist, cytologist, and chief of the

10 department for forensic medicine.

11 Q. Do you also work for courts in Serbia?

12 A. Yes, I also work for the various courts.

13 Q. Are you -- is your name on any of the lists of permanent court

14 experts with any court in Serbia?

15 A. Yes, my name is there on the list of district court in Pancevo and

16 that of the municipal court in Pancevo, the municipal court in Kovin, that

17 in Kovacica, in Alibunar in Vrsac, in Bijela Crkva, in South Banat.

18 Q. Is the procedure any different in terms of performing an autopsy

19 at the Pancevo court in relation to the work you did in the Dubrovnik

20 court?

21 A. No, there's no difference.

22 Q. Is everything done in more or less the same way pursuant to the

23 Law on Criminal Procedure?

24 A. The job of a forensic expert is always done pursuant to -- in

25 compliance with the Law on Criminal Procedure. The method used in

1 performing an autopsy depends on the school you went to. There are

2 various schools. There are certain small differences in terms of practice

3 between the study and the application of forensic medicine in Zagreb and

4 at the Belgrade institute respectively. Essentially the two are, however,

5 the same.

6 Q. In the course of 1990 - I'm talking about the year 1990 - were you

7 made to sign any documents expressing your loyalty to the Croatian

8 authorities?

9 A. No, I was never made to sign any documents like that.

10 Q. Were other people made to sign any such documents?

11 A. I heard that this was the case with some people, but I never

12 witnessed anything like that myself.

13 Q. Did you hear that this was imposed on people as a condition for

14 them to keep their jobs?

15 A. Yes, I heard about that.

16 Q. With you at the Dubrovnik hospital at that time, were there also

17 Vera Vukcevic-Rados, Dusanka Ljubibratic?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Back in 1992, were those two persons fired?

20 A. Dusanka Ljubibratic, as far as I know, was transferred from the

21 hospital to the children's health centre. I'm not sure if there was a

22 period of time where she was out of job.

23 Q. What about the other person, Vera Vukcevic?

24 A. I think Vera Vukcevic left Dubrovnik altogether, but we were not

25 really close. So what I'm telling you now is based on what I heard.

1 Q. Were there quite a number of doctors who were Serbs in Dubrovnik

2 who left Dubrovnik during this period of time?

3 A. At the Dubrovnik medical centre, there were a number of Serb

4 doctors working there, but they were the minority if you look at the

5 overall number of doctors working in the area. As far as I know, the

6 majority of them stayed in Dubrovnik, and they still work there today.

7 Some left Dubrovnik before the war, and I left after the war. This

8 colleague of mine that we have just referred to, Vera Vukcevic, also.

9 Q. The reason those people left their jobs was to move out of

10 Dubrovnik. Was it because their working conditions were different before

11 the war and after the war?

12 A. I believe the war affected their decision to leave. At least that

13 was true of a number of these people. Not only the ones that we have

14 referred to but also other people.

15 Q. Did the war affect your decision to leave also? Was there any

16 pressure of any sorts?

17 A. Not on me.

18 Q. I'm not referring to you, I'm referring to the situation at work.

19 A. No. Personally, I faced no such pressure at work. No threats

20 were ever made, no indication even that I might be out of a job soon, or

21 any pressure in my private life, for that matter. The status I enjoyed in

22 Dubrovnik was very good, in other words.

23 Q. So what made you leave? You had worked at Dubrovnik hospital for

24 a long time, after all, and you were the only pathologist of that

25 particular type there.

1 A. My wife and my five-year-old soon left Dubrovnik during the war

2 when the first convoys or, rather, ships started leaving Dubrovnik. As my

3 wife had grown up in Pancevo, she has relatives there and she owns a flat

4 in Pancevo. So first she left for Split, then she went to Sarajevo, and

5 finally she ended up in Pancevo. She remained there until my arrival.

6 I opposed her return to Dubrovnik, her early return to Dubrovnik,

7 and that's why she remained without a job back in Dubrovnik. She was a

8 teacher, and my son started going to school in Pancevo.

9 Q. Tell me, did any of your relatives remain in Dubrovnik? Is there

10 still anyone living there?

11 A. After I left Dubrovnik, my parents stayed behind in our family

12 house in Dubrovnik. My father died a year later, and my mother still

13 lives there.

14 Q. This is a family home, your family home outside the walls of the

15 Old Town, as far as I understand.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And the flat in the Old Town, that also belongs to you, doesn't

18 it?

19 A. No, it doesn't belong to us because my grandfather had died in the

20 meantime, and he was married two times, so his widow inherited that flat.

21 Q. We'll go back to that later, but please tell me about the

22 following terms: "Autopsy" and "post-mortem" mean the same thing, don't

23 they?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Can you tell me exactly what "full autopsy" means, what the term

1 implies.

2 A. Full autopsy is carried out according to the following procedure:

3 First there is an external examination of the body, after which you open

4 parts of the body; the head, the thorax, the abdomen. All the internal

5 organs are extracted, taken out, and facts are established.

6 Q. Is it true then that the written report contains the introduction,

7 the finding -- the findings of the external examination, the findings of

8 the internal examination, and death established?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Did you use Zecevic's, Milovanovic's or Pejakovic's textbooks

11 during your studies?

12 A. Yes, I used those manuals, especially Zecevic's book. Zecevic was

13 from the Forensic Medicine Institute in Zagreb.

14 Q. All these three names are familiar to you?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. These names, were these people the founders of forensic medicine,

17 as it were, in the former Yugoslavia?

18 A. No. They were not the founders.

19 Q. Or, rather, they were among the most renowned experts in the

20 field?

21 A. Yes, they were famous experts in the field, but the Forensic

22 Medicine Institute in Belgrade and the institute in Zagreb had been

23 founded long before.

24 Q. Is it true, then -- is it true that when looking at a forensic

25 medical finding, if you were to establish cause of death, you would need

1 to conduct a full autopsy for such a finding to be accurate?

2 A. No. That is not true. It is not always necessary to carry out

3 full autopsy.

4 Q. Where did you learn that?

5 A. At the Forensic Medicine Institute in Zagreb. As far as I know,

6 the same thing is taught at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Belgrade.

7 Q. I underlined "forensic medical finding." Is it your submission

8 that without a full autopsy being carried out, you can stand up in court

9 and defend your findings on the cause of death?

10 A. Yes, that is indeed my submission.

11 Q. Based on what?

12 A. As a court expert, I have been trained to identify the signs and

13 symptoms of bodily injuries, their results, and the physiology of what

14 goes on in the human body between the time harm is inflicted and the time

15 death occurs. It was very often the case in my career that I took the

16 stand as an expert and testified as to the cause of death, even when no

17 autopsy had been performed, or sometimes based on autopsies that had been

18 conducted by other people who were also forensic pathologists. Taking

19 into account the symptoms, the therapy that a patient had been prescribed,

20 all the signs that had been apparent until the time of death and

21 everything that was established later, I would often be called to present

22 my conclusions and determine cause of death.

23 This procedure is very often applied when death is caused by

24 traffic accidents, in order to establish a link between a specific traffic

25 accident and death. This is much easier to do if there is -- if there is

1 an autopsy that is conducted.

2 Q. By definition, an autopsy implies that cavities are opened, body

3 cavities are opened.

4 A. Yes, it does indeed imply that. If you look at the contemporary

5 literature on the subject, there are different ways to perform an autopsy

6 on a human body. According to some authorities, an autopsy is conducted

7 by opening the cavities and inspecting the organs on the spot without

8 actually extracting the organs from the body.

9 According to the Zagreb and Belgrade schools, all internal organs

10 must be taken out.

11 Q. Let us try to simplify matters and make this perfectly

12 understandable for laymen. You said that based on medical documents, you

13 are able to establish the cause of death; is that correct?

14 A. Yes, in some cases.

15 Q. If you perform an autopsy in all the cases, is it possible for you

16 to accurately establish the cause of death as a rule?

17 A. No, not as a rule.

18 Q. Yes, but the likelihood of an accurate diagnosis would be much

19 higher, wouldn't it?

20 A. If you perform an autopsy, you can find out a lot of information,

21 and you can trace some changes in the body that may help you to determine

22 the cause of death. However, if death is not instantaneous following the

23 injury, if there was some form of treatment in the meantime, then it is

24 necessary to be familiar with all the facts, all the symptoms, and

25 everything that was done between the injury and the time that death

1 occurred for you to reach an accurate conclusion. In cases like these,

2 forensic autopsy -- performing an autopsy is not sufficient evidence for

3 you to be able to establish the cause of death accurately.

4 Q. You make a link between the time the injury occurred and the time

5 death occurs. Death can be instantaneous, death can occur two days later

6 or two months later after the original injury. So you say you need to

7 look at the documents of what went on in the meantime between the injury

8 and the death in order for you to be able to establish the cause of death.

9 A. Yes, that is what I'm saying.

10 Q. That wasn't my question. When I said an autopsy, I also include

11 both an instantaneous death and a later death in relation to the original

12 injury. What I'm asking is, forensically speaking, is that the only

13 reliable criterion to establish the cause of death?

14 A. Performing an autopsy is certainly the most reliable way to

15 determine the cause of death.

16 Q. The external examination, or findings following an external

17 examination, as some people call it, this is only part of the entire job

18 of performing an autopsy?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. If you perform an external examination, you cannot accurately

21 establish the cause of death, medically speaking and forensically

22 speaking?

23 A. In forensic and medical terms, whenever an external examination is

24 conducted, it must be ordered by the court --

25 Q. Yes, but that's not what I'm asking you. It is precisely due to

1 the nature of our subject that I'm trying to get you to provide answers

2 that are as brief as possible.

3 What I was saying is that an external examination is not

4 sufficient to accurately establish the cause of death. Am I right in

5 claiming that?

6 A. An external -- an external examination in some cases may be

7 sufficient to accurately establish the cause of death.

8 Q. What are these specific cases?

9 A. I'm talking about cases like the ones under discussion here where

10 one faces severe injuries with clear signs of haemorrhage.

11 Q. Severe injuries, extensive injuries, what does that mean; one

12 individual injury, five different injuries, ten injuries, 20 injuries, or

13 perhaps body parts lying scattered all the over the place? Is that what

14 you mean?

15 A. If you have body parts that were scattered and then you collect

16 them, in these cases it is very difficult to determine the cause of death.

17 It's much easier to determine the cause of death if you have only one or

18 several injuries. In these cases, we were looking at bodies which had

19 sustained one or several injuries. The vital reactions were clear, and

20 signs of haemorrhage were clear.

21 Q. Please let us try not to waste time. I'm afraid I'll have to ask

22 this in a very graphic manner.

23 If after you body which shows one injury one centimetre across,

24 for example, if you perform an external examination of the body, in

25 forensic terms and medical terms, can you establish accurately the cause

1 of death?

2 A. No, you can't, and that's when one has to perform a partial

3 autopsy.

4 Q. We'll get to that -- we'll get to that in due course. Is it

5 correct that more often than not, with the possible exception of very

6 extreme cases, more often than not an external examination is used to make

7 an assumption on what the cause of death may be? Is this not the case? I

8 keep speaking in forensic terms and in medical terms.

9 A. Yes, and when I make an assumption, I perform a partial or full

10 autopsy.

11 Q. So we agree that the most reliable thing to establish the cause of

12 death is a complete post-mortem examination?

13 A. To ascertain, establish all bodily injuries, if they are the cause

14 of death, that is the most reliable.

15 Q. Let me ask you, in your practice of your work before courts have

16 provided them your written findings and opinions, can you express in

17 percentage terms what you have done before courts as an expert? Namely,

18 when you defend your findings before court, do you do it on the basis of a

19 complete post-mortem examination or do you defend your findings as to the

20 cause of death on the basis of an external examination only? If that is

21 the case, please indicate what court and what particular cases or examples

22 this was.

23 A. In 3 to 5 per cent of the cases, it is the court which orders,

24 following my own recommendation, that only an external examination of the

25 cadaver be undertaken in order for the cause of death to be established.

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1 That is, of course, the case in obvious instances where a complete autopsy

2 is not required.

3 Q. So it is just in 3 to 5 per cent of the cases, and only if you

4 make this recommendation the examining magistrate can approve an external

5 examination of the corpse; right?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Not even in these cases is the examining magistrate under the

8 obligation to accept your recommendation but may order a complete autopsy?

9 A. Right.

10 Q. Can you give me, in connection with this 3 to 5 per cent number,

11 can you give me an indication of these obvious cases? What is an obvious

12 case?

13 A. An obvious case is, for instance, a case of severe bodily injury

14 when injuries were inflicted by large calibre firearms, for instance a

15 hunting carbine, a hunting rifle, from close range, or accidents sustained

16 at work where there was extensive bodily harm but with clear signs of how

17 death occurred. For instance, if a machine compressed a person's head at

18 work, a complete post-mortem examination needs to be undertaken because he

19 could have dropped it before his head fell into the machine. But if the

20 machine tore off his arm and he bled to death, then that is a clear cause

21 of death.

22 Q. Let me interrupt you right away at this point. After the machine

23 tore off his arm and he bled to death, you say that that is a clear cause

24 of death. And this is what you would establish by an external examination

25 or external finding or, rather, you could provide your opinion as to that

1 being the cause of death; is that so? And what I am asking you is from

2 the moment the machine cut off his arm up to the moment when you think he

3 bled to death, could he have had a heart attack and died of it? Just tell

4 me briefly yes or no.

5 A. No.

6 Q. And you assert that?

7 A. Death because of cardiac arrest is because of the arrest of work

8 of the heart, but if cardiac arrest occurred before a person bled to death

9 I would not find the signs of total blood loss on the cadaver -- on the

10 corpse.

11 Q. Does the term "anemia" mean anything to you; and what does it

12 mean?

13 A. "Anemia" means reduced number of red blood cells relative to the

14 average number in the laboratory tests.

15 Q. Let's try to sail through this question more easily. So from the

16 moment the machine cut off the hand of -- the arm of the person and the

17 moment to this total blood loss, can perhaps this person have sustained

18 brain stroke and died of brain stroke?

19 A. The answer is the same as in the case of cardiac arrest.

20 Q. And then can you establish by external examination, can you assist

21 on that basis from the moment the arm was cut off what the intensity of

22 the bleeding was, what the time required until death occurred was? Can

23 you state that clearly? Can you provide a clear answer to these

24 questions, and was perhaps cardiac -- a heart stroke, perhaps a heart

25 stroke occur in the meantime? Can you answer all these questions clearly

1 on the basis of an external examination, and can you claim that always in

2 the -- in the forensic medical sense?

3 A. From the moment the arm was cut off to the death of that

4 particular person due to haemorrhage, the duration of that time is

5 individual. It varies from individual to individual. It can take from

6 three to four minutes up to ten minutes after the injury was sustained

7 without the administration of any sort of treatment. In order for total

8 haemorrhage to occur, total blood loss to occur, the mechanism is as

9 follows: The heart pumps out through open blood vessels, pumps the blood

10 outside, and when the blood vessels have been almost completely evacuated,

11 death occurs. In order for me to establish terminal haemorrhage, external

12 examination does not only imply visible inspection, it also implies

13 dissecting a section of the tissue, of the skin, and of the deep blood

14 vessels in order for me to be able to ascertain the quantity of blood

15 which remains in the body.

16 Q. And you cannot ascertain that by an external examination; is that

17 so?

18 A. I do that during my external examination.

19 Q. External examination, mind you, so nothing partial, two-thirds.

20 We know exactly what an external examination means.

21 A. External examination implies all these things. Of course, a

22 partial autopsy is quite something different, and a complete post-mortem

23 examination yet a third thing.

24 Q. I'm asking about the external examination.

25 A. If I suspect total blood loss, I apply external examination and

1 other methods if I'm able to, like pathohistological methods.

2 Q. As we are in the juristic field, may I kindly ask you -- of course

3 I can ask you specific questions for all these various procedures, but

4 when you say only external examination without all these other partial

5 procedures and so on, we have the external finding, the internal finding.

6 I'm asking you about the external finding. Is it true that by way of

7 external findings, external examination, you cannot establish what you've

8 just referred to, the remaining quantity of blood in the organism? Am I

9 right?

10 A. On the basis of my knowledge and skill, I am able to assess, to

11 estimate on the basis of the livores mortis and the flow rate, outflow

12 rate of the blood from the cadaver, and other signs, I can tell whether

13 the cadaver is completely devoid of blood or not.

14 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, Dr. Ciganovic, I have to interrupt you. We are

15 elaborating too much. Because I can directly ask you how do you know how

16 much blood has flown out of a body from the place where the injury was

17 sustained to the place of transportation to the hospital, et cetera, is it

18 true that you cannot ascertain that?

19 A. On the average, all people have about five litres of blood in

20 their organism. I can ascertain the remaining quantity in the body.

21 Q. Well, I agree with that, but what remains in the body is something

22 that you cannot ascertain by an external examination, and under external

23 examination, I mean that there is no partial work, there is no entering

24 into the body of any kind. Is that not so? Because -- because in that

25 case, it would be called an internal examination, an internal finding when

1 you actually access the internal parts of the abdominal cavity with your

2 hands and with your instruments.

3 A. In forensic medical practice and in contacts with the

4 investigating magistrate, once an external examination is ordered, a

5 partial autopsy is taken -- undertaken as well, and other manipulation and

6 procedures as well, so that when such a determination as to the

7 examination of the corpse is issued, the judge either orders an external

8 examination or an autopsy. There are no orders for a partial autopsy or

9 anything else.

10 Q. So no court order on a partial autopsy exists.

11 A. Yes. I have never come across one -- such order in my practice.

12 Q. For any order on an external examination or a complete autopsy,

13 are you under the obligation to prepare a report?

14 A. Yes, I am.

15 Q. And do you have to incorporate in this report everything that you

16 did and everything that you found? Just briefly yes or no.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Thank you. Do you agree with the attitude with the -- of

19 Professor Samuilo Pejakovic who says that concluding as to the finding --

20 as to the cause of death only on the basis of an external finding or

21 external examination of a cadaver constitutes elemental ignorance on the

22 part of whoever seeks to establish it in this way?

23 A. No.

24 Q. I'm always talking in forensic medical terms, about the external

25 examination procedure only.

1 A. No.

2 Q. Is it also elementary ignorance -- is it -- when someone who

3 derives conclusions as to the cause of death only on the basis of an

4 external examination without any reservation at all?

5 A. No.

6 Q. Have you heard about the desecration of cadavers?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. What is it?

9 A. This is unnecessary and illogical mutilation and damage by

10 mutilation of a cadaver for motives which are not associated with any

11 expedient aim, are not the subject, in other words, of medical

12 manipulation or funeral rites.

13 Q. Is it true that a forensic medicine specialist may not give a

14 conclusion on -- as to the cause of death only on the basis of an external

15 examination of the cadaver?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Then there is exhumation; right?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Do you know what the most frequent reason -- of course always

20 talking about standpoint of the court and forensic medical business, what

21 is the most frequent reason for an exhumation to be ordered by the

22 decision of a court?

23 A. The decision of a judge.

24 Q. I agree. Why?

25 A. The reasons can differ.

1 Q. That's what I ask.

2 A. As a rule, it is because of the request of the relatives, next of

3 kin of the deceased, because of the various doubts that they are raising

4 and suspicions and similar. In my practice, the most frequent reason was

5 the request of the next of kin.

6 Q. Is it true that there exist causes of deaths which have nothing to

7 do with a visible injury?

8 A. Yes, it is.

9 Q. Tell me, your wartime duty station was inscribed in your service

10 booklet. Is it right?

11 A. Yes, as did everybody else. All men who had done military

12 service.

13 Q. Where exactly was your wartime duty station?

14 A. My station in wartime was in the civilian service in the Dubrovnik

15 hospital.

16 Q. So you as a military conscript actually filled the vacancy in the

17 civilian service?

18 A. No, no, as a part of the civilian defence, the civilian

19 protection. I was assigned to do my own job which I normally did

20 otherwise.

21 Q. As a person subject to military service and in view of your

22 fitness, could you have served in the field in any unit?

23 A. I could have served in a unit in the field as far as my fitness

24 was concerned and my health was concerned, but according to this

25 assignment which I received from the then-military district, I was

1 assigned to this post.

2 Q. So this is the -- your duty station as a military conscript, as a

3 person liable to military duty?

4 A. I suppose so.

5 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, shall it be a full hour

6 and a half, Your Honour? Of course, taking --

7 JUDGE PARKER: I thought you were about to say you had concluded,

8 Mr. Rodic.

9 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Well, yeah, for the first session I

10 have concluded.

11 JUDGE PARKER: For the first session. Well, we will adjourn now

12 and have a 20-minute break. That's not to indicate we would be content

13 with a full further session, Mr. Rodic.

14 --- Recess taken at 3.41 p.m.

15 --- On resuming at 4.11 p.m.

16 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Rodic.

17 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Can I please have the usher's assistance, reports on external

19 examination, P70, please.

20 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, is it true that the title of this document is

21 Report on the External Examination of Dead Bodies, dated the 7th of

22 December, 1991?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. This document was compiled on behalf of the investigating judge of

25 the district court in Dubrovnik.

1 A. Yes, that's correct.

2 Q. This document was compiled pursuant to an order of the Ministry of

3 the Interior of the Republic of Croatia, 511-01-55, dated the 6th of

4 August, 1991; is that correct?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Do you know what this order means? What this order is about, what

7 it says, which tasks it envisages to be carried out?

8 A. I'm not familiar with this order of the Ministry of the Interior

9 that you have just cited. However, the entire procedure was quite common.

10 It was the same procedure that was applied in peacetime conditions.

11 Q. So why is there this association that this report was drafted

12 pursuant to that order?

13 A. It's not for me to say. This is something that the judge himself

14 decides.

15 Q. It is noteworthy that the commander of the identification platoon

16 of the Dubrovnik Civilian Protection also attends this examination,

17 Dr. Stipo Raguz. Is that his wartime assignment?

18 A. Yes, that's his wartime assignment.

19 Q. According to this report, this entire work was done between 0915

20 and 1300 hours; is that correct?

21 A. Yes, that is indeed what it says.

22 Q. But is it correct? Can you remember that?

23 A. I can't remember specifically. I know that it was carried out in

24 the morning.

25 Q. First of all, the crime technician placed marks - we saw those

1 boxes with numbers - placed marks on the bodies, and the bodies were

2 photographed, then the bodies were identified, which entailed an

3 examination of their clothing and looking for documents, for personal

4 documents. And if we look at the report, we see that witnesses were used

5 to identify bodies. It was only then that the bodies were handed over to

6 the autopsy-ist for examination.

7 A. Yes, that's correct.

8 Q. Is it correct that each individual body was examined in this way,

9 was processed in this way?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. With external examinations being performed of the bodies, the

12 examinations that you performed, everything was done within these three

13 hours and 45 minutes?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Did you perform partial internal examination on all these 19

16 bodies, as you have stated?

17 A. Only on those bodies where the injuries were so small that one

18 couldn't look inside through the opening and see what sort of damage had

19 been caused inside the body.

20 Q. Can we conclude that on the basis of this report?

21 A. Yes, mainly.

22 Q. If we look at these 19 cases, can you specify those where you

23 performed partial internal examinations? Can we see that if we look at

24 this report?

25 A. Since I read the reports in relation to these two cases, the case

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1 of Pavo Urban and the case of the man named Skocko, I performed partial

2 autopsy in these two cases because the injuries were small in terms of

3 their size on the surface of the body. Therefore, it was necessary to

4 make the opening, the entry wound, wider in order to get inside the body

5 and see what occurred inside the body.

6 Q. Did you perform partial autopsies on any other bodies in addition

7 to the two that you've just referred to?

8 A. I should go through the report in order to be able to tell you

9 that and then I can tell you.

10 This was the case with Koviljka Kosjerina.

11 Q. Can you please give me the number?

12 A. It wasn't necessary to carry out the partial autopsy. That's

13 number one.

14 Niko Mihocevic, number 2, no partial autopsy.

15 Number 3, no partial autopsy.

16 Number 4, none.

17 Number 5, there was a partial autopsy.

18 Number 6, none.

19 Number 7, there was one.

20 Number 8, none.

21 Number 9, none.

22 Number 10, none.

23 Number 11, yes, there was one carried out.

24 Number 12, yes, there was one.

25 Number 13, none.

1 Number 14, there was one.

2 Number 15, there was one.

3 Number 16, there was one.

4 Number 17, none.

5 Number 18, none.

6 Number 19, yes, there was one.

7 Q. Thank you. Therefore, having counted all these, in your opinion,

8 eight bodies required partial autopsy, as you referred to it, which means

9 part of the internal finding.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Is it not true that even in those eight cases you did not perform

12 full autopsy?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Is it not true that in none of the eight cases did you actually

15 specify that a partial autopsy had been carried out?

16 A. Yes, that's true.

17 Q. Did you determine the time of death for these bodies?

18 A. Only in very rough terms.

19 Q. What does that mean?

20 A. Based on the rigor mortis, based on where the livores mortis were

21 apparent, I would estimate whether death occurred days ago or hours ago,

22 and my conclusion in this specific case was that they had died the

23 previous day. So about 24 hours earlier, approximately.

24 Q. So in all these cases, the time of death was determined

25 approximately as having occurred about 24 hours earlier?

1 A. Yes, roughly speaking.

2 Q. Is it not true that this report does not indicate the time of

3 death for each individual body in terms of giving the exact time?

4 A. Yes, that's true.

5 Q. Can you tell me if there is a difference between an explosive

6 wound and a wound inflicted by a fragmentation projectile?

7 A. No. They both belong to the same category.

8 Q. There's an explosion, detonation, there's an amount of pressure

9 involved. Can this cause injury to a body, the so-called blast effect?

10 A. Blast effect occurs when there's a powerful explosion in the

11 immediate vicinity of the body, especially in closed spaces, usually

12 indoors. If, for example, a person is staying indoors in the house.

13 Out of doors when there are explosions that are not that powerful,

14 minor explosions, the consequences of the blast effect are usually not

15 apparent.

16 Q. If we could put this more graphically, please, it doesn't matter

17 whether the explosion is greater or smaller. An explosive wound, can

18 there be an injury to the body just because an explosion occurs nearby

19 without the projectile actually hitting the body? Can this be the case?

20 A. Yes, this is possible.

21 Q. Also, but there's a difference there, an injury can be caused by a

22 projectile or a fragment of a fragmentation projectile.

23 A. Yes, but these injuries are different.

24 Q. Thank you. Is it not true that in your findings no such

25 difference is apparent; rather, all the conclusions indicate multiple

1 explosive injuries for most of the bodies examined. Explosive wounds or

2 multiple explosive injury; is that not true?

3 A. Yes, that is true. What I had in mind were injuries caused by

4 fragmentation projectiles.

5 Q. But that's not what you wrote down, is it?

6 A. That is the implication, because that's what an explosive injury

7 implies. What you asked about is injury caused by detonation without the

8 body being hit by shrapnel or fragments of a projectile. That's the

9 blast-effect injury. The injury is usually to the intestines, to the

10 lungs, to the eardrum, to the ear, and the like, and they're not even

11 similar to these other injuries.

12 Q. Could those also be termed explosive injuries?

13 A. In forensic terms, these are not referred to as explosive

14 injuries. These are referred to as blast injuries or blast-effect

15 injuries.

16 Q. Can we therefore agree that an explosive injury cannot cause

17 death?

18 A. Well, the cause of death is given, indicated clearly for each of

19 these bodies. As far as I have been able to tell, in most cases it was

20 haemorrhage, death caused by haemorrhage, and in some cases there was

21 serious damage to vital organs, such as the brain.

22 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, I'm merely reading the transcript and I'm asking

23 you questions in relation to what was stated in the transcript. And what

24 the transcript reflects is as follows: Explosive injury, such as, for

25 example, number 10.

1 MR. RE: Can I ask where you're reading from?

2 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] I'm reading from the transcripts --

3 rather, from the report, number 10, P70.

4 Q. Number 10, the last sentence reads: "The cause of death, multiple

5 explosive injuries." Is that correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. My question is: Can an explosive injury cause death?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. I do not agree with you. It can be the mechanism of inflicting an

10 injury but not the cause of death itself. Is that not true?

11 A. In forensic medicine, a death-causing injury is directly related

12 to a death that has occurred and is usually specified as the cause of

13 death. These are such cases as drowning, shooting wounds, and so on and

14 so forth.

15 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, this is not even logical what you're suggesting,

16 because awhile ago in answer to one of the previous questions in

17 connection with the cause of death, you said that if injuries caused to

18 vital organs, that, too, can cause death, but this is not the same as

19 explosive injury. You said yourself, after all, that there's a difference

20 between the mechanism whereby an injury is brought about and the cause of

21 death. These two are to be distinguished; is that correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. If multiple explosive injury is given as the cause of death, then

24 there's no distinction between the cause of death and the mechanism

25 whereby death occurs.

1 A. Yes, that's true.

2 Q. You're a forensic medical expert; you know what that implies.

3 A. Yes. In all the cases where the cause of death was given as

4 multiple explosive injury or just explosive injury, death was nearly

5 instantaneous following fatal damage to vital organs in the body.

6 Q. It is precisely in these conclusions from the report that we

7 cannot seem to find a single reference to the vital organs and how death

8 occurred. There is no distinction here.

9 A. Damage was described before the cause of death was given where

10 death was not instantaneous but, rather, some time elapsed. It reads that

11 the cause of death is an explosive injury with bleeding, with haemorrhage.

12 Q. If, for example, we have an explosive injury to the right lower

13 leg, is that the cause of death or is this the tool used to cause an

14 injury?

15 A. An explosive injury with all its consequences is the cause of

16 death.

17 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, my question is very specific. An explosive injury

18 to the right lower leg, is it only the tool whereby an injury is caused?

19 A. The tool used to cause an injury means establishing what the tool

20 used was, in which direction the tool was used, how the tool operated,

21 what the energy of the tool was. That's what we mean when we say "tool,"

22 a mechanism.

23 The conclusion one may reach in these cases is that an explosive

24 injury or a shooting wound can be the cause of death. And in medical

25 doctrine, this is always given as the cause of death.

1 Q. My submission to you, Mr. Ciganovic, is this is simply not true,

2 because this can only be the mechanism of an injury. But the cause of

3 death as a result of such an injury is the fact that one of the vital

4 organs ceases to function.

5 A. That is always the cause of death, one of the vital organs ceases

6 to function. That's what we mean by clinical death.

7 Q. The body contains quite a number of these vital organs, doesn't

8 it, that can, in case of malfunction, cause death? Yes or no.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. In relation to these 19 bodies that were examined, is it not true

11 that this report does not specify as the cause of death the cessation of

12 function of any vital organs?

13 A. Yes, that's true.

14 Q. Thank you. You told us today that you don't even need to look at

15 the report and that you still remember the work you performed on the body

16 of the deceased, the late Pavo Urban; isn't that correct?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. You also said that details of the autopsy performed on his body

19 were extensively described in this report dated the 7th of December, 1991,

20 didn't you?

21 A. I didn't say that the details of the autopsy were described. The

22 autopsy, the procedure itself was described in the same way as for all the

23 other bodies. It's a very brief description, containing only the basic

24 data that were established.

25 Q. I am quite certain that you were speaking about autopsies, but I

1 think you were led to use the word by my learned friend and colleague,

2 Mr. Re, because he kept asking about autopsies, so you used the term. But

3 I'm certain you used the term on a number of occasions during your

4 examination-in-chief.

5 Tell me, then, sir, why is it that this report does not indicate

6 in any way that partial internal examinations were carried out, that a

7 partial internal examination was performed on the body of Pavo Urban?

8 A. Partial internal examinations of the bodies of all the persons

9 that I have indicated was performed -- were performed, and in addition to

10 that, full external examinations, head to toe, with all the symptoms, all

11 the personal marks and all the other relevant marks that can be

12 ascertained in this way, but this is not something that I recorded in this

13 report. This report only reflects the most essential facts, and the

14 reason is that the report was compiled under extraordinary circumstances

15 while there was a lull in the shelling.

16 Q. Can we agree that for a forensic report drawn up by a forensic

17 medicine specialist, it is essential whether we have an external --

18 whether it is an external examination or an autopsy, it is essential that

19 he indicate all the procedures undertaken and everything that was found

20 both by the external and the internal examination; right?

21 A. In peacetime conditions, a post-mortem examination is undertaken

22 in keeping with the regulations governing forensic medicine autopsies and

23 involves an examination, external and internal examination, of the bodies,

24 after which a report is made which indicates all the details of the

25 findings after such examination and gives a final conclusion. In so

1 doing, descriptions are given of different organs and parts of the body

2 which are not significant in terms of the cause of death but are just

3 normal and healthy parts of the body, because this is the way to show that

4 all of these procedures were undertaken lege artis.

5 In the event of extraordinary situations, we do not follow this

6 procedure but, rather, we only describe the pathological signs and other

7 elements which are of significance for the final finding.

8 Q. Well, I beg to differ, and that is because also when the

9 circumstances are extraordinary, in a state of war, for instance in 1991,

10 if you undertook what is indicated in the reports, which is external

11 examinations of a dead body, and then for 19 persons you have an

12 individual indication in -- before every single body to the effect that an

13 external examination was undertaken, so that if you undertook partial

14 internal examination of all these individual bodies, you had to record

15 that particular operation also in your report because extraordinary

16 circumstances are wholly immaterial in respect of that particular fact

17 given everything which you have recorded in your report. Am I not right?

18 A. Well, as I said, the court order can instruct one to just

19 undertake an external examination or an autopsy. There does not exist the

20 concept of a partial -- of partial autopsy. This is something that we

21 forensic medical specialists undertake on our own in order to ascertain

22 the truth. In respect of the court, it is still recorded as an external

23 examination.

24 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, somebody may ask you in court, "How did you

25 actually ascertain the serial number 9 where you indicated that a partial

1 examination of the internal organs was required?" What answer will you

2 give to prove that you did indeed undertake such a procedure when nothing

3 is recorded there?

4 A. Under number 9, I don't think I indicated that number as a number

5 in respect of which I undertook a partial autopsy, because this was a

6 severe, extensive explosive wound, 20 centimetres in diameter with all the

7 internal abdominal organs falling out.

8 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, as you gave me these suggestions where you worked

9 in detail, I jotted it down, and I jotted this down right next to serial

10 number 9, but no problem. We can move on to another number.

11 For instance, number 14. Here you also indicated that you were

12 supposed to undertake a partial autopsy.

13 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Re.

14 MR. RE: Thank you, Your Honour. My note is obviously different

15 to my learned friend's note. My note says that the witness said that he

16 did not perform a partial autopsy on number 9.

17 JUDGE PARKER: My note was numbers 5, 7, 11, et cetera, not number

18 9, Mr. Rodic. I must agree with Mr. Re.

19 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour --

20 JUDGE PARKER: But you were moving on anyway.

21 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, well, I have eight or

22 nine numbers marked.

23 Q. Let us take, for instance, number 11.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. You marked this as a body where you were to undertake a partial

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1 internal analysis.

2 A. Number 11.

3 Q. Is there a single reference to such a procedure on your part in

4 this finding relevant to number 11? Yes or no.

5 A. No.

6 Q. Is the situation the same in respect of all these eight or nine

7 marked numbers?

8 A. Yes, it is.

9 Q. You said that even after certain years you are able to recall

10 details in regard to your work on the body of the deceased Pavo Urban. Is

11 that right?

12 A. Yes, for the most part.

13 Q. In response to questions put to you by my learned colleague, you

14 said that while working on the body of the late Pavo Urban, you found a

15 fragment of an explosive shell inside the abdominal cavity near the spine.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. You remember that today?

18 A. Yes, I remember everything which was connected to this particular

19 deceased person.

20 Q. In view of the fact that you say that the procedure required in

21 respect of Pavo Urban for you to also undertake this internal examination

22 because you found this part, this fragment of an explosive device, and now

23 you remember today that you did indeed find that fragment.

24 A. Yes, I do.

25 Q. Will you please take a look at serial number 15. So the medical

1 part of the finding, the last paragraph. Can you tell me, please, where

2 in this report is it indicated -- is the fact indicated that you found a

3 fragment of an explosive device in the abdomen near the spine? Is it

4 written in this report at all?

5 A. No, it is not.

6 Q. Why is it not written, Mr. Ciganovic? Perhaps because you didn't

7 find it, in fact.

8 A. No. It is not indicated in the other reports either. But this

9 fragment of an explosive device could not have disappeared because the

10 channel ended in the body. Where there were gunshot wounds, I didn't find

11 explosive devices, but where you only have an entry wound without an exit

12 wound, I always found the fragment of the explosive device in question.

13 Q. Well, Mr. Ciganovic, as to the details, I do not wish to discuss

14 those on the basis of this type of finding, but I do wish to stress that

15 it is certainly the obligation of an expert, of a court autopsy-ist, if he

16 finds an extraneous body in the corpse, to so specify in his finding. Is

17 it not his obligation?

18 A. This was noted by the diagnosis. Had I not found this device, I

19 could have assumed what the cause of the explosive wound had been. It

20 could have been a dynamite explosion in a mine or in a stone quarry with

21 pieces of stone, et cetera.

22 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, awhile ago in response to this question, you

23 completely ruled out any dynamite explosions and similar explosions. So I

24 submit to you that you are not saying the truth, and I will tell you why.

25 Because you say that you didn't indicate this in any of the reports.

1 A. I suppose I didn't. I haven't read all the reports in detail now.

2 Q. But can you follow one procedure in respect of some of these 19

3 bodies and then another procedure in respect of some of the other bodies?

4 A. Well, maybe it is possible.

5 Q. What does that depend on?

6 A. Well, it depends on the time available for me to draw up these

7 reports.

8 Q. What prevented you?

9 A. Well, it was very cold. When we worked there was no electric

10 power. We used lamps, torches, or during the day, in daylight, and we had

11 no water. And we also had to work when there was a lull in the shelling.

12 We were not aware of when the alarm would be sounded again, so that we had

13 to go quickly about our work in order to finish it properly.

14 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, as far as I know, you did this work on the 7th of

15 December from 0915 hours to 1300 hours, and that was not in conditions of

16 shelling, at least not on that day. Am I not right?

17 A. I do not remember that.

18 Q. My submission awhile ago to the effect that you were not saying

19 the truth is based, for instance, on item 5. Please take a look at item

20 5. I shall read it out: "The following bodily wounds were established:

21 On the anterior of the upper part of the right humerus, explosive wound of

22 an irregular shape, contused and lacerated edges, diameter about 3

23 centimetres with a channel which goes backwards and leftwards and moves

24 towards the inside part of the bone, ending just beneath the surface of

25 the skin on the posterior side of the humerus where there is a small piece

1 of shrapnel."

2 I suppose, since this description has been given, that one could

3 also palpate it. Is that correct?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Do you indicate -- in this particular report you indicate shrapnel

6 but not in the case of Pavo Urban.

7 A. This is about --

8 Q. I'm not asking you what this is about. I'm asking you whether

9 this is a piece of shrapnel that belongs to the organism or is it an

10 extraneous body?

11 A. This is an extraneous body.

12 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Rodic, would you allow the witness to answer

13 the question he is answering.

14 You were interrupted, Doctor. Would you like to answer?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In case number 5, this was a minor

16 bodily injury to the humerus with a relatively small wound channel, so it

17 was necessary to establish why the victim had bled to death given that

18 this was a wound to the soft tissues of the arm and what had been the

19 cause of it. That is why this wound was opened, was processed, and we

20 established the damage -- damage to have occurred to the main artery of

21 the upper arm, and we found at the end of the channel a small piece of

22 shrapnel which is a relatively small extraneous body which actually did

23 lead to this type of injury. That is why it is specified here.

24 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. Mr. Rodic, carry on.

25 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

1 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, in -- is it prescribed for specialists of your

2 profession what particular sizes of projectiles you are to indicate in

3 your report and what sizes you are not to indicate? So the foreign bodies

4 found, is there a classification by size of foreign bodies found in a body

5 in terms of which are to be recorded in the report and which are not to be

6 recorded in the report? Yes or no, please.

7 A. I cannot give you a yes or no answer to that question, namely for

8 the needs of the court or the investigation procedure, at times sometimes

9 it is necessary to ascertain the type of extraneous body and sometimes it

10 is not.

11 Q. I submit it to you, Mr. Ciganovic, that when you undertake that

12 procedure for the court, you have to specify and establish in your

13 findings all extraneous bodies that you find. This is what I submit to

14 you.

15 A. I do note I found a foreign body in the normal autopsy report, but

16 as I said before, these were not the usual peacetime conditions of work.

17 Q. Was the body under serial number 5 and the body of Pavo Urban

18 processed under the same conditions?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Do you know who inserted this correction? It's in the report.

21 A. No. I assume it was the recording clerk.

22 Q. Which correction do you have in mind?

23 A. There's only one here in the report added. There is a bit of

24 handwriting here. It relates to Pavo Urban.

25 Q. Who said that this correction should be inserted?

1 A. Probably I did.

2 Q. It could only have been you, the way I see it, because the

3 recording clerk did not actually attend the autopsy itself.

4 A. That's quite true.

5 Q. Which means that you read this finding, and you must have spotted

6 the mistake, didn't you?

7 A. I assume I did, but I can't remember now.

8 Q. In addition to this single mistake, you made no other corrections

9 and no other additions, did you?

10 A. Not as far as I remember.

11 Q. So what we have to rely upon 13 years on is your recollection,

12 your recollection that you found this piece of shrapnel, but it's not

13 actually recorded in the report.

14 A. No, it's not.

15 Q. Were you told by anyone ever that perhaps you should paper over

16 the shortcomings of this report using your story about partial work being

17 carried out on the injuries, partial examinations of injuries?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Did you perhaps decide to do that of your own accord?

20 A. No. I always do the same thing. I always follow the same

21 procedure in order to locate all the possible consequences of a bodily

22 injury in order to get at the cause of injury or death.

23 Q. We have agreed already, haven't we, that the tool used to cause

24 death and the cause of death are two different things, aren't they?

25 A. In forensic medicine, there's a link between these two and the

1 immediate cause of death, and that's what you use to diagnose, to

2 describe, as I've explained already.

3 Q. Yes, but there may be a distinction drawn between the mechanism on

4 the one hand and the cause on the other, precisely because this mechanism

5 in certain cases is not necessarily the cause of death at the same time.

6 Isn't that the case?

7 A. If, for example, there is an entry and exit wound to the heart,

8 you can't state that as the cause of the heart's death, but if you

9 indicate that in the report just by itself without adding anything else,

10 then the cause of death is crystal clear. This is the sort of terminology

11 that is usually employed in forensic medicine.

12 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, there are a number of us here who have worked for

13 different courts, and we've had similar experiences. So please let us try

14 to simplify. As you've said you testified many times --

15 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Re.

16 MR. RE: Learned counsel from the Defence appears to be making a

17 speech and attempting to turn it into a question at the end, I anticipate,

18 by saying "am I right" or "do you agree with this?" It's not a proper way

19 of asking questions and I object to this particular form of questioning.

20 It's more of a comment.

21 JUDGE PARKER: I think there is some substance in what is put,

22 Mr. Rodic. At this point you are getting really to putting some extensive

23 propositions to the witness as assertions and then adding at the end, "Is

24 this correct," or "Is this so?" Would you be able to be more careful in

25 framing a question?

1 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] I'll do my best, Your Honour. Thank

2 you very much for your assistance.

3 Q. So in reference to what we talked about, Mr. Ciganovic, if someone

4 is injured in a traffic accident, for example, the leg is broken, after a

5 month this person may die of pneumonia. Is that not possible?

6 A. Yes, that is indeed a possibility.

7 Q. Does that not imply there must be a distinction between, on the

8 one hand, the mechanism whereby an injury comes about and the cause of

9 death? These two are different things, aren't they?

10 A. I've encountered such cases in my career, and being an expert, I

11 decided that there must be a distinction between the way an injury came

12 about and the cause of death.

13 Q. If you were to write a report, what would you give as the cause of

14 death in this particular case: The person was knocked down by a car and a

15 leg was broken. Would that be indicated as the cause of death?

16 A. In such a case you would form a conclusion and include this

17 conclusion in a section of the report that is usually entitled "The

18 Expert's Opinion," and that's where I express my view of the causal link

19 which caused death. But in the descriptive part, you give the diagnosis,

20 you determine all the pathological changes that came about as a result of

21 the wounding as well as any other changes that the body had been subjected

22 to before that were not necessarily related to the cause of death.

23 Q. In this specific example that I have given you, the cause of

24 death, the immediate cause of death, the heart stopped pounding, for

25 example, what would that be? Pneumonia, for example, or another lung

1 disease, would that be the cause of death in that specific case?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Tell me, sir, did you know the investigating judge, Dragan Gajic,

4 during your time in Dubrovnik?

5 A. Yes, I did.

6 Q. Did you know Bruno Karmincic, who was the chief investigator for

7 the district court in Dubrovnik?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. In early October 1991, did you perhaps perform an autopsy on the

10 commander of Dubrovnik's civilian protection?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. What was the man's name?

13 A. I forgot. I think the name was Valjalo or something like that but

14 I can't recall the name. Bartos.

15 Q. Bratos?

16 A. Yes. I remember now that you've said it.

17 Q. Do you perhaps remember anything in relation to that man? Did he

18 go for negotiations with the JNA? Did he call on the people of Dubrovnik

19 to remain calm and composed?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Did he perhaps call on the JNA to disarm paramilitary units?

22 A. The wording was not the same, but I did have occasion to listen to

23 the announcement that he made over Radio Dubrovnik, where he announced

24 that probably the next day, but I can't remember which day it was

25 specifically, the JNA would enter Dubrovnik. He called on everyone to

1 remain calm, to not cause trouble, and if they were in possession of any

2 weapons, to hand those over to the soldiers.

3 Q. Was he not killed just after that, killed by his own car at the

4 Pile Gate?

5 A. Yes, he was.

6 Q. He drove in a white Zastava car, and he was killed from nearby,

7 and you performed the autopsy, did you not?

8 A. I'm not sure exactly how the whole thing began. I know that the

9 report of the investigating judge stated that he was killed in the car

10 from close range.

11 Q. Were there any JNA members in Dubrovnik at the time?

12 A. No.

13 Q. In the summer of 1991, were there any incidents, houses being

14 blown up, houses belonging to people who were ethnic Serbs living in the

15 Dubrovnik area?

16 A. As far as I remember, cars were being blown up, cars belonging to

17 such people.

18 Q. Was anyone prosecuted or brought to account for these acts that

19 were committed?

20 A. Not to my knowledge.

21 Q. You said that during the war in Dubrovnik in October, November,

22 and December 1991, you lived in three different places.

23 A. Yes, that's correct.

24 Q. First there was the house on JNA road, and from there you moved to

25 Lapad.

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1 A. Yes, that's correct.

2 Q. Can you please then tell me why at one point it became dangerous

3 to stay at the house where you were staying?

4 A. Because many shells were landing nearby around the house.

5 Q. So you decided to move to Lapad, to stay there with friends, I

6 assume.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. You had heard that things were more peaceful in Lapad at the time?

9 A. Yes, precisely. Besides, my friends own a house which has a

10 shelter in the basement while my own house was made of wood, and it was

11 very old. Any direct impacts would have been fatal.

12 Q. But as time went by, the intensity of the shelling increased and

13 it became dangerous to stay in Lapad as well, so you went back to the old

14 town.

15 A. Yes. The shelling intensified in the Lapad area, and that place

16 was even further off from where I worked. And I normally walked to work.

17 There was a great deal of risk involved in crossing the area on foot

18 several times a day under those circumstances.

19 Q. Tell me, sir, throughout this period of time, October, November,

20 December 1991, did you ever see Croatian soldiers in the town of

21 Dubrovnik?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. In the same period, did you ever see Croatian soldiers firing from

24 inside Dubrovnik, firing at JNA positions?

25 A. I didn't myself witness anything like that, but I did hear shells

1 being fired.

2 Q. In relation to what you heard, shells being fired, mortar shells

3 being fired, are you familiar with such military positions as Bogisicev

4 Park, Gradac Park --

5 JUDGE PARKER: [Previous translation continues]... you've

6 introduced mortar shells. I think you better clarify with the witness

7 whether that is what he meant by "shells" before you put your question.

8 He said "shells," not "mortar shells."

9 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours, but in the

10 Serbian language I heard that the witness originally referred to mortar

11 shells. So we can make a correction there.

12 Q. Is that correct, sir, you heard mortar shells being fired from the

13 Croatian side?

14 A. Yes.

15 JUDGE PARKER: The difference appears to be one of translation.

16 Thank you, Mr. Rodic.

17 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Q. I'm sorry, Mr. Ciganovic, I didn't hear you. We interrupted you.

19 I was referring to those positions. Were you familiar with those

20 positions, Bogisicev Park, Gradac Park, Lapad Park, Croatian mortars

21 firing from those positions?

22 A. I didn't personally see any mortars positioned there. The people

23 did talk about these positions. I'm not sure if the stories I heard were

24 accurate or not.

25 Q. You used to walk to work. Did you pass the Gradac Park on your

1 way to work?

2 A. I walk right by it but not through the park itself, nor did I ever

3 pass through the Bogisicev Park on my way to work.

4 Q. When you said about personally hearing sounds of mortar shells

5 being fired, which position was that a reference to?

6 A. It's very difficult to specify the position.

7 Q. Just roughly speaking, which part of town was it?

8 A. There were very few weapons around, very few mortars, judging by

9 the sound. I heard them in different parts of town, some in Lapad and

10 then the section between Lapad and the Old Town, and there were sounds

11 coming from the Old Town also, but I couldn't tell exactly where the

12 sounds were coming from.

13 Q. What about when you heard these sounds of firing coming from the

14 Old Town? Was that when you went to the Old Town to stay there, as you

15 said?

16 A. Yes.

17 MR. RE: Maybe it's the translation again, but the transcript says

18 there were sounds coming from the Old Town. The witness said didn't say,

19 according to the English translation, sounds of firing coming from the Old

20 Town.

21 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour. Your Honour, if I may.

22 JUDGE PARKER: If you would like to clarify that with the witness,

23 Mr. Rodic.

24 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. You were listing -- you were listing the different places from

1 which you heard sounds of firing from a mortar. Lapad, the section

2 between Lapad and the Old Town, and you said in the Old Town itself, but

3 you couldn't tell from where exactly. Is that true?

4 A. It is true that I heard sounds of firing while I was in all those

5 places, but I must clarify the following: Dubrovnik is a very small town.

6 Between these detonations, there was absolute still, and in those periods

7 of silence, you could hear sounds like that from a great distance.

8 Q. Fair enough. My question was about the times you heard firing

9 from the Old Town. Was that in the same period of time when you lived in

10 that flat behind the cathedral in the Old Town?

11 A. Yes, it was in that period of time.

12 Q. Thank you. Tell me, sir --

13 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Can I please have Mr. Usher's

14 assistance. I would like to show the witness this photograph.

15 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, in the period of 1991 under discussion, while you

16 moved about town, did you ever see this three-barrel weapon mounted on a

17 truck in the town of Dubrovnik?

18 A. No. I personally never saw this weapon.

19 Q. Did you hear about this weapon and -- did you hear about this

20 weapon moving about town?

21 A. Yes, I did hear about the existence of this weapon and about the

22 weapon moving about.

23 Q. Did you hear that there were two or three other such trucks in

24 addition to this three-barrel weapon, with mortars mounted even?

25 A. I heard about a truck with a mortar mounted on it.

1 Q. Did you perhaps hear about these weapons being used for firing or,

2 rather, excuse me, these weapons were firing from those trucks and they

3 were moving quickly from place to place.

4 A. I didn't see any such thing myself, but I assume that this was the

5 case.

6 Q. You assume that they were moving about and firing?

7 A. Yes.

8 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Can I please ask Mr. Usher to show the

9 next photograph to the witness.

10 And, Your Honours, if this photograph can please be received into

11 evidence and be assigned a Defence exhibit number.

12 JUDGE PARKER: The first photo will be received.

13 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit D35.

14 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Mr. Ciganovic, you can see the writing on the truck, "Kobra."

16 Have you ever seen that before or heard about it?

17 A. I don't remember.

18 Q. Have you ever heard about a Croatian unit that was called the

19 same?

20 A. I can no longer remember now.

21 Q. Very well. In view of the places where you resided throughout the

22 period and you moving about town, did you perhaps hear that a small lorry

23 like that was positioned at Lihtenstajnov Put, which is at a distance of

24 about 80 metres from the Libertas Hotel?

25 A. No. I heard nothing about that.

1 Q. Tell me, did you know about any positions of the Croatian army in

2 Dubrovnik?

3 A. Not in that period, because whenever I moved about, there was no

4 shelling from any side, so wherever I went, I never saw any weapons.

5 Q. Tell me, do you know if there were any clashes in Dubrovnik

6 between the HOS extremists and the members of the National Guard?

7 A. I can't speak about that. I'm not familiar with that. I did not

8 have an opportunity to familiarise myself with anything like that.

9 Q. Were you ever called to the Dubrovnik Crisis Staff headquarters?

10 A. Not as far as I remember.

11 Q. Did you have any communication with anyone from the Dubrovnik

12 Crisis Staff?

13 A. With some of the officials, yes, when they issued us with a permit

14 to leave Dubrovnik during a cease-fire. I left Dubrovnik to go and visit

15 my family.

16 Q. Can you please describe exactly what happened? It was during a

17 cease-fire, and you were issued a permit. What exactly did that mean?

18 A. I obtained this permit to leave town for several days to be able

19 to go and visit my family. My family were then staying in Sarajevo, and I

20 got in touch with someone, I'm not sure what the person's official

21 position was or the importance of that person, but that person issued me

22 with a permit, a pass.

23 Q. Is it true that without that pass, that permit, you would not have

24 been allowed to leave Dubrovnik?

25 A. Yes, that's quite true.

1 Q. Who was in charge of issuing such permits? It was the Dubrovnik

2 Crisis Staff, wasn't it?

3 A. Yes, I assume so.

4 Q. At that time in October, November, December 1991, did you see any

5 armed people moving about Dubrovnik?

6 A. Yes, I did see members of the Croatian army who were uniformed and

7 were carrying small arms, usually automatic rifles.

8 Q. Infantry weapons.

9 A. Yes, infantry weapons, but a very small number of soldiers.

10 Q. Did you ever see any civilians moving about armed, carrying

11 infantry weapons, rifles, perhaps?

12 A. No, never.

13 Q. Did you ever see any armed soldiers inside the Old Town on your

14 way home or on your way to work?

15 A. Yes, but very seldom. Mostly whenever I saw these soldiers, they

16 were without weapons. I know that they had been forbidden to move about

17 town in their own spare time armed.

18 Q. But there were occasions when you saw them with weapons, weren't

19 there?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Were there different kinds of uniforms, of military uniforms?

22 A. I don't think so. The way I remember, they all looked the same to

23 me.

24 Q. When you left Dubrovnik for Sarajevo, did you leave Dubrovnik by a

25 vessel?

1 A. Yes, through Mokosica.

2 Q. Who, if anyone, controlled you on the way out?

3 A. I assume -- I assume it was a military checkpoint. I don't

4 remember whose military checkpoint. On the one side I believe it was the

5 Croatian army, and across the way it was the JNA.

6 Q. Do you know where the Territorial Defence headquarters were?

7 A. I don't remember whether it was the Petka Hotel at Gruz. I'm not

8 sure.

9 Q. Did you perhaps see anyone at the aquarium?

10 A. There was a civilian shelter there.

11 Q. Were there any members of Territorial Defence there?

12 A. I didn't see any there. I went there several times myself during

13 shelling, and everyone I met there were civilians.

14 Q. Tell me, where did you have to go to get your permit from the

15 Crisis Staff to leave town?

16 A. As I said, I no longer remember where the Crisis Staff HQ was. I

17 think it was at Gruz, at the Petka Hotel, but I can't be sure about this.

18 I've forgotten.

19 Q. Where is the municipality building in Dubrovnik?

20 A. The municipality building is in the same building as the municipal

21 and district court. The municipal administration, where the mayor is,

22 that's back in the Old Town, next to the rector's palace.

23 Q. Do you know where Vila Rasica is?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Can you tell us where?

1 A. It is between Gradac and Gruz.

2 Q. Do you know if perhaps the ZNG had their headquarters there?

3 A. No, I think I made a mistake. This villa is between Gradac and

4 the Old Town. Yes. That used to be a students' home before, and I heard

5 that they were there, Croatian soldiers.

6 Q. Tell me, sir, the Territorial Defence headquarters, was that

7 across the way from the medical centre, from the health centre?

8 A. Just across the way from the medical centre there's the old

9 recruitment office building, but I'm not sure if that building had any

10 specific use during the war.

11 Q. Do you know a man named Zeljko Pavlovic?

12 A. No. The name's not familiar.

13 Q. Do you know where the Hotel Zagreb is?

14 A. Yes, I do. It is in the Lapad inlet.

15 Q. Was the command of the defence of Dubrovnik there perhaps? Do you

16 know that?

17 A. I cannot remember. Possibly it was. I think that I heard it was

18 there, but I'm not sure.

19 Q. Was the Croatian Party of Rights -- did the Croatian Party of

20 Rights had a unit called Sokol, "the falcon," in Dubrovnik?

21 A. I'm not aware of that.

22 Q. Are you familiar with Bozo Miljanic?

23 A. I've heard of him.

24 Q. Is it not true that he was an extremist that blowed up Serbian

25 houses in the territory of Dubrovnik?

1 A. As far as I can recall, he was the president of the commission for

2 the demolition of houses which had been built without authorisation,

3 without a permit.

4 Q. Do -- are you familiar with the zone of the city which is called

5 the Chinese Wall?

6 A. Yes, I am.

7 Q. Did you see any military -- any Croatian troops there, military

8 forces?

9 A. I didn't pass through those parts of town.

10 Q. Are you familiar with the mortar positions in the Montovjerna

11 zone?

12 A. No, I'm not. As I have said, I never saw any weaponry because

13 during the shelling I would either be in a shelter -- for the most part I

14 would be in a shelter, and when there was no shelter, I never came across

15 any weapons.

16 THE INTERPRETER: When there was no shelling, sorry.

17 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Tell me, do you know where the old people's home in Dubrovnik is?

19 A. There are two senior citizens' homes, one in the Old Town and one

20 in the vicinity of the old hospital in Dubrovnik.

21 Q. Did you pass by that road, by either of these two old peoples'

22 homes?

23 A. Yes, I did.

24 Q. Did you have occasion to see members of the National Guard Corps

25 on those locations?

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1 A. Well, I saw some of them individually in the street, and where

2 they were stationed or located, I have no idea.

3 Q. As regards members and the positions or operations of the Croatian

4 army, you couldn't see any of those while you were in the shelter; right?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And when this danger ceased, would those positions be changed?

7 Would those people withdraw?

8 A. I can only assume, because I never saw any piece of heavy ordnance

9 during that period.

10 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Could the witness please be shown

11 Defence Exhibit D28.

12 Q. Did you ever have an opportunity to -- to see the mortar in

13 Bogisicev Park open fire?

14 A. No, never.

15 Q. Perhaps if you take a look at the photograph you can have a better

16 view. And can you recognise the person in the photograph?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Please tell me, did you undertake examinations of the bodies of

19 members of the Croatian army as well?

20 A. Yes, I did.

21 Q. Were there quite a few of such examinations?

22 A. Yes, there were quite a few of them.

23 Q. Did anyone indicate for you that these were members of the

24 Croatian army or was it a conclusion that you derived for yourself?

25 A. I would be given information to that effect from the investigating

1 team which would come to the autopsy, which also happened in these

2 instances, but these bodies would, as a rule, had been brought to me in

3 uniforms and even with light armaments.

4 Q. And would they tell you on such occasions at which positions these

5 people had sustained their injuries or, rather, been killed, in which

6 places?

7 A. As far as I can remember, usually, not always but usually they

8 would tell me where the person had been killed.

9 Q. As you said that in October to December, you were the one who

10 examined most of the bodies. I believe the figure you mentioned was above

11 100.

12 A. Yes, above 100.

13 Q. Can you tell me, in addition to this report which we have here

14 before us from the 7th of December, were these other examinations similar

15 as this recorded in this report? Namely, were the reports of those

16 examinations similar, indicating the same data as this one?

17 A. The examinations were similar. Some of them were different when

18 there was a different cause of death because people also got killed in

19 other ways, something which was not directly associated with the war, in

20 other words.

21 Q. So these deaths which were not directly caused by the war or

22 associated with the war, were they caused by firearms?

23 A. Well, there were some deaths by firearms, and people had also

24 drowned.

25 Q. Were some of these deaths -- do you know whether any of these

1 cases were in fact -- do you know that any of the people who had caused

2 the deaths of these people were tried by courts in Dubrovnik?

3 A. I suppose that they were, because the whole investigative

4 procedure was actually conducted with this view in mind.

5 Q. Were these people who were tried in Dubrovnik in the area of

6 Dubrovnik?

7 A. Yes, I believe that they were from the area of Dubrovnik.

8 Q. Were they accessible to the police bodies in the territory of the

9 Dubrovnik municipality?

10 A. I cannot respond to that question with certainty because I had no

11 opportunity to familiarise myself with the facts of such cases.

12 Q. And were these people who stood trial for such acts, were they

13 from the territory of Dubrovnik municipality? Were they residing in

14 Dubrovnik municipality when these deaths occurred?

15 A. Yes. At that time, they certainly did reside in the territory of

16 Dubrovnik.

17 Q. Can you at all remember whether anyone was -- inflicted the mortar

18 wounds from firearms in terms of Croatian army members killing civilians

19 or mutually killing each other?

20 A. There were some sporadic instances of that type where both

21 Croatian soldiers and policemen and civilians were killed. There was also

22 one case of many people drowning when a ship sunk in the Gruz port and

23 many people perished.

24 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ciganovic.

25 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, that completes my

1 cross-examination.

2 Can I please ask that this second photograph also be given a

3 number as a Defence exhibit. These are all photographs from the exhibit

4 of the Prosecution which our learned colleague Mr. Kaufman submitted to

5 the Court yesterday. That is OTP Exhibit 66.

6 JUDGE PARKER: These are from that video film, are they,

7 Mr. Rodic?

8 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE PARKER: On that basis, this last photograph will be

10 received as an exhibit.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit D36.

12 JUDGE PARKER: We will have a 20-minute break now.

13 MR. RE: Before Your Honours adjourn --

14 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Re.

15 MR. RE: I was just noting the time the Court has fixed for the

16 break and I anticipate maybe 15 minutes in re-examination. Do Your

17 Honours wish to hear, start with the witness, that is Mr. Jovic, as late

18 as half past six or would it be safe to send him home -- back to his hotel

19 for the weekend?

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 JUDGE PARKER: How long do you see your re-examination, Mr. Re?

22 MR. RE: Possibly 15 minutes or so, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE PARKER: I think that would give us a useful time to

24 commence with the witness.

25 --- Recess taken at 5.45 p.m.

1 --- On resuming at 6.07 p.m.

2 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Re.

3 Re-examined by Mr. Re:

4 Q. Mr. Rodic, Dr. Ciganovic, asked you a number of questions about

5 your reasons for leaving Dubrovnik at the end of December 1992, and you

6 told the Trial Chamber that your wife and your five-year-old son had left

7 to go to Pancevo. Did your wife and five-year-old son leave before or

8 after the shelling of Dubrovnik had started?

9 A. She left after the shelling, when women, children, and the elderly

10 started leaving Dubrovnik.

11 Q. And what was it about the prevailing circumstances in Dubrovnik

12 that led you to oppose your wife and five-year-old son's early return to

13 Dubrovnik?

14 A. Well, I assumed that the war in Dubrovnik was not yet over by the

15 end of 1991. My main concern was for their safety.

16 Q. You were also questioned about the need or otherwise for what the

17 Defence were calling a full internal autopsy, and you gave some fairly

18 extensive reasons for the circumstances in which you would perform a

19 partial or an external examination. In coming to that -- sorry. In

20 making that determination of whether to perform a partial internal

21 examination, do you consider the history given to you in relation to the

22 body being brought to the autopsy room? That is, the circumstances

23 described as to why they were being brought there?

24 A. Yes. That is one of the things I take into account, but that is

25 not the only thing I take into account.

1 Q. One of the things you were questioned about was a person being

2 brought in after a traffic accident. In those sort of circumstances, that

3 is, a traffic accident victim, what role does the history have in your

4 determining whether or not to perform an internal autopsy?

5 A. If it is a pedestrian who was hurt in a traffic accident, it is

6 necessary to take a blood sample to analyse it for alcohol. It's

7 necessary to describe in detail all the external injuries in order to

8 understand what sort of a traffic accident had occurred. It's necessary

9 to carry out an internal examination in order to establish the cause of

10 death.

11 If the cause of death is obvious on external examination, then the

12 judge usually orders only for an external examination of the body to be

13 conducted.

14 Q. Do you consider the date or time of death given to you in the

15 history - I'm only talking about traffic accidents at the moment - in

16 determining whether or not to perform a partial or internal autopsy?

17 A. Not if there is no significant aberration in terms of time,

18 meaning not if the accident itself or death occurred on the previous day

19 or even on the same day. Then this piece of information is not decisive.

20 Q. I'll now take you to the same scenario but with explosive

21 injuries. What significance does the history given to you in relation to

22 the time and date of death have in your determining whether or not to

23 perform a partial internal autopsy?

24 A. It is the same as with explosive injuries. If death occurred on

25 the previous day or on the same day, the exact time of the event itself is

1 not material to me.

2 Q. Does that differ with multiple bodies being brought in on the same

3 day with a history of having been perhaps killed the day before?

4 A. In peacetime conditions, this would not be particularly important,

5 and every body was processed as if it was the only body being brought in.

6 Q. What about in wartime?

7 A. In wartime, as was the case, in such conditions you only did what

8 was absolutely necessary, so that even in situations where we had a

9 smaller number of bodies, fewer bodies, or even just one body, only an

10 external examination was done, accompanied, perhaps, by a partial autopsy

11 to ascertain damage and the cause of death and any internal injuries.

12 Q. Did the fact of there being multiple bodies brought in on one day

13 affect or influence your decision to conduct a partial autopsy?

14 A. No.

15 Q. Can you please now turn to your report, which is in front of you.

16 It's MFI 70, and in each of the 19 bodies that you have identified as

17 having examined, there are two paragraphs. The first starts with external

18 examination, and the second paragraph refers to the details, what you

19 actually did. Just for complete clarity of the meaning of "external

20 examination," why does it only appear in the first paragraph of all the

21 two paragraphs next to each of the 19 separate reports?

22 A. In the first paragraph, there is data that was determined by the

23 court, by the police, by the investigating bodies, the identity of the

24 victim and the way in which the body was identified. In the second part

25 is a description which I dictated. The first sentences of the description

1 contain basic information on the body, which is mostly the same in all

2 these cases, and this information indicates that these are relatively

3 fresh bodies on the basis of the characteristics that these bodies -- of

4 the features that these bodies display. And in the following paragraph

5 you have the types of injuries sustained and the cause of death.

6 Q. What I'm getting to, Doctor, is the meaning of the word "external"

7 which appears only as the first word in each of the first paragraphs. Do

8 we take it from what you just said it's a pro forma which refers to the

9 visual identification or examination of a body when it first comes in?

10 A. That is a pro forma. It is a juridical term. The court

11 distinguishes between external examination and autopsy. The court

12 determines that an external examination should be conducted and that's

13 what was written down here.

14 Q. Is there any other connection between the word "external" as it

15 appears in the first paragraph of each of the two paragraphs and your

16 findings in the second paragraph, or is it only related to the visible

17 external examination of a body for identification when it arrives?

18 A. No. This does not refer to the external examination of the body

19 immediately upon arrival. It refers to everything that has been noted

20 down in reference to an individual.

21 Q. Mr. Rodic also asked you about the difference between bodies

22 showing sign of a blast effect and explosive injuries. Do any of the

23 bodies, any of the 19 bodies upon which you -- which you examined on the

24 17th of December, 1991, show signs of a blast effect that you described?

25 A. I found no signs of a blast effect on any of these bodies.

1 Q. You gave evidence and were cross-examined about your examination

2 or partial autopsy on the body of Mr. Pavo Urban, the photographer. What

3 is it that causes you to remember this particular partial autopsy you

4 performed on him?

5 A. This person was familiar to me from before, and his death caused a

6 lot of commotion among friends, acquaintances, and his next of kin. His

7 mother was there too. So that's why I remember this event in a

8 particularly vivid way.

9 Q. You were also questioned about firing that you heard when you were

10 living in three different houses in Dubrovnik, and you said that you heard

11 firing from the Old Town when you were living there. Were you inside a

12 building or outside when you heard firing in the Old Town?

13 A. Sometimes I was outside the building when I heard sounds of

14 firing.

15 Q. You also said you occasionally saw some soldiers in the vicinity

16 of the Old Town, mostly unarmed. What did the soldiers that you saw there

17 appear to be doing?

18 A. My assumption was that they had been brought there to defend

19 Dubrovnik.

20 Q. Mr. Rodic also cross-examined you about performing autopsies on

21 military personnel. What was the most common cause of death you found in

22 those autopsies?

23 A. Based on external examination and partial autopsy of all the

24 bodies of dead soldiers that I inspected, in most of the cases it was the

25 explosive injuries that had caused death.

1 Q. Do you remember any autopsies on soldiers with gunshot wounds?

2 And if so, would you be able to tell the Trial Chamber, estimate what

3 percentage had gunshot wounds as opposed to explosive injuries?

4 A. There were such cases, yes, but only a very small percentage. Not

5 more than 5 per cent, or perhaps even less.

6 MR. RE: Could Your Honours just excuse me for one moment. I just

7 need to consult with Ms. Somers, with your leave.

8 [Prosecution counsel confer]

9 MR. RE: That concludes my re-examination.

10 Questioned by the Court:

11 JUDGE PARKER: Doctor, in a number of the notes that were recorded

12 in that report you prepared on the 7th of December, you have used the

13 initials "OM" in your general description of the body. Can you tell the

14 Chamber what that means.

15 A. That is an abbreviation for the common medical term

16 "osteomuscular," build, the build of a body.

17 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. Doctor, I'm pleased to be able to tell

18 you that that brings to an end your evidence [yourself]. You are at last

19 free to return. You are excused from further attendance, and thank you

20 very much for your assistance.

21 [The witness withdrew]

22 JUDGE PARKER: The next witness, Mr. Re.

23 MR. RE: Yes, that's Mr. Nikola Jovic, who is outside one of the

24 witness rooms.

25 JUDGE PARKER: I see the transcript ascribes to me some amazing

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1 powers. I am recorded as having told the doctor that he brought to an end

2 himself rather than his evidence.

3 [The witness entered court]

4 JUDGE PARKER: Good evening, Mr. Jovic. If you'd be good enough

5 to take the affirmation. Read --

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

7 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

8 JUDGE PARKER: If you'd like to sit down.

9 WITNESS: Nikola Jovic

10 [Witness answered through interpreter]

11 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Re.

12 Examined by Mr. Re:

13 Q. Good evening, Mr. Jovic. Could you please give the Trial Chamber

14 your full name.

15 A. Nikola Jovic.

16 Q. Your occupation?

17 A. I'm a merchant.

18 Q. And you live in -- a merchant. What do you actually do?

19 A. I'm in charge of a supermarket and a manager.

20 Q. Is that in the Old Town of Dubrovnik?

21 A. Yes, in the Old Town of Dubrovnik.

22 Q. And do you live in Dubrovnik?

23 A. Yes, I live in Dubrovnik in the Gruz area.

24 Q. How long have you lived in Gruz area in Dubrovnik for?

25 A. Since 1971.

1 Q. And how long have you worked in the supermarket in the Old Town of

2 Dubrovnik for?

3 A. Since 1990. Since April 1990.

4 Q. Have you worked there continuously since April 1990?

5 A. Yes, I have.

6 Q. Are you married?

7 A. Yes, I am.

8 Q. And do you have any children who were born before the war?

9 A. I have a daughter who turned -- who was one year, 11 months old

10 during the war.

11 Q. That means she was born in 1989; is that right?

12 A. That's right.

13 Q. And were you born in 1963?

14 A. That is correct, on the 15th of September.

15 Q. Now, can you please tell the Trial Chamber about your JNA --

16 sorry, your JNA service.

17 A. I served the JNA in 1982 and 1983, and I served in Kosovo in the

18 towns of Pec and Prizren.

19 Q. Which department of the military did you work in?

20 A. I was a Maljutka, which was a saljo [phoen] or anti-tank missile

21 operator. It is a guided anti-tank missile.

22 Q. What sort of experience or expertise did you gain in the use or

23 operation of Maljutka missiles?

24 A. While I did my military service, I was trained as a crew member to

25 service these missiles.

1 Q. Were you mobilised during the war in 1991?

2 A. On the 26th and the 27th of September in 1991, I was summoned to

3 respond to the call-up, but for the civilian defence, and I responded, and

4 we were then located at the Hotel Stadion in Gruz. And then on the 1st of

5 October, 1991, when the attack on Dubrovnik started, when the first shells

6 landed on Komolac and the Mokosica, I was sent with another five men in a

7 civilian van which was driven by one of our people. We were not in

8 uniform. We were driven to the area of Orasac. In Orasac we were

9 supposed to be provided with the Maljutka missiles in order to open fire

10 at the two warships of the Yugoslav navy which were in the channel between

11 Lopud and the place named Orasac.

12 These vessels were opening fire at trucks, at means of

13 transportation that were leaving Slano, and it was the only road which led

14 to Dubrovnik, the only open road from Slano to Dubrovnik, because all

15 other communication links had been severed, both air and road ones. There

16 we were put up at the Vrtovi Sunca Hotel, and we spent there some two or

17 three days.

18 On the third day, they informed us that the then-JNA had entered

19 Slano, so we withdrew with the civilians. Some of the civilians remained.

20 Some of those who were fleeing from the surrounding places came to Vrtovi

21 Sunca. Others remained. Some had their own boats, some had their

22 relatives in Dubrovnik, some fled to the island of Lokrum, some to Lopud,

23 but most of them remained there. So we withdrew and we went aboard an

24 Atlas ship from Zaton to Babin Kuk. When I say "we," I mean a certain

25 group of civilians, and this van which we used to transport

1 ourselves remained in Zaton.

2 And then we returned and on the 4th or the 5th I reported to the

3 command. I cannot recall its precise name at this point, but that was

4 already - how shall I put it? - at that time in Dubrovnik we already had

5 widespread panic and anarchy because the army was advancing towards Zupa

6 and Osojnik, and since we did not get this -- these weapons, the

7 Maljutkas, they sent me home. I stayed at home for several days. They

8 didn't call me, and then I started to work.

9 So all this time that I spent in the army with my stay in Orasac

10 and at the Stadion Hotel, this all lasted for six or seven days.

11 Q. Who issued the call-up papers to you?

12 A. The postman.

13 Q. Are you saying they came in the post?

14 A. No. The mailman would personally come to serve such papers on

15 one. And they brought them to your home address. They, too, had probably

16 been mobilised.

17 Q. I'm asking you do you know which authority issued the papers to

18 you through the post?

19 A. I believe that by that time had already been organised the

20 civilian defence or whatever its name was.

21 Q. You said you went to Orasac. How far is that from Dubrovnik and

22 in which direction?

23 A. That is in the -- it is west -- to the west of Dubrovnik,

24 north-west of Dubrovnik. It is some 20 kilometres away from Dubrovnik.

25 Q. You were given no weapons and no uniform. Were you given a rank

1 in that week you were with the military?

2 A. No, I wasn't. I was in my normal civilian clothes, and not only I

3 but all the rest of us, all the six of us, we were not issued with any

4 weapons. We were supposed to be issued with these Maljutkas. Why we

5 didn't get any, I couldn't say.

6 Q. Were you provided with any training in those six or seven days?

7 A. No.

8 Q. You said you then went back home. Did you go back to work in your

9 shop?

10 A. Yes, I did.

11 Q. Were you ever called up again after that?

12 A. Not until the 31st of December.

13 Q. Between when you went home in your civilian clothes and the 31st

14 of December, were you a member of the military or a civilian?

15 A. I was a civilian. In fact, during these six or seven days which I

16 spent with the army, this was not recorded anywhere. So I was also a

17 civilian then.

18 Q. Did you ever receive any pay from the military for your six or

19 seven days at Orasac?

20 A. No.

21 Q. What about these JNA ships? Where were they?

22 A. Well, there were two vessels which cruised alternately from Mljet

23 -- from Mljet, the island of Mljet to the island of Lopud. So they were

24 some way down in the middle of the channel.

25 Q. What were they doing when they were cruising alternatively between

1 Lapad and --

2 A. Lopud. They were opening fire at lorries, at least while we were

3 in Orasac. A truck was hit in Trsteno and the driver of the truck

4 suffered a light injury. It was a Dalmacijavino truck which was

5 transporting wine to the Dubravkina shops in Dubrovnik. And there were

6 other trucks that had been hit because they probably thought that these

7 trucks were transporting weapons, but not only weapons because they

8 wouldn't let any provisions be taken into the city, any supplies for the

9 citizens.

10 Q. Apart from lorries, were any buildings hit by firing from the JNA

11 ships?

12 A. I don't know whether any buildings were hit during that time when

13 we were in Orasac, because they withdrew on that day, on the 3rd or the

14 4th when Slano had fallen. They were not in the channel any longer, and

15 there was no need for them to be after the road had been blockaded.

16 Q. Between September, October, November, and up to the 6th of

17 December, 1991, did you see from Dubrovnik or anywhere else JNA warships

18 firing on any targets in Dubrovnik?

19 A. Yes. They called them gunboats. These were warships, and I could

20 see them because I live in Gruz, in a section called Sipsino, and from

21 there one has a good view of Lapad and Babin Kuk and the open sea towards

22 the island of Daksa, and generally the sea, so at the end of October or

23 the beginning of November, those ships stay there for some four or five or

24 six days, constantly attacking Dubrovnik as -- and also fire was opened

25 from surrounding positions from gunboats. And I could see that from my

1 flat in which I still live today, because they were opening fire at

2 hotels, at private houses where there were people. There were refugees in

3 those hotels. They opened random fire at Lapad and Babin Kuk.

4 Q. Were any buildings damaged from this -- from these attacks?

5 A. Yes, quite a few private houses were damaged, and I also believe

6 that several civilians were killed in Babin Kuk in their houses. The

7 Hotel Kompas was hit, the Hotel Park, the Hotel Palace, and a number of

8 other hotels were hit as well.

9 Q. You've described firing from the sea. Were there any other -- did

10 you know of any other JNA positions on land?

11 A. Since I live in Sipsino, from there I could see all the way up to

12 Petrovo Selo and Osojnik, and from that area they were also opening fire

13 towards Gruz and the port of Gruz and at Lapad. The Gruz area where the

14 Hotel Stadion is, where the bakery was.

15 At that time, the old port in Gruz, there were several nice

16 vessels, ships in the old part of Gruz. There was a very nice sailboat of

17 the Atlas Travel Agency. There were other several ships that were burnt,

18 and then there were some storehouses in the Gruz harbour which contained

19 wood, timber, grain. And I remember when these went on fire that they

20 actually illuminated the whole area so it seemed to be daylight in the

21 middle of night. Then there was also another warehouse where coffee --

22 which was -- with coffee which was hit and the coffee burnt for several

23 days and one could smell the aroma of coffee burning.

24 At that time I was not working and at that time was one of the

25 most vehement attacks on Dubrovnik. We were -- we didn't work for five or

1 six days. We dare not move about. We went to fetch water at night

2 because there was only water in the part of the city where the Buninovo

3 cemetery is, and there is an old well which was dug by the Dubrovnik --

4 residents of Old Dubrovnik when there was no regular water supply in the

5 city and this is the water well which was used by the civilians at that

6 time. For bread we would also go to the bakery at night, and this bakery

7 worked around the clock.

8 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Petrovic.

9 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, just one part of the

10 statement of the witness is not in the transcript. He said several days

11 and the -- and the general alert which was on during the several days. So

12 can that be put in its proper place in the transcript.

13 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Petrovic.

14 Yes, Mr. Re.

15 MR. RE: Thank you.

16 Q. Mr. Jovic, can you please listen carefully to the question. The

17 question was related to JNA positions on land. Can you tell the Trial

18 Chamber if you knew where the JNA -- if there were any JNA positions on

19 land were. That's all.

20 A. As for land positions around the city of Dubrovnik, there were

21 positions at Osojnik, and everything had been occupied; Mokosica, Rozat,

22 all the way up to Sustjepan, and then through Brgat and the Bosanka, the

23 area of Srdj, all the way up to the Hotel Belvedere. This was all

24 occupied and held by the then-JNA.

25 Q. Where were the Croat positions?

1 A. The Croatian positions were down there in Kantafig, the Gruz area,

2 Sustjepan, the fort on the hill of Srdj above Dubrovnik, and the Hotel

3 Belvedere.

4 Q. Do you remember any specific days in which there was shelling by

5 the JNA of Dubrovnik and specifically the Old Town before the 6th of

6 December?

7 A. Before the 6th of December, if I remember correctly, two shells

8 had landed in the Old Town in the early morning hours. I think it was the

9 end of October, but I cannot recall the exact date. I only know that

10 these two shells landed in the Old City before the 6th of December, as far

11 as I know.

12 Q. What was the consequence of the shells landing in the Old Town for

13 the people in the Old Town? What happened as a result?

14 A. You mean those two shells or you mean the 6th of December?

15 Q. The two shells.

16 A. Those two shells landed, and one of them hit a house on Miha

17 Pracata Street, but I can't remember specifically, and the other hit the

18 house next to this one. So I don't think there were any civilian

19 casualties, but there was a lot of damage. One section of an entire wall

20 had been demolished, a whole section of the street, but I don't think

21 there were any civilian casualties then.

22 Q. And what was the -- what was the address of your shop?

23 A. My shop is on Miha Pracata Street, number 11.

24 Q. Was your shop open for the entire period of October, November, and

25 up to the 6th of December, 1991, or did it close at any time?

1 A. Well, it remained closed only during the heavy shelling, as I

2 described. It was in late October or early November. We stayed shut for

3 those five days. There was the general alert and shells kept landing all

4 over town, with the exception of the Old Town, at least in that period. I

5 think there was a high number of civilian casualties in that period of

6 time. That was the heaviest shelling. It was some of the most severe

7 shelling. We weren't open in that period of time. We were back in Gruz,

8 and the shop was in the Old Town. We couldn't go to work, and there was

9 no way to get bread.

10 Q. Why do you say you don't think there were any civilian casualties

11 when the two shells landed?

12 A. Well, I think not. I didn't say that there weren't. I said that

13 I didn't believe there were any.

14 MR. RE: Is this a convenient time with the witness, Your Honour?

15 JUDGE PARKER: I would expect so, Mr. Re, given your gentle

16 indication. We will break now for the weekend, resuming Monday morning.

17 Mr. Jovic, we've come to the end of our sitting day. I'm afraid I

18 must ask you to come back on Monday morning.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, that's fine, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE PARKER: I hope you enjoy The Hague.

21 We will adjourn for the weekend.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

23 MR. RE: Your Honour, before you leave, this doesn't concern this

24 witness, it concerns the previous witness. I neglected to press for the

25 tender of the MFIs at the conclusion of his evidence, as promised at the

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1 end of cross-examination. When would be a convenient time? If there is

2 still an objection to the tender of those documents, it will have to be

3 addressed.

4 JUDGE PARKER: Can we take that up at the end of the evidence for

5 this witness, and unless it is going to produce a great difficulty, that

6 would be a convenient time to deal with the outstanding legal submission

7 which has kept Mr. Kaufman on hand.

8 That's understood as well by Mr. Petrovic?

9 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours, but the Defence

10 wishes to point out that in relation to these documents referred to by

11 Mr. Re, we have the objections from our cross-examination, but other than

12 that, the Defence has no objection to these exhibits being received into

13 evidence. As far as we're concerned, it can in fact be done right away,

14 as concerns the exhibits in relation to the previous witness,

15 Mr. Ciganovic.

16 JUDGE PARKER: I think rather than delay everybody to go through

17 them and identify them and have them recorded, we'll deal with that on

18 Monday, but I'm very grateful for your indication, Mr. Petrovic. It seems

19 we can deal with that fairly quickly on Monday.

20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.00 p.m.,

21 to be reconvened on Monday, the 23rd day of

22 February, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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