011003ED

Page 1518

1 Wednesday, 3 October 2001

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.

6 JUDGE HUNT: Call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Case Number IT-98-32-T, the Prosecutor versus

8 Mitar Vasiljevic.

9 JUDGE HUNT: Sorry for the late beginning, but there has been a

10 small technical hitch that hasn't yet been cured, but we'll see how we

11 are.

12 Mr. Groome.

13 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, when we ended yesterday, the Court said

14 we would start this morning by discussing two questions relative to the

15 admission of this new piece of evidence. The first part of my remarks

16 will be regarding whether -- regarding the inconsistencies that were

17 brought up by Mr. Domazet on cross-examination and the relevance of this

18 statement to those. And they are in two areas, Your Honour.

19 The first one has to do with whether or not Mr. Vasiljevic was

20 present when the people were moved from the Memic house to the Omeragic

21 house. And I would refer the Court to the transcript, at the bottom of 79

22 to 80, and I will quote it here. Mr. Domazet asked:

23 "My next question is: When you were talking about being taken

24 from one house to the other house, the Omeragic house, you said today that

25 Milan Lukic and Mitar Vasiljevic were there. My question, again, is: Can

Page 1519

1 that be found in your statement to the investigator?"

2 THE INTERPRETER: Will counsel slow down, please.

3 MR. GROOME: Did you say that to the investigator of the

4 Tribunal? And the witness answered in the affirmative, and Mr. Domazet

5 sought to enter the statement to contravene that.

6 Now, the Bosnian statement --

7 JUDGE HUNT: Are we going to get all the issues that you want to

8 address, or do you want to take each of them separately?

9 MR. GROOME: I prefer just to make my remarks, Your Honour, and

10 then I'll leave it to the Court to decide --

11 JUDGE HUNT: There's more than issue that he took with whether or

12 not the witness had told the Prosecution's investigator these various

13 matters. That was one.

14 MR. GROOME: And I will address that now, Your Honour, if that

15 pleases you.

16 JUDGE HUNT: Yes.

17 MR. GROOME: The way I'm proposing to do it is to now refer to the

18 part of the Bosnian statement which is germane to this and then move on to

19 the second issue.

20 In the Bosnian statement, quoting from that - the English

21 translation of that -:

22 "Once they had herded about 80 of us into that house, they set

23 fire to something like gas at the front door, and big flames roared into

24 the rooms where we were all crowded together."

25 Then the last part of the statement, the person who made this

Page 1520

1 statement identifies Mr. Vasiljevic as one of those persons.

2 The second inconsistency which Mr. Domazet has introduced this

3 statement -- or the witness's ICTY statement in relation to is whether or

4 not Mr. Vasiljevic was present at the time that the witness and the other

5 people were searched and their belongings were taken. And there are two

6 portions in the transcript where Mr. Domazet does that. The first one is

7 at page 80. And again, I am quoting:

8 "Madam, if you didn't mention your neighbours, perhaps in this

9 particular case it's not of essential importance. But it is very

10 important if you are saying today that Milan Lukic and Mitar Vasiljevic

11 took part in all these events; whereas earlier on, you said it was Milan

12 Lukic and Sredoje Lukic. This is an important discrepancy. This is a

13 very important discrepancy. So my question is: Could it not have been

14 Sredoje Lukic who you omitted to mention, but instead of him, you have

15 been mentioning Mitar Vasiljevic going from the plunder, looting, and the

16 burning itself."

17 And now I'm quoting from page 88 of yesterday's transcript.

18 Mr. Domazet, question: "I have to ask you whether you remember that you

19 stated in the statement to the investigator that Mitar had already left

20 and it was after his departure that Sredoje Lukic arrived and you went on

21 to give their description."

22 And I believe there was a part of the transcript that was not

23 decipherable as of yesterday when we were provided a copy of it. The

24 answer to that question was:

25 "Mitar Vasiljevic left after he had given the certificate to (redacted)

Page 1521

1 (redacted), and during the plunder and mistreatment, they were all there

2 again." Once again, Mr. Domazet introduced the ICTY statement for the

3 purposes of showing that that was not in that statement.

4 The Bosnian statement, again the person refers to "they": "They

5 took all our money and gold." And once again at the end of that

6 statement, the person who gave that statement identifies Mitar Vasiljevic

7 as one of the perpetrators of that.

8 Now, regarding whether we know -- whether I should be permitted to

9 ask this witness whether she recognises this statement, I believe, Your

10 Honour, yesterday -- well, I believe the standard is not whether I

11 personally know whether this is, in fact, her statement but is whether I

12 have a good-faith basis for showing the statement to her and asking her

13 whether or not it is her statement. And I think there are three reasons,

14 if we look at this statement, that we can tell that there is certainly a

15 good-faith basis.

16 One of the lines in the statement is: "I jumped out of the house

17 with my 13-year-old son." For that very reason, Your Honour, we know that

18 it must be either VG13 or VG18 in this case, and I would submit that that

19 alone provides a good-faith basis for asking the question.

20 But there is more. There's a quote in the statement that says:

21 "I know for certain that only four of us managed to get out." At the end

22 of the statement -- and, incidentally, the entire statement is written in

23 the first-person, that is to say, from the point of view of the person

24 making these claims. This person mentions the identities of three other

25 people who she knows survived, and they are VG18, VG38, and Edhem

Page 1522

1 Kurspahic. The fact that she mentions VG18 indicates that this statement

2 was probably given by VG13, and in it she identified the three survivors

3 aside from herself. This is also consistent with what we now know from

4 both this witness and her son. At the time that this statement was given

5 three months after the fire, this witness did not know that her son had

6 survived the fire.

7 And finally, Your Honour, if Your Honours were to review the

8 statement of VG18, I believe that the Court would reasonably conclude that

9 the statement from the Bosnians is more probably the statement of VG13.

10 So on that basis, I think I do have a good-faith basis to show her the

11 statement. Of course I am bound by her answer. If she says that she does

12 not recognise it or it is not herself, I am bound by that answer. But I

13 believe there's a good-faith basis for showing it to her.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE HUNT: You may proceed, Mr. Groome.

16 MR. GROOME: I'd ask that Exhibit 59.1 be returned to the witness

17 to look at.

18 WITNESS: WITNESS VG13 [Resumed]

19 [Witness answered through interpreter]

20 Re-examined by Mr. Groome: [Continued]

21 Q. Witness VG13, yesterday you had an opportunity to begin looking at

22 the Document 59.1. Did you have an opportunity to finish reading it

23 yesterday afternoon?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Do you recognise or is this a statement that you gave? Do you

Page 1523

1 recognise this statement?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Is it a statement that you gave to Bosnian authorities?

4 A. Yes.

5 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, at this time I would tender 59.1 and

6 59.2 into evidence.

7 JUDGE HUNT: Yes.

8 Mr. Domazet, any objection?

9 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I had objections

10 yesterday, because this is not a statement given to any official body. It

11 is part of a book by Naser Oric entitled "Srebrenica Witnesses/Accused."

12 That is at least how I understand this document.

13 JUDGE HUNT: It doesn't matter that it's not to an official body.

14 The Prosecution would be entitled to produce any statement, oral even, one

15 made to a newspaper, one made on a television programme. It doesn't have

16 to be to an official body.

17 You have drawn attention to the absence of any reference in her

18 statement to the Prosecution of a number of matters. Now, the only reason

19 you do so is to invite us to say that she is not telling the truth. That

20 is a well-known process of cross-examination, but it does invite a

21 response from the Prosecution that she may not have told the Prosecution

22 about it but she's told other people about it. And this one has the

23 virtue of being in September 1992. Now, have you got any objection on the

24 basis that they are seeking to reinstate her credit as a witness because

25 of your cross-examination that she had failed to tell the Prosecution's

Page 1524

1 investigator about this?

2 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Your Honour, my question to the

3 witness was whether she had made any statements to the MUP of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And I really would like to see that report, because

5 she said, yes, the statement she actually made to the police of

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, because to my understanding this document may have

7 been taken out of one such report, because it says here "we," not "I" but

8 "we." "Among the four monsters, we recognised two." Milan Lukic is not

9 mentioned at all, whom she did refer to extensively in her testimony, so

10 that I really cannot recognise this to be a statement of this witness we

11 have before you. Of course I shall be bound by your decision regarding

12 this document and its admission.

13 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Domazet, that goes to the weight to be given to

14 it. There is a very serious issue as to whether or not the reference in

15 the penultimate paragraph to your client should be interpreted as having

16 been the persons or one of the persons to whom she referred to throughout

17 the whole of the statement. She has described him as one of the

18 perpetrators, which could mean simply lighting the fire or being there

19 shining torches on people when they are jumping out the window to enable

20 somebody to shoot at them. That's a question of weight. It's not a

21 question of admissibility.

22 Is there anything more you want to say?

23 MR. DOMAZET: No, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Despite your description of it as an exhibit, it is

25 not yet an exhibit, but it will now become Exhibit P59.1. Is it necessary

Page 1525

1 for it to be under seal?

2 MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour. It refers to the names of two

3 protected witnesses.

4 JUDGE HUNT: Well, if you can make out who they are from it. But,

5 anyway, we'll make it under seal. It will be Exhibit P59.1, and it shall

6 be under seal. Yes.

7 MR. GROOME: And simultaneously 59.2, the English translation of

8 that document.

9 JUDGE HUNT: That's got a different number, has it?

10 MR. GROOME: Yes. 59.2 is the English translation.

11 JUDGE HUNT: Well, that will be Exhibit P59.2, and it will also be

12 under seal.

13 MR. GROOME: Thank you.

14 Q. Witness VG13, do you know a person by the name of Bula Kurspahic?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Is that a man or a woman?

17 A. A woman.

18 Q. Did she die in the fire that night?

19 A. Yes, and her two grandchildren and daughter-in-law.

20 Q. And can you tell us, did she have children?

21 A. Yes --

22 Q. Without telling us their names, would you please tell us how many

23 daughters and how many sons she had that you know of?

24 A. She had five daughters and two sons.

25 Q. And at the time that you made a statement to the ICTY

Page 1526

1 investigator, which is now in evidence as D4, did you inform the

2 investigator about Bula Kurspahic and her family being in Pionirska

3 Street?

4 A. Yes.

5 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I have no further questions.

6 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you, madam, that's the end of your task here.

7 We are very grateful to you for having come to give evidence and for the

8 evidence that you have given. You are now free to leave.

9 [The witness withdrew]

10 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, Mr. Groome. Who is your next witness?

11 MR. GROOME: The next witness will be taken by Mr. Ossogo.

12 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Ossogo, I hope that this report will be tendered

13 so that the doctor does not have to repeat anything in it. We've had the

14 opportunity to read it, and you can add anything to it or explain it. You

15 have to put his qualifications into evidence. But otherwise, we don't

16 want you to take him through the report unless there is some particular

17 matter you want him to add to it or to explain.

18 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Excuse me, Mr. President, I didn't

19 catch the interpretation on time.

20 JUDGE HUNT: I was saying, Mr. Ossogo, I did not want you to take

21 the witness through the report word for word. I want you to tender the

22 report; and then if you want him to add anything or explain anything, you

23 take him to those specific matters. We've had the opportunity to read the

24 report; and subject to anything Mr. Domazet says about its admissibility,

25 it can take the place of his evidence.

Page 1527

1 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. Quite.

2 The examination of this witness this morning will be rather

3 brief. We have not received any particular objection on the part of the

4 Defence pursuant to Article 94 bis. When I disclosed this report to the

5 Defence, they had no particular objection to it, so that fully fits into

6 what you have just said. And the witness will be asked to explain only a

7 few technical points, and we will undertake a very brief presentation of

8 his curriculum vitae so we know the witness we have before us.

9 JUDGE HUNT: Now, sir, would you stand up, please. Would you make

10 the solemn declaration in the form of the document the court usher is

11 handing to you.

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

13 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

14 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you. Sit down, please, sir.

15 Mr. Ossogo, we do have his curriculum vitae now filed. That's

16 another way of shortening it. You should just tender it, I suggest.

17 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Quite, Mr. President. May I begin,

18 Mr. President?

19 WITNESS: JOHN CLARK

20 Examined by Mr. Ossogo:

21 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Clark.

22 A. Good morning.

23 Q. I think you heard what the President has just said regarding the

24 way in which the examination-in-chief should take place. So could you

25 just indicate to us regarding your qualifications without, of course,

Page 1528

1 repeating your curriculum vitae which the Judges have before them.

2 Your name is John Clark, is it not?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. You were born on the 5th of September, 1951?

5 A. Yes, sir.

6 Q. You are a British citizen?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. A graduate of the University of Aberdeen?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. You specialised in forensic medicine, pathology, and you are a

11 professor at Glasgow University in Scotland?

12 A. Not professor. Actually what we call a senior lecturer, which is

13 equivalent to an assistant professor.

14 JUDGE HUNT: May I suggest, Mr. Ossogo, that you tender this

15 document which was filed on Monday.

16 Is there any objection to the curriculum vitae, Mr. Domazet?

17 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour.

18 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you very much.

19 I don't want to intrude upon the Prosecution's numbering system.

20 What's the next number which is available?

21 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Mr. President, it will be

22 Document 61, Exhibit 61.

23 JUDGE, HUNT: Thank you. The witness's curriculum vitae,

24 Exhibit 61, P61.

25 Yes.

Page 1529

1 MR. OSSOGO:

2 Q. [Interpretation] You have just told us that you are not actually

3 a professor; but in French when you say "professor," it need not

4 necessarily be a degree but it means that somebody teaches at the

5 university.

6 You're a member of a number of scientific associations, including

7 the Royal College of Pathologists, and President of the Examining Board;

8 is that right?

9 A. Yes, sir.

10 Q. What exactly does this scientific association engage in?

11 A. The Royal College of Pathologists is a United Kingdom

12 organisation. It's the main professional association of pathologists

13 throughout the country. It sets the standards and examinations for all

14 pathologists, and I am in charge of the committee monitoring the forensic

15 examinations.

16 Q. Could you explain to us, very briefly, what does the work of a

17 pathologist imply? The judges probably know this, but everyone is not

18 aware of the scientific aspects of this profession.

19 A. Well, a pathologist, in general, is someone who looks and studies

20 disease, and they look at diseased tissues, and they also carry out

21 postmortem examinations on people to find out how they have died.

22 A forensic pathologist has a particular expertise in looking at

23 injuries and interpreting injuries; and, therefore, they have an expertise

24 in examining the bodies of people who have died in suspicious and

25 potentially criminal circumstances.

Page 1530

1 Q. So generally, you are working on human bodies?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Are there any limits regarding your work, regarding the time that

4 has elapsed since the person died, or can you work on any bodies

5 regardless?

6 A. We can work on any body. But obviously, our findings are much

7 easier to interpret the fresher the body is, if you like. And the longer

8 the person has been dead, it become more difficult; not impossible, but

9 much more difficult.

10 Q. You are chief pathologist for the International Tribunal for the

11 Former Yugoslavia based in Visoko. Your offices are in Visoko, aren't

12 they?

13 A. Yes. I have been chief pathologist in Bosnia and Croatia for the

14 past three years.

15 Q. Have you done any other project at the international level in your

16 field of expertise?

17 A. Yes. As is indicated in my curriculum vitae, I have done a

18 postmortem examination in Pakistan on the head of the chief of the army

19 staff. I have also done work for the British Military Police, both in

20 Kosovo and in Germany, and I have been involved in giving opinions in

21 other international cases.

22 Q. Thank you.

23 Regarding your work, in connection with your current position, do

24 you work outside your office, or do you always do your work in your own

25 office when working on bodies?

Page 1531

1 A. I'm not sure if I follow that question.

2 Q. Do you work on the sites where the bodies were found, or do you

3 wait for them to be brought to you, to your offices?

4 A. No, I work in the mortuary. The bodies are recovered by a

5 separate team. They are brought to the mortuary, and that's where our

6 work commences. I visit the site from time to time, and I'm well aware of

7 the -- how the site teams work and the layout of the graves. But our work

8 starts in the mortuary.

9 Q. You spoke about teams. What is the makeup of your teams,

10 technologically and scientifically speaking? Are they from the same

11 country, the members of your team? Are they interdisciplinary, if I can

12 put it that way? Do they come from different countries? Could you

13 explain that, please?

14 JUDGE HUNT: All of this is set out in his report, is it not, the

15 team name, the countries they come from? Can't we just tender the report,

16 and then go to anything you want to add to it?

17 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Quite, Mr. President. I am just

18 focusing on certain points for credibility to assay -- to give the

19 witness's credentials. This is a public hearing, so perhaps there are

20 some details that are not generally known, because people don't have any

21 access to procedure of this kind. So perhaps this throws more light on

22 what the work entails, who the witness is and so on. But I will conclude

23 Mr. John Clark's background, having said that.

24 Q. We were speaking, Mr. Clark, about the multidisciplinary

25 composition of your teams, the teams helping you, I assume, in the work

Page 1532

1 that you do at Visoko. Could you give us some specificities about that,

2 give us a breakdown of that?

3 A. Well, briefly, it is a very international team from many different

4 countries, not all there at the same time. So there's a regular

5 turnover. We have at any one time three pathologists, three forensic

6 pathologists, and they are assisted by anthropologists, whose speciality

7 is in examining bones. And we have a various series of crime officers:

8 photographers, radiographer, secretaries, et cetera, as back-up staff.

9 Q. You tabled a report to the Chamber and the Tribunal, dated the

10 10th of September of this year. And on the last page of that report, you

11 have a series of names, and you say they are listed in the order in which

12 they assisted you. Now, did you include all this in the synthesis you

13 compiled?

14 A. I missed that question.

15 JUDGE HUNT: We can see it in the report. Please, Mr. Ossogo, let

16 us proceed with what is important in this case. I know it's a public

17 hearing. I know that a lot of people will not have access to the report,

18 but we are not here to educate the public. We are here to hear a

19 criminal trial, and we have a lot of work to do. Please, let's get on

20 with it.

21 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] I understand, Mr. President, your

22 concern for moving on quickly, but I think it is important to know the

23 overall report has been compiled from the individual postmortem reports

24 completed by the team of pathologists, and so perhaps we could hear

25 something about the way in which these postmortem reports were integrated

Page 1533

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

Page 1534

1 in his own final report, and this will indicate the responsibility of each

2 of the pathologists.

3 Q. So were there postmortem reports incorporated into the overall

4 report, Mr. John Clark? You yourself, sir, compiled the report according

5 to standard procedure, and you encountered certain difficulties, you say.

6 But we're not going to go back to those difficulties.

7 However, there were limits concerning the bodies that you

8 examined. You established that one of the principal difficulties you came

9 across were that there was no more tissue, no tissue existed on the

10 bodies, but you had to work with the bones alone. Could you elaborate,

11 please? Could you explain what you mean? What was this particular

12 difficulty that you encountered, the nature of it?

13 A. Well, that that was the main difficulty. These people had

14 allegedly been in the ground for eight years. The bodies were reduced to

15 skeletons, so all we had to look at was the bones.

16 In our normal forensic practice, when we interpret injuries, it is

17 very much done on looking at skin and soft tissues, looking for bruising

18 and grazing and bleeding. And that can tell us, very clearly often, what

19 specific thing caused the injuries and how old the injury was.

20 If you remove all the skin and soft tissues and all we have left

21 is the bones, then it becomes much more difficult, because if you break a

22 bone just before you die, the actual damage to the bone will look exactly

23 the same if you break the bone weeks after. So theoretically, since we

24 just had the bones to look at, we couldn't be 100 per cent certain that

25 any of the injuries that we found necessarily occurred in life, and they

Page 1535

1 may well have occurred after death. So that was a sort of fundamental

2 problem.

3 We were also very much aware that there was a great potential for

4 injuries to have occurred to the bodies after death. This could have

5 occurred in various ways. It is alleged that these bodies floated down

6 the river for 20 kilometres or so. There could have been damage during

7 that period. They were recovered from the river and manhandled onto boats

8 or whatever. Then they were buried. And over the years, with the bodies

9 in the graves, the bones would become brittle, and the weight of the soil

10 above could also cause fractures.

11 So two things really: Because there was no soft tissue left, that

12 made interpretation of injuries difficult, and there was a potential for

13 injuries to have occurred after death. These were the main difficulties.

14 There were other ones: interpretation of what exactly was a

15 gunshot injury and what wasn't, and also in just working out what was the

16 precise cause of death, because we find an injury to a bone. It's not an

17 injury to a bone that kills you. It's the injury to the soft tissues

18 roundabout in the internal organs which kills you. And if they are no

19 longer there, we can only imply the cause of death rather than actually

20 prove it.

21 So these factors were very much borne in mind in our autopsies,

22 and we worded our reports keeping that in mind.

23 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Ossogo, every word of that is in the report.

24 Rule 92 bis was introduced in order to prevent this very sort of thing

25 happening. We have a report. We are not here to hear the doctor tell us

Page 1536

1 what is in the report. Now, please tender it so that we can get on, and

2 then once you've tendered it, you may take the doctor to expand anything

3 you want him to expand. But please let us not have this way of

4 introducing the evidence twice.

5 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Mr. President, we were going to

6 tender the report after having asked those few questions, but we will

7 proceed as you have just suggested. So we should like to tender the

8 report under Number 60.

9 JUDGE HUNT: Any objection, Mr. Domazet?

10 MR. DOMAZET: No, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you. That will be Exhibit P60. And you may

12 take it we've read it.

13 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. As the report

14 has now been tendered and there has been no objections from the Defence --

15 JUDGE HUNT: Yes. We need an original to become the exhibit,

16 that's all.

17 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Yes, quite. Absolutely so. You

18 already have copies, but the originals -- let me just see, take a moment.

19 I apologise for that delay. The originals, I have just been told,

20 have colours, and the last one that we sent you was the 10th of

21 September. My assistant has just told me that the originals, in colour,

22 will be available shortly later on.

23 JUDGE HUNT: Okay. Let's proceed, and we'll look forward to those

24 later.

25 MR. OSSOGO: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

Page 1537

1 Q. Mr. Clark, you have just told us of the difficulties you

2 encountered. Now, were there any insurmountable difficulties and, if so,

3 which thesis did you adopt in compiling your report to the Tribunal if

4 there were such difficulties? So how were you able to give us a final

5 finding with respect to the cause of death, et cetera?

6 A. Well, I think I've explained the difficulties, and I have no more

7 to add than what I said there.

8 Q. Yes. I was talking about your thesis, the thesis you finally

9 adopted on the basis of everything you saw and the difficulties you

10 encountered. How were you able to summarise your findings as a

11 pathologist? What rule did you follow in reaching the summary of the

12 findings, in view of some of the insurmountable difficulties that you

13 had?

14 A. Well, I took a common-sense attitude, because the difficulties

15 I've just explained, the primary one being proving that the injuries

16 occurred before or after death, if I was to say that all the injuries

17 occurred after death, then we would have to allege that people had been

18 shot deliberately after death, sometimes several times. And I took a

19 common-sense attitude that that would seem to be most unlikely, and that

20 was my general approach.

21 Q. So you were able to confirm death, ascertain death, prove death by

22 gunshot or by the use of firearms?

23 A. Yes, we found many bodies with gunshot injuries.

24 Q. With respect to firearms, we find in your report - and it is on

25 page 11 of that report - that you speak of two types of shots, two types

Page 1538

1 of ammunition or shots which you found in the bodies, according to your

2 report on page 11, different bullets. And on page 9, you also specify the

3 type of gunshot wound entrance, bullet entrance hole, and the gunshot exit

4 wound.

5 Could you explain to us, looking at the figures found on page 9

6 and also what you say on page 4 -- we see an arrow. Could you tell us

7 what that signifies? On figure 4 of page 9, the left-hand figure,

8 figure 4 on page 9, there is an arrow on the dark surface, where you have

9 the bullet entrance hole in the top of head. I'm referring to figure 4 of

10 page 9. Could you explain what the arrow means?

11 A. Yes, perhaps I could -- just to say that the vast majority of the

12 gunshot injuries were what we interpret as high-velocity weapons, and we

13 could interpret this for two reasons: the type -- the nature of the damage

14 to the bone, where you get a huge amount of fragmentation and destruction,

15 and also the fact that we found bullets and the remains of high-velocity

16 bullets in a lot of the bodies.

17 This skull here is a typical example of a high-velocity injury.

18 You have the entrance hole just here, this circular hole in the top of the

19 skull just to the left of the midline. It has caused a circular hole in

20 the skull and it has also caused fractures, these long fractures running

21 forwards and backwards and also to either side, and that's a very typical

22 high-velocity entrance injury to the skull. The exit would have been at

23 the bottom of the skull opposite and would have caused a great deal of

24 damage.

25 If you look at the second picture, this is a different case, but

Page 1539

1 this shows almost the reverse, if you imagine the bullet coming from the

2 bottom up out of the top, and this is the exit. And it's just to show the

3 huge amount of destruction that a high-velocity weapon will cause in the

4 skull. And that would be an immediately fatal -- fatal injury.

5 There were two cases in which we found handgun bullets. These are

6 much more low-velocity weapons, and they cause far less fracturing. They

7 would probably just cause just the hole there without any fractures

8 roundabout. They wouldn't cause all this damage. So in at least two

9 cases, handguns were used, and possibly an additional two as well. But

10 the vast majority, high-velocity weapons.

11 Q. What you refer to as "high-velocity weapons," can you explain what

12 you mean? What are high-velocity weapons? And if we look at page 11 of

13 your report, page 11, you show bullets recovered from the bodies. "A" is

14 a high-velocity rifle, and "B" is the example of a handgun used. Could

15 you explain the difference?

16 A. The area of what we see, the bullets travel at much higher speeds

17 in a high-velocity rifle, these automatic rifles, AK-47s, et cetera. The

18 typical bullet is this one on the left, the sharp, pointed bullet. When

19 it reaches the body, it not only causes a hole but causes huge pressure

20 waves inside the body, which causes a huge amount of damage. And imagine

21 that in the skull. It enters the skull and then causes huge pressure

22 waves, which causes all the other fracturing.

23 A handgun bullet from a pistol or a revolver is going at much less

24 speed and really tends to just cause the physical damage as it goes

25 through without any cavitation or surrounding effects.

Page 1540

1 Q. 130 individual bodies were examined. And in paragraph 5 of the

2 conclusions made in your report, you say that 72 percent -- paragraph 5 of

3 your report -- 72 percent say -- you say that people died from gunshot

4 injuries. On the basis of your analysis and the examinations you did on

5 the bodies, high-velocity bullets coming from special weapons, what was

6 the percentage of high-velocity weapons with these 72 percent of people

7 killed with gunshot injuries? What percentage were high-velocity weapons?

8 A. We found only two with handguns. The figure is going to be about

9 70 percent of people. Roughly, 70 percent of people died from

10 high-velocity gunshot injuries.

11 Q. Thank you. You also state, going back to page 9 of your report,

12 that you were able to find 180 shots fired on the number of bodies.

13 54 percent were to the trunk, or 98; 27 percent were to the head, or 48;

14 and that the arms and legs were -- 13 percent were to the arms and

15 6 percent to the legs.

16 Could you explain to us, please, or give us your opinion as an

17 expert witness on the fact that most of the shots were to the trunk, more

18 than half, and the next in line were shots to the head, that is to say,

19 27 percent of those?

20 A. The large number of shots to the trunk is not particularly

21 surprising, because the trunk is the largest part of the body. So if you

22 were to fire at somebody, you would have more chance than not of hitting

23 the trunk. And these figures are very comparable to other cases that we

24 have dealt with in Bosnia. The slightly surprising figure here is the

25 lower level of shots to the legs.

Page 1541

1 Now, in other sites, we've found a substantial number of shots to

2 the legs. And bear in mind, the legs form a large part of the body

3 surface as well. And this may or may not reflect how close the firer was

4 to the victim. The closer the firer was, then the less chance,

5 presumably, of striking the legs. It may reflect that. I don't know.

6 But it's certainly an observation worth making, that there are less shots

7 to the legs than in other cases that we have dealt with.

8 Q. Can one say, therefore, that the lower number or percentage of

9 shots to the legs is because the potential victims, if I can use the term,

10 were in the hands of the killers and they weren't able to escape, they

11 weren't able to run away?

12 A. That's a possibility, or they were fired at close range. That

13 would be my initial interpretation of that, yes.

14 Q. You speak of cases where shots to the legs were more important,

15 and there were more of those. Could you give us an idea of where you

16 considered that to have been the case?

17 A. Well, in some of the other grave sites we have dealt with in

18 Bosnia, particularly the Srebrenica sites, in which the allegation was

19 that people were shot from a little -- well, from some distance. Then

20 there's a higher proportion of shots to the legs.

21 Q. In those cases, did you know who the victims were? Were they

22 soldiers or civilians? Were you able to establish that?

23 A. As far as we could establish, they weren't soldiers, so they were

24 civilians, yes.

25 Q. May we now move on to page 10, Doctor, please, page 10 of your

Page 1542

1 report. Could you explain to us, please, the situation in which the

2 shooters found themselves? That is to say -- what I mean by that is the

3 position. In the cases, there were shots from behind to the head, 20, and

4 the trunk, 37, from behind; the side, 13 shots to the head and 4 shots to

5 the trunk; and shots from the front, 9 to the head, 24 to the trunk.

6 How can you be certain of the position of the victims on the basis

7 of the trajectory, the direction of the bullets, of where the bullets were

8 lodged, or the configuration of the entrance holes or anything else?

9 A. When somebody is shot in the head, we can usually find out the --

10 find the entrance hole when we stick the pieces together, and we can

11 usually work out where the exit. So really, in all the case with shots to

12 the head, we could tell where the bullet had entered. And the majority

13 were either at the back of the head or the side of the head. And

14 relatively few are at the front.

15 Now, you could say, well, the people have been shot from behind or

16 the side, but the head is very movable, so it would be possible, perhaps,

17 for the firer to be in front of the person, and the victims' heads to the

18 side. The bullet will go in the side, although you are actually facing

19 the person. Similarly, with a shot to the top of the head, that does not

20 necessarily mean that the firer was above the victim, because just by

21 bending your head forward, you're going to expose the top of your head to

22 the weapon. But generally, more shots were towards the back of the head,

23 and the implication that more often than not, people were shot from

24 behind.

25 The trunk is a little more difficult. Again, as far as we could

Page 1543

1 tell, more shots came from behind. It's a little more difficult to turn

2 your trunk, so these are fairly genuine figures. But it's less easy when

3 you're examining the bones in the trunk to determine a direction, and a

4 lot of these cases, we couldn't tell. So that figure slightly dilutes the

5 findings. But overall, more people were shot from behind than from any

6 other direction.

7 Q. Can we determine on the basis of those shots from behind, and with

8 respect to the trunk, the entrance wounds or exit wounds, whether they

9 were sporadic individual gunshots or a burst of gunshot -- a burst of

10 gunfire? Were these shots from behind in a burst of gunfire or individual

11 gunshots to the victims?

12 A. Well, a lot of them were individual shots. As I said in the table

13 earlier, most people -- well, the majority of people had been shot just

14 the once. So the majority of people who had been shot from behind

15 probably was just a single shot. There were some people who had been shot

16 up to six times, and that undoubtedly would be -- probably a burst of

17 fire. But a mixture of both, but probably mainly one shot.

18 I have stated these -- the next page, the top of the page, there

19 are just examples of four cases, and they have all been shot just the

20 once. First, one shot in the back of the head in the midline; secondly,

21 to the side of the chest; another, one shot just once behind the right

22 ear, and a young girl shot once in the back of the chest. So these are

23 all individual shots, mainly from behind.

24 Q. Thank you.

25 Could you now tell us whether it is possible -- we see it in your

Page 1544

1 report, but in somewhat greater detail -- whether it is possible that

2 these people died not as a result of gunshots, but as a result of shocks,

3 falling into the water from a bridge? Was the percentage of such deaths

4 significant or minimum, in your opinion?

5 A. No, it was significant. In 28 percent of cases, we were not

6 convinced that we had found a cause of death. There could be various

7 reasons for that. One was that the injuries we found, say a gunshot

8 injury, the pathologist did not consider that necessarily fatal. So if

9 somebody is shot in the arm, that wouldn't necessarily kill you and you

10 can survive that. And we found no other injuries, yet the person was

11 dead, so they must have died for some other reason. Similarly, some

12 people may have been shot through the abdomen, which is not going to

13 damage the bones, so we would miss that. That was one group of people.

14 Then there was a substantial group in which we actually found no

15 injuries at all, no antemortem injuries, and one could only speculate that

16 they may have died in other ways. The bodies were found in water, so

17 there must be a possibility that they drowned. If they had been stabbed

18 or cut-throat injuries, then we would not pick that up on a skeleton. If

19 somebody had been strangled, that would be -- we wouldn't pick that up

20 either. So there are other possible causes.

21 Quite a number had been -- had what we call "blunt-force

22 injuries." These are injuries nothing to do with gunshots but injuries

23 caused by weapons, blows from weapons, or kicking, or even falling. And I

24 have detailed seven cases in which there were very convincing blunt-force

25 injuries. These would not necessarily be fatal, but they were certainly

Page 1545

1 present.

2 Q. Thank you. Could you determine in this latter case whether it is

3 possible to make a distinction between the blows that these people

4 received, blunt-force blows, and the death that occurred following those?

5 A. Blunt-force injuries will not necessarily kill you, even a

6 fractured skull or a blow from a weapon. It may render you unconscious

7 but would not necessarily kill you. Potentially, if these people had been

8 beaten and their bodies thrown into the river, then they would have

9 drowned. That would be the probable cause of death, would be drowning. I

10 can't prove drowning after eight years, so I couldn't give a cause of

11 death.

12 A gunshot injury to the head will necessarily kill you almost

13 immediately. Blunt-force injuries will not necessarily do that.

14 Q. Thank you. Doctor, let us go on to page 7 of your report. When

15 those bodies were brought to you, there was clothing and personal effects

16 found on those bodies. I understand, as you have said, that it is

17 difficult to establish certain elements because of the state of the bodies

18 when there was no soft tissue and the relationship between the bodies and

19 certain effects found on them. But you did draw up a table on page 7 of

20 the English version of your report from which it follows a certain number

21 of elements that lead us to conclude that there was violence of some

22 sort. We find figures of black, parcel-binding straps and other elements

23 that you found. In your opinion, were these elements that assisted in

24 exerting violence on the bodies that you examined subsequently?

25 A. Well, these were ten cases which I have detailed in which we found

Page 1546

1 items in the bodies which we attributed to being ligatures or bindings,

2 that these people had been -- either their wrists tied or the whole body

3 tied together. The difficulty was that with these skeletonised remains,

4 these ligatures were no longer actually in place around the wrists or

5 necessarily around the body. But we certainly did find, when we

6 unravelled them, loops, tied loops, which looked very much like the sort

7 of loops you would put around somebody's wrists or somebody's waist. So

8 that was our interpretation; these were ligatures and bindings.

9 Q. I should like to draw your attention, Doctor, to the horizontal

10 columns, number 7 and 8, the two last ones that relate to women, F40 to 70

11 and F50 to 85 found in Slap 1.

12 SP01 449B, there were two blankets that were found around the body

13 secured by electrical wire around the chest and legs. Did you make any

14 other findings regarding these blankets and the wire? Was this one body?

15 Are you sure that it was only one body that was found?

16 A. Yes, I think you have the numbers slightly mixed up, but it's the

17 last two in the first section, if you like, 418B and 432B. These were

18 both women. One had two blankets around her body, and these were tied by

19 an electrical wire. The other one was just a blanket wrapped around the

20 body without any bindings. These suggested to me that this is how these

21 women had been -- ended up in the water, wrapped in blankets. Both of

22 these were killed by gunshot injuries.

23 Q. Were you able to establish any characteristics of these blankets,

24 their colour; perhaps was anything written on them?

25 A. As I recall, 418B, the blanket -- one was a sort of