Page 13261
1 Tuesday, 17 August 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.21 p.m.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Good afternoon to
6 everyone in and around the courtroom. This is case IT-08-91-T, the
7 Prosecutor versus Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin. Thank you,
8 Your Honours.
9 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
10 Good afternoon to everyone. May we have the appearances for
11 today, please.
12 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honours. On behalf of the Office of
13 the Prosecutor, I'm Tom Hannis along with Gerard Dobbyn, Matthew Olmsted
14 and Crispian Smith.
15 MR. ZECEVIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Slobodan Zecevic,
16 Slobodan Cvijetic, Eugene O'Sullivan, and Ms. Tatjana Savic, appearing
17 for Stanisic Defence.
18 MR. KRGOVIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Dragan Krgovic and
19 Igor Pantelic for Zupljanin Defence.
20 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.
21 Could -- yes, Mr. Hannis.
22 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I just wanted to inquire as the witness
23 was coming in. I had sent an e-mail communication to Ms. Featherstone
24 last night concerning the request for estimates about the remaining 92
25 bis witnesses we propose in relation to adjudicated facts, and I
Page 13262
1 indicated in an e-mail we'd asked to have until Thursday to provided that
2 information. I wanted to confirm that that was satisfactory.
3 JUDGE HALL: Yes.
4 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
5 [The witness takes the stand]
6 JUDGE HALL: Good afternoon to you, sir. Before Mr. Krgovic
7 resumes his cross-examination, I remind you you're still on your oath.
8 Yes, Mr. Krgovic.
9 WITNESS: NUSRET SIVAC [Resumed]
10 [Witness answered through interpreter]
11 Cross-examination by Mr. Krgovic: [Continued]
12 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. Sivac.
13 A. Good afternoon.
14 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, before I resume, I
15 have a few corrections for the transcript. Page 49, when the witness was
16 reading the transcript, the line 21, there's a name appearing there. It
17 should say Vojo Kupresanin came in person. That's one correction.
18 Next, page 51, when I mentioned the name of Stojan Zupljanin, his
19 name is Bajazid Jahic. It was not recorded properly. These were the
20 corrections I wanted to make.
21 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.
22 MR. KRGOVIC:
23 Q. [Interpretation] While on that topic, Mr. Sivac, did you know
24 Mr. Bajazid Jahic, Mr. Stojan Zupljanin's deputy, he was a policeman from
25 Banja Luka?
Page 13263
1 A. I recall him being a soccer player of the team called Napret
2 [phoen]. He was a policeman and he did not have a very nice character.
3 He was quite short-tempered and we all ascribed that to his profession.
4 I remember him before the war and the lasts time I saw him in Sanski
5 Most, I think it was in 1996 or 1997 when he was with the security
6 service.
7 Q. Mr. Sivac, yesterday we left it off discussing Hambarine and the
8 incident of the 24th of May. It took place between Hambarine and Ljubija
9 on a road; correct?
10 A. Yes, it's a local road between Prijedor and Ljubija which takes
11 you through Hambarine, a Muslim settlement called Hambarine.
12 Q. In the Stakic case, you testified something I wanted to ask you
13 about. Did you know about an incident at a check-point near Kozarac just
14 prior to the attack on Kozarac? There seems to have been a Serb soldier
15 killed there as well as a few of them wounded. It was actually on a
16 check-point which leads through Kozarac.
17 A. Well, you have to take this with a grain of salt. No one ever
18 submitted credible evidence of any patrols being attacked in Kozarac. It
19 was simply a figment of imagination in order to mobilise Serb soldiers.
20 That was used as an excuses to launch the ethnic cleansing of Kozarac.
21 That incidents did not take place. It was invented, fabricated, in order
22 to come up with an excuse for what was to happen the very same day after
23 Hambarine were shelled. I can expand that.
24 On 23rd and 24th, Hambarine was shelled. The same day, the 24th,
25 around noon, the crazed commander, Stojan Zupljanin via Radio Prijedor,
Page 13264
1 issued a threatening message to the people of Kozarac who had been
2 encircled for a while, completely cut off.
3 Q. You mentioned Commander Stojan Zupljanin?
4 A. Sorry, Radmilo Zeljaja. He said that the people of Kozarac,
5 unless they hand over -- handed over their weapons and accepted the new
6 Croatian authorities, he would raze Kozarac to the ground and so it was.
7 After that, instead of the sign-post Kozarac, his soldiers put up a new
8 sign-post which said Radmilovo, after their commander Radmilo Zeljaja,
9 who destroyed Kozarac.
10 Q. What unit was that?
11 A. It was the 304th or the 34th Motorised Brigade. It changed names
12 and it was transformed as different elements of the Serb forces were
13 attached to it.
14 Q. Mr. Sivac, I asked you about that incident in Hambarine. It is
15 then when you heard some information to the effect that there had been an
16 incident on the check-point in Kozarac.
17 A. No. This was invented. It was a figment of imagination of some
18 journalists. That information had originally arrived from the municipal
19 information staff. As I said, it was invented. One needs to come up
20 with an incidents in order to mobilise the army to have a reason to do
21 so. No one ever published who was wounded or killed in that incident,
22 whereas for the Hambarine incident, which indeed took place, we know the
23 names of the participants on both sides.
24 Q. Kozarac is along the main road between Prijedor and Banja Luka;
25 is that correct?
Page 13265
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And the incident you mentioned happened along that road at a
3 check-point; correct?
4 A. I don't know of that incident. I repeat, it was a virtual
5 incident. It did not exist. It was an excuse for Radmilo Zeljaja to go
6 about destroying Kozarac.
7 Q. Mr. Sivac, weren't these incidents part of the plan you referred
8 to yesterday to have diversions in order to attack certain Serb units and
9 facilities? Was it not part of that plan?
10 A. There was no plan, Mr. Krgovic. The group around
11 Slavko Ecimovic, as I said, was a group of people who feared Serb
12 retaliation, once the Serbs took over Prijedor. They simply gathered,
13 organised themselves, spontaneously, although they had very few weapons.
14 If one looks at the way they thought, because there were very few of
15 them, well, you're wrong about this. I have to explain.
16 Slavko had about 20 men. And at that part of the left bank of
17 the Sana river, which included a string of Muslim villages, there were
18 some other groups. They were not united. Only after Izmet
19 Mesic-Hadzija, who was an international criminal who spent most of his
20 life in various European prisons and he was a drug addict, only after he
21 had managed to persuade Slavko because that is what he was instruct to do
22 in the barracks to gather all those groups, Slavko did so trying to take
23 over or liberate Prijedor. It was only after that that they became
24 united. They had never been together before that. When discussing this
25 with those who survived, I asked them what were your thoughts at the
Page 13266
1 outset? And they said, We just wanted to stay low, to save our lives.
2 Even before the Serbs took over, their property became target to
3 explosive devices, and people issued threats. After they gathered, they
4 thought along these lines: Bihac and the Bihac area which was under B and
5 H control was 100 kilometres away. We thought we should try to break
6 through to join the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At first, we also
7 thought that because of what had happened in Prijedor and Kozarac, we
8 should try at least by initiating small diversionary actions to do
9 something. However since we were short of explosives and weapons, we
10 gave it up.
11 Q. You mentioned this Hadzija, is it the same Hadzija whom you
12 mentioned in your book when you said that he was a fighter, you said he
13 was brave and managed to disarm a Serb officer and organise the attack?
14 Is that the same Hadzija?
15 A. Yes. When we write books, we sort of try to add things in
16 literary terms to make things a bit prettier. The book was written in
17 1993 and 1994 when did I not have all the relevant documents which shed
18 further light about the role of Izmet Mesic-Hadzija. That book far
19 precedes my receiving any relevant documents about his role in the whole
20 thing. I should say this as well, Mr. Krgovic.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Krgovic, please explain to us once again
22 where we are going with all of this.
23 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I only wanted to ask
24 the witness, although he expanded his answers, about the witness
25 [as interpreted]. I wanted to know whether it was the same person whom
Page 13267
1 he mentioned yesterday. However, the witness went off on a tangent.
2 Q. Mr. Sivac, please answer my questions only. Your reach is quite
3 encompassing but it does not clarify things sufficiently.
4 A. I apologise.
5 Q. Mr. Sivac, you were shown a photograph yesterday by the
6 Prosecutor.
7 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Could we please have P01531 shown
8 to the witness.
9 Q. You identified this person.
10 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Could we please zoom in so that we
11 could see the person behind him, so that we could see the people standing
12 just behind the fence, to the right of this man. The person in blue
13 shorts.
14 Q. Mr. Sivac, can you see that person?
15 A. It's quite a poor photograph. But can I make him out.
16 Q. And doesn't he look quite normal? He even seems to have some
17 fat?
18 A. Well, it very much depends who he is. I don't know whether he
19 arrived in Keraterm from Trnopolje and Omarska or whether he arrived
20 directly. People in Keraterm had more privilege, so to speak, position.
21 They enjoyed the presence of their wives and children there. And they
22 were allowed to cook for themselves. However, those arriving from
23 Keraterm --
24 Q. I just wanted to see whether you can identify this person.
25 A. I really don't know who this is.
Page 13268
1 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Let's go to the far right side of
2 the photograph and zoom in, please. Further to the right. All the way
3 to the end. Further to the right.
4 Q. The person question see behind the journalist.
5 A. I can see him.
6 Q. He is wearing black pants. Can you recognise him?
7 A. I really cannot. The face is quite dark.
8 Q. And you see the neck -- the person standing next to him in red
9 shorts?
10 A. I do.
11 Q. Wouldn't you agree with me that these people look quite well fed,
12 even above the average?
13 A. Well, they were probably well fed in Omarska and Keraterm.
14 Q. You will agree with me that the only thin person in the
15 photograph is the person, Penny Marshall is talking to?
16 A. That is not true, Mr. Krgovic. You are taking things out of
17 context. This is just a small detail. Admir Djulkic [phoen] is shown
18 here but he is only one of the people who survived it all. For the most
19 part, people resembled him. However, it all depended on one's build and
20 one's metabolism.
21 Q. And you will agree with me that Mr. Djulkic had been thin before
22 the war?
23 A. No. He used to be an athlete. He was goal keeper in a soccer
24 team. He was well-built.
25 Q. Mr. Sivac, you will agree that Mr. Djulkic, as compared to what
Page 13269
1 he used to look like, he did not change much?
2 A. He did not. Actually his last name is Djulkic, Ahmed. He used
3 to be well-built. He was quite normal in that sense. However, you can
4 see this for yourself. This is what happened to him after his time in
5 Omarska.
6 Q. Did you see him in Omarska?
7 A. Certainly. We were in the same room with Burho and Mujo.
8 Q. Mr. Sivac, thank you. I have no further questions.
9 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, this concludes my
10 examination.
11 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.
12 Yes, Mr. Dobbyn, any re-examination?
13 MR. DOBBYN: Yes, I have just a few question, Your Honours.
14 Re-examination by Mr. Dobbyn:
15 Q. Good afternoon again, Mr. Sivac.
16 Yesterday --
17 A. Good afternoon.
18 Q. Yesterday Mr. O'Sullivan asked you some questions about crimes
19 committed by local paramilitary members who returned to Prijedor from
20 Croatia. And specifically you were asked when the war broke out in
21 Bosnia, these same paramilitaries, and he was referring to ones formed by
22 Milan Andzic, were the ones committing crimes and looting to a large
23 extent in Prijedor, weren't they?
24 And you agreed they were. And for reference, this is transcript
25 page 13208, line 21.
Page 13270
1 Now just to be clear, Mr. Sivac, what time-period were you
2 talking about here? Was this before or after the April 30 takeover on
3 Prijedor?
4 A. Well, if you are referring to the unit that was funded by
5 Milan Andzic and headed by Momir Radanovic, Cigo, that unit was also
6 infamous for the crimes that they had committed in Western Slavonia and
7 also for looting. And from Western Slavonia, they would bring in
8 transport, war booty, as they referred to it. When the ethnic cleansing
9 of Prijedor municipality began on the 30th of May, when they began by
10 destroying Kozarac and Prijedor, they were especially infamous in the
11 crimes that they comitted in Kozarac. And to explain this to a Trial
12 Chamber, let me just say that 95 per cent of the population of Kozarac
13 was Muslim, and a large number of people from Kozarac had worked in
14 Europe or were working in Europe as guest workers and they had earned a
15 lot of money there which they brought back and built homes in Kozarac,
16 and so on. So this was a challenge of sorts for these Chetniks to
17 actually try and take control of Kozarac. So in May, Kozarac was looted
18 and it was completely looted and the booty or the loot, actually, was
19 transported to Omarska and Milan Andzic was the person who had control
20 over this.
21 Q. Thank you. I want to look now to another question you were asked
22 by Mr. O'Sullivan. He asked you about your prior testimony in Brdjanin,
23 and in -- in particular, where you had said that after the April 30
24 takeover paramilitary formations and gangs became active in Prijedor
25 municipality and they took justice into their own hands, and you agreed
Page 13271
1 that you had said that in Brdjanin.
2 Now, my question to you is: Are you aware of the police, after
3 April 30, taking any steps to stop those crimes? Are you aware of police
4 arresting any paramilitary members or gang members for crimes committed
5 against non-Serbs after April 30 in Prijedor?
6 A. No, they didn't. And even the complaints -- the complaints that
7 were submitted by citizens of Serb nationality against these paramilitary
8 units and the criminals who had come from Serbia or from the Knin
9 Krajina, to the effect that they are terrorising people in Prijedor and
10 robbing them, the police of Prijedor responded by issuing a statement
11 that it was not capable to stop that because those paramilitary units
12 were, as it were, under the control or under the protection of the
13 military authorities because they used them to do their dirty work for
14 them in certain military operations.
15 Q. Mr. Sivac, are you aware of an incident where four Muslims were
16 killed in a place called Jelovac?
17 A. Yes, I am --
18 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] [Previous translation
19 continues] ... [No interpretation]
20 [No interpretation]
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: [Microphone not activated]
22 MR. KRGOVIC: Your Honour, I don't see how this line of question
23 was related to my cross-examination or the cross-examination ducted by
24 Mr. O'Sullivan.
25 JUDGE HALL: Although we didn't have the benefit of translation,
Page 13272
1 I anticipated that objection, Mr. Krgovic.
2 Yes, Mr. Dobbyn, how does this arise?
3 MR. DOBBYN: Your Honours, my interpretation, and perhaps I'm
4 incorrect, that the thrust of the questioning from Mr. O'Sullivan was
5 that crimes being committed in Prijedor around this time were solely
6 being committed by paramilitaries, that there was no police involvement.
7 So I'm hoping to explore that.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 JUDGE HALL: Yes, Mr. O'Sullivan.
10 MR. O'SULLIVAN: No microphone, apparently. Oh yes.
11 Your Honour, my question to Mr. Sivac was quite specific and
12 Mr. Dobbyn has referred to it, and that was his testimony in Brdjanin and
13 that was his understanding of the events at the time, and he's given that
14 answer, and to move into any specifics does not at all arise from what
15 Mr. Sivac knew from his personal experience.
16 MR. DOBBYN: [Microphone not activated] sorry, I don't have a ...
17 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
18 MR. DOBBYN: I have it now.
19 Sorry. Your Honour, he was asked -- the question was put to him
20 in a specific way, that paramilitary formations and gangs became active
21 in Prijedor municipality and took justice into their own hands. He
22 agreed with that proposition. Now I am hoping to expand on that and see
23 whether he was saying it was exclusively those groups or whether police
24 were also doing things at the time. The wording of the question as it
25 was put to him, he agreed to that proposition that there were
Page 13273
1 paramilitaries and gangs involved in crimes, but he wasn't perhaps given
2 the opportunity to -- to see if there was any other groups beyond that
3 involved. It was a response to a very specific question and I want to
4 see what the extend of his knowledge was, as to which groups were
5 involved.
6 JUDGE HALL: Please proceed. But a narrowly focussed question,
7 Mr. Dobbyn.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Dobbyn, I understand that this incident in
9 Jelovac, you say, that was part of Prijedor?
10 MR. DOBBYN: I believe so, Your Honour, and that's what I hope to
11 clarify with the witness.
12 Q. So I will ask the question again, Mr. Sivac.
13 Were you aware of an incidents, the killing of four Muslims in
14 Jelovac?
15 A. Yes, I was well aware of it. Jelovac is on the main road from
16 Prijedor to Bosanska Dubica, and a group of four Muslims from Brezicani,
17 among whom Jusuf Kuckovic, headed on a tractor to collect hay for some
18 farmers in Jelovac, that's a village, when they were stopped by a group
19 of armed Serbs who killed the four of them.
20 Q. Do you know when this occurred?
21 A. Well, I don't. This proceeded all these other events in
22 Prijedor.
23 Q. Are you able to give a rough indication? Was it 1992, was it
24 another year?
25 A. I think that this was some time in early 1992 or in late 1991,
Page 13274
1 but I can't really say with precision or with certainty.
2 Q. Do you know the names of any of the individuals responsible for
3 these killings?
4 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Well, Your Honour, we object.
5 There's absolutely no foundation to go beyond these preliminary
6 questions which have shown that Mr. Sivac is unsure of the event, when it
7 happened, he -- he heard about it. He certainly -- it's not within his
8 personal knowledge to speak in any detail about this. He just told us
9 that he doesn't know anything other than what he heard from unnamed
10 sources. In our submission, this is not appropriate for any further
11 exploration on the details of what may have transpired.
12 JUDGE HALL: And, in any event, Mr. Dobbyn, how would the names
13 be relevant?
14 MR. DOBBYN: Well, the names may be relevant, Your Honour, if he
15 also knows which organs, if any, these individuals were members of.
16 JUDGE HALL: Anyway, I think have you taken this as far as you
17 could, let's move on.
18 MR. DOBBYN: Very well, Your Honour.
19 Q. Mr. Sivac, were you familiar with the Prijedor Police
20 Intervention Platoon?
21 A. Well, we learned about the intervention platoon as soon as the
22 Serb takeover took place. This was a group of heartless people, among
23 whom there was a number of Prijedor criminals who were under the direct
24 control of Simo Drljaca.
25 Q. And are you aware if this group was involved in any attacks on
Page 13275
1 non-Serbs in Prijedor, or any other crimes?
2 A. Well, they actually did the dirtiest jobs for the Prijedor police
3 and they participated in almost all of the actions conducted by the
4 police or the army, in co-ordination between the two, in the area of the
5 Prijedor municipality.
6 Q. Thank you. I will move on to something slightly different. And
7 this was questions put to you again yesterday from Mr. O'Sullivan about
8 the attack on Kozarac, and it was put to you that Andzic's paramilitaries
9 participated in the attack on Kozarac, and you agreed that they had,
10 together with the 5th Kozarac Brigade? Do you recall that exchange
11 yesterday? And this is at transcript page 13209.
12 A. Yes, I do.
13 Q. I just want to clarify this, if possible. In your Stakic
14 testimony, which as part of your 92 ter package, at transcript page 6764,
15 you said that during the Serb takeover of Kozarac, the Serb military and
16 police killed the majority of the police employees of the Kozarac police
17 station.
18 So just to be clear, Mr. Sivac, were the police also involved in
19 this attack on Kozarac?
20 A. Yes, they were, of course. The Serb police, from Prijedor, at
21 the head of which was Simo Drljaca, and in co-ordination with the army,
22 they took part in the attack on Kozarac.
23 Q. And these police employees that were killed, did you personally
24 see any of the corpses of these killed policemen?
25 A. The group of police officers from Kozarac who surrendered to the
Page 13276
1 Serb army immediately following the shelling of Kozarac, together with
2 their commander, Osmo Didovic, as far as I know, was shot dead right
3 there on the spot close to the place where they surrendered to the Serb
4 forces.
5 After my first -- after the first time I was taken to Omarska, in
6 a police vehicle, Brane Bolta and another active-duty policeman who
7 escorted us to the Omarska, they stopped the van, the police van, on the
8 spot where this had taken place, and I got out of the van, together with
9 them to take a look, and in a small river, or stream, rather, near a
10 bridge, we could see a number of bodies in blue uniforms.
11 Tomo Stojakovic turned and looked at me and when he saw that I was
12 looking at those bodies, he said, Well, Simo, all these men are former
13 colleagues from Kozarac.
14 To the right of the police van, which had stopped in a ditch, I
15 saw another body, which was face down, and there was a cloud of flies
16 above him and then we found a sheet of nylon nearby so we covered the
17 body, and when we got back to the police van, Tomo Stojakovic used a
18 radio to inform the duty service of the SUP in Prijedor to get in touch
19 with the services, the municipal services, who were in charge of
20 sanitation to come to that spot and collect the bodies.
21 Q. Now, the last thing I'd like to ask you about, Mr. Sivac, is some
22 questions -- line of questioning from Mr. Krgovic yesterday regarding the
23 attack on Prijedor. And in the course of that line of questioning,
24 Mr. Krgovic stated that the defense position was that the attack or
25 counter-attack on Prijedor was a military operation carried out by a
Page 13277
1 local brigade commander who had nothing to do with Stojan Zupljanin.
2 This is at transcript page 13256, line 23. And I'd just like to ask you
3 one question about that.
4 In your Stakic testimony, talking about the events in Prijedor on
5 30th of May, you stated:
6 "At the beginning, it was just light infantry weapons, Slavko's
7 people, people from Slavko's group had such weapons. Later on, the
8 unequal confrontation between Slavko's group and the Prijedor SUP members
9 and the Serb army led by Zoran Karlice and Radmilo Zeljaja,
10 Slavko Ecimovic's people did not stand a chance."
11 That was at transcript page 6574. And I just would like to ask
12 you, Mr. Sivac, do you stand by that testimony that the Prijedor police
13 were also involved in the fighting in Prijedor?
14 A. Yes. And their involvement was very active. They had two
15 armoured APCs, and all the active-duty and reserve police officers were
16 involved.
17 Q. And that's all the questions I have for you, Mr. Sivac. Thank
18 you very much.
19 [Trial Chamber confers]
20 Questioned by the Court:
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Sivac, I would like you to look at a document
22 that is on the Prosecutor's list of documents under tab 10. It's 65 ter
23 list 02238.
24 Do you recognise this man seen from the back?
25 A. No, I don't. This is somebody else. This is not Ahmet Olic
Page 13278
1 [phoen]. I can't identify the man because his back is turned.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Could we have back on the screen the 65 ter
3 number 02240, please.
4 A. Yes. This is a full picture, as we say, and the previous photo
5 was from the back, a shot taken from the back. I do see that this man is
6 wearing black trousers and a red -- red pants underneath, and his
7 position, the way he stands, is the same, except that here the photo was
8 taken from the front.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: But you -- you can't say it's the same man.
10 A. Well, just judging by the clothes, the black pants and the red
11 underpants, I would assume that it is the same man.
12 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. And in -- in that case, that it is the
13 same man -- could we have 02238 back on the screen, please.
14 So if this would be the same man, could you then comment on the
15 size of his trousers?
16 A. Well, yes, you can see that his pants are large, too large that
17 they're sort of falling off, and he had lost so many kilos, that even his
18 pants, or trousers won't keep about his waist.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: So if this is the gentlemen that you say was your
20 friend that we saw from the face in the other photo, it's not his normal
21 way of wearing trousers that are that -- that large -- that are much too
22 large for him. It's not that way. You know him before he got into the
23 camps?
24 A. Yes, yes, I have known him for a very long time. We grew up
25 together. We lived on the same street.
Page 13279
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: But my question is, this is the not the way he
2 used to wear his trousers?
3 A. No. No. He wore normal trousers like everyone else.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
5 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Sivac, could I just put one additional
6 question to you to clarify the answer that you gave to the Prosecutor
7 during his re-direct examination. Because you told the Court that, in
8 relation to the crimes allegedly perpetrated by the paramilitary units in
9 Prijedor, the police in Prijedor did not take any steps to prevent this
10 from happening or to arrest any members of the paramilitary groups for
11 the reason that they were under the command of the army, so the police
12 had no authority over them.
13 Is that a correct re-statement of your testimony?
14 A. Well, no. They served -- they worked for both the police and the
15 army. Both the police and army used them when they needed someone to do
16 their dirty work for them. So the ones and the others, they both
17 protected them.
18 The statement that was broadcast on Radio Prijedor and was
19 published in the "Kozarski Vjesnik" was to the effect that, allegedly,
20 they could not take any steps against these people because in future
21 operations they would be charged with carrying out certain tasks, or
22 assignments, for the benefit of the Serbian People.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: I understand, and thank you for this
24 clarification.
25 But tell us, Mr. Sivac, how -- how would these paramilitary units
Page 13280
1 come under the authority of the police? Do you know that? Did the
2 police chief in Prijedor actually issue orders or requests for assistance
3 from these paramilitary groups?
4 I'm -- Mr. Sivac, I'm interested in getting a better picture of
5 the -- of the patterns of control that applied during these times in
6 Prijedor, if you can help us with that. Because you had the army and the
7 soldiers and then you had the police forces, and they would not
8 necessarily be any Joint Command over these people. I would assume that
9 the police chief would be in charge of his policemen; and the army,
10 responsible army officer, would be responsible and in charge and in
11 control of the armed forces.
12 So under which conditions or circumstances would, say, a soldier
13 or a member of the paramilitary groups come under the authority of the
14 chief of police?
15 A. Let me tell you this. At that time, a great deal of convicts
16 were released from the correctional facilities where they served their
17 sentences. Basically they all joined either the police or the army to
18 do, as I've already mentioned, the dirtiest jobs of all. These were
19 natural-born criminals.
20 Let's take the example of Zoran Zigic. He was murder. He had
21 killed a man before the war. After having served his sentence, he joined
22 quite normally the paramilitary units in Prijedor after everything began
23 happening. Nobody knows was unit he belonged to. He kept changing his
24 uniforms, but he was the most ruthless person of all. He would come in
25 to camps with his group, killing and mistreating detainees, and he also
Page 13281
1 mistreated Serb civilians in Prijedor. He was completely out of control.
2 But he could be used for some things, say, during combat, or during
3 mop-up operations where he always went in first.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: And when Mr. Zigic and his group operated, would
5 that be at the requests of either the chief of police or the local army
6 commander? Did Mr. Zigic operate according to any schedule or orders or
7 plans that had been established by the authorities in the area?
8 A. He was a maverick basically working on his own and if he didn't
9 like someone, he just killed them. But he also did tasks for the
10 security service. However, Djordje Dosen, aka Djole, is somebody who was
11 not prosecuted because he had died in the meantime. He was Zigic's
12 counterpart. He was always with Dusan Jankovic wearing a police uniform
13 and is guilty of countless murders following the orders of either the
14 police or someone else, some other sources of his. Unfortunately, he
15 passed away a few years back and was never prosecuted. He was always
16 sitting in a police car together with Dusan Jankovic at the time. They
17 would go up and down through Prijedor and Djole Dosen was the executioner
18 following orders which most probably came from the police station.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. One last question: The situation
20 that you have described for us relating to Prijedor and the Prijedor
21 area, I understand would also cover the Kozarac municipality; is that
22 correct?
23 A. In 1992, Kozarac, administratively speaking, was a local commune
24 not a municipality. Save for the town of Prijedor, the municipality
25 included a number of local communes, some 30 of them. The largest of
Page 13282
1 those were Kozarac, Ljubija and Omarska, in terms of the number of
2 residents. There was a number of other smaller ones, such as the Muslim
3 settlements on the left bank of the Sana river and Serb settlements on
4 the right bank of the river, just below Mount Kozara. There are a number
5 of Serb settlements there which were also small local communes. Only the
6 local communes of Kozarac and Ljubija, as well as Omarska, had their
7 respective police station. The rest was covered by the police station in
8 Prijedor.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. We better be absolutely sure that we
10 get this right. So I would wish to ask you yet another question just to
11 clarify what you have just said.
12 Namely, your assertion that the police took no steps in Prijedor
13 to prevent crimes from being committed by the paramilitary units, did
14 that statement also cover the Kozarac area, after the crimes were
15 committed, as you have described it, in Kozarac? In other words, did the
16 police take any steps to address the criminal events in Kozarac.
17 A. I don't know which specific crimes in Kozarac you have in mind.
18 I don't remember having mentioned crimes and incidents in Kozarac. The
19 crimes in Kozarac only took place after the takeover, after the 30th of
20 May, when the ethnic cleansing of Kozarac took place. It -- actually in
21 Kozarac it all began on the 24th of May, 1992. After heavy shelling,
22 military -- paramilitary and police forces began ethnically cleansing
23 Kozarac. The crimes which took place in Kozarac at that time is
24 something that no one was ever called to account for.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much, sir. I have no further
Page 13283
1 questions.
2 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, just one question, if
3 I may, which follows Judge Harhoff's -- from Judge Harhoff's question.
4 Further cross-examination by Mr. Krgovic:
5 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Sivac, did you know that this Dosen and
6 Zigic you mentioned were arrested by the military authorities and
7 prosecuted before a military court for crimes committed over Muslims, as
8 members of the RS army?
9 A. I know about Zoran Zigic. He committed several murders of Serbs
10 after the ethnic cleansing of Kozarac and Prijedor. He could not be
11 reined in, and the Serb authorities simply handed him over to get rid of
12 the idiot and the murder. As for Djole Dosen, he was never called to
13 task. I don't know where you get that information from. He lived a free
14 man and passed away due to natural causes after the war.
15 Q. Did you know whether both Dosen and Zigic were prosecuted by a
16 military court for crimes over non-Serbs? Did you know that?
17 A. No, I have no knowledge of that.
18 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Sivac, we thank you for your testimony before
19 the Tribunal. Indeed, your continued assistance to the Tribunal --
20 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
21 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Dobbyn, before the witness is formally released,
22 your live application for the admission of your -- of the 92 package is
23 now admitted and -- and marked accordingly.
24 Yes, Mr. O'Sullivan.
25 MR. O'SULLIVAN: We have -- we take objection to five of the
Page 13284
1 proffered exhibits, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE HALL: Could we hear you, Mr. O'Sullivan?
3 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, thank you.
4 So there are five exhibits we object to. Four of them are
5 newspaper articles. The first one is 65 ter 2514. Well, I don't believe
6 the tabs -- the tab -- the spreadsheet doesn't have a number.
7 But it's the 13th -- if that helps, it's the 13th document.
8 It's a -- it's an article from "Kozarski Vjesnik." It was read
9 out loud by this witness during his testimony in the Stakic trial.
10 Because, at that time no B/C/S translation existed. So it's part of the
11 Stakic transcripts, but it is merely read into the record by the witness.
12 He was asked no questions about it in Stakic and he was asked no
13 questions about it here. On that basis, we say it has no probative
14 value. It's just a newspaper article, freestanding.
15 The other -- the four more examples are newspaper articles as
16 well: 65 ter 10451; 65 ter 10452; and 65 ter 10453. Again, read into
17 the record in the Stakic proceedings by the witness because there was no
18 B/C/S, no questions asked of him then or here. Therefore, we object.
19 It's our standing objection to newspaper articles.
20 And the fifth document we take objection to is 65 ter 2414,
21 which, in the Stakic trial at pages 6755, 6756, and that transcript is
22 also being offered, on those pages, this witness told the Presiding
23 Judge Schomburg that these documents were likely either forged or had
24 been tampered with. Therefore, again, we say from this witness's own
25 mouth he has described this document, 65 ter 2414, as being and I quote
Page 13285
1 tampered, forged, and, therefore, we say it is an unreliable document and
2 shouldn't be admitted.
3 JUDGE HALL: Thank you. Before I hear Mr. Dobbyn, do you have
4 anything on this application, Mr. Krgovic?
5 MR. KRGOVIC: No, Your Honour, I support what Mr. O'Sullivan has
6 said.
7 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.
8 Yes, Mr. Dobbyn.
9 MR. DOBBYN: Your Honours, I have a couple of points to make with
10 regards to this objection.
11 The first is that the Trial Chamber issued a decision on
12 Mr. Sivac's 92 ter package on the 2nd of October, 2009, and in that, it
13 was found that these documents were integral parts of his testimony and
14 on that basis, presuming that the package gets admitted as a whole, they
15 would make part of that package.
16 Now the Defence could have objected to that decision. There's
17 been -- there was no appeal of that decision.
18 Secondly, that as a general point, we would say that if there is
19 going to be an objection taken to documents within a 92 ter package that
20 that objection should be made at the start of the witness's testimony or
21 even before the witness comes into court so that we then have an
22 opportunity to address any issues that may arise with those documents
23 with the witness while he is on the stand. And by this objection being
24 made at the end, we haven't had a chance to do so.
25 JUDGE HALL: Yes, but, Mr. Dobbyn, isn't the reason why the
Page 13286
1 practice that has been followed of waiting until the conclusion of
2 cross-examination to act on the application to admit the package is
3 precisely to allow any objections to be made by the other side?
4 MR. DOBBYN: Your Honour, the objections that are being made
5 don't arise out of his testimony. We're given a limited time with 92 ter
6 witnesses to put documents in through those witnesses, and so we have to
7 rely, to a large extent, on what decisions we get from the Trial Chamber
8 as to what documents can make up his 92 ter package. Now if we know
9 ahead of time that certain objections taken to certain documents, we
10 could then address that with the witness while he is on the stand. We
11 can't go through every documents to hopefully foresee any issues that may
12 come up and address them with the witness. We simply don't have the time
13 or the opportunity to do that.
14 JUDGE HALL: I take your point in terms of the last-mentioned
15 document. But in terms of the newspaper articles, isn't Mr. O'Sullivan's
16 recollection correct, that -- as the approach that we have taken to
17 newspaper articles and harking back to the October 2009 decision, the --
18 wouldn't the decision of the Trial Chamber have been that the 92 package,
19 includes the -- for want of a better expression, trailing documents
20 provided they're relevant; in other words, admissible. Isn't that what
21 we would have said?
22 MR. DOBBYN: Your Honour, all I can say is reading from the
23 finding -- the ruling in that decision it states that when admitting into
24 evidence the prior statements and written statements of a witness
25 pursuant to Rule 92 ter, we also admit all the accompanying documents,
Page 13287
1 save those that were specifically identified in the motion for the reason
2 that it views this evidence as an integral whole.
3 So, Your Honours, our submission is that these documents were
4 apparently reviewed when this decision was made and they were found to be
5 integral to the 92 ter testimony.
6 [Trial Chamber confers]
7 [Prosecution counsel confer]
8 JUDGE HALL: The order of the Trial Chamber is that the 92
9 package is admitted, save for the articles, the newspaper articles are
10 not included. And in terms of the committee decision, it will be marked
11 for identification, be separately marked for identification.
12 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, if I then may raise an issue and a
13 question for future witnesses.
14 In this case that was a decision made by the Trial Chamber where
15 it appeared that it had considered those particular articles as being an
16 essential part of his testimony and they were admitted. We relied on
17 that. Now we have an objection after this witness has testified when we
18 haven't had a chance to address any of these issues, and that evidence is
19 gone. We need know in the future if that is still going to be the
20 course. Because if we have a 92 package that is proposed and includes
21 certain documents, if the Trial Chamber makes an initial finding that
22 they are integral to the witness's prior testimony or his statement and
23 we have limited time, an hour or two hours, or whatever it is for the
24 witness, we, in most cases, are not going to address those documents
25 because we don't have the time.
Page 13288
1 If the Defence has an objection, I suggest it would be a more
2 efficient course if they raise that specific evidence, that specific
3 objection before the witness comes on and then we can deal with it. We
4 may even agree that the objection is well taken and withdraw such an
5 exhibit. But this is -- this is a bit of an ambush, we don't think it's
6 a fair way to proceed, and we just want to know what the position is so
7 we can deal with it most efficiently in the future.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]
10 JUDGE HALL: We thank counsel. We're going to return to this
11 issue later because we have to give it some more consideration.
12 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
13 JUDGE HALL: The -- and returning to the witness, we -- you are
14 now released and we wish you a safe journey back to your home, and we
15 note that your testimony in this and previous trials has not been merely
16 as an observer to events, but that you, yourself, having been the victim
17 of some of these horrific incident, the Chamber expresses its sympathy to
18 you.
19 Thank you, sir. We wish you a safe journey back to your home.
20 You are now released.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you and good bye.
22 [The witness withdrew]
23 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I would like to be given the
24 opportunity to respond to what Mr. Hannis said to you, either now or if
25 you want to deal with the issue later at your pleasure.
Page 13289
1 JUDGE HALL: We would hear you now because no doubt we are going
2 to be discussing this among ourselves during the break.
3 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The point was this, Your Honour. The four
4 newspaper articles we objected to were simply read into the record by the
5 witness in Stakic, because there was no B/C/S translation. Prosecution
6 was aware of that, as we were from reading the transcript. Under
7 Rule 92 ter, the party calling the witness has the opportunity to ask
8 further questions about the previous testimony. It's precisely on that
9 point that the Prosecution is required, if they want to tender or have
10 the witness expand upon the newspaper article, they do it during
11 examination-in-chief. They did not do that. They should have been aware
12 of that.
13 Now, if the Prosecution had done that, there would have been no
14 objection on our part. It is for the party to foresee this. We couldn't
15 make an objection before the testimony because we didn't know if the
16 Prosecution would address the newspaper articles with the witness. They
17 didn't, and therefore we objected, just as we objected to the forged
18 document.
19 So the Prosecution knows what is in the previous testimony as we
20 do. The Prosecution had the opportunity to question the witness on --
21 that previous testimony, including these newspaper articles, and they
22 didn't. That's why we objected.
23 MR. HANNIS: If I may reply.
24 Your Honours, speaking specifically to those four newspaper
25 articles, I -- I have less of a concern than I do about the general
Page 13290
1 procedure. I agree. I have read some prior transcripts where I see that
2 happen in some cases that documents were read in by a Prosecutor, doesn't
3 appear any specific question was asked of a witness, and they were
4 admitted, to my surprise. But my position is the most efficient process
5 would be if the Defence has an objection to indicate that at the time
6 that the 92 ter package is proposed. But when the Trial Chamber looks at
7 it and make as decision and says it is an integral part of the testimony,
8 then we feel, given the fact that we are limited to how much time we have
9 with a 92 ter witness, that we can rely on that.
10 If Mr. O'Sullivan had raised that before the witness came on and
11 said, Okay, well either since have an objection to it, I'm going to have
12 to deal with it and decide if I have to omit something else I want to
13 during my limited one hour or two hours with a 92 ter witness. If he
14 doesn't say anything then I am assuming he doesn't object to that, that
15 has been admitted as part of the 92 ter package. That's all I'm asking.
16 With regard to the newspaper articles, because of our general
17 position about newspaper articles, I --
18 JUDGE HALL: I was about to intervene on that point, Mr. Hannis,
19 and indicate that the -- as I said, we're going to have to return to this
20 later. But the newspaper articles have -- how we approach those have
21 bedevilled us from the time I have been participating in this exercise.
22 So we can set that aside. And the -- probably the position that we have
23 taken, I hope consistently, in terms of newspaper articles is something
24 which counsel should be appreciated should be read alongside or
25 integrated into how the 92 ter package is accepted, but in terms of the
Page 13291
1 fifth item, the subject of being of persuaded other was I am inclined to
2 agree with the position that you have made and now repeated that having
3 been alerted, the Defence should have indicated to you their objection
4 to -- to the committee report.
5 As I said, we'll return to this.
6 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
7 MR. DOBBYN: Your Honours, sorry. Just one more matter with
8 regards to the 92 ter package, unrelated to what we are talking about
9 now, it's just while I remember. When it is admitted, we have -- his
10 92 ter package contains both official and unofficially transcripts of his
11 prior testimony. The reason for that was that the past practice has been
12 uncorrected -- unofficial transcripts have been going and as far as the
13 92 ter packages, and we have been highlighting those transcripts with the
14 relevant portions. Now just recently, we understand from Registry that
15 there's a problem with that, and they prefer that the official
16 transcripts come in. So this 92 ter package includes both the official
17 and the unofficial transcripts, the reason being that we need the
18 marking, the highlighted portions to remain in there so that's why we are
19 keeping the unofficial transcripts, and the unofficial need to be
20 admitted under seal as apparently they have not yet been -- they were not
21 checked for possible protected witnesses.
22 So we would ask that those particular transcripts be admitted
23 under seal.
24 JUDGE HALL: Yeah, we are not -- we haven't forgotten that --
25 this continuing problem, which is another -- which is a related issue but
Page 13292
1 a separate issue. Thank you, Mr. Dobbyn.
2 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm really sorry, Your Honours, I'm a bit confused
3 now.
4 It was our understanding that only the official transcripts are
5 the ones which are admitted because the unofficial transcripts are
6 unofficial and therefore there is -- there is a newer version of that
7 same transcript afterwards, which is the official version of the
8 transcript --
9 JUDGE HALL: If I might interrupt you, Mr. Zecevic. You needn't
10 be embarrassed about being confused, because you will recall that on at
11 least two occasions before the break, we addressed this, and this is a
12 matter that is still to be resolved. So everything that you say with
13 respect makes perfect sense. We agree with the problem, how this is
14 worked out on the ground at the Registry level, and at some point it is
15 going to have to be resolved, but it is still being worked through.
16 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you. I appreciate it, Your Honours.
17 [Trial Chamber confers]
18 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]
19 JUDGE HALL: We may as well take the break now, although it is
20 about two minutes early.
21 So we would resume at 4.00.
22 --- Recess taken at 3.38 p.m.
23 --- On resuming at 4.31 p.m.
24 JUDGE HALL: We apologise to counsel and the support staff for
25 taking the Bench 30 minutes beyond the break when we should have resumed,
Page 13293
1 but the ruling that we indicated that we may have been giving, we're not
2 in a position to deal with this afternoon. It's a matter that is more
3 complicated that appeared at first blush.
4 The -- because of the 30-minute delay, we're thinking of the
5 convenience of counsel, the support staff and the accused who were in
6 court waiting and we are going to figure out how we are going to juggle
7 the remainder of today's timing.
8 Is the Prosecution ready with its next witness?
9 MR. OLMSTED: Yes, we are, Your Honours. And maybe somewhat
10 relate to what Your Honour just mentioned. If I may make an application.
11 We request an hour and a half with this witness. The reason being she is
12 a viva voce witness and we have a number of documents that the Trial
13 Chamber hasn't had a chance to see yet that we'll tender through her. I
14 note that we had to -- we chose to drop two Prosecutor witnesses that
15 relate to this witness and, therefore, she is kind of making up the
16 difference.
17 It is possible that I will be very close to the hour that we
18 originally estimated, but I just wanted, in the abundance of caution, to
19 make a request at the beginning.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Olmsted, we have noted your application, but
22 we'll see where we stand at the end of the hour that you indicated --
23 MR. OLMSTED: That --
24 JUDGE HALL: -- initially.
25 MR. OLMSTED: That's fine, Your Honours. Because, like I said,
Page 13294
1 perhaps I will be able to keep it within that time-frame. Because of the
2 number of documents, I just wanted to give it a little bit of margin.
3 [The witness entered court]
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Good afternoon, madam.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: I trust that can you hear me in a language that
7 you understand.
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, I can.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Now, could I, first of all, then ask you to give
10 us the solemn declaration and to read it out to us, please.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
12 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
13 WITNESS: BILJANA SIMEUNOVIC
14 [Witness answered through interpreter]
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, madam. You may sit down.
16 First of all, madam, welcome to the Tribunal, and thank you for
17 coming to give your evidence.
18 May I start by asking you to give us your full name and your date
19 of birth.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My name is Biljana Simeunovic. I
21 was born on 6th of November, 1960.
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: And where were you born?
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In Bijeljina.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
25 And I may ask you of your ethnicity?
Page 13295
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Serbian.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Serbian.
3 Madam, what was your occupation in 1992?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Up until June, I was a legal -- a
5 senior legal counsel. And as of June, I was an investigating judge in
6 the lower court in Bijeljina.
7 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
8 Madam, have you previously testified before this Tribunal or
9 before any of the domestic courts in your country, in relations to
10 matters relating to the war?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well then. I will therefore just briefly
13 explain to you how the proceedings unfold in these trials.
14 You are being called as a witness by the Prosecution who is
15 sitting to your right, and I suppose that you have already had the chance
16 to meet with the Prosecutor, Mr. Olmsted. Mr. Olmsted has requested one
17 hour to conduct your examination-in-chief, and he has also indicated that
18 he run a little over that time. But, in principle, your
19 examination-in-chief should be completed by one hour, one hour and a half
20 at the most.
21 After that, the Defence counsels for Mr. Stanisic and
22 Mr. Zupljanin, who you see to your left, will be given the opportunity to
23 cross-examine you, and the Defence counsel for Mr. Stanisic has asked for
24 two hours in cross-examination; and counsel for Mr. Zupljanin has asked
25 for one hour. This will certainly bring us into the proceedings for
Page 13296
1 tomorrow also. Because we have to adjourn at 7.00. That's as far as we
2 can go today, and then we will resume tomorrow at a quarter past 2.00 in
3 this courtroom also.
4 Now, we have to have a break every 90 minutes because the tapes
5 need to be turned, and so after approximately 90 minutes, we'll have a
6 short break of approximately 20 minutes' time. If at any point, madam,
7 you need to have a break or you feel a need to adjourn for a short while,
8 then please let us know and we will comply with your request.
9 After the cross-examination of the Defence counsels, the
10 Prosecution, again, will have the opportunity to have a re-direct
11 examination, and either after that, or at any point during your
12 testimony, the Judges might put additional questions to you.
13 So that's how the proceedings are going to unfold. Do you have
14 any questions at this moment?
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: In that case, I only need to remind you that you
17 are obliged to tell us the truth and the whole truth, and nothing but the
18 truth, and I should also remind you that there's a severe penalty for
19 providing false or incomplete information to the Court here.
20 With these words, madam, I give the floor to the Prosecution.
21 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Your Honour.
22 Examination by Mr. Olmsted:
23 Q. Good afternoon, Ms. Simeunovic.
24 A. Good afternoon again.
25 Q. I first want to go very briefly over your legal background.
Page 13297
1 You began working for the Bijeljina Basic Court in 1988; is that
2 correct?
3 A. Yes, that's correct.
4 Q. And I think you mentioned with regard to Judge Harhoff's
5 questions but you were appointed as one of the judges of the Bijeljina
6 Basic Court in 1992. Could you please give us, if you recall, the date
7 of your formal appointment?
8 A. The 20th of June, 1992, I was appointed judge.
9 Q. And do you recall who signed your appointment?
10 A. Mr. Radovan Karadzic.
11 Q. And how long did you remain as a basic court judge in Bijeljina,
12 to what year?
13 A. I don't know the exact date, but some time -- until some time in
14 mid-1996.
15 Q. And from 1996 until 2001, you were a private attorney practising
16 in Bijeljina; is that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And from 2003 to present, you have been a prosecutor, for the
19 BiH State Court; is that correct?
20 A. A prosecutor at the prosecutor's office of Bosnia and
21 Herzegovina.
22 Q. Thank you for that correction.
23 I want to return to June 1992. How many other basic court judges
24 were appointed along with you for Bijeljina in June of 1992?
25 A. As far as I can recall, 19 judges, including me, were appointed
Page 13298
1 then.
2 Q. Also in June, were a prosecutor and deputy prosecutors also
3 appointed?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Do you recall how many?
6 A. With a time that has elapsed, I think there were four prosecutors
7 at the lower prosecutor's office, and I can't really say for certain how
8 many there were in the higher prosecutor's office.
9 Q. You mentioned the higher prosecutor's office. Was there also a
10 higher court in Bijeljina?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Could you tell us where were the offices of the basic court, the
13 basic prosecutor, the higher court, and the higher prosecutor located?
14 Were they in the same premises, or were they located separately?
15 A. All of these were in the same premises, and that is still the
16 case, and that was the case before the war.
17 Q. Now, as a basic court judge, did you participate in the criminal
18 investigation of Vojin Vuckovic and members of his unit in 1992?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did you later learn the name of Vuckovic's unit?
21 A. At the time, through documents, there were -- there was mention
22 of Zuco, a nickname, and sometimes Yellow Wasps, but only after the war
23 did I learn that they called themselves officially Yellow Wasps, but when
24 I -- the court files that I had available, they had a different name that
25 they used for their unit, one of their co-fighters who had been killed.
Page 13299
1 I can't really recall the name.
2 Q. I would like to show you a few documents from that case file.
3 MR. OLMSTED: If we could have on the screen 65 ter 2487.
4 Q. This is a request to the investigating judge of the Lower Court
5 Bijeljina dated 24 August, 1992. Do you recognise this document?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Could you briefly tell us what it is.
8 A. This was a request to conduct an investigation. It was submitted
9 by the lower public prosecutor's office in Bijeljina against a number of
10 individuals. And as can you see from the request, the charges were for
11 the crime of aggravated theft, Article 148, paragraph 3, of the SRBH
12 Criminal Code.
13 Q. And who was assigned as investigative judge to this case?
14 A. I was the investigating judge in that case.
15 Q. In the first paragraph, the prosecutor writes that she is
16 submitting along with this request the criminal report with annexes.
17 Were you provided with those documents?
18 A. I must have been.
19 Q. What would have been included in the annexes that she references?
20 A. Well, this was the standard procedure. There would be a criminal
21 report submitted by the police. At the time we used to refer to them as
22 the organs of the interior. This criminal report then, together with
23 annexes, would be submitted to the prosecutor's office, and then the
24 prosecutor's office, based on the criminal report and the annexes, would
25 submit a request for an investigation to the investigating judge.
Page 13300
1 Q. Yes. But with regard to the annexes, would that include any
2 evidence that the police had collected up to that point, with regard to
3 the crimes at issue?
4 A. The criminal report would list the annexes, and I think that
5 perhaps in this request you would -- you could find that too, that the
6 criminal report is submitted, together with the annexes, and the criminal
7 report would list the annexes that are submitted, together with it.
8 Q. All right. We'll look at the criminal report in a second.
9 Before we do that, I just want to talk a minute more generally
10 about procedures that existed in 1992.
11 Prior to receiving a request to initiate an investigation from
12 the basic prosecutor what was the role of the investigative judge in the
13 investigation of a crime?
14 A. The investigating judge would move to start an investigation by
15 issuing a decision, and this decision could only be issued if there is a
16 prior request from the prosecution to conduct an investigation. In other
17 words, the investigating judge would conduct the investigation from the
18 moment when the decision is issued and that could only be issued at the
19 request of the prosecution.
20 Q. So if I understand you correctly, up until the receipt of a
21 request from the prosecutor, the investigative judge did not have any
22 role to play in the investigation up to that point?
23 A. [No interpretation]
24 Q. I'm sorry, could you repeat your answer. It didn't come across
25 on the transcript.
Page 13301
1 Up until the point of receiving a request from the prosecutor's
2 office, did the investigative judge play any role in the investigation of
3 the crime at issue?
4 A. The investigating judge did not have any role in this particular
5 case, but also, in general, under the law that was then in force, which
6 was identical to the one before the war, the investigating judge did not
7 have any role and did not conduct any investigation before there was a
8 request issued by the prosecutor to conduct an investigation.
9 Q. Who was responsible for initiating the criminal justice process?
10 How was the process started?
11 A. Could you please clarify your question? What do you mean by how
12 would the proceedings start? Do you mean the investigating proceedings?
13 Q. This is before -- before the investigative judge becomes even
14 involved in the case. How did the process begin? How did a crime become
15 known and enter into the entire criminal justice process, including the
16 prosecutor and then, eventually, the court.
17 A. Well, this -- this was a preliminary proceedings. In fact, the
18 criminal proceedings began from the moment when the investigating judge
19 issues a decision to conduct an investigation. Everything prior to that
20 was considered preliminary proceedings. In other words, the discovery of
21 the crime of the perpetrators and in -- at the stage where there was a
22 suspicion, a grounded suspicion that a crime had been committed, then it
23 would have been the prosecutor, in co-operation with the police who would
24 be responsible for that phase. When I say "a suspicion," that would
25 be -- the basis for suspicion that would be the lower degree of
Page 13302
1 suspicion, which was not sufficient to initiate proceedings, and only
2 when the investigating judge actually issues a decision to conduct a --
3 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat the last
4 portion of the answer.
5 MR. OLMSTED:
6 Q. I apologise. We missed the very last portion of your answer.
7 Could you just repeat that.
8 A. When the investigating judge issues a decision to conduct an
9 investigation, that decision is issued on the basis of the prior request
10 to conduct an investigation from the prosecutor, and the prosecutor would
11 have to have collected, together with the police, information and
12 possible evidence.
13 Q. Whose responsibility was it to identify and arrest the
14 perpetrator of a crime?
15 A. I'm not sure what you mean by who was responsible or whose
16 responsibility was it? Maybe something was lost in translation.
17 Q. That's right. Whose responsibility was it to identify a
18 perpetrator and arrest that perpetrator?
19 A. The discovery and prosecution of perpetrators was within the
20 competence of the prosecutor. But all of that would relate to the stage
21 where evidence is collected and information. But the initiating of the
22 criminal proceedings on the basis of -- when there is cause to suspect
23 that a crime had been committed, that was done by the investigating
24 judge.
25 So the investigating judge was the individual who actually
Page 13303
1 initiated or officially started the proceedings when there were -- there
2 was a cause to suspect that a crime had been committed and it was
3 sufficient grounds to initiate criminal proceedings.
4 Q. And I want to focus on these preliminary proceedings, not when it
5 comes to the investigative judge.
6 In the preliminary stages, so when the crime is first discovered,
7 who had the responsibility to identify and arrest the perpetrator of a
8 crime? Was it the police; was it the prosecutor? Who actually went out
9 and identified the perpetrator and arrested him?
10 A. Under the Law on Criminal Proceedings that was in force at the
11 time there were various organs that were in charge of identifying and
12 discovering perpetrators of criminal offences. There were different
13 types of criminal offences, and one of those roles was on the organs of
14 the interior. Once information was collected and it was learned that a
15 crime had been committed, the police began collecting information and
16 evidence, always in co-operation with the prosecution on the crime. But
17 the prosecutor at the time could not collect any evidence on his own, nor
18 could he or she conduct an investigation, nor would any information that
19 he would obtain at such a stage have any legal force because, at the
20 time, under that law, neither the police nor the prosecutor could
21 investigate or question witnesses or suspects during the preliminary
22 stage. They would only interview or, rather, prepare statements of --
23 from the suspects, and they had no other role. And that is the reason
24 why the investigating judge would then proceed to question the witnesses
25 and collect evidence.
Page 13304
1 Q. Thank you. And please make sure you speak a little bit slower.
2 I think the interpreter is having a little bit of trouble keeping up with
3 you.
4 But as I understand your answer, is that the police, at the
5 preliminary stages, would interview suspects, interview witnesses,
6 collect evidence, but it was the investigative judge's role later on to
7 actually take records of interviews and review that evidence; is that
8 correct?
9 A. Well, about -- that's about right.
10 So the police did not have the jurisdiction to compile records of
11 interviews with the suspects, nor witness interviews. They collected
12 and -- they collected and compiled statements that could not be used as
13 evidence later during the trial itself.
14 So the criminal proceedings begin at the moment when a decision
15 is issued to conduct an investigation, and under the Law on Criminal
16 Proceedings, that was -- that referred to the moment when a criminal
17 report is submitted.
18 Q. Until a perpetrator is identified, could the investigative judge
19 conduct an investigation?
20 A. No. The investigating judge could only conduct an investigation
21 into a -- perpetrators who are identified, who have been identified,
22 never against perpetrators who have not been identified.
23 Q. I wanted to briefly talk about on-site investigations.
24 What was the role of the investigative judge in an on-site
25 investigation?
Page 13305
1 A. An on-site investigation is one of the phases of the
2 investigation. If it was necessary to conduct an on-site investigation,
3 the organs of the interior would call the investigating judge, and if the
4 investigating judge was present during the on-site investigation, then
5 the judge would actually be in charge of the on-site investigation.
6 Then there would be a report on the on-site investigation,
7 compiled by the investigating judge, if he or she was present. And then
8 this would be used as a basis that could later be used as evidence in
9 the -- in the trial.
10 Q. Who did the investigative judge submit the on-site investigation
11 report to?
12 A. The investigating judge would draft notes about the on-site
13 investigation, including the measures that needed to be taken after the
14 on-site investigation. And those notes, or that record, was then
15 forwarded to the prosecutor's office and to the organs of the interior.
16 That is to say, to those who were involved in the on-site investigation.
17 Q. And what were the police -- the organs of the interior supposed
18 to do with the report, once they receive it?
19 A. If there was evidence found, such as objects, and if a record was
20 made, or if an expert opinion was sought, then that was under the
21 competence of the police in keeping with the record of the on-site
22 investigation. Such objects, for example, such evidence, would be
23 deposited with the police.
24 Q. Well, in addition to that, would they collect other information
25 about the crime? Would they look for suspects? Would they interview
Page 13306
1 individuals with regard to the potential crime?
2 A. Yes.
3 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 2 of the document that we
4 have in front of us.
5 Q. We can see -- we can see that -- that the accused in this
6 criminal report or this request are suspected of setting up a check-point
7 in Zvornik at which they appropriated passenger vehicles and other items.
8 Ms. Simeunovic, as an investigative judge, could you go beyond
9 the criminal report and the request for the investigation and investigate
10 crimes that were outside the scope of those documents?
11 A. Under the Law on Criminal Proceedings, an investigating judge
12 could not go beyond any such documents, in the sense that it could not
13 include a different type of crime or other perpetrators. Based on this
14 request, the entire case would be viewed in that regard and appropriate
15 indication was sought. If the investigating judge would realise in the
16 course of the proceedings that there are other types of crime involved,
17 he was duty-bound to notify the public prosecutor. In this particular
18 case, the prosecutor was present throughout and was accordingly notified.
19 Q. And what was the prosecutor supposed to do with this information
20 about additional crimes?
21 A. He should issue a request, asking for an amendment to the
22 original request for investigation so as to include other crimes and
23 perpetrators.
24 Q. And would the prosecutor also contact the police to initiate some
25 initial preliminary investigations into that allegation?
Page 13307
1 A. Yes, he would. Everything had to be tied in with the
2 investigation that is ongoing. As of the moment the decision is issued,
3 the investigative judge could issue orders to the police. If they found
4 other evidence about other crimes and perpetrators, then that fell under
5 the authority of the prosecutor.
6 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 3 of the B/C/S and
7 page 4 --
8 MR. ZECEVIC: Sorry, Mr. Olmsted. One intervention in the
9 transcript, page 45, 14, I believe the witness said the investigative
10 judge could issue orders to the police. And it wasn't recorded.
11 MR. OLMSTED:
12 Q. Ms. Simeunovic, could we clarify that. Who would ask the police
13 to take investigative measures if there was a discovery of a new crime
14 during the course of an investigation? Was it the investigative judge or
15 would it be the prosecutor?
16 A. If the investigating judge, based on the documents and evidence
17 attached, including statements, realised that the case involved other
18 perpetrators and crimes, he would notify the prosecutor. Anything that
19 had to do with the investigation itself initiated by the investigating
20 judge by his original request, in terms of any investigative measures, he
21 could turn to the police and ask them to undertake certain investigative
22 measures that the investigating judge was unable to do himself or
23 herself.
24 Q. And would those be in the form of a request; or would you be
25 ordering the police that they must carry out those tasks?
Page 13308
1 A. I don't think it was precisely put in the question, in the sense
2 of whether it would be a request or an order. One could pick up the
3 phone and call the police, telling them what to do.
4 Q. But if I understand you correctly, did the investigative judge
5 exercise supervisor authority over the police? Could the investigative
6 judge punish the police if they didn't carry out an instruction?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And how would that come about? Would they file an action against
9 the police; or would they report the police officer to his superior
10 officer?
11 A. Such things happen seldom. However, in such a case, a letter
12 would be sent to the chief of police, I believe, or someone higher up in
13 the police.
14 MR. OLMSTED: If we can turn to page 3 of the B/C/S and page 4 of
15 the English.
16 Q. And if we could look under item number 4, we see that the
17 prosecutor is requesting pre-trial detention under Article 191,
18 paragraph 2, item 3, of the Criminal Procedure Code. Was this a
19 mandatory detention?
20 A. No, it was not. It was not mandatory detention. If there were
21 reasons to believe that -- if there were reasons to issue a detention
22 order, then it was done.
23 Q. When was pre-trial detention mandatory, in what cases?
24 A. Well, I'll try to put it this way: Given that that law has not
25 been in use for seven years now, the Law on Criminal Proceedings which
Page 13309
1 was in place before the war and up until 2003, it's difficult for me to
2 tell you anything with any degree of certainty, without referring back to
3 the law itself and its articles. Hence, I would put a hedge here. I
4 believe all attorneys, judges, and everyone one involved always have a
5 copy of that law with us. If would have been far easier for me if I had
6 been given a copy so that I could refer to the particular article.
7 However, as far as I recall, I remember a provision in
8 Article 191, when there was a mention -- where there was a mention of
9 mandatory detention, in case of such crimes which could receive sentences
10 of over ten years or even death penalty.
11 Q. All right. We have the Criminal Procedure Code and we can look
12 at it ourselves.
13 MR. OLMSTED: May this be tendered into evidence.
14 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01532, Your Honours.
16 MR. OLMSTED: If we can have on the screen, P322.
17 JUDGE HALL: Sorry, while that is being loaded, I should alert
18 counsel that the -- I have been advised the that the simple course would
19 be break at the usual time. So we would be taking the break at 5.20.
20 MR. OLMSTED:
21 Q. Ms. Simeunovic, we're looking at the criminal charges against
22 Vuckovic et al dated 8 August 1992. Can you confirm whether this is the
23 criminal report that you received along with your request to initiate an
24 investigation.
25 A. I did not receive it alongside my request, or the prosecutor's
Page 13310
1 request. But, in any case, this was the criminal report which
2 accompanied the request for investigation submitted by the prosecutor.
3 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 6 of the B/C/S and the
4 English.
5 Q. And we can see at the bottom of the B/C/S version that the report
6 included a number of enclosures, including signed statements made by the
7 perpetrators, the accused.
8 MR. OLMSTED: If we can now have the screen, 65 ter 3020.
9 Q. What we have in front of us is a statement by Vojin Vuckovic
10 dated 6 August 1992 --
11 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation] I would just like to ask
12 Mr. Olmsted, when calling up documents, he could tell us the tab number.
13 Thank you.
14 MR. OLMSTED: This is tab 23, I believe.
15 Q. Can you tell us, is this a signed statement by one of the
16 perpetrators in this case that you would have received along with a
17 criminal report?
18 A. Yes. In this statement, you can see that the record was made
19 by -- well, it says in the first paragraph that it's actually a record
20 about an interview with Zuco. There is the type of statement the police
21 took, not in keeping with the Law on Criminal Procedure, but in their own
22 police way during the pre-trial phase.
23 By virtue of Article 151, as we could see a moment ago in the
24 criminal report, as of the moment ... in the Law on Criminal Procedure we
25 could see what the police are supposed to do as of the moment a criminal
Page 13311
1 report is submitted. That's in Article 151. Before that moment in time,
2 the police -- or, rather, organs of the interior as it was called then,
3 submitted such records as this one, as statements. This statement was
4 one of the attachments to the criminal report.
5 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 5 of the B/C/S and
6 English.
7 Q. We can see on this page that Vuckovic discusses an incident
8 regarding vehicles seized at the check-point which resulted in an
9 intervention of SJB Pale chief, Malko Koroman.
10 MR. OLMSTED: And if we can turn now to page 7 of the B/C/S and
11 the English.
12 Q. We can also see that Vuckovic describes an incident involving
13 Momcilo Mandic actually at the check-point.
14 Do you recall receiving this information?
15 A. I was following the page on the screen, but this did not tally
16 with what you said because it -- it is found on a different page.
17 In any case, everything contained in this statement is what was
18 uttered by the suspect and, later on, the accused, after an appropriate
19 decision was issued. He did say in this statement given to the police
20 that he been to Pale where he met with this person - what was the name -
21 Koroman, as well as with Biljana Plavsic and Velibor Ostojic. I can't
22 recall what the topic of their discussion was though. In any case, I
23 think it had to do with some vehicles being provided for him to be used.
24 I don't know what follows because I don't know what is on page 5.
25 I still do not see it.
Page 13312
1 On the other pages, he speaks about how they stopped different
2 people, appropriated some vehicles which were then taken to certain
3 locations, or their own houses or houses of people they trusted. He also
4 mentioned who the people at the check-point were ...
5 Q. Thank you.
6 MR. OLMSTED: May this be tendered into evidence, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
8 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01533, Your Honours.
9 MR. OLMSTED: And perhaps, Your Honours, this would be a good
10 time to recess.
11 JUDGE HALL: Yes.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I still haven't seen page 5.
13 MR. OLMSTED:
14 Q. I'm sorry. Yes, actually, you answered my question, and so I
15 didn't want to go into any more discussion about this particular
16 statement. And we're taking a break. But if you want to look at it
17 after the break, that's -- I don't have a problem with that.
18 [The witness stands down]
19 --- Recess taken at 5.21 p.m.
20 [The witness takes the stand]
21 --- On resuming at 5.47 p.m.
22 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, before we start with --
23 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, just one small
24 intervention before Mr. Olmsted resumes.
25 I apologise for having failed to react on time, although I still
Page 13313
1 am not overdue, I believe. I see a number of statements among the
2 Prosecutor's documents including those who were suspected of having
3 committed certain crimes and who belonged to the Yellow Wasps groups.
4 Those statements were given to the Bijeljina police station, for example,
5 of Vojin Vuckovic's statement, aka Zuco, the Prosecutor sought to
6 tendered that document. It is tab 23, 65 ter 3020.
7 My intervention is as follows: I believe we ought to make it
8 clear with Mr. Olmsted what the goal of tendering these statements is.
9 Namely, the people whose statements were taken by the police in that
10 stage of the procedure gave the so-called information statement under the
11 then-regulations and, as such, they did not need to have counsel at that
12 stage. However, as suspects, they could exercise their right to tell the
13 truth or remain silent, or simply not tell the truth. It is precisely
14 because of that, as the witness explained, such statements were not
15 regarded as evidence that could be used in trial during criminal
16 proceedings.
17 Therefore, if the aim of the Prosecutor is to introduce the
18 contents of the statements in -- into the record or into the body of
19 evidence, I object. We cannot do that without hearing the person in
20 question in person. We would then be able to cross-examine him about the
21 contents of his statement. However, if the aim of the Prosecutor is
22 merely to explain the procedure of the pre-trial stage of the procedure,
23 as to the format of statements taken by the police, I do not object
24 against him making a few examples of that. But, in that case, he should
25 limit his questions to the procedure and steer clear of any contents of
Page 13314
1 such statements.
2 Thank you.
3 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Olmsted, I -- well, could I hear what you
4 have -- I would have -- I was under the impression that we were dealing
5 with these as -- as -- as examples of the procedure. But are you going
6 further, as Mr. Cvijetic apprehends?
7 MR. OLMSTED: Absolutely, Your Honour. This does go to procedure
8 but also the contents are admissible as well.
9 My learned friend's arguments really go to the weight of the
10 evidence, whether the person interviewed was advised of their rights or
11 had counsel present, not to its admissibility and this does -- the
12 statement does go to issues that are relevant to this case.
13 I would note that a number of statements similar to this have
14 been already admitted into evidence in this case on that basis as well,
15 both procedurally, as well as for the value of their content.
16 JUDGE HALL: But leaving aside Mr. Cvijetic's point about the
17 procedure about having to be in informed of their rights and whatnot,
18 which, to my mind, is not relevant, I -- although I have just heard you
19 say that a number of these similar statements have been admitted, even
20 though I thought that we were dealing with the fact that these complaints
21 came into the -- were before the -- by the process before the
22 investigative judge, it seems to be a leap to merely put -- establish the
23 fact of these statements and then, as Mr. Cvijetic seems to be objecting
24 to invite the Chamber to -- find -- find the truth of -- of what those
25 charges, for want of a better word were.
Page 13315
1 MR. OLMSTED: Well, yes, Your Honour. This witness has testified
2 that she received this information. She confirmed two particular pieces
3 of information that I think is relevant to this case. And the statements
4 are -- to earlier, some of those came in through a member of this unit at
5 issue who testified before this Tribunal.
6 So those -- this was just another one along with the other ones
7 that have been admitted. As to, you know, the pre-trial procedures, as
8 far as they're granted to a suspect, that's another issue completely.
9 JUDGE HALL: But at some point, as you say, there may be a
10 question of what weight is to be attached to this. And there's certainly
11 room for arguments at the end of the exercise.
12 MR. OLMSTED: Exactly, Your Honours. I just wanted to alert the
13 Defence that, yes, we do intend to use it for its content along with
14 other evidence that we have presented at this trial, just like any other
15 piece of evidence we have presented.
16 JUDGE HALL: You still have a problem, Mr. Cvijetic.
17 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation] Precisely, we do, Your Honour.
18 Mr. Olmsted closed off by saying something that I objected to in
19 the first place. He's moving in the direction in which we believe there
20 are reasons to object. He is busy with the contents of those statements
21 and it is our assertion that such statements could not make their way
22 into the evidence of this case, because they were not admissible even
23 under the then-regulation in our country due to all the reasons I
24 mentioned.
25 We cannot introduce the contents of Mr. Vuckovic's statements
Page 13316
1 through an investigative judge. We cannot do that without him being
2 personally in the courtroom. This witness could only testify to the
3 circumstances of such a procedure. We have no problem with that. But if
4 we are using this investigating judge to introduce the contents of, say,
5 ten or 15 statements, then it is inadmissible as evidence before this
6 Chamber, and they were not admissible back then either, precisely because
7 of the reason I mentioned and that is that a suspect is entitled to lie.
8 As simple as that.
9 JUDGE HALL: Anyway, it seems to me, at this stage it isn't
10 necessary to overcomplicate this matter. Let's proceed. And as I said,
11 it may be a matter of arguments and submissions at the end of the
12 exercise. But I think I understand Mr. Olmsted's point and perhaps
13 the language that I have been using about separating the fact from the
14 truth is -- is misleading in this context. But I think understand what
15 Mr. Olmsted is saying.
16 MR. OLMSTED: Just to complete the discussion on this matter, I
17 refer Defence counsel to Rule 89(A) of the Rules of Evidence which
18 specifically states that a Chamber shall apply rules of evidence set
19 forth in this section and shall not be bound by the national rules of
20 evidence.
21 I stood up earlier to mention that Ms. Korner would like to
22 address the Trial Chamber for about ten minutes at the end with regard to
23 the Rule 92 bis witnesses, if that is possible.
24 JUDGE HALL: Today?
25 MR. OLMSTED: Today.
Page 13317
1 JUDGE HALL: Yes. So whoever is on his feet at 6.45, we have
2 learned from experience that when counsel say 10 minutes, they don't mean
3 10 minutes by the clock. So we say 15 minutes. So whoever is on his
4 feet at 6.45 would -- would suspend cross-examination, if we would be at
5 that stage, to allow Ms. Korner to deal with her matter.
6 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you.
7 May we have on the screen 65 ter 24 --
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 JUDGE HALL: Yes, please continue, Mr. Olmsted.
10 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours, I really don't want to
11 disrupt anymore. But Mr. Olmsted was referring to Rule 89(A), and I
12 believe Mr. Olmsted is very well acquainted with the Rule 95, as well.
13 Therefore, the argument on 98 [sic](A) doesn't really stand,
14 thank you very much.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Let's move back to the evidence and we can save
16 this for a later day argument. 65 ter 2488, please. That's tab 28.
17 Q. This is a decision to conduct investigation dated 25 August 1992.
18 If we could just turn to the last page?
19 Ms. Simeunovic, could you confirm, do you recall issuing this
20 discussion?
21 A. Yes, I do.
22 MR. OLMSTED: May this be admitted into evidence, Your Honours.
23 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
24 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01534. Thank you, Your Honours.
25 MR. OLMSTED:
Page 13318
1 Q. I want to show you now a few records of interviews. The first
2 one, 65 ter 2385.
3 MR. OLMSTED: This is tab 30.
4 Q. And this is a record of interview with Dobrivoje Ikonic. And if
5 we could just turn to the last page of the B/C/S. Is that your
6 signature?
7 A. Yes, it is.
8 Q. Now let's take a look at 65 ter 2386, which is tab 31. This is a
9 record of interview of Vojin Vuckovic.
10 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to the last page of the B/C/S.
11 Q. We see -- is that your signature at the end of this document?
12 A. Yes, it is.
13 MR. OLMSTED: And, finally, can we look at 2489. That's tab 29.
14 Q. And this is a record of interview with Nenad Simic.
15 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to the last page of that; B/C/S
16 version of the document.
17 Q. Is that your signature?
18 A. Yes, it is.
19 Q. These are all records of interviews dated 25 August 1992. Do you
20 recognise these as some of the interviews that you conducted in August?
21 A. Yes. Those are interviews that I compiled, or drafted or,
22 rather, statements that the accused were -- during the interview of the
23 accused, as mentioned, Simic Nenad, Vojin Vuckovic, Ikonic, and I don't
24 know what others.
25 Q. And who brought the suspects to the interview?
Page 13319
1 A. In every procedure, it envisaged that the police would bring the
2 suspects who were in detention, in police detention. In other words,
3 they were all -- they had already been arrested by the police and kept in
4 detention.
5 Q. Do you recall where they were detained?
6 A. I don't know that.
7 Q. Were you aware of any Ministry of Justice prisons in operation in
8 Bijeljina in 1992?
9 A. At the time, there was no prison. So that these persons, I
10 assume, were detained on the premises of the police station, envisaged
11 for detention of individuals that the police arrested up to three days,
12 according to the then-legal prescription, or longer, depending on the
13 circumstances.
14 Q. I want to just briefly mention another detention facility, the
15 Bakovic detention facility. To your knowledge, did the court in
16 Bijeljina ever issue any remand orders or conduct any criminal
17 investigations with regard to prisoners held at that facility, in 1992?
18 A. No. I don't know anything about that.
19 MR. OLMSTED: May these three documents be tendered into
20 evidence.
21 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
22 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01535, P01536 and P01537
23 respectively. Thank you, Your Honours.
24 MR. OLMSTED: May we have up on the screen P317-21; this is
25 tab 32.
Page 13320
1 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, again, Your Honours. Just for the
2 clarity of the transcript and that we know where we are, can the -- the,
3 please, the Registrar give us the 65 ter number for each and every of the
4 three exhibits, please. Thank you.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 65 ter 02385 is admitted as
6 Exhibit P01535; 65 ter 02386 is admitted as Exhibit P01536; while 65 ter
7 02489 is admitted as P01537. Thank you, Your Honours.
8 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you. If we may have P317-21 on the screen.
9 Q. This is a ruling suspending detention of Vojin Vuckovic et al
10 dated 28 August 1992. Do you recall issuing this decision?
11 A. Yes, I do.
12 MR. OLMSTED: If we can turn to page 2 of the B/C/S and the
13 English.
14 Q. We see that the reason provided for their release was that the
15 prosecutor had not requested an extension of detention. And from this,
16 you concluded that the prosecutor does not feel there is sufficient
17 reason for detention.
18 Did you consult with the prosecutor before issuing this decision?
19 A. I both consulted with the prosecutor and I also submitted, on
20 time, the decision, which is why the time is noted of the issuance of
21 this. And if the prosecutor felt that there were still reasons to detain
22 these person, then they could still -- the prosecutor could still take
23 measures, or act -- asked for measures, but I myself consider that there
24 were no such compelling reasons or grounds to keep them in detention and
25 that is why I issued this ruling.
Page 13321
1 Q. You reference Article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Under
2 that Article who could recommend the extension of pre-trial custody?
3 A. Well, again, I have to say that I cannot say off the top of my
4 head what is -- what is all in Article 197, but the extension of
5 pre-trial custody could only be decided upon by the investigating judge
6 and the prosecutor. If you're referring to Article 197.
7 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm really sorry. I don't believe that the witness
8 said "decided upon." I believe "proposed by." But can you clarify that.
9 MR. OLMSTED:
10 Q. Just to clarify, it's the investigating judge or the prosecutor
11 who proposes to extend the pre-trial detention; is that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You mentioned that you didn't feel it was necessary to extend
14 their detention. Why not?
15 A. Because there was no cause -- or there were no grounds to extend
16 their custody.
17 Q. Would it have made a difference to you if they were under
18 investigation for a crime punishable by death? In that instance, would
19 you have sought to extend their detention?
20 A. Well, in that case, detention would be mandatory, as we already
21 said. And then it would have to be extended.
22 MR. OLMSTED: Let's take a look at 65 ter 2388. That's tab 33, I
23 believe.
24 Q. This is a request to broaden investigation to include
25 Dusko Vuckovic and is dated the 14th of September, 1992. Do you recall
Page 13322
1 receiving this document?
2 A. Yes, I do.
3 Q. And does this document relate to the case against Vojin Vuckovic
4 and others?
5 A. As we said earlier, but we did not really pay any attention to
6 that, in the criminal complaint that was submitted by the police or
7 perhaps the public security station in Bijeljina, it was stated that this
8 individual, too, had committed, among other, this criminal offence, but
9 that this individual was handed over to the military court or prosecutor,
10 I'm not sure but we can see it in that criminal report, and that two
11 individual who are also mentioned in the criminal report were at large.
12 And as for Vuckovic, for Dusko Vuckovic, it was said that he had been
13 surrendered to the military court, or, rather, to the military prosecutor
14 who decided to keep him -- or who issued decision to keep him in custody.
15 And it says so here, that according to the ruling of military court that
16 that was the case but that the military prosecutor has established that
17 they did not have jurisdiction over this individual so they returned the
18 case -- I don't know exactly how the whole thing went because the reasons
19 provided by the prosecutor from Bijeljina does not specify which
20 documents were sent back to the police or which documents had been
21 submitted by the police. The only thing that is mentioned is at that
22 this was -- this related to the criminal offence of aggravated theft.
23 Q. And let's turn to page 2 of the B/C/S and the English.
24 And along the lines of what you were just stating, it states that
25 the military prosecutor sent the criminal report against Dusko Vuckovic
Page 13323
1 back to the civilian prosecutor with the explanation that this accused
2 could not be treated as a member of the Serbian army, because, just as
3 the other individuals referenced in the criminal report, he was not a
4 member of the regular armed forces.
5 Under the law at the time, which courts had jurisdiction over
6 crimes committed by paramilitary groups against civilians?
7 A. What criminal offences are you referring to? Could you be more
8 specific?
9 Q. Well, here it is just giving a justification for sending it back
10 to the civilian prosecutors that this person was not a member of the
11 regular armed forces. And so I'm just talking generally if a member of a
12 paramilitary group commits a crime, let's say against a civilian, would
13 that be within the jurisdiction of the civilian courts?
14 A. At that time, that would depend on the type of criminal offence.
15 At that time, and I don't know, again I have to say, what it was that the
16 police submitted to the military prosecutor. I can only assume that he
17 was either a military -- he was either a soldier or had committed a
18 criminal offence that would fall under criminal offences -- under war
19 crimes or a similar crime. So this is what we see also here in the
20 reasons why it was sent to the military prosecutor.
21 Q. I'm not sure if you answered my question. They sent this case
22 back to the civilian prosecutor and this person was found not to be a
23 member of the regular Serbian army.
24 So my question to you is, that was a basis under the law to send
25 a case to the civilian prosecutor; is that correct?
Page 13324
1 A. If he committed the criminal offence of theft as appears from
2 this request to expand the investigation, in that case, the jurisdiction
3 would be with the lower prosecutor's office. However, if the criminal
4 offence had to do with war crimes, those cases were then under the
5 jurisdiction of the military court and the military prosecutor. And from
6 this request we don't see any of that. We don't see that I was sent any
7 accompanying documents, as the investigating judge, and there's just an
8 explanation that this was returned because this person was not a member
9 of the armed forces and no other criminal offences are mentioned, other
10 than the criminal offence of theft. And already at this time he had been
11 released from detention. And from this document, we can see that for a
12 while he was detained pursuant to a decision by the military court.
13 Q. Let me ask you a question. You mentioned war crimes. If a
14 civilian person commits a war crime, which court had jurisdiction over
15 that civilian who committed a war crime, if it's not a member of the
16 army?
17 A. Well, in practice, we did not have such cases where a civilian
18 would commit a war crime because I think, in fact, in real life it is not
19 really possible for a civilian to commit a war crime. That person would
20 have to be either a member of the armed forces or a member of
21 paramilitary units. But at this time, and I can't really tell you right
22 now why, whether there was a Law on Military Courts which provided for
23 this, but I know that criminal offences, regardless of perpetrator, would
24 be submitted to the military prosecutor and the military court, if they
25 involved war crimes. So they were not treated -- they were not within
Page 13325
1 the jurisdiction of the lower court in Bijeljina.
2 Q. But you would agree we would have to look at the Law on Military
3 Courts to determine that?
4 A. Well, I have to say again that, after all this time, I can't
5 really ascertain that, nor do have I that Law on Military Court before
6 me. But as far as I remember, and as far as I know, all the cases
7 involving war crimes were prosecuted by military prosecutors and military
8 courts. Why and how, I really don't know, and I don't think that I'm an
9 expert on the issue and that I could really say anything with certainty
10 why that was the case.
11 Q. Did you grant this request to broaden the investigation?
12 A. I assumed that I did. There was no reason not to, I think,
13 because we can't see here that there is any mention of any war crimes or
14 anything else because this individual was already included in the
15 original criminal report for theft. And just as there was a request to
16 conduct an investigation for the other individuals, this was just an
17 expansion of that same request to conduct an investigation into this
18 individual, based on that original criminal report.
19 MR. OLMSTED: May this be tendered into evidence, Your Honours.
20 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
21 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01538, Your Honours.
22 MR. OLMSTED: May we have on the screen 1D00-5204; that's a
23 document ID number.
24 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
25 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, can we have a tab number?
Page 13326
1 MR. OLMSTED: Tab number 44.
2 Q. This is a statement by Dusko Vuckovic taken by the military
3 police in Bijeljina dated 4 August 1992.
4 Did you receive this statement back in 1992 when the case against
5 Dusko Vuckovic was transferred to the civilian court?
6 A. No, I never received this statement. And if it says in the
7 heading that this was prosecuted by the military police, then they would
8 have interviewed this suspect, according to the instruction from the
9 military court.
10 Q. In this statement, Vuckovic admits to a number of crimes against
11 Muslim detainees at the Celopek cultural centre in Zvornik. During the
12 course of your investigation, did you ever receive informing regarding
13 these crimes committed by either Dusko Vuckovic or other members of the
14 Yellow Wasps against non-Serbs from either the civilian police, or the
15 military police, or any other source?
16 A. I could not really determine with certainty the time when this
17 occurred, but I know that there was a call from one of the courts in
18 Sabac, which is in Serbia, and that they did not tell me all the details
19 but they said that their -- they had initiated proceedings against this
20 individual. I can't recall the details. Because -- or for criminal
21 offences committed in Zvornik and they asked me to submit all the files
22 that I had and documents that I had at my disposal and I suppose that I
23 sent the entire court file. I can't recall the details, but I do know
24 that I was in contact with the Sabac court because they were the ones
25 conducting the proceedings for war crimes against this individual.
Page 13327
1 Q. And that was a civilian court, the one in Sabac?
2 A. I don't remember, but I assume that that was the case. You can
3 probably ascertain that from documents. I'm sure you have documents to
4 show which type of court it -- it was, whether it was the lower court,
5 the district court or senior court or maybe a military court, I don't
6 know.
7 Q. Now back in August 1992, if you had received this statement or
8 any information from the civilian or military police about these crimes
9 at the Celopek cultural centre what would you have done, what actions
10 would have you taken with regard to your criminal investigation in this
11 matter?
12 A. Well, for one, if I did receive -- if I had received this, and I
13 didn't, and now we're just hypothesising here, so seeing that this was
14 handled by the military police and knowing that this individual was
15 detained probably pursuant to a ruling by the military court, I would
16 first get in touch with the prosecutor, or, rather, with the president of
17 my court, we would then discuss it in the collegium, and I'm certain that
18 we would have taken some steps, and this person would not have been
19 released from custody.
20 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, this is not on our exhibit list, but
21 it was provided to us by the Defence, amongst other documents. I would
22 move at this time for it to be added to our 65 ter list and admitted into
23 evidence.
24 [Trial Chamber confers]
25 MR. ZECEVIC: No objection from us, Your Honour.
Page 13328
1 MR. PANTELIC: No objection.
2 JUDGE HALL: The Defence, not objecting, the document is admitted
3 and marked.
4 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01539. Thank you, Your Honours.
5 MR. OLMSTED: Let's have on the screen P317-19; this is tab 41.
6 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Olmsted, while you're winding down to the 6.45
7 mark for Ms. Korner's matter, I would alert you that at that point you
8 would have exhausted the extended time that you requested.
9 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 Q. What we have before us is the indictment against Vuckovic et al
11 dated 13 September 1999 and includes both Dusko Vuckovic and
12 Vojin Vuckovic. By the time of the filing of this indictment you had
13 left the basic court, but can you tell us between 1992 and 1996, is it
14 correct that this case remained in the investigative phase of the
15 criminal justice system?
16 A. Yes, it is.
17 Q. At any point during that period, did the investigation expand
18 beyond crimes of the thefts at the check-points?
19 A. No, it did not, except for what I said earlier, that I had
20 information that proceedings were initiated against Vuckovic, Dusko for
21 war crimes. How these proceedings were initiated, whether it was
22 trigged -- whether he -- Dusko Vuckovic was transferred from the -- from
23 a military prison in Bijeljina to Sabac or in some other way, I don't
24 know. I can't say anything about this case because I was not involved
25 with anything to do with this case, up until that time.
Page 13329
1 Q. I understand, and we don't want you to talk about something that
2 you weren't participating in. But with regard to this case before the
3 Bijeljina Basic Court, were the charges expanded beyond the crimes at the
4 check-points?
5 A. I really don't know. I cannot speak about things that I have no
6 information about. I was not aware of this indictment either.
7 Q. To your knowledge, did this case against the members of the
8 Yellow Wasps ever result in a trial?
9 A. I don't know. I really have no knowledge. I mean, that would
10 not be difficult to find out. You could check if you inquired with the
11 court in question. Based on this indictment, could you see what
12 transpired and what phase of the proceedings that case is in, whether it
13 has already been -- whether a sentence has already been, and a judgement
14 issued, and so on.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Can we look at 65 ter 1535. It's tab 58. And this
16 is the Bijeljina basic prosecutor's office KT log-book.
17 Q. During proofing on Sunday, you had a chance to review the entries
18 in this KT log-book from the period 1 April to 31 December 1992. Can you
19 tell us how many murder or voluntary manslaughter cases you were able to
20 identify in which the victim was a Muslim or a Croat?
21 A. I did look at this log-book, and I informed myself about the
22 crimes committed. In that period of time, there was a number of murders,
23 although I do not recall the number anymore. There was only one murder
24 in which the victim or the person who was killed was a Muslim. There
25 were far more murders with Serbian victims.
Page 13330
1 MR. OLMSTED: Let's take a look at page 32 of the B/C/S; page 6
2 of the English.
3 Q. And if we can zoom in on entry 223, we see a criminal report by
4 SJB Bijeljina received on 5 August 1992 for an Article 36 crime with a
5 victim of the name Salko Kukic. Was this the non-Serb murder case that
6 you were able to identify in this log-book?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Since we have limited time, let's look at one more entry.
9 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 35 of the B/C/S; page 9 of
10 the English. I'm sorry, actually page 40 of the B/C/S; page 10 of the
11 English.
12 And if we could zoom in on entry 244.
13 Q. And what we see under entry 244 is a criminal report by SJB
14 Bijeljina against Vojin Vuckovic and others for aggravated theft. Is
15 this the Yellow Wasps case that you worked on?
16 A. I suppose that was the case. I don't know whether I saw it in
17 any other log-books, but I do know that there was another murder in 1992,
18 although I don't remember any longer in which of the log-books I saw it,
19 if I did. I do know there was a murder of three Muslims at the time. It
20 was an elderly couple and another younger person, and I don't remember
21 anymore whether I saw it in any log-book or not.
22 MR. OLMSTED: May this be admitted into evidence, Your Honours.
23 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
24 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01540. Thank you, Your Honours.
25 MR. OLMSTED: Very quickly, if we can have 65 ter 2757 on the
Page 13331
1 screen; this is tab 56.
2 Q. This is a decision to discontinue investigation in the case
3 against Slaven Lukic et al dated 24 August 1992. We just looked at the
4 KT entry for the case involving the murder of -- of Salko Kukic. If we
5 look at the last two paragraphs of the B/C/S, page 2 of the English.
6 MR. OLMSTED: We need to turn to page 2 of the English.
7 Q. We see that the investigation was discontinued with the
8 explanation that the military prosecutor informed the investigating judge
9 that he decided to abandoned the prosecution of the accused.
10 Ms. Simeunovic, can you tell us, do you know why the prosecution
11 of the Kukic murder case was discontinued, abandoned?
12 A. Concerning this case and the proceedings around that, well,
13 that's something I never had anything to do with. What I do know,
14 however, is that after this person was found dead, the victim,
15 Slavko Kukic, the basic court in Bijeljina, or, rather, their
16 investigative judge, and the duty prosecutor, as well as the police,
17 i.e., the Bijeljina station carried out an on-site investigation. The
18 police gathered information and detected the perpetrator. They followed
19 up with a criminal report submitted to the basis prosecutor's office in
20 Bijeljina. Given that the perpetrators were military personnel, as we
21 can see here from the military police, the entire case file was forwarded
22 to the military court in Bijeljina.
23 As for why the prosecutor abandoned any further investigation,
24 that is something I don't know, and it doesn't say here. I do know,
25 however, that the case was officially closed, although I don't know when
Page 13332
1 exactly. I also know that all of the perpetrators received their
2 sentences. I don't know whether they're still in jail, but I do know
3 that a final decision was made in the case.
4 Q. The trial against them, was that -- was that during the conflict
5 or after it?
6 A. I truly don't know.
7 Q. That's fine.
8 MR. OLMSTED: May this be admitted into evidence, Your Honours.
9 JUDGE HALL: Admitted and marked.
10 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01541, Your Honours.
11 MR. OLMSTED:
12 Q. I want to show you one more document. It's 65 ter 2966.
13 MR. OLMSTED: And, yes, I apologise, tab 60.
14 Q. What we have before us is the Bijeljina basic prosecutor's office
15 KTN or unknown perpetrator log-book.
16 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 4 of the B/C/S; page 2 of
17 the English.
18 Q. We've just a moment ago looked at the KT log-book. Now we have
19 in front of us the KTN log-book. During your proofing, you had a chance
20 to review the 11 entries in this log-book for the period between 1
21 April and 31 December 1992, all of which appear on the two pages that we
22 have in front of us.
23 MR. OLMSTED: Perhaps we can turn the B/C/S one so it faces the
24 right direction. And let's zoom in a little bit, at least on the first
25 page, the page on the left.
Page 13333
1 Q. When you reviewed this log-book, were you able to identify any
2 entries for murders or voluntary manslaughter of non-Serb victims?
3 A. I don't know what to say. This is so small that I can't read. I
4 can only speak off the cuff about what I can recall about the three
5 victims. I don't really know whether they are in this log-book.
6 At that time, the perpetrators were still unknown. However, in
7 1993, or in late 1992, the perpetrators were discovered.
8 Q. That's --
9 A. But I can't read this now, and I can't really remember.
10 Q. Yes. But during your -- and I don't want to talk about that
11 particular case that you think you recollect from 1993. But if you could
12 tell us -- you reviewed this log-book during proofing and when you
13 reviewed it in proofing, were you able to identify any murder or
14 manslaughter cases involving non-Serb victims, just from reviewing these
15 pages?
16 A. During proofing, as now, I said that it would be less than
17 serious on my part to comment any log-books of the prosecution which I
18 had never seen before, and there was no need for me to do so as the
19 investigating judge. The writing here is far too small. I did not have
20 sufficient time and simply cannot comment on any of these documents. I
21 had no role to play in their creation whatsoever.
22 Q. That's fine.
23 MR. OLMSTED: If we could move to the right-hand page I want to
24 look quickly at the last entry. Entry, I believe, it's 41.
25 Q. And we see that the unknown perpetrator report for this crime is
Page 13334
1 under Article 144 of the SFRY Criminal Code. Would that be a war crime?
2 A. I don't know off the top of my head. I would really need to
3 refer to the law.
4 Q. The victims listed are Ljubomir and Dragomir Tanic. Could you
5 tell us what their ethnicity would have been?
6 A. I suppose Serbs, but not necessarily. There could have been
7 Croats. I don't think there were Bosniaks though, but I'd rather not go
8 into that now. It's really not something I can tell you anything about
9 specifically.
10 As for Article 144, I would have to have the law before me to
11 know what the crime in question is.
12 MR. OLMSTED: May this be admitted into evidence, Your Honours.
13 JUDGE HALL: What basis, Mr. Olmsted, having regard to every
14 answer the witness has given.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Well, to a certain degree, the log-book speaks for
16 itself. We have the SFRY Criminal Code. We can look up what Article 144
17 is. So this is a relevant document in this case.
18 Now that she is not able to answer my questions entirely,
19 that's -- you know, that's her testimony, but the document itself is
20 relevant to this case.
21 JUDGE HALL: The document may be relevant and may be admissible
22 not through this witness.
23 MR. OLMSTED: Let's mark it for exhibit -- identification,
24 Your Honours.
25 JUDGE HALL: Marked for identification.
Page 13335
1 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P01542, marked for identification,
2 Your Honours.
3 MR. OLMSTED:
4 Q. Final question, Ms. Simeunovic. To your knowledge, were any
5 criminal reports filed in 1992 against police officers for committing
6 crimes against non-Serbs, to your knowledge?
7 A. As far as I recall, they were not.
8 MR. OLMSTED: No further questions, Your Honours.
9 JUDGE HALL: Madam, we're about to take the adjournment for
10 today. Your testimony is not at an end because there's still
11 cross-examination to come. We will resume in this courtroom at 2.15
12 tomorrow afternoon.
13 The Court will not rise at this point because it has some
14 procedural matters with which to deal, so the usher will escort you from
15 the courtroom. But I must caution you to having been sworn as a witness
16 you cannot have any communication whatever with counsel from either side
17 and in such conversations as you may have with anyone outside the
18 courtroom, you cannot discuss your testimony before the Tribunal.
19 So you will return to this courtroom for 2.15 tomorrow. Thank
20 you.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good bye.
22 [The witness stands down]
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, Ms. Korner.
25 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, good afternoon. I'm here because of
Page 13336
1 the matters that were raised yesterday and because I have rather more
2 knowledge of the nuts and boats perhaps of this whole saga, if I can put
3 it that way, than Mr. Hannis.
4 Your Honours, can I return to the question of the 92 bis
5 witnesses as proposed by the Prosecution in their motion. First,
6 Your Honours, yesterday as Mr. Hannis referred to earlier this afternoon,
7 ordered us to provide the timings and we will do so by Thursday.
8 The timings for these witnesses, if they are viva voce, now,
9 if -- we understood Your Honours want to know this for the purposes of
10 scheduling, but if we're wrong, and the purpose is because Your Honours
11 intend that we should call all the witnesses via, well, then what I have
12 to say today will be moot. But we have understood it purely if the
13 Defence don't agree then Your Honours are jumping straight from 92 bis,
14 if the Defence want the witnesses to attend for cross-examination to via,
15 without the intermediate step of 92 ter which is catered for under
16 Rule (C) of 92 bis.
17 Your Honours, going back to July - it seems a long time ago now -
18 we had various discussions in open court with Your Honours about how the
19 Defence were going to notify us and the Court whether they would agree to
20 these witnesses being 92 bis. There was a lengthy discussion on the 15th
21 of July, and Mr. Zecevic then made it clear that the Defence could not or
22 would not be able to say whether they agreed 92 bis witnesses until such
23 time as we had provided all the disclosure, not just the statements or
24 the transcripts, but all the disclosure that comes from doing the full
25 search on a witness.
Page 13337
1 Your Honours, despite the discussion, and, indeed, despite later
2 discussions and the discussion yesterday, the position, as I understand
3 it from the Defence, is quite clear and I just want to make sure that
4 Your Honours understand it. They are not prepared to say, as Mr. Zecevic
5 indicated, whether they will accept the witness testimony under the terms
6 of 92 bis until such time as we do full disclosure. So we're now with
7 the great what I call the -- the great ever decreasing circles theory.
8 We have spent the last few weeks over the adjournment, asking for
9 the full searches to be done on each of these witnesses, in order of how
10 we intended to call them, which meant the viva voce witnesses first.
11 ISU, like everywhere else in this Tribunal, has had reduced staff as we
12 have, and over the summer break. So the searchs are coming in, in
13 batches. We have not yet got a single 92 bis search back. Therefore, in
14 order, as Mr. Zecevic, and I understand also Mr. Krgovic, want full
15 disclosure before they'll agree to this, plus the highlighting on the
16 statements, that will not be done, us filing a 92 bis motion until such
17 time as we can get the searches back. So nothing can be decided by the
18 original estimate, let alone September the 3rd. Because we've got to get
19 all the searches back, then we've got to put the material together, then
20 we've got to do the highlighting, and so there will be a delay.
21 So therefore, Your Honours, I want to make it absolutely plain to
22 Your Honours, that, really, tomorrow's meeting and any discussion between
23 us and the Defence at this stage based only on the statements isn't going
24 to get us anywhere unless Mr. Krgovic and Mr. Zecevic can be persuaded to
25 at least indicate whether or not they accept, subject to searchs coming
Page 13338
1 back, and, at the moment, that I'm told that's not possible.
2 So it seemed to me Your Honours ought to be put in the picture.
3 Either we -- we -- we stop the searches. We highlight. We take what
4 we've got, what we know we've got that applies for the witnesses from the
5 previous testimony in each case of the documents and what I'm given to
6 the Defence or we have to wait, as Mr. Zecevic indicated he wants full
7 disclosure, in which case, nothing is going to be done -- well, nothing
8 will be ready for some time to come.
9 So that's the situation I'm afraid we're in at the moment.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. Could -- could I just ask for
11 clarification. If disclosure of the statements and the testimonies of
12 the 44 witnesses has been made to the Defence so that what we're talking
13 about is only the additional evidence that might occur as a result of the
14 full search.
15 So the -- the -- the mandatory disclosure, according to the
16 Rules, are the statements and transcripts, has been made for all the
17 witnesses; is that correct?
18 MS. KORNER: Yes. That was done, in fact, I think I told
19 Your Honour even before the break.
20 JUDGE DELVOIE: But without highlights.
21 MS. KORNER: Without highlights. But if we now -- can I just add
22 to that, as I say it's the ever decreasing circles theory. If we take
23 the staff now to do the highlighting, that's the lawyers because they're
24 the only people who can really deal with it, then we will no longer be
25 reviewing the searches as they come in, because we will have to stop
Page 13339
1 doing that to do the highlighting.
2 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, I believe our position was very
3 clear. The 92 bis rule requires the Prosecution to provide the
4 documents, highlighted portions of the testimonies or the statements of
5 the -- of the witnesses, which it intends to -- to offer as 92 bis. That
6 is the -- that is the first step. When we reached that first step, we
7 will be probably able to give some indication. But before we receive
8 that, we are not able to give any indication. That is the point.
9 Now, the -- the -- the overall searches, I don't think they have
10 anything to do with this, with the clear obligation of the Prosecution to
11 give us the highlighted portions of the statements and the testimonies of
12 the witnesses which they are intending to call as 92 bis.
13 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honours, that's actually -- sorry, have
14 you finished Mr. Zecevic?
15 It's not actually what Mr. Zecevic said either --
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Hold on a minute. I seem to recall, Mr. Zecevic,
17 that the full search was actually done at your request.
18 MR. ZECEVIC: Of course, Your Honours, yes. But it doesn't --
19 Your Honours, we need the full search, the full disclosure on these
20 witnesses. We need that which is only normal obligation of the
21 Prosecution to provide us with the disclosure.
22 Your Honours, for the purposes of cross-examining, I'm not
23 talking about the 92 bis. The 92 bis -- the Rules for the 92 bis, the
24 Prosecution has to give us the highlights portions of the testimonies and
25 statements of the witnesses or the package, the 92 bis package.
Page 13340
1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that's the whole point. You see, A,
2 the Rule doesn't require us to highlight. We volunteer that. The Rule
3 says nothing about highlighting. It deals with the qualifications for
4 admission under 92 bis. Nothing about highlighting. We said we would do
5 that, and we will. But what is the -- see we go around ever decreasing
6 circles -- what is the point of us doing the highlighting when the
7 Defence, who must know whether or not they are prepared to accept these
8 witnesses, say, No, we want them to all come viva voce, in which we have
9 wasted how many man hours and time doing the highlighting.
10 As I say, if that's what Your Honours order us to do, and that's
11 what the Defence insist on us doing before they can give any indication,
12 then, Your Honours, we will stop doing any further review of the
13 searches. We will do the highlighting of the statements or the
14 transcripts, and -- and then -- again, will just delay matters further.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Ms. Korner, am I wrong if I think that
17 independently of the -- the 92 bis question, that your office is making
18 this full search anyhow?
19 MS. KORNER: It is. It is obliged to, Your Honours.
20 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, okay.
21 MS. KORNER: Yes.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zecevic, am I wrong in my understanding that
23 you say now that, for the 92 bis business, you don't need the full
24 search?
25 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, I will try to explain very -- very --
Page 13341
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Let me --
2 MR. ZECEVIC: -- briefly.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Let me try to [Overlapping speakers] ... say yes
4 or no.
5 MR. ZECEVIC: I will try to answer.
6 Your Honours, we -- the -- I will take one example. We have
7 the -- I have before me the -- the motion filed on the 29th February 2008
8 in this case in the pre-trial phase, and this is the 92 bis motion filed
9 by the same Prosecution. The motion contains annex, for example, A, and
10 it says in comments, it says name of the -- the person, the witness, the
11 transcript, the date, everything relevant counts of the indictment, and
12 so on. And it says in comments: Portions covered by adjudicated facts
13 are highlighted in blue, other relevant portions are highlighted in
14 yellow.
15 And those are the packages of 92 bis statements which have been
16 admitted into this case and offered to be admitted in this case.
17 So I don't see why the Prosecution doesn't follow the same
18 procedure which they -- designated in this case. It was my understanding
19 when they filed the motion for 54 new witnesses they already knew the
20 portions of the documents for these witnesses who are going to be called
21 as 92 bis witnesses. So I don't see what is the problem.
22 The problem is, for us, before we receive the -- this, we don't
23 know where to look at. That's one thing. And the second thing is,
24 before we receive the full disclosure, we cannot say whether we want
25 this -- this person to come to -- for cross-examination or not.
Page 13342
1 Your Honours --
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Are you saying more than you said ten minutes
3 ago. So now you say you need the full search?
4 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, the Rule -- the Rule of 92 bis, it is
5 the obligation of the -- of the Prosecution ongoing obligation to provide
6 us with the disclosure and they are doing it. They -- they continually
7 search the documents or the -- or the database for the witnesses and
8 provide us with Rule 68 and 66, and so on, documents.
9 Your Honours what we need now is -- is -- is indication what are
10 we supposed to look at and that is the highlighted portions [Overlapping
11 speakers] ...
12 JUDGE DELVOIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... have a very important
13 indication.
14 MR. ZECEVIC: Yes.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: All these witnesses will only come to testify
16 about adjudicated facts that have been denied.
17 MR. ZECEVIC: I -- I appreciate that. And I understand that.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's very important information when you go
19 through all those -- those statements.
20 MR. ZECEVIC: Yes. But, Your Honours, one witness comes to
21 testify, for example, for adjudicated fact 467, let's say. The
22 Prosecution knows that this witness talks about the -- the adjudicated
23 fact 467, otherwise, they wouldn't call him.
24 So, in -- in order to facilitate our -- our work, they have to
25 give us a highlighted portion of the testimony which lasted for seven
Page 13343
1 days which is 3.000 pages long. If we are to go through each and every
2 witness for -- for a number of days that they testified, it will take
3 us -- it will take us another six months, Your Honours, to be able to --
4 and I don't really see why is that a problem for the Prosecution to -- to
5 indicate to us.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: If -- if I may, the issue turns on the marking of
7 the statements and the testimony. So let's address that first.
8 For the 44 witnesses that are now in play, the Prosecution has
9 provided, if I understand it correctly, all the statements and the
10 testimonies for those witnesses. But these statements and testimonies,
11 unfortunately, are -- have not yet been marked; is that correct?
12 MS. KORNER: That is correct.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
14 So one issue would be or one question would be, how soon could
15 the Prosecution identify in those statements and transcripts the portions
16 that are relevant to the denied adjudicated facts.
17 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it will take considerable time to do
18 that. And it is -- can I just say this. It's a waste of effort if, at
19 the end of the day the Defence know already that they are not -- that
20 they are going to seek to ask for the witnesses to be called viva voce
21 and so just attending for cross-examinations.
22 We can do it, but I say now, we consider it a waste of effort if
23 the Defence are going -- know now that they are going to ask for these
24 people to be cross-examined. And secondly, in order to do it, within a
25 reasonable time-limit, every lawyer will stop doing the review of the
Page 13344
1 searches and disclosure and do just that. But can he with certainly do
2 it. And I would estimate it will take two to three weeks.
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Hold on a minute. Because as far as I have
4 understood, there is a distinction to be made between, on the one hand,
5 the testimonies and the statements that have already been disclosed to
6 the Defence and, on the other hand, possible extra searches in the rest
7 of the Prosecution's documentary base, in which there might pop up,
8 eventually, new indications or information relating to those witnesses,
9 but that are certainly over and above the statements and the testimonies
10 of witnesses.
11 And -- and -- and my understanding, if -- if -- if I have
12 understood this correctly, is that to do this extra search, to look for
13 extra small things that might pop up somewhere is a very laborious effort
14 and that will take immense time.
15 But if we revert and go back to the statements in the transcript
16 that have already been disclosed, my assumption would be that it would
17 not -- it would, of course, be a laborious enterprise. It would not be
18 that difficult and that consuming to have electronic searches made in
19 order to identify the parts of those testimonies and statements that are
20 relevant to the denied adjudicated facts. That, I would assume, could be
21 done in a reasonably shorter time than to complete the full search.
22 MS. KORNER: Yes, of course, it could. No question about that,
23 Your Honours. When you say shorter time, we're still talking weeks and
24 as His Honour Judge Delvoie pointed out, the Defence know that these
25 witnesses have been picked because they cover the adjudicated facts, and
Page 13345
1 they are able to say, all of these witnesses have obviously, or nearly
2 all, I think, have testified before and the Defence must know whether
3 they are going to -- to want them to attend for cross-examination because
4 it is not accepted.
5 Your Honours, I -- I am also not clear why it is so difficult in
6 the sense that I don't know what the situation is going to be about
7 cross-examination, but if there is a limitation on -- on -- what the
8 witnesses can say in-chief, in other words just giving the context and
9 dealing with the adjudicated fact, then if there's a limitation again on
10 the Defence, we don't know what Your Honours intend to do about that, but
11 they can only cross-examine on those restricted matters. I see
12 Judge Harhoff nodding, well, then they don't need the searches anyhow.
13 So, I mean, the only reason I brought this to Your Honours'
14 attention today is, as I say, because I don't think Your Honours were
15 quite clear on the divide between us. And if Your Honours agree with
16 Mr. Zecevic that we should do the highlighting, then we will do it, but
17 we will, as I say, not be dealing -- for the moment until that exercise
18 is done with anything that arises from searches.
19 JUDGE HALL: Anyway, we have gone long past the time for
20 adjournment.
21 MS. KORNER: I know. Can I -- I know -- I appreciate -- I know
22 the interpreters have been here since 2.15, but I wonder if Your Honours
23 could feel able to give an indication today, now, if not, because we are
24 not sitting tomorrow -- or perhaps sit tomorrow. Oh so we are.
25 JUDGE HALL: We are sitting tomorrow in any event.
Page 13346
1 MS. KORNER: Of course, we are. I had forgot that, yes.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: But to summarise, it is more or less a vicious
3 circle. You do the highlighting or they do the highlighting.
4 MS. KORNER: No.
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: Well, they don't do it with a pen but they have
6 to make the search that you do by highlighting.
7 MS. KORNER: I'm not sure.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... that's one. Second
9 thing is, we're talking about 29 witnesses proposed to be heard as
10 92 bis.
11 MS. KORNER: Correct.
12 JUDGE DELVOIE: We do. Okay. So I would say let's -- let's get
13 back to tomorrow and eventually to the estimates you will give us on
14 Thursday.
15 MS. KORNER: Well, yes. Absolutely, Your Honours, yep.
16 JUDGE HALL: And we apologise to the interpreters and the
17 court reporter for entrenching on their time.
18 We take the adjournment to 2.15 tomorrow.
19 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.12 p.m.,
20 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 18th day of
21 August, 2010, at 2.15 p.m.
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