Page 2905
1 Monday, 2 July 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2.18 p.m.
6 JUDGE PARKER: Good afternoon.
7 Would you please read allowed the affirmation on the card that is
8 given to you now.
9 THE WITNESS: Certainly. I solemnly declare that I will speak the
10 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
11 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you very much. Please sit down.
12 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
13 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Saxon.
14 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, the next witness will be Mr. Peter
15 Bouckaert. It's the Prosecution's understanding that our colleagues from
16 the Defence would like to make some submissions before the start of this
17 witness's testimony.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Mettraux.
19 MR. METTRAUX: Good afternoon, Your Honour.
20 Thank you, Mr. Saxon.
21 The submissions will be very brief, Your Honour. This morning we
22 sent the Chamber and the Prosecution a letter which pertains to a number
23 of documents which the Prosecution proposes to use with Mr. Bouckaert.
24 There is a number of documents, I believe about 20 of those, which
25 we intend to object to. They are very similar in nature and purpose to
Page 2906
1 what we say are matters irrelevant to the charges, while otherwise not
2 sufficiently reliable.
3 The submissions of the Defence at this stage are limited to
4 querying the matter with the Chamber as to how the Chamber wishes to deal
5 with these documents, whether the Chamber would wish us to object
6 individually to each document or whether the Chamber would be minded to
7 deal with those perhaps en bloc, which perhaps would be less disruptive of
8 the evidence of Mr. Bouckaert.
9 JUDGE PARKER: I think the en bloc approach sounds more
10 attractive. It puts us simply as that.
11 MR. METTRAUX: We would be more than happy to do so, Your Honour,
12 having identified the documents which we intend to object to. The only
13 problem we see with that would essentially be for the Prosecution to state
14 the alleged relevance of those documents which we've listed. We hope that
15 we haven't put the Prosecution in a difficult position to do that.
16 We've -- as soon as we received the proofing notes this morning, we sent
17 them the list of the documents which were concerned.
18 I think there are essentially three categories of documents which
19 we object to. They are press articles, a number of press releases, and a
20 number of other documents produced by Human Rights Watch.
21 We have indicated very briefly in our document what the basis for
22 the objection was, either relevance or reliability. Our main concern,
23 Your Honour, is a relatively large number of documents which the
24 Prosecution intends to use with Mr. Bouckaert are not relevant to these
25 proceedings. Our main concern is if this material is permitted to be
Page 2907
1 tendered with this witness, there is a risk that the cross-examination be
2 greatly extended with a view to cross-examining upon those documents
3 should they be found to be relevant, and there's also the risk of
4 additional evidence having to be called by the Defence if the Defence were
5 told that it has to respond in some sense to the evidence which is led
6 through this witness.
7 We don't have a magic formula in terms of practical arrangements
8 for that. It is our belief that indeed it would be easier to deal with
9 them en bloc if Mr. Saxon is reminded to state the relevance of the
10 documents which we listed in our letter this morning. We would be able to
11 respond to each and every one of them.
12 JUDGE PARKER: Could I indicate that I am told there was a letter
13 received this morning, but something about the letter had the effect that
14 it could not be opened by the Chamber staff; and as a consequence, we have
15 no idea what that letter might contain.
16 We do have, or at least I've just received, the proposed
17 Prosecution list of exhibits, but we do not know which of those are in
18 dispute.
19 MR. METTRAUX: I do understand, Your Honour, that there was a
20 problem due to the computer we used the first time to send the letter.
21 Following that, we were contacted by the Chamber and asked to resend the
22 document, which we did resend in a format which we understand was readable
23 in a Word document which should have been provided to the Chamber. I
24 apologise if that has not been the case, but it was done immediately upon
25 being notified. And the document was also sent, I understand, to the
Page 2908
1 Prosecution.
2 JUDGE PARKER: Well, it hasn't reached us. So are you able to
3 deal with these matters in the absence of that, perhaps using the
4 Prosecutor's list?
5 MR. METTRAUX: Absolutely, Your Honour. What I can do, if that's
6 agreeable to the Prosecution, is simply identify for Your Honours the
7 documents which are concerned simply by our letter.
8 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters would like to ask for a bit of
9 a break so that we can catch up.
10 MR. SAXON: [Previous translation continues]... extra copies here
11 in the courtroom of the memo or letter sent by the Defence this morning,
12 if they could be handed up to Your Honours.
13 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. And do you have any copies of your
14 table, this document?
15 MR. SAXON: Additional copies, Your Honour? We have binders.
16 JUDGE PARKER: There is one between three here at the moment.
17 MR. SAXON: Well, we actually have produced a binder for each
18 Judge, and I'm hopeful that we have a binder as well for each Defence
19 team.
20 JUDGE PARKER: Well, then, if I could ask you now, Mr. Saxon,
21 whether you feel you would be able to deal with this matter in the way
22 suggested by Mr. Mettraux.
23 MR. SAXON: I think that I can, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE PARKER: Splendid.
25 You will excuse us, Mr. Bouckaert, while we go through these
Page 2909
1 technical difficulties. The object will be to make your evidence easier
2 in the end.
3 THE WITNESS: Certainly.
4 MR. METTRAUX: The first document, Your Honour, which is listed in
5 our letter of today is under tab 1 of your binder. That would be
6 Prosecution Rule 65 ter 325, and that's a letter from Human Rights Watch
7 to Mr. Ali Ahmeti, political spokesman for the National Liberation Army.
8 And we indicated in our letter -- the letter is dated the 4th of May of
9 2001, and we've indicated in our letter that it is the position of the
10 Defence that this letter is, in fact, irrelevant to the charges.
11 JUDGE PARKER: Could I suggest, Mr. Mettraux, and I'm deliberately
12 going slow for a moment to allow the poor interpreters to catch up, I
13 think as we get excited we speak more quickly and we get ahead of them.
14 It may be able to speed up the process if you were to say, "We object to
15 the relevance of," and then identify the documents you say are irrelevant.
16 We can then hear Mr. Saxon as to the relevance of each of those.
17 MR. METTRAUX: I shall do so, Your Honour.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
19 MR. METTRAUX: Under tab 1, Rule 65 ter 325 --
20 JUDGE PARKER: No. If you can, for our purposes, simply say "tab
21 number" would be enough.
22 MR. METTRAUX: Perfect.
23 As for relevance, it would be tab 1; tab 2; tab 3 - tab 4 will not
24 be used with this witness, we are being told - tab 7, which also concerns
25 the reliability and related issues; tab 8, which concerns both relevance
Page 2910
1 and reliability; tab 10, which relates to both relevance and reliability;
2 tab 36, which has a more expensive or extensive objection basis; tab 38,
3 several bases of objection again; tab 39, reliability; tab 40,
4 reliability.
5 JUDGE PARKER: As well as relevance?
6 MR. METTRAUX: Tab 40, Your Honour, I believe is limited to
7 reliability.
8 Tab 41, reliability; tab 42, reliability; tab 43, reliability.
9 Tab 44, reliability; tab 45, relevance, reliability, and related issues.
10 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
11 And you believe tab 4 is not going to be pursued?
12 MR. METTRAUX: Mr. Saxon gave us this indication shortly before
13 court, yes, Your Honour.
14 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
15 Now, relevance, Mr. Saxon.
16 MR. SAXON: I will try to speak slowly for the benefit of the
17 interpreters, Your Honours.
18 Tab 1 is a letter to Mr. Ali Ahmeti, sent by Human Rights Watch in
19 May of 2001. It is relevance -- it is relevant, excuse me, to the
20 existence of an armed conflict in Macedonia during 2001. It is relevant
21 to the notice received by both parties to that conflict as to their
22 obligations under international humanitarian law. And it also explains --
23 it's also relevant to the rest of this witness's evidence, because it
24 helps to explain and corroborate the work practice of Mr. Bouckaert and
25 the organisation that he represents: Human Rights Watch.
Page 2911
1 Tab 2, Your Honour, which is a very similar letter directed to the
2 then Prime Minister, Ljubce Georgievski, on the Prosecution's submission,
3 has the same relevance; simply a letter sent to the leader of the other
4 party to the conflict in Macedonia during 2001.
5 Tab 3 is a press release entitled "Macedonia Conflict Endangers
6 Civilians," issued on the 7th of May, 2001. And, again, the Prosecution
7 believes it is relevant to the existence of an armed conflict, and there's
8 a note. It's a bit awkward to read; but in the middle of the page, it
9 says: "On Friday, Human Rights Watch sent letters to Macedonian President
10 Boris Trajkovski; Prime Minister Ljubce Georgievski; and the NLA political
11 spokesman, Ali Ahmeti."
12 So, again, this tab 3 is related to tabs 1 and 2; and, again, it
13 provides an indication that at the highest levels of both parties to the
14 conflict in Macedonia, the representatives of those parties were put on
15 notice their obligations under international humanitarian law.
16 Moving on now to tab 7, it is a combination press release and
17 report by Human Rights Watch, issued on the 31st of May, 2001, that talks
18 about violence, if I may say so, systematic violence, perpetrated against
19 ethnic Albanian men by members of the Macedonian police. The Prosecution
20 submits that this document is relevant to the issue of the accused
21 Boskoski's -- to whether the accused Boskoski had known or had reason to
22 know whether his police subordinates had committed crimes in Ljuboten.
23 This document indicates that was information available quite
24 publicly about abuses committed by the Macedonian police well before the
25 events in Ljuboten in 2001; and so in the Prosecution's submission, this
Page 2912
1 document is relevant to the issue of what Mr. Boskoski knew or should have
2 known when there were subsequent published reports about allegations of
3 crimes committed by the Macedonian police in Ljuboten.
4 Tab 8, a Human Rights Watch report and press release entitled
5 "Macedonia, Rioters Burn Albanian Home in Bitula." A subtitle below
6 that: "Police Fail to Stop Violence, Some Actively Participate." In the
7 Prosecution's case, this document is relevant for the same reasons that
8 the document in tab 7 is relevant, and for one additional reason, because
9 it raises the question of the practice of retaliatory attacks on ethnic
10 Albanians after ethnic Macedonian -- after members of the Macedonian
11 security forces suffered losses during the conflict in 2001. And the
12 Prosecution, in its Pre-Trial Brief, refers to the issue of whether the
13 events in Ljuboten on the 12th of August were in a way, at least partly, a
14 retaliatory attack.
15 Tab 10 is a press release/report by Human Rights Watch issued on
16 the 25th of June, 2001, entitled "Macedonia, Pamphlet Raises Ethnic
17 Tensions." And the crux of this document is about pamphlets that were
18 found in Skopje in June of 2001 that effectively make a great deal of
19 serious threats against the Siptar population, the derogatory term for
20 ethnic Albanians, and threatening retaliation for any losses suffered by
21 the Macedonian police and/or the Macedonian army. The Prosecution
22 submits, again, that this document is relevant for the same reasons that
23 the documents in tabs 7 and 8 are relevant.
24 Your Honours, tab 36 is a report authored by the witness sitting
25 in front of you, Mr. Bouckaert, detailing the results of his investigation
Page 2913
1 into the events in and around Ljuboten on the 12th of August, 2001. It is
2 a detailed report based on this witness's interviews with eyewitnesses to
3 the alleged crimes, including with victims of the alleged crimes. And it
4 was also produced via -- the information -- part of the information in
5 this report also comes from a personal visit that this witness made to the
6 village on the 23rd of August, 2001, and where he made observations there.
7 So in the Prosecution's submission, this document is clearly
8 relevant to the issues related to this case. It also addresses the
9 alleged involvement of Macedonian police officers, both reserve and active
10 police officers, in the crimes alleged to have happened in and around
11 Ljuboten. It also makes allegations about the alleged responsibility of
12 the accused Mr. Boskoski and makes strong recommendations to the
13 Macedonian government that a full and transparent investigation into the
14 events in Ljuboten and into the role of the police forces and members of
15 the Ministry of Interior in those events be performed.
16 So in the Prosecution's submission, Your Honour, this particular
17 document, the report in tab 36, is relevant to all counts of the
18 indictment, and it is relevant to the question of whether Mr. Boskoski
19 knew or had reason to know that persons that were subordinate to him in
20 the Ministry of the Interior might have committed crimes on the 12th of
21 August, 2001.
22 If I can turn now to tab 38, this is a press release, Your
23 Honours, distributed by Human Rights Watch on the 5th of September 2001,
24 which I believe was the day when the report authored by this witness was
25 released. And, again, this document is also relevant to the question of
Page 2914
1 notice, whether this accused knew or had reason to know that his
2 subordinates had committed crimes in the village of Ljuboten. And if I
3 may say so, the witness in front of you actually dictated the text of this
4 document as well.
5 There are a number of tabs, really 40 through 44, which are
6 newspaper articles which --
7 JUDGE PARKER: Did you mean to skip 39?
8 MR. SAXON: I did not, Your Honour. I apologise.
9 Thirty-nine through 44 are a -- let me start with 39. Thirty-nine
10 is a report -- a newspaper report published on the 26th of August. It
11 reflects information that this newspaper, "The Sunday Telegraph," had
12 received about the soon-to-be-published Human Rights Watch report about
13 the events in Ljuboten. And it also refers to the fact that on -- this
14 newspaper article, of course, also refers to the alleged role of the
15 accused Mr. Boskoski in the events in and around Ljuboten. The statement
16 of this witness and his testimony will describe the reaction of the
17 accused Boskoski to this newspaper report.
18 So in the Prosecution's submission, this newspaper report is
19 certainly relevant to the issue of the accused's knowledge. And in terms
20 of reliability, it reflects what was subsequently published several days
21 later by Human Rights Watch. And if the Chamber is minded not to accept
22 this document for the reliability of the allegations related to the events
23 in Ljuboten, the Prosecution submits that this newspaper report, as well
24 as the subsequent, I believe, five tabs, 40 through 44, are certainly
25 relevant to the issue of the knowledge of this accused, what notice this
Page 2915
1 accused had about the possibility that his subordinates had committed
2 crimes.
3 If you look at tabs 39 through 44, you will see they all speak to
4 the allegations made by Human Rights Watch in its report, and then 40
5 through 44 refer to responses by the accused Boskoski. And in the
6 Prosecution's submission, at a minimum, these newspaper reports from many
7 different newspaper media sources, at a minimum, are circumstantial
8 evidence of notice that accused received about allegations of possible
9 crimes committed in village of Ljuboten by members of the Ministry of the
10 Interior.
11 If I can turn now to 45, Your Honours, this newspaper article was
12 published in "The New York Times" ironically on the 12th of August, 2001,
13 and this witness will testify that the information in this article about
14 crimes allegedly committed by members of the NLA against ethnic Macedonian
15 civilians, this information was actually provided by Mr. Bouckaert to the
16 reporter Ian Fisher. Mr. Bouckaert will explain that he was requested by
17 representatives of the Macedonian government at the time to interview
18 victims of the crime that is described in this article; and in the
19 Prosecution's submission, this article then is relevant to the credibility
20 and objectivity of Mr. Bouckaert in the work that he did in Macedonia in
21 2001.
22 Your Honours, if you have no questions for me, then I will sit
23 down.
24 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Mettraux.
25 MR. METTRAUX: Thank you, Your Honour. I'll try to be as brief
Page 2916
1 and concise as my colleague.
2 First, concerning tab number 1, Your Honour, I'll simply point out
3 to you that the document is dated the 4th of May, 2001. That's a time at
4 which Mr. Boskoski was not yet a minister in the government. The same
5 applies to the second letter, the letter to Prime Minister Ljubce
6 Georgievski. So contrary to the submissions of my colleague, this could
7 not possibly be relevant to any issue at any notice.
8 Concerning tab 3, Your Honour, my colleague, Mr. Saxon, has
9 suggested that the matter was relevant to the armed conflict. I do not
10 believe, and it is our submission, that this document, in fact, reflects
11 solely the position of Human Rights Watch, or rather the belief of Human
12 Rights Watch, that there may have been an armed conflict and their
13 understanding that IHL was applicable at the time, but it certainly
14 contains no fact which per se would be relevant to your assessment as to
15 whether that was the case or not.
16 There is furthermore no relevance to the issue of notice, contrary
17 to what the Prosecutor suggested. There is no evidence that Mr. Boskoski,
18 in fact, received that document.
19 Mr. Saxon also has made a comment as to the alleged notice, and
20 you had reason to know this document and others are said to have to this
21 matter. I would say on the line that the charges against Mr. Boskoski are
22 limited to an alleged failure to punish. To that extent, the notice which
23 would be relevant to the charges would be the notice which he received
24 after the commission of any crimes as charged.
25 Mr. Saxon then made a submission in relation to tab number 7, Your
Page 2917
1 Honour. There again, the same submissions by the Defence, the fact that
2 the Prosecution has not established and, as we understand, did not alleged
3 prior to that date that Mr. Boskoski had received that document, and the
4 same submission in relation to the issue of failure to punish. I would
5 also reiterate those submissions in relation to tab 8, adding furthermore
6 that the possibility, which is not established as a fact, that there may
7 have been retaliatory attacks in Bitola, which as far as the document
8 seems to suggest were committed by civilians, would not be relevant to
9 anything that might or might not have happened a few months later in
10 Ljuboten.
11 Tab number 10, Your Honour, the same submission, again, there is
12 no indication that this document was ever received or sent to the Ministry
13 of Interior, and we didn't understand until Mr. Mr. Saxon's submission
14 that this was the case. The same submission again in relation to the
15 issue of notice as concerns an alleged failure to punish.
16 Concerning tab 36, at this stage, I will simply say that this
17 document is indeed a very important document, we understand, for the
18 Prosecution and also for the witness. The same could be said in relation
19 to document 38. What we would propose to do at this stage would be to ask
20 the Trial Chamber to postpone the decision as to the admissibility of this
21 document until after cross-examination so that the reliability of this
22 document, which will be an important issue in cross-examination, could be
23 taken into consideration fully by the Trial Chamber.
24 Concerning tab 38, as I move on, Your Honour, again, the same
25 submission as 37. Concerning the issue of reliability, I would simply
Page 2918
1 point out that the requirements of relevance and reliability are
2 cumulative and that the admission of this document would put the Defence
3 in a position of not being able to test the evidence other than the
4 evidence of Mr. Bouckaert, which could indeed state for himself what he
5 told the journalists, but the Defence would not be able in any way to test
6 the evidence of the journalist or any other information contained in those
7 articles.
8 Your Honour, that would apply equally to the last tab which
9 Mr. Saxon has discussed, tab 45, which is 65 ter Rule 345.
10 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
11 Are you wishing to participate, Mr. Apostolski, in this?
12 MR. APOSTOLSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours, good day.
13 I fully support the presentation of my colleague, Guenal Mettraux,
14 so I have nothing to repeat, and I leave to my colleague Mettraux and Dan
15 Saxon to sort these issues between them.
16 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Apostolski.
17 Mr. Saxon, it is advanced by Mr. Mettraux, among other things,
18 that the only allegation against the accused is of a failure to punish
19 and, therefore, notice should receive a very limited assessment. Do you
20 have anything in response to that?
21 MR. SAXON: This morning, I was researching that very issue. The
22 Prosecution submits, Your Honour, that the issue of notice, in a case
23 where the superior or commander is alleged to have failed to punish his
24 subordinates for crimes occurred, the issue of notice does not --
25 shouldn't exclude events that may have occurred prior to the alleged
Page 2919
1 crimes. In this particular case, the Prosecution submits that the public
2 allegations of abuses committed by members of the Macedonian police during
3 the spring and summer of 2001, prior to the events in Ljuboten on the 12th
4 of August, would at least provide some indicia to an accused in the
5 position of Mr. Boskoski that when subsequent allegations surface, for
6 example, related to the events in Ljuboten, a person in Mr. Boskoski's
7 position must take those allegations not only seriously but extra
8 seriously, given the widespread reports about similar police practices in
9 the prior months.
10 There is a paragraph, Your Honour, from the Trial Chamber's
11 Judgement in Hadzihasanovic. It is not directly on point on this issue -
12 it is paragraph 166 - and, again, to be fair, it reflects a discussion
13 about allegations of failure to prevent crimes by a commander, not failure
14 to punish. But in the second sentence of paragraph 166, we see this
15 language: "This case also supports the proposition that by failing to
16 punish crimes of which he has knowledge, the superior has reason to know
17 that there is a real and reasonable risk that the unlawful acts will be
18 committed again."
19 Your Honour, in the Prosecution's submission, perhaps at least
20 implicit in that language is the argument that if a civilian leader or a
21 military commander has knowledge of prior crimes, then the superior knew
22 or at least should have known that those crimes might occur again. And if
23 those allegations then -- similar allegations surface again, as they did
24 after the 12th of August in Macedonia, then they would be relevant to
25 the -- to this issue of whether sufficient information was in the mind of
Page 2920
1 the leader or commander.
2 [Trial Chamber confers]
3 JUDGE PARKER: Another of the propositions, Mr. Saxon, is that
4 there's nothing to suggest that these documents were ever sent, the
5 documents that are the subject of this submission, were ever sent to the
6 Ministry of the Interior or would have come to the notice of the Minister
7 of that department, and related to that is the fact that there was, for
8 some of the months covered by the newspaper articles, a different minister
9 from the accused Mr. Boskoski.
10 Do you have anything in relation to those matters?
11 MR. SAXON: With respect to the press releases, the Human Rights
12 Watch press releases issued in early May of 2001, before the accused
13 Boskoski became the Minister of the Interior, it is the Prosecution's
14 submission that these -- that the fact that such press releases were sent
15 to the very highest levels of the Macedonian government is at least
16 circumstantial evidence that the Ministers of that government, when they
17 took office, would have received information about these press releases.
18 It is the Prosecution's belief -- it will ask Mr. Bouckaert during
19 his testimony, and it's the Prosecution's belief that Mr. Bouckaert will
20 testify that these press releases and reports were also sent to the office
21 of the Minister of the Interior, but I would have to ask him about each
22 specific report rather than giving you a general offer of proof like that.
23 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
24 [Trial Chamber confers]
25 JUDGE PARKER: The Chamber will retire for a short time to
Page 2921
1 consider the submissions.
2 --- Recess taken at 2.55 p.m.
3 --- On resuming at 3.05 p.m.
4 JUDGE PARKER: The Chamber would thank counsel for their succinct
5 and helpful submissions.
6 The general position of the Chamber is that it accepts the
7 submissions of the Prosecution as to relevance, in particular with respect
8 to the three articles published in newspapers in May, the Chamber takes
9 the position that evidence of a general publication which is directed to
10 conduct of a department is information which, on its face, can be expected
11 to be within the knowledge of the Minister of that department and the
12 Minister's immediate successor, that happening very shortly afterwards,
13 and therefore on that basis is able sufficiently to be received at this
14 point, subject of course to whatever evidence comes later which might deal
15 with the issue of the specific knowledge of this Minister.
16 It is also in the Chamber's view, as a matter of fact, that the
17 information published in articles of that nature about the conduct of
18 staff of a ministry is information which ought to put the senior staff and
19 the Minister of that Ministry, and the Minister's successor, on notice of
20 the possibility and prospect of misconduct so that if thereafter, as
21 occurred in August, there are further allegations of misconduct, they may
22 well, as a matter of fact, strengthen the concern that ought properly be
23 expected of the Minister at the time of the subsequent allegations of
24 misconduct. And on that basis, of course, then they have a potential
25 relevance to the knowledge of the Minister in August that is specifically
Page 2922
1 alleged in the indictment.
2 For those reasons, the Chamber would receive the articles as well
3 as the letters that are dealt with, but we would make clear that because
4 they are seen to have both potential relevance and, where that's disputed
5 in respect of Items 7, 8, and 10 in particular, potential reliability
6 sufficient to justify their admission, that is purely for the purposes of
7 the receipt of evidence at this stage. And the Chamber is in no way
8 indicating the view the Chamber will take about these exhibits when it
9 comes to consider the full body of evidence in due course and what is
10 potentially demonstrated sufficiently to justify admission may of course
11 come to be entirely disregarded or treated with very great concern at a
12 later stage, in light of the whole body of evidence.
13 The documents numbered 36 and 38, given the nature of them, in
14 particular document 36, we certainly accept the submission of Mr.
15 Mettraux, that it would be inappropriate to make a judgement as to the
16 admissibility of those two documents at this point, and would therefore
17 take the position that they should be marked for identification and no
18 more until after there has been an opportunity to pursue the issues of
19 reliability in cross-examination.
20 We come, then, to the series of articles at tabs number 39 and
21 following, including document 45, which is, in truth, yet another
22 article. And in the Chamber's view again there is, on the face of it, a
23 relevance to each of these, as they are publications of apparent
24 significance directly concerning the events that are the subject of this
25 indictment, and they're therefore well likely to be of the type to ought
Page 2923
1 to have informed the Minister as to what was being alleged about the
2 conduct of his officers in connection with the events with which we are
3 concerned.
4 The document 45 is also questioned with respect to reliability.
5 We would take the view that it ought to be treated along with the other
6 articles. Essentially, its primary relevance is to the issue of
7 knowledge; and on that basis alone, it is admissible so that we don't need
8 to look further at the reliability of the content, which would of course
9 be informed in due course by the issue of the reliability of document 36.
10 The upshot of that is that leaving aside the document at tab 4,
11 two documents will not be admitted at this stage when tendered but will be
12 marked for identification. They are documents 36 and 38. And the balance
13 will be received, although we once again repeat that that gives no hint as
14 to the view that might eventually be taken of the documents, both as to
15 relevance and reliability, when the whole body of evidence comes to be
16 weighed by the Chamber later in this hearing.
17 Now, Mr. Saxon.
18 WITNESS: PETER BOUCKAERT
19 Examination by Mr. Saxon:
20 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, before we begin, I have to remind you and myself
21 that since we both speak the English language, we need to be careful to
22 try to speak a bit slower than normal and to try to pause between my
23 question and your response. That way, we give the interpreters a moment
24 to catch up with us. All right?
25 JUDGE PARKER: Could I just underline that? We're not merely
Page 2924
1 translating from one language to another. We are, in fact, operating at
2 the moment in five languages, so there are five progressive
3 interpretations.
4 THE WITNESS: I understand.
5 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
6 We all understand and we tend to forget. Mr. Mettraux and I were
7 galloping along there at one stage earlier, and the poor interpreters
8 could not keep up.
9 MR. SAXON:
10 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, do you recall being interviewed by a representative
11 of the Office of the Prosecutor during the month of April 2005?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And do you recall that your witness statement was finalised and
14 then signed on the 16th of March, 2006?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR. SAXON: Your Honours, if I could ask the usher's assistance,
17 please. We have a copy of the witness's statement, and I'd like to
18 place -- if that could be placed in front of him, please. I need to ask
19 him a couple of questions, and the statement is, I'm told, also available
20 in e-court.
21 Q. Can you turn, please, to paragraph 16 of that statement? It's on
22 the bottom of page 4, Mr. Bouckaert.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And at the bottom of page 4, we see paragraph 16. It begins with
25 the words: "I issued a press release." Do you see that?
Page 2925
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. If you could turn now, please, to the next page, page 5, because
3 paragraph 16 runs on to page 5.
4 MR. SAXON: If we could see the top of page 5. There we are.
5 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, the last sentence of that paragraph reads like
6 this: "During the conflict, it became publicly known that the Lions had
7 employment contracts not with the Ministry of Interior but with
8 Mr. Boskoski directly."
9 Do you see that?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Is there anything in that sentence you wish to correct?
12 A. Yes, there is a typo. It should say "after the conflict." It's
13 referring to the protest of the prior sentence.
14 Q. So, in other words, that sentence, instead of saying "during the
15 conflict" should begin with the phrase "after the conflict"?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. All right. With that correction, does this statement accurately
18 reflect your declaration and what you would say if you were examined
19 orally today?
20 A. Yes.
21 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, at this time, I would tender this
22 statement under Rule 92 ter.
23 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
24 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P322, Your Honours.
25 MR. SAXON: Your Honours, Witness Peter Bouckaert is a Belgian
Page 2926
1 citizen who has been a senior researcher for the organisation called Human
2 Rights Watch since 1999.
3 Between May and September 2001, Mr. Bouckaert conducted four
4 research missions to monitor and report on the conflict in Macedonia.
5 Mr. Bouckaert's mission to Macedonia, in respect of the events in
6 Ljuboten, took place from approximately 17 to 26 August 2001.
7 Mr. Bouckaert visited Ljuboten on the 23rd of August, 2001.
8 Before and after that visit, he interviewed a number of Ljuboten residents
9 who witnessed the events there on 12th of August, including persons who
10 had been mistreated by members of the Macedonian police.
11 Mr. Bouckaert personally viewed the body of Atulla Qaili which
12 showed signs of severe beating. During his visit to Ljuboten on the 23rd
13 of August, Mr. Bouckaert observed and photographed a number of buildings
14 in Ljuboten that were damaged or destroyed during the attack. During the
15 witness's visit to Ljuboten on 23rd August, 2001, he saw no evidence of
16 the presence of NLA soldiers or defensive positions in the village.
17 During 2001, Mr. Bouckaert documented numerous cases of abuse
18 committed by members of the Macedonian police forces. Mr. Bouckaert also
19 investigated and documented crimes committed by members of the NLA.
20 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, I'd like to ask you some questions about your use
21 of interpreters during the work that you performed in Macedonia in 2001.
22 Did you have a need to employ an interpreter to help you
23 communicate in the Albanian and Macedonian languages at that time?
24 A. Yes. I don't speak Albanian or Macedonian, so I required an
25 interpreter.
Page 2927
1 Q. And just briefly, can you describe how you located the interpreter
2 who you eventually hired?
3 A. Human Rights Watch has been working in Macedonia since the early
4 1990s; and on my first trip to Macedonia, I went together with our senior
5 researcher for the Southern Balkans at the time, Fred Abrahams, who had an
6 interpreter he had previously worked with. We started working with that
7 interpreter until he had other commitments, and then I found my own
8 interpreter.
9 Q. All right. And the interpreter that you found, did you have to
10 check his English skills?
11 A. Yes. We interviewed him extensively to test his English skills,
12 as well as his Albanian and Macedonian language skills.
13 Q. So this particular person spoke both or, I should say in a triple
14 sense, spoke English, Macedonian, and Albanian?
15 A. Yes, he was fluent in all three languages.
16 Q. Before you hired this person, did you explain the nature of the
17 work that you would be doing?
18 A. Yes. He had not previously worked as an interpreter, so we spent
19 a lot of time with him explaining the nature of our work. And it's a
20 standard practice of Human Rights Watch to have this briefing and this
21 kind of mini-training of interpreters. We want to make clear to them, to
22 make them understand, that we're the investigators, they're the
23 interpreters. And especially interpreters who've worked with journalists
24 before, we want to make clear that their job is to translate our questions
25 exactly as they're phrased and to translate the answers of the witness
Page 2928
1 exactly as it was made, without summarising or otherwise interfering in
2 the interview.
3 Q. So you insisted on verbatim or word-for-word translation?
4 A. Yes, because we're taking statements from these witnesses and
5 we're taking these statements in the voice of the witness, so it's very
6 important that our questions are phrased accurately, but also that the
7 answers are interpreted correctly to us.
8 Q. Would you also explain to a prospective interpreter the principles
9 of Human Rights Watch's work?
10 A. Yes. Our work covers abuses by all sides, and the interpreter has
11 to be willing to work with different communities. That's often very
12 difficult in the Balkans, and we want to make clear that the people that
13 we work with don't have any political -- strong political views which
14 would make it impossible for them to carry out this work in an unbiased
15 way.
16 Q. And if someone -- if a prospective interpreter had indicated to
17 you that they did have strong political views, would that person have been
18 employed by you?
19 A. No.
20 Q. The person that you selected to be your interpreter in Macedonia,
21 this person who spoke English, Macedonian, and Albanian, did this person
22 have a university education?
23 A. Yes, he did. He did a degree in English.
24 Q. And can you recall the ethnic background of this person?
25 A. Yes. He was an ethnic Albanian. The reality in Macedonia is that
Page 2929
1 most Macedonians don't speak Albanian; whereas, most Albanians do speak
2 Macedonian because it's the language often of officialdom, so it was
3 easier to find an ethnic Albanian who had perfect language skills in both
4 languages.
5 Q. Can you recall the time period during 2001 when you worked with
6 this interpreter?
7 A. I started working with him on the first mission that I made to
8 Macedonia, which I believe was in June or late May of 2001. It's in my
9 statement, the exact dates. And I worked with him throughout the
10 conflict. I had a few other interpreters, an ethnic Macedonian and an
11 ethnic Serb, which I used on occasion, but he was my main translator for
12 the duration of my work in Macedonia.
13 Q. And in 2001, did you investigate crimes committed by both sides to
14 the conflict, both parties?
15 A. Absolutely.
16 Q. And during those investigations of both parties to the conflict,
17 did this ethnic Albanian interpreter assist you?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And just for the record, are you willing to disclose the names of
20 the interpreters that you used in Macedonia to the Chamber?
21 A. It's our policy, as an organisation, not to do so.
22 Q. Did you have a system, Mr. Bouckaert, that you used in 2001 to
23 check the accuracy of the information that you received via your
24 interpreters?
25 A. Yes. I would take verbatim notes during the interviews in my
Page 2930
1 notebooks; and then after the day's work was finished, I would go through
2 my notes. I would read over the text again with my interpreter to check
3 the accuracy. If I was confused about any particular issue, I would ask
4 him for clarification.
5 Q. And if your interpreter couldn't clarify an issue, how would you
6 then clarify the matter?
7 A. Well, one of the nice aspects of working in the Balkans is that
8 everybody has a phone or a cellphone; and during our interviews, we would
9 ask people for their contact information. So if there was anything
10 unclear in the interviews, we would contact the person by phone or some
11 other way and ask for clarification. And some witnesses were
12 re-interviewed to collect additional information or to clarify
13 information.
14 Q. As a matter of practice, Mr. Bouckaert, how many sources would you
15 use for facts that you published in your reports?
16 A. It's clear from the footnotes of the report to the reader how many
17 different sources we used. For most of the information, we aim to
18 interview multiple persons and to corroborate the information. That's one
19 of our standard techniques to establish the reliability of information.
20 Our interviews take about one or two hours, and they're very factual.
21 When somebody says, "Fifteen people were killed in my village," we will
22 ask the names and ages of all those 15 people, because it's those kinds of
23 facts which are difficult to manufacture, in case manufactured evidence
24 takes place, and they're easy to check from witness to witness. So times,
25 dates, names, ages, those kind of things is what we focus on in our
Page 2931
1 interviews.
2 Q. And why is it so important to Human Rights Watch, as an
3 institution, that the information that you publish in your reports is
4 accurate?
5 A. Because Human Rights Watch is an organisation which is effective
6 because of its reputation internationally. We have access to
7 policy-makers and people who impact on these conflicts because of the
8 reliability of our reporting, and any major error in our reporting, in our
9 research, would have ramifications not only for our work in that specific
10 country but worldwide for our reputation as an organisation.
11 Q. Were any of the reports that you wrote about events in Macedonia
12 during 2001 ever challenged due to errors in translation or
13 interpretation?
14 A. Not on those bases, no.
15 MR. SAXON: I'm wondering if I can ask Ms. Walpita for an extra
16 copy of the exhibits, which I would like to give to the witness. Thank
17 you very much.
18 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, if you could turn to tab 1, please.
19 A. Yes.
20 MR. SAXON: And for the record, this is 65 ter number 325. It has
21 ERN N002-5852.
22 Q. You can see, Mr. Bouckaert, this is a Human Rights Watch press
23 release dated the 4th of May, 2001. It's entitled "Letter to NLA
24 Political Spokesman Ali Ahmeti." Did you have an opportunity to comment
25 on this press release before it was sent?
Page 2932
1 A. Yes. It precedes my active involvement in the research on the
2 ground, but I did review this letter and make comments on this letter.
3 Q. And were your comments incorporated into the final draft?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And what was the purpose behind Human Rights Watch sending such
6 letters to people like Ali Ahmeti?
7 A. Well, our legal determination was that the conflict in Macedonia
8 had reached a level of an internal armed conflict, so the provisions of
9 the laws of war, particularly Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions,
10 apply to this conflict. So we wanted to put all of the parties on notice
11 that they had obligations under international law and also that the
12 Yugoslav Tribunal had jurisdiction over their actions as a deterrent. We
13 wrote this letter as a deterrent and also to put parties on notice.
14 Q. This particular document in tab 1 - it's a press release - how
15 would -- would there have been an actual letter sent to Mr. Ahmeti?
16 A. Yes. This is the actual letter which was sent to Mr. Ahmeti on
17 May 4th. I believe the press release comes later in tab 3, which was sent
18 two days later. We made public these letters with the press release.
19 Q. But you also made public the letter, in a sense, on the Human
20 Rights Watch website?
21 A. That's correct.
22 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this document.
23 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
24 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P323, Your Honours.
25 MR. SAXON:
Page 2933
1 Q. Can you turn to tab 2, Mr. Bouckaert, please.
2 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 326. It has ERN number
3 N002-5854.
4 Q. This is another letter. It's a letter to the Macedonian Prime
5 Minister, Ljubce Georgievski, same date, May 4th, 2001.
6 Was this letter, Mr. Bouckaert, sent for the same purpose as the
7 previous letter that we saw?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Did you have an opportunity to comment on drafts of this letter
10 before it was finalised?
11 A. Yes. I commented on the language about the Geneva Conventions. I
12 did not comment on the specific allegations about abuses, which are
13 contained in paragraph 4 of this letter.
14 Q. Were your comments incorporated into the final version?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this, please.
17 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
18 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P324, Your Honours.
19 THE WITNESS: And then an identical letter was also sent to the
20 president of Macedonia.
21 MR. SAXON:
22 Q. At that time, it was Boris Trajkovski?
23 A. The late president, yes.
24 Q. The late Boris Trajkovski.
25 If you can turn, Mr. Bouckaert, to what is tab 3 in your binder.
Page 2934
1 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 327. It has ERN number
2 N002-5856.
3 Q. This is a document which I believe you previously referred to as
4 "the press release." It's entitled "Macedonia Conflict Endangers
5 Civilians." It's dated 7th of May, 2001, and there in the middle we see
6 the indication that: "On Friday, Human Rights Watch sent letters to
7 Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski; Prime Minister Ljubce Georgievski;
8 and the NLA political spokesman, Ali Ahmeti, urging that both sides to the
9 conflict respect civilian immunity.
10 Tell us, please, what was the purpose of issuing a press release?
11 A. It was to let the wider public as well as diplomats and various
12 authorities know that we had sent these letters. It's a very standard
13 practice of Human Rights Watch at the onset of conflict to remind the
14 parties of their obligations. We did similar letters to Israel and
15 Lebanon and Hezbollah last year as well, for example.
16 Q. You mentioned it was to let the wider public as well as diplomats
17 and various authorities know, and I'm just wondering if you can help us,
18 please, with that last phrase: "diplomats and various authorities." Why
19 was it important that diplomats and other authorities know about the
20 letters sent by Human Rights Watch?
21 A. Well, this press release, which was released together with the
22 letters, made this information, including the language of the letters,
23 available to the press. So we feel that by -- the wider distribution, by
24 making the issue of compliance to international law an issue known to the
25 public, an issue of debate within the country of Macedonia as well as
Page 2935
1 within the International Community, that it would make those issues part
2 of the public agenda, and so exert greater pressure on all parties to the
3 conflict to adhere to their obligations under the laws of war.
4 Q. Just so that the record is clear, when you refer to, then,
5 diplomats, for example, these would be diplomats working in Macedonia?
6 A. Working in Macedonia, working at the European Union level, at the
7 OSC level, at the UN level, on all of these -- on the issue of Macedonia,
8 yes.
9 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this document,
10 please.
11 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
12 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P325, Your Honours.
13 MR. SAXON: We will skip tab 4, and if we could turn to tab 5,
14 please. Tab 5 is from 65 ter number 197. It is a photograph with ERN
15 number N001-4906.
16 Well, that's not the photograph I was hoping to see, but it will
17 have to do.
18 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, do you recognise the photograph in front of you?
19 A. Yes. That was taken by me.
20 Q. You took this photograph?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. What does it show?
23 A. It shows an ethnic Albanian man and bruises from a beating he
24 received at the police station in Kumanovo.
25 MR. SAXON: And perhaps if I could ask the Court Officer's
Page 2936
1 assistance, if we could see more of the lower end of the photograph,
2 please. Thank you. Now it's the photograph I was hoping to see.
3 Q. Did you take this photograph as part of your investigations in
4 Macedonia?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And why -- and after you took the photograph, did you interview
7 this person about how he received these injuries?
8 A. I interviewed him before I took the photograph.
9 Q. And did this person tell you who inflicted the injuries upon him?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And who was that?
12 A. They were police officers at the Kumanovo police station.
13 Q. When you began to investigate the events in Ljuboten after the
14 12th of August, 2001, did information like that given by this victim have
15 an affect or influence in any way your assessment of persons who you
16 interviewed in relation to the incidents in Ljuboten?
17 A. They helped me assess the credibility of the witnesses that I
18 interviewed from Ljuboten, because their allegations were consistent with
19 many of the cases of police abuse that I had documented in the police
20 stations of Kumanovo, Skopje, and Tetovo, which are the three main police
21 districts in the north of Macedonia.
22 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph
23 now, please.
24 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
25 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P326, Your Honours.
Page 2937
1 MR. SAXON: If we could turn to tab 6 in your binder,
2 Mr. Bouckaert. This is another photograph from 65 ter 197. It has ERN
3 number N001-4908.08.
4 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Can you recall where you were when you took it?
7 A. Yes. I was in Kumanovo.
8 Q. And what does this photograph depict?
9 A. It's another man who was part of the same large group of people
10 who was beaten at the Kumanovo police station, roughly the same period of
11 time as the previous person.
12 Q. And did the person whose back is depicted in this photograph, did
13 he describe to you who inflicted his injuries?
14 A. Yes. We took a long statement from him, and he was also beaten by
15 police officers at the Kumanovo police station.
16 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph.
17 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
18 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P327, Your Honours.
19 Mr. Mettraux, I beg your pardon.
20 MR. METTRAUX: Thank you, Your Honour. Simply, if my colleague
21 Mr. Saxon could ask the witness to state the date at which he's taken the
22 picture. The witness has indicated that both pictures were more or less
23 from the same time. We would be assisted if we knew when that would be.
24 MR. SAXON: I believe it would be discussed --
25 Q. Witness, are you able to state the date from memory or would it be
Page 2938
1 helpful for you to turn to the relevant paragraphs of your statement?
2 A. It was in the last week of May. I would -- it's probably more
3 accurately described in my statement, if I look at my statement.
4 Q. But it was the last week of May 2001?
5 A. Yes.
6 MR. SAXON: Is that sufficient for counsel?
7 MR. METTRAUX: I'm grateful to the Prosecution.
8 THE INTERPRETER: And the interpreters ask once again for the
9 audience and for us, the listeners, please slow down.
10 MR. SAXON: I see the time, Your Honour. Would this be an
11 appropriate time to take the first break?
12 JUDGE PARKER: Very well. We will have the first break, and we'll
13 resume at a quarter past.
14 --- Recess taken at 3.45 p.m.
15 --- On resuming at 4.16 p.m.
16 JUDGE PARKER: There needs to be a recording in the transcript of
17 a missed exhibit number.
18 THE REGISTRAR: The photograph under tab 6 will be received as
19 Exhibit P327, Your Honours.
20 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
21 Now, Mr. Saxon.
22 MR. SAXON: Actually, I see P326 still on the screen in front of
23 us, so --
24 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the counsel.
25 MR. SAXON: Very briefly --
Page 2939
1 JUDGE PARKER: I believe you're looking at 327.
2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
3 MR. SAXON: You are correct, I stand corrected.
4 [French on English Channel]
5 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Saxon, could I ask you to pause, because we are
6 getting a language other than English on the English channel. So there
7 may need to be a switching. If you could carry on now, and we'll see
8 whether it comes through correctly.
9 MR. SAXON:
10 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, we still have in front of you what has been
11 admitted as Exhibit P327. Do you recall the ethnicity of the person whom
12 we see in this photograph?
13 A. Yes. This person and all of the other people we interviewed were
14 ethnic Albanians.
15 Q. So if we also refer to the previous photograph, which was given
16 Exhibit number P326, that was also an ethnic Albanian?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you decide to write up the results of your
19 investigation into these abuses?
20 A. Yes. Because of the speed with which this conflict was evolving,
21 we conducted investigations and released our findings soon thereafter,
22 because we wanted to bring these matters to the attention of the
23 Macedonian authorities as well as to the International Community.
24 Q. If you could turn now, please, to what is tab 7 in your binder.
25 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 340. It begins with ERN
Page 2940
1 N002-5879.
2 Q. At the top, we see a title: "Macedonian Police Abuses
3 Documented," and below that: "Ethnic Albanian Man Separated, Tortured at
4 Police Stations." Below that, we see the date "May 31st, 2001."
5 Mr. Bouckaert, what is this document?
6 A. This is the short report that we produced after interviewing and
7 photographing many of the men that we saw in the previous pictures,
8 summarising our findings of what was happening at the Kumanovo and also at
9 the Skopje police stations at the time.
10 Q. And who wrote this report?
11 A. I wrote it, together with my co-researcher, senior researcher,
12 Fred Abrahams.
13 Q. And subsequently did you or Mr. Abrahams -- after this report was
14 made public, did you or Mr. Abrahams appear in the media or on television
15 in Macedonia?
16 A. Yes. This report was covered quite extensively in the local
17 press, both in the Albanian and Macedonian print press, and it also led to
18 an interview of Mr. Abrahams on the ethnic Macedonian A1 television
19 channel, where some of the photographs were shown and Mr. Abrahams was
20 interviewed about the conclusions of our research.
21 Q. And were there other occasions, in the time period after the
22 publication of this report, where you and Mr. Abrahams were persons in
23 Macedonia demonstrated interest in the work you and Mr. Abrahams had done?
24 A. Yes. We were approached on at least two separate occasions while
25 we were having dinner in the capital Skopje by ethnic Macedonians who
Page 2941
1 wanted to discuss or dispute our findings following the television
2 interview, so it was quite well known within the Macedonian public.
3 Q. And just so that the record is clear, you mentioned two separate
4 occasions while you were having dinner in Skopje. Does that indicate you
5 were having dinner in a restaurant?
6 A. Yes. At a public restaurant, yes.
7 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this report,
8 please.
9 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
10 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P328, Your Honours.
11 MR. SAXON:
12 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, if you could turn, please, to what is tab 8 in your
13 binder.
14 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 343. It has -- begins with ERN
15 N002-5888.
16 Q. It's a document entitled "Macedonia Rioters Burn Albanian Homes in
17 Bitola. Police Fail to Stop Violence, Some Actively Participate." It has
18 a date 6th of June, 2001.
19 What is this document, Mr. Bouckaert?
20 A. This document is a summary of our research into an incident in the
21 southern city of Bitola in which the local population or a local mob,
22 which included police officers, rioted following the killings of several
23 ethnic Macedonian policemen near the town of Tetovo just the day prior to
24 this incident, in which eight policemen were killed, including four
25 policemen from the town of Tetovo. And these rioters burned down many
Page 2942
1 ethnic Albanian homes, including the homes of some of the most prominent
2 ethnic Albanians living in Bitola.
3 Q. Can you turn -- can we turn, please, to the second page of this
4 report.
5 MR. SAXON: It has ERN N002-5889.
6 Q. And we see, in the middle of the page, there's a paragraph that
7 begins with: "Human Rights Watch called." Do you see that paragraph,
8 Mr. Bouckaert?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. It says this: "Human Rights Watch called on the Macedonian
11 Ministry of the Interior to carry out an immediate investigation into the
12 conduct of the Bitola police during the riots and urge the international
13 community to assist and participate in the investigation."
14 The next paragraph says: "'The conduct of the Bitola police in
15 yesterday's riots is deeply worrying,' said Cartner. 'The Interior
16 Ministry and the international community need to act now to prevent a
17 further deterioration in police discipline.'"
18 Who was this person with the surname Cartner?
19 A. That would be Holly Cartner. She was at the time the executive
20 director of the Europe and Central Asia Division which had, as part of its
21 geographic mandate, a Human Rights Watch covering Macedonia.
22 Q. Who wrote this report?
23 A. That would be myself and Fred Abrahams.
24 Q. What was the intent of the publication of this report?
25 A. We wanted to get the summary of our detailed investigation, which
Page 2943
1 included a site visit to Bitola and many testimonies that we had taken
2 from ethnic Albanians affected by the violence, out into the public and to
3 try to prevent, as the quote you just read indicates, a further
4 deterioration of the police and discipline and urge the Macedonian
5 authorities to ensure that the police took their duty to protect the
6 ethnic Albanian population serious during such incidents and would not
7 participate actively in acts of violence against the ethnic Albanian
8 community.
9 Q. Do you know, Mr. Bouckaert, to which member or members of the
10 Macedonian government at this time, June 2001, this report was sent to?
11 A. The sending of reports was done by our New York office, so I was
12 not directly involved in this; but according to my recollection, it was
13 definitely sent to the Ministry of Information in Macedonia, to the UN
14 mission in New York, to the Prime Minister's office, and to the
15 President's office. And I also assume, but I can't confirm, that it was
16 sent directly to the Ministry of the Interior.
17 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this document.
18 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
19 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P329, Your Honours.
20 MR. SAXON:
21 Q. Before we leave Exhibit 329, was the information in your report --
22 in this particular report about the events in Bitola also discussed in the
23 Macedonia media?
24 A. Yes. It received very prominent coverage in the ethnic Albanian
25 media and more limited coverage in the ethnic Macedonian media.
Page 2944
1 Q. Can we turn, please, to what is tab 9 in your binder,
2 Mr. Bouckaert.
3 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 197. It's a photograph bearing
4 ERN N001-4912.19 -- or "-19," I should say.
5 Can you tell us, please, what this photograph depicts?
6 A. Yes. In late June, there was an incident in Skopje where some
7 ethnic Albanian shops had been attacked, and I went to investigate and
8 found this flyer posted on a number of windows in this ethnic Albanian
9 area.
10 Q. Did you take this photograph?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. We see a stamp or a symbol on the bottom of it, and can you tell
13 what is depicted in that stamp?
14 A. The stamp has a lion at the center, a sun above it, and the
15 letters in Cyrillic alphabet "MP," which is the initials of what it says
16 on the top also, and "2000" below it.
17 Q. And those words at the top, do you know what it says?
18 A. It says: "Macedonian Paramilitary, 2000."
19 Q. Are you aware of the significance of the symbol of the sun and the
20 lion in Macedonia?
21 A. Well, the sun is a very important symbol. It's included on the
22 Macedonian flag, which is a yellow sun on a red background, and the lion
23 was also the name of a paramilitary group in Macedonia which went by the
24 name of "the Lions."
25 Q. Why were you concerned when you saw this particular flyer or
Page 2945
1 pamphlet, if you were concerned?
2 A. Well, because the flyer made very serious threats against the
3 ethnic Albanian community.
4 Q. How would you describe what you observed of the inter-ethnic
5 relations or tensions at that time in the summer of 2001 in Macedonia?
6 A. Well, I have worked in conflict zones around the world and also
7 worked in Kosovo prior to working in Macedonia, and the intercommunal
8 relationships between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians at the time
9 were some of the tensest and the most violent that I had seen up to that
10 point and that I have seen to date. It was an incredibly explosive
11 situation in Macedonia.
12 Q. Do you recall anything in particular that happened the day or the
13 evening when you found this pamphlet?
14 A. Yes. On this day, US-led NATO forces evacuated a group of armed
15 NLA members from the town of Aracinovo after a long battle with Macedonian
16 forces which involved helicopters and heavy shelling. On that evening,
17 there was a riot in Skopje which turned very violent.
18 Q. And do you recall who or whom participated in that riot that
19 evening?
20 A. Yes. I recall standing in a hotel in downtown Skopje after
21 several journalists had been beaten up by the crowd, international
22 journalists. I believe there was a journalist from CNN who was beaten
23 unconscious. I watched as another journalist from the BBC, who had gone
24 outside the hotel, was running back into the hotel, being kicked by ethnic
25 Macedonians who were chasing him. And at some point a large group of
Page 2946
1 Macedonian police, in uniform, walked in formation down the street,
2 holding a huge Macedonian flag to join the crowd.
3 Q. And were these Macedonian police officers, were they armed?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Can you recall what they were armed with?
6 A. They were armed with automatic weapons.
7 Q. How do you know the uniforms they were wearing were police
8 uniforms?
9 A. Because they were the standard uniforms used by the police. They
10 were green camouflaged uniforms with the badge of the Macedonian police on
11 the arm.
12 Q. What, if anything, did these police officers who joined the
13 demonstration do with their automatic weapons?
14 A. I was on the phone with the deputy director of the Europe and
15 Central Asia Division as the night fell in Skopje, explaining to her that
16 there was a very explosive situation, that there were rioters in the
17 street, when very heavy gunfire broke out in the area of the hotel.
18 I should explain. The hotel is located just before the largest
19 public space in Skopje, and on the other side of this large public space
20 is the Parliament building. And the firing was taking place in this
21 public space. We were at the hotel, so we couldn't directly see what was
22 happening, if there was an attack on the Parliament or if the gunmen were
23 just firing in the air, but we later found out that they were just firing
24 into the air.
25 Q. You mentioned the deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia
Page 2947
1 Division. Just so the record is clear, that's a division of Human Rights
2 Watch?
3 A. That's correct. And, obviously, because of the situation, I was
4 not staying at this hotel. I wanted to inform them about the security
5 problems that I was facing, the potential security problems, and also
6 update them on the situation in Skopje at the time.
7 MR. SAXON: Your Honours, could this photograph be marked for
8 identification, please.
9 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked.
10 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P330, marked for identification, Your
11 Honours.
12 MR. SAXON:
13 Q. If you turn to what is tab 10 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert, which
14 is 65 ter number 328.
15 MR. SAXON: It has ERN number N002-5857.
16 Q. What did you decide to do after you found the flyer or the
17 pamphlet that we looked at a moment ago?
18 A. I had the translation of the flyer available to me at the time.
19 It had already been sent to New York. So I -- we were already in the
20 process of putting out a press statement about the flyer, and we then also
21 included some information about what was happening in Skopje that night.
22 Q. And so, just briefly, how was what we have in front of us -- it's
23 entitled "Macedonia Pamphlet Raises Ethnic tensions." It's dated the 25th
24 of June, and then down below we see: "Macedonia Paramilitary 2000 Order."
25 And the text below that, was that the text of the flyer that we see?
Page 2948
1 A. That's correct.
2 Q. So we see orders to Siptars to leave within three days. For
3 Siptars from Aracinovo, the deadline is 24 hours. After this deadline,
4 all the shops will be burned. If someone tries to protect them, the same
5 will be killed without warning.
6 "We informed Siptars of the Macedonian Republic that for every
7 killed police officer or soldier, 100 Siptars who do not have citizenship
8 or who took citizenship after 1994 will be killed."
9 Do you see what I've just read to you?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Does this correspond to your memory of what the flyer said?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. How was this particular press release or report created? How did
14 your superiors or colleagues at Human Rights Watch then get this
15 information?
16 A. We finalised the text of this press release by me reading it over
17 a cellphone while I was laying on the ground of a hotel room in the dark
18 because of the shooting that was still taking place outside.
19 Q. And, again, what was the purpose of issuing this report?
20 A. Because if you look at the third paragraph of the press release,
21 it says: "We informed Siptars who do not have citizenship or got it after
22 1994 to leave Macedonia before June 25th this year at midnight. After
23 this deadline, we will start with the cleansing. The longest night
24 courtesy of Macedonia paramilitary 2000."
25 If you look at the date of the press release, it is dated June
Page 2949
1 25th, the date referred to in the statement from the paramilitary group.
2 Q. I thank you for that. I'm not quite sure if you've answered my
3 question. The purpose of issuing this report, as a Human Rights Watch
4 report, was what?
5 A. To bring public attention to the fact that these threats against
6 the ethnic Albanian community had been made by a paramilitary group and
7 also to stress that violence had actually broken out in Skopje on the date
8 stated in this threatening flyer.
9 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender now the photograph
10 in tab 9 and the report that is at tab 10.
11 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Mettraux.
12 MR. METTRAUX: Thank you, Your Honour. We will not object, again,
13 to this particular document, but we would be grateful to our colleague,
14 Mr. Saxon, if he could specify the alleged relevance of that document.
15 It was stated earlier, when we discussed the admissibility, a
16 priori, of this document, at this stage what we understand from the
17 evidence, which was clear on that point by the witness, was there were
18 threats made, as he understood, from a paramilitary group. The Defence
19 does not see what the relevance of those threats are to the charges.
20 MR. SAXON: Shall I respond, Your Honour?
21 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
22 MR. SAXON: Well, in the Prosecution's submissions, the state of
23 ethnic tensions between the ethnic Albanian and the ethnic Macedonian
24 communities are certainly relevant to the allegations in the indictment in
25 this case. And we also see, in the first paragraph, the report mentions
Page 2950
1 army and special police forces were seen joining the crowd which took over
2 the Parliament building. Again, we feel that such a public notice is
3 relevant to the information and knowledge that was available to the
4 accused Mr. Boskoski at the time of the events in Ljuboten in August 2001.
5 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
6 Mr. Mettraux.
7 MR. METTRAUX: Very briefly, Your Honour, simply a matter of
8 precision English and to the notice which the Prosecution is required to
9 establish. The notice which is relevant to charges such as the charges
10 brought by the Prosecution is that crime - and I'm citing of memory from
11 the Appeals Chamber decision in Krnojelac - that the Prosecution has the
12 burden to establish that the notice given at the time, if established, was
13 that to the effect that a crime similar to those charged in the indictment
14 had or were about to be committed. In this case, there is no suggestion,
15 as I understand, of anyone or any member of the Ministry of the Interior
16 having partaken in any such crime or any indication that would have given
17 any such notice to anyone who would have known about those particular
18 incidents or the claims made by Human Rights Watch in its press release.
19 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
20 Carry on, please, Mr. Saxon.
21 MR. SAXON: I believe we are waiting for a decision from the
22 Chamber as to whether --
23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the counsel, please.
24 MR. SAXON: I apologise.
25 JUDGE PARKER: The document tendered, both of them, will be
Page 2951
1 received.
2 THE REGISTRAR: P330 will become Exhibit P330. 65 ter 328 will
3 become Exhibit P331. Thank you.
4 MR. SAXON:
5 Q. If you turn, please, to what is tab 11 in your binder --
6 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
7 JUDGE PARKER: Microphone.
8 MR. SAXON:
9 Q. If you turn to what is tab 11 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert.
10 MR. SAXON: This is a photograph from 65 ter 197, and it has ERN
11 number N001-4923-05.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes.
13 MR. SAXON:
14 Q. Wait one minute. We need to see it to come up on the computer
15 screen. Yes. Thank you.
16 Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Do you recall approximately when you took it?
19 A. It will be around August 7 or 8.
20 Q. The person who we see in this photograph, can you recall his
21 ethnicity?
22 A. He was an ethnic Albanian.
23 Q. Did you speak to this person as to how he received the injuries
24 that we see here?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2952
1 Q. And can you recall the information that this gentleman gave you?
2 A. Yes. On August 5th, the Macedonian police killed five persons at
3 a home in Skopje during what they claimed was a fierce gun battle with NLA
4 members. We questioned that account. But this person was detained after
5 that operation from the house at which these five people were killed,
6 together with several other people including a 16-year-old boy, and he was
7 beaten at a police station in Skopje.
8 Q. If we take a look at the back of this gentleman and the buttocks
9 of this gentleman, were there any particular injuries that drew your
10 attention?
11 A. Well, if you look at his back and his buttocks, actually, the
12 white marks you see on the left buttocks came from being hit with a stick.
13 I mean, it's very visible, as well as some of the marks on his back. And
14 that was consistent with the testimony that he gave us.
15 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph.
16 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
17 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P332, Your Honours.
18 MR. SAXON:
19 Q. I'd like to direct your attention, Mr. Bouckaert, to the events
20 after the 12th of August 2001, after the events in Ljuboten that are at
21 the core of these proceedings.
22 Did there come a time when you decided to go to the village of
23 Ljuboten itself?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And do you recall what date that was?
Page 2953
1 A. It's in my statement. I believe it was August 23rd, but --
2 Q. That's the date in your statement. I can confirm that.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I'd like to show you a photograph, Mr. Bouckaert.
5 MR. SAXON: If I could ask the Court Officer's assistance, could
6 we look at the photograph that is on page 4 of the court binder. It has
7 ERN number N005-7605.
8 Before I go on, I should have brought this up before. The
9 Prosecution has hard copies of Mr. Bouckaert's statement. If the Chamber
10 would like copies, and the other parties, we can distribute them. That
11 would be of assistance.
12 JUDGE PARKER: The Chamber has them.
13 MR. SAXON: Very well.
14 JUDGE PARKER: What we have is the 92 ter statement, if that's
15 what you're speaking about.
16 MR. SAXON: Yes. Yes, Your Honour. Very well.
17 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, on the 23rd of August, when you went to the village
18 of Ljuboten, did you drive there?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did you have an interpreter with you?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Do you see this photograph here? It's a panoramic photograph. It
23 shows the area of the village of Ljuboten, looking from the north to the
24 south. Do you see that?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2954
1 Q. Did you have any problems getting into the village of Ljuboten?
2 A. Yes. There was a police check-point which consisted of an APC, an
3 Armoured Personnel Carrier, parked by the side of the road on a -- in a
4 field, you know, outside the village.
5 MR. SAXON: Perhaps I could ask the usher's assistance to provide
6 Mr. Bouckaert with the magic pen that is attached to that computer.
7 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, just stopping for a minute and looking at the
8 photograph, does the photograph contain the spot where you had to stop at
9 a check-point?
10 A. I can't say it contains the exact spot, but it does show the road
11 where we were stopped.
12 Q. All right. But above the photograph, then, can you draw an "X"
13 roughly the area where you stopped at a check-point?
14 A. Yeah, there. [Marks]
15 Q. Okay. And what happened at that check-point?
16 A. So the check-point, it was not a formal check-point. The formal
17 check-points had these oil drums filled with concrete or rocks or sand,
18 where you were -- had to kind of weave your way through. This was just an
19 APC parked by the side of the road. We were stopped there. The police
20 officer came up to us, as some of his colleagues stood by the side of the
21 road, and asked us what our purpose was. I was a little bit vague because
22 I did not want to be prevented from entering the village, so I told him we
23 wanted to go look at the humanitarian situation in the village.
24 He then asked us to wait and made a telephone call. He said that
25 he had to check with another officer, and then he came back and said we
Page 2955
1 could go to the village for -- but we had to be out within two or three
2 hours.
3 Q. You described this check-point as a police check-point. How did
4 you know that the people there were policemen?
5 A. It was police APC and the people were wearing police uniforms with
6 their police identifications. We passed through those kind of
7 check-points on a very regular basis. There was a permanent check-point
8 just outside Tetovo by the stadium which we had to pass every time we
9 wanted to go in the areas north of Tetovo.
10 Q. Just to make this image a bit clearer, above that "X" could you
11 write the letters "CP," please?
12 A. [Marks]
13 MR. SAXON: Thank you. Your Honours, I would seek to tender this
14 image now.
15 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
16 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P333, Your Honours.
17 MR. SAXON:
18 Q. Tell me something. Mr. Bouckaert, did you then proceed into the
19 village of Ljuboten?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And did you carry a notebook with you, anything to record
22 information?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. What were you carrying with you?
25 A. I was carrying a notebook and a camera.
Page 2956
1 Q. All right. Can you turn, please, to what is tab number 37 in your
2 binder?
3 A. Sure.
4 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 348. It has ERN number
5 N002-5902.
6 Q. Can you tell us, first of all, who drew this sketch?
7 A. I did.
8 Q. And where did you draw it?
9 A. This is a sketch that I drew in the evening after my Ljuboten
10 visit, because at the time of my visit my -- the sketch in my notebook was
11 distributed over a series of pages. So it's a compilation of those
12 different sketches.
13 Q. From your notebook?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. All right . And why did you draw this or record this information?
16 A. It's just standard practice of our investigations to map out scene
17 of incidents that we're investigating. It is an aide-memoire. It allows
18 us to remember exactly where different locations are, and it also gives a
19 lot more clarity, you know, as part of our documentation practices,
20 basically.
21 Q. And as you were moving through the village of Ljuboten -- first of
22 all, can we just confirm, does this sketch show roughly where you went in
23 the village of Ljuboten on the 23rd?
24 A. I went to other parts of the village as well, but this shows the
25 area that was affected by the police operation that took place on the 12th
Page 2957
1 of August.
2 Q. Were you there on that day simply, you and your interpreter, or
3 were you there with someone from Ljuboten village?
4 A. We had gone with a taxi driver who knew Ljuboten village, and then
5 we had looked for some local villagers. I had the name of the -- somebody
6 who was described to me as kind of the village chief, but he was not in
7 the village at the time. So we met another man who introduced himself to
8 me as a school official, who also accompanied us together with a few
9 people, but most of the houses in this area of the village were still
10 empty.
11 Q. Do you recall the name of this school official who accompanied
12 you?
13 A. I believe his name was Hisni Murati, but I should check my
14 statement just to check.
15 Q. Would it help you, then, to refresh your memory?
16 A. Yes, please.
17 MR. SAXON: With the Chamber's leave, the witness will turn to the
18 paragraph in his statement where this name appears.
19 THE WITNESS: Do you know which tab it is? I don't have it.
20 MR. SAXON: This is for the witness.
21 THE WITNESS: Hisni Murseli, sorry. That's in paragraph 35.
22 MR. SAXON: Paragraph 35.
23 Q. Let's take a look, please, at the information that's recorded
24 here. First of all, we see on the left-hand side of the -- oh, something
25 happened.
Page 2958
1 We see on the left-hand side of this sketch, we see a road going
2 up to the top of the page. We see a circle with an asterisk inside it,
3 and we see the words "Boskoski house." What information were you
4 recording there?
5 A. There was a house on that street which was pointed out to me as
6 being the house where Minister Boskoski had been present and had been
7 filmed for national television during a part of the operation in Ljuboten.
8 Q. If we move down, we see a street with the name "Ulica 5." Do you
9 see that?
10 A. Yes, Ulica.
11 Q. And we see a number of rectangles which represent structures. Is
12 that right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And we see names inside some of those rectangles. Who do those
15 names indicate?
16 A. They indicate the owners of the houses as they were stated to me.
17 Q. All right. Underneath that line of structures, we see a dotted
18 line and the letters "All burned." Do you see that?
19 A. Yes, that's correct.
20 Q. And why did you write the words "All burned" there?
21 A. Because all of those homes and stores had been burned.
22 Q. From that part of Ulica 5, did you then move down to, if I can put
23 it this way, to the right side of the sketch?
24 A. Yes. We first walked down the road, which then kind of goes down,
25 and documented what had happened in that area, and then we came back up
Page 2959
1 and went up Ratak Road, I believe it is, or Racak Road.
2 Q. We see a Ratak road that goes up towards the right-hand -- upper
3 right-hand corner?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Let's focus, first, on that road that's going down to the bottom
6 of the page. We see a number of squares indicating structures. What kind
7 of information did you record there?
8 A. A number of those homes had also been destroyed or burned. And as
9 you just saw, we also note when these homes were burned or hit. So, for
10 example, the house right on the corner, if the pointer can just go up a
11 little bit, yes, yeah, this house was actually burned from a mortar shell,
12 which set it apart from most of the other houses which had been burned
13 with an inflammable.
14 Q. And if we move up this road that is called Ratak Road, do you see
15 that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. What kind of information were you recording about the structures
18 there?
19 A. Again, we were recording whether structures had been burned,
20 whether cars and tractors had been burned. There's a house a little bit
21 further up where 60 lambs had been burned in a shed. We also located --
22 noted the location of where people had been killed during that.
23 MR. SAXON: So, if the pointer could stop there and now move just a
24 bit up and to the right, please. Up now, up. No, right there.
25 Q. We see the words "Sulejman Bajrami --"
Page 2960
1 A. "Killed."
2 Q. -- Killed." Who gave you this information about the death of
3 Mr. Bajrami, for example?
4 A. I already had quite a bit of information about the circumstances
5 of his death and where his body had been found. Prior to my visit to
6 Ljuboten, I had spoken to several international journalists and some
7 international monitors about who had visited Ljuboten on the 14th, as well
8 as the one member of the group of 11 people who had been in the basement,
9 who was both still alive and not in custody at the time. Two people were
10 killed from the basement, and the other people remained in detention at
11 the time of my investigation.
12 MR. SAXON: Very well. Your Honour, I would seek to tender this
13 document, please.
14 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P334, Your Honours.
16 MR. SAXON: If we could keep this document on the screen for a
17 moment.
18 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, if you focus your attention on the street where we
19 see the street that is named "Ulica 5."
20 Do you see that?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Below that, there's a series of homes or structures. Do you
23 recall entering the compound, if you will, or the yard of a particular
24 home in that area?
25 A. Yeah, it's actually to the left of those. It's the first house
Page 2961
1 on the left side of the map. No, more to the left. Yes, Kenan Jusufi's
2 house.
3 Q. And down below that, it says --
4 A. "Rami Jusufi killed and car burned."
5 Q. If you can turn to what is tab 13, please.
6 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 197. It has ERN number
7 N001-4925.
8 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. What does it depict?
11 A. It depicts the entrance of the Kenan Jusufi house.
12 Q. All right. And we see a structure -- we see a car or what's left
13 of a car in the foreground, and then in front we see the wall of a
14 structure. Did you notice anything about the walls, the condition of that
15 wall?
16 A. Well, the gate had been shot open with some explosive. It's
17 actually the other side of the gate which isn't in the photograph. There
18 were gunshot bullet impacts on the wall which is visible in the picture,
19 and the car had been burned, we assumed and according to eyewitness
20 testimonies we collected, with an accelerant. And it must have been
21 burned at high heat because the rims of the tires actually melted.
22 Q. We see some bullet damage on the wall in this photograph. Did you
23 find any bullet damage on the inside of this gate or on the inner walls?
24 A. No. We didn't find any bullet damage on the left side of the car,
25 which was facing the entrance of the home, or on the gates or on the wall
Page 2962
1 which would be off to the left side of the picture. This compound is
2 actually visible on the overview map.
3 Q. That's all right for now.
4 All right. And did you draw any conclusions from the lack of
5 other -- from the lack of bullet damages on the left side or on the inner
6 parts of the gates or on the walls?
7 A. We saw no evidence of outgoing gunfire into the yard of this home
8 emanating from inside the home.
9 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
10 please.
11 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received --
12 MR. SAXON: Actually, Your Honour, that was completely my fault.
13 JUDGE PARKER: It is already an exhibit --
14 MR. SAXON: It is already an exhibit. This is P0006. I apologise
15 for the confusion.
16 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Saxon, the microphone is pointing away from
17 you, and some of your finer utterances are being missed.
18 MR. SAXON: I appreciate that, Your Honour.
19 Q. If you could turn, Mr. Bouckaert, to what is tab 14 in your
20 binder.
21 Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And what does it depict, in general?
24 A. Just to physically locate myself, my back would have been to the
25 car that had been burned as I took this picture, so I just turned inside
Page 2963
1 the compound. It depicts the entrance of the house where Rami Jusufi was
2 killed. And in the front of the picture, we found some bullet casings
3 in-situ.
4 There was damage to the front door. You can -- it's a little bit
5 dark, but you can see that window panel on the right side of the door
6 is -- has been shot out at the upper level, but most of the damage was on
7 the other window panel as well as the wood. So it indicated to us that
8 somebody, from this distance of six, seven metres, had shot into the
9 house.
10 Q. Just so the record was clear, you said "a distance of six or seven
11 metres"?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did you go towards the door and look through the broken window to
14 the interior of the house?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Do you recall what you saw?
17 A. Yeah. There was broken glass inside the house, which indicated to
18 us that the gunfire had come from outside and that the force of the bullet
19 hitting the window had propelled the glass inside. And there also was a
20 pool of blood inside, on the carpet inside the house.
21 Q. Did you take a photograph of what you saw on the inside of the
22 house?
23 A. No, I didn't.
24 Q. And was there a particular reason why you didn't?
25 A. No, it was just an oversight on my part. You know, we had been
Page 2964
1 told that we could only be in the village for a few hours, so we had a lot
2 of work to do within that time.
3 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek -- excuse me. I won't seek
4 to tender this, Your Honour. It is Exhibit P0005.
5 Q. If you could turn briefly, Mr. Bouckaert, to what is tab 15 in
6 your binder.
7 MR. SAXON: This is 65 ter number 199.30. It has ERN number
8 N004-4647.
9 Q. And when we get this photograph up on our screen, I'm wondering if
10 I could ask the Court Usher's assistance to help you, Mr. Bouckaert, make
11 some annotations on this photograph.
12 MR. SAXON: I don't need it enlarged right now, because I can't
13 see it yet. There we go.
14 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, this photograph, does it depict the area where you
15 started your observations in the village of Ljuboten?
16 A. Can I -- has this photo been taken before or after the Ljuboten
17 events?
18 Q. After.
19 A. Obviously, things looked a little bit different, but I recognise
20 the orthodox church. So, yes, this is the area where we began
21 documenting.
22 Q. All right. If the Court Usher could assist you, please. If you
23 could take up the magic pen, and if you could draw a circle around what
24 you recognised as the orthodox church.
25 A. [Marks]
Page 2965
1 Q. And if you could place a "1" next to that circle.
2 A. [Marks]
3 Q. All right. And we've just -- in the prior two photographs where
4 we were looking at photographs from the home of the Jusufi family, can you
5 circle on this photograph roughly where that home was?
6 A. Yeah. I assume the homes have been rebuilt pretty much in their
7 original positions. So this will be the Jusufi house. [Indicates] And
8 you can see the gate here, and this building is visible in the picture I
9 took. [Marks]
10 Q. And to the left of that "X," could you draw a "2," please?
11 A. [Marks]
12 Q. And could you please draw an arrow that would indicate the
13 direction, then, you took along that road to make observations about the
14 village of Ljuboten?
15 A. Yeah. We first walked up to this house, and then we retraced our
16 steps going in this direction down this road. [Indicates].
17 MR. SAXON: For the record, the blue arrow is going past the
18 T-junction and towards the bottom left-hand corner of the photograph.
19 Q. And the other structures on that street, did you also examine them
20 on the 23rd of August?
21 A. Yes.
22 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
23 please.
24 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
25 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P335, Your Honours.
Page 2966
1 MR. SAXON:
2 Q. If you could turn to what is tab 16 in your binder, please,
3 Mr. Bouckaert.
4 MR. SAXON: And this is from 65 ter number 197. It's a photograph
5 with the ERN N004-4925-17.
6 Q. And I believe this particular photograph is described at paragraph
7 57 of your statement.
8 Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And this house, where was it in relation to the house where you
11 believe Rami Jusufi was killed?
12 A. It should be two houses down. It's actually a shop. It's the
13 burned store which is just at the bottom of the intersection of the two
14 roads.
15 Q. What did you observe on this structure?
16 A. We saw quite a bit of bullet impact rounds around the window and
17 on the walls of the house, below the window, and those structure had been
18 burned. We saw no evidence of any explosion from shells or RPGs or
19 anything else on the walls. The chimneys were standing. As you can see,
20 the roof tiles had fallen straight down. And the soot on the walls
21 suggested that the buildings had been burned from the inside, which was
22 consistent with the accounts of the villagers that these structures had
23 been set on fire with an accelerant.
24 I should say I'm not an arson expert, but I saw many similar
25 burned structures during my work in Kosovo. So I did feel I could
Page 2967
1 evaluate how this building had been burned.
2 Q. Did you find across the street, on the other side of the street
3 from this structure, did you find any bullet damage, anything to indicate
4 outgoing fire?
5 A. No. And we wanted to be very systematic when walking through this
6 area, to check for any outgoing fire, so we did go look through these kind
7 of -- the area that was covered by these windows and walk opposite them to
8 check on trees, on walls, and on other structures to see if there had been
9 any outgoing fire, and we did not find any.
10 Q. Did you find -- for example, in this house, did you notice any
11 pieces of shrapnel lodged in any of the walls, anything like that?
12 A. No, and also not a spray pattern that you would associate with
13 shells, which I had seen just a few weeks before during my work in the
14 village of Aracinovo, which had come under heavy shelling attack.
15 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
16 please.
17 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
18 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P336, Your Honours.
19 MR. SAXON:
20 Q. If I could turn to what is tab 16 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert.
21 .
22 MR. SAXON: I am sorry. We're looking for the photo with ERN
23 N001-4925-20.
24 Q. Do you see this photograph, Mr. Bouckaert?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2968
1 Q. Did you take this photograph?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. We see some cinder block walls here in the foreground, and then
4 further on down the street. Were they damaged, from what you could tell?
5 A. The ones on the left side of the street?
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. No.
8 Q. How about on the right side of the street, what does this
9 photograph depict there?
10 A. These -- the actual building with the Ulica 5 sign on it is the
11 same store that we saw in the previous photograph, and it shows all of the
12 buildings, homes, and stores down that stretch. All of them had been
13 burnt, and all of the chimneys are still standing, which to me is an
14 indication that -- again, that there were no explosive impacts or shelling
15 that caused this -- these fires.
16 Q. To your knowledge, or in terms of the information that you
17 received on the 23rd, was this damage all caused -- to all of these
18 structures, was it all caused on the 12th of August?
19 A. To structures in this picture, yes, but we did document several
20 homes, including a Macedonian -- ethnic Macedonian home, which had been
21 burned on later dates.
22 Q. If you take a look at that cinder block wall on the left side of
23 the road, the fact that there was no damage to that, did you draw any
24 conclusions about that?
25 A. It indicated to us that there had been no outgoing fire from this
Page 2969
1 area, and also the -- the police forces who had carried out this attack
2 focused their fire on the right side of the road.
3 Q. Do you recall the information that you received, that there was
4 some structure burned on --
5 A. Sorry. The left side of the road is a part of the Macedonian area
6 of the village, which is one reason why -- probably why it wasn't fired
7 upon.
8 Q. Can you recall how many homes were damaged on a day after the 12th
9 of August?
10 A. We documented two such homes in this immediate area. They're
11 marked on my map. One is a building on the right, which is just down
12 beyond this last structure visible in the picture. It was burned on the
13 Friday; and then on the opposite side of the road, there was a Macedonian
14 house, a big compound, which had been burned on the Thursday.
15 Q. And when you're talking about the Thursday and the Friday, you're
16 speaking about the Thursday and the Friday following --
17 A. Immediately after the Sunday, yes.
18 Q. -- following Sunday, the 12th?
19 A. Yes, exactly. And I should point out that the people who
20 accompanied us made it very clear which houses had been burned when. When
21 I went to the Macedonian house to investigate and to take pictures, they
22 said this one was burned afterwards.
23 Q. And by "afterwards," meaning after the 12th of August?
24 A. Yes, exactly.
25 MR. SAXON: I would seek to tender this photograph, Your Honour.
Page 2970
1 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Bouckaert, the man standing in the right-hand
2 part of the photograph as you look at it, in the foreground --
3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
4 JUDGE PARKER: -- do you know who that is?
5 THE WITNESS: No, I don't. No. I mean, I can't tell from the
6 face, but -- I'm having difficulty answering the question because he may
7 have been my interpreter.
8 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
9 MR. SAXON: If that's the case, Your Honour, which I didn't
10 realise, if this photograph is admitted, could it be admitted under seal,
11 please.
12 JUDGE PARKER: The photo will be admitted under seal.
13 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P337, Your Honours.
14 MR. SAXON:
15 Q. Could you turn, Mr. Bouckaert, to what is tab 18 in your binder,
16 please.
17 MR. SAXON: This is -- it has ERN number N001-4925-21. It is also
18 from 65 ter number 197.
19 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, do you see this photograph?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Did you take it?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Can you tell me what is depicted in this photograph?
24 A. It's the same stretch of homes and stores which had been burned.
25 We're just a little bit farther down the road.
Page 2971
1 Q. We see a number of cinder block walls in this photograph. Do you
2 see them?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did you happen to look over a wall or the walls to see the other
5 side of them?
6 A. Yes, because of the big windows and the gunfire that we noticed on
7 the walls, which is not very clearly visible, but there was gunfire on the
8 white wall of the building. Yes, we did look over this fence. I remember
9 I stood on this block, actually, to peek over to see if there had been any
10 damage on the high wall or on the low wall which would have indicated
11 possible outgoing gunfire.
12 Q. And did you see any such damage on the inner sides of the walls?
13 A. No.
14 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
15 under seal again, please.
16 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received under seal.
17 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P338, Your Honours.
18 MR. SAXON:
19 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, if we could turn, please, to what is tab 19 in your
20 binder.
21 MR. SAXON: This is again --
22 JUDGE PARKER: I wonder, Mr. Saxon, whether that might be a
23 convenient time.
24 MR. SAXON: Very well, Your Honour.
25 JUDGE PARKER: We will have the second break now and resume at
Page 2972
1 6.00.
2 --- Recess taken at 5.30 p.m.
3 --- On resuming at 6.04 p.m.
4 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Saxon.
5 MR. SAXON:
6 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, I'd like to remind both of us that we have to be
7 careful about pausing between question and answers and not allowing our
8 voices to overlap. All right?
9 If you can turn, please, to what is tab 19 in the binder in front
10 of you.
11 MR. SAXON: This is from 65 ter number 197. It's a photograph
12 with ERN number N001-4925-25.
13 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And are we still on the same stretch of road heading downhill from
16 the Jusufi house?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And in this photograph, can you tell us what we see?
19 A. Yes. It's a burned store along the same road.
20 Q. And we see -- if you look up, we see some roof tiles above the
21 doors and the windows. Do you see that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Did you see where the remaining roof tiles from this house were?
24 A. Yeah. They had fallen straight down, some of them on the street
25 and others inside the building.
Page 2973
1 Q. On the outside -- well, what can you tell us about the damage that
2 you saw to the walls of this house, if any?
3 A. There wasn't any significant damage that I remember to the --
4 either the outside or to the interior walls to this house.
5 Q. Did you find any shrapnel marks either in the walls or in the
6 rubble or on the street?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Did you draw any conclusions as to what had happened to this
9 house?
10 A. As with the other homes, we believed that it had been burned with
11 an accelerant.
12 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
13 please.
14 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P339, Your Honours.
16 MR. SAXON:
17 Q. If you can turn, please, to what is tab 20 in your binder,
18 Mr. Bouckaert.
19 MR. SAXON: This is a photograph from the same 65 ter number; ERN
20 number N001-4926-01.
21 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And can you recall what information you were given about this home
24 and the owner of the home?
25 A. Yes. This is the home of a Macedonian called Zlatko which had
Page 2974
1 been burned after the events of Sunday, on the Thursday following the
2 events, according to the villagers.
3 Q. Did the villagers indicate who had done this burning or who had
4 not done the burning?
5 A. Yes, they did say. As I approached the house and started
6 photographing and looking around, they said this wasn't done by the
7 police. This was not done by the police.
8 Q. And, again, just to make sure the record is clear, you said, this
9 home belonged to a Macedonian called Zlatko. By that comment, are you
10 referring to an ethnic Macedonian?
11 A. That's correct, an ethnic Macedonian.
12 Q. All right. We see, in front of this home, what looks like a gate.
13 Do you see that?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Was that gate locked when you saw it?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. All right. And did you see many gates like this in front of homes
18 in your work in Macedonia?
19 A. Yes. This would be a typical compound of a family with some
20 means, surrounded by a wall and by a gate, whether they are ethnic
21 Macedonian or ethnic Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
22 Q. I see. And if you just focus on this metal gate for a while, did
23 such metal gates impress you very much?
24 A. I'm --
25 Q. Did they impress you with their security level? Did they impress
Page 2975
1 you as something that would add a lot of security to these homes?
2 A. Well, that would depend if I was in an APC or not, but these are
3 not very strong gates. They can be easily pushed over.
4 Q. And your reference to an APC vehicle, why did you make that
5 reference?
6 A. Well, saying if anybody wanted to push open the vehicle -- the
7 courtyard -- the gate with an armoured car, it would be very easy, or even
8 with a normal car.
9 Q. Had you seen, in your work in Macedonia, homes that had been
10 specially fortified during the armed conflict?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And where was that, for example?
13 A. In many villages above Tetovo which were under the control of the
14 NLA; in the high mountains above Tetovo near the border with Kosovo; and
15 in Aracinovo, the town where very fierce fighting took place in June.
16 Q. And in these areas that you refer to as under the control of the
17 NLA, what kind of fortifications did you see?
18 A. We found quite a bit of NLA-associated graffiti. They had even
19 marked up their cars with "UCK," which is the acronym for the NLA. We saw
20 sand-bagging; the construction of small brick walls between homes, which
21 allowed fighters to move behind those walls; sand-bagging of windows; some
22 digging of trenches; and, oftentimes, fortified positions at the entrance
23 and exit of villages.
24 Q. Did you observe such fortifications or fortified positions when
25 you were Ljuboten on the 23rd of August?
Page 2976
1 A. No. We didn't see any evidence of any kind of fortification of
2 the village or military NLA activity in the village.
3 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
4 please.
5 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
6 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P340, Your Honours.
7 THE WITNESS: If I can just add something to my answer. We
8 focused on the area which was the subject of the Sunday events, so I
9 cannot preclude the possibility -- I didn't visit every house in Ljuboten,
10 obviously, but in the area of this map we certainly didn't see anything
11 like that.
12 MR. SAXON: Just for the record, I may have given an incorrect ERN
13 number for this Exhibit P340. The correct ERN is N001-4926-01.
14 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, could you turn to what is tab 21 in your binder,
15 please.
16 MR. SAXON: This is from 65 ter number 197. It has ERN number
17 N001-4927-05.
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 MR. SAXON:
20 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can you tell us what this photograph depicts, please?
23 A. It depicts a shed at the house located next to the house of
24 Zlatko, which is marked on my map, with a burned tractor, a burned
25 trailer, and a burned car inside.
Page 2977
1 Q. We see, around the car and trailer and tractor, what appear to be
2 roof tiles. Is that what those are?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. All right. Did that indicate anything to you, the presence of all
5 those roof tiles there?
6 A. Well, again, there's no other physical damage to the structure to
7 indicate it was hit by a shell. It was a free-standing structure, not
8 attached to any other buildings or structures that had been burned. So
9 this led us to conclude that it had been burned by an accelerant, like the
10 other buildings in Ljuboten.
11 Q. Did you find any shrapnel there or shrapnel marks in the walls?
12 A. No.
13 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
14 please.
15 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
16 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P341, Your Honours.
17 MR. SAXON:
18 Q. If you could turn to what is tab 22 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert,
19 please.
20 A. Yes.
21 MR. SAXON: It is a photograph from 65 ter number 197. It bears
22 ERN number N001-4927-09.
23 Q. Did you take this photograph, Mr. Bouckaert?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. What do we see in this photograph?
Page 2978
1 A. Those are the release clips of two hand grenades. I was
2 inspecting a house where one room had been burned, and I was shown these
3 release clips. And the witness told me that two hand grenades had been
4 thrown into his home, so I decided to photograph the release clips for
5 identification purposes.
6 Q. And those two hand grenade release clips, what are they resting
7 on?
8 A. They're resting on my notebook.
9 Q. And on the right-hand page of your notebook, what do we see?
10 A. That's one of the pages on which I drew a part of the map; and as
11 I ran out of space, I would go to the next page.
12 Q. So it shows a page of your notebook that you used on the 23rd of
13 August?
14 A. That's correct.
15 MR. SAXON: Your Honours, I would seek to tender this photograph,
16 please.
17 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
18 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P342, Your Honours.
19 MR. SAXON: I'm going to skip tab 23.
20 Q. If we could turn, Mr. Bouckaert, to tab 24, please.
21 MR. SAXON: This is a photograph from 65 ter number 197. It has
22 ERN number N001-4927-18.
23 Q. Did you take this photograph, Mr. Bouckaert, on the 23rd of
24 August?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2979
1 Q. And what does this photograph depict?
2 A. It depicts another burned house in Ljuboten, along the same
3 street.
4 Q. All right. And why did you conclude that this house was burned?
5 A. You can see the roof tiles on the bottom right of the picture.
6 Clearly, the walls are blackened. There was some limited gunfire on the
7 wall. So it was pretty clear that the house had been -- had burned, and
8 we didn't see anything that differentiated this house from any of the
9 other ones which had been burned.
10 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, on the bottom right-hand side of the photograph, we
11 see what appears to be a patch of grass. Do you see that?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Down there on that patch of grass, did you find any roof tiles?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Did that indicate anything to you?
16 A. Again, it indicated that there was no evidence of any explosive
17 impact at this house.
18 Q. Was there any evidence at this house of outgoing gunfire?
19 A. No. I actually -- I did go inside the room through this door and
20 looked at this window, because it did have a good firing position,
21 basically, when people came in. And I didn't see any evidence of bullet
22 rounds or anything else, spent cartridges there, or any fortification or
23 anything.
24 MR. SAXON: For the record, this photograph is discussed at
25 paragraph 63 of the witness's statement.
Page 2980
1 Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph, please.
2 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
3 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P343, Your Honours.
4 MR. SAXON:
5 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, could you turn to what is tab 25 in your binder,
6 please?
7 A. Yes.
8 MR. SAXON: It is a photograph from 65 ter number 197. It has ERN
9 number N001-4927-20.
10 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And what does it depict, please?
13 A. It depicts one of the larger homes that we saw in the area. It's
14 the home which is described in my statement. There was a group of, I
15 think, 15 civilians, men, women, and children, hiding in this house when
16 it came under attack. And, actually, it's a three-storey house, so
17 there's a bottom floor underneath the photographed floors.
18 Q. Did this house appear to be fortified in any way?
19 A. No. And I did look -- perhaps on my map you see that this house
20 is right at an intersection, so it will be the kind of strategic location
21 where we would expect fortification because it controls the access to this
22 area of the town. So we spent -- I spent quite a bit of time going
23 through this building, looking to see if there was any sand-bagging or any
24 other fortifications.
25 Q. So on your map, this is the home that you identified as owned by a
Page 2981
1 Xhefki Huseini [phoen]?
2 A. That's correct.
3 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, could this photograph be marked for
4 identification at this time?
5 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, it will be marked.
6 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P344, marked for identification, Your
7 Honours.
8 MR. SAXON:
9 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, given the location of this house, if this house had
10 been fortified as a strategic point, what would you have expected to see
11 then on or around this house?
12 A. Well, we would have probably seen some sand-bagging either on the
13 terrace or around those windows, and the windows would have been open to
14 allow for firing out of the windows. You know, they could have done many
15 other things to fortify the house. They could have built a brick wall
16 where the balcony is right now, a strong brick wall which could withstand
17 some gunfire, but we didn't see any of that.
18 Q. Can you turn, please, to what is tab 26 in your binder.
19 MR. SAXON: This is a photograph that comes from the same series
20 that is described in paragraph 64 and 65 of the witness statement. It has
21 ERN number N001-4927-27.
22 Q. Did you take this photograph, Mr. Bouckaert?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. What does it depict?
25 A. It depicts the entrance hall to the house that we just saw an
Page 2982
1 exterior photograph of. The entrance to the house would be on the left
2 side of the picture, which is not visible in this picture. There is the
3 propellant part of a Zolja missile, which is a rocket-propelled grenade,
4 in the middle of the room.
5 Q. Can I stop you, please? And just for the record, that is a --
6 MR. SAXON: Something just happened. There we are.
7 Q. -- that is a greenish-blue object on the floor just above a
8 rumpled red carpet; is that right?
9 A. Yeah. I believe the carpet had -- yeah.
10 Q. And we see a wall on the upper left-hand side with what appears to
11 be damage to it. Can you describe what that damage was?
12 A. Yeah. We believe that it was damage from the shrapnel from the
13 warhead of the RPG, of the Zolja.
14 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, if this photograph could be marked for
15 identification, please.
16 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked.
17 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P345, marked for identification, Your
18 Honours.
19 MR. SAXON:
20 Q. If you could turn to what is tab 27 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert.
21 MR. SAXON: It's a photograph with an ERN number N001-4927-29.
22 Q. Did you take this photograph?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. What does it depict?
25 A. This is a disposable rocket-launcher for an RPG for the Zolja, so
Page 2983
1 it's a one-use type of weapon. You extend it and fire it, and then this
2 is the launcher which is left behind.
3 Q. Where did you find this rocket-launcher?
4 A. It was found immediately across the street from the home that we
5 just discussed, the Huseini home.
6 Q. Did you find any signs of outgoing fire from that home in the area
7 around the Zolja?
8 A. No. And according to the people I interviewed who had been in the
9 home, there had been a group of, I believe, 15 civilians, including many
10 women and children, inside the home. Those were the only occupants of the
11 home.
12 Q. And when you say "this group of civilians had been in the home,"
13 are you speaking about on the 12th of August?
14 A. Yes, exactly. There was nobody at the home at the time I visited
15 it.
16 MR. SAXON: Your Honours, I would seek to tender what has been
17 marked for identification as 344 and 345, as well as this photograph
18 that's on the screen.
19 JUDGE PARKER: They will each be received.
20 THE REGISTRAR: P344 will become Exhibit P344; P345 will become
21 Exhibit P345; and 65 ter 197, page 212, will become Exhibit P346, Your
22 Honours.
23 MR. SAXON: I'm going to skip tab 28.
24 Q. I would like to ask you, Mr. Bouckaert, to take a look, please, at
25 tab 29 in your binder.
Page 2984
1 MR. SAXON: It is a photograph with ERN number N001-4928-03, again
2 from Rule 65 ter number 197.
3 Q. You refer to this photograph, I believe, in paragraph 68 of your
4 statement. Did you take this photograph?
5 A. Yes, I did.
6 Q. Can you tell us, please, what it depicts?
7 A. Just -- it's the compound of Nazim Murtezani.
8 Q. And what did you observe in this compound?
9 A. The entire compound had been burned, including the structure in
10 the foreground, as well as the home in the back. It was quite a large
11 compound with some agricultural additions to the home.
12 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters kindly ask you to make pauses
13 between questions and answers.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, sorry.
15 MR. SAXON: We have been warned.
16 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, on the inner sides of the walls that we see in this
17 photograph, did you find any shrapnel damage, for example?
18 A. No. The only damage we found was on the exterior walls, and it
19 was from gunshot fire.
20 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
21 please.
22 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
23 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P347, Your Honours.
24 MR. SAXON:
25 Q. Just remaining with this photograph for a moment, Mr. Bouckaert,
Page 2985
1 it's now Exhibit 347, did you find any signs of outgoing fire from any of
2 these structures?
3 A. No.
4 Q. If you could turn, please --
5 MR. SAXON: I'm going to skip what is tab 30. Actually, I will --
6 I would like to discuss -- I will skip tab 30. I will skip tab 31.
7 Q. If you can turn to what is tab 32 in your binder, Mr. Bouckaert.
8 MR. SAXON: It's from 65 ter number 197. It has ERN number
9 N001-4928-25.
10 Q. Do you see this photograph?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Can you tell us whose house we're looking at here?
15 A. It's a serious of houses, but the main house, the burned house, is
16 the house of Qani Bajrami, and it was burnt. And there were three bodies
17 found behind this compound.
18 Q. Do you know if this family ever used another surname?
19 A. Yes, they did. "Jashari" is the other surname.
20 MR. SAXON: And for the record, this photograph and this series of
21 photographs are discussed in paragraph 72 to 75 of the witness's
22 statement.
23 Q. We see what looks on the left-hand side of the photograph in the
24 foreground, we see what looks like a home with red cinder blocks. Do you
25 see that?
Page 2986
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you see any fortifications around that home?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Any big walls?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Any big gate?
7 A. No. There was no gate or walls around this entire compound.
8 Q. Any fortification of any kind?
9 A. No.
10 Q. I'm wondering perhaps, Mr. Bouckaert, perhaps with the assistance
11 of our usher, if you could take up the magic pen again. There is a small
12 green object in the center of the photograph, and do you see that green
13 object?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Can you draw a circle around it, please?
16 A. [Marks]
17 Q. Can you tell us, please, what that object is?
18 A. It was another Zolja rocket-launcher.
19 Q. Did you find any livestock in this -- at this family home?
20 A. I believe that there were three cows which had been killed in the
21 area of the home.
22 Q. All right.
23 A. But they're not very visible in this picture. They are marked on
24 my map.
25 Q. All right. In the back foreground, we see a cinder block
Page 2987
1 structure with a red tile roof. Do you see that?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And then behind that, we see another structure. Can you recall
4 what that other structure was?
5 A. Yes. That's the main house of the Jashari --
6 Q. All right. Can you see a chimney or chimneys on that house?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Are they standing?
9 A. Yes.
10 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, if this photograph could be marked for
11 identification, please.
12 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked.
13 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P348, marked for identification, Your
14 Honours.
15 MR. SAXON:
16 Q. If you could turn, please, now to what is tab 33 in your binder,
17 Mr. Bouckaert.
18 MR. SAXON: It's a photograph with ERN number N001-4928-16.
19 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What does it depict?
22 A. It depicts the Zolja launching tube, again a disposable launching
23 tube that I circled in the previous picture.
24 MR. SAXON: Could this photograph be marked for identification,
25 Your Honour.
Page 2988
1 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked.
2 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P349, marked for identification, Your
3 Honours.
4 MR. SAXON:
5 Q. Could you turn, Mr. Bouckaert, to what is tab 34 in your binder,
6 please.
7 MR. SAXON: It's a photograph with ERN number N001-4928-17.
8 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph on the 23rd of August?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. What does this photograph depict?
11 A. It's another photograph of the same Jashari house that was seen in
12 the picture two previous.
13 Q. We see in the bottom foreground, we see what appears to be a large
14 yellow tank. Do you see that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. What was that tank used for, if you know?
17 A. I believe it's used for irrigation of fields. It's a water tank.
18 Q. All right. And what did you observe about the remnants of this
19 house?
20 A. We did spend quite a bit of time looking around this house,
21 because three people had been killed while fleeing from this house, so we
22 looked in the windows. There was a lot of rubble inside the house, so it
23 was difficult to tell, because the roof and the building had collapsed.
24 Q. Had collapsed?
25 A. Had fallen down. So -- but we didn't see any evidence that there
Page 2989
1 had been any shooting from inside the house. We also looked at all of the
2 trees and walls and other structures opposite the house -- opposite the
3 windows to see if there had been any shooting, and we didn't find anything
4 of that nature.
5 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, on the outside walls of this house, sort of up
6 above the ground, we see some marks. Do you recall what those marks were?
7 A. Yeah. I believe that they were gunfire, and we found similar
8 gunfire directed at the upper part of the building at the front of the
9 house. I believe it's visible in the picture that we saw previously.
10 Q. In the center of the photograph, sticking up above what used to be
11 the roof of the house, we see a dark-coloured structure. What is that?
12 A. That's the chimney of the house.
13 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph,
14 as well as the photographs that have been marked for identification, as
15 Exhibits P348 and 349.
16 JUDGE PARKER: The three will be received.
17 THE REGISTRAR: This photograph will become Exhibit P350; whereas,
18 P348 will become Exhibit P348, and P349 will become Exhibit P349.
19 MR. SAXON:
20 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, if we can remain on this photograph, I believe you
21 said you looked in through the windows. On the sides of the inner walls,
22 did you find any damage, any shrapnel marks?
23 A. No.
24 Q. I believe you mentioned earlier in your testimony, Mr. Bouckaert,
25 that before and after your visit to Ljuboten, you met with some of the
Page 2990
1 witnesses of the events of the 12th of August. Is that right?
2 A. That's correct.
3 Q. Can you turn, please, to what is tab 12 in your binder.
4 MR. SAXON: It's a photograph from 65 ter 197. It bears ERN
5 number N001-4925-03.
6 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, did you take this photograph?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Whom does it depict?
9 A. It depicts a resident of Ljuboten who I interviewed in Skopje. I
10 believe his name is Ejup Hamiti.
11 MR. SAXON: For the record, this photograph is discussed at
12 paragraph 51 of the witness statement.
13 Q. Do you recall what Mr. Hamiti told you about his experience on the
14 12th of August?
15 A. Yes. He first told me about the shelling that took place on
16 Friday and Saturday in which several people that he knew had been killed,
17 and then he told me about his flight from the village together with a
18 large group of people from Ljuboten.
19 Q. He appears to have an injury to what looks to be the left side of
20 his head. Did he tell you how he got that injury?
21 A. Yes. It was a superficial gunshot wound from policemen at a
22 check-point.
23 Q. Subsequently, did you write a report about your investigation into
24 the events in Ljuboten?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2991
1 Q. And did you contain the information provided by Mr. Hamiti in your
2 report?
3 A. Yes. Just on this one incident at the police check-point, we
4 interviewed three separate people: Him, another young man who had also
5 been beaten unconscious, and the mother of this young man.
6 Q. This young man, Mr. Hamiti?
7 A. Exactly.
8 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I would seek to tender this photograph
9 now, please.
10 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
11 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P351, Your Honours.
12 MR. SAXON:
13 Q. You mentioned a short time ago that you had written a report about
14 the investigation that you did in the events in Ljuboten. Why did you do
15 that?
16 A. Because that's our standard practice. As Human Rights Watch, we
17 investigate abuses, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and we write
18 public reports about it after we complete our investigation.
19 Q. Can you turn to what is tab 36 in your binder, please.
20 MR. SAXON: This is from 65 ter number 235, and fortunately or
21 unfortunately -- well, no, it does appear to have only one ERN. It begins
22 with ERN U0000098. We see a letter there. Can we go to the next page,
23 please, in both languages.
24 This document, it says the word "Macedonia" up in the top
25 right-hand corner. We see the words "Human Rights Watch" on the upper
Page 2992
1 left-hand corner. On the upper right side, we see"September 2001"; and
2 below, there's a photograph there. Below the photograph, we see a title.
3 It says: "Crimes Against Civilians, Abuses by Macedonian Forces in
4 Ljuboten, August 10-12, 2001."
5 Q. Do you see that, Mr. Bouckaert?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Who wrote this report?
8 A. I did.
9 Q. And, for example, the information that was included in this
10 report, where did it come from?
11 A. It came from my interviews with eyewitnesses, victims,
12 journalists, observers, political figures, and other sources that I
13 interviewed relating to the events in Ljuboten, as well as public
14 statements by Macedonian officials.
15 Q. Did you also include information or things that you had observed
16 on your visit to the village of Ljuboten on the 23rd of August in this
17 report?
18 A. Yes. This report combines the testimonies that we collected with
19 the physical evidence and compares the two in terms of credibility,
20 assessing credibility.
21 Q. Just a point of clarification now. Did you interview or try to
22 interview then Minister Boskoski or other high-level members of the
23 Ministry of the Interior before you wrote this report?
24 A. No, I did not.
25 Q. Can you tell us why?
Page 2993
1 A. Because we had security concerns. I discussed with my executive
2 director, and we thought that it would not be wise to seek a formal
3 interview with the Minister or senior police officials at the time. It
4 might endanger my security as well as the security of the information that
5 we had collected.
6 Q. Do you know if the Minister had already made the public statements
7 about the events in Ljuboten before you wrote your report?
8 A. Yes. On August 14th, there were some OSCE observers and
9 journalists who gained access to Ljuboten while the bodies were still
10 present, and they carried -- they saw the bodies. One of the OSCE
11 observers made some probably unauthorised comments to the media, and
12 Mr. Boskoski reacted very angrily to those unauthorised statements,
13 accusing the OSCE of interfering with the mandate of the police, of
14 usurping the right to investigate crimes, and that statement is actually
15 quoted in my report.
16 Q. Can you recall to whom was your report sent after its publication?
17 To whom did Human Rights Watch send this report?
18 A. Our report and the accompanying press release is literally sent to
19 thousands of people. They include journalists, diplomats, Macedonian
20 officials, as well as the public at large, and they are made public on our
21 website.
22 Q. Mr. Bouckaert, I'm sorry, it's my fault. My question was much too
23 broad. Do you know whether this report was sent to particular officials
24 of the Macedonian government at that time?
25 A. Yes.
Page 2994
1 Q. And can you tell us which Macedonian government officials this
2 report was sent to?
3 A. According to our records, it was sent to the Prime Minister's
4 office; to the Foreign Minister; and to the Embassy in Washington, D.C.,
5 the Macedonian Embassy in Washington, D.C., at the very least. We don't
6 have any record of it being sent to the Minister of Interior directly.
7 Q. Is it possible that it was sent to the Ministry of the Interior?
8 A. Yes, it certainly is.
9 JUDGE PARKER: That's not a very useful question or answer, you'll
10 understand, Mr. Saxon.
11 MR. SAXON: Very well.
12 MR. SAXON: If we could turn, please, to the third page of the
13 report, and also the third page in the Macedonian version, please. If we
14 could turn to the next page, please, in the English version.
15 Q. We see here the word "Summary." And at the start of the third
16 paragraph, we see the sentence: "Macedonian police forces committed
17 serious abuses during their three-day operation in Ljuboten."
18 Do you see that, Mr. Bouckaert?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. The following paragraph begins: "During their Sunday attack,
21 police fired indiscriminately into the homes of civilians."
22 Do you see that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. A couple sentences later, we see: "The Macedonian police also
25 burned at least 22 houses, sheds, and stores along their route using
Page 2995
1 gasoline to set many of them aflame."
2 Do you see that?
3 A. Yes. I just want to point out, in our summary, we don't footnote
4 this information, but it's obviously documented in much greater detail in
5 the report itself.
6 Q. The next paragraph begins with: "The abuse continued for the
7 hundreds of ethnic Albanian citizens who tried to flee Ljuboten."
8 A couple of sentences below: "Over 100 men were arrested and
9 taken to police stations in Skopje, where they were subjected to severe
10 beatings."
11 Do you see that?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The next paragraph begins with the sentence: "The Ljuboten
14 operation was carried out by the Macedonian Ministry of Interior's regular
15 and reservist police troops."
16 MR. SAXON: And then for those following along in Macedonian, on
17 the next page of the Macedonian version, the same page in the English
18 version, we see a sentence: "The abuses committed by the Macedonian
19 police are among the most serious committed so far in Macedonia's
20 6-month-old conflict."
21 Q. Do you see that, Mr. Bouckaert?
22 A. Yes.
23 MR. SAXON: On the next page in the English version, if we could
24 stay on the same page in Macedonian, we see the word "Recommendations" in
25 the middle, followed by the words in bold "To the Macedonian government,"
Page 2996
1 and below it says: "Investigate and prosecute the persons responsible for
2 the abuses in Ljuboten. Conduct a credible and partial and transparent
3 investigation into the allegations of government abuses in Ljuboten,
4 including the role of Minister of the Interior Ljube Boskoski and the
5 forces under his command."
6 Q. Do you see that?
7 A. Yes. And -- yeah, and there's one more sentence in terms of what
8 kind of investigation we were requesting, yeah.
9 Q. In other words, the following sentences talk about an independent
10 investigation. Is that correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. "Independent from the government agencies involved in the Ljuboten
13 operation, particularly the Minister of the Interior."
14 A. Yes.
15 MR. SAXON: If we could turn now, please, to what is the bottom of
16 page 7 in the English version and the top of page 9 in the Macedonian
17 version. I'm sorry. If we could see the bottom of page 7 in the English
18 version, please. It says "7" at the bottom of the page. So it's two
19 pages further along.
20 Q. At the bottom of that page, there's a paragraph talking about a
21 Human Rights Watch visit to the home of Elmaz Jusufi. Do you see that,
22 Mr. Bouckaert?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And then it talks about a physical scene consistent with his
25 account. The gate to the yard had been blown away by an explosion. There
Page 2997
1 was a burned-out hulk of a car. Bullet casings were found lying in the
2 yard about six metres from the front door. Apparently, the shots fired at
3 Rami Jusufi.
4 MR. SAXON: Can we turn now to what is the next page in the
5 English version and page 10 of the Macedonian version, please.
6 Q. The bottom of the page in the English version, we see a paragraph
7 begins with: "During an August 23 visit to Ljuboten." Do you see that
8 paragraph?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. It continues: "Human Rights Watch researchers inspected,
11 photographed, and documented all of the burned homes in the village, and
12 our findings were consistent with the accounts of the villagers. Human
13 Rights Watch counted a total of 22 homes, stores, and sheds that had been
14 set on fire or caught fire from shelling on August 12th. In addition, the
15 house of a Macedonian resident had been burned on August 16, 2001,
16 possibly in revenge by ethnic Albanians, and at least one other Albanian
17 home was then burned by Macedonian police during August 17, 2001."
18 MR. SAXON: Can we turn to the next page in the English version,
19 please, and we'll continue at the bottom of page 10, the page we're on in
20 the Macedonian version.
21 Q. On this page in English, we see a discussion of information
22 provided by Mr. Aziz Bajrami, and we see a sentence -- or a paragraph
23 beginning: "Aziz Bajrami and his sons were then ordered to lay down next
24 to the men."
25 Do you see that, Mr. Bouckaert?
Page 2998
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. It then continues: "Soon thereafter, one of the police officers
3 kicked 21-year-old Sulejman in the head, and the boy stood up stunned,
4 tried to run away, and was shot down. The police officers then ordered
5 Aziz Bajrami and another elderly man, 68-year-old Muharrem Bajrami, to
6 leave the scene. Aziz Bajrami quickly ran away, but heard gunshots behind
7 him, as Muharrem was shot dead."
8 Do you see that?
9 A. Yes.
10 MR. SAXON: If we could turn now, please, to page 12 of the
11 English version and the end of page 13 and the beginning of page 14 in the
12 Macedonian version.
13 I'm sorry. Could we go two pages further on in the English
14 version?
15 Q. We see there a paragraph beginning with: "The most severe
16 violence." Do you see that? The second full paragraph, do you see that,
17 Mr. Bouckaert?
18 A. Yes. And "the most severe" in this context is talking about the
19 most severe violence faced by civilians who fled, yes.
20 Q. Right. The second sentence in this paragraph, it says: "A number
21 of fleeing villagers from Ljuboten were brutally beaten by masked ethnic
22 Macedonian civilians close to the Radisani police check-point in the
23 presence of Macedonian police officers." Then there's a description of
24 information given by the young man who we saw earlier, Ejup Hamiti, who
25 had the wound to his head.
Page 2999
1 And then if we go further down on that same page in the English
2 and to the top of the next page in the Macedonian version, we see how a
3 woman named Safi Fetahu relates how a police officer told her husband,
4 "Where were you, you terrorist?" And the policeman said again, "Oh, no,
5 more friends, only death is waiting for you."
6 "He said to my 20-year-old son Dilever also, 'You were in the NLA
7 and now you want to go to Skopje. Now you will see what awaits you.'" Do
8 you see that?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. This information that we've gone over, is this information that
11 you collected during your investigation?
12 A. Yes. And it's all sourced and footnoted to let the reader know
13 where we got the information from. The footnotes say the date and the
14 place and, in most cases, the names of the people we interviewed.
15 MR. SAXON: Can we turn now to what is at the bottom of -- what is
16 marked page 14 in the English version. It has ERN number U0000111 at the
17 top, and it would be page 15 of the Macedonian version. It would be two
18 pages further along from the page that's on the screen right now in
19 English.
20 Q. On this page, in the middle of the page in English, Mr. Bouckaert,
21 there's a paragraph beginning: "The Prolica police station was full." Do
22 you see that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you're quoting one of the persons you interviewed, and it goes
25 on to say: "Full with police officers and also some civilians. Most of
Page 3000
1 the police were masked." And then: "They took us out of the vans and
2 beat us on the way into the police station."
3 The next paragraph: "They started beating us again very brutally.
4 Police officers would just come in and beat us, for four or five hours
5 they beat us."
6 Do you see that?
7 A. Yes.
8 MR. SAXON: If we could turn to the next page in the English
9 version and page 16 of the Macedonian version, and, Your Honour, I'm
10 almost finished with this document. If we could go forward one page in
11 the English version, please. It has ERN number U00001112. That's fine.
12 That's correct. We see a subheading -- no, we've lost it now. This too
13 shall pass.
14 Q. We see a subheading: "The Responsibility of the Security Forces
15 and the Role of the Minister of the Interior Boskoski." Do you see that,
16 Mr. Bouckaert?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. That begins with: "The Macedonian security forces that carried
19 out the abuses documented in this report belong to the Minister of the
20 Interior, which is responsible for all police forces in Macedonia."
21 Why did you make this statement in your report?
22 A. Because that was a conclusion of our research.
23 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, at this point I would seek to mark this
24 document for identification, pursuant to your order.
25 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked.
Page 3001
1 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P352, marked for identification, Your
2 Honours.
3 MR. SAXON: And, Your Honour, I am aware of the time. Perhaps
4 this is the moment to stop.
5 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Saxon. We do need to stop now.
6 We will resume tomorrow at 2.15.
7 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.02 p.m.,
8 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 3rd day of
9 July, 2007, at 2.15 p.m.
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