Page 11739
1 Monday, 11 November 2002
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Registrar, please call the case.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honour. This is case number
7 IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can
9 you hear me in a language that you can understand?
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. Yes, I
11 can hear you and understand you.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
13 Appearances for the Prosecution.
14 MS. KORNER: Joanna Korner, Ann Sutherland, assisted by Denise
15 Gustin, case manager. Good morning, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you and good morning to you.
17 Appearances for Mr. Brdjanin.
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honour I'm John Ackerman,
19 I'm here today with Marela Jevtovic.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning. We have a new witness. Before we
21 bring the witness in are there any preliminary statements?
22 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I return to the point that Your
23 Honour raised on Friday? That is in relation to the judicial notice in
24 respect of the Jaskici killings and I had an opportunity of reading
25 Mr. Ackerman's response and as I said to him this morning, it was always
Page 11740
1 nice to be able to quote yourself in support of a proposition that you're
2 making even though the proposition was of your own making. However, Your
3 Honour, although as I said last time it seems to me that by doing -- by
4 handing over all the transcripts, we are negating Rule 94 but as yet
5 nobody seems to have used Rule 94. However, we have already disclosed
6 during the course of our disclosure three witnesses who dealt with those
7 killings. Mr. Ackerman is already in possession of that. I won't read
8 the names aloud and we will disclose the other three at the end of today.
9 So that Mr. Ackerman can see on what we base or on what the Appeals
10 Chamber based its finding. I said in error that these were protected
11 witnesses. They weren't, and so with one exception there is a document
12 that was filed confidentially, contained the names of the people killed or
13 beaten. Your Honour, of course the rule has changed so we wouldn't have
14 to apply to Judge Jorda but to you if Mr. Ackerman requires to have it. I
15 don't however feel that he's possibly very interested in the list of names
16 but anyhow, Your Honour, that will be supplied to Mr. Ackerman, all six
17 witnesses who dealt with this matter.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Good. Yes, Mr. Ackerman?
19 MR. ACKERMAN: My assumption is that Ms. Korner is speaking of
20 transcripts not witness statements because that's what the --
21 MS. KORNER: Yes, I am, yes.
22 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. I have one very brief matter Your
23 Honour just for -- first of all let me just respond very briefly to what
24 Ms. Korner said. I believe when I file a pleading with this Chamber, that
25 I have an obligation to provide you with the most authoritative sources
Page 11741
1 and so that's the --
2 JUDGE AGIUS: I understand.
3 MR. ACKERMAN: You understand that, yeah. On Friday, this is a
4 document report, Your Honour. On Friday, 8 November, we received an
5 additional 826 pages of Prijedor witness material at 2 minutes per page
6 this works out to 27 and a half hours of reading time. Since October
7 24th, we've received 1.955 pages of new witness material. This does not
8 include documents, just witness material. This works out to 122 pages per
9 day of reading.
10 THE INTERPRETER: Could you slow down, Mr. Ackerman, please?
11 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, thank you. It works out to 122 pages per day
12 of daily reading time of four hours each day. So the numbers that I gave
13 you last week are not complete. It's been significantly added to just
14 this last Friday.
15 And so that's what we are facing and I just wanted to put that on
16 the record.
17 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. The next witness has not
18 asked for any protective measures, Ms. Korner.
19 MS. KORNER: No, he hasn't, Your Honour, no.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: So let's bring in Mr. Merdzanic, please.
21 MS. KORNER: Doctor.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: Dr. Merdzanic. Do you think you'll finish with this
23 witness today, Ms. Korner.
24 MS. KORNER: Oh, yes, Your Honour. I would imagine I'll finish
25 before the break because he testified very recently in Stakic. Your
Page 11742
1 Honour, I will refer Your Honours to the page numbers in the transcript
2 that deal with the various matters.
3 JUDGE AGIUS: Perfect. That's perfect. Mr. Ackerman?
4 MR. ACKERMAN: I think we can finish today, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. And after this witness, do you have anyone
6 else?
7 MS. KORNER: No, I don't Your Honour. Your Honour will recall
8 that we had to substitute at the last moment.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm flying home tomorrow and if you had another
10 witness, I was trying to shift the afternoon sitting to the morning so
11 that we could have -- you could have the full time, yes.
12 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour, I think Mr. Ackerman will be given
13 an extra day to look at matters.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, thank you.
15 [The witness entered court]
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, doctor.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Welcome to this Tribunal again.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: I understand you have already given evidence in the
21 Stakic case so I will be very succinct, very short in my address to you.
22 Before you start giving evidence, the rules require that you enter a
23 solemn declaration, the text of which you have in your hand at the
24 moment. And that will be your undertaking to this Tribunal that in the
25 course of your testimony, you will speak the truth, the whole truth and
Page 11743
1 nothing but the truth. So please proceed.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. I solemnly declare that
3 I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
4 WITNESS: IDRIZ MERDZANIC
5 [Witness answered through interpreter]
6 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Sit down. I think we can skip the
7 preliminaries you're already familiar to this kind of courtroom. I'm the
8 Presiding Judge, my name is Agius and I am flanked on my right by Judge
9 Janu from the Czech Republic and my left Judge Taya from Japan. The three
10 of us constitute this Trial Chamber. To your right you have the team for
11 the Prosecution headed by Ms. Joanna Korner. I don't know who will be
12 conducting the chief, who will be putting some questions to you this
13 morning. And to your left, there is the team for Radoslav Brdjanin, who
14 is the accused in this trial.
15 The lead counsel is Mr. John Ackerman who presumably will conduct
16 the cross-examination. So what's going to happen is that we are going to
17 take as read, sort of, the -- are you receiving the interpretation? We
18 are going to take as read your previous testimony but there will be some
19 additional questions from the Prosecution and a full cross-examination on
20 the part of the Defence. Having said that, I leave you in the hands of
21 Ms. Korner.
22 MS. KORNER: Thank you, Your Honour.
23 Examined by Ms. Korner:
24 Q. Dr. Merdzanic, good morning.
25 A. Good morning.
Page 11744
1 Q. Dr. Merdzanic, can I just establish again your details for the
2 purpose of the record? Is your name Idriz Merdzanic?
3 A. Yes, it is. I'm Idriz Merdzanic.
4 Q. Are you a medical doctor by profession?
5 A. Yes. I graduated from the faculty, Banja Luka, and after being a
6 trainee, I -- and then intern, I worked as a general practitioner in
7 Prijedor in the health centre.
8 Q. And I think it's right that you were born on the 2nd of January of
9 1959, so that you're now aged 43?
10 A. It is correct.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please come closer to the
12 microphone or speak up?
13 MS. KORNER:
14 Q. Dr. Merdzanic, could you come -- or pull -- somebody is going to
15 come and help you.
16 And doctor, I think it's right that by nationality you're a
17 Bosniak?
18 A. That is correct.
19 Q. At the time of the attack that took place in May of 1992 in
20 Kozarac, on Kozarac, were you working as a medical doctor in Trnopolje and
21 in Kozarac itself?
22 A. That's right. At that time, I worked in Trnopolje and Kozarac.
23 Or to be more accurate, in Kozarac I would do duty shifts and then I had a
24 workers infirmary at the sawmill.
25 Q. And were you living, however, at the time, in Prijedor?
Page 11745
1 A. I was living in Prijedor, yes. I lived there.
2 Q. And I think just to set in context as well, you appeared first at
3 this Tribunal on the 10th and 11th of September, so almost exactly two
4 months ago, when you testified in the case of the Prosecutor against
5 Milomir Stakic?
6 A. That's right.
7 Q. Can we deal first straight away with this accused, Radoslav
8 Brdjanin? I think it's right that you never met him?
9 A. I didn't, no. I do not know Mr. Brdjanin.
10 Q. Never saw him in the camp in Trnopolje?
11 A. I did not see him in the Trnopolje camp.
12 Q. Had you ever before the events of May, 1992, seen him on
13 television?
14 A. I can't be quite sure. I wouldn't be able to say yes or no.
15 Perhaps I did see him on television at some point but I didn't pay much
16 attention. I'd heard that there was a Brdjanin who held some political
17 office in the SDS but I didn't pay any attention.
18 Q. And I think as you told the Court before, you had very little, if
19 any, interest in politics?
20 A. I didn't.
21 Q. I want -- I'm going to ask you this morning to look again at a
22 number of photographs and some video clips which you looked at before so
23 that the Judges can hear your explanation of them but I want to put them
24 into context. Now, first, can we deal with showing the whereabouts of
25 Kozarac in relation to others? Could you look, please, at a map and then
Page 11746
1 we'll look at your own drawing.
2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour I'm not sure Your Honours have got this
3 with one yet. You have, thank you have much.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: We have it, Ms. Korner, but of course it shows an
5 exhibit number which --
6 MS. KORNER: We'll give you a clean one.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Exactly.
8 MS. KORNER: Yes.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: I have it and I've been told to keep everything in
10 this plastic bag by my secretary, not even to take them out of the plastic
11 bag but apparently they come from the other case and I think they have to
12 go back or something like that. I don't know.
13 MS. KORNER: Not that I'm aware of, Your Honour, but of course we
14 did copies with the Stakic number on them.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes exactly because it says Exhibit 146 and the date
16 admitted and it's in ink so unless it's a colour photocopy, which shows
17 the ink.
18 MS. KORNER: We've acquired the representative of the Registry
19 today from the Stakic case so she can help out with anything.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Thanks.
21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, would Your Honours be kind enough to
22 mark this P1146? And could -- yes, the witness has got it. Thank you.
23 MR. ACKERMAN: Is there a copy for us?
24 MS. KORNER: Certainly not. Yes.
25 Q. Can we see, doctor, marked on that the position of Kozarac which
Page 11747
1 I think it lies on a junction with the road between Prijedor and Banja
2 Luka?
3 A. This is Kozarac. Kozarac is right where I'm pointing at. There
4 is a junction, a road leading to Trnopolje, which is rather poorly marked
5 but that was a road -- it wasn't a dirt road and it went to Trnopolje and
6 then there was another road going through Kozarac to Kozara, where there
7 was a hotel and a TV relay station, a transmitter.
8 Q. We can see that Trnopolje was very close to the railway line that
9 went Prijedor, Trnopolje, Omarska?
10 A. The railway tracks was skirting Trnopolje and there was a small
11 railway station there too.
12 Q. After Omarska, where did the railway go to? What was the next
13 station, do you know?
14 A. Before Banja Luka, there were some other railway stations but I
15 can't really give you all their names but they were several stations
16 before Banja Luka. I wouldn't be able to give you their names.
17 Q. Did the railway, that particular railway line, end in Banja Luka?
18 A. In Banja Luka and from Banja Luka, of course, you could then
19 proceed to Doboj and in the direction of Sarajevo.
20 Q. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. You can put that plan
21 away now. Now, can we look, please, next at the sketch that you did of
22 the Kozarac area? Because that shows a number of things.
23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, there are going to be a number of sketch
24 plans so I'd like them all collected together as it were under one exhibit
25 number so could we have that as P1147.1? Which for identification
Page 11748
1 purposes has got the ERN number 01035313.
2 Q. All right. What you've marked there, I think, is again the main
3 road between Prijedor and Banja Luka, which you say was asphalt. What
4 have you marked below the word "Prijedor"? What does that show us?
5 A. It says, "Tavern, coffee shop." When they were taking us from
6 Kozarac to Trnopolje, here from a military jeep we got off the military
7 jeep at this place and changed to buses.
8 Q. Then you've marked on to -- as we go up Kozarac, and I think the
9 road runs up the -- towards from the main road towards some hills; is that
10 right?
11 A. You mean this one which is northward and goes through Kozarac?
12 Yes. You are right, it goes uphill and then towards Kozara mount. A
13 hotel that was up on the mountain and a big TV transmitter was also in
14 that direction.
15 Q. And then if we just move from the Prijedor road as one goes up it
16 to the left there is the sawmill?
17 A. That's right. Right at the junction, there is a sawmill on the
18 left-hand side.
19 Q. Then moving up towards the centre, was there a veterinary clinic?
20 A. The veterinary clinic was next, adjacent to the sawmill, where it
21 says Veterinarska Stanica, veterinary station, that is where the
22 veterinary station was. And then the first road to the left leads to the
23 infirmary.
24 Q. And in the veterinary clinic, was there a vet named Dr. Azra
25 Blazevic working?
Page 11749
1 A. As far as I know, Azra Blazevic worked there.
2 Q. And as you told the Court on the last occasion, and as we are
3 going to see shortly in the photographs, she was with you in Trnopolje?
4 A. Correct. Not only in Trnopolje. He [sic] was in Kozarac
5 throughout with us again.
6 Q. All right. Now, if we go, still going up the road, we see the
7 centre of Kozarac and is that where you were taken to when the soldiers
8 arrived?
9 A. I marked it as a centre but basically, the centre of Kozarac is
10 somewhere between this junction and then upward. All this was perceived
11 as the centre because it's a small place but this junction is where the
12 soldiers had brought us from the infirmary to this place, and we covered
13 this distance on foot before we were put on the military jeep.
14 Q. And then going up the road still we see the pharmacy. Was that
15 where you attempted to get medical supplies after Kozarac was shut off?
16 A. From this pharmacy, we transferred all the medicines, all the
17 supplies to the infirmary.
18 Q. And then still going further up, we see the temporary clinic. Was
19 that where you moved to once the shelling started?
20 A. We moved there one day after the shelling. The shelling began on
21 the 24th, I think it was about noon, I'm not sure exactly what time it
22 was. The next day on the 25th, we moved to one house which was just under
23 construction. It wasn't finished this house. And the police of Kozarac
24 was already there.
25 Q. All right. If we can come back down the road then, please, so now
Page 11750
1 we are looking at the right of the street, the main street, we see there
2 set back off the road the medical clinic?
3 A. Yes. That's right. From the crossroads where it says "centre"
4 there is a road leading to the right, and at the end of this road is the
5 medical clinic.
6 Q. And we are going to look at some photographs of what it looked
7 like after the shelling in a moment but if we come down literally more or
8 less to the -- do we see there you've marked there, is that the Serb
9 Orthodox Church?
10 A. The Serb Orthodox Church was south of the medical clinic. This is
11 the road. And there was a turning going down, and then the church was
12 actually in the curve in the road.
13 Q. Now, I want to you look, now, please, at some photographs. Some
14 which you have seen before, some which you haven't. And the first one --
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, these are all -- I think a bundle of
16 photographs were put in and it's already -- sorry. It's P1128. I'm told
17 the bundle of photographs is there. We may have to put it up on the ELMO
18 Your Honour because I'm not sure we've got sufficient copies of all of
19 these. Your Honours have only got the ones we used in the Stakic trial
20 and these are some extra ones.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: These have already been -- I recognise the photo as
22 being one of a number of photos exhibited in the course of the testimony
23 of either the previous witness or the one before the last. So you.
24 MS. KORNER: Yes.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: They have all been tendered as exhibits already.
Page 11751
1 MS. KORNER: Yes, Your Honour. I think the whole bundle has been
2 tendered.
3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes, yes.
4 MS. KORNER: But each individual --
5 [Prosecution counsel confer]
6 MS. KORNER: Would Your Honour forgive me one moment.
7 Ms. Sutherland is the queen of these photographs so I just want to check.
8 [Prosecution counsel confer]
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, Ms. Sutherland informed me that last --
10 the week before last, as each one was admitted they were given a number
11 but it seems to me it's much simpler if we just number them in advance
12 rather than trying to allocate a number each time.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: What actually happened was this: We were given the
14 whole bundle but not all of them have as yet been tendered as exhibits.
15 MS. KORNER: Yes.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Those to which reference was being made as we went
17 along have been given a number. The whole set has been given a number, an
18 exhibit number.
19 MS. KORNER: All right.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: So the rest is point and so that we would create the
21 sequence but basically the whole set has been given a number already.
22 MS. KORNER: All right.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: I can't remember it now, 1 to 8, something like
24 that.
25 MS. KORNER: All right in that case, could I -- could the witness
Page 11752
1 have --
2 JUDGE AGIUS: The one you have in your hand has already been made
3 use of.
4 MS. KORNER: Oh, it has, has it?
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.
6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, for the registry's purpose, the ERN
7 number is 00393467. All right. Can we just put this one on the ELMO,
8 Your Honour, rather than -- usher, can you just put it on the ELMO?
9 Probably be easiest. Thanks. And the next number is 112825.
10 1128.25.
11 Q. Now, can you just identify, please, the photographs that we can
12 see? This is a photograph of a postcard. What are we looking at to the
13 left-hand side?
14 A. On the left side is a mosque.
15 Q. Do you know how many mosques Kozarac had?
16 A. There were many mosques, but I was not so familiar with Kozarac.
17 I knew this road from the road to the medical centre well because I would
18 go to work there, but the rest of Kozarac, I didn't really tour that much
19 but I do know that there were several mosques.
20 Q. Right. Well, I think we will show you another photograph in
21 a moment and that will help. Then if we look at the top picture on the
22 right, what are we looking at there?
23 A. I think that this is Kozarac.
24 Q. Is that looking from the Prijedor road up towards the hills?
25 A. The picture is taken from the other -- no. I think it's the other
Page 11753
1 way around. It's from the other side towards the...
2 Q. Looking towards Prijedor road --
3 A. But as I said, I'm not so familiar with this part of Kozarac
4 because I only went to Kozarac because of my work so I would go to the
5 medical clinic and back. I don't know the rest of Kozarac so well but I
6 think that this picture was taken from the upper-side, from the Kozara
7 mountain, down towards the Banja Luka-Prijedor crossroads.
8 Q. All right. I'm not going to press you on this but do you happen
9 to recognise the bottom picture on the right? If you don't, say so,
10 doctor. Don't worry about it.
11 A. I'm not sure.
12 Q. Okay.
13 A. It's probably also Kozarac but I'm not sure, but I think that this
14 is the Kozarac mosque, when you go.
15 Q. All right. Now, I want to just put into context -- thank you very
16 much. You can take the photograph away. The next set of photographs I'm
17 going to show you. As you told us, the shelling of Kozarac began on the
18 24th of May; is that right?
19 A. That's correct.
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, the evidence about that begins on page
21 7732 of the transcript.
22 Q. Before the shelling began, was there a complete blockade of the
23 town?
24 A. The town was blocked first, when the negotiations were conducted
25 between the citizens of Kozarac and the Serb authorities, but it was
Page 11754
1 blocked in such a way that checkpoints were set up around Kozarac and IDs
2 were checked while passing through the checkpoints but it was still
3 possible to pass through. At the moment when the ultimatum was issued for
4 Kozarac to surrender and when the deadline for the ultimatum ran out I
5 think this was on the 22nd, then this tank that was placed at the
6 crossroads withdrew and then only the checkpoints remained at Orlovci
7 [phoen] and from that point on, nobody could leave Kozarac any more.
8 Q. Were people who were in need of hospital treatment, which was the
9 hospital being Prijedor, were they allowed to pass through the
10 checkpoints?
11 A. As far as I know, from that point on, nobody, not even sick
12 persons, and this was just before the shelling, maybe even on the morning
13 before the shelling took place, two women went into labour and gave birth
14 at the health clinic in Kozarac and they said that they were not allowed
15 to pass through to go to Prijedor.
16 Q. And in fact, did you have to deliver their babies in your clinic?
17 A. Yes, that's true. I delivered the babies, together with a nurse.
18 Q. Now, the shelling, when it started, did that come from the north,
19 from the hills around Kozarac?
20 A. As far as we were able to notice, they were coming from the north,
21 from the direction of Kozarac and from the west, from the direction of
22 Prijedor.
23 Q. And again, and I'm summarising the evidence that you gave about
24 this, I think that people were killed and wounded during the course of the
25 shelling?
Page 11755
1 A. That's true. They were wounded and killed, people.
2 Q. And you attempted to negotiate with the army, to get the
3 wounded -- to evacuate children and wounded?
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honours this is at page 7737 onwards.
5 Q. But you were unsuccessful?
6 A. The next day, the 25th, when we moved to this house where the
7 clinic was transferred, we had two small children, a little girl who was
8 maybe ten or 12 years old. Both of her legs were practically severed by
9 the shell. They were just hanging on by a thread. There was also a
10 little boy who could have been eight years old, who had a large wound on
11 his left thigh, upper -- upper leg, and the bone was exposed. There was a
12 lot of bleeding. We had two women also, one of the women died very
13 quickly, the other one was still alive. We also had a man who had a
14 bullet wound in his back. We also had one of their uniformed men, who had
15 an injury -- a wound on his stomach. It was mostly because of the
16 children that I had decided to try to ask them to allow the wounded
17 persons to go to Prijedor. Upstairs was the police. They had a police
18 car, a police vehicle, parked outside, and I asked them whether it was
19 possible to talk to the Serbs. They said that they were manning the radio
20 station and that I could try to do so. I tried to talk. I introduced
21 myself over the radio station. I explained that we had wounded persons,
22 but nobody wanted to talk to me seriously. In principle, they just
23 laughed. You could hear the laughter, and they said something to the
24 effect, "Die, balijas, we are going to kill you any way." We even said
25 that we had one of their wounded and they didn't say anything to that.
Page 11756
1 And after that, they didn't even respond when called on that frequency.
2 Q. I want you now, please, to look at a series of photographs that
3 were taken in respect of your clinic.
4 MS. KORNER: And those, Your Honours, I think in that small bundle
5 they are marked 0039-3914 through to 15, 16 -- I'm sorry, 194, 195, 196
6 and 198? What happened to 197? All right. Could the witness be handed
7 those now, please?
8 JUDGE AGIUS: In the meantime, Ms. Korner, shall we give an
9 exhibit number to the witness testimony in Stakic, please? To the
10 document itself?
11 MS. KORNER: Oh, yes. Sorry, Your Honour. That will be P1148.
12 Q. Yes. The first one then, could we have it on the ELMO? That's
13 we've got -- all right. 194. What are we looking at there?
14 A. This is the entrance to the medical clinic in Kozarac, to the left
15 is the larger part of the building. This was the entrance. This was
16 where the dental offices were. This is where the dentists worked.
17 Downstairs is the entrance to the basement.
18 Q. And in the basement, was that where you took shelter originally?
19 A. That's where we took shelter during the shelling and when we saw
20 that upstairs, in the clinic, it was too dangerous, that shrapnel was
21 coming in through the windows so we had to take shelter downstairs.
22 Q. We can see on the wall then, we'll see it again later, there is a
23 circle with a cross in it. Two circles, there were two of these
24 markings. Were those markings on there when you left the clinic?
25 A. I don't remember that the markings were there before, or at the
Page 11757
1 time when we were leaving the clinic.
2 Q. Are these photographs were taken in 1996. When you left the
3 clinic, was this -- was the damage that we can see there already done?
4 A. Most of it was already done. It's true that with the passage of
5 time, the building further deteriorated but it's also evident that the
6 glass was broken by the shrapnel and also the damage on the walls dates
7 from that time.
8 Q. Can we look, then, please, at the next one, 3195? I think the
9 same side of the clinic but taken from a bit further back. The house to
10 the left, with all the windows missing, what was that? To the left as we
11 look at it.
12 A. Upstairs was the lab. Downstairs, these small windows are windows
13 of the basement. Upstairs there were also doctors' offices, examination
14 rooms, and there was also one room where the doctor on duty could sleep,
15 and then you can also see along, a little further along, some more windows
16 of examination rooms, and then downstairs to the left in the basement was
17 the boiler room for the central heating.
18 Q. Then, please, next, could you look at number 3196 very briefly?
19 Because that's just a close-up of the same part of the clinic.
20 A. Yes. That's correct. This is the left part of the building,
21 which can be seen in its entirety on the photograph. You can see traces
22 of shrapnel, the broken windows as well, which was actually the condition
23 of the building at the time when we were leaving it.
24 Q. And then finally, on this, number 3198?
25 A. Yes. This is the entrance to the courtyard of the clinic, and on
Page 11758
1 the left side you can see the road that leads towards the centre, and down
2 here, the road turns right down towards the Serbian church. I think that
3 there was also a small road here, and there were a couple of houses here
4 that you could come up to. You can see it here but as the shells were
5 falling into the courtyard and there was a parking place there, they were
6 leaving small shells -- craters so there were traces of the shelling left,
7 being left here, but you can't see it.
8 Q. Finally, before we leave the photographs, I think all these
9 photographs were taken from the front. Was the damage in fact greater to
10 the back? Because that was where the shelling was coming from.
11 A. I assume that from the north, the damage was greater, because
12 there was no road on the other side. We were not able to go out and
13 look. But when we were up in the clinic, when we were hiding, most of the
14 shells came from the -- from the other side, from up above. So I believe
15 that the damage was greater from that side, the upper side.
16 Q. Yes. Thank you. Those photographs can now go?
17 MS. KORNER: Your Honours those should be marked P1128-26, 27, 28
18 and 29.
19 Q. Now, I think it's right that after the shelling finished, troops
20 arrived in the town.
21 A. Not when the shelling ended, but when the police, at the end,
22 agreed via a radio station from -- from the car, with the Serb command,
23 for Kozarac to surrender and when they came out under the terms of the
24 surrender and left Kozarac, the police, the wounded persons and the
25 civilians who had found out about it. Only after that did the Serbs enter
Page 11759
1 Kozarac with tanks and soldiers.
2 Q. And you I think had returned from the temporary clinic to the main
3 clinic?
4 A. That's correct, when agreement was reached about the surrender and
5 when the others were leaving Kozarac we decided to go back to the clinic
6 because we were aware that a lot of the civilian population, which was
7 hiding either in the basements or in the woods, had no idea that a
8 surrender had been agreed on, and so we thought that if somebody needed
9 any help, that they would come to the clinic, and ask for it.
10 Q. Now, in fact, once you had got back to the clinic, did soldiers
11 arrive?
12 A. After a certain amount of time, not right away, the soldiers did
13 arrive, Serb soldiers, three soldiers.
14 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, this is at page 7740 of the transcript
15 onwards.
16 Q. And then a JNA lorry and was -- were all your supplies loaded on
17 to that lorry and you were taken by the soldiers to that part of the town,
18 as you marked as the centre?
19 A. Yes. Briefly, they first spoke to a Serbian woman, Goga, who was
20 with us the entire time as part of the medical staff, and then Dragan
21 Skrbic who was one of those three soldiers went outside and then I don't
22 know who he talked with, and made an agreement with, but any way, when he
23 came back he said that a military truck would arrive, that we needed to
24 load up all the medicines that were in the clinic, and then when we did
25 that, they escorted us, two by two, to the centre of Kozarac where I wrote
Page 11760
1 that the centre was.
2 Q. And I think that you and your colleagues were put on to a jeep and
3 taken to Trnopolje?
4 A. We waited there for a while. We were standing. And then after a
5 certain amount of time, I must say that we didn't all go to Trnopolje.
6 One soldier came up to Nihad Bahonic. Nihad Bahonic was an ambulance
7 driver who was a professional driver and worked with the ambulance before
8 the war. He asked him for his ID and when he read his name, he told him
9 to go with him. He separated him from us and they went to the north,
10 towards the Kozarac road. When the jeep came to pick us up, I asked what
11 would happen to Bahonic, and one of the soldiers who had a rank, I don't
12 know exactly which rank, said that they would take care of Nihad Bahonic
13 and we went and sat in the jeep and they drove us away. We heard
14 shooting. I think there were only two shots that were fired. I didn't
15 look in that direction. But Azra said that they killed him.
16 Q. All right. Then before we deal with Trnopolje, I'd like to you
17 have a look, please, at a couple of videos that were taken later and which
18 you were shown in the Stakic trial. First of all, could you have a look
19 at -- this is an excerpt, Your Honours, from the video that already had
20 the marking V00-0285. And it was taken from a -- a TV programme called
21 "A town called Kozarac." I wonder if that could be played?
22 [Videotape played]
23 Reporter: There is evidence of what happened along the main road. These
24 are burnt out Muslim homes. Across in a circle is the Serbs way of
25 marking them out for special attention. This is ethnic cleansing with a
Page 11761
1 vengeance and it was thorough. In Prijedor, a few miles --
2 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour excuse me, I object to the sound being
3 played. It's an unknown witness who I can't cross-examine.
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, this, we all accept that's TV
5 commentary, there is no reliance or no probative value placed upon that.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: That acceptable to you, Mr. Ackerman?
7 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you.
8 MS. KORNER: Now it went at some speed but did you recognise,
9 doctor, that road?
10 A. I think that this is Prijedor -- the Prijedor-Banja Luka road or
11 rather from Kozarac towards Banja Luka, but the last part was Prijedor,
12 and the road is in fact the Prijedor-Banja Luka road.
13 MS. KORNER: Your Honours may that, then, be made, please, Exhibit
14 P1149?
15 Q. Now, could you have a look, please, next at another short exhibit
16 taken from the ABC Nightline programme? And that is V 000-2843. Again,
17 Your Honour, no reliance is placed on the TV reporter's commentary.
18 [Videotape played]
19 Reporter: We visited the ethnically cleansed Kozarac in Northern Bosnia
20 last week. We were closely supervised by the local Serb militia
21 restricted to just a few blocks of the town, once home to about 15.000
22 Muslim men, women, and children?
23 MS. KORNER: Can we stop? Stop.
24 Q. Yes?
25 A. I think that this is a building in Kozarac, on the right-hand side
Page 11762
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 11763
1 as you enter Kozarac.
2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I should say this was filmed in November
3 of 1992 or rather shortly before that, because that's when the programme
4 went out. Yes, can we carry on?
5 [Videotape played]
6 Reporter: "Today there are no Muslims there, none, and none of
7 their X marked homes is intact. Other homes in Kozarac have been marked
8 to survive. This one with the colours of the Serbian flag. This one
9 says, 'This is Serbia.' They stand undamaged like the remaining Serb
10 residents of Kozarac."
11 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Your Honour, I'm not at all clear why
12 it's all come out black and white because it's in colour but it may be
13 that something went wrong in the copying.
14 Q. Yes, can I move -- thank you, doctor.
15 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, could that be made P15 -- 1511 for some
16 reason? Oh, I see. Yes I'm sorry Your Honour I think the gap is because
17 we were just filling up with exhibit numbers. 1511, yes, apparently we've
18 already marked some others.
19 Q. Now, doctor, from there, were you and your --
20 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Ms. Korner.
21 MS. KORNER:
22 Q. From there, were you and your fellow medical workers taken to
23 Trnopolje?
24 A. That's right. From there, we eventually made it to Trnopolje.
25 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, the Trnopolje part begins on page 7748
Page 11764
1 of the transcript.
2 Q. I think when you actually arrived, there was no sign that it was
3 any kind of a camp.
4 A. The place was milling with military but nobody thought --
5 it didn't occur to anyone that there were any camps. It was later on that
6 we learned that it was a kind of a camp, but the very beginning, we simply
7 thought that they were taking us in there because of the combat operations
8 and that we would be released.
9 Q. Now, I think you were there until the very end, virtually, of
10 Trnopolje, as a camp, in September of 1992. You were one of the last
11 people to leave?
12 A. That's right. On the last day of September, the camp was
13 officially disbanded and on the 1st of October, we turned up in Karlovac.
14 Q. And you described to the Court in the Stakic trial the various
15 things that happened in Trnopolje, the violence and the rapes that took
16 place. Was the camp itself apparently under the control of the military?
17 A. The camp was strictly controlled by the army. It was quite
18 obvious that there were guards at every corner of the camp and the
19 movement was restricted.
20 Q. And I think you explained how there were sniper posts and
21 machine-gun posts, and in a moment we will have a look at the various
22 diagrams that you drew, but is that correct?
23 A. It is. And I also said that the military guards guarded the camp
24 changed often. As a rule every three weeks. And then the complete army
25 troops with their armaments also changed. So that it -- which unit would
Page 11765
1 be guarding depended, and the weapons they had, depended on these changes
2 of the army.
3 Q. And in addition to -- I'm sorry, and did the machine-guns in fact
4 face inwards towards the camp?
5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour this is page 7755.
6 A. Of course, not only the machine-guns. All the guard posts faced
7 the camp. Some of them had sandbags in front but they were all facing the
8 camp.
9 Q. Now, can we look, please, at -- I'm sorry, before we look at the
10 diagrams, were you yourself housed in, as it were, a makeshift clinic?
11 A. It was the clinic in Trnopolje, in the neighbourhood community,
12 where I used to work before the war. That was my workplace there.
13 Q. And did you live and sleep in that clinic?
14 A. Not before the camp.
15 Q. Sorry, when the camp was in operation.
16 A. Of course, I was an inmate like everybody else, but in a way,
17 perhaps we were lucky. That is what it can be called. To be put -- to be
18 put there, to be put in the clinic so that the conditions we lived under
19 were slightly better than those of the rest of the people.
20 Q. And were the people in the clinic who were there with you the
21 veterinarian Azra Blazevic?
22 A. They were all with us all the time. Except that one of the next
23 days, Senad Husidic was taken away. At the time when we were crossing
24 from jeep to the buses, they wanted to separate Senad Husidic from us but
25 they let him go on with his family but a few days later they came to
Page 11766
1 Trnopolje, asked for him by name, and took him away, and I heard that he
2 was -- that he had been taken to Omarska. Then towards the end of June,
3 I'm not quite sure when, but I think it was late June or early July, when
4 they came to take away Dr. Jusic Pasic and Dr. Mensur Kusuran, they also
5 asked for them by their names and they took them to Omarska. Dr. Jusuf
6 Pasic was killed in Omarska and Dr. Mensur Kusuran went to Manjaca and
7 there was released from Manjaca and he's still alive today.
8 Q. Now in addition to Azra Blazevic was there also a medical student,
9 Vasif Gutic?
10 A. Vasif Gutic was with us from the outset. He was with us in
11 Kozarac. He had just enrolled medical studies and he was with us in the
12 camp throughout.
13 Q. Now, can we have a look, please, at a series of drawings that you
14 produced? First of all, this one has the number 01035314.
15 MS. KORNER: I think Mr. Ackerman you've got a whole set of these
16 already.
17 MR. ACKERMAN: [Microphone not activated]
18 MS. KORNER: All right.
19 MR. ACKERMAN: [Microphone not activated]
20 MS. KORNER:
21 Q. Can you just, let's have a look, please, and show us the various
22 parts of this camp. I think first of all, can you show us where the bus
23 that took you to the camp stopped?
24 A. The bus which took us to the camp took a village road, fetched up
25 at Trnopolje, then it moved on to this road from Prijedor to Trnopolje.
Page 11767
1 And then the buses fetched up somewhere here more or less.
2 Q. All right.
3 A. There was a dirt road or rather a pedestrian lane, and that -- and
4 down that lane we were taken to the clinic.
5 Q. Can you then, please, let's go through the rest of the matters
6 there. When you -- and you've indicate -- could you indicate, please, on
7 your plan where the clinic was?
8 A. It was here, the entrance was here. This is the yard. This was
9 the neighbourhood community building, a coffee pub, a football pitch.
10 There was a shop in front of it. And the clinic was in between.
11 Q. I think you've also indicated a school?
12 A. The school was right behind the clinic. It is big elementary
13 school for the first eight grades.
14 Q. And who was kept in the school?
15 A. In the school, men were kept, by and large, but it varied. At
16 sometimes there were also women there. The Trnopolje camp had two
17 systems, to all intents and purposes. One was the men's camp, from 17 or
18 18 to 65 years of age, that is men of military age who were not allowed to
19 leave the camp. And then women, children, and the elderly, who were
20 rounded up in neighbouring villages during the cleansing, and when they
21 would have a sufficient number of them a convoy would be organised and
22 such individuals were then banished from the territory of this Serb
23 Krajina.
24 Q. Can you indicate to us on this plan, please, where the sniper
25 posts were, first of all?
Page 11768
1 A. From what we could see, it was behind this football pitch, where
2 there was a house and there was a small balcony and a window with a sniper
3 there. And another guard post was down. What we could see, I suppose we
4 could not see everything, but it depended on the guard which kind of
5 weapons they would have. The machine-guns that were there were usually
6 over there. Then --
7 Q. Can you move the plan down slightly because I think it's going
8 off. Thank you.
9 A. Here, at this place, then here, and at times they would also be
10 placed there. But as I've said, it also depended on the guards who were
11 on duty at a particular point in time.
12 Q. I think just for the purposes of the transcript so we need to
13 re-relate it to the plan, you've indicated the circle close to where we
14 can see the ERN number at the top of the plan, then the second one just
15 below the football field, and the third you've indicated at the junction
16 or the crossroads, rather, I should say, of that road.
17 Okay. Can we see to the -- if we look at -- looking at the plan,
18 the right-hand side, can we see the command post indicated?
19 A. The command post also shifted from one place to another. In the
20 early days, when the Serb Red Cross came, initially it was then here. For
21 a while, Dr. Ivic, Major Kuruzovic were in the offices here. Then the
22 command post was relocated and Major Kuruzovic then took up a house which
23 was slightly outside the camp, next to the last guard post. And that is
24 where the command post was until the end. That is where Major Kuruzovic
25 spent his time.
Page 11769
1 Q. Again just for the purposes of the transcript you indicated that
2 he moved to a house which we can see at the top right-hand part of this
3 plan.
4 Now, can you have a look, please, at a photograph which has
5 already been exhibited, I think? It's marked P1128.1. We will put it up
6 on the ELMO to save -- oh, you've got it right here.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: In the meantime, Ms. Korner, this --
8 MS. KORNER: Yes, could that be made point 2, 1147.2? That plan?
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
10 Q. Now, can you just indicate to us what we can see on the
11 photograph?
12 A. This is a camp, I presume it is an aerial photograph, from east to
13 the right, we have the part facing Kozarac. To the left towards the
14 railway tracks. This road here, when you move to the right, it is towards
15 Prijedor, and the other way is Banja Luka. This is here the football, the
16 field. And here you can see the small balcony and the sniper, and the
17 rest of the guards were where this tree is. And then here was the next
18 guard post. And one was next to this house, and one was at the junction
19 over there.
20 Q. All right.
21 A. This is the school. This here is a shop in front of the clinic.
22 This is the entrance to the clinic. The clinic is here. To the left is a
23 room which they used for interrogation and beating of the inmates. This
24 is where you entered the neighbourhood community premises. They had two
25 small rooms there. Here is the coffee shop. Then there is a staircase
Page 11770
1 leading to the football club and here on the side is where you entered
2 this large centre which was not in use yet before the war: This here is
3 the clinic yard. And this is -- you enter the yard first and then the
4 clinic.
5 Q. All right. Can we look, then, next, please, at the sketch plan
6 you did showing the clinic area? That's got the markings 01035316.
7 MS. KORNER: And that will be P1147.3.
8 Q. Can we just very quickly run through that before the break? And
9 perhaps you can just explain to us which was the main part of the clinic?
10 A. Well, in point of fact, it is this area here. This is the yard in
11 front of it. This is the entrance. To the left was a room which they
12 used to beat and interrogate people. To the right was a passage way and
13 then there were windows facing the school. Here were the surgeries, that
14 is rooms where we examined patients. Down here was a small larder without
15 windows. This is the neighbourhood community premises with two little
16 rooms and this is the coffee shops above which was the football club. And
17 behind it was a large hall.
18 Q. All right. Let's just have a look at one more photograph, please,
19 and I don't think this has been exhibited yet. It's part of the group.
20 We will put it on the ELMO, 0214-7093. Oh, it has. Oh, it is. It has
21 been exhibited. I gather it's 1128.12. Just put it on the ELMO to make
22 it quicker.
23 A. Here we see the clinic again. Its yard, which is here. This is
24 the entrance. These are the three windows of the three surgeries. This
25 is the shop. When you -- as you enter here, to the left is the
Page 11771
1 interrogation room.
2 Q. All right. Thank you very much, doctor. We've still got five
3 minutes so let's deal with your third sketch plan, please, which is marked
4 01035317, and will become point 4, P1147.4.
5 Now, it's the same effectively, I think, as the first one you drew
6 but you added something in there. Can you just tell the Court what those
7 crosses are that we can see?
8 A. These crosses indicate that it was after the journalists' visit.
9 Some tents were put up because in the school and the large hall, there
10 wasn't enough room. The inmates put up some makeshift tents, sheets or
11 blankets or something, they somehow improvised some shelters and that is
12 where they slept and spent their time.
13 Q. As the world now knows, there was a massive argument about whether
14 or not there was a barbed wire fence anywhere and I think indeed you
15 testified in the libel trial. First of all, was there a barbed wire
16 fence?
17 A. A wire fence. I think on one side it was barbed. And the other I
18 think it wasn't. But it existed only for a certain period of time, for a
19 relatively short period of time, and it was done with help of inmates who
20 had been brought from Keraterm and Omarska, and after the journalists,
21 after the journalists' visit, the fence was removed.
22 Q. So the fence was put up, was it, when the prisoners arrived from
23 Omarska and Keraterm, before the visit of the journalists? And then taken
24 down subsequent to the visits of the journalists and the news programmes
25 that went out?
Page 11772
1 A. That is exactly how it was.
2 Q. And is it possible to see, did you mark on the plan, where that
3 fence was?
4 A. No. It's not marked here. I believe I drew another sketch where
5 I did mark it but I can draw it again how it was. It was here, from the
6 big hall towards this fence of the building materials store, and then
7 along the road and ended up here again at the corner of the big hall.
8 Q. I tell you what, Your Honour, if Your Honour takes the break we
9 will just identify which sketch it was?
10 JUDGE AGIUS: It's this one.
11 MS. KORNER: Yes it was drawn in the Stakic case, I think.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: It's drawn in red. It's marked in red.
13 MS. KORNER: Right and we will just have to look for that because
14 I seem to have mislaid it.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: I will play it safe. We'll take the break now. You
16 make sure it's there because I could be wrong. We will have a 25 minute
17 break now.
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour?
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman?
20 MR. ACKERMAN: My belief that we could finish with this witness
21 today was based upon Ms. Korner's representation that she would finish by
22 the first break. That obviously has not happened. And if you want to
23 make at least provisional arrangements for tomorrow morning at 9.00 that
24 might be wise to do so. We may still finish today but it's less certain
25 at this point.
Page 11773
1 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, before we continue, I inquired about the
5 possibility of tomorrow. There is no possibility of sitting in the
6 morning tomorrow because all the courtrooms are taken. So we will need to
7 sit, we will have to sit in the afternoon.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I may have the same problem as Your
9 Honour for a slightly different reason that I have a medical appointment
10 in London tomorrow afternoon, which will mean I would be flying out at
11 5.00 but Your Honour we will see how things go.
12 Q. Yes, doctor, can you now have, we found a copy of the one you drew
13 in Stakic.
14 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we haven't got enough colour copies to
15 formally place the copy with the Court file for an exhibit but if we can
16 just for the moment identify it and then we will put a copy in tomorrow, a
17 colour copy. Could you have that, please, usher?
18 Q. It's the same plan marked 5315 but with your marking.
19 And I think you marked in red where that fence was; is that
20 correct?
21 A. Yes, that's correct. The red line is marked and it indicates the
22 fence within which the inmates were when Penny Marshall arrived and this
23 fence was specially constructed, this side, this side, and this side here.
24 The southern side already existed, the southern side of the fence, because
25 that was also the fence to the place where the construction material was
Page 11774
1 kept.
2 Q. All right. Thank you very much, doctor. That helps and you can
3 take that away.
4 You mentioned when you were describing the camp.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. This will be 1147.5.
6 MS. KORNER: It will, thank you.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think you need to distribute it because we
8 already have it and we can use the one we have.
9 MS. KORNER: No, it wasn't distributed Your Honour. We don't
10 actually have a copy -- sorry that's the only one. Usher, could you give
11 that back because we are going to have to recopy that to make that the
12 Court exhibit.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: I see what you mean.
14 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Thank you very much.
15 Q. Now, you mentioned, as I said, major Kuruzovic. Was he, except
16 for the very early part of your stay in the camp in command of the camp
17 throughout?
18 A. The first few days when we arrived to the camp, no, he wasn't, but
19 then after a few days, Major Kuruzovic arrived at the camp and then the
20 entire time until the camp was working he was responsible for the
21 Trnopolje camp.
22 Q. All right. I now want to deal briefly so we can look at the
23 video, with the arrival of the journalists.
24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the evidence about that began at page
25 7794 of the transcript.
Page 11775
1 Q. And I'd like to ask you, please, to look at a video -- before we
2 play it, can we pause for a moment? It is excerpts from the full video
3 which I think Your Honours have already seen, plus an excerpt again from
4 the ABC Nightline programme which contains an interview with the witness
5 after his release. So if we could now play that?
6 [Videotape played]
7 MS. KORNER: Can we pause for a moment and can we go back again?
8 Just reverse the film? I'm sorry, no, no, reverse the film. All right.
9 Can we start and can we pause when we see the one-armed man?
10 [Videotape played]
11 MS. KORNER: Right.
12 Q. Doctor, can you tell us who that one-armed man was?
13 A. That is Mica Kobas. Mica was in Trnopolje together with
14 Dusko Ivic. He's a medical technician, a male nurse, they regularly came
15 to the Trnopolje camp.
16 MS. KORNER: And Your Honour, I'm so sorry, before we move on
17 because some of the dialogue is indistinct even though it's in English, we
18 did produce a transcript. I'm not sure Your Honours were given it. It
19 may help. And there is one for Mr. Ackerman as well. And Your Honour I
20 rather think on this video we did actually remove some of the commentary,
21 particularly when one sees the -- all right. If we could please play on?
22 [Videotape played]
23 [for text of video, please see draft transcript, Exhibit
24 number 1512.1]
25 MS. KORNER: Can you pause for a moment, please? Your Honour, I
Page 11776
1 should say that this was the return after the first visit. It was some
2 days later when they went back. Again as I say, these are excerpts from
3 various parts of the video. Sorry, yes, can we go on?
4 [Videotape played]
5 MS. KORNER: Can we pause, please?
6 Q. Doctor, who is the man we can see just behind you?
7 A. That is Vasif Gutic, a medical student.
8 MS. KORNER: Thank you. If we can play on, please?
9 [Videotape played]
10 MS. KORNER: Pause, please.
11 Q. And that, doctor, is whom?
12 A. That is Azra Blazevic. She is a veterinarian.
13 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Can we continue, please?
14 [Videotape played]
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the next excerpt is from Nightline.
16 [Videotape played]
17 MS. KORNER: Yes. Thank you. That's the end of the video.
18 Your Honour, may the video be made P1512 and the transcript in
19 English 1512.1?
20 Q. Now, doctor, as everyone knows, you provided to Penny Marshall, a
21 film that contained photographs that you had taken during the time of your
22 incarceration at Trnopolje. And I want you now, please, to look at those
23 photographs and identify them.
24 MS. KORNER: I think Your Honours were given copies of those.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: We had several.
Page 11777
1 MS. KORNER: They start with the number 01035330. All right. I
2 think Your Honours have already got these, haven't you?
3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes.
4 MS. KORNER: That's what I thought. Perhaps we can just hand them
5 up one by one in turn. If the whole bundle were to be given an exhibit
6 number together and I'll mark them point 1, point 2, so that would be 1513
7 and the first one will be point 1. I'll just hand them out as we go. Put
8 them on the ELMO so we can all see what we are talking about.
9 Q. You told us that you not only worked at the clinic but slept
10 there. Did you have any beds?
11 A. There were two beds which were at the clinic before, because that
12 was already a clinic before it was a camp, and there were two beds which
13 were used to examine patients. So those were the beds that we found at
14 the clinic when we got there.
15 Q. Okay. Who can we see asleep on the top photograph?
16 A. Sefik Karabasic is in the top photograph. And Azra Blazevic is
17 on the bottom photograph.
18 Q. Okay. So that will be -- forgotten the exhibit number again,
19 1513.1. Thank you. Can we look at the next one marked with the number
20 331? Thank you. Who do we see there?
21 A. The midwife is on the top photograph. She slept on one of the
22 beds that was in the clinic. And on the bottom photograph is Vasif
23 Gutic. Behind him you can see Goga. I don't know her last name. She is
24 a Serb who was with us the entire time at Kozarac and for a while also she
25 was at Trnopolje until they forbade her to be with us.
Page 11778
1 Q. And the bottom photograph?
2 JUDGE AGIUS: He's just --
3 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, Your Honour, yes, I wasn't listening. All
4 right.
5 Q. Now, I seem to have --
6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm just checking the notes because
7 there is some confusion. I seem to be missing -- I'm sorry, would Your
8 Honour forgive me?
9 [Prosecution counsel confer]
10 MS. KORNER: Right. It's backwards.
11 Q. Could you have a look at this one which is marked 5329? I'm
12 sorry, I forgot. I knew there was some missing. Can you tell us what we
13 are looking at there?
14 A. Mujo, a male nurse, is on the top photograph. Next to him is a
15 young man who was a patient. I think he spent one night with us. I am on
16 the bottom photograph, behind me is Hase Dzonlagic, he's a veterinarian.
17 Q. And I think the camera itself belonged to Dr. Blazevic; is that
18 right?
19 A. That's correct, yes.
20 Q. Yes, thank you.
21 MS. KORNER: Can that be made point 3?
22 Q. Then could you have a look now please at 10135334? What are we
23 looking at there?
24 A. The photograph shows the room where the inmates were interrogated
25 and beaten. You can see blood on the walls and on the floor.
Page 11779
1 Q. Next, please, thank you, same room, 33 -- that will be .4. Next
2 one 5335 which will be .5. The same area, I think but taken further back
3 so one can see more of the walls.
4 A. That's correct. That's the same room and the photograph was taken
5 at the same time.
6 Q. Thank you. So that will be .5. Can we be handed -- could you be
7 handed now, together, I think, 5336 and 5337? I think -- well, that's the
8 one that we saw on the film. That shows the injuries to whom?
9 A. This is Nedzad Jakupovic. He was brought to us from that room
10 because he had an injury on his eye, practically near -- next to his eye
11 and we had to dress this wound. This time, the guard was not standing
12 next to us the whole time. He went outside. And then we decided to
13 photograph this.
14 Q. And I think as you told the Court in Stakic, all the photographs
15 were taken from the back so as not to alert the people who you were
16 photographing; is that correct?
17 A. That is not true. Not so as not to identify who we were
18 photographing. What we were trying to do is to reduce the risk of it
19 being revealed that we were using a camera to photograph in the camp, and
20 that is why we decided, since Nedzad was in such a state, his eyes were
21 swollen, he was not able to see, he was practically knocked out. So we
22 photographed him hoping that he would not notice that we were
23 photographing him because we were afraid that if the Serbs continued to
24 interrogate him and beat him that he would perhaps tell them that we had
25 taken a photograph of him and then we would be in danger. In any case,
Page 11780
1 there was a risk, and we were trying to reduce that risk to the lowest
2 possible level.
3 Q. And if we look at the next one briefly, I think there we can see a
4 side view and we can see the injury you spoke about to his eye. Is that
5 right?
6 A. Yes. That's right. It's the same patient, Nedzad Jakupovic and
7 this photograph was taken at the same time as the other one.
8 Q. Thank you. That will be .6 and .7.
9 Now, can we have a look very quickly at a series of photographs
10 taken on the inside of the camp? That will be 38, 39, 40, and 41. Just
11 very quickly can we -- the building we can see at the back, what were we
12 looking at there?
13 A. This is the shop that sells building and construction material.
14 It's in the background and it's towards the south side, in the direction
15 of the railway station.
16 Q. And the next, please?
17 A. This is looking in the same direction. It's the same building,
18 the shop that sells construction and building material. It was a former
19 shop. So this is the area between the hall and the clinic, and then that
20 room where barbed wire was put up later.
21 Q. And the next? Same place?
22 A. The same place, also from the same direction. I don't know who
23 took the photographs. I didn't take these photographs.
24 Q. Finally, 41.
25 A. This is now more or less taken from the same direction but
Page 11781
1 slightly more to the right, towards the football field, but you cannot see
2 the football field still. To the left is a small shed which is next to
3 the building and construction material shop. To the left, further to the
4 left, is the shop of the -- for the construction material. So this is a
5 view to the right of that. It means that here, before this house is where
6 the Prijedor-Trnopolje-Omarska road lies.
7 Q. Thank you very much, doctor.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honours those will be 8, 9, 10, and 11.
9 Q. It we look now, please, at 42 and 43?
10 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't seem to have, Ms. Korner, if you have a
11 spare one, what would be P153.10. We don't have it actually, the three of
12 us. Do you have it?
13 MS. KORNER: Sorry.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: The one before the last, .10, yes exactly, we don't
15 have that.
16 MS. KORNER: I don't know why we haven't got it but we will have
17 to get some more copies done. We have to copy the other plan anyhow so we
18 will arrange that.
19 Q. Yes, 42, please, what are we looking at there, at the back of the
20 tree?
21 A. This was taken from the direction of the entrance to the clinic,
22 in the direction of the road, which leads from Trnopolje to Kozarac. The
23 trucks are standing on the road. I think this is a convoy which shortly
24 before the journalists would come, this convoy was organised and a number
25 of the men were allowed to enter and join the convoy. The first convoys
Page 11782
1 that left went by train from the station. Afterwards, I don't know why,
2 it was not possible to go to Doboj. Then they were using trailer trucks
3 covered with tarpaulins and they used the road over Mount Vlasic.
4 Q. And I think you mentioned that convoys before the journalists
5 came. I think this was right, as you told the Court, this is page 7793,
6 that shortly before the arrival of the journalists, most of the women and
7 children were taken out of Trnopolje.
8 A. That's correct, but I think that for the first -- the first time,
9 some men were released with this first convoy.
10 Q. And can you look, then, please, at the second photograph?
11 A. This is that same convoy, probably this is the last trailer truck,
12 and inmates who were going inside, you can see one soldier here and one
13 soldier here. They -- the inmates were loaded up into the trailer truck.
14 They were practically one on top of another. The tarpaulins were closed
15 in the summer heat and the inmates were transported like that without
16 water, closed, shut up into these trailer trucks.
17 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Your Honours that will be .12 and .13.
18 Q. And finally the last two photographs which are 344 and 345.
19 A. This is a man who was in the Trnopolje camp. He had dysentery.
20 He had lost a lot of weight. I think that his name is Hrnic but I'm not
21 sure. He was beaten also on one occasion in that room, and after that, he
22 died. But the reason why he died is probably a consequence of all of
23 that, the fact that he succumbed to dysentery, his body was weakened as a
24 consequence of the beatings and then he died. But I think that the --
25 that the beating was not the main cause of his death.
Page 11783
1 Q. Was he in Trnopolje throughout? Or was he one of the people who
2 came from Omarska or Keraterm?
3 A. No. He was in Trnopolje, because we took those photographs before
4 the journalists came and then we handed them over. So we had to take them
5 before people from Keraterm and Omarska came.
6 Q. Can we just look then again briefly at the second photograph?
7 A. This is the same man except that we see his lower extremities.
8 You cannot see it here, all that is that you can see is that he is
9 suffering from diarrhoea, all his underwear is wet. We had no medicines
10 to help him.
11 Q. Yes. Thank you and that's the final set. That will be 14 and
12 15.
13 Now then briefly to summarise, the rest of the evidence that you
14 gave, doctor, I think you described first of all killings that took place
15 outside the camp.
16 MS. KORNER: This is Your Honours at page 7786. In particular
17 when some people called Foric were taken out of the camp and killed.
18 A. I think that that is how most people were killed. Inmates would
19 be taken out of the Trnopolje camp and killed somewhere. So one day
20 soldiers came with a list and they lined up all male inmates in front of
21 the school and then requested that Forics step out, those whose last flame
22 was Foric. And five or six men came forward and they took them down the
23 road towards the railway station. I'm not sure whether they took them to
24 the fish pond or the old mill but we heard that they had been killed down
25 there.
Page 11784
1 MS. KORNER: Your Honours in due course, they were recovered from
2 a grave, there is exhumation evidence about them.
3 Q. I think that there were?
4 MR. ACKERMAN: Excuse me, is the Prosecutor giving evidence now?
5 MS. KORNER: No, I'm merely pointing out that there will be
6 evidence.
7 MR. ACKERMAN: It seems to me that you just testified that they
8 were recovered from a grave.
9 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, no, I'm anticipating.
10 MR. ACKERMAN: I assume there will be somebody I could
11 cross-examine about that at some point.
12 MS. KORNER: Yes, there will be.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead.
14 MS. KORNER:
15 Q. Next I think apart from beatings that took place inside the rooms
16 that you told us about, I think you described beatings that took place in
17 the open. This is at page 7768.
18 A. That's right. For instance, when Keraterm inmates arrived, they
19 were followed by Zigic with another soldier. He entered the area where
20 Keraterm inmates were put up, lined them up, stood in front of them and
21 said, "God help you." He rose, and they were all -- they all then had to
22 respond to this, "God help you." And then he said aloud, "Kum come out"
23 and a man stepped forward from the line. He told him to go down on his
24 knees. He did and then he started beat being him. He beat him with his
25 hands and with his feet until the man fell to the ground. Then he started
Page 11785
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 11786
1 jumping all over him and when he got tired, he left and the man remained
2 lying on the ground. After that, inmates took them into Dom and I never
3 saw him but I heard that he survived.
4 Q. You also described to the Court in the Stakic case the similarity
5 between the accounts which were given by the inmates to whom you spoke as
6 to how they had arrived at the camp, what had happened in their villages.
7 MS. KORNER: This is Your Honours at page 7788 of the transcript.
8 Q. I don't want you to repeat that evidence, doctor, because the
9 Court is able to read it, but what you described was a pattern of
10 happenings. From what you could see, was there any particular reason why
11 a camp had been set up at Trnopolje? What was -- what was its advantages?
12 A. You know, in the beginning, I never thought about it. I mean it
13 never occurred to me. But later, after my last testimony, I started
14 thinking about it because I was asked by the Defence, and they said that
15 the camp had been set up there in haste. It was just an interplay of
16 events but then I started thinking about it and I decided that it couldn't
17 have been by accident, that somebody must have planned it well in advance,
18 and that perhaps those who executed those particular order learned about
19 it at the very last minute but if you look at the location of Trnopolje in
20 that whole area, it is right next to the railway tracks and the railway
21 station, and next to it a school with the cultural centre and the football
22 field so that this is the ideal place in that area for a camp, a camp that
23 would serve to round up the population there so that they could then be
24 transported further on by truck or by rail. That was the ideal place, and
25 it must have been done by somebody who was very familiar with that -- with
Page 11787
1 the area, and who must have planned it well ahead. Why not in Kozarac?
2 Why not somewhere else? Why in Trnopolje of all places?
3 Q. Now, you've described, and you described in your previous
4 testimony, the various convoys. Did -- before anybody was allowed on the
5 convoys did they have to sign various documents?
6 A. The convoys that were organised regularly for women, children and
7 the elderly, and at times a man would manage to join them here and there
8 or perhaps a Serb friend would help him join them, I do not know that any
9 documents were signed then. But the last transport, that is the convoy
10 that was organised by the International Red Cross and the UNHCR, with
11 which we, the registered inmates left, then the condition for us to leave
12 was to sign a document leaving all our property to the Serb -- to
13 Srpska Republika, or the autonomous region, I can't remember exactly, and
14 one of the conditions was for the International Red Cross and the UNHCR to
15 guarantee that we would never return to Bosnia, that we would be displaced
16 and go to third countries rather than ever come back. The International
17 Red Cross told us that we could sign it because it would have no force
18 because it had been done under duress and so that some benches were put in
19 front of the school and as the inmates were passing one by one to enter
20 the buses, they first had to sign such sheets of paper. Unfortunately,
21 everybody was given a copy of that, but I just tore up mine and threw it
22 away but I'm sure that one of the inmates who left on that occasion is
23 still in possession of this sheet of paper.
24 Q. Now, have you ever been back to Prijedor since you were expelled?
25 A. I've never been to Prijedor.
Page 11788
1 Q. You told us earlier you left on one of the last convoys in
2 September, 1992. I think you were taken to Karlovac. On the same bus
3 that you were, were there also the survivors of the - as it's called - the
4 Mount Vlasic massacre?
5 A. Only after the people from the convoy had entered the buses is
6 when I learnt that there were also six individuals with us whom the
7 International Red Cross - I don't know how - succeeded in getting out from
8 the hospital in Banja Luka, and smuggled them through. So as to help them
9 to get out, together with us.
10 Q. And finally, this, doctor, I think you were asked by the Presiding
11 Judge, Judge Schomburg, on the last occasion, whom you held responsible
12 for what happened, and you gave a long answer which I'm not going to ask
13 you to repeat.
14 MS. KORNER: Your Honours will find that at page 7863, onwards.
15 Yes, thank you very much, doctor. Can you just wait there,
16 please?
17 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman.
18 You're now going to be cross-examined by the Defence lead counsel.
19 Cross-examined by Mr. Ackerman:
20 Q. Good morning, doctor.
21 A. Good morning.
22 Q. You've probably noticed in some of the remarks you've heard here
23 today that we are hoping we can finish with your testimony this morning,
24 and you can aid us in that and yourself, I suppose, if you would try very
25 hard to answer the questions that I ask you as concisely and quickly as
Page 11789
1 you possibly can. If I need you to elaborate on an answer, I'll let you
2 know that. Would that be fair?
3 A. All right.
4 Q. Now, you gave in addition to the testimony in Stakic, you also
5 gave a statement to the Prosecutor, and I'm going to refer to some of the
6 things you said in that statement. Please understand that there -- if
7 there is a time when you are not certain that my account of what you said
8 in that statement is correct, you may have a copy of the statement and
9 look at it and we'll get the Prosecutor to give you one and give you an
10 opportunity to check it, okay?
11 A. Okay.
12 Q. On page 1 of that statement you gave to the Prosecutor, you talked
13 about the situation prior to the war in 1992, and your words, according to
14 that statement were, "Prior to the war, there were no problems between the
15 ethnicities and we all got along fine." Do you recall saying that?
16 A. Whether those were my exact words, I don't know but that is how it
17 was and I can confirm it. Before the war, which broke out in the former
18 Yugoslavia, not before the war in Prijedor but before the war, there were
19 no problems, or at least I never noticed any because I never ran into any
20 problems.
21 Q. You are aware of what happened in the general Prijedor-Kozarac
22 area during World War II, are you not?
23 A. Up to a point.
24 Q. Do you know or did you know a person by the name of Hamdija
25 Kahrimanovic?
Page 11790
1 A. Kahrimanovic is a last name which I've heard, but Hamdija, whether
2 I knew him, I don't know.
3 Q. He's a school teacher in Kozarac. Does that help you?
4 A. It doesn't.
5 Q. Let me ask you if you agree with this statement. "Some of the
6 most famous battles and some of the more horrible massacres of the war,"
7 referring to World War II, "were carried out in the shadows of the rugged
8 Kozara mountains and residents were proud of their reputation as fierce
9 fighters." Do you agree with that?
10 A. That is what books say.
11 Q. There is a local saying from Kozarac, and I'll quote it for you.
12 "People of Kozara love their guns like a girl. They love song and their
13 glass of brandy but most of all they love their freedom." Are you
14 familiar with that saying?
15 A. Yes, but people from Kozara are not Serbs only. There are other
16 ethnic groups, apart from Serbs.
17 Q. I'm talking about all the people from Kozara, I think, when you
18 talk about that saying, aren't we?
19 A. I do think that there is such a saying, whether it is correct and
20 to what degree, I cannot say. Everybody loves his freedom, not only
21 people from Kozara. People in the Netherlands love their freedom too.
22 Q. Yes but the people in Kozara love their guns too, don't they?
23 A. I think there were many hunters who had hunting weapons, but of
24 course, it varied from one individual to another. I had no affinity for
25 weapons, nor did I ever own a weapon but I know a number of people from
Page 11791
1 Kozara who never had any weapons.
2 Q. Do you agree that World War II bitterly divided the different
3 groups in the region?
4 A. Well, at the time, World War II, I was not taking part in it. How
5 was it after the war, I was born in Kresevo near Sarajevo, and I only
6 arrived in Kozarac after I'd graduated and did my military service so that
7 I can't now tell you about the situation after World War II, and tell you
8 either yes or no.
9 Q. Well, you were taught history in elementary school and in every
10 elementary school part of the history is what happened in the area of
11 Mount Kozara and the slaughter of Serbs there, isn't it?
12 A. There was history and there were also men of advanced age who also
13 told stories that were somewhat different from those that one found in
14 books.
15 Q. Can you tell us how long it was after World War II that the
16 situation changed, that these -- situation changed so that there were no
17 problems between the ethnicities and you all got along fine, as you told
18 us about? How long did it take for that to change?
19 A. After the war, there must have been problems for a long time, I
20 think Muslims did not have the right to say they were Muslims. They --
21 people could say they were Serbs or Croats but not as Muslims. That was
22 permitted only later. I was born in 1959. And my childhood, the
23 childhood that I remember, and throughout my life, I never had any
24 problems with other ethnic groups.
25 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... the constitution of 1974 that
Page 11792
1 made it possible for Muslims to declare themselves Muslims?
2 A. I really can't tell you whether it was that constitution, but it
3 was later on, yes, there was a constitution allowing Muslims to declare
4 themselves as Muslims.
5 Q. In the Stakic case, at page 7719, you were asked about the
6 effect -- I better tell you where I'm -- what I'm talking about. I'm
7 talking about that period of time in 1991 when the war broke out in
8 Croatia and there was a mobilisation of people. You said in the Stakic
9 case at 7719, you were asked the effect that that mobilisation had on Serb
10 attitudes toward the Muslim and Croat population in Prijedor. You
11 answered that Muslims and Croats who failed to report for the mobilisation
12 were tracked down by the military police and forcibly taken to the front.
13 Do you recall saying that?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And you also told the Trial Chamber there that as a result of
16 that, many Muslims and Croats went into hiding to avoid being tracked down
17 and forcibly taken to the front. Correct?
18 A. Correct.
19 Q. And of course, if they were in hiding, they didn't go to work, did
20 they?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. And if they didn't go to work, then they were likely dismissed
23 from their jobs, correct?
24 A. I don't think that was the reason. In principle, one knew that
25 dismissals from work started only when the military, and I think it was
Page 11793
1 later February, took Prijedor and SDS by force. Before that, there were
2 elections and the SDA had won in Prijedor, and there were Muslims still in
3 responsible offices, together with Serbs and Croats, and the persecution
4 had still not reached that level. That is the police was not yet
5 persecuting people around the city openly. It was only after the army
6 took Prijedor and when the SDS took over the power that all those -- all
7 the Muslims and Croats who used to hold responsible positions were fired
8 and those who had failed to sign loyalty and respond to mobilisation too.
9 So I'm talking about early 1992 or possibly end of 1991.
10 Q. But wasn't it the law that if you didn't show up to work for a
11 certain number of days, you were automatically dismissed from your job?
12 Isn't that true?
13 A. The majority of organisations could do that, but in the Prijedor
14 case, where the SDA had won in the elections, the authority, the
15 government, was not split yet, so that the attitude was more lenient.
16 Rather before the army took it, people were not dismissed. It was only
17 after that that they started being dismissed. Now, only. Now there is
18 this period before and after. I know that after that, people began to be
19 arrested, the curfew was introduced from as of 2100, and those who were
20 arrested were taken to Mali Logor to the small camp in Banja Luka, and
21 then were sent either to dig trenches on the front, some were exchanged,
22 as prisoners of war, and some were forcibly mobilised and given weapons.
23 Some of them returned in coffins with bullets in their backs.
24 Q. So you are I guess saying that once the SDA took power in
25 Prijedor, that it was permitted for non-Serbs to stay away from their jobs
Page 11794
1 and nothing would happen to them. They just didn't have to work. They
2 would get paid but no work?
3 A. No. It's not -- it is not correct. When the Serbs took over
4 power in Prijedor, those who were in responsible positions, judges, or in
5 the police, the chiefs there, all the non-Serbs were dismissed, and
6 others...
7 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... it was translated improperly
8 to you. The question I asked you was when the SDA, not the SDS, when the
9 SDA was in charge in Prijedor, when they won the elections and took power,
10 is it your position that during that period of time, non-Serb employees
11 were permitted to not go to work and get paid and suffer no consequences
12 from failing to show up for work?
13 A. I don't know what you know about the situation in Prijedor at that
14 time. The SDA, when it won, never succeeded in taking over, in assuming
15 the authority, because the SDS blocked it. There were people who, if one
16 learned that the military police was after somebody, then such people
17 would not go to work. Perhaps, but it did not mean that people were
18 absent from work for days on end because the military police wasn't there
19 day in, day out, to see who would turn up for work and who wouldn't.
20 Q. You told the Court in the Stakic case that it was the army that
21 took over Prijedor, correct?
22 A. The troops took Prijedor physically, I think it was at nighttime
23 that a military unit came from the front. I do not know which one. And
24 it set up checkpoints around Prijedor to control those passing through,
25 which placed snipers on buildings, took all the important institutions,
Page 11795
1 the police building, the municipal hall, the hospital. There were police
2 checkpoints in all those buildings and nobody could pass through without
3 showing their IDs and immediately after, that the SDS took over the
4 political authority.
5 Q. Doctor, considering what we talked about at the beginning, about
6 what would be fair, the question I asked you was: You told the Court in
7 the Stakic case that it was the army that took over Prijedor. Couldn't
8 that have just been answered yes, instead of that long, involved answer
9 that you just gave?
10 A. I could have answered yes, yes -- no. Because you asked how the
11 army took Prijedor, in different ways, the army did it physically and the
12 SDS did it politically because the SDA had won the elections and it was
13 when Bosnia was proclaimed a sovereign state.
14 Q. I think it's your position that it was the army that was rounding
15 up people and taking them places like Keraterm and Omarska and Trnopolje,
16 correct?
17 A. Correct, when we arrived in Trnopolje, there were very many
18 soldiers and guards supervising it all, and all the checkpoints through
19 which we went were manned by uniformed individuals.
20 Q. Do you know who Sead Cirkin?
21 A. I've heard about Sead Cirkin. He's an active military. As far as
22 I know, earlier, when the Serbs took Prijedor militarily, he tried to
23 organise a defence of Kozarac in Kozarac. I do not know where he got it
24 but he managed to put together some weapons and some guys who tried to
25 organised Kozarac defence.
Page 11796
1 Q. And he headed a TO unit, an armed TO unit, in the Kozarac area,
2 didn't he?
3 A. I don't know whether that was the Territorial Defence or what was
4 it. What I heard was by and large that he tried to organise the defence
5 of Kozarac.
6 Q. Are you aware of a meeting prior to the occurrences in Kozarac,
7 the fighting there, are you aware of a meeting where the question that was
8 asked of the Kozarac people was whether they wanted to surrender their
9 arms and avoid a conflict or not? Are you aware of that meeting?
10 A. I only heard of a meeting, and that those in Kozarac were issued
11 an ultimatum to lay down their weapons, but what exactly happened at the
12 meeting, I don't know, because I was not present there, but I did hear
13 about some negotiations.
14 Q. Are you aware that those residents of Kozarac who attended that
15 meeting, the persons who were proud of their reputation as fierce fighters
16 and love their guns, resolved not to surrender their arms and to try to
17 defend their village?
18 A. Correct, as far as I know they decided to defend their families
19 and their village.
20 Q. Are you not aware that the actual fighting started in Kozarac when
21 Muslims from a checkpoint there fired on a convoy of Serb soldiers?
22 A. No. I am not aware of that. As far as I know, the Serbs had
23 already attacked on the other side, towards Ljubija, they had already
24 attacked Hambarine and another locality and then moved from one village to
25 the other. Kozarac was not the first place that was attacked by the Serb
Page 11797
1 troops.
2 Q. Are you aware that what happened at Hambarine was when Muslims
3 fired at some Serb soldiers and killed a couple of them at Hambarine?
4 A. Do you know that before that, Serb soldiers stopped a tractor
5 carrying hay? They IDed the persons there. When they saw that they were
6 Muslims, they killed them on the spot. We can chase each other with such
7 examples for as long as you like but that won't lead to anything.
8 Q. I tend to agree with you about that, sir.
9 In the transcript at page 7722, you talked in the Stakic case
10 about a meeting in Kozarac regarding a demand to put up Serb insignia and
11 Serb flags and that an ultimatum was given to the people. Is that the
12 same meeting that we were talking about just a moment ago? Or is that a
13 different meeting?
14 A. I don't know how many meetings there were, whether it was that one
15 or whether there were several. The only thing I know is that I heard that
16 the police and those who were organising were supposed to surrender, to
17 declare their loyalty to the Serbs and to show or put up their insignia.
18 This is what I heard. But I don't know whether you know that the police
19 who surrendered during the surrender, each one of them was taken away and
20 killed on the spot.
21 Q. You were asked about checkpoints in the Kozarac area in the Stakic
22 case, at page 7732 you told the Judges that you didn't notice, as far as
23 the Muslim side is concerned, any checkpoints or weapons.
24 When you would travel from Prijedor to Kozarac for your work,
25 didn't you see the Muslim checkpoint near the crossroads, Prijedor-Banja
Page 11798
1 Luka road Kozarac? Didn't you have to pass through it to get into
2 Kozarac?
3 A. At the previous trial, I added something, on the main road, the
4 Prijedor-Kozarac-Bana Luka road, I never saw any checkpoints on the
5 Bosniak side but I remembered, when a tank was placed down there at the
6 entrance to the Kozarac, then at the entrance to the sawmill, people from
7 Kozarac set up barriers. There was also a guard there, in order to
8 prevent the army and the tank from entering Kozarac but the others could
9 pass through freely. Whether -- like I was asked whether there were any
10 checkpoints at other places, outside of this road, perhaps at Kozarusa I
11 don't know but I did hear that when the Serb army took over Prijedor and
12 when they were indicating that they were going to take the Muslim
13 settlements by force, then non-Serbs, Muslim and Croats, organised
14 themselves and put up guards in order to defend themselves, in order to
15 prevent the Serbs from entering the villages suddenly and committing a
16 massacre. But this was --
17 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the witness's last
18 sentence.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: The interpreter, sir, did not catch your last
20 sentence. And I'll read out to you what we have. "I don't know but I did
21 hear that when the Serb army took over Prijedor, and when they were
22 indicating that they were going to take the Muslim settlements by force,
23 then non-Serbs, Muslims and Croats, organised themselves and put up guards
24 in order to defend themselves, in order to prevent the Serbs from entering
25 the villages suddenly and committing a massacre. But this was" and this
Page 11799
1 is where the interpreters did not catch up with you or understand what you
2 said. What did you actually say?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that this was only a reaction
4 to the moves by the Serbs, who took over Prijedor militarily by force.
5 Then the Muslims, fearing repercussions and for the safety of their
6 families, organised some guards, which were supposed to prevent the Serbs
7 from entering suddenly those parts inhabited by the Muslims.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Ackerman, sorry about that.
9 MR. ACKERMAN:
10 Q. Sir, there was -- you've told us in the Stakic case and the Trial
11 Chamber here also about the actual fighting that went on in Kozarac, the
12 shooting that went on in Kozarac. You said that went on for a couple of
13 days. And then after two days of shooting, which you heard from the
14 basement of the medical centre, terms of surrender were agreed upon,
15 correct?
16 MS. KORNER: [Microphone not activated] I'm sorry, the word he
17 used was "shelling."
18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is partially true. We were not
21 at the clinic in the basement in Kozarac the whole time. When the
22 surrender took place, we were at the relocated clinic on the outskirts of
23 Kozarac, and then, at that point, the police managed to -- this was on the
24 26th -- to agree on the terms of surrender, and for the shelling to stop.
25 MR. ACKERMAN:
Page 11800
1 Q. Surrender, implies, doesn't it sir, that there was a battle going
2 on, one side lost the battle and was surrendering their soldiers and their
3 weapons, correct?
4 A. I wasn't present when this agreement was being reached, and I
5 don't know what the terms were, but in any case, it was agreed that the
6 police officers and the wounded, as well as the civilian population,
7 should leave Prijedor. What their agreement was, and what happened, I
8 don't know. I never heard of Cirkin afterwards. I don't know what
9 happened to him. I just have to say that when the attack and the fighting
10 were taking place, at that point, Cirkin and his men were not in Kozarac.
11 They were probably outside of Kozarac somewhere, in some positions. In
12 Kozarac, except for some members of the police, there weren't many armed
13 men.
14 Q. Well, I take it that it would not have taken two days for army,
15 armed with artillery and tanks, to subdue a small village composed of
16 nothing but unarmed and frightened civilians, would it?
17 A. I've already told you that Cirkin had armed men who tried together
18 with other civilians, these armed men had uniforms as well, I don't know
19 if they were uniforms of the Territorial Defence or something else, but in
20 any case, there was a type of armed formation that Cirkin had. I don't
21 know what type or what kind it was. One time, I went to see Cirkin and
22 there were some men with him and I assumed that others were up at their
23 positions. The shelling, with small breaks, lasted until the -- lasted
24 from the 24th, in the afternoon, and then it stopped at some point on the
25 26th.
Page 11801
1 Q. After this surrender that you talked about, the army effectively
2 evacuated everyone from Kozarac, didn't they?
3 A. That is not correct. It was agreed that the civilians, the police
4 officers and the wounded should leave Kozarac by themselves. The police
5 was waiting outside, when everybody came out and surrendered, only at that
6 point did the soldiers enter Kozarac. The only thing is that a lot of
7 the -- many of the population were not aware, they didn't know about this
8 surrender.
9 Q. Yes. And the first people who actually were lined up and allowed
10 to leave Kozarac were the wounded people, correct?
11 A. I think it was the wounded, the wounded and the police but I think
12 it was the wounded who went first. They were driven by the husband of
13 Azra. He was driving the vehicle with the seriously wounded. I also need
14 to tell you that in the meantime, a lot of them died. The young boy was
15 still alive. He was allowed to pass through to Prijedor. A Muslim who
16 had a bullet wound in the front was not allowed to go to the hospital. He
17 was taken to Omarska. Also the driver who was driving the wounded was
18 also sent immediately to Omarska. Only the Serb wounded person and the
19 child were allowed to go to Prijedor. And the child died. And as far as
20 the members of the police are concerned, I heard that they were killed on
21 the spot.
22 Q. I now want to go to Trnopolje and ask you just a few questions
23 about the food situation there. The Judges have had an opportunity to
24 read your testimony in the Stakic case so we'll skip over a great deal of
25 that. Food was brought into Trnopolje by local residents, people living
Page 11802
1 around that area, including Serbs, correct?
2 A. That's correct, in the beginning the Serbs were bringing food as
3 well.
4 Q. You -- you said in your statement, on page 8 of your statement to
5 the Prosecutor, I'm quoting you, sir, "We couldn't leave outside of the
6 barbed wire area unless a guard escorted us." The first thing I want to
7 ask you about that, there was not barbed wire surrounding the entire camp,
8 was there?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Isn't it the case that people who were staying there at Trnopolje
11 were going out every day to work at their places of employment and coming
12 back there to stay at night because it was a safe place?
13 A. That is not true. I am hearing this for the first time. That is
14 not true at all, for sure.
15 Q. Weren't lists kept of people who were permitted to go out and work
16 during the day and where they worked, and all of those kinds of things?
17 Weren't those lists kept there at Trnopolje?
18 A. There were no such lists. I don't know about such lists. I'm
19 sure that they did not exist.
20 Q. Isn't it true that money was collected from people who were
21 staying there at Trnopolje, collections taken up, so that bread and other
22 food items could be purchased and brought into Trnopolje?
23 A. At one point during the existence of the camp, money was collected
24 from the inmates. We handed that money over to the Serbian Red Cross, and
25 the next day, they would bring bread for the inmates.
Page 11803
1 Q. And some of the people who made contributions had money because
2 they were earning money at these outside jobs they were going to every
3 day. Isn't that true?
4 A. That is not true. I'm certain that that is not true.
5 Q. It's true, isn't it, that arrangements were made through and by
6 the Serbian Red Cross to supply milk to the Trnopolje area on a daily
7 basis for the children there?
8 A. It's not true that it was a daily occurrence. We managed on our
9 own initiative to agree or to make them agree to provide milk for the
10 small children.
11 Q. It's true, isn't it, that people were permitted to go to their
12 houses and gather up things like food items such as flour, sugar, whatever
13 kind of food items they might have, and bring them to the camp? Beans and
14 things of that nature?
15 A. During one period of the camp's existence, when there was no other
16 choice, they did make it possible, under escort of soldiers, to go to
17 nearby gardens and to pick beans and things. But it wasn't true that
18 people went back to their own gardens and homes. They went to the nearby
19 homes and gardens to bring back food. You could dig up potatoes, you
20 could find tomatoes. It was already summer. So they allowed for a
21 certain period, and this was after Penny Marshall came and until the
22 arrival of the Red Cross, they allowed people to bring their own food in
23 order to feed themselves. But it wasn't the people who were from those
24 houses. And it was something that was carried out under guard escort.
25 Q. The reason for the guard escort was to protect these people from
Page 11804
1 roving bands of paramilitary criminals, wasn't it?
2 A. That was not so. The reason was so that the inmates wouldn't
3 escape, even though I think that there was no sense in escaping because
4 there were checkpoints all around, not only near the Trnopolje camp but
5 also in that whole area. The reason why the guards went was to prevent
6 the inmates from escaping.
7 Q. People were permitted to go to their homes and get wood stoves and
8 firewood that they brought to Trnopolje for cooking purposes, weren't
9 they?
10 A. I am repeating once again that it wasn't people who were generally
11 going to their own homes. It was inmates who happened to be there at the
12 time, since the food had to be prepared somewhere, they allowed for
13 furnaces to be brought, for wood to be brought, for this to be set up
14 between the Dom and the school most frequently, and that that's where they
15 were permitted to cook food for themselves.
16 Q. Page 9 of your statement, "I never saw any politicians come to
17 Trnopolje and I do not know any one in the Crisis Staff in Banja
18 Luka." That's a true statement, isn't it?
19 A. I didn't know anyone personally, and I said that I, in any case,
20 don't know. Nobody at my clinic ever came and said, "I'm such and such a
21 politician." There were some delegations that came to visit but who made
22 up those delegations, I don't know. They weren't people that I knew.
23 Q. Well, since you've raised it, what you said was that there was a
24 delegation that came with an American and a high-ranking JNA officer. Do
25 you remember saying that?
Page 11805
1 A. There was a foreigner. I don't know whether it was an American or
2 not. I don't know. I assume that it was. And there were several
3 officers, one of whom was of a very high rank. I don't remember which
4 rank. But there were several uniformed persons, Serbs, who they were I'm
5 not -- I don't know. We talked. As they were going from one room to the
6 next, the person who was interpreting for this gentleman, I managed to
7 give her a sign, indicating that I wished to speak to them alone. She
8 told that, whispered this into that gentleman's ear and he asked these
9 people to leave the room, and then we talked alone, only with this
10 politician, I don't know who it was, but this politician who was in
11 civilian clothes, and who was a foreigner. There were other delegations
12 as well that came, who did not even come into the clinic, but I don't know
13 what these delegations were.
14 Q. You had said that this person, one of these people, was a very
15 high-ranking JNA officer. Let me ask you if you know it was a JNA officer
16 or was it a VRS officer?
17 A. Could you please explain to me what VRS is?
18 Q. Army of Republika Srpska.
19 A. I don't know what the difference is there.
20 Q. Okay. So when you said it was a JNA officer, you just were
21 referring to a high-ranking military person in a uniform that appeared to
22 you to be JNA?
23 A. That's correct. In any case, he was a member of the Serb side. I
24 don't know if they had any special units or anything like that at that
25 time. I don't know.
Page 11806
1 Q. On page 7748 of the Stakic transcript, you told the Judges that
2 when you first arrived at Trnopolje, there was no outward indication that
3 any kind of camp was being or had been established there. That's true,
4 correct?
5 A. I said that I did not even think about a camp. It never even
6 occurred to me. I saw a lot of soldiers, women and children. I wasn't
7 expecting at all, I wasn't even thinking about any kind of camp.
8 Q. There was no wire or fencing that had not been there before, was
9 there?
10 A. There was a wire fence from before. There was a small wire fence
11 around the school. And a higher fence around the shop that was selling
12 construction material. And they existed from before the war.
13 Q. Yes. Some of that fence was so low that you could actually jump
14 over it, couldn't you?
15 A. Yes. This low fence in front of the clinic could be jumped over
16 without a problem, and even the fence that was around the school could
17 easily be jumped over also.
18 Q. I'd like to you look at Exhibit P1128.1, please. I think it might
19 be 1128.12. Let's get -- I want the one with the red markings on it. It
20 may be that the only copy is with the Prosecutor right now.
21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour for the purpose of the transcript, I
22 think it's 1128.5. It's the last of the four plans. No?
23 JUDGE AGIUS: 1128 are photos, no?
24 MS. KORNER: Whatever it is, you mean the plan, Mr. Ackerman.
25 MR. ACKERMAN: That's what I'm looking for is the plan that has
Page 11807
1 the red fence drawn on it.
2 MS. KORNER: It's P1147.5.
3 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. Thank you.
4 Q. Now, sir, that red line you've drawn on there, represents a fence
5 that was constructed upon the arrival of men from Keraterm and Omarska,
6 correct?
7 A. Shortly before they arrived, the fence was prepared for them, and
8 then when they came, they were placed within the area that was encircled
9 with the fence.
10 Q. The south side of that fence that encloses the building materials
11 store was already there?
12 A. This part that was in the south was already in place. That is the
13 high fence around the construction-material shop.
14 Q. And that was a barbed wire fence, wasn't it?
15 A. The barbed wire was at the top of the fence, yes.
16 Q. And the balance of that fence that was installed right before the
17 Keraterm-Omarska people came was not a barbed wire fence but a chain-link
18 fence, wasn't it?
19 A. No. I think that on this side, there was a wire mesh, mesh, and
20 it wasn't very high, maybe 1.5 metres at the most on this side towards the
21 road and towards the Dom, the fence was about a man's height high. And at
22 the top it did have one row of barbed wire. That's this side next to the
23 road, towards the hole -- the Dom. This side of the fence was a little
24 lower and it did not have any barbed wire.
25 Q. I don't know whether you know this or not and if you don't, you
Page 11808
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
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24
25
Page 11809
1 can just tell me. But it's the case, isn't it, that when Penny Marshall
2 came the first time and photographed people at Trnopolje, she went inside
3 that barbed wire fence where the construction building is and filmed
4 through the fence from inside that area so as to show the barbed wire on
5 that side of the fence. Isn't that the case?
6 A. She was photographing people and on those photographs, you can see
7 people from this side. So from this area here, which is around the
8 hardware shop fenced, from this fenced area, she was also taking
9 photographs of people who were on the other side of the wire within fenced
10 in -- within a different type of war.
11 Q. Now, this fence, this red line that you've drawn there, only
12 stayed there for about, at a maximum, I think you said, two weeks, and
13 then it was taken down, correct?
14 A. Yes. That is correct. That wire wasn't there long, when the
15 first people arrived from Keraterm and Omarska, they were put here.
16 Immediately after that, Penny Marshall arrived and after that, a large
17 group from Omarska also arrived and they were put here in this area,
18 fenced -- that is within the fence around the hardware store, and after
19 that, this fence here was removed and the door was opened here. So that
20 that was -- that it was taken away after a short time. It wasn't there
21 long.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, whenever it's convenient for you.
23 MR. ACKERMAN: Let me just ask one or two more questions about
24 this and then we can break, would that be okay?
25 Q. So during that ten days that that fence was there, none of the
Page 11810
1 other inmates, none of the other people that were there at Trnopolje, were
2 confined within that fence, it was just the Keraterm and Omarska people,
3 wasn't it?
4 A. At that time, it was only those inmates who were brought and put
5 within that fence so Keraterm and part of Omarska, in this other
6 fenced-off part. Later on, when this was removed, after the journalists,
7 the inmates were allowed to mingle.
8 MR. ACKERMAN: All right, Your Honour. This is a good time for
9 the break. I wonder if we can make it 15 minutes so we can try to
10 finish?
11 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We will just have a short break of 15
12 minutes and then we will try to make every effort to finish with the
13 witness. Thank you.
14 --- Recess taken at 12.33 p.m.
15 --- On resuming at 12.49 p.m.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
17 MR. ACKERMAN:
18 Q. Sir, in your testimony in Stakic, at page 7787, you said the men
19 were not allowed to leave the camp. Actually, unless they were kept
20 inside that ten day fence we talked about, at night they could simply go
21 over that fence and leave, couldn't they? In various parts of the camp,
22 they could just go through the fence, over the fence, and walk away if
23 they wanted to?
24 A. Well, it was possible, like in any other prison. One could
25 organise escape. So I suppose one could organise escape from the
Page 11811
1 Trnopolje camp. If you look at how the guards were deployed, you will
2 then see that it wouldn't have been all that easy. That is one thing.
3 Secondly, the question arises, once you've escaped from the camp, where do
4 you go then.
5 Q. That was my next question. What would be the motive for someone
6 to leave there? Where would they go?
7 A. Well, the Serbs controlled more or less everything. So you could
8 only hide in the forest somewhere, on Kozara or try to cross the mountains
9 and reach Croatia or the free territory. So that if somebody was certain
10 that Serbs will find him on some list or killed perhaps would opt for that
11 but the majority of civilians like myself thought that after all, we were
12 civilians, we were not taking part in the war. We were not concerned with
13 it basically and we expected that -- and we didn't expect that somebody
14 would kill us just because we were Muslims.
15 Q. Do you know anybody who did what you suggested, left the camp and
16 went through the mountains and made their way to safety?
17 A. No. I do not know. I don't know. And the name of a single
18 individual who, for instance, left Trnopolje and did that. I know that
19 some groups from Kozarac tried to go through the mountains and reach
20 Croatia but I do not know if anyone from Trnopolje did that. I do not
21 have such information.
22 Q. Do you know a person by the name of Sejmenovic first name
23 Mevludin?
24 A. Sejmenovic Mevludin? Yes, it rings a bell. I think he was in
25 the SDA. I think he was politically active.
Page 11812
1 Q. Do you know that he entered Trnopolje on his own at night, stayed
2 there for a period of time, left Trnopolje, was gone for a period of time,
3 and then returned to Trnopolje again? Do you know that that happened?
4 A. No, I don't. As far as I know, he was taken to Omarska. How he
5 entered the Trnopolje camp, I do not know. Perhaps one could, when food
6 was collected, if the guard was inattentive then perhaps somebody could
7 sneak into the camp. One cannot exclude that.
8 Q. Isn't it the case that people did not want to leave the Trnopolje
9 area because that was the safest place in the area?
10 A. That is not true. It depends to what period of time do you have
11 in mind. Towards the end, when the International Red Cross arrived, as of
12 that time, when the inmates were registered, as of that time it would be
13 true that it was safer in the camp, when the International Red Cross had
14 registered the inmates and carried out regular controls, than outside in
15 one's own house because Serbs came -- went regularly there, and harassed
16 and took people away so as of the moment when the International Red Cross
17 arrived and registered people, then it was better to be in a way in a camp
18 than outside it but not until that time.
19 Q. You said initially that at Trnopolje there were no beds, no cots,
20 no blankets and that everyone just had to sleep on the floor or on the
21 ground, correct?
22 A. In Trnopolje, only what was there when people arrived, so there
23 are no beds in schools, a school has desks. In the clinic, there were
24 those two beds. Of course people somehow made do. Some of those who came
25 to Trnopolje managed to come by a blanket, even people who lived around
Page 11813
1 Trnopolje provided us with two or three blankets even but it was all on an
2 individual basis. It depended on how one knew how to manage. Some knew
3 guards and there were also guards who tried as far as they could to help
4 us. I did not say that all Serbs are the same, and that there were not --
5 that there were not Serbs who were against what was happening or who would
6 refuse to help us. There were Serbs who wanted to help us and did help us
7 as much as they could.
8 Q. Is it your sense that there were a lot of beds and blankets there
9 in Trnopolje that could have been provided for the people that were there
10 and were just withheld out of meanness or something like that?
11 A. No. In Trnopolje, there were only private houses, which means
12 that apart from those beds from private houses, there were simply no other
13 beds. Whether they could have been brought from somewhere else, I don't
14 know.
15 Q. Isn't it the case that many, many people who were at Trnopolje
16 came there voluntarily, on their own, because it was a safe place and
17 because it was a place where they might be able to get --
18 JUDGE AGIUS: You have asked him this question already,
19 Mr. Ackerman.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: I know but there is a different kind of question.
21 Q. Because it was a safe place and because there was an opportunity
22 to find a convoy to leave the area? Isn't that the case?
23 A. I am not aware of that being the case. As far as I know, after
24 the cleansing of the village, people would be brought to the camp in order
25 to organise convoys. I know that there were some exceptions, that every
Page 11814
1 individual who, through some of their Serb friends, would come on the eve
2 of the convoys so as to join it and leave the area.
3 Q. Sir, at one point you gave some kind of a statement. It's called
4 an interview with Dr. Idriz Merdzanic, interviewed in Karlovac. Do you
5 remember being interviewed there and a statement taken from you?
6 A. Possibly. I think it was somebody from the U.S. Embassy who came
7 and took statements from inmates.
8 Q. There is a statement that was attached to your statement that was
9 given me by the Office of the Prosecutor, and I don't know quite how to
10 refer to. It has an ERN number of 00288977. And at the bottom it says,
11 "Page 34." And according to this, it says that you said, with regard to
12 Trnopolje, "People were coming in from all over. Sleeping in their cars
13 and farm machinery, up to 9.000 or 10.000." Is that true?
14 A. Perhaps when you read it within this context, it turns up that
15 people came, but people were being evicted from their houses and taken
16 under custody to Trnopolje. So of course you get there, if somebody
17 forces you out of a house, and then brings you there under custody.
18 Q. You talked about your clinic at Trnopolje being very short of
19 medicines of various kinds. One of the things were you able to do, wasn't
20 it, was to go out to the surrounding houses, the houses in the area, and
21 find medicines and bring them back to Trnopolje?
22 A. It depended on who was on guard duty. Often, there would be some
23 Serb guards who lived in Trnopolje or somewhere nearby. I knew those
24 lads, and with some of them, I could talk and ask them to escort me so as
25 a rule, myself and Azra and I believe his name was Nisevic, a soldier
Page 11815
1 who stood guard, and who was always ready to help us. So he allowed it,
2 and organised it for us, to visit other houses and try to find some
3 medicines but it depended on the guards and not every guard shift would
4 allow us to do it, only some that we knew well.
5 Q. Would it be accurate to describe Trnopolje as a transit camp?
6 A. Trnopolje is undoubtedly for a major part, perhaps even the chief
7 purpose of Trnopolje, was in point of fact the deportation of the Muslim
8 population from the area, whereas the men's part was something else but it
9 was like two camps in one, one where people were brought, transport,
10 gathered, transported and then banished from the Serb area. Those were
11 the women, children, and the elderly and possibly some men too who managed
12 to join them and those others who were of military age, they were not
13 allowed to leave, presumably because they were able-bodied men or -- and
14 for some reasons, in Trnopolje were mostly people in whom Serbs were not
15 interested. All those in whom they were interested, they took to Omarska
16 or Keraterm. So that Trnopolje was perhaps the best of all these camps.
17 Except that amongst those people who were Trnopolje, they would search
18 for some of those they were interested in.
19 But I think that the chief purpose of that camp was forcible
20 transfer of the Muslim population, because if one looks at the system that
21 they used, first to have Serb armed forces, which would clean, sweep up
22 the village, then they would come to Trnopolje, then taken over by the
23 Serb Red Cross, they organised the transfers, allegedly they are helping
24 with those convoys, they are helping people to transfer, and then some
25 charitable Serb organisation or something like that, turn up, and they
Page 11816
1 settle in Muslim and Croat homes Serbs from other areas. I think this was
2 developed down to the minutest detail.
3 Q. There is no way we are going to finish today if you don't answer
4 my questions. The question I asked you was simple: Would it be accurate
5 to describe Trnopolje as a transit camp. It would be easy to answer "yes"
6 or "no". We are going to be here to tomorrow if you can't just answer the
7 question?
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman is right. You're not answering the
9 questions. You're telling us things that we -- you aren't being asked to
10 tell.
11 A. I apologise, for the Trnopolje camp could be described also as a
12 camp for the deportation of the Muslim population.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Next question, Mr. Ackerman.
14 MR. ACKERMAN:
15 Q. I want to ask you, and I'm referring now to that period of time at
16 Trnopolje before the arrival of the Red Cross and the registration of the
17 people there, there were plenty of soldiers around with guns at that point
18 in time, weren't there?
19 A. You mean before the International Red Cross came?
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. There were guards, say, in the earliest days, there were very many
22 military people there, a few days later organised guards were set up and
23 Major Kuruzovic arrived and there were guards around the clock in
24 Trnopolje.
25 Q. There were machine-guns in the machine-gun nests that you
Page 11817
1 described, right?
2 A. I've already described it and said that it depended on the guards
3 who took up duty. Every shift brought their own weapons and --
4 JUDGE AGIUS: That's not the answer that you have been asked to
5 give. The question was: "There were machine-guns in the machine-gun
6 nests that you described, right?" Answer yes or no.
7 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
8 MR. ACKERMAN:
9 Q. You've described in your testimony in Stakic how a few people,
10 including the Foric people, for instance, were actually shot and killed,
11 correct?
12 A. I was not present at the killing but I believe they were shot
13 dead.
14 Q. There were certainly plenty of weapons and plenty of soldiers to
15 have shot and killed everybody in Trnopolje, weren't there? They could
16 have done that.
17 A. Yes, that is correct. They could have killed everybody.
18 Q. They could have killed all the men from Keraterm instead of
19 bringing them to Trnopolje, couldn't they?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. And the same true of the men who were brought from Omarska?
22 A. True.
23 Q. In the materials that were given us with regard -- and attached to
24 your statement, there was a transcript from a case in England, the United
25 Kingdom, that you testified in. Do you remember that?
Page 11818
1 A. I do.
2 Q. I'm just curious: What was that case about?
3 A. That case had to do with that wire. That was the chief subject,
4 because the other side claimed that there has never been any camp there,
5 that there has never been any wire there, and just as you are claiming
6 now, that it wasn't a camp at all, that people could come and go at will.
7 Q. And that's where it came out actually, wasn't it, that Penny
8 Marshall had gone inside that barbed wire enclosed compound so as to take
9 pictures from inside there making it appear that the camp was surrounded
10 by barbed wire? I mean that was part of the contention there, wasn't it?
11 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour I'm sorry I object to the words
12 used, came up.
13 MR. ACKERMAN: I withdraw the question. I don't even want it
14 answered.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Next question.
16 MR. ACKERMAN:
17 Q. At page 7789 of the Stakic transcript, you said this: "Even the
18 arrival of the journalists only took place, as far as I know, after
19 Karadzic had granted his approval." You may not know this but if you do,
20 tell me, isn't it the case that Karadzic was confronted at the London
21 conference with media reports regarding Omarska. He denied that such
22 camps existed. On additional pressure, he then ordered authorities in the
23 Prijedor area to allow access to these areas where it was claimed that
24 camps existed? Isn't that the way it happened?
25 A. I do not know how things happened. All I heard was that Karadzic
Page 11819
1 was the one who had authorised the visit to the camps by journalists.
2 Q. And do you know that even with Karadzic authorising those visits,
3 the authorities at Omarska would not permit the journalist to visit many
4 parts of that camp?
5 A. That is something that I learned afterwards.
6 Q. Now, as far as you know, the only convoy leaving Trnopolje that
7 required people to sign these documents, relinquishing their property, was
8 that one that was organised by the ICRC and the UNHCR, correct?
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. And you were advised, or the people were advised, after
11 questioning it, by the ICRC, that they should go ahead and sign them,
12 quote, this is your testimony, sir, "Because no laws will acknowledge such
13 documents and you can sign it without worrying because those documents
14 would not be used." That's what you said in Stakic, correct?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. Very briefly I want to ask you a question or two about the issue
17 of rapes occurring at Trnopolje. You had indicated that at least to some
18 extent those rapes were committed by a group of soldiers from a tank unit
19 who called themselves El Maniacos. Is that true?
20 A. Correct, that is true.
21 Q. Do you know anything about that unit, do you know where they were
22 from, who they were, anything about them at all?
23 A. No, I know nothing about that unit.
24 Q. There came a time, didn't there, when the commander of Trnopolje,
25 Major Kuruzovic I think was his name, actually had one of the soldiers
Page 11820
1 accused of coming into the camp and raping women, had him arrested and had
2 him in confinement, true?
3 A. I don't know if Major Kuruzovic did that. What I heard was that
4 one of those soldiers had been locked up in the barracks in Prijedor.
5 Q. And at least somebody thought it their duty to try to punish this
6 particular soldier for what he had done, correct?
7 A. That's what it looks like.
8 Q. And this happened after the authorities at Trnopolje were
9 persuaded to allow some of these women to be taken to Prijedor for
10 examinations to determine if, in fact, they had been raped, correct?
11 A. Correct, but I talked with Dr. Dusko Ivic. He is also a
12 physician. And I don't know who did he talk to. But whatever the case,
13 he took some of those women to Prijedor for examination.
14 Q. And Dr. Dusko Ivic was a Serb doctor, wasn't he?
15 A. Yes, he was.
16 Q. Now, when the rest of the soldiers from this tank group, El
17 Maniacos learned that one of their members had been arrested and was
18 confined at the barracks in Prijedor, they went there with their tanks,
19 pointed the tanks at the barracks, and demanded his release, didn't they?
20 A. What I heard was that they set him free, but how, whether with
21 tanks and pointing their guns, I don't know. But I heard that they got
22 their member free.
23 Q. Well, wasn't that your testimony? That it was tanks pointing at
24 the barracks?
25 A. I wasn't there, so that I don't know whether they were aiming at
Page 11821
1 the barracks or not.
2 Q. During the Stakic testimony, it's actually a videotape that was
3 played, and during that videotape, a narrator says, we may have seen it
4 today "Dr. Idriz says that Trnopolje camp military commander once tried to
5 discipline a rapist." And then apparently you say, "When the rest of the
6 soldiers found out about that," I'm on page 7798, "When the rest of the
7 soldiers found out about that, they got drunk and drove two tanks in front
8 of the main military barracks and gave an ultimatum that the soldier had
9 to be released or else they would shoot at their own barracks so they
10 released the soldier." Now, there is a video, sir, of you saying that,
11 apparently at one point it was your understanding that that's what had
12 happened or were you just making that up?
13 A. No soldier was arrested at Trnopolje in any case, any rapist. I
14 did hear that one of those soldiers were arrested -- was arrested and
15 placed in the barracks, and then those tank operators freed him. They
16 also later came to Trnopolje with two tanks.
17 Q. If they actually went to the barracks and pointed their tanks at
18 the barracks and demanded the release of their fellow soldier, that
19 certainly wasn't within what you would understand normal military
20 discipline, was it?
21 A. [No audible response]
22 MR. ACKERMAN: I heard the witness answer but I didn't get the
23 answer.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I heard him say,"tacan."
25 MR. ACKERMAN: He said, "tacan."
Page 11822
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I answered correct, correct.
2 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. We've got it.
3 Q. In your first statement to the Prosecutor, at page 17, you said
4 this. I'm asking if you recall saying it, "Before the journalists came
5 the Serbs dismantled Keraterm so it looked like no one was ever there.
6 The same happened with Omarska." Do you recall saying that?
7 A. It's possible that I said that, because they did dismantle
8 Keraterm, and if you continue reading my statement, I think that I said
9 that Omarska was partially disbanded and that a certain number of inmates
10 stayed, for whom beds were prepared and food was made and then they were
11 later shown to journalists.
12 Q. I'm going there. You know that when the journalists first visited
13 Omarska however there were a large number of people still confined there,
14 those people later came to Trnopolje or some of them did. Do you know
15 that?
16 A. I don't know where they were, in any case, they hadn't arrived at
17 Trnopolje yet. The journalists did not see them at Omarska and did not
18 have access to all of the rooms. I don't know where those people were at
19 that time, though.
20 Q. I'd like to you look at Exhibit P1134, please. Sir, what you have
21 before you --
22 MR. ACKERMAN: And Your Honours have seen this before.
23 Q. What you have before you is a document entitled "Report of the
24 commission on the inspection of collection centres, other facilities for
25 captives, in the Autonomous Region of Krajina," and it's dated Pale, 17
Page 11823
1 August, 1992. What I want to do is direct your attention to part II of
2 that document, a section headed, "Omarska, near Prijedor." And you'll
3 find a paragraph that begins with, "The prisoners are kept."
4 A. Okay.
5 Q. It says, "The prisoners are kept in a hall containing military
6 camp beds and orderly toilet facilities. Food is provided for them in the
7 workers' canteen. The food is prepared in the mine's central building and
8 is provided on a self-service basis. First aid point is located in one of
9 the offices and is staffed by a physician and a nurse to administer any
10 first aid that may be required. While the more serious cases, the
11 prisoners are transferred to the medical centres in Banja Luka and
12 Prijedor." Now, you have previously said that you were aware that after
13 most of the people were removed from Omarska, that the number of people
14 that stayed there were given food and army beds and sheets so that when
15 the journalists went there a second time, they saw a fairly regular
16 situation. Correct?
17 A. That's true. I talked with many inmates from Omarska who had been
18 there and what I know is that those beds were made up before the arrival
19 of the journalists so as to show to the journalists conditions that did
20 not actually prevail. There are many witnesses from Omarska. I wasn't at
21 Omarska so I cannot testify about Omarska.
22 Q. The statement that we just read from this report, is that not
23 consistent with what you heard?
24 A. No. It does not.
25 Q. All right. Turn back to the section labelled with a number 1,
Page 11824
1 "Trnopolje, near Prijedor." Understanding that we are talking about
2 August of 1992, in the second paragraph, "The number of residents at this
3 centre changes daily because their movement is in no way restricted and
4 they can leave for a destination of their own choice after obtaining the
5 relevant documents." Is that true?
6 A. A part of that is true. After the journalists visited, when the
7 wire was taken down, it was permitted for visits to take place at the
8 camp, which means that women who had their husbands or children at the
9 camp were permitted to come to the camp, even to bring food. They would
10 leave their ID card with the guards and after a certain amount of time,
11 they could leave again, take their ID card back, and leave the camp.
12 Q. All right. I have just a very few more questions to ask you. I
13 want to look at the photograph again, P1128-26, I believe is the one I
14 want to see and have you look at. That's it. Now, sir, that's a
15 photograph of the entry area to the clinic you described where the
16 dentist's offices were and things of that nature, correct?
17 A. Yes. At the clinic in Kozarac.
18 Q. And this is taken about four years after the fighting that went on
19 there, isn't it?
20 A. [No interpretation]
21 Q. Taken in 1996, correct?
22 A. Yes, that's correct.
23 Q. And there had been damage done to that building by vandalism in
24 the intervening nearly four years, hadn't there?
25 A. I think that there was also some damage that was caused by the
Page 11825
1 weather, with the passage of time.
2 Q. It appears that there has been a flood there. If you look at
3 those polls that sit in front of that thing there, the black that comes
4 way up to the top of the steps, that's indicative of there being a flood
5 and that having all been under water, isn't it? Do you know anything
6 about a flood occurring there?
7 A. No. As far as I know, Kozarac is elevated, especially the clinic,
8 so it's not possible for that area to be flooded. In order for floods to
9 come up that high, there would have to be a lot of rain. Everything would
10 have to be soaked and the level of water to be high enough to come into
11 the clinic building, I cannot believe that.
12 Q. Okay. The -- this clinic was a clinic for the whole of the
13 Kozarac area, was it not?
14 A. That's correct.
15 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... treatment of everybody that
16 lived there. It wasn't just a Muslim clinic, was it?
17 A. That's correct, and also the people who worked there were not only
18 Muslims. Other people worked there as well.
19 Q. And that symbol you see in two places on that building, the circle
20 with the X in it, that had nothing to do with that being a Muslim
21 building, did it?
22 A. No. I don't think that that had anything to do with that because
23 that wouldn't make sense because it wasn't a Muslim building.
24 Q. All right. That symbol, in fact -- maybe you don't know this,
25 that symbol is an international symbol that I understand that deals with
Page 11826
1 buildings that are dangerous, under repair, things of that nature, it
2 tends to be a warning to stay out, do you know that?
3 A. No. I don't know that. I'm not familiar with such symbols.
4 Q. In speaking during your direct examination about people getting on
5 the convoys and leaving Trnopolje, you used the phrase, "People who were
6 banished from the territory." Didn't you?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. Isn't it true that people were basically clamouring to get on
9 those buses? They were demanding to get on those buses and get out of
10 there?
11 A. That's correct. People wanted ultimately to leave that territory
12 as fast as possible so that they would not be exposed to danger.
13 Q. Yes. Do you know, it was very early, very shortly after your
14 arrival at Trnopolje, that the Serbian Red Cross arrived, correct?
15 A. That's true.
16 Q. Do you know if the Serbian Red Cross was ever in Keraterm or
17 Omarska?
18 A. That is something that I don't know.
19 Q. The Trnopolje, to the extent that it had administration, it was
20 all army, wasn't it? The commander was military, the guards were military
21 and so forth?
22 A. Yes. That's right. Baltic Rade was there often as well as Ostoja
23 Skrbic as civilians. Whether they had some part or role in that, I don't
24 know.
25 Q. The pictures that were taken with the camera that Azra had brought
Page 11827
1 into Trnopolje of Nedzad Jakupovic, the two pictures that were you shown
2 earlier, you said that when you took these pictures, you were trying to do
3 it in a way so that the person whose picture was being taken would not be
4 aware that he was being photographed. Is that what you said?
5 A. In any case, we hoped that that person would not notice that they
6 were being photographed.
7 Q. It looks to me like these pictures were taken with a flash. Am I
8 wrong about that?
9 A. No. Perhaps you're right. Yes, perhaps they were taken with a
10 flash. Azra would know whether the camera had a flash. But I think that
11 you are right.
12 Q. Did you ever see the video where Nedzad Jakupovic describes how
13 he -- how his eye was injured?
14 A. I don't remember. It's possible that I did see it but I can't
15 remember that.
16 Q. Did he tell you how his eye was injured?
17 A. Not particularly about his eye. He was beaten on several
18 occasions. We only photographed that the first time. Later we also had
19 more contacts with him and he told us that he was beaten, that he had
20 received a beating.
21 Q. Did he tell you that he injured his eye when he was trying to leap
22 out of a window and hit the wall instead?
23 A. No. He didn't tell me that.
24 Q. You spoke about the document that you were asked to sign before
25 you were put on the last convoy and taken from Trnopolje. You said you
Page 11828
1 tore yours up and threw it away. Does that mean you refused to sign it?
2 A. No. Only when I left the camp, when we arrived at Karlovac, I
3 don't know whether this was out of rage or something, but I took it and I
4 tore it up, and now I wish that I had kept it. I had to sign it, and I
5 ripped it up only after I left Serb territory.
6 Q. You actually signed it and there should be a copy of it somewhere,
7 the one you signed?
8 A. It should be.
9 Q. You asked by Ms. Korner if you have been back to Prijedor since
10 you were, and this was her word, expelled. Tell us what you did to try to
11 keep from going on that last convoy?
12 A. What do you mean? I didn't do anything not to get into that
13 convoy. I was registered and of course I wanted to be included in the
14 convoy just like the other inmates, because I wanted to leave that
15 territory, where there was a danger every day for somebody to come and
16 kill you.
17 Q. The last thing that Ms. Korner asked you was about a question and
18 she really didn't go into it very much but a question that was asked you
19 by Judge -- one of the Judges, I think it was Judge Schomburg in Stakic.
20 It was Judge Schomburg, with regard to who was responsible for what
21 happened. And you gave a fairly long answer to that question that was
22 primarily your guesses as to what -- who might have been responsible. But
23 the fact is you have no idea, do you?
24 A. That's correct.
25 MR. ACKERMAN: That's all I have, Your Honour. Thank you.
Page 11829
1 JUDGE AGIUS: Is there any re-examination, Ms. Korner?
2 Re-examined by Ms. Korner:
3 Q. Would you have wanted to leave your home in Prijedor and your
4 clinic if the attack on Kozarac had not taken place?
5 A. Of course I wouldn't want to leave that area, if the war and all
6 of those events hadn't come about.
7 Q. When you got on that bus and went and were taken to Karlovac, you
8 told us that you wanted to get out, were you doing that voluntarily, of
9 your free will?
10 A. I didn't understand the question. What do you mean? Did I want
11 to get on the bus voluntarily or did I want to go further once I reached
12 Karlovac? I'm not sure about the question.
13 Q. When you got on that bus, on one of the last buses that left
14 Trnopolje, was that because you wanted to leave the Prijedor region for
15 good?
16 A. I didn't think that I would be leaving that area for good but at
17 that moment, I was happy to be leaving that place. I did think that I
18 would come back one day, though.
19 Q. And you were happy to be leaving that place why?
20 A. Because the uncertainty in the camp, that any day, anybody could
21 come in and kill you or beat you up, was unbearable, not only for me but
22 for the majority of those in the camp or who were staying in houses. They
23 were all happy to leave that area so that they would no longer be in
24 danger.
25 MS. KORNER: Yes, thank you very much, doctor.
Page 11830
1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Dr. Merdzanic, that brings your testimony to
2 an end. And you should be able to return home pretty quickly. As you
3 see, your testimony lasted just this sitting and that's very good.
4 However, before you leave this courtroom, it is my responsibility
5 and my wish to thank you for having accepted to come again to this
6 Tribunal to give evidence, and I can assure you that you will be taken
7 care of between now and your return to your country. The usher will
8 escort you out of the courtroom and you'll be attended to as necessary.
9 Thank you.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And thank you.
11 [The witness withdrew]
12 JUDGE AGIUS: And so that being it, we will resume on the 20th.
13 MR. ACKERMAN: I think we meet in the afternoon on the 20th, Your
14 Honour.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: I think so, yes.
16 MR. ACKERMAN: There is one matter I want to bring to your
17 attention and maybe you can just pass a word to facilitate this. We had a
18 near problem over being able to proceed today, and that was this: I
19 provided Mr. Brdjanin with the tapes from Stakic of this witness's
20 testimony. When he was taken from here to the detention centre they took
21 them away from him. They said they would give it back to him that
22 evening, they didn't. He called me Saturday morning to tell me he didn't
23 have the tapes. I started making inquiry of the detention centre. They
24 finally were able to locate them. They had given them to some other
25 detainee, which in itself is cause for alarm because what if this had been
Page 11831
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Page 11832
1 a protected witness? And somehow, there has to be a mechanism worked out
2 where I can give him these tapes and he can take them to his cell without
3 them being given to people who probably have no business looking at them
4 in the first place, especially if we are dealing with protected witnesses
5 and fortunately I was able, with several phone calls on Saturday to
6 emphasise how important it was and he was able to get them by noon on
7 Saturday and then he and I were able to have a conversation late Sunday
8 about his having listened to them. So fortunately it was a short witness
9 and he was able to listen to them in that period of time.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Ackerman, for bringing this up.
11 The Chamber orders that this part of the transcript is copied and
12 communicated to Mr. Tim McFadden for his information and any appropriate
13 action that may be necessary now and in the future, particularly with a
14 view to avoiding repetitions of this accident, of this incident. Yes, Ms.
15 Korner.
16 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the only query I have is Your Honour was
17 going to make an inquiry and from the point of view of organising
18 witnesses as to whether we were going to find a court to sit on Friday,
19 the 22nd, because at the moment we are in a court that has court
20 maintenance.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.
22 MS. KORNER: And we really -- if Your Honours could or your legal
23 staff could get us a message so we know which witnesses to organise.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Registrar, please liaise with Madam Chuqing
25 as she was supposed to have worked on this and what the situation would
Page 11833
1 be. And as soon as there is a possibility of reply, of feedback, please
2 let everyone know about it. Okay. Thank.
3 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour I must know by tomorrow who the
4 witness will be on the 20th or that it will be one of two or three
5 witnesses because I have to get the tapes to Mr. Brdjanin on Tuesday. I
6 can't get them to him after that.
7 MS. KORNER: Your Honour we can certainly let Mr. Ackerman know
8 who is coming on the 20th. It's a question of who else is coming up that
9 week because as I recall, all of the people listed are all effectively
10 like today's witness, shortish. But that's why I say I agree with
11 Mr. Ackerman if we could know tomorrow please whether we've got the Court
12 then we can actually give the definitive list.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I thank you all. See you on the 20th. Thank
14 you.
15 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
16 1.45 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,
17 the 20th day of November, 2002, at 2.15 p.m.
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