1 Wednesday, 2 March 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.28 p.m.

6 JUDGE LIU: Call the case, please, Madam Court Deputy.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case

8 number IT-01-48-T, the Prosecutor versus Sefer Halilovic..

9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

10 Well, I understand that it was snowing outside, so the traffic

11 may be very difficult at this moment.

12 So shall we start? Ms. Chana, please continue.

13 MS. CHANA: [Microphone not activated]

14 Thank you very much, Your Honours.

15 WITNESS: JUSUF JASAREVIC [Resumed]

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 Examined by Ms. Chana: [Continued]

18 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Jasarevic.

19 Before the break yesterday, we were discussing this document,

20 MFI215, which was this report on the matters in Grabovica and it was

21 addressed to you personally. Do you remember that?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Now, did you ever have occasion to meet Mr. Dzankovic personally

24 over this matter?

25 A. From late 1993, I don't think that I've ever seen Dzankovic since

1 then.

2 Q. Over the matter of this -- the crimes which had been committed in

3 the village of Grabovica. You got the report. You gave various taskings.

4 Was it just in -- in a written communication or did you ever meet with him

5 personally?

6 A. As I said, he left the security administration in late 1993. If

7 I remember correctly, it's either late 1993 or early 1994. Sometime in

8 that period. He left the security administration. He was working

9 somewhere else. So I didn't really have the opportunity to see him again

10 and talk to him about this matter, except for the period when he was at

11 the administration following his return from Grabovica. That is

12 understood.

13 Q. So did you talk to him about the crimes committed in Grabovica,

14 face to face?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. What was the discussion? What was the nature of this discussion

17 when you met him?

18 A. You know, I wasn't his immediate superior. Mr. Dzankovic had two

19 other officers between him and myself. He had the chief of the sector and

20 then chief of the department and then me.

21 At the beginning, Dzankovic seemed a little bit resigned, a bit

22 frightened, dissatisfied. Of course, as far as I can remember that now, I

23 was not satisfied with his reactions. It seemed to me as if he were

24 disorganised, worked in a disorganised manner. I wasn't satisfied with

25 the way he was coping. Perhaps I was expecting a bit more. At the time

1 and now, I objectively felt that he couldn't give more, work better. I

2 don't know whether there were any other reasons for that, but he was a bit

3 discouraged and perhaps those things contributed to his leaving the

4 military security service.

5 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, I'm asking about the discussions which took place

6 between you and Dzankovic when you met over this issue about the crimes

7 committed in Grabovica. Can you please assist the Court and tell them

8 what were the nature of these discussions? What did you say to each

9 other, in respect of this one matter and this one meeting, please.

10 A. In spite of my best efforts, I really cannot recall such

11 particulars. This was a long time ago, and my thinking right now about

12 the way he worked then is more based on reports rather than conversations

13 we had at that time.

14 Q. Did he ever report back to you about his ability to investigate

15 this matter?

16 A. I don't think that he did. I cannot remember that either. If he

17 did submit a report of any kind, that would be recorded somewhere. But I

18 did receive his report from the field dated the 10th of October in

19 response to the tasks that I set out for him when he left on the 21st of

20 September.

21 Q. Did you yourself follow up this matter in any other way?

22 A. In what time period and what matter?

23 Q. The crimes in Grabovica. You gave some taskings to various

24 people, as I recall, in your testimony yesterday and you also put forward

25 this information to the six addressees. Is there anything else you

1 yourself did in this matter?

2 A. Yes, I understand the question now. Yes. When I talked about

3 the drafting of the plan to resolve the problem of lack of discipline in

4 the 1st Corps with the glaring examples of the 9th and 10th Brigades in

5 this respect, the event in Grabovica, the crime there only speeded up the

6 implementation of that commitment to resolve that problem the way this

7 happened. Before that, all the information and the reports that we

8 received from the field were included in other reports which were then

9 sent to all the addressees that I mentioned earlier.

10 Q. But in respect of these particular crimes which you got notice of

11 from various sources, did you yourself do anything else?

12 A. Other than what I've already said, including them into reports

13 which were forwarded to our superiors, the security service of the 1st

14 Corps was informed about this and then teamwork followed, organised in the

15 Trebevic operation, according to a special plan and in which I

16 participated in team number 2, the team for operational evaluation of that

17 problem -- the task -- and also reviewing the tasks of the problem for

18 Trebevic I and Trebevic II, which followed.

19 Q. Do you know whether there was an IKM in Jablanica?

20 A. I don't know. I don't know that there was an IKM in Jablanica.

21 I already commented on that in my earlier testimony.

22 Q. Were you aware around 24th September 1993 that the same troops

23 who had been accused of committing these crimes in the village of

24 Grabovica were to be redeployed in another military operation? Were you

25 aware of any information of that nature?

1 A. I don't recall that.

2 Q. And I would now like to show you a document, Mr. Jasarevic, and

3 that's MFI217, Your Honours. It's 04036168.

4 MS. CHANA: Sorry, it's 6182.

5 MR. MORRISSEY: I'm sorry, Your Honour. I -- I apologise for

6 interrupting. I -- I seem to have the B/C/S version of that on my screen

7 right now.

8 MS. CHANA: Your Honours, may I just clarify this particular

9 document. It's 167, 65 ter number, and it's 04036168.

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Thank you. I'm now ready to proceed.

11 MS. CHANA:

12 Q. Can you please tell me about this document, Mr. Jasarevic. Can

13 you please tell me who is it from and who is it to and whether you've seen

14 it before.

15 A. I've seen this document before obviously, because up here there

16 is a remark of mine about these two tasks. Again, it's addressed to Vahid

17 Bogunic. And then it says that he should be informed about it, as my

18 deputy. He's a person who deals with counter-intelligence affairs.

19 The second task is Dzevad Jusic. He was the superior officer in

20 the security administration, and he carried out the counter-intelligence

21 protection of the Supreme Command Staff, so it was given to him to review

22 all the options of using the Rotor source.

23 Yesterday I spoke a lot about operational or operative work,

24 different aspects of that. So this document was drafted as a product of

25 operative work. The source refers to Rotor. He provided information from

1 the security service of the 1st Corps and this information was relayed to

2 me via this document. Obviously this document was something that was in

3 my possession and I had indicated all the tasks on the document, as you

4 can see up at the top of the paper.

5 Q. I'd like to take you to page 2 in the English. I don't know

6 what -- I think it's probably the same page for you. You've only got one

7 page. It's about the fourth paragraph. And it's -- and it starts "At the

8 meeting ...." Are you with me, Mr. Jasarevic?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Yes. Now, "At the meeting, Halilovic requested that the units or

11 parts of units under the command of the above-stated persons be prepared

12 and sent towards the Herzegovinian theatre of war, which they refused."

13 Rotor then states that around 0200 hours can the Halilovic phoned Delalic

14 and requested him to carry out his own. Delalic's order is not known to

15 Rotor."

16 Mr. Jasarevic, does that mean that these troops were to be

17 redeployed for another military operation? Was that your understanding?

18 A. I cannot interpret this in any more detail than it's stated here.

19 The only thing I can do is to assume that this should have been to some

20 extent a continuation of the combat that was going on in the Herzegovina

21 area, most probably, in September, in early September.

22 Q. So the troops were to continue the combat operations - is that

23 right - in early September?

24 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, I object to that.

25 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

1 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, this witness has scrupulously

2 continued to indicate that this is just operative information. He's not

3 to be asked to comment upon it as if it's true by my learned friend.

4 If he had an opinion, if he knew about combat operations in

5 Herzegovina, then my friend can certainly ask him about that. But the

6 objection is to the question as it's currently framed.

7 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Ms. Chana, first of all, you have to ask a

8 question whether this witness knew about that operation or not or knew

9 about this document or not and to lay the proper foundations for your

10 questions.

11 MS. CHANA: Yes, Your Honour. I think the witness has indicated

12 that he had actually marked on the document and he had seen it. And my

13 question was not as much, Your Honours, on the truth of the -- of the

14 matter but the fact that that's what the document reflects, and I think

15 that's what the witness has already said. So I'll move on from that

16 question, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Yes, please.

18 MS. CHANA:

19 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, now I would like to ask you about Trebevic --

20 Operation Trebevic, that you talked about earlier, and you were going to

21 tell the Chamber before I interrupted you yesterday about the various

22 teams which were deployed in this operation. Can you please now detail

23 for the Chamber about these teams and what Trebevic operation was all

24 about.

25 A. The Trebevic operation, in accordance with the decision of the

1 Presidency and the Supreme Command, was implemented by the Main Staff of

2 the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the MUP. The objective of the

3 operation was to deal with deviant conduct and those units which were

4 outside of the regular command and control system, primarily the parts of

5 the 1st Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina; namely, the 9th and

6 the 10th Brigades of that corps.

7 The reason the Trebevic operation was speeded up was because of

8 the crime in Glogovac [as interpreted]. There was a plan already for the

9 implementation of this operation, and yesterday I already said that it was

10 especially grave and difficult task that everyone was facing in order to

11 make sure that the defence of the city of Sarajevo remained intact and

12 that it shouldn't be jeopardised in any way.

13 The plan was sets up in such a way that it was implemented

14 through teams. That's what we called them conditionally, which were those

15 who were supposed to carry out this plan.

16 There were three teams. The first team was the command and

17 control team of the operation, comprising the commander of the army,

18 Mr. Rasim Delic; the MUP minister, Mr. Bakir Alispahic; the commander of

19 the 1st Corps, Mr. Vahid Karavelic. That was number-one control and

20 command body.

21 Team number 2 was in charge of operative work for the compilation

22 of operative data and all those tasks which are part of that particular

23 professional skill.

24 I was in that team on behalf of the army security service

25 administration. Mr. Nedzad Ugljen was also a part of the team. And as an

1 assassination attempt was made against him, and it succeeded, so the

2 person is unfortunately no longer alive.

3 Also the deputy minister for defence was also one of his posts.

4 The third person in this team was Mr. Sacir Arnautovic, who was

5 the chief of the military security service.

6 The third team with the team for the immediate control of the

7 units -- direct control of the units, which according to the plan and the

8 evaluation were to take part in the blockade of the command of the units

9 which were the subjects of the operation and the ones that were creating a

10 problem. That was one of the most serious aspects of this operation, how

11 to actually deal with that particular matter to avoid a large number of

12 casualties.

13 We did expect casualties. We made very precise estimates, made a

14 valuation of all the options.

15 The third team included the deputy commander of the 1st Corps,

16 Mr. Ismet Dahic; the commander of the special MUP unit, Mr. Dragan Vikic;

17 and the commander of the military police of the General Staff, Mr. Dzevad

18 Radzo [phoen]. These were the three teams that were leading the

19 operation, and in the control and command aspect implemented the Trebevic

20 I operation.

21 Q. Yes. Can -- can you tell us what happened?

22 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, sorry, just -- may I just intervene

23 there. There was a reference there to -- at page 8, line 8 to what's

24 being translated as the village of Glogovac. My instructions are that --

25 that it sounded as if it was Grabovica and it might be important for the

1 witness just to clarify whether there's a translation error or whether

2 that's what he meant. I'm -- because for myself, I can't hear. So -- I'm

3 sorry to interrupt my friend, and it's not a criticism. It's just that

4 that issue arose and I think that perhaps is now to time to fix it, if

5 possible.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: Yes, it was

7 Grabovica.

8 MR. MORRISSEY: I see yes, the -- the record reveals that the

9 interpreter has corrected that to Grabovica, and I'm satisfied with that,

10 Your Honour. Thank you.

11 MS. CHANA: Thank you.

12 Q. Sorry, Mr. Jasarevic. Would you tell us then about this

13 operation and how -- whether it was implemented -- implemented.

14 A. Other than the teams that I mentioned, significant forces were

15 also planned to be used in a blockade if there was a conflict with these

16 people. The leadership was very decisive in its intention to deal with

17 this problem.

18 If I remember well, seven or eight units were allocated and they

19 were standing by just in case they were needed. This was a tactical

20 aspect. They were to operate in two levels. First were the special units

21 of the MUP and the army. They went directly to the command posts of these

22 brigades. Some units were blocked where they were in order to prevent any

23 unforeseen reactions and so that these units could be stopped.

24 The second layer or level was planned in a way that units were

25 taken from other brigades about the strength of a battalion, because it

1 was impossible to predict exactly what would happen. So these units were

2 planned to be used in the second echelon just in case they were needed.

3 The very beginning of the operation was prepared and conducted in

4 the greatest of secrecy. All of us who were taking part in that

5 operation, from the Presidency down, were concerned that if the units

6 found out about this, the units against whom the operation was directed,

7 there could be some incidents. It was especially important to us to avoid

8 any units leaving the lines. On the other hand, it was very important to

9 keep such information confidential because of the enemy forces, because

10 purely from a military point of view if the enemy found out that we were

11 dealing with such serious problems within our own ranks, in our own house,

12 so to speak, it would be favourable for them to launch an offensive

13 against us, and then they would be in a favourable position. That is why

14 secrecy was an extremely important factor in the operation. Perhaps I

15 could be wrong in some details, but I think that around 1.00 a.m. on the

16 25th, 26th October the president made this decision. He actually launched

17 the operation or gave the word that the operation should be launched.

18 At about 2.00 a.m., we found ourselves at the MUP building, and

19 we acted in accordance with the elements that I mentioned. The units from

20 the first echelon that I mentioned had developed their own part of the

21 tasks. Each one of the teams did that. These units had such positions

22 which enabled them to quickly block the commands of the units.

23 We had estimated that not all the units were of the same opinion

24 as their extremist members were, but some of these extremist members of

25 the units were able to maybe carry the rest of the -- the troops along

1 with them. So that was one of our concerns.

2 This task was carried out quite successfully in the 9th Brigade.

3 We had very good operative positions there. This would prove to be a very

4 good thing later. And this enabled us to very easily convince Ramiz

5 Delalic to surrender himself. He agreed to talk and then surrendered, so

6 there was no clash in that particular instance, and he was detained.

7 There were some other people, and this will turn out to be so

8 later, because we're talking about several hundred people who were

9 detained that night and the next day to the physical culture hall in the

10 centre of Sarajevo; that's where they were taken. There was a major

11 problem concerning the 10th Brigade, however. I don't know whether some

12 tactical mistakes were made there, as that unit and their command was

13 being approached. I don't know. I'm not able to give any comments on

14 that particular aspect of the operation. But what happened there was that

15 Caco and his closest security and inner command put up resistance. While

16 putting up armed resistance, they practically massacred three men from the

17 military police crimes platoon of the General Staff, which included the

18 son of a very respectable man, an official in the MUP and then later in

19 the army. We're talking about Hebib, the son of Mr. Avdo Hebib.

20 Some details were talked about later. I think they also turned

21 up in reports, stating that they had thrown him from I don't know which

22 floor down to the concrete. They also stabbed him with knives, shot him

23 with pistols. I can't remember all the details. They're perhaps not all

24 that important. But anyway, a battle erupted, and Caco, who would be

25 killed later, that morning and that afternoon on the 26th, the command

1 post of the 10th Brigade, the conflict there resulted in 15 or 16 people

2 being killed. Perhaps I'm wrong by one or two numbers. We could see that

3 things were becoming very complicated there and would not be resolved so

4 easily.

5 The state leadership was very concerned. This was not only the

6 problem of an individual but it was a problem that caused concern to the

7 entire military, political, and police leadership. We were trying to find

8 a way to approach Caco, to get him to surrender in order to prevent even

9 greater casualties, to prevent his own men from getting killed. All the

10 time there was the fear that if this was something that the enemy on the

11 hills found out about, then they would use that and that would really

12 create chaos and they would try to enter the town.

13 I know that several people made an attempt and finally Mr. Jusuf

14 Pusonja, if I remember correctly, succeeded in getting in touch with Caco,

15 Musan Topalovic, Caco, and his inner circle of security, and they managed

16 to convince him to give himself up and they took him to the 1st Corps. He

17 was given assurances that he would not be abused, that he would be given a

18 fair trial, and so on and so forth. So he and that group of people who

19 were immediately around him were taken to the 1st Corps.

20 So after the very first initial triage, he was taken to the

21 central prison with that group. That's where they were all detained.

22 They were taken into custody. There's a police report about this.

23 Because there was no electricity in Sarajevo at that time. It was dark.

24 It was already night, very late in the day on the 26th of October.

25 According to the police reports at the time there was Kralja Tomislava

1 Street which runs into Titova Street. He tried to escape in a van that

2 had two back doors. This was stated in the police report because the park

3 was very close to the sidewalk. It was about 1 to 1.5 metres away from

4 the sidewalk.

5 Q. Yes, thank you, Mr. Jasarevic. These are details which are very

6 interesting but perhaps not so helpful to Their Honours.

7 Now, you said that the plan was successful --

8 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, my friend did ask the question, and

9 it's a little unfair to cut it off at that vert moment. The next detail

10 may have some relevance and it should be allowed to finish. I think the

11 witness was probably one line away from finishing there.

12 JUDGE LIU: Well, if there's only one line left, so let the

13 witness finish his answer.

14 MS. CHANA:

15 Q. Yes. What were you going to say, Mr. Jasarevic. Finish your

16 one line, please.

17 A. A line or two maybe. Caco tried to escape. He tried to escape

18 to the nearby park. The police officers who were escorting him opened

19 fire and at daybreak the next day he was found in the park. He had been

20 killed or seriously wounded. I can't remember exactly what the police

21 found. But what was ascertained is that he was killed while trying to

22 escape, while he was being escorted. That's all I have to say about that,

23 but I can tell you about the triage at the FIS building with several

24 hundred people involved.

25 Q. I'm not quite -- I don't understand the word "triage." What's

1 the meaning of the word "triage"?

2 A. During the action, lots of people were detained, whoever was

3 within the command area, people belonging to the brigade. This was done

4 because of the lack of trust, because not all the details could be

5 foreseen. I think hundreds of people were detained, maybe 500 or 600

6 people, although I may be wrong about the figure, and more than 50

7 operations officers whose assistance was enlisted by the MUP, the 1st

8 Corps, the State Security Service, were detached from their brigades.

9 People from four or five different bodies, 50 or 60 operatives, who

10 briefly screened the people assembled there. Those who had been picked

11 up, they checked to see who should remain there and who should be

12 released. They wanted to see which of those people rounded up had

13 committed violations of discipline.

14 Several hundred statements were taken after detention was

15 determined, several hundred statements. Four copies were made of each:

16 One to the military prosecutor, one to the MUP, and one to the

17 administration.

18 Q. What happened to Sefer Halilovic during this time?

19 A. Your Honours, during this time there was no trust in Sefer

20 Halilovic. As far as I remember, the reason was to keep the brigades from

21 learning about the operation. This was based on operative information

22 which, if memory serves, we spoke about in great detail yesterday.

23 Mr. Halilovic was in his office with his security people. I

24 think it was the next day or perhaps two days later. I was given an

25 assignment by these teams running the operation to get in touch with

1 Mr. Sefer Halilovic and tell him that he should be interviewed in the

2 State Security Service. I went to see him and told him that he should

3 come with me to the MUP building. His driver, Mr. Halilovic, and I all

4 got into the car and we set out.

5 I noticed that Mr. Sefer Halilovic was visibly excited. I'm not

6 sure if I should say "frightened." But it was clearly visible that he was

7 in an unpleasant position. He was not being arrested, as I told him. He

8 was just coming for an interview. He asked me, "Jusuf, am I under

9 arrest," something along these lines. I can't remember the specific

10 wording. And I said, "Chief, sir, you are not under arrest. You are just

11 going for an interview." His response was very soldierly and very

12 disciplined.

13 I took him to the MUP building. He was interviewed by two

14 individuals. I know their names, but I don't know what happened later on.

15 One of them was Borisa Delic, an experienced state security officer.

16 Before the war, he used to be chief of the Sarajevo State Security

17 Service. And the other man was from the security administration. He was

18 chief of one of the sectors in the counter-intelligence department. He

19 had no rank at the time, but he was soon to be promoted to the rank of

20 colonel, Hamzo Popovic. Even before the war, he was a security officer.

21 He had been trained to work as a security officer. They had a lot of

22 respect for Mr. Halilovic and his authority, so two very experienced

23 officers were selected from the security service to conduct this

24 interview.

25 I was not present during the interview, nor did I ever drive

1 Sefer Halilovic there again or drive him back. He was treated fairly. I

2 have never heard anything to suggest otherwise.

3 Q. What happened to Sefer Halilovic after this, this time?

4 A. The interview went on for several days. Throughout the

5 operation, one was in permanent communication with Mr. Izetbegovic, the

6 president of the Presidency. One used a messenger because one tended not

7 to trust phone calls. I can't specify the time intervals, but they would

8 often get in touch with the president to ask his opinion and position.

9 They would also report to the president.

10 As concerns Mr. Sefer Halilovic, as far as I remember, because I

11 never talked to the president myself, although I talked to the gentlemen

12 who were part of the teams, especially the team of which I was a member,

13 and these persons told me that the president was adamant that Sefer should

14 be treated in a fair manner. He greatly appreciated Sefer's contribution

15 to the army, how the army was developed and what his contribution was as a

16 professional officer.

17 Eventually when a criminal report was filed against Sefer

18 Halilovic, which I didn't actually see but I was told that one had been

19 filed -- according to my information, although I didn't hear this

20 directly - this is just a piece of information that I had at the time -

21 this criminal report was stopped and Mr. Halilovic was not prosecuted.

22 There were no further attempts to prove him guilty following that report.

23 As is well known - I'm not sure about the specific date, whether it was

24 right after or a little later - Mr. Halilovic was retired, prior to which

25 he had been promoted to the rank of general. I thought this was some sort

1 of a sop but also a sort of recognition that he received for his work and

2 his contribution.

3 It is important to point out, Your Honours, that throughout the

4 operation the military prosecutor was being updated permanently on what

5 was going on. There was constant ongoing cooperation. This cooperation

6 was very lively, both day and night.

7 Q. Thank you, Mr. Jasarevic. I just want to show you a couple of

8 more documents before I complete your testimony.

9 MS. CHANA: Can the witness please be shown MFI157 -- sorry, 65

10 ter number 157, which is MFI218. And it's 04036182.

11 Q. Do you see this document, Mr. Jasarevic? Could you please tell

12 us what it is.

13 A. I've seen this document before, but what I see here certainly

14 helps to jog my memory. I am here giving an assignment to Vahid Bogunic

15 to provide assignments and instructions to the sector for the

16 counter-intelligence protection of the Main Staff and command. What you

17 see here in bold letters, "A/A," and then the initials here, this was the

18 chief of the section, Mr. Dzevad Jusic and here you see my signature. The

19 analytical department had the task to unite information from documents by

20 the 1st Corps. Was it before or later? This is 17/64 and this is 17/63.

21 So this is a document by the 1st Corps security, and this was done, but on

22 page 2 I see the stamp, and this is the 2nd or the 12th -- about the 2nd

23 of March, 1994; whereas, on this document, the date I see is the 8th of

24 October. I'm not sure how this discrepancy in date came about.

25 Oh, by the way, I'm not sure if I've said this before:

1 Throughout 1994, the military security service was within the

2 administration of the Defence ministry. It was no longer attached to the

3 Main Staff.

4 I have seen this document before, and this is what it speaks

5 about. It speaks about information --

6 MS. CHANA: [Previous translation continues] ...

7 MR. MORRISSEY: I'm sorry, may I just intervene for a moment

8 there. I have a problem on my screen here. It may be that this document

9 is similar to or the same as the previous document, but it looks to me as

10 if I've got the same document on the screen as I had before. And I --

11 perhaps I could think just confirm that it's -- it's not an administrative

12 error; in fact, what is being done here is that my friend is tendering

13 another copy of the same document that may have different markings on it

14 or -- I'm just not quite sure what I am looking at now, frankly, I'm sorry

15 to say. So could that just be clarified.

16 MS. CHANA: Let me confirm. The document the witness is looking

17 at. This is dated 7th October 1993.

18 Q. Is that correct? And it has an attachment to it. Is that

19 correct, Mr. Jasarevic? I don't know whether learned counsel has got the

20 same document.

21 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, sorry, yes, I can confirm -- I think I have

22 got that same document, at least the front page of it, as the Court may

23 have, dated the 7th, but when my friend refers to an attachment, at the

24 moment I only have the first page up in front of me, so I can't confirm

25 that. And I think the witness is referring to some notations upon it in

1 the B/C/S version, and we have the English version, so we -- we don't --

2 we can't see that.

3 It's just that a previous exhibit appeared to be this document

4 some -- some, say, ten minutes ago, and I don't know whether this is

5 another copy of the same document or whether it's one which was written on

6 subsequently. And I think that just should be confirmed just so that we

7 know which one we're dealing with, for cross-examination.

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

9 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, may I correct the record and state the

10 numbers again. This is -- was 65 ter, was 157. Now it's MFI217, and the

11 number is 04036182. It may look similar to the old document, but this is

12 certainly a new document, and it's got 10-page addition to it.

13 Your Honour, perhaps that's the problem with e-court. You can't

14 see the entire document at one time.

15 Q. Do you see the attachment, Mr. Jasarevic?

16 A. I see the attachment, but there's something I don't understand.

17 Page 1 of this document is dated the 7th of October, 1993. What I saw at

18 the time or what I suggested with my handwriting on the upper right-hand

19 side and the attachments I have bear the dates 2nd of March, 1994. And

20 this is what confuses me. And I can't see -- when I look at these

21 attachments, it's impossible for me to conclude who they belong to because

22 I didn't normally leave a document unsigned. That is why I was confused

23 by these attachments.

24 Page 1 is all right. There is nothing strange about page 1. But

25 I find the attachments very confusing.

1 Q. Perhaps if I show you another document. I'll leave this

2 document, Mr. Jasarevic. And which is 04036297, MFI218.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: Sorry, could I just enquire what's the 65 ter

4 number of that one.

5 MS. CHANA: The 65 ter number is 158.

6 MR. MORRISSEY: Thank you.

7 MS. CHANA:

8 Q. Have you seen this document before?

9 A. It doesn't bear my initials or the instructions that I would

10 usually include. Based on that, I would include that I have not seen this

11 document before. However, I commented on a very similar document

12 yesterday. This was produced by the State Security Service, and it shows

13 a cross-section of their operative information, the information that they

14 forwarded.

15 What I said about yesterday's document is what I can say about

16 this one. This is operative information, the sort of information that we

17 used, since this is a highly respected institution, the institution that

18 produced this document. We used this information to produce our special

19 reports and our reports to our superiors. I explained that this is a

20 document containing operative information. And if I may also add, that

21 this document was not signed or stamped and it wasn't filed except by the

22 security administration once it had arrived. It wasn't filed. I can't

23 see the file number that should have been placed there by the state

24 security.

25 You can see the number of the copy and you can see that this

1 document is a state secret. This was only possible with the MUP, the

2 Ministry of the Interior, because in the army we used the term "military

3 secret." I'm not sure what else I should say in addition to the comments

4 I made yesterday about operative information.

5 Q. But the information is similar in both these --

6 MR. MORRISSEY: Wait. Just a minute, please. Well, I object to

7 this being taken any further. Given what the witness has now said, he

8 doesn't say he's seen it. Again, the situation is if my friend has to --

9 has evidence that she wants to elicit from this witness as to matters

10 relevant to Mr. Halilovic, well, of course that's legitimate. But we're

11 now back in the same position. This is effectively not his document. He

12 may know something about operative measures. In fact, he obviously does

13 know something about operative measures. And in the times somewhere

14 around the offences that Mr. Halilovic is charged with, that may be

15 relevant. We've now moved into March 2000 -- sorry, March 1994, and the

16 remoteness problem I mentioned earlier is very acute, in addition to the

17 objection that this witness didn't see this document. So I object to any

18 further questions based on it.

19 JUDGE LIU: Well, yes. I think, first of all, the Prosecution

20 has to establish the relevance of this document to this very case.

21 Secondly, I -- it mate ask some questions to this witness

22 concerning the contents of this document, whether he's familiar with the

23 contents or not; although, we understand that the witness has never seen

24 this document. It is not his document at all.

25 MS. CHANA:

1 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, is this document basically a report on Delalic and

2 in some respects Halilovic, this operative information in this?

3 A. Yes, the document is indeed about these two persons.

4 Q. And whose document was it and who was it to?

5 A. Quite obviously this is a document by the State Security Service,

6 and it was sent to the security administration, as I said yesterday, on

7 account of the Trebevic I and Trebevic I operations, you see what they

8 included in the heading is "Supreme Command Staff" and "security

9 administration." There is no detail here to show, with the exception of

10 the incoming stamp -- there is nothing to indicate that the security

11 administration produced this document or obtained this information. We

12 took this to be operative information and included it as such in our

13 reports, signed and stamped, sent off to our superiors. I'm not sure if I

14 make myself sufficiently clear, but I think I could go on repeating this

15 same answer for ages now, because there's really nothing more specific

16 that I can say, that I could really stand by.

17 Q. But this is the document that you produced, that is, the security

18 administration? Is that what you just said, that it's the document that

19 you yourself produced?

20 MS. CHANA: I'm trying to confirm from -- is that what he said.

21 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Morrissey.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. No. No, by no means. No, I

23 didn't produce this document. I never said that I produced this document.

24 In that case, I would have signed it. You'd be able to see my file

25 number. It wouldn't be a state security document. It would be a military

1 secret document in that case.

2 MS. CHANA:

3 Q. I'm not talking about you yourself producing it. Did it come

4 from the security administration?

5 A. No. No. It didn't come from the security administration. This

6 document didn't.

7 Q. Is the information in this document similar to the information in

8 the last document I showed you, in the attachment?

9 A. Yes. It was produced in a similar way and used in a similar way.

10 MS. CHANA: If you'd give me a moment, please, Your Honour.

11 [Prosecution counsel confer]

12 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, that's all I have from this witness in

13 my examination-in-chief.

14 JUDGE LIU: Well, I believe that we should have a break at this

15 moment, and after that we'll have the cross-examination.

16 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, may I just raise one matter before

17 the break.

18 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

19 MR. MORRISSEY: As indicated yesterday at the end of

20 cross-examination the Prosecutor was going to indicate to this Tribunal

21 whether or not the Prosecutor had in their possession tapes and

22 transcripts upon which my friend justified the introduction of and use of

23 a particular document. And I now seek that that answer be given.

24 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Ms. Chana, are you in the position to answer

25 that question?

1 MS. CHANA: Yes, Your Honour. This particular transcript has

2 been disclosed to the Defence. It's in our 65 ter list as 104. It's a

3 conversation between Celo and another individual.

4 This witness has basically said he does not know about this --

5 any -- any intercepts, so we will now produce this particular intercept

6 through the relevant person, Your Honour, because that person is also on

7 our witness list.

8 JUDGE LIU: So you mean you have other witnesses to testify

9 concerning of that document in the future?

10 MS. CHANA: The intercept, yes, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE LIU: The intercept.

12 Yes, is this satisfactory, Mr. Morrissey?

13 MR. MORRISSEY: [Microphone not activated]

14 Sorry. Yes and no, Your Honour. It's a satisfactory answer so

15 that I know what the document is. It's not a very satisfactory basis for

16 putting it to this witness. I thought the basis for putting it to this

17 witness was that there was no one else. But I'm -- perhaps I

18 misunderstood about that.

19 But in any event, my friend has identified the tape and -- well,

20 the transcript. And I take it that what's being referred to is a

21 transcript which is currently listed as 104. That's been identified by my

22 friend. That's the information I need. So I'm grateful for that to be

23 disclosed.

24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

25 Well, shall we take the break right now. And we'll resume at

1 4.00.

2 --- Recess taken at 3.30 p.m.

3 --- On resuming at 4.01 p.m.

4 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Morrissey.

5 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Thank you very much, Your Honour.

6 Cross-examined by Mr. Morrissey:

7 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. Jasarevic.

8 I just want to ask you a couple of questions about Trebevic, the

9 operation, in a very general sense first of all. And first of all, could

10 I ask you this: You mentioned in your evidence in chief that late?

11 July - and I think you might have said the 28th of July - there was a

12 meeting of the Council for the Protection of Constitutional Order at which

13 you spoke. Now, first of all, have I got the date of that right? Was

14 that the 28th of July?

15 A. Your Honours, I cannot speak about the exact date because I don't

16 remember it, but it was in that period.

17 Q. Yes. And, Mr. Jasarevic, too you may feel free in regard to --

18 when I put a date to you that's too specific, you can always tell me that.

19 In any event, at the end of July, at some stage late in July,

20 there was a meeting of that council, at which you attended; is that

21 correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And at that meeting, you put certain proposals and made certain

24 suggestions about which you spoke yesterday. Yes. And what -- what

25 followed from that -- could I just ask you, was that -- from that time on

1 you and those senior persons present at the meeting were all aware of the

2 need to deal in a systematic way with the disciplinary failure of the

3 leadership of the 9th and 10th Brigades; is that true?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. May I ask you whether the name of Operation Trebevic was invented

6 at that time or was that a later development?

7 A. That was a later development.

8 Q. Do you recall approximately when the name "Trebevic" came to be

9 attached to this general idea of dealing with the problems of the

10 leadership of the 9th and 10th?

11 A. I cannot recall the exact date, but I think this happened after

12 Grabovica, possibly in late September, early October. That is when more

13 immediate preparations began to implement that operation and the drafting

14 of the plan for the same.

15 Q. Now -- so I have some questions about the earlier phase of -- of

16 this operation, and I want to find a useful word because the word

17 "operation" has got various connotations in this -- in this case. Would

18 you be comfortable with me using the term "goal" in this context, by which

19 I mean after that meeting, you and the senior leaders at the meeting

20 shared a goal of dealing with the leadership problems of the 9th and 10th?

21 A. The goal was primarily to bring those two brigades in line, in

22 terms of carrying out the tasks of the 1st Corps. That was the basic

23 goal.

24 Q. Yes, I understand that. And in particular, to bring them within

25 a mature and predictable version of the system of command and control --

1 sorry, control and command, "rukovodjenje," and "komondovanje"; is that

2 accurate?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, there were a number of problems confronting you in your

5 attempts to bring about this goal, and I want to go through some of those

6 problems with you. First of all, it's the fact that the 9th Brigade was

7 defending an important part of the front line in Sarajevo; is that true?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And the same can be said of the 10th Brigade in their area of --

10 of responsibility; is that true?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And so that in dealing with the leadership problems of either of

13 those brigades, you had to bear in mind the need not to compromise the --

14 the very defence of Sarajevo itself; is that true?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And I suppose there might be said to be two aspects to that:

17 First of all, generally speaking those brigades were populated by good

18 soldier who is did their job very well; is that true?

19 A. Yes, the vast majority. Yes.

20 Q. And you didn't want your operation to destroy the effectiveness

21 of those fighting soldiers who were doing such a good job; is that true?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And secondly -- and this is -- I'm putting a proposition. Feel

24 free to comment on it, however. The very way in which the matter was

25 handled might have implications elsewhere in the army. For example, if

1 you marched into Caco's headquarters and tried to arrest him, that might

2 trigger discomfort and unhappiness in other sections of the army. Is that

3 true?

4 A. To a certain extent, yes.

5 Q. I understand -- and in truth, we now have the gift of hindsight

6 with these matters, but at the time you could never be sure precisely what

7 the effect of a particular initiative would be; is that the case?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Okay. Nevertheless, from the time of that meeting of the Council

10 of the Constitutional Order late in -- in July, you and other senior

11 persons began to collect information designed to help you bring about the

12 goal of returning the 9th and 10th to the system of control and command;

13 is that true?

14 A. Yes. But this information began to be collected in a more

15 intensive way than initially thought.

16 Q. Yes. And I'm going to come to ask you some questions about the

17 effect that the tragedies at Grabovica and Uzdol had on your -- on your

18 goals in a few moments. I just have some questions about the time before

19 that, before I get to that phase.

20 Now, therefore, in the course of -- of collecting that

21 information, I take it there was -- there were more organisations involved

22 than your organisation, which is the SVB, or military security

23 organisation; is that true?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Perhaps just to explain something to the Court here because we

1 have many military bodies with initials connected to them. The SVB is the

2 name for the military security service; is that correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And could you just explain to the Tribunal what the UB was and

5 how that related to the SVB and what part of the SVB was the UB.

6 A. The UB is an abbreviation for Uprava Besbjenosti [phoen], which

7 was at the top of the military security service in the expert sense and it

8 was located in the army's Main Staff.

9 Q. Very well. Was there -- and just -- you can assist the Court

10 here -- the Tribunal here too with this: Moving aside from military

11 security now into the normal civilian organs, and in particular the MUP,

12 civilian police, did the civilian police also have a professional service

13 attaching to it?

14 A. Yes, that is the security -- state security. The "SDB" would be

15 the abbreviation for it in documents.

16 Q. Yes. And because we sometimes see the abbreviation SDB, when we

17 see that, that is a -- an organ of the civilian police, as you've

18 described. Does that have a similar top-level body such as the UB within

19 it?

20 A. This is slightly different than the military organisation. The

21 security service and the military organisation is an element, one of

22 several elements within the organisation. The State Security Service

23 within the MUP is a component which is conditionally speaking more

24 powerful than the military security service within the military

25 organisation, and it includes the intelligence or the offensive function

1 as well as the counter-intelligence protective service, this in the police

2 sense, and this is the characteristically crucial part of the Secret

3 Service within the internal affairs service. That's within the State

4 Security Service. The difference between the two services, when we're

5 talking about the basic operational or work methods, but in spite of these

6 differences in organisation their methods of work are more or less the

7 same.

8 Q. Yes. Thank you. I understand that. And now, in terms of -- of

9 the goals that emerged from the Council for the Protection of

10 Constitutional Order, I was asking you whether your organisation, the SVB,

11 was the only organisation collecting information, and you said, "No, it

12 wasn't."

13 Now, is it the fact that the -- the MUP units, and in particular

14 state security, was actively involved in collecting such information

15 during this time?

16 A. Yes. As it happens, this service was more highly developed and

17 they managed to compile more valuable and greater amounts of information

18 than the military security service did.

19 Q. Now, it's -- it appears from some of the documents that you were

20 asked to comment upon by the Prosecution in this matter that you would

21 sometimes have forwarded to you as operative information material from the

22 MUP. Is that true?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And in that situation, you had the duty to note and to process

25 and in an appropriate case to pass on that information in reports,

1 regardless of whether or not it was reliable or unreliable but simply as

2 operative information. Is that true and accurate or not?

3 A. In that sense, I made my comments earlier. In view of the

4 seriousness of the service providing such information and in view of the

5 fact that their work methodologies were even more powerful and stronger

6 than ours, and in view of the circumstances in wartime, we did not usually

7 do that nor did we feel the need to check such information that was

8 acquired during our operative work. We also didn't feel any need to keep

9 them to ourselves. We would process them and then pass them on along the

10 proper lines to our superiors.

11 Q. Yes. And it would be -- I mean obviously I wasn't there, but you

12 tell me the answer to this: You weren't required to behave like a

13 military judge or a -- or even an investigating prosecutor in dealing with

14 this information. In one sense, your business was information and you had

15 to deal with this information, whatever its quality. Is that true?

16 A. Dealing with the information that we received didn't involve the

17 same procedures that you would have in a court. There was no need to

18 check them in the same way. This information was more used as an argument

19 to evaluate the situation, to create - let me put it that way - some kind

20 of responsible position or for the purposes of being cautious. And that

21 is what this information was used for and that's how it was looked at.

22 May I just add that the term that we used would be indicative

23 information.

24 Q. Yes. Thank you. And I appreciate that you have answered these

25 questions to some degree already with the -- with the Prosecutor.

1 But in the course of gathering that information, whether it was

2 gathered by your organisation or by the state security organisations, this

3 information, I take it, was shared around among those persons who were

4 concerned -- among those people who had been at the Council for the

5 Protection of Constitutional Order and who were directly concerned with

6 the goal that you've mentioned; is that accurate? Council for --

7 A. Yes. Except not all those who used our information were members

8 of the Council for the Protection of Constitutional Order.

9 Q. Those who shared this information, I take it, were people trusted

10 to help bring about the goals of -- the goals that you desired,

11 effectively. Is that true?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Now, at that time, Sefer Halilovic, because of certain

14 operational information you had, did not enjoy that same level of trust

15 among those who were present at the Council for the Protection of

16 Constitutional Order; is that a fair statement of reality?

17 A. I cannot confirm that explicitly with a yes or a no. It was up

18 to each person. It was their personal position on how they understood

19 such information.

20 Q. Yes. Well, sorry. And perhaps I -- I should have put the

21 question more precisely. I'll put it another way, though: Halilovic

22 himself was not invited to that meeting; is that true?

23 A. That is correct.

24 Q. And it's the fact that some people - and I'm talking now about

25 the representatives from the MUP, from the Ministry of the Interior side

1 of things - expressed a concern that Halilovic -- Sefer Halilovic might

2 not promote these goals that you're talking about. Is that true?

3 A. Mr. Sefer Halilovic in that period was not the number-one person

4 in the army. It was Commander Rasim Delic. And that is the reason

5 amongst other things why Delic attended that meeting.

6 This second part of your question: Yes, for sure the operative

7 information which we saw in certain documents implied a risk that the

8 preparations for forthcoming activities could be leaked and could reach

9 those people we did not want to find out about that, and that is why there

10 was this kind of reserve regarding Mr. Halilovic.

11 Q. And by "reserve," you don't mean anything sinister, but what I

12 mean, I take it, by "reserve" is that the information gathered in pursuit

13 of these goals was not shared with Sefer Halilovic. Is that accurate?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. When the tragedies at Grabovica and -- and Uzdol ultimately came

16 to the knowledge of your group - by the term "your group," I mean those

17 who were at this council meeting - when the news of the tragedies came to

18 your group, that provided a further and more urgent reason to press ahead

19 with plans for decisive action concerning the commands of the 9th and

20 10th; is that true?

21 A. Yes, that accelerated the setting of the date for the start of

22 this operation, probably accelerated it by maybe 15 to 20 days or

23 something, but it did accelerate it. Absolutely.

24 Q. And to be frank, the news of these killings were a shock to

25 everybody concerned because -- perhaps I'll deal with the matter more

1 specifically. In terms of the 9th Brigade, you had information that

2 they -- they were involved in the trench-digging activities, which you've

3 testified about, and you also knew of some acts of individual criminality

4 and dishonesty, about which you've -- well, I'm going to start this

5 question again because it's becoming too general.

6 You knew about certain improper and indeed criminal acts by the

7 9th Brigade before this time; is that correct?

8 A. No, I didn't say that I knew about the criminal acts by the 9th

9 Brigade. I knew about the lack of discipline there, but I never said

10 anything about the criminal acts, no.

11 Q. I'm sorry. I really was referred to that issue with the jeep,

12 and that's why I became specific. But frankly, you didn't foresee that

13 the -- any soldiers from the 9th Brigade were going to go and massacre a

14 whole village of innocent, old, and apparently friendly Croatian

15 civilians; is that true?

16 A. Yes, that is true, but I didn't know that that brigade would be

17 there or that it happened to be in that village. Of course, I couldn't

18 assume that that unit could do anything like that.

19 Q. No. All right. And just to jump forward a moment. You came to

20 know because of the Pazaric incident on the 8th of September that elements

21 of the 9th Brigade were indeed going to Herzegovina; is that true?

22 A. That is what the report indicated that we had here, but it didn't

23 immediately make me think about Neretva 93. I will actually find out the

24 name of it later. These two things were not immediately connected.

25 Q. Yes. And frankly, Mr. Jasarevic, I'm not trying to connect them.

1 What I'm really focussing on is that the 9th Brigade had some problems but

2 it was a shock to you when you found out the allegations about what

3 happened, wasn't it?

4 A. Yes, I was shocked, absolutely, when I found out about the crime.

5 Q. Once the crime was -- came to your knowledge - and later I'm

6 going to ask you some questions about the actions taken in the

7 professional capacity by the H -- by the SVB, but these are still general

8 questions - once that information came to your knowledge, the -- the

9 people who had been at the Council for the Protection of Constitutional

10 Order intensified their efforts to collect information about the 9th

11 Brigade's activities, including these terrible events; is that true?

12 A. You could respond with a "yes"; although, not all members of the

13 Council for the Protection of Constitutional Order participated or were

14 included, but definitely the three who were -- who were there: The

15 president; I don't know, perhaps somebody else from the inner membership

16 or the inner presidency. I don't know really how things proceeded from

17 there.

18 Q. No, that's okay. And I won't press you about that. But after

19 the events in Grabovica became known, the government at the highest levels

20 took an interest in dealing with the problems in the 9th Brigade and as

21 part of that took an interest in dealing with the guilt, if it could be

22 established, of the killers at Grabovica; is that true?

23 A. The former part, yes. As for the latter part about guilt, I'm

24 not sure if I understood the question properly. I am not sure if it's

25 true that the government dealt with it. But people in certain position,

1 certain senior officers, certain commanders, yes, they definitely did deal

2 with that.

3 Q. Yes. And just -- just as a -- as a summary of Trebevic: The

4 operation had a broader focus than just merely the events in Grabovica,

5 but nevertheless one of the focuses of Trebevic was to help investigate

6 the crime at Grabovica; is that a fair comment?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. But throughout this period there remained a reserve on behalf of

9 the senior people, who you've described, in terms of communicating

10 information to Sefer Halilovic; is that accurate?

11 A. That's what I assume.

12 Q. Yes. Very well. Okay. Now, the -- I just have a very few, if

13 you like, preliminary questions, and the way I'm going to proceed now is

14 to ask you some of these preliminary questions concerning the month or

15 two -- or the month or so before September of 1993. After that, I'll move

16 to the September 1993 incidents, and that will take us easily to the end

17 of the day, I would think.

18 So just by way of background matters, let me just ask you some

19 questions here. The -- the position in the army, as you understood it,

20 was that when the state of Bosnia was formed, there was no army. Is that

21 correct? There was no formal standing army?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And there were a number of experienced officers who had some

24 experience in the old JNA who were prepared to assist in the formation of

25 an army; is that the case?

1 A. Yes. But not that numerous really. I'm not sure which number of

2 experienced officers you are talking about, but there certainly were some

3 such officers around.

4 Q. Yes. Well, you've really anticipated the next question I wanted

5 to ask you, which was: The truth is most of the fighters and most of the

6 officers were essentially inexperienced volunteers; is that true?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And many of the commanders also had no real familiarity with the

9 proper workings of the system of control and command; is that true?

10 A. Definitely.

11 Q. But the truth was that with the Republika Srpska army on the

12 hills around Sarajevo shelling the civilians and threatening to create a

13 very dangerous situation, there just wasn't time to send people to

14 military school; is that true?

15 A. Certainly.

16 Q. Ramiz Delalic is an example of -- well, let me ask you the

17 question. Ramiz Delalic was a person with no military education that

18 you're aware of, who nevertheless came to command and command very

19 effectively a good, strong fighting unit throughout 1993; is that true?

20 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, I'd object to that line of questioning.

21 There are about four -- four questions in that. It's asking about another

22 person altogether and whether the witness has knowledge of that or not,

23 about what -- whether Ramiz Delalic was a good fighter or not or a good

24 commander, had any training. I'm not sure that this is the -- the witness

25 to ask such a question. And plus, the -- the question is complex.

1 MR. MORRISSEY: Very well.

2 JUDGE LIU: Well, in my view, you know, it's kind of serious

3 questions built up step by step, and Mr. Delalic is a kind of important

4 person in this case, so I believe that Defence counsel has the right to

5 ask some questions about this person and we'll hear the answer of the

6 witness, to his knowledge whether he knew some information about this

7 person or not.

8 You may proceed, Mr. Morrissey.

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Thank you, Your Honour.

10 Q. Thanks, Mr. I can't say -- Mr. Jasarevic. Just so that we don't

11 have to go back in history, I'll ask the question again slightly

12 differently.

13 To your knowledge, was Ramiz Delalic a person with no formal

14 military training who nevertheless came to command a good, strong fighting

15 unit in 1993?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Did it appear to you that Ramiz Delalic sometimes failed to

18 understand what was required of him under the system of command and

19 control?

20 A. His behaviour often gave rise to such assumptions or indicate

21 that there were things he didn't understand, but I can't be specific about

22 that other than what I've already said.

23 Q. Is it fair to say about Ramiz Delalic in your experience that in

24 general he fulfilled his combat tasks effectively and without cowardice?

25 A. Your Honours, if I may be allowed to elaborate on this. One

1 could certainly say that Mr. Ramiz Delalic was a brave fighter. That much

2 is certain. However, to the extent that I knew him, and I did said

3 yesterday that I tried to approach him and give him a hand; if I may say

4 that, I think you know what I mean. He was an unpredictable person. And

5 I will clarify this too. Metaphorically speaking, in the morning he works

6 well; in the afternoon, suddenly you see a different man there. That's

7 what I mean when I say "unpredictable." He was a temperamental person,

8 very lively, a live wire, prone to devious forms of behaviour from time to

9 time.

10 Q. Yes. Yes. And in -- in your efforts to -- to deal with him, you

11 were -- you were fortunate enough to have a very competent security

12 officer placed within the 9th Brigade, Tomo Juric. Is it the fact that

13 Juric was a very experienced police officer before the war?

14 A. [No audible response]

15 Q. I'm sorry, Mr. Jasarevic. You have to actually answer in words

16 because it's recording here. Is that the truth?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. I understand. And, in fact, for completeness, Tomo Juric was the

19 director of the policing and security during the Sarajevo Winter Olympics;

20 is that the case?

21 A. Yes. He was a man with a very high reputation. He had been

22 chief of the state security in Zenica. He had held very high positions in

23 the republican MUP. He had very serious assignments, top-level

24 assignments, during the Winter Olympics back in 1984. He was highly

25 qualified and competent within the state security sector.

1 Q. Yes. And from what you said yesterday -- I'm referring now to

2 what we might call "the jeep incident." When you were discussing the jeep

3 incident yesterday, you indicated that you, with the help of Tomo Juric,

4 was able to persuade Ramiz Delalic to cooperate and to return that

5 vehicle. And I just wanted to ask you about that. How was it that you

6 managed to persuade him to do that? Can you recall how you did so?

7 A. I have no idea how I managed. There was something about my

8 nature -- and I don't want to be blowing my own trumpet here. I was good

9 at handling people, but it was mostly thanked to Mr. Juric that I managed

10 to get through to Ramiz Delalic. But this is not really something that I

11 can put my finger on right now. It's part of who I am.

12 Q. That's -- yes, sorry. And I didn't mean to embarrass you by that

13 question.

14 Really when -- in this court -- in this Tribunal, when we've

15 looked at the military manuals, we've seen a great deal about orders and a

16 great deal about lines of command, but we haven't seen very much about the

17 term "persuasion" in those manuals, and yet is it the fact that persuasion

18 ended up being one of the chief weapons that you had to use during this

19 war because of the nature of the soldiers that you were dealing with?

20 A. Your Honours, I have used the term "persuasion" in a very

21 conditional sense. Maybe it's not an adequate term, but as I had worked

22 for a long time with the security service before the war - by the time the

23 war started, I was not a young man after all - bearing in mind all the

24 objective difficulties and everything that we've spoken about, we had the

25 men that we had. The situation was not necessarily ideal. We had to find

1 ways to deal with people. You had to train them. We had to take things

2 in our stride, take things as we went along. I was myself no commander,

3 and I did not have the obligation to -- to issue orders, so I tried to

4 approach people in different ways, to make them useful.

5 Q. Yes. And I just want to go back for a minute to the -- that

6 incident that you referred to when Amir Deljkic was in such trouble and

7 you tried to help him. Now, yesterday you were asked some questions about

8 that by my -- by the learned Prosecutor. I wanted to ask you here: You

9 indicated that you sought to get Sefer Halilovic -- you tried to get Sefer

10 Halilovic to come along and help -- or sorry, to -- to intervene in a way

11 in that situation. Now, you also indicated that you -- you approached

12 Sefer because at that time you knew him better than Rasim Delic and there

13 were a number of reasons that -- that you gave. Could I ask you this

14 question: In a formal sense, the authority did in fact lie with Rasim

15 Delic. If you were to do it as a textbook situation, the authority lay

16 with Rasim Delic to simply order to the wrongdoers, "Let that man go."

17 That's correct, isn't it? Correct but possibly a little unrealistic?

18 A. You're quite right.

19 Q. In that situation, your assessment was that persuasion was needed

20 rather than an order, because the order was likely to be completely

21 ineffective; is that true?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And with the jeep incident, in the military school in Belgrade,

24 if they were teaching how to deal with the jeep incident, they'd probably

25 say, "Issue an order to that villain to hand back the jeep," but -- well,

1 that would be the textbook way to deal with it, wouldn't it?

2 A. Yes, by all means.

3 Q. But really -- well, perhaps I'll -- I'll put this question

4 another way: Those of you who had JNA experience and were able to

5 contribute something to the proper organisation of the army were always

6 trying to impose order, discipline, and coherence on the Bosnian army in

7 order to make it a more effective fighting force to save Bosnia; is that

8 true?

9 A. Definitely. In order to organise an army, you need discipline.

10 No discipline, no army. It can lead to all sorts of things, but not to an

11 organised army.

12 Q. And is it fair to say that in September of 1993, the -- the

13 control and command system within the army was -- is best described in

14 this way: Immature and incomplete and a work in progress? Now, those are

15 my terms, not yours. But I just ask for your comment. Do you agree that

16 that's -- those are accurate terms?

17 A. Your Honours, I do not agree fully with this. In my opinion, one

18 can't say that throughout this period this situation prevailed across the

19 board in the army, in terms of poor discipline, poor organisation, and

20 poor training. It didn't apply to the army as a whole. I do believe,

21 however, that this was indeed the case with the units we mentioned,

22 violations of discipline I mean. Even outside the 1st Corps there were

23 units where there was talk of indiscipline or insubordination, but these

24 examples were not as glaring as this one. It's true that we took things

25 in our stride, that this was a work in progress, in a manner of speaking,

1 and we had to set up our own institutions.

2 Q. Could I ask you this -- this question: In terms of behaviour

3 such as you've indicated that's inconsistent with the proper command and

4 control system, were all of the other brigades in Sarajevo, apart from the

5 9th and 10th, completely perfect, or did some of them have occasional and

6 partial lapses and problems of the same sort as the 9th and 10th but not

7 to the same extent as the 9th and 10th?

8 A. There were definitely errors committed by other units, too, as

9 well as lapses. Here's an example: All the units had a problem digging

10 trenches. This was a problem with all the units, all the soldiers, or

11 most at any rate. Most units and soldiers were unhappy whenever they came

12 back from the front line, from combat, whenever they returned into town to

13 see their family, to get a change of clothes, to wash. Invariably they

14 would see young people around who could as well have been helping out on

15 the front line. They felt that this was unfair. There were certain

16 reactions. We never identified these people, but there were some such

17 individuals. Digging trenches along the front line would be done in an

18 organised way. The civil protection people would usually help, or simply

19 citizens who lived near the front line. That was how things were normally

20 done. But these problems were present to a much higher extent with the

21 units that you have referred to.

22 Q. Yes. Very well. And there's just a couple -- sorry. Yes, thank

23 you for dealing with those matters. And there's another preliminary

24 matter that I wanted to deal with, and this concerns -- perhaps --

25 actually, before I leave that matter, there's a couple of documents I'd

1 seek to show the witness.

2 MR. MORRISSEY: Could the witness please be shown --

3 [Defence counsel confer]

4 MR. MORRISSEY: I just want to show the witness an order. It's

5 Defence document D75. I'll just provide the -- the DD number. The 65 ter

6 number is D75, and the document number is DD00.0289, and it's to be marked

7 for exhibit -- MFI219 -- MFI -- sorry -- yes, pardon me.

8 Q. Sorry, Mr. I Mr. -- Mr. Jasarevic. This is a document which

9 is -- an order and it will be brought up on the screen from front of you

10 in a moment. I would ask you to inspect it.

11 While it's being brought up, can I ask you that throughout the

12 cross-examination, you're likely to be shown quite a large number of

13 documents by me. And at any time when you have a query about the document

14 or that it's being shown to you in the wrong way, please feel free to make

15 that clear because otherwise I will waste your time asking you question

16 about that.

17 Now, do you have that -- I'm sorry. We'll just have to wait for

18 the document.

19 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, I could indicate this: I can ask

20 some other questions -- some general questions while that document is

21 being sought for and then perhaps -- perhaps come back and look at it.

22 Q. It's an order concerning trench-digging that I'm going to show

23 you, but we'll come back to it when the document is ready to be shown.

24 And the general questions I wanted to ask concern something else now, and

25 this is the topic of war crimes and the Bosnian state generally.

1 Now, to your knowledge, the Republika Srpska was pursuing a

2 policy of, putting it in the nicest way possible for them, Serbians living

3 in a Serbian state. Is that the way you understood the position?

4 A. It wasn't really difficult to understand it in that way.

5 Q. As far as you understood the position of the -- the more

6 enthusiastic wing of the HVO, their position was that Croats should be

7 entitled to live in a Croat state, so far as you understood the position;

8 is that true?

9 A. Yes, unfortunately. We saw this as a form of betrayal.

10 Q. But the policy of Bosnia was quite different to that. The policy

11 of Bosnia was to promote a multi-ethnic Bosnian state; is that correct?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And is it also the fact that the Presidency of Bosnia at all

14 times had persons from other ethnic and religious backgrounds, such as

15 Stjepan Kljuic, or Mirko Pejanovic, Croat and Serb respectively, on the

16 Presidency? Is that true?

17 A. [No audible response]

18 Q. I'm sorry, you'll just have to answer because of the transcript

19 here. I'm sorry, Mr. Jasarevic.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And likewise the -- the very army itself, the Bosnian army, had a

22 policy of preserving at least one Croat and one Serbian deputy commander,

23 Stjepan Siber and Jovan Divjak respectively; is that the fact?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And was it the fact therefore that atrocities committed against a

1 particular ethnic group, if committed by the Bosnian army, were in

2 themselves an absolute disaster for the viability of the Bosnian state and

3 the integrity of the Bosnian army?

4 A. Your Honours, that is not only a crime. It is not only that

5 everyone understands this to be a crime. It was seen as a fatal political

6 blow to the very goal of our struggle, the goal that we struggled for

7 under extremely difficult conditions.

8 Q. And as well as the individual sadness and tragedy of the killings

9 of Croatian and, quite frankly, friendly Croatian civilians at Grabovica,

10 that crime was a potential disaster for the goal of a multi-ethnic Bosnia

11 because it could clearly be used to discredit that goal; correct?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And indeed, to your knowledge, in later times the crimes at

14 Grabovica and Uzdol were used to that very purpose, to point out that the

15 Bosnian army is a racial, prejudiced, Muslim force; is that correct?

16 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

17 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, I -- this line of questioning: First of

18 all, the relevance I question. And secondly, this is a witness whose own

19 opinion is being elicited on these rather large issues as to the goal of

20 the army, the multi-ethnicity of the state. I'm not sure whether this

21 witness is qualified to -- to answer such questions, Your Honour, and I

22 still don't see the relevance either, so my objection would be on these

23 two grounds.

24 JUDGE LIU: Well, I believe that this witness is a member of

25 the -- the BiH army and he was present at that time. He has his opinions

1 towards certain matters. So in this aspect, I believe that this line of

2 questioning is allowed.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes.

4 JUDGE LIU: But as for the last question, I'm not quite sure

5 because it's --

6 MR. MORRISSEY: It's after the event.

7 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

8 MR. MORRISSEY: I concede --

9 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Could you please put your question in another

10 way to be more specific

11 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour. I -- I think my learned

12 friend's -- well, I agree with what Your Honour says, and I'll -- I will

13 put that more specifically.

14 Q. Yes. Sorry, I put that question very generally. But during the

15 time -- even -- even in the week or so after the Uzdol crime, you became

16 aware that that was being used, if you like, in the public relations war

17 between Croatia and Bosnia; is that true?

18 A. Yes. Yes. What I heard was very unambiguous and that's how I

19 understood it.

20 Q. Yes. And these goals and opinions that I've just asked you about

21 were goals and opinions that you discussed with the senior soldiers that

22 you dealt with, including Sefer Halilovic, during your time as a -- during

23 your work duties in 1993; is that true?

24 A. I don't know if I understood properly which goals you are

25 thinking of. I didn't understand that part, so could you please say that

1 again.

2 Q. Yes. I'm sorry, I should have specified that. The -- the policy

3 of the army to discourage war crimes and to encourage a good attitude to

4 the diverse population of Bosnia, that policy is something that you shared

5 with Sefer Halilovic and other senior leaders of the Bosnian army and

6 which you discussed with them from time to time and, I suggest, quite

7 frequently in 1993. Is that true?

8 A. I am convinced that is so, but I wasn't any kind of authority

9 which would chair such meetings or conversations, but all of us who used

10 to meet shared that kind of thinking and that approach in general,

11 including Mr. Sefer Halilovic.

12 Q. Very well.

13 MR. MORRISSEY: Just excuse me one moment.

14 Now I believe the document is now on the screen.

15 Q. Do you have in front of you a document marked tat top right with

16 the -- with the letters "D75"?

17 JUDGE LIU: Could we have a Court number at this stage.

18 MR. MORRISSEY: It's DD00-- sorry, it's already assigned MFI219.

19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: Sorry.

21 Q. Did you have in front of you an order by Sefer Halilovic dated

22 the 3rd of June, 1993?

23 A. Yes, I see it.

24 Q. And -- and to your knowledge, on the 3rd of June, 1993 Sefer was

25 still the number-one man in the army, although within five days he was to

1 be replaced by Rasim Delic. Is that your understanding of his position at

2 the time of this order?

3 A. Yes, at the time, he was the number-one man. There's no doubt

4 about that.

5 Q. Okay. Now, do you notice that here a -- what is described as "a

6 mixed commission" is established by this order to -- to deal with certain

7 problems that are set out in paragraph 2?

8 Perhaps I -- before I ask you that question, I should ask you a

9 formal question myself, since I myself made objections about it. Do you

10 recall this document yourself, this order being issued to deal with this

11 sort of behaviour by Mr. Halilovic?

12 A. Your Honours, I don't remember this document, but I'm aware of a

13 kind of general approach in terms of this, so it's possible that I formed

14 such a conviction which I termed "general approach" stemmed from documents

15 similar to this one. Of course, you need to keep in mind that at the time

16 I was not the number-one security person.

17 Q. No. And just on that point - because I don't know that it was

18 made clear to Their Honours when that occurred - did you -- did you take

19 up your position as head of the SVB on or about the 18th of July of 1993?

20 A. In late July for sure. I'm not sure about the exact date. I

21 think it was the 17th of July, as far as I can recall, but I can't be

22 quite sure.

23 Q. That's okay.

24 A. But in late July for sure.

25 Q. That's all right. And -- all right. Well, that was just to

1 clarify something.

2 And you replaced Fikret Muslimovic at that time.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Okay. Well, as you don't have a direct recollection of that

5 document there, I'll -- I'll just ask you: Your recollection is that the

6 commander of the army had a policy that trench-digging should be done by

7 the proper authorities; is that true?

8 A. Yes, in principle, because the logic was that we are taking

9 soldiers from the trenches who need to come back to fight. We would be

10 exhausting them, while there were others who would be available and could

11 be used to dig trenches in order to save the strength of the soldiers and

12 to prevent them from doing two jobs. So the answer boils down to yes.

13 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, earlier on I made a reference to "textbook

14 answers," to problems, and in this court we've heard - and I expect we'll

15 hear again - references to the crimes involved in taking citizens to dig

16 trenches. Now, I want to ask you a question, and you can perhaps explain

17 to the Court, what was the need for trenches at all in Sarajevo at that

18 time? Why were they important?

19 A. Your Honours, I think probably the Defence counsel used the term

20 "the crimes involved in taking citizens to dig trenches." We did not

21 consider digging trenches a crime. We considered it to be undisciplined

22 conduct but not a crime. So the nature of those two things is not the

23 same. It was absolutely essential to dig trenches. In all military rules

24 and regulations, it's important to do them and the function of doing that

25 is clear, that is, to protect human lives.

1 Q. And if it wasn't for the digging of trenches, what -- if there

2 were no trenches dug, would that have increased the likelihood that the

3 Army of the Republika Srpska would have successfully occupied the town of

4 Sarajevo?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And you'd all seen on television what happened to Vukovar when

7 that was occupied by Serbian force, hadn't you?

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

9 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, the previous question was purely

10 speculative, whether the Serb army would have gone into Sarajevo, and it

11 continues, I think, on the next one on a more speculative note.

12 JUDGE LIU: We know that digging trenches is important for the

13 Defence of Sarajevo, so there's no need to elaborate on that issue.

14 MR. MORRISSEY: I shall move on, Your Honour. Thank you.

15 Just -- just excuse me one moment, Mr. Jasarevic. I just have a

16 point of law to raise here.

17 Your Honour, in terms of the document, I offer that now as an

18 exhibit. It may need to be argued out later on. It's not a document this

19 witness acknowledged as seeing, but it's an official order and issued by

20 Halilovic in his capacity at the time as -- as Chief -- he was Chief of

21 Staff of the army. But at that time the evidence is that that was the

22 number-one position and that on the 8th -- I think the very first or

23 second exhibit that was tendered indicated that Rasim Delic on the 8th of

24 June was appointed as commander of the army. So I'll indicate that I've

25 got a basis for tendering it that I'll elaborate on later on. I don't

1 want to waste the witness's time now. But I'll just indicate I would seek

2 that -- offer that for tender and we'll deal with it.

3 I want to show the witness two similar documents now just to see

4 whether or not he has seen these ones, and if they -- he has, I'll add

5 them to the list.

6 Could the witness please be shown 357. The DD number is

7 DD00.0216. And it's to be Marked for Exhibit 220.

8 JUDGE LIU: Well, I think we'll deal with the admission of the

9 documents at a later stage.

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes.

11 JUDGE LIU: Together with the Prosecution's documents. I believe

12 that the Prosecution also have some documents to tender. So we'll deal

13 with them all together.

14 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Well, Your Honour, with respect, I agree

15 with that. I just wanted to show the witness the document now and see if

16 he --

17 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

18 MR. MORRISSEY: He may remember; he may not.

19 It may be, Your Honour, because the Prosecutor has got a few

20 documents and we've got a lot, that this could be dealt with in writing

21 briefly rather than delay witnesses. I'm open to guidance here. But we'd

22 be prepared to do that.

23 JUDGE LIU: We'll see -- we'll see at a later stage.

24 MR. MORRISSEY: As the Court pleases.

25 Q. Very well. Now, Mr. Jasarevic, I'm sorry about that delay. Do

1 you now have in front of you D57 -- sorry, do you now -- do you now have

2 in front of you a document dated the 26th of February, 1993, which is a --

3 an order from Sefer Halilovic to the command -- commands of all corps in

4 order to eliminate the irregularities that have been observed with regard

5 to engaging work obligation units and their proper use for work and tasks

6 under Article 18 on work obligations? Do you have that document in front

7 of you?

8 A. Yes, I do.

9 Q. Very well. Would you mind just looking over that document and

10 seeing whether -- and then telling me whether you recall seeing that

11 document in the past.

12 A. I haven't seen this document before. This is a document from

13 February 1993. Judging by the contents and the tasks, these documents

14 usually did not come to me but it was of help to me here. I recalled this

15 term "work units" or "work platoons." Earlier I mentioned the civilian

16 protection, but these work units were intended to work in an organised

17 manner on trench-digging so that the fighters who were on the lines would

18 not be used for those purposes.

19 Q. Very well. Well, look, since you didn't see that document, I

20 won't ask you questions directly about the document but just dealing with

21 your specific memory now rather than the document, is it the case that you

22 remember there being such work platoons and do you also remember that

23 Sefer Halilovic had the policy of trying to regulate them in an orderly

24 and sensible way?

25 A. I can respond positively to that question. Yes, that was the

1 general intention and something that Mr. Halilovic insisted on.

2 Q. Yes. Thanks. Just generally speaking, and not -- not limited to

3 the trenches -- the trench-digging issue, but in the year when Sefer

4 Halilovic was the leading person in the army, did he introduce a number of

5 sets of regulations designed to bring some sort of control and command

6 order into the army.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Did he introduce the Rule on Military Courts?

9 A. I think that during his term of office such documents were

10 adopted, just like the Rules on Discipline, on Military Courts, the Rules

11 of Service for the military security service and the military police.

12 Actually, it's quite a large number of regulations guiding the tasks and

13 the work of the army in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they were all adopted

14 or drafted during the term of office of Mr. Sefer Halilovic.

15 Q. And your -- the rules governing -- governing your organisation,

16 the SVB, were introduced, is it correct, on the 11th or 12th of September

17 of 1992?

18 A. Yes, on the 11th of September.

19 Q. At the time when Namik Dzankovic went down to Herzegovina with

20 the inspection team, those rules had been in place for just under a year;

21 is that true?

22 A. Yes, that's correct. That's maths. It's clear.

23 Q. That's -- you have me there, Mr. Jasarevic.

24 The fact is that you -- you would -- you yourself personally and

25 other experienced SVB officers would try to educate the volunteer soldiers

1 and the volunteer officers in the command-and-control system whenever you

2 had the chance to do so. I'm thinking of the jeep incident as one

3 incident. But as a general proposition, is that true as well?

4 A. Perhaps this example with the jeep is not a good one if we're

5 talking about training. Excuse me for saying this, but from day one there

6 were attempts to train those people. I think that I mentioned a day or

7 two before here that I personally, I myself, because of the

8 circumstances - it wasn't any particular privilege of mine - organised

9 training, for example, with senior officers of the military police in the

10 Belgrad Hotel [phoen]. This was perhaps in August or early September of

11 1992. The purpose was to explain to those people what military police

12 was. They all wanted to be military police officers but they didn't know

13 what it was exactly. So then we published certain manuals.

14 For example, when I was at the head of the security service, we

15 published a manual and I mentioned that the training was conducted via the

16 MUP and that it was completed at a higher level, at the military school in

17 Zenica. So this points to an ongoing process of training people on the

18 job according to the objective conditions that were prevailing and the

19 options that were available to us.

20 Q. Very well.

21 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honours, just -- just so that I manage

22 that -- the topics I want to cover; can I ask when a break is envisaged by

23 Your Honour?

24 JUDGE LIU: Well, if you've finished a section, we could have the

25 break right now.

1 MR. MORRISSEY: I have finished the section.

2 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Well, we'll take a break, and we'll resume at

3 quarter to 6.00.

4 --- Recess taken at 5.18 p.m.

5 --- On resuming at 5.45 p.m.

6 JUDGE LIU: Well, before we are having the witness, there's a

7 matter I would like to announce, that is, tomorrow, March 3rd, we'll hold

8 a hearing which will take place in room 177 in this Tribunal at 11.30.

9 The first part of this hearing will be ex parte, which is mainly dealing

10 with the motions filed by the Defence team. The reason for that, first, I

11 believe that those motions has to be dealt with as soon as possible;

12 secondly, we have a very tight schedule. I have to say that we are a

13 little bit behind our trial schedule, so we could not eat the

14 Prosecution's time any more.

15 Thirdly, recently there are a lot of activities in this Tribunal:

16 For instance, the trials -- six trials going on simultaneously, and there

17 are a lot of Initial Appearances, so we could not possibly find a

18 courtroom. So we'll arrange it in room 177, and the Defence team will be

19 gathered in the lobby and my legal assistants will show them into that

20 location.

21 The second part of this hearing, we will require the presence of

22 the Prosecution. This part of the hearing will concern the Defence

23 request to be allowed access to the criminal records of ten witnesses for

24 the Prosecution who are to appear or have already appeared before this

25 Tribunal. The urgent motion for immediate disclose filed on the 16th

1 December 2004 and the following submissions by both parties regarding in

2 general the Prosecution's witnesses as suspects will also be discussed.

3 The second part of hearing will commence at 12.30.

4 In order to provide the Prosecution with the opportunity to

5 prepare for this hearing, the Trial Chamber will lift the ex parte status

6 of the following Defence filings: First, addendum to further Defence

7 report re access to further material. This addendum was filed on 24th

8 November, 2004. Secondly, additional motion re criminal record of

9 Prosecution witnesses filed on the 5th January 2005, with the exception of

10 paragraph 22. Thirdly, additional motion re criminal records of

11 Prosecution's witnesses filed on the 11th February 2005.

12 These filings will remain confidential.

13 And by the way, there's no need for the parties to wear their

14 robes for this hearing. That's all for the announcement.

15 Yes, Mr. Morrissey.

16 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, those matters are matters that will

17 be conducted by my co-counsel in the matter, Mr. Mettraux, because of

18 preparing for other matters, I would prefer to be excused. But if the

19 Chamber wishes me to be present, I will. But Mr. Mettraux will be

20 handling the argument in respect of those matters.

21 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. I understand that, you know, we

22 have limited space in that room.

23 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE LIU: I'm going to say that each party should at most --

25 for three people to take part in that meeting.

1 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, Your Honour, we can subtract 16 and a half

2 stone from the Defence contribution by my absence, and I'm grateful for

3 the indication.

4 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

5 So could we have the witness, please.

6 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

7 [The witness entered court]

8 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Morrissey.

9 MR. MORRISSEY: Thank you, Your Honour.

10 Q. Thank you, Mr. Jasarevic.

11 Mr. Jasarevic, that completes my questions about the -- the

12 preliminary sort of matters, and I now move to the -- the matters in

13 September of 1993.

14 Now, first of all, I just have some questions arising out of the

15 appointment of -- of Namik Dzankovic to the position of security -- or SVB

16 representative subordinated to Sefer Halilovic on the inspection team.

17 Now, you indicated yesterday what you understood to be the training and

18 the background of Mr. Dzankovic. I want to be clear that I understood you

19 correctly. Dzankovic was certainly not present when his name was assigned

20 to this inspection team; is that true?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And, in fact, I think from what you indicated earlier he was

23 already in the zone of responsibility of the 6th Corps or possibly the 4th

24 Corps at the time when he was selected and indeed part of the reason for

25 selecting him was that he was already in that area; is that correct?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Now, you've indicated that -- that there were certain, if you

3 like, shortcomings -- well, I withdraw that question.

4 I'll put it another way. Mr. Dzankovic may not have been the most

5 highly trained individual ever to belong to the SVB, but he was an

6 intelligent, educated, and so far as you could see, very honest person; is

7 that correct?

8 A. If I may be allowed to clarify this, Your Honours. I said this

9 and this is a fact: Mr. Dzankovic is a highly educated person. I believe

10 he holds a degree in economics. Naturally he had not been trained as an

11 officer or as a security officer before the war. As a result of these

12 circumstances that I spoke about, he ended up with the security

13 administration. He was an honourable person. He did have some

14 experience. This was in the second half of 1993. It wasn't really so

15 much his experience as a security officer, but he had taken part in

16 interviews in what we call "operative work." He did have some experience,

17 but you certainly couldn't call him a trained security officer, not to a

18 degree that would have been desirable.

19 Q. Yes, I understand. Somewhere there is a reference to his having

20 been on Igman at a previous time, and I just wonder if -- if you're able

21 to comment about that, whether he'd had any function on Igman either in

22 July or in August before he set off for Herzegovina. Do you recall

23 anything to that effect? And if so, are you able to tell us what his role

24 was there?

25 A. I can't recall that.

1 Q. Okay. Well, very well. Well, at -- I'm not attempting to

2 represent Mr. Dzankovic as being an Olympic champion, but had he have been

3 an obvious disaster, you would not have selected him to perform the

4 function which he was assigned. Is that a fair comment to make?

5 A. Yes. Certainly he wouldn't have made it to the security

6 administration. There can be no talk of that.

7 Q. Yes. Very well. And I suppose my final question about that is

8 that when he was assigned to this inspection team, that was done obviously

9 with the knowledge of Sefer Halilovic; is that accurate?

10 A. It's not something that I can answer.

11 Q. All right. But you're certainly not aware of any pre-existing

12 relationship between Halilovic and Namik Dzankovic; am I right about that?

13 A. I don't believe that Sefer actually knew Dzankovic. Probably he

14 knew Dzankovic by virtue of Dzankovic's position, but I can't even claim

15 that.

16 Q. Okay. Yes. I'm sorry -- I'm sorry, Mr. Jasarevic. A potential

17 translation ambiguity has arisen there. Did you say to us just then that

18 Sefer knew Dzankovic by virtue of Dzankovic's position or did you mean

19 that Dzankovic knew Sefer because of Sefer's position?

20 A. The other way around. Sefer held an important position. He was

21 known to fighters from across the country. They saw him in the media.

22 Sefer would not necessarily have known even all the brigade commanders,

23 let alone an operations officer. That would have been a practical

24 impossibility.

25 Q. Yes. Thank you.

1 Now, I want to turn to the issue that was raised by the

2 Prosecutor concerning the SVB's role in some circumstances in making a

3 security assessment. Now, the question is going to be posed in a general

4 way, but I'll soon relate it to the specific case in Grabovica. So first

5 of all, in the event that a force of approximately, say, 200 to 300

6 soldiers was to be billeted -- was to be taken from Sarajevo and billeted

7 far away in Herzegovina, would you expect local units with local knowledge

8 to play some part in the security assessment that had to be made in

9 respect of those travelling troops?

10 A. Your Honours, this is quite a complex question. That is how I

11 see it. May I therefore be allowed to elaborate?

12 First of all, I don't think I would myself refer to specific

13 figures, hundreds of people. I'd prefer to use a unit, battalion,

14 company, brigade, because that might help us understand what follows. In

15 every army, you have something called a march. A battalion-level unit or

16 a brigade-level unit, for example, is being transferred from one place to

17 another. This transfer, the act itself, is called "a march." They may

18 walk or they may drive, but it's called "a march."

19 Prior to that, assessments are carried out. If possible, the

20 military police are normally used or reconnaissance units to help these

21 units along. It is, however, important to say that these transfers or

22 marches or whatever you call it, the act of taking a unit from one place

23 to another, are clearly envisaged and regulated by orders, orders on how

24 to organise combat activity, orders on how to organise a march, because

25 that is the military term.

1 That is how these activities are organised. I'm not sure if I

2 should go on about local units. You referred to local units. You

3 probably mean the receiving unit.

4 Q. Could I indicate that -- that you are permitted to go on, but

5 I'll -- I'll clarify a couple of matters so that -- so that you can do so.

6 Yes, I am referring specifically to the receiving units. And when I come

7 to the concrete example that I will come to so that there's no trickery

8 here for you. The concrete example I will come to is the unit which in

9 this case we know was the receiving unit, and that unit was the unit of

10 Zulfikar Alispago, which was based in Jablanica or Donja Jablanica, but

11 which had responsibility or at least had control over, in some respects,

12 the village of Grabovica. So that's the direction in which my questions

13 are going, and you feel free to continue as you were.

14 A. I didn't understand that to be a trick question. I just wanted

15 to be sure that I understood the question.

16 So as I have pointed out, Your Honours, in cases like these,

17 there needs to be an order, a marching order or an order to designate an

18 area that the is being sent to. I do not know of any such order, as I

19 have said countless times, nor did I know at the time which units were in

20 the area, whether it was Zulfikar Alispago's unit, a unit of the 4th or

21 6th Corps. I didn't know where the units were going or why.

22 I'm not sure if I'm able to answer the question in a valid way.

23 At any rate, when a unit arrives in an area, it can't just be left to its

24 own devices having reached a particular village with no military

25 preparations, with no logistics, with no security support involving units

1 of the military police. They must check the area beforehand. In this

2 particular case, you need to bear in mind that the village of Grabovica

3 had found itself in the middle of combat activity before. HVO members

4 were involved in hand-to-hand combat in the area or just outside the area.

5 They remained just outside the area, which was a danger to any unit coming

6 in.

7 The ground had not been prepared, in a manner of speaking, and

8 this was always a potential danger for the incoming units. There might be

9 an ambush. The ground might be mined. What we refer to as "camps" or the

10 units' deployment in the waiting areas is something that would have

11 required an organisational order, as I said yesterday, and particularly an

12 assessment with a detailed description of how the assignment was to be

13 carried out.

14 Q. Okay. And -- well, I understand those points that you make. And

15 I want to ask you: What -- I don't want to ask you about facts that are

16 outside of your knowledge, but I want to ask you to comment on certain

17 matters, and you comment on them as best you can, but also tell us whether

18 it's within your knowledge specifically or whether it's just a comment

19 from theory, if that's okay. But the matters I'm going to put to you are

20 this: Did you know is that as a matter of fact it was -- or did you at

21 the time know when it happened that it was indeed Zulfikar's unit that had

22 the responsibility to receive and to -- to billet or accommodate the units

23 that came down from Sarajevo? Was that within your knowledge at the time

24 when it happened?

25 A. No.

1 Q. Very well. Even so, because of your knowledge of the SVB system,

2 I would still want to persist and ask you some questions about what should

3 happen.

4 The -- what were the obligations as you understand it of the

5 Zulfikar unit and, in particular, its security representative upon

6 learning that it was their task to receive and accommodate the units that

7 were coming from Sarajevo?

8 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, I would object to that. The witness has

9 very clearly said he does not know, and now we are being asked what the --

10 what the particular job was of the particular unit, which the witness has

11 clearly stated he does not know. So I'd object on that ground,

12 Your Honour.

13 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, I may be able to deal with the

14 matter another way.

15 JUDGE LIU: Well -- yes. Yes, there should be some basis, you

16 know, to ask this --

17 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes.

18 JUDGE LIU: -- particular witness about that particular matter.

19 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, Your Honour, with respect, I agree with

20 that. But it may be that he can comment on certain particulars of the

21 evidence because of his high level of expertise, which the Prosecutor

22 referred to yesterday -- or on the first day of his examination.

23 Q. Look, I'll ask some factual questions first. I'm sorry,

24 Mr. Jasarevic.

25 Did you know the name of -- of the security SVB officer who was

1 attached to Zulfikar Alispago's unit at Donja Jablanica in September 1993?

2 A. No.

3 Q. It's -- I just can't recall now where, but does -- it doesn't

4 matter where. Was there -- does the name Smail Hodzic, S-m-a-i-l

5 H-o-d-z-i-c ring any bells at all in your mind in terms of that matter?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Was it incumbent upon -- and I appreciate you don't know the name

8 of -- of Zulfikar Alispago's security man -- was it necessary for that

9 person to contact you personally over details such as the accommodation of

10 soldiers from Sarajevo? Is that something you would expect to have heard

11 about or was it too much of a local issue for him to trouble you about?

12 A. Precisely. There was no need and he was physically not in a

13 position to do that. He couldn't have reached me. The distance was too

14 great. And in a formal sense, this unit was within the establishment of

15 the 6th Corps until the 1st of September. And from then on, as far as I

16 remember, it was part of the 4th Corps. These are many steps to be taken

17 before he could eventually reach me.

18 Q. Just in terms of the -- his ability to contact you, are you able

19 to explain what is the precise mechanism by which that person would

20 contact you, if he had to do so? For example, was there a local telephone

21 network? Was there a computer packet system? Would you mind just

22 explaining to the Tribunal so that they understand what the -- what the

23 distance between Sarajevo and Jablanica really meant, in terms of

24 communications.

25 A. This was an enormous difficulty and an objective one. The enemy

1 forces split the two areas in half. The communications system was a

2 source of problems. There were technical problems and there were

3 security-related problems too. The system needed protecting and all the

4 messages were coded. It usually took some time to decode the messages.

5 This was a real problem. I don't think what it -- what it would have

6 taken for a security officer attached to a company-strong unit to get in

7 touch with the security chief of the Main Staff.

8 Q. All right. Well, that was going to be my next question, but yes,

9 you've answered it. Thanks.

10 So look, can I just put a couple of propositions to you. I'll

11 bear in mind my learned friend's objections too, but I just want to put to

12 you a couple of propositions about this. First of all, you don't know

13 yourself what Zulfikar's security officer did with respect to receiving

14 the Sarajevo troops; is that accurate?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Secondly, according to standard procedures, that person should

17 have performed a security assessment relating to those troops, including a

18 consideration of where they were to be billeted; is that true?

19 A. Your Honours, you could say that about the area that the unit was

20 coming to, but as for the unit itself, it needed to be assessed by its own

21 brigade, its own brigade which originally sent the unit out.

22 Q. And in that respect, with -- with respect to the 9th Brigade,

23 that would mean Tomo Juric, the security officer there? Can you say who

24 should have performed that assessment with respect to the 2nd Independent

25 Battalion, which the evidence is was also sent?

1 First of all, I should ask you: Do you know the 2nd Independent

2 Battalion under the command of Adnan Solakovic?

3 A. Yes., I know about the battalion. It was based in Sarajevo. But

4 I didn't realise that they were off at the time.

5 Q. No. Well -- well, that's okay. The evidence is that they were

6 there. But my question to you doesn't require you to speculate about

7 that. It is that if the 2nd Independent Battalion was sent out from

8 Sarajevo, who should have performed a security assessment concerning them?

9 Did they have their own security person, or should it have been the corps

10 level? Would you just explain that, please.

11 A. That was an independent battalion, and according to some military

12 principles, it has the rank of a brigade. When it's independent, it has

13 its own security officer, and the security situation was evaluated by that

14 person. There was no need for the corps to do it.

15 Q. Yes, I see. So that the -- effectively the 2nd Independent

16 Battalion ought to have performed -- am I right in summarising this way,

17 that they should have performed their own security assessment? Is that

18 right, or am I getting it completely wrong?

19 A. Yes, you're right.

20 Q. Okay. A local unit -- well, look, I withdraw that.

21 But in any event, the persons performing that function, that

22 security assessment function, were not under any obligation, nor was it

23 necessary for them to report directly to you about these activities; is

24 that accurate?

25 A. At that level, the units were not obliged to submit reports to

1 me. They had their own superiors.

2 Q. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, I understand that.

3 Just finally -- I appreciate you've given indications that you

4 don't know a great deal about the situation with Zulfikar's unit, so I

5 won't ask you any more questions about that, except for this one only:

6 Were you aware that before the -- before this Operation Neretva 93 at one

7 stage Zulfikar Alispago and at least some of his units were on Igman --

8 involved in the combat on Igman? Was that within your knowledge?

9 A. Yes. Yes, I'm aware that that unit was at Igman and that it took

10 part in fighting in that area.

11 Q. And the proposition I'm coming to -- the question I'm going to

12 ask you in the end really, I suppose, apart from all these preliminary

13 ones, is this: To your knowledge, Zulfikar Alispago was personally

14 acquainted with Ramiz Delalic and had met him, both on Igman and in other

15 situations?

16 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

17 MS. CHANA: The witness has been asked to comment whether two

18 people met on Igman.

19 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: That's exactly what I am asking him, yes. And it

21 seems to be a relevant and admissible question.

22 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

23 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, he was -- the witness didn't say he was

24 at Igman. He said he knew there was an operation, and the -- Zulfikar

25 Alispago was there. Perhaps he should be asked whether he was there to

1 know whether they met.

2 JUDGE LIU: Well, the question is to the witness's knowledge,

3 just to say, you know, whether he knows or not. Maybe he was not there

4 but he knew about that.

5 Well, we'll see, you know, how the witness will answer that

6 question.

7 MR. MORRISSEY:

8 Q. Yes. Well, Mr. Jasarevic, the water was muddied by me asking a

9 preliminary question when I really just need to come to the straight-ahead

10 question now, and that is: To your knowledge, did Zulfikar Alispago know

11 Ramiz Delalic?

12 A. I don't know.

13 Q. Very well. All right. Thank you. Well, those are the

14 preliminary questions.

15 And I now want to come to some questions about the -- about the

16 incidents in Grabovica and, in particular, your knowledge about those

17 and -- and what you can -- and perhaps what you can explain about some of

18 the documents that we have to deal with here.

19 I want to preface these questions to you by mentioning this: I'm

20 going to show you a large number of documents and some of which have been

21 found in archives, some of which you may have seen, some of which you may

22 not. And if at any time you feel the need to stop and read a document or

23 to be assured of where it comes from, you're perfectly entitled to do

24 that. This is not an exercise in trickery, and you're entitled to

25 knowledge about the documents. So bear that in mind if a document comes

1 that you may not have seen and, as I say, feel free to interrupt or to

2 ask -- or to raise any issue that you want to in the course of that.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: Now, just excuse me one moment.

4 [Defence counsel confer]

5 MR. MORRISSEY: Could the witness be given the opportunity,

6 please, to look at -- it's Defence document, 65 ter D66. Its DD number is

7 DD00.0255, and it will become MFI221.

8 Your Honours, I just want to note something for the Court's

9 benefit here, that this document was shown -- an identical document was

10 shown to the witness yesterday. It's -- it's the Dzankovic report. But

11 the translation that we are showing is -- we think it's a more full

12 translation because there -- I think there was a stamp on it, which is not

13 translated, and we just weren't sure with the situation yesterday when --

14 you probably don't recall, but there was a lot of shuffling at this table

15 when that document was displayed. And we should indicate that now in case

16 the Prosecution wonders why we're using an identical document and giving

17 it a different number. This one has got a slightly different translation,

18 only as to a stamp, and indeed that may not be a matter of massive

19 significance. But I mention it now so that everyone knows what's coming.

20 JUDGE LIU: Well, there might be some significance to the other

21 party.

22 I wonder whether the Prosecution has been properly informed about

23 the differences of the two documents.

24 MS. CHANA: No, yes or no,

25 MS. CHANA: No, Your Honour. We have not been informed of

1 anything. It would be something that counsel could have perhaps indicated

2 to us ahead of time and we could actually have looked and found the

3 document. I can see our case manager is now looking through to find them.

4 Your Honour, this is a part of the function of not having Defence

5 documents prior to their cross-examination. This is a matter I had raised

6 with you some time ago, that at least a day ahead of time that the Defence

7 be required to also give us their list, like we give them our list - and a

8 very detailed list, Your Honour - and assist us in preparing so that the

9 proceedings go along in a more expeditious manner and this kind of

10 time-wasting doesn't happen, because we would like to verify whether that

11 is indeed -- there's any issues in translations and things, and of course

12 it will take some time to do so.

13 JUDGE LIU: Well, we -- we have got the Defence list the day

14 before yesterday. I don't know whether you have got it on that day or

15 not.

16 Mr. Morrissey, do you have the signature of the Prosecution for

17 receiving that list of the documents?

18 MR. MORRISSEY: [Microphone not activated]

19 JUDGE LIU: Your microphone, please.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: I'll have to check that with someone who knows

21 the answer, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE LIU: I see.

23 Do you mind to show that document with the stamps and the

24 different translation to the Prosecution right now?

25 MR. MORRISSEY: It's -- Your Honour, it's uploaded. It should be

1 on the screen or capable of being on the screen. It's -- Your Honour,

2 this --

3 [Defence counsel confer]

4 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. Your Honour, this was the document that

5 appeared on the ELMO yesterday. I think it's -- I think there's a

6 misunderstanding here. There was some communication between the Defence

7 and the Prosecution about this. I am now at the moment in the middle of

8 asking questions of a witness on a key document and I don't want to be

9 sidetracked. Let me say that I'll use the Prosecution document now so

10 that there's no argument about it. I do not want my friend's criticism to

11 stand, but I'll deal with it later. There's a witness here who needs to

12 give evidence. So I'll use the Prosecutor's document, which is --

13 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

14 MR. MORRISSEY: It's MFI215. And we'll point out what the

15 problems are with the Prosecutor's one at a later stage and we'll give

16 them the opportunity to withdraw their comments if they need to withdraw

17 them.

18 Very well. Could the witness please be shown that, MFI215,

19 please.

20 MS. CHANA: Your Honour, I'm sorry, there's one matter. I've

21 just seen the transcript, where Your Honour asked the Defence counsel

22 whether we have got the list of the documents, which you yourself have

23 indicated you got a day before.

24 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

25 MS. CHANA: We don't have it. We've never been given a list.

1 JUDGE LIU: You mean the -- the --

2 MS. CHANA: The Defence, yes.

3 JUDGE LIU: The documents intended to be used by Defence counsel

4 in the cross-examination of this witness? You don't have it?

5 MS. CHANA: No, Your Honour. We have never been provided it.

6 And this is a matter that I had raised. At least we should have it a day

7 before. If they can provide it to Your Honours, I'd imagine it would be

8 quite simple to provide it to the Prosecution.

9 JUDGE LIU: Well, I'm surprised to hear that, Mr. Morrissey.

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, Your Honour, let me indicate: As I

11 understood the position, the Prosecutor has tried three times to get us to

12 do this, and Your Honour has ruled against them. Now, if we need to go

13 and find the transcript of that, we will. In cross-examination we do not

14 have to provide them in advance with a list of the documents we're going

15 to put to the witness. It's not the practice here; it's never been. And

16 we would resist strongly any requirement that we do.

17 And, Your Honour, if -- I don't want this one to be resolved on

18 the run now. If my friend is making a serious submission, she should

19 indicate why it is that Your Honours' ruling of the past was wrong and we

20 should deal with it not in an ad hoc way. Because this -- well, I don't

21 want to make a speech about it.

22 Your Honour, not only does the Defence not have to provide it to

23 the -- to the Prosecutor, but the Prosecutor tried to get this before and

24 Your Honour ruled against them. We give it to the Court but we're not

25 required to give it to the Prosecutor, and frankly, we're not going to

1 unless there's an order that we have to, and at the moment we've got an

2 order from Your Honour that we don't have to.

3 If there's an interest of justice, the Prosecutors can seek to

4 litigate it in the future.

5 As to this particular document here, it's my opinion and it will

6 be my submission when I've got time to deal with it that in effect we are

7 right and they're wrong. However, for the purposes of this witness being

8 here and giving evidence in a case that -- Your Honour, I'm acutely aware

9 that at all times Mr. Halilovic is in custody, so I do wish to press on

10 with the -- with the case.

11 The Prosecutor objects, so I won't use that document now.

12 Could I ask that if the Prosecutor wish to persist with this

13 application of theirs, it be done formally and we do it at an appropriate

14 time when we're not in the middle of -- of cross-examining. Because we do

15 have a ruling which my friend has just at the moment forgotten about from

16 Your Honour on this very topic.

17 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Well, of course we made a ruling on that issue

18 already, and the -- at the same time, we also said that it will be greatly

19 facilitating the proceedings if the Defence counsel in their

20 cross-examination is kind enough to provide a preliminary list to the

21 Court as well as to the other parties before you are starting the

22 cross-examination. It's not obligatory request, but I think in the

23 courtesy to the other party.

24 MR. MORRISSEY: [Microphone not activated]

25 Sorry. Well --

1 JUDGE LIU: Here, you know, we met with some problem, you know.

2 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, I'm -- there are two things to say

3 in response to what Your Honour says.

4 There may be occasions when it's appropriate for the Defence to

5 do that, and I bear in mind what Your Honour says about a courtesy to

6 the -- to the Prosecution.

7 There's a necessity to disclose it to the Court because of the

8 e-court situation. We have to do that. And because of the e-court

9 situation, we're very happy to -- that the Court -- that the Judges as

10 well as the officials in the court have that -- have those materials.

11 But it's also the case that many documents are uploaded which may

12 not ultimately be used in cross-examination because, as is apparent with

13 this witness and other witnesses, sometimes a witness will answer a

14 question without regard to a particular document and then there's no need

15 to clutter the system proving what is testified in an uncontradicted way.

16 And -- and for those reasons, it -- it's the fact that what is provided to

17 the court deputies here may not represent what's put. In fact, they will

18 have more documents than what we end up putting because some documents are

19 there, one might say, to -- to meet contingencies. If a witness gives a

20 particular answer, they might want to be shown a document to deal with

21 that answer.

22 And that's why it is that we would not be -- that's one of the

23 reasons why the Prosecutor ought not to be given the same document.

24 JUDGE LIU: But -- but the situation here is a little bit

25 different because we have two same documents with the different

1 translation or with a stamp in one document. I think, you know, you have

2 to inform the other party about that difference.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, could I just say one thing: I agree

4 with that. Could I just take one moment to take instructions. Because I

5 think there's an answer to my friend's objection, and if it's the one I

6 think it is, I'm going to make a grouchy submission.

7 But would Your Honour just allow me to take instructions from

8 Mr. Cengic for a moment.

9 [Defence counsel confer]

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, I am going to make a grouchy reply.

11 Your Honour, what happened here was that the Prosecution's

12 original exhibit had an English translation and a Bosnian original. The

13 Bosnian original was lacking certain markings. The Prosecution then

14 sought the Defence's permission to use the Defence's Bosnian original.

15 And that's what happened.

16 Now what we want to do is to use the Defence's translation. That

17 translation reflecting the Bosnian version that we gave to the Prosecutor

18 that was the better version, which they used, and as to which now they

19 seem to be suggesting that there's some dirty trick being played or that

20 they've been disadvantaged, when in fact what is being put is the

21 translation of the document we gave them in the spirit of cooperation and

22 which, as I understand it, was used on the ELMO. We apologise for the

23 inconvenience that we have caused the Prosecutor. We undertake to rectify

24 the inconvenience that we've caused the Prosecutor. We regret, however,

25 the way in which this was used in what seems to have been -- well, it

1 doesn't matter about that. I withdraw that.

2 To the extent that we've caused difficulty, we apologise for it.

3 We will make it right. We'll provide a copy of that correct translation

4 to the Prosecutor to follow the correct original that we gave to the

5 Prosecutor. And then they'll have the benefit of both of the Defence

6 documents and they won't be disadvantaged or deprived of equality of arms

7 any more.

8 JUDGE LIU: Well, just one question, if you don't mind: That is,

9 who did the translation of that document? Is it by the CLSS or --

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, I'm instructed it was by CLSS. You mean our

11 translation?

12 JUDGE LIU: Yes, your translation.

13 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes. It's by CLSS.

14 JUDGE LIU: And how about the Prosecution's translation?

15 MR. MORRISSEY: Well, I believe the Prosecution -- I don't know.

16 They can tell you that. But I assume the CLSS probably translated their

17 one, referring to an original which lacked the markings, which have caused

18 all the interest in the first place. That's what I think is the

19 situation.

20 Your Honour, perhaps it can be clarified -- Your Honour, the

21 truth of the matter is we should have given the additional document. We

22 should have given it over. I mean, the reason why we didn't is because

23 the way it happened and because we gave them the original ourselves in the

24 first place. That's how it's come about, Your Honour. But even so we --

25 I don't want to cause trouble over it. Yes, we gave them the original.

1 Yes, we should also have given them a translation of that. We didn't

2 think of it, and you can see why we didn't, because of the -- what's

3 unfolded here.

4 Your Honours perhaps rather than thinking on my feet about this

5 at the end of the day, in which -- I mean, I'm not sure how entertaining

6 I'm being to Mr. Jasarevic here frankly.

7 JUDGE LIU: Well, at this moment, I think I have to make a

8 ruling.

9 As for this particular document, the Defence has to furnish that

10 document with a proper translation to the Prosecution.

11 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, we undertake to do so. It's -- it

12 is uploaded in the system now. It's released. I think they have it.

13 JUDGE LIU: And as for the admission of those documents, we'll

14 discuss it at a later stage, especially maybe sometime without the witness

15 present, because it's purely a translation issue or the administrative

16 issue, which has nothing to do with this witness.

17 So -- yes, Ms. Chana.

18 MS. CHANA: Your Honours, be that as it may - and we don't have

19 to do it now - I would invite Your Honours to reconsider your decision

20 about the Defence documents not to be given to us in time. It is not

21 Tribunal practice that they're not given. In fact, I can name four cases

22 immediately - Strugar, Brdjanin/Talic, Bosanski Samac, Tuta/Stela - where

23 this has been done. And it's done for precisely this reason. So it is

24 not that it's not Tribunal practice.

25 And as I said, the Prosecution would invite Your Honours because

1 normally we've been getting documents without translation, and it does put

2 us in a situation where we -- we are embarrassed by not having the

3 documents in time.

4 So as I said, we do not have to do it now, but I would certainly

5 put it on the cards that we would invite Your Honours to -- to reconsider

6 this aspect, and perhaps Your Honours can also look into the other cases

7 as to how this was done and why it was done.

8 And now with the e-court I think it's even more compelling

9 that -- that this ought to be done.

10 JUDGE LIU: Well, I don't know about the other cases at this

11 moment, but I have to remind you that I was the Presiding Judge in Tuta

12 and Stela's case. I know that case, you know, pretty well. I believe our

13 court deputy was also sitting in that case.

14 But anyway, we'll do some research on that issue and we'll

15 continue the proceedings with this witness.

16 I see -- yes, Ms. Chana.

17 MS. CHANA: No, that's fine.

18 JUDGE LIU: Yes. I see everybody is nodding.

19 So, Mr. Morrissey, would you please proceed.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: I will, Your Honour. I'm instructed that there

21 are a number of other cases that may be relevant, and I can list those:

22 There's the Kunarac decision, Krnojelac, and there's the Tuta and Stela

23 case that Your Honour mentioned. There's Blagojevic, which Your Honour

24 was also involved in.

25 Your Honour, could I just mention this: It's a valiant

1 performance by my learned friend here. If my friend is serious, this

2 ought to be done in writing in a motion. It -- Your Honours' ruled and

3 Your Honours' rulings are no to be overturned just because the Prosecutor

4 saw an opportunity for a brief glimpse before the matter arose --

5 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Morrissey, I think I made a ruling that

6 we'll proceed with this witness. Let's not debate on that issue at the

7 moment.

8 MR. MORRISSEY: Yes, Your Honour. Certainly. Very well.

9 [Defence counsel confer]

10 MR. MORRISSEY: Okay. Now I'd ask that the witness be shown

11 MFI221.

12 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, I apologise to you for my part in all of that.

13 And do you now have in front of you that document?

14 Sorry, may I inquire, Mr. Jasarevic, do you now have in front of

15 you a document which is dated the 13th of September, 1993 which is

16 marked "Attention: Jusuf Jasarevic."

17 A. "66." That's what it says in the upper right-hand corner.

18 Q. That's the document. Okay. Thank you.

19 Now, to return to -- to the case at hand here. Is this -- does

20 this appear to be the same document that you looked at when my learned

21 friend was cross-examining you -- or sorry, was -- was examining you in

22 chief yesterday?

23 A. Yes, we did look at this document, I believe.

24 Q. Okay. Now we're going to look at it slightly more thoroughly and

25 I'm going to take you through it step by step, if that's possible.

1 First of all, could you just indicate that the handwritten part

2 of this document, which is addressed to Vahid, is addressed to a man

3 called Vahid Bogunic, who was an employee of yours or an officer of yours?

4 A. Yes. Yes.

5 Q. Okay. And the instructions there that you gave include the

6 consulting of a legal officer, whose name you provided yesterday. And

7 would you mind repeating that name, please.

8 A. Goran Radovic [phoen], a lawyer with the security administration.

9 Q. Yes, I understand. Now, those notes of yours were placed on this

10 document at a later time when you finally received it; is that the case?

11 A. As soon as I laid my hands on it and familiarised myself with the

12 substance, I put the notes there. That was my usual modus operandi.

13 Q. Okay. Now, apart from it being addressed to you, is it addressed

14 to or marked to the attention of any other person, this document, either

15 at the start or at the end?

16 A. If I understand you correctly, the answer is no. The document is

17 addressed to the security administration generally. You can see my name

18 in the brackets, but it could have been received by another officer who

19 was standing in for me while I was away.

20 Q. Yes. I understand. And -- well, that was my next question. Is

21 it apparent on the face of the document who received it, yourself or

22 another officer, or can that just not be told at this stage?

23 A. All I can see on the face of this is that it was received by the

24 security administration and that's what matters, isn't it? And

25 specifically, the reason you see my name here is probably because I was a

1 representative of the administration, but I don't believe that is the only

2 relevant thing about it.

3 Q. Okay. What I want to do now is take you to some specifics in the

4 text.

5 Now, first of all, do you notice a reference to the relationship

6 between the Zulfikar unit commander and the local population? It's at the

7 start of the second large paragraph, the third paragraph altogether. Do

8 you notice there that it says that "Bosnian army members, particularly the

9 Zulfikar unit commander, and the Jablanica municipality civilian

10 authorities, treated the population in a correct manner and no drastic

11 cases of putting their security at risk were recorded"? Do you see that

12 passage there?

13 A. I haven't found the passage, but I know that it is in the

14 document somewhere. I do acknowledge that.

15 Q. Very well. Would you look -- just so that we can make sure that

16 you're following what I'm putting to you, that -- the paragraph I'm

17 referring to -- the first paragraph is -- begins "On the 8th of September,

18 1993 ..." Do you have that?

19 A. I see that.

20 Q. Okay.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. The following paragraph begins with the words "The units were

23 quartered in Croatian houses ..." Do you have that?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Okay.

1 A. Yes, I see that too.

2 Q. The paragraph after that commences "Army of Bosnia and

3 Herzegovina, army members, particularly the Zulfikar unit commander."

4 I'm sorry, on the English version it's got a paragraph break, but

5 on your version it hasn't. It's probably about seven or eight lines down

6 from the top.

7 A. You mean "Zulfikar" in quotation marks?

8 Q. Yes.

9 A. And then it goes on. The word is "civilian authorities."

10 Q. Yes, correct.

11 A. Yes, I see that. I see the passage.

12 Q. Very well. Thank you.

13 Do you also see that -- on the following line or following couple

14 of lines, there's a reference to "The units from Sarajevo were quartered

15 in Marica Kuce and a makeshift barrier was erected at the entrance where

16 they controlled the entry and exit of persons"? Do you see that?

17 A. There's a part of the text here that is dark and it's very

18 unclear. I think it begins with the figures "8" or "9". Probably the

19 year is 1993.

20 JUDGE LIU: Well, I wonder whether you have the B/C/S version.

21 Could it be furnished to the witness?

22 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, in court we don't have the B/C/S

23 version, but we will produce it immediately, so --

24 JUDGE LIU: Maybe your friend will have that.

25 MS. CHANA: Indeed we -- we like to help the Defence,

1 Your Honour, and we can furnish.

2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

3 MR. MORRISSEY: I'm sorry, perhaps that document from the

4 Prosecutor should be returned and we'll produce the document that we have.

5 Grateful as we are for its production.

6 Q. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Jasarevic, just take the time and

7 familiarise yourself with that passage.

8 The question I'm leading to here is that -- and perhaps I can ask

9 the question while you're -- while you're perusing it. There was a

10 document attached to this report of Dzankovic, was there not?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And I'm going to show you that document in a moment, but -- but

13 just now do you recall that it was a report from the deputy head of the

14 Jablanica police station, a man named Salih Amidzic.

15 A. Ahmet Salih Amidzic. Yes, I remember.

16 Q. And generally speaking -- generally speaking, I'm not asking you

17 to do a word-by-word comparison, because of course there are some

18 differences, but as far as you could see, Dzankovic's report was

19 consistent with the letter of Salih Amidzic in the details that it

20 furnished. And this is only a broad, impressionistic question that I'm

21 asking, but it's one which may impact on how you proceed. Was that your

22 perception, that the two documents seemed to be broadly consistent?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Okay. Well, I'm going to press on with this document now. Was

25 information then provided by Dzankovic that over the night of the 8th and

1 9th of December -- sorry, of September -- that gunshots could be heard

2 essentially lasting all night long and that in the morning a rumour came

3 to Jablanica that -- that soldiers from Sarajevo had slaughtered the

4 Croatian population?

5 A. Yes, the text clearly reflects that.

6 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, can I indicate there's two reasons why I'm taking

7 you to this. First of all, even though you're aware of the contents in

8 some respects, I want some of it to appear on the transcript. And a

9 second purpose is to -- is to clarify some of the -- of the work that was

10 done by the services, both the SVB and by the -- by the military police.

11 Now, the next thing -- the next paragraph reveals that "In a

12 cooperative venture, a military policeman and a civilian policeman both

13 went to Grabovica. Namely, those people being -- they're not named in the

14 text here, but that was Salih Amidzic and a man called Sead Kurt [phoen].

15 A. Yes, this rings a bell.

16 Q. Yes. And at that stage of the -- at that stage of proceedings,

17 it was perfectly appropriate and acceptable for the civilian police and

18 the -- and the military police to go cooperatively to the village to find

19 out what they could find out; is that accurate?

20 A. Yes, with the proviso that I'm not in the position to comment on

21 the exact degree of their cooperation for the simple reason that their

22 cooperation in that area did not yield the expected -- or rather, desired

23 result.

24 Q. Yes. Well, I understand your reservation about that. But I just

25 want to get your comment about a couple of aspects of this report.

1 The next paragraph reveals details of a -- or at least references

2 to an interview between Salih Amidzic and two of the surviving Bosnian

3 Croatian civilians, Ivan and Stoja Pranjic. And you'll see that in the

4 paragraph -- in the section beginning "On the 10th of September, 1993, the

5 Jablanica SJB chief interviewed Ivan ..." Now, do you see that section?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Okay. Now, at this point, it -- it was appropriate and -- and

8 indeed -- sorry, I take that back. It was an appropriate thing for

9 Dzankovic to do to report to you the steps taken by the civilian police at

10 that time as part of his reporting up the professional line; is that

11 accurate or -- or wrong?

12 A. Well, that is accurate in part, but I do have to add something,

13 Your Honours. It's a good thing that Dzankovic passed the report on to me

14 saying that a war crime had occurred. He did his best. However, it's me

15 who's being asked the question, and even if his report did have the

16 properties that Defence counsel has referred to, I don't think it would

17 have changed anything. My role was nearly useless, with the exception of

18 instructions that I provided him with after I had received this document.

19 There were tasks to the 1st Corps, to the analytical department concerning

20 the reporting process.

21 I apologise for elaborating at such length, but here the

22 important thing was to identify the key problem, and that was organising

23 the control over the operation, because this sort of report and this sort

24 of information about the crime had to reach the right person on the

25 ground, and this person would have been the only person to take

1 appropriate steps and measures.

2 Q. Now, I understand what you say about that, and I just want to

3 elaborate, if I could, on what your -- what your possible role was. First

4 of all, you had many duties that you had to attend to in Sarajevo, apart

5 from assisting Dzankovic with advice and -- and -- and counsel. Is that

6 the fact? You had a lot of things to do?

7 A. Yes. It was possible that I would not have learned anything

8 about this at the time. I was, after all, unaware of the operation

9 itself. It was only thanks to Dzankovic's report and the phone call that

10 I had received in the evening hours on the 11th that I found out about the

11 crime. Had it not been for that, I probably would have found out much

12 later, and the question remains: What good could it have been for me to

13 find out at all at such a late stage?

14 Q. No, I understand that. And I think I'm going to get you to

15 explain in a moment the type of assistance that the rules require you to

16 get to a -- a junior officer such as Dzankovic. But just now I just want

17 to stay at the general level, and the general question is this: There was

18 no requirement for you, nor was it a proper thing for you to do, to go

19 down to Herzegovina and involve yourself in this case directly. Is that

20 the fact?

21 A. Of course.

22 Q. Yes. I understand that. And -- but nevertheless, where a junior

23 officer appeals to you for help and indicates the steps he wants to take

24 or proposes to take and reports to you, then in that situation naturally

25 you are prepared to give him such help as is appropriate in the

1 circumstances; is that right

2 A. He submitted a report. At the end of this report - and I'm sorry

3 for skipping to the end of the document; perhaps I'm upsetting your

4 strategy - but I don't think that he's precisely asking for assistance,

5 because I don't think he was clear about his own role over there. Maybe

6 I'm overreaching myself, but it was maybe pursuant to Mr. Halilovic's

7 instructions that he's making these proposals. And I'm not sure who these

8 proposals are being made to instead of trying to get the situation

9 resolved on the ground. And we must bear in mind the fact that I received

10 this document on the 20th of September, which means 11 or 12 days after

11 the actual crime.

12 Q. Yes, I understand that. And I can assure you that you're not

13 wrecking any strategy at all. It's -- you're quite right to go forward to

14 those -- to the end of the -- of the document, as you did, which I'm going

15 to do in just a moment.

16 But -- well, look, perhaps -- well, since you've done so, and

17 lest it appear that I'm attempting to use a strategy, which I'm not,

18 perhaps if we'd go to the end of that document now and I'll come back to

19 some of the other minor points that I wanted to make in a moment.

20 It's apparent to you that -- that Dzankovic was indicating what

21 he'd been told by Sefer Halilovic not just about Halilovic's own views of

22 the crime but about the tasks which Halilovic had -- had ordered him to

23 perform. And all I want to do is ask you about the juxtaposition of his

24 comments about Halilovic and then following that the proposals that

25 Dzankovic appears to make in the document.

1 Now, you partially anticipated this question a moment ago in your

2 answer, but feel free to elaborate on that. It may be the last question

3 of the night, I think, given the time. But I'd just like you to comment

4 on those matters. You see where -- where he indicate what is Halilovic

5 has told him to do, and then he proposes certain measures. Does it appear

6 to you that he's proposing those measures directly as a result of the

7 order given to him by Sefer Halilovic?

8 A. For me it's not explicit, but it's certainly possible. What I

9 certainly recognise is that Mr. Halilovic gave him an assignment. This

10 was a move that could only be welcomed. However, when commenting on this

11 document, I clearly said that I also took into account the tasks proposed

12 by Dzankovic. Who is he proposing this to? That is the question. Is

13 this just a consideration on his part? Is this just something that he

14 believes should be done? I think the real question here, Your Honours, is

15 that these assignments are unrealistic, inappropriate. And when I

16 say "unrealistic" I mean in terms of the resources, in terms of the unit

17 strength, in terms of the time. And that applies to most of these

18 assignments. That's what I mean when I say "unrealistic." And that, I

19 think, is a great difficulty with this particular portion of the document.

20 MR. MORRISSEY: Okay. Well, I have more questions about this,

21 but they're not going to be finished in one minute, Your Honour, so it may

22 be appropriate to ...

23 JUDGE LIU: Yes. But we are approaching to the weekend. Could

24 you please be kind enough to inform us how much time you still need to

25 finish your cross.

1 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, can I indicate that it will be

2 shorter than I expected. I -- I intend to complete my cross-examination

3 tomorrow with this witness. Because there's a large number of documents,

4 it's possible that it would go into the following day, but it's also

5 possible and it's my intention to complete it tomorrow. That's -- that's

6 the goal. So we'll try that.

7 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

8 The hearing for today is adjourned.

9 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.03 p.m.,

10 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 3rd day of

11 March, 2005, at 2.15 p.m.

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