1 Monday, 30th August, 1999
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 2.06 p.m.
4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Please be
5 seated.
6 Mr. Registrar, would you have the accused
7 brought in, please.
8 [The accused entered court]
9 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We will now
10 resume our work, which we haven't been able to work
11 with for quite a while for various reasons.
12 First of all, I want to be sure the
13 interpreters can hear me. I can't see them as clearly
14 as I could in the other courtroom, but I do recognise
15 their voices. The Office of the Prosecutor, can you
16 hear the Judges, representatives of the Office of the
17 Prosecutor?
18 MR. NICE: Yes, thank you.
19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you.
20 Thank you, Mr. Nice.
21 Turning to the Defence, can you hear me,
22 represented by Mr. Greaves and Mr. Londrovic? Can the
23 accused hear me as well?
24 We can now resume, and I would like first to
25 welcome back amongst us Judge Riad.
1 We will start with a motion that was filed on
2 Friday, a Defence motion. Perhaps Mr. Greaves could
3 give us some further information about it, and then we
4 will hear whatever comments the Prosecutor wishes to
5 make.
6 I believe that you want this trial to be
7 postponed. Is that correct? Could you explain what
8 you mean? You know this trial has already been
9 interrupted several times. Therefore, we would ask
10 that you explain why you're making this request. I'm
11 sure your reasons are well founded, but after that the
12 Prosecution will respond and the Judges will take their
13 decisions, as it should be.
14 Mr. Greaves?
15 MR. GREAVES: Of course, and I'm most
16 grateful to Your Honour for introducing the matter in a
17 concise way. Thank you very much for that.
18 Your Honour, the position is this, that Your
19 Honour has correctly identified the purpose of the
20 motion as one to adjourn the trial. Can I say
21 straightaway that it is not an application that we make
22 lightly at all for the obvious reasons that Your Honour
23 has mentioned and also because of the obvious point
24 about witnesses who may be inconvenienced if the motion
25 succeeds, and we have only filed this motion after
1 giving it some considerable and careful thought.
2 The position is this: If I just explain a
3 little bit about the background, Your Honours will
4 forgive me for taking a little time.
5 One of the items upon which the Prosecution
6 has indicated that it relies to prove the crime of
7 genocide against Goran Jelisic is a principal list of
8 some 100 people who it is alleged were identified as
9 being in a mass grave found in the Brcko district
10 sometime in 1992, and also upon a second list of SDA or
11 political persons, second list of some 39 names.
12 The Defence infer from the existence of the
13 list that the Prosecution's case in respect of them is
14 that those people are exclusively Muslim by ethnic or
15 religious background and that those 100 or 139 people
16 were the victims of a deliberate killing as part of a
17 concerted plan to destroy, in whole or in part, the
18 Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
19 The Defence do not accept necessarily that
20 those people are either all dead or that they were
21 killed as part of such a plan, and as part of its case,
22 the Defence intends to ask of witnesses from the Brcko
23 area about the names of people on those lists and what
24 they know, if anything, of the circumstances of their
25 death or, indeed, whether they know that they are still
1 alive.
2 At least one witness who is due to give
3 evidence, and I won't mention his name, speaks of some
4 of those named on the list in his witness statement,
5 gives them by name, and describes them, for example, as
6 having been killed during an evacuation. It may well
7 be that from such a witness or from witnesses
8 information may be forthcoming which demonstrates that
9 far from having been killed as part of a deliberate
10 policy of liquidating Muslims, the persons named on the
11 lists, or some of them, were in fact killed during
12 ordinary military operations, for example, by shelling
13 directed by one party against the fixed positions of
14 another, or during some localised skirmish between two
15 opposing groups of infantry, or, indeed, that they may
16 have died from causes unconnected with the strife in
17 Brcko.
18 Very recented, as recently as the 17th of
19 August of this year, an investigator employed by the
20 Defence, who is an advocate based in Belgrade in the
21 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, became aware of the
22 existence -- or having become aware of the existence of
23 a court at a place called Maoca, which is in the
24 Federation area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is a court
25 which has been set up as an institution to deal with
1 legal matters that would otherwise be within the
2 jurisdiction of the District Court at Brcko. It has
3 been set up, as I understand it, for those people who
4 live in the Federation who are afraid to travel to
5 Brcko but who wish to deal with matters that would
6 ordinarily come within the Brcko Court jurisdiction, in
7 other words, people who used to live in Brcko, their
8 affairs were in Brcko, but they are no longer
9 sufficiently happy to go to Brcko to deal with those
10 affairs, so a secondary court has been set up, as it
11 were, in parallel.
12 He went to that court on the 17th of August
13 and, during the course of making enquires there, became
14 aware that that court held quite large numbers of files
15 which are applications by people to have members of
16 their family declared dead. That, I suspect, is the
17 kind of application which exists in every
18 jurisdiction. I'm sure in each of Your Honours'
19 jurisdictions there are applications where people have
20 gone missing, to have them formally declared dead so
21 that finality can be brought to the affairs of the
22 person who has gone missing.
23 Prior to discovering this fact, the Defence
24 had believed that only the Court at Brcko had
25 jurisdiction over such matters and that only the Court
1 at Brcko had been dealing with such matters.
2 If I might just briefly describe what one
3 might expect to accompany such applications, it is
4 likely that each application will be supported, amongst
5 other things, by affidavit evidence from members of the
6 family and other persons who were aware of the
7 circumstances of the death of the subject of the
8 proceedings.
9 From our own experience of other people, we
10 have traced family members in respect of files held at
11 Brcko of a similar nature. We believe that such
12 information will reveal quite detailed information
13 about the circumstances of the death of the people who
14 are subject of the application, and in some of the
15 cases that we've found, and we anticipate putting
16 before the Court in due course, some of those reveal,
17 far from being killed as part of a deliberate policy,
18 they were in fact killed during the course, as I have
19 described it, of military operation.
20 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Excuse me. You
21 are already making your defence arguments. I would
22 like to know what the purpose of the request for the
23 adjournment of this trial is. Let's get back to the
24 purpose, or otherwise this is part of arguing or
25 pleadings that you will have the opportunity to do.
1 What we are interested in right now, we, the Judges, is
2 what your argument is, and that can be defended from
3 your point of view, but we want to know whether that
4 justifies adjournment of this trial. That's the real
5 question at issue.
6 MR. GREAVES: I hope that Your Honour will
7 bear with me. I had just been explaining exactly the
8 kernel of what the importance of these documents is,
9 and if Your Honour will forgive me, I would like to
10 make quite clear why they're important to the Defence.
11 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] All right. But
12 please be concise, be precise, because for the time
13 being, I take the liberty of telling to you that we are
14 starting with considerations which are legitimate from
15 the point of view of the defence of your client, but
16 which for the time being do not explain why this trial
17 should be adjourned. Therefore try to be concise and
18 to move forward. I give you back the floor.
19 MR. GREAVES: Thank you very much.
20 The investigator sought to get photocopies of
21 the files. To cut a long story short, he was prevented
22 from so doing and was invited to address himself to the
23 Ministry of Justice. He has written to the Ministry of
24 Justice; they have replied, declining to give him the
25 documents and referring him back, effectively, to the
1 Court at Maoca to obtain these documents.
2 We do not yet have the documents. The
3 Defence are not, at the present time, therefore, in
4 possession of some 59 files which deal with a part of
5 the Prosecution's case, we say a major part of the
6 Prosecution's case. The files may well contain
7 evidence which contradicts that of Prosecution
8 witnesses. They may contain evidence which
9 demonstrates that people died otherwise than in the
10 course of a deliberate policy of liquidation, of
11 genocide. They may also lead to other people being
12 found who can throw light on the death of others named
13 on the list, and it may also contain information which
14 undermines any assertion that a mass grave found in
15 1992 can be related to these incidents.
16 So these are matters which go to the absolute
17 heart of the Prosecution's case, to wit, to genocide.
18 We say that that is important evidence which ought to
19 be in the possession of the Defence prior to it
20 cross-examining Prosecution witnesses. Without full
21 knowledge of what is in those files, it makes it, we
22 say, very difficult to properly cross-examine
23 Prosecution witnesses at this stage, particularly if,
24 for example, information is contained in a file which
25 reveals that somebody does know, one of the Prosecution
1 witnesses does know something about it, or if it
2 contradicts that which is said by the Prosecution
3 witness.
4 As I say, we don't make the application
5 lightly, but we respectfully submit that this
6 information, going as it does to the heart of a major
7 part of the Prosecution's case, we are entitled to ask
8 witnesses what they know about those people, and we are
9 entitled to ask those witnesses about that with full
10 knowledge, and we submit that those files are
11 absolutely fundamental to enable the Defence to
12 properly cross-examine Prosecution witnesses, and that
13 justice cannot be done unless we are in a position to
14 do that.
15 I have no doubt complaint will be
16 made: "Well, this comes all very late in the day."
17 Could I remind Your Honour that for some two and a half
18 months of this year, investigators who live in Belgrade
19 have not exactly been able freely to travel in the
20 Federation area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that has
21 made a considerable difference to the efficiency with
22 which we have been able to discharge our duties of
23 investigating these matters, and that in part explains
24 why it's only lately that our investigator has been
25 able to travel freely and go to this court in Maoca.
1 That's one of the problems that has faced us, as I
2 suspect it's faced other Defence teams in other trials
3 in this unfortunate summer that we've had.
4 Your Honour, that's the application.
5 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you,
6 Mr. Greaves. Although the essential purpose of this
7 motion is an adjournment because in light of what is
8 going on in the region, in respect of the files of
9 those who are now missing, the Defence would need those
10 files so that its own investigators could use them in
11 order to cross-examine the witnesses that Mr. Nice
12 wants to call.
13 There, Mr. Nice, is the Defence motion.
14 Perhaps a question before we give the floor to
15 Mr. Nice: Does your investigator think that he will be
16 able to have access to those files in a certain amount
17 of time? How long does he need in order to have access
18 to them?
19 MR. GREAVES: The problem is, I'm afraid,
20 this, and I didn't tell Your Honour the whole story
21 because you asked me to be brief, but I'll tell you.
22 He initially thought he was going to be given the
23 documents, and whilst he was in the process of
24 obtaining them from one of the judges who has conduct
25 of the matters at that court, another judge came along
1 and said, "It's stopped. Don't do that. Check with
2 the president of the court." The president of the
3 court, when he was spoken to, said, "You must address
4 yourselves to the Ministry of Justice."
5 Having addressed ourselves to the Ministry of
6 Justice, the Ministry of Justice said, "No, nothing to
7 do with us. You must go back to the court." So we're
8 now in a position where we have to go back to the
9 court. It's possible that a refusal will take place,
10 and that would force us to come back to Your Honour and
11 ask Your Honour to issue a request to
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina to yield up the documents.
13 But I'm looking a little bit further ahead.
14 Of course, they are in Bosnia, I suspect, and they
15 would need still to be translated if they are to be of
16 any use to me. That's another problem that faces us.
17 But yes, Your Honour has identified the purpose to
18 which they would be put.
19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice?
20 MR. NICE: It would be entirely inappropriate
21 for an adjournment to be granted, in our respectful
22 submission. The fruit of inquiries at this particular
23 Court is probably no different from the fruit of
24 inquiry at the Brcko court itself. I don't know if my
25 friends have access to all the Brcko court inquiries,
1 and it doesn't matter if they do or not, because there
2 may yet be further applications before that court in
3 respect of people not yet the subject of application,
4 in the same way as there may be yet further
5 applications in respect of other names and at the other
6 court yet to come. So in principle, the fruit of these
7 other courts is unlikely to be helpful or critical or
8 central to any aspect of this case, and it is wholly
9 uncertain when, in any event, any such material should
10 be forthcoming.
11 But that is but a minor point of argument
12 compared with the substantial reasons why this
13 application, coming as late as it does, should be
14 rejected. First, what is the Prosecution's case in
15 relation to the list? Is it the absolutely central
16 piece of evidence that the Defence categorise it so to
17 be? No. The central evidence here is the evidence
18 from the eyewitnesses, who reveal quite clearly a
19 campaign of killing, a campaign the nature of which
20 will be properly decided upon from all the live
21 evidence before you, both as to its scale, as to its
22 purpose, as to its targets. And that evidence also, of
23 course, contains plentiful evidence of the state of
24 mind of the defendant Jelisic, one of probably the two
25 important elements upon which this case will focus in
1 due course. That is the central evidence.
2 To that evidence, it's true that there is a
3 list; I'll just tell you a little bit about the list.
4 The list of some 200-plus bodies, of which 100 or so
5 were identified, was a list prepared by officials in
6 the republic in October 1992, and handed over,
7 eventually, via another source, to investigators of the
8 Office of the Prosecutor, some years later. The list
9 purports to be a list of people who died and who were
10 buried in unmarked graves, starting in May of 1992.
11 Insofar as there are 100-plus names
12 identified on that list, some eight of them can, in any
13 event, be connected directly to the defendant Jelisic,
14 because he's pleaded guilty in respect of murders of
15 the named people, or eight of the named people, on that
16 list. There are several more names to whom he can be
17 linked by the evidence of witnesses who will say,
18 "There was a killing, Jelisic did or was complicit in
19 the killing, and this is the name of the person."
20 Beyond that, there is evidence of inference in respect
21 of many more names. The names on the list are names of
22 people who were killed at this time.
23 So the list is not a central piece of
24 evidence; it's a piece of evidence that is
25 contemporaneous, in that the list itself emerges from
1 about the time and at the hands of others. It's
2 evidence, insofar as it confirms particular deaths,
3 that corroborates what the Chamber will have heard from
4 elsewhere, and it may be that it will be evidence which
5 will go to show that the scale of the killings was as
6 boasted of by Jelisic and as revealed uncontrovertibly,
7 the Chamber may decide, in the evidence of the mass
8 graves said in this contemporaneous document to have
9 been filled in 1992 and capable of being shown by other
10 evidence to have been constructed and filled, at least
11 as to one of the graves, in 1992.
12 That piece of evidence, to remind the
13 Chamber, comes in the form of a sequence of
14 photographs, the first sequence being photographs that
15 the defendant has admitted are of his executing a
16 victim outside Brcko police station, the same reel of
17 film ending with a photograph of a mass grave, which
18 was identified by those exhuming the mass grave as
19 being clearly the same grave; they can tell it by the
20 position of the bodies and the bones when exhumed,
21 comparing it with the photograph of the grave at the
22 time. So that material goes to show the
23 contemporaneity with Jelisic's killings of the mass
24 graves.
25 This is all material quite independent of the
1 list. The list confirms some things in parts and may
2 flesh out the picture. It goes no further than that.
3 Now, as to the particular concerns of my
4 learned friend Mr. Greaves, the witnesses, he says, are
5 to be asked about the names on the list. Indeed, for
6 today's witness, I have done that in preparation
7 myself. I've made the list available to him, so that
8 rather than read 100-plus names in a hurry before you,
9 he can look at in detail, reflect, and let you know
10 what, if anything, he knows about the names. And
11 you'll discover that he knows one or two names.
12 Indeed, he also knows the one name that is not a
13 Muslim; there is one Croat who was killed and who he is
14 able to speak of.
15 But he is able to speak of a few names. He
16 is able to say whether any of the people on the list
17 are, to his knowledge, still alive or not. How much
18 further would the Defence be able to go if they had
19 some material going to show that one or other of these
20 people was alive? Probably no further. And if, in the
21 event it ever proves to be desirable for a witness who
22 has been asked about these things to be recalled, they
23 can be recalled. We will always cooperate, and the
24 Chamber has the power to seek the recall, has the power
25 to eliminate from its mind the totality of the
1 evidence, if it so decided, of a witness who, for some
2 reason, declined to be recalled, and thus to safeguard
3 the Defence.
4 But those problems won't arise, because this
5 case is in principal to be decided on the evidence of
6 the witnesses. It may be assisted to a degree by the
7 list. The list can form part, if it's the subject of
8 further evidence, can form part of the Defence case,
9 but it would be wholly wrong for any adjournment to be
10 allowed at this stage.
11 Can I respectfully remind you of the unhappy
12 history of the position of witnesses in this case.
13 On the earlier hearing, some three of the
14 eight witnesses who are now here, waiting to give
15 evidence today, were called to The Hague but not
16 reached. They are here for a second time already. One
17 of the witnesses here today, and I'm not going to
18 identify from which country he has come, but he's
19 travelled a long way to be here. They have all been or
20 are in the process of being prepared to give evidence
21 in a succinct way to this Tribunal. They are therefore
22 already through or part-way through the process both of
23 reviving their memories for the purpose of helping this
24 Tribunal and reliving their experiences, for that is
25 what is required of them, and it would be quite wrong
1 for their evidence not to be taken, in our respectful
2 submission, now.
3 The Chamber will recall that it was difficult
4 to find this tour, as we believe it to be three weeks
5 of sittings starting today, and that we don't know when
6 any further sittings might be available for the taking
7 of this case.
8 I return, therefore, to the way the matter is
9 put. It's put that matters can't be put to these
10 witnesses because the Defence enquires aren't
11 complete. It is unlikely in the extreme that where
12 these witnesses speak of particular individuals who
13 they saw killed, it's unlikely in the extreme that
14 there's going to be a true countercase that the witness
15 is lying about it.
16 The Court will remember, I think, the
17 evidence of the first two witnesses, A and B, and
18 indeed the very limited cross-examination of them which
19 didn't go to the substance of the killings, which are
20 of course admitted by Jelisic, but went to the
21 accompanying words. It is in reality, I think,
22 inconceivable that we are going to find a challenge to
23 the evidence of a direct killing.
24 If there is evidence from a court elsewhere
25 that some name on this list, if the list becomes of
1 value to you, may have died in other circumstances,
2 then either that name will be of no value or maybe the
3 list itself will be devalued, but that doesn't attack
4 the heart of this case at all.
5 These witnesses who have come here in the
6 circumstances I've described should now, in our
7 respectful submission, be heard starting this
8 afternoon.
9 I'll just check with Mr. Tochilovsky to see
10 if there is anything he wishes to add.
11 Thank you, unless I can help you further.
12 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Greaves,
13 would you like to respond?
14 MR. GREAVES: The first point that my learned
15 friend raised as to the existence of these files at the
16 Brcko court, I think he must have misunderstood what I
17 said. We've already looked at the Brcko court. Those
18 files which have been found at the other court do not
19 exist at Brcko. So this is the first time we've done
20 that enquiry. It did not reveal any files in relation
21 to these people. It was only at the court at Maoca
22 that revealed the existence of these files.
23 The second matter is this, is that whilst
24 seeking to diminish the importance of the list in his
25 case, my learned friend has, we submit, set out a case
1 as to why the list is, in fact, important. It
2 effectively, he says, supports and fills in, as it
3 were, pieces of the jigsaw, supports the evidence of
4 other witnesses. So in effect what he's saying is it's
5 not just the eyewitness, it is supported by the list.
6 That's why it's important to the Prosecution. They
7 wouldn't be placing it in front of you unless it had
8 that importance.
9 The third matter is this: My learned friend
10 makes a speech in anticipation of the honesty and
11 accuracy of his witnesses. That, of course, is
12 actually a matter for Your Honours. We don't know.
13 Some witness may come along who has an intention not to
14 be truthful or accurate, and if one of those files was
15 to reveal that a witness wasn't being truthful or
16 accurate, then that would be of extreme importance.
17 He, of course, is supremely confident, as prosecutors
18 always are, that their witnesses are honest, truthful,
19 and accurate, but regrettably he may not be right about
20 that.
21 The position is that there may be information
22 in these files which demonstrates that the witness is
23 untruthful or perhaps more likely is inaccurate.
24 Because of the passage of time and events of this kind,
25 a name may be misunderstood or misheard and information
1 come out that is inaccurate and which misleads Your
2 Honour. That would be wrong, if Your Honour were to be
3 given information which was, in fact, incorrect.
4 We submit that the possession of these files
5 may assist the Prosecution, but the Defence say that in
6 the interests of the truth-finding process, these files
7 are of supreme importance and it would be very
8 difficult, we submit, properly and effectively and, we
9 say, with confidence to cross-examine the witnesses.
10 I hear what my learned friend says about the
11 witnesses having been here before. It is partly for
12 that reason that I say we make this application -- we
13 do not make this application lightly, and we have
14 considered that issue before making this motion before
15 Your Honours. But we do it and we place it before you
16 and invite Your Honours to accede to it.
17 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Before the
18 Judges deliberate, let me ask you whether you have
19 considered, Mr. Greaves, according to Rule 73 ter, that
20 once all its evidence is completed by the Prosecution
21 during a Pre-trial Conference, all of the defence will
22 be reviewed, and perhaps at that point this type of
23 question could arise, a question which the Judges could
24 then decide. Have you clearly looked at this text,
25 this Rule of our proceedings?
1 Secondly, did you also measure the fact that
2 today, in the three weeks of trial days after which --
3 Mr. Fourmy can't be here today, but after that there is
4 going to be a break in the trial which perhaps you
5 could use in order to obtain what you need for the
6 presentation of your Defence evidence.
7 MR. GREAVES: As to the first matter, Your
8 Honour, I had not considered Rule 73 ter, I must
9 confess.
10 Your Honour, I think the way in which we have
11 put our case rather suggests that we consider it
12 important that it should be done during the course of
13 the Prosecution's evidence. Of course, by the time
14 Rule 73 ter comes into operation, the Prosecution's
15 case will have closed and be finished, and I don't see
16 how we could then rectify that which had taken place.
17 As far as the second matter that Your Honour
18 related that dealt with this concern, of course --
19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Let me
20 interrupt you for a moment, please. Excuse me.
21 By calling back the witness or witnesses to
22 whom you would like to ask further questions once you
23 have the files, that --
24 MR. GREAVES: [Previous translation
25 continues] ... that would be part of a re-opened
1 Prosecution case. We would not want to be responsible
2 for calling witnesses who are hostile to our case.
3 That would be very unfair.
4 The second matter Your Honour raised, the
5 question of the period after the end of this sitting,
6 of course we shall be making efforts to get hold of
7 these files in the meantime, but, as we say, by that
8 time the witnesses will have come and gone. Some may
9 be reluctant to return for whatever reason -- who
10 knows -- if asked to be recalled. It's difficult for
11 inferences to be drawn, one way or the other, if no
12 reason is given or someone simply says, "I'm not
13 prepared to travel yet again." It's very difficult to
14 go and say that, and the Defence would then be in the
15 position where we have this information and the witness
16 has not been able to be asked about it or to deal with
17 it. That leaves the state of evidence in a very
18 unsatisfactory state, we would submit, unsatisfactory
19 because, as it were, all the loose ends have not been
20 tied up. Your Honours will be left in a situation
21 where a question mark is raised but is unresolved over
22 a witness's evidence.
23 Quite plainly, as far as this witness who is
24 due to give evidence this afternoon is concerned, he
25 plainly knows something of some people on the list.
1 That demonstrates clearly that we're likely to have
2 more of it. That, we would submit, if any question
3 mark were to be left, would be most unsatisfactory and
4 unjust.
5 Is there anything else upon which I can
6 assist either Your Honour or Your Honour's colleagues?
7 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Let me turn to
8 my colleagues.
9 [Trial Chamber confers]
10 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] The Judges are
11 going to deliberate, and we will resume the hearing at
12 quarter after 3.00.
13 --- Recess taken at 2.45 p.m.
14 --- On resuming at 3.30 p.m.
15 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We will now
16 resume the hearing. Please be seated.
17 Registrar, have the accused brought in,
18 please.
19 [The accused entered court]
20 MR. NICE: Before Your Honour announces the
21 decision, may I just add something? I explained to
22 your associate that I needed to add something. One of
23 the problems of --
24 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I think that
25 the debate is closed now. I don't think there is
1 anything further to say. Now the Judges are going to
2 render their decision.
3 MR. NICE: I understand that, and, of course,
4 if the decision is there should be no adjournment,
5 there's no problem. The difficulty was that, with a
6 motion that comes late on a Friday afternoon,
7 undetected errors can slip through, and I discovered
8 something favourable to my position and unfavourable to
9 the Defence application only after you arose, and from
10 looking at the list that Mr. Greaves is working on, and
11 I desire to correct that.
12 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes, but I
13 don't want to reopen this discussion, Mr. Nice. That
14 isn't appropriate, because if we reopen the discussion,
15 we've got to give the floor back to Mr. Greaves. I
16 believe the Judges have heard your arguments, and they
17 will now render their decision. Thank you. Thank you,
18 Mr. Nice. Thank you for your comprehension.
19 The Judges, hearing or reviewing the Defence
20 brief on Goran Jelisic of the 27th of August, this is a
21 motion which was filed at a rather late date and was
22 not translated into one of the two languages of the
23 Tribunal -- this is just as a parenthesis that I've
24 opened here, but having heard the comments of both
25 parties and the comments included within the brief and
1 the responses to the brief, we have decided to reject
2 the brief, and we order that the trial be continued,
3 for the three following reasons.
4 The Judges, first of all, have in their mind
5 the rights of the accused. The rights of the accused
6 are not only not compromised by this decision, but to
7 the contrary, are safeguarded. The Judges first find,
8 under Rule 73 ter, in the pre-Defence conference, that
9 the Defence has the opportunity at the proper time, in
10 light of what will have taken place during the
11 presentation of evidence by the Prosecution, will have
12 the opportunity to provide the Judges, in closed
13 session, with a complete account of anything that may
14 have happened, anything that may be lacking, lacking
15 because the witnesses may not have been able to be
16 cross-examined properly. But at that point, they can
17 be called back for a hearing with both parties
18 present.
19 The Judges would also like to say that the
20 Defence can call the witnesses back if that should be
21 necessary, even if this might appear difficult. The
22 request can be made, and this is a right of the
23 Defence, that is, to call witnesses and to call them
24 again under the supervision of the Judges.
25 Lastly, the Judges point out, keeping mindful
1 of the rights of the accused, that the Defence can also
2 bring in any other witness who, depending upon the
3 events that occurred on that territory in that region,
4 would allow, after a justification, a supplement to be
5 made to the Defence list. This is the first part of
6 our reasoning.
7 The second group of reasons has to do with
8 the Judges' role in this Tribunal. The Judges receive,
9 from the Rules and from the Statute, rights given to
10 them by the Security Council, and those rights are that
11 they shall ensure an equitable, fair, expeditious
12 trial, but a fair one, and this means with both parties
13 having absolute equal footing.
14 Under this reasoning, the Judges first of all
15 go back to Rule 98, which allows the Judges to call in
16 -- empowers the Chamber to order production of
17 additional evidence. The Trial Chamber may order
18 either party to produce additional evidence. It may,
19 proprio motu, summon witnesses and order their
20 attendance in light of the debates, and if necessary,
21 the Judges will use Rule 98.
22 As guardians of an equitable trial, one finds
23 this marked in 89(D), which, if necessary, allows the
24 Judges to exclude any evidence if its probative value
25 is substantially outweighed by the need to ensure a
1 fair trial, of which they are the guardians, guardians
2 of the fair trial. The Judges also go back to
3 90(D)(i). I could say that "The Trial Chamber shall
4 exercise control over the mode and order of
5 interrogating witnesses and presenting evidence so as
6 to make the interrogation and presentation effective
7 for the ascertainment of the truth"; as I say, for the
8 ascertainment of the truth. And I would like to add
9 that ascertainment of the truth is a notion which
10 exceeds, of course, both the interests, which are well
11 understood, of the Prosecution and the accused.
12 And, lastly, the third group of reasons goes
13 back to the higher interests of justice, of which the
14 Judges are also guardians, and it is in that respect
15 that the Judges must take into account the situation of
16 the witnesses, who very frequently are victims, and
17 this means that they must be heard in the order that
18 was set.
19 And it's for all of these reasons that the
20 Defence brief of Defence counsel for Mr. Jelisic has
21 been rejected, and we order that the trial continue as
22 had been scheduled.
23 Mr. Nice, I give you the floor, not in order
24 to make any comments about a decision which was just
25 taken, but simply to tell us what the conduct of the
1 trial will now be. I suppose it has to do with calling
2 a witness.
3 MR. NICE: Yes, indeed. There are a couple
4 of administrative matters that I'd like to deal with
5 first. Number one, the Court gave leave for the case
6 officer, Mr. O'Donnell, to be present in court under
7 90(E). At present, Paul Basham, who sits behind me at
8 the moment, is the case officer. May I have leave, in
9 place of Mr. O'Donnell, for Mr. Basham to sit in court
10 throughout? It's very helpful to me and I think
11 important that that should happen.
12 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] No objection?
13 MR. GREAVES: No observations to make.
14 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] No comments
15 by -- how do you pronounce his name again?
16 MR. NICE: Basham, B-A-S-H-A-M.
17 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Basham, who
18 will now join the Prosecutor's bench, and we wish to
19 welcome you to your new post.
20 MR. NICE: The second point.
21 We, on the Prosecution side, have been aware
22 for some weeks that there are three weeks of trial
23 sittings planned for this case, starting today. I
24 understand that the Defence may be in a different
25 position, not being aware of the third week. One of us
1 must be wrong. We understand it to be three weeks.
2 MR. GREAVES: As late as Wednesday of last
3 week, I spoke to the Defence Counsel Liaison Unit, and
4 they told me that there was no sitting set for the
5 third week, and we've had no notification of any kind
6 that there is due to be a third week. If there is such
7 a third week, it may cause a number of difficulties
8 certainly to me. We've been operating on the basis
9 that there would just be two weeks.
10 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar,
11 could you give some clarification? I thought we were
12 supposed to work until the 20th or the 15th or 16th of
13 September. 18th of September, that's what my colleague
14 Judge Riad has just reminded me of.
15 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, until the 17th, that was
16 the 17th, which is a Friday in the morning.
17 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] And was this
18 information given in proper time to the Defence?
19 THE REGISTRAR: Ordinarily, I know that those
20 three weeks had been set around the middle or the end
21 of July, unless I made a mistake, as regards the three
22 weeks of trial.
23 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Londrovic,
24 were you informed?
25 MR. LONDROVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your
1 Honours.
2 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] It seems to me
3 that that microphone --
4 MR. LONDROVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your
5 Honours. I talked today with Mr. Rohde at quarter to
6 2.00, that is, about 15 minutes before the trial, and
7 he told me that he knew that this stage of the trial
8 would last two weeks. And Mrs. Monika as well referred
9 to two weeks. We have received no notification in
10 writing.
11 We also do not know if additional witnesses,
12 which we see on the Prosecutor's list, have been
13 approved. I do not know which witnesses are protected,
14 whether protection was sought for some of the
15 witnesses. I do not know if I'm allowed to pronounce
16 their names in public, but some witnesses were not on
17 their previous list and now I see them on this list,
18 and I do not know whether the Chamber has approved the
19 new witness list.
20 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] The Judges ask
21 questions in this court, Mr. Londrovic, ordinarily.
22 The Judges are here for three weeks for the Jelisic
23 case. Can you now make preparations for the third
24 week, Mr. Londrovic, Mr. Greaves, assuming there was a
25 mistake on the Registrar's part? I don't really know.
1 Mr. Fourmy is not here today, but it seems to me that
2 we had spoken about those three weeks quite a long time
3 ago.
4 In theory, we will do three weeks of trial
5 now. I can tell you that now.
6 MR. GREAVES: With respect, Your Honour, we
7 can only deal with --
8 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
9 MR. GREAVES: [Inaudible] official
10 information is forthcoming, and we haven't had any
11 official information that there is to be a third week.
12 One may talk of something as a possibility, but that
13 possibility does not become a certainty until it is
14 issued as a formal document saying, "This is the
15 schedule. This is the order that we give as to the
16 schedule." Counsel can only operate on the basis of
17 official information, and none of that has been
18 communicated to us.
19 Plainly, the Defence Counsel Liaison Unit is
20 in ignorance of the existence of this third week,
21 because I checked last week, my learned friend
22 Mr. Londrovic checked today. They don't know about it
23 and so we don't know about it. We can only operate on
24 that basis.
25 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you,
1 Mr. Greaves.
2 [Trial Chamber confers]
3 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice, how
4 many witnesses do you plan to call during those three
5 weeks?
6 MR. NICE: We have, I think, available over
7 20 witnesses. We are calling them in batches, and we
8 are expecting to be able to move witnesses forward at
9 quite a rate by a technique that I hope to reveal to
10 you in a minute and also by focusing on the central
11 evidence of each witness and only on the central
12 evidence.
13 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Very well. So
14 you are confirming that the Defence was aware of a
15 decision which I rendered on the 27th of April, 1999,
16 when you only added three witnesses?
17 MR. NICE: I'm so sorry. I misunderstood
18 your first question. No, as to the additional
19 witnesses. Mr. Londrovic's observations in relation to
20 the weeks of trial included the separate issue of
21 witnesses not on the original list.
22 There are names not on the original list. I
23 was hoping to be able to deal with those in an
24 application tomorrow.
25 In summary, the grounds of the application
1 would be that there being witnesses who have refused,
2 there being the real prospects of getting to the heart
3 of the evidence in the case of all these witnesses more
4 swiftly, and fundamentally that these other witnesses
5 can give short but extremely valuable evidence to the
6 Tribunal, I would be asking, and I think tomorrow, that
7 their names may be added. But I would prefer to deal
8 with the matter tomorrow not least because I hope to
9 discuss the matter more fully with my learned friends,
10 both in relation to witnesses who aren't here and in
11 relation to the parts of the evidence of the proposed
12 additional witnesses that might either be the subject
13 of agreement or, in any event, that might be the
14 subject of agreements to their being called.
15 So that I have available, subject to the
16 addition of those names, over 20 witnesses. I am
17 reasonably confident that we will be moving at a far
18 faster speed in this case than perhaps in any or most
19 other cases and that we will get to the heart of the
20 evidence, and therefore there are available over 20
21 witnesses, including the odd expert witness, to fill
22 this three-week period.
23 I have a particular observation to make about
24 the expert witness. I might as well deal with it now.
25 I have been concerned that the subject of
1 exhumation, which is subject of expert evidence, would
2 appear not to be the subject of any direct
3 contradiction. I've discussed the matter with
4 Mr. Greaves, and we are always able to discuss matters
5 frankly, but it would appear, and I can't be sure about
6 this, it would appear that on the expert evidence of
7 exhumation, I am, in the terminology of the common-law
8 system, for what that's worth, I am being put to
9 proof. That is to say, I've simply got to put the
10 evidence before you, even though it may not be
11 challenged. I am concerned about that, because the
12 evidence will have to be called from Australia. The
13 witness concerned will have to come all the way around
14 the world, and it seems to me undesirable, in the
15 setting of this type of tribunal, that matters that may
16 not truly be in dispute should only be available at
17 such expense and, indeed, extravagance, so I was going
18 to invite this Tribunal, at some stage this week when
19 the evidence had started to unfold, to consider whether
20 it should enquire of the Defence whether they really
21 had a case to put in relation to the scientist or
22 whether the Prosecution was simply being put to proof,
23 because of course it's always open to the Tribunal to
24 admit evidence in hearsay form. I mention that because
25 I had this in mind for the timetable, and I haven't
1 yet, as it were, summoned the witness from Australia
2 and I've got him on hold until next week when I must
3 tell him whether to come or not.
4 Subject to that problem, which I would rather
5 again put off until a little later this week, I've got
6 witnesses to fill the three-week period with evidence
7 for Your Honours.
8 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you for
9 that clarification.
10 The schedule had been set. I don't know if
11 there was a mistake in its remission, but you must
12 understand, Mr. Greaves, that this is now the 30th of
13 August and we're talking about the third week of
14 September, which would be from the 13th to the 18th. I
15 believe those are the dates, 13th of September until
16 the 17th of September. So, in principle, you have time
17 to make your preparations, assuming that there was a
18 mistake in the information being transmitted.
19 I see the possibility of saying to you that
20 we decided on the 27th of April that we would add three
21 witnesses. I had rendered a decision with my
22 colleagues to add three witnesses to the Prosecution
23 list, whose names you were given. Therefore, you
24 should, in theory, be prepared for these three weeks.
25 That's all the more important, because these three
1 weeks should close the cycle for the Prosecutor's
2 presentation of his evidence, and that would therefore
3 allow you calmly, because we did not prepare for any
4 hearings after that, to organise. We will have a
5 Status Conference where you can raise any problems you
6 had during this first phase of the trial.
7 So therefore, in theory, we're going to work
8 for three weeks until the 17th of September.
9 As regards the other questions raised by
10 Mr. Nice, we can go back to them tomorrow, but for
11 right now I can say that we will sit for three weeks,
12 that is, until the 17th of September, a Friday. I ask
13 that you prepare for that schedule.
14 You have heard there is witness statements.
15 You'll know what they are going to say. You'll be in a
16 position to cross-examine them, and I suppose that you
17 will be able to figure out a way to use the third
18 week. Otherwise, the trial would be delayed. Once
19 again, I feel that that is inappropriate in respect of
20 the text that I've just recalled in the previous
21 decision.
22 If there are no further comments, perhaps
23 we're going to suspend for a few moments in order to --
24 we have to think about the interpreters. We would be
25 ready to hear the first witness.
1 Is that going to be a private session or a
2 public session?
3 Let me say this for the public gallery, that
4 we want the public to know what is going on with our
5 work. I think this is going to be testimony given in
6 private session. That means that there will simply be
7 voice distortion. Is that correct, Mr. Nice?
8 MR. NICE: If the Court pleases, this witness
9 would like face distortion and a pseudonym. Pseudonyms
10 A to B have been used but C to E were allocated on the
11 last occasion, and if it's not inconvenient, may this
12 witness become Witness F? If you would prefer him to
13 be Witness C in order to remind yourselves of the order
14 of witnesses, I'm sure we can reallocate them, but by
15 an earlier order, other witnesses were given the
16 initials C, D, and E.
17 Can I just explain very briefly, before the
18 Court rises, what tool I am in a position to provide, I
19 hope, to help with this and with other witnesses, if
20 the tool is of use to this Chamber. It has been tried
21 elsewhere with some success. A minute of explanation
22 will help.
23 Witnesses typically make two, sometimes only
24 one, sometimes more statements. It's necessary to
25 summarise, from all those different sources, what the
1 witness will say. The practice within my team here is
2 that that preparation is done in advance of the witness
3 coming, and so a summary of what it is expected that's
4 material to the case that the witness will say can be
5 prepared before his or her arrival. But of course the
6 witness then needs to check that that summary is
7 correct, may add to it, may correct it, may detract
8 from it, and so the final summary of a witness's
9 evidence can only be prepared when the witness is
10 here.
11 Nevertheless, it is possible for typed
12 summaries of what a witness is expected to say to be
13 available both to the Defence and to the Chamber.
14 Indeed, it should have been possible for those
15 summaries to be available today in B/C/S, French, as
16 well as in English, for I had the first drafts
17 translated into those languages in advance and the
18 translation department was hopeful it would be able to
19 meet my requests to bring the final versions before the
20 Chamber today. In the event, the final versions won't
21 be available until tomorrow morning.
22 May I nevertheless hand in three English and
23 one French version marked "First Draft" in green and
24 explain how, if you find these helpful documents, they
25 may assist us.
1 Judge Jorda --
2 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice, yes,
3 that's the way to work, and I would have encouraged you
4 to do that. This is what this Trial Chamber wants and
5 to go right to the very heart of the statements and the
6 testimony of the witnesses and to say what he has to
7 say and not to tell us his whole life, because it's a
8 very complex issue, it's very sensitive issues, and
9 it's very difficult for the Judges to interrupt a
10 witness who was an unfortunate victim of these events.
11 I always ask, before the witness comes, that
12 I be given a written summary, and I want that the
13 examination go to the very heart of the evidence that
14 you're trying to show.
15 Ordinarily, our text tells that the
16 cross-examination must come only after the examination
17 in chief. I think this is a subtle rule and we don't
18 always use it, but we will try to apply this as
19 properly as possible, always keeping in mind the rights
20 of the accused. However, ordinarily, with the summary
21 and properly-targeted questions targeting the essential
22 questions for which the witness came to The Hague to
23 testify about, and with the cross-examination and the
24 examination in chief, we should be able to go quickly
25 and equitably, which would allow the Prosecution and
1 the Defence to present their points of view.
2 Do you have any other clarifications you
3 would like to provide, Mr. Nice?
4 MR. NICE: Only this, that if you take the
5 version not presently before you for Witness F, the
6 name should be struck through. If you take that
7 version before you, bearing in mind that the French may
8 be marginally different because it's the first draft
9 from the English, the final version of the French and
10 B/C/S available tomorrow, what it will be possible for
11 us to achieve, I think, with the cooperation of
12 Mr. Greaves and Mr. Londrovic, which I know will be
13 forthcoming, is to say, for example, "Well, paragraphs
14 1 to 5 are non-contentious," if that be the case, and
15 then I can simply summarise those to the witness, the
16 witness says, "Yes, that's true," and we go to page 2.
17 That's what I intend to do, if that's acceptable to the
18 Court.
19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes. My
20 colleagues agree with me.
21 Any comments or objections, Mr. Greaves?
22 MR. GREAVES: None as to that procedure, but
23 there are two matters that I wanted to raise of an
24 administrative nature before Your Honours rise,
25 please.
1 The first is this, that my learned friend
2 Mr. Londrovic and I don't have a common language. We
3 do have an interpreter. I've asked my learned friend
4 for the Prosecution if he has any objection and he has
5 not, but would Your Honours permit my interpreter to
6 sit with us at counsels' bench? Would you think that
7 was a proper thing to do, please?
8 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes, there's no
9 problem with that.
10 MR. GREAVES: But I just, and I don't want to
11 harp on it at any length, deal with the question of
12 schedules.
13 Your Honour, it's not so much a matter of
14 preparing for witnesses. If counsel aren't informed
15 what the schedule is, we tend to make other
16 arrangements with our life, both professionally and
17 privately, that now have to be unpicked if that
18 information is not forthcoming.
19 It is, as I said much earlier this year, very
20 important that good advance notice be given to
21 counsel. This is not a court where we arrive or
22 practice in the same town and can simply arrive at the
23 drop of a hat. Some of us live elsewhere in the world,
24 and it causes considerable inconvenience if we have to,
25 at very short notice, rearrange other matters. Can I
1 make that clear and ask that if there are to be further
2 schedulings, they be given in good time.
3 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] For the future,
4 of course, assuming that there was an error. I want to
5 wait for Mr. Fourmy in order to be sure whether or not
6 there was an error on the part of the Tribunal's
7 administration. I would be very sorry if there were,
8 but that doesn't change the Judges' resolve to have the
9 three weeks of trial, unless something unexpected
10 happens that we cannot control.
11 If there are no further comments, I believe
12 we can now adjourn for 15 minutes. Yes, 15 minutes.
13 MR. LONDROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours,
14 I do apologise, but you said a while ago that you had
15 allowed the Prosecutor to add three witnesses to the
16 list, and this is not in dispute. However, I see some
17 other names on their list, and I do not know that the
18 Chamber has decided anything on them. I repeat, I do
19 not want to read out these names because I do not know
20 if they are protected, but there is 16, 17, 18, 19, and
21 20. It is five new witnesses, and this is the first
22 time we've absolutely heard about them or seen their
23 names. We do not know when they were added to the
24 list, and we do not know yet if you will approve it.
25 We do not know if, under Rule 73, the
1 Prosecution was allowed to do it, but I do not really
2 know those new witnesses that Mr. Nice refers to. When
3 I count them, I see 12 or 13 witnesses, without the
4 five expert witnesses, that is, and yet my learned
5 friend is referring to about 20 witnesses.
6 Now, if some new witnesses are going to be
7 added, of course it is up to the Chamber to do so, but
8 I'm afraid the Defence is really placed in an
9 inequitable position in this matter.
10 I did not know about the three weeks of
11 hearing or else I wouldn't have bought a return ticket
12 to return to Herzegovina on September 13th, and I do
13 have this ticket. So it is quite evident I knew
14 nothing about those three weeks.
15 As for the statements which are not in
16 dispute, I'm afraid this might arise as a problem,
17 because we do not know what our learned friends have
18 prepared as indisputable, but we should indeed like to
19 receive those lists both in English and in our language
20 and then discuss it with them to see whether these
21 statements are in dispute or not in dispute. We shall
22 be seeing them only tomorrow, but we shall need, I
23 think, a meeting to discuss them and see whether they
24 are disputable or not, and I'm not sure whether we can
25 agree with this manner of work. I'm not sure we can do
1 that.
2 If my learned friend from the Prosecution
3 believes that he will now introduce here the practice
4 used in Mr. Kordic's case, if that is the system of
5 work that is proposed by the Prosecution, then I
6 believe this was rejected by the Chamber, if I am
7 correct, that is, if that is the method you are
8 proposing. Now we really do not know which sequence
9 will be followed, which witnesses are relevant, which
10 are not, which were approved by the Chamber, which were
11 not. We simply do not know that.
12 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice, would
13 you like to make any further comments?
14 MR. NICE: There are two issues again.
15 Certainly so far as the summaries are
16 concerned, I can make available, I think, to
17 Mr. Londrovic a first draft of the summary in the same
18 way as I made a French version available to the Court,
19 and I hope that will help him for this afternoon.
20 As I've already indicated as to additional
21 witnesses, I would prefer to deal with that matter
22 tomorrow, having discussed the matter with my friends,
23 but I recall having a fairly extensive discussion with
24 Mr. Greaves towards the end of the last term, as it
25 were, and ended up by my sending him a letter. Neither
1 of us has the letter, I think, in court today. I
2 certainly raised with him then that there would be an
3 application to deal with additional witnesses at the
4 beginning of the trial.
5 So I would hope that we can satisfy
6 Mr. Londrovic's concern about a summary by providing
7 him with a first draft of the B/C/S when the Court
8 adjourns and deal with additional witnesses tomorrow.
9 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] As much as
10 possible, I would like for you to come to an
11 agreement. Let me remind you that the witness list was
12 set up during the Pre-trial Conference pursuant to
13 Rule 73 bis. It's always difficult to add witnesses.
14 We did that on the 27th of April, Mr. Nice, at your
15 request, through a decision that the Judges rendered,
16 but of which the Defence could have been informed well
17 in advance. Each time a witness is called in, then the
18 order of the scheduling is disrupted, and you know that
19 the Judges in this Trial Chamber want the trials to
20 come to a proper end.
21 If, once the trial begins, new things are
22 added, new witnesses, new evidence, or even
23 investigations are continued, I cannot see how one can
24 ensure that the trial is conducted properly, and I
25 think, Mr. Nice, you have to try to counterbalance
1 things here in order to make things easier. Perhaps
2 the problem of additional witnesses will be taken up
3 tomorrow, but for the time being, what I would wish is
4 for this trial to begin, and I would like the
5 interpreters to be able to take a break. We'll take a
6 15-minute pause, and we'll start at 20 after 4.
7 Nothing prevents either of you coming to an
8 agreement on the additional witnesses. I'm speaking of
9 Mr. Nice and Mr. Greaves.
10 --- Recess taken at 4.05 p.m.
11 --- On resuming at 4.30 p.m.
12 [Open session]
13 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We can resume
14 the hearing now. Please have the accused brought in.
15 We will now have the accused brought in. Let me say
16 this for the gallery. We will raise the curtains.
17 They were simply lowered so that when the witness comes
18 in he not be identified, that is, that nobody in the
19 gallery be able to see who it is.
20 All right, Mr. Prosecutor, we're not going to
21 go back to the summary, as I did in other trials,
22 because you have given us in French, for which I'm very
23 appreciative, and this will allow us to speed up the
24 witness testimony. This is Witness F; is that
25 correct?
1 MR. NICE: Correct.
2 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Usher,
3 Mr. Registrar, would you have the witness brought in to
4 the courtroom, please. That is, Witness F.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Let me mention that we can
6 number the summaries that were given to you. There
7 would be Exhibit 8, Prosecution Exhibit 8. Exhibit 7
8 was identification of the witness's name.
9 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Are you putting
10 a reference number both on the English and French
11 versions?
12 THE REGISTRAR: Yes. I thought that there
13 was a French and English version but also one in B/C/S,
14 in which case the -- well, everything will depend on
15 the original. I think that the B/C/S would be --
16 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] All right. You
17 don't have to explain what you're going to do; just be
18 sure that it's done. All right. This is Exhibit 8,
19 the summary. The witness is going to come into the
20 courtroom now. Can he be brought in?
21 [The witness entered court]
22 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] No, please do
23 not sit down.
24 Mr. Usher, he should not -- would you prefer
25 that he sit down? He's going to take an oath seated,
1 then?
2 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, because there are some
3 technical limitations.
4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] All right.
5 Do you hear me, Witness F? Do you hear me?
6 THE WITNESS: Yes.
7 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] You have come
8 to The Hague; perhaps this is the first time. We thank
9 you for it. You're going to take an oath first, and
10 then you're going to identify your name on a piece of
11 paper which is being given to you by the usher, but
12 first I'm going to ask you to take an oath, and under
13 exceptional circumstances, we're going to allow you to
14 remain seated so that your face not be seen.
15 Give the witness the formula. Witness F, you
16 can read it.
17 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will
18 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
19 truth.
20 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you. You
21 are now going to identify your name but not say it.
22 Simply check to see that that is, in fact, who you
23 are.
24 Please show him the document.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes.
1 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Very well.
2 Thank you. You are being covered by protective
3 measures that you asked for and the Prosecutor asked
4 for on your behalf. You are perfectly protected, at
5 least within the Tribunal, and you can speak now,
6 answering the questions that the Prosecutor is going to
7 ask you, and then you're going to answer the Defence's
8 questions, and lastly you will answer the Judges'
9 questions, if the Judges need to ask you any.
10 Speak without hatred, without fear. Try to
11 relax. You are before a tribunal, before judges. Try
12 to relax and feel comfortable and have no fear. This
13 is all that I can tell you now. If you have any
14 problems, any physical, emotional, or any other type of
15 problems, do not hesitate to say that. If you need to
16 drink something, if you need to take a break, let us
17 know. In any case, try to remain relaxed.
18 And now I believe we can begin,
19 Mr. Registrar; is that correct?
20 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] All right,
22 Mr. Prosecutor, the floor is yours.
23 WITNESS: F
24 Examined by Mr. Nice:
25 [Witness answers through interpreter]
1 Q. Witness F, in April 1992, did you live in
2 Brcko?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. The bridges were blown up on the 30th of
5 April?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Having been advised to leave town, did you
8 move to a friend's apartment?
9 A. Yes, but this took place later.
10 Q. What day --
11 A. After the conflict broke out.
12 Q. What day did you move to the friend's
13 apartment?
14 A. The accurate answer is that the war started
15 on the 1st of May. That night I spent in my private
16 home, but there was no protection from the shelling
17 there, so on the next morning, the 2nd of May, we took
18 an opportunity to move over to the apartment of my
19 friend and neighbour who had --
20 Q. I'll stop you there --
21 A. -- who was in the basement of the building.
22 So it was safer there.
23 Q. I'm going to stop you there and move on so
24 that we can focus your evidence. Were you and many
25 other people evacuated by Serb military personnel some
1 days later? Just "Yes" or "No."
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Can you give the date for that evacuation?
4 A. 7 May, 1992.
5 Q. Was the evacuation peaceful or by force?
6 A. By force.
7 Q. Were you separated into Serbs and non-Serbs?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Were the non-Serbs taken to Brcko barracks,
10 where the males over 18 and under 60 were separated
11 from the other males?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The following morning you were going to one
14 location. Were you in fact put on buses and taken to
15 the Luka warehouse on the river?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. What number of people, very approximately,
18 were evacuated?
19 A. Between one and two thousand. It is hard for
20 me to tell exactly.
21 Q. At --
22 A. Just a moment. Do you mean to Luka, or to
23 the Brcko barracks?
24 Q. To the Brcko barracks.
25 A. Between one and two thousand, yes.
1 Q. And to Luka itself?
2 A. In my estimate, between six and seven hundred
3 men.
4 Q. In the barracks, did you learn of or did you
5 see something of a man from the village of Janja?
6 A. Not in the barracks, but at Luka, because
7 that's where they were calling out the names.
8 Q. What happened to that man?
9 A. When we entered Luka, we had to turn in our
10 personal documents, and then the Serbian soldiers
11 checked the documents. When they saw that this
12 gentleman was from Janja, they called him out and they
130 started beating him. This started in the hangar in
14 Luka first, and then they took him out from the hangar
15 where the rest of us were all put.
16 Q. Did you see that man again?
17 A. After he was taken out, we couldn't see, but
18 we heard terrible screams, and this man never came back
19 to this room where we were.
20 Q. Shortly after, did two men enter the hangar?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Wearing what?
23 A. One of them was wearing a uniform of the
24 former police force, that was the Ministry of Internal
25 Affairs, and he had a light blue shirt and darker blue
1 pants. He had an automatic pistol with a silencer in
2 his hand, and at his belt he also had a police baton.
3 It was a very large one; I had not seen that length of
4 baton before.
5 Q. Did a man say anything? If so, what?
6 A. Yes, this man asked us, "Do you know me?" We
7 responded more or less in unison that we did not,
8 because we didn't; he was not from Brcko. And then he
9 said, "If you don't know me, you will get to know me
10 very well. I am the Serbian Adolf."
11 Q. Did he say anything else at that stage about
12 who he was, what he was doing, his position?
13 A. Yes, he said, "Only about five to ten of all
14 of you who are here will be lucky enough to leave here
15 alive."
16 Q. Did he say anything about who was controlling
17 your futures?
18 A. Yes, he said something to the effect that our
19 destiny, our fate, was in his hands, and it was going
20 to be in his hands.
21 Q. Did he say anything to his companion?
22 A. Yes, he then said to his companion, "We could
23 start with our work," and then he sent him to bring in
24 a box, an empty box. When this companion came back
25 with the box, he told us, "Anything valuable that you
1 have, gold, money, and such, put in this box, and if
2 anything should be found on any one of you after this,
3 he will be dealt with in short order." And by that he
4 meant he would be killed.
5 Q. Did another uniformed person enter the
6 hangar?
7 A. Yes, right around that time, when they
8 started taking off their valuables and pulling out the
9 money, a uniformed soldier came into this room. We
10 recognised the insignia. He was a member of the
11 so-called military police of the JNA. They had white
12 belts around their waist and across their chest.
13 Shall I go on?
14 Q. Yes. What did he say?
15 A. Yes. When he walked in, as I said, nobody
16 knew this man who introduced himself as Adolf the
17 Serbian, and then he said, "What are you doing here?"
18 They were starting to loot. He said, "We came from
19 Bijeljina, and while we're here, nobody is to touch
20 them." Then they had a conflict. The man who
21 introduced himself as a Serbian Adolf said, "You don't
22 know me. I only need to make a phone call and then you
23 will learn who I am, and you will see what will
24 happen." After that, the Serbian Adolf left the hangar
25 where we were all staying, and he was very angry.
1 Q. In his absence, how were you treated?
2 A. Throughout this time, as people were coming
3 in, everybody was trying -- in fact, I was among the
4 first who came, I was on the first bus. Everybody was
5 trying to go to the back of the hangar because they
6 felt safer there, but everybody who came in had to
7 leave everything of their personal effects, such as
8 documents and if they had any bags, they had to leave
9 them at the door.
10 All this time, the soldiers were perusing
11 these documents, and so they found a personal identity
12 card of this man who they saw was from Janja, and this
13 is why they called him out. I think that the reason
14 for it, as we learned later, was that Janja was a
15 Muslim village near Bijeljina which was the only
16 village which had some weapons and refused to turn it
17 in, and these Serbs, Serbo Chetniks, these paramilitary
18 troops, were very angry at people from this area, and
19 so this is why this young man was called out and taken
20 out, and then he never came back.
21 Q. Was it possible for some of you to be
22 released?
23 A. In order to clarify things, I would like to
24 point out one thing which I think is very important.
25 The members of the so-called military police
1 of the former JNA were somehow giving us more sense of
2 security. We knew these guys. They were our
3 neighbours from the area where I live, from my
4 neighbourhood, and they treated us correctly.
5 Q. Those of you known to Serbs, were you able or
6 were you at least in a position to have a chance of
7 being released?
8 A. Yes. After a while, they came by themselves
9 and they told us. I personally have the impression
10 that they were looking for a way to help us out in this
11 situation because we knew each other so well, we had
12 grown up together, we were friends, and it is possible
13 that this was a reason why they later came back, and
14 they told us that some will be released and that a Serb
15 will guarantee with his life, but if later it turned
16 out that some of them were members of the SDA or had
17 anything to do with that party, that this Serb was the
18 first who will pay the price by losing his life, and
19 then this person himself would do so.
20 In the meantime, all the documents -- that
21 is, outside we could hear some motor vehicles arriving
22 outside, and at one point the soldiers came in and took
23 all the documents which had been gathered inside. And
24 then in order for us to be released, this man would
25 come in, and they would check and see who they could
1 guarantee for. Then they would leave and then come
2 back with, I don't know, five to ten documents, and
3 these documents were personal identity cards, student
4 cards or passports, and bring them. These documents
5 meant that a person could walk out with it to a table
6 in front of the hangar and get a release document, and
7 with this document they could leave Luka once the
8 transportation was secured.
9 Q. Were you fortunate enough to be called out
10 and to be given a pass?
11 A. Yes, I was lucky enough.
12 Q. By whom was the pass signed?
13 A. I would like to point out that moment. I
14 think it's very important. I would like to clarify
15 it.
16 When we gave those passes, these release
17 documents, it was a piece of paper 10 by 20 centimetres
18 and it bore a stamp which was unknown to me until
19 then. It said "Serbian Autonomous Region of Semberija
20 and Majevica." That was in the upper corner, and then
21 it would state that such and such person was being
22 released, and then it would state their date of birth
23 and the registration number of his identity card, and
24 then it was signed by Djorde Ristanic, the
25 self-appointed president of the Brcko municipality
1 assembly.
2 I think that this document is very telling in
3 many ways. First of all, the very stamp which did not
4 exist before, and then it was the highest organ of the
5 civilian authority which was on the signature. All
6 this means that there had been preparations, that all
7 this was not haphazard, that there was coordination
8 between the military authorities and paramilitary
9 authorities and civilian authorities.
10 Q. By whom --
11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
12 MR. NICE: Sorry.
13 Q. By whom was your pass signed?
14 A. The pass was signed by Djorde Ristanic.
15 After the Serbs took over control of most of
16 the city after the war broke out, he became the
17 self-appointed head of the Brcko municipality, which
18 was the highest local civilian authority.
19 Q. Look, please, at an aerial photograph which
20 will be placed on the ELMO, although the usher will
21 show you that you must sit in your seat and point to
22 things with a pointer to help us, and this will become
23 Exhibit number, I think, 7 or 8.
24 THE REGISTRAR: This is 9.
25 MR. NICE: Yes, I forgot the other two.
1 Thank you so much.
2 If he could have the pointer, please, so he
3 could stay in his seat. Don't move. Otherwise, your
4 face may be seen.
5 Q. But if you stay in your seat, can you point
6 out, please, the hangar to which you were first taken?
7 A. Yes. This is the first one here
8 [indicating].
9 Q. Where were you made to stand when you got
10 your pass and were standing outside the hangar?
11 A. It was -- there is an overhang here
12 [indicating] and so this is where a table was put, and
13 a soldier was filling out the passes.
14 Q. Can you look at this photograph, please,
15 which will become Exhibit 10? Thank you.
16 Does that show the same area, but now at
17 ground level, with the hangars on the left?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You were standing under the overhang or you
20 made reference to the overhang. Can you point to that?
21 A. Yes. This was the door here [indicating].
22 There are sliding doors. They were open, and we were
23 here [indicating] in this front part of the hangar, the
24 first third of it, so we could see very little outside,
25 as we were inside. They were filling out these passes,
1 and the table had been set right here by the door
2 [indicating], and so people --
3 Q. Yes. I'm going to interrupt you. When you
4 got your pass, did you wait outside the hangar?
5 A. Yes, around here, right close to the door.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 A. In front of me was the table, and behind it
8 was this man who was --
9 Q. What was happening in the building or office
10 opposite to you?
11 A. As we were here [indicating], from here we
12 could hear and see even -- we could hear a lot of
13 noises. It was as if some furniture was being slammed
14 down, and some kind of loud screams, human screams.
15 Q. Coming from where?
16 A. Across the entrance to the hangar
17 [indicating], this was the administration building and
18 the cashier of the Luka company, and this is where
19 these screams were coming from.
20 Q. Did you, in --
21 A. Around here [indicating].
22 Q. [Previous interpretation continues] -- see
23 several men leave the office opposite at intervals of
24 time?
25 A. Yes. When I was in this place, I was
1 practically outside, I could see what was going on
2 outside. There was a door there [indicating], and
3 first a man was brought out, escorted by this man who
4 introduced himself as the Serbian Adolf. I did not
5 know his name at that time because he never told us the
6 real name. He only introduced himself as the Serbian
7 Adolf.
8 Again I would like to point out it is clear
9 that we were all very scared because we were facing
10 death and everything was pointing to that, and I would
11 also like to point out that this place, in World War
12 II, this is a location where civilians were murdered
13 during World War II, so it was something that spooked
14 us almost, because of those memories.
15 Q. What did the man called Adolf do to that
16 first man you saw coming out of the office?
17 A. They came out here [indicating]. It was
18 almost directly across from the hangar door. First
19 this man came out. In fact, Adolf was pushing him, was
20 actually nudging him with the automatic pistol, and so
21 he was sort of directing him in which direction he was
22 going to go and they were going down there
23 [indicating], and he was taking him and pointing where
24 he was going to go. Then they turned the corner of the
25 building. You can't see it very well. We couldn't see
1 what was going on behind there, but a couple of seconds
2 later we heard two muffled shots, and then Goran
3 returned.
4 Q. The man who was being pushed and who didn't
5 return, did he say anything?
6 A. I'd say first that he looked awful. He was
7 in such a bad condition that he was barely
8 recognisable. He was covered in blood, dirty, had very
9 many scars on his face, or rather there was blood on
10 his hair, his hands, there were lacerations on his
11 arms, and he was moving in a very unnatural manner, so
12 he must have been very badly injured or something must
13 have been done to him.
14 Goran was pushing him with the pistol and
15 indicating the direction in which he should move, and
16 the man was swearing on the life of his children that
17 he was not a member of the green beret and was
18 imploring Goran, that is, the Serb Adolf, not to kill
19 him.
20 Q. Where did the Serb Adolf go when he returned
21 from behind that building?
22 A. When he returned from behind that building,
23 he went to this man where they were writing, to this
24 table, where they were writing at this table, so that
25 is rather inside Luka, inside. He was about five or
1 six metres from the table where there was a group of
2 Serb soldiers. They were talking. I don't know what
3 about.
4 But Goran, after he had done that, he
5 approached that group and commented something, and they
6 laughed. I don't know what they were talking about,
7 but I know they were really laughing heartily. It
8 looked like a party. They seemed very amused. I can't
9 explain that, but that's how it was.
10 Q. Tell us about the second man that you saw to
11 leave the office. First, how long after the first man
12 did the second man leave?
13 A. After the first man left, one heard the same
14 thing all over again, that is, something hitting
15 against pieces of furniture or something and screams.
16 Then, if one can judge it, it must have been some 10 or
17 15 minutes later when the second man was taken out.
18 They simply pushed him through the door and then Goran
19 approached, and once again the same thing happened. He
20 placed himself behind the victim, then nudged him with
21 the pistol, and then moved or went behind so that you
22 could not see him, and then again one could hear two
23 muffled shots. Then Goran would come back again and
24 reach that group of soldiers who were there, and then
25 they would chat again for a while and laugh as if
1 nothing had happened, as if nothing was happening.
2 I remember that he asked us then -- or rather
3 he asked, "What are you doing outside," meaning us who
4 were waiting for those passes, and the guy who was
5 writing the passes told him, "Well, these are men who
6 will be released because a Serb is guaranteeing for
7 them," and then he laughed, turned in our direction and
8 said, "Oh, you are those five per cent of the lucky
9 ones who will survive, and in future when you meet me
10 in the town, you'll treat me to a drink." We said
11 nothing. We just stood there with our heads down. We
12 dared not look at him because that look might draw his
13 attention, and realising what kind of a man he was, of
14 course we were afraid to look at him.
15 Q. The third person to leave the office block,
16 how long later?
17 A. I cannot remember exactly, but it could have
18 been 10, 15, 20 minutes later. I think the intervals
19 were more or less the same. That is, meanwhile you
20 hear screams, and then the door opens again and the
21 third person comes out and he looks the same, and it
22 almost defies description. Very many lacerations,
23 scratches around the eyes, head, blood on the hair,
24 unnatural posture as if some bones had been broken, and
25 in such a state that they were barely able to move one
1 foot at a time. Again with the pistol in his back, he
2 was directed to move in the same direction, and when
3 they would get out of our sight, then one would hear
4 again those two shots, and Goran would be back alone
5 and would join again that group of soldiers standing
6 outside.
7 Q. The fourth detainee to leave the office, tell
8 us about him.
9 A. The fourth victim or, rather, the fourth
10 person, as far as I could see, he looked even worse.
11 That is, he practically could not walk by himself. One
12 of his arms was hanging as if something had been broken
13 and he could not control it. When he came out, Goran
14 pushed him with a pistol and the man simply could not
15 stand on his feet. He did not fall his full length,
16 but he went down on his knees, and Goran was behind
17 him, that is, the Serb Adolf, he was some two or three
18 metres behind him, so he came to him and got him under
19 the armpits to help him stand up so that he could walk
20 again. He had barely done that, he gave a shiver as if
21 when somebody is disgusted by something, and he said
22 something to the effect that, "I must be crazy. I'm
23 helping a balija to stand up and I've got my hands
24 soiled."
25 That man whom he had helped to stand up, he
1 was moving very, very slowly in the same direction as
2 the previous victims. Then he came up very close with
3 his automatic pistol with a silencer, and from very
4 close quarters, at close range, some 20 or 30
5 centimetres, fired at the back of his head. It is a
6 terrible impact. It's as if you're throwing a man from
7 a height so that he fell. Then he came up to him,
8 straddled the victim and was somewhere at the level of
9 the victim's knees, and then standing above him, he
10 shot him in the back, somewhere in the region of the
11 heart.
12 Then he moved around and showed the two
13 persons who had been issued the passes and were waiting
14 to be released and told them to take the victim behind
15 the corner. So they got the victim under the armpits
16 and drew him around the corner, presumably to where all
17 the other victims -- Goran's victims were.
18 Q. This man who had shot and killed the other
19 man, what did he then do or say and to whom?
20 A. Among this group of soldiers who were
21 standing there, I think I forgot to say that, before
22 Goran killed this fourth one in front of us, this guy
23 came to the table and called us names: "Balija
24 cowards, why don't you fight? You should fight. You
25 see me; my father is an Albanian, my mother is a Croat,
1 and I am fighting for the Serb army." I think he said
2 something like that, and I also think, but I am not
3 quite sure, that he said his name was Branko. And he
4 showed that he had a very thin leather kind of a choker
5 around his neck. On this leather ribbon there was a
6 bullet, and he said, "I will fight for Yugoslavia until
7 my last breath, and this is the bullet for me if I
8 fail." Of course, we did not comment; we just kept
9 silent because we were afraid that it might be
10 dangerous and that we might provoke them.
11 So when the -- to go back to your question,
12 Goran again approached that group, and at that moment,
13 that Branko -- I'm not quite sure if that was his name,
14 but I just think so, but I saw him approach Branko and
15 tell him, "This is the 68th."
16 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I would like to
17 interrupt you for a moment, Witness F. Witness F,
18 except when you have to indicate something on the ELMO,
19 when you answer, please try to face the Judges. Thank
20 you.
21 MR. NICE:
22 Q. So he said, "This is the 68th." Please carry
23 on with what was said from there.
24 A. Branko asked, "68th? 68th what?" He was
25 asking the question; he didn't understand what this 68
1 meant. And Goran said, "Well, the 68th balija. There
2 are 68 balijas less," and said something like, "Oh,
3 Lord, how many more will I have to kill before this is
4 all over?"
5 Q. Anything else said by Branko or the other
6 man?
7 A. And then Branko said -- that is, the person
8 that I think is called Branko -- he told Goran then
9 that if he wanted to take a rest, he was quite ready to
10 take his place, that is, he could go on with his job.
11 And Goran said, "No, no." I mean, this is a job which
12 he doesn't find difficult, and also said that when he
13 felt like having a drink, he would count on him.
14 If the Court will permit me, I should like to
15 add that it's very difficult to describe the conduct of
16 that man, and that Branko too. They somehow behaved as
17 if this was a film rather than real life. They were
18 laughing, they simply laughed at those moments, and
19 it's really beyond comprehension. Goran's eyes, there
20 was something in them which I can't really explain.
21 They looked as if he wasn't quite normal. In his look
22 there was something -- there was something so -- so
23 powerful and so cruel, I mean, his eyes were not
24 laughing, only his mouth was laughing. It is very
25 difficult to explain it. I used to see that kind of
1 thing in films, and that is how I would explain it. I
2 mean, he would laugh, but it would be only his mouth.
3 His eyes were not laughing. It was as if in a man who
4 was not quite normal, that is, the only way how I can
5 explain it.
6 Q. So we turn to the fifth detainee you saw.
7 How long after the fourth was it that the fifth came
8 out of the office?
9 A. Well, it was -- again, these intervals were
10 all about the same; ten or fifteen minutes, twenty,
11 perhaps. It is difficult to be quite accurate.
12 Q. What happened to the fifth detainee?
13 A. Well, not to repeat myself, it's the same
14 thing. The victim came out through this door
15 [indicating]. Again, Goran came somewhere around here
16 [indicating], midway between where he came out and the
17 place you could no longer see them behind the corner.
18 And that victim here [indicating], perhaps a little bit
19 further down, he nudged with his automatic pistol, thus
20 setting the direction. I want to repeat, again, the
21 victim was again in a very similar condition, barely
22 being able to walk, covered in blood, breathing
23 heavily, all deformed, very unnatural walk.
24 And then, whether he simply didn't feel like
25 walking on foot or whether it was a method of
1 intimidation for us, but then the same thing happened
2 all over again. That is, he put the -- from some 20 or
3 30 centimetres, that is, at a very close range, he
4 fired at the neck of the victim. The victim fell, face
5 to the ground, and then he came close up to the victim
6 and fired in the back, somewhere in the region of the
7 heart, and would again point to persons amongst us
8 waiting for the release, indicating that we were to
9 take the victim round the corner.
10 Of course, they had to do that. After some
11 ten or fifteen seconds, those guys came back, and
12 meanwhile -- so it was already after 8.00 in the
13 evening. It was getting dark, and naturally we were
14 even more scared than before, because we had been told
15 that the curfew was as of 21.00, and after that, nobody
16 was allowed to move about, and our localities were
17 rather far away from Luka, from that port. We knew
18 that we needed at least two hours to get home on foot,
19 and we were telling those lads who were all the time
20 around here -- I mean those lads from the military
21 police -- "What about the transportation?" Because we
22 were afraid that if --
23 Q. Taking it short, were you eventually escorted
24 out that night?
25 A. Yes. The promised bus never arrived, but
1 then they let us walk out, except that the military
2 police kept walking around us, driving around us in a
3 car, and we had to go through countless checkpoints of
4 the Serb army and Chetniks so that we would be
5 effectively prevented from getting home within the
6 time.
7 Q. Back to Luka: After that fifth man had been
8 shot by Adolf, what, if anything, did he do? What
9 happened, if anything, to his gun?
10 A. After the fifth victim, they took a guy
11 called Danijel for interrogation. He was a resident of
12 Kolobara. And he was beaten. I guess that a door must
13 have been left open so that we could hear better. He
14 was subjected to a severe beating. They had found an
15 automatic pistol on him, and they were asking him where
16 did he get it from, and asked him to admit that he was
17 a Green Beret, or why had he bought that pistol? And
18 he was screaming and repeating, saying that he had
19 never intended using it against the Serb forces, that
20 he had only got it in order to protect his family, his
21 wife and his children. And at that moment we were
22 released, so that I do not know. I heard that he had
23 been killed, but at that moment we left Luka, so I
24 cannot really say anything specifically.
25 Q. My question, though, was: What did Adolf do
1 after killing the fifth man, and what, if anything, did
2 he do with his gun?
3 A. That person who introduced himself as the
4 Serb Adolf turned over his automatic gun with a muffler
5 to a person whom I remember going by the name Branko,
6 and told him, "There. Now is your chance to make a
7 notch on the butt, because after you kill your balijas,
8 your Muslim persons, then you should know the number."
9 And he said that he was going to have a drink and this
10 Branko would relieve him. And at that moment we were
11 released, so that I don't know what happened.
12 MR. NICE: Next exhibit, please.
13 Q. Convert what you've described into a sketch
14 that I think you drew, and we can deal with this
15 exhibit very swiftly. Was this drawn by you or by
16 someone at your direction?
17 A. I drew that with my own hand when I made the
18 statement to the United Nations authorities.
19 Q. We can see the hangar, the lane or roadway,
20 and we can see the offices above it?
21 A. Yes, this is the hangar [indicating]; this is
22 the entrance door [indicating]; and across is the Port
23 Authority building, the administrative building, that
24 is. And this is the corner [indicating] around which
25 Adolf would disappear with his victims and come back.
1 And this is roughly where they took out the victims
2 [indicating]. So he would take this direction, this
3 lane [indicating], and then turn the corner, and we
4 wouldn't see him again.
5 Q. You see between the office and the hangar --
6 it's not very clear on our screens, but I think you've
7 written the numbers 4 and 5; is that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. That represents what?
10 A. This is the place where, in front of our
11 eyes, Goran killed victims number 4 and 5.
12 Q. Thank you very much. We can also see, just
13 before turning from this exhibit, little blocks at the
14 top of the exhibit marked houses. Can you remember if
15 those were visible from the roadway where you were?
16 A. Up to a point. That is, these houses were on
17 a slight elevation, on a slope, so that I think -- I
18 believe that we could see some of those houses.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 MR. NICE: May the witness please see an
21 exhibit already produced, Exhibit 3. I have spare
22 copies if anybody is short of one.
23 Q. Two things, and only two things. How does
24 the gun you can see there compare with the gun you've
25 spoken of? And if you look at the right-hand side of
1 the man there, how does the baton we can see hanging
2 there compare with the baton you've described?
3 A. Yes, this is the so-called Scorpio, that is,
4 an automatic gun. I'm very familiar with it because
5 when I served in the Yugoslav People's Army, I had it
6 as my personal weapon. It is an automatic pistol, and
7 it can fire individually. It has a regulating
8 mechanism and it has a butt. Here it is [indicating].
9 It is pulled out, and in front, you have the muffler
10 mounted. You can see it very well.
11 The baton is a baton, that is, a stick. It
12 looked just like this one, except that you can't see
13 here on this photograph, it was much longer. I don't
14 remember ever seeing a policeman who was carrying such
15 a long baton.
16 Q. Thank you. On your walk or march away from
17 Luka through the various checkpoints, did you hear
18 something of the identification of one of the people
19 who had been killed or who was known to be killed?
20 Paragraph 31 in the summary.
21 A. Yes, as we walked in the column -- when
22 leaving Luka, that is -- I heard as we were walking,
23 from people who carried the killed victim, that -- they
24 looked very bad. They looked very bad. They were
25 shaking with fear. They said that there were about 20
1 people piled up, and that they saw a huge black stain
2 near that group, as if something had been washed with
3 oil or petrol, and that they felt the stench of a
4 burned human body. They were really scared stiff.
5 They were shaking as they were talking.
6 And one of them -- I don't know his name; I
7 can't recall it -- he said -- I mean, as they were
8 telling us this story, they mentioned a couple of
9 names. I remember one, and that is Jasmin Cumurovic,
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted). And another
12 name that they mentioned, I can't remember it now.
13 MR. NICE: Two more exhibits, each of them a
14 list of names. I can certainly deal with one this
15 afternoon, but I wasn't alert to the need to produce
16 the other one; it might be more convenient to deal with
17 it tomorrow morning, if that's acceptable to the
18 Court.
19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We are going to
20 work until 6.00. Let me remind you of that.
21 Don't we go until 6.00, Mr. Registrar?
22 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes, we
24 continue until 6.00.
25 THE REGISTRAR: This is Prosecutor's Exhibit
1 12.
2 MR. NICE: Thank you.
3 Q. Witness F, were you asked this morning to
4 look at a list of names in alphabetical order that
5 looked something like but wasn't exactly the same as
6 the list before you?
7 A. Yes.
8 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I can show the
9 original version -- in fact, I think I have already
10 shown the version to Mr. Greaves.
11 Q. Did you look through that list to see whether
12 there were any names on the list who were known to you
13 or whose fate was known to you? Can I therefore take
14 you to certain names and invite you to tell us what you
15 know, if anything, of what happened to these people,
16 and also how you got to know of it, if you can now
17 remember. On that first sheet -- and as the Court will
18 appreciate, another witness or witnesses will be
19 producing the original version of this list, which has
20 been simply typed up to make it more legible -- but
21 four up from the bottom, Stipo Glavosevic: What can
22 you tell us about that name?
23 A. I knew this gentleman very well because we
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted). He was a lawyer. And I also heard from
1 friends and acquaintances that he was killed at Luka;
2 not only was he killed, but he was first tortured, that
3 he was beaten very badly, and that his ears were
4 eventually cut off, that he had covered his ears with
5 his hands when the blood started coming out of them,
6 and that he apparently asked these Serbian killers to
7 kill him.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 A. And that one of them did, eventually. I was
10 told this by another co-worker. He said that the
11 Serbian soldier told him to kiss his boot and then he
12 would kill him. Then he did kiss his boot and was
13 killed by this soldier.
14 Q. The following name on the list, Mehmed
15 Glinac?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. What can you tell us, if anything, about that
18 name?
19 A. I can tell that (redacted)
20 (redacted), and that I saw him at Luka when
21 I was there, that he had been brought there, and then I
22 do not know anything about him. I have not heard
23 anything.
24 Q. If you could turn to the second sheet of this
25 list, please. There are, five or six lines up from the
1 bottom, there are two names, Kartal, and one name,
2 Kevric. Are those names known to you?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Tell us about the first two names.
5 A. Kasim and Rasim Kartal were two brothers whom
6 I knew rather well because my parents and their parents
7 were very good friends. And I can also say that I
8 don't know anything about their fate. I believe that
9 they are still considered as missing, so nothing is
10 known.
11 Q. But they were people known to you?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The next name, Sead Kevric?
14 A. I also knew Mr. Kevric, but -- I got to know
15 him very well because he lived in my neighbourhood, but
16 I cannot tell you anything about his fate. I never saw
17 him again.
18 Q. Thank you. Then, I think, over two sheets to
19 page number 4: Does the name "Terzic" mean anything to
20 you?
21 A. There are several persons named Terzic. They
22 were all brothers. I saw them at Luka. I personally
23 do not know what happened to them, but I heard from
24 many people that they were all killed. A lot was said
25 about that because it was a family tragedy.
1 Q. Thank you.
2 MR. NICE: For the purposes of ease of our
3 recollection, that's the longer list, the 100-plus
4 list. The next list, which I now produce, is a shorter
5 list, I think 39, again --
6 MR. GREAVES: Your Honour, I hesitate to rise
7 and interrupt my learned friend. I notice from the
8 list -- can I draw your attention to page 4 -- that
9 there are two sets of names which are very similar. I
10 want it clarified which set of names he is talking
11 about, please.
12 MR. NICE: Certainly. Of course.
13 Would you just return to the previous
14 exhibit, and if you would like to place sheet 4 of the
15 previous exhibit on the ELMO.
16 Q. When you were speaking of the brothers whose
17 fate was well known, you said, can you point out which
18 ones you were speaking of? That's T-E-R-Z-I-C.
19 A. Yes, I can. These are the Terzic brothers,
20 Ekrem, Enes, and Muhamed. These are the persons I was
21 referring to.
22 Q. I'm grateful to Mr. Greaves, because we must
23 then turn to the next one, Tursic. Do you know
24 something of either of those two names, Aldin or Almir,
25 or not?
1 A. I can only say that the Tursic brothers lived
2 very close to where I did, (redacted). I saw
3 both of them at Luka, and never again. I don't know
4 what happened to them.
5 Q. Indeed, to your knowledge, have you seen any
6 of the names on this list which you were first invited
7 to look at this morning, have you seen any of the names
8 on this list since Luka, since your time in Luka?
9 My mistake. I think my microphone may have
10 been off. Have you seen any of the names on this list
11 since your time in Luka, Witness F?
12 A. Among the persons who we mentioned, not one.
13 Q. Thank you.
14 MR. NICE: Exhibit 13, please.
15 Q. I think you were asked to look at this list
16 of names shortly and only this afternoon; is that
17 correct? But are some of the names familiar to you?
18 And I think we start at Number 2 --
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. -- and if you would like just to point it out
21 on the list so that we can be quite sure we're looking
22 at the right name. Number 2 on the list.
23 A. It's Number 2, Ahmed Hodzic, also known as
24 Papa. I knew him well from before, and he lived in the
25 Kolobara neighbourhood. He was a member of the
1 resistance against the Serbo-Chetniks. He defended his
2 neighbourhood, and I know that he too was killed.
3 Q. Numbers 6 and 7, were their names known to
4 you? Do you know what, if anything, happened?
5 A. Yes. These are -- I don't know. I know
6 these persons, but I don't know about them.
7 Q. Number 8, was that person known to you?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. What happened to --
10 A. Very well, yes, I know him very well. He was
11 also brought to Luka.
12 Q. So far as you know, what happened to him?
13 A. He too was killed. I was told this later by
14 some friends of mine who also knew him quite well.
15 Apparently, he was accused of being an activist of the
16 party, and as far as I know, he was not. He, like all
17 of us, he was just somebody from the town and wasn't
18 particularly active.
19 This is why -- this explains -- the fact that
20 about 10.000 Muslims stayed home says clearly that they
21 did not expect this, that they were very naive, and
22 they paid with their lives for that. Those are the
23 facts.
24 Q. Sheet 2, number 16.
25 A. Yes. Sakib Becirevic, also known as Kibe, he
1 worked as a butcher for the same company and was
2 killed. The word is that a Ranko Cesic, the other
3 person who is wanted by this Tribunal, was the one who
4 killed him. This is what is well known there.
5 Q. 19, 20, and 21 you've already referred to on
6 the other list?
7 A. Yes. Those were the three Terzic brothers
8 who were also killed. That is certain.
9 Q. 23?
10 A. Yes, Vasif Sulejmanovic, also well known in
11 the town because he worked at the local Brcko TV
12 station, and he was also killed later.
13 Q. Over the page to number 33?
14 A. Yes. Mr. Himzo Kevric, also well known in
15 Brcko. He was a merchant, very well known, and I also
16 knew him well because I was very close with his sons,
17 and I came in and visited him often. He worked in the
18 Serbian part of -- he lived in the Serbian part of town
19 near Luka.
20 Q. 36?
21 A. Osman Vatic, also well-known figure in town.
22 He was an attorney at law. He headed a law office in
23 town. He was well liked. Terrible stories are being
24 told about his fate, not only that he was killed but
25 that along with his wife, he was tortured for a very
1 long time, abused in many ways, and then only in the
2 end killed. Because he was a wealthy man, he was kept
3 alive until he gave them his Mercedes car, his gold,
4 and everything else.
5 Q. Number 39?
6 A. 39 is Izudin Brodlic, also a very well-known
7 person in our town. He had a private shoe shop, so
8 that people in Brcko knew him very well. He was also
9 killed in his house, as far as I know. He also lived
10 near the barracks.
11 Q. Thank you. You've spoken of the man who you
12 knew because he was introduced or he introduced himself
13 as Adolf, but you've spoken of him using another name.
14 Where did you get the other name from and when?
15 A. After my release from Luka, I went back to my
16 friend's apartment where I had been before I was taken
17 to the prison, that is, to Luka, and this is very
18 dangerous. Very often Serbian soldiers, Chetniks,
19 paramilitaries, would come in, and they behaved in all
20 different kinds of ways. It was very dangerous being a
21 Muslim there.
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 would take us there in his own car, and this is what
1 happened.
2 (redacted)
3 was there, and only because he knew me so very well and
4 he had some integrity, he took us in and said that we
5 could work there, but we didn't leave the premises
6 because it was very dangerous.
7 Also later other people who worked at (redacted)
8 were released and who were essential for certain types
9 of work, and so it is from them that I later learned
10 that the person who was calling himself the Serbian
11 Adolf was actually called Goran Jelisic.
12 MR. NICE: That concludes what I want to ask
13 this witness.
14 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you.
15 Mr. Greaves?
16 MR. GREAVES: Your Honour, I wonder whether
17 you want me to start this evening or want to hear it
18 all in one go, rather than have it in two disjointed --
19 one small bit and then a longer bit tomorrow. I'm
20 entirely in your hands.
21 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Well, there is
22 still ten minutes, and you can begin. Every minute is
23 precious. You know that. Yes, please proceed.
24 Witness F, Defence counsel for Goran Jelisic
25 are going to ask you some questions.
1 Cross-examined by Mr. Greaves:
2 Q. Witness F, just help me, please, if you
3 will. If there is a question of mine which you don't
4 understand, please don't be shy. Just stop me
5 straightaway and ask me to explain it again. All
6 right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I would like to ask you first of all, please,
9 when you made a statement to the International
10 Tribunal, I think you were then in the BiH army. Is
11 that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Are you still in that employment?
14 A. I was never employed by the BiH army. I only
15 defended my people and my country against the
16 occupation.
17 Q. I perhaps put it badly, but are you still
18 serving in the BiH army?
19 A. No, because there is no need for it any
20 longer.
21 Q. I would like to ask you, please, this: As
22 far as yourself is concerned, I think you're now about
23 38. Is that right?
24 A. Perhaps.
25 Q. Yes. I don't want to get into the exact
1 dates, but I think you were born in September 1961.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. You would therefore have been 30 at the time
4 of the war in May 1992?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Can I ask you this, Witness F: Prior to May
7 1992, were you personally involved in politics in any
8 way --
9 A. No.
10 Q. -- or a member of a political party before
11 the war?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Did you become a member of any political
14 party during the war?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Since the war, have you become a member of a
17 political party?
18 A. No. I was never politically active or a
19 member of any political party.
20 Q. Thank you very much.
21 I want now just briefly to ask you some
22 questions about the period immediately before the
23 beginning of fighting in Brcko.
24 You were asked by my learned friend about the
25 events in late April 1992. At that time prior to the
1 blowing of the bridges that was described to you, were
2 you aware that there was about to be fighting in that
3 area?
4 A. No. One could assume that, I guess, but I
5 didn't know or nobody knew that this would happen.
6 Otherwise, I would not wait for them to do to me what
7 they did.
8 Q. Of course. Just this, please, Witness F:
9 You say that you could assume that there was going to
10 be something happening. Was that because you were
11 aware of the political developments taking place in the
12 Brcko area or because of the wider picture of what was
13 happening in the former Yugoslavia?
14 A. Yes. I felt, like any citizen of Bosnia at
15 that time, that the situation was becoming serious and
16 dangerous in a way, but I believe that essentially my
17 answer is very simple. I did not want a war, and I
18 perhaps would -- I perhaps assumed that there would be
19 some minor skirmishes or duels between the extremist
20 factions, but I didn't think that that would actually
21 happen. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stayed at home.
22 And tens of thousands of Bosniaks stayed
23 home, and when people came to their homes, they still
24 did not believe that something like this would happen,
25 things that did happen later. It is a fact that tens
1 of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, together with their
2 families, stayed in the municipal area at the mercy of
3 the Serb Chetnik occupiers, and I think that that is
4 very clear.
5 Q. Witness F, I just want to ask you this very
6 briefly about one of the lists that you've been
7 examined about today, and I'll return to it in due
8 course. But the second list that you went through, the
9 one that you looked at this afternoon for the first
10 time, that's a list containing a number of people who
11 were active in either local affairs or political
12 affairs? Would this be right, that those people that
13 you knew on that list, those people were involved in
14 politics; is that right?
15 A. Frankly, I believe they were not, because
16 were they politically involved and if they knew what
17 was going to go on, I don't think that they would share
18 the fate of all the victims, which they eventually
19 did. So logically speaking, I don't think it makes
20 sense that they were politically involved.
21 Q. You've told us that you were conscious of the
22 picture of what was developing in the wider Yugoslavia,
23 and I perhaps asked the question badly, but were you
24 also aware of political developments at a local level
25 in Brcko, you yourself?
1 A. Yes, yes. I think you just reminded me of
2 something quite important which cost many people their
3 lives.
4 The conflict officially started on 1 May
5 between 4.00 and 5.00 in the afternoon. This is when
6 officially the shooting started and the shelling
7 started. In the course of that day and even in the
8 following day, the conflict was broadcast in the media,
9 and it was said that the members of all the political
10 parties, that is, all three parties in Brcko, were
11 reported to have agreed to a division of Brcko. And it
12 is not something that I need to go into, but I believe
13 that that was part of the reason why so many people
14 believed in it and stayed home and eventually became
15 victims of the treachery and genocide. This is what
16 I'm certain of, but I believe that this is a wholly
17 different subject matter, so that -- the local
18 politics, I believe.
19 The point is the Serbian side always had the
20 position of force because they knew that they had the
21 JNA behind them with their military might, because the
22 Serbian population was in minority in the Brcko
23 municipality, only 20 per cent, and it is absurd that
24 they should still call Brcko Serbian when the last
25 census clearly points to the overall structure of the
1 population in Brcko.
2 Despite all of that, I believe that since our
3 population did not want a war, which again is confirmed
4 by this terrible suffering, I believe that our local
5 authorities -- and imagine a town of that size to be
6 divided between the three communities. It is not
7 normal -- it is not possible to retain any kind of
8 normal life there, but I believe that this was a policy
9 of the official government, the government elected in
10 the last election in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in order to
11 prevent the war. I believe and the events show that
12 the Serbs did not need any hostages or needed
13 provocation.
14 Who were we to wage war there? We lived with
15 our neighbours.
16 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I'm going to
17 interrupt you, Witness F. Try to answer concisely.
18 You understand that this is not really a forum here. I
19 understand that you do want to present your ideas and
20 opinions which are respectable and defendable, given
21 all that you have suffered, but I would like us to
22 focus as much as possible on the questions that are
23 asked both by the Prosecution and the Defence.
24 Would you like to add something about the
25 question that Mr. Jelisic's Defence counsel asked or
1 have you more or less finished what you have to say?
2 A. I can -- I'm finished. I believe that I said
3 everything that I think was essential with regards to
4 Mr. Jelisic, the so-called Adolf. I think I said
5 everything I had to, but I wanted to point out that
6 what I did not see with my own eyes, and these are
7 horrible stories that I heard, I did not mention but I
8 told just what I saw, and as I took a solemn
9 declaration, this is the whole truth and nothing but
10 the truth, and I wish it were otherwise.
11 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We have not
12 completed with your questions, Witness F, but will
13 resume tomorrow at 10.00 in the morning. I hope that
14 you can rest this evening, and Witness F, you have to
15 come back tomorrow.
16 Thank you very much.
17 THE WITNESS: Thank you too.
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
19 6.04 p.m., to be reconvened on
20 Tuesday, the 31st day of August,
21 1999, at 10.00 a.m.
22
23
24
25