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Page 10078

1 THE REGISTRAR: We're back in open session, Your Honours.

2 JUDGE KWON: Unless there are other administrative matters to

3 deal with before we hear the evidence, we'll bring in the witness.

4 MS. EDGERTON: Maybe to speed things up after the next break, the

5 witness could be taken to the witness room immediately adjacent to the

6 courtroom, rather than the one further away.

7 [The witness entered court]

8 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, sir.

9 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

10 JUDGE KWON: If you could kindly take the solemn declaration.

11 THE WITNESS: Okay.

12 I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,

13 and nothing but the truth.

14 WITNESS: JEREMY BOWEN

15 JUDGE KWON: Please make yourself comfortable.

16 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

17 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Edgerton.

18 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

19 Examination by Ms. Edgerton:

20 Q. Good morning, sir. Would you be able to tell us your full name

21 before we begin?

22 A. Yeah. Jeremy Francis John Bowen.

23 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, do you recall giving a statement to

24 representatives of the Office of the Prosecutor for this Tribunal in

25 March 2002?

Page 10079

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. And on 18 August 2009, did you sign a further statement for the

3 Office of the Prosecutor which incorporated elements of the 2002

4 statement and added some additional information?

5 A. Yes, I did.

6 Q. Have you reviewed those statements in preparation for your

7 testimony today; in particular, the 2009 statement?

8 A. Yes, I have, and I have them here on the desk in front of me as

9 well.

10 Q. Now, also in preparing for your testimony today, did you have a

11 chance to review videos of a number of your news broadcasts relating to

12 subjects discussed in your statement?

13 A. I did.

14 Q. In doing that, did you notice any mistakes or anything in those

15 broadcasts that you felt needed correction or clarification?

16 A. Yes. There's one thing which I -- you know, sadly I need to

17 bring to the attention of the Court, and that is there's an error in one

18 of the pieces that I did which has been submitted here, and it's about --

19 it's a piece about the -- a botched attempt to evacuate children from

20 Sarajevo, an operation in which two children were killed.

21 In that piece, I got wrong the location of the place where the

22 shooters were. I mis-identified it. I think that was because I hadn't

23 been in the city very long at that time and I was misinformed.

24 However, the point I'd like to make is that I don't think that

25 that has any bearing on the truth of the report. The facts that the

Page 10080

1 children were killed after they had passed by the final Bosnian

2 check-point, I think, is absolutely clear from the piece. What I got

3 wrong in it was the location of the gunmen, and that's something which --

4 you know, which happened. And I think it's necessary to mention that at

5 this particular point. But as I say, the fact that the kids were killed,

6 and that they were shot, and that when the bus left Sarajevo, it hadn't

7 been attacked, when the bus -- I'll rephrase that. When the bus left

8 government-controlled Sarajevo, it hadn't been attacked, I think that is

9 still clear from the piece. It's very clear from the pictures.

10 Q. Now, is -- the incident that you've just referred to, is that

11 something that you discussed? And I'll invite you to open the document.

12 Is that something you discussed in paragraph 37 of your 2009 statement?

13 A. Let me just check that paragraph.

14 Yes, the two children, Vedrana Glavas and Roki Sulejmanovic, yes,

15 that is the incident. As well as the -- I wasn't with the children when

16 they were evacuated, but I reported the incident after they were killed

17 and after the bus that they were travelling on returned to

18 government-controlled Sarajevo. And then a couple of days after that,

19 after the BBC team had made contact with the family of one of the

20 children, Vedrana Glavas, after that I went with the family -- with the

21 mother and the grandmother to the funeral, and I did a report, which was

22 an eye-witness report, of the shelling of the funeral.

23 Q. So then does the error in the broadcast piece that you've just

24 discussed in any way affect the evidence as set out in paragraph 37?

25 A. No, not at all.

Page 10081

1 Q. Do you have any other changes or corrections or clarifications

2 you want to make to either the videos or the 2009 statement?

3 A. No, I don't.

4 Q. If I was to ask you the same questions today which gave rise to

5 that 2009 statement, would you give the same answers?

6 A. Yeah, I would.

7 MS. EDGERTON: Your Honours, the 2009 statement has 65 ter number

8 22660. I wonder if that could be marked as the next Prosecution exhibit,

9 please.

10 JUDGE KWON: Yes, that will be admitted.

11 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P2068, Your Honours.

12 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

13 I'll now read a summary of the witness's written evidence, a

14 brief summary.

15 Mr. Jeremy Bowen has worked as a war correspondent for the

16 British Broadcasting Corporation since 1987. In this capacity, he

17 reported on wars in the former Yugoslavia, beginning with the war in

18 Croatia, before being stationed in Sarajevo from July 1992 until the end

19 of the conflict. Mr. Bowen describes the poor conditions endured by

20 civilians as a result of the Bosnian Serbs' siege of Sarajevo, including

21 the fear generated by the many known sniper locations, the lack of

22 electricity and running water, the difficult medical situation, and the

23 constant shelling. He observed that there was no place safe from the

24 campaign of shelling and sniping against the civilian population.

25 Mr. Bowen spoke to Bosnian Serb soldiers who were encircling the

Page 10082

1 city, who confirmed that they were firing into the city. He observed an

2 organised military structure and recalls that in one interview, the

3 accused, Dr. Karadzic, described a "disciplined Bosnian Serb police and

4 army."

5 Mr. Bowen testifies that as a journalist, he was interested in

6 the theory that the Bosnian Muslim side was shelling their own people,

7 but never obtained evidence that this was true. Whilst in other

8 conflicts he reported on, Mr. Bowen did witness the staging of evidence,

9 he observed no such behaviour in Sarajevo.

10 Mr. Bowen also reported from areas outside of Sarajevo. In

11 August 1992, he accompanied a UNHCR convoy into Gorazde, where he

12 witnessed desperate people suffering from a lack of food and medical

13 supplies, and the effects of shelling.

14 In July 1995, Mr. Bowen reported on events in Srebrenica and

15 recalls, pointing out that in the pictures taken from Pale TV, no men

16 were shown leaving the enclave, and guessing that they had either been

17 detained or even killed.

18 That's the summary of the written evidence, Your Honours.

19 Q. Now, to begin with some further detail, Mr. Bowen, I wonder if

20 you could start by characterising for us the nature of your reporting

21 from the conflict in the former Bosnia and Herzegovina -- former

22 republic, pardon me, of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

23 A. Well, I reported on it during my -- my stints in Sarajevo

24 throughout the war. I was in much of my reporting in war zones, not just

25 in the former Yugoslavia, but in other places - I've reported, I think,

Page 10083

1 in 14 different wars - I've always been most interested in the plight of

2 the civilian population. Yes, of course, matters of grand strategy and

3 the politics of it are crucial, but I think to -- the job of a reporter

4 is to try, as well, to put people in the shoes of civilians and how

5 they're suffering in war, because I think that -- that gives our

6 audiences a good idea of what's going on. I also think -- so that's the

7 kind of thing I tried to do while I was reporting from former Yugoslavia.

8 And I tried, as well, to report as much as I could from all sides. I had

9 quarters for much of the war within the city of Sarajevo. There were

10 different times we were also based in Kiseljak and with British soldiers

11 as well, but I was very anxious as well to do as much as I could from the

12 Serb side. That wasn't very easy because of a lack of access.

13 Q. Well, perhaps we could just talk about that for a minute.

14 How would you describe your access, first of all, to Bosnian-held

15 areas throughout the conflict.

16 A. Generally, pretty good. As time went on, certainly in the last

17 year, the last couple of years of the war, it got harder to work in

18 Sarajevo because people were lost in their own problems and their own

19 difficulties and felt very cut off from the world, and so there was some

20 anti-foreign journalist feeling. Well, anti-foreigner feeling, as a

21 matter of fact, but as journalists there, we were possibly - with the

22 exception of troops - we were possibly the most visible foreigners who

23 were there. So there were some areas of the government-controlled part

24 of the city which at different times were hard to get to; for example,

25 the area around Bistrica Barracks and beyond that at the time that Caco

Page 10084

1 was in charge of the 10th Mountain Brigade. That was, quote, "a no-go

2 area" for us. The people -- you know, the guys, they were pretty

3 hostile, you could get your flak-jacket taken, cameras were taken. But

4 generally on the government-controlled areas, we had a fair degree of

5 co-operation. We were able -- we had access to the political leadership.

6 They would give us interviews every now and then, and we were able to

7 move around. Generally speaking, in the city, we could move around

8 freely. As I say, with the exception of those areas which it was

9 probably politic to not go into too much at different times.

10 On the Serb side, it was much harder. There were more

11 restrictions. We were able to travel up to Pale, but that -- there was a

12 procedure that you had to follow. You had to ring ahead, call them up on

13 the satellite phone. That was quite difficult sometimes, even to get an

14 answer. So then sometimes it wasn't possible, but when it was possible,

15 we were able to cross over the airport with our UN passes and make our

16 way to Lukavica Barracks, which was the place where the sector commander

17 for the Bosnian Serb forces was based, and there was a liaison guy there

18 in an office on the right-hand side as you went in. And what we'd do is

19 we'd go, we'd knock on that door, and he would call up towards Pale.

20 And, you know, nine times out of ten we would get permission to go up to

21 Pale. And then we would head for the press centre. We would try to get

22 some connections there, some contacts. We would try to speak to the

23 officials there to get permission to do the things we needed to do and

24 wanted to do; for example, visit Grbavica in the central part of the

25 Serb-controlled section of Sarajevo. And sometimes we'd look in on the

Page 10085

1 hotel where Dr. Karadzic had his headquarters.

2 So it was possible to do that kind of thing. What it wasn't

3 possible to do was to just drive around, you know. If we wanted, say,

4 to -- wanted to do a trip into Eastern Bosnia, it would have been very,

5 very difficult to arrange. If I wanted to go to Rogatica or something

6 like that, it would be very difficult to arrange. Basically, we wouldn't

7 have gotten past the first check-point, and there were many check-points.

8 So that road up to Pale was generally possible, as long as we'd

9 gone through the liaison in co-ordination with Lukavica Barracks, but

10 otherwise I would say it was considerably easier to work on the Bosnian

11 Government side than on the Bosnian Serb side. There were quite serious

12 restrictions that were put on our activities by them.

13 Q. Did that affect your ability to report the conflict to any

14 extent?

15 A. Yeah, well, it disappointed me, actually, because my objective as

16 a journalist, as a reporter, is to use my own eyes and my ears as much as

17 I can. And to use your eyes and your ears, to talk to people, to see

18 things, you have to be in places. A fundamental tenement of journalism

19 and reporting is to try to narrow the difference between yourself and the

20 story, and it was therefore, as I say, disappointing and frustrating,

21 too, that it was difficult to do that on the Serb side. It was harder

22 than on the Bosnian Government side. And I would like to have been

23 able -- I did manage to do, you know, a reasonable amount on the Serb

24 side. For example, I did a big trip through Eastern Bosnia and through

25 the Brcko corridor, which we did an hour-long programme for the BBC

Page 10086

1 about, but in the course of the whole war, even though I spent months and

2 months in Sarajevo, I only managed once to go to Grbavica, in the

3 Serb-controlled area, which I would like to have gone there much more

4 often. But I only in the entire period, despite asking many, many times,

5 I was only granted permission once to go there, which I did, and it was

6 instructive when I went there. But most of the time, things like that

7 were pretty much off limits.

8 Q. Let's go to some of the stories that you reported on. And to do

9 that, I'd like to move through some paragraphs of your written evidence.

10 The first one I'd like to draw your attention to is at

11 paragraph 8 of that 2009 statement. There, you said that ethnic

12 cleansing was a major feature of the Balkan wars you covered. Now, when

13 you use that term, what did you mean to describe?

14 A. Well, by "ethnic cleansing," what I meant was the expulsion, by

15 force or by acts of terror, effectively, parts of a population, to render

16 the community in which they had lived a place where there was only one --

17 one of the communities left; for example, Serbs kicking out Muslims. We

18 saw there was a lot of that. Ethnic cleansing was a practice that all

19 sides in the Bosnian wars used, and all sides in the former Yugoslav

20 wars, in fact, used, but it was something that was really prevalent -- it

21 was one of the themes of the war. You know, war is a question of -- I

22 mean, how do you win wars? You win wars by inflicting damage on your

23 enemy, by killing people, by destroying property, and also, in this

24 particular case, by the shift of population, by -- I mean, my feeling was

25 that their instinct was that it was easier to hold on to territory if you

Page 10087

1 expelled or in some cases killed people there who were your -- who you

2 regarded as your enemies or who regarded themselves as your enemies.

3 Q. Now, you said also in paragraph 8, as you've just done, that

4 while all sides expelled civilians from their homes, the Bosnian Serbs

5 did more of it, and in paragraph 9 you noticed that the biggest single

6 group to suffer this were Bosnian Muslims. Now, I wonder if you could

7 just tell us briefly, in your own words, what the basis for this

8 assertion is.

9 A. Well, I spent a lot of time there. I spoke to a lot of people.

10 I spoke to people as well from the -- from the likes of the UNHCR, the

11 International Red Cross, the international organisations that were active

12 there. I didn't just speak to them; I was in constant contact with them,

13 and that's the kind of thing that they were saying to me. They were

14 saying, Well, look, as far as we can tell, these are -- in terms of

15 respective numbers, yes, everybody's doing it, but the Serbs are doing

16 more of it, and the Muslims are suffering more as a result of it, because

17 in those villages and towns in Eastern Bosnia there were a lot of Muslims

18 at the beginning of the war, and by the end, there weren't all that many,

19 especially in some areas where there had been a lot of ethnic cleansing

20 and people had been expelled in large numbers. So it was something that

21 I think was actually rather obvious at the time.

22 Q. Now, when you say you spoke to a lot of people, did that include

23 people of Muslim origin?

24 A. Yes, it did. And I spoke to people as well who had been newly

25 expelled from their homes, who had just been pushed over the front-lines.

Page 10088

1 I spoke to people who were sometimes on the brink of being taken from

2 their homes. That was later on in the war as well. I filmed, using

3 night vision -- my cameraman filmed, using night vision equipment,

4 civilians, women, children and old men, being -- newly arrived, having

5 been pushed over the border on the road into Travnik in Central Bosnia.

6 And so, you know, I saw these things myself, and I then had extensive

7 conversations. Yeah, I don't speak Serbo-Croatian, so it was through a

8 translator, but I had extensive conversations with people who were very

9 often talking about things that had happened to them not even in the

10 previous days, but in the previous hours. So things were very fresh in

11 their minds.

12 Also, I would say that in my career as a journalist up to then, I

13 was already an experienced reporter. I'd had a lot of experience in

14 talking to people who'd suffered in difficult situations, in wars, in

15 natural disasters, and so I think you can get -- even if you don't share

16 a common language, you can learn a lot from body language and from

17 people's demeanours. And I was absolutely convinced in my mind that they

18 were not making it up, that they were telling stories about their own

19 lives, things that had happened to them, and some of them were very

20 graphic and absolutely horrifying in terms of the cruelty that had been

21 inflicted on them.

22 Q. Now, you talked just a couple of seconds ago about some film that

23 your cameraman had taken, and I'd like to move to some films at this

24 point. I'll have three for you in succession and some brief questions

25 after that.

Page 10089

1 The first film clip I'd like to have played is 65 ter 40349E.

2 Transcripts -- we've made efforts to sort out the transcripts. I'd just

3 like to make sure, before we play, that my colleagues have been able --

4 in the booth have been able to locate those transcripts. 40349E.

5 We're good to go, Your Honours.

6 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

7 [Video-clip played]

8 "Reporter: At first glance, they look like ordinary European

9 school children. But with their families, they've suffered as much as

10 anybody has in Europe since the Second World War. And close up, it

11 shows.

12 "A Muslim charity in Travnik is feeding them. Their parents,

13 those who've survived, brought them here to escape a massacre in their

14 hometown of Bosanski Petrovac in Central Bosnia. This woman said she

15 walked for 30 miles through the forest with her family to get away from

16 the killings. They said it happened a week ago. Mrs. Asnija Bolic's

17 father and her daughter, whose nine-month-old baby she's holding, were

18 murdered."

19 "[Interpretation] And two Serbian soldiers came to our house,

20 and they hit my father. He fell down and he was dead. And my daughter

21 was in the garden, and two Serbian soldiers, they called my daughter to

22 come to them, and they killed her from machine-gun and three bullets."

23 "Reporter: The refugees, all Muslims who escaped from Travnik,

24 tell the same story, that it was the reprisal for the deaths of 16 Serb

25 soldiers whose bodies were brought back to Bosanski Petrovac from the

Page 10090

1 front. They say the Serb neighbours, whose names they know, killed

2 people at random. They're not sure how they died. Some say about 60.

3 "Last Thursday, after three days of terror, they were given half

4 an hour to get out. First, they were made to sign their property over to

5 the Serb authorities. Then they bribed Serb gunmen to let them leave

6 their territory. But on their way, their buses were attacked. This

7 woman's 18-year-old son was killed by a bullet in the head as he sat next

8 to her. They said the Bosanski Petrovac killings followed four months of

9 murder and intimidation. The refugees talked of other massacres. This

10 man said 5.000 Muslims were killed in five villages in July."

11 "[Interpretation] Bodies remain laying on the grass, on the open

12 fields. Some were eaten, flesh was eaten by dogs and animals. Some

13 people managed to bury their relatives. They separated one woman. She

14 had four children left behind. They took her and 10 other people. They

15 took them to one stud farm, and they burned all together. For example,

16 one house of Ekrim Duratovic, they took out 15 people and they were all

17 killed. Their bodies were lying in front of a house."

18 "Reporter: Even in the relative safety of Travnik, a Muslim

19 town, their problems aren't over. Muslim refugees who've fled here to

20 escape Serbian persecution are getting a hostile reception from local

21 Croats as well. A number of Croatian towns around here are refusing to

22 take any more Muslim refugees because they don't want to disturb the

23 ethnic balance of their populations. And the United Nations can't do it

24 all on its own. Its relief efforts are being swamped. Six thousand

25 refugees have arrived in the last five days, and the UN fears fifty

Page 10091

1 thousand more could reach here before Christmas.

2 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Travnik."

3 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

4 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. I think now the French translation is

5 over.

6 MS. EDGERTON: Yes, thank you.

7 Just one --

8 Q. If you could clarify for the Trial Chamber here, Mr. Bowen, just

9 one technical question. Your soundtrack on this video-clip was

10 interfered with by some voice-over. Do you know what that voice-over is?

11 A. Yes, I do. Unfortunately, the version that the BBC has given you

12 includes a recording of the voice of the studio director, so what you

13 heard there was the studio director giving technical instructions to the

14 production team about stories coming up, stories they were dropping, how

15 long was left on the VT -- on the videotape. So that's -- that's a

16 shame. I don't think it's the case, technically, on the other videos,

17 but on that one. So it was a little bit off-putting, but I hope that you

18 got the gist of it.

19 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

20 If we could just move on to the second and third videos before I

21 ask questions.

22 The next one is 65 ter 40349F. 40349F.

23 My colleagues in the booth behind me have been able to locate it.

24 Thank you. If we could go ahead, please.

25 [Video-clip played]

Page 10092

1 "Reporter: It took more than a month of negotiations to get the

2 1500 prisoners out. Thirty-five buses brought them to a transit camp in

3 Karlovac, near Zagreb, where they arrived late last night. Almost all of

4 them were men. A few had brought their families; some had been forced to

5 leave them behind. The Red Cross and the United Nations, who negotiated

6 the release and organised the convoy, deny they're doing the Bosnian

7 Serbs' work, ethnically cleansing the republic of Muslims. The

8 prisoners, they said, had already lost everything. Many of them would

9 have died had they stayed in the camps this winter.

10 "This morning, some of them were reunited with their families.

11 The Red Cross fed the men for a month before they were released, so

12 they've started to put on weight. But it won't be so easy for them to

13 forget what they've seen and what they've suffered."

14 "[Interpretation] They have been cutting their organs out or

15 just drawing on the bodies with knives. They did things that normal

16 people would not do."

17 "[Interpretation] We had very bad living conditions. We were

18 sleeping on the floor. We didn't have enough food, we were beaten

19 regularly, and they were taking people out and killing them."

20 "[Interpretation] There I saw a body which had a wire taken

21 through the tongue and connected by the same wire to another two bodies.

22 They were all linked with one wire through their tongues, and none of

23 those people, those dead people there, were killed by bullets. They were

24 all -- they were all -- they all had wounds which looked as if they were

25 inflicted with heavy things like clubs."

Page 10093

1 "Reporter: This is supposed to be a transit camp, but at the

2 moment they're going nowhere. These men have no idea where they're going

3 to go or what they're going to do next. The Croatians say they can't

4 stay here, and no other country has come forward to offer them a refuge.

5 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Karlovac."

6 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

7 And we'll just deal with the third video report, 65 ter 40349G,

8 please.

9 [Video-clip played]

10 "Reporter: By the time Muslim refugees cross the Galica paths,

11 they've lost almost everything except their lives. Even then, on the

12 last stretch of road out of Serb territory, they're in danger. We had to

13 use a night sight to film them, because the Serbs shoot at the refugees

14 if they see lights. This woman was passed caring. Serbs killed her

15 husband and her two sons last week. Near her was an exhausted young

16 mother who carried her sick children across the mountains."

17 "[Interpretation] It's difficult to be alive, let alone to be a

18 mother. It's difficult to be a mother or a son or a husband. Everything

19 is difficult now."

20 "Reporter: Once they're through no-man's land, they're picked up

21 by the Muslim and Croat fighters who control this part of Bosnia. They

22 were left to fend for themselves in a stinking, airless barrack block.

23 Even the corridors are packed. Travnik has no room left for refugees,

24 but they keep on coming. There's no one here to give these people

25 blankets, or food, or even water. Everything they have with them, they

Page 10094

1 brought down from the mountains. The relief organisations are trying to

2 help, but it's not enough. There are simply too many refugees here, and

3 thousands more arrive every day. Most of the refugees are women and

4 children. There are a few old men. They said that the Serbs took the

5 others away at gunpoint, before they pushed them through the front-line."

6 "[Interpretation] They were just screaming, Get out, get out, we

7 will kill you all, and they just took them all to one bus and took them

8 away. We don't know where they are now."

9 "Reporter: This woman's teenage son was taken. He hadn't

10 believed the Serbs' promise of safe passage, but she talked him into it."

11 "[Interpretation] He just turned around and looked at me, and he

12 said, Thank you, mama. Thanks for killing me."

13 "Reporter: Some refugees had been in Travnik for weeks, with

14 hardly anything to eat."

15 "[Interpretation] All day, only that."

16 "Reporter: For the few people who get visas to go abroad,

17 leaving is as hard as staying. Ziad Ramic is sending his mother to a

18 cousin in Germany. He's staying behind to fight."

19 "[Interpretation] He says, We come from Prijedor, and too many

20 people were killed there. I have to do something to make it better."

21 "Reporter: His younger brother, Enis, tells his mother not to

22 cry. He's joined the Bosnian Army as well. Until this point, at least

23 they had each other. Now the war has taken that away as well.

24 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Travnik."

25 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

Page 10095

1 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, earlier in your testimony today you referred to

2 your cameraman filming some -- using his night sights. Is that -- do

3 these three reports that we've just included include this night-sight

4 film story you were discussing?

5 A. Yes, that was the piece I was referring to, the one where you saw

6 it in fuzzy greenish vision. Technology has improved a little bit since

7 then, but that's, you know, a way of seeing -- a way of seeing without

8 using lights.

9 Q. Through the course of your coverage of the conflict in Bosnia and

10 Herzegovina, did you see any scenes like this on the Bosnian Serb side?

11 A. No, I didn't, I didn't. I never saw anything like that on the

12 Bosnian Serb side.

13 Q. Thank you.

14 A. I mean, I was told -- if I could just add one thing. I was told

15 by the -- by Bosnian Serb officials that such things had happened, but I

16 didn't see anything like that with my own eyes on their side.

17 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

18 Your Honours, could I tender these three 65 ter numbers 40349E,

19 F, and G, as Prosecution exhibits, please ?

20 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

21 THE REGISTRAR: They will be admitted as Exhibits P2069 to P2071

22 respectively.

23 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

24 Q. Mr. Bowen, do you -- have you -- do you recall ever seeing the

25 issue of ethnic cleansing being raised with Dr. Karadzic?

Page 10096

1 A. Yeah, I do. One time, it was -- I mean, it was the kind of

2 things which in interviews was often raised, because it was a very live

3 issue at the time. It was the thing that people were talking about a

4 lot. Some refugees were reaching Western European countries. It was --

5 as well as being a humanitarian issue, it was a political issue. And I

6 saw early on in the war, during a meeting that Dr. Karadzic had with the

7 peace envoys, Vance and Owen, it was brought up there and they spoke

8 about it.

9 Q. Did you make a report on that?

10 A. I did, yes. I was there.

11 MS. EDGERTON: Could we move, then, to 65 ter 40350B.

12 [Video-clip played]

13 "Reporter: The two negotiators came in by helicopter to turn

14 their attention to ethnic cleansing, a practice many people here believe

15 should have been tackled months ago. Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance travelled

16 to Banja Luka, the main city of Serb-controlled Northern Bosnia."

17 "Radovan Karadzic: Well, this is Catholic Church over there."

18 "Reporter: They were greeted by Radovan Karadzic, leader of the

19 Bosnian Serbs. Perhaps because Banja Luka's people are mainly Serbian,

20 it's the only big city in Bosnia which has not been besieged or purged of

21 its Muslims. Mr. Karadzic denied reports that ethnic cleansing was now

22 beginning here."

23 "Radovan Karadzic: I am very proud of this city. This is pure

24 Serbian power and predominantly Serbian city, no problem for 30.000

25 Muslims and 30.000 Croats."

Page 10097

1 "Reporter: But after a day interviewing church leaders, that

2 assertion was not accepted by Mr. Vance. He said it was all even more

3 serious than he'd thought. Lord Owen tried to be positive."

4 "Lord Owen: I still believe that Banja Luka, that it is not

5 inevitable that those processes that are being seen outside should come

6 to this city, and I believe it is fundamentally important that it does

7 not, for everybody's interests."

8 "Reporter: But he admits that it's impossible to monitor what

9 happens on the ground, where Serb forces can do more or less what they

10 want. A Muslim leader said the UN would have to restrain them."

11 "If the international forces wouldn't take part in protection of

12 Muslim people here, very soon you will have many, many victims here. And

13 when I'm talking about victims, you know what does it mean. It means

14 many dead people here, thousands and thousands."

15 "Reporter: In a transit camp 30 miles outside Banja Luka,

16 Bosnian Muslims, who've already been driven from their homes, wait to be

17 evacuated to Croatia. As far as hard-line Serbs are concerned, a camp

18 like this is a success for the policy of ethnic cleansing. These people

19 have lost everything they ever had. All the international community can

20 do is feed them and perhaps take them to a place of safety.

21 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Trnopolje."

22 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

23 Q. Do you recognise this report, Mr. Bowen?

24 A. Yes, I do, and apologies for some of the mispronunciations there

25 of the names. It was fairly early on in my acquaintance with the region

Page 10098

1 and the language.

2 Q. In this report, Lord Owen refers to the processes seen outside of

3 Banja Luka. What did you understand him to be referring to?

4 A. He was talking about ethnic cleansing. This report was filed in

5 the autumn of 1992, late summer/early autumn, I believe, and by then it

6 had become clear what had been happening, because people had come out and

7 had spoken of it, and it had been reported. So the fact of ethnic

8 cleansing was, even at that point, being treated as something that was

9 incontrovertible.

10 Q. In this report, Dr. Karadzic is heard to say, No problem for

11 30.000 Muslims and 30.000 Croats. Do you remember him saying that?

12 A. Yeah, I do. I think that was in an interview with me, as a

13 matter of fact, or with myself and a couple of other journalists.

14 As time went on in Banja Luka, places of worship of Catholics and

15 Muslims were, in some cases, destroyed, or, in other cases, damaged or

16 closed up. I remember, for example, in the previous year, in 1991, I had

17 been in Banja Luka because I was heading into Croatia to do some

18 reporting of the war there, and as a Catholic myself, not a very good

19 Catholic, I have to say, but I was going to a dangerous place the

20 following day, so I thought I would go to the church. And there was a

21 Catholic Church there that was open. And then I -- later on, I think it

22 was 1993 or 1994, 1994, I think, I was in Banja Luka and I walked around,

23 and I saw that -- I went -- actually, I saw that church, but by that

24 point -- in 1991, it had been thriving. By 1994, it was closed up and

25 there was Serb graffiti on it, the four Ss and so on.

Page 10099

1 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

2 Could this be the next Prosecution exhibit, please, Your Honours?

3 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P2072.

5 MS. EDGERTON:

6 Q. Now, we've been talking about, Mr. Bowen, what you described or

7 what you've deemed ethnic cleansing. Now, did you see this activity or

8 behaviour at any other time during the war or, to your knowledge, was it

9 confined to the first year of the conflict?

10 A. No, I saw it throughout the war, though the nature of it changed.

11 In 1994, I was able to do a long trip through Bosnian Serb-controlled

12 territory. We travelled from Belgrade to Pale, and then from Pale we

13 went right through Eastern Bosnia, through Brcko, through the corridor,

14 as it was called, that was there and into those other areas, more towards

15 the centre of the country that Serbs controlled, right to the edge of

16 Krajina, which at that point was still under Serb control in Croatia, and

17 I saw there that -- in Bijeljina, I saw that by that time, the process

18 had changed. It wasn't people being kicked out of their houses at short

19 notice in the middle of the night and being thoroughly terrorised, and

20 people being shot and so on, as those people in Travnik had been

21 describing in 1992, people who were coming from Prijedor, Bosanski

22 Petrovac, and so on. By 1994, what I saw was a process that was actually

23 institutionalised which was going on quite openly, organised by local

24 Bosnian Serb officials, and was almost part of daily activities there,

25 and it was just happening, a fact of life. The remnants of the Bosnian

Page 10100

1 Muslim population were being cleared out, and we reported on that.

2 MS. EDGERTON: I'd like to play an excerpt from that report now,

3 and that's found at 65 ter 40350A.

4 [Video-clip played]

5 "Reporter: We approached the corridor through Bijeljina. It was

6 the first town in Bosnia the Serbs seized. It's well out of the war. It

7 used to be a backwater, but by Bosnian standards it's become a boom town.

8 What business there is now has to come through here. They do a roaring

9 trade in nationalist emblems, and they're even building a new shopping

10 centre. My guide was Vojkan Djurkovic, who was one of Bijeljina's most

11 prominent citizens. He was one of the 60 fighters who seized the town

12 for the Serbs at the beginning of the war. Vojkan was especially proud

13 of his expensive Italian sunglasses. Men like him are doing very well

14 these days in the Bosnian Serb republic. At his office, Vojkan had

15 assembled some of the last Muslims left in Bijeljina. He said they are

16 his friends. Vojkan is president of the regional commission for the free

17 movement of the civilian population. That means he's in charge of ethnic

18 cleansing. A report prepared by the UN says he has led groups of armed

19 men who had been terrorising the Muslim community. Vojkan cheerfully

20 denies it all.

21 "He's turned ethnic cleansing into an official procedure and

22 turned Bijeljina into such an ethnically Serb town that these Muslims are

23 desperate to get out.

24 "When permission came through for them to leave, Vojkan made sure

25 we were there. He gave them time to say their goodbyes and to pack up

Page 10101

1 the few possessions that hadn't been stolen. Deportations are no longer

2 done at gunpoint, but Serbs like Vojkan are no less determined to remove

3 Muslims from their towns. It's still ethnic cleansing. The bus dropped

4 them near the front-line. They had to walk the last few hundred yards

5 across no-man's land. Bosnian government soldiers were expecting them.

6 Vojkan Djurkovic insists he's doing these people a favour. He calls

7 himself a social worker. He believes he will soon be offered a Nobel

8 Prize for peace."

9 "[Interpretation] And why do I expect a Nobel Prize? Because in

10 comparison with the opposite side, I have saved thousands of people. I

11 am not getting into political option why they are there. They were just

12 tourists that took a walk from Bijeljina to Tuzla or to Berlin, or

13 somewhere, free to return."

14 "Reporter: The streets of Bijeljina, like every other Bosnian

15 Serb town, were full of soldiers. Every man up to the age of 60 can be

16 conscripted. Classes at the university have been cancelled."

17 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

18 Q. Mr. Bowen, you noted that for this trip you travelled from

19 Belgrade, via Pale, up to Bijeljina. Do you recall what approval or

20 permission you had to receive to be able to make this journey?

21 A. The producer did most of the negotiation and arranging, but I was

22 certainly privy to what the arrangements were. And, essentially, the way

23 that we did it is that, as I said, we crossed from Belgrade and we drove,

24 and we crossed into the Bosnian Serb entity. And one thing I noticed

25 about the border was that it was a pretty easy crossing. It wasn't

Page 10102

1 really much of a border at all between Serbia, itself, and the Bosnian

2 Serb-controlled part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That was actually pretty

3 easy, and there was quite a bit of traffic going back and forth with, I

4 would say, minimal inspections or controls.

5 We went -- we then headed for Pale because we had to get the

6 relevant documentation from the press office there in Pale. And we also

7 picked up someone who, in the -- you know, in journalist's parlance, is

8 known as a minder, someone from the press office who was there to

9 expedite things, to talk to soldiers at roadblocks and to get us through

10 places, and to carry the documentation that we had, and also to do

11 translation. So we were accompanied throughout by this minder from the

12 Bosnian Serb press office in Pale.

13 Q. Was that minder, as you refer to that person, to your knowledge,

14 civilian or someone who was uniformed?

15 A. No, he was a civilian. He was a guy who, I think, had worked as

16 a journalist before the war.

17 Q. How did you come to learn about this man who's referred to in the

18 clip as Vojkan Djurkovic to be able to make contact with him?

19 A. Well, the production team had done their research, and they had

20 got hold of that UN report that was quoted by me in the script, and so

21 they asked for -- you know, they were well organised, and they asked for

22 permission to go there and to meet with him. So it was all arranged for

23 me. It wasn't a chance meeting that we had with him. And we wanted to

24 talk to him because he was mentioned in the report, and we wanted to, in

25 the interests of fair reporting, to put those statements that were in the

Page 10103

1 UN report to him. And as you saw in the piece there, he was very glad,

2 indeed I used the word "cheerful," in terms of dealing with them and

3 giving his version of what was happening. So that was very much a

4 sanctioned meeting that was prearranged, and we had an appointment with

5 the guy, and we went there. And we saw him on several -- we were in that

6 town for a couple of days, two, three days, I think, and then when that

7 party of people finally left, I think he -- you know, he sent word 'round

8 that they were going, and, Be there at a certain time and you can film

9 it. So -- and as you saw, we were able to go with them right to the

10 point where they took the people off the bus and then walked off into the

11 distance over the front-line into -- into -- to the other side.

12 Q. One last question. If I could just get you to turn to

13 paragraph 11 in your written evidence, and ask you: Does this report

14 refer to the official mentioned, the local Bosnian Serb official, who was

15 involved in shipping out Muslims, mentioned in paragraph 11 of your

16 written evidence?

17 A. Yeah, I was referring then to Vojkan Djurkovic.

18 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you. Could this 65 ter number, 40350A, be

19 the next Prosecution exhibit, please?

20 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Bowen, do you remember the day when this was

21 broadcast?

22 THE WITNESS: I think it was broadcast in 1994. It says "1993"

23 in that paragraph, and I'm pretty sure that it's 1994, not 1993. I could

24 get the transmission times and double-check that, but I think 1993 could

25 be -- I think it was 1994.

Page 10104

1 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

2 Ms. Edgerton, I note that the title in the e-court does not

3 contain the date of broadcast. Is there a way we can know the date of

4 broadcast in each transcript or in each clip?

5 MS. EDGERTON: I would think so, Your Honour. And, frankly, I'm

6 even more curious as a result of your question, because I see that

7 paragraph 9 refers to that trip being made in late 1994.

8 THE WITNESS: I think 1994 is correct. I think 1993 -- maybe

9 that was a slip of the tongue or a typo. I don't know.

10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. But my question was not limited to this

11 clip, but in general, whether there's a way in which we can identify the

12 date of broadcast. Think about it.

13 MS. EDGERTON: Understood.

14 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

15 MS. EDGERTON: Understood. Thank you.

16 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, I would like to turn to the subject of Sarajevo,

17 which you also dealt with extensively in your written evidence, and I'd

18 like to draw your attention to paragraph 20 of that document. There --

19 JUDGE KWON: In the meantime, we'll give --

20 MS. EDGERTON: Pardon me, Your Honours.

21 JUDGE KWON: -- the exhibit number to the previous clip, which

22 will be Exhibit P2073.

23 MS. EDGERTON: My apologies.

24 Q. There, in paragraph 20, you said that the Bosnian Serbs used the

25 siege as a pressure point throughout the war. Could you tell us what you

Page 10105

1 meant by that?

2 A. Well, as I say in the next sentence, I felt that the siege was as

3 much a weapon of war as bullets or shells. It was a way of keeping -- of

4 exerting pressure on the -- on a large population that was, in the main,

5 loyal to the Bosnian Government. It was a way, too, of giving them some

6 political leverage, in terms of their relations with the international

7 community, who were involved in the aid effort and were involved in

8 not -- well, not at all at that point successful mediation efforts. So

9 I think it was something that was useful for them. They didn't -- they

10 were either not capable or unwilling to try to take territory. After

11 1992, in the main, with a few exceptions, the front-lines around the city

12 pretty much settled down. But what they were able to do was to --

13 sometimes they just put the squeeze on. And if there had been -- there

14 were times, for example, when there had been some military activity

15 elsewhere, and then the pressure in -- on Sarajevo would go up. There

16 would be more shelling, there would be more shooting, it would be a lot

17 more dangerous for that particular period. And there were other times

18 when it was, by the standards of a war, relatively calm. There were

19 quite long periods like that in 1994, for example.

20 So, yes, it was something which -- it was like a noose around the

21 necks of the people there, that it can be tightened or it could be

22 loosened, and that's something that struck me repeatedly during the years

23 that I spent there.

24 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

25 Your Honours, is it time for the first break?

Page 10106

1 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We'll have a break for half an hour and resume

2 at 11.00.

3 --- Recess taken at 10.29 a.m.

4 --- On resuming at 11.02 a.m.

5 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.

6 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 With respect to one of the matters raised in private session

8 earlier, I believe I can address one aspect of that right now, without

9 going into private session, and that is to say that Mr. Robinson had

10 mentioned that he sought certain information in order to be able to

11 respond by a particular date, and we provided that information during the

12 break.

13 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

14 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, that's correct, Mr. President, and we'll have

15 our response filed on Monday.

16 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

17 Ms. Edgerton.

18 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. Mr. Bowen, still on the subject of Sarajevo, could you tell us,

20 did you report on the conditions that civilians in the city were living

21 under during the course of your time there?

22 A. Yes, I did so repeatedly. As I said earlier on, I think, in my

23 evidence, as a reporter I've always felt that in those sorts of

24 situation, the plight of the civilians is a very important part of the

25 story.

Page 10107

1 MS. EDGERTON: I'd like to play one of your reports, 65 ter

2 40349C.

3 [Video-clip played]

4 "Reporter: It's easy to see why people want to leave. In this

5 city, the snipers are never very far away. This one says he defends the

6 people of Sarajevo by targeting the Serbian sharpshooters. It doesn't do

7 much good. Civilians have to risk their lives to do the simplest things,

8 and they're sick of it. A lot of civilians would like to get out of

9 Sarajevo, but they can't. The place is sealed off, there's no escape.

10 Children, who have nowhere else to go, have been put up in a bomb-damaged

11 bank. They're refugees in their own city, driven out of suburbs now

12 controlled by the Serbs. They look as if they're full of life, but they

13 talk about death."

14 "Lots of people, innocent people, die in this war. A lot of my

15 friends already died, my good friends."

16 "Reporter: Nobody here expects a short war. They won't starve

17 as long as the UN brings in food, but the only safe thing they can do is

18 stay in their cellars, thinking about a different life, still hoping

19 they'll be saved by foreign troops. Heavy exchanges of artillery and

20 tank fire, mortars and machine-guns, disturbed them again last night.

21 Everybody here expects the same tonight.

22 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Sarajevo."

23 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

24 Q. Mr. Bowen, first of all, are you able to approximately date this

25 report in time?

Page 10108

1 A. July 1992, I'd say. It was, I think, my first stint in the city

2 was July/August 1992, first stint in Bosnia, because I also went to

3 Gorazde in that time and also on to the Serb side a bit. But that was,

4 I think, fairly early on in that reporting assignment, about July 1992.

5 The thing that strikes me, looking at that kind of piece all this

6 many years on and thinking back to the war, was that that was very much a

7 slice of life, the way that people were living. And in other reports,

8 you know, I go into a bit more detail about the dangers of getting water,

9 queuing up for food, the fact that even when shelling started, people

10 would be reluctant to leave water queues because they didn't want to lose

11 their place in those particular lines.

12 And another thing I'd like to point out is that, in news terms,

13 that was a constant -- well, in terms of events in the city, that was a

14 constant throughout the war, people having to live like that, dodging

15 snipers, living in -- in particular, in miserable conditions and closed

16 in, because don't forget, that was the era before internet, before mobile

17 phones. People really felt cut off there. I felt cut off in my visits.

18 When I was there, you know, I'd be there six weeks and then I'd have a

19 break. I would feel cut off. And we even had a satellite telephone,

20 which was in its early days at that particular time.

21 And the other thing I'd like to say is that in terms of getting

22 reports on the television news and into newspapers, and not just for us,

23 that kind of thing became actually not newsworthy as the war went on, so

24 people saw less of it, because our editors weren't particularly

25 interested in more people in Sarajevo trying to get water or food.

Page 10109

1 Instead, sadly, the bar for getting on the air, in terms of stories,

2 became higher, and they had to become, I hate to say it, more violent,

3 more grotesque, to get on the air. I mean that's a, you know, a sad

4 commentary on the business I work in, but that was the case.

5 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

6 Could that be the next Prosecution exhibit, please?

7 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2074, Your Honours.

9 THE WITNESS: Could I just add one thing to my last answer?

10 JUDGE KWON: By all means, Mr. Bowen.

11 THE WITNESS: I just wanted to say that I was really struck, when

12 I was there in 1995, towards the end, that if anything, in terms of the

13 condition of the people, it was much worse. Yes, there was a very good

14 aid operation going by then, but in terms of their personal levels of

15 despair, it was much, much stronger. At the beginning of the war in

16 1992, when that piece that you've just seen was broadcast, it felt as if

17 people still had one foot in their old lives, that they were in a

18 nightmare which they felt would soon end, even though it was very real at

19 the time. They still had -- they still felt like peacetime people who

20 were in some kind of aberration. But after the first winter, which was

21 hard, that went away, and then by 1995 they were just locked into this

22 ghastly struggle for survival, with the exception of a very few people

23 who either earned money working for international organisations or were

24 involved in criminal activities and had money as a result of that. The

25 vast majority of people there, by 1995, were in a pretty dreadful,

Page 10110

1 despairing state.

2 MS. EDGERTON: Actually, just hearing this answer you've just

3 given, I'd like to jump over to another of your reports, not from 1995,

4 but from, to my understanding, 1993; 65 ter 40350D.

5 Your indulgence for a moment, Your Honour, because it looks like

6 we missed one, despite our best efforts; in terms of the transcript, that

7 is.

8 [Video-clip played]

9 "Reporter: Most people here don't know and don't care about the

10 Geneva talks. They have other things on their minds. They live in a

11 grim vacuum, without radio or television, cut off from a world outside

12 which they believe has long since stopped caring about them. When the

13 war was starting, sniping like this would have sent them to their

14 cellars. These days, it's different. They know how to take cover, when

15 to wait, and when to run. It's still terrifying and deadly, but like

16 fetching water, it's part of the daily grind."

17 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

18 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, was I right in saying "1993" for the date of this

19 excerpt?

20 A. Yeah, as far as I can recall, yes.

21 Q. Do you find any relationship between the clip we've just played

22 and the clarification you gave to Their Honours a few moments ago with

23 respect to, in fact, 1995?

24 A. Yes, it was like that, only really a little bit more so, that

25 people were, by that stage, absolutely entrenched in this unique life

Page 10111

1 that they had, this really tough life, where sniping was a big part of

2 it. You could see in that, in these excerpts here, they put containers

3 up in different places to stop bullets coming in, but in some places that

4 just wasn't possible, and so people would move -- you know, would have to

5 run. And I did it myself. We were in a very privileged position as

6 journalists in Sarajevo, because, you know, we had flak-jackets and we

7 had hardened, bulletproof Land Rovers, and we had money, et cetera,

8 et cetera, but even so we could get an idea of what it's like to be in a

9 place where, you know, you could get shot at. And we all at different

10 times had some close calls.

11 I saw -- myself, I saw people being shot. Next to the Holiday

12 Inn, where I was staying, there was a clear line of sight up to a

13 Serb-controlled area, and there was a well-known sniper position there,

14 and the snipers from that position were very active over, really, the

15 whole period, so that that side where the car park is now, I think, of

16 the Holiday Inn in peacetime, it was an absolute no-go area, but people

17 would run across it. And once I was sitting there, I was actually eating

18 my lunch, and at the -- I could see out of the windows -- there is a big

19 window at that part of the hotel, I could see to the side, and there was

20 a lot of shooting going on. And then a man was running across, and he

21 got hit in the leg, and you could see bullets as well, and he went down.

22 You could see bullets kicking up the ground around him. So I went out

23 with a colleague in my armoured Land Rover to try to see if we could pick

24 him up. And by the time we'd gone down into the garage and come up and

25 got it, he'd gone. There was a bit of blood there, where he'd been, but

Page 10112

1 I thought at the time he might be badly hurt and needed to be taken in.

2 So, yeah, I saw these things myself, and that was a place -- the

3 sniper position there, at different times during the war, UNPROFOR, when

4 it got particularly bad, placed an APC with a heavy gun on it pointing

5 over the front-line towards where that sniper was active. And I think at

6 later times, they may have opened fire as well. I wasn't there when that

7 happened, but that's what I was told. So there's no doubt in my mind

8 where the sniping was coming from. And you could actually -- if you sort

9 of poked your head 'round the corner, you could see the building. It was

10 an apartment building, you know, four, five storeys, and it was on the

11 far side of the front-line, and there was a clear line of sight all the

12 way down.

13 MS. EDGERTON: Could we have this as the next Prosecution exhibit

14 please, Your Honours, 40350D?

15 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2075, Your Honours.

17 MS. EDGERTON:

18 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, you've just been talking about sniping, and in

19 paragraph 17 of your written evidence, you said that:

20 "In Sarajevo, there were many known sniper locations where people

21 could be hit at any time."

22 And you referred to a location just outside the Presidency

23 building in that regard. Do you see that paragraph?

24 A. I do, yeah.

25 MS. EDGERTON: I'd like to play another excerpt of one of your

Page 10113

1 reports related to this paragraph, I think, and then ask you a couple of

2 questions. 65 ter 40349H, please.

3 [Video-clip played]

4 "Reporter: The UN is demanding that both sides stop the shooting

5 at the airport before it will fly in any more food. General Philippe

6 Morillon, the UN's deputy commander in the former Yugoslavia, visited the

7 Bosnian leadership today to demand that. Tomorrow, he will cross the

8 lines to seek the same assurances from the Serbs. Had the general looked

9 out of the window during his meeting, he could have had the sniper's

10 view. They assumed the gunman was a Serb. No doubt, that will be

11 denied. This woman wasn't much interested in Balkan politics. Like all

12 the others, she just wanted to get back to her family alive. This is the

13 calculation everybody here makes every day. The only thing to do is hope

14 for the best and run fast. Her friends told her to have a go."

15 MS. EDGERTON:

16 Q. Mr. Bowen, is this filmed at the location you referred to in

17 paragraph 17, just outside the Presidency building?

18 A. Yes. If you go out of the Presidency building and face left,

19 it's that left corner, and there's a little mosque there as well. And

20 there's a clear -- again, a clear line of sight back to Serb positions.

21 And, actually, to the right of that, they erected some containers and

22 screens, I think, so -- but they weren't to the left. So at that

23 particular time, again I think that was probably 1992 or 1993, that

24 piece, they -- it was always dangerous there because there would be

25 shooting going up. I mean, I saw dead bodies there with blood coming out

Page 10114

1 of them at different times.

2 Q. When you said in this piece, "This is the calculation everybody

3 here makes every day," what did you mean to describe?

4 A. Well, I meant to describe by that that sniping was a fact of

5 life, that there was a lot of it. It was generally in quite well-known

6 places. As time went by, the Bosnian Government authorities became --

7 worked quite hard at putting up screens to shield people from some of the

8 worst of it, but casualties were still inflicted like that. And, in

9 fact, there was a bit of a ghoulish practice by some photographers and

10 camera crews that they would actually station themselves in those places,

11 because you'd get those places not so much of people being killed,

12 because that's not something they'd necessarily want to shoot, but people

13 dodging the bullets and people running across. That was an absolutely

14 iconic image out of Sarajevo during those years because of the levels of

15 sniping that took place.

16 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

17 Could this be the next Prosecution exhibit, please, 40349H?

18 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

19 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2076, Your Honours.

20 MS. EDGERTON:

21 Q. Now, if you could, Mr. Bowen, move to paragraph 24 of your

22 written evidence. There, you said that:

23 "Anyone could be killed by shelling at any point in Sarajevo."

24 Do you see that paragraph?

25 A. Yup, I do.

Page 10115

1 Q. Did you make reports on shelling of Sarajevo?

2 A. I did. And every morning, the UN press briefing at the UNPROFOR

3 HQ would start with a shell count. The UN military observers, the UNMOs,

4 would report every morning the numbers that had come in the previous day,

5 and it was very often into four figures. I did many reports about the

6 consequences of shelling, and I saw a lot of it with my own eyes, and I

7 have also some very close calls myself where I was in the wrong place at

8 the wrong time. The thing about it was that you couldn't necessarily

9 say, yes, there will be -- if shelling happens, it will be here at point

10 X or point Y. It could happen anywhere. And you could see that as well

11 by the way that there were craters in different parts of the city, mortar

12 shells, I think it was mainly mortars, leave quite a distinctive kind of

13 crater. So you could see it in different places, different parts of the

14 pavement, different parts of the roadway. And you could also see

15 casualties coming into the hospital. If there was shelling, it was

16 dangerous to be out on the streets, but if we wanted to cover it,

17 sometimes we would go to Kosevo Hospital, mainly, and see incoming

18 casualties. And it was a pattern, if there was a burst of shelling, if

19 you went to the hospital 20, 30 minutes later, casualties would come in.

20 And, you know, we have to get -- in the TV business, we have to get

21 visual material in order to make our reports. That was one way of

22 getting it.

23 MS. EDGERTON: I'd like to play two reports in succession, two of

24 your reports, while we're on this subject. The first one is 65 ter

25 40349J.

Page 10116

1 [Video-clip played]

2 "Reporter: Ziad Kujundzic is alive because he decided to listen

3 to the 4.00 news last Friday afternoon. His son Muris left the cellar in

4 their house with him and went upstairs to join him. While they were

5 watching the news, the house was hit by a tank round. This morning,

6 Mr. Kujundzic buried his wife, his daughter, two of his grandchildren,

7 and a friend who'd come to their house with some aspirin."

8 "[Interpretation] They found first his grandson, and he was alive

9 until the hospital. But his granddaughter was dead immediately."

10 "Reporter: Going down the wrong street at the wrong time of day

11 in Sarajevo can kill you. Last week, a group of men on the Serbian side

12 of the line set out to deliver bread and sardines to the front. It

13 seemed quiet enough, but a sniper saw them and shot one of them through

14 the head. The sniper went on firing. They wanted to drag the body away,

15 but they didn't have a rope, so they used a hose instead. In only four

16 months, shelling, sniping and the grim business of dealing with what they

17 do to human beings has become part of the everyday routine here on both

18 sides of the lines. People are forced to exist around it. There isn't a

19 time or a place where the citizens of Sarajevo can feel safe. Some parts

20 of the city are more dangerous than others, but the shelling is

21 indiscriminate and it kills people every day.

22 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Sarajevo."

23 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

24 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, a few moments ago in your testimony, with respect

25 to shelling, you said "it could happen anywhere." Is this report an

Page 10117

1 illustration of that?

2 A. Yeah, I hope it is, I think it is. I felt it could happen

3 anywhere, because I was concerned as well about my own personal safety

4 and I knew that we were vulnerable. Everyone moving around Sarajevo was

5 vulnerable, and you never quite knew when it was coming. There were

6 times when it had been quiet for a while, and if the weather was good as

7 well, people would let their kids out to play. It's very difficult to

8 keep children cooped up in houses or in the cellars. And after the first

9 summer of the war, people did let their kids out, and it was -- you know,

10 it could come just out of a bright -- bright sky, and then the streets

11 would empty very quickly, but it would leave -- that would tend to leave

12 some casualties behind after it. And if there was a period where there

13 was a lot of shelling, then people just wouldn't go out at all. And then

14 we'd drive through the streets, trying to go somewhere, and they would be

15 absolutely empty, nobody moving around at all.

16 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

17 I'll move on to the next report about shelling and then come back

18 to deal with the two of them as exhibits, potential exhibits.

19 65 ter 40349R.

20 [Video-clip played]

21 "Reporter: No one bothered to tell Svetlana Glavas and her

22 mother Ruza that Svetlana's daughter was being sent to Germany. No one

23 in authority bothered to tell them that she'd been killed either. A

24 neighbour who heard about Vedrana's murder on the radio broke the news.

25 This morning, as they got ready to go to the funeral, they said Vedrana

Page 10118

1 lived at the children's home because they couldn't look after her

2 properly in their tiny damp flat. They said they loved Vedrana, though.

3 Her grandmother kept one of Svetlana's dolls for her. Vedrana was two

4 and a half, and they went to see her as often as they could.

5 "[Interpretation] She had began to walk. She couldn't talk yet,

6 but she could play with a ball."

7 "Reporter: Svetlana and Ruza had planned to walk to the

8 graveyard with their neighbours, but it's at least 2 miles from where

9 they lived. So with our colleagues from the Reuters News Agency, we gave

10 them a lift. When they arrived, they were told that Vedrana had already

11 been buried half an early because the graveyard was being shelled by the

12 Serbs. That was bad enough, but it got much worse. More shells started

13 falling. One landed as the boys and girls from Vedrana's children's home

14 arrived with their flowers. As quickly as they could, they dropped them

15 on the graves of Vedrana and the baby boy the sniper also murdered. It

16 was time to go. As the family was leaving, the gunners found their

17 range.

18 "Ruza Glavas, the grandmother, was hit in the arm. Reporters

19 tried to stop the bleeding."

20 "Hurry up, another dressing, tourniquet, tight, tight. Get the

21 woman's daughter."

22 "Reporter: Another shell exploded as she was carried to the car.

23 The doctors said they could save Ruza's arm, but that she might lose the

24 use of it. She tried to tell her daughter that she was all right.

25 Svetlana is educationally sub-normal and very dependent on her. At least

Page 10119

1 six mortar rounds landed in or around the graveyard. There were two

2 direct hits just at the time that the children's funerals were due to

3 start. The shooting isn't always this accurate, but the place is

4 attacked nearly every day. There's no question that the Serb gunners are

5 targeting the graveyard to kill civilians. It's hard to find people here

6 who believe the denials made by local Serb leaders. Shells have been

7 landing near civilians all day. Bosnian Government forces are fighting

8 on all fronts around Sarajevo. They claim to have taken ground to the

9 north. It all went on well into the evening. The human cost, as always

10 here, is considerable.

11 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Sarajevo."

12 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

13 Q. Mr. Bowen, first of all, is the shelling of the -- the image of

14 the shelling of the funeral that we've just seen, the incident you

15 described at paragraph 37 of your written evidence?

16 A. Yes, it is.

17 Q. Do you have any comment you'd like to offer on this last clip?

18 A. Yes, there's some context I'd like to give. You know, I'm -- by

19 then, I was an experienced reporter, and now, after nearly 20 years

20 later, I'm a very experienced reporter of conflict and I've seen a lot of

21 bad things. But when I see that, I'm still outraged by it, and I'm -- it

22 was a very cruel day for those poor people, it was a very, very cruel and

23 heartless day.

24 Why did I -- why did I think that this shelling was coming from

25 Serb positions? Because -- various things. I was told, for example,

Page 10120

1 by -- previously, before that, because it had happened before, and I

2 subsequently checked again by various people in the UN, that they

3 reckoned -- even some of the military people reckoned even that they knew

4 where it was coming from, in terms of where the shells were landing. It

5 was a -- the Lion's Cemetery was a conspicuous place, and so, you know, I

6 guess everybody knew where it was. After subsequently some people made

7 the accusation that it was staged, that the Bosnian Muslims side were

8 shelling their own positions, shelling their own place, because they knew

9 there would be TV cameras there to cover this quite high-profile funeral,

10 well, I don't buy that, because, apart from anything else, the shelling

11 started long before we arrived. In fact, when I got there, one of the

12 things that went through my mind was -- when told by the grave diggers

13 that shelling had happened, we got all our information there from the

14 grave diggers who were there every day, and I thought -- in fact, I was

15 regretful that we'd missed some of the shelling because it would be hard

16 to illustrate in a piece without it, and then it started again and got

17 closer, and finally that one landed yards away from the grave, yards away

18 from the mother and the grandmother, and it was very fortunate that

19 nobody was killed on that particular occasion.

20 I thought it inflicted terrible cruelty on the people. They were

21 absolutely terrorised, the children as well, by what was going on there.

22 And as I say, it was something that had happened, the grave diggers said,

23 many times before. And you could see as well in the graveyard, the war

24 graves, where they had very simple wooden markers, but the older graves,

25 because it was a previously-used graveyard, had proper headstones and

Page 10121

1 markers, and you could see lumps knocked out of them by shrapnel. And

2 that wasn't just from that day, that was from lots of days. And there

3 was this lion sculpture there and that was damaged as well by shrapnel

4 from shelling.

5 So, you know, it wasn't safe even when you were dead there, in a

6 sense. You were in the ground, and the whole thing could -- you could

7 still be shelled. So it was a regular target, and I had that from

8 numerous different sources, and it was a regular target as well when

9 journalists were nowhere near. So, as I say, I do not buy any kind of

10 argument that that was a show put on for our benefit. I think that it

11 was part of the daily business. And I wouldn't even know if people on

12 the other side knew that that particular funeral was taking place at that

13 particular time, because we actually had to work very hard to find out

14 the times of the funerals, send people up to the graveyard, talk to, you

15 know, the grave diggers, when are they going to bury these people,

16 because we wanted to be there when the funeral happened.

17 So, as I say, my feelings about it are still that even though I

18 am, I suppose you could say, hardened by many years of covering conflict,

19 I am still outraged by those images, and I was at the time, and I

20 continue to be. And I think -- and I would stand by 100 per cent by what

21 I said in that piece, because I think it was based on good and sound

22 information.

23 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

24 Your Honours, would I be able to have these two clips, 40349J,

25 which was the first one, and 40349R as Prosecution exhibits? And,

Page 10122

1 Your Honour, I should note that a small part of 40349R has been

2 previously admitted as P01933.

3 JUDGE KWON: That being the case, is it our practice to expand

4 the previous exhibit? I will consult the Deputy Registrar.

5 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]

6 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will admit it separately with proper

7 notation.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. They will be exhibit numbers

9 P2077 and 2078 respectively.

10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

11 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

12 Q. Now to move on to another part or another section of your written

13 evidence, Mr. Bowen. There, you see that you travelled to the eastern

14 enclaves in August of 1992, and in that regard you reached Gorazde.

15 That's at paragraphs 63 -- pardon me, 53 to 61. You've attempted to

16 visit Cerska in February 1993. That's at paragraphs 62 to 67. And you

17 reported on events in Srebrenica and -- you reported on events in

18 Srebrenica in 1995. And I'd like to deal first with your visit to

19 Gorazde in the summer of 1992.

20 Could you tell me, first of all, what prompted the visit?

21 A. I had good working relations with UNHCR. Their main co-ordinator

22 there, Larry Hollingworth, told me that he was going to try to get into

23 Gorazde. He asked us if we wanted to come along, and one of the reasons

24 for that was we at that time were the only news organisation there with

25 an armoured Land Rover, because it was going to be a dangerous trip. I

Page 10123

1 wanted to go there because this was a significant town which had been cut

2 off since the beginning of the war. At that point, nobody from the

3 outside world had reached Gorazde since the beginning of the war, so

4 you're talking a period right through to the spring into the late summer,

5 a period of some months. I was interested in the condition of the

6 population, I was interested to see whether the Serb side, having given

7 various assurances, we were told, to the UNHCR, would actually let them

8 through. I was interested to see what we could find there. It was

9 unknown ground, and that was clearly going to be newsworthy --

10 Q. In Gorazde, did you make observations of the humanitarian

11 situation in the town?

12 A. Yes, I did. It was a quick trip. We were in and out in the

13 course of one day. We got in there in the, I guess, early-ish morning.

14 I think it was probably -- it was fully light, it was summer, maybe it

15 was 9.00, 10.00 in the morning, 11.00 perhaps, by the time we got in

16 there, and we were out of there by late afternoon. So it was a quick

17 trip, maybe even a bit less than that time, maybe more like three or four

18 hours. Anyway, yes, I did see the state of the population.

19 To start with, as we went in, as we entered Gorazde, people --

20 the streets were absolutely empty, to start with. The UNHCR had

21 negotiated a local cease-fire, but there had been shelling until --

22 because we could hear it, until not long before that.

23 We -- let me try and get this right in my own mind. Yes, what

24 happened was that we went into the -- that street. People started

25 emerging from their houses. And it was the middle of the summer, but

Page 10124

1 they were all white. They hadn't been sunburnt, suntanned. They'd

2 clearly been sheltering most of the time for all of that period, and they

3 looked absolutely desperate.

4 The atmosphere there, once they realised that the UN and French

5 and Ukrainian UN troops had arrived, became very cheerful, though there

6 was still emotion, people crying with relief and so on. I think they

7 thought that the UN people were there to stay. They brought out drinks.

8 It was the kind of atmosphere that I could imagine from having seen video

9 of towns in Normandy being liberated in 1944, with soldiers throwing down

10 packets of cigarettes, locals coming out with drinks and passing them up

11 to the soldiers. It was -- you know, it was a -- for a while, it was

12 quite a -- once it sunk in, what was happening, quite a carnival

13 atmosphere.

14 We went off to see what we could do while they were unloading the

15 supplies, and there was a building that was being used -- there was a

16 little hospital quite near the center of town, and while -- we went over

17 there, myself and the cameraman, and while we were there we saw some of

18 the, really, most horrible things I've seen up to then and since. The

19 worst of it was a young child - I said it was a girl, but I think it was

20 a boy, I got that slightly wrong - having shrapnel taken out of the

21 child's body without anaesthetic. It was an absolutely horrendous sight.

22 The child was screaming in pain. The doctor, afterwards, when I

23 interviewed him, he was wearing a white coat but he was pale, and you

24 could see, above his heart -- you absolutely -- you could see his white

25 coat, you know, moving, like that, up and down. You could see his heart

Page 10125

1 was beating so fast, it wasn't that he was thin, it was making an

2 impression on his coat, on his white overall, because, you know, he said

3 he felt like a butcher taking out shrapnel, without anesthetic, out of a

4 child who was less two years old, maybe more like 18 months old, a small

5 child. It was a really grim sight.

6 MS. EDGERTON: Your indulgence for a moment.

7 I'd like to play your report on the situation in Gorazde and then

8 ask you a couple of questions on that, and that is 65 ter 45372B.

9 [Video-clip played]

10 "Reporter: It was the UN's third attempt to get to Gorazde.

11 Last time, they were ambushed, so they were ready for trouble."

12 "If, in fact, we come under mortar or shelling, we go forward.

13 We go forward like the clappers of hell. If we come under fighting, we

14 get out and we try to hide. It's as simple as that."

15 "Reporter: But we reached Gorazde safely, moving cautiously

16 through the burnt and empty suburbs on the edge of the town. Only 500

17 yards or so after the last Serb position, the lead armoured personnel

18 carrier pushed its way through, suspending if not ending a siege that had

19 lasted 146 days. The UN had tried to warn the people that the convoy was

20 coming. It had been worried that the defenders of Gorazde might open

21 fire. But we were welcomed with great emotion and relief. Most of them

22 couldn't do much more than cry."

23 "You can see, you can see. I cannot speak."

24 "Reporter: Since the war started, the people here have been cut

25 off from the outside world, but they wanted us to show that despite

Page 10126

1 everything, they're still human beings who are trying to hang on to their

2 self-respect. It's been hard, though. They said there was shelling

3 every day. Until they saw the UN soldiers, most of them had been too

4 frightened even to go outside. In the few minutes since we've been in

5 Gorazde, the people have started coming out of their cellars and out of

6 their shelters. The arrival of the UN convoy is the first good news

7 they've had since the siege began. The Serbs around Gorazde had agreed

8 to stop the shelling to let the convoy through, but wounded men were

9 still coming in from ground fighting on the fringes of the town.

10 "At the hospital were more of the war's latest victims. Most of

11 them were civilians who'd been hurt just before the cease-fire started.

12 This 15-year-old boy was hit by a mortar fragment. They were trying to

13 do the best they could for Ana Djebo, a three-year-old girl with grievous

14 wounds, but the doctors had no proper anaesthetic. They used alcohol to

15 clean the wound and a small amount of morphine to kill some of the pain.

16 It's not enough. A nurse had to hold Ana down while the doctor went on

17 with the operation. They used the light from the camera because their

18 own wasn't strong enough.

19 "If Ana survives, she'll be told her parents are dead. They were

20 killed by the mortar which wounded her. Ana's doctor was distraught. He

21 said he was sweating not because it was hot but because he was appalled

22 by what he had to do every day. In the next bed, a man was having

23 shrapnel taken out of his shoulder, again without anaesthetic. All their

24 families can do is watch. The doctors say they performed hundreds of

25 operations like this. There's a small amount of local anaesthetic which

Page 10127

1 is reserved for amputations. The patients are conscious throughout.

2 They cannot give the amputees the blood transfusions and special care

3 they need. Without it, most of them die. In the town, they were

4 unloading food and medical supplies. None of it will last very long.

5 They worked as fast as they could in case they were attacked, but the

6 cease-fire held. It looked as though the mission had been a success. It

7 started to go wrong on the journey back to Sarajevo. On a remote road in

8 the forest, a spot perfect for ambush, mines were discovered and the

9 convoy stopped."

10 "Well, it's a very dangerous stretch of the road. If I wanted to

11 park the convoy, this would be one of the last places I would park it."

12 "Reporter: French combat engineers cleared the road. They

13 reached the convoy after it had been stranded for a night and a day. The

14 UN will need to take mine experts and perhaps more armour if they try to

15 get to Gorazde again. No one knows who planted the mines, but they were

16 intended to kill UN personnel. They were blown up safely before anyone

17 was hurt. Fighting we could hear for about an hour and a half had more

18 serious results. Later, the Serbs said the UN troops had been close to a

19 surprise attack by Muslims who'd used the convoy as cover. It was their

20 worst setback, they said, since the siege started. They showed us the

21 bodies of eight dead Serb fighters. They might not let another convoy

22 through. But the people of Gorazde need much more than humanitarian aid.

23 They need peace, and there's no chance of that. The shelling started

24 again soon after we left.

25 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Gorazde."

Page 10128

1 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

2 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, in this report you referred to the fact that this

3 was, to your understanding, the UN's third attempt to enter Gorazde, you

4 referred to a siege that had lasted 146 days, and you referred to Serbs

5 around Gorazde who at that time had agreed to let the convoy through.

6 Now, this situation, as reflected in these comments, did you see that

7 repeated in any of the eastern enclaves later in the war?

8 A. Yes, but can I just deal with one thing before I answer that

9 question? It was simply that I said that we entered in the early

10 morning. On reflection, and that's why I hesitated just after I said

11 that, I think it was more late morning than early morning. That was just

12 a small point for accuracy.

13 Yes, I mean, I think that pattern of surrounding and besieging

14 those enclaves was repeated in them right towards the end. The defenders

15 of Gorazde became much better organised as time went by, and the Serbs

16 never succeeded in getting into Gorazde, though there was, I heard at the

17 time, and I've had it confirmed to me since by UN soldiers who were in

18 there, various special forces people, they said that there was heavy

19 fighting that they saw themselves, and I think that's all been well

20 documented now. Gorazde was well organised, and they held out right to

21 the end. Srebrenica was a different matter in 1995, but that generalised

22 pattern of surrounding it, exerting military pressure, and trying to push

23 in and take territory and break through the perimeter of those enclaves

24 which had been declared UN safe areas as well, of course, that was a

25 pattern that was repeated, I think, throughout the enclaves for the

Page 10129

1 duration of the fighting.

2 Q. Your written evidence refers to your attempt to enter Cerska in

3 February 1993. Did you -- were you aware of a similar situation as

4 regards Cerska?

5 A. Well, we were aware that there was an enclave. We were aware

6 that they had received not a great deal in terms of aid. The UNHCR and

7 Larry Hollingworth, the guy with the white beard who was in that piece,

8 was keen to try to repeat what they'd done in Gorazde in Cerska. And it

9 was the winter, it was extremely cold, but they didn't succeed in getting

10 the convoy, and despite having -- he actually said, We've got all the

11 assurances that we need, we've get the papers, we've got the promises,

12 and we will be able to get in there. But on that occasion, we had an

13 escort of the French Foreign Legion, but we were stuck in Zvornik for at

14 least two nights, three days, two nights, maybe even three nights, I

15 can't remember precisely, and we didn't go in.

16 And then, ironically, what we discovered was at that particular

17 point, Cerska actually fell to Serb forces, and then the Serbs took us to

18 see some of the aftermath of that. They claimed, for example, that

19 bodies they'd unearthed from graves were bodies of dead Serbs. They also

20 said that there was -- they showed us a post with a piece of metal on it

21 and said Serbs were chained to this. But to me, it looked like a fence

22 post, and I thought, well, how would they know that. So I took that with

23 some degree of skepticism. But I did see there was a certain irony in

24 that the UNHCR and the relief people were of the people that they'd been

25 given permission to get into the enclave at a time that it was being

Page 10130

1 militarily invested by the Serbs, leading to its fall.

2 Q. Speaking of the fall of Cerska, did you become aware of the

3 ultimate fate of the civilian population of that area? Do you know what

4 happened to them?

5 A. Not in detail. I think that they -- those that survived left,

6 had to leave.

7 MS. EDGERTON: I'd like to play you now another one of your

8 reports, 65 ter 40349T, which I believe dates from April of 1993. And

9 I'll have some questions for you at the end of it.

10 JUDGE KWON: Do you tender the previous one?

11 MS. EDGERTON: I was going to go through it all at once. But,

12 yes, please, Your Honour, 45372B.

13 JUDGE KWON: Will be Exhibit P2079.

14 [Video-clip played]

15 "Reporter: Each attempt to evacuate civilians from Srebrenica so

16 far has ended in chaos. Desperate people have rushed the UN lorries.

17 Some of the weakest have been killed in the crush. But the UNHCR, it

18 seems, now believes it's found a better way to do it. It says it has 60

19 trucks on standby. The plan is to take 20 into the town every day

20 partially loaded with food. On their way out, they'll evacuate between

21 1.000 and 1500 people. The UNHCR hopes to rescue up to 15.000, a little

22 less than half the population of the town. UNHCR denies it's assisting

23 in the Serb's policy of ethnic cleansing."

24 "The people we are evacuating from Srebrenica have already been

25 ethnically cleansed because they are coming from areas that have already

Page 10131

1 fallen under Serbian control. They are not people from Srebrenica, they

2 arrive...

3 "Reporter: From the villages around..."

4 "From the villages around and also from Konjevic Polje, from

5 Cerska, areas that were fall under Serbian control a couple of weeks

6 ago."

7 "Reporter: The Serbs, who surround Srebrenica and control who

8 goes in and out, seem to be stepping up their offensives in the area.

9 Privately, aid workers believe that the fall of the town is only a matter

10 of time and that the civilian population must be evacuated before that

11 happens. The next 48 hours, the UNHCR believes, will be crucial."

12 MS. EDGERTON:

13 Q. Do you recognise that report, Mr. Bowen?

14 A. Yes, I do, yeah.

15 Q. Does that refresh any recollection as to what happened to the

16 civilian population of Cerska?

17 A. Yes, yes, that, you know, it was apparent from the statement

18 there by the UN official, the guy in the smart shirt and tie and jacket,

19 that many of them moved on to Srebrenica, that they got out and, no

20 doubt, went across the hills and across the fields to get there through

21 the forest.

22 Q. Where did that film -- or do you know where that film of the

23 truckloads of civilians came from, Mr. Bowen?

24 A. We received that through an agency. I don't remember the precise

25 origin. I was not, myself, in Srebrenica, so I wasn't involved in the

Page 10132

1 filming of it. Srebrenica was a very difficult place to get into. In

2 fact, I think only one person -- only one journalist succeeded in doing

3 so during the war. But during that period where there was quite a bit of

4 coming and going with the UNHCR, there were pictures that were shot, as

5 you see, from inside it, and, you know, one of the significances of

6 Srebrenica was that it was big. There were 30.000 civilians in there.

7 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

8 Could we have this as the next Prosecution exhibit, please,

9 40349T.

10 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2080, Your Honours.

12 MS. EDGERTON: Now, Mr. Bowen, your written evidence indicates

13 that you reported on the fall of the enclave of Srebrenica in 1995,

14 although you reported from Sarajevo. I'd like to play -- and that's at

15 paragraph 68. I'd like to play some of those reports now for you, the

16 first being 65 ter 45372C.

17 [Video-clip played]

18 "Reporter: The Dutch UN peacekeepers, who are effectively

19 prisoners, could only watch as Bosnian Serb soldiers perform for the

20 cameras, handing out chocolate. General Ratko Mladic, commander-in-chief

21 of the Bosnian Serb Army, addressed the crowd. Don't be afraid, he said,

22 buses will take you to Muslim territory, women and children first.

23 Nobody will hurt you. The crowd of women and old men chorussed thank you

24 as he went about his business. Today, the business has been ethnic

25 cleansing. Around 30.000 people, almost all of them Muslims, were

Page 10133

1 trapped in the enclave. Tonight, the pictures showed no Bosnian men of

2 fighting age. The UN says all males over 16 are being interviewed as

3 suspected war criminals. Successful action against Muslim terrorists

4 continues, the headlines said. Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian

5 Serbs, was in the studio. This, he said, is the latest example of the

6 superiority of the Serbian people. Threats from the international

7 community mean nothing to us. If NATO attacks, we must defend. He said

8 that if Muslims in Zepa and Gorazde, the other safe areas in Eastern

9 Bosnia, don't give up their weapons, the Serbs must attack. And as for

10 people leaving Srebrenica, he said that nobody was forcing them to go."

11 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

12 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, do you recognise this report?

13 A. Yes, it was one that I did. And I think that the sound that was

14 lost off the beginning said that that was a report from Pale TV. That's

15 where we got the pictures. We were able -- I was in Sarajevo when

16 Srebrenica fell, and we were technically able to monitor the output of

17 Pale Television and record it off air, which is what we did, which is

18 where we got that material. So that was material shot by them. And as I

19 say, I explained the provenance of the pictures, I think, at the

20 beginning of the piece, but that's what was lost from the soundtrack.

21 So, yes, I do recognise that report, and I remember doing it.

22 Q. You noted, in this report, that no men of fighting age were shown

23 in these pictures. Did you attribute any significance to that?

24 A. Well, yeah, I did, I did attribute significance to that, and the

25 significance was that they had been taken somewhere to be imprisoned or

Page 10134

1 dealt with in some particular way. And I -- there was that quote of them

2 being questioned. I was on the lookout for things like that. It

3 occurred to me, as I was watching the pictures, very strongly, that I

4 thought to myself, Hang on a minute, where are the guys, where are the

5 men, where are the young men, especially? Because there had been

6 accounts over the previous years of -- and those kinds of situations

7 where a group of Muslims would fall into the hands of the Serbs, that men

8 of fighting age would be separated out, I think that there was something

9 in my brain that was looking for that, and so it clicked very quickly,

10 when I was watching Pale TV, that -- that there weren't men of fighting

11 age in the pictures. So, naturally, I wondered what had happened to

12 them, and I thought it was worthy of mention, therefore, in my script.

13 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

14 Before dealing with this one as an exhibit, we'll go on to the

15 next report I would like to show you, and that's 45372E.

16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Bowen, can we know the date of this report?

17 THE WITNESS: Well, it was when -- I don't have the dates in

18 front of me, but it would have been July 1995, I think. It was summer of

19 1995. I can't recall, off-hand, the precise date of the fall of the

20 enclave of Srebrenica, but it would have been done -- that particular one

21 would have been done a few days after the actual fall of it, because it

22 took a day or two for the pictures to get out.

23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

24 THE WITNESS: So I'm pretty sure that would have been July of

25 1995.

Page 10135

1 [Video-clip played]

2 "Reporter: Two and a half thousand refugees are now congregated

3 at Tuzla Airport. They're dehydrated and exhausted. The UN is running

4 out of room for them and so far it can offer only the most basic help,

5 but it's worried that in the next few days it may have to feed and

6 shelter as many as 40.000 others, once the Serbs complete the ethnic

7 cleansing of what was supposed to be the safe area of Srebrenica.

8 They're still streaming over the front-line, almost all of them women and

9 children. Their husbands, brothers, and fathers have been left behind

10 for interrogation as suspected war criminals."

11 MS. EDGERTON:

12 Q. Again, Mr. Bowen, do you recognise this report?

13 A. Yes. I'm not 100 per cent, but I think those -- quite a lot of

14 our pictures there, because we went up to Tuzla to try and see refugees.

15 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

16 Could I have these two as the next Prosecution exhibits, please?

17 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

18 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibits P2081 and P2082 respectively, Your

19 Honours.

20 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I wonder whether we will also be

22 admitting footages made by others, where Mr. Bowen wasn't at the moment,

23 and all we get is his interpretation of the footages that we are looking

24 at. And I would like to know who the authors of the footages is. Are we

25 admitting the way Mr. Bowen interprets other people's work or do we only

Page 10136

1 admit his own work?

2 JUDGE KWON: I don't follow, Mr. Karadzic.

3 You do not challenge this is a report made by Mr. Bowen, but you

4 are asking who took these films. Am I correct in so understanding?

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The way I understood it is this:

6 Mr. Bowen told us that he received footages from other agencies, and

7 provided those footages with his own comments and then distributed them

8 for airing. Could the Prosecutor clarify that with the witness? And

9 depending on the answer we receive, we will probably have an objection to

10 the admission of such material.

11 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Edgerton.

12 MS. EDGERTON: I actually don't quite understand, Your Honour,

13 because in respect of the first clip, P2081, Mr. Bowen said clearly in

14 his evidence that that was picked up from Pale TV. In respect of the

15 second clip, Mr. Bowen said, We went up to Tuzla, and that was their

16 film.

17 JUDGE KWON: That was my understanding. Could you add to that,

18 Mr. Bowen?

19 THE WITNESS: Yes. I mean, I have a recollection of being in

20 that tunnel that was featured in the -- in those pictures that people

21 were walking through. And I think we went up to Tuzla because we felt it

22 was important to get some first-hand testimony from people who were

23 coming out of Srebrenica, because, you know, as you know, geographically,

24 it's not a big distance between Srebrenica and Tuzla, so people were

25 walking out. And so the provenance of those pictures, I felt, was

Page 10137

1 therefore clear. And as I said earlier on, the material from Bosnian

2 Serb TV we recorded off air in our office at the television station in

3 Sarajevo.

4 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Bowen.

5 We don't see any problem in admitting these, and then the issue

6 you raised may be a matter you can raise during your cross-examination,

7 Mr. Karadzic.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We actually -- we actually have

9 some more footages from 1993 that was also taken over from some other

10 agency. I would have really appreciated if I could know what it was that

11 Mr. Bowen actually saw for himself, what his own material is, rather than

12 hearing his comments on the material of others.

13 JUDGE KWON: That's a matter you should explore during your

14 cross-examination.

15 Ms. Edgerton, please proceed.

16 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

17 Q. Now, Mr. Bowen, following your reports on the fall of Srebrenica,

18 did you do any further reports on the eastern enclaves?

19 A. I think I did something about Zepa. We did -- you know, getting

20 information was difficult because we were unable to travel to them. We

21 did put in requests to the Bosnian Serb press office to be able to travel

22 to the east to do first-hand reporting, and we didn't get a positive

23 response. We got information from radio amateurs in Sarajevo. We also

24 had statements from the Sarajevo government. Haris Silajdzic often came

25 to the television station -- well, he often spoke to us, but he came --

Page 10138

1 at the time of Srebrenica, he came to the TV station to express his grave

2 concern about what was going on. And also we got information from

3 UNPROFOR, who, of course, had their Dutch UN troops there who were

4 feeding out information, and some of that, not all, I'm certain, but some

5 of that was passed on to us by UNPROFOR people in Sarajevo, who expressed

6 their strongest concern about what was happening there, their really

7 strongest concern. And they said some of it on camera openly, but away

8 from the camera they were very depressed about their failure to protect

9 the people of Srebrenica, and very concerned as well about what was

10 happening to the men of fighting age.

11 MS. EDGERTON: You've just mentioned in your first sentence that

12 you thought you did something about Zepa, and in that regard I'd like to

13 play a report that you did do about Zepa, 65 ter 45372F.

14 [Video-clip played]

15 "Reporter: The capture of Zepa is General Ratko Mladic's latest

16 military triumph. A week ago, Bosnian Serb TV broadcast these pictures

17 of what was supposed to be surrender talks to back up premature Serb

18 claims that they had taken the enclave. Now the UN says the general has

19 finally done it on the day its own human rights tribunal indicted him and

20 Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, for genocide and crimes

21 against humanity. Both men are being held responsible for atrocities

22 against civilians and for taking hostage UN personnel. But despite that,

23 the UN is still negotiating with them to rescue civilians from Zepa."

24 "We will get a ruling on that from the UN in New York, I am sure.

25 In the meantime, we will take the view that it is better that this

Page 10139

1 dialogue goes on in the interest of what is happening out there than it

2 to be cut at this stage."

3 "Reporter: Haris Silajdzic, the Bosnian prime minister, wants

4 Western governments to do more than deplore war crimes, he wants them to

5 take sides."

6 "Genocide is going on right now in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The

7 problem is that the Western governments would not recognise that fact,

8 would not evoke the genocide Geneva Convention, because it entails some

9 responsibility and some obligation."

10 "Reporter: To avoid a repeat of the scenes that followed the

11 fall of Srebrenica, he wants UN protection for refugees from Zepa. The

12 UN now has documented evidence of attacks on refugees from Srebrenica by

13 Serb soldiers which will be passed on to the International War Crimes

14 Tribunal. This morning, the UN spokesman read extracts from the file."

15 "A number of those interviewed reported seeing between six and

16 ten bodies of people who had been executed by having their throats cut.

17 Persons evacuated on the convoy also have given statements relating to

18 young women being forcibly taken from the displaced persons by Serb

19 soldiers."

20 "Reporter: In Zenica, in Central Bosnia, the UN is preparing the

21 supplies to avoid what it has called a humanitarian catastrophe. They

22 hope they'll be ready for what looks like a certainty of a huge influx of

23 refugees from Zepa. And with French troops now alongside the British on

24 Mount Igman above Sarajevo, the UN's own security has much improved. The

25 Bosnians are waiting to see if the foreign soldiers can do the same for

Page 10140

1 them. Now that Zepa has gone, the enclave of Bihac is the UN safe area

2 most at risk. It's probably where the UN's resolve will next be tested.

3 "Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Sarajevo."

4 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

5 Q. Do you recognise that report, Mr. Bowen?

6 A. I do.

7 Q. With respect to these and the other reports that we've seen over

8 the course of your testimony today, could you give us an idea over what

9 area or areas the BBC was broadcast? Where were your reports

10 disseminated?

11 A. Well, it was before the days of widespread satellite broadcasting

12 that we use now commonplace, but things were available by satellite. We

13 would -- our main audience at that time was domestic BBC News. I think

14 by 1995, BBC World was just beginning, so they would have broadcast it,

15 I think. I'll have to check that, but they were starting around 1995.

16 I think they'd already got going. And things would also get picked up by

17 local stations. It was possible, in a TV station technically at that

18 time, and not difficult, to pull reports and news programmes off

19 satellites and then re-broadcast them yourself, and not on a regular

20 basis, but, you know, from time to time -- well, not on a programme

21 basis, but fairly regularly, from time to time, I should say is more

22 accurate, our reports and those of other broadcasters would get recorded

23 locally by one or other of the different TV stations and then

24 disseminated; I mean, in a different location in 1991, during the

25 Croatian war, I remember visiting Borovo Selo, where there were Serbs

Page 10141

1 fighting or surrounded by Croats, and they were very suspicious of us, to

2 start with, because they had seen a piece that I had done which had been

3 re-broadcast on Serbian TV, and they couldn't speak English so they

4 didn't understand what I was saying in it, but they didn't like the

5 images. So it took a few days to try to, successfully in the end, win

6 their confidence. Funny enough, they -- I won their confidence when they

7 saw another piece that I had broadcast which they liked a bit more. And

8 that pattern, I think, continued through the Bosnian war as well, that

9 reports by the BBC, by CNN, by other international broadcasters were

10 picked up and re-broadcast locally, as I say, from time to time, not

11 every night.

12 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

13 Could this be the next Prosecution exhibit, please, 65 ter

14 45372F.

15 JUDGE KWON: Yes. But, Mr. Bowen, do you remember or recognise

16 where it was that Mr. Karadzic was drinking a shot of something like

17 alcohol?

18 THE WITNESS: I wasn't there when that was shot.

19 JUDGE KWON: It was from the Serbian TV?

20 THE WITNESS: We would have picked that up, because we at the

21 same time -- and I should have added that as well as that night when we

22 recorded their news programme to get their news from Srebrenica, we

23 recorded their news every night in the hope that we would get some

24 interesting material off it, and that I'm 99.9 per cent certain would

25 have been from that source, because Dr. Karadzic was often featured on

Page 10142

1 Bosnian Serb TV. They would have TV crews that followed him around when

2 he went on public events like that particular thing. And so we -- that's

3 where we would have got that material from, because we certainly weren't

4 privy to following -- at that particular time, following his movements

5 through the area that the Bosnian Serbs controlled.

6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

7 That will be admitted as Exhibit P2083.

8 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

9 Now, just briefly on to the final area, Mr. Bowen.

10 In your written evidence, at paragraph 70 and 71, you referred to

11 meetings with the Bosnian Serb leadership, and in particular a meeting

12 with Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic in Geneva. And in that regard, I'd

13 like to play you 65 ter 40349U, please.

14 [Video-clip played]

15 "Reporter: Tonight, the Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic, was

16 showing the strain after his first meetings with the Bosnian Serbs since

17 the war began. There'll be more tomorrow, and there's no deal in sight."

18 "Are you optimistic?"

19 "Alija Izetbegovic: Talks are going on tomorrow. Maybe. I have

20 to be optimistic."

21 "Reporter: A mile away, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan

22 Karadzic, is spending an evening with his closest advisers."

23 "Radovan Karadzic: This is the beginning, this is not final map

24 and we have to correct..."

25 "Reporter: They are assessing the new map of Bosnia,

Page 10143

1 decentralising power. Its adoption is considered vital if the talks are

2 to succeed. No side here has accepted it yet. Mr. Karadzic said the

3 Muslims never would."

4 "Radovan Karadzic: ... and they are hoping for military

5 intervention. They hope international community will come and help them

6 establish an Islamic state in the middle of Europe. That's what

7 Mr. Izetbegovic thinks."

8 "Reporter: General Ratko Mladic, the Serbs' military commander,

9 showed us pictures of what he said were Muslim and Croatian war crimes

10 against Serb civilians. There's no goodwill here and no trust."

11 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

12 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

13 Q. Mr. Bowen, is this video we've just seen a video of the interview

14 with Dr. Karadzic you have set out in your statement at paragraphs 70 and

15 71?

16 A. Yes, it is. I arranged to see Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic in

17 a suite that they were using in the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva.

18 Also, that list scene with President Izetbegovic, that was filmed in the

19 Hotel President in Geneva, where his delegation was staying. And on both

20 cases it was something that we filmed ourselves.

21 Q. Did you make -- on seeing these photographs that were displayed

22 in this video report, did you raise any queries or make any comment to

23 Dr. Karadzic?

24 A. Yes. He had pictures of corpses that had been exhumed from

25 various graves, often in a pretty bad state, but it was clear that a lot

Page 10144

1 of them -- well, most of them were wearing green uniforms and big boots.

2 So I said to him, They look like soldiers to me. And he said, No,

3 they're Serb farmers, Serb farmers wear green clothing and big boots. He

4 maintained that they were civilians. They also gave me a similar

5 video -- a similar thing, which was a video, to take with me, a VHS tape.

6 Q. Did you attribute any credence to his response to you?

7 A. Well, they were clearly dead people. I thought, considering that

8 the men were of military age and they were dressed in what appeared to be

9 military uniforms, I found it hard to believe that they were civilians.

10 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

11 Could that be the next Prosecution exhibit, please, Your Honours?

12 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

13 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2084, Your Honours.

14 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you.

15 Your Honours, that concludes the examination-in-chief.

16 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Ms. Edgerton.

17 Mr. Karadzic, it's now time for you to cross-examine the witness.

18 But given the time, however, if you so wish, we can take a break now.

19 THE ACCUSED: It's okay with me.

20 JUDGE KWON: Okay to have a break? We'll do that.

21 We'll break for half an hour and resume at five to 1.00.

22 --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.

23 --- On resuming at 1.00 p.m.

24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

Page 10145

1 Good afternoon to all.

2 Cross-examination by Mr. Karadzic:

3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Bowen.

5 If you agree, I would like to start with the last video-clip.

6 I'm grateful to His Excellency Mr. Kwon for his question related to the

7 footage that had to do with me. For what purposes did you include that

8 in your footage on Zepa?

9 A. Are you referring, sir, to the picture of you having a toast with

10 the guys in the field?

11 Q. Yes.

12 A. We used it because we needed a picture of you. You were there,

13 in a rural environment, and I think it followed on visually quite nicely

14 from General Mladic also having a toast with the people with whom he was

15 negotiating. It seemed to reflect the mood. And also, I think, it was a

16 contemporaneous picture, as far as I recall, that we took off Pale TV.

17 Q. Do you think that's fair to your viewers, not to mention this

18 Court, to associate two events that are a month apart, and two locations,

19 at that? You realised, from TV Pale, that this is the beginning of the

20 harvesting season, and that is what I am congratulating them on, on the

21 fact that the harvest has started. That was the beginning of June,

22 whereas you are dealing with Zepa in July. I realise you want to achieve

23 a certain effect, but we are dealing with a criminal case here. Do you

24 think it is fair to edit it this way?

25 A. Yes, I think it was fair. I don't know that there was a month

Page 10146

1 between the two pictures. I'll have to take your word on that. I think

2 it was fair. Personally, I mean, if you're referring to the fact that

3 there might be a suggestion that there was something pejorative about

4 seeing you having a small toast with the farmers, I mean, I have no

5 problem with that at all. I don't see the difficulty in that, and I

6 don't suppose our viewers would have. I think it -- it was a more

7 interesting picture, seeing you with the farmers, than seeing you sitting

8 behind a desk in the office. I don't think it was unfair to show you

9 going about your business in your position that you had at the time.

10 Q. I can understand your concern for your viewers, Mr. Bowen, and

11 that you want them to enjoy what they're seeing. However, what you are

12 implying here is that my toast has something to do with the taking of

13 Zepa. You've actually linked the two. Is that fair and is that

14 permissible?

15 A. I wasn't going out of my way to link the two in any sense of

16 putting a political message in there. There was a visual link between

17 someone raising a glass in one location and someone raising a glass in

18 another location. I don't think that -- I mean, I hadn't even thought,

19 until you mentioned it, that somehow you could be congratulating

20 General Mladic for what he was doing with -- in that negotiation with

21 those guys, because the pictures clearly showed you with the farmers and

22 they were beginning the harvest. So I don't come away with that

23 impression from the pictures at all, and I can certainly tell you that it

24 was not my intention to give that impression. I hope that in all my

25 dealings with you during those years, that I was as fair as I could be.

Page 10147

1 I, personally, had no interest in trying to be unfair.

2 Q. Thank you. Since my time is limited for this cross-examination,

3 I'm going to do my best to put questions that are as specific as possible

4 and that will allow you to give a yes or no answer, of course, when you

5 allow yourself to do that, so I don't have to ask for more time for this

6 cross-examination.

7 I would like to start with this addendum, this correction to your

8 statement that has to do with firing at those children on the bus. You

9 say:

10 [In English] "I can only presume that at the time I was

11 misinformed about the location of the attack."

12 [Interpretation] You were not on that bus, were you?

13 A. At the time of the attack, no, I was not on the bus. And I don't

14 think that I was -- at no point in my reporting did I suggest that I was.

15 I couldn't have been on the bus as well, because the attack happened

16 after the bus had left Bosnian Government-controlled territory.

17 Q. I believe that you could have been misinformed. If you agree, in

18 wartime there are many ruses, if you agree, and all of that is done in

19 order to vilify the other side; right?

20 A. I think ruses are used in wartime, yes, I do. But I think in

21 this particular case, the -- to my mind, there is no dispute about what

22 happened; that the bus was shot at after it had left territory controlled

23 by the Bosnian Government, and the two children on board were killed.

24 The clarification that I mentioned at the beginning of the morning here

25 was that I got the location of where the shooting took place wrong,

Page 10148

1 because it's clear, if we -- we didn't play -- the report was not played,

2 but if you'd seen it, you'd have seen me standing near the "Oslobodjenje"

3 building in Sarajevo, which once I had been there for about another few

4 days, I realised -- I would have realised couldn't possibly have been the

5 location of the shooting because it was controlled by the Bosnian

6 Government. And we had clear pictures, plus testimony of people, that

7 the bus had left that, had gone further down the road, and had crossed

8 through the Bosnian Government check-point, and, in fact, we had in the

9 piece a picture of the bus going through that check-point. So I don't

10 think there's any ruse there, in terms -- what I was misinformed about

11 was the location of the shooters, and that's why I felt it was necessary

12 today to bring that to the attention of the Court.

13 Q. We'll get to that. I actually wanted to ask you about your

14 sources of information. Who were they, especially with regard to things

15 that you had not seen for yourself? Who informed you, in addition to

16 Silajdzic, who you refer to several times as your source of information,

17 and civilians, and so on and so forth? Where did you get your

18 information from; that you later broadcast, that is?

19 A. Well, as you'll know, sir, journalists don't reveal their

20 sources, but I'm very happy to talk, in general terms, about -- not about

21 individuals, but about the kinds of places that they worked. With

22 Mr. Silajdzic, I was -- I was referring specifically on that occasion to

23 the Srebrenica events, though we did -- I did talk to him on a pretty

24 regular basis. My main -- the sources of information which I -- apart

25 from my own eyes, which I thought were the best thing -- the best that I

Page 10149

1 had in Sarajevo were, essentially, from international observers, from the

2 International Committee of the Red Cross, and from UNHCR. We also would

3 speak to various local sources, and as much as we could, when we heard

4 something had happened, would try and get first-hand accounts. Now, I

5 had first-hand accounts of what happened on the bus from people who were

6 on the bus, from some of the adults who were accompanying the children

7 across the front-line, and they told me that they had left Bosnian

8 Government-controlled territory and were moving through on the road

9 towards Ilidza when this happened.

10 Q. Thank you. Did you have the opportunity to check the information

11 that you received?

12 A. Well, yeah, of course I checked it. I checked it by talking to

13 different people to see if they came up with the same accounts. I mean,

14 that's how you try to check information. I also saw -- I also went to

15 the morgue where the two dead children's bodies were being kept. I

16 wasn't able to go in there, but my cameraman, a BBC cameraman, went in

17 there. They were only letting one person in. And he got pictures of the

18 bodies, which we -- we also cross-checked with the -- through clothing

19 with pictures of kids who were on the bus. I mean, the fact of what

20 happened is in no dispute. As I said before, my problem in my piece was

21 that I -- I made a mistake about where the shooting came from. But if

22 you look at the piece, it's clear that the bus is leaving Bosnian

23 Government-controlled territory. And the following -- the day of that

24 piece, the day after -- the kids were killed in the evening. The morning

25 after, I spent a lot of time talking to people who had -- partly

Page 10150

1 people -- international people who'd received information, UNPROFOR,

2 UNHCR. I think we probably got the first notice of the killing from

3 UNPROFOR, itself. They had, you know, quite a good press information

4 setup. And then they -- the people from the Children's Embassy, which

5 was a local NGO who were organising all of this, I spoke to them as well

6 and got their accounts of what happened, including accounts from people

7 who -- some of the adults who were accompanying those children as they --

8 as they went off on this ill-conceived rescue mission.

9 Q. Thank you. We are not going to bring into question the actual

10 incidents; namely, that somebody fired at the bus and that two children

11 fell victim.

12 In paragraph 37, you say:

13 [In English] "Presumably, Serb. A sniper, presumably Serb, as

14 the bus was coming from Bosnian Government side, opened the fire."

15 [Interpretation] Why did you assume that it was a Serb sniper

16 shooter; on what grounds?

17 A. Because they were coming -- because they were out of Bosnian

18 Government-controlled territory and they were approaching Serb-controlled

19 territory. I think they were through the no-man's land, as far as I was

20 informed. And the thing is, you know, it was an urban area. You know,

21 as you know much better than me, you know, it's a fairly -- there's a bit

22 of green space around there, but it's not like it's a mountainous or a

23 forested area where people could move themselves in easily and get -- and

24 get into a position where they could fire. I mean, they had left the

25 territory, as I was informed by several sources, that was controlled by

Page 10151

1 the Bosnian Government, and by a process of elimination you can say that

2 they were getting -- they were -- they were either in or very close to

3 Bosnian Serb-controlled territory. So I think that's why I said

4 "presumably." What did I say -- and the words I used, "appeared to come

5 from Serb positions," because it was physically hard to see how they

6 could come from the Bosnian Government-controlled positions. The

7 shooting came in through the side of the bus, I think, and just to, you

8 know, physically get a shot into a bus from the side, then I think you

9 need to be -- you need to be in the area where it's at at the time. So I

10 felt that the -- I will absolutely willingly say that I was not there and

11 I didn't see the incident with my own eyes, but the weight of

12 circumstantial evidence, I felt as a journalist, based on what I saw and

13 the people I spoke to and accounts from various sources of the incident,

14 suggested to me that, as I say in my witness statement, that the bullets

15 appeared to come from Serb positions.

16 Q. Did any of your interlocutors tell you that the investigation

17 showed that it was the Serbs that had done the firing or was that your

18 own assessment?

19 A. It was my own assessment based on things they said to me. And

20 their assessments were going in the same direction as well. I think at

21 that point, and you're talking about hours after the incident, there

22 certainly hadn't been any kind of formal investigation.

23 Q. And did you find out whether any subsequent investigations proved

24 that it was the Serbs who had done the shooting?

25 A. No, I never went back to follow up the shooting. Perhaps it's

Page 10152

1 something we should have done. But at the time, as you'll remember, in

2 July 1992, a lot was happening, and I was there not to make a documentary

3 and look into depth -- in depth at particular incidents. I was there to

4 cover daily news as it happened. And at the time, we were sending pieces

5 to the BBC two, maybe three times a day. There was a huge appetite for

6 what was happening in Sarajevo. So we did that piece, and then,

7 essentially, by the weight of events, were forced to move on. I think

8 that if it had gone very quiet, then we may well have gone into some

9 deeper investigation but because there was, you know, a big news story

10 almost every day, sadly it wasn't possible to go back. But I would stand

11 by what I said, because I think that the -- the weight of the information

12 that was coming to me pointed me in that direction.

13 Q. Now that we're discussing your primary task, allow me to remind

14 you what you said in paragraph 6 of your amalgamated statement. You said

15 that you were out in the field, that you reported from many other

16 countries.

17 [In English] "Because I tried wherever possible to illustrate how

18 war affected the civilian population, rather than just reporting the

19 doings of soldiers."

20 [Interpretation] Is that right?

21 A. Yes, that is right. One of the characteristics of warfare in the

22 20th century, and there are figures that you can find about this --

23 sorry, I don't have the precise ones with me. But if you look at warfare

24 at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, the

25 majority of people who died in wars then were military. If you look at

Page 10153

1 wars now, by far the majority -- and 20 years ago in the Balkans, you'll

2 find that by far the majority of people who die are civilians. So,

3 therefore, they suffer most in wars, they're most caught up in it. So

4 it's not simply -- it's not at all a prurient interest in human

5 suffering. What it is is it's a reflection of the way that war is waged

6 these days. Military forces tend to be much better protected, and

7 civilians suffer, therefore, disproportionately. So I think that that's

8 a very good reason for featuring them quite heavily in my reporting.

9 Q. Thank you. Now that we're on the subject: What is your

10 estimate? How many victims were there in the Bosnian war?

11 A. I never made account of that myself. I'm aware of the different

12 estimates that were being used at the time. I think a common estimate

13 around the mid-1990s was 200.000. I think that may have been revised

14 downwards, but I'm no authority on the big picture, numbers of

15 casualties. I know that there have been -- that various estimates are

16 around. I think -- I know, myself, from experience elsewhere, Iraq, for

17 example, it's very difficult to assess precisely how many people are

18 killed over a period of years.

19 Q. Thank you. Well, I hope that we do agree that those Serbs were

20 not responsible for anything that happened in Iraq. However, if I were

21 to tell you that the Muslim Institute, the Bosnian Institute, as it's

22 called, established that there were 97.000 victims in this war on all

23 three sides, and if I put it to you that the Muslims waged war against

24 the Serbs and against the Croats and against Abdic, and that, as such,

25 they had about 40.000 soldiers who were killed, because that is the

Page 10154

1 number of sites they had ordered, so the number of Muslim civilians is

2 almost three times less than the number of soldiers. About 30.000 Serbs

3 were killed, about 10.000 Croats, so if you put all of this together, it

4 was about 65.000 Muslims, out of which about 40.000 soldiers. So you see

5 the figures don't seem to match there.

6 A. Well, I can't possibly answer that question because I'm not an

7 authority on the figures and that's your interpretation of them. I

8 haven't made any study of the figures. At no point in my evidence,

9 either, did I think -- I talked about -- I didn't talk about large

10 numbers of casualties or make any attempt to state what the numbers of

11 dead were. So, as I say, I'm sorry, I can't -- I can't help you with

12 that one.

13 Q. Thank you. Let us go back to paragraph 6 of your statement. If,

14 and that is quite noble, if you wanted to report on the suffering of

15 civilians rather than just the doings of soldiers, then do you agree that

16 you could have condemned war in a humanistic way, but you could not draw

17 conclusions on the responsibility of either side; right?

18 A. I'm an impartial BBC journalist. The idea of impartiality is

19 absolutely central to the way that the BBC reports stories around the

20 world. That's something which is not just in the Balkans, but in my

21 current job in the Middle East, is something I have to work on the whole

22 time. Being impartial is tough sometimes, but it's something that we

23 have to do. It's not my business to do condemnation, but trying to be an

24 impartial reporter doesn't mean that you say, Well, on the one hand, On

25 the other hand, and, therefore, the truth is something in the middle or

Page 10155

1 something like that. If you see things that are happening, and you see

2 them yourself, and you have good evidence that they are happening, then

3 you need to say that. And what I found in my reporting career, not just

4 in the Balkans, though that was a good example of it, is that sometimes,

5 as a reporter, you say things that one side or the other doesn't like,

6 and, sadly, that's just the way things are.

7 So my personal view about war is that it's abhorrent. I've seen

8 a lot of war and a lot of death. But, you know, these reports, they're

9 not about me; they're about people on the ground. They're not about my

10 views.

11 Q. Thank you. As for the condemnation of war, I fully agree with

12 you.

13 You mentioned that people from UNPROFOR were often your sources

14 of information. Are you familiar with the assessment of UNPROFOR

15 commanders that the media did a very bad job and that they were highly

16 partial in their reporting from Bosnia, and in this way, that they

17 aggravated the situation altogether?

18 A. No, I'm not familiar with that assessment. There were different

19 UNPROFOR commanders who had different ideas about the way that the media

20 went on. You know, they're entitled to their views, if those, indeed,

21 were their views. I don't think the media aggravated the situation. I

22 don't think that we were players there. I think that we were passing on

23 events, to the best of our ability, accurately and fairly, certainly as

24 far as the BBC was concerned. I can't speak for other news

25 organisations.

Page 10156

1 Q. Thank you. Do you know that both UNPROFOR and others believed

2 that there was a type of journalists who simply sat at hotels and bought,

3 as it were, Muslim propaganda and propaganda from other sources, and then

4 simply relayed that as information to their offices or desks? Were you

5 among such journalists? Were you just sitting in Sarajevo, receiving

6 footage filmed either by your own crews or other agency, and did you

7 simply forward that to the BBC?

8 A. No, that's not the way I do my business at all. Maybe there were

9 journalists like that. I don't know, I didn't know them. And as I say,

10 I can't speak for other journalists. But the ones who were close

11 associates of mine, I think, worked very hard to be fair. And there was

12 an ethos as well of going out there and seeing things for yourself. I

13 wasn't just in Sarajevo; I went to many parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina

14 during the period of the war. And I worked very hard, as I said earlier

15 this morning, to try and report as much as I could from the Serb side,

16 but, sadly, that wasn't possible because there were quite a bit of -- a

17 few restrictions put on us. But, no, I was not somebody who sat in the

18 hotel, received information, and then just pumped it out. That's not how

19 I report. I have professional standards and professional pride, and I

20 certainly wouldn't be doing things like that. And I think, quite

21 frankly, if I did, I probably wouldn't last very long at the BBC, either.

22 Q. Thank you. You had a single team or crew from reporting from the

23 Serb side and the Muslim side or did you have separate teams?

24 A. It depended on the situation and on the -- and what was going on.

25 There were times in the course of the war, at busy times especially, when

Page 10157

1 the BBC would have a number of reporters and a number of cameramen in

2 different places. But, generally speaking, because of the, you know,

3 demands of the budget and the level of interest in the story, we probably

4 had one team for most of the time in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and they were at

5 different places. Some of my colleagues almost specialised in covering

6 the doings of the British Army, for example, in UNPROFOR. I was keen

7 always to get to grips with what was happening to Bosnians from all

8 sides, so I wasn't very interested in going to Vitez to be with the

9 British soldiers. I was more interested in going to Sarajevo, to other

10 places as well, as much as I could to see what was happening on both

11 sides -- on all sides, because I spent a lot of time with Muslims,

12 Croats, and as much as I could with Serbs.

13 Q. Thank you. Did you have any difficulties when it came to

14 fulfilling the BBC demands, the demand being for you to report

15 thoroughly, correctly and objectively about all of the three warring

16 sides in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Did you ever have any problems with being

17 objective, with favouring one party or the other?

18 A. I never favoured one party over the other, I never did. I

19 actually grew to like people on all sides. And, you know, apart from the

20 fact that the -- there was a terrible war going on, for me it was quite a

21 privilege to get to know not just Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the former

22 Yugoslavia. I tended to like the people there. I enjoyed spending time,

23 particularly with all of them. But, you know, my time on the Serb side,

24 I always enjoyed talking to Serbs and finding out how they ticked and

25 spending time with them, you know, having a small toast with them or

Page 10158

1 something like that, and I found -- I tended to find that once the

2 initial suspicion had subsided, and I hoped to win their confidence a

3 bit, that I was able to get on well with people. As for being, the

4 earlier part of your question, did I have difficulties in filling BBC

5 demands about being objective, no, I didn't. The problems that you face

6 as a reporter in somewhere like Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war were

7 all the problems of being in a war zone, the difficulties of trying to

8 gather news in a place where it's very dangerous, where you have to worry

9 about your own safety and those of your team, as well as all the other

10 points of trying to get a good snap-shot that day of what's happening.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

12 1D2937 is the next document I would like to present to the

13 witness. This is another footage -- or, rather, a report involving

14 children. Let's go back to that and let's clarify some things, since

15 we're already talking about them.

16 [Video-clip played]

17 JUDGE KWON: No sound, yes.

18 MS. EDGERTON: No sound.

19 [Video-clip played]

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Do we have a transcript in order to

21 be able to --

22 JUDGE KWON: What's the number, 65 ter number, for this clip?

23 MS. EDGERTON: It's 45372 something. And if I could have your

24 indulgence for a couple of seconds, I should be able to find it.

25 JUDGE KWON: In 1D number, what is it?

Page 10159

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 1D2937.

2 MS. EDGERTON: And it's 45372A.

3 Your Honours, it looks like Dr. Karadzic might have a technical

4 problem because -- we could actually probably play that from here and

5 broadcast it for him, if he wants to ask a question about it, but maybe

6 the greater problem should be resolved by our colleagues in the booth.

7 JUDGE KWON: Yes, I saw the nodding of Mr. Karadzic. Let's do

8 that.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I thank you.

10 [Video-clip played]

11 "Reporter: The bus set off to cross the front-lines at about

12 6.30 yesterday evening. The children were tied to the seats so that they

13 wouldn't be thrown around by the rough roads along the way. Their

14 parents are missing or refugees. The plan was to reunite the families in

15 Germany.

16 "Our cameraman took this picture of 13-month-old

17 Roki Sulejmanovic just before he left the bus as it approached no-man's

18 land. A few minutes later, Roki and Vedrana Glavas, a three-year-old

19 girl, were killed by the sniper.

20 "The shooting happened a couple of hundred yards behind me. It's

21 about the most dangerous stretch of road in Sarajevo, and they chose the

22 most dangerous time of day to go down it.

23 "Snipers hidden in these buildings which the Serbs control kill

24 or wound people almost every day."

25 "To me it borders on being criminally negligent to take children,

Page 10160

1 or anyone else for that matter, into a known war zone at a time when the

2 fighting starts every day."

3 "Reporter: But the UN has been condemned here as well. It

4 won't give --"

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, that's enough.

6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Mr. Bowen, first we see the material from the bus, and your

8 cameraman was on the bus. And then we see that the cameraman left the

9 bus, and we see the bus leaving; right?

10 A. Yes, that's right. The cameraman was on the bus, and then

11 there's a shot, as you saw, of the bus going through the check-point.

12 And that was the last Bosnian Government check-point on that road going,

13 I think, west out of the city.

14 Q. Thank you. And then you say that -- can this footage be

15 admitted?

16 JUDGE KWON: As edited, as 1D2937 --

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.

18 JUDGE KWON: -- with sound. That can be admitted.

19 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D935, Your Honours.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

21 1D29197 [as interpreted] is the next document I would like the

22 Court to produce.

23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. At that time -- or, rather, then the bus left the area under the

25 control of the Muslim Army and arrived in the area of no-man's land;

Page 10161

1 right?

2 A. It was going through no-man's land, which, as you know, was not a

3 very wide expanse, yeah, after it left, because you see it leaving.

4 [Video-clip played]

5 "Reporter: ... yesterday evening. The children were tied to the

6 seats --"

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We don't have to replay that again.

8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Please, could you help us with the following: How far were the

10 lines in Sarajevo from each other, and how long was the stretch of road

11 going through the no-man's land? What was the normal distance between

12 the enemy lines?

13 A. Well, at some places, it was very close, and at other places, it

14 was further apart. I actually went down -- in that period, we were able

15 to take that road ourselves occasionally to go to Ilidza to buy fuel and

16 to get supplies, so I went down it myself a few times. It wasn't far at

17 all. You know, you left the last Bosnian check-point, and then, you

18 know, within -- I can't give you a precise distance, but within a couple

19 of minutes, a very short drive, you'd be seeing Bosnian Serb troops. So

20 it was -- you know, you're talking -- the area that was controlled by the

21 Bosnian Government was not large, really, in the great scheme of things,

22 and that particular stretch of road, the terrain there is pretty flat.

23 Yeah, and as I say, I found that travelling to Ilidza from the centre

24 part of Sarajevo was -- it was probably -- it would feel like a couple of

25 minutes' drive maximum, I'd say.

Page 10162

1 Q. We'll go back to that. Your cameraman, according to what he was

2 told, depicted the "Oslobodjenje" building as a source of fire. You

3 corrected yourself and you said that that should not have been a source

4 of fire, because the building was under the control of the Bosnian Muslim

5 army; right?

6 A. It was under the control of the -- yeah, of that Muslim army, and

7 I corrected that. I mean, I was misinformed at the time. I hadn't been

8 in the city very long, and while over the period of years I got to know

9 the geography I think quite well, very well. I always drove myself

10 around. I didn't have a driver or anything like that. By that period in

11 my first week or so, I didn't know it very well. So, frankly, you know,

12 that was a complete -- it was a howler to suggest that there were Serb

13 gunmen at that time in the "Oslobodjenje" building, because it was

14 controlled by the government and they were producing their newspaper

15 there on a daily basis. So, no, I've said -- I've held my hands up, I

16 mean, that was a mistake that I made.

17 But since you mention that, what I would say is that the distance

18 from the place where the shooting happened to the "Oslobodjenje" building

19 is quite considerable. From the building to the check-point, I think, is

20 300 or 400 metres, and then the bus would have been -- you know, would

21 have driven for a while when the shooting happened. Had it happened

22 quickly, the cameraman would have stayed and got the immediate aftermath,

23 but he went. He couldn't have heard -- he would have stayed if he heard

24 gun-fire. I know that. So you're talking about a long distance from the

25 "Oslobodjenje" building, so just physically there's no way the shot could

Page 10163

1 have come from there, which is why I made that correction at the

2 beginning of proceedings here today, because I thought it was important

3 to get that straight.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

5 1D2917 is the document that I would like to call up in e-court.

6 This is a part of your book, "War Stories," and that part relates to the

7 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

8 Can we please look at page 163, but not in e-court, but in the

9 book, 163 in the book. Could the technical booth please pay attention to

10 the page number at the bottom of the page. It must be page 15 or

11 thereabouts in e-court.

12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. I'm going to read -- or, rather, can you read the passage

14 starting with: "I was convinced ..." The middle part of the second

15 passage.

16 A. From: "I was convinced ..."?

17 Q. Yes, the third sentence there.

18 A. I mean, I can read it from there, but I think it's important to

19 read it at least from the beginning of the paragraph or you lose the

20 context of that sentence. So if you don't mind, I'll read it from there.

21 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.

22 THE WITNESS: "I was disgusted by what had happened and full of

23 anger against the people who had done it."

24 This is a reference, Your Honour, to the attack on the funeral.

25 "The deaths of the children were a crime in themselves, but then

Page 10164

1 to shell the funeral was another --"

2 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly slow down, please.

3 THE WITNESS: I'll start again:

4 "I was disgusted by what had happened and full of anger against

5 the people who had done it. The deaths of the children were a crime in

6 themselves, but then to shell their funeral was another outrage. I was

7 about to vent my anger in a piece to camera that laid into the Serbs for

8 committing war crimes. I was convinced that the Serbs were responsible.

9 A conspiracy theory was put around by some UN people that the Bosnian

10 Government was in the habit of shelling their own people to get world

11 sympathy and to make the Serbs look bad. I never saw any proof that it

12 was true. And the graveyard was not just being shelled because the

13 cameras were there; the gravediggers said it was shelled plenty of times

14 when cameras were not there too. Then something in my mind, I suppose

15 the training I had from the BBC, told me to hold on, to calm down, to

16 think hard about what I was going to say, and to play it straight. I

17 still think that was the right way to do it. The piece was more powerful

18 because -- the piece was more powerful because the tone of it was more

19 measured. I laid out the facts and the pictures about what had happened,

20 and --"

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, thank you, thank you.

22 We already said that.

23 THE WITNESS: Okay.

24 JUDGE KWON: So what is your question, Mr. Karadzic?

25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

Page 10165

1 Q. My question is this: We agree that that was awful, I am

2 disgusted, but what was the basis for you to believe that that was done

3 by the Serbs, and why did you reject the UN theory that the Muslims were

4 shelling their own people? What made you reject that theory, and what

5 made you believe that it had been the Serbs? How come that you finally

6 recorded that in your book?

7 A. Starting, first of all, with the -- with the funeral, itself --

8 Q. No, we'll come to the funeral, we'll come to the funeral.

9 MS. EDGERTON: Your Honours --

10 JUDGE KWON: This is about --

11 THE WITNESS: I'm trying to answer your question.

12 JUDGE KWON: This is about the funeral?

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, no. No, let's talk about the

14 bus.

15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. How did you establish that it was the Serbs who shot at the bus?

17 How did you come to reject the theory that that could have been done by

18 Muslim soldiers or, rather, the government, although the theory was

19 supported by the UN?

20 A. At that point, I hadn't heard the theory that the Bosnian

21 Government side were doing it to their own people. I first heard the

22 theory from a military aide to General Lewis MacKenzie, who was the

23 UNPROFOR Sarajevo Sector commander at the time, towards the end of that

24 first visit I paid to Sarajevo, which was August of 1992. So he took me

25 to one side and said, Look, by the way, I want you to know we're

Page 10166

1 convinced that the Serbs -- sorry, that the Bosnian Government are

2 shelling themselves. So I said, Well, what evidence have you got? And

3 he said, We don't really have any evidence, but that's what we think.

4 Now, your earlier part of the question, where you asked me, How

5 did you establish it was the Serbs who shot at the bus, you'll say --

6 you'll see we went through my statement earlier on, and in that I think I

7 was effectively saying that the balance of probabilities were that the

8 Serbs shot at the bus. And to repeat what I said, that was based on

9 where the bus was, it was based as well -- well, it was based principally

10 on where the bus was, that it had left Bosnian Serb-controlled territory.

11 And as you said your -- and as I said in answer to your question just

12 now, the geographical distance between the final Bosnian Government

13 check-point and the first Bosnian Serb check-point was not very great at

14 all. Again, it's -- there's a lot of circumstantial evidence there. I

15 didn't see it with my own eyes, I didn't have ballistics tests about the

16 weapons that were fired and so on, but it just seemed -- judging by where

17 it had got to, the fact that the bus had left, the camera crew had left,

18 that it was some way through, and that was an area controlled by Bosnian

19 Serbs. So had they wanted to shoot at it themselves, it would have made

20 more sense if, indeed, they had shot, say, from the "Oslobodjenje"

21 building, but that didn't happen.

22 So, as I say, I felt that the -- you know, it wasn't

23 100 per cent, but the balance of -- well, not 100 per cent, because I

24 hadn't seen it, but the balance of probability, as I said in my -- in the

25 language -- I chose my language carefully in the witness statement, was

Page 10167

1 that the Serbs had been responsible for that particular attack. And I

2 would absolutely repeat again what I said in that book, that I thought it

3 was a terrible crime that children were being killed in that way, and

4 also I thought it was equally criminal that their funerals were shelled.

5 I thought it was grotesquely violent and cruel.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. I totally agree with

7 you, but let's prove who actually did it.

8 Your Excellency, is it enough to have what is on the transcript

9 or should this page be tendered into evidence? I'm asking the

10 Trial Chamber.

11 JUDGE KWON: I take it there's no opposition.

12 That will be admitted.

13 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D936, Your Honours.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

15 Can we now see in e-court 65 ter 09390-C. I believe that the

16 document must have a P number as well.

17 JUDGE KWON: What page?

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We'll start with the first page

19 first, and then -- or, rather, we'll start with the second page after the

20 title page, and then we'll move to section 9.

21 Can this be turned clockwise by 90 degrees.

22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Do you recognise this map, Mr. Bowen? Is this Sarajevo, and are

24 the lines depicted? Do you agree that the event happened in the map

25 section number 9, that the "Oslobodjenje" building is also there, and

Page 10168

1 that the place where the event happened is also there? Do you see the

2 main road leading from Sarajevo to Ilidza? There are some numbers there

3 as well.

4 A. The screen's gone. Okay. At the moment, it's -- can you make it

5 big again? I'm just seeing the whole map, not -- don't touch it? Okay,

6 right. I didn't realise it was a touch screen.

7 Q. Do you see the main road now? Do you see the main road leading

8 from Sarajevo to --

9 A. Is the road the red line?

10 Q. No. I'm afraid that the red and the blue lines are the

11 front-lines, if you will agree with that.

12 A. I don't mean the broken red or blue lines. I'm talking about --

13 I can see -- I'm assuming the black lines on the map are railway lines,

14 are they, or are they roads? They're roads, then, are they, the black

15 lines?

16 Q. Well, both the rail lines and the roads are black. You can see

17 three dots and numbers there. However, do you recognise the

18 "Oslobodjenje" building closest to the front-line?

19 Could Mr. Bowen be provided with a pen. Maybe that would assist

20 him.

21 JUDGE KWON: Why don't we see sheet 9 of this.

22 THE WITNESS: I mean, I'm looking at -- the buildings aren't

23 marked. Is it -- can I touch it? Oh, okay. Is it -- could you

24 possibly -- sir, could you ring the "Oslobodjenje" building? Is it this

25 building here?

Page 10169

1 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. No, I'm afraid it is more to the south. Do you see the lines

3 closest to the road?

4 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Excuse me. Your answer was

5 overlapped with the translation, so it's not --

6 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry.

7 JUDGE KWON: -- properly translated. Yes.

8 THE WITNESS: The lines closest to -- I'm not clear, sir, about

9 which lines you're referring to. If, perhaps, you could mark on the map

10 yourselves which ones you're referring to, it might be helpful.

11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. I would like to ask you to pay attention to the lower third of

13 the map. You can see the two jutted lines close to the road. Do you see

14 the lower third or, rather, the right-hand side corner, the lower

15 portion, the lower third, the right-hand side portion? Do you see the

16 star-like buildings in the right-hand side corner? Those were students'

17 dormitories. Do you remember that? Did you know where Nedzarici was?

18 That was a Serbian neighbourhood, Nedzarici.

19 A. Yes, I knew of Nedzarici. But the point is that I'm not -- when

20 you're referring to these various places on the map, I'm not following,

21 really, what you're saying. I'm sorry. I never had this particular map

22 when I was there, and my sense of geography was based very much on

23 driving up and down the roads. I never had a map of this -- sadly, of

24 this accuracy and quality, so, you know, I had a driver's eye view of the

25 place. So you're going to have to -- if you want me to be specific about

Page 10170

1 things, I'm going to have to see it marked on the map, I think.

2 Q. Thank you. Well, let's try this: Do you see two star-like

3 buildings by the line on the right-hand side which delineates the whole

4 section 9? Those were student dormitories. Do you remember those

5 buildings?

6 A. The -- if I saw them, I might remember them, if I saw a picture

7 of them. But star-like buildings, do you mean the -- there's some

8 crosses which are next to the thick blue line delineating section 9.

9 Just on the right of it, is that the ones that you're referring to?

10 Q. Yes.

11 A. Going towards Alipasino Polje?

12 Q. We can write letters. Y, actually. Can you circle those two

13 buildings? They are the dorms that I'm talking about?

14 A. Can I circle them? I'm sorry if I'm being a bit thick here, but

15 I'm not following you. I'm normally not bad with maps, but I can't --

16 I'm struggling a bit here. I'm very anxious that I'm accurate in what I

17 say to you, so perhaps if someone could point these out to me on the map

18 by a circle or something, it would be very helpful.

19 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, I'm now wondering whether it would be

20 helpful to continue this exercise, given the unfamiliarity of the witness

21 with the map.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Mr. Bowen, can you see where the Muslims' end stops and the Serb

25 zone continues? That happens on the road, black road with tram stops

Page 10171

1 marked along the road. Can you perhaps mark that? And that's the road

2 that starts cutting through the middle of the section and then abruptly

3 continues southward.

4 A. Are you referring to this road here?

5 Q. On the very far south, on the exact opposite side. What you are

6 pointing at is Zadar, in the north, and what I am referring to is the

7 area close to Nedzarici, on the south.

8 A. Okay, yeah, so down here.

9 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Edgerton.

10 MS. EDGERTON: Your Honour, I'm really wondering about the

11 utility of this now, especially when we get to the discussion of where

12 the confrontation lines might have laid because this map is and these

13 lines are based on confrontation lines as depicted in maps from 1995 and

14 this whole line of questioning relates to an incident in 1992.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] With all due respect, the

16 confrontation lines didn't change. The only part that changed was Otes.

17 The rest of the lines remained the same throughout the war, and Mr. Bowen

18 confirmed that in his statement. He confirmed that the lines remained

19 almost unchanged until the very end of the war. But now I'm looking at

20 the section of the road where the incident with the bus took place, and

21 that's the road that we are supposed to identify and see how was it

22 possible to conclude that the incident had been caused by the Serbs.

23 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Edgerton.

24 MS. EDGERTON: Well, Your Honour, Mr. Bowen has said in his

25 testimony, in his cross-examination, that he wasn't there and he didn't

Page 10172

1 see it, so I'm really wondering what the utility of this is altogether.

2 And he said that, for the record, at page 82, line 24.

3 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, I think you exhausted the issue when

4 you asked some questions about that incident already. I would recommend

5 you to move on to your next topic. I don't see any utility, as indicated

6 by Ms. Edgerton.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

8 The witness, with a lot of authority, reported on BBC and

9 repeated in his book that that was done by the Serbs in no-man's land,

10 and here no-man's land is only 50 metres away from the road.

11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Mr. Bowen, how come you concluded that it must have been the

13 Serbs who had shot from no-man's land? Was it from no-man's land that

14 they fired the shots from or from the Serb-held territory? Where should

15 this have been done?

16 JUDGE KWON: I think Mr. Bowen has answered the question already.

17 THE WITNESS: I can add one clarification, if you like,

18 Your Honour.

19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.

20 THE WITNESS: I mean, if you're saying yourself that no-man's

21 land is very narrow there, then it could -- then I could say that, in a

22 sense, I was trying to be as fair as I could by saying it looked like

23 no-man's land. But we have a picture of the bus going through the final

24 Bosnian check-point and heading off down the road, and at that point the

25 bus was as yet unmolested and not shot at by anybody.

Page 10173

1 Now, you said yourself that it was a small distance between the

2 two positions. That suggests to me that if it wasn't no-man's land, it

3 would have been in Serb territory that the attack took place, and

4 that's -- because it would be some minutes, I would imagine, after they

5 left. Otherwise, the camera crew would have heard shooting and probably

6 would have stayed, because I know the guys who shot that and they would,

7 you know, they wouldn't have just run away from it.

8 So if no-man's land was narrow, the bus would have already passed

9 through it and be in Serb territory, and then the attack would have

10 happened, because what is absolutely clear from the pictures is that the

11 attack did not happen in Bosnian Government-controlled territory. So I

12 would say that from what you're saying, it was -- my assumption was

13 no-man's land or going towards the Serb side, and now from what you're

14 saying or suggesting to me that it might actually be in Serb territory,

15 itself.

16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

17 Q. Where was it that you went? Where was this morgue where the

18 killed children were?

19 A. It wasn't the main morgue that was at the Kosevo Hospital, where

20 many of the bodies were taken. It was more of an improvised morgue in --

21 I suppose it was something that was once a store room. So if you -- my

22 recollection is that -- and, you know, it's 19 years ago, but my

23 recollection is that it was either on or just off that main road that

24 went in -- if you turned the other way and went past the "Oslobodjenje"

25 building and continued along that road, either on the left -- if you went

Page 10174

1 left and the roads there, it was one of those, I think, but it was a

2 small local place where the bodies were being held. At that point, they

3 hadn't been taken -- I don't know if they were ever taken to the morgue

4 at Kosevo Hospital, where quite a few of the bodies were taken of

5 civilians and also of fighters.

6 Q. Thank you. Who took you there?

7 A. We had -- I'm trying to remember. We had a local fixer, a local

8 resident, and who was a surgeon, as a matter of fact, at the hospital,

9 and she found out -- I think she made some phone calls. She got some

10 information about where the bodies had been taken. And so, therefore, we

11 wanted to go and find out. And, you know, and she also asked at

12 check-points. There were quite a lot of check-points. She asked -- we

13 asked around, essentially, to try to get the information. And then we

14 went there, and there were the bodies of the children.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

16 Can we have this once again -- actually, there is nothing to be

17 admitted here.

18 1D2917, but page 161, could we have that now, please. 1D2917 is

19 the previous document, but it's just one page down in e-court, page 161.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. [In English] "Our cameraman filmed the children as the bus drove

23 towards the last Bosnian check-point at the edge of town, where he got

24 off. The bus went on into no-man's land, where a sniper, presumably a

25 Serb, as the bus was coming from the government side, opened fire."

Page 10175

1 [Interpretation] Is this the basis for your conclusion, namely,

2 because the bus is coming from the Bosnian side, that is why the Serbs

3 were the ones that fired, or are you relying on something else?

4 A. No, I mean, I've gone already, I'd say, into more detail about

5 why I made that supposition. In the book, itself, it was not necessary

6 or advisable to go into that kind of detail that you would in a court of

7 law. I mean, I think I've explained already why I came to that

8 conclusion. And what's there in parenthesis in that sentence is a --

9 it's a shorthand version. I think I've already gone through what I think

10 happened, and I've -- and I've -- throughout my reporting and also in the

11 book, I've laid open a -- you know, a possibility not about necessarily

12 what happened but more about the fact that I have incomplete knowledge of

13 the event, because that's why I use the word "presumably." I never tried

14 to hide the fact that I wasn't there. And so, no, that's what I can say

15 about that point, that's how I respond to that.

16 Q. Thank you. You see the next paragraph:

17 [In English] "The two children were taken to a mortuary not far

18 from the place where the bus trip started."

19 [Interpretation] Was that mortuary on the Muslim side?

20 A. Yes, I was on the Muslim side. It was on the Muslim side --

21 Muslim-led side, I should say.

22 Q. Thank you. Knowing the check-points and the lines, and the

23 control of movements, as such, could you explain how the dead bodies of

24 children who had been killed on the Serb side could eventually be brought

25 to a mortuary on the Muslim side?

Page 10176

1 A. Well, that was one reason why my assumption was it was no-man's

2 land initially, because the bus turned 'round. From memory, I think

3 there were pictures, which we didn't use, of the bus after it had been

4 shot up, because the bus -- they turned 'round and they came back in,

5 because the adults and the driver on the bus were people who'd come from

6 the Bosnian Government-controlled part of the city, so I guess their

7 first instincts when this thing happened was to turnaround and go back

8 the way they came. I think it was probably a flight reflex, because as

9 well as having two dead children on the bus, they had -- well, you saw

10 from the pictures yourself, they were probably getting on with 20 small

11 children, many of whom were tied to the seats because otherwise they

12 might have fallen off. They weren't even big enough to sit

13 independently. So I think that, yes, what happened was they turned

14 around and they came back in, and that's why the bodies and the funerals

15 were there on the Bosnian Government side.

16 And, you know, as I say, there's a picture in the report of the

17 bus going through the final Bosnian Government check-point, so I think we

18 can establish from that that it left their zone of control and then it

19 went back into it after the shooting incident, and whatever point on the

20 road it had got to when the shots happened, and my information was it was

21 pretty soon after they'd gone through the check-point, they were able

22 maybe -- I mean, I didn't speak to the driver and ask him, Did you

23 immediately do a three-point turn or a U-turn and go back? But I think

24 it was apparent, because the bus was back in town, that that's what had

25 happened.

Page 10177

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

2 Can page 161 be admitted?

3 JUDGE KWON: Yes, that will be added to the previous exhibit,

4 D936.

5 In the meantime, Mr. Bowen, there must have been a check-point on

6 the Serb side after no-man's land on that road?

7 THE WITNESS: Yes, there was, and I don't know whether it had

8 passed that check-point when the attack happened or whether it was

9 approaching the check-point. But as you can see from the map, the

10 distances between the confrontation lines were not great, Your Honour, so

11 it can't have got very far when the -- when that shooting incident took

12 place. And I don't know if they crossed -- you know, sometimes on

13 check-points there wouldn't even be people there all the time. There

14 might be a little bit in the background.

15 So, as I say, I wasn't there when the incident happened, so this

16 is, you know, supposition on my part. I don't really want to speculate

17 too much about it.

18 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

20 Q. The funeral took place at the Lav Cemetery; right?

21 A. At the -- well, the Lav -- we always referred to it as the Lion's

22 Cemetery, but, yes, the main cemetery which had the sculpture of a lion

23 in it, which was just below Kosevo Hospital.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

25 Can we look at this again now, 65 ter 09390-C, and then let's

Page 10178

1 look at section 7.

2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Do I remember this right, that you said that it was either the

4 funeral itself or a visit to the cemetery, it seems, that it was actually

5 a visit to the cemetery, and the flowers were brought, and shells were

6 falling, and somebody was actually hit in the head by a rifle bullet;

7 right?

8 A. No, that's -- no. If you're referring to the funerals of the two

9 dead children who were involved in the bus incident, it was their

10 funeral, and what I reported was -- we were given a time that the funeral

11 was going to take place, and we arrived a little bit early for that and

12 found that the funeral had happened already, and that's because, as I

13 intimated in the report, that the grave-diggers and the people at the

14 cemetery, I think principally the grave-diggers, had decided just to go

15 ahead and bury the bodies before the mourners arrived because of the

16 shelling.

17 At that point when the shelling first started, there were no

18 mourners there were. There were just the grave-diggers who, you know how

19 it works, they prepare the hole and then the funeral happens, and -- but

20 by the time we got there, and, as I say, it was before the scheduled time

21 for the funeral, that that had already taken place. So after we got

22 there, the kids arrived from the children's home, where these young

23 children had been living, with flowers that they wanted to put down, so

24 they were there because of a funeral. It wasn't just any old visit, and

25 they were specifically there because of the funeral of those children.

Page 10179

1 And nobody was shot in the head. What the video depicts is the

2 grandmother of the dead girl who -- she sustained very nasty shrapnel

3 injury in her upper arm. I think it was her left arm. You can see from

4 the video, anyway. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was left. And she had a

5 very large hole in it which, when my colleague, Kurt Schork, who was in

6 charge of the -- he took charge of the first aid there, and you see me

7 coming into the picture, giving them a second field dressing. He had one

8 field dressing. He put it into the hole in her arm, and the hole was so

9 big, the dressing disappeared into the hole. So I gave them my field

10 dressing, and that's on the video, and they put that field dressing on

11 top of that second -- of that first field dressing in a bid to stop what

12 was very severe bleeding coming. And then we took her to the hospital,

13 which is only a minute's or so drive away.

14 JUDGE KWON: Why don't we try page 9 of this document.

15 And what is your question, Mr. Karadzic, about this map, page 9

16 of this map?

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, but we need this number 7 so

18 that Mr. Bowen could -- oh, all right. Can we enlarge this central part,

19 where it says "Cemetery," so that we could ask Mr. Bowen -- further up,

20 further up to the north. Yes, that's right, fine. Excellent, great.

21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Can you see what it says here, one, two, three, "Cemetery."

23 There's the Catholic cemetery, the Orthodox cemetery, and further up,

24 right by the hospital, the Kosevo Hospital, is the Lion's Cemetery,

25 "Lav," L-a-v?

Page 10180

1 A. Yes, I can see those three cemeteries there. Yeah, I can.

2 Q. Thank you. Can you put a circle around the Lion's Cemetery?

3 A. Which is the Lion's Cemetery? Is that the middle one or the one

4 at the top? This one, is it?

5 Q. The one on the top, by the hospital, itself.

6 A. Next to the sports fields. It spread over into the sports field

7 as the war continued, because they ran out of room.

8 Q. Thank you. Could you please put the date there? Could you say L

9 for the Lion's Cemetery, and the date and your initials, please?

10 A. The L for "Lion," yeah. Today's date? Today's date is, what,

11 the 12th --

12 JUDGE KWON: Bottom right. Yes, the 13th.

13 THE WITNESS: Is it the 13th?

14 JUDGE KWON: 13th January.

15 THE WITNESS: "13/1," sorry, "1/11" [marks]. And my initials,

16 J.B. -- sorry, it's not easy to write with these pens.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18 Could this be admitted now, however --

19 THE COURT: Yes, Ms. Edgerton.

20 MS. EDGERTON: I took my seat again because Dr. Karadzic

21 continued, but if it's to be admitted, it's a document at the direction

22 and at the instruction of Dr. Karadzic by the witness. Dr. Karadzic was

23 the one who specifically indicated the location of the cemetery to the

24 witness.

25 JUDGE KWON: But the witness did confirm the location, didn't he?

Page 10181

1 Mr. Bowen, you confirm the location of the Lav Cemetery?

2 THE WITNESS: Yes, as I say, you know, as I said before I didn't

3 have maps when I was in Sarajevo. So I used to -- I mean, I could drive

4 you there, if you wanted. But as far as I can see from this map, based

5 on the fact that there were athletic fields next to it and then you could

6 see the stadium over close by, I do remember, as you came along, there

7 was another cemetery on the left, and then there was -- yes, so I think

8 that's the Lion's Cemetery, certainly, and the buildings up to the -- I

9 spilled the water. And the buildings up to the right are the hospital, I

10 suppose.

11 Can I have some tissues? I just knocked my glass of water over

12 everything.

13 JUDGE KWON: It's behind your monitor.

14 THE WITNESS: Sorry about this. It's all gone a bit fuzzy now in

15 my ear piece.

16 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We'll admit this in the meantime.

17 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D937, Your Honours.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

19 If necessary, we can play that footage again.

20 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the 65 ter

21 number.

22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. You say that there was a gunman firing there; right?

24 A. I'm not sure if I used the word "gunman," because I don't think I

25 used the word. I mean, I'd have to look at it again. No, my deduction

Page 10182

1 about Serbs being responsible for it at the time was based on the fact

2 that there had been regular shelling of the cemetery, which we have from

3 numerous sources and had colleagues at the scene as well, and I had

4 conversations with people -- with military people about where it could be

5 coming from, and it was clear that it was in -- it was in the range of

6 the Serb positions.

7 Q. Thank you. Then I misunderstood that. It was my understanding

8 that you had said "gunman" and that somebody had sustained a rifle wound.

9 Can we --

10 JUDGE KWON: A correction. The term used by that report was

11 "gunners."

12 THE WITNESS: Oh, yeah, it was "gunners," sorry, "gunners," not

13 "gunmen." I beg your pardon, "gunners" being a generic term for

14 artillerymen. I wasn't -- yeah. Of course, that was the ...

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

16 Can we now have P815, or, actually, that map, but could we see

17 all of this map. Can we see the totality of this map, not just this

18 section.

19 JUDGE KWON: Page 2.

20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

21 Q. Mr. Bowen, do you agree that one confrontation line follows

22 another confrontation line here?

23 A. The confrontation lines followed each other right 'round the

24 city, yes. You can see from the map.

25 Q. Thank you. In order for the Serbs to fire, they would have to be

Page 10183

1 firing from their own territory, that is to say, outside the red

2 confrontation line; right?

3 A. Yes, yes, clearly.

4 Q. Then comes the blue line, and the Muslim trenches, and then

5 Muslim-held territory that is fully under their control; right?

6 A. Yes, inside the blue line was under their control.

7 Q. How can we conclude, without ballistic expertise and a proper

8 investigation, that it was a particular side that had fired, that it

9 wasn't either one of the two sides?

10 A. Well, as I say, I had already had discussions with people about

11 the fact that the graveyard was getting shelled, and -- people inside

12 UNPROFOR, and the -- I think they pointed out positions to me which were

13 north of where the cemetery was, and they thought -- their assumption was

14 that shells were coming in from there. There's also the question of

15 motive, and I think it's important that --

16 JUDGE KWON: Just could you wait?

17 THE WITNESS: Of course.

18 JUDGE KWON: Why don't we mark the position you were in at the

19 time, roughly.

20 THE WITNESS: Okay. Somewhere in -- you know, up there. I

21 wouldn't go into specifics about it, because I don't have that accurate

22 information, but it's quite close by and people -- those are the kinds of

23 discussions I had.

24 And also the point I was going to go on to make, if I may,

25 Your Honour, was that it's a question of motive. The supposition that

Page 10184

1 the Bosnian Government side was shelling its own people is based on the

2 fact that they wanted to make an incident that would play

3 internationally, that would show the Serbs in a bad light.

4 Now, on that particular day, the shelling was happening when

5 there were no cameras there, and on other days -- and you can see the

6 damage in the cemetery, and we didn't have cameras there every day.

7 I can tell you that that graveyard was often shelled. I don't see why --

8 if, let's say for one second -- and I don't accept the point, but say for

9 one second the Bosnian Government wanted to make an international

10 incident, why would they shell it when the television cameras weren't

11 there? Plus there's another point in retrospect, but I think it's

12 relevant, that it's been nearly 20 years. They weren't well organised,

13 especially in 1992. No information has ever emerged to confirm that the

14 Bosnian Government shelled its own side. There hasn't been any.

15 During the war, the UNPROFOR people engaged in a great deal of

16 crater analysis, and to my -- and maybe something is top secret, but to

17 my knowledge, there was nothing definitive that ever came out of that.

18 And, you know, most importantly, it's been nearly 20 years. It's very

19 hard to cover things up for that length of time. And there has not, as

20 far as I'm aware, been one definitive bit of information, the smoking

21 gun, if you like, saying that the Bosnian people shelled their own side.

22 The Americans were unable in Iraq to keep Abu Ghraib and what they did

23 there a secret for longer than about 12 months, maybe less than that. To

24 my mind, something would have come out by now if this was the case.

25 So I think that our suppositions, based on the information that

Page 10185

1 we had at the time, which I will agree were incomplete and

2 circumstantial, and there was the fog of war to think about as well, but

3 in all the years of peace since then, since the Dayton Agreement, no

4 specific evidence that I'm aware of has come out suggesting -- confirming

5 these repeated allegations that the Bosnian Government shelled its own

6 side to try to manipulate the media. I don't think it stands up.

7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

8 Q. Can you then marked the Lion's Cemetery on this map? You

9 remember that it's by the Kosevo Hospital and opposite the stadium, so

10 let us see what the scale is.

11 A. I think around there, more or less. That's about -- from the red

12 line, at that point -- the closest point to the red line is just over a

13 kilometre, according to the scale at the bottom of the map. And in the

14 other direction, it's, what, just over two, probably. And don't forget

15 that the Serb side there is high ground.

16 JUDGE KWON: Could you put the date in. Initial on the bottom

17 right part.

18 THE WITNESS: Did we say it was the 13th? Sorry.

19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, 13 January.

20 THE WITNESS: [Marks]

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could it please be admitted?

22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Did anyone inform you that a certain azimuth existed, or, rather,

24 that there was a certain angle, in view of how this shell fell? Did

25 anybody give you any ballistic information whatsoever?

Page 10186

1 A. No, not that technically. I knew that the shell fell, because I

2 was there when it exploded and I saw what it did to the flesh. I

3 spent -- not on that northern side, but on the southern side, I spent

4 quite a bit of time and did some reporting which was broadcast with the

5 Bosnian Serb forces who were there, and they -- I spoke to them about

6 their activities in shelling the city. They said that they did it. I

7 saw the empty shell casings. They allowed us to take a shot that was

8 down the barrel of the gun -- of one of their heavy machine-guns, and it

9 was close enough to the city to be able to hit it with a 50-calibre

10 machine-gun. They also had anti-aircraft -- I'm not sure of the calibre,

11 but anti-aircraft cannon which they depressed from the high altitude on

12 the hills and used it as a ground attack weapon.

13 And I spoke to the soldiers. I wasn't referring to this specific

14 incident, I must stress. But the principle that the Serb fighters were

15 shelling the city, as I say, I spoke to Serb fighters, themselves, I saw

16 the empty shell cases, I was able to film them, it was broadcast. To my

17 mind, you know, one of the big military advantages that the Serb side had

18 around -- particularly to the north and to the south was that they held

19 the high ground, and that made it quite possible -- you know, I could

20 practically -- from the Serb positions to the south, I could practically

21 see inside the hotel where I was staying at the Holiday Inn, and while I

22 in it the building was hit a few times and it was quite badly damaged.

23 So, no, I didn't have precise ballistic information, but I was aware of

24 the general pattern of behaviour, in terms of the way that the siege was

25 prosecuted.