1 Monday, 26th April, 1999
2 (Open session)
3 (The accused entered court)
4 (The witness entered court)
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.47 a.m.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.
7 Case number IT-95-14/2-T. The Prosecutor versus Dario
8 Kordic and Mario Cerkez.
9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.
10 MR. NICE: The next exhibit, please,
11 Mr. Cicak, is exhibit 64. In fact, it's 64/1, 64/1(a),
12 because it was not included in the compiled bundle or
13 the original list of exhibits.
14 WITNESS: DRAGUTIN CICAK (Resumed)
15 [Witness answers through interpreter]
16 Examined by Mr. Nice:
17 Q. Mr. Cicak, this is another article published
18 by you on the 27th of March in the newspaper, I think
19 Nasa Rijec, and it was headed as "Sancta Simplicitus
20 Kordicu" and there is an English summary of the
21 article. Again, if you're familiar with the article or
22 if you have a chance to scan it briefly now to remind
23 yourself of what it contains, I will read to the Court
24 the English summary, 64/1(a), which is to the following
25 effect; the text is in the form of a letter to Kordic
1 by yourself, summarised as:
2 "Kordic's version of neo-fascism has all the
3 hallmarks of true fascism; a national party is the main
4 government of authority; power in the hands of the
5 leader; a personality cult of the irreplaceable
6 national leader with transformation of democratic
7 government into fascist government.
8 "Kordic has been arming the semi-military HDZ
9 army, indoctrinating the young and assisted by Stipac,
10 Sliskovic, Prusak. Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina have
11 been led to believe that they should be Ustashas in
12 order to be Croats, which is ridiculous.
13 "All proposals made by people from other
14 parties, non-HDZ people, have been marginalised purely
15 because they come from the other. The HDZ structure
16 has developed into a corrupt, harmful, extremist,
17 warmongering organisation.
18 "Slogans like, 'This is NDH, the Independent
19 State of Croatia,' are meant to convince people that
20 Busovaca has negligible Muslim and Serbian population.
21 Busovaca is Bosnia and it will never be Croatia.
22 "Thanks to Kordic and Boban, the Croatian
23 Community of Herceg-Bosna is a political cancer on the
24 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the only thing
25 they have to offer the population of Busovaca is war as
1 a way of life."
2 Mr. Cicak, does that summary cover some of
3 the topics covered in the article "Sancta Simplicitas"?
4 A. To put it briefly, this is really just a
5 summary of an article that belongs to an anthology. It
6 was written about Mr. Kordic, and it contains
7 everything that Mr. Kordic carries in himself,
8 everything negative. And he was really among the
9 foremost, as far as these negative things are
10 concerned.
11 Q. Mr. Cicak, can I put your mind at rest to
12 this extent? Although this article has been summarised
13 at the moment for the Court, full translations of this
14 article and, indeed, of all the articles will be
15 available for the Court to read in due course.
16 So with those comments by you on this
17 article, I want to move to the next exhibit, Exhibit
18 52.
19 A. I would just like to ask you the following:
20 Could we just comment on this a bit more, with the
21 permission of the Honourable Court?
22 Q. If there are particular matters that you
23 don't think are covered in the summary I've read out
24 and that you -- just before we hand out the next
25 exhibit -- you think there are matters that aren't
1 covered in the summary, and in particular if you can
2 point to the numbered paragraph numbers on the original
3 64/1, that would help us. Where we can't read BCS, we
4 can see the paragraph numbers on our photocopies of the
5 document you have.
6 Are there any particular numbered paragraphs
7 you want to draw to the Court's attention?
8 A. I would like to draw the Court's attention to
9 the following. This text, "Sancta Implicitas" written
10 to Kordic did not come into being just like that. It
11 was in response to a very confusing article that was
12 written by Mr. Kordic, himself. It was called "Cicak
13 Small-Time Judas." I think you have that.
14 Q. We're coming to that.
15 A. I think you have that among your documents.
16 No, no, no. These two documents have to be looked at
17 together.
18 Q. I'm going to come to the "Small-Time Judas"
19 next, and would it be convenient if we reserved any
20 other comments you have on this article until after
21 we've looked at that article?
22 A. Just the way you want it.
23 Q. Thank you. This article, which was published
24 at about this time,"Cicak Mali Juda", we have fully
25 translated, and I shall read the full translation.
1 Just to be quite sure, there have been two translations
2 of this document, I think, over time, this one is in
3 four sheets, and the fourth sheet has heavily stamped
4 over it "Draft Translation". I trust that's the copy
5 that the Court has.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
7 MR. NICE: Thank you.
8 Q. So this article, published in March of 1992,
9 in the Lasva Herald, reads as follows:
10 "According to the law on publishing, we are
11 availing ourselves of the right to use some of the BH
12 /Bosnia-Herzegovina/ press space to show the
13 unscrupulous and wild campaign against Croats in
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina by quasi-Croats who have become
15 permanently blinded by Yugoslav or union-oriented
16 Bosniak Cause.
17 "We have no intention of getting angry or
18 feeling hurt that the well-known enemies of the policy
19 which would resolve the global Croatian issue are
20 relentlessly attacking the people, and the policy that
21 has, at its core, the interest of Croats in
22 Herceg-Bosna. They cannot reconcile themselves to the
23 fact that Croats of Herceg-Bosna are no longer the
24 amorphous mass they were for a long time but a
25 sovereign people on a national sovereign territory.
1 Union-supporters and federalists of all kinds are
2 terrified by the prospect of Croats using the HDZ in
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina /Croatian Democratic Union in Bosnia
4 and Herzegovina/ which forms part of a unique HDZ, to
5 achieve the objective, which we were unable to do in
6 BH, even after multi-party elections in 1990, that is,
7 the complete and absolute sovereignty of the Croatian
8 people which is what is owed to them as one of the
9 three constituent peoples in BH."
10 THE INTERPRETER: The Prosecutor please read
11 a bit slower for the interpreters.
12 MR. NICE: I'm sorry.
13 Q. "The BH HDZ held its Central Board Meeting in
14 Livno in the presence of about 140 of the most
15 prominent and legitimate officials of the Croatian
16 people, (presidents of HDZ municipal boards from the
17 whole BH, representatives in the BH Assembly, members
18 of the BH HDZ Main Board and Presidency, the presidents
19 of the SO /Municipal Assembly/, and the IO SO
20 /Executive Board of the Municipal Assembly/ nominated
21 by the HDZ, members of the Presidency and the
22 Government from the ranks of the HDZ). With merely
23 four abstaining votes, they confirmed the full unity of
24 the Croatian people built on the Croatian experience in
25 BH. Therefore, the electorate placed its complete
1 trust in these Croats belonging to the HDZ to lead the
2 Croatian people in BH in the right direction, and not
3 in some quasi-Croatian intellectuals from civic parties
4 or sick blabbermouths such as the weak-spirited
5 Dragutin CICAK, the tool and the sacrificial lamb of
6 the KOS-like
7 /Counter-Intelligence Service/ unity-supporting Bosniak
8 association.
9 "Let us remind the ill-informed attackers and
10 the wild assailants targeting Croatian rights that the
11 European Community/EC/ through Mr. Cutilierro, asserted
12 that the path cleared by the HDZ, by us, was the best
13 and that it was the right one.
14 "Therefore, we say yes to external borders
15 for BH, but we also yes to an internal structure
16 consisting of national units (cantons) with the full
17 sovereignty of the three peoples. Gentlemen, the BH
18 HDZ has actually respected European standards, whereas
19 the Balkan Bosniak bullies, such as comrade Cicak or
20 comrade Nikola Pisker tend to behave like bulls in a
21 china shop.
22 "Therefore, whether we call these national
23 units pens, cages or whatever you like, they are, dear
24 comrades, the reality of European politics, which
25 everyone will agree with, because that is the only way
1 not to have the referendum results annulled, that is,
2 not to have a savage war break out between the peoples
3 of BH.
4 The HDZ has shown its support for a unified
5 BH with the mass response of Croats to the referendum,
6 but at the same time, they let everybody know that,
7 without a fair agreement of the three peoples, there
8 can be no peace in BH.
9 "Unfortunately, BH media RTV radio and
10 television, free Bosnia, or more adequately (RTV/Radio
11 and Television/, Oslobodenje, Slobodna Bosna/Free
12 Bosnia/ (or more adequately union-prone Bosnia)..." and
13 then another title in the same batch as the others,
14 "... led the campaign of vilification against the
15 Croatian people and the Croatian policy as implemented
16 by the HDZ in BH. They are only interested in having
17 large numbers of pamphlets against the Croatian people
18 and Croatian policies published among readers' letters
19 to editors, as has been done in the past ten days or so
20 by the mentally unbalanced comrade Dragutin Cicak. The
21 weekend visitor from Zenica, an alien body infiltrated
22 in Busovaca, managed to get the post of the
23 vice-president of the Busovaca HDZ municipal board.
24 However, he could not completely suppress his
25 destructive alcoholic spirit and it floated up to the
1 surface showing Comrade Cicak as a person who had to
2 retire because of alcoholism, had his driving license
3 permanently revoked because of the same reason and
4 registered by the police as a person who, while in a
5 fit, killed his neighbour's chained watchdogs.
6 "By changing his place of residence Comrade
7 Cicak obviously thought he could bury his past. Not
8 so. The Busovaca HDZ has recently managed to acquire
9 confirmed information about Mr. Cicak's work for the
10 enemy, the present republic media, that is everything
11 but Croat.
12 "Therefore, gentlemen from the press and the
13 RTV and the other so-called Croatian intellectuals, do
14 not let yourselves be laughed at by the public and
15 accept the fact (as well as the right to be beaten
16 which you may not express/as printed/) that the
17 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna is an expression of
18 the will of the vast majority of the Croatian people,
19 as are all other Croatian communities, and that as such
20 it has already become part of the structure of BH under
21 the auspices of the EC, which has been working in an
22 unbiased and objective manner - to us the only judge we
23 will listen to. Cease further vilification of Mr. Mate
24 Boban and other leaders of the Croatian people, who are
25 legitimate representatives of the Croatian peoples. It
1 is obvious that Europe is not negotiating with Cicak,
2 Komsic, Mikulic or Lovrenovic who only represent
3 themselves, as they have a right to.
4 "Avoid ridicule and cease your attacks
5 against Dr. Franjo Tudjman, the President of the
6 Croatian State recognised by the civilised world, the
7 State that uses implacable democratic methods to pave
8 the way in order to improve the life of all citizens of
9 the Republic of Croatia.
10 "P.S.
11 "As far as we are concerned, this is our
12 final response and we do not want to enter into any
13 polemics or correspondence with persons who are not
14 worth the paper, who advertise false peacemaking which
15 contributed to the destruction of Ravno and other
16 Croatian villages.
17 "Comrade Cicak, you no longer have the right
18 to sign your name as the vice-president of the Busovaca
19 HDZ, because you were unanimously removed from that
20 function in the presence of 30 representatives, at the
21 session of the Busovaca HDZ municipal board on 9 March
22 1992. Cicak's hunger for the top posts - that also
23 escaped him the HKD/expansion unknown/Napredak branch
24 and the Busovaca HDZ - was finally dispersed with the
25 irrevocable procedure of his expulsion from HDZ
1 membership."
2 And then that document comes from the
3 Busovaca HDZ municipal board, president, Dario Kordic.
4 Mr. Cicak, first of all, the English
5 translation that I've been reading, does that accord
6 with the contents of the document? Just yes or no, and
7 correct anything that's significantly wrong.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Thank you. A matter of detail before we pass
10 from it. On the very last paragraph, there were some
11 initials that the interpreter was unable to expand, and
12 can you help at all with what is described as HKD? Can
13 you help us with what HKD was, if you know?
14 A. The Croatian cultural society of Napredak.
15 Q. Thank you. Coming in the English version to
16 the penultimate sheet, sheet 3, and finding the place
17 in the article where the allegations were made against
18 you, to the paragraph that begins "unfortunately, BH
19 media," in that paragraph, things are said about you
20 including that you were a weekend visitor from Zenica.
21 Can you explain what, if anything, underlies that
22 allegation?
23 A. I don't know what that allegation is supposed
24 to mean. Comrade Kordic should know that. My
25 registered place of residence is in the town of
1 Busovaca, where I lived, in that village of mine, just
2 like all other citizens.
3 Q. It then makes reference to alcoholism and to
4 losing your driving license because of drink. Had you
5 in fact lost your driving license?
6 A. My driver's license was never taken away, and
7 as far as drinking is concerned, I can just state that
8 light cola is a great drink.
9 Q. Finally, there is an allegation about killing
10 a neighbour's dogs. What about that?
11 A. I have no idea what Comrade Kordic had in
12 mind.
13 Q. The next paragraph but one after that
14 contains in brackets a phrase, which those who wish to
15 can see in originals on the right hand of the three
16 columns of the article and about eight lines down, a
17 phrase which says "as well as the right be beaten,
18 which you may not express." And this may or may not be
19 a question for you or for the interpreters, but the
20 word "beaten," to what type of beating does that word
21 refer?
22 A. It refers to that kind of physical
23 destruction of a man that leads to his death.
24 Q. Thank you. Now, this article, in the copy we
25 have, is not specific as to its date. From your
1 previous answers, is it your recollection that that
2 article preceded "Sancta Simplicitas"?
3 A. Yes, yes. It was published in a few
4 different information media. I don't know when the
5 Lasvanski Glasnik was first published and I'm not
6 really interested in that. Before that, it was carried
7 in some other media in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
8 MR. NICE: Thank you. The Court will
9 appreciate that its original number, 52, was too early
10 in the chronology of events because that would be right
11 at the beginning of the month. It's probably best left
12 with its number and we just have to acknowledge that it
13 has a date that falls on this witness's evidence before
14 exhibit 64/1.
15 Q. Mr. Cicak you said when you wanted to make
16 some further comments about your article "Sancta
17 Simplicitas" that it needed to be seen beside the
18 article "Cicak Mali Yuda." Can we now turn to 64/1,
19 "Sancta Simplicitas," and can you tell us, please,
20 what comments it is that you feel have to be made to
21 amplify the article, bearing in mind the real need to
22 deal with matters succinctly in the interests of
23 getting your evidence to a conclusion quite swiftly.
24 A. I shall try to do that in a few sentences.
25 Several dozen articles that I had to present in public
1 because I could not struggle against Kordic through
2 regular democratic channels, through the HDZ, so this
3 was carried in the media. "Sancta Simplicitas" is in
4 response to "Small Time Judas," which is a very
5 confusing article. However, it did merit an answer,
6 because "Cicak, Small Time Judas," is an article that
7 addresses me personally, Comrade Kordic addresses me
8 personally, and he presents all kinds of nonsense in
9 this article. In my article, "Sancta Simplicitas," I
10 ask him to answer my people, the Bosnian Croats in
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and tell them what he has done to
12 them and what he will do to them. That's what I
13 wanted.
14 It's not that he has to answer to me; there
15 was no need for that.
16 Q. After the publishing of your article on the
17 27th of March, and before something happened that
18 happened on the 30th of March, did you receive any
19 warning of what was coming -- going to happen?
20 A. I don't know what warning have you in mind,
21 from the HDZ authorities, or the citizens who live in
22 the town of Busovaca.
23 Q. From any individual.
24 A. Yes, some individuals told me that something
25 was in the making, and that it did not augur well, and
1 that I should take care of myself, of my life.
2 Q. Who were the individuals who gave you that
3 warning?
4 A. My barber first and foremost, where I went
5 regularly for haircuts and shaves, and various other
6 individuals, prominent citizens of Busovaca, including
7 the director of a factory in Busovaca.
8 Q. Any warning from anybody close to the HDZ or
9 part of the HDZ?
10 A. Yes. The loudest, the most vociferous, was
11 Mr. Anto Stipac. He even refused to be on speaking
12 terms with me any more, and he opposed the contents of
13 all that I wrote.
14 Q. Let's come to what happened to you. On the
15 30th of March of 1992, had you gone out in the course
16 of the day?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. At approximately what time did you return?
19 A. I went out around 8.00 in the morning, I
20 think it was Monday, as I had promised the editor of
21 Slobodna Bosna that I would contribute a special
22 article for him, so I wrote that article and mailed it,
23 and between 8.00 in the morning until 2.00 in the
24 afternoon, I was in the town of Busovaca, and then I
25 went home.
1 Q. When you got back home, did you notice
2 anything that was out of place or unusual?
3 A. Yes. That is, the place where I live, where
4 my property is, is very tame, people are very
5 forthcoming, and I was -- on my property I felt like
6 everybody else, like all the other citizens of the
7 world, I had my pets, I had a dog and I had a cat, and
8 when they would see me a few hundred metres away from
9 my home, they would greet me.
10 That day, when I was coming home to the
11 village around 14.00, there was nobody to be around,
12 not a single villager, and there was not a sound. One
13 could hear a fly moving through the air. I mean, an
14 incredible silence had descended on the village. At
15 first I paid no attention to it. Then, since my dog
16 did not greet me, and he would always greet me, I
17 became suspicious: Why was all that happening? And
18 only as I came near my house I realised what the
19 problem was.
20 Q. What was the problem, and what happened next?
21 A. The problem was that I was moving towards the
22 entrance door, it is a huge oak wood door, and I saw
23 that it was ajar. And all of a sudden, from the
24 passage, that is, from the inside, the door suddenly
25 burst open. Three uniformed men rushed out. The first
1 one was Marko Kulic, nicknamed Zelenika. He ran into
2 me, hit me with his fist forcefully in the face, so
3 that my lips were bleeding, my nose was bleeding, and
4 if we are sitting as we were standing, like that, at
5 that time, from the right-hand side, two other men
6 rushed out and from the left-hand side another one.
7 They were all armed.
8 They pounced upon me. They were all over me,
9 and they simply lifted me in the air and took me into
10 the house. And as soon as I entered the anteroom and
11 the living room, I saw that everything had been
12 demolished, that everything had been broken, that they
13 had already been inside, so this was an ambush to meet
14 me, and it was several hours earlier in my house --
15 that is, on my property -- and I could not have known
16 that.
17 Then they put me -- that is, they wouldn't
18 allow me to sit down. They put me on the sofa. To the
19 left was -- I really have no other word for it except
20 the criminal that is Zoran Marinic, nicknamed Svabo.
21 To the right was a young man from Kacuni, and he was
22 known because he had only two front teeth. I do not
23 really know whether it's proper for me to say, but when
24 he laughed, he looked like Dracula. In front was Marko
25 Kulic. The others were breaking things around the
1 house, looking for something, I don't know what.
2 At 14.00, Zoran Marinic, Svabo, had a huge
3 handle, axe handle in his hands, and that young man
4 from Kacuni had a rolling pin, but merely for
5 decorative purposes, I mean that thick, a very long
6 one. And between 2.00 and 4.00 in the afternoon, they
7 began beating my body. That is, they would -- the one
8 to the right would ask me a question, and I would
9 naturally turn to face him and at that moment, Zoran
10 Marinic from my left would hit me for all he was worth,
11 so that I would lose my breath. Then Zoran would ask a
12 question, and I would automatically turn to face him,
13 and then the other one would hit me from the right.
14 And so they alternated between 2.00 and 4.00,
15 beating me systematically. Needless to say, Marko
16 Kulic was helping them, but I was busy with either the
17 left one or the right one, thug, he would then hit me
18 in the stomach.
19 Q. When they were asking you questions, what
20 sort of things were they saying to you?
21 A. All sorts of rubbish. To begin with, it is a
22 very degrading event when you are battered like that, I
23 think one never recovers fully from it. And what they
24 are telling you beggars the imagination. They asked me
25 what intelligence service I was working for, whether it
1 was KOS, and who was my connection there, who was the
2 KOS man in Busovaca who I was co-operating in KOS, and
3 so on and so forth. Then what were the grudges I bore
4 against Kordic and Boban. Marinic, particularly really
5 took it out on me whenever he would hit me, forcefully,
6 so that I would start gasping for breath and even lose
7 my consciousness for a while, he would say "this is
8 from Dario. This is from Dario, because you keep
9 attacking him. This is for Dario." And I remembered
10 it, and I don't think I will ever forget that. So it
11 was horrible -- sorry.
12 Q. When this beating ended, what did these men
13 do? Did they leave the property, or did they leave the
14 property with items? What happened?
15 A. To begin with, they wanted me to write
16 something. I was not in a normal state of mind, I was
17 shaking all over, I was bleeding, my back -- at the
18 back, at the mouth, and so on and so forth. They
19 wanted me to write a statement and I don't know, I
20 can't remember what about, but I think it involved some
21 cooperation with KOS, with KOS, and at that moment I
22 wrote that I cooperated with the CIA, with Mossad, with
23 FBI, with Sigurimi, with SIS, I mean, I wrote down all
24 they wanted. They told me two copies, I don't know if
25 I managed to write it in two copies, because my hands
1 were badly beaten. I couldn't even hold the pencil.
2 But it was one copy or two copies, but had they asked
3 me at that particular moment if I was a member of a
4 group of, I don't know, Saint Peter's or whatever I
5 would have said yes, of course I'm a collaborator. And
6 I do not really want anyone to go through such horrible
7 things.
8 As for the things they took away, that is
9 curious. Your Honours, I should simply like to tell
10 you this, I mean, it should be a political attempt
11 against a man who happens hold a different opinion from
12 the group. That is, if one cannot remedy that through
13 a dialogue, then one resorts to extreme force, because
14 this is a man which bothers the group. But now look at
15 the group. My property was full of everything, that
16 group looted all from the house, they took away money,
17 gold, I mean, whatever they laid their hands on. But
18 the funniest, or perhaps the most tragic, the saddest
19 thing is, that that fighting fist directly commanded by
20 Dario Kordic, that is the one which performed the most
21 difficult tasks in this area, those people took from my
22 freezer I don't know how the interpreters will
23 translate it, you know, the refrigerator, they took
24 some beverage, they took all other useful things that
25 were there, and so on and so forth. So it was a bunch
1 of criminals of the lowest dregs that had been
2 recruited for an elite political party.
3 Q. To bring this to a conclusion, tell us about
4 the condition of your dog, in a sentence, please.
5 A. Yes, that hurt me most, and I'm really sorry
6 for that kind of expression that I use but I can't call
7 him anything else. I call him a little Dracula,
8 because when he had only two teeth in his head. And at
9 some point he took out a knife and wanted to butcher my
10 dog so I said "why don't you slit my throat but leave
11 the dog alone. What's the dog done to you? If I have
12 some reckoning with Dario Kordic --"
13 Q. Did he do anything to the dog?
14 A. He wanted to slit its throat, but the dog was
15 already lying down helpless because Zoran Marinic had
16 beaten it so badly because Zoran Marinic had to go by
17 the dog to the shed to get that handle with which he
18 would beat me for two hours, and on his way back of
19 course the dog attacked him, and he destroyed the dog
20 completely, I mean, it survived, but it was not a
21 living being any more.
22 Q. Thank you. In the course of this attack, did
23 your neighbours make themselves known at all, or not?
24 A. Absolutely not. It was a show of force.
25 They arrived to the village two hours earlier, and
1 wearing camouflage uniforms, with the latest arms.
2 There was different green, brown, greyish black and so
3 on and so forth, but they all war a disgraceful
4 insignia that is the historical disgrace of Croatia
5 meaning "U." "U" means Ustasha during the fascist
6 regime. Ante Pavelic and others, it epitomised a
7 special military organisation so they wore that
8 insignia and they had the latest weapons. Even to see
9 a young man carrying an M-16 rifle that is an American
10 rifle which had just been used I think in Vietnam --
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, before you
12 conclude with that, I would like to find out whether
13 the witness was beaten with anything other than the
14 fists of the attackers? Was he beaten with an implement
15 or implements?
16 MR. NICE: I think he told us, but we will
17 just get him to confirm that.
18 Q. Were you attacked with an implement or
19 implements, and can you just tell Judge Robinson what
20 implement or implements were used.
21 A. Only with implements, but at the entrance, as
22 I was entering my house, that was when Marko Kulic hit
23 me for all he was worth, and I fell to the ground, and
24 that was the only time, but the rest of the time
25 between 2.00 and 4.00, they were beating me with poles,
1 or rather they were not beating me they were battering
2 me.
3 Q. Well, you've told us about the rolling pin
4 and you've described the implement that was obtained
5 from your garden. Just show us, please, how long was
6 the implement that was used that had come from your own
7 garden?
8 A. Well, the handle, the axe handle, well, it's
9 about one metre 30.
10 MR. NICE: I trust that helps the Court.
11 Q. Now, you've told us that your neighbours --
12 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Nice,
13 only to complete for the Chamber, we heard the witness
14 speak about KOS, when he was accused of working for
15 KOS. Could we know what KOS stands for?
16 MR. NICE: Indeed.
17 Q. Just help us with that, Mr. Cicak. KOS stand
18 for what?
19 A. Believe me, I don't really know what that is,
20 but that word kept cropping up, time and time again, in
21 relation to the Yugoslav People's Army. So it is with
22 the Yugoslav People's Army, it was associated, the word
23 "KOS" was associated with the Yugoslav People's Army.
24 But what "KOS" means, I really don't know.
25 MR. NICE: I'll possibly obtain a formal
1 terminology for that at the short adjournment.
2 JUDGE MAY: If you would, Mr. Nice, and I'm
3 sure you're moving on to deal with that, if we could
4 hear about his injuries.
5 MR. NICE: Yes certainly, I've got two
6 consequential topics, and the witness can hear how I'm
7 going to deal with them.
8 Q. It's right, isn't it, Mr. Cicak, that you
9 went and saw Kordic did next day and that you also made
10 a complaint to the police and were examined by the
11 police?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did you go to the police first, or did you go
14 to Kordic first?
15 A. Kordic first.
16 Q. Let us deal with the Kordic visit first, and
17 then we'll go to the police station and deal with the
18 injuries, because he was indeed photographed, although
19 the photograph isn't very helpful.
20 Mr. Cicak, if we deal, first of all, with the
21 visit to Kordic. The next day, you went to where in
22 order to see the first defendant?
23 A. The next day -- or rather I must say this
24 first. After 4.00, when they stopped beating me,
25 battering me, I laid down completely immobile on the
1 couch until the morning, which was also broken down. I
2 could not sleep, but I just lay down and did not move
3 at all and thought about what had happened to me and
4 how to save my body and myself.
5 As soon as the day broke, -- and of course I
6 could not wash myself, or shave, or get ready. Around
7 8.00, I went down to Busovaca. I knew that Kordic was
8 in his office, and immediately and highly indignant, I
9 went to him. I was wearing a jacket. It's sort of one
10 of those fashionable materials, I think it's jeans or
11 something like that it is called, and blood seeped
12 through it and came down my fingers. The haematoma,
13 that is, the bruises came -- what's it called? What is
14 this called? Hand, hand. I mean the fist. And so I
15 reached Kordic in this shape, and I asked him, "Dario,
16 are you now happy with what you did?" And he was
17 sitting at his desk and did not reply. I think he
18 tried to say something but did not say it aloud, and I
19 said it was really sad and really disgraceful that when
20 one does not have an argument for a political dialogue,
21 that one then proceeds to beating one, that is,
22 completely destroying a man.
23 And then I undressed and showed him my back,
24 showed Kordic my back and my arms, and this is this
25 photograph.
1 Q. You have the photograph with you, which is
2 better than the copy we have because it's been
3 photocopied. Can you, first of all, put it on or get
4 the usher to put it on the ELMO and see if it shows up
5 satisfactorily?
6 A. I don't know if you can see that. I see
7 nothing.
8 JUDGE MAY: We've got nothing on our
9 monitor. It may be simplest if the document was handed
10 out.
11 MR. NICE: Yes. Can that be handed first to
12 the Court, then to the Defence counsel?
13 JUDGE MAY: May we know when this was taken,
14 please?
15 MR. NICE: Yes.
16 Q. Mr. Cicak, when was this photograph taken, to
17 your recollection?
18 A. It was taken two days later, on the 1st of
19 April.
20 If I may add something. May I? I would like
21 to say something. May I?
22 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
23 A. Have a look at my left arm. That is a
24 haematoma. It was not covered with something, it is a
25 haematoma, and my back was just as black. But as this
1 was done with a flash -- you know, I mean the
2 photograph was taken with a flash, so what you call --
3 so this is not as black as it was. But on my right
4 hand and on my left arm, one could see the haematoma.
5 And I think that this bruise persisted for more than
6 half a year, perhaps even for a year. And I cannot
7 really use, properly, my hands anymore.
8 JUDGE MAY: Show it to Counsel, please.
9 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Nice,
10 could we know who took that photograph, and what is the
11 caption below the photograph? Thank you.
12 MR. NICE: May I have a look at it very
13 briefly myself, and then I'll hand it back to the
14 witness? Yes. Can you hand it to the witness?
15 A. May I say?
16 MR. NICE: Yes.
17 Q. If you would read out the caption, first of
18 all, the interpreters will do it for us.
19 A. It says, below the photograph, "Cicak beaten
20 and robbed."
21 Q. And who took the photograph? Was it a
22 newspaper person or someone else?
23 A. A professional journalist for Nasa Rijec.
24 His name is Hakija. I don't know. I know it was taken
25 on the 1st of April.
1 MR. NICE: Can I come to exhibiting the
2 original of that photograph, newspaper photograph, or
3 possibly not, at a later stage when we see a copy of
4 it, which may be sufficient for the Court's needs?
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, could we return to
6 the visit that he paid the defendant Kordic?
7 MR. NICE: Yes.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: He asked him if he was not
9 happy with what he had done, and it wasn't clear to me
10 whether Kordic made any reply.
11 MR. NICE: I will expand on that. There's a
12 little bit more to it, but we interrupted the evidence
13 because he told us of showing his injuries to Kordic,
14 and that's why the photograph was helpful.
15 Q. You told us, Mr. Cicak, about showing your
16 injuries to the defendant, undressing. Did he say
17 anything to you about knowledge of or involvement in
18 the attack on you or not? What was the position?
19 A. Kordic was never a brave man to tell one,
20 face to face, what he thought about him. And I was
21 very indignant then, and I demanded that I be returned
22 what I had planted.
23 And can you imagine it? You get home. You
24 are met there by armed men. They beat you, and then
25 they rob you. I did not have my wallet with me. I had
1 nothing. I told Kordic, "Please, I want that my wallet
2 or money be returned within half an hour, and all the
3 rest that was looted." Then I left his office and I
4 went to an adjacent office, that is, an office where my
5 enterprise once was.
6 Q. By that stage, had Kordic said anything to
7 you, one way or another, as to whether he knew anything
8 of this attack or not? Had he stated his position at
9 all, so far as you can recall?
10 A. That position was reflected in that Kordic
11 thought that I would arrive there repenting, as
12 penitent, as somebody who was guilty of something,
13 rather that I would come to show him what he had done
14 and that I would ask him to return what had been taken
15 away from me, what had been -- what I had been robbed
16 of is not so important, but the important thing is that
17 a political dialogue may not end as it did, because it
18 is incompatible with a democratic society. And I also
19 showed him that. Was that what he wanted?
20 Q. What Judge Robinson wants to know, and
21 perhaps the rest of the Court, is whether he said
22 anything, one way or another, that indicated that he
23 was involved in this or not.
24 A. It is my deep conviction that he just said
25 one sentence. He thought that I would come to see him
1 repentant rather than rebellious. And whether he gave
2 orders to have this done or not is something that I'm
3 not going to say a word about, because I'm sure that
4 the Honourable Judges will ask me about that.
5 JUDGE MAY: No, Mr. Cicak, the question is,
6 "What did he say that morning when you went to see
7 him?"
8 A. What I told you.
9 JUDGE MAY: No, I'm sorry, we haven't
10 followed that at all. What were his words? Can you
11 just repeat what it was that he said?
12 A. He said exactly the following, that he
13 thought that I would come to him repentant rather than
14 rebellious, and I would like this to be interpreted
15 very accurately.
16 Q. You went to your office. How near to or far
17 from his office was that?
18 A. That's not my office. That is an office
19 belonging to a company that I used to work for before,
20 and that's where my friends worked, and it was about 50
21 metres away from his office.
22 Q. What did you next hear of Kordic in relation
23 to all this? Did you make contact with him by
24 telephone?
25 A. Yes. When 30 minutes had gone by, I called
1 Kordic and I asked him whether he managed to get all
2 the money. Of course, I didn't have a thing. I didn't
3 have any money, I didn't even have my personal
4 documents. It was very difficult for me to go back, to
5 go to Zenica, but I did it at my own risk.
6 He said, once again, that he had not done
7 it. However, when he took up the receiver and when he
8 talked to me on the phone, because it's a small room, I
9 could feel that there were several persons in that
10 room. Since one man has a very characteristic voice, I
11 can say for sure that this was Mr. Anto Stipac. How
12 Anto Stipac came to Kordic's, who invited him, when,
13 that I do not know. But as I was talking to Kordic, I
14 could feel this argument taking place in the office, so
15 there were several persons in there.
16 Q. How does Anto Stipac fit, if at all, in
17 connection with the people at the attack, or Kordic
18 himself, or anyone else? How is he potentially
19 significant?
20 A. Do you want me to give you a comprehensive
21 answer about the entire group or just him?
22 Q. Just a summary. Does he fit in somewhere in
23 this grouping of people?
24 A. Yes, he does fit into this group of people,
25 as one of the masterminds of this attack.
1 Q. When you asked Kordic for your property or
2 money, what was his response?
3 A. That he didn't have it yet and that he still
4 hadn't gotten all the people who had beaten me up
5 together.
6 Q. Did you ever get your money back?
7 A. I don't understand.
8 Q. Did you ever get your money or other property
9 back, that which had been taken in the assault at your
10 house?
11 A. I'm sorry, Your Honours. Is this some kind
12 of a joke or what? Is this some kind of humour?
13 Q. I'm simply asking you, for the purposes of
14 the evidence, whether your request to Kordic to get
15 your property back was successful or not.
16 A. But no. Whatever they loot, they never
17 return to anyone. That's why I'm asking whether this
18 is some kind of a joke or some kind of a humouristic
19 thing. If it's humour, if it's a joke, then I accept
20 it, but I can't accept it as a serious question.
21 Q. After your phone call to Kordic, did you
22 leave the office and, in due course, go to the police
23 station?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Did you go to the local police station or
1 somewhere else?
2 A. I did not go to the local police station
3 because I did not trust the police, because the local
4 police was destroyed through the activity of Kordic and
5 Mr. Sliskovic. I went to the police station in
6 Zenica --
7 Q. Thank you.
8 A. -- that was in charge of all crimes, grave
9 crimes on the territory of Zenica.
10 MR. NICE: Exhibit 65, please. Again, not in
11 the core bundle.
12 Q. Did you make a report to the police, of which
13 you have the version in BCS? We have an English
14 translation. I'm going to deal with some of the
15 paragraphs in detail and some of them in summary.
16 It says that the report was prepared on the
17 1st of April at midday. It sets out who was present,
18 gives your name and address. It sets out the terms
19 upon which you were making your report and says that on
20 the 30th of March, at about 14.00, going home, you
21 noticed the door to your house was open. You thought
22 your daughter was back, and I'm now summarising. Six
23 men with long-barrelled weapons, black suits.
24 The next paragraph, "I can say I know all of
25 them because they are members of the HDZ, of which I am
1 the deputy president. I know two by their names," and
2 you set them out. "The others were also from Busovaca
3 and are members of the paramilitary formation of the
4 HDZ reserve service of Herceg-Bosna." You then make
5 reference to Kordic, Sliskovic and Prusac.
6 "When they came to me, one of them hit me in
7 the face with his fist. Then they dragged me into the
8 house. I noticed that the house had been demolished,
9 certain parts of the furniture cut with a knife,
10 bottles and drink thrown about and opened. They put me
11 on a sofa and started hitting and questioning me." And
12 you set out the questions, "Who are you working for?"
13 a question about KOS.
14 "They warned me that they would turn me into
15 concrete, that is, threatened to kill me, if I reported
16 what was happening. I can say that when they beat me,
17 that is, one of the guys who had a beard beat me with
18 an axe handle over the back and other parts of the
19 body. The other beat me with a pole we used as a
20 rolling pin and had hanging on the wall."
21 You set out how the beating went on until
22 4.00 and how they left with 5.000 dinars from your
23 wallet and some other items.
24 You say this: "At one moment, Marko Kulic
25 took out a pistol and fired it next to my head as a
1 threat that he would kill me." Is that something that
2 happened or not?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Carry on.
5 A. It wasn't only a demonstration with
6 firearms. The young man from Kacuni, whom I call by
7 the silly name of Dracula, he kept sharpening his knife
8 all the time. He was using some kind of a device to do
9 it, and he kept playing with this knife around my
10 throat, my neck. He kept saying, "I'm going to slit
11 your throat right now so that you never touch Dario
12 Kordic again." And I said, "Go ahead. I don't feel
13 guilty at all, and the least important of all is if
14 you're going to slit my throat." This young man also
15 took out a pistol or a revolver out of his holster a
16 few times, and he knew that inside there was not a
17 bullet, but he would bring it up to my forehead and
18 then he would just trigger this empty gun. He didn't
19 really want to kill me. He just wanted to terrify me
20 by clicking it.
21 It made me feel very uneasy because it was
22 the first time that anyone wanted to slit my throat
23 with a knife. That is a very unpleasant feeling. And
24 another feeling is that somebody puts a gun up by your
25 forehead and tries to trigger it. However, when we
1 moved into the hallway, the entrance door had been
2 broken down and I was facing it with my back, whereas
3 Kordic was facing me, and I don't know if I can say
4 this the way he actually said it. I hope the ladies
5 won't mind. And he said, "Enough of this fucking
6 around," and he fired about 10 centimetres away so the
7 bullet went through the entrance door and went into the
8 yard. I felt very bad.
9 Q. Just pausing there, that was a live bullet?
10 Did it make a noise that your neighbours might have
11 heard?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Just "Yes" or "No" to this question. Did
14 that in fact bring out --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Did it bring any help from any of your
17 neighbours?
18 A. Yes. After that, a man who heard the
19 shooting thought that they had killed me, and he came
20 down a meadow from the place where he lived to see what
21 had to be done, whether he was supposed to bury me or
22 whether he was supposed to call an ambulance to get me
23 over to the morgue. They thought that I was dead.
24 But they stopped this man. A man with a
25 rifle stopped him and put a rifle at his neck and said,
1 "Franjo, go home and do not interfere in what is going
2 on over here." And this gentleman, Franjo Trogrlic,
3 left my yard and went back home.
4 Q. Back to the report to the police, I've dealt
5 with the paragraph dealing with the money and the
6 pistol. Then you say that you went -- in the report to
7 the police, you went to get a medical certificate, and
8 you visited the public prosecutor, and you set out how,
9 on the following day, you went to see Kordic and asked
10 him for the money and asked him why he ordered it to be
11 done to you. You set out how your entrance door had
12 been kicked in and how you were beaten and threatened.
13 You attached to that statement a medical
14 certificate, which comes as Exhibit 66.
15 A. This is the original.
16 Q. And the handwriting is in BCS and hard to
17 read, but the Regional Medical Centre at Zenica
18 recorded on the 1st of April that you were injured by
19 known persons on the 30th of March, having been beaten
20 with fists, rifle butt and wooden pole. Clinically
21 visible contusions on the body, back, both upper and
22 lower arms, and on the fibulas and on the upper legs.
23 Signed by a specialist.
24 A. I'm sorry, this was on the 1st of April?
25 Q. Yes.
1 A. The 1st of April.
2 Q. Well, your report to the police was on the
3 1st of April. Is this the medical certificate you
4 provided to the police or was there another one?
5 A. No, there is only a referral to hospital, for
6 hospitalisation.
7 MR. NICE: May the witness now see --
8 A. However, you omitted a fact here, and that is
9 a grave injury of the brain, contusion and some other
10 injuries, so it's not only --
11 Q. (Inaudible)
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Can we now go to Exhibit 64/2? This is an
14 article that was published and headed, "Cicak beaten
15 and robbed." If the Tribunal goes to the reverse of the
16 second sheet, it will see a photocopy of the very
17 photograph that we've been looking at. Accordingly, if
18 the original is to remain in the court, can it become
19 part of what is 64/3, I think? Alternatively, the
20 Court may decide it's content to work on the basis of
21 both its memory of that original photograph as jogged
22 by this photocopy.
23 JUDGE MAY: I should have thought that was
24 sufficient.
25 MR. NICE: Thank you.
1 Q. Mr. Cicak, if you look at the original of
2 this article, only a small part of which has been
3 translated at the moment, can you find a passage, and I
4 think it will be on probably the second or third sheet,
5 where there was some questions asked of you? And I'm
6 going to pick the article up in our summary and part
7 translation, which I'm happy to say on this occasion
8 has French on its reverse side, and goes like this:
9 "Cicak, until recently, a vice-president of
10 the HDZ --" this is a summary of the first part of the
11 article, I think. " -- in Busovaca, although he claims
12 to be in this post even today since his replacement
13 hasn't been carried out according to the rules, came to
14 our offices offering a public statement concerning
15 serious physical attack that he suffered and survived
16 on the 30th of March. He did it in order to show us
17 how he was processed by those who were dissatisfied
18 with the contents of his letters published in," and
19 then newspapers are set out.
20 Now, in the article you were asked,
21 "Mr. Cicak, who were the attackers?" And you set out,
22 a "a young man, 22 or 23, delinquent from Busovaca. I
23 know them all. They are well-armed and trained."
24 You were asked, "Did you anyone inform you in
25 the leadership --" sorry, "Did you inform anyone in the
1 leadership of HDZ in BH of HDZ in BH about the attack?"
2 And you answered, "I did. They offered their sympathy,
3 condemning the extreme wing of the party. I went to
4 see Kordic. He told me that he expected me to come
5 repenting, not complaining. He also said that at the
6 meeting in Grude, Boban reproached him, 'Are you not
7 able to silence that Cicak and his bark?'" .
8 Asked, "Why is it you don't wish to press
9 charges against the attackers?" You answered, "Because
10 this is not a state of law and this is not a civic
11 state."
12 You were asked, "Why did your neighbours not
13 help protect you?" You answered, "What neighbours?
14 They were all hiding."
15 You were asked, "Does that mean that your
16 stand has no support among the Croatian population in
17 the municipality of Busovaca?" And you replied that,
18 "I think that two thirds of these people think as I
19 do, but they are terrified."
20 Now, were those things you were able to say
21 to the press at the time?
22 A. Yes, yes. There is a bit more, but this is a
23 fair summary.
24 Q. Did you take any part in the political life
25 of Busovaca after the 30th of March, 1992?
1 A. I did, but not directly. Indirectly, rather.
2 Q. Did you stay living where you had lived or
3 not?
4 A. I live there until the present day.
5 Q. But did you take any active part in the
6 workings of the party itself?
7 A. No. No, it was no longer a party.
8 Q. After this attack and after your contact in
9 the office with Kordic, did you have any direct
10 personal contact with him again, face-to-face meetings
11 or anything of that sort, or not?
12 A. No.
13 Q. In the course of the war, did you serve in
14 any army, and if so, which one and for how long?
15 A. Since I was a military-age man, the relevant
16 municipal authorities of the People's Defence in Zenica
17 called me up and recorded me as a member of the
18 Territorial Defence and later as a member of the BH
19 army. I mean, that was the only legal army at the
20 time.
21 Q. Mr. Cicak, I have a number of questions to
22 complete topics that we've covered in part but which
23 I've omitted to deal with completely, and I'm going to
24 ask you, if you can -- I expect we'll be having a break
25 in about five minutes, but for these questions, I'm
1 going to ask you, if you can, to provide answers that
2 are as short as possible, consistent with giving some
3 clarity to the Chamber.
4 First of all, you've told us about meetings
5 of the officials of the local party. Were the general
6 meetings preceded by private meetings of a limited
7 number of individuals from time to time?
8 A. If these were secret meetings, when one thing
9 had to be presented within the narrow circle of the
10 leadership of the party, then yes, but it was supposed
11 to be presented in a milder form to the municipal
12 committee. Then it was reworded and presented in this
13 milder form to the public. That is to say there were
14 two kind of criteria as regards --
15 Q. Did you-- I'm sorry.
16 A. -- statements.
17 Q. Did you attend these meetings?
18 A. At a few, I did. I attended several dozen or
19 several hundred meetings, and I don't know which one is
20 which any more.
21 Q. And where did those secret meetings take
22 place?
23 A. It depended on the nature of the meeting
24 involved. If they were top-secret meetings, then they
25 were held in the premises of the church, or rather this
1 is a part that is called the Sunday school, the old or
2 the new one. First we used the old premises and then
3 we used the new hall for Sunday school, and if there
4 was a meeting where the public could hear about certain
5 things, then it was held in the municipal assembly
6 building in Busovaca, in the hall there; that is to
7 say, in the administrative building itself.
8 Q. At meetings, were there ever any -- was there
9 ever any display of a flag or flags?
10 A. You mean as a symbol?
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. Believe me, you're asking too much. Well,
13 look, at all events, these flags were flown, and this
14 minute, this second, I cannot remember whether at
15 various meetings where three or four men would meet, or
16 up to six, for example, whether there were flags there
17 already or whether they were put up for that particular
18 occasion. However, as regards every event that was
19 organised, Croatian flags were flown.
20 Q. Were ever anthems played? If so, what anthem
21 or anthems?
22 A. I cannot speak about playing it, because I
23 don't know whether there was an orchestra that knew how
24 to play anything in this village. However, the
25 Croatian anthem was sung, Lijepa Nasa Domovina.
1 Q. Finally, on this topic, were any salutes ever
2 used at these meetings? If so, what? And then, can
3 you please show us the salute that was used.
4 A. Yes, I can. This was a salute dating back to
5 the fascist times of the independent state of Croatia.
6 However, I would need a partner. This salute takes two
7 parts. Do you want me to give you both?
8 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Nice --
9 A. This is what you do. You raise your hand and
10 you say "Za Dom!" And the other one should
11 say "Spremni!" So it's "Za Dom," and the answer is
12 "Spremni." That was the salute that was used.
13 Q. Was that a salute that had any proper
14 connection with Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time?
15 A. It absolutely had nothing to do whatsoever
16 with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Everything that is related to
17 fascism, to the Ustashas, to the Second World War, has
18 nothing do with Bosnia-Herzegovina except for the fact
19 that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were used
20 for the worst possible objectives.
21 Q. I want to turn briefly to specialist or
22 paramilitary units. Did such units exist, local
23 specialist or local paramilitary units?
24 A. In Busovaca, a local paramilitary unit was
25 formed. I called it the assault fist, and it was based
1 on the fascist organisation, the Nazi organization in
2 Germany, because the SS units were the assault fist in
3 Germany, too, and it was used to make the disobedient
4 obey. This meant a slow militarisation of the party,
5 that is to say, introducing fascism.
6 Q. Whose idea was it to create this unit or
7 other units like it?
8 A. The idea came from Zagreb, and Mr. Mate Boban
9 had conveyed it. However, the most vociferous
10 proponent of this idea of armed paramilitary formations
11 on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina was Mr. Bozo
12 Rajic. He told us, and we had ample opportunity to see
13 this, that at Kupres, he already had paramilitary
14 units, and he had mistreated Croat, Serb, and Muslim
15 villages and all disobedient persons there. He
16 considered this to be a major success in terms of the
17 organisation of the HDZ party, and he recommended that
18 this be done in Busovaca too.
19 When weapons arrived, this kind of a group
20 was set up in Busovaca, and they were trained, and they
21 practised a lot, and I felt it on my very own back how
22 well they did.
23 Q. When you say Rajic gave this recommendation,
24 to whom did he make this recommendation in Busovaca?
25 A. Rajic often came to our meetings, and that
1 came as a great surprise to me. How come a mere clerk
2 from the social security company, who had nothing to do
3 with politics, came to our meetings? It was
4 understandable that Mr. Boban came, because he had
5 taken over some of the posts that were to be held by
6 Mr. Tudjman in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He carried out some
7 of his ideas. But Bozo Rajic absolutely had nothing to
8 do with the HDZ. He was a mere clerk, but he was a
9 member of the party, and he was an energetic person,
10 and he developed gradually, and he was aggressive in
11 his statements, and this resulted in the creation of
12 these paramilitary formations at Kupres as well.
13 JUDGE MAY: Well, that would be a convenient
14 moment. We'll adjourn now for 20 minutes.
15 Before we do, let me just deal with some
16 matters of timing this week. We shall be sitting
17 normal hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; Friday is
18 a holiday, so we shall not be sitting. On Thursday we
19 shall have to finish at 12.30. Members of this Chamber
20 have a hearing in the afternoon which is due to begin
21 at 2.00.
22 20 minutes.
23 --- Recess taken at 11.17 a.m.
24 --- On resuming at 11.37 a.m.
25 MR. NICE:
1 Q. The training of the specialist or
2 paramilitary units to which you've referred, who
3 carried that out? Who organised the training?
4 A. In Busovaca, special training for members of
5 armed forces attached to the HDZ was provided by
6 domestic instructors in backward parts of the mountain,
7 I think it is called Pojila, or something like that,
8 high up -- high above Busovaca. That is where they
9 tried all types of weapons, so that men -- or rather
10 these young men saw a Kalashnikov or M-17 for the first
11 time, and likewise hand-held launchers, and so on and
12 so forth.
13 Q. Who actually organised the training, or who
14 ran the training?
15 A. It was run by the municipal HDZ board, and
16 the man responsible was Anto Sliskovic, and Franjo
17 Sliskovic and Igor Prusac.
18 Q. When the decision was made that there should
19 be such training, were you present when that decision
20 was made?
21 A. I was present at all the meetings which took
22 all sorts of decisions. I cannot remember the date,
23 but when the first armaments arrived that could be used
24 for war purposes, it had to be mastered, or rather men
25 who were to handle those armaments had to acquire some
1 basic knowledge how to use it, but that was not enough,
2 and they were sent on for further training.
3 Q. Did anybody instruct Sliskovic to do the
4 training, or did any body instruct him, or what was the
5 position?
6 A. It was the HDZ executive board of the
7 municipal board of Busovaca.
8 Q. Who was in charge of Sliskovic? To whom did
9 Sliskovic answer?
10 A. I mean, if we go back a little, I believe it
11 was the 16th of August or something like that. I don't
12 know. We looked at the document yesterday.
13 Mr. Kordic got the highest military police
14 and civilian powers in the municipality of Busovaca, so
15 he was the only one who could order Sliskovic what to
16 do, how to organise the training, with what men, where,
17 and how much he would be using of ammunition or other
18 materiel.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 MR. NICE: Before I turn to the next short
21 topic, I told the Chamber I would inform them of what
22 "KOS" meant, and it's the counterintelligence service
23 of the former Yugoslavia. That's, as I understand,
24 what it amounts to. I have the B/C/S words, but I
25 imagine it's the English translation that will most
1 assist. If I'm wrong about that, no doubt the Defence
2 can approach me and we'll correct it.
3 I haven't overlooked the fact that I'm going
4 to provide you with a further list of-- a further
5 dramatis personae, supplementary to the one in the
6 pre-trial brief. That will be coming your way, and
7 there are various lists of abbreviations which I can
8 extract and provide for you if you would find such a
9 list helpful.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, you said earlier you would
11 provide a glossary, and it would be helpful.
12 MR. NICE: I'd better get it to you sooner
13 rather than later.
14 Q. Our next topic, very briefly, you've covered
15 this to some degree already, is the HOS units. You've
16 told us about Kraljevic's death. I'm not sure whether
17 you've covered this single point. After Kraljevic's
18 death, what happened to those men who were in the HOS?
19 A. I think this question is not all that
20 important. If I may, Your Honours, I should like to
21 add something regarding the training of HDZ members
22 performed at training grounds, if you think it is
23 necessary, if you deem it necessary. If not, then we
24 can go back to this question, but it is up to the
25 Court.
1 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Cicak, I think it will be
2 better if you just answer the questions which counsel
3 wants. He has his purpose in asking them.
4 MR. NICE:
5 Q. So HOS, what happened to the men after
6 Kraljevic's death? Were they associated with any other
7 group? What else happened to them?
8 A. When Blaz Kraljevic was killed, when he died,
9 his deputy -- I think his name was Anto Prkacin --
10 disbanded all military units of the HOS a few days
11 later. Some of them were attached to HVO units, those
12 who wanted to, some fled, and those who did not want to
13 were killed. At any rate, Anto Prkacin was the last
14 person who disbanded military units of General
15 Kraljevic.
16 Q. Thank you. Two questions about arms
17 dealing. You've told us a bit about the dealing in
18 arms in the territory. Who was the person principally
19 responsible for dealing in arms, if there was a single
20 person who was principally responsible?
21 A. The main person as regards the arming of
22 citizens in that area was Mr. Dario Kordic. Without
23 his knowledge, nothing could be done. So he was the
24 person who decided on every little thing, or on every
25 major thing, too. There were, however, a number of
1 channels by which armaments arrived in the territory of
2 the Lasva Valley. One of those channels went through
3 Herzegovina, across Pavlovica Mountain, and then came
4 down into the Lasva Valley, and the second one came
5 directly from Croatia.
6 Q. Who benefited most, financially, from the
7 sale of arms in that locality?
8 A. With regard to the financial gain, two men,
9 to my mind, provided for themselves special
10 remuneration. One of them is a professor, we called
11 him "Klempo," in Travnik. I don't know how it will be
12 translated; he has lopsided ears. The money obtained
13 for weapons he kept for himself.
14 The other man who received all the proceeds
15 from armaments was Mr. Dario Kordic. All the receipts,
16 all the bills, went to him. That is, he received all
17 that money. What was the further fate of that money, I
18 don't know.
19 Q. You've told us something of the movement of
20 the Serbs and of the fact that they had to pay for safe
21 passage. What prices were paid by the Serbs for safe
22 passage?
23 A. This is indeed something which is appalling.
24 Nobody thought that a Croat could take part in such
25 dirty dealings. Mr. Kordic established a bridge with
1 Mr. Radovan Karadzic, a bridge for all those who wanted
2 to leave the territory, beginning from Zenica, that
3 part of Central Bosnia, and who wanted to leave Bosnia
4 and Herzegovina, whether so as not to serve under any
5 army, that is, military formation, or to avoid war and
6 armed conflicts, or be it economic reasons. But the
7 fact is that the convoys from Zenica moved towards
8 Busovaca, and then individuals or groups were then
9 taken on within those convoys by Mr. Kordic, and he
10 took them across the Serb territories to the area of
11 Kobiljaca, and that is where he handed them over to the
12 Serb authorities so they arrived safely to that area.
13 The price per person ranged between 500 marks
14 onward, depending on how much one heard. Some people
15 gave even as much as 1.000 marks to get away, to flee
16 from that area. It doesn't really matter whether they
17 were Bosnians, Muslims, or Croats, or Serbs, or
18 whoever; they all tried to get away from the area.
19 Q. Thank you. At an earlier stage, you wanted
20 to tell us about Central Bosnian resources of certain
21 types, and I said we'd return to it. Just to fill out
22 the picture of your locality, can you tell us, please,
23 so far as Vitez was concerned, what factory or -- yes,
24 what factory relating to war effort did it have?
25 A. Vitez, or rather the whole of the Lasva
1 Valley up to Bugojno, in those small localities, they
2 were really small places, minor importance after World
3 War II, so in Vitez, an explosives factory was built.
4 In Novi Travnik, an armaments factory was built in
5 Travnik. Military clothes, underwear, and so on and so
6 forth, was made in Bugojno, different parts of
7 armaments, or rather some components. In Vitez, they
8 also made Ekrazit, or rather explosive matter, and
9 large quantities of it were there.
10 And military units, rather the Croatian
11 Defence Council, aspired to lay their hands on those
12 stocks and use them for their own purpose in military
13 combat, and I'm afraid they succeeded in doing that.
14 Q. Of course, in Novi Travnik there was the
15 weapons factory we already know about. In Busovaca,
16 was there anything particularly relevant for the war
17 effort?
18 A. It was very interesting. That is, the
19 regular authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina were
20 suspended by Mr. Kordic. Mr. Kordic appropriated the
21 right to cut off a road, any road, to cut it off and
22 block the traffic on that road without asking or
23 without asking for any authorisation to do so. I mean
24 he did it at his own initiative. The reason for that,
25 allegedly, was to prevent Yugoslav, what you call it,
1 army with -- to prevent the Yugoslav army to withdraw
2 some of the armaments from Travnik, which was sheer
3 nonsense, because all that was worth anything in those
4 military factories had been evacuated a long time ago.
5 So that this was simply a show of force, military
6 force, without any authorisation, without any legal
7 foundation, without any legal authorities. It's as if
8 a group of people, for instance, came out here and then
9 blocked the road to Amsterdam and said, "You can't go
10 through."
11 Q. Can I cut you short? Did Busovaca have any
12 storage facilities or factory potential that was of
13 significance to the war?
14 A. In Busovaca, there were considerable storage
15 facilities, two of them, in Kaonik and Busovaca
16 itself. Those were very important aircraft parts in
17 Busovaca. It was prepared for military aircraft
18 stationed in Sarajevo, and the repair factory at
19 Rajlovac which was there, and the other part was in
20 Kaonik, where there was an ammunition depot of
21 materiel. But the army had withdrawn it all in due
22 time, so there was nothing left there of importance.
23 Q. Where was petrol stored, if it was stored in
24 bulk within the area?
25 A. Yes, it was at the upper storage facility
1 above Busovaca. Well, in Busovaca, as a matter of
2 fact.
3 Q. Thank you. There are three exhibits that I
4 could have dealt with in the chronological series of
5 exhibits that we've already looked at, and I've now
6 just filled them in, although they are out of order.
7 First, please, Exhibit 2701.
8 Just tell us, roughly or precisely, when this
9 photograph was taken, where, and who are the people
10 shown?
11 A. If I begin from my left, first is Bruno
12 Susnja. In the middle is Dario Kordic. To the right
13 is Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak. This photograph was taken
14 on the 21st of March, '91, in Mostar, at the HDZ of
15 Bosnia-Herzegovina convention. You know what a
16 convention is, the congress?
17 Q. Yes. And --
18 A. I think you recognise them.
19 Q. The man Susnja, tell us a bit about him.
20 What was his particular role or function at any time
21 with which we've been concerned?
22 A. At that time, his function was
23 insignificant. Mr. Bruno Susnja is a teacher, and he
24 was engaged in his educational activities at school.
25 Q. But later --
1 A. A very nice --
2 Q. Later, did he get involved in any other
3 activities for the war effort?
4 A. Absolutely, yes. He became active in a very
5 bad human activity, if I may say so. He procured
6 armaments to kill. He went to various places and
7 brought in various means for killing people.
8 Q. You say that this meeting was on the 21st of
9 March. The Chamber may note that in the chronology,
10 we've got a slightly different date. Are you sure it
11 was the 21st of March or did it run for several days?
12 A. I don't really know. This was taken on the
13 21st of March, and I remembered it because it should be
14 the first day of spring, if I am correct. That is why
15 I remembered it.
16 Q. At that convention, Kljujic was confirmed as
17 party president. Did Kordic say anything about that to
18 you?
19 A. Kordic did not tell me anything about it,
20 whether he was confirmed or not. Kordic was an
21 ordinary delegate there, like all the rest of us. But
22 at that time, there was Mr. Boban was a very
23 interesting and very active -- he was with a group of
24 Herzegovinians who were creating an atmosphere of
25 disorientation, of disorganisation of the convention,
1 itself. And it came as a surprise to all of us who
2 were doing this before that and who knew how to
3 organise things, and we expected that the convention of
4 the Bosnia-Herzegovina HDZ would be at the same level.
5 But when we arrived there, we saw that kind of a
6 conflict was taking place between two currents, and we
7 immediately recognised the Herzegovinian current and
8 the current rallied around Stejpan Kljujic, rather
9 Sarajevo or Central Bosnian, one we did not take part
10 in that conflict at all.
11 Q. The next exhibit, which is Z13 but not in the
12 core bundle. You have the original before you. You
13 may not have looked at this recently, but I want your
14 help with it, very briefly.
15 It's a document dated the 27th of August of
16 1991, addressed to the municipal boards of the Croatian
17 Democratic Union, said to be an instruction. And if
18 one looks at the foot of the original and, indeed, the
19 typed English version, there's a stamp but a single
20 signature, namely Kostroman's, after the salutation,
21 "God and the Croats."
22 The body of the document sets out, in
23 paragraph 1, a commentary on the Serbian aggression and
24 expansion policy, makes reference to being at a
25 historic crossroads.
1 Paragraph 2 says that the HDZ BiH presidency,
2 at a session held on the 26th of August of 1991, made a
3 decision to impose a state of emergency which required
4 round-the-clock duties and alertness.
5 Paragraph 3 said that municipal boards shall
6 be closely linked to each other regionally into a
7 unified system of defence, and paragraph 4 are
8 administrative.
9 Were you aware of this signed instruction by
10 Kostroman, ever?
11 A. Yes, we were aware of it and I was aware of
12 it, and we considered it, that is, in the light of new
13 developments.
14 What came as a surprise to me is that the
15 secretary general of the HDZ in Bosnia-Herzegovina was
16 nowhere to be found, nor the signature of the president
17 of the Croatian Democratic Community of
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that such an important document
19 was signed by a clerk, by an administrative clerk such
20 as Ignac Kostroman. But at that time, we did not look
21 at that signature, even though we found it odd, but we
22 rather riveted our attention on the instruction, what
23 the municipal boards or the Croatian Democratic Union
24 should do in case of the state of emergency. And the
25 result of it was a subsequent decision.
1 Ignac Kostroman had no right to sign such a
2 document, nor distribute it. He did not have the
3 authority for that. But at that time, nobody paid any
4 attention to that.
5 Q. One sees, in the second paragraph of the
6 paragraph number 1, this passage: "The global policies
7 of the HDZ revealed this fastidious policy in our
8 country and abroad so that each day the Croatian people
9 will have a better chance of finally realising their
10 historic aspiration of living in a state of their own,
11 the Republic of Croatia. We are at a historic
12 crossroad and must not make a single mistake that would
13 throw us into the jaws of the Greater Serbia state,
14 which would become a slaughterhouse for Croatian
15 people."
16 Was the expression of the desire to live in
17 the Republic of Croatia or in "a state of their own,"
18 was that an accurate reflection of what people were
19 really feeling in August of 1991?
20 A. No, this is not a correct reflection. You
21 have already seen that it says 140 -- I don't know how
22 many municipal clerks of the HDZ met there, so it was
23 not the Croat people, it was some municipal clerks who
24 met, who had a meeting.
25 Here again we're talking about the aspiration
1 of the Croat people, that is, Bosnian Croats aspiring
2 to join the Croat state. But this is not about Bosnia
3 and Croats aspiring, it is Ignac Kostroman who aspires
4 to adjoin the Croatian state. Not a single Bosnian
5 Croat expects such an aspiration. And even though the
6 HDZ was against, they all voted for an integral Bosnia
7 and Herzegovina at the referendum.
8 Q. The third exhibit that I put in now and I
9 should have put in earlier is 27, Registry page number
10 5727, but I think not a document we've yet looked at,
11 although it is a decision that the witness has referred
12 to from time to time in his testimony.
13 This, Mr. Cicak, is the decision dated the
14 18th of November of 1991, made in Grude, to establish
15 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna in nine
16 articles.
17 It identifies, in Article 2, the composition
18 of the community by identification of municipalities.
19 In Article 3, it says that the seat of the
20 community shall be at Mostar.
21 In Item 4, it permits the joining of other
22 municipalities.
23 In Article 5, it says, "The Community shall
24 respect the democratically elected government of the
25 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina as long as
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina remains an independent state in
2 relation to the former or any future Yugoslavia."
3 Article 6 sets out respect for "... valid
4 international regulations that constitutes the basis of
5 contemporary relations in society."
6 Article 7 says that, "the supreme authority
7 of the Community shall be the Presidency, comprising
8 the most senior representatives of the Croatian people
9 in the municipal authority or presidents of the
10 Croatian Democratic Union municipal boards." And that,
11 "the presidency shall elect the president, two deputy
12 presidents and the secretary."
13 And Article 8 says that, "the organisation,
14 its functioning and relations ... shall be regulated by
15 the statute."
16 And that the decision comes into effect
17 immediately is Article 9.
18 On the -- you don't have it. There's been a
19 slight oversight of photocopying. For its reference,
20 the Tribunal can find on Registry page 5756 a
21 not-entirely clear analysis of the signatures to this
22 decision, and I'll try to get that dealt with by 2.00.
23 But just help us with this, Mr. Cicak: Were
24 you aware of this decision before it was -- well, when
25 it was planned?
1 A. As regards the decision itself, I knew about
2 it when it was still in the planning stage. But I
3 don't think that, at first -- nobody knew, except for
4 Kordic, that it would actually be passed, and it is
5 really strange that something secret is done in that
6 way, something that is at the level of all of Bosnia
7 and Herzegovina, that is of significance for the entire
8 Croat people. I don't see why this should be done in
9 secret.
10 However, this decision to establish the
11 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna is an answer to
12 another question, and that is the organisation of the
13 Serb people, the so-called Serb autonomous provinces of
14 Krajina, whatever, these Serb autonomous regions that
15 the Serbs used to round off what they wanted.
16 This decision is a political document on the
17 basis of which the conclusion may be drawn that the
18 Croats, the Bosnian Croats, want to show all
19 social-political communities, including the Serb
20 autonomous regions and organisations, that they want to
21 round off their own municipalities, and some
22 municipalities are mentioned here.
23 But the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna
24 included 33 small towns, villages, et cetera. Only
25 some were mentioned here. There should be 32
1 altogether. Plus later the municipality of Zepce was
2 annexed, too.
3 Q. Thank you. I turn from that exhibit to three
4 general points, and then some specific questions about
5 the first defendant.
6 Before the war and the development of this
7 political party and so on, what was the level of ethnic
8 sensitivity in Central Bosnia? To what extent did
9 people concern themselves with whether their
10 neighbours, shopkeepers and so on, were of their or of
11 a different ethnic background?
12 A. Do you mean Bosnia-Herzegovina or only the
13 Lasva Valley?
14 Q. The area where you lived and of which you had
15 direct experience.
16 A. Well, this is the way it was: The area that
17 I lived in and where Mr. Kordic operated is a territory
18 which has a completely mixed population. There were
19 Serbs living there, there were Croats living there and
20 there were Bosniaks living there. Some 50 or 70 years
21 back, absolutely no one had heard of any Croats (sic)
22 between Muslims, Croats; Croats, Muslims; Serbs,
23 Muslims; Serbs, Croats, et cetera. That is to say that
24 these people lived in a community together for decades,
25 regardless of what occupations they had.
1 What I want to say here, loud and clear, and
2 I would like the Honourable Judges to hear me out, if
3 possible, is the following:
4 Dario Kordic was the first man who managed,
5 in the Lasva Valley, to pit the Croats, Serbs and
6 Bosniaks against each other. He is the first man who
7 managed to do so. Before that, no one succeeded in
8 doing that for 70 or 100 years.
9 Q. In the unfolding events, starting in 1990,
10 1991, what effect, if any, could you judge that Franjo
11 Tudjman's speeches had -- speeches and publications had
12 on Croats in the area where you lived?
13 A. The speeches themselves, the publications and
14 everything else that came from the HDZ of Croatia, was
15 taken over by the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That is
16 to say that this was the basic literature for studying
17 the movement. But the "Croat" of the Croatian
18 Democratic Union was adjusted, but more or less it was
19 a copy of the programme and statute of the HDZ of
20 Croatia.
21 What came from Zagreb was sacred in terms of
22 implementation and in terms of the activity of the
23 Bosnian Croats, except at the moment when Mr. Kljujic
24 said that he would no longer obey Zagreb.
25 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Nice, in
1 order to be able to follow this testimony, I would need
2 to have some clarification. Could you ask the witness
3 whether there were any conflicts or disputes of ethnic
4 origin or character? That's the question you put, and
5 the witness said that for decades, Bosnians, Croats and
6 Serbs lived in perfect harmony. Does this mean that
7 the Serb, Croat and Bosnian communities were able to
8 work together in political parties, or were such
9 communities determined, in their political views, on
10 the basis of their ethnic group, because that could
11 help us answer other questions.
12 Does that mean that the communities were able
13 to participate in the same political parties, although
14 they were from various ethnic backgrounds? On the
15 strength of the witness's own experience, does he
16 believe that there could be only Croats in that party
17 or could there be people coming from other ethnic
18 backgrounds? I think that this would be interesting
19 and necessary, in order to be able to follow the
20 testimony.
21 MR. NICE: To some degree, the witness has
22 dealt with this at a much earlier stage, and I'll
23 amplify that.
24 Q. Mr. Cicak, you explained to the Court last
25 week how, in the Communist era, there was only the one
1 political party through which people could work and how
2 it was the freeing of parties that, to some degree,
3 allowed ethnic lines to be drawn between parties. But
4 let's go back, first of all, to the Communist era.
5 First of all, am I right, was there just the
6 one party through which people could operate
7 politically?
8 A. Yes, absolutely, there was one. The most
9 important political party was first called the
10 Communist Party and then the League of Communists of
11 Yugoslavia, and absolutely no attention was paid to the
12 ethnic composition of the party membership. It was the
13 social background that was important; that is to say,
14 farmers, workers and administrative clerks.
15 Q. As a matter of fact, in your area were all
16 three main ethnic groupings represented in the League
17 of Communists, or Communist Party, or was there any
18 bias towards or away from one ethnic group, judged by
19 the representation of that group in the population as a
20 whole?
21 A. If we look at the entirety of Yugoslavia,
22 then, generally speaking, the Communist Party or the
23 League of Communists of Yugoslavia did have an
24 appropriate ethnic composition of the republics that
25 constituted it. That is to say, if there were
1 Macedonians -- if it was Macedonia, then Macedonians
2 were a majority, and if Slovenia, Slovenians.
3 However, the fact remains that the Croats had
4 the least number of membership in the League of
5 Communists of Yugoslavia. And if you look at the
6 ethnic composition of the party, then the largest
7 number were Serbs, and they gradually took over all
8 major posts in the former Yugoslavia, that is to say,
9 during the regime of Josip Broz Tito, which, of course,
10 led to protests within the organisations of the League
11 of Communists themselves.
12 Q. In your local area, was the position that
13 there was a slanting in favour -- numerically, slanting
14 in favour of the Serbs and against the Croats, or was
15 the position different locally?
16 A. Locally, as far as the Lasva Valley is
17 concerned, the composition was quite different. There
18 were very many newcomers who were Serbs; officers,
19 military experts, engineers, who worked in military
20 factories. Most of them were members of the League of
21 Communists of Yugoslavia. There were very few Croats,
22 pure Croats, farmers, and there were a number of
23 Bosniaks, too.
24 So we could say that there was a mixed
25 composition. However, there were more Serbs who were
1 members of the League of Communists, or rather the
2 Communist Party. However, they came from the Yugoslav
3 People's Army, that is to say, officers who were
4 experts in certain fields, that is to say, in
5 electrical engineering, in explosives, weapons, et
6 cetera. All of them were members of the League of
7 Communists of Yugoslavia, and they were mostly
8 recruited from amongst the Serbs.
9 Q. Staying for this last question on this topic
10 with the local party organisation, as between Croats
11 and Bosniaks or Muslims, was there any weighing in
12 favour of, or against one of, those two groups?
13 A. No. I have to explain this to you. There
14 was a balance between all three national groups, that
15 is to say, the Serbs and Croats and Bosniaks. At that
16 time, they were called Muslims, though. There were
17 even mixed marriages between members of these different
18 ethnic groups.
19 As regards economic cooperation, it was
20 highly developed. People cooperated, traded and made
21 different plans. They bought land, exchanged land, cut
22 forests down, so there was a coexistence.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 A. And the communal living of Serbs, Croats and
25 Muslims was very good.
1 Q. One other question that may answer His Honour
2 Judge Bennouna's concerns is this: Outside the purely
3 political association of the League of Communists or
4 the Communist Party, were there any other associations,
5 clubs, whatever, that were ethnically based or not?
6 For example, there may have been cultural clubs. Help
7 us.
8 A. I can help you. Everything that had to do
9 with ethnic feelings and the expression of ethnic
10 feelings was abolished in 1949. That is to say that
11 Tito did not allow this to be expressed, these ethnic
12 feelings, for example, in terms of language, in terms
13 of singing, dancing, et cetera.
14 However, in the Communist era, there were
15 other organisations where citizens were rallied
16 together; that is, the so-called Socialist Alliance of
17 the Working People, the youth organisation, and then
18 there were various technical organisations, for
19 example, of technicians, of radar operators and others
20 who cooperated amongst themselves.
21 However, I can say that cultural societies,
22 for example, the Serb cultural society, Prosvjeta, was
23 banned, and Napredak, the Croatian cultural society,
24 was also banned, and the Muslim cultural society,
25 Preporod, was also banned. That is to say that Tito
1 did not allow any expression of ethnic feelings that
2 were expressed by way of culture, feelings, et cetera.
3 MR. NICE: I hope that fills out the picture
4 for Your Honours sufficiently for the period before the
5 freeing up of political parties, and I think that the
6 witness's testimony, at least I hope it has, has
7 already covered the position thereafter.
8 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Thank you
9 very much, Mr. Nice. My question focused on the period
10 following the freeing of parties, on the way the
11 various ethnic groups participated in the various
12 parties that then emerged.
13 MR. NICE: I'll deal with that as well.
14 Q. Following the freeing up of political
15 parties, Mr. Cicak, we've heard of the creation of the
16 three ethnically-based parties. Was there any
17 cross-involvement of people of one ethnic background in
18 the party -- when a party that was identified with a
19 different ethnic background?
20 A. Yes, there were such examples in all parties,
21 and it is interesting that in all programmes of the
22 HDZ, the SDS and the SDA, there is this kind of a
23 chapter that says that any person can become a member
24 of the party, regardless of race, sex, religion, et
25 cetera. However, in practice, there were very few such
1 examples.
2 I cannot remember whether, in the SDA, there
3 were more than, say, 100 persons of a different ethnic
4 background, and I don't remember that there was anyone
5 in the SDS who was not of the same ethnic composition.
6 As for the HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union, I think
7 that in the presidency, there was one member who was
8 from Gorazde and who was a Muslim, an ethnic Muslim and
9 a practising Muslim, and I think that he was there for
10 quite some time. There were quite a few cases of them
11 being members of the HDZ. I'm just talking about the
12 beginning now, that is to say, until the convention in
13 Mostar, not after that. After that, nothing similar
14 could have happened.
15 Q. To fill this part of the -- fill the picture
16 in on this part of history, after the freeing of
17 political parties, was there a lifting of Tito's ban on
18 ethnically-based cultural or similar organisations?
19 A. Yes. This happened immediately. The
20 assemblies of restoration were held first in the
21 cultural society Napredak of the Croats. In 1903, it
22 was founded. It has a very long tradition, one of the
23 longest in the Balkans.
24 And then also -- this did not happen
25 immediately, but it did happen at a later stage, that
1 the Bosniak Muslim organisation Preporod was renewed,
2 too, and it was the most difficult to have the Croatian
3 cultural -- or rather, no, the Serb cultural society,
4 Preporod, renewed, and I think that they aren't
5 standing on their own feet yet, and they have great
6 difficulties in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
7 Q. By the time that your evidence concludes for
8 our purposes, that is, 1992, or at least concludes thus
9 far for our purposes, had the cultural associations had
10 any effect on the broader political scene? In
11 particular, had they had the effect of dividing ethnic
12 groups, one from the other, or not, or can't you say?
13 A. I can say, proudly so, that the Croatian
14 cultural society, Napredak, was never involved in
15 politics. That is the basic postulate of the Croatian
16 cultural society of Napredak. It was never involved in
17 politics. It was involved in the promotion of culture,
18 education and other such activities, so it really had
19 nothing to do with politics. And the Croatian cultural
20 society, Napredak, on the one hand, and politics, on
21 the other hand, are quite incompatible, and they could
22 not mix.
23 And also it was mentioned that Prosvjeta
24 could not have been established and its activity was of
25 a minor importance. And as far as Merhamet is
1 concerned, it mainly dealt with its own affairs rather
2 than the affairs of citizens at large.
3 MR. NICE: Does that, I hope, meet Your
4 Honour's concerns? Thank you.
5 MR. NICE:
6 Q. So far as the first defendant, Dario Kordic,
7 is concerned, just to help us with some details, his
8 previous jobs of which you've spoken, what level of
9 responsibility did he have in his last job before he
10 got involved in politics? What sort of things was he
11 actually doing?
12 A. At the time when I met Dario Kordic, he was
13 not discharging any important job in industry. He was
14 with the administration, administrative affairs. For a
15 while he was in an important company, making reflective
16 bricks for furnaces; I think there he was responsible
17 for some general affairs. That is quite an
18 insignificant, very insignificant post.
19 Then he moved over to Gavro, that is, he
20 moved to the municipal hall, where the mayor was Zoran
21 Maric, and he worked as a clerk at the secretariat for
22 national defence in the municipal hall. That was, as
23 far as I know, his last job that he had. That is
24 something quite insignificant.
25 Q. When you first knew him in the political
1 arena, how fertile was he with ideas, or not?
2 A. At the outset, he -- well, no, he never
3 voiced his ideas in public. He always did what was
4 asked of him to do. As I have already said before,
5 there were three persons who exercised a major
6 influence on him, and that is how he grew up. It was
7 Boban, Rajic, Kostroman, and especially Mr. Tudjman.
8 He built his image, his personality, in that particular
9 direction, and he very strictly and vigorously, and
10 with a lot of blood, he implemented on the ground what
11 those men conceived.
12 Q. Did he, to your knowledge, have any direct
13 contact with Tudjman?
14 A. I think that he met Mr. Tudjman several
15 times. There are photographs about that. I think it
16 was on the 13th and the 21st, but I can't really
17 remember the month, but it can be easily found in the
18 documentation; I won't bother about this.
19 There was a group visit to the president, and
20 he gave them general instructions as to how Bosnian
21 Croats and Croats, that they were one basic community,
22 that they were all aspiring to a common state. Two men
23 held forth on that occasion, Mr. Boban and Mr. Susak,
24 who were very vigorous executors of Mr. Tudjman's idea,
25 and there was no deviating from it. If he had
1 deviated, Mr. Boban would have been removed from
2 office.
3 Q. Turning from his having ideas, when you first
4 knew him, how was he so far as being decisive is
5 concerned?
6 A. I don't really know. In the beginning, his
7 resolution was not particularly high, until he obtained
8 some training as to how to become a leader, how to
9 become strong, how to lead people. He had very good
10 tutors, if you think that that was Mr. Susak,
11 Mr. Boban, and Mr. Rajic. So these are indeed enviable
12 mentors who really could shape Kordic the way they
13 wanted, and they did it in the worst way possible.
14 Q. He had contact with the press, and it's said
15 that he provided press releases and so on. What effect
16 did his press releases and so on have on the population
17 at large, as you could judge it?
18 A. You are asking me after I left and parted
19 ways with Mr. Kordic. His meetings for media, or
20 rather his press conferences, were rather sad affairs.
21 He never called the Bosniak people its true name. He
22 always called them "balija," the Muslims were
23 invariably "balija."
24 The word itself is highly offensive to
25 believers, that is, members of the Muslim community in
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. If you look in the dictionary,
2 "balija" does not mean anything; it simply means an
3 outsider. But in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this is a
4 highly offensive word. To call someone a balija was
5 really very bad if such a person was a believer or a
6 Muslim -- that is, of Muslim origin; that is, Bosniak.
7 His press conferences always revolved around
8 one thing: That victory was close, that -- when
9 talking about the state of war, he was saying the
10 victory would be won in no time, that there would be an
11 integral Croat state. You also heard Mr. Kostroman
12 when he said -- I think I've already mentioned it --
13 when he said that Busovaca was part of the independent
14 state of Croatia, to which I responded laughingly that
15 that was sheer nonsense, that Busovaca would never be
16 in the independent state of Croatia, and that came
17 true.
18 Q. But you've summarised how he conducted his
19 press conferences. What effect, if any, could you see
20 these conferences having on the population as a whole
21 and on Croats in particular?
22 A. I can say what effect it had on Croats in
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina, but I cannot say what effect it had
24 on those few grandmas and grandpas who stayed behind in
25 the Lasva Valley. They must have been clapping hands
1 when Kordic pronounced those coarse words about balija,
2 so on and so forth, and this regards the Croats of
3 other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, especially in the
4 Sava Valley, in Posavina, and around Tuzla.
5 Let me now use the word which Mr. Kordic
6 used. I think he said he had "blabbermouths." I think
7 they considered him a blabbermouth and never attached
8 any importance to what he said.
9 Q. Thank you. You've said that he latterly used
10 the offensive word for Muslims in his public
11 utterances. How, in the early stages, did he refer to
12 Muslims in private?
13 A. In private contacts -- well, it was the same
14 thing, except that he did not call them balija; he
15 called them Muslims. But he always said that he did
16 not want somebody to push a red fez on his head. A red
17 fez is part of the folk dress of the Muslims. You know
18 how it is, a cylinder, ovally shaped, red, and all the
19 Muslims wore it, such as -- you know, Catholics wear
20 hats and Muslims wear fezes. He talked in the company
21 of other members of the municipal board that he did not
22 want anyone to push a fez onto his head and that that
23 was his final decision.
24 Q. Two questions I want to ask you, and I don't
25 want detail, I just want you to know if you were
1 present at certain events so that the Defence can ask
2 you questions about it if they wish. Were you, as a
3 matter of fact, present at the blocking of the JNA at
4 Kaonik by Kordic?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. So you can answer questions about that?
7 A. I did.
8 Q. Second, were you present at the meeting in
9 Busovaca to celebrate Croatian independence in the hall
10 where Kordic and Kostroman and others spoke, or not?
11 A. I was present when the road at Kaonik was
12 blocked as a rank-and-file citizen. I was also present
13 at the celebration around 9.00 in the evening when
14 Kostroman spoke. That was on the occasion of the
15 proclamation of independence of the state of Croatia.
16 Q. Did you see Kordic speak there as well?
17 A. Yes, absolutely, the whole team was there,
18 and they all took the floor. Stipac spoke, Kordic
19 spoke, Kostroman. I don't know if there was anyone
20 else of those blabbermouths.
21 Q. Did you know the man Blaskic at all?
22 A. I met once -- no, twice, in the village of
23 Granice I met a man called Blaskic. I don't know what
24 prompted his coming there. I think it had to do
25 something with some rockets or something such, like one
1 fires from it at the aircraft from one's back or from
2 the ground. I don't know. I really have no idea. But
3 it was some kind of a military weapon. You put it
4 somewhere, and something flies into the air at an
5 aircraft. And then I saw --
6 Q. Where was that?
7 A. And then I saw -- that was summertime, I
8 think it was '93, sometime '93. I don't know exactly.
9 Q. Did you ever see Dario Kordic in uniform?
10 A. No, I did not see him in a uniform. Kordic?
11 No. But I saw him acting as the president of the
12 crisis committee, rather as the chief commander,
13 because he had that authority. He was the chief
14 commander of a military organisation belonging to the
15 HDZ, and with a gun in his hand. Of course, his hand
16 was never firm; it made certain movements, and with
17 this pulled-out gun, he made order at the crossroads in
18 Kaonik where there were machine guns, et cetera. They
19 were expecting somebody's coming. Whether they would
20 really kill somebody or not, I don't know, but the way
21 they were getting ready, I think they were really ready
22 to kill a man.
23 Q. Finally, the question that you've almost
24 answered in the last couple of answers, but help us,
25 please. Up until the time that you left the political
1 area, was there a division in -- was there a division
2 between political and military decision-making or not?
3 Just explain that for us, please.
4 A. It's very simple to explain the area. As of
5 the first day, that is as of the first day to the last,
6 which I think was in '94, during that period of time
7 when Mr. Kordic operated, he brought together military,
8 police, and civilian authority. That is, military,
9 civilian, and police authority were all in one, and
10 nothing could be done without his approval. Not a
11 single military action, not a civilian action nor a
12 police action could be taken without him. He was the
13 sole responsible over everything, for all, for every
14 minor thing, whether something was taken from one part
15 of the office to another, one had to ask Kordic for
16 permission.
17 Q. So far as you could judge, as a person living
18 in the area, did that position change after the time
19 that you left political office, or did it stay the
20 same?
21 A. No, that situation did not stay the same. It
22 deteriorated. It became worse. But after what I said
23 before, Mr. Kordic completely ignored the executive
24 committee of the HDZ in Busovaca. He completely
25 ignored the municipal board of the Busovaca HDZ.
1 Whenever it came to important decisions, he took
2 decisions by himself or together with Mr. Boban, Susak,
3 or president Tudjman.
4 MR. NICE: That's all I need ask of the
5 witness -- oh, Judge Robinson.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Sorry, Mr. Nice, I just want
7 to return to the part of the witness's testimony
8 dealing with the report that he made to the police
9 about his incident. He knew the three assailants; he
10 could identify them.
11 MR. NICE: Yes.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: I wanted to find out if they
13 were ever arrested, but I think later in his testimony
14 we heard that he never pressed charges. I'd like a
15 clarification of that.
16 MR. NICE: Certainly.
17 Q. You've heard Judge Robinson's concern. We've
18 already looked at a document that says that you weren't
19 going to press charges. Did you press charges?
20 A. Your Honours, somebody has taken away the
21 record that I had here on the desk which I handed over
22 to the police, and I was very happy to see it here in
23 The Hague for the first time. Can I please get it
24 back?
25 When this record was made, I said I would not
1 be pressing criminal charges because I was not
2 authorised to do so. When it came to a crime against
3 life and limb, when it comes to a crime of life and
4 limb, then the charges are pressed with the higher
5 court, ex officio, so whether I liked it or not, these
6 charges had to be pressed ex officio.
7 The high prosecutor, Enver Skopljak, he was
8 the prosecutor, he received the complete file. He got
9 a number of papers in addition to this record. This
10 was, if I may call it a preliminary record, there were
11 several other records, and there were 25 large
12 photographs taken on the site. That is, it was the
13 record of the situation on the site. This is what was
14 given the public prosecutor, Mr. Enver Skopljak. The
15 police also had the complete file with 25 photographs,
16 records, and all the other documents.
17 Today, or rather a few months ago, when I
18 wanted to look at them to simply jog my memory by
19 looking at these photographs and the tragedy, we went
20 to see what was in the folder on which it says
21 "Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak" on the cover, it says very
22 neatly and tidily. We took out the folder, opened it,
23 and inside there was nothing. The documents had been
24 stolen from the police.
25 So we went to the higher public prosecutor,
1 the canton prosecutor. We took out the folder on which
2 it was written "Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak, Events of
3 1991." We opened it, and inside there was nothing.
4 Somebody has stolen the documents from the public
5 prosecutor's office, from the police.
6 And I'm very happy -- I'm more than happy
7 that the HDZ had the archive service of Herceg-Bosna or
8 something -- that is what it says here -- and I'm glad
9 that they had it in archives, if nothing else, then at
10 least this one record. I am happy to read, 10 years
11 later or perhaps 15 years later, to remember all this.
12 So you see, it was obviously in somebody's
13 interest, the things that happened to Dragutin Zvonimir
14 Cicak, the beating and everything else, that it should
15 not be learned, that it ended only in some filing in
16 some archives.
17 Q. Was anyone therefore ever prosecuted? Just
18 yes or no.
19 A. How could it be done when all the documents
20 were stolen?
21 Q. And your decision at the time --
22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
23 MR. NICE:
24 Q. Your decision at the time was that there
25 should be no pressing of charges, or otherwise?
1 A. At that time, yes, a criminal suit should
2 have been started, but we see why it was not.
3 Immediately after that, I mean several months after
4 that, the war broke out, and it all went ...
5 Q. Yes. I think there was a press release that
6 you released at the time setting out your attitude
7 towards the pressing of charges; is that right? Do you
8 remember that?
9 A. I don't. Could you perhaps jog my memory a
10 little?
11 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I wasn't going to
12 trouble with this document. It was attached to the
13 statement, but it hasn't been translated, and I didn't
14 want to weary the Court. I have put in hand earlier
15 this morning steps to have it translated, out of an
16 abundance of caution and in case it came to be relied
17 upon. I can show it to the witness now, simply for the
18 purposes of his reading the passage that deals with the
19 pressing of charges and make the full text available
20 later, if that would not be inconvenient.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
22 MR. NICE: Thank you. It's 66/1, and if you
23 could hand it to the Court and swiftly to the witness
24 so that he can see -- remind himself.
25 Alternatively, and given that it's only a
1 one-page document and that it arises in part from a
2 question from the Court, might we on this occasion get
3 the witness to read it out and listen to it in
4 translation, as the very last topic before I sit down?
5 JUDGE MAY: How much more have you got?
6 MR. NICE: I haven't. This is the last
7 point, but it arises from one of Your Honour's
8 colleagues' questions, and that is the only reason I'm
9 dealing with it now.
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, it might be convenient to
11 have it dealt with in that way.
12 MR. NICE:
13 Q. Could you just read this press release,
14 please, Mr. Cicak, bearing in mind that the
15 interpreters will be translating it for us.
16 A. In the upper left corner, it says "Dragutin
17 Zvonimir Cicak, lawyer, Busovaca, 2nd of April, 1992,
18 vice-president of the municipal board of the HDZ of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina in Busovaca.
20 "To all mass media, press release: On the
21 30th of March, Monday, 1992, around 14.00 hours, at the
22 entry to my house on my property, I was ambushed and
23 attacked by a group of six known armed extremists,
24 neofascist nationalists from the ranks of the extreme
25 right wing of the HDZ BH. With force, and while
1 beating me, they pulled me into the house, into the
2 living room, and put me on to a sofa. Immediately they
3 began to interrogate me for which intelligence service,
4 KOS -- and we've just heard what KOS was -- working,
5 who was paying me and who was my contact,
6 collaborator.
7 "As I could not answer those three stupid and
8 absurd questions, two of them beat me alternately, one
9 from the left and the other one from the right and
10 behind my back. They beat me with their wooden axe
11 handle and a large, big rolling pin.
12 "Alternatively, between 14.00 and 16.00
13 hours, when they left my house while threatening me
14 fiercely, the house was completely demolished because
15 they were searching for proof about my contacts with
16 KOS. They were looking for the names of collaborators,
17 and money, large quantities. As they did not find
18 anything, they left my property.
19 "The immediate reason for the attack on me
20 was my political dissension with the extreme right wing
21 of the HDZ BH which I had expounded in a series of my
22 articles in the daily press and radio. The decision of
23 the physical and armed attack against my person was
24 taken by the extreme neofascist group of Croat
25 extremists in HDZ BH, to wit: Dario Kordic, president,
1 Anto Stipac, vice-president, Anto Sliskovic, secretary,
2 commander of the strike groups, Franjo Sliskovic,
3 organiser of strike groups, and Igor Prusac, president
4 of the HDZ branch in Busovaca. They are all well known
5 to the public.
6 "There shall be no investigation in this
7 regard. There shall be no charge; that is, criminal
8 prosecution shall not take place.
9 "Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak," and the date,
10 11th of February, 1998.
11 Q. Thank you very much.
12 MR. NICE: That concludes all I wanted to
13 deal with this witness.
14 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now. 2.35.
15 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.05 p.m.
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24
25
1 --- Upon resuming at 2:25 p.m.
2 (The accused entered court)
3 (The witness entered court)
4 MR. NICE: We are in a position now to
5 provide the glossary of terms. It's not been, as it
6 were, a registered document. It comes, of course,
7 subject to any errors and omissions to be corrected,
8 but I hope it will be a useful document.
9 And the two exhibits that we were short this
10 morning can now be completed, 27, and I don't desire to
11 ask any questions about it, but Exhibit 27, which is
12 the part that was missing from the document dealing
13 with the establishment of Herceg-Bosna and the
14 signatures. It is now complete. The witness doesn't
15 need to see it at the moment.
16 And 66/1(a), which is the document that was
17 read out and translated by the interpreters this
18 morning, just out of time, the English version is now
19 available, alas not yet the French.
20 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, are you going to
21 cross-examine?
22 MR. SAYERS: Yes, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
24 Cross-examined by Mr. Sayers.
25 Q. Mr. Cicak, my name is Steven Sayers. I'm am
1 attorney representing one of the defendants, Dario
2 Kordic, and I'll be asking you some questions this
3 afternoon and maybe tomorrow concerning the extensive
4 and wide-ranging testimony that you've presented to the
5 Trial Chamber over the last few days.
6 The first question for you, sir, is you have
7 legal training, don't you?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You've been trained, sir, how to sift the
10 relevant from the irrelevant, haven't you?
11 A. I imagine.
12 Q. And during your training, no doubt you have
13 been taught the difference between factual testimony
14 and political speeches. Have you?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Have you been trained to answer questions in
17 a terse, logical, and responsive way or not?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you feel capable of doing that today, do
20 you?
21 A. Yes, unless there are any complications.
22 Q. And you, of all people, with your legal
23 training, appreciate the need for truth as opposed to
24 fiction, especially in a serious proceeding like this.
25 Is that a fair statement, Mr. Cicak?
1 A. (No audible response)
2 Q. Is it?
3 A. Would you start? This is too long an
4 introduction.
5 JUDGE MAY: Well, now, Mr. Cicak, we are the
6 judges here and we control the proceedings. If counsel
7 asks you inappropriate and irrelevant questions, then
8 we will rule. Otherwise, we must ask you to answer the
9 questions.
10 Now, Mr. Sayers, perhaps you could move on.
11 MR. SAYERS: Yes.
12 Q. Let's take one of the evocative and graphic
13 pieces of testimony that you gave to the Trial Chamber
14 today, sir; the discussion that you supposedly had with
15 Mr. Kordic, that you described in such detail to Their
16 Honours, on March the 31st of 1992. Do you remember
17 that testimony?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. That's when you said that Mr. Kordic stated,
20 during your visit with him, that he was surprised to
21 find you repentant and not rebellious. Have I
22 accurately quoted what you said, sir?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You'll never forget that statement, will you,
25 sir?
1 A. Absolutely.
2 Q. It's emblazoned in letters of fire on your
3 memory, isn't it, sir?
4 JUDGE MAY: Well, come on. We won't make
5 much progress with that sort of question. The witness
6 says he remembers --
7 A. No, it's not emblazed with a fire in my mind
8 but rather with a stick on my back.
9 MR. SAYERS: I can certainly accept that,
10 sir. If I may ask the usher to distribute --
11 A. You have to.
12 MR. SAYERS: Just for the record, Your
13 Honours, this is a statement that Mr. Cicak signed
14 after three days of interviews with the Prosecutors and
15 with Ms. Somers and Mr. Scott from the Office of the
16 Prosecutor on November the 10th, 11th and 12th of last
17 year, about five months ago. The witness is being
18 shown the same thing in Croatian.
19 I would like to draw the Court's attention --
20 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Let's have the
21 exhibit number.
22 THE REGISTRAR: This document is marked
23 D7/1.
24 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
25 MR. SAYERS: If the Trial Chamber would just
1 turn to page 12, and in the Croatian it's actually on
2 page 9, Mr. Cicak.
3 Q. Do you see it?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. This contains your version of events to the
6 Office of the Prosecutor just a few months ago; is that
7 correct?
8 A. I gave several statements. I don't know
9 which one this is.
10 Q. And you told them about the visit that you
11 had paid to Mr. Kordic on the 31st of March of 1992,
12 didn't you, sir?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Would you just read into the record the
15 sentence that I've highlighted on the Croatian version
16 that you have? And that's on page 12.
17 If you turn to page 9 in your version, sir.
18 A. There's nothing on page 12.
19 Q. Page 9, sir.
20 A. On page 9, it says as follows -- I mean, what
21 you highlighted; "Dario Kordic said that he had nothing
22 to do with this assault." Is that what you wanted me
23 to read?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. Well, I read it.
1 Q. And that's what you told the Office of the
2 Prosecutor four or five months ago, isn't it, sir?
3 A. I said a lot of things. Inter alia, I
4 probably said this too, because according to what
5 Kordic said, perhaps he might have said that too.
6 Q. You didn't say a word about the testimony
7 that you've given today, and specifically in the
8 response to the question that Judge May asked you, that
9 Mr. Kordic told you, supposedly, that he expected to
10 find you in a repentant rather than a rebellious state,
11 did you?
12 A. In my statements to the ladies and gentlemen
13 who talked to me, I did not wish to say the entire text
14 that I had. I left some things for today.
15 Q. Would you answer that question that I've just
16 asked you, sir?
17 A. I did.
18 Q. You did tell the Office of the Prosecutor
19 about that statement that you've told the Court about
20 today? Is that what you're trying to say?
21 A. Yes. Yes, I did, earlier on. It was not
22 mentioned here, but I did say it in the course of my
23 previous conversations, but I confirm this once again
24 before this court, what Mr. Kordic said.
25 Q. I put it to you, Mr. Cicak, that in none of
1 the statements that you've given to the Office of the
2 Prosecutor does that statement appear. Would you agree
3 with that?
4 A. No.
5 MR. SAYERS: Well, I was hoping that we could
6 accelerate this, Your Honour, but I guess I should just
7 put it in front of him, both statements.
8 JUDGE MAY: There is no need. In due course
9 you can draw our attention to it, if that's the
10 position.
11 MR. SAYERS: And I'm sure if I've overlooked
12 it the opposition will point it out to the Court.
13 A. You forget that the conversation took place a
14 few years ago, not a few months ago.
15 Q. Well, actually, Mr. Cicak, the statement that
16 you're looking at was actually given to the Office of
17 the Prosecutor on November the 11th -- sorry, 10th,
18 11th, and 12th of November 1998, which was just last
19 year, wasn't it?
20 A. Yes, and there was also a conversation a few
21 years before that, or rather -- before that. This is
22 one of the versions of these conversations.
23 Q. And one of the other documents that you
24 expressed surprise about, the police report that you
25 were shown today, was actually seen by you during that
1 interview, was it not? In fact, I believe it was
2 attached as an attachment to the statement itself,
3 sir. Would you agree with that?
4 MR. SAYERS: Just for the Trial Chamber's
5 information, that appears about one inch from the
6 bottom of page 12 of the statement we've provided to
7 you.
8 A. I don't know. I just have my own statement
9 at the police station. Is that what you're referring
10 to?
11 Q. Yes. And that was actually shown to you and
12 authenticated by you in November of last year when you
13 went over it with the Office of the Prosecution; isn't
14 that a fact, sir?
15 A. I could not have authenticated it, because it
16 was not there. It was stolen straight away.
17 Q. Well, let me just read you out statement in
18 the report. It says: "Mr. Cicak was shown a copy of
19 his police report which he authenticated. "
20 A. Where does it say that?
21 Q. I believe later on page 9 of your version,
22 sir. At the bottom of the paragraph --
23 A. The text, the big one?
24 Q. Yes, at the bottom of the paragraph that you
25 were just reading from, the one that said "Dario Kordic
1 stated that he had not been involved in this attack. "
2 A. Are you referring to the statement that was
3 presented to the police?
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. It is customary at the police to be asked
6 whether you have anything else to add or whether the
7 statement was read out to you. The statement was read
8 out, but not by an official of the Tribunal. It was
9 read out by Mr. Isakovic, or whatever his name was, the
10 one who was in charge of the proceedings, and I first
11 saw this piece of paper after what happened to me
12 happened, and I appreciated that you gave it to me.
13 This is the press release, I think -- well,
14 at any rate, it was kept by some archives, or
15 whatever.
16 Q. Now, in that statement you described two of
17 the people that you had identified as participating in
18 the attack upon you on the 30th of March of 1992. Do
19 you see that?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. The two people that you identified were
22 Mr. Kulic and -- who was the other one?
23 A. Are you referring to Marko, Marko Kulic? The
24 other one was Dario Brnada, and the third one was
25 Mr. -- no. Not a Mister; certainly not a gentleman.
1 That is Zoran -- well, his nickname is Svabo.
2 Q. His name doesn't appear anywhere in the
3 police report that you gave to the Zenica police two
4 days after this incident, does it, sir?
5 A. In the state that I was, it seems to me that
6 it was difficult for me to remember my very own name.
7 I knew Svabo, I knew Zoran Marinic very well, because
8 he had very ill intentions towards me, and I was
9 massacred and had somebody at the police station ask
10 me, in that state, what my name was. It would have
11 been difficult for me to remember my own name and
12 surname.
13 Q. But you gave the police your own name and
14 surname correctly, didn't you?
15 A. I did not. Had I given a correct answer,
16 there would have been six names.
17 Q. How did you get to Zenica?
18 A. With great difficulty, if you're referring to
19 the physical aspect, and if you're asking me how I
20 actually arrived there, I took a means of
21 transportation.
22 Q. Did you drive yourself?
23 A. Yes. Yes. I had the strength to reach my
24 own home on my own.
25 Q. You mean even though you were confused about
1 your own name, you were sufficiently lucid to get into
2 your car and drive from your house outside Busovaca to
3 your house in Zenica?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, you didn't actually live in the town of
6 Busovaca itself, did you, sir?
7 A. My property is a few kilometres out of
8 Busovaca itself. It was an experimental farm, so to
9 speak, very attractive, a lovely house, a lovely
10 orchard. It was a true joy.
11 Q. Right. It was located actually in the
12 village of Bare, was it not?
13 A. Quite wrong. It was in the village of
14 Granice.
15 Q. And Granice is right next door to Bare, isn't
16 it?
17 A. They have nothing to do with one another.
18 That is a complete misorientation.
19 Q. How far away from Busovaca is Granice?
20 A. About three kilometres, I think. Three to
21 three and a half.
22 Q. All right. I'd just like to ask you some
23 general questions to orient the Court as to historical
24 events in the cast of characters involved in the two
25 years that you have spoken about, and the first exhibit
1 that I would like to mark and have you agree with me is
2 an exhibit that shows exactly where Busovaca is in
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4 THE REGISTRAR: The document is marked D8/1.
5 MR. SAYERS:
6 Q. Now, looking at exhibit D8/1, Mr. Cicak,
7 would you agree that that accurately represents the
8 Opstina of Busovaca in the centre of the country of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
10 A. Well, it could pass.
11 Q. Before we start going through the geography
12 and history of the events that you've just described, I
13 have one question for you. Isn't it true that in one
14 of your prior statements, you stated that you had
15 actually joined the armed forces of the Republic of
16 Bosnia and Herzegovina on April the 16th, 1992?
17 A. That I joined the armed forces of
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina? No. No. Such a statement was
19 never made. However, the Territorial Defence in the
20 municipality of Busovaca that was headed by
21 Mr. Hadzimelic was established in April 1992, and I
22 asked, I requested from Mr. Hadzimelic that I be the
23 first person on this list, this list of Territorial
24 Defence members of the municipality of Busovaca. I
25 think that Mr. Hadzimelic met my request.
1 Q. Once again, let me just show you a copy of
2 the statement that you gave to the Prosecutors on the
3 27th of February, 1995.
4 MR. SAYERS: And I have copies for the
5 Court. I also have a copy in Croatian for the witness,
6 Your Honours.
7 THE REGISTRAR: The document is marked D9/1.
8 MR. SAYERS:
9 Q. I'd just like to turn your attention, if I
10 may, it appears at the top of page 3, the third page on
11 the English translation of this document that we
12 received from the Prosecutor. I don't exactly know
13 where it appears in the Croatian version, but let me
14 just read you out part of the English translation and
15 see if you agree that this is what you told the Office
16 of the Prosecutor four years ago.
17 "I quit politics in 1993 in Busovaca."
18 A. Please, could you just tell me where you're
19 reading from, which passage?
20 Q. Yes. It's on page 2 of the Croatian version,
21 in the first full paragraph on the page, about one inch
22 down.
23 Let me restart the question, sir. The
24 English version says: "I quit politics in 1993 in
25 Busovaca. On 16 April 1992, I was" -- or '92 -- "I was
1 a member of the army of BiH and was fighting against
2 the aggressor JNA; i.e., I was a citizen and was
3 performing my citizen's duty by facing the enemy" --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Excuse me. The
5 interpreters do not have the text. Could you please
6 slow down.
7 MR. SAYERS:
8 Q. "... By facing the enemy who wanted to take
9 part of the country. I was fighting for a year and a
10 half."
11 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, have you finished
12 reading that passage?
13 MR. SAYERS: I have.
14 JUDGE MAY: The English version which we have
15 shows, after the date 16th April 1992, a question
16 mark. Now, that presumably must mean that either the
17 interpreter is not sure, or the translator is not sure,
18 or that there is some query about the original
19 statement. In those circumstances, I'm not sure that
20 it's fair to put it to the witness.
21 MR. SAYERS: Perhaps, Your Honour, we could
22 ask whether he remembers the date of his enlistment
23 into the armed forces.
24 JUDGE MAY: Of course.
25 MR. SAYERS:
1 Q. Do you remember, Mr. Cicak, the date upon
2 which you enlisted in the armed forces of
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
4 A. I do not recall the exact date. However,
5 this is sheer nonsense. In Busovaca, I was a member of
6 the Territorial Defence. That is the so-called TO.
7 That was a reserve force -- how should I put this -- of
8 civilians. I already said that I asked Hadzimelic to
9 put me on this list in 1992.
10 However, as for the army of
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina, I joined it, I think, in the autumn
12 of 1992, because from April -- or rather from the 30th
13 of March until the autumn, I had to receive medical
14 treatment. I had to recuperate, physically and
15 mentally, from the beating and massacre that I had
16 suffered from Mr. Kordic.
17 Q. Do you remember testifying, on the 22nd of
18 April in this case, that you had no military training
19 or experience at all?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Well, let me just read this question to you,
22 and it appears on page 1157 of the transcript, lines 8
23 through 10.
24 Question: "Do you have any military training
25 or experience?"
1 Answer: "No."
2 Is that true?
3 A. That's true, accurate.
4 Q. So were you or were you not fighting for a
5 year and a half?
6 A. I held various positions. How should I put
7 this? I did not hold a weapon in my hands. Never in
8 my life did I carry any weapons, not even the most
9 basic of weapons. It was difficult for me to carry a
10 weapon. It bothered me.
11 My role was not to kill people. My role was
12 education and doing other things in the army, or rather
13 in the regular army of the State of Bosnia and
14 Herzegovina.
15 Q. So if we're to accept that, Mr. Cicak, there
16 is no way that you would have ever been issued a permit
17 to carry weapons --
18 A. That is your own affair.
19 Q. Have you ever been issued a permit to carry
20 weapons?
21 A. It is not necessary in all military
22 formations for people to be issued permits to carry a
23 weapon. As soon as one becomes a member of an armed
24 force, one has the right to have a weapon. As soon as
25 I joined in, I had the right to carry a weapon, but I
1 never did.
2 Q. Let me focus your attention on the time you
3 actually -- the time before you joined the armed
4 forces. Had you ever been issued a weapon-carrying
5 permit before that time, sir?
6 A. Yes. I had a small gun, a wonderful gun,
7 that is, a gun that is used for shooting at vermin
8 birds. I don't know how you are going to translate
9 this into English, but these various birds that appear
10 at my farm. It's a wonderful little gun, small-calibre
11 gun, very precise. And they took it away, or rather
12 they looted it, when they attacked me. I have this
13 here, if you want. I have my permit here. I can show
14 it to you.
15 JUDGE MAY: Well, we --
16 A. Very nice, very --
17 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Cicak, there's no need to
18 produce it.
19 A. No.
20 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, go on.
21 MR. SAYERS: Yes, Sir, I will.
22 Q. Apart from this subject --
23 A. Here it is.
24 Q. I understand. Let's go from this subject to
25 the general historical questions that I have for you.
1 Generally speaking, sir, you would agree with
2 me that the time covered by your testimony, the years
3 1990 to 1992, constituted a time of political,
4 military, social, economic and ethnic turmoil in the
5 former Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, would
6 you not?
7 A. Absolutely.
8 Q. It was a time of war, chaos and refugees,
9 wasn't it?
10 A. I don't think it was a time of war, but the
11 first conflicts had already taken place. Something
12 between that. Does this thing work? Well, it was
13 something in between that.
14 Then there's the village of Ravno. Nobody
15 here has mentioned it, and in the history of Bosnia and
16 Herzegovina, it is not mentioned. And it was razed to
17 the ground by the Yugoslav People's Army, and none of
18 the politicians tried to do anything meaningful in this
19 connection; that is to say, in connection with the
20 casualties of this attack by the Yugoslav People's
21 Army.
22 Q. Mr. Cicak, we'll get to the subject of Ravno
23 in due course, but let's try to do this in an orderly
24 and a systematic fashion. Is that acceptable?
25 A. Acceptable, but go in a certain order.
1 Q. Let's concentrate on the year 1990. At this
2 time, sir, Bosnia-Herzegovina was still one of the six
3 confederative socialist republics in what used to be
4 the country of Yugoslavia; is that correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In fact, as of or at least before March the
7 6th of 1992, there was no such thing as the independent
8 country -- the independent Republic of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina; that's a fact, is it not?
10 A. No, it's not a fact.
11 Q. Are you telling us that --
12 A. It is completely wrong.
13 Q. How so?
14 A. Bosnia-Herzegovina was proclaimed a state.
15 It has been accepted by the United Nations, and as such
16 it existed in the Balkans as an independent State of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
18 Q. One of six socialist republics in the
19 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; would you
20 agree with that?
21 A. Yes, but it is of no consequence with when it
22 was proclaimed a state.
23 Q. And in terms of the ethnic make-up of the
24 country, sir, would you agree that about 41 per cent of
25 the population consisted of Muslims; in 1990, that is?
1 A. I don't know if these figures are correct,
2 accurate. But let's say they are.
3 Q. And is it your recollection that about 35
4 per cent of the population of the Republic of
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Socialist Federal Republic,
6 that is, consisted of people of Serb ethnicity?
7 A. Just a moment. If I may look at these
8 notes. There was slightly more, but I will accept that
9 ratio. I only have figures that on the 31st of March,
10 '91, 1.593.322 Serbs there were in Bosnia-Herzegovina
11 on the 31st of March, '91, and you can, I suppose,
12 calculate what percentage that represents.
13 Q. But not to beat a dead horse, 35 per cent
14 sounds about in the ballpark, approximately correct to
15 you, doesn't it?
16 A. That's how you see it.
17 Q. Is it how you see it?
18 A. I can (real-time error corrected) go along
19 with that.
20 Q. And drawing up a distant third came the Croat
21 portion of the population at around 17,3 per cent?
22 A. There were 575.932 citizens altogether.
23 Q. And is that about 17,3 per cent of the total
24 population, sir?
25 A. Yes, thereabouts.
1 MR. SAYERS: If I may, Your Honours, I would
2 just like to point out one transcript error. One of
3 the answers was reflected as, "I cannot go along with
4 that," and I believe the witness said, "I can go along
5 with that."
6 JUDGE MAY: It looks as though it's been
7 corrected. Whether it has or not, I think it's time to
8 draw this to a close. All these facts can be proved in
9 due course, and it's not a subject for argument with
10 witnesses.
11 MR. SAYERS:
12 Q. Now, sir, the first party, political party,
13 to form after the Communist Party crumbled was actually
14 the Party of Democratic Action or the SDA, formed on
15 May the 26th of 1990; is that right?
16 A. Yes, but that is not what it was called.
17 Q. What was it called?
18 A. At first, it had an ethnic name, Muslim
19 Democratic Party.
20 Q. For the aid of the Court, I would just like
21 to present a graphic exhibit, and I'll ask you to agree
22 with me that this is correct, that it shows how the
23 parties were formed after 1990 and how they were
24 aligned. Thank you.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Document D10/1.
1 MR. SAYERS:
2 Q. Is it true, sir, that the next party to form
3 along ethnic lines was the Serbian Democratic Party,
4 also known as the SDS, founded a few months later in
5 July of 1990?
6 A. Yes, yes.
7 Q. Following behind the SDA and the SDS was the
8 Croatian Democratic Union, the HDZ, formed in
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina on the 18th of August of 1990;
10 correct?
11 A. Yes, correct.
12 Q. Now, the Croatian Democratic Party, the
13 actual HDZ, is a party that was originally founded in
14 Croatia; correct?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. The principal political party in the country
17 or the former Socialist Republic of Croatia at this
18 time in 1990; right?
19 A. (No audible response)
20 Q. Is that correct?
21 A. You want me to answer?
22 Q. Yes.
23 A. You mean the State of Croatia? Absolutely.
24 Q. Then the so-called HDZ BiH was the Croatian
25 Democratic Union that was formed in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
1 different from the HDZ in Croatia; is that correct?
2 A. At first, it was to be different from the HDZ
3 of Croatia. The political party, the Croatian
4 Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina, should have
5 been a party in the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
6 Q. It would be fair to say, and I think you
7 would agree with me, that the SDA, the SDS and the HDZ,
8 as of the time for the first democratic elections in
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina in November of 1990, were the three
10 principal national parties, all three of which had been
11 organised upon ethnic lines?
12 A. Absolutely.
13 Q. And, Mr. Cicak, in addition to these three
14 parties, there were actually a multitude of smaller,
15 less-significant political parties that had also been
16 formed more or less at the same time; isn't that true
17 as well?
18 A. Yes. There was -- there were very few
19 parties at the time.
20 Q. All right. Just to digress for one second,
21 you had a lot to say in your direct examination about
22 President Franjo Tudjman from Croatia. Let me just ask
23 you one question. Have you ever actually met President
24 Tudjman?
25 A. Yes, three or four times --
1 Q. And when was that?
2 A. -- not officially. Once or several -- no,
3 once I attended a review, the first review organised by
4 the State of Croatia to demonstrate its armoured
5 forces. It was at the playgrounds in Zagreb. It is
6 the Igraliste Zagreb, it's called. It belongs to the
7 football club of Zagreb. But it was an event which was
8 just a celebration to mark something, to show
9 something. And what was shown of the armed force
10 wasn't really worth a mention.
11 Q. You were just in the audience at that
12 meeting?
13 A. I was -- no, I was not among the audience, I
14 was first a guest of Minister Juric, and then I took a
15 look around Zagreb and I attended the event.
16 Q. There were 10.000 people at that event,
17 weren't there?
18 A. Yes, I think thereabouts. That's the
19 capacity, the seating capacity of the stadium, of that
20 playgrounds, of that sports grounds.
21 Q. You've never personally been introduced to
22 President Tudjman, have you, sir?
23 A. No, I have not had the opportunity, nor the
24 wish.
25 Q. And you've never spoken to him?
1 A. You mean directly?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. No.
4 Q. And you haven't attended any meetings,
5 private meetings, between President Tudjman and, for
6 example, Mate Boban?
7 A. No, no, God forbid.
8 Q. Everything you've told the Trial Chamber
9 about those meetings is derived from third-hand
10 sources, I take it.
11 A. No, not the -- if you mean Mr. Mate -- if you
12 understand Mate Boban by that, I do not think he's a
13 third hand, so that's not true, but I do not think
14 Mr. Mate Boban is a third hand. Mr. Mate Boban was
15 highly appreciated by Mr. Franjo Tudjman, and I think
16 that was really the first-hand information. How could
17 he be a third hand?
18 Q. All right. Let's go to the formation of the
19 HDZ BiH branch in the town of Busovaca, itself.
20 When did you first become a member of the
21 political party, sir?
22 A. That very moment when we gathered in St.
23 Ante's Church. I believe it was sometime -- I do have
24 the date, when Nikola Krizanac, HDZ president of
25 Busovaca, came and organised the gathering, and as of
1 that moment I considered myself a member of the HDZ in
2 Busovaca.
3 Q. When you joined the party, of course, you
4 agreed to abide by the charter of the party, its rules
5 and regulations, including those governing majority
6 rule in a democratic system; right?
7 A. Yes, but it's not a charter, it was the
8 statute and the programme; that is, the statute and the
9 programme of the Croatian Democratic Union of
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina were what attracted me to the -- to
11 that party. The statute, not all that much, because
12 all the newfangled parties had the same statute,
13 whether it be HDZ, SDA or SDS, the statutes all sounded
14 the same. But the programme of the Croat Democratic
15 Union was very flexible, was very progressive, very
16 European, and that was what attracted me to it.
17 Q. Did you know that there had actually been an
18 initiative committee formed in February of 1990, on
19 February 17th, actually, to be precise, to investigate
20 the foundation of the HDZ in Busovaca?
21 A. I knew of several initiative committees.
22 They were headed by people of different professions
23 which were not -- which were not really professions
24 that knew how to found political parties. They were
25 common farmers.
1 Q. Well, Mr. Kordic's father, Pero, was not a
2 common farmer, was he, sir?
3 A. No, he was an outstanding expert
4 veterinarian.
5 Q. He was actually the president of the
6 initiative committee that was held to investigate the
7 foundation of the HDZ on February 17th, 1990; isn't
8 that right?
9 A. I told you that there were several initiative
10 committees in Busovaca about to set up the HDZ.
11 Whether Mr. Pero Kordic was one of one of initiative
12 committees, and there were quite a number of them, I do
13 not know, I do not know now the names of all of them.
14 I know that one of them was on Pavelic's guard, that
15 is, in the fascist organisation during the independent
16 state of Croatia, the fascist organisation that he was
17 hiding some activity, Mr. Pero Kordic was always active
18 as far as the ethnic liberation of Croats was
19 concerned.
20 Q. The independent state of Croatia you're
21 referring to is the country that -- the entity that was
22 in effect from 1941 to 1945; is that correct?
23 A. The Republic of Croatia, yes, it existed at
24 that time. Oh, you mean the independent State of
25 Croatia? Yes, yes, that was the first time in the
1 history of the Croat people that Croatia had its state
2 and Dr. Ante Pavelic was the father of the Croat state
3 at that time. He was perceived then to be the first
4 one to do it and the only one, I think.
5 Q. And your father was a colonel in the armed
6 forces of that country, wasn't he?
7 A. No, my father was a royal officer. He served
8 during the rule of Aleksander Karadzordzevic, and he
9 studied in Vienna, in Budapest, in Pec, where military
10 experts receive their training. And since he was a
11 Croat, after the camp which is -- the camp in the
12 Federal Republic of Serbia, he was released home and
13 from Serbia where he served we had to move to Croatia,
14 rather to Petrinja, and that was where he was
15 registered in the service of the so-called Domobrans,
16 according to all the rules of the armed forces, that
17 is, the home guard militia of the independent State of
18 Croatia. And he enlisted with the same rank that he
19 had previously.
20 Q. Well, sorry for that brief digression. Let's
21 get back to the point.
22 Do you remember, on August 30th of 19 --
23 A. You can ask me about my mother, too. You can
24 ask me about my mother.
25 Q. Once again, sir, getting back to the point,
1 do you remember, on August 30th of 1990, a number of
2 village conventions were held in the opstina of
3 Busovaca, regarding the foundation of the HDZ?
4 A. Yes, I remember. I was one of very active
5 members, an activist at the time, so that I toured
6 almost all the villages, and people accepted almost all
7 that I said. But the important thing is that every
8 speech I made ended with one sentence, and that is the
9 sentence that I still conclude all my speeches with,
10 and that is, "Damned be the one who breaks the unity
11 amongst the Serbs, the Croats and the Muslims."
12 Q. All right.
13 A. And I think that curse has indeed reached
14 some people.
15 Q. Once again, sir, back to the point. On
16 September 30th, 1990, the first local elections for the
17 HDZ in Busovaca were held; is that right?
18 A. I think so.
19 Q. And the result of those elections was Dr.
20 Barac was elected the first president of the party; is
21 that correct?
22 A. Dr. Vjekoslav Barac.
23 Q. And you were appointed as one of the
24 vice-presidents of the local party organisation; is
25 that correct?
1 A. Yes. Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak was the
2 vice-president of the party.
3 Q. And what was the position of Dr. Dragutin
4 Franc?
5 A. Dr. Dragutin Franc was the man held in the
6 highest esteem in the Lasva Valley. He was the
7 vice-president of the municipal board of the Busovaca
8 HDZ, a man of an advanced age.
9 Q. So it would be fair to say that as of the
10 first elections, you were one of the two
11 vice-presidents of this political party at the basic
12 local level?
13 A. That's as far as I can remember. Perhaps
14 there were five, or maybe four, or perhaps more, but I
15 know that professor Dr. Vjekoslav Barac was the
16 president. Then the legendary figure of the Lasva
17 Valley, Dr. Drago Franc, was one of the
18 vice-presidents. I was another one, and who was a
19 third vice-president, I can't remember, and I'm not
20 sure even if there was a third one or not, but it
21 doesn't really matter.
22 Q. Now, you can tell the Trial Chamber that
23 there were actually about 70 opstinas at which similar
24 elections were being held at about the same time in
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina; right?
1 A. Bosnia and Herzegovina had 110
2 municipalities, or rather the state of
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina had 110 municipalities which made
4 that state. How many Croat communities there were at
5 the time, and in which Croat municipalities the
6 elections were held, I really cannot say now, because
7 after all, nine years have passed by. So you will
8 understand that these are minor matters which one tends
9 to forget.
10 Q. Just to put things in historical context, as
11 of this time, September of 1990, there was no such
12 thing as an independent state of Croatia, was there?
13 A. Yes, but things were being done in that
14 direction, to make it an independent state.
15 Q. No, I perfectly agree with you, sir, but
16 there was no independent state of Slovenia either, was
17 there?
18 A. No, but again, efforts were being made in
19 that direction.
20 Q. Certainly. And precisely analogously to
21 Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina was not an
22 independent country at this time either, was it?
23 A. I'm not sure. I think it won its
24 independence later, after attempts to preserve the
25 federal -- that is the Socialist Federal Republic of
1 Yugoslavia in its rump form, or as some people called
2 it, Serbo-Slavia.
3 Q. Right. That was what was left of the former
4 Yugoslavia after the declarations of independence by
5 the countries of Slovenia and Croatia; right?
6 A. Yes. Yes.
7 Q. Do you know anything about internal party
8 politics in the HDZ after you left Busovaca at the end
9 of March, 1992?
10 A. I know there were many things, but honestly
11 speaking, I'm not sure. I don't think it was part of
12 an integral Bosnia and Herzegovina, because I think
13 that yesterday or the day before yesterday I said that
14 Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into three regions,
15 so that is Herzegovina, Central Bosnia, and the Sava
16 Valley. If we're talking about the HDZ in Posavina, in
17 the Sava Valley, then it is a completely different
18 political organisation. The Central Bosnian HDZ is
19 again a different political organisation, and the HDZ
20 in Herzegovina, then again, we need to speak about a
21 completely different organisation. They are
22 territories and regions which are drastically different
23 as far as the mentality, the way of thinking, the way
24 of life, the kind of schools, education,
25 transportation, and in terms of everything or almost
1 everything else, they are different.
2 Q. All right. So now to return to the subject
3 that we were discussing, which was the elections in
4 Busovaca, isn't it also true that Dario Kordic was
5 elected secretary of the municipal HDZ in Busovaca on
6 September the 30th, 1990?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. So from the very earliest days of the HDZ in
9 Busovaca, Mr. Kordic was involved in party politics at
10 the local level, just like you?
11 A. Not since the earliest days of its
12 existence. First you need to realise that it is a
13 small place, a small village, and after the foundation
14 in the St. Anto's church until the date when we elected
15 the president, vice-president, the secretary,
16 treasurer, and so on and so forth, some time of course
17 elapsed. So this was the time of consultation, of -- I
18 don't know, some personnel development or some
19 personnel structure, rather, the election and selection
20 of people who could be in that organisation.
21 Q. Now, over the course of the next year and a
22 half or so, you never actually held a post that was any
23 higher than vice-president of the HDZ at this very
24 basic local municipal level, did you, sir?
25 A. Well, I don't know when I was elected to the
1 court of honour, or the disciplinary court, or -- I
2 don't know. I think it was at the HDZ convention in
3 Mostar. I'm not sure whether it was the court of
4 honour of the main board of the HDZ of
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina or whether it was the disciplinary
6 commission of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it is
7 of no consequence to me which bodies these are.
8 Q. Well, you've never held the position of
9 president of the municipal HDZ in Busovaca, have you?
10 A. There were some proposals, but I did not have
11 the will or desire to become something of that nature,
12 especially not in the village. I didn't think it was
13 necessary, and these efforts within the HDZ and the
14 municipal committee actually filled up part of my free
15 time.
16 Q. Well, Dario Kordic actually was elected
17 president of the municipal HDZ in Busovaca -- once
18 again, at the local level -- on February the 1st of
19 1991, was he not?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And do you know how long he held that
22 position, sir?
23 A. As president of the municipal committee? I
24 think for a very long period of time. Even after I
25 left, he remained.
1 Q. Did you know that Dario Kordic had actually
2 been replaced as president of the municipal HDZ in
3 Busovaca on April the 1st, 1992, by Florijan
4 Glavocevic?
5 A. I doubt that. These were replacements. They
6 took place in the context that you are mentioning. If
7 Florijan Glavocevic came, then it was the result of an
8 agreement between Mr. Kordic and Mr. Glavocevic and the
9 others, that is to say, Mate Boban and others.
10 Perhaps Kordic was supposed to take over some higher
11 post, but replacement, no way. The most important
12 person in the Lasva Valley, or rather in that part of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, was Dario Kordic. And whatever he
14 says --
15 Q. I've heard you say that, sir. We've heard
16 that repeatedly this morning. Now, let me just ask you
17 this --
18 A. I'm glad you heard it.
19 Q. You weren't around in Busovaca in April of
20 1992, and you have no knowledge of what went on in
21 internal party politics in the HDZ after you left for
22 Zenica on March the 31st of 1992; is that not a fact?
23 A. In April, I lay in my apartment without
24 moving, struggling for my life, to remain alive,
25 throughout the month of April, 1992, because I was
1 beaten up so badly that I couldn't even go to the
2 bathroom, the toilet, et cetera.
3 Q. Now, to answer my question, sir, you had no
4 involvement in internal party politics in the HDZ after
5 March the 31st of 1992; isn't that a fact?
6 A. I think that this is superfluous. I think
7 it's been answered.
8 JUDGE MAY: Did you play any part, Mr. Cicak,
9 after the 31st of March?
10 A. I did play a certain part, in my bed, as I
11 was recovering and trying to --
12 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Move on.
13 A. And trying to --
14 JUDGE MAY: We've heard that.
15 A. If necessary I'll repeat it ten times.
16 MR. SAYERS:
17 Q. I don't think that will be necessary, sir.
18 We've heard what you've had to say.
19 Now, the Prosecutor started out looking
20 chronologically at certain documents with you, and the
21 first document that you were shown, chronologically,
22 related to the HDZ. I believe it was dated July the
23 21st of 1991, and I'll turn to that in just a few
24 seconds, but once again, because these were such
25 tumultuous times in the former Yugoslavia, I would
1 appreciate it if you could just set in historical
2 context for Their Honours what was going on at this
3 time.
4 Do you remember, sir, a famous speech given
5 by President Slobodan Milosevic in March of 1991 in
6 which he declared that Yugoslavia was finished and in
7 which he declared that Serbia no longer considered
8 itself bound by the federal bodies? Do you remember
9 that?
10 A. Yes, I remember those speeches, but I
11 concentrated my attention on the municipal committee of
12 the HDZ of Busovaca and all the affairs related to
13 that. As for Mr. Milosevic's speeches, I wasn't
14 interested in them at all.
15 Q. They didn't concern you in the least?
16 A. No. And I'm not going to call him
17 "Mr. Milosevic" any more, so I'm going to say that I
18 was never interested in Milosevic's speeches.
19 Q. Well, a few days later, President Milosevic
20 announced that Serbs would all live in one state. Did
21 you hear that speech?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Weren't you a little bit scared about that?
24 A. No. Not in the least bit.
25 Q. Very well. Do you remember that a referendum
1 on the question of whether Croatia should become an
2 independent country was held shortly after that, on May
3 the 19th of 1991?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And do you remember, sir, that five months
6 earlier, in December of 1990, a similar kind of
7 referendum had been conducted in Slovenia on the
8 question of whether that country should become
9 independent too?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And do you also remember that shortly before
12 the date of the first document that you were shown,
13 which I believe was marked exhibit Z7, the armed forces
14 of the former Yugoslavia, the JNA, actually attacked
15 Slovenia in a ten-day conflict that lasted, I believe,
16 from June the 25th of 1991 until July the 3rd. Do you
17 remember that?
18 A. I remember.
19 Q. Did that make you a little bit worried?
20 Fighting --
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Fighting breaking out in your country? And
23 was that a concern that was shared by your compatriots
24 at the local level of the HDZ party in Busovaca?
25 A. I don't know. I don't know to what level
1 this was developed. At the local level, I know that we
2 discussed this for nights and nights. However, there
3 was a terrible thing that was looming over
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- this is also shown by its history
5 -- and that is to say that all the wars in the history
6 of the Balkans started outside the territory of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina and ended so disastrously in
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina that it would be totally
9 devastated. So we were afraid that this war waged
10 between the JNA and Croatia and Slovenia would end in
11 the BH in a disastrous way, that Bosnia-Herzegovina
12 would be devastated and razed to the ground.
13 Q. And just to close the loop on that question
14 for Their Honours, that was a concern shared by all of
15 your compatriots at the local party level, the HDZ in
16 Busovaca, at around this time, was it not?
17 A. Yes. Because a large quantity -- well, you
18 can't really say a large quantity, but several military
19 formations of the JNA were moving towards
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, fully armed and equipped, which
21 meant that Bosnia-Herzegovina would be full of weapons
22 of the Yugoslav People's Army, and everybody knows what
23 that can lead to.
24 Q. And certainly the Croat population that you
25 represented in the Opstina of Busovaca knew what that
1 represented, too, didn't they, sir?
2 A. We tried to explain this to the population,
3 because these are people who are not very highly
4 educated and who could not even realise what would
5 happen two months in advance, and we had to make a
6 major effort in order prepare these citizens, but not
7 only those who were of Croat ethnicity but citizens of
8 all different ethnic groups. That is to say that this
9 catastrophe that was looming over Bosnia-Herzegovina
10 posed a constant threat headed by the JNA.
11 MR. SAYERS: All right. And that brings us
12 to the first document that you were shown, Exhibit Z7.
13 I wonder if the usher would perhaps put that
14 document in front of you.
15 Q. We've gone over very briefly, and I hope for
16 the Trial Chamber not too laboriously, the historical
17 context out of which these minutes arose, and it's
18 true, is it not, sir, that the reason for the meeting
19 of the Travnik region of the HDZ on the 21st of July of
20 1991 was to discuss the political and security
21 situation in the homeland?
22 A. On the 21st of July, 1991? The 21st of July,
23 1991?
24 Q. Yes, that's right.
25 A. Yes. I'm sure that that meeting was
1 dedicated to that problem.
2 Q. All right.
3 A. May I add something that you put very
4 nicely? It's good that you raised this question. I
5 don't know if I've answered it, but with the permission
6 of the Honourable Court, I wish to say that that this
7 document was signed by two persons who did not have the
8 right to do so, and that is to say Dario Kordic and
9 Ignac Kostroman. The secretary general, Professor Dr.
10 Markesic is not here at all, or is the president,
11 Stjepan Tudjman.
12 Q. Yes, sir, you've previously made that point.
13 Now, Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, had actually
14 been bombed by the air forces of the JNA in the middle
15 of July of 1991, or the beginning of July; I'm sorry.
16 Is that correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. At this meeting of the HDZ of the Travnik
19 region, Mr. Kljujic was not present, was he?
20 A. No.
21 Q. He was busy doing other things because he was
22 actually a member of the presidency of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina at this time, was he not?
24 A. He was a member of the presidency. He was
25 president of the party, as well. Bosnia-Herzegovina
1 had 110 municipalities, as I said. Perhaps 50
2 municipalities, or even more, had a Croat population at
3 least in part, and his concern was to strive for each
4 and every Croat.
5 Q. And the leaders of the seven listed
6 municipalities are identified on this document, are
7 they not?
8 A. What do you mean?
9 Q. Well, paragraph 1 of the agenda lists the
10 leaders of all seven municipalities in the Travnik
11 region, and it lists them by name, doesn't it?
12 A. Yes. With the permission of the Honourable
13 Court, I would just like to say one sentence: This is
14 an attempt to create two regional communities.
15 Q. We agreed earlier, at the very outset of this
16 cross-examination, that you were going to answer these
17 questions in a terse, logical, and sequential way, and
18 in a responsive way.
19 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Sayers, if the witness
20 does not, it is a matter for the Court to deal with.
21 Now would you move on, please.
22 MR. SAYERS: Yes.
23 Q. The leaders of the seven municipalities are
24 listed accurately in this document, aren't they, to the
25 best of your knowledge?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Your name doesn't appear there, does it?
3 A. I don't know which meeting this was, and it's
4 not important whether my name is there or not. All
5 these minutes were made by Kostroman, and the
6 possibility was always there for some names to be
7 entered and others not.
8 Q. Incidentally, in June of 1991, the Serbian
9 forces had actually launched aggressive attacks into
10 Croatia, had they not?
11 A. (No interpreted response)
12 Q. I'm sorry, did you say you agree with that?
13 A. Yes. Yes, I said yes.
14 Q. Fine. I'm sorry; I didn't hear you.
15 And you would agree with me this is about one
16 month before the massive Serbian attack on the city of
17 Vukovar in eastern Croatia; right?
18 A. Yes. Yes.
19 Q. Now, do you see paragraph 8, sir, of this
20 document?
21 A. I don't know. I was given some papers here,
22 and it's very difficult for me to make head or tail out
23 of it. What are these documents? Would you please be
24 so kind as to mark this? Could the usher perhaps help
25 me?
1 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Sayers,
2 could we have the document, could we have it put on the
3 ELMO? Thank you.
4 MR. SAYERS: If it's unclear, and I hope it's
5 not, we're discussing Exhibit Z7.
6 JUDGE MAY: Has the witness got Exhibit Z7?
7 Mr. Cicak, would you give to counsel the
8 document that you have.
9 Usher, would you take the document to counsel
10 and see what document it is.
11 MR. SAYERS: This is one of the statements
12 that we earlier questioned him about, Your Honour.
13 It's not relevant to the current line of questioning.
14 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness have the right
15 document.
16 MR. SAYERS:
17 Q. If I could just turn your attention to
18 paragraph 8 of these documents, Mr. Cicak, they read
19 that: "For political reasons, the HDZ-BiH must
20 urgently get in touch with the SDA and the other
21 parties in Cazinska Krajina in order to take joint
22 political action in that region."
23 Do you remember -- I think you've previously
24 testified that notwithstanding the absence of your name
25 from the list of attendees, you were actually at this
1 meeting. Did I remember your testimony correctly?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And do you remember a discussion of this
4 particular item, the necessity of a coordinated action
5 with the Muslim political party, the SDA?
6 A. It is interesting to note the Cazinska
7 Krajina and the SDA there, they behaved quite
8 differently from their headquarters, the SDA
9 headquarters in Sarajevo, and that is why the MBO party
10 was interesting and the SDA party was interesting in
11 the Bihac, or rather Cazin region. And that is why
12 this was discussed; that is to say, to try to establish
13 some kind of a link there. But I think it was never
14 established. Nor was it possible to establish it.
15 Q. But it was certainly the consensus of the
16 meeting and the consensus of all of the attendees that
17 that kind of joint political action with the SDA was
18 something to be advocated and approved of?
19 A. Imperative, if the SDA headquarters in
20 Sarajevo were to be brought down.
21 Q. And do you remember there being discussion of
22 item 15 on this document, sir, the problem of panic and
23 disorder being spread throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina by
24 armed Chetnik gangs?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. And it would be fair to say that the
2 authorities of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina
3 were pretty powerless in controlling that armed
4 violence, wouldn't it?
5 A. The authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina
6 were truly powerless in terms of exercising control
7 over all the paramilitary formations that appeared at
8 various sides; Muslim, Croat and Serb paramilitary
9 formations.
10 Q. All right. And the term "Chetnik" there, I
11 think we've cleared that up. That refers to whom?
12 A. I don't know whether they are real Chetniks,
13 but that's the word that was used here. That is to say
14 that it's the only thing that Kostroman wrote down and
15 what he signed. What that means, only Kostroman
16 knows. But they were not Chetnik forces. These were
17 armed formations of the SDS party that, regrettably, we
18 called them Carapani. That is to say, they wore socks,
19 masks, over their faces.
20 Q. And with this environment of armed violence
21 increasing and the powerlessness of the
22 Bosnian-Herzegovinian governmental authorities to
23 control it, was there any discussion of the item that
24 appears in paragraph 16 about the economy being in a
25 state of general collapse as well?
1 A. Yes. This was discussed, and social unrest
2 was almost there. The economy could not function
3 properly. It is very important for the economy to have
4 regular transportation, and there was no regular
5 transportation and traffic because the paramilitary
6 forces placed obstacles and roadblocks, and it was
7 difficult to move about.
8 Q. Do you remember any discussion around this
9 time of something called the Brioni Accords?
10 A. Would you please be so kind as to repeat your
11 question?
12 Q. Absolutely, sir. Do you remember any
13 discussion around this time of something called the
14 Brioni Accords? And maybe it might help you just to
15 suggest that this was a series of international
16 agreements pursuant to which the declaration of
17 Croatian independence was deferred until about the 8th
18 of November, 1991, to take formal legal effect.
19 A. I do not recall these discussions. Right
20 now, I don't know whether we discussed this at the
21 meeting of the municipal committee of the HDZ of
22 Busovaca, but we were very busy dealing with problems
23 that were cropping up then in Busovaca. We wanted to
24 pacify the citizens and also to prepare them for this
25 terrible situation that was looming over
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
2 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, if that's a
3 convenient time, we'll adjourn.
4 MR. SAYERS: Fine, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Tomorrow at 9.45,
6 please.
7 MR. NICE: Can I seek your guidance for a
8 couple of minutes on timetable matters?
9 JUDGE MAY: It's a couple of minutes, no
10 more.
11 MR. NICE: Yes, absolutely.
12 JUDGE MAY: If the witness likes to go,
13 Mr. Cicak, you can go. If you would be back tomorrow
14 at 9.45, please.
15 MR. NICE: What I'm saying has nothing to do
16 with --
17 JUDGE MAY: No, let the witness go.
18 Mr. Cicak, you can go now. This is to do with the
19 hearing, nothing to do with you. Nothing to worry
20 about.
21 MR. NICE: Indeed, it's to do with the
22 timetable of the following witnesses.
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
24 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, I wonder if we
25 could just ask for the exhibits to be left in the
1 courtroom.
2 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Cicak, could you leave the
3 exhibits, please?
4 (The witness withdrew)
5 MR. NICE: It's a timetable problem. I've
6 been told by Mr. Sayers that he forecasts or did
7 forecast completing cross-examination of this witness
8 within a day, so that would mean that the next witness
9 can start tomorrow at 2.00.
10 I had made arrangements originally to have
11 two witnesses here for this week, but it's quite clear,
12 given that we're rising on Thursday at lunchtime, that
13 we won't finish both of them. So of the two that are
14 in fact here, I've elected to proceed with the one who
15 will take the shorter period of time so that at least
16 he can be completed.
17 Unfortunately, or fortunately, next week I'm
18 obliged to start on Monday at 3.00 with a witness whose
19 timetabling is very difficult, and so I simply have to
20 take him at 3.00, in order that he can be completed and
21 available for other functions that he has to perform
22 within a reasonable period of time.
23 That leaves two possibilities. One is that
24 when the witness finishes this week, if he starts
25 tomorrow at lunchtime, that's Tuesday lunchtime, and if
1 he lasts, say, a day and a bit, sometime Wednesday
2 lunchtime, possibly Wednesday afternoon, there could be
3 some wasted -- not wasted time, some lost time, a
4 maximum of a day, possibly half a day Thursday
5 morning.
6 The other witness who is here, who will be a
7 longer witness in terms of time taken, is willing to
8 stay and is willing to have his evidence started -- it
9 would only be part of his evidence in chief -- on the
10 basis that it goes part heard to however many weeks'
11 time it is. That's not, in itself, a problem because,
12 of course, the transcript will enable us to pick up
13 where he left off, and he can stay out of contact with
14 us once he starts giving his evidence.
15 So I'm really in the Court's hands. My
16 preference, I have to say, is to get evidence in as
17 swiftly and efficiently as we can, but the real options
18 are between a possibility of as much as half a day
19 being lost Thursday morning, the other possibility
20 being a witness, partway through his evidence in chief,
21 coming back in a couple of weeks' time or maybe even a
22 bit more.
23 I have to say the witness has been here
24 before. I had to apologise to him, of course, for the
25 inconvenience he was facing, and he is extremely
1 helpful and cooperative, and he's basically willing to
2 do whatever we say, notwithstanding the fact that he's
3 a doctor himself. So we are grateful to him for that
4 and in your hands as to how best to proceed.
5 But next Monday's witness I have to take at
6 3.00, when we start.
7 (Trial Chamber deliberates)
8 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, we think that we would
9 like to hear the witness, if possible. It rather
10 depends what progress we make.
11 MR. NICE: Yes.
12 s JUDGE MAY: If we don't make good progress
13 and we're faced with him starting, as it were, on
14 Thursday morning, there's little point. But if we can
15 start him on Wednesday afternoon, then I think we
16 should.
17 MR. NICE: I'll make arrangements, insofar as
18 I can with VWU, to make his return bookings and so on
19 flexible and cancel whatever else. Thank you very
20 much.
21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
22 4.09 p.m., to be reconvened on
23 Tuesday, the 27th day of April,
24 1999, at 9.45 a.m.
25