Page 964
1 Monday, 6 March 2000
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 10.10 a.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 [The witness entered court]
6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Please be
7 seated.
8 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Today
9 we're here for the Kvocka case. Good morning to the
10 interpreters, to the technicians.
11 We will be sitting here, the two of us,
12 Judge Wald and myself, without Judge Riad at the
13 beginning. He will arrive around 11.00. We apologise
14 to all of the participants in the courtroom for this
15 delay. Again we had certain organisational problems,
16 and we are trying to work on it, and we hope that this
17 will not happen again.
18 So today we will continue with the testimony
19 of Mr. Kvocka.
20 WITNESS: MIROSLAV KVOCKA [RESUMED]
21 [Witness answered through interpreter]
22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good
23 morning, Mr. Kvocka. As you know, you are still under
24 oath.
25 I would like to ask Mr. Simic how long does
Page 965
1 he think that he needs to finish the testimony of
2 Mr. Kvocka?
3 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Good morning,
4 Your Honours. I hope that I will be able to complete
5 the evidence today, in any event, and that there will
6 probably be time for Mr. Radic to take the stand. I
7 think that we will use most of the day today, anyway,
8 in order to complete our work.
9 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.
10 I'm asking because, as you know, pursuant to Article 15
11 of the Statute, if the Chamber cannot sit in full
12 composition, the Judges may decide to continue, and we
13 think that it is in the interests of justice to
14 continue even in the absence of Judge Riad. As I have
15 already told you, he will be here around 11.00, and
16 we'll have a break around that time. So I think that
17 we can work now until 11.10 or 11.15, and then we will
18 have a break and we will come back with Judge Riad.
19 Mr. Simic, you have the floor.
20 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your
21 Honour.
22 Examined by Mr. Simic:
23 Q. Mr. Kvocka, after you returned from Tukovi,
24 what did you do? What were your duties in the police
25 station in Prijedor?
Page 966
1 A. After I came back from the reserve police
2 station in Tukovi, I was a policeman at the duty room
3 in the Prijedor police station.
4 Q. Could you describe what your duties were and
5 how did you go about carrying them out?
6 A. In the Prijedor police station, I worked as a
7 policeman, as a part of the duty service. This is a
8 group of five or six men who were part of this duty
9 service. There is a shift commander, there is a
10 driver, and several police officers for different calls
11 and other activities.
12 Q. Until when did you stay in this job?
13 A. For about a year. Until I was transferred to
14 the Chief of Patrol in the Prijedor Police Station I.
15 Q. When was this?
16 A. Sometime in September 1993.
17 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I
18 would like to tender another exhibit now. Our mark is
19 27. My apologies again, but we will place this exhibit
20 on the ELMO, and this way we will avoid any confusion
21 with different markings.
22 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Exhibit
23 D22/1, and D22/1A.
24 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Mr. Kvocka, what was established in early
Page 967
1 August in the Prijedor police station, according to
2 this document?
3 A. In the public security station in Prijedor,
4 in early August, a police battalion was established
5 consisting of seven companies.
6 Q. Were you a member of this battalion?
7 A. Yes, as a policeman.
8 Q. In which company were you, which platoon?
9 A. I was a member of the 1st Company and the
10 1st Platoon of this company.
11 Q. Who was your platoon commander?
12 A. It was Milorad Marin.
13 Q. Who was the company commander?
14 A. Milutin Cadjo.
15 Q. Mr. Kvocka, how many superior persons were
16 there if you take the entire structure into account,
17 the companies and platoons?
18 A. Including the command, that is, the command
19 staff and the company and platoon commanders, there are
20 about 63 different commanding officers.
21 Q. When you look at the proportion of the
22 command staff in relation to the entire staff of the
23 security station in Omarska --
24 A. You mean Prijedor?
25 Q. Yes, actually, Prijedor.
Page 968
1 A. I believe that at the time, there were
2 somewhere between 160 and 170 active-duty police
3 officers in the public security station in Prijedor,
4 and one could conclude that every third active-duty
5 police officer was one of the commanding officers whom
6 I have just mentioned.
7 Q. When you look at the list of these
8 commanders, their deputies, and so on, what was their
9 function in the regular police force, apart from this
10 battalion structure?
11 A. The top officials of the public security
12 station were involved there.
13 Q. What were their names?
14 A. It was Staff Commander Simo Drljaca; and
15 Deputy Commander was Marko Djenadija, Reserve 1st Class
16 Captain; and then Chief of Staff was Dusan Jankovic,
17 who was also the head of the police department; and the
18 operative officer was Ranko Mijic, who was a Reserve
19 Lieutenant.
20 Q. I just want to take you back to the 1st
21 Company. What was the commander of the 1st Company
22 within the overall Prijedor police structure?
23 A. Milutin Cadjo, at that time, was also the
24 commander of the Prijedor I Police Station.
25 Q. Thank you. Mr. Kvocka, several days ago you
Page 969
1 talked about certain changes when you came back from
2 that vacation which you took after the incident. What
3 changes did you observe in the system of organisation
4 of the Omarska Investigation Centre?
5 A. After I came back from this leave, I think I
6 have mentioned certain changes, and even earlier, there
7 were some minor changes. On the very same day that the
8 incident which I described took place, that is, the
9 shooting of that individual and my intervention and the
10 death of one or two detainees, which was on the 31st of
11 May, before all this had happened, Zeljko was away, and
12 after his return, he was both angry and concerned. He
13 said that there were more serious tasks ahead and that
14 he had to do something in order to improve the
15 efficiency of the police work in the Omarska police
16 station.
17 In that sense, he said that he would organise
18 the police work into three shifts and that there would
19 be a duty officer assigned to each of the shifts, and
20 that he has been considering these things and that
21 Mladjo Radic, as an experienced police officer, was
22 definitely going to be among them. He also was
23 familiar with radio communications. And he was still
24 labouring about finding the other two because he said
25 that he didn't have the right choices for those two
Page 970
1 positions.
2 Then perhaps supported by my suggestions, he
3 said that perhaps Milojica Kos and Momcilo Gruban,
4 called Ckalja, could be those two choices. They
5 projected the image of fairly stable police officers,
6 and they were very straightforward. And this is what
7 he actually ended up doing.
8 Q. How did he let Kos and Gruban know that they
9 were appointed?
10 A. I think when they arrived at the station, he
11 told them that these would be their assignments, that
12 they would be also manning the radio transmitter and
13 that occasionally they should note down if somebody
14 failed to appear for work. He told me that this would
15 also be good for me because I was burdened and that
16 this would help, because at that time, I had duty
17 shifts of 12 hours each day.
18 When I said that he had asked me to work in
19 this way, in the previous days, when I say "asked," it
20 was really an order because we did not have regular
21 strict orders, but when they said, "Please do such and
22 such a thing," the order was implicit in it.
23 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you are a long-time police
24 officer, and later on you advanced in your career.
25 What was this position? Was this some kind of a
Page 971
1 commanding post?
2 A. You mean the duty officer's duty?
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. By rank, that was a position that was like
5 any other position, something that any other police
6 officer would have done either in the investigation
7 centre or in the police department, it's the same
8 thing. The only difference is the tasks that you get.
9 Q. Let us try to simplify this. Could Mr. Radic
10 have issued any orders to you?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Could you have issued any orders to
13 Mr. Radic?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Could Mr. Radic have issued orders to any
16 reserve police officers in the shift where he was on
17 duty?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Who could issue orders to whom? We're
20 talking about security staff.
21 A. Only Zeljko Meakic could issue any types of
22 orders to either myself or Radic or any other police
23 officers.
24 Q. Mr. Kvocka, were you present at any incident
25 after this short leave which you took after the
Page 972
1 shooting incident in the Omarska Investigation Centre?
2 A. There were several situations after my return
3 from my leave, things that I observed, and in some, I
4 took part, and I can enumerate them.
5 Q. Please do.
6 A. In the first days, on this plateaux in front
7 of these buildings, a person appeared who was known to
8 the police officers in Omarska before as a criminal
9 type. That was Vlado Sredic, called Djordjin. He was
10 armed, he was obviously inebriated, and very loudly, he
11 cursed Turkish mothers, and he was yelling something to
12 the effect, "Where is the hodza from Kevljani so that I
13 can try him," and similar things.
14 When I heard this, I walked over to him and
15 rather curtly, and actually somewhat forcefully,
16 removed him from the centre. He left the investigation
17 centre mumbling something, saying something to the
18 effect that "We are catching them, and here you are
19 treating them with silk gloves."
20 Then later on, an acquaintance of mine from
21 the traffic police told me that he had met this same
22 Djordjin person at the checkpoint where he worked, that
23 he openly issued threats that I was the first on the
24 list of people with whom he was going to deal.
25 Q. Were there any additional incidents?
Page 973
1 A. In that same period, I had two incidents at
2 the front gate. When I was on duty in the office which
3 we most frequently used as the duty room, I received a
4 call by this internal phone from the front gate that
5 the police officers and the company guard had certain
6 problems with drunken individuals who wanted to enter
7 the investigation centre.
8 After I received this information and request
9 for assistance, which is how I would define it, I
10 immediately set out for the front gate and found four
11 soldiers, armed, who had arrived in a vehicle. They
12 were drunken also and they wanted to come in, and they
13 were demanding that the gate be opened by the company
14 guard. The gate was opened automatically from the
15 guard's hut, and I tried, using my experience in
16 similar situations, to calm things down and to convince
17 them to leave there, because any other approach would
18 have been quite risky. They were all armed and quite
19 aggressive.
20 From the previous era, which was the
21 Communist system, as they called it, they had inherited
22 this arrogant attitude towards the policemen. They
23 asked me why I was protecting the Turks and things like
24 that.
25 Q. You mentioned "Turks," in the previous
Page 974
1 incident where this single person called them Turks and
2 now they call these people Turks. What was this word
3 used for?
4 A. It was a derogatory word for the Muslims who
5 lived in our area.
6 Q. Very well. Go on, please.
7 A. After several such exchanges, they decided to
8 leave after all, again mumbling something under their
9 breath and making noises, but I paid no more attention
10 to them and I went back to the building.
11 And speaking of incidents, I can also mention
12 an incident which took place around 10 June, when in
13 the morning I found Zeljko Meakic, and in conversation
14 with him learned that in the course of that night, a
15 murder had taken place. Mehmedalija Nasic, I believe.
16 I know that the last name is Nasic.
17 He briefly described that during the night a
18 guard had shot through the window of the restaurant
19 where the detainees were staying, that apparently he
20 had been trying to flee or something, and that the
21 guard named Popovic or Pavlovic had used the weapon.
22 Q. You were not in Omarska that night?
23 A. No. I was not on duty that night.
24 Q. What about the police officer who had shot?
25 What happened to him?
Page 975
1 A. I only know that this policeman was off duty
2 for five or six days, but later on he reappeared. I
3 saw him in his guard post, if I can call it that.
4 Q. Do you know whether any measures were taken
5 against him?
6 A. No, I do not know.
7 Q. Were there any other incidents which you
8 observed?
9 A. During my stay there, which was a total of
10 about 20 days, I observed several people who had
11 bruises, which means that they had received beatings.
12 I also observed, during one arrest of about
13 seven or eight persons, an official vehicle which had
14 come from Prijedor, it was a police van, that a search
15 was conducted of these individuals, and I think that it
16 was done not in a correct way. It was humiliating.
17 But if you think that -- but a police search can be
18 construed to feel humiliating anyway, but this one was
19 out of the ordinary. I said, "Boys, this is not how
20 this should be done. It should be done properly." I
21 think then that the search from there on went
22 properly.
23 Q. Mr. Kvocka, it is not our task to identify
24 all the personnel in the police force, but what was the
25 ethnic composition of the Omarska police station?
Page 976
1 A. They were all Serbs.
2 Q. Were there any other police officers by the
3 name of Kvocka?
4 A. There were two additional ones.
5 Q. What were their names?
6 A. One was Zoran, one was Milojica.
7 Q. When we talked about the structure of
8 security and you said that you only controlled one
9 point -- I'm not going to go back to that -- but there
10 was one point that I think that we need to clarify.
11 Concerning the police officers who were sort of
12 servicing the investigators, who was their superior?
13 A. It was Zeljko Meakic as the commander of the
14 police precinct, but they were attached to the
15 investigators, and they received orders from the
16 investigators as to whom they were to bring forth, and
17 that's, in a nutshell, how it was.
18 Q. How long did your brothers-in-law stay in
19 Omarska after you departed?
20 A. You mean --
21 Q. I mean when they arrived there.
22 A. After they came, they stayed in my house.
23 Q. I mean after they went back to Omarska.
24 A. I brought them back to the investigation
25 centre somewhere around the 22nd, 23rd, and they stayed
Page 977
1 there until the Omarska centre was closed down. That
2 was in early August.
3 Q. Where were they taken then?
4 A. They were all taken to Trnopolje, all three.
5 Q. When were they released from Trnopolje?
6 A. They were released from Trnopolje several
7 days later. Up to one week later after they were
8 transferred from Omarska.
9 Q. Who went to get them in Trnopolje?
10 A. They were released in such a way that my wife
11 and I went there in the vehicle and brought them home.
12 Q. Did they receive any help before you arrived
13 back to your place?
14 A. When we came there, we found some Red Cross
15 personnel who drafted a document saying that they could
16 leave, but somebody objected, said that these
17 signatures were not enough. The signature of Slobodan
18 Kuruzovic was needed for it, but he refused to give us
19 his signature. We then decided to take them into the
20 vehicle and leave anyway and see what happened.
21 Q. Did you have any trouble getting to or from
22 Trnopolje?
23 A. There is a checkpoint as you exit, and our
24 documents were checked there. They noted down our
25 information. I was quite crudely provoked there,
Page 978
1 because they asked why am I releasing the Green
2 Berets. What did I think I was doing. There were five
3 or six men at this checkpoint. They were armed. I
4 think that one of them even cursed my mother. I was
5 humiliated, to sum it up.
6 Q. Mr. Kvocka, let us go back to the indictment
7 now. Who was responsible for hygiene, the prisoners'
8 hygiene.
9 A. According to the document that we studied a
10 few days ago, it was the mine administration, the strip
11 mine administration; that is to say, the company
12 administration. It was up to them to organise them. I
13 noticed two or three individuals, two or three females,
14 women, whom I knew previously to be cleaners in the
15 company compound.
16 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] I should now like
17 to ask us to look at a document, D17/1, point 7 on page
18 2 of this document. Our number is 55. The document is
19 numbered 55, to facilitate communication.
20 Q. Mr. Kvocka, I shall read this out: "At the
21 same time, the mine's management is duty-bound to do
22 regular cleaning, maintenance of plumbing, electrical
23 fixtures and other utilities. It shall also ensure
24 other kinds of logistical support of the work and stay
25 of the given number of persons on the given premises by
Page 979
1 imposing obligatory work on skilled employees as is
2 stated in the document."
3 In practice did it function that way?
4 A. Yes. Yes. There were a number of
5 individuals. Some of them I knew worked in the
6 compound earlier on, and they were in charge of keeping
7 the premises clean, as you stipulated a moment ago.
8 Q. The members of the police station of Omarska,
9 did they have anybody amongst them to see to the
10 hygienic conditions in the compound?
11 A. No.
12 Q. How did the members of the department -- how
13 could they influence the sanitary conditions and
14 improve them?
15 A. Well, I don't think they were able to do so
16 at all.
17 Q. This brings us to a number of individuals and
18 a figure is mentioned. I would like to ask you for
19 some information about that. How many detainees were
20 there in Omarska?
21 A. I would say that there were between two to
22 two and a half thousand detainees. So between 2.000
23 and 2.500 individuals.
24 Q. Did the department have an exact record of
25 the number of people detained?
Page 980
1 A. No.
2 Q. Was there the possibility of reconstructing
3 this number by looking at how the food was distributed
4 amongst the detainees? How was food distributed,
5 actually?
6 A. The food was distributed throughout the day
7 practically, from 10.00 in the morning up until 5.00 in
8 the afternoon, 1700.
9 Q. So in one group -- how many people would go
10 to eat in one group?
11 A. Well, I think about 30 per time, because that
12 was the number of people who could be catered for in
13 the canteen, sit down in the canteen to eat.
14 Q. How long did it take for each meal to be
15 eaten, for the dishes to be washed, and to get things
16 ready for the second group?
17 A. Well, as there were a lot of detainees, we
18 had to speed up all these operations.
19 Q. I'm trying to reconstruct and get at how many
20 detainees there were. So how much time was necessary
21 for one group of 30 detainees to be replaced by another
22 group of 30 to have their meals and so on?
23 A. An assessment. Well, I have to resort to
24 mathematics, but a maximum time span would be, let us
25 say, five minutes. Five minutes was how long it took
Page 981
1 to serve one group.
2 Q. What about the washing of dishes?
3 A. The washing of dishes would also last several
4 minutes.
5 Q. So shall we put an outside limit at, say, ten
6 minutes? Can we say ten minutes?
7 A. Yes. You could say that.
8 Q. If it is ten minutes per group, how many
9 groups to one hour?
10 A. Well, that would mean, if it's ten minutes
11 for one group or one shift, then six shifts of this
12 kind in one hour.
13 Q. And 30 people. How many would that make it
14 per hour? How many people per hour?
15 A. That would make it between 180 to
16 200 individuals per hour.
17 Q. How long did this food distribution go on
18 for? You said that.
19 A. I said that it went on from about 10.00 in
20 the morning, half past 9.00 sometimes, to 1700.
21 Q. On the basis of that, does your assessment of
22 the number of detainees coincide with the mathematics
23 we have just used?
24 A. Well, judging by these calculations, then it
25 means that not everybody would have time to be served
Page 982
1 with food.
2 Q. Who was responsible for the food?
3 A. If you mean in the canteen itself --
4 Q. No, generally speaking. I mean food
5 preparation and so on.
6 A. As far as I know, the food was prepared in
7 one main restaurant, in one main kitchen, which was
8 located near the entrance gate. I think I mentioned
9 this central kitchen earlier on, the central kitchen
10 which catered for the mine compound. I think that
11 there was some sort of chief cook there, and that his
12 name was Pero Rendic. The person in charge of
13 supplies, food supplies, as far as I know, was somebody
14 called Milan Andzic, who was, at the same time, a
15 logistics person in a sort of military organisation.
16 Q. Who distributed the food in the canteen
17 itself?
18 A. Well, the food was distributed in the canteen
19 by Zoran Delic.
20 Q. Who did he belong to?
21 A. He belonged to the military.
22 Q. Since we're on the topic of food, who ate the
23 food that was distributed?
24 A. The food was eaten by all the detainees, and
25 it was accessible by the guards as well. Some guards
Page 983
1 would eat there on some days, not on others.
2 Q. What about the investigators? What did they
3 eat?
4 A. The investigators were also given food.
5 Q. Where did their food come from?
6 A. Their food came from the same kitchen, but
7 their food would be taken up to them on the floor on
8 which they were, the larger premises, the larger office
9 up on the storey. When they made a break, they would
10 have lunch there.
11 Q. How many meals were the detainees given over
12 a 24-hour period?
13 A. During the time that I was there, once.
14 Q. And what was each meal composed of?
15 A. The meal consisted of -- that is to say,
16 there was a plate of cooked food and a quarter of a
17 loaf of bread. That was all they were given.
18 Q. Was it difficult to have bread supplies?
19 Were there any upsets there?
20 A. I think that on one or two occasions there
21 was a shortage of bread.
22 Q. Why?
23 A. The reason given, Pero Rendic would explain
24 this when he would bring the inspectors their food,
25 that he was having trouble with the work of the bakers
Page 984
1 because there were power cuts frequently, and so there
2 were other problems of a technical nature in the baking
3 of bread.
4 Q. So who would bake the bread for the compound
5 when this went on?
6 A. I don't know.
7 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you were an eyewitness of the
8 sanitary conditions in the compound and the food
9 supply, et cetera. Were the sanitary conditions in
10 Omarska satisfactory, that is to say, were they
11 commensurate to man, so to speak?
12 A. No, I don't think they were, that is to say,
13 they weren't. I say "I think," but in my view, they
14 were below an acceptable level.
15 Q. What about the food?
16 A. I don't think the food was satisfactory
17 either. The very fact that there was only one meal a
18 day, and at that, the quality of the food wasn't very
19 good, it was on a minimum level.
20 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] This same
21 document, Your Honour, is on the ELMO, and I would like
22 to refer back to paragraph 7. It is document D55,
23 Defence Exhibit 17/1; page 2, paragraph 7.
24 Q. Mr. Kvocka, I'd like to ask you to read the
25 first sentence of paragraph 1.
Page 985
1 A. I'm afraid I haven't got the Serbian
2 version.
3 Q. Very well. Then I'll read it out. It states
4 as follows: "The Mine's management shall organise
5 meals for investigators, guards, and detainees,
6 according to norms established in agreement with the
7 quartermaster service."
8 Is that how meals were, in fact, organised?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did the police department of the Omarska
11 police station have any influence at all on the method
12 and quality of the meals?
13 A. In this sense, no. Some of the guards, and
14 this was something that we noticed, could bring
15 somebody a sandwich, for example, or share his own
16 sandwich with some of the detainees that they happened
17 to know.
18 Q. I'm asking, officially speaking, was there
19 any possibility of you influencing the meals regime or
20 organisation?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Mr. Kvocka, the indictment speaks of
23 inadequate health protection, so I'd like to discuss
24 that topic for a moment.
25 Was there any form of organised health care
Page 986
1 in the investigation centre of Omarska?
2 A. With regard to health care, something did
3 exist, yes, but the details as to how this was
4 organised, I do not know. All I can say is what I
5 myself saw and noticed, and that was that I noticed
6 very often a paramedic called Ljuban Andzic from
7 Omarska. He would spend some time in the Omarska
8 Investigation Centre; he would bring some medicines and
9 distribute them to some of the detainees. He contacted
10 the detainees, this paramedic.
11 I also noticed that on two occasions during
12 my stay there a doctor from the health centre of
13 Omarska, that is to say, it was a lady doctor, I
14 remember that very well, she came and she put up a
15 table on the grass over there [indicates], and together
16 with a nurse, a line of detainees formed and one by one
17 they went up to the doctor and the nurse and the table
18 and they had some consultations with regard to their
19 health.
20 Another thing that I noticed was that in the
21 investigation centre, on several occasions during my
22 stay there, Dr. Ivic would turn up from Prijedor, he
23 would visit, and he would come together with a
24 paramedic, and his name was Mico or Mica. He was a
25 paramedic without one arm, and I remember him.
Page 987
1 And that is what I noticed with regard to
2 health care.
3 Q. Were there any doctors amongst the detainees
4 themselves?
5 A. There were several doctors -- rumour had it
6 that there were several doctors amongst the detainees,
7 but I knew one of them. I don't think he knew me very
8 well but I did know him. I recognised him because he
9 worked in the hospital at Prijedor previously.
10 Q. What was his name?
11 A. His name was Esad Sadikovic.
12 Q. The people that came to the investigation
13 centre of Omarska, did they contact the doctors who
14 were in prison?
15 A. Ljuban Andzic did, I know about him, I know
16 that he contacted a doctor. And on one occasion,
17 Dr. Sadikovic personally asked me to try to bring him,
18 if I could, all kinds of medicines, the medicines that
19 I could come by, and other medical things, instruments,
20 that he needed, and I did this because I would go to
21 the Omarska health centre and ask the doctor on duty
22 there to give me some medicaments and alcohol and
23 bandages and things like that, which I then took to
24 Dr. Sadikovic.
25 Q. What about Mr. Ivic? Was Mr. Ivic of any
Page 988
1 service to you? Did you talk to him?
2 A. Mr. Ivic, when he visited, would come by the
3 office in which the police officers on duty were.
4 Q. Did he tell you who had sent him, who was
5 sending him to offer his services at the investigation
6 centre of Omarska?
7 A. Well, we would chat, because I knew him from
8 Prijedor as being a doctor in Prijedor, and he would
9 often say -- and he was bitter about it and he said,
10 "How come they found me, in particular? How come Simo
11 Drljaca picked me out of a whole hospital of doctors to
12 come and visit the camp?" So those were the terms in
13 which he spoke about all that, when we chatted.
14 Otherwise, Dr. Ivic helped me in a certain -- one
15 respect.
16 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I
17 would now like to tender a new exhibit. It has not
18 been given a number. It is our number 47, the document
19 that we have numbered 47. You will all be given a copy
20 of the document, including the registrar, of course.
21 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] It will be
22 marked as Exhibit D23/1; D23/1A for the English
23 version.
24 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. What kind of help did Mr. Ivic provide you
Page 989
1 with?
2 A. On my left foot, I had some problems with my
3 left foot, I had corns and also an ingrown toenail on
4 my foot. I have suffered from an ingrown toenail since
5 I was a boy. At the time, our footwear, we wore heavy
6 footwear for long periods of time, and this was so sore
7 that I could barely put my shoe on. So on one
8 occasion, I think it was sometime in mid June, Ivic
9 told me, that is to say, in that office, duty office,
10 he cleaned this sore that I had, and he said that the
11 only thing that could help me was not to wear shoes at
12 all for several days, to let the sore clear up and calm
13 down.
14 On that occasion, he wrote a sick-leave
15 certificate --
16 Q. And how much leave did you get on the basis
17 of that?
18 A. He gave me three days' leave, sick-leave.
19 Q. Did you inform the commander, Mr. Meakic, the
20 station commander, about that?
21 A. Yes. The commander was present when all this
22 was taking place, so he saw it all.
23 Q. Did he give you sick-leave, a certificate for
24 sick-leave?
25 A. The commander, Zeljko, said there would be no
Page 990
1 problems, and he told me to keep my sick-leave
2 certificate, but that I was to complete one of my tasks
3 in the police department in a village.
4 Q. What was all that about?
5 A. Well, he said, "You'll probably be able to do
6 that going in a car, so you won't need to wear a boot,"
7 and actually, it was -- I had to go to a woman named
8 Desa Stanojevic. Before the war, she was well-known
9 for taking money illegally, and before the war, the
10 policemen from Omarska took away some of the money she
11 had intended to smuggle. She engaged in contraband.
12 So in the meantime, with the developments in
13 Prijedor and all the things that were taking place, the
14 money that had been seized from this woman was located
15 in the police station, police department in Omarska.
16 But Zeljko told me that the husband of this particular
17 woman had been killed several days prior to that and
18 that that money that had been seized ought to be
19 returned to her because she had costs incurred over his
20 burial and his funeral, and so on, and in situations of
21 that kind, families, people had a lot of problems to
22 pay for funerals because funerals are always
23 expensive.
24 So that was my assignment, and in the course
25 of those three days, that is what I did, I found this
Page 991
1 woman and the money was returned to her, and that's
2 where the whole case ended.
3 Q. What was the husband's name, Mrs. Desa's
4 husband's name, the husband who was killed? So that we
5 can present the Trial Chamber with his name. Do you
6 recall what his name was?
7 A. Yes, I do. His name was Strahilo
8 Stanojevic.
9 Q. And when did you go back to work?
10 A. I went back to work on the 19th.
11 Q. Thank you. Let us now go back to another
12 topic in the indictment, raised by the indictment --
13 and perhaps we will be able to complete by 11.15, Your
14 Honours -- and that is the question of the contacts
15 between the detainees and their families, their family
16 members. Those contacts were forbidden. Zeljko's
17 daily meetings with the policemen, he would say this to
18 the policemen during his daily meetings with them. He
19 stressed that all contacts between detainees and family
20 members were prohibited. He said that there should be
21 no contact either between policemen and the detainees.
22 Mr. Kvocka, did anybody inform the family
23 members of a detainee that a member of their family had
24 been taken prisoner, where they were located and how
25 they could be contacted, which is a fundamental right
Page 992
1 of all detainees?
2 A. Officially, nobody did this, nobody informed
3 them. I think it was difficult in practical terms.
4 Possibly along private channels, somebody might have
5 slipped some information to some family members, but
6 that was all.
7 Q. When you say not officially, what do you
8 mean? Do you mean the department?
9 A. Yes, the department.
10 Q. And what about the security station?
11 A. I don't know about that.
12 Q. I should like once again to take another look
13 at document D17/1, which is Defence Exhibit 55, that
14 same document. Page 3, paragraph 15 this time.
15 Mr. Kvocka, paragraph 15 of this key document
16 relating to the organisation of the investigation
17 centre, what does paragraph 15 state?
18 A. It says in this paragraph as follows: "I
19 most strictly prohibit giving any information
20 whatsoever concerning the functioning of this
21 collection centre. All official documents shall be
22 kept at the collection centre and may be taken out or
23 destroyed only with the permission of the public
24 security station of Prijedor. This shall be the
25 responsibility of the security staff."
Page 993
1 Q. Does that mean that there was an absolute ban
2 on any kind of contact?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did the department or the staff of the police
5 in Omarska, could they in any way whatsoever change the
6 situation and enable people to have contacts and to
7 alleviate and improve the very difficult detention
8 conditions?
9 A. The policemen had absolutely no influence.
10 They could do absolutely nothing along the lines in
11 which you have just spoken.
12 Q. You mentioned the abuse of this order. Were
13 there any contacts, via the security staff, between
14 detainees and their family members, in fact?
15 A. Well, if anybody did this, they would have
16 violated or abused this order.
17 Q. The conveyance of information, was any
18 information brought into the detention centre by the
19 guards?
20 A. I mentioned a moment ago that some of the
21 guards would share their sandwiches with some people
22 they knew, some of the detainees they knew. I
23 personally did not take heed of the order strictly, and
24 I would almost daily, when I came to work, practically
25 every day when I came on duty, I would bring with me a
Page 994
1 whole carload of packages and different bags with food
2 and clothing, and most frequently this -- what would
3 happen was this: People knew that -- when I wasn't in
4 my flat, people would come and leave packages in front
5 of my front door, with the names of people to whom
6 these bags should be distributed. And my mother-in-law
7 as well, quite simply spent all her time collecting
8 packages of this kind. It was a sort of collection
9 centre, if I can call it that. Then everything that
10 she had collected and had been left there I would take
11 with me in my car and pass it round to the detainees.
12 Q. Could you tell us some of the names of the
13 detainees to whom you had taken packages of this kind?
14 A. Well, many of the people that I took packages
15 to I didn't actually know personally, but the ones that
16 I can remember, I can remember a few of the individuals
17 that I had previously known, and one of those was
18 Burazerovic, and he was nicknamed Braco, and he lived
19 in my own apartment building, as did his wife and son,
20 and they would bring me packages to take to their
21 father every day.
22 Another man's name was Suljo, I don't know
23 his surname, but he also lived in my apartment
24 building. He would bring packages for me to take to
25 his brother. Mostly they were packages of food.
Page 995
1 And my mother-in-law, on several occasions,
2 would prepare food herself for Mrs. Nusreta Sivac, whom
3 she heard had been detained at the centre. As I have
4 already said, my mother-in-law comes from an old Muslim
5 family. I think that they knew each other very well
6 from before and that my mother-in-law had a great deal
7 of respect for that woman.
8 Q. Did you take any packages to your colleagues
9 at work?
10 A. Well, in principle, I would share anything I
11 had with my colleagues. One particularly interesting
12 event was when the wife of Hamdija Arifagic found me in
13 the Omarska settlement and asked me to take some food
14 and clothing to her husband. I remember that meeting
15 in particular because it was a very emotional one. Our
16 two families, my family and his family, had been great
17 friends before the war. We would go off on picnics
18 together and things of that kind, so that that was a
19 very emotional meeting with his wife, and tears were
20 shed on both sides, may I add. I would take all these
21 packages to Hamdija and have a brief conversation with
22 him on the occasion.
23 I know that there was some comments from some
24 reserve policemen. They said why I didn't look at the
25 loaf that I was taking, because there was a very big
Page 996
1 loaf that I took, and some of the policemen felt that
2 there might be some weapons in the loaf of bread, but I
3 just waved them aside.
4 Q. Mr. Arifagic, was that a good friend of
5 yours?
6 A. Yes. As I said, we were friends, and he
7 worked together with me at Omarska before the events
8 took place.
9 Q. Do you know whether he survived Omarska at
10 all? Did he ever leave Omarska?
11 A. I never had any exact information, reliable
12 information as to what happened to him, whether he was
13 alive or not, but I haven't heard about him since.
14 On several occasions after the investigation
15 centre was disbanded, I had telephone calls in my flat
16 from his brother. This man introduced himself as his
17 brother. He appealed to me to collect any information
18 I could about his brother, about Hamdija. However, on
19 one occasion when I wasn't in my flat, my wife told me
20 that she thought he was drunk when he called my wife,
21 and he was rather vulgar on the occasion and spoke to
22 her in very angry terms. Since then, we haven't had
23 any contact.
24 Q. Thank you. I think that we have wound up
25 that topic, and it is time for a break, as the Judge
Page 997
1 said earlier on.
2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you,
3 very much, Mr. Simic. We shall have a 20-minute
4 break. Thank you.
5 --- Recess taken at 11.20 a.m.
6 --- On resuming at 11.47 a.m.
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Judge Fouad
8 Riad hasn't arrived yet, so we are going to continue in
9 the same composition and for the same reasons that we
10 have announced. Maybe he will be back after the second
11 break.
12 At any rate, Mr. Simic, you may go on, and
13 you have the floor.
14 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your
15 Honour.
16 Q. Mr. Kvocka, throughout your time in Omarska,
17 were there any other units that were in charge of
18 providing security?
19 A. Yes. At the very beginning, I believe for
20 about two days, policemen from the Rakelici reserve
21 police station came to Omarska as some kind of help,
22 because of an insufficient number of personnel.
23 Q. How long did they stay there?
24 A. As far as I can remember, this happened on
25 two occasions. They would come to work for one shift
Page 998
1 only.
2 Q. Who was their commander? I mean, the
3 commander of that police station.
4 A. It was Milutin Bujic.
5 Q. Do you know any of the policemen who
6 participated in that kind of assistance, as you called
7 it?
8 A. Yes, I know two of them, Ratko Kecan and
9 Dusko Aleksic.
10 Q. Mr. Kvocka, let us turn to the last issue of
11 the examination; namely, the issue of visitors to the
12 investigation centre of Omarska.
13 While you were there in Omarska, were there
14 any official visits to the centre?
15 A. While I was in Omarska, no, there were no
16 official visits to the centre. I mean, no officials
17 ever visited the camp. All I could observe was maybe
18 Simo Drljaca coming to the investigation centre on two
19 occasions, and on one occasion, I believe it was Dusan
20 Jankovic who came.
21 Q. Could you be more precise as to the date of
22 their visits?
23 A. I couldn't tell you with any certainty. It
24 was sometime in the middle of my time there.
25 Q. Who did they contact?
Page 999
1 A. Simo Drljaca went to see the investigators,
2 the inspectors or team leaders who worked in the office
3 that I mentioned some time ago. They were simply
4 passing by us policemen. Once, I happened to be at the
5 entrance of the administration building when Simo
6 Drljaca was there, and he asked about Zeljko Meakic and
7 went to the upper floor.
8 Q. Was there any ceremony provided for for such
9 visits, visits from the people from the Prijedor police
10 station?
11 A. No. No, they came unannounced, as a
12 surprise. They did not contact us at all, aside from
13 saying hello to the people who happened to be standing
14 nearby.
15 Q. In addition to the, let us call them,
16 officials, persons who came to visit the centre in
17 their official capacity, were there any individuals
18 coming to the centre who did not have that status?
19 A. No, there was nobody else coming to visit the
20 centre, except for those individuals who wanted to
21 enter the centre without any authorisation.
22 Q. Yes. I had exactly that in mind. Were there
23 any such cases?
24 A. Yes. I already told you about them, and that
25 is all I know about such unauthorised visits,
Page 1000
1 individuals getting in or attempting to get in, people
2 who would come to the gate, and so on.
3 Q. How was the control organised of such
4 entrances? I'm referring to the security personnel.
5 What type of control did they have?
6 A. As regards the access to the centre and
7 entrances to the centre, I think that their work was
8 very difficult. They did not have enough control.
9 There would be a policeman at the gate, together with a
10 workman from the mine, so these two people would be at
11 the gate, and further on, there were some military
12 personnel, a military checkpoint that you had to pass
13 in order to reach the policemen who would stand at the
14 entrance to the administration building.
15 Q. The Omarska police station and their
16 personnel, were they in charge of providing security
17 around the centre of Omarska?
18 A. No, they were not.
19 Q. What was the real influence of the public
20 security station personnel? What was their ability to
21 prevent unauthorised personnel from entering the
22 Omarska centre?
23 A. The ability of the personnel to stop such
24 individuals was actually very poor because anyone could
25 reach the area of the investigation centre without
Page 1001
1 being previously checked by the police.
2 Q. You have a long working experience as a
3 policeman. Could you tell us about the number of
4 people working in one shift? I have your police
5 station in mind. What was the usual number of such
6 people?
7 A. There would be around 20 people per shift.
8 Q. Was that an adequate number of personnel for
9 this number of buildings, premises, in order to provide
10 appropriate security for the number of detainees?
11 A. That was by no means enough, in my estimate.
12 Q. Who could increase the number of personnel?
13 A. Zeljko Meakic could. He could perhaps
14 request help from his superiors.
15 Q. But as regards the department itself, did he
16 have enough personnel?
17 A. No, he didn't.
18 Q. What was he supposed to do then?
19 A. Well, he was probably supposed to contact his
20 superior.
21 Q. Was there any coordination between the
22 security personnel, I mean the police department in
23 charge of security, and the outside security personnel
24 which was provided by the military?
25 A. In my opinion, as far as I could observe,
Page 1002
1 there was no coordination whatsoever. Whether
2 something was discussed, agreed upon at some other
3 level, I don't know.
4 Q. Could any of the soldiers from the military
5 unit in charge of security have access to the centre?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. There were no obstacles for that whatsoever?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Mr. Kvocka, were there any women in Omarska?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. How many?
12 A. While I was there -- it's very difficult for
13 me to remember the exact number, but I should say there
14 were about 15 women, but it well may have been 18 or
15 13. Maybe up to 20.
16 Q. Where were they accommodated?
17 A. During the day they would be in the
18 restaurant of the administration building.
19 Q. During the night?
20 A. Well, they went to sleep on the upper floor
21 of the administration building. They had maybe two or
22 three offices for themselves.
23 Q. What were their living conditions compared to
24 the living conditions of other detainees?
25 A. I believe that their living conditions were
Page 1003
1 somewhat better. I mean, they had something to sleep
2 on. They had some kind of mattresses over there.
3 Q. Did they have access to toilet facilities?
4 A. Yes. They had access to toilet facilities on
5 a daily basis. They could use the toilet and a
6 bathroom located in the administration building.
7 Q. You have mentioned the issue of water. Was
8 the water that was available there used by everybody,
9 both guards and detainees?
10 A. Yes, I believe it was. I used to drink it
11 from time to time.
12 Q. Was the access to water denied to detainees?
13 Were there any rations of water?
14 A. I did not notice that.
15 Q. You said that the water was available in the
16 administration building. Was there any water on the
17 pista?
18 A. Yes. In front of the administration
19 building, looking from my position here, on the side
20 there was a kind of pump, a kind of fountain with
21 several taps of water.
22 Q. Could you say how many taps of water were
23 there?
24 A. It's difficult for me to remember exactly how
25 many taps were there, but I believe that there were
Page 1004
1 about five or six fountains that could be used at the
2 same time.
3 Q. From both sides or from one side only?
4 A. I think that they were on both sides, but
5 it's also possible that there was a line of -- there
6 was several taps on one side only. It's very difficult
7 for me to remember such details.
8 Q. As regards water facilities in the hangar, do
9 you know anything about that?
10 A. Yes. I know that there was water in the
11 hangar.
12 Q. The security personnel, that is, the
13 commander of the police station in charge of security,
14 did he have any possibility to change the situation
15 concerning water?
16 A. I don't think there was anything he could do
17 in that respect.
18 Q. Mr. Kvocka, did you kill anyone in Omarska?
19 A. No, never. Not in Omarska, not ever in my
20 life.
21 Q. Mr. Kvocka, did you advise anyone, did you
22 encourage anyone to kill anyone in Omarska?
23 A. No, never, and I would never do such a
24 thing.
25 Q. Were you present during the incident that
Page 1005
1 took place on the 31st? Were you present at any
2 incident of a killing or murder?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Did you ever order anyone to kill?
5 A. No. I never did such a thing, nor would I
6 ever do it, regardless of my position or the superior.
7 THE INTERPRETER: Excuse me. "Even if I had
8 a position of a superior."
9 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Did you ever beat anyone?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Did you ever help anyone beat anyone else?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Did you ever encourage anyone to beat?
15 A. Absolutely no.
16 Q. Were you ever present during a beating?
17 A. No. I was never present without intervening,
18 and I think I have already spoken about such instances.
19 Q. We have a model of the Omarska complex in
20 front of us. Did you ever enter any of the buildings
21 that you can see on the model of the Omarska compound?
22 A. I did enter the building, the administration
23 building, and I would spend some time there.
24 As regards other buildings, I think I could
25 have entered them. There would be no problems with my
Page 1006
1 entering such building, but I didn't, except for the
2 hangar when I had to order food and clothes. As
3 regards the case involving Arif Omeragic [phoen], that
4 took place in the hangar.
5 But to be perfectly honest, I really avoided
6 going there because during the food distribution, for
7 example, I really felt that those people expected some
8 kind of help from me, but I was perfectly aware that I
9 was not in a position to help them. So I avoided
10 entering those buildings, except when I had to deliver
11 a package.
12 Q. Did you ever go to the White House?
13 A. No.
14 Q. What about the Red House?
15 A. No.
16 Q. As regards the female detainees, there were a
17 few women who were familiar to you, whom you knew?
18 A. Yes. I knew some of them.
19 Q. Did any of them ever contact you? Did anyone
20 ever complain about sexual assaults?
21 A. As regards the female detainees, I never had
22 any such contacts. That issue was not mentioned. I
23 was approached, for example, on a couple of occasions
24 for a cigarette or in order to transmit a message to
25 their relatives in Prijedor and so on. So those were
Page 1007
1 the subjects of my conversations with them.
2 Q. Could you give us an estimate as to how many
3 nights you were on duty in the Omarska Investigation
4 Centre?
5 A. During my entire time there, I don't think I
6 spent more than five nights in the investigation
7 centre.
8 Q. Speaking of the premises, of the offices used
9 by the female detainees, where were they exactly
10 located?
11 A. They were at the same corridor where the
12 police unit had their premises, across the corridor
13 from the office used by the duty police officer.
14 Q. Mr. Kvocka, during your night shifts, did you
15 ever observe any entries into the rooms that were
16 occupied by female detainees?
17 A. No. Such a thing never happened during that
18 time.
19 Q. Mr. Kvocka, why were you forced to leave
20 Omarska?
21 A. Well, I was made to leave, I believe, for
22 several reasons, but they were not officially told -- I
23 was never officially told about them, or unofficially,
24 for that matter. But I think that the basic reason was
25 the fact that I had violated certain rules; namely,
Page 1008
1 because I took out my brothers-in-law without any
2 authorisation; also because I brought in parcels and I
3 tried to organise cigarette purchases, which I haven't
4 mentioned yet. But once, upon the request of a
5 detainee, I did that, and I was told not to do it
6 again.
7 So one can say that I had a conflict with
8 investigators. I didn't think it was a serious
9 conflict at the time; however, later on it turned out
10 that it was more serious than I expected. So I believe
11 that those were the basic reasons of my transfer.
12 I know that people spoke about me and about
13 my reasons for leaving, but that was the basic reason
14 why I was transferred.
15 Q. Was there any unusual event in relation to
16 your departure from Omarska that took place?
17 A. Momcilo Gruban, nicknamed Ckalja, once told
18 me about an incident. I visited my brothers-in-law
19 maybe a week after my arrival to the centre, and
20 Momcilo Gruban, on that occasion, told me that there
21 had been a hunger strike attempt by detainees some time
22 ago because, as they said, of my departure, because I
23 had left. So Momcilo Gruban tried to convince them not
24 to do it, even because of me, because it could have
25 been interpreted in a negative way, and it could only
Page 1009
1 cause me more trouble.
2 Q. You said that after you left Omarska, you
3 visited the centre -- you visited your
4 brothers-in-law. On how many occasions did you go
5 there?
6 A. Maybe on two or three occasions. The first
7 one took place during the following week, and then
8 there was one more, or maybe even two, I cannot
9 remember, that took place during the ten following
10 days.
11 Q. As regards your first visit to the centre, is
12 there anything significant that -- was there anything
13 significant that took place?
14 A. As regards my first visit to the centre --
15 Q. I mean, did you see anyone beaten up?
16 A. On my first visit, I observed the first Serb
17 who was detained there, his name was Igor Kondic, and I
18 noticed that he had been severely beaten. He was
19 detained in the same area as my brothers-in-law, and
20 that's how I saw him. So he came to me and he asked me
21 to try and get him one litre of mineral water, which I
22 did, together with Zivko Puzac, who was a guard there.
23 Q. What were the injuries of Mr. Kondic?
24 A. According to what I could tell, they were
25 very severe. He had wounds all over his body. He only
Page 1010
1 had a shirt on, so I could see that he was severely
2 beaten up everywhere, on his head, on his arms,
3 everywhere on his body.
4 Q. Where is he from, Mr. Kondic?
5 A. He is from Prijedor.
6 Q. Do you know whether he survived the wounding,
7 the injuries?
8 A. I heard later on that he had died in the
9 Banja Luka hospital.
10 Q. My last question for you. Mr. Kvocka, as a
11 man, as a policeman, did you do everything that was in
12 your power, that you could do, in those difficult
13 times?
14 A. I honestly believe that I did everything I
15 could, maybe even more, in view of the situation that I
16 found myself in, that I did a lot to help.
17 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your
18 Honours. This concludes my examination of Mr. Kvocka.
19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]
20 Ms. Hollis.
21 MS. HOLLIS: Thank you, Your Honour. Before
22 the witness is allowed to step down, we have two
23 matters we would like to address.
24 The first is, it has appeared to us that
25 during the testimony the witness has had notes that he
Page 1011
1 has used in his testimony. This is certainly unusual,
2 in my experience, for a witness to have those. The
3 Prosecution would like the opportunity to have a copy
4 of those, or at least to review those notes. That's
5 the first matter.
6 The second matter is that perhaps this is the
7 appropriate time to determine what the sequence of
8 cross-examination will be, because I know the
9 Prosecution has given its position that it wants to
10 cross-examine at a later time. I don't believe that
11 the other counsel for the other accused have given
12 their position as to cross-examination and when they
13 would like to do that. So perhaps that could be
14 discussed and resolved at this time as well. And also,
15 while we're at that, the order in which the
16 cross-examination would occur. It's the Prosecution's
17 position, because we have the burden in this case, that
18 we would be the last to conduct cross-examination.
19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you,
20 Ms. Hollis.
21 There are three questions here, the first one
22 being the notes that were used by Mr. Kvocka, the
23 second one is the one we are going to discuss, and the
24 third one is the order of examination of the witness.
25 I would like to hear the position of the
Page 1012
1 Defence. Mr. Simic, as regards the first question, and
2 two other questions as well -- I would also like to
3 hear other Defence counsel as regards the second and
4 third question -- but Mr. Simic, you have the floor.
5 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, as
6 far as notes are concerned, these are private notes of
7 Mr. Kvocka. It is to be expected that if somebody is
8 to be examined for three or four days, it is impossible
9 to keep everything in mind. This is normal, to keep
10 the notes. I am prepared to hand over two notes in
11 which he reminds me to ask him the question about the
12 applause, and then when the detainees leave. There was
13 also an incident, to relay Mrs. Greve's remark about
14 his reliability as a policeman. I think that these
15 notes are incontrovertible.
16 We have otherwise accepted the position of
17 the Prosecution that the Prosecution should
18 cross-examine the witness when they consider it the
19 best for their case, and Mr. Niemann has stated that he
20 would do that after all the Prosecution witnesses have
21 given evidence.
22 We have not addressed the issue of when the
23 other counsel for the other accused would cross-examine
24 Mr. Kvocka, we have simply not talked about it. I
25 think that it could be done at the same time or in the
Page 1013
1 same period when the Prosecution conducts its
2 cross-examination, and I think that it is a matter for
3 different Defence teams to agree on.
4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
5 we do have to bear in mind the order. What is going to
6 happen now, Mr. Simic, in your view?
7 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] With the
8 Chamber's permission, if counsel for the other accused
9 would like to cross-examine Mr. Kvocka now, I have
10 nothing against this.
11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
12 very much.
13 Mr. Nikolic, let us hear you about the order
14 of cross-examination. Could you state your position as
15 regards that issue?
16 MR. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours,
17 the Defence counsel for Mr. Kos would not examine
18 Mr. Kvocka now. As far as the sequence is concerned, I
19 believe that we have agreed that the Prosecution will
20 cross-examine Mr. Kvocka after the presentation of
21 evidence of their witnesses.
22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
24 very much, Mr. Nikolic.
25 Mr. Fila, you have the floor.
Page 1014
1 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] As you know,
2 Mr. Niemann requested to cross-examine first Mr. Kvocka
3 and then Mr. Radic after completing their case-in-chief
4 this is what was agreed on by us as well, and I see no
5 problem in that. It is at that time that the Defence
6 counsel of other accused will also cross-examine.
7 So we understand that Mr. Kvocka has
8 completed his examination-in-chief now, and then at the
9 end of the Prosecution case-in-chief the
10 cross-examination of Mr. Kvocka by the other Defence
11 counsel will take place, followed by the Prosecution.
12 This is my understanding, as far as I have it.
13 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
14 very much, Mr. Fila.
15 Mr. Tosic.
16 MR. TOSIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour I
17 completely second the positions of Mr. Simic,
18 Mr. Fila. We are in complete agreement regarding the
19 sequence of events.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well
21 then. We have already decided that at the end of the
22 examination-in-chief of Mr. Kvocka, that there would be
23 examination-in-chief of Mr. Radic. The Prosecution
24 will be given an opportunity to cross-examine after
25 completing their case.
Page 1015
1 I don't know whether we have answered the
2 question asked by Ms. Hollis. Maybe you had other
3 issues in mind, other questions?
4 MS. HOLLIS: Your Honour, I believe that
5 Mr. Fila has answered the question that we had about
6 the order of cross-examination. My understanding of
7 what he said is that at the conclusion of our case, the
8 other Defence counsel will cross-examine the accused
9 who have testified, and then after they have completed
10 their cross-examination, we will conduct our
11 examination. That was the question that I had, what
12 would be the exact order. So I believe that has been
13 answered. Thank you.
14 The only other matter outstanding, of course,
15 is the decision about the notes. And just to clarify,
16 Your Honour, perhaps I misunderstood Defence counsel
17 for Mr. Kvocka. The Prosecution does not seek any
18 access to notes that may have been passed by the
19 accused to his counsel. We believe that that is
20 confidential work product. What we are talking about
21 were notes that it appeared the accused had before him
22 as he testified, not notes that were passed to his
23 counsel.
24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
25 do you want to add something?
Page 1016
1 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your
2 Honour. Your Honour, I was clear. It is a regular
3 thing for Mr. Kvocka to have had notes for the
4 testimony, which is difficult testimony for a very
5 difficult period of his time. I only wanted to
6 illustrate what kind of notes Mr. Kvocka has made.
7 I think that he should not be required to
8 produce the notes which served him for his
9 preparation.
10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I'm going
11 to consult with my colleague Judge Wald.
12 [Trial Chamber confers]
13 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
14 there is a certain doubt that is here. I thought I
15 understood that you would not ask questions, that is,
16 that there would be no problems for the Prosecutor to
17 see the notes, to have the notes. Did you say that?
18 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] No. I was
19 talking in principle.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] No. I'm
21 referring to the notes that were used by Mr. Kvocka
22 during his examination. I thought that you said that
23 the Prosecutor can see the notes, that you see no
24 problem about it.
25 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] These are the
Page 1017
1 notes, and Mr. Kvocka has some additional notes that he
2 has there. I think I need to consult with my client,
3 because I myself do not know what is in those notes.
4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, but I
5 think that Ms. Hollis has drawn attention to an
6 important difference. There are notes that were
7 exchanged between Mr. Kvocka and you. That's a thing
8 apart. There is something else. The notes that were
9 used by Mr. Kvocka during the testimony, I thought I
10 understood that you said that you see no problem with
11 the Prosecutor seeing, having access to the notes used
12 by Mr. Kvocka during his testimony, and I would like to
13 make sure that I have properly understood you.
14 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Notes in front of
15 Mr. Kvocka are of the same nature. Those are
16 confidential notes, because we had to discuss all these
17 issues, and I did not ask these questions out of the
18 blue. We have discussed all these matters. So we have
19 a matter of principle, whether the confidential traffic
20 between the client and the counsel can be disclosed to
21 the Prosecution. It is definitely part of the
22 confidential relationship between the client, and in
23 that sense, it is privileged.
24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well
25 then. So even if we do bear in mind the difference
Page 1018
1 between the notes prepared by Mr. Kvocka so that he can
2 use them during his testimony and the notes, the little
3 notes, little pieces of paper that are part of the
4 communication between Defence counsel and Mr. Kvocka.
5 I think that despite that difference, as regards the
6 aide-memoire, that the Prosecutor has no right to see
7 such notes, if we are talking about notes used in order
8 to refresh his memory. So these are the aide-memoire
9 notes. We will use that procedure.
10 Let me repeat. So as regards the notes used
11 by the witness in order to refresh his memory, we rule
12 that the Prosecutor has no right of access to such
13 notes. I even thought that the Defence would be
14 agreeable to that, but if the Defence is not, I think
15 that it is appropriate for the Chamber to decide that
16 the Prosecutor will not have the right to see the notes
17 used by the witness in order to refresh his memory. So
18 that was our ruling.
19 As regards the order of examination, I hope
20 that that is clear, and I think that we can now have a
21 short break. After the break, we will start with the
22 testimony of Mr. Radic, and I hope that Judge Riad will
23 be here with us again.
24 Ms. Hollis, do you want to say something?
25 MS. HOLLIS: Thank you, Your Honour. We
Page 1019
1 would ask one point of clarification. Since you have
2 indicated that the aide-memoire of a witness to refresh
3 their recollection would not be subject to disclosure
4 at least to us, would that ruling be the same for our
5 witnesses if they use aide-memoires to refresh their
6 recollection, that they would not be disclosable to the
7 Defence?
8 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes,
9 Ms. Hollis. We will explain the position.
10 In principle, the situation will be the
11 same. However, we have to bear in mind relevant
12 circumstances and act according to the case, on a
13 case-per-case basis. But principle will be the same,
14 and it will apply in the same manner on both parties.
15 So now we are going to have a 20-minute
16 recess.
17 [The witness Kvocka stands down]
18 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
19 --- On resuming at 12.58 p.m.
20 [The witness Radic takes the stand]
21 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good
22 afternoon, Mr. Radic. Can you hear me?
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I can hear
24 you.
25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You are now
Page 1020
1 going to read the solemn declaration.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly
3 declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,
4 and nothing but the truth.
5 WITNESS: MLADJO RADIC
6 [Witness answered through interpreter]
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you.
8 You may sit down, Mr. Radic.
9 Before we proceed with your testimony, I have
10 to thank Mr. Kvocka for the testimony given by him.
11 Thank you very much, Mr. Kvocka.
12 To the attention of the public, I should like
13 to remind you that the Defence has asked that the
14 accused Mr. Kvocka and Mr. Radic be heard at the
15 beginning of the trial.
16 You are probably familiar with our Rules.
17 Rule 85, I believe, gives the possibility for us to
18 change the order of evidence, this is provided for in
19 this Rule, including the possibility for the Chamber to
20 decide otherwise as regards the order of examination,
21 of course bearing in mind the relevant circumstances
22 and the situation of the accused. So we thought, the
23 Chamber thought, that it would be in the interest of
24 justice to proceed like this and has decided that the
25 accused be heard at the beginning of the trial.
Page 1021
1 You have probably heard our ruling as regards
2 the use of notes. We discussed the matter with Judge
3 Riad before we resumed, and he agrees with us. Of
4 course, the parties have to be very careful, and we
5 have to know exactly whether we are talking about notes
6 exchanged between the counsel and the accused or the
7 notes used by the accused who is testifying in their
8 defence.
9 We are mindful of the necessity of good
10 communication. The witnesses are the ones who have
11 something to say here, not the Defence or the OTP.
12 Furthermore, the witnesses have the obligation to tell
13 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
14 and we have to enable them to do that in the best
15 possible way and we have to help them in doing so. Of
16 course, we all have our own habits of communicating
17 amongst each other, and we all have -- it is perfectly
18 understandable sometimes -- problems with remembering
19 things.
20 So I think that the principle that we have
21 adopted is the right one, we will stick to it, but of
22 course we will always be mindful of the particular
23 circumstances of witnesses, and if there is a need, we
24 will allow the exchange of notes.
25 As you can see, the Chamber is not
Page 1022
1 imposing -- is not saying anything to the witnesses or
2 to the parties as to how to behave, how to
3 communicate. We all know that we have our own way of
4 communicating. We, of course, want the witness to face
5 the Chamber when he's speaking, but of course if there
6 is a need to use notes, we will be mindful of that
7 need.
8 Mr. Radic, you are now going to answer
9 questions that are going to be put to you by your
10 lawyer, Mr. Fila, and you will also have a chance to
11 answer questions of the Prosecutor and also questions
12 of the Judges. We haven't yet mentioned that, but I
13 have to remind you that the Judges will also have
14 questions for witnesses after they have been questioned
15 by the parties. So this was the order of examination.
16 Let me just say that we appreciated the way
17 Mr. Simic has conducted his examination. Thank you
18 very much, Mr. Simic.
19 Now I will give the floor to Mr. Fila.
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Thank you,
21 Mr. President, Your Honours. Before starting the
22 examination of Mr. Radic, I would like to ask to pose
23 the first question to Mr. Radic whether he's in
24 agreement with what Mr. Kvocka has testified to, the
25 geographic location of Omarska --
Page 1023
1 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Fila,
2 we have to be, of course, mindful of the communication
3 here. I don't want to put you under any pressure, but
4 wouldn't it be better for you to come to the other
5 table. Maybe you can exchange places with your
6 colleague, and it will be easier for you. I don't want
7 to impose anything, but I think it would be much better
8 for you to come to this table here, to exchange places
9 with your co-counsel. This is maybe a better way to
10 proceed, but it's really up to you.
11 Mr. Usher, could you -- no, Mr. Fila, I was
12 thinking of this table here.
13 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Are you
14 comfortable here, Mr. Fila? Is it okay for you? Thank
15 you. Very well then. Thank you very much for your
16 cooperation. You may proceed, Mr. Fila.
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I
18 had asked -- I posed a question whether before starting
19 with the examination of Mr. Radic and in order to
20 expedite everything that Mr. Kvocka said about the
21 political background, about the location of Omarska,
22 about the organisation of the police force, of the
23 political parties, should not be repeated. I think
24 that we should go straight to his personal involvement
25 in Omarska. So I think that we can all resolve in one
Page 1024
1 sentence, that is, whether Mr. Radic is in agreement
2 with everything that Mr. Kvocka had testified to, and I
3 think it would tremendously speed up the role process.
4 If that is acceptable, I would go on.
5 Examined by Mr. Fila:
6 Q. Mr. Radic, do you feel comfortable there, as
7 far as you can?
8 A. Yes, I can.
9 Q. My question to you is: You have heard
10 Mr. Kvocka's testimony four days plus. You heard him
11 answer questions of his attorney, Mr. Simic. Do you
12 have any objections to what he had testified to?
13 A. I have no objections, and I would accept
14 everything because I think he really explained it
15 well.
16 Q. In that case, I will go to ask you questions
17 about your personal life. Would you please tell us
18 where and when were you born, what were your parents,
19 who they were, and details about your family?
20 A. My name is Mladjo Radic. My parents were
21 Rado and Zorka. I was born in 1952 in the village of
22 Lamovita, as a tenth child of an impoverished family.
23 I completed eight years of school. I am married with a
24 wife and three children.
25 I served my military duty in Sisak, and then
Page 1025
1 I applied for the police. In 1972 I became a police
2 officer, and then I stayed in that job until I was
3 arrested.
4 Q. It went pretty fast. After your elementary
5 school, after the completion of elementary school, did
6 you work anywhere before you joined the police force?
7 A. Yes. At 17, I started working in a company
8 which, at that time, was called Sava, and it was in
9 Bosanska Gradiska. I worked there for four months as
10 an unskilled labourer. It was construction work,
11 building the highway, Prijedor-Banja Luka.
12 Q. Very well. And then?
13 A. After the company had done this job and after
14 the earthquake in Banja Luka in 1969, I started working
15 for a construction company which was called Tempo. It
16 was from Zagreb. I was on a team, on masons, and I was
17 working there.
18 Q. How did you become involved with the police?
19 A. In 1971, at 19, I went to serve my military
20 duty, and upon completion of this duty, I came back to
21 my company. At that time, there was an announcement.
22 The police were looking for recruits. So I applied.
23 Then I was sent to training in the municipality of
24 Mkrska. I completed that training. After that, I was
25 sent back to Prijedor, and I was assigned to a local
Page 1026
1 police station in Ljubija.
2 Q. I would now like to tender Exhibit number
3 DR1, which is our marking, which is Defence "R" for
4 Radic, number 1. I have copies, and I would like to
5 examine that document.
6 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] This is going
7 to be Exhibit D1/3, and D1/3A.
8 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]
9 Mr. Registrar, what did you say? Sorry.
10 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] D1/3.
11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] D1/3. What
12 does "3" stand for?
13 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] It stands
14 for Mr. Radic.
15 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So it is
16 possible to distinguish between documents presented by
17 Mr. Kvocka and documents presented by Mr. Radic.
18 That's going to be possible; right?
19 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes, Your
20 Honour. Mr. Kvocka will have number 1; and Mr. Kos
21 will be number 2; Mr. Radic number 3; and, finally,
22 Mr. Zigic number 4.
23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
24 very much.
25 Mr. Fila, you may go on.
Page 1027
1 Q. Mr. Radic, you saw the document.
2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] The
3 interpreters are asking that the microphone of
4 Mr. Radic be lowered a little. Thank you very much.
5 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
6 Q. You see this letter from the Ministry of the
7 Interior, from the Legal and Personnel Department,
8 dated 21 October 1998. This is what you can see in the
9 heading section. Can you tell us what this document
10 is?
11 A. This document represents my personal
12 information and details my career with the Ministry of
13 the Interior, as far as I understand it.
14 Q. According to this document, were you a police
15 officer in the Prijedor Public Security Station?
16 A. Yes. This document certifies that I was a
17 police officer there.
18 Q. How long were you in this station?
19 A. I was there between 1972 and 1984, working as
20 a police officer.
21 Q. Did you have any rank or were you a regular
22 patrolman?
23 A. I was simply a police officer, patrolman.
24 Q. Was there any lower rank thank yours?
25 A. No.
Page 1028
1 Q. So it was the lowest rank?
2 A. Yes. I was at the lowest rank.
3 Q. And then?
4 A. After the corridor was opened and after the
5 Ministry's functions had been integrated, the interior
6 decision was issued number 09/3-120-11/466, dated 27 of
7 October 1993, reassigning me to the duties of police
8 officer at the Prijedor Public Security Station,
9 Prijedor Police Station II, Omarska department, which
10 was part of the Prijedor Public Security Centre.
11 Q. On 27 October 1993, after the period where
12 you stand accused, you were still a police officer?
13 A. Yes, for a further two years.
14 Q. When did you first receive any rank?
15 A. I was promoted for the first time in 1994,
16 and that was the chief -- shift commander, when I was
17 reassigned in Prijedor.
18 Q. How did that come about?
19 A. I was an experienced police officer by that
20 time. I was almost at the end of my career, and there
21 was an internal agreement that towards the end of a
22 police officer's career, a police officer was usually
23 promoted so that they would get better benefits.
24 Q. Did you ever carry out the duties of shift
25 commander as it is stated here?
Page 1029
1 A. No. I never carried out those duties. After
2 the transfer to Prijedor, I worked as a driver of a
3 police van, and I worked in a duty room.
4 Q. This is the vehicle that transports detainees
5 and arrested persons?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. On 20 October 1995, you were confirmed in the
8 rank of Senior Sergeant?
9 A. Yes. This was also part of the agreement
10 that I should get better benefits, because the benefits
11 at the end of a regular patrolman's career are very
12 low.
13 Q. This document covers the period between
14 1 April 1992 and on. Before that date you were
15 stationed in Ljubija?
16 A. Yes. That is where I was, and I was on duty
17 as a police officer.
18 Q. The last paragraph details your salary. Can
19 you tell us something about your remuneration?
20 A. Let me tell you, it was symbolic. It was
21 next to nothing. It was an equivalent of 5 to 10
22 German Marks.
23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I would now like
24 to tender a set of documents. It's a bundle which
25 details everything that Mr. Radic has just testified
Page 1030
1 about, and this is DR2. This is the decision of his
2 appointment as a police officer; then a further
3 decision confirming his status as a police officer from
4 27 October 1993; then a decision appointing him the
5 shift commander; and in 1995, a decision on the
6 establishment of rank as a Senior Sergeant. Then there
7 is a personnel questionnaire, and then DR7 is the
8 decision on termination of the employment of Mr. Mladjo
9 Radic and the Ministry of the Interior of Republika
10 Srpska.
11 If there are no objections on the Prosecution
12 side, I would like to tender them as a bundle. So that
13 is DR1 through 7 basically.
14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Any
15 objections to this procedure?
16 MR. KEEGAN: No, Your Honour.
17 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
18 very much.
19 Mr. Fila, please go on.
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
21 Q. How did this termination of employment come
22 about? You said by mutual agreement.
23 A. Sometime in 1996, after I learned about my
24 indictment by this Tribunal, at that time my superiors
25 had reached such a decision, to remove us from our
Page 1031
1 duties, and we were offered a termination. So whatever
2 I said about my promotion, about my rank, about my
3 benefits, all this had just fallen through, and I found
4 myself where I am today.
5 Q. Mr. Radic, you heard my learned colleague
6 Niemann in his opening statement, he mentioned a
7 document which shows that you were awarded --
8 A. Yes. Mr. Niemann pointed out that I was
9 awarded, and he made it sound as if it was for the
10 alleged crimes that I perpetrated. But this is what I
11 have to say to that: During my career as a police
12 officer, my salary was 5 to 10 German marks. My
13 superiors decided in a meeting that several people
14 should be awarded, and I was among those people, after
15 25 or 26 years of service, and the only reason was the
16 fact that I had spent so much time working there, and
17 my wife, who was unemployed, and my children.
18 And I think I understood this to be social
19 assistance rather than some kind of award, because the
20 total amount awarded to me was only about 50 German
21 marks, from which I was able to buy flour and oil and
22 other foodstuffs for my family. I don't know how my
23 superiors framed it, whether this was an incentive or
24 an award, but what it amounted to in my mind was social
25 assistance.
Page 1032
1 Q. At that time, was your wife employed?
2 A. No, she was unemployed at that time. She is
3 not employed even to date. Only one of my sons is
4 employed. He works as a police officer in Prijedor
5 Police Station II. He's been working as a police
6 officer there, he was trained by the ITPF in that area,
7 and he is a student of law, and so on.
8 Q. Would you like a drink?
9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] This would
10 conclude the personal aspects of Mr. Radic's testimony
11 and life, and I would just like to move on straight to
12 the counts.
13 Q. At the period detailed in the indictment, you
14 worked as a police officer; is that correct?
15 A. Yes, that is correct. I was a police
16 officer.
17 Q. What were your duties?
18 A. Well, by definition, or whatever I did at the
19 police was a kind of prevention, which was my presence
20 in certain locations, such as restaurants or roads,
21 traffic control, to see whether people were drinking
22 and driving; then providing security to schools, banks;
23 patrols in the field. As Mr. Kvocka explained, I was
24 never a boss, I was always number 2.
25 Q. Within the description of your job, were
Page 1033
1 there night duties?
2 A. Yes, there were night duties, traffic
3 control, all kinds of duties that fall within the ambit
4 of police officer duties.
5 Q. What is a duty officer's duty?
6 A. Well, to be by the phone, to be by the radio
7 transmitter, to be there.
8 Q. Who was your superior in 1992, during the
9 relevant time?
10 A. In 1992, Mr. Zeljko Meakic was my commander
11 at the Omarska police precinct.
12 Q. During his evidence, Mr. Kvocka presented
13 certain documents detailing how the Omarska camp or the
14 investigation centre, however you want to call it,
15 looked like. We'll just call it Omarska. Is that
16 right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Did you know about this complex? Did you
19 know how it looked before?
20 A. No.
21 Q. In addition to you two, two other people are
22 charged alongside you. Do you know these two
23 individuals? And if you see them, can you describe
24 them?
25 A. I know Mr. Kvocka from the police precinct
Page 1034
1 where I worked for ten years as a police officer. We
2 worked together in this police precinct. I met Mr. Kos
3 as a civilian while he worked in Zagreb at that time,
4 and then he became the -- worked in Omarska at the
5 police station. And I never met Mr. Zigic until I
6 arrived at the detention unit in The Hague.
7 Q. How would your typical working day look, in
8 Omarska, that is? How did you first come into contact
9 with Omarska? And I don't mean the mining complex, but
10 what the indictment charges you with.
11 A. I think that for a while I was off duty, and
12 the duty officer, I forget who the duty officer was,
13 Ilija Prpos or someone else, but he told me that the
14 schedule had been changed and that I was to report to
15 duty at 1900 hours, at some kind of a centre.
16 Q. Can you tell us a date, the month and year
17 when this happened?
18 A. That was in 1992, because I arrived at this
19 newly established centre on the 27th, 28th, 29th.
20 Q. What month?
21 A. May 1992.
22 Q. What happened next? You learnt that you were
23 supposed to go to a centre of some kind.
24 A. Yes, that's right. I lived right next to the
25 police station, some 200 metres away. I got dressed, I
Page 1035
1 put on my uniform, as usual, that day. I came in front
2 of the Omarska police station, and I found 10 or 12
3 other people there, most of them reserve policemen whom
4 I did not know, some of them I knew. And a van
5 belonging to the Electro Prijveda Company was parked
6 there, from Prijedor, and once again one of these
7 reserve policemen on duty told us to get into the van,
8 which we did, and we were taken off towards the
9 administration building belonging to the centre.
10 Q. How did you arrive at the camp?
11 A. We arrived at the camp in the van that I
12 mentioned. We went past the main gate and went down to
13 the administration building, or the canteen, the
14 restaurant, and at the level of the canteen, the van
15 parked and all of us got out, the 15 of us or so who
16 were in the van.
17 Commander Meakic met us there and told us
18 that a centre had been set up in which there were
19 certain individuals from the Prijedor area, and that it
20 was our task to ensure security and to prevent these
21 individuals from escaping, and that the new arrivals
22 should replace the people that had already been
23 positioned around the camp.
24 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] With the Court's
25 permission, I should like to have Mr. Radic indicate on
Page 1036
1 the model itself where these individuals were, the
2 people that were already there, and to show us which
3 positions he and his group took up. That will
4 facilitate our work, I believe.
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes,
6 Mr. Fila, I shall do so, and the usher will help us, he
7 will give the pointer to the witness. And if
8 necessary, Mr. Radic, you can get up to show us the
9 exact positions.
10 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Mr. Radic, you're now going to show us where
12 the van stopped, who told you to take up your
13 positions, and who stood where at that particular
14 time.
15 A. We came from the road which leads up to the
16 canteen itself, and there is a wider space --
17 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I apologise
18 for interrupting but we have a problem with the
19 microphone. Could Mr. Radic be given a microphone?
20 Because the interpreters are having difficulties in
21 following him. Thank you. Let's try again. I think
22 that things will be better now.
23 A. Yes. Well, we arrived at the front gate,
24 from this side [indicates], and we reached this area
25 here, this is a plateau [indicates], a wider space.
Page 1037
1 The van stopped somewhere here [indicates], next to
2 this restaurant. We got out. Zeljko Meakic stood here
3 waiting for us, and he told us that we would be guards
4 in the investigation centre from now on, that there
5 were individuals in that centre from the Prijedor area
6 and that it was our task to see that they did not
7 escape, and that we would be replacing the people who
8 had already stood guard in the camp.
9 I stayed here [indicates], in front of this
10 garage. This was the garage facility. And I think I
11 replaced Rado Ritan, or somebody like that, I don't
12 remember exactly. Next to me was Mirko Jokic, on this
13 side, and the other side, over here, was Marmat;
14 whether his name was Rajko or Zivko, I can't remember.
15 Then there was Milenko, and so on around the centre.
16 We replaced the guards.
17 Q. Can we say then that you made a circle around
18 the whole compound?
19 A. Yes, right round this, along this green
20 surface and round the whole compound.
21 Q. Did you see any people being held in the
22 buildings?
23 A. Yes. There were people -- no, there were
24 people in front here [indicates]. These other
25 facilities were closed, but we were told that in these
Page 1038
1 buildings, there were some people there.
2 Q. When you say "we were told," who told you?
3 A. The commander, Zeljko Meakic, told us.
4 Q. Did anybody else tell you anything?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Only Meakic?
7 A. That's right.
8 Q. Could you now explain to us how long you
9 stood in that position and how your first day ended in
10 the compound?
11 A. Actually, it was nighttime when I arrived.
12 As far as I can remember, it was from 7.00 p.m. to 7.00
13 a.m., and then we were off for 24 hours and would
14 return to duty after that. When I came the second
15 time, I was positioned as a guard here [indicates], in
16 front of the garage once again.
17 Q. Who told you where to stand?
18 A. Well, nobody told us anything. We had
19 already had this routine. So I would take up my
20 position, Mirko would be next to me; across the away
21 from us, somebody else, Marmat and all the rest of us,
22 because it was the third or fourth shift on that second
23 day.
24 Q. Please continue.
25 A. During my stay, there were several shifts
Page 1039
1 here. One or two, it's not important, I don't know how
2 many I actually did, but one day Zeljko Meakic came up
3 to me and told me, "Mr. Radic, you are going to be
4 transferred to the duty office."
5 Q. I don't think he would say "Mr. Radic" to
6 you.
7 A. Well, no, he didn't address me as Mr. Radic.
8 He just said, "Radic, you are going to work in the
9 office from now on, where we have our radio transmitter
10 and the local telephone, and you're going to do other
11 tasks, or if need be, do the task of guard." I took up
12 my pistol, I took up all my equipment, and followed him
13 into the building and took up my position in the office
14 there.
15 Q. If you lift the roof up off of the building
16 on the model -- lift the roof up.
17 A. You mean me?
18 Q. No. I'd like to ask the usher to remove the
19 roof from the building. Thank you.
20 Now, Mr. Radic, show us how you entered and
21 where your duty office was.
22 A. I entered through this door here, and from
23 there I took a right turn, up the steps to the first
24 floor. There is another staircase here, and so I went
25 up to the first floor this way, which brought me to
Page 1040
1 this room here, and it said B5 on the door, B5. That
2 is the office in which we had our duty office
3 premises.
4 Q. What was in the room?
5 A. In the room there were two tables. One was
6 next to the window, and two other tables were placed in
7 the L-position. I sat at this table. There was an UKT
8 transmitter, a telephone, and at the two tables here,
9 there were two typists typing out something.
10 Q. Were these typists from the Omarska
11 department or from somewhere else, those two typists,
12 these two ladies?
13 A. These two ladies would worked at the security
14 centre in Prijedor.
15 Q. How did they get there?
16 A. They came there together with the inspectors,
17 the investigators. When they came to work, they went
18 with them, and they worked in the office, typed out
19 what they had to do, and so on.
20 Q. What were the other rooms on that floor?
21 A. Room B11, B10, and B9 were the investigating
22 rooms, rooms for interviews, interviewing rooms.
23 Q. Who was interviewed there?
24 A. The inspectors, investigators worked there
25 and interviewed the individuals. This office, B3, also
Page 1041
1 served the same purpose. In B4, I don't know whether
2 anybody was interviewed there. There was a sort of
3 loudspeaker there. In the room marked B1, and this B1
4 here, that room was used by the investigators and their
5 bosses or chiefs or whatever, and they had some
6 documents -- stored some documents there. They would
7 have their meals there. So we didn't go into those
8 rooms.
9 Q. So you came to that particular office, that
10 is to say, Meakic told you to go into the office and
11 take up your duties as a duty officer?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did you stand guard anywhere?
14 A. Yes. I was a guard sometimes at this
15 position here, near the Torine tower. All this is
16 glass. This is a glass partition. It was very hot,
17 and it was very difficult to work there for 12 hours
18 because of the heat, but we had to. So from time to
19 time, I would do guard duty there.
20 Q. Was there any where elsewhere you did guard
21 duty or only those two points?
22 A. No. Just in front of the garage, and over
23 here, and worked in the office.
24 Q. As a duty officer?
25 A. Yes, as a duty officer.
Page 1042
1 Q. What did you do as a duty officer? What was
2 your job as a duty officer?
3 A. Well, let me put it this way: I sat there
4 all the time. If there were any calls, incoming
5 calls -- of course everything was coded -- if somebody
6 asked to speak to the commander, I would go and find
7 the commander, tell him that he was wanted, that he was
8 asked Sana 1 calling Sana 3, and so on. All this was
9 coded.
10 Q. So Sana 1, 2 and 3, those were the codes.
11 Codes for what?
12 A. Well, Sana 1, it was Vran 1 afterwards, but
13 these were codes for Drljaca, Chief Drljaca. Sana 2
14 might be Jankovic; Sana 3, Milutin Cadjo; Sana 4 would
15 be somebody else. So this was coded.
16 Q. You heard Mr. Niemann's introductory
17 statement and there was a video played, and an
18 individual with a gun could be seen on the tape. Who
19 was that?
20 A. If you're thinking about this part here, this
21 area here, then that was me in my standard police
22 uniform, with a gun in my hand, standing to attention
23 at my guard post.
24 Q. Do the guards have weapons?
25 A. I think that the commander -- shift
Page 1043
1 commanders have them. No. The shift commander does
2 not have a gun in his hand.
3 Q. I'd like to ask you something else. There
4 seems to be a misunderstanding. Let me repeat.
5 Do the shift commanders have guns when they
6 are on duty on their shift, doing their shift?
7 A. The shift commanders do not, and it is the
8 guards that stand guard. The shift commanders do not
9 stand guard.
10 Q. On the tape, we can also see the detainees.
11 The Prosecutor did not bother to explain where the
12 individual detainees were, but did you have any barbed
13 wire in Omarska?
14 A. No. And I'd like to see that tape once
15 again. Where I was standing guard, that is probably
16 me. The people running to eat in the canteen, they
17 were people from Omarska. The individual eating out of
18 the plate was from Omarska, and the barbed wire and
19 those thin people, emaciated people are quite certainly
20 not from Omarska, nor was there a barbed wire in the
21 camp.
22 Q. You have spent a considerable amount of time
23 on duty. Did Meakic tell you why it was you who was on
24 duty?
25 A. Well, he didn't tell me directly why it was
Page 1044
1 me, but I can only assume why it was. Perhaps because,
2 as I say, I have been a policeman for many years, and
3 he knows I know how to operate a radio transmitter. He
4 knows I won't get the wrong frequency. I can work a
5 telephone and so on.
6 Q. Well, let us go back to the fact that you
7 said that you were a policeman for many years and well
8 acquainted with police practice. When you spent your
9 time in the centre, in the camp, when people arrived,
10 the detainees, when they arrived, was there any
11 procedure by which you escorted the detainees? Were
12 there any records, lists of individuals, things of that
13 kind?
14 A. No. The standard procedure was the
15 following: When somebody arrived, if I was on duty and
16 if that individual was to be retained, then a note
17 would be written down on his detention, the time of his
18 detention would be noted, but nobody else wrote reports
19 of this kind, notes of this kind, documents, or sign
20 them.
21 Q. So can we then conclude that these
22 individuals had no certificates, signed certificates
23 and decisions on their detention?
24 A. No. This was just an ad hoc practice. They
25 were just people brought in ad hoc and detained.
Page 1045
1 Q. In the course of your stay, that is, and the
2 two posts that you held, as a duty officer and as a
3 guard standing duty, did you have the authority to
4 order anybody anything?
5 A. No.
6 Q. When I say "anybody," I mean your colleagues,
7 policemen.
8 A. No. No. I never ordered anybody anything.
9 I never issued any orders of any kind. Through my
10 whole lifetime I was an ordinary policeman and always
11 followed orders from other people. Probably the reason
12 was that I wasn't very well educated, so I could not
13 advance in my service. I was just an ordinary
14 policeman, police officer, and always followed orders.
15 Q. You told us that you worked in shifts
16 throughout your stay in the centre, 12-hour shifts and
17 24-hour shifts.
18 A. Yes. That's right.
19 Q. Who determined where you were going to work
20 when you came to do your shift?
21 A. Well, it wasn't actually determined, but it
22 was standard practice. People knew where their posts
23 were. So we would be brought in by van, we would come
24 out of the van, and we all knew which post to take up.
25 I would go up to the office, carry on my duty there.
Page 1046
1 When I was told to be a guard, I would be a guard, I
2 would go on duty.
3 Q. But who told you where to go?
4 A. Well, the first time we arrived, Mr. Meakic
5 informed us of this and explained everything, and then,
6 of course, there was no reason to explain again.
7 Q. But if somebody were to tell you, "You're not
8 going to work in the duty office today, you're going to
9 do your guard duty," who would say that?
10 A. Mr. Meakic did this.
11 Q. Did he do that regularly?
12 A. Yes, he would do that regularly. He was
13 regularly in charge of my schedule.
14 Q. What I want to indicate to the Trial Chamber
15 here today is the following: Was the procedure by
16 which you came, took up your duties, replaced each
17 other, stood guard, was it any different from standard
18 practice and procedure practised by an organised police
19 force, as I hope our police force was?
20 A. Well, it was different, yes, because had
21 people worked under normal conditions, they would all
22 have had police uniforms, they would have to come to
23 work well shaved and well turned out, but of course,
24 now people came with beards. They had various symbols,
25 insignia, different uniforms. They would have a
Page 1047
1 camouflage uniform on top, civilian pants, blue
2 uniforms, different coloured.
3 Q. When you went to the Omarska police station,
4 did the duty officer tell you -- did he have a schedule
5 and tell you where to take up your posts?
6 A. No. The duty officer would never tell --
7 Q. I'm talking about Omarska, when you went to
8 work at Omarksa?
9 A. No. We would go in front of the Omarska
10 police station, we would get into the combi van, and we
11 would be brought to the centre.
12 Q. Yes. You are talking about when the centre
13 was set up, but before the centre existed, when you
14 would go to work in the morning, what did your daily
15 routine look like in Omarska as opposed to your routine
16 at the centre?
17 A. Well, it depended. Under normal conditions,
18 I would not have any long arms. I would get a patrol
19 list. If I had to tour a terrain, I would know the
20 villages that I had to patrol, where I had to be at
21 each given time in the day.
22 Q. So did you write reports of this kind of
23 work?
24 A. Yes, I did.
25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Fila,
Page 1048
1 do you want Mr. Radic to remain standing or could he
2 sit down now? Perhaps it would facilitate
3 interpretation.
4 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Yes, he can sit
5 down.
6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] We can hear
7 him better if he resumes his seat.
8 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Perhaps this is a
9 good point for a pause or shall we go on until 2.30?
10 Which do you prefer, Your Honour? Shall we make a
11 pause here? Can I go on to 2.30 without a break?
12 Because if I have a break, it will be difficult for me
13 to get through all the material.
14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] If the
15 witness is capable of continuing, then I think it would
16 be advisable to work until 2.30. If that is all right
17 with you. You may continue.
18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
19 Q. You -- the Prosecutor has given us some
20 material about witnesses and so on. In the indictment,
21 you are called the shift commander, referred to as
22 "shift commander." Were you, in fact, a shift
23 commander?
24 A. I don't know where this term "shift
25 commander" comes from. Perhaps the detainees used the
Page 1049
1 term. But I was never a shift commander, nor was I
2 ever positioned as a shift commander, except in 1995
3 when I was to retire. Then they gave me this sort of
4 chit.
5 Q. How can you explain to us, then, the fact
6 that many of the Prosecution's witnesses speak about
7 Krkan's shift, for example? Why do you think they
8 refer to it as Krkan's shift?
9 A. I have already said that I have worked in the
10 police force for many years, that I worked in the
11 Ljubija region for 12 years, and passing through
12 Prijedor, Kozarac, then I spent 10 years working in
13 Omarska until the conflict broke out. Many people knew
14 me by my nickname, Krkan. And now I'd like you to
15 understand that particular situation, where my
16 acquaintances found themselves in an unfavourable
17 situation, closed up, and then I came there to stand
18 guard, to provide security and these 20 young men whom
19 I worked with, half of them I didn't even know their
20 names, and they didn't know me, but with my appearance,
21 some of them knew me. Perhaps 3 per cent of those on
22 the pista knew me, and they said, "Here comes Krkan,"
23 and, "This is Krkan's shift." And I also think perhaps
24 you, Mr. Fila, are better acquainted with this. When
25 you went with me down there, nobody would say "Krkan's
Page 1050
1 shift," they would say, "Mr. Fila's shift."
2 Q. Well, luckily I wasn't there, otherwise I
3 might be the accused here.
4 A. May I add as well, that the people down there
5 had never seen the president of the municipality nor
6 secretary nor tactical groups nor cantons nor any of
7 this business of regions, provinces, they just saw me
8 as a policeman and thought me to be responsible for
9 everything that was happening to them, just as in my
10 detention unit, I am very angry with the guards.
11 Q. Mr. Radic, you told me that amongst the
12 detainees, there were some of them who were your
13 friends and acquaintances?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Let us go back to the introductory statement
16 made by the Prosecutor. They criticise you for the
17 fact that you never wanted to assist anyone in any
18 way. You did not, neither did any of the others help
19 anybody. Is that true?
20 A. I cannot agree with that statement made by
21 the Prosecutor. I can quote several examples where, as
22 a man, I did help a certain number of individuals. But
23 let me also say that when I could help them, I found it
24 very difficult not to be able to help people, because I
25 was somebody who, until yesterday, was in town, I would
Page 1051
1 go to dances, to weddings, to celebrations, even to
2 funerals, and suddenly people would expect to get a
3 piece of bread from me. When I had a piece of bread,
4 it was difficult for me to give it to one person and
5 not to give it to the man next to him who might have
6 been more hungry than the man who'd asked me for the
7 piece of bread. On the other hand, when I did have a
8 piece of bread or two pieces of bread, I could never
9 throw the bread away because I knew that many people
10 would be hungry.
11 So I did give as much as I could to people to
12 help them, either clandestinely or quite openly, and to
13 hell with what would happen to me.
14 Q. Does the name Milenko Brisovac mean anything
15 to you? Hasim Hodzic is the next name. Zdravko
16 Ivanovic. Do those names mean anything to you? Reza
17 Hodzic, Idriz Mujikic, Milan Anusic, do those names
18 mean anything to you? Were they detainees?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did you help them?
21 A. Those are only some of the names of the
22 people whom I helped in one way or another, and I did
23 help many more people than the ones that you have
24 mentioned.
25 Q. Let us repeat the names.
Page 1052
1 A. Idriz Mujikic, his nickname was Tazo.
2 Q. What ethnic group did these individuals
3 belong to?
4 A. They were Muslims and Croats.
5 Q. Did you have any hostile feelings towards the
6 members of other religions and other ethnic groups?
7 A. No. No, absolutely no. In 1982, when I
8 worked at the Omarska police station, I was the kum or
9 best man to Stipe Pavlovic. And Mr. Kvocka, a few days
10 ago, explained what the institution of kum means in the
11 areas that we come from, and as he said, "God is in
12 heaven; kum is on earth."
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] May we now show
14 document DR14A, which was translated this morning.
15 JUDGE RIAD: Excuse me. Stipe Pavlovic was a
16 Muslim or Croat or Serb, or what?
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Croat.
18 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you.
19 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Mr. Radic, is Stipe a Croat or a Muslim?
21 A. Mr. Stipe is a Croat. His father's name was
22 Pejo. We were good friends; we would visit each other,
23 and so on.
24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I
25 apologise, Mr. Fila, but can we have the number of the
Page 1053
1 document?
2 I'd like to take advantage of this
3 opportunity to ask the registrar to give us the numbers
4 of the other documents tendered by Mr. Fila.
5 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank
6 you. There were nine documents in all, and they were
7 numbered D2/3 to D10/3, those were the documents in
8 question, and the present document will be numbered
9 D11/3.
10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, but
11 Mr. Registrar, I think that we have to be able to
12 identify documents properly. I think Mr. Fila has
13 submitted DR2, 3, 5, 6, and 7. I don't see nine -- I
14 can't see nine documents.
15 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] I think that
16 Mr. Fila said that it would be to D10.
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] No, to D7.
18 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Okay. Then
19 as far as I'm concerned, this document will be marked
20 Exhibit D8/3.
21 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes. And
22 this document --
23 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes, Your
24 Honour, it's this one, D8/3.
25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you.
Page 1054
1 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
2 Q. What is this document, Mr. Radic, the one
3 you're holding?
4 A. This is a certificate whereby it is certified
5 that Mladjo Radic, son of Rada, born in Lamovita, was
6 present as a witness, that is, best man, at the wedding
7 of Stipe Pavlovic and Olga Didovic on the 7th of
8 January, 1982.
9 Q. What nationality is Mr. Pavlovic?
10 A. He's a Croat. He comes from the area of
11 Ljubija.
12 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Fila, I
13 apologise, but I don't think we have that document.
14 You said that it has just arrived, that it came in this
15 morning.
16 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.
17 It just came in. Mr. Registrar received it in 12
18 copies. It has been translated, of course. My marking
19 is DR14A.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, we
21 have it Mr. Fila. Thank you very much. You may
22 resume.
23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Did you have any other person acting in that
25 capacity, as a best man, who was not of the same
Page 1055
1 ethnicity?
2 A. I used to work in the Ljubija police station
3 with Mr. Ibrahim Denic who was of Muslim ethnic
4 background. We are more or less of the same age and
5 our wives went to school together in Prijedor, in
6 secondary school. His wife is a shop assistant and my
7 wife used to work in the catering business. So
8 Mr. Denic was the godfather for my children.
9 Let me clarify that a little bit. It was a
10 new kind of relationship, new kind of capacity. I
11 would often ask myself about the ethnic background of
12 my children, for example. My eldest son is 25 and my
13 youngest son is 13, and none of them were baptised
14 according to the Serbian religious tradition, or
15 Croatian Catholic religious tradition, and I
16 didn't circumsise them either, of course as Muslims do,
17 or Jews, so they're not that either.
18 So we had this new type of ceremony after the
19 birth of the child. The godfather has to cut a few
20 hairs of the child, and I keep one lock of the hair and
21 the godfather keeps the other, and the third lock is
22 distributed among the hosts. This is the kind of
23 ceremony that we adopted at that time. This happened
24 in 1976. When my second son was born in 1978, his
25 wife, Senada, was his godmother. She had to cut his
Page 1056
1 hair during that ceremony. And when my third child was
2 born, their daughter, Arijana, was the godmother, that
3 is, she cut the hair of the child, for my third child.
4 Q. During your time at the centre, did anything
5 happen to his son?
6 A. While that was going on, I happened to be at
7 home, and one day, around 2.00, 2.00 in the afternoon,
8 I don't remember exactly, I received an anonymous
9 telephone call. The person wanted to know whether it
10 was the Radic residence, and I asked who it was, and
11 the voice said, "It doesn't matter but you have to
12 listen to me now." And the voice went on, saying that
13 on the junction of the Omarska and Lamovita roads,
14 halfway between Prijedor and Banja Luka, that my godson
15 was lying on the ground. He was in a very confused
16 state, and then the person hung up. So I wanted to
17 verify that because the voice told me that I should do
18 something about that person, to take him to the
19 hospital.
20 So I called the health centre, and it was an
21 individual by the name of Rosic, a driver who answered,
22 and I told him, I actually lied, I told him that a
23 wounded child was lying near the junction in question
24 and that the child should be transported to the Banja
25 Luka hospital to get medical aid. So the person went
Page 1057
1 there, and he actually transported the child to the
2 hospital in Banja Luka. The child stayed there for a
3 few days in hospital, and later on I learned that he
4 had been playing near the house and had fallen off the
5 third floor of his house, so that the child was
6 unconscious and in such a state that he was transported
7 to the hospital.
8 So this woman, godmother, called me. She
9 told me that she was there, and she told me that the
10 child would stay there for a while. So I said that she
11 should wait for me on the following day, near traffic
12 lights in Banja Luka, near the hospital. So I went to
13 Banja Luka by bus, the driver was Ratko Kobis, I took a
14 bag full of food. My wife helped me pack that bag, and
15 Senada, the woman in question, was really waiting for
16 me. So I gave her the bag, I gave her some money, I
17 don't know how much. So that child was taken there to
18 hospital, and he's still alive. And when he left --
19 after he left the hospital, I would often go to
20 Prijedor to see him. But the times were difficult, the
21 transport wasn't really functioning. I had a son who
22 was in school in Prijedor, and every Friday, my wife,
23 if not every Friday, then every other Friday, my wife
24 would pack a bag full of foodstuffs for him, so we
25 would take that opportunity to take some food to that
Page 1058
1 woman as well.
2 She had one brother in Trnopolje, and
3 apparently she took that food to him, but that bag
4 somehow disappeared, so I never got it back.
5 Q. What does the name Dragica Srdic tell you?
6 Does it ring a bell?
7 A. Dragica Srdic was my godmother's neighbour,
8 and she was disseminating some kind of misinformation
9 as to my being a guard there, and she used to work
10 there as a cook as well.
11 Q. Thank you. That would be enough.
12 We have mentioned your wife.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. How did it come about that she started
15 working in Omarska? What exactly was it that she was
16 doing?
17 A. Well, prior to the war, she used to work at
18 the mine restaurant. After the break-out of the
19 conflict, she stopped working, but she had a so-called
20 work obligation. She had to report to the restaurant
21 and start working. So she was in charge of preparing
22 the food, together with about ten other cooks, and this
23 is where the food was being prepared for the detainees,
24 for the military, for the guards, and so on. It was a
25 tremendous task but she didn't receive any money for
Page 1059
1 that.
2 Q. Were you in a position to release anyone from
3 the camp, to let him go home?
4 A. No, sir. No, I wasn't. I was not in a
5 position to release anyone, or to let anyone leave the
6 investigation centre. That was simply not possible.
7 Q. You heard Mr. Kvocka's explanation as to the
8 powers and the authority of the police station. Would
9 you agree with the statement that the food situation --
10 that the food and water had nothing to do with your job
11 description?
12 A. No, it had really nothing to do with us. We
13 were simply providing guard duty, and we had nothing to
14 do with food or water.
15 Q. While your wife was working there, did she
16 have any contacts with other women there, with female
17 detainees?
18 A. Yes, she did. Much to my surprise, one day
19 when she came back from work, we sat together to have
20 coffee, as we usually do, and she told me, "I heard
21 some good things about you today, and I hope you will
22 remain that way." So we joked a little about that, and
23 I didn't know where the information had come from. I
24 asked her whether she had been with Simo Drljaca or
25 some other official, but she said no, she was actually
Page 1060
1 talking to Suada Ramic, Mrs. Cikota, and one or two
2 other female detainees in the camp.
3 So I asked her, "Well, how did you come
4 across them?" Because I knew that these women were
5 detained there. She said that they had somehow come to
6 the restaurant, that they were sitting in the
7 restaurant, and they offered them some food. So they
8 had some food there and coffee, and you know how women
9 are, they started chatting. So my wife asked them
10 about their accommodation, because she knew that there
11 were some men there as well. She wanted to know
12 whether they had any problems or similar. So
13 Mrs. Suada said, "No, madam, on the contrary. We do
14 not have any problems. We have our guard who is more
15 of a guardian to us, Mr. Krkan, and we do not have any
16 problems whatsoever because he's there."
17 So at that moment these other women started
18 laughing, including my wife. And Mr. Suada said,
19 "Well, what are you laughing about? I did not say
20 anything funny." Well, then other women told her that
21 I was the husband of the lady they were having this
22 conversation with.
23 Q. But you know that you are charged with sexual
24 assaults on female detainees. Is there any truth in
25 that?
Page 1061
1 You are under an oath, Mr. Radic. I'm
2 reminding you of that fact.
3 A. Well, first of all, I have to be honest as a
4 man, and I have to say that there is no truth
5 whatsoever in that statement. Of course I have read
6 the indictment. Since we are talking about Mrs. Suada
7 Ramic, I have to say here that after the close-down of
8 the camp in 1992, I ran into her in Prijedor. She was
9 with another lady. And because there had been some
10 reports on TV that 60.000 people had been detained
11 there, she wanted to know more about it. She wanted to
12 know whether there had been any problems there. So we
13 had this conversation, and she said that she had not
14 had any problems there.
15 When I arrived to the detention unit, I told
16 that to the Prosecutor, and I can state that before the
17 Court.
18 Q. No. Please do not go on. During your stay
19 there, did you ever hit anyone? Did you ever kill
20 anyone?
21 A. Mr. Fila, no. I was there regardless of the
22 circumstances. There were a lot of people there whom I
23 knew from before, with whom I had grown up. So I often
24 ask myself what I would expect from the people guarding
25 them. I wanted to know how I would behave in their
Page 1062
1 shoes. I concluded that I would probably expect from
2 the guards to behave in a proper manner and not to do
3 any harm.
4 So I told myself, "Mr. Radic, you shall not
5 kill. You do not have any reason to kill or to beat or
6 to harm anyone in any way. You're not going to do
7 that, because this is not human, this is not moral, and
8 you always have to bear in mind how you would feel in
9 their position."
10 Q. But you did say that you used to see people
11 beaten up, with bruises, and that people had been
12 beaten.
13 A. Yes. While on one occasion, which was going
14 to the restaurant, I was actually standing behind the
15 place from where the food was being brought in, and one
16 of the female detainees who was distributing the food,
17 I don't know which one, whether Mrs. Ciga,
18 Mrs. Rajkovic -- they were the ones who worked most so
19 I knew them best -- and they said that a guard had been
20 beating someone on this lower part of the pista.
21 So I turned around, and I went to this other
22 entrance of the restaurant, and I indeed observed the
23 guard by the name of Govedarica. There he had been
24 beating that man. So I went to him and I told him,
25 "Well, Zdravko, were are you doing this? There are
Page 1063
1 hundreds of people here sitting on the pista, and
2 you're beating this man here."
3 So then he was very rude to me. I have to
4 apologise here. He told me, "Well you can suck my
5 cock." He told me that it was none of my business, and
6 that I should go back to my place of duty, and that he
7 knows perfectly well how to do his job.
8 I must say here that I had no legal authority
9 whatsoever to do anything. I did say that to him, and
10 I wanted to tell him not to do it, because I felt it
11 was not a thing to do.
12 Q. Were you personally afraid for yourself in
13 the centre?
14 A. Well, it was not easy for me, especially
15 after the incident which was related by Mr. Kvocka, the
16 incidents in which a number of people were wounded.
17 This was a very significant incident for all
18 of us, because we didn't know what to do. I mean, we
19 didn't know what to expect. We could expect a bullet
20 in the back any time. So the situation was quite
21 uncomfortable for us.
22 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I would now like
23 to show a document which we managed to obtain. It's a
24 duty roster marked as DR8. I apologise, the copy is
25 not very well. So I should like Mr. Registrar to give
Page 1064
1 the original copy to Mr. Radic, because the Registry
2 has been supplied with the originals.
3 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] I only have
4 photocopies here.
5 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] The original was
6 given to Mr. Fourmy. It's a document concerning the
7 shift. But I think we're all familiar with it. I will
8 show this piece of paper to the witness and he will
9 understand.
10 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] I remember
11 seeing it. I remember seeing the original, but here in
12 the courtroom we have only photocopies.
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Well, we will use
14 the photocopy to give some explanation, but the Chamber
15 will dispose of the original as well in due time.
16 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I believe
17 we do have the original and a photocopy.
18 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] The exhibit
19 is marked as D9/3.
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Mr. Radic, could you tell us briefly what
22 this document is all about?
23 A. Let me say this is a duty roster regarding
24 the organisation of work while I was there in Omarska.
25 This was kept at the Omarska police station. This
Page 1065
1 concerns my schedule from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., for
2 example, but I don't see the dates here. Normally they
3 should be legible as well.
4 Q. Yes. They are legible on the original.
5 Could you please tell us whether this
6 document shows how much time you spent in Omarska and
7 when exactly you were there?
8 A. Yes. This is a very accurate rendering of my
9 schedule. You can see exactly when I worked, and you
10 can also conclude, on the basis of this evidence, when
11 I was absent from the centre.
12 Q. Do you see other shifts as well?
13 A. No. This concerns only me.
14 Q. Who would replace you after your duty?
15 A. Well, these other people who were also
16 guards.
17 Q. Were you ever a member of the SDS political
18 party?
19 A. No, never.
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I would now like
21 to show the document marked as DR9, and I would like to
22 ask the accused to tell us more about this document.
23 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Exhibit
24 D10/3, and D10/3A for the English version.
25 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
Page 1066
1 Q. What is this document?
2 A. This is a certificate whereby: "It is
3 certified that Mr. Mladjo Radic, Milojica Kos, born in
4 the village of Lamovita, Prijedor municipality, Bosnia
5 and Herzegovina, were not members of the Serbian
6 Democratic Party as evident from the existing
7 documentation of this municipal board. Dusan Beric."
8 Q. Would you now please have a look at the
9 document DR10 and document DR11 together.
10 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Document DR10
11 will be marked as Exhibit D11/3, and document DR11 will
12 be marked as Exhibit D12/3.
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Mr. Radic, one can see from this
15 documentation that you were a voluntary blood donor.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Could you tell us why you were a voluntary
18 blood donor?
19 A. I have already stated that as a 19-year-old
20 man, I did my military service, and while I was in
21 Sisak, where my unit was quartered, my name was called,
22 together with three other names, by a duty officer one
23 morning. So we did not know what it was all about, but
24 we were called to his office. They told us to sit
25 down, which was a bit surprising for an officer to say
Page 1067
1 that to a simple soldier.
2 So he told us that he had seen our medical
3 documentation from the recruitment, and he said that he
4 found out that our blood type was 0-negative, and he
5 asked us to give blood, because during the night,
6 Mr. Ivan Puropak [phoen], the commander of my garrison,
7 had had a serious traffic accident and that he was in
8 hospital somewhere in Sisak.
9 So I agreed to give blood. We went to the
10 hospital in question to give blood. Our Captain spent
11 some time in hospital. Later on he was discharged. I
12 remember that I gave blood on one or two more
13 occasions, which earned me two extra days of vacation.
14 Later on, when I join the police and came
15 back to my area, I thought that -- I realised that I
16 was actually able to save somebody's life with this
17 ability. So I joined the local association of blood
18 donors, and I used to give blood during a certain
19 period of time. I think I gave blood altogether 100 or
20 103 times, each time, 350 grams of blood. I think I
21 gave altogether more than 35 litres of blood. For me,
22 it was never an issue whether the individual in
23 question was a Croat, Serbian, Gypsy, or Muslim. This
24 was of no significance for me whatsoever.
25 Q. Mr. Radic, were you involved in any military
Page 1068
1 operation?
2 A. No, never.
3 Q. You learned about your indictment because it
4 was a public one?
5 A. Yes. I learned about it in 1996.
6 Q. Did you go in hiding after you learned about
7 the indictment? Did you leave your place of
8 residence? Did you abscond in any way?
9 A. No. I went on with my normal life in
10 Prijedor. I stayed in my apartment in the JNA Street,
11 which was renamed in the meantime. My whereabouts were
12 the usual ones. I would go to my weekend house in
13 Lamovita. It's an old house. Not even my father
14 remembers when it was constructed.
15 I was informed as to the fact that I was
16 hiding, but I have to say that I had no means
17 whatsoever to hide, to change my identity, and it so
18 happened that I was arrested.
19 Q. You had two identity cards when you were
20 arrested.
21 A. Yes, that's true. I had my proper identity
22 card, and I also had my official police force identity
23 card. After I retired, I was actually given that
24 identity card by Mr. Drljaca. And he told me to hide,
25 but I didn't hide. I took this other identity card,
Page 1069
1 together with my regular one, put in my wallet, and I
2 kept carrying it around. If I had any intention to go
3 into hiding, I would only be carrying this other
4 identity card.
5 Q. Mr. Radic, why didn't you surrender?
6 A. Let me be perfectly honest, Mr. Fila. At the
7 time the indictment against me was issued and during
8 the time of Mr. Drljaca in the area of the Prijedor
9 municipality and even beyond, I can claim, with full
10 responsibility, that no person was able to resist
11 anyone -- to resist the authority in any way, or
12 Mr. Drljaca, for that matter. And I know that if I had
13 surrendered, that it would probably have been to the
14 detriment of my family.
15 Q. You will allow me, Your Honours, two more
16 questions, please.
17 Mr. Radic, you are aware of the inhumane
18 treatment in Omarska. You know that there had been
19 killings, and you yourself stated that conditions were
20 not humane and that there had indeed been killings.
21 But could you tell us here, how do you feel about that
22 now and then? How do you feel about the fact that you
23 yourself were part of it?
24 A. I don't know what to tell you. As a man, I
25 can only say that I am ashamed of everything that
Page 1070
1 happened there. I'm ashamed for the people who did
2 what they did, and I do deplore the fact that those
3 people suffered and went through all this ordeal, and I
4 do feel humiliated. But I believe that because I
5 personally did not harm anyone, did not kill anyone,
6 did not steal anything from anyone, I believe that I am
7 not guilty for those things. But as a man, I do feel
8 ashamed.
9 Q. Why didn't you run away? Why didn't you
10 throw away your uniform and simply flee?
11 A. But, Mr. Fila, I would be signing a death
12 sentence for my family had I done such a thing.
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Thank you very
14 much. This concludes my examination, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
16 very much, Mr. Fila. Thank you for being so efficient
17 and brief. You may sit down.
18 The Trial Chamber would like to thank you,
19 Mr. Radic, for coming forth as a witness. The
20 proceedings against you will continue after this.
21 [The witness stands down]
22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Ms. Hollis,
23 I should like to ask you now about the order. We were
24 about to -- we actually had to start with your case on
25 Monday, but there was a possibility for bringing a
Page 1071
1 witness before that. You said that you would make some
2 effort and try to find witnesses and start before
3 Monday.
4 MS. HOLLIS: Yes, Your Honour. Based on the
5 changes in the schedule, last week we made arrangements
6 to have witnesses here available to testify on
7 Wednesday and Thursday, and those arrangements have
8 been successful. So that we have definitely three
9 witnesses to testify and we have three others who would
10 be in a position to travel if they're told to do so,
11 but that would be beginning on Wednesday, Your Honour,
12 based on what we understand the schedule would be from
13 last week.
14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Fila?
15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Mr. President, let
16 me propose something. I do agree that we have some
17 somehow changed the situation of the Prosecution, but I
18 would like to suggest a change. We will not have
19 enough, two days, for six witnesses, for obvious
20 reasons. You will probably need Tuesday, Wednesday,
21 Thursday, and Friday. Is it possible for us to
22 reschedule the Status Conference and to have it
23 tomorrow instead of Friday? Again, I apologise for
24 trying to change the schedule, but this might not be
25 such a bad idea.
Page 1072
1 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes. I
2 also wanted to rethink the schedule for the Status
3 Conference, but we do need certain time to review the
4 work that has already been done, and before we make any
5 conclusions, we have to see the Statutes of the
6 proceedings, we have to see about the agreements of the
7 parties, and see whether we are able to go even further
8 in that respect. So we have to think carefully about
9 that, see if there would be any consequences if we
10 rescheduled the Status Conference.
11 I don't know how the parties stand, what
12 their position is, but in any case, I wanted to have
13 that Status Conference maybe not right away but after a
14 certain time, after we have had an opportunity to think
15 about it.
16 Ms. Hollis, do you have anything to say about
17 the proposal given by Mr. Fila?
18 MS. HOLLIS: We certainly appreciate
19 Mr. Fila's attempts to expedite the proceedings. We
20 share Your Honour's concern that perhaps if we had it
21 tomorrow Your Honours would not have sufficient time to
22 evaluate what has happened in order to form your own
23 positions as to what the significance of that may be.
24 However, should you decide you want to have a Status
25 Conference tomorrow, certainly we would be able to
Page 1073
1 participate in such a conference meaningfully, I
2 believe.
3 We also, Your Honour, have another issue that
4 we wanted to raise before we began to put on your
5 evidence, so if you'd like to hear that issue now, I'll
6 go into that. Actually, two issues. If you'd like to
7 hear that now, I'll put that on the record or else I
8 can wait.
9 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Let me
10 suggest something to both parties. If I have
11 accurately understood, I think that the Prosecutor is
12 agreeable as to Wednesday for witnesses, next
13 Wednesday. We can have the Status Conference on
14 Tuesday. We can deal with all the outstanding issues
15 during the Status Conference, including possibly the
16 issue of preliminary questions before the examination
17 of witnesses, and on Wednesday, we can start with
18 testimonies; that is, we can start with the Prosecution
19 evidence. That way, we can have enough time to prepare
20 for the Status Conference which will be held on
21 Tuesday. We will be dealing with all the preliminary
22 questions relating to the evidence, and then we start
23 on Wednesday. I don't know whether this is possible or
24 not.
25 MS. HOLLIS: Your Honour, perhaps it's the
Page 1074
1 translation or perhaps I'm just confused, but my
2 understanding is this week is the last week we will sit
3 in this two-week period and that next week Your Honours
4 will be in another case. So if what you had proposed
5 was that we begin testimony next week, that's not what
6 we had in mind. When I said "Wednesday," Your Honour,
7 I meant Wednesday of this week. Perhaps I
8 misunderstood or perhaps I'm confused, but I think
9 we're talking about this week in terms of whether we
10 would put evidence on this week or not.
11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You are
12 right, Ms. Hollis, and thank you very much, because
13 sometimes we forget that we have double work here. So
14 what you're suggesting is to bring witnesses this
15 Wednesday.
16 MS. HOLLIS: Indeed, Your Honour. When the
17 schedule changed last week, in order to try to
18 accommodate the change in schedule and not to unduly
19 delay the proceedings, we went to the witnesses yet
20 again and asked if they could accommodate what was now
21 a fourth change in schedule. Based on witnesses who
22 were most available to us, we were able to come up with
23 three witnesses that we could definitely count on and
24 three additional that perhaps we could bring if we
25 needed them for this Wednesday, which would be the
Page 1075
1 7th, the 7th and 8th. It was our understanding that
2 there would not be a session on the 9th. I'm sorry.
3 Today is the 6th, tomorrow is the 7th. Wednesday the
4 8th, Thursday the 9th, those are the days we tried to
5 arrange witness testimony for.
6 [Trial Chamber confers]
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I believe
8 we have a problem here. I think that we have been
9 working for about one hour and forty-five minutes. We
10 should normally have a break. The Chamber has other
11 commitments aside from this case, as you know very
12 well. Of course, we have to think about the
13 interpreters. One hour and forty-five minutes is
14 definitely too long. We had to finish at 2.30.
15 What I can propose at this point is the
16 following: We really have to prepare ourselves for
17 this Status Conference. We have to analyse in depth
18 the work that is before us. We have to think about the
19 conclusions that we will reach.
20 What I wanted to ask Ms. Hollis was, the
21 questions, what are the questions that have to be
22 treated right away and the problems that can be
23 resolved? And in that case, we could start on
24 Wednesday with the Prosecution evidence.
25 So I will give you the floor, Ms. Hollis, so
Page 1076
1 that you can tell us something about the issues that
2 you want to discuss before calling your evidence.
3 MS. HOLLIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
4 One issue is a substantive issue. It has to
5 do with the recent arrival at the detention centre of a
6 co-accused for Omarska crimes cases -- excuse me, for
7 Omarska camp crimes. The second one is a procedural
8 matter that has to do with summaries we will use with
9 our witnesses.
10 Let me begin with the first matter, which is
11 a substantive matter. Last night, a Mr. Prcac was
12 transferred to the Tribunal from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
13 He is a co-accused with these accused in crimes at
14 Omarska. What the Prosecution would like to raise as
15 an issue before you today is, in light of this fact,
16 the issue about balancing certain rights and
17 responsibilities. We suggest that the arrival of this
18 man here at this time raises the need to balance the
19 most efficient and fair use of judicial resources with
20 the right of these accused to a fair and expeditious
21 trial.
22 In looking at that balance, we suggest that
23 some thought, and significant thought, should be given
24 by this Chamber to whether those needs could be
25 balanced by an adjournment, a reasonable adjournment in
Page 1077
1 these proceedings, of a reasonable time to allow
2 Mr. Prcac to prepare his defence and to be joined to
3 this trial.
4 Mr. Prcac's trial will in virtually all
5 respects, not all, but virtually all respects, parallel
6 the evidence that will be brought forth in these
7 proceedings. Given the time that these proceedings
8 take, the traumatic impact on victims and witnesses who
9 must appear here, we suggest that it would be --
10 there's a great interest in bringing Mr. Prcac into
11 this case, if that can be done without depriving these
12 accused of their right of a fair and expeditious
13 trial.
14 In trying to determine whether their interest
15 would be violated, we suggest that these accused have
16 been in confinement for a considerable period of time
17 up until now, the Prosecution has not begun to put on
18 its case in chief, and that if a reasonable delay were
19 allowed, say, perhaps, a 90-day delay, to enable
20 Mr. Prcac to be able to be joined with this trial, and
21 I don't mean joined with the indictment because they
22 are already joined in the indictment, but to have his
23 trial occur with these accused, we suggest that that
24 would be a proper balance of very significant
25 interest.
Page 1078
1 We certainly agree that the fundamental
2 interest that must be protected is the right of all
3 these accused to a fair trial and an expeditious trial,
4 but we suggest that "expeditious" is defined not by a
5 specific number of days or months but rather when
6 looking at all the circumstances.
7 So that is the issue that we want to raise
8 because we believe that it is a significant issue and
9 it is an issue of substance which must be decided
10 before we begin our case in chief, we suggest.
11 Would you like me to move to the procedural
12 issue or would you like me to wait for a response to my
13 first substantive issue?
14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Before you
15 turn to the procedural issues, I would like to state
16 that we take into account what you have said. We will
17 think until tomorrow. We will take up the issue again
18 tomorrow because we have to hear the evidence as well,
19 and I don't think we have enough time for that today.
20 So we will turn to your second issue so that
21 we are at least informed about its contents.
22 MS. HOLLIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
23 The second issue, as I said, is a procedural
24 issue and it has to do with how we are going to deal
25 with the summaries that we will prepare for each of our
Page 1079
1 witnesses which will cover much of the background that
2 would otherwise have to be taken up by live testimony
3 in the courtroom.
4 If we do as at least one other case has done
5 and we have the summary read aloud in the courtroom to
6 the witness and have the witness adopt it, that
7 certainly is one procedure, but that does take time in
8 the courtroom. Another procedure, and one that we have
9 been considering, is that when we speak with the
10 witnesses before they testify, we have the summary read
11 to them in their language, have them agree that each
12 paragraph does reflect what happened to them, it is
13 reflective of their experiences, it is accurate, and
14 then when they came in to testify, we would ask them
15 if, indeed, that procedure had been followed, and if
16 the summary, which we will mark as a Prosecution
17 Exhibit, does truly and accurately reflect information
18 about them and their circumstances. We suggest that
19 this procedure would save some time in the courtroom.
20 Now, we have provided copies of these
21 summaries to the Defence, we've provided them to them
22 in English. They would be read to the witness but much
23 the same way as would happen in the courtroom.
24 So we would like the Court's guidance or
25 direction, if you will, as to what they would prefer is
Page 1080
1 our procedure with the summaries.
2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
3 very much, Ms. Hollis. You may sit down.
4 We will just take note of the following for
5 the time being, because I may stand accused of
6 mistreatment in the courtroom here.
7 So I will just wind up with the following:
8 We could perhaps go a little further, it's no longer
9 the same issue, but when we have a document here in the
10 courtroom, a document that is produced, we always want
11 to hear the witness speak about the document. I would
12 like you to consider the idea of separating documents,
13 those who speak for themselves and the documents that
14 need certain explanation by a witness. If we have a
15 written document, it's sometimes very easy; we can all
16 read the document, we don't need a witness to read it
17 for us. So in order to expedite things, I think we can
18 proceed in this manner.
19 But I would like to close for today. Let me
20 just remind you that there are three issues that need
21 attention for the next time. We will start on
22 Wednesday with Prosecution witnesses. However, before
23 we start the examination of witnesses, we have to
24 decide on certain procedural issues.
25 The Status Conference that we have already
Page 1081
1 mentioned will be used to reevaluate the agreements
2 that have been reached, and next week, the next time,
3 we will have -- we will finish this week, and then we
4 have 15 days without Kvocka, and then after that we
5 will have the Status Conference. I think that by that
6 time, we will all be able to think about the issues and
7 that we will then reassess the agreements that have
8 already been reached, and we will know whether we are
9 able or not to expand things after the examination of
10 this witness.
11 I cannot go any further at this point because
12 I have already said, the interpreters are very tired.
13 I'm afraid they're going to bring a class action
14 against me, and I must not risk that happening.
15 So we will finish for today. Thank you very
16 much for your cooperation, and we will see each other
17 again on Wednesday [sic].
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
19 2.55 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,
20 the 7th day of March, 2000, at 9.30 a.m.
21
22
23
24
25