Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 7126

 1                           Tuesday, 19 May 2009

 2                           [Open session]

 3                           [The accused entered court]

 4                           --- Upon commencing at 3.05 p.m.

 5             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Cepic, I saw you struggling to stand.  I

 6     have been advised of your injury.  You need not stand at any time.

 7             Today we are hearing the witness Wil Fagel.  The procedural

 8     history in relation to this witness's evidence is known to the parties.

 9     I don't have to repeat it.

10             Mr. Weber.

11             MR. WEBER:  Good afternoon, Your Honours.

12             JUDGE ROBINSON:  What I propose to do is to ask you to lead the

13     witness in chief, in chief, in relation to the document 1D25.

14             MR. WEBER:  Your Honours, I will do my best.  Understanding that

15     the nature of the opinion that's going to be elicited by Doctorandus

16     Fagel has been reviewed by this Chamber.  It's a handwriting comparison.

17     Inherent in any type of comparison, a document is compared to other

18     documents, so I think that this was very well-noted by the Chamber in

19     terms of its inseparable nature of the discussion of 1D25 with the other

20     documents.  If I could be allowed to then lead or present evidence as I

21     go through that comparison.  I understand the Chamber's instructions.

22                           [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

23             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Weber, the examination-in-chief will be

24     confined to 1D25, bearing in mind, of course, that you will not be

25     allowed to lead any other evidence because that evidence, which the

Page 7127

 1     Chamber has already determined, doesn't qualify as rebuttal evidence.

 2             MR. WEBER:  If I could please ask the Chamber a clarification.

 3     Is the Chamber indicating that the Prosecution cannot lead evidence as to

 4     the comparison of 1D25 with any other documents?

 5                           [Trial Chamber confers]

 6             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You can use whatever documents you provided, but

 7     you can't use the P exhibits.

 8             You wanted to say something, Mr. Alarid.

 9             MR. ALARID:  Your Honour, if I know where the Prosecution's

10     going, this is the slippery slope, is they are going to use the signature

11     comparisons from the omitted documents that were ruled as being

12     not-admissible, so they're basically --

13             JUDGE ROBINSON:  [Microphone not activated].

14             Yes, Mr. Weber.

15             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, if it comes to light during the course

16     of evidence that this needs to be revisited, could we please -- just

17     because his nature of his evidence is that he is a handwriting expert, so

18     he's comparing those signatures, but could we please see how the

19     testimony unfolds?

20             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I've already given the ruling on it.  Let's

21     proceed.  Bring the witness in.

22                           [The witness entered court]

23             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Let the witness make the declaration.

24             THE WITNESS:  I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

25     whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Page 7128

 1             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, you may proceed, Mr. Weber.

 2             MR. WEBER:  Thank you, Your Honours.

 3                           WITNESS:  WILHELMUES FAGEL

 4                           Examination by Mr. Weber:

 5        Q.   Good afternoon, Doctorandus Fagel.

 6        A.   Good afternoon.

 7        Q.   Could you please introduce yourself to the Trial Chamber?

 8        A.   My name is Wil Fagel.  I'm a forensic handwriting examiner

 9     working for the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

10        Q.   Could you please explain what a forensic handwriting examiner is.

11        A.   A forensic handwriting examiner is an expert who --

12             THE INTERPRETER:  Please slow down for the interpreters.

13             THE WITNESS:  [Previous translation continued]... with known

14     writings from, for example, suspects with the purpose to assess whether

15     these handwritings or signatures have been produced by this person.

16             MR. WEBER:

17        Q.   What is the Netherlands Forensic Institute?

18             THE INTERPRETER:  Kindly slow down for the interpreters.

19             THE WITNESS:  The Netherlands Forensic Institute is autonomous

20     agency under the Dutch Ministry of Justice which performs several kinds

21     of forensic examinations.

22             MR. WEBER:

23        Q.   How long have you been a forensic handwriting examiner?

24        A.   Next month, it will be 26 years.

25        Q.   Doctorandus Fagel, during the course of your testimony here

Page 7129

 1     today, it will be important that you observe a pause after the questions

 2     that are being asked to you in order to allow the translators to

 3     translate for other members who are present in the courtroom.

 4        A.   Okay.  Sorry for answering too fast.

 5        Q.   How many handwriting comparisons have you conducted as a forensic

 6     handwriting examiner over the past 26 years?

 7        A.   I haven't counted them exactly, but it must be over 2.000.

 8        Q.   Do you hold any certifications as a forensic handwriting

 9     examiner?

10        A.   Yes, I have a certified by the Netherlands Forensic Institute and

11     recertified every four years to do kind of exams, every four years, and

12     I'm a member of the GFS, which is a European association of forensic

13     handwriting and document examiners.

14        Q.   Have you been previously qualified as an expert before this

15     Tribunal?

16        A.   Yes, I have.

17        Q.   The Prosecution at this time tenders the curriculum vitae of this

18     witness into evidence.  It is ERN 0642-9654 through 0642-9655.

19             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We admit that.

20             THE REGISTRAR:  Exhibit P346, Your Honours.

21             MR. WEBER:  At this time, based on the qualifications of the

22     witness the Prosecution tenders Doctorandus Fagel as an expert in

23     forensic handwriting analysis.  May I proceed, Your Honours?

24             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, proceed.

25             MR. WEBER:

Page 7130

 1        Q.   What is a forensic comparative handwriting examination?

 2        A.   A forensic comparative handwriting examination is an examination

 3     where questions, handwriting and/or questions, signatures are analysed

 4     and compared with known samples of writing or signatures from another

 5     person, some person, maybe a suspect or a witness, to assess whether the

 6     questions, handwritings, or signatures have been written by this person.

 7        Q.   What are the phases of a forensic comparative handwriting

 8     examination?

 9        A.   There are four phases.  The first phase is the analysis of the

10     features of the questions and the comparison samples; the second phase is

11     a comparison of these features; The third phase is the interpretation,

12     weighing of the similarities and differences of these comparison; and

13     finally, last phase is the -- drawing a conclusion from these findings.

14        Q.   What are the main categories of handwriting characteristics?

15        A.   There are three main categories.  The first main category are

16     general features, general handwriting characteristics; the second

17     category are layout characteristics; and the third general category are

18     micro-characteristics.

19        Q.   What are general characteristics?

20        A.   General characteristics are features that concern the general

21     appearance of the handwriting, like overall slant of the writing, the

22     size of the writing, the overall line quality, the overall pen pressure,

23     et cetera.

24        Q.   What are layout characteristics?

25        A.   Layout characteristics with handwritten text, for example,

Page 7131

 1     letters may refer to, for example, the word distances, width of left and

 2     right margins, distances between lines of writing, and when it's about

 3     signatures, it may, for example, refer to placement of the signature

 4     within a preprinted box.

 5        Q.   What are micro- characteristics?

 6        A.   Micro-characteristics refer to the proportions, the size -- no,

 7     sorry, the form, the shape, I mean, and the proportions of the individual

 8     elements within the handwriting.  When it's text, it may be letters or

 9     numbers, et cetera.  In signatures, it might be also other patterns than

10     the standard patterns which are in written text.

11        Q.   What differences are there in a comparative handwriting

12     examination of a signature as opposed to handwritten text?

13        A.   In general, when comparing signature we look at -- signatures we

14     look at the same features as when we look at -- when we compare

15     handwritten text, only in -- when comparing signatures, some features are

16     more important, like line quality, pen pressure, because signatures are

17     more often subject of a simulation than handwritten text.

18        Q.   What is a bona fide signature as compared to a mala fide

19     signature?

20        A.   A bona fide signature is a signature which have been written by

21     the signatory and maybe normal general signature, but also an alternative

22     signature which he might use for special purposes.  And a mala fide

23     signature is, for example, simulated signature, copied signature by

24     someone else than the signatory, or it may also be a so-called

25     autoforgery where someone makes his own signature in such a way that it

Page 7132

 1     looks like a simulation so to be later able to deny that he wrote the

 2     signature.  Alternatively, people may -- when forging someone's

 3     signature, if they don't know what it exactly looks like, they might just

 4     fantasise the signature, a so-called fictitious signature.  Also, the

 5     owner of the signatory signature may also write another signature than he

 6     usually does so as to later to deny that he wrote the signature.

 7        Q.   Is the forensic comparative handwriting examination method you

 8     described accredited by any institutions?

 9        A.   Our method and procedures are accredited by the Dutch Council For

10     Accreditation.

11        Q.   Did you attach a document describing this accredited methodology

12     to your report as an appendix?

13        A.   Yes, we did.

14        Q.   Is this the method of comparative handwriting examination that

15     you used in this case in relation to your 8th of October, 2008, report?

16        A.   Yes, it is.

17             MR. WEBER:  At this time, the Prosecution tenders the witness's

18     8th October, 2008, report into evidence along with its appendices.  It is

19     ERN 0642-8808 through 0642-8820.

20             MR. ALARID:  Your Honour.

21             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, Mr. Alarid.

22             MR. ALARID:  We would object based on the ruling of the Court

23     that the report contains analysis of which the evidence the underlying

24     analysis is based on has been ruled inadmissible by the Court.

25     Therefore, the report that incorporates that inadmissible evidence should

Page 7133

 1     also be inadmissible.

 2                           [Trial Chamber confers]

 3             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We won't allow the report in evidence.  Proceed.

 4             THE INTERPRETER:  Still please slow down for the interpreters.

 5             MR. WEBER:  Your Honours, may I lead at this time?  May I lead

 6     the witness at this time?

 7             JUDGE ROBINSON:  May you lead --

 8             MR. WEBER:  The witness at this time.

 9             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You mean ask him leading questions?

10             MR. WEBER:  That's correct, Your Honour.

11             JUDGE ROBINSON:  If it relates to issues that are not

12     contentious, yes.

13             MR. WEBER:

14        Q.   Doctorandus Fagel, you received materials to conduct a forensic

15     handwriting comparison on the 15th of September, 2008; is that correct?

16        A.   That's right.

17        Q.   The materials that you received for examination included five

18     documents with questioned signatures and nine documents with known

19     signatures; is that correct?

20        A.   That's correct.

21        Q.   With respect to the --

22             THE INTERPRETER:  Please slow down for the interpreters.  Thank

23     you.

24             MR. WEBER:

25        Q.   With respect to the five documents with questioned signatures,

Page 7134

 1     you performed a forensic mutual handwriting comparison; is that correct?

 2        A.   That's correct.

 3             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honour.

 4             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Alarid, yes.

 5             MR. ALARID:  The five questioned in reference, one, lack of

 6     foundation; two, that would be my understanding that these would be the

 7     inadmissible matters that we've already been ruled on.

 8             MR. WEBER:  Your Honours --

 9             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Is that so, Mr. Weber?

10             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, he conducted a handwriting comparison.

11     He has to compare 1D25 to some other --

12             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, but we have already ruled that we are not

13     allowing it.  You must respect the Trial Chamber's decision.

14             MR. WEBER:  Very well, Your Honour.

15        Q.   Doctorandus Fagel, it is possible to conduct a mutual handwriting

16     comparison of one document unless you can compare it to other documents?

17        A.   I'm not sure whether I understand your question, but I can only

18     compare two or more signatures.  I cannot compare one signature with

19     itself, of course.

20        Q.   So if you have a signature on a document, the specific document

21     that you were given with respect to this matter that ends in ERN 568 -

22     which for the record is 1D25 - are you unable to offer an opinion here

23     before the Tribunal unless you are able to reference the other signatures

24     on the other documents that you compared it to?

25        A.   I cannot give an opinion on just one signature if I cannot

Page 7135

 1     compare it to anything else, if that's what you mean.

 2        Q.   With respect to this case, you did review multiple signatures; is

 3     that correct?

 4        A.   Yes.

 5        Q.   And you were able to formulate opinions to a reasonable degree of

 6     certainty; is that correct?

 7        A.   That's correct.

 8             MR. ALARID:  Objection, refers to an analysis that would

 9     incorporate inadmissible evidence.  May I voir dire the witness?

10             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Sorry?

11             MR. ALARID:  May I voir dire the witness, Your Honour?

12             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour --

13             MR. ALARID:  From a foundational perspective, I believe that the

14     witness can offer an opinion using known signatures and a single

15     signature.  I think if the Prosecution asked him that question, he might

16     get a different answer.

17             MR. WEBER:  Your Honours, this is -- Mr. Alarid will have plenty

18     of opportunity to cross-examine this witness.  At this time, the

19     Prosecution is eliciting evidence about the very nature of what

20     Doctorandus Fagel did in this case.

21             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, proceed.

22             MR. WEBER:

23        Q.   Could you please explain what a mutual handwriting comparison is?

24        A.   What we -- when we compare a questioned signature, let me state

25     first it is possible to compare one questioned signature with a number of

Page 7136

 1     known or reference samples to give an opinion whether or not this single

 2     questioned signature was or was not written by the same person.  But if

 3     we have more questioned signatures, we first perform a mutual comparison

 4     of these questioned signatures to see whether the assumption that these

 5     have all been written by the same person is justified.  If they are very

 6     consistent, then we take them as one group of signatures to compare with

 7     the reference signatures.

 8        Q.   Is that what you did in this case?

 9        A.   That's right.

10        Q.   Okay.  Could you please explain the observations that you made --

11             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honour.

12             MR. WEBER:  I haven't even asked the question.

13             MR. ALARID:  I think it's obvious that you're going to mutual

14     examination if the --

15             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Let us hear the question first.  What is the

16     question?

17             MR. WEBER:

18        Q.   Doctorandus Fagel, did you group four signatures together for

19     mutual comparison against known signatures in this case?

20             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Just a minute.  Don't answer the question.  I'd

21     like to consult.

22                           [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

23             JUDGE ROBINSON:  The position is as follows:  Mr. Weber explained

24     that the Prosecution gave Mr. Fagel nine documents.  He can compare 1D25

25     with the five documents that are not the four Prosecution documents that

Page 7137

 1     have been ruled inadmissible.  So you can proceed on that basis.

 2             MR. WEBER:

 3        Q.   Were you provided with a document that contained an unknown

 4     signature ending in ERN 568?

 5        A.   Yes, I was.

 6        Q.   What did you do with that document?

 7        A.   I compared it with the other questioned signatures.

 8        Q.   After you compared it to the other questioned signatures, what

 9     did you do with those signatures?

10        A.   I noticed that -- that they have a very similar general design,

11     and I noticed that they were in such a way similar that they looked to me

12     almost identical.

13             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honour.  I believe that this is

14     exactly what we're getting into again.  He is referring to the mutual

15     analysis, not the supposed known samples that were provided by the

16     Prosecution.  These are exactly what the Court's ruled on that he has

17     just testified to.  Move to strike.

18             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I wish you wouldn't say move to strike.  We

19     don't have that procedure here, Mr. Alarid.

20             The question that you asked, Mr. Weber, does it relate to the

21     five documents that are not the four Prosecution documents which we have

22     ruled inadmissible?

23             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, because of the identical nature of all

24     four of the signatures, he took -- he made a transparency and compared

25     that --

Page 7138

 1             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You cannot --

 2             MR. WEBER:  But that's --

 3             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You cannot ask him for the comparison with the

 4     documents that we have ruled inadmissible.

 5             MR. WEBER:  But it's upon that transparency that he created --

 6             MR. ALARID:  Objection, the attorney is testifying.

 7             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You can't do that, and you must respect the

 8     Court's ruling.  If you are not prepared to respect it, then there are

 9     other measures to adopt.

10             MR. WEBER:  Of course, Your Honour.  It was that transparency

11     that he then compared to the known signatures.

12             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Don't re-argue the point.  Just proceed.

13             MR. WEBER:

14        Q.   With respect to the specific document that ends in ERN 568, did

15     you make any observations with respect to the stamp on that document?

16        A.   I only got a copy of this document, so I couldn't observe whether

17     the stamp was made first before the document was signed or after it.

18        Q.   You mentioned that you got only a photocopy of that document.

19     Can the possibility of tampering be excluded if only photocopies are

20     available for analysis?

21        A.   No, it clearly cannot.

22        Q.   Did you have occasion to conduct a comparison between the

23     questioned signature for which ERN 568 was a part of with the known

24     signatures provided to you?

25        A.   Yes, I did.

Page 7139

 1        Q.   How did you conduct this comparison?

 2        A.   I first look at the general -- at the design of the signature,

 3     whether it was similar or not, and though there are - let me see - they

 4     have some similarity in overall design.  There are also a number of

 5     differences between this questioned signature and the referenced known

 6     signature of Perisic.

 7        Q.   I'd like to ask you a couple questions about the known signatures

 8     before we discuss those differences.

 9             With respect to the nine known documents with the signature of

10     Risto Perisic, were there original signatures available for your analysis

11     of the known signatures?

12        A.   Yes.

13             MR. ALARID:  Objection, lack of foundation.  No evidence has been

14     led as to how these are known signatures.

15             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Lead that evidence, Mr. Weber.

16             MR. WEBER:

17        Q.   Doctorandus Fagel, you were provided with documents which you

18     took to be known signatures of Risto Perisic; is that correct?

19        A.   Yes, that's how we usually call reference signatures.  It's just

20     a terminology.  We call them known signatures.

21        Q.   And among these documents, you had original signatures for

22     comparison.

23        A.   There were two original signatures, yes.

24        Q.   Based on the availability of originals, were you able to -- well,

25     were there any indications that show any signs of tampering with the

Page 7140

 1     known signatures?

 2        A.   No, in the -- there were no signs of tampering in the known

 3     signatures or reference signatures, if you want, as far as I could tell.

 4        Q.   Did the reference signatures show a sufficient degree of

 5     complexity for analysis?

 6        A.   They did, yes.

 7             MR. WEBER:  Could the Prosecution please have the lower portion

 8     of ERN 0642-8811 on the screen.  This is page 4 of the witness's report,

 9     which begins at ERN 0642-8808.

10             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honours.  The report's been held

11     inadmissible.

12             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, I'm just showing -- there's a figure in

13     it that he did a comparison.  I'm eliciting testimony relating to that

14     figure.

15                           [Trial Chamber confers]

16             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Go ahead.

17             MR. WEBER:  If the Prosecution could please have page 4 of the

18     lower portion of this document.  Specifically, could we please zoom in on

19     the figure that's depicted at the lower portion of the page.

20        Q.   You are now being shown the lower portion, figure 1, on your

21     8th October, 2008, report.  What does this figure depict?

22        A.   In top you can see a questioned signature, and the lower two

23     signatures are two of the reference signatures.

24        Q.   Could you please describe the characteristics that you observed

25     that were different between the questioned signature and the known

Page 7141

 1     signatures in this figure?

 2        A.   If you look at the questioned signature, you can see it has a big

 3     loop in the top of the first element which is absent in the reference

 4     signatures.  Furthermore, the questioned signature has a P-shaped element

 5     at about one-third of the length of the signature, and the downstroke of

 6     this element retraces the upstroke.  In the known signatures, there's a

 7     clear space between the downstroke and the upstroke.  Furthermore, the

 8     oval part of the P shape in the questioned signature is practically

 9     absent in the known signatures.  Then there are a number of wave-like

10     movements in the middle of the questioned signature.  These differ in

11     shape from those in the known signatures.  In the questioned signature,

12     they are more like arc gates, whereas in the known signatures they are

13     more like garland-form shapes.  Then there's a long stretch, a cross-bar

14     type of line in the top at the end of the questioned signature which is

15     absent in the known signatures.  And finally, the questioned signature

16     has a down stroke at the end, whereas the known signatures ends with a

17     more upward movement.  So these are the most apparent differences between

18     the signatures.

19             MR. WEBER:  The Prosecution at this time would tender a saved

20     copy of this figure into evidence.

21             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We'll admit that.

22             THE REGISTRAR:  Exhibit P347, Your Honours.

23             MR. WEBER:

24        Q.   What were your findings with respect to the comparison of the

25     questioned signature and the known signatures?

Page 7142

 1        A.   My findings were that -- my findings did not support the

 2     proposition that the signature -- that the questioned signature was

 3     originally written by Risto Perisic or by the producer of the reference

 4     signatures by that matter.

 5        Q.   Did you come to conclusion as to whether or not the questioned

 6     signatures were a bona fide or mala fide signature?  Without stating that

 7     opinion at this time, did you come to that conclusion?

 8        A.   Whether the questioned signatures were --

 9        Q.   Whether the questioned signatures were bona fide or mala fide?

10             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honour, to the use questioned

11     signatures.  That would be referring to inadmissible evidence.

12             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, the Prosecution plans on respecting the

13     Chamber's --

14             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Please go ahead.  Go ahead.

15             MR. WEBER:

16        Q.   Were you able to form an opinion as to whether or not the

17     questioned signatures were bona fide or mala fide?  Just a simple yes or

18     no, please.

19        A.   Yes.

20        Q.   Are you able to provide that opinion unless you are able to

21     discuss the other unquestioned signatures?

22        A.   No.

23             MR. WEBER:  No further questions.

24             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Alarid.

25                           Cross-examination by Mr. Alarid:

Page 7143

 1        Q.   Is it Dr. Fagel?

 2        A.   Yes.

 3        Q.   Okay.

 4        A.   It's pronounced like Fahel, but it doesn't matter.

 5        Q.   Fahel is fine.  I can pronounce that.  Thank you.  Now, let's

 6     talk a little bit about what you used as the comparison signatures and

 7     otherwise believed to be bona fide.  Can we do that first?

 8        A.   Yes.

 9        Q.   And who provided the supposed bona fide signatures to you?

10        A.   It was provided by the -- do I have to name the person?

11        Q.   No, no.  Just the agency would be fine.

12        A.   The ICTY.

13        Q.   And in being provided those signatures, were you aware that the

14     Defence of Milan Lukic had been attempting to subpoena Risto Perisic to

15     come to The Hague to identify documents?

16        A.   No, I had no information whatsoever about this case.  I didn't

17     even know the name of the accused by that time.

18        Q.   Okay.  And in referring to the supposed bona fide signatures,

19     were you given any background or foundational information as to when the

20     signatures were written, in what context, how?

21        A.   No, only, of course, there are some dates mentioned with the

22     signatures.

23        Q.   Okay.

24        A.   So that's known information.  Otherwise, I had no information on

25     how they were produced.

Page 7144

 1        Q.   Now, obviously, in a best-case scenario, you would want to have

 2     the actual author of the alleged signatures present to give numerous

 3     samples; correct?

 4        A.   Yes, but it's -- if the questioned signatures have been produced

 5     several years ago, then when you ask someone to -- several years later to

 6     produce a number of signatures, especially for the investigation, he

 7     might change his signature, or there might have been changes in the

 8     signature during these years.

 9        Q.   Well, yeah, because I was digging through some old paperwork, and

10     I dug out a driver's licence I had signed right out of high school, and

11     my signature has totally changed between my adult signature and high

12     school.  Is that uncommon for signatures to change over time?

13        A.   Maybe between your -- when someone is younger.  When he is still

14     in high school and later, there may be strong differences, but during a

15     normal adult lifetime, normally signatures don't change too much.

16        Q.   Okay.  But there can be fluctuations over time; correct?

17        A.   There can be some fluctuations, yes.

18        Q.   And some of those fluctuations can also be -- because of the

19     physical abilities of the person changed.  They can be signing that day

20     with an injury or not feeling well.  There can be other things that can

21     affect the signature on a particular day; correct?

22        A.   Yes.

23        Q.   And with regards to the supposed bona fide signature, like I

24     said, it would be best for you to have the person here to sign a few

25     times to even compare against what otherwise is considered bona fide;

Page 7145

 1     correct?

 2        A.   No.  We prefer to have signatures which have been produced about

 3     the same time as the questioned signature, so-called contemporary

 4     signatures.

 5        Q.   And but for the information provided by the Office of the

 6     Prosecutor, did you do any independent research to establish when those

 7     purported bona fide signatures had been produced?

 8        A.   No, nothing.  Only, of course, the dates which were mentioned

 9     with the signatures, I assumed these were correct.

10        Q.   Now, do you read Cyrillic?

11        A.   No.  I can read a little bit, but ...

12        Q.   Well, even though the names above the purported signatures are in

13     the Latin alphabet, would it surprise you that the signature is in the

14     Cyrillic alphabet?

15        A.   No, I know it's like that.

16        Q.   Now, the Prosecution asked you sort of a leading question in the

17     sense that:  "Did you see any sign of tampering of the known or reference

18     signatures?"  What tampering would you expect to find in the known

19     signatures in response to the OTP's question?

20        A.   If signatures are written -- not written fluently but, rather,

21     hesitating with a lot of pen lifts, for example, and -- no, not

22     reiterated - sorry, I don't know the words - then this might indicate a

23     forgery, but I didn't see any of these indications.

24        Q.   What if them are all forgeries?  All the ones that are meant as a

25     reference, what if they're all forgeries by the same author?

Page 7146

 1        A.   Then we have a wrong comparison material.  But when I get a

 2     number of reference signatures, I assume that they are true reference

 3     signatures from the person, alleged person.

 4        Q.   Now, obviously, if the alleged person were here and identified

 5     those, well, that would be added evidence to bolster your opinion;

 6     correct?

 7        A.   If they would admit that these signatures were his?

 8        Q.   Yes.

 9        A.   Yes.

10        Q.   Okay.  Now, just to kind of lay a little bit of a foundation, my

11     grandfather was a local politician for many years, and he had had a stamp

12     of which to sign cheques for the grocery store and also to sign his

13     official documents --

14             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Weber.

15             MR. WEBER:  Objection, the relevance of this about Mr. Alarid's

16     grandfather to this case.

17             MR. ALARID:  Well, it was to lay a little foundation.

18             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I think you know Mr. Alarid is anecdotal --

19             MR. ALARID:  Yes.  Thank you, Judge.

20             JUDGE ROBINSON:  -- if nothing else, so we will allow him that.

21             MR. ALARID:

22        Q.   Now, how does a possibility of a stamp play into your analysis?

23        A.   Well, in the first place, what we examine is whether the

24     signatures were written by a person, not whether they were stamped by the

25     same person.  And even if a stamp was used, you might find some

Page 7147

 1     differences in inking when you make several stamps, and I didn't find any

 2     difference between the signatures I examined in the density of the ink.

 3        Q.   Well, the reason I ask you about a stamp, is a stamp, when we

 4     create one for the printmaker or the stampmaker, you sign your signature,

 5     and then the printmaker makes a block of it; correct?

 6        A.   Yes.

 7        Q.   So a stamp is sort of like a driver's licence picture.  It's sort

 8     of as good as the time you made it, and you're stuck with it; is that

 9     fair, to use the anecdote?

10        A.   I don't understand your question.

11        Q.   Well, meaning if I write my signature -- I know I need to prepare

12     a stamp some day, and I write my signature for the printmaker, that is

13     the print block that goes.  I may have to sort of live with it from that

14     day forward.

15        A.   I don't know whether you have to --

16        Q.   Okay.  Well, to change it, I got to get a new stamp made.

17        A.   Yes, if you want to use a stamp to sign.

18        Q.   Just if I don't like my driver's licence, I got to go back and

19     get a new picture.

20        A.   Right.

21        Q.   Okay.  And so you don't have any idea if the questioned signature

22     was part of a stamp?

23        A.   No.

24        Q.   And is it possible that persons in political roles or

25     administrative roles use stamps in order to effectuate some of their

Page 7148

 1     daily business?

 2        A.   That would be possible, yes.

 3        Q.   And the use of the stamp is also a good way for a small-town

 4     politician or maybe a police chief in charge of the Visegrad to avoid

 5     responsibility or have plausible deniability later.

 6             JUDGE ROBINSON:  He testified to that, Mr. Alarid?

 7             MR. ALARID:  I'm sorry?

 8             JUDGE ROBINSON:  How can he testify to that?

 9             MR. ALARID:  Well, he --

10             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Does he know anything about that?

11             MR. ALARID:  Well, maybe what reasons do people want their

12     handwriting to --

13             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Please ask another question.

14             MR. ALARID:  I'll tie it into something relevant, Your Honour.

15             THE INTERPRETER:  Could speakers please slow down.

16             MR. ALARID:

17        Q.   You talked about autoforgery.  What's an autoforgery again?

18        A.   When someone on purpose changes his own handwriting.  Sometimes

19     they will, say, disguise his own signature so as to later deny that he

20     wrote the signature.

21        Q.   Okay.  Now, might someone in questionable practices, i.e., maybe

22     possibly committing war crimes, might want to use an autoforgery for

23     certain things?

24             JUDGE ROBINSON:  How can he testify to that?

25             MR. ALARID:  Your Honour, I guess it would be --

Page 7149

 1             JUDGE ROBINSON:  He is a handwriting expert.

 2             MR. ALARID:  Okay.  You're right, Your Honour.  Maybe I'm going

 3     too far afield in terms of -- that's for argument in submissions more

 4     than it is for this witness to speculate on.

 5        Q.   So the fact of the matter is, though, is you can't exclude the

 6     use of a stamp for Risto Perisic for the questioned signature; correct?

 7        A.   I cannot exclude it, no.

 8        Q.   And other than being told that the signatures that were the

 9     reference signatures are actual bona fide, you've done no research to

10     actually verify that.

11        A.   I have to read this question.  No.

12        Q.   That's correct?

13        A.   Yes.

14        Q.   Okay.

15             MR. ALARID:  No further questions, Your Honour.

16             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, Mr. Weber.

17                           Re-examination by Mr. Weber:

18        Q.   Mr. Alarid just asked you a number of questions about the

19     bona fide signatures.  Were you able to determine whether or not the

20     signature which is on document 5 -- ending in ERN 568 was a bona fide or

21     mala fide signature?

22             MR. ALARID:  Objection, calls for speculation; no foundation was

23     laid as to how he knew the bona fide signatures were as such.

24             JUDGE ROBINSON:  He can answer the question.  Answer the

25     question.

Page 7150

 1             THE WITNESS:  I could determine not on its own -- when I assessed

 2     the signature on its own, I cannot give an answer, but when I relate it

 3     to my observations in respect to the other signatures, I could determine

 4     this.

 5             MR. WEBER:

 6        Q.   Is the signature that's on document ending in ERN 568 a mala fide

 7     signature?

 8        A.   I think so, yes.

 9        Q.   What is the basis of that opinion?

10        A.   That there is -- the signature exactly matches the other three

11     signatures.

12             MR. ALARID:  Objection, Your Honour.  This is where I'd say to

13     strike, so I don't know what you'd prefer me to say, Your Honour.

14             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, you can't go into that.  We have been

15     through that already, Mr. Weber.

16             MR. WEBER:  Your Honour, the Prosecution would tender the report

17     of Doctorandus Fagel in evidence and ask the Chamber to consider it just

18     for the limited purpose as it relates to document 1D25.

19             MR. ALARID:  And we would object, Your Honour, so much as that's

20     not how he conducted his analysis; therefore, there's no way to properly

21     extricate that argument from his report.

22                           [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

23             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We won't admit the report.

24             MR. WEBER:

25        Q.   Sir, you were asked a number of questions about the known

Page 7151

 1     signatures that were provided to you.  Is it correct there were nine of

 2     these?

 3        A.   Actually, two of the copied documents were copies of the two

 4     documents which I had an original, so there were totally seven reference

 5     signatures.

 6        Q.   You were provided with nine documents --

 7        A.   Right.

 8        Q.   -- but you used only seven for the purposes of your comparison.

 9        A.   That's right.

10        Q.   And the documents that were copies, was that 0024-7267 and

11     0024-7268 --

12        A.   That's right.

13        Q.   -- were copies of 0064-1896 and 0064-1897?

14        A.   That's right.

15        Q.   And were the other documents that you used for comparison with

16     the ERNs 0297-1870 --

17        A.   Yes.

18        Q.   -- 0297-1906 --

19        A.   Yes.

20        Q.   -- 0297-1920 --

21        A.   Yes.

22        Q.   -- 1297-1924 --

23        A.   Yes.

24        Q.   -- and document 0324-6754 through 0324-6757?

25        A.   That's correct.

Page 7152

 1             MR. WEBER:  For the record, that last document that I read out,

 2     which was 0324-6754 through -57, is in evidence as Exhibit P317.

 3             The Prosecution would tender into evidence the explanation of the

 4     methodology that's attached to the expert's report, which is at 0642-8816

 5     through 0642-8820.

 6             MR. ALARID:  Just for clarification, Mr. Weber, does this

 7     methodology incorporate the mutual comparison?

 8             MR. WEBER:  Mr. Alarid is in possession of this ERN.  It does not

 9     include that.  This is the explanation of his methodology.  Instead of

10     leading substantial evidence today regarding additional methodology, I

11     believe it's most efficient to just tender this document.

12             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We will admit that.

13             THE REGISTRAR:  Exhibit P348, Your Honours.

14             MR. WEBER:  The Prosecution would tender the individual page,

15     which is appendix 2 to the witness's report, which is 0642-8815.  This is

16     the page that shows the known signatures only that were used in the

17     witness's comparison.

18             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We'll admit that.

19             THE REGISTRAR:  Exhibit P349, Your Honours.

20             MR. WEBER:  The Prosecution would also tender the seven --

21     actually, the nine documents used for his comparison, not for the truth

22     of what the documents purportedly say, but as it relates to the witness's

23     expert opinion here today, with the exception being P317, which is in

24     evidence.

25             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes.

Page 7153

 1             THE REGISTRAR:  Exhibit P350, Your Honours.

 2             MR. WEBER:

 3        Q.   With respect to the known signatures that were provided to you,

 4     were you able to determine whether or not there was a normal variance in

 5     these signatures?

 6        A.   Yes, there was.

 7        Q.   And with respect to any time an individual signs a document, is

 8     there some degree of variation in how they sign the document?

 9        A.   Yes, this is so-called natural variation.  Every time you sign a

10     signature, there are always differences between two signatures.

11             MR. WEBER:  Nothing further, Your Honour.

12                           [Prosecution counsel confer]

13             MR. WEBER:

14        Q.   With respect to the seven signatures that were known signatures,

15     is there any indication that these documents are not from the same

16     person?

17        A.   No.  They are very consistent, and the assumption that they have

18     been written by the same person is supported by the fact that they are

19     fluently written, show natural variation, and are very consistent.

20        Q.   And there are no signs of autoforgery or anything of the like in

21     those signatures?

22        A.   No.

23             MR. WEBER:  Nothing further, Your Honour.

24             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Thank you, Mr. Weber.

25             Dr. Fagel, that concludes your evidence.  We thank you for coming

Page 7154

 1     to the Tribunal to give it.  You may now leave.

 2             THE WITNESS:  Thank you.

 3                           [The witness withdrew]

 4             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Cepic, I understand that you indicated that

 5     you would have your comments -- I believe we should be in private session

 6     for this.

 7                           [Private session]

 8   (redacted)

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10   (redacted)

11   (redacted)

12   (redacted)

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Page 7155

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Page 7157

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 8   (redacted)

 9   (redacted)

10   (redacted)

11                           [Open session]

12             THE REGISTRAR:  We are in open session, Your Honours.

13             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I believe we had indicated that closing

14     arguments would be one hour each.

15             MR. ALARID:  Subject to our pending motion, Your Honour, we asked

16     for three hours in the motion to enlarge as well as asking for Thursday.

17             JUDGE ROBINSON:  We won't allow three hours, Mr. Alarid.  We

18     won't allow three hours, Mr. Alarid.

19             Yes, Mr. Groome.

20             MR. GROOME:  Thank you, Your Honour.

21                           Prosecution Closing Statement:

22             MR. GROOME:  Your Honours, last July the trial of Sredoje and

23     Milan Lukic began.  Last week, the Prosecution filed its final trial

24     brief summarising the evidence that is now before the Chamber and setting

25     out its case of how that evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt

Page 7158

 1     the guilt of both accused.  The brief details evidence of the killing of

 2     the men along the Drina River at Sase and at the Varda factory; it sets

 3     out the burning to death of over a hundred civilians in the houses on

 4     Pionirska Street and in Bikavac; the killing of Hajra Koric; and the

 5     mistreatment of civilian detainees at Uzamnica camp.

 6             By now, you will read this brief, and I will not attempt to

 7     summarise the Prosecution's's case in the limited time I have today.  I

 8     will use my hour to address some of the points made in the final briefs

 9     of Sredoje and Milan Lukic.

10             The Prosecution's case has gathered all the available witnesses

11     and documents relevant to this indictment.  Taken together and viewed as

12     a unitary corpus of evidence, it establishes without doubt the guilt of

13     both accused.  Witnesses, now scattered across Europe, most having never

14     spoken with each other since they each precariously escaped Visegrad,

15     were brought to The Hague one by one to testify before you.  They

16     recounted their harrowing ordeals, describing the crimes of both accused.

17     They corroborate each other and are in turn corroborated by the available

18     physical and documentary evidence.  They are reliable and credible

19     witnesses.

20             Their evidence also compellingly establishes the intent of the

21     two accused to commit these crimes, their intent most evident in the

22     Pionirska and Bikavac fires.  In spite of the preparations made by

23     Sredoje and Milan Lukic for the Pionirska fire and in spite of all

24     efforts to kill those desperately trying to escape, eight people did

25     survive the Pionirska fire.  The six who are still living testified in

Page 7159

 1     person.

 2             Having fallen short of destroying every member of the Kurspahic

 3     family as Milan Lukic had asserted to Court Witness number 1, he and

 4     Sredoje Lukic would learn from their mistakes and take extra steps to

 5     secure the house in Bikavac before setting another group of Muslims

 6     ablaze two weeks later, both of them barricading the front entrance with

 7     a steel garage door.

 8             The Bikavac fire was carried out with the precision and the

 9     effectiveness that comes with premeditation.  They nearly succeeded in

10     killing all inside.  Zehra Turjacanin, the sole survivor, escaped that

11     inferno, driven by a desire to save her brother, her neighbours, and her

12     friends from a similar fate.

13             This is my only opportunity to make submissions regarding the

14     final trial briefs of both accused, and while I trust the Chamber will

15     carefully analyse all arguments and adopt only those that pass careful

16     scrutiny, I do want to respond to some of the points that are raised in

17     those briefs.

18             Both Defence counsel raise as a central reason why you should

19     acquit both accused is the inconsistencies that they have identified in

20     the final trial briefs.  They suggest to you that such inconsistencies

21     indicate you cannot rely on the evidence of these witnesses.  Your

22     Honours are experienced jurists and have sufficient time on the bench to

23     know that several witnesses viewing an event from different perspectives

24     will invariably have differences between their accounts.  Even witnesses

25     who recount their evidence on several occasions can be expected to have

Page 7160

 1     minor differences between these retellings.

 2             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Just a minute.  Mr. Cepic.

 3             MR. CEPIC:  I apologise for interrupting, but we have a problem

 4     with translation in B/C/S, namely the translator/interpreter are late for

 5     two paragraphs in transcript, so I kindly ask my learned friend so speak

 6     a little bit slower.

 7             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Groome, you would have heard that.

 8             MR. GROOME:  Yes, Your Honour.  I haven't heard anything from the

 9     -- I'm wearing the headset so I can be mindful to the interpreters.  If

10     there is a problem, I certainly would ask them to advise me to slow down.

11     I will continue at I think what is a slow pace, but ...

12             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Proceed at a slightly slower pace.

13             MR. GROOME:  The inconsistencies which Defence place great

14     significance are simply a function of human memory and a function of

15     different people seeing something from different perspectives.  As VG-013

16     said at page 1089 of the transcript:

17             "All of us who were there in that group, nobody can say exactly

18     the same thing because they haven't seen all of them, the same things.

19     One saw one part.  Another saw another part."

20             This astute comment is precisely the point that the Chamber must

21     keep in mind when reviewing the evidence, and it is exactly what the

22     Chamber has in this body of evidence, the independent accounts of all of

23     the relevant witnesses.

24             The large group of Kurspahics involved in the Pionirska fire were

25     spread out over a significant area.  The column was broken and

Page 7161

 1     disconnected as it made its way from the square in Visegrad to the Memic

 2     house on Pionirska Street.  The Memic house had about 70 people spread

 3     out into several rooms on two floors.  Some victims were already inside

 4     the Omeragic house while others were still trying to wake their children

 5     in the Memic house.  Yet the Defence would have you view all of the

 6     events of this day as if the witnesses were sitting a theatre watching

 7     the same performance and suggest that any difference in recollection is

 8     evidence of dishonesty.  The witnesses have recalled honestly what they

 9     saw.  I submit that any inconsistencies are an indication of their

10     honesty.

11             Compared with the evidence of some of the Defence witnesses,

12     identical recollections of insignificant events 16 years ago, it is that

13     kind of consistency which is the hallmark of fabrication of witnesses who

14     have discussed their testimony among themselves prior to coming into this

15     Chamber.

16             The Defence's own expert Dr. Hough explained very clearly that

17     inconsistencies are expected and of themselves mean little.  He expressed

18     his view that three of the Prosecution witnesses were traumatised and

19     that he would not be surprised that the trauma would manifest itself in

20     their testimony.  He said that with trauma victims, it is often "very

21     difficult emotionally to recall and report on trauma experiences."  It is

22     stressful experience to pull up those memories.  Dr. Hough said:

23             "The degree to which that stress is heightened by anxiety ... the

24     recall process can be subject to some distortion."

25             Events can be reported in slightly different order and time

Page 7162

 1     sequences.  He never suggested that these recollections were inherently

 2     unreliable or that inconsistencies are an indicator of unreliablity.  He

 3     also said what many of us already know to be true, that due to the number

 4     of years that have passed, it would be unrealistic to expect perfect

 5     consistency.  Even measured by the yard-stick of a Defence expert, the

 6     Prosecution witnesses' accounts have the ring of truth and together form

 7     a compelling body of evidence.

 8             I would now like to address the issue of identification.  As

 9     Judge Robinson observed early in this case, the essential issue in the

10     case is identification.  The Prosecution final trial brief sets out in

11     detail each of the witnesses, the survivors who knew one or both of the

12     accused prior to the day they perpetrated these crimes.  Defence

13     witnesses from Visegrad as well as Prosecution witnesses are uniform in

14     their assessment that the size and custom of Visegrad was such that

15     people knew each other, if not always by name, very often by sight.

16     Prosecution witnesses described in detail their basis for knowing the

17     accused and recognising them at the scene of the crime.  Some confirmed

18     their recognition of the accused in court as well.

19             Both Defence briefs erroneously link the ability of a witness to

20     describe a perpetrator with their ability to recognise a perpetrator,

21     suggesting that inconsistent descriptions indicate an unreliable

22     recognition.  As the Prosecution brief points out, there is an important

23     difference between our ability as humans to recognise someone and our

24     ability to describe someone.  They are two different skills, and while

25     most people are easily able to reliably recognise people they know,

Page 7163

 1     describing them is often something they do poorly.

 2             Children, infants, long before they can describe what their

 3     mother or father looks like, they are able to recognise them.

 4     Recognition is an essential instinctual skill that enables us to quickly

 5     identify those who present a danger and those who provide safety.  If

 6     there is any doubt in your mind as to the difference between these two

 7     skills, consider this simple exercise.  Have each one of you and your

 8     staff write down on a piece of paper my height, my weight, my hair

 9     colour, age, eye colour without prior discussion.  If you do, I'm

10     confident that no two will be the same, even if I were to stand here

11     while you wrote your descriptions, and in fact there might be broad

12     discrepancies between the descriptions, despite having seen me for a

13     period of nearly a year under the bright lights of this courtroom.  Yet

14     every day when I appear before you, you instantly recognise me, and if we

15     encounter each other years from now, you will again recognise me.  You

16     will have no difficulty recognising me, but you may have difficulty

17     correctly describing me.

18             There were approximately 35 police officers in Visegrad prior to

19     the conflict.  Why is it unreasonable, as the Defence of Sredoje Lukic

20     suggests, for witnesses to have known Sredoje Lukic, either by sight or

21     by name?  Consider our own everyday experience here.  There are over

22     150 different people working in the security department of this Tribunal.

23     While we may come to know some by name, most we do not, yet we recognise

24     our security staff when we encounter them each day here, in this

25     courtroom, at the check-points downstairs.  We recognise them when we

Page 7164

 1     meet them in the store on Saturday or see them on the queue waiting for a

 2     movie.  Our innate ability as humans to recognise others we know is an

 3     accurate and reliable skill and one the Chamber can confidently rely

 4     upon.

 5             The witnesses in this case were continually encountering

 6     Sredoje Lukic over the course of their lives, much longer than our

 7     relatively short time here at the Tribunal.  VG-38 knew Sredoje Lukic

 8     well, despite not knowing his name, and the fact that he first learned

 9     his name the night of the fire does nothing to detract from the

10     reliability of his recognition.

11             The Defence have raised a number of issues related to the

12     credibility of individual witnesses.  I want to address some of them here

13     briefly.  The first witness is MLD-025.  A witness who testified with

14     respect to the Drina River.  For this, I would ask that we go into closed

15     session.

16             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Closed session.

17                           [Private session]

18   (redacted)

19   (redacted)

20   (redacted)

21   (redacted)

22   (redacted)

23   (redacted)

24   (redacted)

25   (redacted)

Page 7165

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 8                           [Open session]

 9                           --- Recess taken at 4.29 p.m.

10                           --- On resuming at 5.15 p.m.

11             JUDGE ROBINSON:  May I apologise for the delay.  I had to spend

12     more time that I had anticipated dealing with a particular matter.

13             Mr. Groome.

14             MR. GROOME:  Thank you, Your Honour.

15             Your Honour, before the break I was beginning to talk about some

16     of the specific issues raised with respect to the particular witnesses.

17     I'd like to continue that with the discussion now of VG-115.  Both

18     accused vehemently challenge the evidence of VG-115, and challenged they

19     must because she provides very damaging evidence regarding both accused.

20     VG-115 is a Serb woman, the only Serb civilian from Visegrad who had the

21     courage to come forward to describe what happened to her Muslim

22     neighbours who were ethnically cleansed from the town, a woman who has no

23     motive against either accused.  She testified she hardly knew

24     Milan Lukic, and she testified for the affection she had for

25     Sredoje Lukic prior to the outbreak of the conflicts.

Page 7167

 1             The Defence despite their best efforts have been unable to

 2     establish with any evidence that she has a motive for falsely accusing

 3     either accused.  In fact, the evidence of her motives are contained on

 4     pages 722 to 23 of the transcript where she said:

 5             "I have come here to prove the truth, and that truth is a small

 6     thing, namely what was it that those people ..." referring to the

 7     Avengers "... did in the city of Visegrad.  I'm not actually defending

 8     the Muslim people or the Serbian people for that matter.  I'm just here

 9     to tell what I've seen and what I've experienced."

10             And in that attempt to discredit her, the Defence went out and

11     took photographs from the veranda of the Smajic house where she was

12     during the Pionirska fire.  They absolutely confirm VG-115 and

13     demonstrate her credibility when she described what she could see from

14     her balcony.  She said she saw smoke and flame.  She never claimed to see

15     the house itself.  The photographs in evidence make clear that it is

16     exactly what she would have seen, the smoke and fire rising from the

17     inferno in the Omeragic house.

18             The Prosecution submits that with everything that the Chamber now

19     knows about this group, it is clear that VG-115's evidence is truthful,

20     accurate, and corroborated in substantial part.  The Defence's suggestion

21     that her evidence should be summarily dismissed based upon the

22     insufficiently reasoned opinion of the Vasiljevic Chamber is not

23     warranted by the evidence before this Chamber.  This Chamber has a far

24     greater body of evidence and is in a far better position to evaluate the

25     credibility of VG-115 and the other Prosecution witnesses than the

Page 7168

 1     Vasiljevic Chamber.

 2             The Sredoje Lukic Defence takes issue with her description of a

 3     sock on top of Sredoje Lukic's head on the afternoon of the Pionirska

 4     fire.  While she did recall him covering his face with this sock during

 5     the Bikavac fire, she says something different with respect to the

 6     Pionirska fire.  She simply says he was wearing it on his head, covering

 7     his shaved head.  You will recall his head had been shaved while he was

 8     in captivity.  A close examination of VG-115's testimony with regard to

 9     the sock is fully consistent with this view.

10             Most telling, at the very point where VG-115 was attempting to

11     explain this during her testimony, which is the portion relied on by the

12     Sredoje Lukic Defence in their brief at paragraph 155, VG-115 was

13     interrupted repeatedly by Defence counsel.  Paragraph 155 states:

14             "VG-115 was unable to provide any reasonable and satisfactory

15     explanation..." for how she could identify Sredoje Lukic while wearing a

16     stocking on his head.

17             In fact, VG-115 was prevented from explaining.  She was

18     interrupted three times on page 781 alone preventing her from fully

19     describing the way Sredoje Lukic wore this sock on his head.  In fact,

20     the manner in which VG-115 continues to mention the sock in the remainder

21     of her testimony demonstrates that she is describing him wearing the sock

22     on his head covering his hair, not as a full head sock over his whole

23     head and face, as suggested by the Defence.

24             When asked to identify the accused at the end of her testimony,

25     she says, referring to the two accused:

Page 7169

 1             "Mr. Milan Lukic, wearing a black suit; next to him, Mr. Sredoje

 2     Lukic, who used to be bald and wear a sock over his head but now he has

 3     plenty of hair."

 4             The Sredoje Lukic Defence attempt to discredit VG-013's evidence

 5     by claiming that she did not see him during the Pionirska fire, and that

 6     Edhem Kurspahic did not know Sredoje Lukic, so she could not have heard

 7     Edhem identify Sredoje as he escorted people into the Omeragic house.

 8             With respect to the Edhem Kurspahic, the Defence contrast the

 9     evidence of VG-013 with VG-018's cursory remark that Edhem did not know

10     Sredoje Lukic.  Edhem was of the same generation as Hasib Kurspahic and

11     was a life-long resident of the small village of Koritnik.  There is no

12     dispute that Sredoje Lukic was a frequent visitor to Koritnik, both while

13     on patrol and to visit his good friend Huso Kurspahic.  Edhem would have

14     had the same opportunity to see Sredoje Lukic when he came to the small

15     village.

16             VG-018's response to the Defence counsel that Edhem Kurspahic and

17     Sredoje Lukic did not know each other was a cursory conclusion.  It was

18     not based on Edhem telling her.  It was an assumption on her part.  The

19     weight of the evidence before the Chamber strongly suggests that in this

20     patriarchal society, the men of this village knew each other and would

21     have known Sredoje Lukic, a prominent member of the community who

22     regularly visited and patrolled the village.

23             The claim that VG-013 did not see Sredoje Lukic is without merit.

24     At paragraph 40 of the Defence brief, they claim that VG-013 "clearly

25     testified that she did not see Sredoje Lukic on the 14th of June, 1992."

Page 7170

 1             In the full context of her evidence, it is clear that she

 2     physically saw him during the day, and that when the Lukic group returned

 3     at night and hurriedly moved the Kurspahic family in the Omeragic house,

 4     VG-013 did not see him but was told by Edhem Kurspahic that Sredoje Lukic

 5     was behind them.

 6             The Defence highlights that VG-013 apparently does not mention

 7     Sredoje Lukic in a video statement or a video interview admitted in this

 8     trial.  It must be noted that this was an interview that was edited and

 9     is not a full account of what VG-013 said.  In fact, the focus of the

10     interview seemed to be something other than the crime at Pionirska

11     Street.

12             Please read the questioning about the video at transcript

13     page 1130.  Mr. Cepic places a transcript in front of VG-013 to see if

14     she can authenticate it.  It becomes clear that she is unable to read it.

15     He then puts a single sentence from the transcript to her, a sentence

16     limited to her saying that she was from Koritnik, that she had two sons,

17     a daughter, and a husband, and they left Koritnik because people are

18     dead.  Nothing about the fire.  She agrees, the tape is tendered, and he

19     never puts to her as required under 90(h) his proposition that she did

20     not mention Sredoje Lukic.  Read the trial transcript.  While the tape is

21     being tendered, VG-013 is trying to ask questions about the tape; when

22     was it made, where is it from?  This is not evidence that she did not see

23     Sredoje Lukic at Pionirska Street.

24             The Defence also failed to note that long before this tape,

25     VG-013 identified Sredoje Lukic as one of the perpetrators in a written

Page 7171

 1     statement from 1995 now in evidence as 1D29.  We also know that she

 2     identified Sredoje Lukic as one of the perpetrators to Huso Kurspahic

 3     shortly after the fire.

 4             The Sredoje Lukic final trial brief places emphasis on what it

 5     characterises as striking evidence of VG-089 and is comprehensive and

 6     detailed description of Milan Lukic and the three men who were with him

 7     on the 14th of June, which corroborates the evidence of VG-101.

 8             The Sredoje Lukic Defence suggests that VG-089 is credible and

 9     that his observations of Milan Lukic and the other men with him on the

10     day of the fire are reliable and credible.  The Prosecution agrees with

11     the Sredoje Lukic's position on this point.  VG-089's observations of

12     Milan Lukic in Visegrad on the day of the fire are indeed reliable.  The

13     Prosecution also agrees with the Sredoje Lukic Defence that the evidence

14     of VG-101 and VG-089, two people who never met, corroborate each other.

15             Where we disagree and where the Defence argument fails is in its

16     assertion that if Sredoje Lukic was not in the car with VG-089 at the new

17     bridge in town, he couldn't have later been at Pionirska Street.  The

18     argument makes the erroneous assumption that all of the perpetrators of

19     the Pionirska fire were in the car with VG-089 and the two other boys who

20     were killed, and we all know that this is simply not the case.  VG-078

21     recalled approximately ten men all together being involved in the fire

22     that night.  Hasib Kurspahic and VG-115 provide the names of some of

23     these other individuals.

24             When VG-101 stated that she could only see four people, she was

25     referring to a specific four people that she could see at a specific

Page 7172

 1     point in time, when she was being brought from the Memic house to the

 2     Omeragic house.  There is no reasonable view of the evidence suggesting

 3     that there were only four members of the Lukic group present that night.

 4     In their final brief, Sredoje Lukic Defence make much of VG-038's

 5     response to a single confusing question and ask the Chamber to draw an

 6     unjustified inference from his answer.  The question and answer are as

 7     follows:

 8             "Q.  What do you know about my client, Sredoje Lukic, is only

 9     from that night, not from before?

10             "A.  Right."

11             Is completely unclear from the context of the question what the

12     words "what you know about my client" were intended to refer to.

13             The Defence suggests that this is evidence that VG-038 did not

14     know Sredoje Lukic before the Pionirska fire.  The evidence makes clear

15     that VG-038 did know Sredoje Lukic by sight, as a police officer.  He

16     learned his name the day of the Pionirska fire.

17             The Sredoje Lukic Defence ends its discussion of VG-038's

18     evidence with a misstatement of the evidence.  At paragraph 81 of their

19     brief, they claim that VG-038 testified he could not recognise the men

20     who came in the evening because it was dark and because he did not dare

21     to look at them.  He said no such thing.  In fact, in response to the

22     question that is now in Prosecution Exhibit P044, Vasiljevic transcript

23     at page 1377, he said:

24             "Q.  Were you able to see who it was who returned at this time?"

25             VG-038 answered:

Page 7173

 1             "Yes.  The same four men who searched us."

 2             VG-024, the Sredoje Lukic Defence urges the Chamber to disregard

 3     VG-024's evidence regarding seeing Sredoje Lukic at the end of June in

 4     Visegrad because she was not -- because that assertion was not contained

 5     previously in her statement.  VG-024 gave a reasonable explanation for

 6     this at page 3216 of the transcript.  When asked why she never mentioned

 7     it, she answered:

 8             "No one ever asked me about it.  Yesterday when I was told that

 9     it was claimed that he was not in Visegrad at the time, I was a bit

10     disappointed because I know that -- personally that he and his family

11     were in Visegrad in May, June.  This prompted me to say that I knew him

12     and to state that he was in Visegrad throughout that time."

13             The Defence take issue with the fact that she couldn't recall

14     whether she saw him specifically on the 27th or 28th of June.  The fact

15     is, she said he and his family were living in Visegrad up until the day

16     she left, and the day she left was the 29th of June.

17             The Sredoje Lukic Defence offers a number of arguments that the

18     evidence of VG-035 is unreliable.  None of these arguments is persuasive.

19             First, the Sredoje Lukic Defence suggests that VG-035 marked the

20     wrong location when asked to mark the Meho Aljic house on a photograph.

21     The Chamber will recall from Ms. Turjacanin's testimony that the

22     Meho Aljic house was immediately behind the Sadikovic house.  The Alic

23     house is no longer there, so he was asking the witness to mark a spot on

24     the ground where a house once stood in a picture taken from several

25     hundred feet up in the air.  If the Chamber examines P101 and P102, it

Page 7174

 1     will be clear that VG-035 marked the open area immediately next to the

 2     Sadikovic house, simply on the west side of the house instead of the

 3     south side of the house; I submit, a completely insignificant error given

 4     the passage of 16 years, the absence ever the Aljic house, and the fact

 5     that the witness was being asked to mark an aerial photograph, a type of

 6     evidence that often causes confusion with witnesses.

 7             The Sredoje Lukic Defence has also attempted to impugn VG-035's

 8     evidence by making erroneous statements about the effect of

 9     Court Witness 002's evidence.  VG-035 and Court Witness 002 were together

10     on the morning of the Bikavac fire when Milan and Sredoje Lukic entered

11     their home.  VG-035 identified both accused as being there, while

12     Court Witness 002 only recognised Milan Lukic.

13             The Defence state that Court Witness 002 knew Sredoje Lukic

14     because he used to rent an apartment in her house, and, therefore, the

15     fact that she did not recognise him as the second man contradicts

16     VG-035's evidence.

17             This assertion misstates Court Witness 002's evidence.

18     Court Witness 002 stated that Sredoje Lukic lived in the house before she

19     married into the family.  She never said that she knew him, and there is

20     no reason to assume that she did.

21             The Sredoje Lukic Defence declined to ask her any questions when

22     it was offered, saying at transcript page 7084:

23             "This has nothing to do with our particular case."

24             They certainly could have inquired whether she knew Sredoje

25     Lukic, but did not.  The only evidence in this trial is that she knew

Page 7175

 1     Sredoje Lukic lived in the house she moved into before she married her

 2     husband and moved into that house.  While such a statement may suggest

 3     her husband may have known him, it does not suggest in any

 4     interpretation, however broad, that she knew Sredoje Lukic herself.

 5             In our initial review of the Milan Lukic final trial brief, we

 6     have found it often misstates evidence.  The time constraints we are

 7     working under today do not permit a comprehensive listing of these

 8     misstatements.  The Prosecution will therefore list just an example or

 9     two.

10             One of these misstatements relates to VG-035.  In paragraph 113

11     of their brief, the Milan Lukic Defence asserts that VG-035 testified

12     "... as to a blond Milan Lukic being the one that committed crimes she

13     testified about."

14             This is a misstatement of the evidence.  During her testimony in

15     precisely the very pages cited by the Defence, VG-035 said that

16     Milan Lukic had dark brown hair.  That's at transcripts page 1719.  In

17     addition, in her statement, which the Defence also cites as Exhibit 1D44,

18     she also clearly stated that Milan Lukic had "dark brown, short hair."

19             One point with respect to hair colour:  The Defence make the

20     point that there are differences in how witnesses have described the hair

21     colour of Milan Lukic.  Please don't overlook the evidence of VG-142, the

22     Serbian official who interviewed him as found on page 4 of his statement

23     in evidence of P144.

24             VG-142 recalled in that statement that when they arrested

25     Milan Lukic, when he came to him, he had a fur cap that Milan Lukic

Page 7176

 1     described as a traditional Chetnik cap.  He went on to describe how

 2     Milan Lukic had some of his hair highlighted.  VG-142 thought it looked

 3     ridiculous and asked Milan Lukic about it, and he said that it was a whim

 4     of his girlfriend.

 5             You will also recall VG-094's evidence that on the day Milan

 6     Lukic stopped her family in the Visegrad square, one of the people in

 7     Milan Lukic's car was a woman she recognised as a hairdresser in the

 8     town.  There is credible evidence before the Chamber that Milan Lukic

 9     was, for whatever reason, colouring his hair at the time.  I submit

10     variations between witnesses seeing him at different times regarding his

11     hair colour may also be due to his dying his hair during this period.

12             The Sredoje Lukic Defence makes a great deal about the fact that

13     Huso's father Hasib did not mention Sredoje as a perpetrator of the

14     Pionirska fire during his video-taped interview in July 1992.  Hasib was

15     not reunited with Huso until January of 1993, but they then discussed the

16     events and perpetrators a number of times.  Hasib was clear that Sredoje,

17     who he knew well, was one of the main Pionirska perpetrators, and he left

18     his son Huso the solemn task of telling what happened at

19     Pionirska Street.

20             Why he did not mention Sredoje Lukic's name in the interview some

21     days after the fire?  Recall Huso Kurspahic's evidence that he destroyed

22     his reports about the fire in 1993 because he feared the Bosnian Serbs

23     would get them.  He believed they would know who had identified

24     perpetrators in Visegrad, and this would endanger those people.

25             When Hasib gave that statement, he had just fled Visegrad knowing

Page 7177

 1     that the Lukic group was actively trying to find him and kill him.

 2     Although Hasib is not here to tell us why he didn't mention them by name,

 3     it is reasonable to infer that he did not do so because he was afraid.

 4     As soon as he was safely with his son, he gave his son a full list of the

 5     people who perpetrated the fire.  There is no reasonable explanation as

 6     to why Hasib would later fabricate Sredoje's involvement in the crime

 7     when he knew him so well and was so friendly with him.

 8             Throughout their submissions, the Defence have implicitly asked

 9     the Trial Chamber to analyse the evidence in this case in a highly

10     artificial manner.  Specifically, the Defence have asked the Chamber to

11     look at the evidence of each witness in isolation and ask itself whether

12     the evidence of that one witness, standing alone, is sufficient to prove

13     the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.  The Defence prefer

14     this artificial method of analysis because it allows them to avoid the

15     fact that these witnesses, separated from the day of the crimes in most

16     cases, corroborate and reinforce each other's evidence.  The Prosecution

17     evidence when examined in its entirety clearly establishes the guilt of

18     the two accused.

19             The Chamber must analyse each element of the evidence in this

20     case in light of the trial record as a whole.  The totality of evidence

21     in this case paints a picture of the events upon which the indictment is

22     based, and this picture is clear and certain when all of the evidence is

23     viewed together.

24             The Limaj Appeals Chamber cited approvingly a lesson from the

25     Limaj Trial Chamber:

Page 7178

 1             "It is the cumulative effect of the evidence, i.e., the totality

 2     of the evidence bearing on the identification of an accused, which must

 3     be weighed to determine whether the Prosecution has proved beyond a

 4     reasonable doubt that each accused is a perpetrator as alleged."

 5             When all of the evidence in this case it considered in its

 6     totality, its cumulative effect is a clear and compelling picture of the

 7     crimes perpetrated by both accused.

 8             Both briefs suggest that the Prosecution witnesses are lying

 9     about who the perpetrators were while failing to explain what possible

10     motive they could have to lie.  We have seen time and time again during

11     this trial the extraordinary character of the women of Visegrad; women

12     who endured unspeakable crimes so that their children might survive;

13     women whose quick thinking and strength saved their children; and women

14     whose last act on this earth was a failed attempt to protect their

15     children from the flames.  These women of incredible strength and

16     integrity literally tempered by fire did not come to this Tribunal to

17     falsely accuse anyone.  They came before you and testified about the

18     people they recognised, and they candidly admitted that there were some

19     perpetrators who they simply did not know.

20             Not only has there been no demonstrated motive for them to

21     fabricate anything, but there has been compelling evidence that where

22     there may have been a motive to fabricate, none succumb to it.  The

23     survivors of Pionirska spoke about their life-long neighbours forcing

24     them from their homes, ransacking their possessions before their very

25     eyes.  In their minds, these are the people who began the ordeal that

Page 7179

 1     cost them so very much.  Yet despite this, none of the survivors placed

 2     these people at the fire.  None of them suggest they had any direct

 3     involvement in the fire.

 4             I submit that this is proof that they have not fabricated

 5     anything.  If they were inclined to fabricate who the perpetrators were,

 6     they would have placed these people there and not Milan and certainly not

 7     Sredoje Lukic, someone they had no animosity toward, but actually had

 8     affection for.  They have placed Sredoje and Milan Lukic there because

 9     they were there.

10             Even those who died in the fire, the question arises again, why

11     would they say it was the Lukics who were there if it was not true?  The

12     voices of the victims who died in Pionirska Street fire speak loudly and

13     credibly through those that survived, yet the Defence maintain that you

14     cannot rely on these witnesses.  I did not choose these witnesses; fate

15     chose them.  Perhaps there were other people in the Pionirska or Bikavac

16     fires with better memories, better eyesight, people who could have told

17     you the precise height and weight of each of the perpetrators.  Fate

18     chose the survivors, not the Prosecution.  My duty as an international

19     Prosecutor is to bring those who survived and their evidence before you,

20     and although it presents far greater challenges than in a domestic

21     criminal trial, I don't ask for any diminishment of my burden to prove

22     the guilt of these two men beyond a reasonable doubt.

23             These witnesses also present special challenges for you who will

24     have to adjudicate this case.  Some of these witnesses by their own

25     admission have limited education, are sometimes confused on minor

Page 7180

 1     details.  Some are irreparably traumatised, and their trauma is still

 2     obvious to us 16 years later.  But that is not, as is suggested, a reason

 3     to dismiss their evidence.

 4             You as international criminal judges were selected especially to

 5     adjudicate these cases and have the experience necessary to discern the

 6     truth, to evaluate the evidence from witnesses still suffering the

 7     effects of terrible crimes.  If you acquit one or both of the accused,

 8     you must do so not because of who they are, not because of their palpable

 9     brokenness.  If you acquit one or both of the accused, it must only be

10     because you come to the conclusion that you do not believe them.  And I

11     submit that a careful analysis of their evidence, the lack of any reason

12     for them to fabricate their account, the personal cost testifying has

13     exacted on them, when you take everything into consideration, the only

14     conclusion possible is that their evidence establishes the guilt of both

15     accused.

16             In keeping with the conduct of the Milan Lukic Defence --

17             THE INTERPRETER:  Please slow down for the interpreters.  Thank

18     you.

19             MR. GROOME:  Yes.

20             In keeping with the conduct of the Milan Lukic Defence over the

21     course of this trial, their brief makes miriad of unsubstantiated

22     allegations against the Prosecution and myself in particular.  This is in

23     keeping with the pattern of similar conduct over the course of the trial

24     in which not only the Prosecution, but the Trial Chamber, the Registrar,

25     the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia have all at some point

Page 7181

 1     had serious allegations cavalierly thrown at them.  I regret that they

 2     have enjoyed the freedom to do this.  It is now five months since I filed

 3     a request before the Chamber requesting that the Milan Lukic Defence be

 4     directed to either substantiate their allegations or withdraw them.

 5             I will not devote any time to these allegations now other than to

 6     say that despite the Chamber granting the Milan Lukic Defence every

 7     opportunity to investigate and substantiate their claims, granting nearly

 8     every request they made for information, for contact details of people

 9     they believed would prove their spurious claims, none of these people

10     have been called to testify.

11             One of them was VG-031.  I cited simply as one of several

12     examples.  Despite the allegations regarding him, despite being given the

13     opportunity to call him, they now claim in their brief that the Chamber

14     denied them the ability to call him as a witness, something clearly

15     contradicted by the Chamber's decision of the 13th of March, 2009,

16     allowing him to be called.  But he wasn't called, and somehow others are

17     to blame.

18             The end result has been that the Defence has chosen not to call

19     any evidence substantiating any of the allegations they made against the

20     Prosecution, against the Chamber, against the Registrar, and against

21     Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.  In fact, the only evidence of impropriety

22     during this trial is against Milan Lukic and his Defence team, some of

23     which came from a former Defence witness himself.

24             I expect the Milan Lukic Defence closing will follow their

25     opening, a long litany of slanderous, unsubstantiated statements.  I will

Page 7182

 1     have no opportunity to reply.  I ask the Chamber to insist that any

 2     allegations be supported by evidence.  Do not let this Chamber be misused

 3     as a platform for slander.

 4             As I conclude my remarks, I would like to thank the witnesses and

 5     their families.  I know that for most, their testimony here re-opened

 6     deep wounds.  Their willingness to revisit these painful memories was an

 7     essential contribution to the truth.  In particular, I would like to

 8     thank those women who described vicious, terrible attacks knowing that

 9     this Chamber would not be considering charges related to those attacks.

10             I would also like to thank the government of Serbia who provided

11     relevant evidence it had in its possession and made available a

12     government official to testify.

13             I would also like to thank the current police in Visegrad who on

14     several occasions facilitated visits to the crime scenes by myself and my

15     staff.  I hope that such cooperation is a sign that the Visegrad police

16     is once again a professional organisation protecting the legal rights of

17     all Visegrad citizens.  I hope both of these examples of cooperation are

18     evidence that the Tribunal is realising its goal of fostering

19     reconciliation in the region.

20             In my final few minutes, I would like to address you on the issue

21     of sentence.  There is a line from Khaled Hosseini's book The Kite Runner

22     that says:

23             "There's only one sin, only one, and that is theft.  Every other

24     sin is a variation of theft.  When you kill a man, you steal a life.  You

25     steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father."

Page 7183

 1             Viewed in those terms, it's incalculable what the two accused

 2     have taken from Visegrad.  The magnitude of their theft can never be

 3     calculated.  We will never know how Meliha Memisevic's life changed the

 4     day she watched Milan Lukic murder her father in cold blood.  We will

 5     never know what would have become of the 2-day-old infant burned alive in

 6     the Pionirska fire.  She would now be looking forward to her 17th

 7     birthday in a few weeks.  We will never know the contributions she would

 8     have made to her community, to our world.  What they stole from the

 9     individual families, from the Visegrad community, from us as a human race

10     cannot be ascertained.

11             Someone once posed a question to me whether I ever calculated the

12     years of human lives taken in the Pionirska and Bikavac fires.  How many

13     years of human life were taken?  It is a surprisingly simple yet stark

14     calculation to make.  The average life expectancy of a person in the

15     former Yugoslavia is over 70 years.  Hajra Kurspahic was 60 years old

16     when she die d in Pionirska.  Ten years of her life were taken.  Most of

17     the Bikavac victims we know nothing about other than Ms. Turjacanin's

18     recollection that the Aljic house was filled mostly with young mothers

19     and children.

20             But only considering the victims of the two fires we know and

21     have evidence about their age, just considering them alone, the number is

22     staggering:  Over 3.000 years of human life lost in those two fires.

23             What the two accused destroyed in June of 1992 is far beyond

24     their capacity to repay.  Spending the remainder of their lives

25     incarcerated is simply a nominal token toward the loss they occasioned.

Page 7184

 1             Criminal theorists have long considered that one of the important

 2     functions of punishment is general deterrence; sending a message to

 3     potential offenders to deter them should they consider perpetrating

 4     similar crimes.  If you find the accused guilty for the Pionirska or

 5     Bikavac fires or both, I ask the Court to seize the opportunity to send a

 6     clear, unequivocal message to those who might consider similarly

 7     egregious crimes, those who are apt to similarly exploit the vulnerable

 8     and in the chaos of conflict.

 9             Use your judgement and sentence to make clear three things:  One,

10     if you perpetrate crimes like this, you will be pursued and you will be

11     found.  You will be extradited from your hiding place and brought to a

12     court where you will be held accountable; two, you will be tried fairly,

13     no matter your conduct, no matter how the seriousness of the allegations

14     against you.  You will have a full and a fair trial; and three, if you

15     are found guilty of such crimes against the world's most vulnerable, no

16     mercy will be shown.  You will be given the severest of sentences.

17             There must be no question of the International Community's

18     resolve to vigorously pursue and hold responsible those who commit crimes

19     such as these during the conflict.

20             If this Chamber finds the accused guilty of the Pionirska and

21     Bikavac fires, the Prosecution recommends that it hand down a sentence

22     that ensures that the accused spend the remainder of their lives

23     incarcerated, the most severe sentence within your power.

24             Your Honours, my work on this case is now concluded.  The

25     Prosecution has fairly laid before you all of the evidence available

Page 7185

 1     related to the indictment against Sredoje and Milan Lukic.  Every person

 2     who survived these crimes and is still alive has been brought before you.

 3     In addition, all other witnesses with relevant evidence have also

 4     testified.  You now have it all for your consideration.  The evidence

 5     clearly and compellingly establishes the culpability of both Sredoje and

 6     Milan Lukic beyond reasonable doubt.  It is now for the Chamber to

 7     carefully consider it and adjudicate the indictment against them.  I wish

 8     the Chamber wisdom in this important task.

 9             Thank you.

10             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Thank you, Mr. Groome.

11             Mr. Alarid.

12             MR. ALARID:  Your Honour, may we take a brief recess to use the

13     restroom?  We have an hour left, but I would be thinking about that and

14     not talking to you.

15             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You want to go to the restroom?

16             MR. ALARID:  Yes, Your Honours.

17             JUDGE ROBINSON:  All right.  We'll take a break for 10 minutes.

18             MR. ALARID:  Thank you, Your Honour.

19                           --- Break taken at 5.58 p.m.

20                           --- On resuming at 6.12 p.m.

21             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Alarid, I remind you that your application

22     for three hours was not granted.  It's one hour.  You may begin.

23             MR. ALARID:  Your Honour, we need the PowerPoint to be switched

24     on the screen for your benefit, Your Honour, and we've prepared copies

25     for the parties.

Page 7186

 1             And, Your Honour, before I begin -- before I begin, Your Honour,

 2     I'd like to make a request to the Chambers.  Mr. Milan Lukic had prepared

 3     a brief statement of which he'd like to read to the Court, understanding

 4     that the Prosecution would normally not want this because it's -- I'm

 5     sure they would say he's allowed to testify without cross-examination.

 6     He would like to say a few things on his own behalf in closing, and I

 7     assure the Court everything he wrote would stand by the decorum and the

 8     respect due the Chamber and proceedings.  And so if you would beg that

 9     pardon, I'm making that request on behalf of Mr. Lukic right now.

10             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I don't have my rules here.  I thought we were

11     beyond that stage.

12             THE INTERPRETER:  Would it be possible for the interpreters to

13     have a copy of this statement and of other documents, please.

14             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Groome, do you have any views on this?

15             MR. GROOME:  I'm not sure -- it's not provided for in the rules,

16     Your Honour, and it seems that for him to now --

17                           [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

18             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Alarid, what we suggest is that you proceed

19     now, and we will make a decision on that overnight.

20             MR. ALARID:  Thank you, Your Honour.

21             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I find it's a little unusual.  Doesn't mean I

22     won't allow it, but I need to think about it.

23             MR. ALARID:  Thank you, Your Honour.  I appreciate the

24     consideration.  So does Mr. Lukic.

25                           Defence for Milan Lukic Closing Statement:

Page 7187

 1

 2             MR. ALARID:  I think as Mr. Groome said, this has been a long and

 3     arduous road we started.  I'd first like to thank the Chamber for being

 4     patient with my ignorance of the procedures and the nuance of this

 5     Chamber.  I'd like to thank all the court staff and everyone who has put

 6     up with my level of disorganisation and lack of functionality in this

 7     arena.  And I'd even like to thank the Prosecution; although we've seen

 8     -- not always seen eye to eye, I believe that there has been a high level

 9     of disclosure, albeit in mass quantities at times.  I've been impressed

10     by the levels of candour at times that has come through the pleadings,

11     even though frustrated the ability to present it under the restraints of

12     the court.

13             I'd like to start off my closing submissions, Your Honour, with

14     some quotations that mean a little bit to me and kind of mean a little

15     bit to me in hopes of looking at this case and taking tongue and cheek a

16     little bit, but in taking a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt which I felt

17     resonated with me, is:  "Do what you feel in your heart to be right, and

18     you'll be criticized any way.  You'll be dammed if you do and dammed if

19     you don't."  That's important, Your Honour, because I think that that

20     resonates both with the choices I've made in handling this case as well

21     as the difficult decisions that you have before you as a concerted group

22     of people that has the most difficult demanding sorting-throughs of the

23     facts that I can imagine.  And although this case was relegated to a

24     level 1, not knowing the difference, I think this is the most difficult

25     of cases.

Page 7188

 1             I quote to Longfellow because:  "If we could read the secret

 2     history of our enemies, we should find in each person's life sorrow and

 3     suffering enough to disarm all hostility."  I think that's important

 4     because unless you really look at all of these people and their in their

 5     gentlest, in their difficulties, in their where they come from, it's very

 6     difficult for us especially in the first world to relate to them.  And I

 7     think that none of us have had the sorrow to have gone through what all

 8     of these people went through.  It's a point of which I've only begun to

 9     scratch the surface with myself.

10             And I take a quote from Bridge Over the Drina, because I think it

11     really goes to what's happened in this case, upon my opinion, and that's:

12     "The common people remember and tell of what they are able to grasp and

13     what they are able to transform into legend."  I think that's important

14     because all of these ordinary and simple folks of which I lump Mr. Lukic

15     into have a very limited set of sophistication of which to approach, I

16     think, the big picture in this case.

17             And I quote Mr. Marley only because this has been a hard-fought

18     fight, and I believe that what I have been doing in honour is to uphold

19     the rights of Mr. Lukic despite the allegations which when I first met

20     this case, Your Honour, were horrendous.  When I first read the articles

21     about Mr. Lukic, I shuddered and I wondered what I was doing getting on a

22     plane to come over here.  And with regards to that, though, I'm proud of

23     the job we've done, and I wish we could have done more.

24             I cite to Judge Hunt and his trepidations about the completion

25     strategy simply because I think that that was part of this case.  It's a

Page 7189

 1     necessary evil that has made it difficult at times to prosecute every

 2     angle, as Mr. Groome stated, and I wish I had had more time.

 3             I cite to Judge Wald because, with all due respect to the

 4     Chamber, we had a discourse many months ago, Judge Van den Wyngaert,

 5     where you said I'm not a jury, and I'd like to think that we all are.

 6     The minute the evidence closes and you go back in there and you've made

 7     your decisions as judges, you've decided what's in and what's out, and

 8     when you go back there, I ask that you simply look at all the evidence,

 9     and let's decide whether or not there's reasonable doubt.  Even if you

10     think Mr. Lukic is guilty of something, the important thing is did the

11     Prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they did in these

12     indictments, not everything else.

13             I'm using this, this is something I use in jury trials back home,

14     and I don't mean to offend the intelligence of the Court, only that this

15     is illustrative of how difficult the burden beyond a reasonable doubt is,

16     how lofty a principle it is that set such a high bar on the Prosecution.

17     And with all due respect to the Prosecution, I feel that at best they've

18     presented here is a preponderance of the evidence case, where we can

19     actually flip the coin maybe and decide whether Mr. Lukic is guilty or

20     not.

21             But reasonable doubt isn't of itself according to the uniform

22     jury instruction of my jurisdiction which is proof so convincing that you

23     would rely on it without hesitation in the most important of your own

24     affairs.  That's a tough one because even though we can be pretty darn

25     sure, especially with all the spurious allegations that are tangential to

Page 7190

 1     Mr. Lukic's case, it is still beyond-a-reasonable-doubt of evidence that

 2     we must apply to these counts.  I ask you to reverse roles with everyone,

 3     and I do this in respect to Mr. Jerry Spence who I work with back in the

 4     States, is his method of teaching trial skills is that the lawyers must

 5     explore their case, explore their witnesses, explore their clients by

 6     doing as much as internal soul-searching as possible, as much internal

 7     psychodrama of which we can stand to try and get into the skin of the

 8     players of our case and hopefully find the truth.

 9             This is a little bit of edification of what we believe the OTP

10     has put at us constant levelling of accusations of malfeasance against

11     us.  They've thrown unindicted cases at you which we believe were

12     unsubstantiated, and we believe that the OTP has treated this Court very

13     much like a jury, attempting to sway its opinion, not based on the

14     quality of the evidence, but about the quantity of the accusations.

15             I believe this is how the OTP wants you simply to see my client

16     and Mr. Cepic's client.  They want you to see him in this sterile

17     courtroom, this environment that whether or not we put it on paper what

18     the standard is, there is very much an appearance and a feeling of guilt

19     if you sit in those chairs.  There is absolutely nothing like being

20     accused, and if you could find some place in your own lives where you've

21     been falsely accused of something, maybe inconsequential in the grand

22     scheme of things, but make yourself remember how you that made you feel,

23     and you'll only begin to understand.

24             You know, this case has transformed over time, and the

25     Prosecution has changed the way they've presented their case because at

Page 7191

 1     the beginning you would have sworn -- and by the indictments that have

 2     been handed down out of Visegrad, you would swear that Milan Lukic,

 3     Mitar Vasiljevic, and Sredoje Lukic were the architects of Visegrad, that

 4     no one else was doing anything bad in town but these guys, and yet where

 5     are the leaders of Visegrad?  Where is Savovic?  Where is Perisic?  The

 6     Court issued subpoenas.  They were not responded to.  So in thanking the

 7     government of Serbia, I wonder if they did everything they could to make

 8     sure these witnesses came here.

 9             I think it's important because the Prosecution has been

10     back-pedalling on their presentation as to the level of authority and/or

11     control that Milan Lukic had, much less now Sredoje Lukic as a last-ditch

12     attempt to save their case.

13             I ask you to look at this in the portens, and I'll try not to go,

14     is why a site visit would have been good.  You've seen the overhead of

15     Bikavac so many times, Your Honour, and I can't tell you enough how

16     misleading that aerial photo is.  Bikavac is a hill-side neighbourhood,

17     and yet in all the photographs it appears to be a pastoral valley.  It's

18     actually -- the entire town, I think to get a sense of the layout is

19     important for understanding the nature of the allegations.

20             So I start here with a map, a precise and military map, showing

21     Rujiste and marked up through one of our witnesses, and at the

22     22 kilometres, anyone that wanted to go to Rujiste to Visegrad, half of

23     that would be on a dirt road.  Half of it is above snow line, and I would

24     actually address this to Judge David only in so much that he remembers

25     the mountains of New Mexico, the north of near Chama and Brazos.  You go

Page 7192

 1     to Visegrad, and you will see this kind of place, and the people are

 2     similar.  They are ethnically segregated.  They are humble, and yet they

 3     are fiercely loyal.  These people remind me of northern New Mexico, and

 4     their country mirrors it almost exactly.  And so I came, and it was only

 5     until I saw this places that I sort of understood them a little bit if

 6     you've ever been to Mora and you try to go into the grocery store and

 7     you're not from there and you don't speak Spanish, you may not get

 8     served.  These people are insular and insulated in a similar way.

 9             This case is about, for me, the son of Mile and Kata, born the

10     6th of September, 1967, in Rujiste municipality.  I ask you decide

11     whether he is a war criminal or a scapegoat, a leader or a follower.

12             To me, Milan from Rujiste is that little boy in the middle of his

13     mother and his sister Dragina.  He is the gentleman with always an arm

14     around him or an arm around someone else.  In every photograph we showed

15     you of him as a young up-and-coming man, all the way up until the war,

16     shows him as a gregarious, smiling, social person.  I look at -- ask you

17     to look at the pictures below because that is Rujiste, and I took that

18     snowy photo myself, standing in the plum orchard that is circled on the

19     map.

20             You see those dots in that yellow map, Your Honour?  Well, that

21     is Rujiste, and that is Milan's home, and MLD lived just across those

22     lines.  The person that would testify for Milan Lukic, MLD10, lived

23     there, and so is it really hard to believe, and why does bribery have to

24     become involved, when someone who has been your neighbour in the

25     mountains your whole life that you've dealt with the trials and

Page 7193

 1     tribulations of living outside of town together would in fact ally

 2     themselves in times of chaos?

 3             Before the war, Milan Lukic was a brother, a teenager, a student,

 4     a young man, a clown, a bartender; and when the powers turned on chaos,

 5     he became a police officer, a soldier, now a fugitive, and an accused war

 6     criminal.  But he also became a father in that time.  And I ask you, if

 7     you look in these photographs, do you see someone that could do exactly

 8     what they're saying, at least without the most careful of circumspection.

 9     I ask you to look at the photograph in the middle with the two gentlemen

10     and everyone with their bad antiquated hair-cuts, but those are the

11     Muslim boys that were his best friends identified by MLD-10.  This is a

12     boy that was raised in a mixed community.  You cannot take the

13     accusations of the Prosecution lightly, and we will discuss the motives,

14     that fabricate that we have.

15             1D14, Milan Lukic just a few months before the war, Your Honour.

16     This is the guy that journalists would call the warlord of Visegrad.  I

17     see him as being an ordinary man who, if you had looked at this, you

18     would never, ever think he would be an internationally accused war

19     criminal at some point in his life.

20             We brought Dr. Hough, and clearly, his qualifications and his

21     demeanour resonated with the Prosecution because they sided to him and

22     his reasoning when it supports their position.  Well, I'd say if you give

23     him the credibility to do that, then we must also give him the

24     credibility to assess Milan Lukic, I think with a role that is also been

25     shown by the rest of the evidence.

Page 7194

 1             This is important, Your Honour.  In my jurisdiction, the case

 2     would be dismissed based on an affidavit or arrest warrant that included

 3     such diametrically opposed descriptions of the suspect of the crimes.  In

 4     the international warrant to INTERPOL, it cited blue eyes, eagle tattoos,

 5     and a mole.  I apologise for the issue with regards to the blond hair

 6     cited by Mr. Groome, but actually it was the blue eyes, and we just --

 7     for whatever reason, blond hair he escaped in there, but it was blue

 8     eyes.  It was the most important thing that you cannot take away.

 9             I'd like to address the Drina River first because I think from a

10     practical perspective, as a criminal Defence lawyer, the Drina River is

11     the most difficult for you to determine.  It's the most difficult because

12     you have on your plate two eye-witness survivors that say my client's

13     there shooting them.  You also have a former accused who testified in his

14     own trial that my client shot at those people.  That's a lot on your

15     plate, and I admit that, and I'd like to hopefully prove to you why there

16     is doubt still despite that feeling of being overwhelmed.

17             First things first is ID.  ID is up in the air as it's concerned

18     to VG-014 and 32.  It's up in the air.  It's not resolved.  There are

19     serious inconsistencies between the eye-witnesses, especially if you

20     include VG-079 into the equation, and the OTP has failed to account for

21     the self-serving nature and unrebutted by cross-examination the Defence

22     of Mitar Vasiljevic.  See, he put on a Defence of which no one

23     representing Milan was there to cross-examine him on those tough

24     questions, so of course he wanted completely to mitigate his role, and

25     that needs to be explored because he hoped to walk out of this courtroom

Page 7195

 1     acquitted, and he didn't.  And the OTP has failed to rebut beyond a

 2     reasonable doubt the alibi evidence presented by Milan Lukic.

 3             I won't get into the thing.  These are just simply quotes out of

 4     our final brief, but it goes to the fact that VG-14 centred his

 5     identification of Milan Lukic around a mole.  So let's look at this.  I

 6     put all four photographs unretouched and marked by VG-14 an VG-032, and

 7     if you -- they were asked in a pinch to circle what they thought was the

 8     mole that was being referred to, and if you look at the unmarked versus

 9     the marked, there's nothing there.  More importantly, Your Honours,

10     there's nothing there that would be of the magnitude that if you put soot

11     or black paint on your face, that these kind of moles would not simply

12     disappear under the covering.

13             I show this because this has been the vanted OTP photograph of

14     Milan Lukic, the supposed White Eagle.  Isn't it just as likely it's a

15     souvenir photograph because I've seen this hat on other heads, and how

16     can we say it's not even the same one?  But the most important thing we

17     take from this, Your Honour, is here's a photograph that shows no mole

18     that can be misinterpreted by any witness, and I think it's arguable that

19     this is the issue.

20             Still skeptical?  Where was the mole?  Let's look at a bunch of

21     other photographs of his face over time and see if that circle on the

22     side of his face is a botched mole removal, and I don't think we have

23     anything here to show that there is such a thing.

24             Now, this is interesting because VG-014 has two ways of knowing

25     Milan Lukic.  One is this mole and this personal thing, but then he says

Page 7196

 1     he also interacts with him during the two years that he went to school.

 2     Well, arguably, Your Honour, you have in your custody the school records

 3     of Milan Lukic, and he went to school for the full time.  So that's

 4     wrong.  VG-014's wrong.  He went to him with the school the entire time,

 5     but why was that explainable?  They weren't in the same section.  So they

 6     didn't see each other and go to class together.  They saw each other.

 7     And what did he know about the Milan Lukic that went to school with him?

 8     He was a boy that never got into fights with people of Muslim origins.

 9     He was soft-spoken, and he took the time to say hi to VG-014.  Is that

10     someone we would expect to be a future war criminal?  Really?

11             So I point your attention to Novica Lukic, Milan Lukic's older

12     brother.  Now, we're not saying that Novica Lukic is a suspect, but if I

13     were a person maybe talking with a friend of mine, maybe VG-014 talking

14     to VG-032 and they're trying to figure out who just tried to, and they

15     could see a mole but couldn't tell who else it was, they might remember a

16     Lukic with a mole.  As if we talked about memory with Dr. LaGrange,

17     certain things when we believe it or we say it can become parts of our

18     reality, and then it doesn't matter anymore.  But he was a person with

19     the Lukic last name with a noticeable mole on his face as opposed to

20     Milan Lukic, and there's even Milan there as a younger and medium age

21     right next to him that we can look at and see that there is no mole.

22             VG-032, he had never, ever had the time to know Milan Lukic and

23     only gained this knowledge through hearsay at the end.  This is an

24     important diagram because it gets into the eye-witness testimony, and it

25     corroborates and deals with the eye-witness testimony of VG-079 who was

Page 7197

 1     across the river with binoculars.

 2             This is important.  In the original statements of VG-079, he

 3     documented a Paglicija, not a Passat.  Regardless of whether or not the

 4     Passat was there is an issue of credibility of these witnesses, and why

 5     does VG-014 and VG-032 have reason to do this?  Because it's easy for

 6     them to lie if the only nexus they had between the accused was a Passat.

 7     It's too easy for them never having to know Milan Lukic and simply

 8     because everyone saw him at the Passat at some point in time.  That is

 9     not -- that would be dispositive maybe if VG-079 wasn't across the river

10     seeing a very different car which I would argue could not in any stretch

11     of the imagination be misconstrued for a Passat, and -- 4-door versus

12     2-door.  And more importantly, VG-079 with the aid of his binoculars

13     without needing to speak to other people was able to identify two of the

14     named victims at the river.  That means that the binoculars, if they are

15     good enough to ID a person, they're good enough to ID a car.  They're

16     good enough to ID colours of uniforms.  They're good enough to ID

17     headwear.  And what you have is VG-079 in the very beginning documented

18     black uniforms; not just black face, black uniforms, black hats, black

19     scarves, skulls on them.  That is absolutely diametrically opposed to a

20     blue beret and blue -- especially if I can recognise my friends.

21             Again, this is a slide related to that.

22             I did this for illustration, the reason being is is that the

23     witness identified that little white car in the background as a Jugo, and

24     that's right, and I think we've all seen those tiny cars that are made by

25     the former Yugoslavia.  And in looking at this photograph, it is

Page 7198

 1     important because, albeit cramped, you can fit ten people in these two

 2     cars.  You can barely fit ten people.  That's three in the back of each

 3     and two in the front of each.  One person has to be very, very

 4     uncomfortable if you add an extra soldier.  VG-079 in his original

 5     statements said ten:  Seven individuals, three soldiers dressed in black.

 6     It's only in this trial have they added a fourth soldier, and only in

 7     this trial is the uniform changing.

 8             Mitar Vasiljevic, he seems to be the crux.  He came in here, he

 9     swore under oath, and he basically sent his kum down the river.  He

10     testified on his own behalf in his own trial.  He gave an OTP statement

11     in his own trial, and during that time, he presented himself in the most

12     out-of-the-picture sort of way, saying he was hiding, he didn't have a

13     gun, and all these things, and you know what his Trial Chamber did?  They

14     chose to believe him that he was there but not believe him that he was

15     not involved.  Why?  Because VG-014 and VG-032 identified him.  They

16     recognised him.  This is a perfect example of the difference between

17     knowing somebody and not because --

18             THE INTERPRETER:  Could counsel please slow down.

19             MR. ALARID:  [Overlapping speakers] -- you can't say VG-014

20     didn't know Mitar.  Of course he knew Mitar.  They drank together --

21             THE INTERPRETER:  Could counsel slow down, please.

22             MR. ALARID:  -- as did Mitar with half the town.  Why?  Because

23     he was the biggest drunk in town, and we want to make him the architects

24     of these killings.

25             Dr. LaGrange testified that based on the history presented to her

Page 7199

 1     regarding his alcoholism, his drinking, his bingeing, his blackouts, it

 2     was likely that he had some brain damage.  It's likely that that brain

 3     damage affected memory, but more importantly, you also got to consider

 4     state-dependent memory, Your Honour, because the day before this,

 5     Mitar Vasiljevic buried his nephew.  He had been drinking, certainly, and

 6     he was drinking the next day by his own admission.  If he was drunk at

 7     the time, he needs to be drunk again to remember.  That is

 8     state-dependent memory.

 9             Just have one slide dedicated to Uzamnica, and that is simply

10     this, that in the earlier statements before the Court, there are very

11     limited references to Milan Lukic supposedly entering the jail and doing

12     things that we would say he shouldn't be doing as a caretaker of anybody

13     in custody.  However, if you look at their subsequent statements and,

14     worse than that, the statements as the OTP is speaking to them, the

15     instances become greatly exaggerated, and so we need to explore why these

16     witnesses need to go from one or two times coming in to every day, and

17     that is about how much the stakes go up.

18             The Koric killing.  We don't have much on that, Your Honour.  We

19     have two witnesses, VG-035 and CW-2.  The issue with VG-035 is this, and

20     that was I think the problem with the OTP is that he had birth marks and

21     blue eyes.  That's who she identified as him.  She believed that the OTP

22     her showed a photospread with both Sredoje and Milan, but she identified

23     them in court.  There was no photo arrays given by the Prosecution, and

24     that she is a member and her statement was prepared by Bakira Hasecic in

25     her organisation, and that her statement was then sent to the ICTY.

Page 7200

 1     CW-002 also confirmed that the Milan Lukic she believed had blond hair,

 2     that's where we mixed that up.  Milan's brother lived with her husband,

 3     and changed her story about who shot Hajra Koric and dropped by

 4     Prosecution as a witness.  Also, her statement was prepared by Bakira's

 5     association.

 6             The Varda factory.  The OTP failed to establish beyond a

 7     reasonable doubt the ID of Milan Lukic.  Why?  Because they took all the

 8     witnesses that were so far away.  Again, the ID is based solely on the

 9     Passat and not about an actual identification of Milan Lukic.  They

10     failed to rebut beyond a reasonable doubt the alibi evidence.  They

11     failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the identity of the alleged

12     victims.  Why?  As we filed the bar table, two of those alleged victims

13     were reported dead on different days.  Two of the people are asking for

14     their property back.  This is an issue where the identity of these people

15     is still up in the air much less how, why, when, and where they passed

16     away.

17             Look at this place, Your Honour.  Look at the screen.  Look how

18     big this factory is.  This is a huge factory.  Now we have the multiple

19     drawings of the witnesses, and where are the witnesses that supposedly

20     identify in P190, a good distance away from the guard shack, either up on

21     the balcony of the house or in a chicken coop, all several hundred metres

22     away.  This takes me back home because I think of myself, and we always

23     have immigration raids around where I live, and when they go into the

24     factories they usually cordon off all the exits and then round up people

25     and take them and ship them off.  In the first statements of the witness

Page 7201

 1     presented by the Office of the Prosecutor, Milan Lukic went in there by

 2     himself.  He went into this complex and brought out seven named guys,

 3     took them out, and then one of the witness's statements actually

 4     separated them, walked all the way down to the river, shot three guys,

 5     come back up, get the other four who - God knows why they'd wait around -

 6     and take them back down and shoot them too.  Again, all from the vantage

 7     point of this 200-metres-away situation, all based on a supposed red

 8     Passat there and nothing else.

 9             VG-031, we were chastised by the Prosecution today saying that

10     I'd dropped the ball.  Your Honour, we filed our motion with regards to

11     VG-031 the 1st of December.  It was not ruled upon as permission to allow

12     us to call him until March 13th, nearly the end of trial, and the Court

13     did not order the Prosecution to give his contact information until

14     March 30th.  That was too late.  We believe that the statement stands on

15     its own, and from a perspective of reasonable doubt, Your Honour, it's

16     big because when you have a worker inside that can name two of the

17     victims as being with two other named recognised by-name Serbs, at a

18     distance, and then he gives the Prosecution three other names that say

19     they saw the same thing I did, at the very least it would start to make

20     sense to me that it would take more than one guy to cordon off a factory

21     that big.  But here's why I don't believe Milan Lukic has been proven to

22     be there.  It's because the same way the water cooler works, you mean to

23     tell me this guy VG-031 wouldn't have heard Milan Lukic is there?  It's

24     okay that he didn't see the thing by the river.  It's okay that he only

25     saw the two other guys.  But you sure would think that he would mention

Page 7202

 1     to investigators what he saw.

 2             These, again, are the death certificates that are the subject of

 3     our most recent bar table, with two of the members most notably

 4     Mr. Velagic who is reported to have died May 30th of 1992, not

 5     10 of June, 1992; and Mr. Memisevic is alleged to have died the

 6     9th of June, although we could argue that that's, yes, close enough, but

 7     one is way out of the way.

 8             Our expert, former deputy chief of police of Albuquerque,

 9     New Mexico Clifford Jenkins stated that:  Given the overall quality of

10     the Varda investigation, I would want my investigators to do more before

11     I brought it to the Prosecution.

12             Pionirska.  This is a big one because I think it brought the most

13     witnesses, probably the most notoriety.  We believe the Prosecution has

14     failed wholeheartedly.  The OTP failed to establish beyond a reasonable

15     doubt the ID of Milan Lukic as being involved.

16             They are asking for life based on the evidence and the strength

17     of the evidence that they're asking in this case.  They didn't even

18     establish beyond a reasonable doubt, Your Honour, the identity of the

19     actual victims.  Instead, they attempt to amend their list as we prove

20     people are alive, as we prove that witnesses lied about not seeing them.

21     They lied about seeing them at funerals.  They failed the correct, and

22     yet if you take a murderer case in its simplest, usually one person

23     killing one person, I'm sorry; if the body shows up alive, the case is

24     dismissed.

25             There's a notorious case in the United States where a gentleman

Page 7203

 1     dilled his wife and his in-laws and then tried to kill himself, but he

 2     set the house on fire and burned his victims alive.  Imagine if three of

 3     those supposed victims showed up in Mexico sometime later.  What would

 4     happen to the case even if we thought he killed one person?

 5             Pionirska Street is important.  This is just to demonstrate that.

 6             This is the power, if you will, of the Prosecution's case.  These

 7     beautiful people, these beautiful people that are unaccounted for but

 8     yet, wait, some of them are accounted for.  Some are living and had

 9     already left and yet were reported deceased by these witnesses, maybe

10     attempting to find justice for unindicted or silent alleged victims.

11             This is important.  This is from the Prosecution's PowerPoint of

12     their opening.  This shows the Hotel Visegrad of which -- where all these

13     bad guys were supposed to be staying, and it shows the way that the

14     Kurspahic family and others had come down from their home village and

15     then ended up in the Mahala neighbourhood.

16             This shows that the Prosecution has changed their story, and I

17     didn't have time to go back to the Vasiljevic exhibits that maybe led to

18     this, but as you can see, Your Honour, this diagram actually shows people

19     going through an opposite pathway to the Omeragic house.  It is not the

20     same as the witnesses later dictated.  As you can see, the yellow line

21     goes behind and between these Memic houses, and, in fact, in the most

22     recent testimony, the Memic house changes.

23             This, the Prosecution accuses us of misleading.  Look at this

24     exhibit that was in their final brief.  I don't know what these

25     headlights are.  I don't know where that came from.  I don't know.  It's

Page 7204

 1     uncited to the transcript, but if you look at the Exhibits that were

 2     there, if you look at P057 in the bottom right-hand corner to this, I

 3     recall specific testimony that there were some lights, ambient light from

 4     the houses all the way across the creek-bed where the people escaped to.

 5     But here is more important to this, Your Honour.  If you look down there,

 6     the shed to which VG-078 and VG-101 hid in, really?  One, I don't

 7     remember that evidence coming in anywhere, and then if you look at the

 8     P57, there's that shed at the top of the far side of the hill, which

 9     means these people while escaping got to go up the draw, through the

10     underbrush, which would make a lot of noise and a whole different thing

11     to go up to the other side.  I don't believe that was the evidence.  I

12     believe they are looking at this picture thinking, well, that looks like

13     it's in the bottom of the draw.  But clearly, you can say it's 50 feet

14     higher than the bottom.

15             This is it.  VG-115.  Supposedly she saved herself by saying, oh,

16     she could see smoke and fire from her vantage point on the balcony of

17     where we took the pictures.  Well, one, this is where it documents this

18     change where in fact that the lines drawn by all the witnesses don't go

19     around the back of that house or the front of the house, but more

20     importantly, this, Your Honour, if you look at one of those lines, one of

21     those lines is VG-115 saying Mitar Vasiljevic is on a white horse, riding

22     with a cast, yelling at these poor victims to get in the house.  VG-115

23     was shown to be not credible by the Trial Chamber and the Vasiljevic

24     Appeals Chamber based on her testimony before that case, and if you want

25     to take a white horse and a guy in a cast doing this, the town drunk,

Page 7205

 1     that is where it gets crazy.

 2             They brought up the issue that this was somehow some air fuel.

 3     Why?  Because one of the VG witnesses said that the carpet was so soaked

 4     with kerosene that now the theory becomes but the air just exploded and

 5     blew everybody up.  The problem is, as Mr. O'Donnell stated, an expert

 6     with explosives, is were there a enough of the fumes to do that, there

 7     wouldn't be any survivors.  There wouldn't have been people coming out of

 8     the windows.  This place would have been rocked, and there would have

 9     been no one crying or screaming or getting shot for an half an hour.

10             Important about Mr. O'Donnell, Your Honours, is simply this, and

11     it's a theory of the case that I believe is true:  If something happened

12     at Pionirska, I think that to call everyone mistaken or absolutely crazy

13     is not the way it happened.  I believe they couldn't ID Milan Lukic if

14     their life depended on it, and that's really the way it was.  They didn't

15     know him.  They didn't have the reasons, and their tendrils of

16     identification are so closely related to Mitar Vasiljevic who could not

17     have been there.  He broke his leg.  So everyone that said they saw Mitar

18     is lying.  Why?  Because they all knew Mitar.  It wasn't a issue of maybe

19     it's him.  They all knew him, drank with him, or saw him at the local

20     restaurant.

21             The important thing about my theory, though, is that for there to

22     be shrapnel in the wall from whatever was thrown in there to hurt these

23     good people, there cannot be 60 people packed in that tiny room because

24     then those 60 people would absorb and there would be no pathways to the

25     walls.  The only reason for that shrapnel to make it to the wall is if

Page 7206

 1     there was at least few enough that there is spacing to allow that.

 2             This room I believe if anything, if there was a fire, if there

 3     was a flash, if there was anything, it was a grenade.  It was some small

 4     improvised explosive device.  Did it catch someone's skirt on fire or

 5     something to give a witness that?  Maybe.  But if you went there and did

 6     a site visit, you would see a dank, mouldy, wet environment, and that

 7     flooring, if you soaked the floor-boards with it would be gone.  It would

 8     be burnt.

 9             All of our experts basically prove that regardless of what

10     happened 15, 16 years ago in that basement room of Pionirska, it was not

11     a fully involved room fire.  There's not the evidence.  So if you believe

12     in part the witnesses for the Prosecution, it is possible they are simply

13     mistaken.  Why?  They escaped.  But the biggest proof that goes towards

14     my theory, Your Honour, is that they heard voices and shots for that half

15     an hour.  I think we all can imagine if the fire was -- enveloped

16     everyone, you would not hear the screams.

17             Officer Jenkins stated simply that all of this evidence speaks

18     directly to whether or not the possibility the crime even occurred, and I

19     would argue, in the manner it's described.

20              I believe that this case is completely about rape.  I believe

21     that this case is about sons that did not come home on individual

22     arrests.  I believe this case is about someone that you believe did

23     something and you're willing to seek justice even if it's not the right

24     count.

25   (redacted)

Page 7207

 1   (redacted)

 2   (redacted)

 3   (redacted)

 4   (redacted)

 5   (redacted)

 6   (redacted)

 7   (redacted)

 8   (redacted)

 9   (redacted)

10   (redacted)

11   (redacted)

12   (redacted)

13   (redacted)

14   (redacted)

15   (redacted)

16   (redacted)

17   (redacted)

18   (redacted)

19   (redacted)

20   (redacted)

21   (redacted)

22             This is an interesting diagram.  We brought the picture of

23     Milan Lukic in this Passat, Your Honour.  We brought this picture because

24     we have nothing to fear from it because as the Prosecution would argue,

25     it makes their point; we argue it makes ours, which is, first, he was a

Page 7208

 1     police officer.  He's sitting there next to Vidoje Andric.  He's got his

 2     arm -- and there's nothing about this photograph that even says who drove

 3     that car there.  Clearly, I think we can assume they were both in it at

 4     some point in time.  But here is the issue with regards to the story that

 5     --

 6             THE INTERPRETER:  Please slow down for the interpreters.  The

 7     interpreters cannot follow anymore.  Please slow down.

 8             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You are being asked to slow down.

 9             MR. ALARID:  Three young teenagers were alleged to have been

10     kidnapped by Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic.  They were alleged to be

11     driven to the bridge.  They were -- two of them were alleged to be thrown

12     off and shot in the water in cold blood while two non-descript soldiers

13     sat in the back.  Former case manager Marie O'Leary took off a cartoon

14     clip art of three young boys that I had on there to illustrate how silly

15     the story is of four soldiers, all their armaments, and three 14-year-old

16     boys having to squeeze between the two in the back with a sniper barrel

17     in their face, yet the witness had no clear recollection of the entry and

18     exit to the vehicle.  That is important because if you go look at any

19     Passat, we were going to try to find one and squeeze a bunch of people

20     into it put it on video, but it's a ridiculous, ridiculous assumption

21     unless the witness accounts for such an uncomfortable situation.

22             And then for this witness to have witnessed two murders of his

23     friends and then be taken to the jail and then let go as if nothing had

24     happened, it's an illogical story meant simply to establish an alibi

25     rebuttal without a real logical tendril to reality.

Page 7209

 1             I apologise.  I correct.  My counsel -- I apologise that -- it

 2     was Varda I was thinking of.

 3             Hamdija Vilic.  The Prosecution brought him, the Court invited

 4     him to come and talk about the possibility of being bribed.  He says that

 5     the Milan Lukic Defence or persons related to him offered him 100.000

 6     Euros to testify.  What to testify to?  That he was fighting some unknown

 7     Serbs on a certain day; not that he saw Milan Lukic, not that he kissed

 8     Milan Lukic, not that he was with Milan Lukic, but that a fight happened.

 9     Just a fight.  We didn't need Hamdija Vilic to establish that.  We have a

10     dead commander documented by the repeater.  They've argued in their

11     submissions that, this road, look at it, it's a map, they show a map on

12     the road.  If you'd go there, Your Honour, this is a mountainous, heavily

13     forested area that could be -- you could put three guys on a hill-side

14     with guns, and no one's going to get past a stretch of road if they don't

15     feel like it.

16             This is the most convincing bit of evidence that Hamdija Vilic is

17     just wacky, crazy, or lying, and the Court was distracted when this bit

18     of evidence came in.  It was distracted because you had just received

19     some news on a filing, and this piece of evidence is important because if

20     you look at number one, that was Vlade who sat next to me for so long in

21     this courtroom.  Vlade was with Mr. Vilic for supposedly an hour, yet he

22     couldn't pick him out of a lineup that was prepared by the Prosecution.

23     Vlade supposedly offered him 100.000 Euros, and he couldn't pick him out,

24     but look at these green ones.  Hamdija Vilic said that number 3 was Milan

25     and number 8 was Sredoje.  These are Dutch criminals, so that's how good

Page 7210

 1     Hamdija is on remembering things.

 2             Bikavac, 27th of June, 1992, allegedly.  Again, the ID of

 3     Milan Lukic.  Well, we know VG-114 or Zehra Turjacanin came in here and

 4     couldn't identify anybody.  She looked around the room and said no.  Of

 5     the other people that supposedly identified him, they were in a proximity

 6     to the alleged location that they should be dead right now.  What no

 7     one's really accommodated for is why people in this neighbourhood would

 8     not be dead along with everyone else, and all you have to do is look at

 9     the aerial to show this.

10             This is a high-up aerial, but it doesn't do us justice.  Here we

11     go.  This is the one that's been the exhibit so many times with so many

12     different people.  In the corner of the road, if you look in the

13     upper-hand corner, that's the location of the Meho Aljic house, upper

14     left-hand corner, rather, and there's about 30 homes in that triangle,

15     and yet all these supposed survivors/witnesses had to have been in that

16     circle, and yet they're all here to talk about it.  More importantly,

17     they were all at the refugee camp with Ms. Turjacanin.  They all took

18     care of her.  They all spoke with her.  I believe they all came to love

19     her.

20             Zehra Turjacanin, the sole alleged survivor, 70 of her family

21     neighbours and Muslim friends were put into this house, yet she only

22     remembered 11 names, and of the 11 names only 3 of them had biographical

23     information associated with them in Visegrad according to Ewa Tabeau, out

24     of 70.  And yet, out of 70, where did they come from?  Were they bused

25     in?  If you had gone there, Your Honour, the streets are so narrow two

Page 7211

 1     Jugos can't pass each other without someone pulling into a driveway.

 2     That is a steep hill-side of which made the clutch smell just trying to

 3     get up the hill to Bikavac.  So they didn't bus them in.

 4             THE INTERPRETER:  Counsel, please slow down.

 5             MR. ALARID:  Did they walk them in like they stay in Pionirska?

 6     How?  She claimed to escape through a tiny -- go ahead.

 7             This is important, Your Honour.  She claims to have been burned

 8     in the home, yet she told soldiers and doctors that she was burned a

 9     different way.  The nature of her burns are consistent with the history

10     she reported to the doctors and the soldiers, which was:  I caught myself

11     on fire, my long flowing hair that was done down to my back.  I caught it

12     on a stove.  I had a fit.  She denies ever saying that, but guess what?

13     It's in the transcript.  It's in her earlier statement.  It's in video.

14     She told people she was burned in a household accident, and guess what,

15     Your Honour?  If you had long hair and it's on fire, what is going to

16     happen when you put it out?  Your hands are in the fire, and your sleeves

17     pulled down as you raise it up.  She only had burns from her eyebrows up

18     and only her forehead.  The scalp was protected.  Why?  By her hair.  It

19     was cut off in the video.  You see the pictures, and it's on her

20     ear-tips.  That is her hair on fire, Your Honour.  That's her hair, and

21     had she -- but she says in her statement she burned her arms on a door

22     that was so hot from the fire that it caused her to burn.  Well, one,

23     that kind of hot metal wouldn't cause burns on the back-side of your arm.

24     You need to be enveloped in the fire for that.  And if the door was that

25     enveloped in the fire, to get that hot, how could she escape through it?

Page 7212

 1     Another thing is --

 2             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Mr. Alarid, you have another five minutes.

 3             MR. ALARID:  Okay.  She was -- she supposedly was put in the

 4     house with 70 other people.

 5             THE INTERPRETER:  Could the counsel please slow down.

 6             MR. ALARID:  She gets in there.  If the window -- if the windows

 7     are all covered in furniture and the door is covered by a garage door,

 8     then how are they throwing rocks through the windows?  Then how do they

 9     shoot through the windows?  Then grenades come in through the windows,

10     then white powder that nobody has ever heard about or established as a

11     viable accelerant comes in, and all of a sudden, poof, everyone's

12     supposedly on fire?  It makes no sense, but the most telling thing to me

13     that Ms. Turjacanin is a hysterical witness is why police departments

14     withhold -- see, I mean -- they are telling me to slow down a bunch, Your

15     Honour, and that's why I had asked for more time.

16             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You may have another five minutes.  We'll stop

17     at quarter past.  That of course would be the end.

18             MR. ALARID:  So Ms. Turjacanin then supposedly escapes.  She

19     escapes out, and what happened?  Again, go ahead, next one.  This is

20     where Ms. Turjacanin denied telling others that she was in fact burned by

21     the gas cylinder despite being shown her own testimony.

22             This is important, Your Honour, because this is the original

23     opening statement for the Prosecution, and this is where they identified

24     the fire to be.  This is what Ms. Turjacanin identified as the similar if

25     not identical garage door as well as marking up that same photograph, but

Page 7213

 1     here is the important one.  This is -- that opening's 9 inches wide.

 2     That's a tight fit for anybody, especially in loose clothing, but look at

 3     that picture to the right, Your Honour.  One, the garage door is not high

 4     enough to block off your average patio door because it's too short.  It's

 5     5 foot, 4 inches tall.  But if you look at the site just a few years

 6     back, not a picture used by the Prosecution, there's actually a shed

 7     garage with a blue car parked on the site of Bikavac, and yet it's the

 8     house in front that's burnt out, and as far as we know that site could

 9     have been vacant there for many, many years, no history given.  Again,

10     the door is too short, the window is too small.

11             This is interesting.  One, these are Zehra's identifications of

12     where she passed.  Why this is important?  Because if you look on her

13     diagram, she goes by the same orchard where -- where?  VG-115 says she

14     was hiding, where Zehra says that the police or soldiers were also

15     hiding.  Again, I draw the geometric shape at the top to illustrate.  If

16     not from this area, where did the victims come from that Zehra describes?

17     And you have a young lady in shock with second and third degree burns

18     trying to go through the June undergrowth of Bosnia?  How could she do

19     this, run around all these homes to warn them away in that state?

20             You look at these competing diagrams as to where everyone put

21     Bikavac.  Well, the one big problem is is that these witnesses -- if

22     VG-035 is over here at the top right-hand corner, if she's that close,

23     why wasn't she rounded up and put there?  If you look down to, oops,

24     VG-58, VG-58 put the house on the wrong street completely.  Cliff, that's

25     his diagram at the bottom.  VG-115 is hanging out with the assailants.

Page 7214

 1     That's because, if you look at this, to accelerate a little bit, the

 2     orchard that Ms. VG-115 says she was at is also where Zehra Turjacanin

 3     describes she gets out of the door, she's burning up, and there are these

 4     soldiers that don't shoot her because they must be out of bullets.  Then

 5     they tell her, Stop, stop, and they don't come after her because maybe

 6     they are on drugs.  Why?  Because they all have Band-Aids on their arms,

 7     and then she wanders off and goes off on to the night.  Do you realise

 8     how silly that sounds.  One, I come from a neighbourhood where there's

 9     quite a few -- grew up where there was quite a few guys who would abuse

10     heroin.  I don't think any one of them used a Band-Aid when they would

11     put that on their arm if they were just all going to party; one, the

12     sequencing events makes no sense.  If Ms. Turjacanin is on fire and she

13     gets out, when did these guys have time to go start shooting up because

14     if they were, like, going to hang outside and watch it go down, but

15     they're going to start shooting up, then you put VG-115 in the picture,

16     well, she's right on top of them and either hanging out with them or

17     whatever.  The fact of the matter is, though, is it makes no sense that a

18     bunch of soldiers that are otherwise willing to put you and kill you

19     wouldn't just club you or catch you or something in the state that

20     Ms. Turjacanin claims to have gotten out and walked right by them.

21             This is a big one.  Zehra Turjacanin's brother and the statements

22     by her brother directly dispute her rendition in two major points --

23     three major points, one of which is Milan Lukic was an associate of her

24     brother's and:  I met him through him.  In his statement specifically, he

25     states:  I never -- or my sister never met Milan Lukic through me.  Why

Page 7215

 1     would he do that unless it was a big deal?

 2             Secondly, Milan Lukic supposedly -- excuse me.  Her brother

 3     supposedly was walled up in a home, and it was Zehra's warnings that got

 4     him broken out.  In his statement, he states:  I was out of there before

 5     the 27th.  Therefore, he wasn't even there.  And more importantly, Your

 6     Honour, is he makes no reference in his statements to have even heard his

 7     sister's story, because if he supposedly carried her to Medjedja for four

 8     days, I would think that Ms. Turjacanin would tell her brother what

 9     happened to her, and he would be willing to tell it to authorities and

10     investigators, but he did not.

11             More importantly, Your Honour, Ms. Turjacanin is fabricating

12     because she was so adamant about Mitar Vasiljevic being there, so much so

13     she wept when she was notified that Mitar was arrested.  She identified

14     him readily at a photo array, of course indicating that she knew who he

15     was not but not necessarily that he killed anybody, and she never thought

16     he'd have an alibi that he was in a hospital with a broken leg at the

17     time.

18             I believe Ms. Turjacanin is a true victim.  I believe worse in

19     certain ways may have happened to her than even the allegations as they

20     stand.  I think she should be evaluated and treated because she is a true

21     victim.  I believe she is simply fabricating the allegations.  And as Mr.

22     Jenkins stated, the fires may not have even happened.

23             Again, this illustration goes to show that we have presented

24     copious amounts of unrebutted alibi evidence.

25             This is just to sort of poke fun, if you will, a little bit, but

Page 7216

 1     it's very serious, is that the OTP is changing their theory.  They first

 2     stated he was the White Eagle commander.  Now it's just the Lukic gang.

 3     I would argue simply that he was a soldier, and at two months into the

 4     war he had no real authority whatsoever as a reserve police officer and

 5     soldier.  And this was the best evidence of the White Eagles.  There's

 6     that skull and cross-bones that, lo and behold, we brought witnesses that

 7     identified these guys as Stevo and Josip, the camp cooks.

 8             And, again, this goes to illustrate that the Prosecution is

 9     evolving their case to suit, really, the evidence we brought, because we

10     spent half this trial fighting to prove that Milan Lukic was a reserve

11     police officer deserving of whatever role that put him in.

12             We would argue, Your Honour, by this slide that the Prosecution

13     picks and chooses when they want to believe our witness or their witness

14     or when they don't because there have been certain times when they've

15     stated that their witness is not reliable but only when it helps the

16     Defence of Milan Lukic.

17             This is just to illustrate that every single witness that said

18     they saw Mitar Vasiljevic at Pionirska or Bikavac was lying, not mistaken

19     but lying, because he was so well known and so well identified in photo

20     arrays that there's no way to draw any other conclusion.

21             The Prosecution brought up the Koran.  The only people, there was

22     no complaints from a single witness of the OTP or for fear.  The only

23     people that complained about the Koran in the courtroom was Nerma Jelacic

24     [phoen] and Bakira Hasecic.  That's it.  That's where all the stink was

25     about.  Mr. Lukic got that Koran from a Muslim general.  He brought it

Page 7217

 1     for his own reasons to make a point but not to bring fear to anyone.

 2             JUDGE ROBINSON:  You have to start closing now, Mr. Alarid.

 3             MR. ALARID:  The last slide was of all the main leaders.  A

 4     couple of them are standing trial or getting ready to stand for here.

 5     They've already stood trial.  But they forgot.  See, Bakira Hasecic named

 6     one of that I would -- defended one that I would argue is one of the main

 7     people to be accused in Visegrad:  Brano Savovic.  Why?  Because she knew

 8     him.  She knew him from before the war.  She used to work with him.  So

 9     we have no information that he, Savovic, has blood on his hands, but they

10     were there the whole time and saw what was happening.

11             Now, why that's important, Your Honours, is if you look at

12     Visegrad as it stands, it's a very simple town to cut off.  There's one

13     road in from the forth, one road in from the south, there's -- all you

14     need is three or four check-points.  You mean to tell me Milan Lukic

15     could run rampant around this town under the authorities' noses unless he

16     wasn't either part of the establishment or under the direction of the

17     establishment?

18             These are all of the witnesses that are associated with the

19     Association of Women Victims of War.  These are all suspect because what

20     is the motive?  If you look at all the reports and all the news from this

21     case, Your Honour, Milan Lukic was more accused of rape than anything.

22     So what would be a reason to fabricate but attempting to get justice for

23     an unindicted crime, an unindicted allegation?  Why would people come and

24     say one thing when they simply want you to go down and it has nothing to

25     do with anything?  The Court is very well aware of people that have felt

Page 7218

 1     threatened by this association and that have been told that they would

 2     lose their pensions or that they should testify wrongfully or

 3     untruthfully against Milan Lukic for rape.  If that is the issue and if

 4     that is what is behind this case, all of the evidence of the OTP must be

 5     scrutinised accordingly.

 6             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Thank you, Mr. Alarid.  You've gone beyond the

 7     five minutes.

 8             MR. ALARID:  Thank you, Your Honour.

 9             JUDGE ROBINSON:  I don't know if you wish to finish with a

10     flourish.

11             MR. ALARID:  Well, Your Honour, I don't know how flourish that we

12     could have --

13             JUDGE ROBINSON:  [Microphone not activated].

14             MR. ALARID:  -- other than -- I think that the reality is is

15     there was a real interest in this case that's separate from the crimes

16     involved, and I believe that the Prosecution did not investigate the

17     crimes in advance to the degree of which they brought a credible case

18     before the Court.  I think that the evidence falls well short of a

19     conviction and that you should acquit Mr. Lukic on all counts.

20             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Thank you.

21             Mr. Groome.

22             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, could I ask that the last slide shown

23     with all the witnesses who had statements with the Association of Women

24     Victims of War be redacted.  Those are all -- or many of them are victims

25     of sexual crimes, and this would be a public reference to that fact, so

Page 7219

 1     could I ask that slide not -- be redacted from the public record.

 2             JUDGE ROBINSON:  Yes, they will be redacted.

 3             We'll adjourn and we resume tomorrow, 2.15.

 4                           --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.20 p.m.,

 5                           to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 20th of May,

 6                           2009, at 2.15 p.m.

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