Page 19511
1 Wednesday, 5 December 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.
5 [The witness entered court]
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic, before we start this morning, I wonder
7 if you could clarify something for me. Mr. Delic described himself as the
8 deputy speaker of the Assembly. In other connections we received
9 documents signed by him in which I have seen him described as deputy prime
10 minister. What is the correct description of the position of which he
11 holds?
12 MR. CEPIC: Your Honour, he is the deputy speaker of Serbian
13 Assembly.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much.
15 MR. CEPIC: Thank you.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Delic.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: The cross-examination by Mr. Hannis will now
19 continue.
20 Mr. Hannis.
21 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
22 WITNESS: BOZIDAR DELIC [Resumed]
23 [Witness answered through interpreter]
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Hannis: [Continued]
25 Q. Good morning, General. When we --
Page 19512
1 A. Good morning, Mr. Hannis.
2 Q. When we finished yesterday we had just been talking about the
3 process in 1998 when you described how you went to Pristina and met with
4 other VJ commanders and MUP commanders who were going to be involved in
5 operations or actions related to the five-phase plan for combatting
6 terrorism. I wanted to ask you about 1999, and I understand from your
7 prior testimony in Milosevic that it was different in 1999. Is it correct
8 that you did not go to Pristina in 1999 once the war started to get those
9 kinds of instructions or orders about combat task; is that correct?
10 A. Yes, that is correct. In 1999 we did not go to Pristina.
11 Q. And I take it that's partly because of the circumstances with the
12 war being on and it was difficult to travel, et cetera. So you received
13 those orders either via telegram or telephonically or by courier; is that
14 correct?
15 A. The orders came in either by courier or via the officers from the
16 corps command, who with respect to issues such as corps control, would
17 come into the brigade and some orders for other matters, short orders,
18 arrived in the form of a telegram but encoded.
19 Q. All right. Let me go back to the 1998 process that you described.
20 These meetings in Pristina, where were they held, which building?
21 A. I attended a meeting in the MUP building.
22 Q. I had the impression from what you had said before that you had
23 gone on more than one occasion. Is that not correct? I thought you had
24 previously testified that you went at the beginning of each phase in which
25 your units were going to be involved?
Page 19513
1 A. Yes, a total of two, at the most, three times, because my unit did
2 not take part in all the phases.
3 Q. And were all of those meetings, two or three, in the MUP building?
4 A. I'm sure that two of them were in the MUP building, but before I
5 didn't go directly to that building, or rather, before that I would go to
6 the corps command building to report to the commander there.
7 Q. But the meetings where the orders were passed out to you and your
8 VJ and MUP colleagues, those were in the MUP building?
9 A. Yes. I said that I was there at least twice.
10 Q. And at any of those meetings, was there anyone present who was not
11 either VJ or MUP? Were there any civilians present at any of those
12 meetings you attended in 1998?
13 A. No. There were just the members of the army, and I knew most of
14 them, and members of the MUP as well, and I knew just some of those
15 individuals but I didn't know the majority of them.
16 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now I want to turn for a moment to a different
17 topic and I'd like to go to Exhibit P1893. General, this is document that
18 you wrote that in English has been translated as being referred to as a
19 graduation thesis. I've got a hard copy I'll hand you here.
20 MR. HANNIS: Your Honours, I note that in e-court this entire
21 document has not been translated into English. There are three separate
22 English translations for different parts. The first one I want to bring
23 up is I think in e-court, it's the third one at the bottom of the list,
24 which relates to the cover page and the index or table of contents
25 section. If we can bring that one up first.
Page 19514
1 Q. General, you recognise that, I'm sure? Can you tell us yes if you
2 do?
3 A. Yes. This is my graduation thesis, but I cannot see the purpose
4 of discussing it here because it was discussed in 1997 when I discussed
5 the graduation thesis and it was debated at a competent level when I was
6 there to defend it. So I don't see the reason for bringing it up, but I
7 am ready to acknowledge that it is indeed my graduation thesis.
8 Q. Well, I don't want you to worry about that. We're not going to
9 test you or anything. I'm just inquiring -- I just want to inquire about
10 some of the information contained therein, but can you give us a little
11 background, first of all, about the School of National Defence, can you
12 explain what that is and what was your purpose in attending in 1997. Can
13 you give us a little brief background about that.
14 A. The School of National Defence in the Republic of Yugoslavia was
15 the same in any other country. Every state and army has a top-level
16 school, so that the School of National Defence in my country at that time
17 was the highest military school, and it provided a level of education
18 which was equated to a doctor of science level. And officers attended
19 that school who otherwise occupied the most important positions in the
20 army, top-level posts, first of all with command responsibilities and
21 those people who, if I can put it this way, who led the cadres service
22 were seen as candidates for the top-most posts later on in the army.
23 Q. And how long is the programme? Is it a year? Six months?
24 A. When I attended, the school lasted for one year.
25 Q. And who selects the candidates?
Page 19515
1 A. Well, the superior commanders. In my case it was probably the
2 corps commander. He put names forward to the army commander, and then the
3 army commander to the Chief of the General Staff. But before that,
4 certain conditions had to be met, candidates had to have had certain
5 conditions met in previous schools in the military academy. You had to
6 have a level of marks, an average mark, which was to be 800, so a mark of
7 8. And also during your service you had to gain high qualifications,
8 particular distinctions, and at least as regards the last marks that you
9 received. And then the candidate would write a request to be accepted and
10 then there was an entrance exam that we had to go to Belgrade to sit for,
11 and then those who passed the entrance exam would -- well, later on the
12 corps commander and the commander at the level of the army gave their
13 views on the entrance exam, and the staff of the -- expert staff of the
14 General Staff would meet. And when the list of all the candidates was
15 received, they would discuss which candidates they would send on for
16 further training and education to the school. This also depended on the
17 needs and requirements of the army itself, because there was a set number
18 of candidates from the different branches and services. I was in the
19 infantry, for example, and I think in my generation you could just have
20 five candidates from the infantry. And then from the artillery there was
21 a certain number of candidates to be put forward, then from the armoured
22 and mechanised units another number, and as far as the services is
23 concerned there was just one candidates, for example, from the
24 quartermaster service, and also from some of the other services every
25 second or third generation would put forward just one candidate. So care
Page 19516
1 was taken, great attention was paid, to seeing that all the branches and
2 services were represented adequately, and this corresponded to the
3 commanding officers and the officers in the services and the army in
4 general.
5 Now, after the General Staff collegium reached its decision, the
6 candidates were informed if they had passed or not, and that's how I was
7 informed that I had been accepted and that I should report on the 2nd of
8 September, 1996, to start my schooling there.
9 Q. My impression from what you said and what I read led me to believe
10 that this is rather special, this is an honour, there aren't that many
11 positions, it's highly competitive. Is that correct, my impression?
12 A. Yes, it is highly competitive, entrance to the school.
13 Q. How many were in the class?
14 A. In my generation, there were 42.
15 Q. Okay. And your thesis is the subject is translated into English
16 as: "The Preparations and Engagement of the Federal Republic of
17 Yugoslavia Defence Forces to Prevent and Quell the Armed Rebellion in
18 Kosovo and Metohija."
19 How was your thesis chosen? Did you do that on your own or in
20 consultation or was it assigned to you? How was that accomplished?
21 A. At the school several topics were offered up, or rather, between
22 50 and 60 subjects, and one of those subjects was this one here; and I
23 chose this subject because I had already done service in Kosovo and
24 Metohija. And at the time there was just one other candidate from Kosovo
25 and Metohija, from the units from Kosovo and Metohija, who was attending
Page 19517
1 the school. So I selected this particular topic.
2 Q. And --
3 A. I asked the teaching counsel to approve my choice, to allow me to
4 do the subject, and as you can see in my graduation thesis the teaching
5 counsel approved it and the thesis -- approved the thesis according to
6 which I wrote my topic.
7 Q. All right. And upon completing your thesis, once you finished
8 writing it, what's the process? What happens next? Do you present it to
9 anyone?
10 A. While writing a graduation thesis, and as you can see here I had a
11 mentor, General Vukadinovic, a leader, and I would go to him for
12 professional assistance and he followed my work generally. He was a sort
13 of tutor. And as I'd finished each section, I would hand him the sections
14 to review and to give his views and make his suggestions. And at the
15 end - and this was already in 1997 - I defended my graduation thesis
16 sitting before a commission of teachers from the School of National
17 Defence.
18 Q. And at that sitting, how long does that take and what happens at
19 the end of that process? Do you pass or fail? What becomes of your
20 thesis?
21 JUDGE BONOMY: I hope there's a particular purpose to this,
22 Mr. Hannis, because it seems an awfully detailed exploration of something
23 which I think is probably consistent with common practice in many places
24 of study.
25 MR. HANNIS: Well, you're probably right, Your Honour. I may be
Page 19518
1 spending too much time on that. If I get the answer to this question,
2 then I'll move to some of the substance of the document.
3 Q. General, after the sitting can you tell us what happens to your
4 thesis? Is it published? Is it circulated?
5 A. After having defended my thesis - and this is before a commission
6 and the commission gives its assessment of the work, and my thesis got a
7 mark of 9, it was marked with a 9 - normally it is not published
8 afterwards; it's more for tuition purposes, for purposes of the school and
9 further teaching and viewing the degree of capacitation for each
10 candidate, how far each candidate was capable of writing a thesis like
11 that and presenting his views on a set subject. And it remains in the
12 school library, that's where it stays. It's not made public or published.
13 Q. The commission that you sat before, who was on that?
14 A. The president of the commission was Colonel Petrovic. He was
15 otherwise the chief of the chair or department for operatics in the School
16 of National Defence --
17 Q. Anyone else?
18 A. -- or operations. There were two other members here, I can't
19 remember who they were, they were also from the School of National
20 Defence, and my tutor was there too, and there was General Vukadinovic.
21 Q. Next I'd like to go to the first part of the English translation.
22 And, General, in your hard copy it will be -- it's page number 8,
23 it's section 1.2 about the demographic structure of Kosovo.
24 MR. HANNIS: In e-court the B/C/S page is page 19.
25 Q. And, General, could you read the first two lines of that
Page 19519
1 paragraph. I want to be sure the translation I have is accurate, and then
2 I have a question for you about that, the first two sentences, please.
3 A. "In Kosovo and Metohija, the mother country of the Serbian people,
4 the ethnic space of Serbs was continually reduced in the past centuries by
5 the systematic advance of the Albanians from the neighbouring Albania and
6 the expulsion of the Serbian population."
7 Q. And one more.
8 A. "In past decades, the process culminated in a phenomenon unique in
9 Europe, whose goal is through biological expansion and biological
10 demographic based on a high birth rate among the Siptars to expel the
11 population -- the Serb peoples."
12 JUDGE BONOMY: You'll need to read that again. There seems to be
13 a problem with translation. Could you read that second sentence again:
14 "In the past decade ..."
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "In past decades the process
16 culminated in a phenomenon unique in Europe, whose goal is to expel the
17 remaining Serbian population through biological (demographic) expansion
18 based on a high birth-rate among Siptars who would thus take over the
19 ancient Serb lands."
20 MR. HANNIS:
21 Q. General, what was your source of information for claiming that it
22 was the goal to expel the remaining Serbian population from Kosovo by this
23 high birth-rate among the Siptars? What did you base that on?
24 A. Well, if you looked at the end of my graduation thesis, there are
25 a hundred sources quoted there that I used in writing my thesis, and I
Page 19520
1 think you should know that I myself was born in Kosovo and Metohija, that
2 I lived there. I lived there until I graduated from secondary school. So
3 everything I wrote there and read out is nothing knew. It's something
4 that everybody knew about if they knew about the history of the Balkans,
5 and especially the history of Yugoslavia and the history of the Serb
6 people. As far as I can see, you -- oh, yes, there is the population,
7 number of inhabitants. You see here that it says, or rather, it says 60
8 sources are mentioned here, the ones that I used in writing this book, or
9 rather, this graduation thesis.
10 Q. Yes, I saw that list at the end of your thesis, but can you tell
11 me which of those specifically you relied on for this claim that the high
12 birth-rate among the Siptars had the goal of expelling the remaining Serb
13 population from Kosovo. Isn't it possible that they just liked to have a
14 lot of children and there was no nefarious goal of expelling their
15 neighbours?
16 A. Well, in Albania, that's where their compatriots live, that is to
17 say the Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija have their compatriots in
18 Albania, and there, in Albania, the birth-rate is far lower. And I lived
19 in Kosovo and Metohija myself, and I personally experienced the fact that
20 in my village, which used to be a purely Serb village at one time, people
21 suffered a lot of unpleasantness and had to leave. They had to leave the
22 territory, to sell up their land, or even to leave their land behind, and
23 to move out and go to Serbia. So that is a fact. It's a fact that is so
24 well-known and so present in our lives that I see no real need to explain
25 it further. It is true that they have a very high birth-rate. Do you
Page 19521
1 want me to give you a specific example from my experience and in practice?
2 Q. No, let me --
3 A. If need be, I'll tell you.
4 Q. Let me move on. I have another question to follow-up, it's page 3
5 of the English, and, General, I think it would be one, two, three pages on
6 for you. It's underneath the chart about the demographic structure --
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Just one moment, Mr. Hannis.
8 Mr. Cepic.
9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your permission, in
10 the e-court system it would appear that not one single page has been
11 translated, but now Mr. Hannis has informed us that he has selected the
12 translations, but unfortunately on our system of e-court we can't find the
13 translations of the portions that Mr. Hannis is quoting. Thank you.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: You mean the English is not available to you?
15 MR. CEPIC: Exactly, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: It's on my screen, why should that be --
17 MR. CEPIC: In the system we just have in B/C/S. We have on our
18 middle screens, but in the system we haven't got any translated page, and
19 also the problem is we have -- my learned friend mentioned that he just
20 partially translated this document, but actually our request would be for
21 the whole document, translation for the whole document.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Why would you make that request?
23 MR. CEPIC: This is one document, and if we just struggle pieces
24 from that document we will lose the gist of the document.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: You know that our general policy towards documents
Page 19522
1 resembling books - and this is like a book - is to expect translation only
2 of the relevant parts. There's nothing to stop you if you feel it would
3 help us inviting us to look at other parts and arranging for them to be
4 translated if you've been taken unawares by this. But this document's in
5 the unusual -- well, not necessarily unusual position, it's in the fairly
6 common position in this trial that it's all in B/C/S, so therefore the
7 language presents no problem to you or any of the accused, and you would
8 have to spot for us problems we will have if we don't have English more
9 than the particular parts which have been translated.
10 So that's a matter for you to reflect on and suggest how it ought
11 to be dealt with if there's a specific issue. So far as making available
12 to you the English translation at the moment, Mr. Haider can tell me
13 whether there is a problem.
14 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
15 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: You still don't have the English pages? There is
17 no reason, I'm told, why you should not have them available to you on the
18 screen.
19 MR. CEPIC: I do have on my screen, middle screen, but in the
20 system, e-court system, there is no translation in English, just the
21 document in B/C/S. That is the technical issue.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: How then does it get on the screen if it's not in
23 the system?
24 MR. CEPIC: As I see on the monitor of my assistant, I see just
25 B/C/S document.
Page 19523
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we shall --
2 MR. CEPIC: We will discuss it during the break.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: You can discuss it with Mr. Hannis and work out a
4 solution.
5 We will continue since you do have it on your screen in English.
6 Please continue, Mr. Hannis.
7 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
8 Q. General, the paragraph under the chart near the middle, after the
9 reference to 1968, let me read this sentence and ask you a question. It's
10 translated as:
11 "Furthermore, in the entire post-war period, there was the planned
12 policy of high birth-rate among Siptars in Kosovo and Metohija, motivated
13 primarily by national interests."
14 Can you tell me specifically who or what was your source for this
15 statement that there was a planned policy of a high birth-rate among the
16 Siptars? Isn't that just an assumption that you've made from the fact
17 that there was a high birth-rate?
18 A. Well, if you were to read this right from the start, if you were
19 to read the whole passage, what it says there right beneath the table, you
20 would see what my sources were. One of the sources for the first part was
21 the book: "Kosovo: Counter-Revolution that is going on." Another source
22 I used for this data here is: The ethnic composition of Kosovo and Serbia
23 in the -- in Yugoslavia, issued by a publishing house in 1993. So you
24 would see these were not just my claims, but by writing them down here I
25 accept them as my own. Because the policy towards the Siptar population,
Page 19524
1 it was a special policy in the Socialist Federative Republic of
2 Yugoslavia, and this policy did not apply to any other ethnic minority.
3 You have to be aware of the fact that after the Second World War the
4 communists prohibited the Serbs from returning to Kosovo and Metohija, the
5 return of those Serbs who had fled Kosovo in the Second World War because
6 of the terror of the Kosovo fascists, because those fascists held the
7 territory of Kosovo and Metohija together with the German and the Italian
8 fascists, and they expelled the majority of the Serbian population --
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Let me stop you, Mr. Delic.
10 Mr. Hannis, unless you think this is helpful to the case and you
11 want to hear all this, then I would prefer to have the matter dealt with
12 differently. But if you want Mr. Delic to continue with these very, very
13 long answers, exhausting the limited time you have when they don't seem to
14 be leading anywhere, then that's a matter for you. The simple question
15 here is: Where did he get the idea that there was a plan. Now, he's
16 given us sources but they're no use to us. We want to know what is the
17 basis in the sources for that plan, and I imagine that's what you want to
18 know as well. So can we concentrate on what really matters here.
19 MR. HANNIS: That was my next question, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I would just like to interrupt, sorry, to make
21 mention of certain historical opinions coming from men like Huntington
22 who wrote this book, "The Clash of Civilization" and so on. These are
23 different opinions that the growth of population is because for one reason
24 or the other and also for the movements of civilizations and populations.
25 So I think we are quite aware of various theories coming from political
Page 19525
1 scientists and experts and writers, and we appreciate those facts I think.
2 And I don't think his thesis really pertained to mainly those reasons.
3 These were really to prepare for containing the terrorism in Metohija.
4 Thank you.
5 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
6 Part of my reason for pursuing this, Your Honour, has to do with
7 arguing of bias and credibility of this witness as well.
8 Q. I do want to follow-up a question on that, though. You do list as
9 one of your sources for this section Vukasin Cerovic the book "Kosovo
10 Counter-revolution in Progress." Is there anything in his book that
11 points to an existence of a plan? Was there some document reflecting a
12 meeting where this was discussed and agreed on? Is there some
13 pronouncement by some member of the Kosovo Albanian leadership that this
14 was a planned policy?
15 A. Well, it appears rather ridiculous to me for somebody to make a
16 plan to make more children. I support the argument that I presented in
17 this thesis, is that there was a design, a policy that was implemented by
18 stimulating more children, having more children, through child benefits
19 that were given to employees, and it was a well-known fact that every
20 child, every family that had more than nine children, the president would
21 be the godfather of the ninth child, and that of course entailed certain
22 privileges.
23 Q. The president of what would be the godfather of the ninth child?
24 A. Well, we all know who was the eternal president until the moment
25 he died, Josip Broz Tito.
Page 19526
1 Q. All right. Let's move on to another section of your thesis, and
2 this would be in the English part 2. And, General, it's page -- starting
3 at page 72 in the hard copy, B/C/S in e-court is page 88. This talks
4 about plans and preparations for prevention and elimination of a state of
5 emergency. General, what were your sources for writing this section? Did
6 you have access to secret military documents or plans?
7 A. Well, this is a thesis, and right at the beginning it is stated
8 that nothing of the documents that are relevant and current can be used;
9 and this was not the subject of this thesis. If you were to look at the
10 bottom of the page, it says there that Bosko Todorovic and Dusan Ilic
11 wrote dissertation on emergency situation, and this book was published in
12 Belgrade in 1989, it discusses the issue of plans. And as you can see
13 here, everything is coached in terms of in principle. There should be
14 plans at the level of the state, of the republics, of the provinces, of
15 the municipalities, of the districts, and in all state organs and
16 companies. I think this is something that is quite natural for every
17 state. Plans should be in place for the elimination of certain crisis
18 situations, disasters, natural or those that are a consequence of certain
19 social events.
20 Q. Thank you.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: I should have asked you this question earlier, but
22 I was slow to realize exactly what you were saying. Are you suggesting it
23 was the Yugoslav state at that time that was encouraging the growth of the
24 Albanian population?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, definitely.
Page 19527
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
2 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Yes, I have a question there as well that I'd
3 like to follow-up on.
4 Please tell me, the policy that was in place in relation to the
5 benefits for more children and the matter of every ninth child being the
6 godchild of your President Tito, was this confined to any particular
7 ethnic group or could all ethnic groups benefit?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was not confined to any
9 particular ethnic group.
10 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Thank you very much.
11 MR. HANNIS:
12 Q. And I need to follow-up on that. General, Judge Bonomy asked you
13 if that was the policy of the Yugoslav state. That may have been the
14 policy under Tito, but that was no longer the policy when Mr. Milosevic
15 became president, was it?
16 A. Yes, it was no longer the policy, but at that time it became quite
17 obvious that the number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, if you were to
18 look at the table, fell to 18 per cent, over -- in 1918 there were over 56
19 per cent, and when President Milosevic came into power as the president of
20 Serbia, this figure was down to 16 or 18 per cent, I'm not sure. The
21 problems that cropped up in the period that followed could not be dealt
22 with simply --
23 Q. Sorry, I need to stop there.
24 A. -- especially since the Socialist Federative Republic of
25 Yugoslavia went into a crisis.
Page 19528
1 Q. You answered my question. Let me take you to page number 89 in
2 your -- I think it's in your hard copy. It's page 105 of the B/C/S in
3 e-court, page 17 of the English. Yes. And, General, if you could read
4 the next-to-last paragraph for me because there's a question regarding the
5 translation in my English. Could you read the first two sentences for us.
6 A. "Furthermore, all the security organs and forces must be
7 acquainted with the fact that all the procedures and measures they take
8 are under direct surveillance of various quasi-humanitarian, democratic
9 organizations, human rights organizations, and the public media. All the
10 orders, statements, and actions, even if they're only formal in nature,
11 must be in the spirit of the international law of war and in accordance
12 with the -- and have to measure up with the criteria of the protection of
13 the human rights and liberties."
14 Q. All right. Thank you. The next section is defence forces --
15 number 8 is: Defence forces in Kosovo and Metohija available for the
16 suppression of the armed insurgency. And if we could go to page 1 -- it's
17 page 21 in the English.
18 It's page number 93 for you, I believe, General, and page 109 in
19 the B/C/S in e-court.
20 And at the very top of the page talking about the civil protection
21 and civil defence forces that are available. And in --
22 A. Which page did you say in the Serbian version?
23 Q. I believe it's page number 93, at the very bottom of the preceding
24 page I think it has the title: "Civil defence and civil protection." And
25 then here you list the forces available. Is it correct that in the end --
Page 19529
1 or in June 1997 or at the time you wrote this paper that the total number
2 of civil protection and civil defence forces in Kosovo was about 2.000
3 personnel?
4 A. I've already noted that this thesis was not done on the basis of
5 the actual data. I could not put in the data about the units, but as far
6 as I can see it says here 2.000 people. I don't know whether this was a
7 typo. Maybe it should be 2.000 people because it should be indicated here
8 the strength of the detachments in the versions 1 to 6. I think there is
9 a mistake here and it should read 20.000 people. In fact, if you look at
10 it, if you look at the bottom part, you will see that the first version
11 has 230 people; then the second one, 184; the third one, 185; fifth --
12 fourth, 100; the fifth, 72; and the sixth 50 people.
13 Q. And I would suggest to you the sixth variant talks about 21
14 detachments, and I understand from the footnote that that's 50 people per
15 detachment, which would come out to a total of 1.050. My rough math
16 indicates that those totals are about 2.000. You have very precise
17 numbers in the footnotes. Isn't that correct?
18 A. Yes -- well, I don't want to now start adding this up, you can do
19 that during the break, but it's probably not 20.000 as you say. It may be
20 about 3.000 people, that would be the total.
21 Q. I'm sorry, you must have got a mistranslation. I don't think I
22 ever said 20.000. 2.000. It's about 2.000, correct?
23 A. Yes. Only the sixth variant envisages more than 2.000, but there
24 are eight other detachments whose strength is different. I think that it
25 would be about 3.000 people.
Page 19530
1 Q. All right. And the next part of your thesis, section 8.4, talks
2 about the armed population, Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija
3 who have not been given their assignments have been issued light infantry
4 weapons with a single combat set of ammunition. Do you know when that
5 issuance of weapons had been made to the Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo,
6 approximately?
7 A. Well, probably in the late 1980s or maybe in the early 1990s,
8 1991. I don't know that for sure.
9 Q. And by whom? Who had issued those weapons? Was it the army? Was
10 it the Ministry of Defence? Who?
11 A. That was probably -- that probably had to do with the Ministry of
12 Defence, because later on these people were taken care of by the defence
13 department that was in charge of the civil defence and civilian
14 protection. Those weapons were those who had already been -- which had
15 already been decommissioned in the army.
16 Q. In the next paragraph you describe the particular kinds of
17 weapons, which include some light machine-guns. The following paragraph
18 you describe how they're organized, and measures had been taken to secure
19 the villages and towns inhabited by Serbs. And in the next paragraph you
20 say: "These forces numbered 16.000 armed people."
21 Correct?
22 A. This was what I knew, because I inquired about that primarily in
23 my own municipality and in other areas where I had people that I knew in
24 the army; and that's how I reached this figure of about 16.000.
25 Q. And in 1997, when you wrote this, you indicated that if necessary,
Page 19531
1 university students and third and fourth grade students in secondary
2 schools of Serb and Montenegrin background, if they could be counted on,
3 then the number would go even higher. My question is: You've made a
4 distinction between civil defence and civil protection forces in section
5 8.3 and the armed population in 8.4. So that's something separate and
6 distinction when you're considering the forces for defence in Kosovo and
7 Metohija, right, the armed non-Siptar population is a distinction and
8 separate group from civil protection and/or from civil defence?
9 A. One can get such an impression, but in the first part I talk about
10 the units of civilian protection and civil defence, while the armed
11 population had completely different tasks. They primarily were supposed
12 to defend their own inhabited areas, while the civil defence and civilian
13 protection units were tasked with protecting the civilian population in
14 case of any kinds of threats, that was the civilian protection, and the
15 civil defence were supposed to protect institutions, state organs,
16 facilities, roads, and other vital facilities that are vital for any local
17 self government.
18 Q. Could Kosovo Albanians be members of the civil defence or the
19 civil protection in Kosovo and Metohija?
20 A. Yes, and in Prizren, where I was serving, I was aware of those
21 facts. There were many Muslims in particular, and in the municipality of
22 Gora everybody was a member of the civilian protection and the civil
23 defence and they were all Muslims.
24 Q. Let's make a distinction here, though. You talk about the Gora or
25 the Gorani being Muslims, but those aren't the same ethnic group as the
Page 19532
1 Kosovo Albanians, right?
2 A. Yes. In Kosovo and Metohija there were four kinds of Muslims.
3 Albanians were both Muslim and Catholic; there were Turks, it was an
4 indigenous ethnic community that had come from Turkey and they retained
5 their links with Turkey; there were Serb-speaking Muslims; and there were
6 the Goranis. But in Prizren, in the civil defence and civilian protection
7 units, all ethnic groups were represented in addition to the ones that I
8 enumerated, there were also the Roma, Serbs, Montenegrins, absolutely all
9 of them.
10 Q. Okay.
11 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Just one moment, please.
12 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
13 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: The Serb-speaking Muslims, what ethnic group did
14 they belong to? I'm not quite certain. You mentioned Serb-speaking, what
15 does that mean precisely?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In earlier history during the
17 Ottoman Empire, the time of the Ottoman Empire those used to be Serbs of
18 Muslim faith, they used to be Serbs and then they converted to the Islam.
19 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Thank you very much.
20 MR. HANNIS:
21 Q. Okay, General, let's move to the -- I think it's your page number
22 115 in your hard copy.
23 MR. HANNIS: In the English in e-court it's page 43, and in the
24 B/C/S it's 132 in e-court.
25 Q. This is section 9.4 that I want to ask you about entitled:
Page 19533
1 "Involvement of the Serbian and Montenegrin population in the
2 suppression of the insurgency." And I'll tell you in the preceding
3 section, 9.3, you talk about how the civil defence and civil protection
4 will be used or should be used in the suppression of armed insurgency.
5 This section, paragraph 1, says that these forces can almost exclusively
6 be used to carry out defensive task. Near the bottom of your page I think
7 the first bullet point says: "They will protect the Serbian and
8 Montenegrin population, mostly the old and infirm, women and children, so
9 that the v/o," can you tell us what that means. Does that mean the men
10 subject to military service? What does that abbreviation stand for?
11 A. That means "vojni obveznici," men subject to military service or
12 military conscripts.
13 Q. So the armed Serbian and Montenegrin population will protect the
14 Serbian and Montenegrin population, so that the men subject to military
15 service in operational units won't have to be protecting their own
16 families, correct, that was one of their jobs or task, right?
17 A. Well, you almost always take things out of the context. In order
18 to get a full picture of what item 9.4 discusses, you have to read the
19 whole of it. It is true that in the first paragraph --
20 Q. I'm going on. I'm going to read the others -- at least a couple
21 of the others. The next one -- and I think you have to go to the next
22 page.
23 MR. HANNIS: And we have to go to the next page in e-court in
24 B/C/S, still on 43 of the English.
25 Q. Bullet point 2 says: "They will hold important areas and
Page 19534
1 territories and infrastructional facilities ..."
2 Number 3 is: "They will not allow the Siptar terrorists to gain
3 control of a compact territory ..."
4 And then after that third bullet point there's a new paragraph
5 which says: "Units composed of the armed Serbian and Montenegrin
6 population ... will be under the direct command of the competent military
7 territorial command or VJ unit in whose zone they were located."
8 How was that contemplated to work, whether they were going to be
9 under the VJ or the military territory command?
10 A. Well, as I've already said, this is what I thought, but you have
11 to read the next passage too.
12 "Efforts should always be made to have a military territorial
13 unit, a MUP unit, or an operational VJ unit in the territory being secured
14 by the armed Serbian and Montenegrin population."
15 Q. Okay. And there are a number of other tasks listed there.
16 MR. HANNIS: If we could go to the very bottom of that page in
17 B/C/S, and in English we have to go to page 44.
18 Q. General, at the bottom of your page number 116, does it not say:
19 "The armed Serbian and Montenegrin population will carry out these
20 tasks in close collaboration with the other defence forces, primarily with
21 the MUP and VJ units," right?
22 A. Yes. What is in issue about this? There should be close
23 cooperation with other defence forces in the first -- primarily with MUP
24 and army units.
25 Q. And the reason I've been asking you about this is we'll talk about
Page 19535
1 some of the Joint Command orders in 1999 a little later on today, but you
2 recall, don't you, that in those orders there is regularly a standard
3 phrase about the Pristina Corps with reinforced units and the armed
4 non-Siptar population will engage in certain tasks. Do you recall seeing
5 that or words to that effect in those Joint Command orders, making
6 reference to use of the non -- of the armed non-Siptar population?
7 A. I remember the orders, but I don't recall a single case when that
8 armed population actually got an assignment in any of the paragraphs. The
9 armed population never had any task, any assignment, to fulfil. Their
10 only task was to protect themselves.
11 Q. You do recall seeing that language in those orders, though, do you
12 not?
13 A. Well, maybe in one order that I held in my hands. I remember
14 there was some language to that effect, but I know that armed population
15 never received an assignment, a mission. All armed units received their
16 tasks, but the armed population does not because at the end of the day
17 they are linked through Ministry of Defence sections in municipalities to
18 the Ministry of Defence. And if they did receive any assignment, they
19 could only receive it down that line.
20 Q. Well, then let's go to the next page, it's page 45 of the English,
21 page 134 in e-court. It's page 117 --
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Just, again -- I'm sorry to interrupt again --
23 MR. HANNIS: No problem.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: -- but I thought we had just read that the armed
25 Serbs and Montenegrins would be under the competent military command,
Page 19536
1 either the military territorial detachment or VJ, and what Mr. Delic has
2 just said is that they would all be linked through the Ministry of
3 Defence. Now, that seems to be two inconsistent statements, Mr. Delic.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Mr. President, I said
5 at the outset that it's ridiculous for a Tribunal at this level to review
6 and discuss an academic thesis and compare it to the actual situation
7 because I was forbidden in doing this thesis to use real names of units or
8 any actual situation. All that I did through this dissertation, all the
9 models of armed insurgency I developed myself, and this has nothing to do
10 with reality. So to link what is written in my thesis with something that
11 happened in 1998 or 1999 is, in my opinion, very, very wrong.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: That would be one thing, Mr. Delic, but there's
13 also the question of our understanding of the terminology that's used in
14 orders, which I think may be assisted by the way in which you have used
15 similar terminology through your own experience in compiling this thesis.
16 So we don't say it's valueless, but we do note what you say about its
17 limitations.
18 Mr. Hannis.
19 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
20 Q. General, this next section, section 10, on your page 117 and in
21 e-court the B/C/S is page 134: "Exercise of command over the defence
22 forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo and Metohija in the
23 context of the armed insurgency." And I need to go to the second half of
24 the page and in quotation marks it says: "'The Yugoslav Army unifies all
25 the participants in the armed warfare and exercise command over all of the
Page 19537
1 defence forces in an area, zone, or territory where armed warfare is
2 conducted at all levels, strategic, operational, and tactical.'"
3 And there's a footnote to the: "Strategy of armed warfare, draft
4 Belgrade, 1995."
5 First of all, can you tell me what that footnoted item was, was
6 that a working document from the army? Was that another thesis from the
7 college? What was that?
8 A. The strategy of armed combat is one of the most important
9 documents. It's true that this is a draft strategy, but it's one of the
10 most important documents of the army.
11 Q. Well, can you tell us who the author of that was?
12 A. Well, such documents are usually authored by more than one person.
13 This was written by a group of authors. The greatest connoisseurs of
14 certain topics of expertise.
15 Q. Okay, in this case do you know was this authored by a group of
16 active-duty VJ high-ranking personnel or was it written by civilians or
17 who?
18 A. Well, this was written mainly by high-ranking officers with
19 Ph.D.s, more than one, depending on the area in which they were experts.
20 Q. Okay. And that proposition stated there in quotation marks is
21 really not inconsistent with the constitution and the provisions in the
22 Law on Defence and the Law on the Army, is it, that in armed warfare the
23 army is the one that is responsible overall for the defence of the
24 country; correct?
25 A. This paper could not have been written if it ran counter to the
Page 19538
1 law. Like any other document or rule of the army, it has primarily to be
2 consistent with the Law on Defence and the constitution.
3 Q. The next paragraph relates to something we just discussed a few
4 minutes ago. It says: "The issue of unified command of the VJ, civil
5 defence and civil protection units, and the armed Serbian and Montenegrin
6 populations has been resolved in a satisfactory manner, since the commands
7 of the VJ units liaise with these units through the organs (sectors and
8 departments) of the Ministry of Defence."
9 Is that correct? Is that how it was to work in 1997, everyone
10 understood that the army would be the overall commander for those units in
11 a state of armed warfare?
12 A. This paragraph that you read from the strategy is quite all right.
13 It envisages that the army should unify all participants in armed combat;
14 however, if you read on you will see which problems have to be dealt with
15 from the legal and legislative point of view. So you have to read the
16 next paragraph. I realized then that there is a problem with the armed
17 combat, namely, the problem of legislating the various roles and
18 responsibilities between various participants, including the Army of
19 Yugoslavia --
20 Q. Okay.
21 A. -- and the MUP. And it says:
22 "Despite the position of the armed warfare strategy and the
23 unified command system quoted above, it had not been implemented in
24 practice. Instead of a unified command of the two most important elements
25 of the defence forces, we have only organized collaboration in the
Page 19539
1 execution of their missions in the suppression of the armed insurgency."
2 If you take only one sentence out of this paragraph, then you
3 might be misled, but this is just my understanding, my thinking, my
4 reasoning --
5 Q. Okay --
6 A. -- based on certain rules.
7 Q. The next paragraph after the one I just read and above the one
8 that you just quoted from partially, said:
9 "The basic problem of the unified command as many in the context
10 of the armed insurgency in Kosovo and Metohija is the legal delineation of
11 competencies and responsibilities between the Serbian MUP forces and the
12 VJ units."
13 And that certainly is true, that was part of the problem in 1998
14 and 1999 before a state of war was declared, right, because there was a
15 lack of clarity and legal precision about what MUP could do and should do
16 and what the army could and should do in Kosovo during that time-period?
17 A. I don't agree with you. In peacetime, it's quite clear what the
18 MUP is doing and what the army is doing. The problem that arose in war
19 had to do with the resubordination, and it was only from that aspect that
20 you could interpret, read, what is written here. If resubordination had
21 really occurred, if this part of the strategy of armed warfare had been
22 honoured, at least with regard to the MUP -- but then as far as civil
23 protection and civil defence units are concerned, the relevant ministry
24 should have issued its own directive on resubordination.
25 Q. And in your thesis you make a proposal to address this problem, do
Page 19540
1 you not? You talk about creating a command and control organ between the
2 General Staff and the Pristina Corps command, right? We have a chart on
3 page 47 of the English, page 136 in e-court, and I think it's between
4 pages 118 and 119 of your hard copy. Can you explain to us, starting at
5 the point below the VJ General Staff, that next box and the arrow down to
6 Supreme Command [sic], can you explain what you put there and what your
7 proposal is?
8 A. My proposal was that from the General Staff a team should come to
9 the Pristina Corps, and that team would be the forward organ, the forward
10 command organ, under circumstances of armed insurgency. On the left you
11 should see that from the 3rd Army a team should also come to command
12 forces to suppress armed rebellion, and I also envisaged that another team
13 should come from the staff of the MUP of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija to
14 command MUP forces. And at the level of the Pristina Corps there would be
15 a unified command over all forces in the area of Kosovo and Metohija. And
16 from the command of the Pristina Corps, where all these teams would be
17 based, the General Staff team, the 3rd Army team, and the MUP team, from
18 that level command would be exercised over army units and MUP units.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, you used the expression an arrow
20 pointing down to Supreme Command. Where is that?
21 MR. HANNIS: If I did say "Supreme Command," I misspoke, Your
22 Honour. I meant Pristina Corps command. Do you see that?
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
24 MR. HANNIS: I apologise. I didn't realize I had said that.
25 Q. All right. And, General, I would suggest to you that during both
Page 19541
1 1998 and 1999 there was a body in existence to help deal with this problem
2 of coordinating MUP and VJ activities in dealing with the armed
3 insurgency, and that was the Joint Command. That's correct, isn't it?
4 A. That is certainly not correct.
5 Q. All right. Let's go on then, and I want to ask you about some of
6 the -- we'll leave your thesis behind, and I want to ask you about some of
7 the actions engaged in by your forces in 1998. Can we turn first of all
8 to Exhibit P2067, if we could have that up on the screen. This is a
9 document from you, signed and stamped. It's dated the 9th of March, 1999,
10 and the title is order for engagement of forces to smash and destroy the
11 Siptar terrorist forces in the general area of Jeskovo village sector.
12 Now, it's my understanding that this is an order that you issued based on
13 an order that you had received either that day or the day before from
14 General Lazarevic, correct?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And did that order originate initially from him or did that order
17 come to you after you had made a proposal to him?
18 A. All that was preceded by a report, and we have seen this report
19 during examination-in-chief. It had come from security forces, saying
20 that in villages of Jeskovo and Kabas terrorist forces were assembling,
21 and I had similar reports from my brigade. After that I received a
22 request from the corps command to propose a concept for executing that
23 task. I sent them my ideas in the form of a telegram, the commander
24 reviewed it, and then he wrote an order that was again sent by telegram.
25 After that order, I coordinated with the local MUP and the secretariat in
Page 19542
1 Prizren. I exchanged information about that location, and I coordinated
2 that activity as I was ordered to. I planned which forces of the army to
3 use, and the MUP people told me which MUP forces are available.
4 Q. Okay.
5 A. And we coordinated exactly on which routes, which axes MUP forces
6 would move, and --
7 Q. Let me stop you there and ask you a specific question about the
8 document, if I may. General, at the top on the upper left-hand corner we
9 see it's from the command of the 549th and it's dated the 9th of March,
10 but one thing that seems to be missing that we see in other documents of
11 this nature, there is no log-book number. Is that unusual or was that the
12 practice in your brigade or can you explain why there's no number in
13 connection with this order?
14 A. When orders are concerned, there may and may not be a number.
15 What's important is to indicate the unit, the day, and the location where
16 the order was written.
17 Q. Well, what decides whether there will be a number given to a
18 document like this or not? Is there not some uniform practice? We've
19 seen a lot of very detailed protocols and procedures in the VJ.
20 A. If we also look at the instructions on staff affairs, we will see
21 that a number may be given but at a level of a unit such as a brigade
22 because I'm sending this order only to my units. This order is registered
23 in my command, but that number where it says "command of the 549th
24 Brigade" and a certain number along with it, it's usually on the back side
25 of the order. Maybe if we scroll down to the end we will see it at the
Page 19543
1 end. Sometimes that is stamped below my signature, sometimes on the flip
2 side, but this order is written completely in conformity with the rules.
3 Q. Okay. Well, we'll look at the last page in a minute and see
4 what's there. I wanted to go to the next page in English, and it's -- I'm
5 looking for item 5.1. In the B/C/S I think it's on page 2 as well. And
6 this is where you are citing unit task, and item 5.1 is a task for --
7 well, can you read it out for us because there's some question about the
8 translation of what is in English as "CMS." Could you tell us what that
9 CMS-1/549 is?
10 A. A company of mixed composition. 1/549 brigade with a firing
11 squad -- firing platoon, from the company of 1/1 with your own forces
12 shall execute movement from the area of deployment along the axis --
13 Q. Let me stop you there. Tell me what these mixed composition
14 companies are. First of all, in general, what is a mixed composition
15 company? By the title of it I have an idea, but ...
16 A. Companies of mixed company were formed after the arrival of the
17 OSCE mission, and they were the units that were allowed to stay in the
18 border belt. In total, as far as I know, there were nine such units,
19 three of them outside the border belt and six within the border belt. As
20 for my brigade, we were allowed four mixed companies, and the reference
21 here is to that personnel. And they're called of mixed composition
22 because they have both infantry, armour, artillery, and the necessary
23 number -- or let me say a logistical unit, so they are independent.
24 Q. Can you tell us then at this time, in March 1999, the approximate
25 composition of this particular mixed composition company. Approximately
Page 19544
1 how many men and what was the combat equipment contained in this mixed
2 company?
3 A. Well, as for infantry, they had one motorised company that's
4 around 150 men; they had a tank platoon with complete personnel, that's up
5 to 15 men; they had a platoon of howitzers, 122-millimetres, with a
6 complete crew it's up to 15 people; they had communications team, 10 to 15
7 people -- sorry, seven to eight people; and they had logistics, up to 15
8 men.
9 Q. And what vehicles did they have? Was there a tank? Were there
10 any BOVs or APCs?
11 A. It seems my microphone is not on. Every company of mixed
12 composition had one tank platoon, that's three tanks.
13 Q. And how about any other vehicles for the motorised company? How
14 did they travel?
15 A. Each of these mixed-composition companies had a certain number of
16 ordinary vehicles, trucks for transporting men and materiel, and it
17 differed from one company to the other. They were not able to transport
18 all the people necessary in one go, but I can't give you figures. They
19 had perhaps up to ten vehicles, different types of vehicles. Each had a
20 water truck and a certain number of vehicles carrying ammunition. They
21 would have a vehicle with food and so on.
22 Q. Did they have any armoured vehicles? Did they have any BOVs or
23 APCs, Pragas, or are you talking about just ordinary trucks?
24 A. I've already said that the combat vehicles that each company had
25 would be three tanks, one tank platoon, and as far as I remember, although
Page 19545
1 you could see this -- well, perhaps one of these mixed-composition
2 companies had a Praga platoon. But since I had a total of just one
3 battery in the brigade, then they would come in only when absolutely
4 necessary. My unit did not have any APCs.
5 Q. Okay. Item number 5.3 there is -- could you tell us what that is.
6 The English translation is idc with a full banana over the c. Can you
7 tell us what that abbreviation stands for?
8 A. It's an establishment unit from the brigade, the sabotage and
9 reconnaissance company.
10 Q. Okay. Thank you. And item 5.4, what is that?
11 A. What they're talking about is the light artillery rocket division
12 of the PVO battalion.
13 Q. So did the brigade then have some anti-aircraft defence resources
14 of its own that you could command, that you didn't have to liaise with or
15 get permission or coordination with the air force?
16 A. Every unit, every combat unit, operative unit of a brigade rank
17 had within its composition a unit which was intended for anti-aircraft
18 combat. The motorised brigades had light artillery rocket artillery
19 battalions, the PVO, anti-aircraft defence, that had a number of batteries
20 in their composition. And they had a rocket battery, but these were
21 rocket-launchers of the 2-M type, Strela 2-M type, and cannon batteries,
22 the 20-millimetre guns.
23 Q. Thank you. And items 5.6 or 5.7, there are tasks for the 37th PJP
24 detachment and a task for the 5th, it looks like, PJP company of Prizren,
25 right? So it appears that you are giving tasks to the police in this
Page 19546
1 order; is that right?
2 A. Yes, you could do it that way, but it's not absolutely correct
3 because I never issued orders to any police unit. However, I was in the
4 police for coordination but not one of my commanders was. And each of my
5 commanders had to know what the assignment was, the assignment of these
6 two police units that took part in this particular assignment. And they
7 had to know it in detail, so as to avoid friendly fire. Now, if you were
8 to move on, you would see towards the end who this order was addressed to
9 and then you will see that it was not addressed to any of these MUP units
10 but just to my commanders. And when they receive this order, my
11 commanders would have to prepare their units and to issue their own
12 orders. And one of the basic things that they have to say to tell them is
13 who their neighbours are on the left and on the right, or rather, for
14 support unit who they are supporting.
15 Q. And, General, if we could move on to page 6 of the English and
16 it's item 10 of the B/C/S. I don't know if that's on the last page or the
17 next-to-the-last page. Yes, it's on the last page of the B/C/S. Here we
18 have a section about the command and communications, and we see that the
19 command composition includes yourself and then
20 Lieutenant-Colonel Konjikovac. Was he your deputy or Chief of Staff?
21 A. No, he was my chief of the operations organ. The Chief of Staff
22 during that time was along another axis. I'd just like to draw your
23 attention, Mr. Hannis, to something I said earlier on when you asked me
24 something at the beginning, and you see here it says the command of the
25 549th Brigade, it has the stamp, and it has the number at the end of the
Page 19547
1 Serbian version underneath my signature you'll find the stamp, where it
2 says how many copies and who was it was addressed to, who it was sent to.
3 Q. Okay.
4 A. So that's why you asked me at the beginning why it didn't have a
5 number, you can see here that it does have a number.
6 Q. Yeah, I'll going to come to that in a minute. Major Djokic was he
7 a MUP guy or was he a VJ?
8 A. No, Major Djokic was also a major from my command.
9 Q. Now, you showed me where there is a stamp and it had a number, so
10 is that the log-book number for this order, 1966-2?
11 A. Can you scroll down --
12 Q. I think we need to scroll down. Sorry, General.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And as I understand the numbering system, if there's a 1966-2,
15 there must have been a prior document that got the number 1966-1 that
16 would have referred to this same general topic. Am I correct about that?
17 A. 1966-1 under that number would be the order of the corps
18 commander, and it has its own number from the Pristina Corps. But when it
19 reaches my brigade, then a stamp is placed on it and the number 1 is
20 placed there. And what I write can have numbers 2, 3, 4, and onwards.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Remind --
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I assume that that's the case here.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Remind me when this action was undertaken.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This action was undertaken on the
25 11th of March.
Page 19548
1 JUDGE BONOMY: And what's the significance of the date 24th of May
2 in the stamp where the number is?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, that -- as I say, that's when
4 this order was recorded and logged in the brigade in the log-book.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
6 Mr. Hannis.
7 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
8 Q. Your last answer I understood then, the order you got from
9 General Lazarevic would have received a number in your brigade in your
10 log-book, and you think that's probably what got 1966-1?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. We see --
13 A. I assume that that was the case. When you receive from the
14 superior command an order which relates to a set situation, then it always
15 has the number 1 on it; and anything you receive from the brigade is given
16 the number 2, and if there are more than one document, then it can have
17 the numbers 2, 3, 4, and so on. That's the usual method, and I assume
18 that this was that case too, but as I didn't look at the actual log-book I
19 can't claim for sure.
20 Q. Okay. We see that under your signature there's a list of three
21 photocopies made and delivered to the mixed composition companies and to
22 the organ for operations and training. And then at the bottom it also
23 says: "Forces engaged from the barracks." Who would that be pertaining
24 to? I see in item 5.6 for the 37th PJP Detachment it talks about moving
25 from the barracks. Is that who you're referring to?
Page 19549
1 A. No. What is meant here is the reconnaissance company of the
2 military police and the LRD, the PVO, anti-aircraft defence, and maybe
3 some other unit, because -- I don't have that other page here, but it
4 relates to the barracks. We had the military LARD company, the
5 reconnaissance company, the light artillery rocket battalion,
6 anti-aircraft defence, perhaps one of the rear units, logistics, all those
7 forces.
8 Q. So I don't see in this list then for whom copies are made any
9 reference to the MUP. Did they not get a copy of this order?
10 A. Well, they did not get a copy and there was no need for them to
11 receive one because coordination with them had already taken place before
12 this order was written. Their commander issued tasks and assignments to
13 his own unit, so that in that respect I had no points in common or no
14 links with them on that score.
15 Q. So that earlier coordination had been done how, you meeting
16 face-to-face with one or more people from the MUP?
17 A. Well, usually the chief of the secretariat would do that. Here we
18 see two units, the commander of the 37th Detachment and the commander of
19 the 5th Company, where they specifically said which forces would be
20 deployed, their own forces and the forces they have at their disposal.
21 And then we divided up the line of blockade, which part of the line would
22 be held by the police forces and which part of the line would be held by
23 the army units.
24 Q. All right, General. Then I take it from that that you did have
25 some face-to-face meeting with the police to get that information and work
Page 19550
1 out those details, right?
2 A. Well, I've already told you that having received an order from my
3 commander, I then came into contact with the chief of the secretariat and
4 that he would set his -- have his commander and his komandir come in, and
5 that in his office we would define coordination for this particular
6 operation, and then I did what was necessary for my units.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, would this be an appropriate time?
9 JUDGE BONOMY: It would, Mr. Hannis.
10 Mr. Delic, we need to break again. If you would please leave the
11 courtroom with the usher, and we shall resume again at 11.15.
12 [The witness stands down]
13 --- Recess taken at 10.45 a.m.
14 --- On resuming at 11.16 a.m.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 [The witness takes the stand]
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, Mr. Hannis. Please continue.
18 MR. HANNIS: No problem.
19 Q. Next, General, I'd like to show you P1998. This exhibit, General,
20 is a sort of after-action report on the Jeskovo village action that was
21 taken on the 11th of March. You've seen this document before, haven't
22 you?
23 A. Yes, I have. It's my document.
24 Q. Now, on the date in English it's written down as 12 March 1999,
25 but on the B/C/S I can't tell, is that 12 or 22? It looks like there's
Page 19551
1 been a handwritten change or correction. Can you tell us anything about
2 that?
3 A. Since the action was conducted on the 11th of March, then most
4 probably the number there is 12, the 12th of March.
5 Q. Okay. And this, the first paragraph, says: "On March 11th
6 pursuant to the order of the 549th ..." And that's what we looked at
7 before is, P2067, "to provide support to the MUP and to the approval by
8 the Pristina Corps command," makes reference to their number 455-21 of 8
9 March, "the STS," Siptar terrorist forces, "were routed in the Jeskovo
10 village."
11 I want to ask you about a couple of matters in here. You know
12 that since March 1998 that there was concern in the international
13 community about what they viewed as the use of excessive force or
14 disproportionate force in anti-terrorist operations. You knew about that,
15 right, that there had been a UN resolution in March and another in
16 September leading up to the Holbrooke-Milosevic Agreement? You knew that
17 was a concern, didn't you?
18 A. You were referring to 1998, were you?
19 Q. Well, that's when it had begun by at least, in early 1998, and it
20 continued throughout 1998 and into 1999, didn't it? The internationals
21 were concerned about what they viewed or termed disproportionate force or
22 excessive force in anti-terrorist operations in Kosovo. Did you not know
23 about that?
24 A. I have to say that I don't agree with you. At the beginning of
25 1998, as far as the army units are concerned, all the army units were in
Page 19552
1 their peacetime locations, in barracks, and apart from the almost daily
2 incidents along the border there was nothing else right up to April, or
3 rather, the units did not leave the barracks at all. There were regular
4 activities going on. In the territory there were attacks from time to
5 time on MUP forces and civilians along the communication lines or roads.
6 Q. Is your quarrel with me that I said from early 1998 instead of
7 saying from March 1998; is that the problem?
8 A. The first anti-terrorist actions were launched at the end of July
9 1998, when these Siptar terrorist forces had already taken control of 50
10 per cent of the territory. Up until then, apart from the attacks on the
11 police and the attacks at the border, there were no, as you call them,
12 excessive or disproportionate use of force, there was none of that.
13 Q. You're not aware of the incident at the Jashari compound in March
14 1998?
15 A. Yes, I am aware of that incident.
16 Q. And you know that there was some complaint from the international
17 community that they viewed that as an excessive or disproportionate use of
18 force, right?
19 A. I was not there. I do know that the compound of the Jashari
20 family was not only in that year, but for years before that, a terrorist
21 stronghold. And I, of course, regret that on that occasion -- it was an
22 anti-terrorist operation launched by the MUP, and I regret that on that
23 occasion women and children were killed; however, I was not there and
24 don't know the details of what happened and how it happened.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Delic, it's important to listen to what's
Page 19553
1 actually being asked of you. The rights and wrongs of that incident, and
2 indeed any other, are not being explored in these questions. The question
3 relates to international concern about what was happening in Serbia. Now,
4 are you saying that you were not aware of United Nations resolutions in
5 1998 preceding the Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement that expressed concern
6 about the use of disproportionate force, whether they were well-founded or
7 inaccurate?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When Mr. Hannis used those
9 resolutions and referred to them and wants to ask me something here in
10 connection with them, I would certainly wish to have them in front of me
11 as a document so that I could state my opinions about them.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Delic, you're not listening, with all due
13 respect. You're being asked about your state of knowledge in 1998. Now,
14 can you say whether or not you knew there was international concern about
15 the alleged use of disproportionate force by Serb forces in Kosovo?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, that was in the
17 second half of the year, perhaps the month of September; but at the
18 beginning of the year I was not aware of that.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
20 MR. HANNIS:
21 Q. Well, General, in July of 1998 had not the Pristina Corps
22 commander, and I think you yourself, issued orders about not firing the
23 heavy weapons, the artillery if there were internationals or foreign
24 observers or foreign journalists in the area. There were such orders
25 issued in July of 1998 by the VJ, correct? Just yes or no.
Page 19554
1 A. Yes, such orders were issued; however, not in the sense in which
2 you would like to present them.
3 Q. Yes. I've heard answers from other witnesses, and the reason was
4 that they didn't want to harm any of those people, but I suggest to you
5 that an additional reason was because they knew the internationals had
6 criticised -- the army was aware that the internationals had criticised
7 the security forces for excessive and disproportionate force. And that
8 was another reason for the issuance of those orders, wasn't it?
9 A. As far as I'm concerned, when I wrote my order - and that is how I
10 understood the order from my commander - the prime goal was that people
11 from the international community who happened to be in those locations
12 would not suffer losses.
13 Q. Okay. Set aside the international concerns about disproportionate
14 or excessive force. Isn't it true that in March of 1998 there was at
15 least a local concern about the disproportionate or excessive use of force
16 in anti-terrorist operations among the civilian population in Kosovo? You
17 knew about that, didn't you?
18 A. You're not precise in asking your question. What local population
19 are you referring to? What local concerns?
20 Q. Okay. Let me show you an exhibit then. Can we look at 5D845.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: That must have been a translation problem because
22 the question was among the civilian population in Kosovo, which is a wider
23 description.
24 MR. HANNIS: I'll just continue on to the exhibit, Your Honour,
25 and maybe I can do it from there.
Page 19555
1 Q. General, this is a report from the 549th dated the 9th of March,
2 1998, and you'll see under item number 1 the second sentence says: "The
3 MUP forces in the territory of Drenica instilled a certain degree of fear
4 among the local Siptar population."
5 And that's a reference to the Jashari incident, incident it?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Can we go back now to Exhibit P1998. And, General, to remind you,
8 this is the Jeskovo action and it's your post-event report to the Pristina
9 Corps. And under item number 1, the second full paragraph, second
10 sentence said: "We estimate the strength of the Siptar terrorist forces
11 in this village was between 25 and 30 men."
12 And in the next paragraph you indicate there were no civilians in
13 the village. And in the following paragraph you say the Siptar terrorists
14 attempted to breakthrough along a certain axis. Given the fact that they
15 were encircled, this attempt to breakthrough failed.
16 And then on the next page in English and still on the same page
17 for you your estimate of terrorist losses was nine killed and no one was
18 captured. Item number 2 talks about the forces of the VJ engaged, and we
19 see there were seven -- about 611 army personnel and about 300 police
20 personnel. So 911 men, six tanks, four anti-aircraft guns, three armoured
21 vehicles, et cetera.
22 I would suggest to you that this is an example of excessive or
23 disproportionate force, is it not?
24 A. You're absolutely wrong, and you will admit that I am quite
25 familiar with these issues. When you say 900 personnel, it's not 900 men
Page 19556
1 fighting, taking part in the actual fighting. A whole sector needs to be
2 blocked. Blocking a sector means that you have to block several square
3 kilometres of the territory. So I would agree with you if we were talking
4 about 900 men fighting nine men, but only a small unit took part in the
5 fighting and all the other people blocked the territory, lest the
6 terrorists should be able to ex-filtrate from that territory. After all,
7 you have to know that military principles, not only in our army but in the
8 world, allow that if one is dealing with the terrorists that any force may
9 be legitimately used. And our anti-terrorist units were taught on the
10 best practices of the British SAS, the US seals, and the Israeli Musad.
11 Q. If we can go to the next page for you, and in the third paragraph
12 I think you'll see the amount of ammunition used, starting with 1.656,
13 7.62-millimetre bullets, and on up through the number of shells used in
14 the heavier weapons. Regardless of how many men there were, isn't that a
15 disproportionate amount of information -- of ammunition for nine Siptar
16 terrorists?
17 A. First of all, we assumed that there were 30 terrorists there, not
18 nine. If you read my order, right at the very beginning of the order it
19 says that in the previous days another 50 were expected to have come in
20 that area. So our estimates, our knowledge, was that there would be a
21 much larger number of people. When we're talking about terrorists, this
22 is definitely not excessive use of force, because if one is dealing with
23 terrorists in other countries you can use the -- you can use armed
24 helicopters, you can call in air force, and we never did that.
25 Q. Yes, General, I did note that you had estimated 30 --
Page 19557
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, if you are dealing with a terrorist or
2 combat force, there's surely a distinction between using overwhelming
3 force and the excessive use of force. I wonder if we are, in fact,
4 discussing each discussing the same topic.
5 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I'll move on to another exhibit. This
6 is in the same vein. I want to follow through on that and then I'll move
7 to another topic.
8 Q. General, I want to show you Exhibit P2072, 2072. This is another
9 order from you. This is to smash and destroy the Siptar terrorist forces
10 in the area of Kabas village, and we have in evidence Exhibit P2071, which
11 is the preceding order from the Pristina Corps number 455-34 of 16 March.
12 Again, this is similar to your previous order that we saw, and we see
13 again in items 5.8 and 5.9 a task for the police. And I want to note in
14 item number 10, which is page 7 of the English and it's probably the last
15 page of the B/C/S, you do have on this occasion MUP personnel listed as
16 being -- as part of the command, the commander of the 37th PJP Detachment
17 and the commander of the 5th Company. Do you recall, were they with you
18 on this occasion?
19 A. Yes, we were at the same location.
20 Q. And at this time your estimate was that there were about 60
21 terrorists located in the village that you were going to attack, correct?
22 A. Yes, that's what it says here in the first part.
23 Q. Exhibit P1999, could we have next, is the post-action analysis
24 prepared by you and sent to the Pristina Corps. It's dated the 18th of
25 March, 1999. You'll see in item 1 that during the operation you estimated
Page 19558
1 the strength was between 30 and 35 men, and in the following paragraph
2 again you note there were no civilians in Kabas. And on the following
3 page in the English, two paragraphs above item number 2, you said:
4 "During the operation the Siptar terrorists did not drop their
5 weapons or combat equipment until the last moment, when they changed into
6 civilian clothes and attempted to breakthrough on a particular axis where
7 they came across our unit in the blockade."
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, with -- by your leave,
10 on page 48, line 1, my colleague must have made a mistake and said "60
11 terrorists," whereas in the text it reads that there were 80, so just for
12 the sake of clarity. Thank you.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: The suggestion, Mr. Hannis, is that the P2072, the
14 earlier document, notes anticipated 60 -- sorry, 80 terrorists.
15 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I was reading from the third
16 paragraph where it says "about 60 terrorists are armed."
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we can check that later. Please continue.
18 MR. HANNIS: He's correct it does say 80 in the first paragraph,
19 in the third paragraph it says 60 of all those terrorists were armed.
20 Q. At the last moment, these guys fled but they ran into the
21 blockade. Your estimate of STS losses, 11 were killed, and again no one
22 was captured. It also says in that same portion that: "During combat
23 operations the inhabitants of Selograzde village, Grejkovce village, and
24 Korisa village were seen moving in the direction of Suva Reka and Prizren.
25 You were out there, weren't you. Can you tell us how many civilians were
Page 19559
1 leaving the area during this operation?
2 A. They did not leave, since the area of the village of Korisa is
3 outside of the blockade line and close by is a MUP check-point. The
4 population was not permitted to leave to some other area but they were
5 taken back to their village. As regards the village of Selograzde, it is
6 at the foot of a mountain and it was not within the blockade line. It
7 was, however, observed that the population in that village was getting
8 ready to leave, but since the police and army units were moving away, not
9 towards, that village, the population did not leave their territory. They
10 remained there. So afterwards all of them came back to their homes.
11 Q. In -- under item number 2, the fourth paragraph explains before
12 you set off to crush the Siptar terrorist forces you used civilian columns
13 to bring secretly some forces to Sevce village. Did you do that? You put
14 some of your forces in a civilian column and moved them to that location?
15 A. No, no, that's a mistake. Civilian trucks. Those were the forces
16 that had come from the other side of the mountain to block the village of
17 Kabas, because that village was up in the mountains perhaps at about 700
18 metres above sea level. The forces that were coming in were supposed to
19 move through an area that was at 2.000 metres and through very deep snow,
20 a metre-deep snow, in order to be able to block the village from the east.
21 Q. And these civilians were moving through that snow during this
22 operation?
23 A. Well, we're not talking about civilians here. These are soldiers,
24 my soldiers.
25 Q. No, no, but the earlier part of the report where you talked about
Page 19560
1 the civilians moving in the direction of Suva Reka and Prizren.
2 A. Well, there was little snow in that area and there was no snow on
3 the roads at all, and I have already said that the civilians from those
4 villages, the village of Korisa is on the road itself. The village of
5 Selograzde is closer to Suva Reka. When the fighting started, it was
6 observed that the population in those villages was milling about, but
7 nobody left that territory.
8 Q. The fact is, General, that both of these operations that we just
9 talked about in March, on March the 11th and this one on March the 17th,
10 these were not defensive activities by the VJ. These were offensive
11 actions initiated by you, and this was contrary to the provisions of the
12 October agreements, was it not?
13 A. Well, you should have read the previous reports. In both
14 locations attacks had already been launched from those sectors on my
15 forces, forces that were stationed at the village of Jeskovo in the
16 village of Zur in accordance with the agreement. If you read the
17 beginning of the order, you will see that an attack had been carried out
18 on the road and there was a direct attack on the forces that were there in
19 accordance with the agreement. So you cannot tolerate the terrorist
20 threat to the roads, their attacks on the units, without responding to
21 those attacks, without neutralising those forces.
22 Q. No, but this is not a direct response to an attack happening at
23 the moment; this is some days later, correct?
24 A. Well, that really means nothing. My commander received reports of
25 the attack --
Page 19561
1 Q. Well, it may mean nothing, but is that correct in terms of timing,
2 yes or no?
3 A. This is not an immediate response, an immediate response to an
4 attack that was at that time, happening at that time, but it is a response
5 to an attack that happened a few days before.
6 Q. And we heard evidence that in a VJ collegium session, I think on
7 the 18th of March, it was discussed -- General Dimitrijevic I think in
8 particular brought it up, they had a concern that they were being told
9 from below, from the 3rd Army and from below, that the actions taken in
10 Kosovo were defensive. And he had information that it was something
11 different, as I say, like we've seen here, that it's being initiated by
12 the VJ and not in direct response to an attack that's ongoing. Were you
13 aware of that? Did you hear about that?
14 A. The things that were happening at the collegium, that's not
15 something that I know of. I had no way of knowing that, but these were
16 fully legitimate actions, both the Jeskovo action and the Kabas action.
17 Q. Let me next ask you about one that takes place after -- after the
18 war started, after the NATO bombing began. This is Exhibit P2002. This
19 is a report of yours dated the 30th of March, 1999, signed and stamped --
20 A. Yes, yes.
21 Q. We don't have any number on this at the beginning or, General, I
22 would tell you, you can see in a minute on the last page it only has your
23 signature and stamp but there's no report number or log-book number. It
24 says: "Analysis of operations of the 549th to destroy Siptar terrorist
25 groups in the area of Malisevo and Pagarusa." It sets forth that in the
Page 19562
1 period of 30 March to 3 April, pursuant to an order by the commander of
2 the 549th and to an -- and an order by the Pristina Corps number 455-90 of
3 28 March --
4 MR. HANNIS: Which I advise the court is Exhibit P1969.
5 Q. -- The STS was destroyed in the general area. One question I have
6 here is: The date of this document is the 30th of March, but it says in
7 the period 30 March to 3 April these activities were carried out. Can you
8 explain how that is, that you're writing on the 30th of March about
9 activities going through the 3rd of April. Is that just a typographical
10 error in the upper left?
11 A. Well, it's obviously an error. I signed this document and it was
12 actually drafted by my operations officer. At the time when this activity
13 was going on, he was the commander of Combat Group 5 and he wrote this
14 later. So this is an error.
15 Q. And --
16 A. But I know, I am familiar with what is written here because I read
17 it before I signed it, but I did not notice this mistake at the time
18 because it was already April by that time.
19 Q. And who was your operations officer who drafted this, what was his
20 name?
21 A. That was Lieutenant-Colonel Stojan Konjikovac.
22 Q. While we're still on the first page I would ask you to read the
23 second paragraph under the big one in the middle. It said: "The
24 organization of the defence was partly characterized by the fact that the
25 refugee population from the general area of Retimlje was present in this
Page 19563
1 area, concentrated in the Banja village sector."
2 There were several thousand refugees in that area at the time,
3 correct?
4 A. Yes, and this activity is the continuation of the activity of the
5 25th, when it was determined that the Studencane, Dobrodeljane, Pagarusa
6 axis was used to move the population out from the previous zone. I was
7 there during the activity, I was present, and I saw that the population
8 was moving in one direction towards Belanica, from the villages of
9 Kravoserija and so on, Pagarusa, and from the villages that were closer to
10 where I was, the population moved on to the road that was used by the army
11 at that time for its own movement. I noticed the population myself; I
12 couldn't tell their number, but the civilian population was present there.
13 Q. A couple of paragraphs down it says the Siptar terrorists did not
14 abandon weapons and combat equipment during the battle until the decisive
15 moment, when they withdrew dressed in civilian clothes and tried to blend
16 in with the stream of fleeing civilians."
17 We're talking about thousands of civilians trying to leave the
18 area, correct?
19 A. The civilians were moving in two directions, as I already said,
20 towards Belanica and down the asphalt road leading to the village of
21 Ostrozub.
22 Q. And approximately how many, if you know? We are talking about
23 thousands, aren't we?
24 A. Well, I think further down in this document there is an estimate
25 as to the number of those people, but this part that was moving towards me
Page 19564
1 on the asphalt road, I think that was between Dragobilje and Moralija,
2 those two villages. Their number could be a few thousand. Now, as for
3 Belanica, there were more of them, but when we completed our part of this
4 activity, we did not move towards Belanica. I think that on the next page
5 you can see that.
6 Q. Yeah, we'll come to that in a minute. While we're still on this
7 page we see your estimated number of terrorist losses was around 70 dead,
8 and once again no prisoners were taken, right?
9 A. Yes, that's what it says here and that's how it was.
10 Q. And under item number 2 it lists the total forces engaged in these
11 operations --
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. I think about 820 from the -- from your sources, plus 180 from the
14 243rd plus about 1.020 from the MUP.
15 MR. HANNIS: If we could go to the next page in the B/C/S and at
16 page 3 of the English.
17 Q. You go in some detail what happened on the first day and what
18 happened on the second day, the third day, et cetera. And as I read these
19 I see a couple of entries that seemed to indicate that the army did enter
20 villages, and I thought you had told us before that your forces did not do
21 that. When you say that, do you mean nobody from the 549th and
22 subordinate units or do you mean nobody from the army at all entered
23 villages and then it was only MUP?
24 A. What villages are you talking about specifically?
25 Q. Well, where you're talking about the first day, second paragraph
Page 19565
1 in my English says: "Forces from the 15th armoured brigade," top of page
2 3 in English," ... seized Malisevo," and then they "continued to
3 breakthrough."
4 Battle Group 5 of the 549th Detachment and the 37th PJP
5 Detachment ... had complete seized Dobrodeljane village ... Battle Group
6 2 of the 243rd with some MUP from the 37th... completely seized
7 Semetiste village..."
8 Does that not mean that those forces were in those villages?
9 A. You can see here what you're talking about the 15th Armoured
10 Brigade and 243rd Brigade, those were my neighbouring units, and you can
11 see here that the MUP and the army forces on both axes were together and
12 that they entered those villages. If you want to continue on, you have to
13 pass through those villages. In the village of Dobrodeljane there is one
14 road leading through it and you cannot move towards Pagarusa any by other
15 way, you have to take that road.
16 Q. Well, I think in some of your earlier testimony you told us about
17 forces going around those villages, but this one says Battle Group 5 of
18 the 549th and the 37th completely seized the village. Are you telling us
19 they seized the village by passing through it?
20 A. I never said that the forces didn't enter the villages. When
21 there were MUP forces present, if there was any civilian population and if
22 anything needed to be done, if a village needed to be -- or if the
23 population needed to be controlled, that's what the MUP units did. But it
24 is quite natural that the army units moved through those villages together
25 with the MUP units, and the village of Dobrodeljane had already been
Page 19566
1 abandoned by the civilians and it was completely fortified for defence.
2 So the fighting for this village lasted several days.
3 Q. Okay. If you could go down to about the fourth paragraph from the
4 bottom on your page that's on the screen, General, it talks about during
5 the third day remaining areas were mopped up. And at the end it says:
6 "The forces of the 5th PJP Company and parts of the 15th Armoured
7 Brigade were joined in Belanica village, where they evacuated and cared
8 for some 30.000 refugees."
9 To where were these 30.000 refugees evacuated?
10 A. What is written here, I personal didn't reach Belanica and it
11 wasn't on my axis. From my axis, some of the civilians went towards
12 Belanica village. This was written by my operations officer. He must
13 have learned it from his contacts with other units. As for the
14 population, I believe one part went towards Suva Reka and another part
15 went via Malisevo towards Orahovac. Those were the two routes the
16 civilian population could take.
17 Q. All right. In that same portion about the events on the third
18 day, you mention the Glavica feature. What was that?
19 A. Could you tell me exactly which paragraph that -- oh, I see. It's
20 a feature, a hill, that was particularly well fortified and it prevented
21 this Battle Group 5 and the 37th Detachment from advancing further towards
22 Pagarusa village. It was a well-fortified hill.
23 Q. And the Spat feature, what was that?
24 A. Similarly, a hill surrounded by trenches from which terrorists put
25 up strong resistance.
Page 19567
1 Q. All right. It says that: "The 23rd PJP Detachment and Battle
2 Group 6 of the 549th reached the Glavica feature, which enabled Battle
3 Group 5 of 549th and forces of the 37th PJP Detachment to seize the Spat
4 feature and enter Pagarusa village, taking all streets of Pagarusa
5 village."
6 So isn't that an example of some of your forces entering a
7 village? Weren't elements of the Battle Group 5 of the 549th in Pagarusa
8 village?
9 A. Of course they were together with MUP units. This reference here
10 means -- because we don't have the map on which this is shown, that the
11 37th Detachment and Battle Group 5 were unable for several days to make a
12 step further until Battle Group 6 and another detachment arrived from
13 another axis, from behind, and acting from the rear and from the flank
14 they managed to force the terrorists to leave these features, and it was
15 only then that these forces were able to enter Pagarusa.
16 MR. HANNIS: Can we go to the last page of both the English and
17 the B/C/S.
18 Q. General, here we see your signature and your stamp. Where did
19 this specific document come from? It does not appear to have a VJ archive
20 stamp on it. We see no other stamp for your brigade or any delivery
21 stamp, anything like that. Can you tell us where this one specifically
22 came from? I understand that we got this when you testified in the
23 Milosevic case. Did you bring it from your personal collection?
24 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
Page 19568
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this is document from
3 the Prosecution's collection and I believe from the heading that it was
4 used in the Milosevic case as well.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, that's exactly what Mr. Hannis has said,
6 and he's looking for its original source and he thinks Mr. Delic may be
7 able to assist.
8 Please answer that, Mr. Delic.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Like with any other document, the
10 source is the archive; however, it doesn't bear the stamp of the archive.
11 This document must have been seized much earlier, when the military
12 archive was governed by completely different rules. I know when I was
13 preparing for a different testimony I was given the opportunity to go to
14 the military archive and to review for that occasion various documents,
15 and when I chose the documents I believed to be relevant I received them
16 without a stamp. Nowadays the situation is different. I went again
17 recently to the military archive, and nowadays each document bears two
18 stamps, one from the military archive and another stamp of the
19 government's commission, I believe, for cooperation with this Tribunal. I
20 know this for sure, it is my document, I signed it, I know what's in it, I
21 know who drafted it.
22 MR. HANNIS:
23 Q. Well, on some of the documents that we see, some of the documents
24 we have received have a stamp referring to the commission for cooperation
25 with The Hague Tribunal. There's no such stamp on this document. Can you
Page 19569
1 tell us when there was a change in the rules of the archive. You say this
2 must have been seized much earlier. When was there a change in process at
3 the archives, if you know.
4 A. I think it was sometime in 2004, and this last thing, since I went
5 to the archive again in July and August this year and I saw certain
6 documents that nowadays have two stamps on the front page, I was surprised
7 because in addition to the archive stamp they have the stamp of the
8 commission for cooperation. But I believe that is true of 2007. I don't
9 know about 2006. The documents that I wanted, that I needed, I received
10 in 2007, and they now have two stamps on the front page.
11 Q. Are you saying before 2004 documents would be kept at the archive
12 without having any VJ archive stamp on them?
13 A. Stamps do not preserve documents. I notice there are different
14 practices. If somebody requested a document and that document was found
15 in the archive and sent to a certain address, it certainly had a stamp.
16 But I simply don't know. I know about the documents that I received, that
17 they did not have a stamp. All I was required to do was to show up there
18 and produce a permit, an approval, to choose the documents, and ask for
19 copies. There are a certain number of documents with stamps and some
20 without.
21 Q. Whatever that practice may have been and is now, are you
22 comfortable and confident looking at this document that this is one that
23 was prepared and signed by you on or about that date in March 1999, late
24 March or early April 1999?
25 A. No, this certainly didn't happen in the end of March, it was
Page 19570
1 sometime in the first days of April, but it's certainly the document.
2 It's my signature here, plus I remember reading this document after the
3 operations officer drafted it.
4 Q. All right. Thank you. General, I want to move now for a while to
5 Joint Command. You spoke quite a bit about it during your testimony in
6 the Milosevic case. I want to try and confirm with you some of the
7 statements you made there, and I believe you told us in connection with
8 the Pristina Corps order number 455-115, for which we saw the envelope as
9 an exhibit and you explained that you received it in that envelope, I
10 guess delivered by a courier?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And in that envelope there was the order that said "Joint Command"
13 on it. That was one thing that was in the envelope, right? You'll have
14 to answer out loud.
15 A. Yes. That envelope contained the order, a section of a map, and I
16 believe something else related to artillery.
17 Q. Yes, I think you told us that --
18 A. Perhaps something else related to engineers.
19 Q. Yes, I think you told us that it had the order with Joint Command
20 written on it, it had the map, the section of the map for you, and then it
21 had one or two other documents for the engineering personnel and the
22 artillery personnel, right?
23 A. I believe concerning engineers there was yet another map showing
24 which roads were mined or perhaps an order for the engineers, something
25 for artillery, something for engineers; but as for personnel, if I said it
Page 19571
1 then, then there may have been an order like that too.
2 Q. As I recall, did you not tell us that those documents for
3 engineering and artillery did not have a reference to the Joint Command on
4 them?
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Could you repeat that question, Mr. Hannis. Part
6 of it was missed because of overlapping.
7 MR. HANNIS: I went too fast. Yes.
8 Q. General, I think you told us before that those documents for the
9 engineering and artillery personnel did not contain a reference to Joint
10 Command on them, right?
11 A. No, no. Joint Command was never written on those documents.
12 There was command of the Pristina Corps.
13 Q. Okay. And you told us that it was, if not the constant practice,
14 it was a regular occurrence that before you received a written order like
15 this with the Joint Command on it, that you would get a verbal order or
16 you would get a phone call from General Lazarevic that you were going to
17 be receiving an order, correct?
18 A. Normally it is my duty to talk to the commander every day;
19 however, when the war began it was no longer possible to talk to him every
20 day on the phone because the repeaters were destroyed and I talked to him
21 through other communications. I talked to him as often as possible. It
22 was the practice with General Pavkovic in 1998 and General Lazarevic in
23 1999, in the morning when I told them what was new in my unit and what the
24 problems were, they would tell me that I would receive an order before the
25 end of the day. Sometimes they would send me preparatory order by
Page 19572
1 telegram so that I could prepare for a certain activity. When I received
2 an envelope like that, I knew that some new activity was ahead.
3 Q. Thank you. With regard to 1998 and the five-stage plan for
4 combatting terrorism, in Milosevic you told us that it was your
5 understanding that Joint Command was intended for that plan. That was why
6 it existed in 1998. Do you recall saying that? I'm referring to page
7 number 41600, line 15.
8 MR. HANNIS: I see Mr. Cepic on his feet.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
10 MR. HANNIS: Maybe I answered his question.
11 MR. CEPIC: Exactly, Your Honour. Thank you.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I know I spoke about the Joint
14 Command on more than one occasion. I was asked by Mr. Nice more than once
15 and I would really like if you have a specific question -- because somehow
16 I don't remember saying that there was a Joint Command for this five-stage
17 plan. I would like to see that if possible.
18 MR. HANNIS:
19 Q. All right.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you going to bring it up or --
21 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
22 Q. I want to now refer you to your answer, this is at page 41600, 30
23 June 2005. Your answer at line 15 says:
24 "My explanation of why it says 'Joint Command' is the following:
25 In the course of 1998, when together with members of the MUP we carried
Page 19573
1 out activities against the terrorists in those five stages that I have
2 already explained, at the beginning of each stage were invited to come to
3 Pristina."
4 So maybe I haven't artfully phrased my question but isn't that
5 your understanding of what the Joint Command was for, was to help
6 coordinate that five-stage plan?
7 A. What you just said is not consistent with your question. What I
8 said in 2005 I repeated to you yesterday in exactly the same terms and I
9 said the very same thing again today, namely, that I went to Pristina only
10 when my unit was involved in one of the activities of that five-stage
11 plan, and that happened two or three times, whereas in your previous
12 question you said something quite different. And I doubt it that I could
13 have said in 2005 that the Joint Command had been set up for this
14 five-stage plan. What I --
15 Q. Let me go on to 41601 you're still talking about the Joint Command
16 and you say at line 6: "And I understand this Joint Command is a
17 coordinating body between the army and the MUP and the other state organs
18 in Pristina."
19 At line 10 Judge Kwon asked you: "Was there any legal or
20 practical basis to establish this kind of Joint Command?"
21 And at line 12 you say: "Well, as far as the fight against
22 terrorism is concerned the state can use different mechanisms and organize
23 all its resources after all."
24 A. We see here that I have just stated my opinion as to what the
25 state should do. In response to Judge Kwon's question I could not have
Page 19574
1 given an answer based on practical knowledge because I never saw a Joint
2 Command, I never saw an order establishing a Joint Command, I never saw
3 those people, nor did I attend a meeting of the Joint Command that would
4 enable me to say some more about it. That was just my thinking, my
5 reasoning in response to one of those questions.
6 Q. And with regard to the Joint Command in 1998, were you aware of
7 who the participants were?
8 A. I have to say again, in my mind there is no Joint Command, it
9 doesn't exist. In my mind, there is just the command of the Pristina
10 Corps. Apart from my commander, his Chief of Staff was somebody sometimes
11 from the army. I used to see people from the MUP on certain occasions as
12 well, but nobody ever told me, These are members of the Joint Command or
13 this here is the Joint Command. A Joint Command is just a term, a concept
14 for me that exists for the purposes of implementing some sort of
15 coordination.
16 Q. Okay. So you agree that such a body did exist. Your disagreement
17 is about whether it had the ability to command --
18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Either we are attending two different
19 trials or I don't know what this is leading to. The man is saying he
20 never heard about it, he has no clue, something like that doesn't exist;
21 and the Prosecution responds by saying, So you agree it exists. I don't
22 know how many times it needs to be said or maybe we are into numbers. We
23 have to say this something 20 or 30 times. In my system it needs to be
24 said only once.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: I've got your point, Mr. Fila, just calm down and
Page 19575
1 we'll deal with it.
2 Mr. Hannis, the witness has not said that he agrees such a body
3 exists; he says it's a concept reflecting coordination, and that's what's
4 given rise to the objection.
5 MR. HANNIS: All right.
6 Q. General, I'll refer you to --
7 JUDGE BONOMY: You need to either rephrase that or find some
8 foundation for it.
9 MR. HANNIS:
10 Q. At page 41602 you say at line 2: "I actually never saw this Joint
11 Command, I never attended a single meeting, I only came across individual
12 persons, if I can put it that way, and I had heard of some persons being
13 in Pristina. At any rate, I was supposed to be in Pristina and I could go
14 to Pristina only when told to do so by the command."
15 Line 7: "I know that in this coordination body Mr. Minic was
16 there for a while and Mr. Sainovic and then I think Mr. Matkovic as far as
17 the civilian authorities are concerned. I don't know whether it was
18 Mr. Andjelkovic too. As for MUP now, was it Mr. Djordjevic. As far as
19 the army was concerned, it was probably the corps commander."
20 So are those the individuals you understood to be involved in
21 this, what you call, a coordinating body that coordinated the activities
22 of the MUP and VJ in carrying out joint operations?
23 A. I know that on that occasion I said something that is quite
24 different from this, and you'll probably find it in the text. Concerning
25 those people, I heard they were there. I heard from local self government
Page 19576
1 that they were in charge of civil affairs. They were primarily in
2 Pristina as representatives of the government in order to contact with
3 international representatives who were numerous in Pristina, in order to
4 be able to contact with humanitarian organizations and local self
5 governments in Kosovo and Metohija. And I believe that was their primary
6 task. And I said the same thing then, but I don't know which examination
7 it was because even back then Mr. Nice asked me a dozen of times over some
8 10 or 20 days about a Joint Command, and I said even then the Joint
9 Command is just a concept, it doesn't exist, because if it existed it had
10 to be embodied by certain people.
11 Q. All right. Well, one other thing you said about that was at page
12 42032 [Realtime transcript read in error "42072"], 7th of July, you're
13 again talking about the Joint Command, saying:
14 "I didn't pay any attention to this term 'Joint Command' because I
15 usually received on a regular basis orders from my superior command at the
16 Pristina Corps. Of course this was on TV every day that a group of
17 politicians, state officials from the republican and federal governments
18 was in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, that in Pristina there was a
19 staff of the MUP for combatting terrorism, there was the command of the
20 Pristina Corps as well, there was certainly meetings taking place between
21 the two, but as for this group of politicians they were primarily to
22 monitor the development of the political and security situation of Kosovo
23 and Metohija."
24 And at line 21: "To coordinate with the MUP and the army."
25 So whether I call them the Joint Command or you call them the
Page 19577
1 coordinating body, there was a mixed group of politicians, VJ, and MUP
2 that were coordinating those actions, those military combat actions, being
3 carried out jointly by the MUP and the VJ in 1998, correct?
4 A. Absolutely not. As for coordination between MUP and the army, it
5 probably existed, because on the orders of my commander I implemented that
6 coordination on my lower level as well. As for other civilian structures,
7 I have already explained what kind of affairs they were -- that they could
8 have been engaged in Kosovo and Metohija, and I said they were
9 representatives of the government because of the problems that prevailed
10 in Kosovo and Metohija, because of local self governments and all the
11 other things that the government had to take care of in Kosovo and
12 Metohija, certainly not because of police or military actions, because
13 that would be completely inappropriate.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.
15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I repeated for the umpteenth time, what
16 Mr. Hannis just read does not contain the word "body" and on page 42072
17 there is no reference to that. Can I beg you, please show me first on the
18 screen what Mr. Hannis is reading and then we can read it together in the
19 same way and then ask the witness, because this is the second time already
20 that one thing is being read and another thing is written or it's not even
21 there. Let us be all on the same page, literally, otherwise it's not a
22 fair trial.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Dealing with the question that was posed first of
24 all, the question Mr. Hannis posed is justified on the basis of what he
25 quoted and the witness has answered the question, dealt with it. What
Page 19578
1 Mr. Hannis says is not evidence is what the witness says, and he's testing
2 him quite properly in this question on his previous evidence and what he
3 said in this trial.
4 So far as showing us the pages you're referring to, Mr. Hannis,
5 would you care to do that or is it going to cause a particular problem?
6 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour. I don't recall that I was reading
7 from the page that is in the transcript cited by Mr. Fila, 42072 was not
8 the page I was reading from.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: 41602 I think.
10 MR. HANNIS: I did read from 41602 and I think I read from 42032,
11 not 72.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's quoted in the transcript as 42072 in
13 line 19 on page 66.
14 MR. HANNIS: Well --
15 JUDGE BONOMY: However, can we have the right page on the screen?
16 MR. HANNIS: Can I determine which one we're referring to now,
17 Your Honour?
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you say 42032, although you're recorded as
19 saying 72. If you're finished with it, of course it's the next one we
20 want to see on the screen.
21 MR. HANNIS: You don't want to see 42032?
22 JUDGE BONOMY: No, Mr. Fila's point is an ongoing point that it
23 facilitates the exercise if the pages are on the screen, but since you've
24 completed that one, we can do that with the subsequent ones.
25 MR. HANNIS: I will, Your Honour, thank you. The next one I want
Page 19579
1 to read from is 42128.
2 Q. General, do you recall telling the Court during the Milosevic
3 trial --
4 JUDGE BONOMY: There is a question over what -- are these exhibits
5 in the trial or are they simply going to be retrieved from the transcript?
6 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I think this transcript has a 3 or 4D
7 number, but we're checking.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Various shaking of heads.
9 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, if I may check on that during the break.
10 [Prosecution counsel confer]
11 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, it may not be uploaded into e-court. I
12 know it was on our notification to the Defence that it was something that
13 we would use.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
15 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] We didn't announce it, the fact that
16 Mr. Hannis mentioned it.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not understanding what you've said. In English
18 it's translated as: "We didn't announce it, the fact that Mr. Hannis
19 mentioned it."
20 MR. CEPIC: I -- with your leave, Your Honour. I heard from
21 Mr. Hannis that he mentioned it some -- the Defence announced that
22 exhibit, but just for clarification.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, he said he gave notice to you.
24 MR. CEPIC: I have to check that. Thank you.
25 MR. HANNIS: I'm checking, Your Honour. I think I have a 3D
Page 19580
1 reference. On our notification we indicated that we would use the
2 transcript of the testimony of General Delic from the Milosevic trial, and
3 we made a reference to Exhibit Number 3D00524, which is in e-court
4 apparently and it's a total of 2.230 pages.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Is that the whole evidence?
6 MR. HANNIS: Yes, I believe that's his entire testimony.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well. That should be your source when you
8 wish to ask another question based on his previous testimony.
9 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
10 Q. General --
11 THE INTERPRETER: The Prosecution counsel is kindly requested to
12 switch off the short microphone.
13 MR. HANNIS:
14 Q. -- do you recall testifying about a body. Body called the
15 inter-departmental staff that you said existed before the Joint Command.
16 I'm referring to page 42128 in that exhibit.
17 A. I don't know whether I mentioned at all --
18 JUDGE BONOMY: One moment.
19 MR. CEPIC: I apologise. I just have in front of me the hard copy
20 of the letter from OTP, and the first number is 3D580 and there is no --
21 oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense. Thank you very much.
22 [Microphone not activated]
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Delic, please continue.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know. I'd like to see it up
25 on the screen that I mentioned the Joint Command, where was that.
Page 19581
1 Certainly there was some knowledge on my part that in the MUP there was
2 some inter-departmental staff from an earlier period, but I don't have any
3 deeper knowledge of that.
4 MR. HANNIS:
5 Q. Do you recall testifying about when the fifth stage of the plan
6 for combatting terrorism began. My note indicates you said that started
7 on the 25th of September, 1998.
8 A. Possibly. I might have said that, that it was in September 1998,
9 because I think that at that time that was when the last phase of the plan
10 took place.
11 Q. And you recall that the OSCE and KVM verifiers arrived on the
12 scene in Kosovo sometime after that five-stage plan was completed?
13 A. The verifiers arrived at the end of October, and the plan was
14 completed quite a long time before that.
15 Q. All right. With regard to the verifiers, we have heard some
16 evidence or seen some evidence that on at least one occasion, if not more,
17 when the KVM attempted to enter the border zone and tried to move a
18 barricade to do so a soldier on duty was to cock his weapon and give a
19 warning to tell the KVM to stay out. Is that an order that you issued?
20 A. That certainly wasn't an order that I issued; however, it is
21 certainly a violation of the agreement by the verifiers because in the
22 border belt you could enter the border belt only accompanied by a liaison
23 officer, whereas in all other areas you could go to them without any
24 restrictions. And can you imagine what the situation would have been like
25 if somebody were to enter the border belt and lift the ramp himself. It's
Page 19582
1 like somebody opening your front door without asking you. That is
2 impermissible behaviour on the part of the verifiers. I am not justifying
3 the soldiers in my unit, that is perhaps one case that we investigated.
4 Q. If you hadn't issued an order like that and a soldier had done
5 that, was he doing that on his own or an order from somebody else
6 regarding a standing procedure on the border belt?
7 A. A soldier was acting exclusively according to standard procedure
8 and the rules.
9 Q. And who had established that procedure, if you know?
10 A. That procedure is provided for in the rules and relates to the
11 guards service.
12 Q. General, you had some volunteers in the 549th, did you not?
13 A. Yes. In 1999, after the beginning of the war, there were
14 volunteers too.
15 Q. Do you recall approximately how many volunteers were in the 549th?
16 A. There were quite a lot. If you count those who were on the
17 territory -- well, there might have been at all events several hundred I
18 would say.
19 Q. Did you ever hear of a unit or group called the Ibar Wolves,
20 I-b-a-r Wolves?
21 A. No, never, I've never heard of a unit like that.
22 Q. Have you heard of a TV journalist named Milovan Drecun, don't you?
23 A. Yes, yes, I do know that journalist.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
25 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your permission, I
Page 19583
1 would like to conclude that this question by Mr. Hannis will lead to a
2 photograph taken from Milovan Drecun's book and which was announced after
3 the witness took the solemn declaration and began his testimony, and the
4 explanation I was given with respect to Wesley Clark's book and parts of
5 that book - and I think that the same standards should be applied and
6 indeed for other books when we don't have the author testifying before
7 this Trial Chamber the same rules should apply. Thank you.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: So what is your objection? Is it to do with --
9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] That kind of evidence cannot be used,
10 Your Honour.
11 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, to my understanding the objection is
12 that I was late in notifying the intent to use this, and that's true, I
13 was; but I do notify him on Thursday or Friday.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: But he then went on to explain that he's really
15 basing this on a decision we made about the use of Wesley Clark's book
16 because he was not going to be here as a witness, but you'll remember that
17 that was connected to the fact that his presence here had been opposed.
18 MR. HANNIS: Yeah -- yes, Your Honour. What I'm proposing to do
19 is to show the General a photograph from that book that purports to be a
20 group of volunteers for the 549th and just ask him if he recognises any of
21 those individuals or is aware of the existence of that group.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah. For that exercise it wouldn't matter where
23 the photograph came from, so please proceed with the exhibit.
24 MR. HANNIS: All right.
25 If we could -- if I could find the exhibit number first, Your
Page 19584
1 Honour, that would help. I know it's in the 3.000 series, but I don't
2 have the page. I wonder if we might take the break a minute early while I
3 collect myself and find that book, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Lunchtime come early, Mr. Delic. Can you please
5 leave the courtroom as usual, and we'll see you in an hour's time.
6 [The witness stands down]
7 JUDGE BONOMY: The court will resume at 1.45.
8 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.44 p.m.
9 --- On resuming at 1.46 p.m.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE BONOMY: Judge Chowhan will not be sitting with us this
12 afternoon for urgent personal reasons. We've decided it's in the
13 interests of justice that we should continue in his absence.
14 [The witness takes the stand]
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
16 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
17 Q. General, when we broke I started to ask you about volunteers, but
18 I realized there's one last thing I need to do in regard to our discussion
19 about Joint Command. I want to show you an exhibit, document P2166 -- and
20 actually I've got a hard copy here if the usher would hand it to you.
21 It's multiple pages. It might be easier. These are the minutes of a
22 meeting of the operations inter-departmental staff --
23 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Cepic.
25 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] With your leave, I don't know whether
Page 19585
1 this witness is able to give us reliable information about a meeting he
2 did not attend, and this is a record of a meeting of the
3 inter-departmental staff from 1998. It was attended by various persons
4 but not by this witness.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's wait and see what the question is first of
6 all.
7 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
8 Q. General, my first question is: Have you seen this document before
9 today?
10 A. I'm not sure. Perhaps during his examination Mr. Milosevic showed
11 me this or a similar document, asking him -- asking me on that occasion to
12 tell him who attended from the army and who attended from the police. It
13 could be this one, it could be a similar one.
14 Q. Okay.
15 A. When ...
16 Q. I'm sorry. Did you finish what you started to say? It looks like
17 you got cut off.
18 A. Well, Mr. Milosevic -- I believe he asked me about the lines of --
19 the chains of command. He asked me whether at any time in 1998 or 1999
20 the chain of command in the army was disrupted. I said no, and then he
21 produced a document like this for me to read but only the part that
22 specifies who attended. He asked me whether the Chief of the General
23 Staff attended, I said yes; whether the commander of the 3rd Army was
24 present, I said yes; whether the commander of the Pristina Corps attended,
25 I said yes. And then he said, Is this beginning with me until the
Page 19586
1 Pristina Corps level the complete chain --
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's stop. This is not anything to do with what
3 we are concerned about.
4 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Please, let's control these answers which Mr.
6 Delic, no doubt is giving with the best will in the world but really don't
7 assist us.
8 MR. HANNIS:
9 Q. General, you see who the attendees are and they include your
10 superiors in the army, as well as high-ranking police and political
11 officials. In the second paragraph you see that Mr. Milosevic is telling
12 this operations interdepartmental staff for the suppression of terrorism
13 about what's going to happen at the meeting and he indicates that
14 General Pavkovic is going to present the proposals of the Joint Command.
15 Given who's attending and what's described here, does that change your
16 mind about whether or not a body called the Joint Command existed in 1998.
17 It's being discussed at the highest levels. You can just say yes or no.
18 A. This does not affect me in the least --
19 Q. Okay.
20 A. -- I have already said what I thought about the Joint Command.
21 Q. You can stop there. The next paragraph General Pavkovic gives a
22 brief report on the implementation of the plan for suppressing terrorism
23 in Kosovo and says, speaking on behalf of the Joint Command,
24 General Pavkovic reminded the members of the operations staff that the
25 plan had been carried out in five stages.
Page 19587
1 MR. HANNIS: And I think we'll need to go to the next page in both
2 English and B/C/S.
3 Q. He said the plan had been carried out in five stages with a
4 duration of 45 to 55 days, commencing on 25 July, completed on 29 October
5 1998. Is that consistent with your experience and what you knew about the
6 five-stage plan? You told us there was a five-stage plan and you were
7 involved in some of those actions pursuant to the plan. Is that accurate,
8 five stages, 45 to 55 days, July to October?
9 A. As for my unit, it completed its activities earlier. The 29th of
10 October is mentioned here, but my unit completed all its activities in the
11 beginning of October. At that time I had heard of the five-stage plan.
12 Q. And you and your units had engaged in actions pursuant to that
13 plan, right?
14 A. We participated pursuant to orders we received from our superior
15 command, that is, the Pristina Corps. My commanding officers had no idea
16 that this was part of a five-stage plan. They received my orders and
17 executed them, whereas I had heard talk of a five-stage plan for
18 combatting terrorism.
19 Q. All right. And at page 3, going on to page 4 of the B/C/S, and
20 it's page 3 of the English, General Pavkovic is talking about the task set
21 out in the said plan. I want to go to page 4 of both the English and
22 B/C/S. Item number 4 is: "Arming the Serbian and Montenegrin people and
23 establishing reserve police units to defend Serbian villages."
24 Did you or your units take any part in that task under the plan?
25 Did you have anything to do with arming the Serbian and Montenegrin
Page 19588
1 people?
2 A. No, none of that happened in my area.
3 Q. How about number 7: "Disarming all Siptar villages which are
4 known to be armed," did you and your troops not assist in that in your
5 area?
6 A. Yes. My unit participated in that task too, but the disarming of
7 Siptar villages did not involve combat. In carrying out this task, there
8 were no combat operations. We talked to the seniors of villages, whereas
9 some villages, even before we reached them, had sent out their
10 representatives and the arms that they had previously received from
11 terrorists. They brought on tractors and trucks to our unit saying they
12 did not need them. So I participated in this seventh task in a way.
13 Q. Okay.
14 A. And there are documents related.
15 Q. Thank you.
16 MR. HANNIS: If we can go to page 5 of the B/C/S.
17 Q. It appears it's still General Pavkovic talking about -- and here
18 he's talking about some of the detailed information in implementing the
19 plan. The fifth item says: "Since 29 July 1998, operations were
20 conducted in 306 populated places, including ..." And you'll see further
21 on it says "47 in Prizren ..." And that "the operations encompassed 19
22 municipalities in four towns," including Orahovac. Is that consistent
23 with what you saw and what you were doing on the ground, operations during
24 this five-phase plan were carried out in 47 populated places in Prizren?
25 I assume that means Prizren municipality.
Page 19589
1 A. That was done by General Pavkovic. He is the best-placed to
2 answer. I didn't count, but a number of settlements including Orahovac
3 and other places within the border belt where these activities were
4 carried out, I don't know whether that would be 47 settlements. But if
5 it's written here, I believe it's correct.
6 Q. And your subordinate units would have been involved in a
7 significant number of those, right?
8 A. The units subordinated to me participated only in activities
9 ordered by the superior command, otherwise they were involved in in-depth
10 security of the state border; and I'm not sure whether this covers
11 incidents that occurred during incursions by terrorist groups that
12 smuggled weapons into our countries because such incidents were very
13 frequent in 1998.
14 Q. Well, General, I take this to mean that there were anti-terrorist
15 operations, joint operations, with the MUP carried out in 47 populated
16 places in Prizren municipality. Are you telling us that your units didn't
17 participate in all or a significant number of those? Who else would have
18 done it if not your guys?
19 A. I'm not saying that my units did not take part, but I cannot state
20 now that it was 47 places. I assume that since General Pavkovic wrote
21 that, that it's probably correct.
22 Q. Well, in compiling this information, a report to Mr. Milosevic and
23 the other big-shots on his committee, wouldn't he have gotten information
24 from you about what happened in your municipality?
25 A. Well, somehow -- I don't know. But did you use this word "zverka"
Page 19590
1 big-shot, which is not appropriate if you're talking about state leaders.
2 It was translated by the word "zverka." I would rather put it politicians
3 of high level or high-level policemen, because when you say "zverka," or
4 beast in literal translation, big-shot, it means something different.
5 Q. Well --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a second.
7 Please now answer the question, Mr. Delic.
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I sent information to Mr. Pavkovic,
9 and that information or those documents probably exist because they were
10 used in the Milosevic trial, and I think that the number, 47, is perhaps a
11 little excessive.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's assume there were 47 in Prizren municipality.
13 Can we also assume that you would be involved in all of them?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, everything that happened in
15 the Prizren municipality I certainly took part in, because the Prizren
16 municipality has maybe over a hundred or 150 settlements.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
18 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
19 If we can go to page 6 of the B/C/S, stay on 5 of the English.
20 Q. General Pavkovic also reports that large quantities of ammunition
21 were confiscated and he says at the top of your page 6: "93 Siptar
22 villages were disarmed," including 38 in Prizren. You -- is that
23 consistent with your memory and your experience during this five-stage
24 plan? Do you have any reason to disagree with that number of 38 villages
25 being disarmed in Prizren municipality?
Page 19591
1 A. When you say "Prizren municipality," I cannot agree with that, but
2 I would agree if it was said in the Prizren district, for example, because
3 the Prizren district comprises several municipalities.
4 Q. All right.
5 A. Then that would make it correct.
6 Q. All right. I'll accept that. Thank you. Let me see if there was
7 one more question I had for you from this document. No, General, let me
8 move on to something else.
9 Regarding that five-phase plan we have a document in evidence
10 Exhibit P1468, which purports to be notes of meetings of the Joint Command
11 in 1998, and it talks about some of the phases of the plan to combat
12 terrorism. At page 30 and 33 of the English regarding the 30th of July,
13 1998, there is a meeting about initiating the third phase of the plan. Do
14 you recall participating in the third phase of the five-stage plan in late
15 July or early August 1998?
16 A. I would have to know what that third phase was.
17 Q. Okay. And likewise, there's a reference in those minutes [sic] to
18 the fourth stage being planned in early August, around the 4th and 5th of
19 August, being realized on the 8th and continued on the 12th of August. Do
20 you recall being involved in the fourth phase?
21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Fila.
23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Once again I'd like to ask that
24 attention be paid to the words being used. The Prosecutor said that these
25 were minutes from the meeting of the Joint Command, minutes I think he
Page 19592
1 called them, whereas you don't have the minutes nor do the minutes exist,
2 but he is persisting.
3 MR. HANNIS: I said "notes."
4 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Let's try and look at the notes of a
5 number of authors because there are at least two documents which are
6 handwritten and they're certainly not minutes. Thank you.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Hannis has already tried to indicate
8 there that he withdraws that reference and will continue to call them
9 notes.
10 Mr. Hannis.
11 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I did say notes --
12 JUDGE BONOMY: No, you said "minutes" according to the question,
13 line 7, page 82.
14 MR. HANNIS: Okay, Your Honour. I said notes there, my mistake.
15 Q. And, General, do you recall having participated in the fourth
16 stage of the plan to combat terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija, just yes or
17 no?
18 A. Mr. Hannis, you have to tell me what that fourth phase was for me
19 to be able to say whether I took part or not. I have just got something
20 up on my screen now but I am looking at it for the first time and it
21 doesn't really mean anything. So if there's anything there you want me to
22 read through, I'll need a little time to do that; but as far as I can see
23 this is just an ordinary piece of paper.
24 Q. General, I don't have time to go through that with you. Let me
25 move on to what I started to ask you about before we broke, and I'd like
Page 19593
1 to show you Exhibit 3047. Do you recognise that page that's on the screen
2 in front of you?
3 A. This looks like a book, because it says Milovan Drecun, "The
4 Second Battle of Kosovo."
5 Q. And have you not seen or read that book yourself?
6 A. I have seen the book, but it looks a little different.
7 Q. Okay. Are you aware that at or around the time that book was
8 published or released, General Pavkovic and General Lazarevic went and
9 spoke at that event?
10 A. No, I don't know about that.
11 MR. HANNIS: Could we go to the next page.
12 MR. CEPIC: I'm sorry, Your Honour.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
14 MR. CEPIC: Just base for the previous question, I'm just
15 wondering about it. This is the first time I hear that information
16 related to that book and the presence of General Pavkovic and
17 General Lazarevic. Thank you.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it was only a question and the answer was no.
19 But, Mr. Hannis, what's the -- I don't know why there's anxiety
20 because it's not evidence in the case as far as I'm aware.
21 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, that question is based on information I
22 have from an interview and from internal leadership research team
23 documents provided to me. I can provide that to Mr. Cepic if I'm required
24 to.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah, I think you should, not at this minute, but
Page 19594
1 you should give him the information if it hasn't already been disclosed to
2 him. I imagine it has but you can locate it for him.
3 MR. HANNIS: I will.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
5 MR. HANNIS:
6 Q. General, you see this picture and the caption says: "Heroes of
7 the defence of Gorozup: The volunteers of the 549th Motorised Brigade."
8 Have you seen this picture before? Have you seen this photograph
9 before, before today?
10 A. Yes, I am familiar with this photograph.
11 Q. And how is it that you're familiar with the photograph?
12 A. This photograph was taken in Leskovac on the 16th of June, 1999.
13 Q. Okay. And how do you know that? Were you there at the time or
14 somebody tell you about it?
15 A. Well, my brigade on the 14th and on the 14th of June with the last
16 soldiers of my brigade I received Leskovac. This is the south camp
17 barracks there; that was where my brigade was to be put up. And this
18 is -- this photograph was taken in front of the kitchen area of that unit.
19 These are the volunteers that were giving back their equipment and
20 uniforms because they were being released from the unit that day. Those
21 in civilian clothing were going straight home, the others were going to
22 give back their weapons. So they invited me, since the 16th of June is
23 Army Day, to be in the photograph with them before they dispersed and left
24 the barracks.
25 Q. And is that you on the steps in the upper right of the photograph?
Page 19595
1 A. Yes, that's right. That's me.
2 Q. You look like the third face down if I start from the upper right,
3 correct?
4 A. Yes, that's right.
5 Q. Gorozup, what does that refer to? Is that a geographic location?
6 Is that a border post?
7 A. Gorozup is a border hut on the border with Albania, border post.
8 Q. And what do you know about how this group got to be called heroes
9 of the defence of Gorozup? What does that refer to?
10 A. Well, the writer of the book. The author of the book wanted to
11 acknowledge them especially because the border post was destroyed during
12 the NATO bombing, and after when the attack from Albania came it was taken
13 control of. And the following day, because you can see that there's some
14 border soldiers here, and this group of people, probably some are missing
15 here, but anyway this group of people managed to regain control of that
16 border post, whereas in the BBC, CNN, and other newspaper agencies
17 Jamie Shea said that the border had been broken through -- perhaps he
18 didn't mention this particular border post, but anyway he said that the
19 terrorist forces have reached the valley of Drina and were at the entrance
20 to Prizren. Milan Drecun came to this border post and met these people
21 here, and then he sent out a photograph that same evening out to the world
22 about the lies told by NATO and he said the border post in Gorozup has not
23 fallen --
24 Q. Let me stop you there. When was this group of volunteers
25 activated? When did they become a part of the 549th?
Page 19596
1 A. Probably they came in at different times, but anyway in April, in
2 April, in May, and they even came in at the beginning of June as well as
3 they were sent from the collection centres in Belgrade and in Nis.
4 Q. And how were they dispersed among your various units? Were they
5 all in one unit or were they divided up among all your subordinate units?
6 A. In all the units, there were volunteers in all the units depending
7 on what their speciality was. Those who were infantry men were in the
8 infantry units, the artillery men were in the artillery units, and so on;
9 and those who were, for example, quartermasters, signalsmen, and so on,
10 they were in those kind of units, the kind of unit they were members of
11 when they did their military service.
12 Q. What about Russians, did you have any Russian volunteers in the
13 549th?
14 A. Yes, somewhere towards the end of April I received the first
15 group -- well, they weren't only Russians. There were others there too,
16 but there were Russians too, Russians, Ukrainians and so on.
17 Q. And was there not a group of Russians and/or Ukrainians that was
18 taken in as an entity, as a compact group into the 549th?
19 A. I don't know what you mean by taken as an entity, as a compact
20 group.
21 Q. That they were not subordinated to one of your main group but they
22 formed a unique unit unto themselves?
23 A. No, that's not true. The Russians who came and all those who came
24 later were within one unit, in order to enable mutual communication, but
25 there weren't any Russians in that group. There were Russians,
Page 19597
1 Ukrainians, Serbs, one Macedonian, a Bulgarian. But the Russians were the
2 most numerous of the foreigners, if I can put it that way, and they didn't
3 go to other units because then there would be the problem of
4 communication. That's why they were all put together.
5 Q. Okay. And what was the name or the numerical designator for that
6 group of Russian, Ukrainian, and other volunteers? What did you call
7 them?
8 A. They didn't have any special name. They were just a platoon and
9 there was a total of about 30 of them, half of them were foreigners and
10 the other half were soldiers and military recruits, Serbs.
11 Q. Well, to the extent that they were involved in actions in April
12 1999, how would you refer to that? If you were writing an order, how
13 would you refer to that group? You must have had some name or term to
14 refer to them?
15 A. No, they were the intervention platoon, and that's what they were
16 known under.
17 Q. And was that the only intervention platoon in the 549th?
18 A. Yes, that was the only platoon.
19 Q. Okay. Thank you.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Which part of your brigade was involved in retaking
21 the border hut?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The people on the picture here. I
23 can't say exactly which of them took part, but since the photograph was
24 provided by one of the volunteers, given to Mr. Drecun, then some of these
25 people did take part in that. What I know is that the border platoon took
Page 19598
1 part from the Gorozup border post, and that one platoon from my own unit
2 took part, and that was composed of both soldiers and of volunteers.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: So when we're looking at this group who are
4 described as volunteers, we're not looking at an entire unit?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, certainly not a whole unit
6 because the border battalion, the 55th, defending that part of the state
7 border was redeployed to Leskovac in another place at that time. And I
8 don't think, or rather, I don't think it was in Leskovac at all, I think
9 it was in Vranje or somewhere else.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: The group we see, though, these are all volunteers;
11 is that correct?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you know why they would be described as "the
14 volunteers"?
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, there are ordinary soldiers
16 there too in that group, but most of them were volunteers. And as you can
17 see, on that day they returned -- they were about to return their uniforms
18 and the weapons they had been issued in order to go home.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: And this whole group were fighting together in
20 one -- they were involved in combat together in one unit, were they, one
21 part of your brigade?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This group that we can see here on
23 the photograph, they're different volunteers, probably from different
24 units, and amongst them there were those who did indeed fight at Gorozup.
25 And I remember them wanting to be photographed with me before their
Page 19599
1 departure. So that I can't say that all of them were volunteers who were
2 at Gorozup, but all the people in the photograph were in my brigade.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: You really can't tell us how many of these men
4 there were volunteers?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I can see on this
6 photograph, perhaps four to five were soldiers and all the rest were
7 volunteers.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: And --
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, military recruits and
10 volunteers.
11 JUDGE BONOMY: And can you tell us if all of them were involved in
12 the assault on the border hut at Gorozup?
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I'm certain that not all of them
14 took part. Some of them did, but I can't know which of those in the
15 picture did defend the Gorozup border post and later on took control of
16 it, or rather, liberated it from the terrorists.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Just no idea how many of them fall into that
18 category, roughly even?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I can't know that for certain.
20 They were there in order to return their weapons and uniforms, everything
21 they'd been issued. I happened to pass by at the time and some of them
22 asked me to come and join them in the photograph so that they would have a
23 keepsake because they were supposed to leave the unit.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you aware whether anyone has challenged the
25 book as being an inaccurate account of the event or showing an inaccurate
Page 19600
1 photograph related to the event?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I really don't see any need to
3 challenge this photograph or to challenge the book in any way. What you
4 see here are people who for the most part were volunteers in my brigade.
5 Now, whether they were at Gorozup or whether they fought in some other
6 place is not essential. They all took part in combat.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
8 Mr. Hannis.
9 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 Q. General, I would like to show you right now Exhibit P1479
11 concerning volunteers. Were you aware of a Supreme Command Staff order
12 forbidding volunteer units, and we can see this is from the 7th of April,
13 1999.
14 We have to actually go to the next page, I think it's item 8, so
15 I'm not sure if that's page 2 or 3 of both the English and the B/C/S.
16 Yeah, it's -- item 8 says:
17 "When assigning volunteers to VJ commands and installations, it is
18 prohibited to group them within one unit, task, or the like, given earlier
19 negative experiences with a number of volunteers looting, setting fire to
20 houses, et cetera."
21 Were you not aware of that order?
22 A. I am very well-acquainted with this order and I acted upon it
23 fully.
24 Q. And did you do anything to disband the intervention platoon made
25 up of those Russian and Ukrainian volunteers?
Page 19601
1 A. Russian and Ukrainian volunteers were together with the military
2 recruits and other volunteers and soldiers from my brigade. They were
3 volunteers only by token of the fact that they had come of their own free
4 will to fight in our country. They weren't any special type of volunteer
5 unit, and I did not have a single volunteer unit myself. All I had was
6 volunteers deployed in the various units.
7 Q. Well, perhaps I misunderstood your earlier answer. Who were
8 members of this intervention platoon other than those Russians,
9 Ukrainians, one Macedonian, and a Serb I think? Weren't they all
10 volunteers?
11 A. No, not all of them were volunteers. Among them there were
12 military recruits and there was a number of soldiers from the
13 reconnaissance unit and the military police company to the level of a
14 squad.
15 Q. Who was the commander of that platoon?
16 A. Of that platoon, well there was one komandir, commander, was a
17 Serb, and the other commander was a Russian.
18 Q. And was that Russian named Dimjan Balan?
19 A. No. The Russian's name was Vladimir.
20 Q. Okay.
21 A. And he was a captain at one time in the Russian army.
22 Q. Okay. Let me show you a couple of other photographs.
23 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your permission, I
24 assume - and I hope my assumption is correct - that my colleague
25 Mr. Hannis will be using a set of photographs and a statement by the man
Page 19602
1 Dimjan mentioned a moment ago. The statement was given to the
2 investigators of the Tribunal in June 2006, so far before this trial
3 started. So we have an objection of principle that such documents cannot
4 be used, and among others we should have been supplied the material under
5 disclosure pursuant to Rule 66 or 68, depending on the contents of the
6 documents. Thank you.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: So --
8 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] And just one more remark. We received
9 the material a few hours before this witness took the solemn declaration.
10 Thank you.
11 JUDGE BONOMY: So what is your point?
12 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I have an objection of principle.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: To what?
14 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I state that such documents should not
15 be allowed.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: It's not being allowed. What is it you're actually
17 objecting to?
18 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Well, I understood it that Mr. Hannis,
19 the Prosecutor, wishes to use those documents now, Your Honour; that's
20 what he was going to do now, that he was going to use some of those
21 documents, the documents that I'm objecting to, before he begins showing
22 them.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Your objection as I read it is in relation to this
24 person called Dimjan -- I've lost the name now.
25 MR. HANNIS: Balan, Your Honour.
Page 19603
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Balan.
2 Are you going to be asking more questions about him?
3 MR. HANNIS: I'm going to be asking about some photographs and
4 documents. I'm not going to be asking about his statement.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: So what is it you say -- I'm sorry, Mr. Cepic, I'm
6 just not following this. You'll need to spell it out to me in words of
7 one syllable that I can understand.
8 MR. CEPIC: I'm sorry for confusion which I made, I will try to
9 explain this as simply as I can. This material, statement and in addition
10 to that statement a couple of photographs, we received same day when
11 Mr. Delic started to testify before this Honourable Tribunal.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, what's wrong with that?
13 MR. CEPIC: I understand this material Prosecutor has got in the
14 previous time probably from 3rd of June, 2006, and I think that they had
15 to disclose to us in a previous period, not on the same day when the
16 witness started to testify.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
18 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, this was not a witness we called, he was
19 not on our 65 ter list --
20 JUDGE BONOMY: No, Mr. Cepic is saying this is material that
21 should have been disclosed a long time ago.
22 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I don't know that there was any Rule 68
23 in it, and Rule 66 did not apply since he was not going to be called as a
24 witness.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Back to you, Mr. Cepic. On what basis do you say
Page 19604
1 that this should have been disclosed at an earlier stage?
2 MR. CEPIC: Pursuant to my humble opinion Rule 66 or 68.
3 Unfortunately, I was involved in this case after this period, but I think
4 that there were some obligation for disclosure of material in the previous
5 period of time.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: The problem is that in this Tribunal, and indeed in
7 many other places, there's no obligation on the Defence to disclose their
8 witnesses until after the Prosecution case is over. And in this instance
9 it appears the individual involved was not envisaged as a Prosecution
10 witness, Mr. Delic is not a Prosecution witness, the matter arises in the
11 presentation of the Defence case. There is, on the face of it, no reason
12 why this material should have been disclosed at any earlier stage, other
13 than the point at which it was decided if it should be used for the
14 purposes of cross-examination.
15 So therefore we will allow Mr. Hannis to make use of these two
16 photographs. If it comes to the statement, which he's indicated he's not
17 using, we will review the position again in relation to the statement.
18 Mr. Hannis.
19 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
20 Q. General, first I'd like to show you Exhibit P3045. This is a
21 photograph. And can you tell us who's depicted there. That's you in the
22 middle in uniform, correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Do you know those other two standing beside you?
25 A. These are two of the Russian volunteers who remained in Serbia.
Page 19605
1 They lived in Serbia after the conflict. One of them is Dimjan or Dima
2 that you mentioned and the other one with the eye-patch is Albert. They
3 stayed in Serbia after the war.
4 Q. Is it correct that this photograph was taken about a year after
5 the war upon the occasion of your promotion and Brigade Day; is that
6 right?
7 A. No. This photograph was taken on the 17th of July, 2000.
8 Q. And what was the occasion that you all happened to be at the same
9 place?
10 A. The 17th of July is the day of the 549th Brigade.
11 MR. HANNIS: Could we look next at Exhibit P3039.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: I have to wonder about how that previous exchange
13 was interpreted. Were you promoted on that day, Mr. Delic?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I was promoted on the 31st of
15 December, 1999.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: That explains it. Thank you.
17 Mr. Hannis.
18 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
19 Q. Next, General, I would like to show you Exhibit P3039. I don't
20 know if you can see that well enough on your screen. I have an
21 enlargement in hard copy with just the photograph.
22 MR. HANNIS: If there's no objection I would hand that to the
23 witness.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Visnjic.
25 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honour.
Page 19606
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry, Mr. Zecevic first.
2 MR. ZECEVIC: I mean, this calls for an objection because we
3 really don't know. This is a handwritten. There is something below the
4 actual picture which is handwritten. I see that it has translated, and we
5 can -- we cannot possibly really find out who wrote it, when it was
6 written, or anything else.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
8 Mr. Visnjic.
9 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the same objection, but
10 this definitely could not have been written by the witness giving the
11 statement. There is a sample of his handwriting in that statement and
12 that is not -- that is definitely not the same handwriting.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Well these objections are premature.
14 We do not know what the question is yet, and the question may have nothing
15 to do with the writing.
16 Mr. Hannis.
17 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
18 Q. General, from that photo can you recognise that the person sitting
19 on the far right on the front row is Dimjan Balan?
20 A. Yes, yes. You can see that it's him there on the right.
21 Q. And based on the uniforms, can you tell us who this group of
22 people is or what organization they may belong to?
23 A. It is difficult to say that because this photograph is fairly
24 dark.
25 Q. I understand.
Page 19607
1 A. I don't know whether these are members of the army, whether there
2 are any army personnel here, or whether these are policemen. This
3 photograph is rather unclear and it is impossible to discern the colours
4 of the uniforms, but you can see here on the right side, in the right
5 flank, you can see this Russian volunteer, Dima.
6 Q. And he was a member of the VJ, he was not a member of the police;
7 correct?
8 A. Yes. He was a member of the army.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Does that help you to identify who these people
10 might be?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Now this is even worse, this
12 photograph. You can't even recognise him on this photograph as it was.
13 MR. HANNIS:
14 Q. On the hard copy you have, could you look at the third individual
15 from the left on the second row. Do you recognise him?
16 A. This is very unclear. If you have an indication as to who that
17 might be, you perhaps may tell me.
18 Q. We have an indication that that's Radislav Mitrovic from the 37th
19 PJP Detachment. You knew him, right?
20 A. Yes, yes. Colonel, or rather, Lieutenant-Colonel Mitrovic, as he
21 was at that time, I do know him.
22 Q. Okay.
23 A. But this photograph is really very bad quality and I can't really
24 claim that it is him, although it does look like him.
25 Q. Okay. Thank you. General, do you wear contact lenses or glasses?
Page 19608
1 A. I use glasses to watch TV and so on.
2 Q. During 1999 did you wear glasses?
3 A. Yes, in that year too, but only, as I already said, to drive and
4 to watch TV.
5 Q. Okay. I next want to show you --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Just before you move, does that version on the
7 screen help you at all?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is a bit better. It is obvious
9 now that these are police members.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
11 MR. HANNIS:
12 Q. And is that any better or worse than the picture of the third
13 individual on the left from the second row?
14 A. Yes, yes. I can see that better too.
15 Q. And does that help you say whether or not it's
16 Lieutenant-Colonel Mitrovic?
17 A. Yes, it could be Lieutenant-Colonel Mitrovic.
18 Q. Thank you. Next I'd like to show you Exhibit 3042, P3042.
19 This purports to be a certificate indicating that Dimjan Balan, a
20 volunteer, was within the formation of the 549th between the 2nd of April
21 and the 13th of June, 1999. It has your name, but it doesn't appear to
22 be -- well, I can't tell if there's a signature or a stamp or not. Have
23 you seen this document before?
24 A. I'm not quite sure, because there's no stamp of any kind.
25 Q. It's dated the 8th of January, 2000. Do you recall issuing such a
Page 19609
1 document for Mr. Balan?
2 A. I know that in the fighting --
3 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
5 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] In my humble opinion this was material
6 that was subject to Rule 68 and that we were supposed to get this document
7 that is in front of us on the screen before this time, and the same goes
8 for the photograph, some of the photographs that we have now seen.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: In what way would this be Rule 68?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, this pertains to the fighting
11 in the border area in the critical period, fighting with the Siptar
12 terrorists, and it also pertains, as far as we have been able to see, to
13 the fighting at the very state border. And this was -- this is something
14 that is alleged in the indictment and it is relevant for the time-period
15 indicated in the indictment.
16 [Trial Chamber confers]
17 JUDGE BONOMY: We do not see this as Rule 68 material in respect
18 of Mr. Lazarevic, and therefore we'll allow the question to be asked.
19 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
20 Q. General, do you recall my question or had I asked it yet?
21 A. Yes, you asked me the question. I don't see the stamp. A
22 certificate should bear a stamp, and there's a number there too.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. I know that there was a request made by a volunteer who had
25 confiscated a pistol in the fighting at the border to be allowed to keep
Page 19610
1 this pistol as a trophy. But now whether it was Dimjan Balan or some
2 other volunteer, this I can't recall at this moment.
3 MR. HANNIS: Could we look at the next exhibit, P3040 --
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.
5 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Before we do that, Your Honours, if
6 you allow me, can I just dwell on the previous document. We object to its
7 admission because it has not been authenticated. Thank you.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: This is 3042?
9 MR. CEPIC: Exactly, Your Honour. Thank you.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: What better way might there be of checking the
11 authenticity of a document than asking the person who appears, on the face
12 of it, to be the author of the document, whether he is or not? Now, the
13 witness has said he's got nothing to contribute in relation to this
14 document; end of story. It will -- but we need it as part of the process
15 to understand why the question was asked and how we came to be in this
16 position. There's nothing here that counts as evidence against you.
17 We're not going to look at the document which the witness says he can't
18 confirm.
19 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Please continue, Mr. Hannis.
21 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
22 Q. General, next I want to look at P03040. This one is dated the
23 30th of December, 1999, and it's described as the evaluation and opinion
24 on the work of Dimjan Balan, a volunteer from the period of 7 April to 16
25 June 1999. Now, this has a stamp and your typewritten name, but that
Page 19611
1 doesn't look like your signature. What can you tell us about that?
2 A. What I see down here looks like the signature of my Chief of
3 Staff, but I can't be certain about it, and I can't say that it was his
4 signature but it looks like his signature as far as I am able to see.
5 Since this document bears a number, it is possible to check whether there
6 is a copy of this document in the unit. And I can see here that it says
7 that this volunteer was in the unit in a certain time-period.
8 Q. Yes, and it indicates in the text that he was in the front ranks,
9 that he was in the area of the Kosare border post and later in the area of
10 Planeja at the beginning of the war operations, village of Budakovo. In
11 the upper left we have a stamp that says -- I'm sorry, did you want to say
12 something?
13 A. You said at the beginning of the operations. This is not true. I
14 said that I received the first Russian volunteers on the 23rd of April,
15 the second group I got on the 1st of June, so the 23rd of April is not the
16 beginning of the war. That would be more towards the end of the war.
17 Q. Well, actually, General, I was reading from this document that
18 said: "In the beginning of the war operations, that is, before coming to
19 the unit, he was in the area of Kosare Border Post and later in the area
20 of Planeja ..."
21 You said just now that this volunteer unit came to you on the 23rd
22 of April and you said you said that before. I don't recall you having
23 indicated that precise date. How is it that you remember now that it was
24 the 23rd of April?
25 A. I told you that I remembered when the first group of volunteers
Page 19612
1 arrived. He was in the first group. The first group arrived on the 23rd
2 from the Kosare sector until the 23rd, so between the 2nd and the 23rd, he
3 was not in my unit.
4 Q. Before he came into your unit then, when he was on the Kosare
5 border post, in whose unit was he, if you know?
6 A. I don't know in what unit he was while he was there, but the
7 Kosare sector was defended by the 125th Motorised Brigade.
8 Q. And were not elements of the 72nd Special Brigade also engaged
9 there at that time?
10 A. Elements of the 72nd Special Brigade are not part of that unit.
11 They were in various locations carrying out tasks. In most cases they
12 were gathering information about terrorists on the very border, and as far
13 as I can remember it is possible that some elements of the 72nd were there
14 indeed.
15 Q. Looking --
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Just to clarify one thing, Mr. Hannis, the original
17 answer given by Mr. Delic was that the first of these volunteers arrived
18 towards the end of April.
19 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. I'm sorry, I missed that.
20 Q. In the upper left-hand corner we see a stamp that's translated
21 as "military post number 4445 internal number," and there's some question
22 mark about what that number is. Is that not a stamp of the 549th?
23 Doesn't that pertain to your brigade.
24 A. Yes, military police 4445, that is the 549th Brigade.
25 Q. Okay. Well, based on those stamps and what you say could be the
Page 19613
1 signature of your immediate subordinate, do you have any reason to doubt
2 the authenticity of this document?
3 A. I don't see the objective of this question. I was not present
4 when this document was issued. It is just an ordinary certificate
5 indicating that this volunteer was in the army, and if it was signed by my
6 Chief of Staff he probably issued that for the time-period between the
7 time when he reported to the Army of Yugoslavia and the 16th of June when
8 he was discharged from our unit for all intents and purposes. But I do
9 know that he was in the first group. I know that because there were four
10 of them in that group who spoke Serbian to some extent, and I know that
11 they came to my unit on the 23rd. As far as my unit was concerned, they
12 were involved in combat only twice.
13 Q. All right, General. I want to ask you now about some of the
14 punishment of soldiers in your unit regarding crimes that were committed
15 within your brigade.
16 MR. HANNIS: Could we look at Exhibit P962, please.
17 Q. General, you'll recognise this document I believe. This is a list
18 of filed criminal reports against perpetrators in the 549th between May
19 1998 and July 1999. Did you personally compile this information?
20 A. As far as this document is concerned, I requested that this
21 document be drafted in my brigade. I don't know whether it was signed at
22 all, whether there is any signature affixed to it, because several people
23 took part in actually putting it together. The data needed to be
24 collected from the military court in Nis too.
25 Q. I see in the upper right-hand corner there is a signature after
Page 19614
1 something that's been translated as "edited by." Do you see that and can
2 you recognise that signature as anybody that you know?
3 A. It says "processed by," but this doesn't really mean anything to
4 me because you can't really see that all that clearly.
5 Q. And, General, is it your understanding that this document is
6 supposed to show all those personnel from the 549th Motorised Brigade who
7 were subject to criminal proceedings for actions between the May 1998 and
8 July 1999?
9 A. No.
10 Q. No?
11 A. No, it does not include those members against whom criminal
12 reports were written, but the military prosecutor decided to drop the
13 report and it doesn't include those soldiers who committed some kind of an
14 infraction of military discipline which was less serious and which could
15 be dealt with in the unit itself rather than a crime.
16 Q. Okay. Does it show -- well, I see there are 132 separate entries
17 here, and if you'll trust my math, General, I would tell you that of those
18 132 it seems that 73 involve charges for theft of some sort, either theft,
19 aggravated theft, vehicle theft, or receiving stolen property. So well
20 over half regard theft, correct? Would you disagree with me?
21 A. Yes, I would agree.
22 Q. Okay. And I think in one of your earlier answers on direct you
23 were asked about the events on the 25th, 26th of March when we were
24 talking about your units moving in the area of Bela Crkva and Celina, et
25 cetera. And you were asked about allegations made by at least one of the
Page 19615
1 witnesses here that looting had taken place, and you said you had only
2 professional soldiers in your unit and professional soldiers do not loot.
3 Isn't that correct? Isn't that what you said?
4 A. Yes, that's what I said. It had to do with issues related to
5 activities from the 25th until the 28th of March, 1999, and it referred to
6 specific places. With regard to all the soldiers in this case, it is
7 known exactly where they committed a criminal offence.
8 Q. Okay. And I will agree with you that a number of these 73 charged
9 with theft involve privates in the army and, I think, in some cases they
10 may be listed -- well, I thought there were a couple that were listed as
11 conscripts but they all seem to be mentioned as privates. The majority of
12 those are privates, but there are at least six officers charged with some
13 sort of theft, including a lieutenant-colonel and a major. So do you
14 still stand by your position that professional soldiers wouldn't loot?
15 That was a big problem in the Yugoslav Army at that time, wasn't it? We
16 saw a lot of orders urging subordinates to pressure perpetrators of
17 looting.
18 MR. HANNIS: Mr. Cepic is on his feet, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
20 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I'm afraid my learned
21 friend, Mr. Hannis, is misrepresenting slightly what the witness said.
22 When I examined in chief, we were talking about regular soldiers who were
23 engaged in the execution of that action, not professional soldiers.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: You're saying that the evidence was from Mr. Delic
25 that regular soldiers don't loot?
Page 19616
1 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Not quite, Your Honour. I asked, Who
2 participated in this action, were they reserve soldiers or regular
3 soldiers? The General answered, They were regular soldiers. Then I put
4 to him the allegations by several specific witnesses regarding Celina.
5 The witness explained that they want to steal but they have nothing to put
6 the things they steal because they only have a rucksack on their backs
7 with a certain kit in it, et cetera.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: So are you saying that the impression wasn't given
9 in his evidence that an officer in his brigade would not loot, which is
10 what Mr. Hannis is dealing with, officers, he's gone up a level?
11 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Well, the witness's words were
12 understood differently. The General allowed for that possibility and --
13 in his answer and we went through several documents identifying certain
14 officers as well in a number of thefts, looting, et cetera.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, it's said you're misrepresenting this
16 evidence, so we'll need a reference for it.
17 MR. HANNIS: I'm checking on that, Your Honour, and while I am may
18 I ask another question?
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.
20 MR. HANNIS: With your leave.
21 Q. I recall that you did say something along the lines of what
22 Mr. Cepic mentioned now about that they couldn't loot because they just
23 had these little nap sacks and what could they carry with them. I ask
24 you, sir, how big or how heavy is a role of Deutschemarks, a gold
25 necklace, a diamond ring? Those are all things a soldier could find room
Page 19617
1 for in his pocket or a nap sacks or his underwear for that matter, right?
2 A. Can I answer this question?
3 Q. Please.
4 A. You're absolutely not right because you are linking what is
5 written in that document with combat activities. In combat action, that
6 did not happen because soldiers had their commanding soldiers with them,
7 and that is consistent with what Mr. Cepic said and that's the way I
8 answered him because he was asking me about the area of Celina and some
9 Prosecution witnesses who spoke about theft and looting. The people who
10 are on that list committed a criminal offence in some other time, not in
11 combat action, and the injured parties were usually people who were
12 leaving the territory of our country via the Prizren-Zur-Vrbnica road, the
13 most -- the greatest number of crimes happened there; among them there
14 were soldiers and commanding officers as well. I believe I did well to
15 take all those who took -- who did such things to face a wartime court,
16 and it doesn't matter to me what you are saying. If it was one soldier
17 and one commanding officer, it's only -- it would be the same to me. If
18 there had been 500, I would have taken all the 500 to the military court,
19 and that was not a very common occurrence in my unit. If I had 14.000 men
20 under me, 17 [as interpreted] soldiers is not even one in a thousand.
21 Q. I recall that you did say that --
22 MR. CEPIC: I'm sorry just --
23 MR. HANNIS: I see Mr. Cepic.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: I agree that there's no logic in the last part of
25 that answer, but was there something else you wanted to say?
Page 19618
1 MR. CEPIC: At least that last error in transcript, line 12, he
2 said 70, 7-0 --
3 JUDGE BONOMY: There's obviously a mistake there. Thank you.
4 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
5 To get back to the original question, Your Honour, on the 29th of
6 November in the transcript which is numbered only pages 1 through 100 that
7 day. At page 12, line 15, the answer was: "Only active-duty soldiers
8 participated in this activity because there were no members who had been
9 mobilised. Active-duty soldiers do not loot."
10 Q. So, General, if that's what you said instead of "professional,"
11 does that change your answer? I say to you, General, active-duty reserve,
12 professional, non-professional, all kinds of soldiers loot because
13 soldiers are human beings and some human beings loot. Isn't that true?
14 A. You put all types of soldiers in the same basket and confuse them
15 all. I was speaking about a specific location and a specific activity,
16 and I said that on that day, on that occasion, my soldiers were only doing
17 their job. They were engaged in combat activity together with their
18 commanding officers, and I assert that on that day they were not involved
19 in any prohibited activity. This overview is backed by criminal reports
20 from which we can see when and where these perpetrators committed the
21 offence of robbery, theft, or any other offence.
22 Q. Okay. Well, one of the reasons you said that that couldn't have
23 happened was because they didn't have room to carry anything. We've
24 discussed that. Another reason you said is because their commanding
25 officers were with them, so that's another reason it could not have
Page 19619
1 happened. How many soldiers did you have participating in this action in
2 that area? How many men are we talking about, a couple hundred or more?
3 A. A couple of hundred.
4 Q. And how many commanding officers were engaged with them on that
5 date in that area? What was the ratio? One officer for 10 men, for 20?
6 A. Well, there were several dozen commanding officers from squad
7 commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders, and battalion
8 commanders, up to me, as brigade commander.
9 Q. So would you agree with me that one commanding officer could not
10 possibly be able to keep an eye on all of the men under him during an
11 action of this kind? Could not watch 10 or 12 men, however many he was
12 responsible for, at every moment. That's true, isn't it?
13 A. People don't need to be supervised. Most of them were brought up
14 not to steal and not to commit criminal offences because it would be very
15 wrong if everyone had to be watched all the time in order to prevent
16 them -- to prevent them from committing crimes. The Rules of Service bind
17 soldiers to honour regulations and prevent -- and it prohibits commission
18 of crimes. Those who still did so in my unit were punished, regardless of
19 who they were.
20 Q. And, General, you don't allow for the possibility that one of
21 those commanders may have engaged in looting, a commander who perhaps
22 wasn't brought up right?
23 A. All who are not brought up right are in that overview. You will
24 see that there are some commanding officers there against whom I filed
25 criminal reports, but it was a different time and different activities
Page 19620
1 were involved.
2 Q. One thing you mentioned in an earlier answer was that you could
3 tell -- I guess that you could tell by looking at this chart or this list
4 you could tell when and where a crime had been committed. I see on page
5 1, which is -- or actually, it's page 2, the first page after the cover
6 sheet, that there is a heading for place and time of crime, but for the
7 overwhelming majority of entries it seems that the only thing we have is a
8 location and most all of them seem to be either Prizren or Djakovica, with
9 a few exceptions. So how can you tell from this list that among these 73
10 persons charged with theft that none of them pertained to the operations
11 or the actions on the 25th and 26th of March, 1999?
12 A. Behind each and every one of these names there is a criminal
13 report. There is a description of the incident, minutes compiled about
14 items seized, and we can see from those where it happened. Mr. Cepic
15 showed just a few examples, and I know that they were in the month of
16 April.
17 Q. Did you read all those criminal reports related to these 132
18 entries?
19 A. Well, before criminal reports were filed before a court, before
20 they were sent to the court, I can't say I read them all, but I saw them
21 all because the security officer who was dealing with that was duty-bound
22 to inform me.
23 Q. One of the most significant entries in here, I would say, is at
24 item number 103 through 106. That concerns Major Mancic, the two
25 privates, and a Captain Radojevic charged with war crimes against
Page 19621
1 civilians. You're familiar with that particular event, are you not?
2 A. Yes, I am.
3 Q. And I think you testified in Milosevic, and perhaps here as well,
4 that this was one that you didn't find out about right away. It only came
5 to light I think late in the war or even after the war, correct?
6 A. I think it was just after the war.
7 Q. And isn't it correct that those two privates, Tesic and Seregi,
8 shot and killed two Albanian civilians that had been detained during an
9 action they were engaged in. That's what it's about, isn't it?
10 A. Yes, they killed two civilians.
11 Q. And I seem to recall from seeing some documents about that
12 criminal proceeding that the allegation -- or the claim was they said that
13 they had been ordered to kill those men by Major Mancic after those
14 individuals had been questioned. Isn't that correct?
15 A. That is what those soldiers said. That case is being retried. I
16 cannot -- I cannot speculate about this, because the case is still
17 ongoing.
18 Q. The case is still ongoing as to all four of these individuals,
19 Major Mancic, the two privates, and Captain Radojevic?
20 A. Yes. The Supreme Court, as far as I know, quashed the verdict and
21 returned it for a renewed procedure.
22 Q. And was Major Mancic released from custody when that happened or
23 even before that happened?
24 A. I don't have any information about that.
25 Q. Is it correct that he --
Page 19622
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Just hold on.
2 Mr. Cepic.
3 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, with your leave, I have
4 already once objected to any comment being made about ongoing proceedings.
5 There is a clear indication and the witness said himself that a trial is
6 underway and any comment would be interference with the court and the
7 case. The officer's duty is to file a criminal report, but any further
8 comments would interfere with the independence and the work of judicial
9 bodies.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you wish to pursue this, Mr. Hannis?
11 MR. HANNIS: I do have one other question, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we'll go into private session for it.
13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
14 [Private session]
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 19623
1 (redacted)
2 [Open session]
3 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
5 Mr. Hannis.
6 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
7 Q. General, I want to ask you about some of the incidents alleged in
8 the indictment. You testified about Bela Crkva, and you mentioned passing
9 through Bela Crkva after the 25th of March I think up to the 4th of April?
10 Is that correct? Did you also pass through on the 4th of April?
11 A. I don't know whether I said the 4th or the 5th. I passed on the
12 25th, 26th, and the 27th, up to the 4th, perhaps the 5th of April, and
13 once again in May.
14 Q. Okay. And your testimony was that when you passed through on the
15 26th, 27th, and the 4th of April, and again in May, you saw no damage to
16 Bela Crkva, correct?
17 A. No, I did not see anything that would be out of the ordinary in
18 Bela Crkva.
19 MR. HANNIS: Well, I'd like to show the witness Exhibit P98. And,
20 Your Honours, actually I'd like to make an oral application. This exhibit
21 was originally shown to Mr. Riedlmayer when he testified. The version we
22 have in e-court appears to have been scanned from a copy of something.
23 It's not a very good copy. I have a hard copy here. We have a better
24 copy of this that we would propose to put into e-court, with the leave of
25 your Court and barring any objection by the Defence. Dr. Riedlmayer told
Page 19624
1 us that this was something he had seen on the NATO web site, and that's
2 where this comes from. You can probably see on the current version in
3 e-court that it appears to be highly overexposed and is not very useful I
4 would submit?
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
6 MR. CEPIC: Could we have a copy of that document, please.
7 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
8 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, Dr. Riedlmayer talked about this --
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Please continue then, Mr. Hannis, using the clearer
10 version.
11 MR. HANNIS: Okay. And I can hand a hard copy to the General
12 if -- I'll assure the Defence has a hard copy of the same thing they're
13 seeing on the left side of the screen now.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Remove the poorer-quality one from the screen and
15 expand the other one. Thank you.
16 MR. HANNIS:
17 Q. General, this is a photograph purporting to show Bela Crkva. On
18 the left side of your photo on the 11th of March, 1999, and in the centre
19 of the photograph I understand that that's the mosque and the tall column
20 there casting a shadow to the left and behind the building is the minaret
21 to the mosque. Can you recognise that, even though it's an aerial
22 photograph, can you recognise that as Bela Crkva?
23 A. I cannot say with any certainty that it's Bela Crkva. It could be
24 any other place.
25 Q. Would you disagree with me if I told you it's Bela Crkva and it's
Page 19625
1 been indicated as such by another witness in this case? I mean, do you
2 have any reason to dispute it?
3 A. I have no reason to dispute it. If the picture were broader and
4 if we could see the roads, then we could say really whether it's
5 Bela Crkva or not. This way we can't be sure.
6 MR. LUKIC: I'm sorry, Your Honour, we are also very confused with
7 those two pictures. Are they representing the same site or not for the
8 first because I don't see that they represent the same site.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that was an issue that may have arisen when
10 they were originally exhibited.
11 MR. HANNIS: It did, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: It did.
13 MR. HANNIS: And there was an explanation from Mr. Riedlmayer,
14 Professor Riedlmayer, that the photograph on the right is actually rotated
15 180 degrees.
16 Q. General, I tell you that, that the photograph on the right has the
17 bend of the river on the right-hand side of the photograph. If you can in
18 your mind rotate that photograph on the right 180 degrees, can you then
19 see and understand that this is the same area that's depicted on the
20 right?
21 A. Yes, it's probably the same area.
22 Q. And does this photograph on the right dated the 2nd of April,
23 1999, not show extensive damage to buildings in Bela Crkva?
24 A. Nothing can be seen on this photograph. It's not a photograph
25 that could serve as a basis for any analysis, because while the left-hand
Page 19626
1 side photo is clear, the right-hand side is blurred as if it was all
2 covered by fog. And to claim that the right-hand photo, especially
3 rotated this way, I don't think this claim stands up to scrutiny. Again,
4 let me ask, why is one photograph clear and the other absolutely not
5 clear?
6 Q. General, Witness Professor Riedlmayer told us that on the
7 right-hand photograph it appeared to him that the minaret to the mosque is
8 no longer standing. Isn't it true that the mosque in Bela Crkva was
9 damaged during that last week in March when your forces were going through
10 that area?
11 A. When my forces were there, the mosque was standing throughout that
12 time. Now based on this --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: The question relates to the minaret. Are you
14 saying it was standing?
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I am saying the minaret was
16 there while I was there. I can't say I looked at the minaret every day,
17 but on the 25th when I was passing through the mosque and the minaret were
18 intact. Now, based on this 2nd April photograph, nobody can claim that
19 the minaret is missing because the photograph is simply blurred.
20 MR. HANNIS:
21 Q. General, could you in the last minute remaining take a pen and
22 mark on this screen where you would have driven through when you passed
23 through Bela Crkva on the 4th or 5th of April. Would you have gone along
24 one of these roads depicted?
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
Page 19627
1 MR. CEPIC: Your Honour, with your leave, the witness answered
2 that he cannot recognise easy the Bela Crkva or some other village. His
3 answer now -- sorry.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: We've moved on from that point and he's capable of
5 speaking for himself, but he knows now that the river is depicted. He can
6 see roads in the left-hand one clearly in relation to both the river and
7 the mosque. He's familiar with the location of the mosque in Bela Crkva,
8 and should now be able to tell us whether he thinks this is Bela Crkva or
9 not. And if he remains of the view that he can't tell, then he won't be
10 able to assist us.
11 What is the position, Mr. Delic?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm saying that this is a very
13 narrow photograph. You can see just some local roads, and I say, although
14 I have no reason to doubt what the Prosecutor is saying I do not claim
15 that this is Bela Crkva. This road cannot be seen here. I used the main
16 road to get here -- to get there, the road from Prizren via Zrze to
17 Orahovac, and if you look at another map you can see that road. Here on
18 these photographs that road doesn't exist, it's just not there.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you saying that you certainly did not pass
20 close to the mosque?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If this is Bela Crkva, I'm saying
22 that I passed along a asphalt road. I didn't take any of the roads that
23 can be seen on this photograph that is clearer.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: So that answer doesn't -- I can't understand in
25 English. You didn't take any of the roads that can be seen on this
Page 19628
1 photograph at all; is that your position?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no -- yes, that is what I said.
3 I did not take any of the roads. These are local roads. I used the main
4 road leading towards Orahovac.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: When passing, how close were you to the mosque?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, in my opinion, the mosque may
7 be some 300 or 500 metres away, so up to half a kilometre.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Was the minaret visible when you passed? I don't
9 mean was it there, but was it normally visible?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In normal conditions, it was
11 visible, certainly, but I have to say now that I was not there to look at
12 whether the minaret was there or not. This was something just in passing.
13 I'm sure about that on the 25th, but I paid attention to the general
14 picture. I didn't focus my attention on checking whether the mosque and
15 the minaret were there every day, so I can't make any claims to that
16 effect.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you. Well, that's where we must
18 end for today, Mr. Delic. We need you back again tomorrow at 9.00, same
19 place, and we will have a similar sitting arrangement, from 9.00 to 3.30.
20 So could you now please leave the courtroom with the usher.
21 [The witness stands down]
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, I know that there's been some
23 communications taking place in relation to translations. I'm not
24 up-to-date with these, and therefore I'm not in a position to deal with
25 that at this point in time, but they will be dealt with urgently.
Page 19629
1 On the other matter, however, of the expert report, can you give
2 us any more information?
3 MR. IVETIC: Yes, Your Honour. The e-mail from the Senior Legal
4 Officer, Grant Dawson, said that this should be taken care of prior to the
5 winter recess, we are in the process of doing that, and it's my
6 understanding that both the English and the B/C/S versions of the
7 report --
8 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please slow down.
9 MR. IVETIC: -- will be amended or corrected with respect to the
10 format that was discussed earlier in the week, that is to say prior to the
11 break.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: That's helpful. All that needs to be done is
13 upload them into e-court. Filing is not necessarily.
14 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour. That is what we will do
15 then.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Very well.
17 We will adjourn now and resume at 9.00 tomorrow.
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.36 p.m.,
19 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 6th day of
20 December, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.
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