Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 21907

1 Friday, 8 February 2008

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The Accused Pavkovic not present]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, everyone. We apologise for our delay

7 in starting, but we had information about the absence of Judge Nosworthy,

8 which we had to reflect upon. We hope she will be with us later, but at

9 the moment she is unwell and unable to join us for the first session at

10 least and possibly also for the rest of the day. But we will confirm the

11 position later. Meanwhile we consider it in the interests of justice to

12 continue in her absence.

13 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Bakrac.

15 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] By your leave, before the witness

16 comes in, 6D7112 [as interpreted] that was the black-and-white map.

17 [The witness entered court]

18 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] I have now been informed that it has

19 been replaced and that what is in the system now is the map that we showed

20 on the ELMO in colour.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: As long as you can satisfy Mr. Haider on these

22 matters, then you will satisfy us. Thank you, Mr. Bakrac.

23 Good morning, Mr. Paunovic.

24 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Your cross-examination will continue in a moment.

Page 21908

1 Please bear in mind that the solemn declaration to speak the truth which

2 you gave at the beginning of your evidence will apply to it today until

3 it's completed.

4 Ms. Kravetz.

5 MS. KRAVETZ: Thank you, Your Honour.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand, Your Honour.

7 WITNESS: DRAGAN PAUNOVIC [Resumed]

8 [Witness answered through interpreter]

9 Cross-examination by Ms. Kravetz: [Continued]

10 Q. Good morning.

11 A. Good morning.

12 Q. I have very few questions left for you today. Yesterday during

13 the course of your testimony you were shown an order which is Exhibit

14 6D700. You were asked to read a specific passage out which referred to

15 tasks of the units of the 125th Brigade, motorised brigade, to support the

16 MUP in an action along the axis of the villages of Likovac, Donje and

17 Gornje Obrinje and Trdevac. You remember reading that out in court. And

18 you recall that you said yesterday that you took part in this action which

19 is envisaged in this order that I'm referring to, correct?

20 A. I said that I recognised Likovac, which is a locality that I

21 remember in terms of having taken certain activities there. So my memory

22 is linked to that locality.

23 Q. Okay. And the order that we're discussing was dated 24th

24 September 1998, so I take it the actions that are -- the tasks that are

25 envisaged in this order were carried out in the days following the issuing

Page 21909

1 of the order, we're talking about 25th, 26th September 1998, correct?

2 A. I assume that that is so.

3 Q. Now, in the order we saw that units of the 125th were being tasked

4 to support your PJP company and also two other units of the MUP, the JSO

5 and a PJP company from Kosovska Mitrovica. You recall these units being

6 involved in this action along this axis?

7 A. If you allow me, what I see here is the 125th BG/1. Their task

8 was to support the attack of the 3rd OD PJP, which I assume is "odred,"

9 detachment. What I led was part of a company that was under me.

10 Otherwise, what I said yesterday was that during these activities in

11 Likovac I heard from my colleagues that six members of the company from

12 Kosovska Mitrovica --

13 Q. I'm sorry to interrupt you there. I'm asking -- I was just asking

14 about the units involved in the operation. You did explain that you heard

15 that some members of the Kosovska Mitrovica company had been killed in

16 this operation, yes, I recall that testimony.

17 A. That's right.

18 Q. So is it correct that the other MUP units involved in this

19 operation would have been the PJPs from Kosovska Mitrovica and the JSO?

20 A. I heard about the company from Kosovska Mitrovica, but I cannot

21 confirm about the others.

22 Q. Were there any other MUP units with you in Likovac where you were

23 deployed during the course of -- when this action was taking place?

24 A. I assume that there were other companies from my detachment.

25 Q. You don't recall exactly which other companies were involved in

Page 21910

1 this action?

2 A. No, I really do not in view of the area of activity and also my

3 dedication to my own tasks.

4 Q. Did -- while you were carrying out this action were you primarily

5 in Likovac or did you later move on to any of the other localities that

6 are envisaged in this order? I'm talking about Donje and Gornje Obrinje

7 and Trdevac.

8 A. Focus of my activity was the road leading up to Likovac and the

9 locality of Likovac itself.

10 Q. Do you know which MUP units that were involved in this action were

11 deployed to the village of Gornje Obrinje?

12 A. Believe me, I really don't know about that locality either unless

13 I see it here, in terms of units I mean.

14 Q. Very well. And units of the VJ that were -- were there units of

15 the VJ involved in this action that you were taking -- carrying out in the

16 village of Likovac?

17 A. I did notice some military personnel on the spot in Likovac, but I

18 don't know whether they were involved in activities.

19 Q. And these would have been members of - I'm basing this on the

20 order - members of the 125th Motorised Brigade?

21 A. I noticed some military personnel. I cannot say anything about

22 their identity.

23 Q. Do you know what sort of -- what were these military personnel

24 doing? Were they providing support to the tasks that you were carrying

25 out? What was their role?

Page 21911

1 A. When arriving from Likovac from the road, I did notice certain

2 persons as individuals who were there in that village. So I did not

3 notice them in terms of being involved in some activity but in terms of

4 their presence.

5 Q. Very well. We have heard evidence in this case that during the

6 course of an operation by Serb forces in this area, specifically in the

7 village of Gornje Obrinje on 26th September 1998, 21 civilians, including

8 a group of women and children, were killed. Do you have any information

9 or have you heard about this killing taking place during the course of

10 this operation?

11 A. No, indeed not. I just heard about the death of those young men

12 that I described a while ago.

13 Q. Okay. Very well.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you saying that this massacre, alleged

15 massacre, comes as news to you today?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Kravetz.

18 MS. KRAVETZ:

19 Q. So you had received no prior information once this action was

20 completed about what events happened in the village of Gornje Obrinje;

21 that's what you're saying?

22 A. Yes, yes, we were not informed -- I was not informed, to be more

23 precise, about that at all.

24 Q. Okay. Very well.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you -- your company engage in any combat in

Page 21912

1 this action?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Until we arrived in Likovac, several

3 times my unit was under fire from -- coming from the flanks. For the most

4 part, from the nearby woods. If I'm -- if I remember correctly, it was

5 100 or 200 metres away from the road along which we were moving.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah, that really doesn't answer my question. Did

7 you respond to that fire?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] A few times we did respond with fire

9 when we noticed where it was that the source of firing at us was.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: And did you sustain any casualties, your company,

11 your company?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My company did not sustain any

13 losses.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you know if you inflicted any injury on any of

15 the attackers?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, since this was pretty far away,

17 we just opened fire to protect ourselves, generally speaking; we fired

18 into the air and we lay by the road.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

20 Ms. Kravetz.

21 MS. KRAVETZ:

22 Q. Did you actually enter the village of Likovac on that occasion?

23 A. On the basis of my present-day recollections, I can confirm that

24 we entered a built-up area that I heard was a locality called Likovac. I

25 was told that it was called Likovac, and I know that there was a centre of

Page 21913

1 this village and it was surrounded by some shops and a few houses. So if

2 that can be considered as entering the village of Likovac, then that would

3 be it.

4 Q. And you were told this by whom, that this was the village of

5 Likovac?

6 A. One of my officers.

7 Q. And were there any civilians in the village when you entered?

8 A. While I was there, it was empty, it was only members of the MUP

9 who were there.

10 Q. Okay. Very well.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you know which date it was that you entered the

12 village?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Believe me, I really don't know. I

14 know it was in September, I mean late in September, but I really don't

15 know the date.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Kravetz.

17 MS. KRAVETZ:

18 Q. But you told us you recall this action taking place between 25th

19 and 26th September, so it would be correct to say that the approximate

20 date when you were in Likovac would be around those dates, 25th and 26th

21 September?

22 A. I can really only say to you that it was in the second half of

23 September. It's been quite a while.

24 Q. Thank you. Very well.

25 A. Thank you.

Page 21914

1 MS. KRAVETZ: I have no further questions for this witness, Your

2 Honour.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic, re-examination?

4 MR. LUKIC: Very short one, Your Honour.

5 Re-examination by Mr. Lukic:

6 Q. [Interpretation] Good day to you once again. Mr. Paunovic,

7 yesterday while my learned friend Ms. Kravetz was examining you, we heard

8 a military term that appeared in conversation, although Ms. Kravetz I

9 think put the question right. She asked you whether you were sent out for

10 assistance. 6D682 is what I'd like to see on e-court, and you have the

11 binder in front of you.

12 This is a dispatch from the public security sector dated the 8th

13 of February, 1999.

14 A. I'm sorry. Could you give me the number of the document once

15 again.

16 Q. 6D682. Would you just read the first sentence, please, up until

17 the first comma, to be more precise.

18 A. You mean the first paragraph: "The engagement of ..."

19 "The engage of the members of the 37th and 87th Detachment of the

20 PJP who on the 15th -- who were sent on the 15th of January, 1999, to

21 assist the secretariat in Prizren," --

22 Q. Thank you. His Honour Judge Bonomy asked you yesterday in

23 relation to a term that was mentioned yesterday, and that was

24 resubordination. Are MUP units resubordinated or are they sent out to

25 render assistance; let's clear that first.

Page 21915

1 A. Terminologically, the most correct way of putting it is that PJPs

2 are sent out to help, to render assistance.

3 Q. Thank you. Could you please look at page 2 of this document. If

4 you look at the signature, you worked at the police administration at that

5 time. Whose signature is this underneath the name of Colonel-General

6 Vlastimir Djordjevic?

7 A. Sorry, I worked at the police administration from November 1998,

8 not this time.

9 Q. But this is February 1999.

10 A. Yes, you're right, I did work in the police administration. I

11 think that this is Obrad Stevanovic's signature.

12 Q. Thank you. I'd just like to show you briefly 6D684. This is yet

13 again a dispatch from the public security sector dated the 4th of

14 February, 1999. Could you read out for us once again the first three

15 lines from the first paragraph, please.

16 A. Yes, of course. I'm reading it as follows: "The engagement of

17 members of the 23rd and 73rd PJP Detachments from the SUP in Sremska

18 Mitrovica, Pancevo, Zrenjanin, and Sombor, who were sent to help out the

19 secretariat of the interior in Djakovica on the 11th of January, 1999,

20 shall terminate on the 11th of February, 1999."

21 Q. Further on it says: "Preparations for their replacement must be

22 made and the following units should be sent to Djakovica on that day,

23 according to establishment" --

24 A. Should I repeat this?

25 Q. No, I read it out. And then it says: "From the SUP in Novi Sad,

Page 21916

1 1st Company of the 23rd PJP Detachment ..."

2 Do you know that at that time replacements were, indeed, taking

3 place, that PJP units were being replaced in Kosovo, it's not that

4 additional PJPs were being sent?

5 A. Yes, I think that that was the case, that replacements were being

6 sent.

7 Q. Could we now look at page 2 again, the signature, it says

8 Colonel-General Vlastimir Djordjevic. Whose signature this?

9 A. On the basis of what I know, I think this is Obrad Stevanovic's

10 signature.

11 Q. Thank you. Yesterday we discussed the structure of PJPs in detail

12 and we explained through different documents the legal structure, we heard

13 about it all the way to the level of detachment commander. Who was the

14 commander of PJPs and what was the name of the minister of interior at

15 that time?

16 A. The minister of the interior at that time was Vlajko Stojiljkovic.

17 Q. And who was the commander of the PJPs?

18 A. According to what I knew, General Obrad Stevanovic was the

19 commander of the PJPs.

20 Q. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you for having

21 testified.

22 A. Thank you.

23 [Trial Chamber confers]

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Paunovic, that completes your evidence.

25 Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give evidence. You're now free to

Page 21917

1 leave the courtroom with the usher. Thank you.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

3 [The witness withdrew]

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic, who is your next witness?

5 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, our next witness is Mr. Ljubivoje Joksic,

6 and my colleague, Dan Ivetic, will be leading this witness.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

8 I should have recorded at the outset of this sitting the absence

9 of Mr. Pavkovic. Mr. Aleksic, I take it there is no objection at all to

10 the proceedings continuing in his absence? I understand he's unwell and,

11 in fact, at the moment being examined.

12 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, you're right. We

13 shall have his consent during the day to press on in his absence.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

15 [The witness entered court]

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Joksic.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Would you please make the solemn declaration to

19 speak the truth by reading aloud the document which will now be shown to

20 you.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

22 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.

24 You will now be examined by Mr. Ivetic on behalf of Mr. Lukic.

25 Mr. Ivetic.

Page 21918

1 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

2 WITNESS: LJUBIVOJE JOKSIC

3 [Witness answered through interpreter]

4 Examination by Mr. Ivetic:

5 Q. Good morning, Mr. Joksic.

6 A. Good morning.

7 Q. Mr. Jokic, first of all, for the record, if you could please

8 introduce yourself briefly.

9 A. My name is Ljubivoje Joksic. I was born on 26th of January, 1949,

10 in the village of Vranic, Barajevo municipality, Belgrade, Republic of

11 Serbia. My father's name was Aleksandar and my mother's name was Milinka.

12 Q. Thank you, sir, and I'm just waiting for the transcript to catch

13 up with us. Did you have chance to give a statement, a written statement

14 to the attorneys of the defence team of Sreten Lukic?

15 A. Yes.

16 MR. IVETIC: I would ask the assistance of the usher to hand a

17 hard copy of 6D1491 to the witness.

18 Q. And, sir, once you receive this document I would ask you to look

19 at it and confirm whether in fact this is the statement that you gave to

20 members of my team.

21 A. Yes, that's the one.

22 Q. Did you have occasion in these past days to read and review this

23 statement before signing it?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And if I would ask you today to testify on these same topics,

Page 21919

1 would your answers be the same as recorded herein?

2 A. Yes.

3 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I would ask for 6D1491 to be entered

4 into evidence and would also ask for the following exhibits that are dealt

5 with and detailed in the written statement to be put on the record as

6 exhibits, those would be 6D139, 6D946, 6D142, 6D775, 6D776, 6D805, 6D990,

7 6D1002, 6D1003, 6D1004, 6D1005, 6D1006, 6D1007 --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Can you maybe tell us which is the last one of the

9 series?

10 MR. IVETIC: Last one of the series would be 6D1018 it looks like.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: So that's 2 to 18?

12 MR. IVETIC: Correct, and that brings me to the end of my list.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.

14 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I have an objection to a portion of the

15 statement, in particular paragraphs I think 2 through 42 sets forth in

16 some detail information about the formation and creation of what

17 eventually became the KLA, going back to 1960s and 1970s even. In some

18 ways it's almost as though he's testifying as an expert on the KLA, but

19 he's not been presented as an expert under Rule 94. The source of his

20 information from the statement is rather vague. He does refer to RDB

21 sources, secret documents which we don't have which we can't look at to

22 compare and cross-examine him about, sources are the typical security

23 services kinds of sources, I gather, insiders, informants, et cetera,

24 which, as we all know, sometimes have issues of credibility. In many

25 ways, Your Honour, I see this portion of his statement similar to portions

Page 21920

1 of the statement of Mr. Tanic, who testified for the Prosecution, and to

2 whom Mr. O'Sullivan and the Defence raised an objection and Your Honours

3 decided to allow in only I think paragraphs 1 to 45 in his statement and

4 directed the Prosecution to lead him live on other matters so that you

5 could determine what weight to give his evidence that came from

6 third-party sources or from hearsay. And so that's the basis of my

7 objection to that portion of his statement.

8 With regard to some of the exhibits contained therein, I have

9 another objection. For example, in paragraph 54, Exhibit 6D805, the

10 witness's statement said: "This is a JB document, public security

11 document, it contains statistical data collected from the field. The

12 information from this document is to my knowledge correct."

13 That's rather vague to me, Your Honour. I could look at it and

14 said, Well, to my knowledge it's incorrect. I think we need some further

15 amplification before that exhibit gets admitted, and there are a few

16 others like that. The ones that he helped prepare or the ones that he

17 says were prepared by his boss who he worked closely with, I don't have

18 any objection to. But the others that he says he has not seen before or

19 he knows that a criminal report was filed in connection with it, that's

20 not very enlightening and I don't know that standing alone is enough to

21 allow for their admission at this point in time. Thank you.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.

23 MR. IVETIC: If I can respond, I think I can work backwards --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a moment, Mr. Ivetic.

25 MR. IVETIC: Oh, sorry.

Page 21921

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Ivetic.

2 MR. IVETIC: Some of the -- I think the criminal report that

3 Mr. Hannis made reference to I believe is already an exhibit in this case

4 and the witness was only commenting on the same in his statement. The

5 extent of his knowledge and his testimony is contained in the statement,

6 so we're not trying to expand upon that in any way. It is what it is and

7 its evidentiary value is what the Trial Chamber will take it to be.

8 With respect to 805, 6D805, it's a document giving information,

9 data, relating to the time-period of the KLA activities and --

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, I've lost you. What is the criminal report

11 that you say Mr. Hannis referred to. I thought that was 6D805.

12 MR. IVETIC: No, 6D805 is an overview. I believe the criminal

13 report that Mr. Hannis is making reference to would be --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: I missed any reference to a criminal report in what

15 Mr. Hannis --

16 MR. HANNIS: I just made reference to his speaking about a

17 criminal report, that was in regard to paragraph 51, Exhibit 6D142. My

18 particular objection regarding the objections -- regarding the exhibits,

19 Your Honour, are in paragraphs 53, 54, and 55, Exhibits 6D776, 805, and

20 990.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

22 MR. IVETIC: Again, I can verify that the criminal reports are

23 items that are already in evidence that have been brought into evidence

24 with Prosecution witnesses, for which we have had some testimony. We will

25 have testimony from other Defence witnesses as well. The information from

Page 21922

1 the RJB, the overviews of terrorist activities that Mr. Hannis mentions,

2 the witness has confirmed his -- that the knowledge -- that the

3 information contained therein is consistent with his knowledge from the

4 RDB. That is of course open to the Office of the Prosecution to

5 cross-examine upon to find out anything that they -- that they feel is

6 important from that, just like any other witness. So I think it's -- that

7 objection should be repelled insofar as he's just confirming the

8 information and then it's open to the Prosecution to cross-examine him as

9 to the factors behind that. So I don't see why that would require --

10 obviously, the man spent many years in Kosovo and Metohija working for the

11 department of state security, so when he says that the information is

12 correct with his knowledge, that implies it's from his official capacity

13 as a person dealing exclusively with terrorism for a number of years, in

14 fact, I think it was close to a decade. So if the Prosecution wish to

15 cross-examine on that, by all means they're allowed to cross-examine on

16 that.

17 And I think there was one last issue which now I've lost in the

18 transcript. I guess the general objection taken to the discussion of the

19 KLA, again that's open to cross-examination by the Prosecution, and indeed

20 if they feel that there is anything that is questionable or the source of

21 it, I'm sure the witness can answer and then belay those fears, again as

22 someone who spent ten years in Kosovo-Metohija -- approximately ten years

23 I should say, working for the State Security Service, specifically dealing

24 with terrorism, he's merely reciting facts, he's not opining as to any of

25 it.

Page 21923

1 JUDGE BONOMY: You do remember taking objection to parts of the

2 Tanic statement, do you?

3 MR. IVETIC: I personally did not do witness Tanic, so I wasn't

4 even in court during most of that testimony, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: You will, therefore -- but you will have or

6 remember taking objection to the statement of Abrahams?

7 MR. IVETIC: But the -- the distinction I would make, sir, is that

8 whereas this individual specifically was in -- was a -- was not a source

9 for the RDB but actually was an officer in the RDB working on the terrain

10 and is reporting on things that his service -- information that his

11 service collected and events that, indeed, are talked about by other

12 witnesses. A lot of this stuff has been confirmed by other witnesses and

13 will be confirmed by other witnesses to come. So respectfully, we're not

14 talking about someone who claims to be an operative of the RDB who is

15 giving information that cannot be confirmed, this information can be

16 confirmed and, in fact --

17 JUDGE BONOMY: How can it be confirmed when it's information given

18 by sources to him and these sources are varying kinds? Let me quote to

19 you from your own objection to Abrahams.

20 "The main problem is that a lot of his conclusions and findings

21 are based upon the information he had at hand, and that is not necessarily

22 the totality of the information available. Given that his information in

23 his Rule 89(F) statement is culled from various reports, we do not know

24 what portions are the result of things that he actually eye-witnessed or

25 did research on or what was written by somebody else or what he heard from

Page 21924

1 somebody or what he heard from an interviewee, for instance. So it's very

2 difficult to discern what is first-hand history that he experienced and

3 can report upon and what is second-hand history that he is reciting from

4 some other source, of which we don't even know who that source is. We

5 have no idea about the credibility or the credentials of the same."

6 Now, what's the difference?

7 MR. IVETIC: Now, the difference is, Your Honour, with

8 Mr. Abrahams and his report we were talking principally about what

9 purported witnesses told him and he was giving testimony that the -- the

10 book was giving testimony about what other people said. We're giving

11 testimony about events that occurred and that, in fact, the Office of the

12 Prosecution should be well aware of these since one of their witnesses had

13 the -- similar information relating to the same, one of the witnesses they

14 did not call here today from the RDB, Mr. Stijovic.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not, I'm afraid, understanding the distinction

16 at the moment.

17 MR. IVETIC: Well, the --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: There were -- yeah, if you go to paragraph 5 about

19 political gatherings prior to 1982 and this idea of the Greater Albania

20 and the key players in paragraph 6, and then paragraph 7 talking about the

21 tribal system, it's all -- seems like expert evidence by somebody who may

22 have researched it. And you'll remember that we've already had an expert,

23 a military expert, Radinovic, part of whose report we excluded because it

24 was based on sources that were really, from our point of view,

25 unverifiable.

Page 21925

1 MR. IVETIC: And the point with Radinovic, he was a military

2 expert, not someone who had spent his entire employment dealing with

3 terrorism. If there's a question about the sources, the gentleman is here

4 to answer those questions. This is exclusively what he dealt with, the

5 purview of his employment within the RDB was collection of this sort of

6 information and would be the course of his employment -- the course of his

7 activities on Kosovo -- in Kosovo-Metohija would be related directly to

8 these matters. So if there's an issue of asking the witness questions

9 about this, he's available to answer those, and he can verify the methods

10 by which this information was collected --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: I'd prefer just to hear from the puppet rather than

12 the puppet master as well. One person speaking at a time will be

13 sufficient for our purposes.

14 Mr. Hannis.

15 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour --

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, Mr. Ivetic, I don't think Mr. Ivetic has

17 completed his submission.

18 Mr. Ivetic.

19 MR. IVETIC: I think I had completed my submission, just by saying

20 he can verify the methods by which this information was collected, again

21 from RDB -- from the RDB work method and the RDB presence on the ground.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.

23 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. One issue I contest is the

24 allegation that I am able to examine the sources of his information. I

25 can cross-examine him, but I don't have the sources of his information.

Page 21926

1 In paragraph 2 in English in the middle he says: "The sources I have used

2 for what I'm about to say in this statement are DB documents I have access

3 to, intelligence and information collected from people who were

4 infiltrated in terrorist groups, from colleagues, operative contacts,

5 technology."

6 We don't have those things, so we're going to have to live with

7 what he says. He says, I looked at that, I read that document, I reviewed

8 those intercepts, I talked to that infiltrator, and trust me when I tell

9 you this is what it all means. We can't examine that. Your Honours, I

10 would draw [Realtime transcript read in error "withdraw"] my analogy. You

11 accepted the Defence arguments and kept out "As Seen, As Told." This

12 statement paragraphs 2 through 45 or 42 could be called "As Read, As

13 Heard"; it's no different. Matter of fact one difference is with regards

14 to "As Seen, As Told" and "Under Orders," we actually brought into court

15 some of those witnesses who had provided the information that went into

16 those reports; we don't have that here, we have the author of this work.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: What do you mean by saying "I withdraw my

18 analogy" --

19 MR. HANNIS: No, I would draw an analogy --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, yes sorry.

21 MR. HANNIS: -- to "As Seen, As Told" and call this "As Read, As

22 Heard." And if this is sufficient, then I would renew our motion to admit

23 "As Seen, As Told" and "Under Orders." Thank you.

24 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, if I can make one further submission.

25 If we want to do analogies, then I believe that the entire testimony of

Page 21927

1 General Aleksandar Vasiljevic should be excluded on the same grounds since

2 the military security service and the information provided by General

3 Vasiljevic is, I would submit, identical to this.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you want to comment on that, Mr. Hannis,

5 because --

6 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, I recall General Vasiljevic's

7 testimony being fairly limited to the period of the war, April 1999, et

8 cetera, he wasn't going back to the 1960s and 1970s, he was talking about

9 meetings that he attended and he was talking about documents that he had

10 and that he brought to court.

11 [Trial Chamber confers]

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, just a little more assistance you can

13 give us, an example here, paragraph 25: "I have taken this information

14 from a bulletin I had occasion to read ..."

15 I mean, we would be a laughing stock as a Court to take that sort

16 of specific statistical information from a witness based on a bulletin he

17 had occasion to read which we don't have access to which we cannot

18 challenged or explored or investigated.

19 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, 6D805 is, I believe, a bulletin on that

20 topic, that's the exhibit that is also being produced -- the RJB overview

21 of committed terrorist attacks on the territory of the autonomous province

22 of Kosovo-Metohija. I think that -- I think that's one of the -- I'm just

23 looking at the list here since I don't have that exhibit in front of me,

24 but -- and I submit, Your Honour, we've heard evidence from witnesses such

25 as General Gajic, for instance, that the sole basis of his information was

Page 21928

1 some unnamed source from Bosnia talking about what was going on in

2 Kosovo. This man was on the ground the entire time and if there's a

3 question about this --

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, give me the page reference for Gajic because

5 we're going to have to look at these things and decide what to do here.

6 MR. IVETIC: I obviously can't give you the page reference for

7 Gajic off the top of my head, but he testified with respect to the wolves

8 from the Drina, that they were -- that the sole source for his information

9 was from Bosnia, and that for the Skorpions, the sole source of his

10 information was from Vojvodina, both of which are outside the territory of

11 Kosovo-Metohija.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: That's oral evidence that we are going to be able

13 to deal with, much of it, no doubt, is going to be rejected. And one way

14 of dealing with this may be to require the evidence, if you're insisting

15 upon it, to be led orally, by identifying the parts of this statement that

16 we would not be prepared to admit. That doesn't stop you trying to elicit

17 the information from the witness by identifying his source and then

18 leaving it to us to decide whether it should be admitted as authentic

19 information.

20 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, that would be great if I had the

21 unlimited time that the Office of the Prosecution had to present their

22 case, but I have a limited number of hours and therefore we were

23 instructed --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: They didn't have unlimited time, Mr. Ivetic, and

25 they had six cases to present, and you have been given a very generous

Page 21929

1 allocation of time --

2 MR. IVETIC: And we were invited --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: You see, the other -- I was looking also at

4 paragraph 24 at the same time. I ask myself what's the relevance of

5 that. I mean, what is the relevance of that? I'm surprised that

6 Mr. Hannis hasn't taken objection on the basis of relevance of a lot of

7 this. Large chunks of it predate any period that we are really concerned

8 about, and no doubt one can debate what has been happening in the region

9 and in Kosovo in particular over a very long period of time and find it

10 very interesting. But our decisions have to relate to 1998 and 1999.

11 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, your decisions have to relate to justice

12 and having a totality of the picture on the ground that would impact upon

13 making sure that justice is done in this courtroom. And in terms of the

14 time-period, the time-period is chosen by the Office of the Prosecution.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: So tell me the relevance of paragraph 24. I'm

16 restraining myself from taking offence at the reference you've just made

17 and the suggestion that we are not concerned with justice, Mr. Ivetic.

18 MR. IVETIC: That was not the intention --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: But I will lay that aside and ask you to tell me

20 the relevance of paragraph 24.

21 MR. IVETIC: The relevance is, Your Honour, that we've had

22 evidence from Prosecution witnesses that the KLA did not exist during that

23 time-period by showing the activities of the armed KLA during that

24 time-period we confront --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's assume they did exist in 1993, what

Page 21930

1 difference does it make to the decisions we've got to take?

2 MR. IVETIC: It should make an impact upon how you take the

3 evidence presented by the Prosecution witnesses who said otherwise. It

4 affects the credibility of the Prosecution witnesses who claimed there was

5 no KLA -- there was no reason for the police or the army or anyone else to

6 be in Kosovo-Metohija. It provides a totality of the environment that

7 everyone had to live under in Kosovo-Metohija during the relevant

8 time-period that is the part of the indictment.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: You've lost me, I'm afraid, Mr. Ivetic. You think

10 we've got to be concerned about the presence of the police in Kosovo in

11 1993?

12 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, the time-period leading up to the period

13 of the indictment demonstrates the atmosphere that was on the ground, the

14 armed engagement with the KLA, the attacks by the KLA demonstrates what

15 people were living under so you can understand their testimony that we've

16 heard here during the periods of 1998 and 1999. And if you look at the --

17 well, if I could add to that, you look at some of the people that were

18 involved in the attacks and when you take into account that they are in

19 leading positions today in Kosovo-Metohija, it might also explain why

20 witnesses coming from that region today only give favourable evidence

21 about the KLA.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I for one am surprised that you think that it

23 is a valuable use of your resources to present all this pre-1996

24 material. It is a complicated issue, this, and we will have to, I think,

25 adjourn to make a decision about it.

Page 21931

1 MR. HANNIS: Before you go, Your Honour, I have one specific

2 further objection to paragraph 54, Exhibit 6D805. It doesn't appear to be

3 in e-court. I haven't seen the document yet.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Judge Kamenova has had the same problem, we can't

5 find this document, which you think may even be the bulletin referred to

6 in paragraph 25.

7 MR. IVETIC: [Microphone not activated]

8 Without having it in front of me, that's what I'm reading off of a

9 list that's in front of me that my colleague is checking right now. It

10 should be in there. It's -- it's released. I believe that's the only

11 document we don't have a translation for, that might be the -- that might

12 be the issue, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Joksic, we are going to have to adjourn

14 to decide how much of this statement we will admit, and then we will

15 proceed with your evidence. We will return as quickly as we can. At the

16 moment I cannot tell you how long it will take us to make that decision.

17 --- Break taken at 10.08 a.m.

18 --- On resuming at 10.33 a.m.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: The record should reflect that Judge Nosworthy is

20 now with us.

21 Conscious of your time constraint point, Mr. Ivetic, we've done

22 this as quickly as we possibly could. We hope that we've done justice to

23 the issue, although dealing with it quickly. We propose to exclude from

24 this statement a number of paragraphs, but some are being excluded because

25 we consider oral evidence should be given on the topic so that we have an

Page 21932

1 understanding of the source of the information because it does seem of

2 direct relevance to us. However, paragraphs 3, 4, 5 will be excluded.

3 These have the appearance of expert evidence in relation to a period that

4 we are not concerned with and the witness has not been qualified to us as

5 an expert. On the same basis we shall exclude paragraphs 8, 9, and 10.

6 We consider that paragraphs 15 and 16 relate to matters of some relevance,

7 but we do not propose to allow that evidence to be presented through this

8 statement, so we will exclude 15 and 16 for that reason.

9 Similarly, paragraph 22 will be excluded. We consider -- 22, 24,

10 and 25 for the same reason. We will exclude 23 because it is, in our

11 opinion, irrelevant, as are paragraphs 26, 27, and 28, and we shall

12 exclude paragraph 41 on the basis that if that evidence is to be presented

13 it should be presented viva voce, that's similar to the other exclusions

14 we have made.

15 That's all the limited damage we have done to your statement,

16 Mr. Ivetic. As a result, you should file a revised version of the

17 statement and you should do that by Monday, close of business, so that we

18 have this before the Court by the time the witness is likely to be

19 finished.

20 MR. IVETIC: When you say "revised," should it be redacted so that

21 the paragraph numbers stay the same?

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. The paragraph -- yes, the paragraph numbers

23 can remain as they are, but -- well -- yes, they have to remain as they

24 are, otherwise the record will be difficult to align, unless you were able

25 to do it immediately.

Page 21933

1 MR. IVETIC: We will do that within the time-period you have given

2 us, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: And I should also record that while we had

4 adjourned I asked one of the staff to speak to you to check the period in

5 which the witness was engaged in Kosovo and you indicated that was from

6 sometime in 1991 until 1999. We had wrongly assumed it was in the

7 statement, but when we retired we found that it was not in the statement.

8 MR. IVETIC: Just so there's no doubt, that's the area I was going

9 to ask the witness to give us information on so we can have the precise

10 dates, et cetera for the completeness of information before the Chamber.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: You may yet have at least one other witness in

12 relation to whose evidence we suspect a similar problem may arise. We

13 hope this has been a learning experience, because as you have pointed out,

14 the last thing you want to be doing is using your time to deal with issues

15 of this nature. So you should be conscious of that and we are open to

16 ingenious methods of resolving these issues out of court if you can get

17 together with the Prosecution where you envisage such a problem arising.

18 That means we can continue with the evidence, but it's probably a

19 bit unrealistic to start again just at this minute since we are going to

20 again almost immediately have a break. So we'll resume at ten past 11.00

21 if everyone can arrange to do that. Is that possible?

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, we have an official break at this

24 time. Our timing's particularly unfortunate this morning, so again I have

25 to ask you to leave the courtroom and we'll see you again at ten minutes

Page 21934

1 past 11.00.

2 [The witness stands down]

3 --- Recess taken at 10.42 a.m.

4 --- On resuming at 11.15 a.m.

5 [The witness takes the stand]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Joksic, we should be up and running now.

7 Mr. Ivetic.

8 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

9 Q. Mr. Joksic, could you first just briefly tell us a summary of your

10 employment within the service later renamed the department of state

11 security, including your assignment to Kosovo-Metohija.

12 A. I worked with the state security from the 1st of June, 1977, until

13 the 1st of November, 2001, which was when I retired after 40 years of

14 employment. Between 1977 and 1984, I was an operative officer with the

15 state security. Between 1984 and 1989 I was the head of a group in the

16 State Security Service. In 1989 I became the deputy head of an

17 administration. In 1991, December 1991, the 18th of December, I was

18 dispatched by the central office of the service to Kosovo-Metohija, where

19 I was appointed head of the third sector of the local service of the state

20 security. I worked as the head of sector of this local office until the

21 1st of May, 2002, which is when the service itself was revamped and three

22 security centres were established in Kosovo and Metohija.

23 On 1st of May I was appointed assistant coordinator of the State

24 Security Service for Kosovo and Metohija. It was called the state

25 security sector by this time. I was appointed assistant and I was in

Page 21935

1 charge of anti-terrorism and extremism in Kosovo and Metohija and jobs and

2 tasks related to those problems. I remained in that position until the

3 1st of July, 1999.

4 The 1st of July, 1999, from that time to the time I retired, I was

5 the special advisor to the chief of the sector, state security sector, and

6 I was in charge of problems related to Albanian terrorism and the

7 extremism in Kosovo and Metohija and in Serbia south as well. I didn't

8 state that explicitly in my statement, but I would like to point that out

9 because I realized that some of the paragraphs are being stricken from my

10 statement. Just for the sake of clarity, I was in Kosovo and Metohija

11 also in 1983. I was down there because of the serious situation in terms

12 of security in Kosovo and Metohija. There were very destructive rallies

13 in 1981 and we had been dispatched from the then-Yugoslavia, the

14 operatives that we were, we were dispatched there to assist because those

15 were republican services and we went through the Federal Ministry of the

16 Interior, or rather, the State Security Service and we were dispatched to

17 Kosovo and Metohija to assist them over there. I was in what used to be

18 the Pristina section of the State Security Service as an operative

19 officer, and I assisted with dealing with various problems that were quite

20 serious at the time, emerging problems in Kosovo and Metohija. This was

21 still the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia and these operatives

22 were from all the republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

23 Macedonia and Croatia --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, if Mr. Ivetic wants to explore that, he

25 will ask questions about that, if there are objections to these we'll deal

Page 21936

1 with them, but at the moment 1983 does not seem relevant to this Court, so

2 let's proceed to things that are.

3 And one date can't be right in that account you've given, the 1st

4 of May, 2002, has appeared as the date that you became involved or in

5 charge of anti-terrorism and extremism, and that can't be correct. What

6 was the date?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Until the 1st of May I was in charge

8 of those tasks, but I was the chief of the third sector of the local

9 service of state security, and then as of the 1st of May I became

10 assistant coordinator for the whole of Kosovo and Metohija. I was

11 coordinating the work of all three state security centres.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: And this is in the year --

13 THE INTERPRETER: 2002, as the witness says.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 2002.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: So how does that tie in with leaving Kosovo --

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Rather, or rather, I apologise,

17 1992, 1992. I don't think I was that far wrong, about ten years perhaps.

18 1992.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

20 JUDGE CHOWHAN: But when did he retire? I think he says after 40

21 years and over there he says November 2001, so I couldn't reconcile that

22 in perhaps 20 -- paragraph -- page 29.

23 [Trial Chamber confers]

24 MR. IVETIC: He can answer that, I guess, if there's confusion.

25 Q. Just to be clear, Mr. Joksic, when did you retire exactly?

Page 21937

1 A. 2001, the 1st of November.

2 JUDGE CHOWHAN: [Microphone not activated]

3 Why does he say 40 years, after 40 years of service? I mean --

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Because we have special terms in our

5 service. We have four months every year, that counts extra, so 30 years

6 would equal to a total of 40 years. So I had earned by this time 40 years

7 and two months of employment.

8 MR. IVETIC: If that satisfies Your Honours, I can proceed.

9 JUDGE CHOWHAN: [Microphone not activated]

10 MR. IVETIC:

11 Q. Mr. Joksic, can you tell us how the work and functioning of the

12 state security department was regulated, what laws regulated that work?

13 A. The State Security Service, where I was working, works under the

14 constitution and under the Law on the Interior as well as our own Rules of

15 Service. Those would be the rules and laws.

16 Q. And who headed the RDB?

17 A. At the head of the RDB there was the head of service, he had his

18 deputies and assistants, sometimes more assistants, sometimes fewer, but

19 at least two or three at any given time. Under that in the RDB we had

20 administrations with heads of administrations and their deputies and

21 assistants, and this was in the central office of the service. And then

22 as of 1992 there were state security sector centres, in Serbia and

23 Kosovo-Metohija there were a total of 19 of those. At the head of those

24 centres there were the centre heads, deputy centre heads, assistant centre

25 heads. And further down we had sector chiefs, heads of groups, local

Page 21938

1 offices and detachments.

2 Q. Just waiting for the transcript to catch up with us, sir. And

3 with respect to the management of the RDB, if I can turn to P1192, which

4 would be the rules of the internal organization of the RDB, Article 44,

5 which will be at page 14 to 15 in the B/C/S and page 14 in the English.

6 And I would ask you, sir, once the page comes up with -- at the bottom --

7 it will be on the bottom of the page, I guess the 15th page in B/C/S, and

8 going on to the 16th page. To save time, sir, if you could review Article

9 14 [sic] and tell me, Does that accurately reflect in detail the

10 management or "rukovodjenje" of the RDB?

11 Article 44. I believe the transcript says 14, that was the

12 reference to the page number in English.

13 A. Are you asking me?

14 Q. Yes.

15 A. Well, I do have my glasses on but this is still very difficult for

16 me to read. Despite my glasses, it's very difficult for me to read this.

17 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, I do have a hard copy but it is --

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Perhaps now I could now that we have

19 managed to zoom in. Yes, this has been zoomed in on and I can tell you

20 now -- yeah, it's precisely what I was saying. That's what the article of

21 the Rules of Service reflects.

22 MR. IVETIC:

23 Q. Now, could you tell us a little bit about the method by which

24 information was circulated upwards within the RDB, and if need be, we can

25 reference to the rule book if you have any specific references for us.

Page 21939

1 A. The State Security Service, as I said, worked based on the

2 constitution, the laws, and the Rules of Service in order to protect the

3 constitutional order of the country. We would uncover any crimes and

4 criminal offences that put the constitutional order of the country at

5 risk. The principal information worked like this, the lowest-level units

6 the state security centres up to the headquarters, the central office, the

7 headquarters, where this information was sorted and instructions were

8 issued as to how to proceed on these specific jobs that we were doing.

9 The peculiar nature of passing information along in Kosovo and

10 Metohija was this, there was the coordinator and we were his assistants;

11 therefore, there was a single copy of each report in addition to being

12 sent to the central office and the administrations, one copy was always

13 received by us, the team of coordinators, and the reason we did this, the

14 same type of problems prevailed throughout Kosovo and Metohija at the

15 time. And this was in order to coordinate all three centres because the

16 same types of problems recurred in Prizren, Pristina, and Gnjilane in

17 order to avoid mistakes and in order to not do anything or take any

18 measures that weren't coordinated throughout the service in Kosovo and

19 Metohija. It was for that reason that the position of a coordinator was

20 established as well as that of his assistants. So one copy of this report

21 was always dispatched to us as well.

22 Q. Okay. Now if you could tell us, please, with respect to the

23 issuance of criminal denunciations against suspects, what was the role and

24 duty of the RDB especially vis-a-vis other organs such as investigative

25 judges or prosecutors?

Page 21940

1 A. Once a crime was uncovered by the service, especially crimes to do

2 with terrorism and extremism, the state service would look into those

3 incidents and once perpetrators were found the State Security Service

4 would do the preliminary investigation, they would interview those people,

5 they would take their statements, they would file these away and

6 cross-reference all this information. Based on this, a criminal complaint

7 would be filed, which was then submitted to the prosecutor and the

8 investigating judge. Our cooperation with the office of the prosecutor,

9 the investigating judges, and all the other security players proceeded

10 along the lines established by the instructions on our working cooperation

11 with all these other officers.

12 Q. I'm just waiting for the transcript. Once the criminal

13 denunciation is issued by the department of state security, who -- who or

14 what dictates the further role of your service regarding any further

15 criminal investigation?

16 A. As for any further criminal investigation, there has to be a

17 request by the prosecutor or the investigating judge and only then could

18 we collect or gather information in order to amend or supplement any

19 situations that weren't entirely clear in the criminal report itself, but

20 only pursuant to a request by the investigating judge or the prosecutor.

21 Q. Now, could you tell us a little bit of the details of the

22 structure of the state security department in Kosovo-Metohija during --

23 from 1992 onwards, since you mention that the service was revamped in

24 1992.

25 A. After the service was restructured in Kosovo-Metohija, there were

Page 21941

1 three centres of the state security sector, the Pristina one, the Gnjilane

2 one, and the Prizren one. Each centre comprised sections, therefore, in

3 the Pristina centre there was the Kosovska Mitrovica section; in Prizren,

4 Djakovica and Pec; and in Gnjilane, Urosevac. Instead of the seven that

5 there were earlier, now we had three centres of state security sector.

6 Within these centres, in addition to these sections, there were other

7 offices. First we called them detachments and then later we called them

8 local branches. For example, in Pristina there were Lipljan, Obilic,

9 Podujevo and there was a forward operations team in Kosovo Polje. In

10 Kosovska Mitrovica there were the local branches within the section in

11 Kosovska Mitrovica, in Vucitrn and Srbica. And then in Pec, in Istok and

12 Klina. In Prizren, Suva Reka. In Gnjilane, Vitina, Kosovska Kamenica,

13 Stimlje. So those were the lowest-ranking ones, detachments, as the rule

14 said, and later they were called local offices or local branches of the

15 State Security Service.

16 Q. With respect to these various organs that you have identified of

17 the RDB, were these centres, departments, detachments, and operative

18 groups subordinate to the SUPs or OUPs or police stations or were they

19 autonomous from the RJB -- from the RJB organs on the same territory?

20 A. As is well-known, the state security sector was within the

21 Ministry of the Interior, but those were separate, special organizational

22 units. Therefore, in its entirety the management in the State Security

23 Service and the reporting only proceeded within the state security sector

24 itself. No one from the state security sector was ever in charge of

25 anything in the state security.

Page 21942

1 Q. If I could ask him to repeat the last part of his answer. The

2 transcript says that no one from state security was ever in charge of

3 anything in state security. If I could just have him repeat what he

4 actually said rather than ...

5 A. No one in charge from -- no one from the public security sector

6 was in charge of anything or could issue any orders in the state security

7 sector. It all went from the chief and then down to the lowest-ranking

8 people within the state security sector and not outside it.

9 Q. I think that cleared it up without me prompting any correction.

10 Now, with respect to the various organs, was there -- you

11 mentioned Suva Reka. What was in Suva Reka and how large was that organ

12 of the RDB?

13 A. In Suva Reka there was a detachment, what was later called a local

14 office or a local branch. There were two or three operative offices

15 there.

16 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the last sentence

17 that the witness said. Thank you.

18 MR. IVETIC:

19 Q. Now, you have already talked about how information was sent up by

20 the various organs of the RDB and that a copy was sent always to

21 Pristina. Can you tell us why a copy in parallel was always sent to the

22 CRDB in Pristina, what were the reasons for that?

23 A. This copy was not submitted to Pristina all the time, but we were

24 in the same building as the CRDB of Pristina, so it was sent to us, the

25 coordinators, and the reason was, I said that a while ago when I explained

Page 21943

1 the function of the service, because the leaders of the state security

2 sector decided that they should establish some coordinators and their

3 assistants in Kosovo and Metohija, or rather, a coordinator and his

4 assistants in Kosovo and Metohija, because the type of problems faced by

5 the territory of Kosovo and Metohija was the same. So we also had --

6 well, I'm just naming one example of terrorism in Pec, Pristina, and

7 Kosovska Mitrovica, so that a copy was received of all these documents

8 that were assembled and we as coordinators would familiarize ourselves

9 with the situation throughout Kosovo and Metohija, and from there we would

10 work together with the line services and the central offices and we would

11 coordinate with them and we would issue instructions on what to do and how

12 to proceed and how certain actions should be coordinated and combined in

13 order to track down perpetrators of crimes.

14 Q. Thank you.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I've perhaps misunderstood something there, line

16 23: "This copy was not submitted to Pristina all the time, but we were in

17 the same building as the CRDB of Pristina..."

18 What is the CRDB? Is it not the coordinator?

19 MR. IVETIC: No, Your Honour, I believe the -- well, we can ask

20 the witness to clarify that.

21 Q. What is the CRDB of Pristina?

22 A. The CRDB of Pristina is the central security sector in Pristina

23 that worked there and it covered the territory of Pristina municipality

24 and Mitrovica municipality, and we were in the same building but we were

25 the coordinators. We didn't belong to the CRDB of Pristina, we were the

Page 21944

1 coordinators --

2 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand now. Thank you.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] On behalf of the service, the

4 sector.

5 MR. IVETIC:

6 Q. Thank you, sir. Now, if you could tell us who were the

7 coordinators in, let's begin with 1998, that were in Pristina from the

8 RDB.

9 A. Well, in 1998 until the end of 1998 the chief coordinator was

10 David Gajic. I was his assistant. And between 1992 and 1999 we had

11 another assistant who was dealing with counter-intelligence, but this

12 person was not always the same. Several different people came and went.

13 David Gajic and I were always there since 1992. He stayed until the end

14 of 1998 and I stayed until the end of -- until my departure from Kosovo in

15 1999.

16 Q. And before we go on to -- well, let me ask you this question: Can

17 you tell us the ethnic or national structure of the membership of the

18 employees of the RDB in Kosovo-Metohija during 1998/1999, what ethnic

19 groups were represented and working in the RDB?

20 A. In 1998 and 1999, there were all the different ethnicities living

21 in Kosovo in the RDB, Serbs, Albanians, Muslims, and others who were there

22 were involved, the Roma and so on and so forth. Although in those years,

23 for example, if you take the Pristina centre, the RDB Pristina centre,

24 there were about 30 per cent Albanians, 70 per cent Serbs and other. The

25 other two centres, there was a smaller percentage but there were Albanians

Page 21945

1 involved and other ethnicities too. I can't give you the exact breakdown

2 in terms of percentage, but I know in Pristina it was 30 per cent.

3 Q. Thank you, sir. Now, you mentioned that David Gajic stayed on as

4 the chief coordinator until 1999. Can you tell us who replaced him?

5 A. He was chief coordinator until the end of 1998. From the 1st of

6 January, 1999 on, it was Miso Vilotic.

7 Q. And with respect to the head coordinator in Pristina, whether it

8 was David Gajic or Mr. Vilotic, to whom would they report? Who was their

9 immediate superior?

10 A. Their immediate superior was the head of RDB, until 1998 Mico [as

11 interpreted] Stanisic, and from the end of 1998 Rade Markovic.

12 Q. And who managed the RDB's work at the level of the centres of

13 security out in the field?

14 A. The leaders of the centre were heads of the RDB, and they had

15 deputies and assistants. If you want me to say specifically how it was in

16 relation to Kosovo and Metohija, the chief of the Pristina RDB centre was

17 Milan Lakovic; the chief of the one in Prizren, Milivoj Savic; and the one

18 the chief of the one in Gnjilane, Bozidar Trajkovic.

19 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to ask you, you've already mentioned

20 the level of -- excuse me, you've mentioned the issue of the RJB and the

21 RDB as being separate services. Could you focus for the moment on an

22 organ called the MUP staff in Pristina. Were any RDB structures or organs

23 from Kosovo-Metohija subordinated in any way or answering to the MUP staff

24 in Pristina?

25 A. No one from the RDB was subordinated or in any way answered to the

Page 21946

1 MUP staff in Pristina. As for these MUP staffs and the SUPs, we only had

2 cooperation. We worked together pursuant to instructions relayed to us by

3 the minister, cooperation on exchanging intelligence in our struggle

4 against terrorism. There was no system of SUP subordination, no

5 hierarchy; it was cooperation and it was exchange of intelligence.

6 Q. Just for the sake of the transcript, Your Honour, my colleagues

7 point to a error in the transcript in page 39, line 11, Mico Stanisic

8 should be Jovan -- Jovica Stanisic, there are two individuals with the

9 same name.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

11 MR. IVETIC:

12 Q. Now, if we can -- you've discussed that. If I can ask

13 specifically, were either Mr. David Gajic or Mr. Milos Vilotic members of

14 the MUP staff for Kosovo and Metohija in Pristina?

15 A. First of all, it's not Milos, it's Milisav Vilotic. According to

16 my information, they were never members of the MUP staff for Kosovo and

17 Metohija.

18 Q. What about an employee of the RDB known as Milorad Ulemek Lukovic,

19 also sometimes also known as Legija, was he a member of the MUP staff in

20 Pristina and if you could specifically tell us upon what you base your

21 information?

22 A. I'm not aware whether he was a member or not. I don't think he

23 was and the reason I think that is that I was always there and I never saw

24 him attending any meetings or coming to the staff. I saw him maybe two or

25 three times in the course of 1998/1999 when the minister of the interior

Page 21947

1 or another high-ranking politician came to Kosovo and then I saw Milorad

2 Lukovic, Legija, two or three times, on two or three occasions, but never

3 at staff meetings.

4 Q. Thank you. Now, could you tell us whether it was the practice of

5 the RDB to keep a written record of assignments of its employees in the

6 field, that is to say the posts that they were assigned to in the field?

7 A. If I understand your question correctly, every operative or

8 employee of the security service received a document giving him his

9 schedule, his deployment on the terrain, and this would be kept in his

10 personnel file, if I understood your question correctly.

11 MR. IVETIC: For the record, Your Honours, to save time, we would

12 be submitting Exhibits 6D302 and 6D303 at this time, for which I believe

13 there are official translations. These would be the personal dossiers of

14 Messrs. Gajic and Vilotic, which speak for themselves as to the posts and

15 assignments held by these persons. I will not belabour the point and make

16 any arguments or submissions at this time, but when the time is right I

17 will rely on these documents to frame arguments or conclusions therefrom.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, that sounds like a suggestion that

19 these will be tendered in a motion in due course. Are you familiar with

20 these documents?

21 MR. HANNIS: I am, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Are they documents we should admit just now?

23 MR. HANNIS: I don't have any objection to -- I mean, they appear

24 authentic on their face. I have some submissions to make on them, maybe

25 some questions to ask about them. I don't object to them being admitted

Page 21948

1 now.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we will admit these two documents and save

3 you the labour, Mr. Ivetic.

4 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. And a specific question for you, under the existing rules, laws,

6 and method of work of the RDB, could Sreten Lukic, then a general, as

7 manager, or "rukovodilac," or head of the MUP staff and as a member of the

8 RJB command or issue orders to the members of the RDB?

9 A. No, never.

10 Q. And now just a slightly different question as a factual matter.

11 Did Sreten Lukic ever command over or issue orders to RDB members in

12 Kosovo-Metohija in 1998 or 1999?

13 A. No, never.

14 Q. Now to clear up just a few more things. I'd like to turn to the

15 JSO, the special operation unit. Did Sreten Lukic participate in the

16 forming of the JSO?

17 A. Sreten Lukic could not have participated in the forming of the JSO

18 and he didn't. That unit - and I know this because I was a member of the

19 service - was established in 1996 or 1997. At that time Sreten Lukic was

20 assistant of the city secretary for the interior of the city of Belgrade

21 and he had nothing to do either with the unit or with the State Security

22 Service.

23 Q. And just for the record, has Sreten Lukic ever been a member of

24 the RDB?

25 A. No, never, to the best of my knowledge, and I think I do know.

Page 21949

1 Q. And am I correct that the JSO was exclusively within the domain of

2 the RDB, as set forth by Article 5 of the rule of the RDB, which is the

3 exhibit that we had, P1192?

4 A. The unit for special operations was a separate unit within a State

5 Security Service, it was a separate organ which was under the State

6 Security Service.

7 Q. If I could ask you about another individual. Was Goran

8 Radosavljevic, also known as Guri, ever in command of the JSO or any part

9 thereof?

10 A. Goran Radosavljevic, Guri, was a member of the public security

11 sector; and to the best of my knowledge, he never commanded either part of

12 a JSO unit or an entire JSO unit. As far as I know, he was only a member

13 of the staff in charge of training.

14 Q. Was the JSO ever based in Kosovo Polje during 1998 or 1999?

15 A. Yes. In the course of 1998 and 1999, the JSO was stationed in

16 Kosovo Polje in a privately owned company, I can't remember what it was

17 called now, that's where it was located. And as far as I know their

18 commander was Zivko Trajkovic.

19 Q. I think there's translation issue. You've mentioned Zivko

20 Trajkovic in Kosovo Polje. Are you talking about the SAJ or the JSO?

21 A. The SAJ, that's what I'm talking about, it was the SAJ. The JSO

22 was never in Kosovo Polje. It was the SAJ, and their commander was Zivko

23 Trajkovic. I thought you were asking me about the SAJ.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you also think that in relation to the question

25 about Radosavljevic?

Page 21950

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Is that a question for me? Yes,

2 yes, Radosavljevic had nothing to do with either the SAJ or the JSO.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: I don't know now, Mr. Ivetic, whether the witness

4 was referring to the right organization throughout that exchange.

5 MR. IVETIC: I can ask him again to make it simplified.

6 Q. Sir, let me focus first of all with the JSO, which you said was an

7 organ -- a separate unit under the RDB. Was Goran Radosavljevic, Guri,

8 ever connected in any way with the JSO?

9 A. No, never.

10 Q. Okay. And now if we could turn to the RJB side of things. To

11 your knowledge, was Goran Radosavljevic, Guri, ever connected in any way

12 to the special anti-terrorist unit, or SAJ?

13 A. To the best of my knowledge, no, he was not.

14 Q. And you identified a station in Kosovo Polje. Which specific unit

15 was stationed in Kosovo Polje and which structure of the MUP did it belong

16 to?

17 A. The SAJ was a special unit of the public security sector.

18 Q. Thank you. And now, sir, could you tell us during 1998 and 1999

19 where in Kosovo was the JSO of the RDB based?

20 A. We as members of the RDB and coordinators in Kosovo and Metohija

21 had no connection with that unit; however, to the best of my knowledge, it

22 was stationed some 4 or 5 kilometres away from Kosovska Mitrovica. The

23 unit was directly linked to the chief of the service, and they had almost

24 no connection with us.

25 Q. Could you tell us a little bit more about the precise command

Page 21951

1 structure as you know it of the JSO?

2 A. To the best of my knowledge, that unit had its commander and

3 deputy commander. I'm not aware of the lower-down chain of command, and

4 it was responsible directly to the chief of the RDB, who was the only one

5 who could use that unit or issue an order to it.

6 Q. Could anyone from the RDB in Kosovo, that is to say any of the

7 coordinators or heads of the centres, affect the assignments or

8 engagements of the JSO?

9 A. No, no one could. In a previous period, before 1998 and 1999,

10 before the major fighting and operations, we as members of the service

11 could ask the chief of the RDB if we were carrying out a complex action to

12 have a part of the JSO engaged in it. That's what I can remember, and I

13 think this occurred on only two or three occasions throughout my stay in

14 Kosovo-Metohija from 1992 to 1999. It may have happened a few times in

15 1996 and 1997 when we asked for that unit to be engaged.

16 Q. And you mention in paragraph 50 of your written statement a

17 criminal denunciation against a member of the reserve JSO in Kosovska

18 Mitrovica, Mr. Veselinovic, Goran. Do you have knowledge of any criminal

19 acts perpetrated by members of the JSO in Kosovo in 1999 apart from

20 this -- the criminal act set forth in paragraph 50 of your statement?

21 A. I'm not aware of any other crimes committed by members of the JSO

22 in Kosovo in the course of 1999, and as for this criminal report it was

23 shown to me and I saw it and I heard about the events at the time and I

24 was also shown the report when I was being proofed. To the best of my

25 knowledge, this person was a reserve officer, not an active-duty member of

Page 21952

1 the JSO.

2 Q. Thank you. If I can now move on to another topic. Based upon

3 your information in the field, did the public security service utilise

4 paramilitary formations or parapolice formations in Kosovo and Metohija

5 during 1999 -- or I should say at any point in time?

6 A. To the best of my knowledge, as far as I know, from the SDB, the

7 RDB did not use such paramilitary units, nor were such units present in

8 Kosovo-Metohija to the best of my knowledge. I even learned from the

9 chief of the RDB, who contacted us, we were told that should such forces

10 turn up we should not accept any of them. If there were any volunteers,

11 they should report to the Yugoslav Army, who would then see whether they

12 could join their units or not. But no other formations could be included

13 in the police, apart from the regular and reserve police forces of the

14 RJB. I had this order personally, I received it from the chief of the

15 RDB, and these were instructions in case such units turned up, but to the

16 best of my knowledge there were no such units there.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, we've had a bit of evidence from people

18 living in Kosovo at the time about activities by people described as

19 paramilitaries who, on the basis of these descriptions, were acting in a

20 way that it was inappropriate for someone in the military to be acting.

21 And on some of these occasions it's actually sounded as though these were

22 scruffy individuals that you would not expect to see in an army.

23 Now, of course if there was no one like that acting violently in

24 Kosovo and forces are proved -- forces of some description wearing

25 uniforms are proved to have committed an atrocity, then the finger would

Page 21953

1 be pointing at official forces of the state, if that was established. So

2 it's a big issue for us to know if there were paramilitary personnel or

3 parapolice personnel operating in 1998 and 1999 in Kosovo.

4 It's not uncommon in this court for witnesses to hide behind

5 regulations and rules and tell us -- give us an answer based on what ought

6 to happen because the rules say so. And you're a man obviously whose life

7 to some extent during this period was regulated, but you're also a man who

8 is being presented to us as one with his ear to the ground, who knows the

9 score in Kosovo.

10 Against all that background, are you telling us that to the best

11 of your knowledge there were no paramilitary personnel acting in Kosovo in

12 1998 and 1999?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Bearing in mind the wartime

14 situation in Kosovo and Metohija and the overall security situation, apart

15 from unofficial information which I received about a group turning up in

16 Podujevo and committing some crimes there, and I was told that they had

17 been immediately expelled from Kosovo and Metohija, I did not learn of any

18 other groups turning up in Kosovo and Metohija from official sources. And

19 as for this one group I heard about, I heard about it unofficially. The

20 information was that a group had turned up in Podujevo and that they had

21 immediately been expelled from Kosovo and Metohija. In the post-war

22 period, in 2001, I read in the press who these people had been. But at

23 the time I didn't know what group it was that had turned up in that part

24 of Kosovo and Metohija, in Podujevo, that is, right after you crossed the

25 administrative border with Serbia. That's all I heard about, and I didn't

Page 21954

1 find out until after the war who these people had been. Then I read in

2 the papers that proceedings had been instituted against them.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

4 Mr. Ivetic.

5 MR. IVETIC:

6 Q. Did the RDB have any information about the participation of any

7 group called the Wolves from the Drina having a base in Kosovo Polje?

8 A. I think I mentioned this in a previous response. I know that in

9 Kosovo Polje there was an SAJ unit which was stationed there. As we in

10 Kosovo Polje, and I personally, both in 1998 and 1999, often went there

11 because there were many restaurants there where we could go and have a

12 bite to eat, and then we would pass by that privately owned company where

13 the SAJ was stationed. I never observed any other men there who -- apart

14 from members of the SAJ. I remember that building, it was a privately

15 owned company trading in beer and other things, but I can't remember the

16 name of the company now. We often went there.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, that was a very simple question about

18 one organization, alleged organization, called the Wolves from the Drina,

19 and the simple question was: Did you have any information about their

20 participation in Kosovo Polje. Now, is the answer to that no?

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

23 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

24 Q. As within his position as the head of the department of state

25 security, could Rade Markovic send personnel or assign personnel to

Page 21955

1 positions in Kosovo and Metohija within RJB organs?

2 A. No, he couldn't. He could only send personnel to the JSO, which

3 was part of the RDB.

4 Q. If we could turn to -- for the moment to the time-period of the

5 NATO bombings. Could you tell us about the impact or effect that the NATO

6 bombings had on the work of the RJB and RDB in Pristina as you witnessed

7 it.

8 A. After the beginning of the NATO air-strikes, all conditions for

9 the normal work of the SDB [as interpreted] and the SJB were lost. As the

10 SJB building was destroyed, the entire service as well as the RDB moved

11 out of their official premises in Pristina, so that the centre was now

12 distributed in several concealed locations, hidden locations, around town,

13 in cellars, in companies, and also the RJB had to do the same, both

14 because of operative information we had that certain premises would be

15 bombed, we had to hide and look for other locations, but also because of

16 the KLA activities. We had information that they would be entering town,

17 perpetrating assassinations and so on, and that employees of the RJB would

18 be targeted.

19 Q. Can you tell us with respect to communications between yourselves

20 and the organs in the field, how were those impacted or affected after the

21 commencement of the NATO air war?

22 A. At the beginning of NATO air-strikes, after the first bombs fell,

23 communications were for the most part interrupted. I can tell you, for

24 example, that with the centre in Pec and Prizren we had almost no

25 communication throughout the war. We could have communications when the

Page 21956

1 chief of the centre in Pristina [as interpreted] managed to reach us in

2 Pristina personally, bringing us information and telling us what was going

3 on in that area. The main aims inter alia of the NATO air-strikes, the

4 main targets, were the telecommunications systems in Kosovo and Metohija,

5 and these were bombed daily. In Pristina there was a constant air-raid

6 alert which never stopped for the entire period of 78 days, and we all

7 lived in specific conditions.

8 As for your specific question concerning communications, it would

9 depend on couriers getting through or the chief coming to see us

10 personally, bringing us the latest information, either in writing or

11 orally, and then we could pass that on to the service headquarters for

12 their use.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: I may have misunderstood you earlier. I thought

14 the three centres in Kosovo were Pristina, Prizren, and Gnjilane. Was Pec

15 also a centre?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. That was a department of the

17 Prizren centre, so it came under the Prizren centre; but that was the

18 department with which we had almost no communication throughout the war, I

19 mean by telephone. We had to use couriers or other means to communicate.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

21 MR. IVETIC: Before we proceed, at page 50, line 6, I believe he

22 said the chief of the centre in Prizren, that can be easily verified on

23 the tape.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, that's correct from my recollection, thank

25 you.

Page 21957

1 MR. IVETIC:

2 Q. Now, with respect to Pristina, do you recall any civilian targets

3 hit or affected negatively by the NATO bombing?

4 A. Yes. In Pristina I was there. First the post office was bombed

5 and then a street right next to the post office inhabited by civilians

6 mostly of Turkish ethnicity was bombed, then the Jugopetrol warehouse and

7 the Beopetrol warehouse, Devet Jugovica, at the exit from Pristina and

8 then some transformer stations bringing electric power to Pristina were

9 also bombed. All of this created a very difficult situation because there

10 was no electricity, there was no water, there were no staple foodstuffs,

11 and the population was in a hopeless situation, the entire population.

12 And no newspapers arrived, so we couldn't get information as to what was

13 going on. All we could do was try to tune into a satellite television

14 station, and then we would hear what was going on throughout Serbia from

15 foreign stations, foreign broadcasters.

16 Q. With respect to the information that was available to you, during

17 the entire course of the war until you withdrew from Kosovo, did you at

18 any time receive any information relating to any massacre of civilians in

19 Suva Reka or any indications of involvement of an RDB employee,

20 Mr. Niksevic [sic] in the same?

21 A. During the war we had not received any information about what had

22 happened in Suva Reka. What is particularly surprising as far as I'm

23 concerned - and I learned many things only after the war later in

24 Belgrade. But I find it strange that we were not aware of that

25 information because the Prizren chief of security was rather vigilant and

Page 21958

1 we received most of our information from him during the course of the war

2 from the centre in Prizren. However, as for what happened in Suva Reka, I

3 didn't know about that until we got out of Kosovo, and it was only in the

4 later period that I found out from the press and the other media.

5 Q. You already mentioned the NATO -- the effect of the NATO bombings

6 on the utilities. What was the atmosphere like in Pristina during the

7 time-period of the NATO bombings?

8 A. Well, the atmosphere, it was quite difficult there. Serbs,

9 Albanians, and all other people living there were quite frightened. Many

10 people started leaving Pristina, people of all ethnic backgrounds.

11 Albanians started leaving in the direction of Albania and Kosovo, or

12 rather, Macedonia and Skoplje, and the other population, non-Albanian,

13 towards Serbia. Most of the Serbs had already transferred their women and

14 children to Serbia once the bombing started, and after the bombing started

15 Albanians started going en masse towards Macedonia and Albania.

16 Q. Sir, have you ever heard of the existence of any so-called

17 Operation Horseshoe planned by the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities to

18 expel all Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija, as some of the Prosecution's

19 evidence has alleged?

20 A. First of all, I claim with certainty that the state security

21 sector did not know of any such action or operation being planned. We had

22 received intelligence to the effect that some foreign agencies,

23 specifically the German intelligence agency, had released that false

24 information in order for it to have a psychological effect on the Albanian

25 population. Later on, after the war, I read somewhere that a German

Page 21959

1 general confessed himself that this was in fact a false information that

2 they had provided, that there was this Operation Horseshoe. I don't know

3 and the State Security Service does not know of the existence of any such

4 operation.

5 Q. Witness Veton Surroi claimed that the late David Gajic of the RDB

6 threatened of the existence of a plan called Scorched Earth, or "Sprzena

7 Zemlja" in Serbian, to eliminate Albanians from Kosovo. Did any such plan

8 under that name or any other name with that goal in mind exist?

9 MR. HANNIS: Could we have a page reference to that?

10 MR. IVETIC: Is that a serious objection, counsel? It's in the

11 statement I believe of the -- well, let me find it. It's going to take

12 some time. If I could skip that question and move on and I can get the

13 page number, because I'm positive I remember that being expressly

14 utilised, but for the sake of efficiency I'll move on. I don't know when

15 we have the next break coming up, but I suspect that I will be able to

16 have just a few more questions after that break and I can bring that up at

17 that point in time with the references to the transcript.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Very helpful, Mr. Ivetic. Please continue.

19 MR. IVETIC: Thank you.

20 Q. Can you tell us about the relationship and cooperation between the

21 RDB and the Army of Yugoslavia's security service, formally known as KOS

22 and now I believe known as the VB?

23 A. Well, cooperation between the state security and the security

24 service of the army was in my assessment always a good one. We cooperated

25 and exchanged information. Often officers of the military service came to

Page 21960

1 us for an exchange of information, and in my assessment and in the

2 assessment of the then-officials of the service, this cooperation was a

3 correct and good one.

4 Q. During 1999 were you aware of any, I'll say differences of opinion

5 or bickering between the heads of the RDB and military security service?

6 A. In 1999 I was not aware of that. My assessment was from down

7 there that we had correct, proper cooperation with the military

8 intelligence. I didn't know about that. While preparing for this

9 testimony I saw some documents that spoke otherwise, but I think that what

10 these documents say is not correct. At that time, in 1999, I was not

11 aware of these documents. It was only now when I was preparing for this

12 testimony.

13 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters kindly ask for other microphones to

14 be switched off while the witness is speaking. We have great difficulty

15 hearing him. Thank you.

16 MR. IVETIC: I see we're getting a note from the interpreters. I

17 will endeavour to keep my microphone off when he's answering. I did

18 switch to this other microphone since the other one was making more static

19 from the computers.

20 Q. Sir, now I would like to ask you about another topic, the KVM, the

21 Kosovo Verification Mission, of the OSCE. Did the RDB have any

22 information about members of this mission having any ulterior missions

23 with other -- with the security services or intelligence services of other

24 countries; and if so, what was that information?

25 A. Well, the State Security Service, when the Kosovo Verification

Page 21961

1 Mission arrived down there, placed a number of the members of this mission

2 under control because we assumed since these were former military officers

3 of the western countries that were -- that they were members of the

4 intelligence agencies of the countries that they were coming for. So the

5 service, the RDB, took all measures in order to see what else they were

6 doing in addition to the tasks that the Kosovo Verification Mission had.

7 We learned quite a few interesting things in the process.

8 In some situations they were instructors to members of the KLA.

9 They gave them advice as to how they should act, where they should hide,

10 when to attack, when not to attack, and so on and so forth. There were

11 things like that and quite a bit of information was written about that.

12 This was specific information that we got by placing our own collaborators

13 among them through intelligence technical measures, that is to say through

14 listening in on their conversations and applying other methods that the

15 service used. We thereby learned that they were actually acting as

16 advisors, or rather, instructors to the terrorist organization of the KLA.

17 Q. Did the RDB have any such information relating to Shaun Byrnes,

18 head of the US-KDOM?

19 A. Well, yes, we do have that information in relation to Shaun

20 Byrnes. We had specifically some of his contacts with KLA commanders and

21 brigades. We also have information out there that is an integral part of

22 a statement in the investigative proceedings where he was giving them

23 advice. I remember this particular unit in the Lab area, and he was

24 saying that they were well-equipped, well-trained, and that they should

25 keep it for the future and they should withdraw it now so that this unit

Page 21962

1 would not engage the military and the police, they should keep it for the

2 future. We from the service knew what this future meant because we were

3 aware of the plans of the KLA to carry out the infamous Kosovo spring

4 because they knew that a major offensive was being prepared in the spring

5 of 1998 -- 1999.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction.

7 MR. IVETIC:

8 Q. The infamous Kosovo spring offensive being prepared, who was it

9 being prepared by and against whom, according to the information of the

10 RDB?

11 A. According to our information this offensive was being prepared

12 against the Serb forces, or rather, the army and police in Kosovo and

13 Metohija, and what they were planning in particular was -- well, actually

14 by then they had already had promises from NATO members, or rather, from

15 the foreign factor of the west that they should secure unhindered entry

16 for NATO forces via Albania. One of their main plans was that they should

17 make it possible for them to attack the Serb forces on the border with

18 Albania, in the border area.

19 Q. We can look at some specific documents.

20 MR. IVETIC: I would ask for 6D201 to be called up in e-court.

21 Q. Sir, while we're getting the page zoomed in on at this moment,

22 could you tell us what kind of document is this and was it the type that

23 would be prepared by your service?

24 A. Well, all right, it should be enlarged a bit more. I see that

25 it's a document, it's an operative information from the Pristina centre of

Page 21963

1 the state security. It just needs to be enlarged if I need to interpret

2 this further. Yes, yes, that is information from the centre of state

3 security of Pristina.

4 Q. And could you tell us, sir, if you have knowledge of how such

5 information would be collected and who -- what this means on the title

6 when it talks about Bardhyl Mahmuti?

7 A. Well, information of this kind was collected by applying all

8 methods that the service uses in its work. As I've already said, these

9 are interviews, infiltration of our collaborators to deal with those that

10 were being monitored by the service, also by applying technical measures.

11 At the time when quite a few of these terrorist actions were being carried

12 out, we received information by arresting some of the participants in

13 these informations, and while investigating them, interrogating them, we

14 got quite a bit of information about the KLA. So roughly these would be

15 all the sources of our information regarding this and that is the

16 information that the State Security Service provided further on. This

17 included interrogations of arrested persons who were members of the KLA.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, was any complaint made to the KVM about

19 positive assistance being given to KLA?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not aware of any such thing. We

21 as the State Security Service, we informed the leadership and the members

22 of the military and the public security; and now whether they were further

23 told anything else, that I cannot tell you, given the level that I was at

24 down there.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: We would be interested to see any documents

Page 21964

1 relating to complaints of assistance. I think this is a very wide-ranging

2 complaint, but it does seem to lack any particular substance that we could

3 make findings on. The activities of someone who was in KDOM is one thing,

4 but the activities of the KVM are another.

5 Is there anything specific on this, Mr. Ivetic?

6 MR. IVETIC: In terms of activities of persons, that would be

7 important to our case. Shaun Byrnes is a witness in these proceedings for

8 the Prosecution.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed. But we also have clear evidence of the

10 refusal, we've got to decide whether to suspect it or not, but the refusal

11 of KDOM to integrate with the KVM. The question I'm asking is related to

12 positive assistance being given by personnel who were introduced as part

13 of the KVM to Albanians who had ill-will towards the Serb forces. And if

14 there was such evidence, it would be I think on the face of it surprising

15 if it was not raised in the constant liaison meetings that were taking

16 place between the KVM and the various bodies involved.

17 MR. IVETIC: Having in mind my witness list, I think you will be

18 rest assured that there will be evidence led on that --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: About actual complaints being made as part of the

20 liaising?

21 MR. IVETIC: One of the witnesses we have coming hopefully this

22 week or the beginning of next week was in fact Mr. Mijatovic who had all

23 the daily meetings with the KVM and so you will be able to ask him

24 precisely about that aspect of it, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.

Page 21965

1 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Well, one question which I wish to ask is: How

2 many times such complaints were made? Have you any knowledge of it? Was

3 it a recurring thing or at some times once or twice? How many times the

4 complaints were made. And after you made the complaints did somebody

5 monitor to you any results of anything which may have been done pursuant

6 to those complaints against the KVM?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Through several reports we presented

8 these complaints -- or actually, not complaints. We showed what it was

9 that we had learned through our operative work, our intelligence work. We

10 informed the top leaders of the state security about -- both in writing

11 and verbally about what we had found out, and I don't know to what extent

12 this was further conveyed to these factors who were in Kosovo. There were

13 other people who were in charge of that. I really don't know. There were

14 several cases of information, not only these, and it wasn't only in the

15 territory of Pristina but throughout the territory of Kosovo and Metohija.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

17 MR. IVETIC: Thank you.

18 Q. And if we could turn to the third page in English of this exhibit,

19 and -- that's in the English and the B/C/S I believe it is the third page

20 as well, and the section I want to focus on is just under the discussion

21 of the world media agencies in Albania preparing the incident relating to

22 Racak. There is a section about: "It is NATO's official position that

23 the guilt will be on the Serbs if they continue with the provocations in

24 the area. KLA fighters should be careful and take more account because

25 the Serbs are bringing the best soldiers from its central. The KLA is

Page 21966

1 making a mistake when it brings the Tigers from Likovac because there is a

2 possibility that the Serbian forces are on some other place. The Stimlje

3 area is the weakest spot of the KLA."

4 Could you explain for us what knowledge you have of the KLA Tigers

5 from Likovac and any -- who were they, that is being referred to here?

6 A. The service had information about what members of the KLA were

7 doing throughout Kosovo and Metohija, particularly in that area, that's

8 the area that we call Drenica. And if I can put that way, according to

9 the information that we had, these were some sort of special forces of

10 theirs that were active in that area. We provided information about

11 that. That is where the military, the police, and the civilian population

12 were attacked most frequently, in that area and by those units that were

13 active in the territory of Drenica.

14 Q. Thank you. If we could now move to 6D202. Sir, while this is

15 coming up in e-court I think we'll see to be an operative information from

16 the CRDB Pristina dated the 6th of January, 1999, and again it mentions

17 Shaun Byrnes and Bardhyl Mahmuti --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.

19 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I just noticed that I have a

20 note here that there appear to be three paragraphs in B/C/S for which we

21 don't have a translation. They're on the -- they're the first two

22 paragraphs at the top of the next-to-the-last page in B/C/S. It's page

23 number 6D030906, and on the preceding page 0905, the last paragraph, it

24 does not appear have been translated into English.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Is your point simply that we mark it for

Page 21967

1 identification or is it more substantial?

2 MR. HANNIS: No, I would like to have that marked for

3 identification and then maybe I can deal with it later.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.

5 MR. IVETIC: I agree. Those are not the paragraphs I was going to

6 reference, but I agree that the translation should be complete. I will

7 make sure that is done. For our purposes on 202 I would like to look at

8 the last paragraph of this document, which should be on the last page.

9 Q. And you mentioned -- well, first of all, the question I had

10 started to ask was that this document references Shaun Byrnes and again

11 Bardhyl Mahmuti. I forget if you had answered for us who Bardhyl Mahmuti

12 was and how the RDB had information about him.

13 A. Bardhyl Mahmuti was the spokesman of the KLA for foreign

14 countries. We received information on him because he was being directly

15 treated by the SDB, namely that all measures -- all methods used by the

16 service were applied in respect of him, and that is how we learned of his

17 contact with Shaun Byrnes.

18 Q. And the last paragraph of this document talks about the unit in

19 Lab. Is this the information that you talked about earlier wherein

20 Mr. Byrnes advised that they should save these forces for the so-called

21 Kosovo spring offensive?

22 A. Yes, that's the information, except that he said about the future

23 not exactly about the Kosovo spring, but we knew what this was all about.

24 Q. Do you know who the "komandant" of the KLA forces in Lab was or

25 would have been at that time?

Page 21968

1 A. Names are a bit difficult for me. Remi was his name, Commander

2 Remi. I remember events very well, but I have a bit of difficulty with

3 names. I know it's Remi, though.

4 Q. Thank you. Now if we could focus on the Rambouillet

5 negotiations. Did the RDB have any kind of information regarding

6 specifically Shaun Byrnes and his contacts with the KLA regarding

7 Rambouillet?

8 A. Well, the service received information, as I said. We were

9 dealing with him. First of all, members of the KLA didn't want to go to

10 Rambouillet, so it wasn't only Shaun Byrnes. Many other foreign persons

11 were persuading them to go to Rambouillet. The second problem in relation

12 to Rambouillet was that the leaders of other political parties, especially

13 Ibrahim Rugova, didn't want to go with them, he didn't want to accept them

14 as equal decision-makers and negotiators in Rambouillet. So there were

15 problems there because these foreign representatives had quite a problem

16 there, how they would reconcile everyone and everything. So finally what

17 happened was they didn't even travel to Rambouillet together. They took

18 different planes and their organizations were different in terms of going

19 to the Rambouillet negotiations. That is one thing.

20 Secondly, when talking to the members of the KLA, Shaun Byrnes and

21 other representatives who helped them kept trying to persuade them that

22 America and the rest would stand behind them at these negotiations and

23 that they would make it possible for them to attain the objectives of

24 their struggle in terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija. We as a service found

25 that a bit strange, very strange, what was going on there. Because in the

Page 21969

1 beginning of the year, 1998 and the end of 1997, their Ambassador Gelbard

2 had a meeting with the Kosovo representatives and he said then that the

3 KLA was a terrorist organization, that they as political representatives

4 of the Albanians should try to neutralize any kind of activity by the KLA.

5 I don't know whether you have this in the evidence here, but we have this

6 information, Ibrahim Rugova, Rexhep Qosja, Ljuljeta Pulja, Adem Demaqi,

7 they were all present at that meeting and they were openly told that the

8 KLA is a terrorist organization. Less than a year later, Byrnes and the

9 rest come there and say that they are fighters for the freedom and

10 liberation of Kosovo.

11 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, are we at the break already or do we

12 have more time? I think we have more time but --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: No, is this a convenient time to interrupt you?

14 MR. IVETIC: It could be.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. Well, we have to have a break at this stage,

16 Mr. Joksic. Could you please leave the courtroom with the usher and we

17 will see you in an hour, that will be at quarter to 2.00.

18 [The witness stands down]

19 --- Recess taken at 12.47 p.m.

20 --- On resuming at 1.46 p.m.

21 [The witness takes the stand]

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

23 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

24 Q. Before I take up where I left off, I'd like to return to an

25 earlier part in the testimony and I've already apologised to Mr. Hannis.

Page 21970

1 He was correct that the Scorched Earth was not Mr. Surroi but, in fact,

2 Baton Haxhiu, another OTP witness, at P2078, page 13 in the English who

3 said that the late David Gajic told him of a plan called Scorched Earth or

4 "Sprzena Zemlja" to expel or eradicate all Albanians from Kosovo.

5 Sir, do you have knowledge of a plan of that nature existing

6 within any organs of the state?

7 A. That sort of plan certainly never existed or at least I didn't

8 know of it when I was in the RDB. Incidentally, I do know when the

9 conversation took place between Gajic and Baton Haxhiu and I don't believe

10 that Gajic said that because that sort of plan never existed.

11 Q. Thank you, sir. If we could return to 6D201, one of the set of

12 the documents we were looking at before the break, and if we could turn

13 specifically to the third page in the English and in the Serbian. In the

14 Serbian it is -- it is I believe the second paragraph and in English it is

15 the second paragraph from the bottom; second paragraph from the top in

16 B/C/S, second paragraph from the bottom in English. It talks about

17 Mahmuti having a conversation with Evlianna Bajcinovci, Birane, clerk in

18 the press office of the KVM OSCE in Pristina.

19 Are you familiar with this individual and the contacts with

20 various Albanian language papers and the KLA in Drenica area? Can you

21 enlighten us about that, sir?

22 A. I have difficulty reading this, but I can say generally speaking

23 that the stations were maintaining contact with KLA representatives

24 throughout Kosovo and Metohija. I can read this and I can't remember any

25 specific example but I do know that they were maintaining contact.

Page 21971

1 Q. In any event, we do have the document. Let's move on to 6D206 --

2 or I take that back -- oh, yes, let's go to 6D206. You had previously

3 orally testified about the fact that promises had been made to the

4 Albanians relating to Rambouillet. I would like to focus your attention

5 on this document. The second half of the second paragraph in the Serbian,

6 should also be the second half of the -- second paragraph or just the full

7 paragraph talking about Rambouillet. If we could zoom in on the Serbian

8 version. It seems to be rather faint on my screen. And the last half of

9 that paragraph talks about the discussions Mr. Byrnes was said to have

10 with the KLA upon touring the 121st Brigade of the KLA. And if I can ask

11 you, is that 121st Brigade of the KLA, is that unit known to you?

12 A. Yes, we were monitoring the activities of that unit. This is the

13 unit near Miljevci, the brigade, and that's where we obtained information

14 indicating that Shaun Byrnes had got in touch with them and that he was

15 promising that he would get support at the negotiations in France, support

16 from the west. He was trying to convince them that the KLA should attend

17 those talks as one of the political players in Kosovo and Metohija.

18 Q. And we see in the second -- excuse me, the next -- the tail end of

19 the last paragraph on that page, which in the English I believe is on the

20 second page, the last line of the paragraph, it indicates that Byrnes

21 enabled the KLA representatives to take their personal weapons to France

22 to show how much he is on the side of the KLA. Is that a fact that you

23 can confirm through the operative information that you have?

24 A. Yes, yes. We had information showing that they had allowed them

25 to bring weapons with them.

Page 21972

1 Q. If we could turn to 6D207, another official note of the CRDB

2 Pristina, this one dated the 29th of January, 1999, and if we could turn

3 to the last page of this exhibit and the second-to-last paragraph of the

4 same. Here we see some questions of Mr. Byrnes posed to Ramush Haradinaj,

5 a KLA leader who is before this Tribunal in another matter. And he talks

6 about inquiring whether the KVM members that met with Haradinaj in the

7 staff of the KLA, if they passed along or told him some things. Do you

8 have any additional knowledge to report about the RDB's information

9 relating to meetings of the KVM with the staff of the KLA and what sorts

10 of things they passed on to them?

11 A. Well, we had information, as this report states, about their

12 contacts. Ramush Haradinaj was supposed to receive some information. I

13 don't know what type of information right now. There was perhaps

14 information involved that I can't remember, but there were contacts and he

15 sent word through the OSCE people that the Haradinaj should be given some

16 information. The assumption was -- is that this was probably about the

17 imminent negotiations and they were probably advising them to hold back a

18 little in terms of their operations so that they might be able to go to

19 France as political representatives of the Kosovar Albanians.

20 Q. Did the RDB have information that the KLA was preparing certain

21 staged incidents to try and justify the commencement of NATO intervention

22 on their behalf?

23 A. There was several situations like that. The war itself was one.

24 This was to begin with an anti-terrorist action that was then

25 misrepresented as an attack against civilians. There was several other

Page 21973

1 examples, quite many actually. There was certain actions that were

2 carried out by the KLA and they were wearing VJ or police uniforms. This

3 sort of thing would be staged. A number of incidents that were then

4 attributed to the VJ and the police. We had intelligence showing that

5 especially during the war, I think even some foreign media talked about

6 this, when the Kosare barracks was taken the KLA came into the possession

7 of a large number of weapons and uniforms belonging to the VJ, and this

8 equipment, uniforms, and weapons were later misused.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Are there going to be examples of this, Mr. Ivetic?

11 MR. IVETIC: Through other witnesses, I believe. With this

12 witness I had not intended to go through it. Maybe --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: But it is valueless evidence, this, when we don't

14 know what the incidents were and we don't know the extent to which there's

15 evidence showing that they were stage managed, but if that's what you want

16 to present from this witness, that's a matter for you.

17 MR. IVETIC:

18 Q. Did the RDB have information regarding any collaboration between

19 NATO and the KLA during the course of the NATO bombings?

20 A. Yes. We had a lot of information that we obtained from intercepts

21 by intercepting satellite-link communication. We had information showing

22 that they were directly in touch, I mean persons from Kosovo and Metohija,

23 members of the KLA on the one hand and NATO on the other. They were even

24 sharing specific information about the location of certain facilities,

25 military installations where the police and the military were, so that

Page 21974

1 they might be better able to target them with more accuracy. We also had

2 operative intelligence. This wasn't something that we could prove, but we

3 had intelligence showing that certain locators were set up in certain

4 buildings by members of the KLA [as interpreted]. We also had a suspicion

5 during the air-strikes, a founded suspicion, if I might say, by analysing

6 some buildings that were targeted that they had been targeted with

7 incredible accuracy.

8 For example, General Lukic's office was hit in the SUP building

9 and his deputy's office too. And the room that was hit was three floors

10 under the ground where meetings of the SUP collegium in Pristina would be

11 held. In our estimate, as far as we operative officers could talk about

12 that at all, NATO hit with incredible accuracy this room that was three

13 floors under the ground and actually the very table at which meetings were

14 held. This was unbelievable. And of all offices, General Lukic's office

15 and his deputy's office were hit. We even had this creeping suspicion

16 that the locators had been put there by representatives of the

17 international community who had been to Kosovo on a mission beforehand.

18 So this was a well-founded suspicion that we harboured.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: And did you find the locators?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, not we personally as a service.

21 I don't know if people from the VJ or --

22 MR. IVETIC: We have evidence that the army did in fact find

23 locators at some of the locations, Your Honour, in these proceedings.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry?

25 MR. IVETIC: We have that evidence of locators being discovered

Page 21975

1 by --

2 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, I'm interested in General Lukic's office.

3 The suggestion -- the one example we are being given here of the KLA

4 planting --

5 MR. IVETIC: KVM.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry?

7 MR. IVETIC: KVM, I think.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: It's KLA according to the transcript, and this

9 suggestion as I understand it is a KLA member has infiltrated General

10 Lukic's office. Now I'm interested in that and I would wonder what

11 evidence there is.

12 MR. IVETIC: We can ask for the witness to clarify. I believe --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: I've just asked him and he says he didn't find --

14 that he's not aware of them actually finding any locators, so it's a

15 question of suspicion and no basis for this suspicion, other than that

16 they -- a NATO weapon appears to have hit its target.

17 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, evidence will be led from all our

18 witnesses that every single SUP on the territory of Kosovo, the desk of

19 the chief officer was targeted specifically, very precisely, the desk in

20 the office of each head of the SUP, that will be brought through our many

21 witnesses.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's hear from them in due course, but this

23 evidence is of no value whatsoever, Mr. Ivetic.

24 MR. IVETIC:

25 Q. Now I would like to move on, sir, and ask you to tell us what you

Page 21976

1 know about certain events from 1998 to 1999, for instance, could you first

2 tell us if you know anything about the KLA attack on Orahovac town in

3 1998.

4 A. As far as I remember, and there is information to that effect from

5 the Prizren State Security Service, on the 17th of July, 1998, the KLA

6 attacked Orahovac town with great might as well as the villages around

7 Orahovac town. They entered the town and they even laid siege to the

8 police station there. They blocked all the roads, they sealed off a

9 number of roads, and this offensive of theirs went on from the 17th to the

10 24th of July, as far as I can remember, which was when police forces and

11 VJ forces drove them out of that town. I do remember and I do have

12 information showing that on that occasion 58 persons had been kidnapped or

13 had gone missing, five of which were found dead. Women had been raped. A

14 group comprising between 30 and 40 members of the KLA actually raped two

15 ladies. There were those persons who were kidnapped, a total of 58, I

16 think. Those persons were never found. Later some bodies were found in

17 various places after the war, bodies were found. Most of the persons who

18 were kidnapped at the time were at some point later on also killed or

19 executed.

20 MR. IVETIC: For the edification of the Court, paragraph 69 of the

21 written statement and Exhibit 6D1015 mentioned therein provide further

22 details for this.

23 Q. And now just before I move back to that topic just to clear up one

24 thing that I fear remains mistaken or blurred. Was the information of the

25 DB that locators were placed by the KLA in the offices of Sreten Lukic and

Page 21977

1 his deputy on the meeting room or by somebody else; and if somebody else,

2 who?

3 A. No. When I talked about the KLA I meant that as in on the ground,

4 some installations and facilities that were out in the field where there

5 was combat going on and where the units were. As for the office, our

6 suspicion at the time was that representatives of the KVM who had been to

7 see General Lukic and his deputy actually had planted those devices.

8 That's what we believed at the time. That was our suspicion based on

9 this, why those offices and not some others.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: We shall ask the CLSS to give us a translation

11 fresh of page 68 from line 9 to line 21. Thank you.

12 MR. IVETIC: And while we're at it, at line 20 of page 71 he

13 mentioned the deputy of General Lukic as Mijatovic I believe, if we can

14 perhaps avoid the necessity of CLSS having that, if I could just ask the

15 witness whether, in fact, that's what he said.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, deputy, Mijatovic.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: The women that you mentioned as having been raped,

18 were they Albanian women?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, Serb women.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 Mr. Ivetic.

22 MR. IVETIC:

23 Q. Can you tell us about any parts of Kosovo, especially if any parts

24 of major cities were not accessible to security forces in either 1998 or

25 1999 as a result of the KLA holding them as strongholds?

Page 21978

1 A. Yes. Throughout 1998 and 1999, especially before July 1998 and

2 later, many parts of Kosovo were under the control of the KLA, especially

3 the Pristina-Pec road, the Pristina-Prizren road, all the roads, all the

4 villages and towns in Drenica. As for major towns, there was certain

5 sections of those towns where it wasn't safe, such as Pristina, for

6 example, the Vranjevac neighbourhood in Pec, it was the Kapesnica

7 neighbourhood; in Gnjilane it was a neighborhood of which I can't remember

8 the name of right now but it was another neighbourhood that was extremely

9 unsafe to move about because members of the KLA would show up wearing

10 uniform in those parts and there was a risk that undesirable consequences

11 might be the result of their presence.

12 Q. If I can ask you if you know of any incidents during a time-period

13 of the KVM mission when the KLA was suspected of having killed Albanian

14 civilians in Kosovo and Metohija?

15 A. Yes, there were many examples like that. I am going to name one.

16 It was along a road leading from Orahovac to one of the other villages

17 there, I can't remember the exact name. Our forces were out to sweep the

18 ground and they found six ethnic Albanians who had been killed. Later the

19 bodies were identified and intelligence was obtained indicating that two

20 families had been killed. One was Berisha and the other -- well, I can't

21 remember the names. I don't have such a good head for names, as I said

22 before. The father of those sons who were killed, the reason that the KLA

23 had killed him was he asked the OSCE to check the killing of one of their

24 neighbours who was a Serb. He asked the OSCE in writing to do this. This

25 information was probably obtained by the KLA, and those persons were found

Page 21979

1 executed and their bodies were thrown into the ditch by the road. We

2 identified their bodies and we learned about this. Two families, I think

3 Zoga and Berisha, three persons each from these families were killed.

4 Q. Can you describe for us the situation around the town of Malisevo

5 in 1998?

6 A. Well, the town of Malisevo was considered to be the hotbed or

7 where the headquarters of the KLA were, and that's -- that was their main

8 stronghold, the greatest concentration of their forces. So all the orders

9 to all the other units of the KLA came from there. This was a very

10 important stronghold of the KLA, and they themselves at the time, every

11 time they made a public address, their spokespersons always stated that

12 Malisevo was the centre of the Republic of Kosovo where the Supreme

13 Command of the KLA was based.

14 Q. And can we take by that that the KLA held the town of Malisevo for

15 a certain period of time in 1998?

16 A. Yes, yes. Yes. It can be considered like that. It wasn't

17 cleansed of KLA members before the end of October 1998.

18 MR. IVETIC: If we can I guess have either the intervention of the

19 translators or have CLSS listen to the last line, I believe he said it

20 wasn't liberated or cleared of KLA members before the end of October

21 1998. But that might be one that we might have to listen to to get the

22 precise meaning.

23 Q. What kind of weaponry did you know the KLA to possess in 1998 and

24 1999?

25 A. Well, initially when the KLA were first organizing themselves and

Page 21980

1 their first activities, they mostly had weapons that they had obtained of

2 Chinese make, automatic weapons, and other small arms and weapons of

3 Yugoslav make, the former Yugoslavia I mean. At a later stage when the

4 KLA grew, when their strength grew, and when they started carrying out

5 terrorist actions to a far larger extent and when there was cooperation

6 that had been established with the players from the west, it was

7 noticeable that they started having weapons from western countries and

8 from NATO countries. They had some rocket-launchers and other kind of

9 weapons that we found in their possession and that we knew to be weapons

10 produced in NATO countries.

11 Q. Could you tell us, sir, if the RDB knew of any other armed

12 formations of Kosovo Albanian separatists that existed on the territory of

13 Kosovo and Metohija in 1998 and 1999?

14 A. In 1998 in Metohija near the Albanian border there emerged

15 information that had been set up by the illegal government, if I may call

16 it that, of the so-called Republic of Kosovo by Prime Minister Bujar

17 Bukoshi, who was living in exile in Germany at the time. These units were

18 called FARK, armed forces of the Republic of Kosovo. For the most part

19 the forces comprised ethnic Albanians, former JNA and policemen and people

20 belonging to other security bodies. According to our information, our

21 intelligence, and according to information that we obtained by questioning

22 members of the KLA who had been arrested, the unit was between 2.000 and

23 3.000 strong.

24 When they showed up in this area there was a vigorous reaction by

25 the KLA who refused to recognise them as a force that should be involved

Page 21981

1 in the fighting in Kosovo and Metohija. As a result and since this unit

2 was actually something that had been set up by the illegal government of

3 the Republic of Kosovo presided over by Bujar Bukoshi, in Tirana, Albania,

4 a minister in that government, their defence minister, was killed,

5 assassinated. I'm very bad with names. I think his last name was

6 Kastrati, but I'm not sure. On the same day the Albanian president of a

7 parliament, council in Albania's parliament was assassinated, the person

8 who was in charge of defence.

9 The reason for these assassinations, at least that's what the

10 service learned, was that they were the ones who had set up this FARK

11 unit, this armed formation. Therefore, both in our country and Albania

12 the unit did not attain any high level of significance and they were soon

13 disbanded because of efforts of the KLA. According to our intelligence,

14 some of them joined the KLA and some of them went back to Albania or to

15 other countries abroad where they had been living before the unit was

16 first set up.

17 Q. Did you have instances or information of instances where the

18 F-A-R-K, or FARK, entered into armed conflict or were otherwise actively

19 opposed to the KLA in 1999?

20 A. When they first showed up, the first reaction came from the

21 spokesperson, Jakup Krasniqi, who said that those were no units. Over

22 there at least according to our information there were sporadic clashes

23 going on in Kosovo and Metohija. I couldn't name a specific example of

24 in-fighting among their ranks, but the fact remains that this unit was

25 soon gone and left the position that they had attained in Kosovo and

Page 21982

1 Metohija also on account of the KLA increasing in terms of strength.

2 Q. Thank you. Did the RDB have any information about instances where

3 ethnic Albanians were detained and/or mistreated by the KLA?

4 A. Well, we did have information suggesting that. Many reports were

5 written up about that. The KLA refused to recognise any of the political

6 parties that were active or that were espousing a more pacifist solution

7 or more pacifist policies, more peaceful policies. There was fighting on

8 Mount Cicavica. A delegation of Albanians was on their way there to tour

9 the theatre of war, I think Ljuljeta Pulja Beciri and the president of

10 Kosovo's liberal party were there and they were ambushed by members of the

11 KLA. They practically arrested them and told them that there was a list

12 of persons to be liquidated and the list included all political

13 representatives of Albanians who were not in favour of the KLA, who

14 reserve their support. We gathered this information about this clash on

15 Mount Cicavica where this delegation of Albanian politicians had arrived

16 in order to tour that part of the front line.

17 Q. And I believe you've already testified about foreign agencies

18 assisting in the training of the KLA. Do you have anything further you

19 can provide in addition to what you have already said about that?

20 A. Well, we did have intelligence showing that. The KLA had already

21 been in the process of being trained in Albania for long years, and we had

22 intelligence showing that the Albanian security service were in charge of

23 their training and of putting up persons from Kosovo and Metohija who

24 would go to Albania to receive or undergo training there. At first it was

25 Cigurimi [phoen] and then later I think the name was changed to SHIK, the

Page 21983

1 SHISH of Albania, and they directly controlled all departures from Albania

2 to Kosovo, both in terms of weapons, equipment, and persons, and they were

3 also in charge of training because instructors of various ranks would go

4 to Albania and members of the KLA from Kosovo and Metohija were trained

5 there. And also members of the KLA who were living in foreign countries

6 in the west and who would go there for training.

7 Even prior to 1998 and 1999 our service had information about

8 certain camps, training camps, in Germany, in Switzerland, in other

9 countries of the west. It wasn't possible for those training camps to

10 exist in those countries without the appropriate services of those

11 countries being aware of it. There had been a lot of information

12 previously showing that, I'm talking about 1995, 1996, 1997, about all

13 these training camps that had been set up and organized in western

14 countries. As for camps in Albania, we had a lot of information about

15 that. The most reliable information was that concerning the way they were

16 trained and what exactly was going on there because we had been successful

17 in arresting or bringing in several members of the KLA who had actually

18 undergone training in Albania; therefore, they gave us first-hand accounts

19 of the training and how they were trained and what the focus was of that

20 training.

21 Q. Okay. And if I can ask you if you could enlighten us about any of

22 the activities in December of 1998 in the cities of Pec, Kosovo Polje, and

23 the villages around Pristina, if you know of any KLA activity that

24 escalated during that time-period?

25 A. Well, over that period there were a number of -- quite a number of

Page 21984

1 incidents and things going on, although it was after the

2 Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement and although this was some sort of a lull.

3 In Pec a cafe called Panda was attacked and six or seven young persons

4 aged between 16 and 17 were killed. Also at the time there was another

5 incident in Pristina, or rather, in Podujevo. One of my colleagues was

6 killed. He was the chief of the local office in Podujevo, Milic Jovic.

7 We couldn't even have a proper burial according to our tradition because

8 we were shelled by the KLA and we were barely able to bury the man.

9 Likewise, at around the same time, there were incidents occurring

10 elsewhere. I'm just giving you these two examples -- oh, yeah, right,

11 Kosovo Polje. The vice-president of the municipality, Bojanic, was found

12 dead several kilometres away from Kosovo Polje in a village there. Those

13 were incidents that occurred after everything that had been happening in

14 1998 when people were being kidnapped, civilians specifically, for no

15 reason at all.

16 Q. If you could focus for the moment the area around Podujevo. Are

17 you aware of any actions of the KLA regarding mixed villages around

18 Podujevo that had a population of both ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians

19 in December of 1998 and January of 1999?

20 A. Yes. At the time members of the KLA virtually expelled all Serbs

21 and non-Albanians from those villages. There is an incident involving the

22 death of a Serb in one of those villages. This Serb was killed, I think

23 his last name was Radojevic. So those villages were cleansed, they were

24 no longer mixed-population villages. Now they were pure Albanian

25 villages. Also in those villages around Podujevo another two Serbs,

Page 21985

1 ethnic Serbs were killed who were the last persons remaining in those

2 villages -- in that village. I think one of them was called Rakic and the

3 other Nikolic. After that, there were no Serbs left in that village.

4 Q. Thank you, sir. And the last question that I have for you is: Do

5 you know the fate of any of your colleagues or Albanian friends or other

6 non-Serbs that stayed on in Kosovo and Metohija after the withdrawal of

7 Yugoslav forces?

8 A. Well, many of the people involved in this met a sad fate. Many of

9 them were killed or kidnapped, and we don't know what became of them. I

10 would like to tell you about one of our colleagues, an ethnic Albanian,

11 Ibush Bukoshi. He worked with the service up until 1991. He was the head

12 of the 3rd sector, which is the sector to which I was appointed when I

13 first arrived in Kosovo. This person retired. During the air-strikes he

14 had fled to Montenegro. When all of this was over and we had withdrawn

15 from Kosovo and Metohija he returned to Kosovo. The first day he got

16 there -- rather, the next day he was killed at his own door-step with his

17 whole family witnessing this assassination. This information was provided

18 by a colleague of ours who -- this guy was a very wonderful man, a very

19 successful police officer. Our colleagues who had stayed behind in Kosovo

20 and Metohija told us about this, how it happened and how he had been

21 killed at his door-step by members of the KLA, although KFOR were already

22 in Kosovo and Metohija at the time.

23 Q. For the sake of the transcript, page 80, line 3, I think he said:

24 Although KFOR and UNMIK were already in Kosovo.

25 Thank you, Mr. Joksic, I have no further questions for you.

Page 21986

1 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I think one of my colleagues might have

2 cross-examination.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Ivetic.

4 Mr. Zecevic.

5 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, we have agreed that Mr. Petrovic will

6 go first because we're covering the same area and I may have a question

7 after him.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

9 Mr. Petrovic.

10 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

11 Cross-examination by Mr. Petrovic:

12 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Joksic, I will be asking you questions on

13 behalf of Mr. Nikola Sainovic. I have several questions to ask you.

14 First of all, can you please tell me at the time of the air-strikes, were

15 you in contact with Ibrahim Rugova at any time?

16 A. Yes. Yes, I was. May I explain?

17 Q. How did you learn Rugova's whereabouts? How did you get that

18 information?

19 A. I had received a direct order from the chief of the State Security

20 Service sector of the RDB that we were to track down the leaders of

21 Albanian political parties, Rugova among others, because foreign media had

22 started publishing inaccurate information about the fact that Rugova had

23 been killed or wounded, and the same applied to representatives of other

24 political parties. I think this was on the 31st of March. I had been

25 informed by the head of the Pristina centre, Misko Lakovic, that Ibrahim

Page 21987

1 Rugova was staying in his home.

2 Q. Did you receive any instructions in connection with further

3 proceedings against Ibrahim Rugova when you learned where he was?

4 A. Well, as I said before, there was a big media campaign and

5 speculations about whether Rugova was alive or not. When I consulted

6 Vilotic, who was the chief coordinator, who was an assistant, as to what

7 we should do, we agreed that we should go to Rugova's house and contact

8 him and ask him, if he wanted to, to address the public, so that we could

9 prove that he was alive and well.

10 Q. And did Ibrahim Rugova address the public --

11 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness be asked to make a pause

12 between question and answer.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the evening around 8.30 p.m. I

14 took the chief of the press centre in Pristina, I think his last name was

15 Urosevic, and I went to Rugova's house with him. There I found several

16 members of the public security in front of the house. I entered the

17 house. I introduced myself. I said who I was. I said that I was from

18 the state security, and I asked him whether he would like me to bring the

19 journalists who were in the press centre in the Grand Hotel so that we

20 could publish the news that he was alive and well, that we had found him,

21 and if he could only make that statement to finish the matter. And he

22 agreed.

23 I went back to the press centre, I took all the journalists who

24 were there, there was some foreign journalists and some of our

25 journalists, five or six representatives of the media, and I brought them

Page 21988

1 all to Ibrahim Rugova's house. And in his reception room where there were

2 photographs where he had previously held press conferences, there was a

3 photograph of Mother Teresa, one of his meeting with the Pope, and so on

4 and so forth, and he stood there and he made a statement to the media

5 saying that he was alive and well and that he was in his house in

6 Pristina.

7 Q. Could we just make a pause between question and answer so that the

8 interpreters can interpret everything we say.

9 After this address to the public by Rugova, or rather, his address

10 to foreign and domestic journalists, was there a trip or journey?

11 A. After that press conference I -- well, I didn't order but I agreed

12 with my colleagues from the state security that they shouldn't be inside

13 Rugova's house, that they should be in front of his house providing

14 security, and I brought operatives there to stand in that antechamber that

15 I've just mentioned, the reception room, and to take care of security

16 there, of Rugova and his family.

17 Then I went back and I informed the chief of the state security of

18 what had been done. This was in the course of the night, and then he

19 called me up again, I can't remember what time it was, but it was past

20 midnight, and he told me to go and see Mr. Rugova, the late Mr. Rugova,

21 and asked to talk to him to ask him whether he would like me to take him

22 to Belgrade for him to talk to the president of the FRY, Slobodan

23 Milosevic. I carried out that order. I went to see Rugova. I told him

24 what my chiefs were asking me to do, and I asked him whether he was

25 willing or not to go. He said he would have to consult his chef de

Page 21989

1 cabinet or maybe his chief of security Adnan Merovci. He didn't want to

2 make a decision without him. So he went to another room, they consulted,

3 conferred there, and on the next day they agreed to go to Belgrade.

4 Q. And who did Rugova meet in Belgrade?

5 A. In Belgrade he met Slobodan Milosevic, the president. I think the

6 meeting was held in Beli Dvor, and I was present during about 50 per cent

7 of the meeting and the other 50 per cent they were alone.

8 Q. Did Rugova go back to Pristina after that meeting?

9 A. Yes, after that meeting we went back to Pristina and I received

10 instructions from the chief of the service that as of that point we, the

11 entire service, had to take care of Ibrahim Rugova's security.

12 Q. At that time on your return from Belgrade and Rugova's return from

13 Belgrade, to the best of your knowledge, was there any contact between

14 Nikola Sainovic and Ibrahim Rugova?

15 A. I don't think so, but it's hard to recall all the details. To the

16 best of my knowledge, on the 4th of April they called me up from the

17 service and they said that Mr. Sainovic, the deputy prime minister of the

18 federal government, would arrive to talk with Ibrahim Rugova, that I

19 should provide security for this meeting. He wanted to talk to Ibrahim

20 Rugova, and I was only told that the topic of the conversation would be

21 for Ibrahim Rugova to agree to talk to the deputy prime minister of the

22 Serbian government Ratko Markovic.

23 Q. Did Sainovic arrive in Pristina at some point?

24 A. Yes, he did, he arrived that evening. He contacted me and they

25 spoke in Rugova's house. I took him to Rugova's house and they spoke

Page 21990

1 there.

2 Q. Do you know with whom Nikola Sainovic came to Pristina?

3 A. Nikola Sainovic came to Pristina with an escort, and he was alone

4 apart from that escort.

5 Q. To the best of your knowledge, in the relevant period how often

6 did Nikola Sainovic come to Pristina?

7 A. I think he came there three or four times, on three or four

8 occasions. I took him to see Rugova, they would talk, and then he would

9 go back to Belgrade.

10 Q. Were you present at those talks between Sainovic and Rugova?

11 A. For the most part, over 70 per cent of them. I wasn't there all

12 the time, up to the end. Those were political talks; I was not a

13 politician, I was a professional, and sometimes I found it very boring to

14 listen to them.

15 Q. You said that Sainovic came and brought the message that a meeting

16 should be organized with the deputy prime minister of the Serbian

17 government, Ratko Markovic. Do you know whether Sainovic transmitted any

18 other messages to Rugova?

19 A. Well, they were messages of a general political nature, that

20 everything should be done to stop the air-strikes, to stop the war, that

21 we should -- that the organization of government in Kosovo and Metohija

22 should be discussed, that all displaced persons and refugees of all

23 ethnicities who had lived in Kosovo previously should come back, and they

24 were all, as far as I was able to tell, political issues of a general

25 nature. And also that agreements should be made between the authorities

Page 21991

1 in Belgrade and Rugova as the legitimate representative of the Albanian

2 people, that the war should come to an end, and that a peaceful solution

3 should be sought.

4 Q. We just mentioned Ratko Markovic. Do you know whether Rugova

5 agreed to meet the deputy prime minister, Markovic?

6 A. I think he did, yes, and I think they spoke at length. The

7 question was why Ratko Markovic, and Mr. Sainovic explained that Ratko

8 Markovic had been the head of the delegation in Rambouillet, that he had

9 been the head of the delegation, and in a previous period when the

10 authorities of Serbia arrived in Kosovo he had been among the ministers

11 assigned to discuss matters such as education. He was a constitutional

12 expert, and so he was the best person to talk to, to find ways and means

13 of finding a political solution to the problems in Kosovo.

14 Q. You say that you attended most of their talks. What was the

15 atmosphere like at those meetings between Sainovic and Rugova?

16 A. I have to say this, there was a state of war, there were many

17 problems, but I think that both Sainovic and the late Mr. Rugova did their

18 best to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence. That was my

19 impression at least, and there were never any bad words or any serious

20 conflicts. Although their viewpoints diverged initially, they always

21 managed to smooth things out and arrive at a common goal in the end.

22 I do apologise, I forgot to say something. The first time they

23 went to see Milosevic, they made a joint statement --

24 Q. Yes, but please limit yourself to my questions.

25 A. Very well.

Page 21992

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you proceed, what do you mean they managed

2 to smooth things out and arrive at a common goal? I'd doubt if we'd be

3 here if they had done that.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Regrettably, that did not happen,

5 but Mr. Sainovic made a major effort to succeed in that. He made

6 proposals, in fact, he conveyed the positions of the authorities from

7 Serbia, what it is that should be done, that everything should be resolved

8 through talks, not through war.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not really my question. What did you mean

10 by: They always managed to smooth things out and arrive at a common goal

11 in the end?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, they agreed that there would

13 be political contacts and that Rugova and the political leadership of

14 Serbia would work together for that. That is what I meant.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Petrovic.

16 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

17 Q. After these meetings that you described, do you know what Nikola

18 Sainovic did afterwards?

19 A. After contacts with Rugova and these discussions, he went to

20 Belgrade to convey what it was that he had attained. Usually we would go

21 late at night, he would meet with Rugova and go to Belgrade to convey what

22 it was that they had reached.

23 Q. Do you know whether Sainovic had meetings with Adnan Merovci that

24 were not attended by Ibrahim Rugova?

25 A. Yes, we did talk with Adnan Merovci too. I suggested that because

Page 21993

1 I was in contact with him all the time. Our assessment was that

2 Mr. Rugova did not want to reach any kind of agreement or make any

3 decision without consulting Merovci.

4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Can other microphones

5 please be switched off; we can barely hear the witness.

6 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Did you attend the Sainovic-Merovci meetings?

8 A. I think so, but I'm not sure.

9 Q. Tell us, did at any point in time Ibrahim Rugova leave the

10 country?

11 A. Ibrahim Rugova left the country on the 5th of May, I think, 1999.

12 Q. Do you know how that happened, how come he left the country?

13 A. Before that there were quite a few activities before he left the

14 country. On the 16th of April we were in Belgrade where Rugova had a

15 contact with a president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, in the Presidency

16 of Serbia. That same day he had a contact with the patriarch of Moscow,

17 Alexei, I took him there too. After that on the 28th of April there was a

18 contact that was followed by a joint statement in Pristina between him and

19 the president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic; Ratko Markovic, deputy prime

20 minister was there too; then the president of the Temporary Executive

21 Council of Kosovo and Metohija, Zoran Andjelkovic, was there, as well as

22 Mr. Sainovic. That meeting took place at the building of the Executive

23 Council in Pristina. Before these contacts took place between Mr. Rugova

24 and the president of Serbia, the president of Serbia went to the places

25 that had been bombed.

Page 21994

1 Q. Could you focus on the question.

2 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: We can hardly hear the

3 witness --

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, there is some problem -- well, my microphone

5 is one of the problems, but we are being told to put off the microphones

6 if we can as much as possible. So when you've asked the question,

7 Mr. Petrovic, can you put it out.

8 It must be your microphone and mine.

9 MR. IVETIC: If I can be of assistance, I've noticed, at least on

10 my end, the shorter microphone makes less background noise than the longer

11 microphone. That's why I switched to it.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Suitable for the shorter person, of course.

13 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you very much, Your Honour.

14 I shall go on.

15 Q. Mr. Joksic, please, how did this happen that Rugova left the

16 country?

17 A. That's why I told you all that I've told you already, because at

18 this meeting with Milan Milutinovic, the president of Serbia, Milan

19 Milutinovic, Mr. Rugova asked -- well, he said that he could not work

20 politically from Pristina any longer, that they were outside the country,

21 Macedonia, throughout Europe, and that it would be a good idea for him to

22 leave the country. What was conveyed to me was, because I was not

23 directly present there where they were having the meeting, I was in the

24 room in front, but Mr. Rugova told me that he had asked Milutinovic and

25 that the president had promised him to resolve that question of his within

Page 21995

1 the next 24 hours. After about three days, I think, I was called from

2 Belgrade by the chief of the service and I was told to bring Mr. Rugova

3 and Adnan Merovci to Belgrade and that what would be organized would be

4 their departure from the country.

5 Q. [Microphone not activated]?

6 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

7 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. How did Rugova leave the country? Did someone come to pick him

9 up?

10 A. Since I was told to take him to Belgrade, he and I and Adnan

11 Merovci went to Belgrade. We were in a villa, that's where we were

12 staying. President Milosevic came there. They conducted talks there, and

13 what was organized by the office of the head of state, Slobodan Milosevic,

14 was that an airplane would come from Italy, it arrived on the next day,

15 the 5th of May, at the Belgrade airport. The ambassador of the Republic

16 of Italy in Belgrade was on that plane, and we took Rugova with his

17 family, because in the meantime when we realized that he would be

18 released, or rather, that he would be taken abroad, I organized two jeeps

19 to transfer his family from Kosovo to Belgrade, and together with his

20 family he left from Belgrade airport on the 5th of May, 1999.

21 Q. You mentioned Rugova's family. From when you first established

22 contact with him until that 5th of May, can you tell us what your

23 relationship was like with Rugova's family, yours and your associates?

24 A. I mentioned that, but now I can tell you more about it. From the

25 moment when I established contact with Rugova, and later on with Adnan

Page 21996

1 Merovci, they were protected -- I know, I was made aware during the

2 proofing for this testimony that Mr. Adnan Merovci had said that they were

3 under house arrest. That, quite simply, was not true. We ensured

4 whatever we possibly could through the provision of Executive Council

5 every day milk, bread, diapers for babies, all of that was taken to

6 Rugova's family. You couldn't buy that in Pristina in those days. That

7 could not be bought by anyone because there was a war going on. We really

8 made sure that everything was there.

9 Since Merovci portrayed this in a different way, it wasn't really

10 correct. There were two operatives in the entrance hallway, and the

11 members of the family could freely move all about the house. The public

12 security people were only the external security around the building. The

13 reason why this was so was the fact that we had had intelligence that

14 members of the KLA would liquidate Ibrahim Rugova. So we had to -- well,

15 I had strict orders from my chief that nothing should happen to Rugova

16 while we are taking care of him.

17 As for the rest, well, in the beginning of the war probably

18 because the telecommunications were damaged, their telephone was down, we,

19 the service, managed to connect another phone for him so they were in

20 contact with the rest of the world through that telephone with Hill in

21 Skoplje and with other officials, whoever they wanted to contact.

22 Q. Let's go back to Rugova's departure from the country. Who was

23 there to see off Ibrahim Rugova at the airport and what was the send-off

24 like?

25 A. When we reported that the plane was there, he was seen off from

Page 21997

1 the villa with his family with several jeeps and cars. There were 17

2 family members of Adnan Merovci and Ibrahim Rugova. We took them to the

3 airport. Our security was there from the sixth administration, from our

4 service, Rugova, Merovci, the members of the family were seen off by

5 Mr. Nikola Sainovic, deputy prime minister of the federal government; and

6 I, and me. We made a cordial farewell. Mr. Sainovic and Rugova even

7 embraced. I gave them a box of cigarettes and they said that they would

8 get one back, but they never did return one, not even after the war.

9 Q. Mr. Joksic, one last question: You said that Mr. Sainovic came to

10 Pristina several times in relation to these talks with Rugova. To the

11 best of your knowledge, on these occasions did Sainovic present some

12 reports to anyone or, to the best of your knowledge, did Sainovic give any

13 instructions, orders, anything to other people?

14 A. To the best of my knowledge, no, and I think it is certain that

15 that did not happen because he and I would always meet up and then we

16 would go to Rugova. Many times he didn't even spend a minute longer in

17 Pristina. As soon as he would finish talking to Rugova, he would go back

18 to Belgrade. I was really surprised. A few times I tried to keep him

19 there and to send him to -- to bring him to my base so that he could spend

20 the night there. It wasn't safe to travel at night. He said, no, I have

21 to go, I have to convey what it was that I have agreed on, so he would

22 leave. I was worried because he'd leave. He really went through the

23 worst area where there was the largest number of KLA members.

24 Q. Thank you.

25 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I have no further

Page 21998

1 questions for this witness.

2 MR. ZECEVIC: No questions for this witness. Thank you.

3 [Trial Chamber confers]

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Joksic, it wasn't clear to me what your

5 evidence was about whether there were meetings between Mr. Sainovic and

6 Mr. Merovci without Rugova being present.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I think there were two

8 meetings. We talked in a building. I think it belonged to some company

9 in Pristina. I think these talks had to do with Merovci's trip to Skoplje

10 and after his return from Skoplje.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Were you present at these meetings?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think so, but I'm not all that

13 sure. It has been a long time, after all. If I was not there directly, I

14 brought Sainovic to the place where they met but I think that I attended

15 during some parts.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Bakrac.

17 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I will be

18 very brief, if you allow me.

19 Cross-examination by Mr. Bakrac:

20 Q. [Interpretation] I'm Mihajlo Bakrac, attorney-at-law, and I am

21 Defence counsel for General Lazarevic. I have a few very brief questions

22 for you. You said in Kosovo and Metohija there were three centres of

23 state security and that these centres had departments and detached

24 offices, as they were called later. I would be interested in the

25 following. At any point in 1998 and 1999, did any of these departments or

Page 21999

1 centres or offices of the state security, was it resubordinated to the

2 Pristina Corps?

3 A. [No interpretation].

4 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the answer.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Could you give your answer the again. The

6 interpreter did not catch it.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, never was there any

8 subordination.

9 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, the witness

10 said "resubordination."

11 Q. Mr. Joksic, I have one more question. Did you know General

12 Lazarevic?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Can I ask you to tell us what your opinion was about him and how

15 he carried out his professional duties, if you know about that.

16 A. That is my personal opinion. I knew General Lazarevic even before

17 the beginning of the war and we cooperated while he was -- even before he

18 became corps commander. We saw each other in Kosovo and Metohija. I

19 personally have a very high regard for him as a capable officer and a

20 rather honest and good man. That was not only my opinion as that of a

21 member of the service, but that was the opinion of most of the citizens in

22 Kosovo and Metohija.

23 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. Joksic.

24 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, thank you. No further

25 questions.

Page 22000

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

2 Mr. Joksic, you'll now be cross-examined by the Prosecutor,

3 Mr. Hannis.

4 Mr. Hannis.

5 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.

6 Cross-examination by Mr. Hannis:

7 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Joksic.

8 A. Good afternoon.

9 Q. The first item I want to ask you about is Exhibit P1192. I think

10 you were shown this on direct examination, and I can give you a hard copy

11 because it's several pages and maybe it will be easier to read, with the

12 assistance of the usher. This is the rules of the internal organization

13 of the RDB dated April 1996. I take it those were the rules that were

14 in -- still in effect in 1998 and 1999, to your knowledge?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. If you could go to page 2 in both the English and the B/C/S. I

17 have some questions for you about article number 2. It talks about the

18 task and the second paragraph says: "The RDB also shall carry out tasks

19 of state administration pertaining to the security of the Federal Republic

20 of Yugoslavia, FRY, and prevent activities directed at undermining or

21 toppling the Constitutional Order of the FRY."

22 Now, the paragraph immediately preceding that said basically the

23 same thing concerning the Republic of Serbia. My question -- my first

24 question is: How was the RDB to operate in the situation where something

25 might be undermining the constitutional order of the FRY but not

Page 22001

1 undermining the constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia? Was that

2 a situation that ever came to be discussed?

3 A. No, I'm not sure I understand your question. We were the RDB for

4 the Republic of Serbia, and if there was subversive activity against

5 Serbia then this would also amount to subversive activity against the

6 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

7 Q. And there was no Federal Ministry of the Interior at this time,

8 was there? No Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Ministry of Interior in 1998

9 and 1999?

10 A. No.

11 Q. There had been --

12 A. Well, there was, but there was no state security.

13 Q. And when did that change? Previously there had been a federal

14 state security organ, had there -- hadn't there?

15 A. Well, there had been until the former Yugoslavia fell apart.

16 Q. And who was the top official in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

17 regarding tasks of the RDB? We know that there was a minister of the

18 interior for the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Stojiljkovic; but regarding the

19 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who was the top official to whom RDB would

20 answer for security tasks regarding the Republic of Yugoslavia?

21 A. I don't know that. We answered to the minister of the interior of

22 the Republic of Serbia. I don't think there was anyone that we answered

23 to at the federal level.

24 Q. Okay. As a practical matter in real life, didn't your ministry

25 answer to Mr. Milosevic?

Page 22002

1 A. I can hardly say.

2 Q. Okay. Would you look at Article 3 on the next page.

3 MR. HANNIS: And we'll have to go to page 3.

4 Q. And at the very top of the page it says: "The tasks of the RDB

5 are: Counter-intelligence, intelligence, countering extremism and

6 terrorism and other security tasks of the Republic and FRY."

7 Now, if you'll go down to the third paragraph it

8 says: "Intelligence tasks are the tasks of gathering, analysing, and

9 assessing information ..." I want to skip a little bit. And it

10 says: "... and monitoring the degree to which political, religious, and

11 other freedoms and rights of ethnic Serbian communities outside the FRY

12 are implemented or to which they are endangered."

13 Now, do you know why this is limited specifically to ethnic

14 Serbian communities outside the FRY?

15 A. Well, intelligence people are supposed to gather intelligence

16 outside the country, the reason being there are Serbs all over the world.

17 The service had the responsibility of gathering any sort of intelligence

18 that were putting at risk Serbs, not only those living in Yugoslavia but

19 also those living outside the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.

20 This is intelligence and no more than that.

21 Q. Okay. But it doesn't address the issue of addressing intelligence

22 regarding threats to the political, religious, and freedoms and rights of

23 non-Serbian Yugoslavs outside the Republic of Yugoslavia, correct?

24 A. It talks about Serbian ethnic entities; that means whenever

25 there's a rather large number of Serbs. Now, why doesn't it say the other

Page 22003

1 thing, I guess you should ask someone else, not me.

2 Q. Okay. Within the RDB we see references to several different

3 organizational units. I think this document lists up to ten different

4 administrations within the RDB. Which administration were you a part of?

5 Were you in the third administration? That begins at Article 13 on page 5

6 if you want to look at your hard copy.

7 A. Yes, the third.

8 Q. Okay. And that was the -- that was the administration that was

9 concerned with counteracting extremism and terrorism; is that right?

10 A. Right.

11 Q. Okay. Thank you. If we could take a quick look now at Exhibit

12 P1228. Mr. Joksic, this is a report or a summary dated the 3rd of

13 January, 1999, to the Ministry of the Interior. Have you seen these kind

14 of documents before? I can --

15 A. Can we please zoom in. I have difficulty seeing this.

16 Q. With the usher's help I'll hand you a hard copy of this one and

17 that may be easier for you to follow --

18 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I hate to be a stickler, but this was

19 not on the list of exhibits provided for cross-examination.

20 MR. HANNIS: This was on the list of exhibits I got from the

21 Defence, and we typically advise them we are going to use any exhibits on

22 their list.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: [Microphone not activated].

24 MR. IVETIC: Could Mr. Hannis be more specific, when he

25 says "Defence," is that 6D?

Page 22004

1 MR. HANNIS: Yes.

2 [Defence counsel confer]

3 MR. IVETIC: Just a moment, Your Honour, we're double-checking.

4 It's not on our list, Your Honour.

5 MR. HANNIS: Then I stand corrected, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, on what basis are you saying that we should

7 allow you to use it?

8 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I will go to another one.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

10 MR. HANNIS: I will go to P1224.

11 Q. Mr. Joksic, let me hand you this one, if I may.

12 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, usher.

13 Q. This document is described as a summary of the numbers of

14 policemen in the autonomous province of Kosovo on 16 October 1998. At the

15 bottom of the page it is dated 18 October in Pristina. And if we can go

16 to the next page in e-court.

17 Have you seen this document before?

18 A. No -- well, I've just seen it, but not before.

19 Q. You didn't see this in 1998 shortly before the negotiations

20 between --

21 A. No, no. This has nothing to do with the State Security Service.

22 The numbers concerning the RJB in Kosovo and Metohija, this has nothing to

23 do with us, that is the public security.

24 Q. And information like that is not something that would be coming

25 across your desk?

Page 22005

1 A. No.

2 Q. And I take it that you never heard of a body called the Joint

3 Command for Kosovo and Metohija?

4 A. No. I did hear of it after the war.

5 Q. When was the first time you heard of it?

6 A. Was it 2000? 2001? There was a reference to some sort of Joint

7 Command, but this struck me something completely new.

8 Q. And how did you happen to hear of it in 2000 or 2001? In what

9 context?

10 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Petrovic.

12 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] The witness answered how he said

13 it, he said through the press when the press started publishing this, but

14 I'm afraid that's not in the transcript, that's page 99, line 7, so that

15 is the answer to Mr. Hannis's question.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Apart from anything else in the circumstances it

17 would be a good idea to clarify it, Mr. Hannis.

18 MR. HANNIS: Yes.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: So please -- your question is admissible on that

20 ground alone.

21 MR. HANNIS:

22 Q. Witness, can you tell us, because it did not appear in the

23 transcript earlier, in what context did you first hear about it in 2000 or

24 2001?

25 A. I heard several times, especially when Milosevic was taken to The

Page 22006

1 Hague Tribunal and the trial began, then I heard in the press that there

2 was some sort of an association, a Joint Command, and this purportedly

3 existed when I was in Kosovo and Metohija as well and I had spent quite

4 some time there and I had never heard of it, I had never heard of its

5 existence. So that's how I heard of it. And now when I was being proofed

6 for my testimony I was shown some documents mentioning some sort of Joint

7 Command, but this isn't something that I'd ever heard of or personally

8 met.

9 Q. And when that happened, it surprised you to hear about it,

10 department it, because doesn't it seem to you that's something you would

11 have been aware of, being in your position and being in Pristina in 1998

12 and 1999?

13 A. I was surprised. I was surprised. The reason being, especially

14 as far as 1999 was concerned. There was a war on. I spent the entire war

15 virtually together with General Lukic, and I know there was no Joint

16 Command nor did I ever see one. The paramount thing was to save our

17 necks. Joint Command, no question of anything like that at all.

18 Q. Well, who was your boss in 1998?

19 A. 1998? Kosovo and Metohija?

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. David Gajic.

22 Q. That's right. And in your preparation for testifying here, were

23 you shown the notes of meetings of the Joint Command for the period from

24 July through October of 1998? Did anyone show you that document?

25 A. No.

Page 22007

1 Q. And Mr. Gajic never told you about all those Joint Command

2 meetings he attended in 1998?

3 A. In 1998 it wasn't meetings of the Joint Command, it was about

4 coordination and exchanging intelligence. For the most part this was

5 attended by Mr. Gajic --

6 Q. Wait, wait, you said you didn't know anything about a Joint

7 Command until you heard about it in 2001. So how can you say it wasn't a

8 Joint Command, it was a coordination body. Who told you that?

9 A. Nobody told me, but it was like that before the war and after the

10 war. And even ten years ago we had cooperation between the various

11 services, the army and the public security. And depending on the

12 situation there were meetings, monthly meetings, weekly meetings, daily

13 meeting, it all depended on the situation that we were facing and we used

14 these meetings to exchange information. When there were meetings like

15 that, David Gajic would attend. I may have attended one or two myself

16 meetings of that nature where we would submit our information, they would

17 submit their information to us, we would exchange information, and those

18 who decided on any further use that was to be made of this information

19 took whatever decisions they had to take, but it was important they knew

20 what was going on on the ground.

21 Q. Okay. Let's go slowly on this and let's just talk about 1998

22 first. In 1998 where were you physically located? Where was your office?

23 A. At the state security sector building in Pristina.

24 Q. Okay. And in 1998 were you aware of the existence of a body that

25 was called the provisional Executive Council headed by Mr. Andjelkovic?

Page 22008

1 A. As far as I know, there was a Temporary Executive Council headed

2 by Zoran Andjelkovic, a government minister in Serbia's government.

3 Q. Yes. Sometimes we've heard it called "temporary" and sometimes

4 called "provisional." Where were their offices located?

5 A. The Kosovo Executive Council building.

6 Q. And where was that vis-a-vis your building, how far away?

7 A. About 150 metres.

8 Q. And do you know where the Pristina Corps command was located?

9 A. I do.

10 Q. Where was that?

11 A. At about 70 metres from there.

12 Q. Now, you mentioned some coordination meetings. Were these

13 meetings that took place in 1998?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And you mentioned Mr. Gajic went to some of those meetings and you

16 yourself may have gone to a meeting or two; is that right?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Where were those meetings held?

19 A. Depends. Sometimes the corps command, sometimes the Pristina SUP

20 building, it really depended. I attended meetings at these two

21 locations. I'm not sure if there were other meetings that were held

22 elsewhere, but I wasn't there. There was a meeting I think once when

23 Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic came, I think this was at the Pristina SUP

24 building.

25 Q. Okay. Do you recall what time of day those meetings were

Page 22009

1 generally held in 1998?

2 A. In the first half of 1998 they would be held during business

3 hours, and later when tensions were exacerbated in Kosovo and Metohija, as

4 far as I know, we would prepare intelligence for David Gajic, me, and his

5 other assistants and associates, I think mostly in the evening that he

6 went to those meetings.

7 Q. Was there a Mr. Radovic in RDB who also attended meetings in 1998?

8 A. Yes. He sometimes went. He was the deputy chief of the Pristina

9 centre or deputy head. Earlier on in his career back in Belgrade he was

10 into analysis and he wrote stuff up for Gajic, he and his team, and

11 sometimes he would stand in for Gajic at these meetings, and they

12 sometimes went together for the purposes of this analytical work.

13 Q. What was his first name, do you recall?

14 A. Miroslav Radovic, we called him Miro. Miroslav Radovic was his

15 actual name.

16 Q. You said earlier in the first half of 1998 that meetings would be

17 held during business hours. Are you aware of any meetings taking place

18 prior to July of 1998?

19 A. I don't really know. I can't say specifically. There were

20 meetings that were held occasionally. Information would be exchanged. We

21 would talk about things and reach conclusions. There were meetings at the

22 corps command at the Pristina SUP building, public security. The only

23 place that no meetings were held was back at our place, the state

24 security, because we were the poorest mouse in that particular house.

25 Q. Okay. The meeting or meetings that you may have attended, can you

Page 22010

1 tell us who you remember being present at those meetings? Can you name

2 people for us?

3 A. Well, as for those that I attended, General Lazarevic and

4 Pavkovic, and then from June or July 1998 onwards General Sreten Lukic or

5 one of his staff. And we, people from the state security, those were the

6 meetings that I went to. Before Mr. Lukic came as a staff leader I think

7 there was another person who did the same job whose name I think was

8 Vesovic and he was an expert in transport.

9 Q. And at none of the meetings you attended were there any civilians

10 present, you didn't see Mr. Sainovic, Mr. Minic, Mr. Matkovic,

11 Mr. Andjelkovic? None of those guys at any of the meetings you attended?

12 A. No, not the ones that I went to, but I used to see them in

13 Pristina because I spent a long time there and as far as I knew, they were

14 doing their job which was politics. They were in touch with

15 representatives of the OSCE, foreigners, many diplomats were arriving in

16 Kosovo those days, and those were their jobs. Andjelkovic was the

17 president of the provisional Executive Council and he would come because

18 of what was going on in Kosovo and then Djakovic was in charge of it, they

19 probably had to consult with him. I can't give you any details of what

20 exactly they were doing but it was probably that, just as all the other

21 politicians.

22 MR. IVETIC: Page 104, line 12, he was an expert in

23 traffic, "saobracaj."

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, 104 --

25 MR. IVETIC: 104, line 12, he was an expert in traffic, the

Page 22011

1 Serbian word was "saobracaj."

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.

3 MR. HANNIS:

4 Q. And, Mr. Joksic, you don't recall Jovica Stanisic or General

5 Djordjevic or General Stevanovic coming down and attending any of these

6 coordination meetings?

7 A. Well, sometimes they would come to Kosovo and Metohija, but there

8 weren't too many of those work meetings. Stanisic, when he would come, he

9 would come straight to us, the RDB, just to see what was going on, whether

10 we were all alive and well, how we were doing, perhaps to give us some

11 instructions on how to proceed. As for these other generals, I think they

12 all went there to do their own job. As for any meetings that they all had

13 together, I can't remember a single one except when the minister came and

14 assembled them all together, both services. There would be a meeting in

15 order to boost our morale, to tell us to try to hold out, and then he

16 would be off to Belgrade again.

17 Q. Okay.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, if this is going to be a suitable time

19 to interrupt you, I have a couple of questions before we finish.

20 MR. HANNIS: It is, Your Honour. Thank you.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: You said a short time ago, Mr. Joksic, that you

22 spent the entire war virtually together with General Lukic, and "I know

23 there was no Joint Command nor did I ever see one." What do you mean

24 by "spent the entire war virtually together with General Lukic"?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I meant to say was that I was

Page 22012

1 there throughout. I was in charge as someone from my service in case I

2 received anything interesting to pass this along to the staff.

3 Incidentally, we were no longer in buildings, we were at our places and we

4 had to find secret places where we hid in order to avoid being killed off

5 as rabbits. We from the state security, there were two of us, myself and

6 Rocic [as interpreted] and Lukic on the other hand had more people in

7 his -- in his, I mean staff. So we were with Lukic at certain locations

8 where we hid, we were together, and we couldn't have all those people in

9 one place, it would have been dangerous, they would have been spotted.

10 They could have picked us off like rabbits, both of them, NATO and the

11 KLA. So we had bunkers and we had these bases that we created in an

12 operative fashion for ourselves in order to be able to hide and that's

13 where we spent time together.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: The other thing I wanted to ask you was this: Are

15 you aware that documents with the heading and the signature "Joint

16 Command" are evidence in the case?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I saw that as I was being

18 proofed, but I'd never seen it before. As I was being proofed I saw some

19 documents saying "Joint Command," which struck me as somewhat strange, but

20 fine, not my place to judge that.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

22 We now have to bring our proceedings for the day to an end, which

23 means that you will have to return on Monday to complete your evidence.

24 Over the weekend it is a strict requirement that you have no communication

25 with anyone about the evidence in this case, and that applies to

Page 22013

1 everyone. You can talk about whatever you like with whomever you wish,

2 but there must absolutely no communication about the evidence.

3 Now could you please leave the courtroom with the usher and we

4 will see you again here at 9.00 on Monday morning.

5 [The witness stands down]

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.31 p.m.,

7 to be reconvened on Monday, the 11th day of

8 February, 2008, at 9.00 a.m.

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