150226ED

Page 32305

1 well.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Dragutinovic, before we continue I'd like to

3 remind you that you're still bound by the solemn declaration that you've

4 given at the beginning of your testimony, that you will speak the truth,

5 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

6 Mr. McCloskey will now continue his cross-examination.

7 Mr. McCloskey.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. Morning.

9 WITNESS: MIODRAG DRAGUTINOVIC [Resumed]

10 [Witness answered through interpreter]

11 Cross-examination by Mr. McCloskey: [Continued]

12 Q. Sir, going to the subject of the times that you were the duty

13 officer at the Zvornik Brigade, do you recall that General Mladic would

14 fly through Zvornik air-space sometimes in his helicopter?

15 A. It is possible, but I don't remember any of the details from that

16 time. But the question now is when I was on duty. In what year, during

17 what period of time? I was not on duty that often.

18 Q. Just any time that you were duty officer during your service, do

19 you -- did he fly through Zvornik air-space?

20 A. I think I don't remember.

21 Q. And do you know that if he had while you were duty officer, would

22 you have been supposed to register that flight in any records, or for

23 some reason would it not be registered?

24 A. As far as I can remember, only the announced flights were

25 recorded or entered in the records.

Page 32306

1 Q. Only the announced flights. So not the actual flights

2 themselves?

3 A. Since in the air-space of Zvornik there are not only flights by

4 helicopters of the VRS but also SFOR and UNPROFOR airforce, it is

5 possible that there was a duty officer who did record the actual flights

6 that took place. I don't remember any such thing.

7 Q. All right. Let's briefly go back to P7152. That's the code

8 cable you -- excuse me, the code table that we had been looking at, and I

9 just want to remind us of a particular code. It's here -- it's number 8.

10 And it says the attack on aerial targets forbidden, and for the period of

11 11 to 21 July, that code-name would be Cer. And if for translation

12 purposes we wouldn't translate "Cer," we just keep it as "Cer."

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: So seeing that, let's now go to 65 ter 32119a.

14 Q. And what will be coming up, you'll see, is an operations diary

15 from the Birac Brigade. And of course, I understand you're not from the

16 Birac Brigade, but perhaps you can help us a bit in looking at this. It

17 is a brigade not far from the Zvornik Brigade, is it not?

18 A. You're right.

19 Q. All right. And let's go to page 2 in both languages.

20 So in this operations diary, we see that there's clearly marked

21 16 July and some notes about things. Is this consistent with what a duty

22 officer would -- would write down in a brigade, this kind of information?

23 A. If you will allow me to read, I would like to do that. I suppose

24 so. It is actually very hard for me to read here. The document is in

25 handwriting. But in any case, a duty officer should record everything of

Page 32307

1 any importance that happened on that day.

2 Q. Okay. Let's go to a section I do want you to be able to clearly

3 read. That's page 3 in both languages. And if we could look at the

4 entry for 0925 hours, and we see that it says in English:

5 "Zlatar - proceed according to the Grabovica signals table.

6 Cetinje - Evropa - Ruma," and then "Cer until 2030."

7 A. Yes, I can see that. I can.

8 Q. So in your view, is that consistent with a notification in this

9 diary that attacking -- attacks on aerial targets are forbidden until

10 2030 hours?

11 A. If a signal is mentioned and if it comes from the signals table,

12 a table, that really means that fire shouldn't be opened on targets

13 during the time indicated in the signals table. Or if the signals table

14 says that fire should be opened, then the opposite would happen, i.e.,

15 fire would be opened.

16 Q. Okay. And we will recall that we had just seen signal Cer in the

17 signals table for 11 through 21 July, and it said "attack on aerial

18 targets forbidden" in the previous exhibit.

19 Now let's go to page 4 of this document, and here we'll see down

20 at 2020 hours a reference that Zlatar, according to the signals table,

21 Grabovica - Cer valid till 22 hours.

22 A. I can see that and I understand it.

23 Q. So does this mean that the signal Cer was extended from 2030

24 hours now to 22 hours?

25 A. If I were to see the signals table for Cer, then I would be able

Page 32308

1 to say. It is possible that it was extended until a certain time. Even

2 if a time is set in a signals table, it may always be extended.

3 Q. All right.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: I'd offer this into evidence.

5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, in the transcript it reads,

6 line 23, on page 7:

7 "Cer was extended from 2030 hours."

8 In the document itself, it says 2020.

9 JUDGE ORIE: No, I -- I think there may be some --

10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Or am I mistaken?

11 JUDGE ORIE: There may be some confusion. I think the earlier

12 entry we looked made the Cer valid until 2030, and we now see that at

13 2020 it is extended to 2200 hours.

14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I thank my Presiding Judge for this explanation.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I apologise for my intervention.

16 Madam Registrar.

17 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, document number 32119a receives

18 number P7153.

19 JUDGE ORIE: P7153 is admitted.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Now can we go on the same topic to 65 ter 32124a.

21 And let's -- we see this. This is called the book of the duty officer's

22 observations. It's again from the Birac Brigade. Could we go to page 2.

23 And we see that this is from the duty officer, Lieutenant Jelenko Dzinic

24 and it's dated 16/17 July 1995. It's a report to the commander.

25 Q. And I just want to note, draw your attention to under point 1,

Page 32309

1 it's the second paragraph:

2 "At 0935 it was ordered by Zlatar to proceed pursuant to the

3 signal's table Grabovica-Cer till 2200 hours (not shoot at the

4 aircrafts)."

5 Now, that's consistent with the diary entries that we've seen, is

6 it not?

7 A. Yes, yes.

8 Q. And if we go down to paragraph number 3, it describes:

9 "There were no extraordinary events in the zone of our brigade."

10 Z/o, I take it, is zone of our brigade?

11 "We did not register any flights for" --

12 A. Yes, yes, of our brigade, yes.

13 Q. Thank you. And then it goes on to say:

14 "We did not register any flights over our territory."

15 A. Yes, I'm reading that as well.

16 Q. And so based on your experience at the Zvornik Brigade, you've

17 recalled earlier that actual flights may not get registered or not? Does

18 this jog your memory about anything? How would you explain this?

19 A. All the announced flights were entered in the records and that

20 signals table is observed. If that was not done, if the signals table

21 was not complied with, a result would have been undesired consequences.

22 For example, opening fire at an aircraft in our air-space, because you

23 never know what the intention of that aircraft was. In other words,

24 every flight had to be announced because every unit had anti-aircraft

25 defence.

Page 32310

1 Q. Yes, and if General Mladic was flying in his helicopter on the

2 evening hours of 16 July, would it be consistent and wise to have a

3 signal Cer go up to the duty officers in the brigades whose zone

4 air-space he may be flying through or near?

5 A. It would have been logical to regulate that by the signals table,

6 i.e., that fire was not opened on any aircraft in the corridor

7 irrespective of the passengers of the aircraft.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: I offer this document into evidence.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 32124a receives number P7154.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, before it will be admitted, Mr. McCloskey, the

12 document reads 16/17th of July. It apparently is an excerpt of a -- of a

13 book.

14 Now, it is a bit unclear, also on the basis of what is at the

15 bottom of the page, "duty handed over," "duty taken over," whether this

16 happened on the 16th, the 17th, et cetera. That's one question. And of

17 course you asked the witness about whether this is consistent with what

18 we find here. Of course, to some extent it is; that is, that Cer was

19 ordered in the morning hours and that it ended at 2200 hours.

20 But, of course, it is not fully consistent as far as chronology

21 is concerned because it was not in the morning hours that it was ordered

22 that Cer would extend until 22 hours. It would be 2030 and was then

23 extended.

24 So to some extent it does, to some extent it does not. At the

25 same time we do not know for sure here, having only this excerpt, whether

Page 32311

1 we are dealing with the 16th, exclusively the 16th, or inclusive the

2 17th. Do you have any assistance to offer for us to be better able to

3 understand this document in this respect?

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, I have a -- a couple of documents I

5 wasn't -- I wasn't -- well, that I had next in my line and given your

6 concern I best go through them.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, okay. That's fine. Because relevance and

8 probative value are the tests for admission, and I do understand that

9 there's still more to come which would satisfy us that the probative

10 value and the relevance is such that it should be admitted.

11 Madam Registrar, you have given the number already. P7154 is

12 admitted into evidence.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: And, Mr. President, I don't have the pages before

14 and after the log-book, but we'll take a look because, as you know, that

15 could help us with your 16/17 July concerns.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I -- one of the concerns I expressed was that

17 we were dealing with an excerpt that does not answer all the questions

18 that the selected page raises.

19 We'll then wait for you to revisit this aspect.

20 Please proceed.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Let's go to P1502 at this point.

22 Q. Sir, I don't know if this -- this is a green-covered notebook

23 which we have seen frequently in this case. This is what has been

24 referred to as the Zvornik Brigade duty officer's diary or notebook.

25 MR. McCLOSKEY: And if we could now go to page 36 in both

Page 32312

1 languages.

2 Q. And just taking -- well, I know that's hard for you to read.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Perhaps we could blow up the Serbian to give the

4 witness a chance to acclimate to this new document.

5 We see 16 July 1995 noted here and various comments about things

6 that are -- appear to be going on or other issues.

7 So if we can now go to the next page, page 37, and if we can go

8 down to the -- near the bottom, we'll see a notation:

9 "Signal Cer until 2030 hours. At 0926 hours."

10 So I think you've explained that -- about signal Cer until 2030

11 hours. What does the "at 0926 hours" reference refer to, in your view?

12 A. I don't see where you see 0906.

13 Q. Sorry, it -- I'll read it again.

14 JUDGE ORIE: It's 0926, I think, and it is the second

15 paragraph from the bottom in B/C/S, Witness. You see -- you see it?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It says 0926 here.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY:

19 Q. And what do you take that to mean or be a reference to?

20 A. In my view, well, I don't really have to get this right. I'm not

21 sure. But it says "signal Cer." Now, I cannot remember the signals

22 table. It was given until, what, 2030? So it was valid until 2030, and

23 the signal was received at 0926.

24 Q. Okay. And while we don't see times noted in some regularity in

25 this document, if we look near the top, we can see that:

Page 32313

1 "Mirko requested link with Maric regarding transfer of food.

2 There was no link between them at 0805."

3 And then at the bottom of the page, we see a reference to some

4 person named "Beara to call Panorama 155 at 0930 hours." So would it be

5 consistent that this duty officer received the signal Cer at 0926 hours

6 and thereby noted it then in the duty book?

7 A. Well, in terms of the sequence of these numbers or time

8 references, it would be logical for the signal to be at 9.26 because that

9 is what is written, "at 9.26." So in my view, the signal was received at

10 9.26. I can just interpret it that way, what you have ...

11 Q. Thank you, sir.

12 A. Because up here we have 9.22, and then 9.26, and finally we have

13 9.32, so there is this sequence that tallies.

14 Q. Did you see Beara around your brigade on the 16th?

15 A. On the 16th, I was not at the brigade -- or rather, in the area

16 where I could have encountered General or Colonel Beara, I don't know his

17 exact rank, I was on the left flank, so I had no opportunity of seeing

18 him.

19 Q. All right.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Let's go to page 43 in this document. And

21 without going through each page to sort out precisely what the date may

22 be, I think the Defence will agree that this is still the 16th of July,

23 which should be noted in the duty officer notebook that is in evidence

24 where we have that material noted.

25 Q. All right. Now, we go down near the bottom of the page and it

Page 32314

1 says:

2 "At 2020 hours, the signal Cer was sent from Zlatar, i.e., it's

3 forbidden to shoot at aerial targets until 2200 hours. All units

4 informed about that."

5 Again, is this consistent with the other references we've seen in

6 both Birac and in notebook?

7 A. Well, I have nothing to add to this. This is put concisely and

8 understandably.

9 Q. Thank you, sir. So one last document, if you could help us with

10 it.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: It's 65 ter 4340.

12 Q. And this is a -- what's entitled the provisional telephone

13 directory of the Zvornik Brigade that we picked up from the brigade in a

14 search in 1998, and if I could just show you that it might help you

15 remember it. We've shown that to the Defence.

16 [Trial Chamber confers]

17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: In which year was the search carried out,

18 Mr. McCloskey.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: 1998.

20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you for this clarification.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY:

22 Q. And, sir, does this at all look familiar to you, this little

23 book?

24 A. Not to me. I've never had it in my hands.

25 Q. Okay.

Page 32315

1 A. Or I don't remember. I don't think I did.

2 Q. Is this the kind of notebook that would hold telephone extensions

3 for the Zvornik Brigade, as far as you know?

4 A. Well, this is a notebook with all the known telephones. Now,

5 whether I remember the booklet itself, and in this form I cannot confirm

6 that for sure, but we have here a phonebook with all the relevant persons

7 and commands, and so on.

8 Q. So could you go just, I think, count about -- it's page 5 in

9 e-court and it's page 7 in the actual book. So just count seven pages

10 and we should get to the Zvornik Brigade command phone numbers.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: We're page 7 in e-court in English, sorry. It's

12 page 5 in the B/C/S.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Where the transcript tell us that the Chamber

14 conferred, we looked at the original of this document when conferring.

15 Please proceed.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY:

17 Q. Now, it was a while back, but I'm sure you had called these phone

18 numbers quite a bit. In fact, we should see your -- do we see the

19 assistant Chief of Staff for operations here?

20 A. If we're looking at the same page, I'll take a look right now.

21 Q. I see the operations centre.

22 A. Well, in the brigade, I mean, this term, I'm not familiar with

23 that, "operations centre."

24 Q. We also see the Chief of Staff which would have been

25 Dragan Obrenovic.

Page 32316

1 A. Chief of Staff, all right. Operations centre? Well, we had an

2 operations department where I was assistant Chief of Staff and I had a

3 desk officer. Maybe somebody characterised that as an operations centre.

4 I don't know. I'm not sure.

5 Q. Well, you'd agree with me that your boss was Dragan Obrenovic,

6 the Chief of Staff; correct?

7 A. Yes. I'm subordinated to the Chief of Staff because I'm

8 assistant Chief of Staff.

9 Q. And we see his phone number as -- correct me if I'm wrong, but

10 this is his phone number is it not: 588-556?

11 A. Yes. However, I have to add something. I have to make a remark.

12 Very often numbers changed during the war, depending on the capabilities

13 of the post office and the technical requirements that the postal

14 services could meet, so all of these numbers don't have to be valid from

15 1993 all the way up until the end of the war.

16 Q. I understand. Now, the Chief of Staff's phone number, you'd

17 agree with me, was 588-556, according --

18 A. That is what is written here, but I don't remember numbers. I

19 didn't really call very often so that I could remember it. But what is

20 written here is that that is his number.

21 Q. And then we see to the right of that, it says 136. That would be

22 his actual phone extension?

23 A. It should be his phone extension, yes.

24 Q. All right. And do you remember calling that extension? You

25 should have called it occasionally.

Page 32317

1 A. You're asking me way too much. 1993, whether I remember that

2 that was the number, 136. I can tell you that I almost never phoned the

3 extension because my office was right next to that of the Chief of Staff.

4 It was enough for me just to turn around, walk into the office, and get

5 our business done. So this communication via telephone extension, I

6 don't remember. I think I hardly ever used it, if at all.

7 Q. Okay. Let's go down the list a bit. We see chief of security is

8 number 10. And in July 1995, that would have been who?

9 A. Drago Nikolic was chief of security. I think lieutenant was his

10 rank. Again, whether this is his number, well, according to this, yes.

11 Again, the extension, that's what it should be, but this is from 1993.

12 Q. Okay. If in 1995 Colonel Beara was using Drago Nikolic's office,

13 and we had an intercept which said Beara could be reached at extension

14 139 -- actually I think I got --

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. I put the answer in the question.

17 If Beara is at the Zvornik Brigade and we have an intercept that

18 he can be reached at extension 139, would that be consistent with him

19 working out of Drago Nikolic's office, if this is correct and applicable

20 for July 1995?

21 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Objection.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The extension number --

23 JUDGE ORIE: One second.

24 Mr. Stojanovic.

25 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] The witness is asked to

Page 32318

1 speculate when the question is phrased this way.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Let me re-read the question.

3 Well, I think the question is not seeking speculations but rather

4 is seeking that conclusions are drawn on the basis of a certain

5 assumption.

6 Now, if you could rephrase the question in such a way,

7 Mr. McCloskey, that we do not ask the witness to form opinions or draw

8 conclusions. If you are able to establish the facts on which you invite

9 the witness to draw the conclusions, you might even consider to leave it

10 the claim to draw conclusions.

11 Please proceed.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY:

13 Q. If this phone number is valid for July 1995, which it's the

14 position of the Prosecution that it is, and Colonel Beara is said in an

15 intercept -- if an intercept says Colonel Beara can be reached at

16 extension 139, would that be consistent with Colonel Beara working out of

17 Drago Nikolic's office?

18 A. Was this question put to me? Since I absolutely do not remember

19 any of these numbers, it is logical that I wouldn't remember that now, I

20 don't remember this number, I don't remember the telephone directory.

21 Mr. Beara, I did not come across him. So I'm not going to say

22 specifically whether Mr. Beara called from this number because I do not

23 know. As for a conclusion, it can be made by anyone who can base it on

24 this answer of mine.

25 Q. All right.

Page 32319

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: In that event I would seek agreement with my

2 colleague, Mr. Stojanovic, that this document be entered into evidence.

3 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] We are not opposed,

4 Your Honours.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar the number would be.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, document with number 04340 receives

7 number P7155.

8 JUDGE ORIE: P7155 is admitted.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: And, Mr. President, that is -- I am -- I am

10 finished, and I went over my time a bit, but I had not originally planned

11 to go into the Zvornik Brigade signal Cer documents, but I think it was a

12 good idea that we did and so that is a bit of my extra time.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: And could I, while we're here --

15 JUDGE ORIE: We prefer to hear from you before you take the extra

16 time that you want to stray away from what apparently was on your mind to

17 start with and then that you seek permission to do so, but let's leave it

18 to that. That's what we expect the Defence to do as well.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: And, Mr. President, while I'm still here, I would

20 like to also offer in the Defence's witness statement which was 1D01643

21 which we spent a bit of time dealing with, and it's short, but I think

22 given the history of this and the interest it should go in.

23 In addition, there's a brief proofing note that was designed to

24 help correct it, which is 65 ter 32122 -- excuse me, 32123, which I think

25 should go with it as they go together.

Page 32320

1 JUDGE ORIE: For what purpose do you tend -- do you tender this

2 in order to enable the Chamber to better assess the reliability and

3 credibility of this witness? Is that the purpose? Or is it for the

4 truth of its contents, because you would have to seek attestations?

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think it's to help explain the testimony and

6 the references to the questions. It would just be so much easier when

7 looking into this that -- that you had in front of you. But I -- so I

8 would like you to be able to take full awareness of it, be it truth or be

9 it lie.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But also to rely on it for the truth of its

11 content?

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, not that it's necessarily true. As I've

13 argued many times, sometimes a document with a lie is very revealing. So

14 you're in the best position to sort it out. I would like you to be able

15 have to it fully and not have any limited purpose to it.

16 [Trial Chamber confers]

17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Stojanovic.

18 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, since my

19 understanding was that the proofing note is being tendered as well, the

20 one through which I informed the Prosecution and the Chamber about the

21 corrections that the witness gave to us in paragraph 13, in that case, we

22 are not going to oppose having his statement admitted, along with

23 paragraph 13 changes. We don't have that problem then.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar, we need two numbers: One for the

25 statement of the witness, the other one for the proofing note.

Page 32321

1 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the statement currently bearing

2 number 1D01643 will receive number P7156.

3 JUDGE ORIE: And the proofing note would receive number?

4 THE REGISTRAR: Proofing note with number 32123 will receive

5 number P7157.

6 JUDGE ORIE: P7156 and P7157 are admitted into evidence.

7 You've done with your cross-examination, Mr. McCloskey?

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. I'm finished.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Then I think it would be wisest to take the break.

10 Mr. Stojanovic, could you tell us how much more time you would

11 need in re-examination?

12 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Between 10 and 13 minutes,

13 Your Honours.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Well, then the average would be 11 and a half, but

15 you have a quarter of an hour after the break.

16 We take the break.

17 We'd like to see you back in 20 minutes, Witness, and you will be

18 soon --

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

20 JUDGE ORIE: -- released after that.

21 [The witness stands down]

22 JUDGE ORIE: We resume at ten minutes to 11.00.

23 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

24 --- On resuming at 10.51 a.m.

25 [The witness takes the stand]

Page 32331

1 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

3 MR. LUKIC: Thank you. I would just kindly ask the usher --

4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The Prosecution --

5 MR. LUKIC: Yes?

6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The Prosecution also asked for two and a half

7 hours for cross-examination.

8 MR. LUKIC: Yes, yes. Thank you.

9 If I kindly ask the usher to give the witness his statement in

10 hard copy, please. It's checked by the Prosecution. And if -- yeah.

11 And if we can have on our screens 1D1744, please.

12 Examination by Mr. Lukic:

13 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Krcmar, good morning.

14 A. Good morning.

15 Q. Could you please give us your name for the record. Slowly.

16 A. My name is Goran Krcmar.

17 Q. Mr. Krcmar, did you give a statement to the Defence of

18 General Mladic?

19 A. Yes, I did.

20 Q. Before you on the screen, and you also have it in hard copy, is

21 the first page. Do you recognise the signature on this first page of the

22 document?

23 A. Yes, I do.

24 Q. Whose signature is that?

25 A. Mine.

Page 32332

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] And now could we display the last

2 page of this document.

3 Q. We have it on the screen now. Do you recognise the signature on

4 this page? Whose signature is it?

5 A. Yes, I do. This is also my signature.

6 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] And now I would like to go to the

7 penultimate page in both versions; paragraph 52, that is.

8 Q. You will remember, I'm sure, that we discussed the number of

9 statements you provided to the Prosecutor.

10 A. Yes. So far, I have provided three statements to the OTP in the

11 Delic case. I said that I gave just one statement, because I thought

12 that all three were one and the same, because they were about the same

13 case.

14 MR. LUKIC: So I will just read the first sentence of

15 paragraph 52, and it reads:

16 "Prior to this, I gave a statement to the ICTY Office of the

17 Prosecutor in the case against Rasim Delic, on 6 October 2007."

18 After the explanation, we deem it proper that this sentence of

19 paragraph 52 should read, I quote:

20 "Prior to this, I gave three statements to the ICTY Office of the

21 Prosecutor in the case against Rasim Delic on 21st December 2005,

22 6 June 2007, and on 6th October 2007."

23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Then you should adapt the next sentence as well.

24 Then you should say the last statement.

25 MR. LUKIC: We can redact that sentence since I don't have all

Page 32333

1 ERN numbers.

2 JUDGE ORIE: It's clear that the reference to the ERN is not

3 valid any further.

4 Please proceed.

5 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

6 Q. [Interpretation] Having made this correction, Mr. Krcmar, would

7 you say that what is recorded in the statement has been recorded well and

8 reflects what you told the Mladic Defence?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And what you told us and what has been recorded in the statement,

11 is it true and accurate?

12 A. Yes, everything is true and accurate.

13 Q. If I were to put the same questions to you today, would you

14 answer them in the same way?

15 A. Yes.

16 MR. LUKIC: We would tender this statement into evidence,

17 Your Honours.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 1D1744 receives number D916.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Admitted into evidence.

21 MR. LUKIC: I will read summary statement -- actually, statement

22 summary that is not that short. It will be a bit longer than usual. And

23 then I will have several questions, with your leave, Your Honours, for

24 this witness.

25 May I?

Page 32334

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, you may. Please proceed.

2 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 In the beginning of the war, Mr. Krcmar was mobilised into the

4 Army of Republika Srpska, and in April 1993 he was appointed by the

5 command of the 1st Krajina Corps as a member of the Commission for the

6 Exchange of Prisoners of War of the 1st Krajina Corps. He performed this

7 duty until April 1996 when military commissions stopped operating and the

8 government of Republika Srpska made a decision to establish the

9 State Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners of War and Missing

10 Persons.

11 Each corps of the Army of Republika Srpska had its exchange

12 commission. The VRS military commissions dealt exclusively with the

13 examination of prisoners of war and bodies of perished VRS soldiers.

14 Mr. Krcmar will explain the manner of establishing contact with

15 the opposite side, as well as the locations of military prisons in the

16 zone of 1st Krajina Corps.

17 Mr. Krcmar will testify that the ICRC representatives were

18 allowed to access the military prisons of VRS and register the prisoners

19 of war, unlike the prisons on the side of the Army of B and H, where it

20 was not allowed until sometime in 1994, when the first Serb prisoners of

21 war were registered in the ABiH prisons.

22 The Serb side constantly had fewer prisoners than was the case

23 with the other sides to the conflict, and it created large problems for

24 his commission when they negotiated the exchange, bearing in mind that

25 exchanges were agreed based on the one-for-one principle.

Page 32335

1 The reason for such a situation - the lack of enemy prisoners of

2 war - was, inter alia, the fact that the VRS acted defensively during the

3 war and it had no opportunity to capture enemy soldiers.

4 Mr. Krcmar will testify about beatings and torture and there were

5 cases of prisoners succumbing to the injuries caused by the beatings in

6 the ABiH-controlled prisons. He will testify about killings of Serbs in

7 B and H captivity.

8 Mr. Krcmar will testify that today there is no official register

9 of either killed or missing persons due to the obstruction by the

10 institutions of the Federation of B and H and the institutions at the

11 level of B and H, such as the B and H Missing Persons Institute. The

12 Muslim/Bosniak side does not want a central register of the missing

13 persons to be established in B and H, although there is a the

14 Law on Missing Persons at the level of B and H which, inter alia,

15 envisaged the establishment of the central register of the missing

16 persons by the end of 2008.

17 Mr. Krcmar will testify about the manipulation with the number of

18 killed and missing Muslims/Bosniak. The names of missing

19 Muslims/Bosniaks have never been published save for the numerical data

20 that have been proven incorrect through a number of analyses.

21 Mr. Krcmar will explain the difference between the actually

22 missing Muslim, having their name and surname, and the exaggerated number

23 that is not covered by names is secured through

24 a so-called cases. In this manner, the numbers of Bosniaks/Muslim

25 victims are manipulated, the exaggerated figures of non-existing and

Page 32336

1 nameless victims are covered, and a false picture is created about the

2 missing persons in B and H.

3 And that's the end of statement summary. And with your leave,

4 Your Honours, I will have quite a bit questions for this witness.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please proceed.

6 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Krcmar, how long have you been involved in

8 this issue, i.e., searching for missing people?

9 A. When it comes to searching for missing people, I've been involved

10 in that since April 1993. Because the job is not completed, so I'm

11 involved in that still.

12 Q. Are the missing persons and the detainees being searched for even

13 after the end?

14 A. The deadline to release all prisoners of war was 28th of January,

15 1996. Republika Srpska honoured the deadline and freed all its prisoners

16 of war. However, that was not reciprocated by the Federation and there

17 were still people in the prisons under the control of the BH army. We

18 knew the Muslim side was still hiding Serbian prisoners of war. For that

19 reason, we addressed the High Commissioner to visit

20 General Sakib Mahmuljin, the commander of the 3rd Corps of the BiH army,

21 because we knew that in the area of his responsibility there were still

22 some hidden prisoners of war. Sometime in 1996 we organised that

23 meeting, and I and another colleague of mine met with the commander

24 Sakib Mahmuljin.

25 On that occasion Mahmuljin told me that he knew nothing about any

Page 32337

1 prisoners of war, that he had honoured all the procedures, that all the

2 prisoners of war had been liberated, which was not true because in one

3 camp alone run by El Mujahid Brigade, there were 63 Serbian prisoners.

4 And also in Zenica, we knew for a fact that there were two prisoners of

5 war there. They were officers of the VRS. Their names were Skrbic and

6 Skrbic.

7 We could not come to terms with such a statement on his part. We

8 continued searching. And then in 1998, three years after the end of the

9 war, three years after the end of the war --

10 JUDGE ORIE: It could well be, Mr. Lukic, that the witness is

11 exactly telling you what you wished to hear without even having asked the

12 witness. The witness comes with a long story, where the question was

13 rather short.

14 Could you please, in order to avoid that in one or two days from

15 now, that we have to end up in saying that we need far more time, to keep

16 firm control over what evidence you want to elicit from this witness, and

17 rather than to let him go in every direction.

18 Please proceed.

19 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

20 Q. [Interpretation] Would you please just finish the sentence that

21 you started.

22 A. In 1998 the IPTF found two Serb captives, Skrbic and Skrbic, at

23 the prison in Zenica. They were hidden and were not registered by the

24 Red Cross.

25 Q. Thank you. In paragraph 13 of your statement, you say that the

Page 32338

1 exchange agreed upon was one-for-one. Were there any proposals to have

2 exchanges all-for-all?

3 A. Yes. In all our talks with the other side we proposed that,

4 because we had instructions from the Main Staff of the Army of

5 Republika Srpska to insist on that kind of exchange.

6 Q. Now, I would like to show a film, a documentary film, and then

7 I'm going to ask you something about that.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Well, Mr. Lukic, may I take it that the film is not

9 there to lead the witness, because otherwise you would have to first ask

10 the question and then show the film. But -- I don't know what questions

11 you have in relation to that film, but there's always a risk of being

12 extremely leading if you first show pictures and then ask questions.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Could you tell us briefly what you know about the film that is

15 called "Kiss Thy Brother"?

16 A. It contains statements of survivors from El Mujahid and

17 Gostovici. Also, the film contains material that was filmed by the

18 members of the El Mujahid unit and that it was in the hands of the MUP of

19 Republika Srpska. The film was made at the request of camp inmates of

20 Republika Srpska. That is their film and I participated at their

21 request.

22 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could the witness please

23 be asked to speak more slowly.

24 JUDGE ORIE: You are again invited to speak more slowly.

25 So I do understand that the film is produced with your assistance

Page 32339

1 and your involvement.

2 Please proceed, Mr. Lukic.

3 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

4 Q. [Interpretation] Did you take part in the liberation of the

5 people who are speaking in this film?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Could you tell us briefly how that came about, how they were

8 freed? And then we will continue.

9 A. The people who are making statements in this film were freed on

10 the 26th of January, 1996, when all other POWs were freed too. So it was

11 not an exchange.

12 [Video-clip played]

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] We stopped here in this video

14 material 1 minute, 51 seconds, and now I would kindly ask that we move on

15 to 1 minute, 54 seconds.

16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just before we do that, Mr. Lukic, can I just get

17 clarification.

18 MR. LUKIC: Of course.

19 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sir, how did you get hold of the material that had

20 been filmed by the El Mujahedin?

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That material is in the possession

22 of the MUP of Republika Srpska. Also a great deal of video material that

23 they themselves filmed were being circulated there Bosnia-Herzegovina

24 and --

25 JUDGE MOLOTO: Let me stop you there. I know it is in the

Page 32340

1 custody of the -- as you say, in the custody of the Republika Srpska. My

2 question is how did you get hold of it? How did it get into the hands of

3 the Republika Srpska; do you know?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This material is in the archives of

5 the Federation of camp inmates of Republika Srpska. I did not get a hold

6 of it. I just took part in this. But the statements that are being made

7 are made by people who live to this day in Republika Srpska, who are

8 survivors of these camps, and one person appeared before this court.

9 JUDGE MOLOTO: Let me stop you. Let me stop you again. My

10 question really was do you know how the Republika Srpska got hold of the

11 material? If do you know, just say I know, this is how it happened; or

12 if you don't know, just say I don't know.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I can say that I don't know.

14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you so much.

15 Mr. Lukic.

16 [Video-clip played]

17 MR. LUKIC: Can we stop here.

18 Q. So we see what is went on the screen here, "Kiss Thy Brother."

19 Is that the film that you've been speaking about?

20 A. Yes.

21 MR. LUKIC: Can we continue now, please. And we will go up to 3

22 minutes and 10 seconds. And we start from 2 minutes, 3 seconds.

23 [Video-clip played]

24 MR. LUKIC: Can we stop, please. I don't know how this would

25 work. We provided the booths with the translation and B/C/S versions.

Page 32341

1 So it should be translated and it's checked by CLSS, Your Honours, I just

2 want to inform you that it was checked, and actually revised translation

3 is uploaded into the system.

4 JUDGE ORIE: So you have provided the booth with the original

5 transcript and the translation.

6 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Of the transcript.

8 If that is the case, I think that we could play it. If it has

9 been verified that the transcript is accurate compared to what is said on

10 the video and then we would receive -- look at the video and we receive

11 in both languages -- or at least the original, of course, will be heard

12 directly, whereas we will receive the English translation. That's how I

13 understand it will go.

14 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then, okay, you give the instructions as where

16 to start, and I take it that that then should be clear to the booth as

17 well.

18 We started with some music, I think, which is not in need of any

19 translation.

20 MR. LUKIC: There was some speech by the speaker.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Let's ...

22 MR. LUKIC: We can start at 2:04.

23 [Video-clip played]

24 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] the Mujahedin commander gives the

25 final instructions to his brothers before the action. They are joyful

Page 32342

1 because the encounter with the Serbs will come soon and because they have

2 been chosen to be in the front ranks. Preparations are complete and they

3 are going towards their destination. After the morning prayer, the

4 Mujahedin will strike against the Serbian fortifications."

5 MR. LUKIC: We should move to 2 minutes, 55 seconds.

6 [Defence counsel confer]

7 [Video-clip played]

8 JUDGE ORIE: At this moment, we hear something but we don't see

9 anything. But that is now apparently being ...

10 [Video-clip played]

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. At the time, did you know this part of the film that has letters

13 in Arabic on it? Is that the film that was captured from the Mujahedin

14 or is that something that was recorded by the Serb side?

15 A. The information that I had is that this was received from the

16 Mujahedin and that it is the Mujahedin that had recorded this. The Serb

17 side did not have that possibility at the time to be there on the spot

18 and to record this.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Traldi.

20 MR. TRALDI: Sorry, Your Honours, to interrupt. I'd understood

21 the description that this was a video prepared by the RS association of

22 camp inmates. This appears to have been filmed by someone completely

23 different, and so now I have some uncertainty as to what the

24 representation is as to what exactly we're looking at.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, it was my understanding that this may be

Page 32343

1 part of a film which is produced and in which there were certain portions

2 embedded which were filmed by the Mujahedin. Is that a correct

3 understanding?

4 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Then we have only seen those parts yet.

6 MR. LUKIC: Yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Then we'll further look at what you will present.

8 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour. If we can now look at

9 segment number 2. It's -- it goes from 8 minutes, 50 seconds, and we

10 will play it up to 11 minutes, 47 seconds.

11 [Video-clip played]

12 MR. LUKIC: We stopped, actually, at -- you have -- I don't have

13 numbers. You have to continue.

14 [Video-clip played]

15 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] They counted six people and they

16 said that that's six of them slaughtered."

17 "I did not see all of this: Jankovic, Radonjic, Nikic.

18 "I remained alone on a tree stump, and they came there to see the

19 Chetnik, and they spat at me and did all sorts of things to me.

20 "One screamed when they killed him and I did not ... they took a

21 hammer and smashed his head and I heard them shouting it's a hard head.

22 Then I heard bones breaking. I was a few metres away when I clearly

23 heard the sound of bones breaking.

24 "I was convinced when they saw that this was the command and they

25 found everyone who was supposed to be there, that they would kill us all.

Page 32344

1 "I saw them cut off a head and hold it up like this.

2 "See how their lord has punished and humiliated them."

3 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Mr. Krcmar, how many Serbs were taken prisoner by the Mujahedin

5 or, rather, the 3rd Corps, do you know, in these operations at Ozren?

6 A. In three operations - in May 1995, in July 1995, and on the 10th

7 of September, 1995 - about 180 Serbs went missing and were taken prisoner

8 by the El Mujahedin Unit.

9 Q. We saw at the beginning of this segment live Serbs who had been

10 taken prisoner. Do you know how many Serbs survived out of those who

11 were taken prisoner by the Mujahedin?

12 A. Only eight persons saved, and they were set free.

13 Q. Do you know who was taken prisoner when? Were they all taken

14 prisoner at the same time?

15 A. I freed these people, and I know Velibor Pribicevic. He was from

16 the medical corps. He was taken prisoner on the 21st of July, 1995.

17 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: We cannot follow at this

18 pace.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Witness, again if you don't slow down.

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] You are speaking very fast.

21 JUDGE ORIE: If you don't slow down, your testimony will be lost

22 which we would not wish to happen. So please speak slowly.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'll start from the beginning,

24 Velibor Pribicevic, taken prison on the 21st of July, 1995, at Paljenik,

25 municipality Zavidovic, Mount Ozren. On the same day, Vinko Aksentic was

Page 32345

1 taken prisoner and another witness who will appear here. His name is

2 Igor Buljevati. Nuhanovic, Novica, who described the slaughter and the

3 position how the Mujahedin is holding this head, he was taken prisoner on

4 the 10th of September, 1995 at Mount Ozren, municipality of Zavidovici.

5 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Now let us take a look at the third segment. Let's just say that

7 we stopped at 11 minutes, 47, as far as the second segment is concerned.

8 And now we should start at 13 minutes, 1 second, and it should go up

9 until 17 minutes, 49 seconds.

10 [Video-clip played]

11 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] When we reached the line, there was

12 a corpse up there near the first trench, and it had a hole made by a

13 pickax that was lying next to the corpse. The hole in the upper part of

14 the chest was the size of a cup, and the head was severed and about 20

15 centimetres away from the corpse. They lay me in that sand or gravel and

16 hit me with whatever came to hand, punching, kicking me, and hitting me

17 with rifles and everything they had.

18 "They ran and brought axes, meat cleavers, pickaxes, the lot, and

19 stuck them in the sand in front of my eyes. They drew swords across the

20 throat to show how they would slaughter us. They shouted Allahu Akbar

21 and stuck the axe into the ground in front of the eyes so that it sprayed

22 up. That man lay dead. And so they put me and someone there. They

23 really took it out on us, sat on our necks, pulled them back, and I don't

24 know what else. All that remained to be done was to clear the area of

25 Serbs who had not managed to escape.

Page 32346

1 "The Mujahedin have entered the gates of Moscow. The road from

2 Ozren to Vozud [phoen] has fallen under the control of infantry weapons.

3 Anyone who does not believe in Jahannam will be banished so that Allah

4 can separate the good from bad and pile the bad on top of each other and

5 cast them all into hell. They shall indeed be lost.

6 "Tell the non-believers that if they repent they will be forgiven

7 their past sins, but if they do not repent it is well known what happened

8 to ancient peoples. Jihad is truly a constant action that destroys all

9 obstacles in its way and burns all the trenches of Allah's enemies. The

10 enemies of Allah have been killed, made prisoner, or have fled. This is

11 their end in this world and they await painful suffering on judgement

12 day."

13 MR. LUKIC: I was just informed that we had to stop at 15:50 and

14 now we will continue at 17:33 up to 17:49, and I will then have some

15 questions.

16 JUDGE ORIE: It's time for the break, Mr. Lukic.

17 MR. LUKIC: Whatever you prefer. We can break here as well.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And I would invite the parties to think about

19 what the relevance and the probative value of this is, and whether

20 there's dispute that cruelties of the most horrible kind were committed

21 not only as charged by the Serb sides but that similar cruelties were

22 committed by the other side as well.

23 Because if there's no dispute about that, Mr. Traldi, apart from

24 whether we know exactly what it all depicts, whether it is footage taken

25 in this period of time in that area, but --

Page 32347

1 Mr. Traldi.

2 MR. TRALDI: If I could have just a second, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, you have the whole of the break to consider it.

4 And this question does not come as a -- should not come as a

5 surprise because the issue came to the mind of the Judges when reading

6 the statement already. And of course, we are not going to repeat the

7 tu quoque discussion because we know what the Defence thinks about that.

8 But whether these details are related to a matter which is generally in

9 dispute, we'd like to hear from the Prosecution after the break.

10 Witness, you -- we'll take a break, and we'd like to see you back

11 in 20 minutes.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

13 [The witness stands down]

14 JUDGE ORIE: We'll resume at a quarter past 12.00.

15 No loud speaking by Mr. Mladic.

16 We resume at quarter past 12.00.

17 --- Recess taken at 11.55 a.m.

18 --- On resuming at 12.16 p.m.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Traldi.

20 MR. TRALDI: Yes, Mr. President. Just to respond to your

21 question before the break, the Prosecution does not dispute that crimes,

22 including serious violations of international criminal law, were

23 committed by all three sides to the conflict. The Prosecution notes in

24 this regard that Mr. Krcmar has testified about some of those crimes as a

25 Prosecution case in a case at this Tribunal where the accused was charged

Page 32348

1 with crimes in municipalities, including Zavidovici. Based on what we

2 saw from the video, I couldn't tell if it was exactly the same incident

3 or anything, but --

4 JUDGE ORIE: And you do not exclude like depicted, I'm not saying

5 the ones depicted, to have been committed in that context?

6 MR. TRALDI: We don't exclude cruelties to have been committed

7 among the crimes, no.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So we -- then, Mr. Lukic, having heard what

9 the Prosecution says, there's no dispute about that, that crimes were

10 committed by all sides and that cruelties like you've shown them -- and

11 we didn't stop you. We looked at it for a while, and we thought it wiser

12 not to immediately raise the question as to whether it was in dispute or

13 not and to let you show it. This is a public trial. To let you show

14 that. Although we do not know yet exactly whether this was part of what

15 happened in this war, but we let you go there for a while, and we'd like

16 now to go back to what is the core of this case, and that is, whether the

17 crimes as charged were committed, yes or no.

18 Would you please keep that in mind in the continuation of your

19 examination-in-chief.

20 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour. I will reorganise. I will have to

21 show several more segments from this movie to this witness, and I can ask

22 hem whether he knows that these photos are from that area and from the

23 period of time we are discussing here in this trial.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Even that is relatively irrelevant because it's not

25 in dispute that they may be. So therefore, that's why I explicitly asked

Page 32349

1 Mr. Traldi whether when he says there's no issue about crimes having been

2 committed on all sides, why I asked him whether that would include

3 cruelties such as, and he said he doesn't exclude that.

4 So therefore we can work on the basis of the assumption that such

5 cruelties were committed against Serbs.

6 Therefore, there's no dispute about that. Unless there is any

7 specific link you would like to make between what we see and what then

8 happened after that; for example, if one of the victims then later did

9 something, then, of course, we'd like to know that; but only if there is

10 a concrete and explicit link. The general issue is --

11 [The witness takes the stand]

12 JUDGE ORIE: -- agreed upon, I would say.

13 So, therefore, please be very careful in -- again, spending time,

14 especially if it's a lot of time, on issues which are not in dispute.

15 Please proceed.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Mr. Krcmar, we'll shorten things a bit. I will not be showing

18 the entire video, but let me ask you whether you knew that women and

19 children were also members of the BiH army?

20 A. Yes, I knew about that, and the source of my knowledge were my

21 after-war conversations with my associates, Muslims who hail from the

22 area.

23 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Now we're going to look at segment 5

24 in the video.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Traldi is on his feet. And I missed not only on

Page 32350

1 the transcript but also in the translation what you said when you said

2 let me ask you whether you knew that, and then there's a --

3 MR. LUKIC: Women and children.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Women and children --

5 MR. LUKIC: Yes.

6 JUDGE ORIE: -- were also members of the -- women and children.

7 MR. TRALDI: I was just going to request, the witness referred to

8 Muslims from the area, if it could be clarified with him which area he is

9 referring.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And perhaps who they were.

11 Please proceed, Mr. Lukic, and please first deal with the matter

12 raised by Mr. Traldi.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. When I said in this area, I meant Bosnia-Herzegovina and the BiH

15 army. Did you hear that in Bosnia-Herzegovina or, rather, in its army,

16 there were also women and children who were members of the BiH army?

17 A. Yes, I heard about that.

18 MR. TRALDI: That's --

19 JUDGE ORIE: The question was: What area are you talking about?

20 Because you earlier said that you heard that from Muslims in your area.

21 What's that area?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The area around Ozren.

23 JUDGE ORIE: The area around Ozren. Who did you speak to?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] After the war, I co-operated with

25 the local Muslims from Zavidovici, Banovici, Maglaj. In my conversations

Page 32351

1 with them, I learnt about the graveyards of the missing persons as well

2 as of who members of the BiH army were.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Do you have names of your sources?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As a matter of principle, I do not

5 name people in order to protect them.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Witness, may I be very clear to you: Whether or not

7 there's any need to protect anyone is for this Chamber to decide. You

8 are under an obligation to answer any question that is put to you. And I

9 immediately add to that, that if you consider that there are reasons to

10 give those names in private session, you may address me.

11 Do you want to give those names rather in private session than in

12 public session?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let me explain, please.

14 JUDGE ORIE: No. My question was whether you would prefer to

15 give those names, which I asked you for, in private session or in public

16 session.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know the names, not

18 directly. And that's why I'm requesting time to explain.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Well, if you don't know the names, that's fine. We

20 accept that. There's no need to -- to explain that. What you do not

21 know, you cannot tell us. But you said: I don't give names as a matter

22 of -- in order to protect persons. You didn't say, I don't know the

23 names, which would have avoided this whole discussion and this waste of

24 time.

25 Then what did they tell you exactly about numbers of women and

Page 32352

1 children being members of the BiH army?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, I never insist on

3 people giving me their names, if they're my sources of information --

4 JUDGE ORIE: Witness. Witness, you are continuing a discussion

5 which is concluded. Could you please answer my question: What they said

6 exactly about numbers of women and children being members of the BiH

7 army.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am not aware of any numbers, but

9 I know that they participated in the war, that there were children in the

10 BiH army, and that there were even women. I know that. I know as much.

11 But I don't remember the number.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Children of what age?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 16 years, to be very specific.

14 JUDGE ORIE: 16 years. No information about numbers.

15 Any information about functions? For example, functions held by

16 the women?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no, no.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

19 Please proceed, Mr. Lukic.

20 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour. If we could play this fifth

21 segment.

22 [Video-clip played]

23 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] In the same way as Mujahedin and

24 their women are being trained, so are their children who are their hope

25 for the future in the struggle against the infidel. This boy before you

Page 32353

1 is continuing along the path of his father who was one of the first

2 Mujahedin and whose life was ended on the slopes of Sarajevo about three

3 years ago."

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I'm now going to skip.

5 JUDGE ORIE: But even now, Mr. Lukic, could the witness tell us:

6 Do you know the footage we saw which was somewhere outside persons where

7 that was and when that was?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This was recorded in 1995. The

9 location is Gostovici in Zavidovici municipality.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And what's your source knowledge that this

11 stems from that area and from that time?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All will be revealed as the

13 recording or the footage continues. I recognise the locations where the

14 footage was recorded because I'd been there personally on my own and also

15 accompanied by the investigators of The Hague Tribunal.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

17 Mr. Lukic, please keep in the back of your mind the earlier

18 guidance that we need specific links between what is shown on the footage

19 and what happened after that in order to make it of sufficient relevance

20 to show it and to make it of sufficient probative value.

21 Please proceed.

22 MR. LUKIC: Thank you. If we can start this video at 1 hour,

23 4 minutes, 51 seconds. It is about the visit of Mr. Izetbegovic to this

24 camp from --

25 [Video-clip played]

Page 32354

1 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] State of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the

2 Supreme Command of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina have recognised the

3 El Jihad unit as an independent unit of the army under its command."

4 "So the helicopter landed in the camp. I can't say who was

5 coming.

6 "When they took me into detention, Alija Izetbegovic came

7 immediately the next day.

8 "I didn't see anyone. I didn't hear anything specific so I can't

9 say he was there or someone else.

10 "They said our president was here.

11 "I heard them saying Alija, Alija, Alija.

12 "I found out later that Alija was there to see for himself how it

13 was and what was what."

14 [Defence counsel confer]

15 MR. LUKIC: We have -- just have to see -- we have to skip one

16 segment. Now we'll see from 1 hour, 6 minutes, 32 seconds, to 1 hour,

17 7 minutes, 25 seconds.

18 We can start.

19 [Video-clip played]

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Mr. Krcmar, do you recognise the location where we saw the tents

22 and the houses?

23 A. Yes. The location is Gostovic and it is the Ristovic family

24 household.

25 Q. What is the ethnicity of the Ristovic family?

Page 32355

1 A. Let me correct myself. Their name was Ristic and they are of

2 Serb ethnicity.

3 Q. In that area before the war, who were the inhabitants?

4 A. The inhabitants of that area were Serbs. There's a Serbian

5 monastery there dating back to the 16th century.

6 Q. How come that you recognise this place?

7 A. As I was searching for the missing prisoners of war who were

8 depicted in this footage, on several occasions I went to this location

9 together with the Ristic family members as well as with the investigators

10 of The Hague Tribunal, just as I told you a minute ago.

11 Q. And now we're going to see a short segment starting at 1:06:16

12 until 1:06:31. I'm just going to ask you whether you recognise the men

13 in the segment.

14 [Video-clip played]

15 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] We were a unit, a lawful unit of

16 the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of the army, and he was our

17 leader, the president of this state, and we had contact with him like all

18 the other units, you know."

19 JUDGE ORIE: Could I again inquire whether this dispute -- I --

20 I -- although I'm not certain, Mr. Lukic, I feel that you want to

21 establish that there were Mujahid Units incorporated in the BiH army and

22 that they considered to be under the final command of Mr. Izetbegovic.

23 My question then is whether there's dispute about that.

24 [Prosecution counsel confer]

25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Traldi.

Page 32356

1 MR. TRALDI: Your Honour, there isn't a dispute that some such

2 units were present and participated in the conflict. I am afraid I'm not

3 able to speak to the formal matter of incorporation at the moment.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. So the presence and -- of Mujahid Units,

5 apart from their very formal status, is not in dispute.

6 Mr. Lukic, so therefore there's no need to -- perhaps the --

7 having Mr. Izetbegovic there may shed some additional light on it, not on

8 the presence but perhaps on how he considered -- what he considered to be

9 the place of those troops and perhaps on what those troops thought

10 Mr. Izetbegovic was in relation to them.

11 That's apparently an issue which is not -- so therefore, no

12 problem if you present that, but all the rest is -- is not needed.

13 MR. LUKIC: I just want Mr. Krcmar to, if he can recognise this

14 man who's talking to us, and then we'll later on establish further

15 relationships.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Then please proceed.

17 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 JUDGE ORIE: We've seen him. Perhaps Mr. Krcmar could

19 immediately -- could immediately answer the question.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. He was an officer in the

21 3rd Corps of the BiH army. He was also the commander of the

22 El Mujahid Brigade detachment that was part of the 3rd Corps.

23 JUDGE ORIE: And what was his name?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] His name is Abu Hamza.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

Page 32357

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Do you know whether he hails from Bosnia-Herzegovina or not?

3 A. No. He hails from an Arabic country.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Which one, if you know?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wouldn't know it directly. But I

6 know that he is currently in detention, in an asylum detention unit, and

7 that he was ordered to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina.

8 JUDGE ORIE: What's, then, the source of your knowledge that he

9 is from an Arabic country, if you don't know from which country?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, all the members of the

11 El Mujahid Brigade come from one of the Arabic states.

12 JUDGE ORIE: So the -- it's -- it's, rather, a general knowledge

13 or a conclusion rather than specific knowledge about this person.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I don't know about him

15 directly, what country he is from; but in principle, all of them are from

16 that part of the world, from an Arabic state, one or the other.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Lukic.

18 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 [Video-clip played]

20 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] In these attacks on the 10th of

21 September" --

22 MR. LUKIC: I have to say when do we start. We start at 1 hour,

23 31 minutes, 8 seconds.

24 JUDGE ORIE: And it looks as if our witness is speaking in the

25 film.

Page 32358

1 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

3 MR. LUKIC: We can continue.

4 [Video-clip played]

5 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] In these attacks on the 10th of

6 September, 1995, 668 soldiers of the Army of Republika Srpska went

7 missing, most of them members of the 4th Ozren, 2nd Ozren, and

8 3rd Ozren Brigades, the 14th Serbian Brigade, which comprised units such

9 as the 16th and the 2nd Krajina Brigade, the OKB, the Teslic, Mrkonjic,

10 and other units."

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. I played this just to show that you were depicted in this

13 video-clip. You gave us some numbers. And after that, we will see

14 Dr. Zeljko Karan speaking. What was his role in the effort to find all

15 those who went missing in Ozren?

16 A. He is a forensic expert, a pathologist. All the bodies who were

17 found anywhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not only in Ozren, were actually

18 examined by him. The post-mortems of those bodies were done by him.

19 Q. I'm now going to play the part where you're speaking.

20 THE INTERPRETER: Can Mr. Lukic repeat the time reference.

21 MR. LUKIC: 1 hour, 32 minutes, 19 seconds, up to 1 hour,

22 32 minutes, 38 seconds. It's very hard to adjust. It's easier maybe to

23 play all the way.

24 [Video-clip played]

25 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] So 208 people were exchanged. We

Page 32359

1 don't know what happened to 460 others. And so of those 460 people, only

2 two have had luck to survive. These were people who had been literally

3 abducted from the Zenica KPD in 1998."

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Krcmar, you're referring to 208 people. They were exchanged.

6 When were they exchanged?

7 A. One group was exchanged on the -- or, rather, set free on the

8 27th of January, 1996, whereas the other group, some 137 or 138 people

9 all in all, were set free only in April 1996. They had been kept in the

10 prison in Tuzla even after the deadline envisaged by the Dayton Accord

11 had expired.

12 Q. And what about the 460 people?

13 A. When it comes to those 460 people, at that moment nobody knew

14 what had happened to them. They were still considered missing. Only two

15 were found alive in Zenica. We are still searching for 136 who went

16 missing on Mount Ozren. The rest had already been located, identified,

17 and handed over to their families who then buried them.

18 Q. After the war, did you go on field missions to the area where the

19 Mujahedin camp had been set up looking for these people?

20 A. Yes. The first time I went to that location was sometime in

21 September 1997. It's Gostovici. The logistics, the case of the

22 El Mujahid Brigade. At that time there weren't any tents there, but the

23 contours on the ground were quite clear where one could see where it was

24 that the tents were placed. We took photographs. We reconstructed all

25 of that. And we saw the situation in 1997 and realised that was that

Page 32360

1 location and the houses that can be seen there. The Ristic family

2 recognised their houses.

3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Did you find anything at that location?

6 A. At the location of Gostovici, we did not find a single body on

7 that occasion. We just learnt where the mass grave was with the bodies

8 of 64 Serbs who were killed at the El Mujahid camp. It is called Kucice.

9 It is 4 kilometres away from Zavidovici towards Gostovic. When we

10 arrived at the location, there were no bodies there. And we saw this

11 area, 10 by 10 metres, roughly, that had been dug out, and there was no

12 soil there, no nothing. The depth was about 1.30. And the bodies were

13 moved in an unknown direction.

14 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters did not catch the date.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Before we continue, same question, Mr. Traldi. Is

16 it in dispute that persons were found in mass graves, dead persons that

17 may have been killed by -- in Mujahedin camps or close to it?

18 MR. TRALDI: Your Honour, the more -- the very specific

19 proposition, I would need a little bit of time to speak to. The

20 proposition that Serb victims of some of the crimes that I'd noted

21 earlier were found in mass graves certainly is not in dispute.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, I take it that you'll not only skip some

23 of your videos but you'll shorten your time as well, because apparently

24 you had all kind of other things on your mind --

25 MR. LUKIC: I'm done with the video.

Page 32361

1 JUDGE ORIE: Okay.

2 MR. LUKIC: I had a lot to play, but in the light of the answers

3 we received from Mr. Traldi --

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, and I took it that the two and a half hours you

5 asked for, that that was including showing all that material, so you must

6 have quite some time left now.

7 Please proceed.

8 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. When you went out into that terrain, were you allowed to work

10 unhindered?

11 A. We work -- we had agreed with the commission that we could work

12 in the area of the Federation along parallel lines as they worked in the

13 territory of Republika Srpska, but there were quite a few problems

14 involved.

15 Q. When you were at Ozren with Dr. Karan --

16 A. Yes, we went out into the field together. We worked together on

17 all the exhumations.

18 Q. You were at Paljenik. The film would have shown that had we

19 played it. Could you tell us briefly what happened at Paljenik? Just

20 briefly, please.

21 A. During 1997, we worked on the sanitisation of the area; that is

22 to say, we collected the bodies, the mortal remains there. Our entire

23 team was at this feature called Paljenik. We found eight bodies and we

24 prepared them for transportation. We had IFOR together with us, also the

25 police of the Federation, and the commission of the Federation. At one

Page 32362

1 moment we were threatened and told that we had to leave that location

2 within 15 minutes because the road that we had taken on our way there had

3 been blocked by people from Srebrenica.

4 When I say "Srebrenica," may I just explain. In 1996, it is

5 precisely these Serb villages that had been populated by people who had

6 fled from Srebrenica. We withdrew from the location without the body

7 of -- carrying out the bodies, the tools, anything.

8 After a few interventions with IPTF and the Office of the High

9 Representative, again we were enabled to go out into the field and to

10 collect the bodies. When we arrived there, we found a horrible

11 situation. The bodies that had been prepared for transportation had been

12 burned on the stake and one body was on a stretcher by the road. We, the

13 Serb delegation, came to that location, while our colleagues from the

14 federal commission and the police of the Federation did not come with us.

15 They stayed about 500 metres, perhaps, behind our backs.

16 We found that to be suspicious, why this one body was on the

17 stretcher. Since we hadn't left it that way, we asked for deminers to

18 intervene, and underneath that stretcher the sappers realised that there

19 was a land-mine, and underneath that land-mine there was a long -- a

20 bigger anti-tank mines. And had we just lifted the stretcher, none of us

21 would have survived. It is clear that there was intention there; that

22 we, the entire team in that line of work, should be killed right there,

23 on the spot.

24 If you allow me, the burned bodies, we collected them. To this

25 day they haven't been identified, and there is no method of identifying

Page 32363

1 these bodies.

2 Q. Thank you. For the record, I'm just going to mention a document

3 number. And at this moment, I cannot use that document: 65 ter 23592.

4 However, I'm going to ask you: What was your knowledge, in

5 practice, having done the work that you were doing? Who was held as a

6 POW, for example, in the Zenica prison? Out of the Serbs, that is.

7 A. Yes. Well, that's what created problems for us. Categorisation

8 of prisoner of wars. In Zenica, Serb civilians received call-up papers

9 in order to be mobilised into the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since they

10 did not wish to respond to this mobilisation, then they would be

11 convicted to one to three years in prison and then they were imprisoned.

12 These were civilians, these Serbs. The federal commission

13 offered them to us for exchanges as prisoners of war. We could not

14 accept such an exchange because we did not have the mandate to negotiate

15 about civilians, and in essence these people were civilians who were

16 taken away from their homes and then, in a very strange way, they became

17 prisoners of war.

18 JUDGE ORIE: When were they mobilised; could you tell us?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Throughout the war.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Lukic.

21 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. I omitted a question. It

22 has to do with Ozren.

23 Q. The bodies of these people who were discovered in Ozren, how many

24 were discovered?

25 A. Out of this last group of 64 missing persons, during 2006 we

Page 32364

1 discovered only ten bodies. And let me just say one more thing: These

2 bodies were exhumed by the federal commission, the Muslim commission, and

3 the media portrayed them as killed Muslims. It was only thanks to my

4 intervention and that of the investigators of the Tribunal that we

5 managed to locate these bodies in Visoko. When DNA analyses were carried

6 out, it was proven that they were Serbs. They were taken over. They

7 were brought to Banja Luka. Part of this group wag identified and the

8 bodies were handed over to their families.

9 Q. Was there anything unusual about the bodies that were discovered

10 by the commission of the Federation?

11 A. Yes. First of all, they were all tied using a telephone wire

12 that the military use. It was their hands and feet that were tied

13 together.

14 Secondly, at first glance, it seemed that these were ten bodies.

15 When DNA samples were taken, that is usually done from the head and from

16 the lower limbs. When the DNA reports arrived, what was shown was that

17 there were more than ten persons involved; that is to say, that the heads

18 there did not belong to those bodies. Rather, to other people. Also,

19 through post-mortems the mode of death was discovered. There were two

20 ways. One was beheading, as the doctors established, in a single blow

21 either with an axe or a machete. The second way in which they were

22 killed was through many injuries sustained in the neck area using a

23 knife, in the chest area as well, and there were visible wounds on the

24 legs of these persons. These injuries were also sustained after sharp

25 objects were used.

Page 32365

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, if there's no dispute about crimes having

2 been committed, why do we need all the details of what we easily accept

3 have been horrible crimes. Why do we need all the details of that, which

4 is not the core of this case?

5 MR. LUKIC: We need this to show even after the war there is no

6 co-operation from federal side and there were -- only ten bodies were

7 discovered.

8 JUDGE ORIE: What then? And if -- what's the relevance of that?

9 Even if there would have been obstruction -- and I don't know whether the

10 Prosecution takes the position that there was no obstruction at all.

11 We're not interested primarily in whether there was obstruction

12 in revealing information about crimes committed against Serbs. And by

13 the way, the Prosecution does not dispute that such crimes were

14 committed. Whether then there was an obstruction or not is really

15 irrelevant for our case.

16 MR. LUKIC: We think, Your Honour, with all due respect, that

17 there is relevance, especially since still everybody is playing with the

18 numbers. And we are laying a foundation --

19 JUDGE ORIE: Even that -- we have seen that -- Mr. Lukic, we've

20 seen that in the statement. The witness has given lengthy explanations

21 as how everything was exaggerated. We're not interested. We are looking

22 at the evidence that comes to us - that is, how many persons were

23 identified by DNA, et cetera, et cetera - and if no one tells us what was

24 reported -- and again, the witness told us that it was exaggerated there,

25 this was published. As long as that doesn't come to us, we're not

Page 32366

1 bothered about it. It may bother, perhaps, the community. Not us, as

2 Judges. We want to rely on concrete evidence specifically, and we do not

3 need to hear what is wrong with all kind of publication and propaganda,

4 perhaps, which we ignore anyhow.

5 Let that be clear and please keep that in mind if you continue.

6 MR. LUKIC: It's not propaganda, Your Honour, it's official.

7 [Overlapping speakers].

8 JUDGE ORIE: Well, official. Have you never heard about official

9 propaganda, Mr. Lukic? Do you say that whatever comes from official

10 sources -- the question is whether it needs to be corrected, because

11 whatever official sources say, if it's here in evidence, you can, of

12 course, challenge it. If it's not in evidence, even if it's from

13 official sources, don't make any effort in contradicting something or

14 challenging something which is not in evidence here.

15 Please proceed.

16 MR. LUKIC: If I may, Your Honour, we have the burden of proof of

17 executed people in Srebrenica is shifted to the Defence since the

18 Prosecution never revealed or had the position how many people were

19 executed, how many were killed in a combat operations.

20 So since that burden of proof is shifted to us, we have to try to

21 show by any means what we can prove.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, I'm afraid that I strongly disagree with

23 you, that the burden of proof is shifted to the Defence in relation to

24 how many people were killed in Srebrenica.

25 The issue, how they were killed, is a matter which apparently is

Page 32367

1 in dispute in this case. The Prosecution takes a different position from

2 the Defence. That is clear.

3 MR. LUKIC: And how --

4 JUDGE ORIE: That is --

5 MR. LUKIC: And how many also is in dispute, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE ORIE: How many as well.

7 MR. LUKIC: Yes.

8 JUDGE ORIE: And therefore, we listen to the evidence carefully

9 to -- we have updated reports exactly on how many bodies were identified

10 through DNA, et cetera, and now you bring a witness who is telling us

11 that there's all kind of exaggeration.

12 MR. LUKIC: Yes.

13 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not interested in exaggerated figures. I'm

14 interested in the expert -- and that is, the Chamber's interested in the

15 expert evidence presented here saying, "We found bodies there. This is

16 what we found. We identified so many," et cetera, et cetera, and the

17 whole case story with which this witness comes. I'm not aware that that

18 cases story is presented as evidence to this Chamber, so there's no need

19 to correct it.

20 We rely on expert evidence presented by the parties on the

21 matter, and we are not in need of any correction on matters which are not

22 in evidence before us. Propaganda --

23 MR. LUKIC: We do have cases in this case as well. We don't have

24 only full bodies. We have parts of bodies, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, of course. And that's where we carefully look

Page 32368

1 at, and we are very conscious that if a body is divided in three separate

2 parts, that it doesn't make for us three bodies unless we know whether

3 the bodies are identified by DNA, yes or no. And that's exactly

4 apparently what this witness is talking about in his statement, and I

5 just want you to understand what this Chamber considers to be relevant

6 and what this Chamber does not consider to be relevant.

7 If there is an issue about multiplication of bodies found by two

8 or three, which is suggested by this witness in his statement, then, of

9 course, the Chamber would not -- first of all, it's not presented as such

10 in evidence. Of course, there are some -- some question marks open, and

11 that's the reason why this Chamber very much focuses on what is clearly

12 established and is not -- not taken away by all kind of exaggerations

13 without a -- without having proper foundation. That's also the reason

14 why this Chamber again and again and again takes the parties back to what

15 facts are established. That's what is important for us.

16 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, facts in this case is that finding of

17 ICMP commission, and this gentleman knows how that commission works, and

18 that's what we want to show. And we have the reason, and it's main

19 evidence in regard of -- [Overlapping speakers] ...

20 JUDGE ORIE: Let's not discusses it. It's --

21 MR. LUKIC: So if we hear from him, it will be much more clear.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. But then what I'd like you to do, Mr. Lukic,

23 is that if you -- if he says there's exaggeration or it is multiplied by

24 two or three, which is the suggested claim by this witness, then show it

25 to us, put that to the witness and say tell us where the exaggeration

Page 32369

1 here is, not they are exaggerating because that is not something we can

2 consider. Take it. Let's see whether it's an exceptional, unique,

3 exceptional feature, or whether this is generally applicable to what has

4 been presented as evidence.

5 I leave it to that for the time being.

6 I think it would be good to take a break first.

7 We will take a break.

8 Witness, you may follow the usher, and we'd like to see you back

9 in 20 minutes.

10 [The witness stands down]

11 --- Recess taken at 1.08 p.m.

12 --- On resuming at 1.31 p.m.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, just summing up from before the break,

14 the Defence bears no burden to prove anything, and nobody has shifted any

15 burden of proof to the Defence during the entire trial so far, and nobody

16 will do so for the remainder of trial. The burden that the Defence bears

17 is to rebut the Prosecution's case, and that's all.

18 We'll wait for the witness to enter the courtroom.

19 No speaking at audible volume.

20 MR. LUKIC: Before the witness comes in, maybe we could deal with

21 one procedural matter.

22 I was just warned by Ms. Registrar that I never mentioned the

23 number of the video. So it's 1D05368, and we would tender that video

24 into the evidence, only parts that are translated and -- actually, parts

25 that are transcribed and translated.

Page 32370

1 JUDGE ORIE: And played, I take it.

2 [The witness entered court]

3 MR. LUKIC: We didn't play all of it, but there is a -- actually

4 comments by Mr. Krcmar and the pathologist.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Then we have to further discuss this in more detail,

6 but I leave it to that at this moment. If it is relevant to understand

7 the statement of witness, then of course it could be an associated

8 exhibit. To the extent it is not, I think it should be then -- the

9 proper selection should be made.

10 I leave it to that for the time being. You may proceed.

11 Yes, we can reserve a number already for the video or excerpts of

12 it.

13 Madam Registrar, the number reserved would be?

14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the number would be D917.

15 JUDGE ORIE: And that number is reserved for this video or at

16 least the portions that will be selected.

17 Please proceed.

18 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Krcmar, can I continue?

20 A. Sure we can.

21 Q. In paragraph 36 of your statement, you say that the

22 identification process is almost at its end. You also say that the

23 number of victims has been exaggerated somewhat. How many reports did

24 the international commission issue so far?

25 A. I don't know the exact number.

Page 32371

1 Q. Very well. What is the system of reassociation?

2 A. This is putting bodies together and making them whole from a

3 number of boney remains. Let me give you an example.

4 For example, when two or three bodies are found on the surface, a

5 sample is taken from each the bones. It is then sent to a laboratory,

6 and then a report tells us how many donors the bones belong to. And when

7 the report is received, a pathologist puts bodies together and actually

8 makes sure that all the bones belong to the right bodies. It sometimes

9 happen that a lot of skeletal remains are found and the pathologist

10 cannot associate them with any of the bodies based on any of the forensic

11 criteria. Such skeletal remains are marked with separate numbers and are

12 thereafter referred to cases.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, it would assist the Chamber if it would

14 have concrete examples of what the witness tells us.

15 Please proceed.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. In the Federation, what is the difference between their method of

18 work as opposed to the method of work in Republika Srpska?

19 A. Republika Srpska, we don't have the notion of cases. There's no

20 such a thing as a case in forensics. It was first introduced by the

21 Federation when the terrain was sanitized. According to what I know, in

22 the Federation, there's about 7.000 of the so-called cases in respect of

23 the bodies that have already been buried, and the number of 7.000 cases

24 means that the bones have not been identified or associated with any of

25 those bodies.

Page 32372

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Let us now look at 1D5365.

2 JUDGE FLUEGGE: While this comes up, I would like to put a

3 question to the witness.

4 In paragraph 36 of your statement, I read: "... the fact that

5 the Bosnian side exaggerated the number of the victims ..."

6 What exactly do you mean by "Bosnian side"? To which entity or

7 institution are you referring here?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Muslim side.

9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, this is what I read here. Can you explain

10 that, please. What do you mean by that? What exactly.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Until this very day, an official

12 list of missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily Muslims, has

13 never been published, unlike in Republika Srpska where a list has been

14 made very public and transparent. Or that there is a law in

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina which stipulates --

16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: You misunderstood my question.

17 In your statement, you say that the Bosnian side exaggerated the

18 number of victims.

19 What do you mean by "the Bosnian side"? Tell me which entity,

20 which institution, which person, did that? "The Bosnian side" is a vague

21 description.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I will be very precise. The

23 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, headed by

24 Mr. Muharem Sacirbey, presented information, according to which around

25 250.000 Bosniaks had been killed. We all know that this is not true.

Page 32373

1 I'm talking about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

2 JUDGE FLUEGGE: In 1992.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In 1992, yes.

4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.

5 JUDGE ORIE: And for the same paragraph, you said that that

6 fact - that is, that there was an exaggeration - has been proven by the

7 analysis of the list of Muslims who went missing in Srebrenica in

8 July 1995.

9 Now, where can we find that analysis?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The analysis of that list is being

11 carried out by my own institution, which is the republican centre for the

12 investigation of war crimes and searching for missing persons.

13 I hope that an analyst from my institution will appear before

14 this Trial Chamber and do a better job than I could, i.e., would give you

15 a proper explanation of that.

16 JUDGE ORIE: You would say that that analysis is still to follow.

17 And, Mr. Lukic, I do understand from you that you will -- [Overlapping

18 speakers] ...

19 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour --

20 JUDGE ORIE: -- present it at a later stage. Thank you.

21 Please proceed.

22 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Before us we have your statement. I just referred you to

24 paragraph 36 where you talk about the process of identifying the actually

25 missing Muslims. I'm now interested in 1D5365.

Page 32374

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I would kindly ask for the document

2 to be displayed on the screen.

3 Q. We can see a document here. It was issued by the ICMP. The

4 representatives of Republika Srpska, do they have any influence on the

5 work of this commission?

6 A. The representatives of Republika Srpska have no influence

7 whatsoever on the work of the International Commission of Missing

8 Persons.

9 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Lukic, do you have an English copy?

10 MR. LUKIC: I was just informed that it was sent to translation.

11 So I will be using only one table and I will read what we can see on this

12 first page. This document must be in English but we didn't locate it.

13 It says, and I'll read it in B/C/S -- first line is in English so

14 I don't have to read the first line.

15 [Interpretation] "Report on the analysis of non-identified

16 post-mortem remains in the Sutina morgue in Mostar."

17 Q. Mr. Krcmar, did you ever warn the ICMP on the possible

18 consequences of their way of work?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. What did you tell them?

21 A. I told them that before we have a list of all the missing persons

22 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it was pointless to make a list of the bodies,

23 especially bearing in mind the fact that this way of work adopted by the

24 international commission would lead to a much higher number of unknown

25 bodies than are actually held in the morgues in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Page 32375

1 According to their estimate, there is approximately about 7.000

2 such cases, whereas the actual situation is much different and the number

3 is much lower. In that way, this gives rise to an exaggerated number of

4 unknown bodies, creating a new group of unknown cases, or just cases as

5 they with called.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Witness, could you tell us how much lower it is? Is

7 it 10 per cent, 30 per cent, 50 per cent? Could you give us a

8 further ...

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise. I did not understand

10 the first part of your question.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Well, you said the number is much lower. Could you

12 tell us how much lower the actual number is compared to what they

13 present.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The actual number of bodies in the

15 morgues should not surpass 2500. This is a rough estimate on my part,

16 but bear in mind that I'm familiar with the situation in the morgues.

17 I've been involved in that work for years now.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. And did you ever put that on paper, your

19 criticism, to what -- can we find that anywhere documented?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not put anything on paper.

21 However, I had some official talks with the international commission a

22 few years ago and --

23 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed.

24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just a follow-up question. In answer to

25 Judge Orie's question, you said there were about 2500 bodies in a morgue;

Page 32376

1 but where you mentioned the estimate of 7.000, you are not talking about

2 the morgue. Are you saying that the estimates of the ICMP are that 7.000

3 people were in the morgue?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no, it is not about 7.000

5 bodies in the morgues. It is about their estimate, about 7.000 cases. A

6 case is not a body. A case refers to a part of a body that has already

7 been buried, as I've already explained.

8 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

9 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, it might be a bit more clear if we see

10 the page 18 of this document.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Take us there, Mr. Lukic, and take the witness

12 there.

13 MR. LUKIC: Yes, mm-hmm. It is also in B/C/S only, so I will

14 read it.

15 JUDGE ORIE: And before you continue, could you tell us from what

16 year this report stems? Is it recent? Is it old? Is it from when?

17 MR. LUKIC: It's November 22nd, 2013.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that's relatively recent.

19 Yes, please proceed.

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. I will read the part above the table.

22 "Annex 2: Table of an estimated number of cases with regard to

23 the known cases and the known unique profiles from the samples of bones

24 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This table gives the estimates of the number of

25 non-identified cases in every morgue. It also lists the number of unique

Page 32377

1 profiles isolated from the samples of the so-called case bones for which

2 there's still no match or the match has not been found.

3 "The cases in various facilitates, apart from KIP and PIP, are

4 estimated based on the counting of body bags containing mortal remains.

5 That means that one case equals one body bag containing mortal remains.

6 For PIP and KIP, all cases have been subject to anthropological testing

7 and DNA analysis, and they have been separated into individual bodies (T)

8 and body parts (DTs).

9 "As the situation is reviewed in every facility, as has already

10 been done in Sutina, the actual number of bodies and body parts will be

11 determined, as well as the number of body bags containing mortal remains,

12 and those numbers will be added to columns 3 and 4."

13 Mr. Krcmar, do you have anything to add? You can see the morgues

14 where they are, what their sizes are.

15 A. The -- four of these morgues are in Republika Srpska. The first

16 one in Banja Luka. Then number 8, Sveti Marko in Miljevici. 11, the

17 morgue in Nevesinje. I can't see the numbers, so I can't tell whether

18 the next number is 12.

19 Q. It is.

20 A. Yes, 12 is Djudjevak, Modrica.

21 Let me just explain that under 10 the city cemetery Sutina in

22 Mostar is where the bodies were listed, and we can see that, according to

23 the first estimate, there were a total of 189 bodies. When the list was

24 completed, when all the cases were analysed, they arrived at a number of

25 395 as you can see in column 10. Apart from the four morgues in

Page 32378

1 Republika Srpska, there is 6.988 of the so-called cases elsewhere.

2 Q. You said that there were 6.000-plus cases in Republika Srpska?

3 A. No, no, I meant in the Federation. Maybe I misspoke, did I? I

4 apologise. I'm talking about the morgues in the Federation. When we add

5 all figures together, we will arrive at a number of 6.988 of the

6 so-called cases. Let me repeat that one case equals one body bag

7 containing mortal remains. In that way, we are going to create unknown

8 bodies, i.e., unknown cases, based on the mortal remains, and those will

9 be receiving their judicial numbers. They will be buried as unknown

10 persons. And the manipulation lies in the fact that prior to that, we

11 never established the exact number of dead in -- or -- and missing

12 persons in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So this is where the manipulation lies

13 in.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, could the -- could the columns, the

15 titles of the columns, be read to us since the witness refers to --

16 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour. I will --

17 JUDGE ORIE: And I think we were looking at number 10, which is

18 about the Sutina Mostar. Could we know what the first column apparently

19 presents. The title is.

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] "Estimate in number of unknown cases

21 in 2012."

22 JUDGE ORIE: Now the second column reads what?

23 MR. LUKIC: The second column where we see number 395 says

24 [Interpretation] "Bodies/body parts after a review in 2013."

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And now the third column reads what?

Page 32379

1 MR. LUKIC: Where we see number 204, column is marked as

2 [Interpretation] "Total number of cases buried in 2013."

3 [In English] The next one, where we see number 125, reads

4 [Interpretation] "Unique profiles -- unique DNA profiles which have not

5 been matched in 2012."

6 [In English] Where we read number 182, the column reads

7 [Interpretation] "Profiles from bone samples which have not been matched,

8 2012."

9 [In English] And the last column reads [Interpretation] "Remark."

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And what is the remark in relation to line

11 number 10?

12 MR. LUKIC: It reads [Interpretation] "50 per cent insufficient

13 number of samples out of 395 bodies or body parts."

14 JUDGE ORIE: I have up with question for you, Witness. Where is

15 there a claim that all of those body parts represent individual persons

16 that have died? Where is that claim? Because it's described here in

17 terms of unidentified body parts. Apparently 182 DNA'd, or identified by

18 DNA without a match. Where is the claim that these are individual

19 persons?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You see, the claim stems from the

21 situation that is there during the sanitisation and the exhumation of the

22 bodies as I mentioned in one of my paragraphs, when, for example, ten

23 bodies are found, how one acts in order to identify them and have them

24 buried. In addition to these ten bodies, I think that the paragraph is

25 clear.

Page 32380

1 JUDGE ORIE: But where does this report claim that what is

2 perhaps stored in the various body bags or what are parts, the ones who

3 are not yet identified, whether that are all -- that every such a bag or

4 every such a body part represents one person, because that would, if I

5 understand you well, be the real exaggeration.

6 Where is that claim to be found in this document?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the second paragraph where it

8 says "one case equals one bag with mortal remains."

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But you understand that to be that one case is

10 one person, or is one case one unidentified small collection of bones or

11 at least mortal remains.

12 Where is the claim that that is one person?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is not stated specifically that

14 it has to do with one person, but the Prosecution ordered that this bag

15 already has a Prosecution number and will be marked as one NN body. One

16 body that is unknown.

17 So on the basis of these bone samples --

18 JUDGE ORIE: Where did the Prosecution order what exactly?

19 MR. LUKIC: We'll see that document --

20 JUDGE ORIE: We'll see that document. Then we'll have to wait to

21 see that.

22 Yes, please proceed.

23 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

24 We would offer this document for identification. Of course, we

25 don't have [Overlapping speakers] ...

Page 32381

1 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... there's no translation

2 yet, and we have seen only one page.

3 Madam Registrar, the number.

4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the number would be D918.

5 JUDGE ORIE: D918 is marked for identification.

6 Please proceed.

7 MR. LUKIC: Thank you. And if we can now see 1D5364. There is

8 no translation of this document either since these documents were brought

9 by the witness when he came to The Hague now, but it is order, and I'll

10 read the introduction part.

11 [Interpretation] "With a view to speeding up the process of

12 identification and burial, as well as the rationalisation of the costs of

13 preserving the mortal remains of exhumed identified -- identified in a

14 preliminary fashion by way of DNA methods and unidentified war victims

15 that are in facilities for preserving mortal remains, the Prosecutor's

16 Office of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Special Department for War Crimes

17 hereby passes an order ..."

18 [In English] And not to read the whole document, we would need

19 page 4 - obviously in B/C/S version - here.

20 I'm sorry, we should go back one -- one page back. I just need

21 to read introduction under Roman number IV.

22 [Interpretation] What is written here is as follows. I quote:

23 "On the basis of an analysis and the established state of

24 affairs, the working group shall, for each and every individual case,

25 regardless of whether it has to do with mortal remains or bags containing

Page 32382

1 clothes, objects, footwear, and the like, compile a record with

2 instructions for action that will be compulsory for all participants in

3 the process of identification and burial in accordance with their

4 authority based on the law."

5 [In English] And under number 3, we need number 3 down there, and

6 Mr. Krcmar will address cases under B and D under 3, so I will read.

7 Under 3, it says --

8 JUDGE ORIE: Could you read the whole -- it's very short so that

9 you start with 3 and then also clearly say where something is stricken

10 through.

11 Please.

12 MR. LUKIC: Yeah.

13 [Interpretation] "Unidentified mortal remains shall pertain to

14 the following cases:

15 "A. Beyond the mandate," and then we see that the institute has

16 been crossed out.

17 "B. From which it is not possible to isolate the DNA profile;

18 "C. From which bone samples were not taken for DNA analysis;

19 "D. From which DNA profiles were isolated but there is no

20 matching."

21 In parentheses, it says "(meciranja)." [In English] It's not

22 B/C/S. It's some kind of translation of English into B/C/S.

23 And under E: [Interpretation] "Mortal remains with less statistic

24 probability."

25 B is what Mr. Krcmar is going to explain to us first, what it

Page 32383

1 means. And what is written there under B is as follows:

2 "Mortal remains from which it is not possible to isolate DNA

3 profile."

4 "Mortal remains from which it is not possible to isolate DNA

5 profile due to carbonisation, contamination, scarcity, or other reasons,

6 and on the basis of opinions of forensic medicine experts shall, without

7 delay, on orders from the Prosecution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, be buried

8 under appropriate judicial markings, depending on the location of their

9 exhumation."

10 First bullet point: "At the cemetery from which they were

11 exhumed, if possible, in the same graves, or in a separate plot within

12 that cemetery."

13 Next bullet point: "At the closest cemetery of the municipality

14 on whose territory the mortal remains were exhumed outside the cemetery

15 and in a separate plot."

16 Q. Mr. Krcmar, where do you see the problem in all of this?

17 A. Well, precisely through this order, the way in which these cases

18 should be treated has been prescribed. The ones that will be given their

19 numbers. Bodies that do not exist, surplus bodies, then also when bodies

20 had decayed, when they carbonised, when the DNA sample cannot be taken,

21 or body parts when people who are identified had already been identified

22 through classical methods.

23 Let me just explain. Classical method is identification that was

24 carried out until 2000, approximately, when we did not use DNA analysis,

25 when people were recognised. There were quite a few of their bone

Page 32384

1 remains left, and afterwards their families didn't have to give blood for

2 DNA analysis. We saw in these tables that there were cases like this

3 that will get the designation of NN bodies. On the basis of this

4 principle, in this order, they will be buried in the municipality where

5 they had been exhumed.

6 For example, many bodies were exhumed in Srebrenica. People were

7 identified, buried, but these surpluses will be buried some day as NN

8 bodies and actually non-existent bodies. And it's not only Srebrenica

9 but there were quite a few other municipalities where exhumations were

10 carried out. So Tomasica, Zvornik, Kotor Varos, Sanski Most; all the

11 places where exhumations were carried out. So, in this way, this number

12 of reported case, missing persons without names, will be dealt with. So

13 this is perfect manipulation.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask one question. Again, where is the claim

15 that what you call a case presents one body, one person? Because

16 that's -- you say it is exaggerated because it may be that a few cases

17 together would make only one person. Isn't that the gist of your logical

18 conclusion?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] These are not my conclusions. We

20 have to go back to the previous document where it says one case equals

21 one body bag. And then the Prosecution issues an order, and we see that

22 each and every one of these bags is going to be marked as one case and

23 will be buried accordingly.

24 I attended the registration of some of these bodies in Sutina.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Let me stop you there. You say one case is one

Page 32385

1 body bag. I do understand that and that apparently is how it was

2 organised.

3 Now, one body bag doesn't say anything about how many bodies are

4 in there. Perhaps three body bags having only one person in it. Is that

5 what you are explaining us?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Precisely. Reassociation and

7 registration is done in this way. What you have asserted just now is

8 what we managed to see in column 10. Out of the 190-something, I don't

9 remember exactly, on the basis of reassociation, the figure of

10 300-something was reached. That is to say, it is correct that in one

11 bag, there could have been mortal remains from several different persons.

12 Through DNA analysis, one can realise that there are three

13 different bodies there, but there is no matching. If you look at the

14 family members who were donors -- so we have the bodily remains of three

15 different men. Do you understand what I'm saying? In that way, three

16 new bodies are created.

17 There is not a single medical criterion that can say what is a

18 body and what is a sufficient number of body samples to call something a

19 body. Perhaps just one or more than that. There were situations when

20 one single bone would be buried. When the DNA report comes in, we know

21 who that is and the family accepts and then that one bone is buried

22 because the family accepts that not more than that can be found. So on

23 the basis of that, one cannot say that these three bones are not a body.

24 Even one bone can be an entire body, if the DNA report is in association

25 with that single bone or whatever number of bones one may have.

Page 32386

1 I don't know if I've been clear on this.

2 JUDGE ORIE: I fully understand your explanation. What I have

3 not found yet is where is the claim that there are so many persons. The

4 only thing I saw in the previous table, I saw that at least 182, I think

5 it was, DNA analysis were made or have been successful and that they

6 could not be matched, which I do understand means that they are unique

7 and that would support a conclusion that -- perhaps not 3- or 400 body

8 parts would present persons, but at least for those 182 there's a fair

9 basis to assume that these are 182 different persons which have not been

10 matched to any other bodily remains.

11 That is what I understand. Do you agree with that?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. It was only in this morgue

13 that reassociation was carried out, in Sutina. This was not done

14 elsewhere. It's just the international commission that said it was about

15 7.000 in 2012. We will see what the results will be, but they are

16 certainly not going to be any less. It's only going to be more.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, please proceed -- yes, no, it is time for

18 a break --

19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: And I would like to ask the witness for one short

20 clarification.

21 On page 78 - it's no longer on your screen - lines 15 and 16, you

22 said: "The Prosecution ordered that this bag already has a Prosecution

23 number and will be marked as one NN body."

24 When you here referred to "the Prosecution," you mean the

25 Prosecution of BiH and not the Prosecution of this Tribunal; is that

Page 32387

1 correct?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. Yes. Because Mr. Lukic

3 had already read the order out, and it is from the Office of the

4 Prosecutor of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, he read that out later, but I think that's

6 now clarified. Thank you.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then we'll adjourn for the day. We'd like to

8 see you back on Monday, Witness, and I'd like to instruct you that you

9 should not speak or communicate in whatever way, to whomever, about your

10 testimony, whether that is testimony you have given today or whether that

11 is testimony still to be given on Monday, and we'd like to see you back

12 at 9.30 in the morning on Monday.

13 You may follow the usher.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

15 [The witness stands down]

16 JUDGE ORIE: We adjourn for the day. We resume Monday, the 2nd

17 of March, 2015, 9.30 in the morning, in this same courtroom, I.

18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.17 p.m.,

19 to be reconvened on Monday, the 2nd day of March,

20 2015, at 9.30 a.m.