1 Monday, 11 July 2005

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Madam Registrar, could you call the case,

6 please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is the Case

8 Number IT-03-68-T, the Prosecutor versus Naser Oric.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, and good morning to you.

10 Mr. Oric, can you follow the proceedings in your own language?

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. Yes,

12 I'm able to follow the proceedings.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you. Good morning to you, and

14 you may sit down.

15 Appearances for the Prosecution.

16 MR. WUBBEN: Good morning, Your Honours. My name is Jan Wubben,

17 lead counsel for the Prosecution, also good morning to my learned friends

18 for the Defence. I am here with co-counsel, Mr. Gramsci Di Fazio, and

19 our case manager, Ms. Donnica Henry-Frijlink.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Wubben. Good morning to you and

21 your team.

22 Appearances for Naser Oric.

23 MS. VIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour. My name

24 is Vasvija Vidovic. Together with Mr. John Jones, I represent Mr. Naser

25 Oric. With us is our legal assistant, Ms. Adisa Mehic, and our case

1 manager, Mr. Geoff Roberts.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you and good morning to you and your team.

3 Any preliminaries?

4 MR. WUBBEN: No, Your Honour.

5 MS. VIDOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honours.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: In the meantime, last Thursday or Friday I was

7 informed by one of my staff members that -- and I was also handed a copy

8 of the joint letter that you sent that more or less you have reached some

9 sort of agreement or you're confident that you will reach one as regards

10 mutual -- as regards disclosure.

11 MR. WUBBEN: Yes, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

13 So can we bring in the witness, please, Mr. -- or Dr. Eric Dachy.

14 [The witness entered court]

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, Dr. Dachy.

16 Good morning to you, Dr. Dachy, and welcome to this Tribunal.

17 You're being summoned as a witness for the Defence in this trial against

18 Naser Oric. Very soon you will commence with your testimony. Our Rules

19 require that before you do so you make a solemn declaration equivalent to

20 an oath to the extent -- in the sense that in the course of your

21 testimony you will be speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing

22 but the truth. The text is contained on the piece of paper which is

23 being handed to you now by Madam Usher. Please read it out loud and that

24 will be your solemn undertaking with this Tribunal.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will

1 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Dr. Dachy. You may sit down.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: We have -- is it you, Mr. Jones, I take it?

5 MR. JONES: Yes.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Jones will be putting to you a set of questions

7 and he will then be followed by Mr. Di Fazio for the Prosecution. Is it

8 your first time in a courtroom, Dr. Dachy?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Such as this court, yes. I was a

10 witness as a child in a courtroom in Belgium.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. More or less the procedure is pretty

12 much similar to what it is in most domestic jurisdictions. So you will

13 be asked questions. Please try to answer the question in as -- a concise

14 way but as fully as possible and to the best of your ability. And if you

15 have any problems at any time with interpretation, please draw your

16 attention straight away so that we rectify the problem.

17 Mr. Jones.

18 MR. JONES: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 WITNESS: ERIC DACHY

20 [Witness answered through interpreter]

21 Examined by Mr. Jones:

22 Q. Could you please give the Court your full name.

23 A. My name is Eric Dachy.

24 Q. And your date of birth?

25 A. 1st of March, 1962.

1 Q. And your nationality, please?

2 A. I'm a Belgian national.

3 Q. And is it right that you currently live in Brussels?

4 A. Yes, well in the suburbs.

5 Q. And you're a medical doctor by training?

6 A. Yes. I'm a medical doctor. I have been a doctor since 1988.

7 Presently I'm doing a specialty in child psychiatry.

8 Q. Now, I don't think it's in dispute. You first joined Medicins

9 Sans Frontieres in 1991 to work in Kurdistan. Is that correct?

10 A. Yes, it is.

11 Q. And in October 1991 you took a job as head of mission for MSF in

12 the former Yugoslavia, based in Belgrade?

13 A. In 1991. It was still Yugoslavia then.

14 Q. And is it right that your job was to define and implement

15 programmes for MSF?

16 A. Yes. As the head of mission, my task was -- or my responsibility

17 was absolute as to everything that was done in the area. And of course

18 my role was to obtain the authorisation and the support of our

19 headquarters in Brussels, Paris, and Amsterdam.

20 Q. And is it right that you had MSF branches in Zagreb and Sarajevo,

21 both of which reported to you?

22 A. Yes, absolutely.

23 Q. As part of your work did you visit places, and if so what type of

24 places?

25 A. Yes, constantly. Of course my work was first and foremost to be

1 as best-informed as I could as to what was really happening on the

2 ground. Therefore, when I arrived in October the place that was the main

3 focus was of course the city of Vukovar, and some of the refugees who had

4 fled from the war areas in Croatia or Serbia. So the first places I went

5 to were really taking most of our attention, as that was the front line

6 around Vukovar.

7 Q. Right. I'm going to ask you briefly about Vukovar, but just very

8 briefly. But firstly, are you familiar with the book "War Hospital" by

9 Sheri Fink?

10 A. Yes, I am. I met the author or the author met me on several

11 occasions in order to interview me. She asked me to proofread the book.

12 So I corrected the book and I also gave her the written notes that I had

13 kept from my stay in the Balkans. So, yes, I'm very familiar with the

14 contents of the book.

15 Q. Now, that book sets out, among other things, your experiences in

16 Vukovar when the town was besieged and then fell to Serb forces. I'm not

17 going to ask you about Vukovar in any detail except to ask you this: Do

18 you see any relevance in what you observed in Vukovar in terms of what

19 you later saw in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

20 A. Yes, I do because Vukovar to me was a hallucinating experience

21 because of what I saw. I had flown into Belgrade on a regular airline,

22 and I took a taxi as you take taxis anywhere in the world to go up to the

23 front line. And I discovered there was an army with scores of guns,

24 cannons, busy destroying a city. And I said that I was a doctor and I

25 said so in order to go to the medical services near the front line, and I

1 happened to discover in what condition the people were who left the city.

2 And it was really horrible; the people were traumatised. They had been

3 wounded by snipers, by shrapnel, or had just hid for weeks on end in

4 their cellars. They didn't even dare to go out to try and get some

5 water. And you could understand that in the city it was a whole deluge

6 of fire constantly day and night. So I saw children who were totally

7 catatonic. They couldn't say a word anymore because they were so

8 terrorised. Everything was happening day after day, hour after hour,

9 week after week, and it was literally the destruction of a city. It was

10 truly something that was incomprehensible to any European who would have

11 been there.

12 Later on I understood that this was actually a well-established

13 military strategy, which was to besiege a town, to isolate the town

14 first, to encircle it, and then to reduce its defence to nothing through

15 artillery. But when I say "artillery" it is a systematic deluge of

16 shells falling on every square metre of the town, and then starting with

17 street warfare, street fights with these very famous paramilitary units,

18 which I saw on many occasions around Vukovar when we would go and sort of

19 visit around to explore the place.

20 Q. Now, when you refer to that well-established military strategy,

21 is that something which you observed subsequently in the former

22 Yugoslavia?

23 A. Yes. What I saw in Vukovar was that indeed there was heavy

24 artillery attacking a defenceless town, there were special units of those

25 who were already called the Chetniks, those ultra-nationalist Serbs.

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1 They really looked wild. You could see them coming back from the front

2 line with bloody knives, with obscene laughter, with behaviour that was

3 openly boisterous and joyful, while obviously this was a context of

4 atrocity. And then these people would take the town and there would be

5 executions. Because in Vukovar, as I was allowed to enter the city as

6 soon as it was taken, I went to the hospital. And together with the

7 International Red Cross representative, I could see and he was quite

8 upset, all the males -- the male patients had been taken. Although we

9 thought -- it was confirmed later on, these male patients were executed a

10 bit further out.

11 So these are the three ingredients that I saw in Vukovar,

12 ingredients that I found first in Bijeljina again, it is a small town in

13 the north of Bosnia. The Bosnian Serbs took that little town, ruled it

14 in the same way, whilst we would regularly go to Bosnia and try to keep

15 abreast of the places where people might need help at a given point in

16 time. The entire area of Bijeljina was just forbidden; we couldn't

17 access it. And we knew that there was a lot of gunfire to be heard and

18 then it was sort of blackout. We couldn't hear a thing or know a thing,

19 and I would insist to be authorised to get to Bijeljina. And the same

20 way it happened in Vukovar, I was able to enter the town with our team.

21 And we could see -- it was obvious that Arkan's men, the head of this

22 Serb paramilitary unit, had taken the city. And we heard that people

23 were killed -- had been killed, and that the Serbs took over power very

24 violently. And I suspected that there was a lot of casualties,

25 fatalities, the first thing I did was to go to hospital --

1 Q. Because I'm going to come to Bijeljina shortly. Just before we

2 leave Vukovar I just wanted to present a map so we can find Vukovar and

3 some other places in relation to Bosnia.

4 MR. JONES: We've got copies of the map for everyone. Just for

5 the record it's "Extract of a Map of the Military Geographical Institute"

6 from 1967 and the scale is 1:1.500.000.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can I use this opportunity to ask

8 you whether I'm speaking too fast?

9 MR. JONES:

10 Q. Now, you'll see on the ELMO to your right, Dr. Dachy, in a moment

11 anyway -- well, you can see in any event the map. And I'm going to ask

12 you -- I'm going to ask you just if you could locate Vukovar and also

13 Sarajevo and Srebrenica and circle each of them.

14 A. Yes. Vukovar is a small town on the Danube River about one and a

15 half hours drive from Belgrade.

16 Q. Just for the record, that's in Croatia. Correct?

17 A. Yes -- well, it's really on the border because the Danube is the

18 border between Serbia and Croatia -- well, at least at that place.

19 Q. And if you would also circle Sarajevo.

20 A. Sarajevo, we would go there very often, driving from Belgrade.

21 Q. And if you could circle Srebrenica, please.

22 A. [Marks]

23 Q. Now, you also mentioned that when you were in the Vukovar region

24 you saw soldiers or paramilitaries returning from the front. Where was

25 that, if you can tell us?

1 A. There were two places we could access close to the front line.

2 The first place was Sid, a small town which can be found here on this

3 map. It's a bit further away from Sid but it is on the territory. And

4 then there was another location north of Vukovar, close to Borovo Naselje

5 which can't be seen here, and you could get there from the north. I'm

6 showing you here.

7 Q. Thank you.

8 A. In dotted lines.

9 Q. If you could initial the map and then I would ask for that to be

10 tendered as a Defence exhibit.

11 A. [Marks]

12 Q. Thank you.

13 MR. JONES: I think it should be D707.

14 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour, 707.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: So this map which has been initialled by the

16 witness is being tendered and received and marked as Defence exhibit

17 D707.

18 MR. JONES:

19 Q. Now, leaving Vukovar, when did you first become aware that war

20 had broken out or was breaking out in Bosnia?

21 A. The exact time when we knew that the war had broken out, that's

22 sort of around the 6th or the 8th of April officially, when there was

23 this big demonstration in Sarajevo. But in practice, on the ground as we

24 saw it in Bijeljina, the war had already started. There was this big

25 demonstration in Sarajevo; I followed that on TV. It was actually

1 eventually aimed at preventing this war which had started or was

2 starting. But when this demonstration found a tragic end because

3 strivers [as interpreted] shot some protesters, demonstrators, everybody

4 understood that unfortunately so the war had really started for good and

5 nobody could prevent it.

6 Q. Now, you mentioned Bijeljina and a little bit of what you saw

7 there. Where in fact did you go when you went to Bijeljina and when did

8 you go there? If you can help us with that.

9 A. Throughout this period from February to April, we of course tried

10 to realise to what extent help or aid was -- medical aid was necessary in

11 some places because of fighting and because people were isolated and to

12 see where an international organisation could have done some useful work.

13 But it was really difficult to assess -- ascertain where these people --

14 these places were if you didn't go yourself on the ground. And this way

15 we became aware - also through information I was able to gather

16 indirectly - I became aware that the Bijeljina area was a city we had

17 gone through or we would go through because it was on the road to

18 Sarajevo and also on the way to several other Bosnian towns when you go

19 to Bosnia through that way. So Bijeljina was a place that we would know

20 very well because we had gone through it, which was quite normal until it

21 was totally isolated. And after the Arkan's militia has conquered it, it

22 was difficult to access it. When I was able to go with me team to the

23 city after it had been taken by the Serbs, I went to the hospital. Do

24 you want me to explain what happened then?

25 Q. Perhaps if you can give a precis or summary of some of the things

1 you observed in Bijeljina.

2 A. Clearly when we entered Bijeljina in the town there were a lot of

3 adult men on street corners, in small groups of five to ten. Most of

4 them were on street corners; that was systematic. And when we got into

5 the town, we were escorted by a Serbian military car and we -- there was

6 a time when we had to slow down at traffic lights, so we tried to ask

7 people -- those people what they were doing there. And they said, We're

8 here and we want to show that we are peaceful, that we're not armed.

9 Obviously these people were afraid and we understood that following the

10 fighting, these were Bosnian people who wanted to show that they were not

11 fighters, warmongers. We went straight away to the hospital where I met

12 the head, director of the hospital, a Bosnian woman. She looked very

13 afraid and she often asked me whether I wanted to see the morgue. I

14 didn't want to because it was not my role. I wanted precisely to avoid

15 being involved in things that could be seen in a bad light, and our

16 priority was to provide aid. But she also wanted to make me understand

17 that there had been a lot of people being killed during the fighting,

18 during the takeover of the city.

19 While she was talking to me she was violently replaced [as

20 interpreted] whilst I was there in front of my eyes by a new director of

21 the hospital, a Serb man, who behaved quite violently who just sort of

22 dismissed her. He sat down and said, I am the new director, do you have

23 questions? Then he lectured me, gave me a political lecture on the

24 dangers that the Bosnian Muslims were, the fact that now freedom had been

25 re-established in Bijeljina. So I didn't harbour much illusion as to

1 what that meant. I understood that the town was in the hands of the

2 Serbs, that it would be a very intransigent type of takeover and later we

3 learned from the High Commissioner for Refugees that all the men had been

4 deported.

5 Q. One interpretation issue. I think at least once anyway you

6 referred to Bosniak and it was translated as Bosnian. Provided it's

7 understood that of course Bosniak means Bosnian Muslim, is it correct

8 that when you're referring to Bosniak you're referring to Muslims?

9 A. Yes. If we say "Muslims" in the sense of nationality, such as it

10 was established in Yugoslavia, the majority of people that I met and who

11 claimed Bosniak identity were laymen but who asserted their Bosniak

12 identity. They may have been descendents of people who converted to

13 Islam but who no longer claimed Muslim identity but rather Bosniak. And

14 for me this was important because there were many people that the Serbs

15 called "Turks" or "Muslims" who were simply people who were discriminated

16 against because they had names that had Ottoman connections but who were

17 Bosniaks. So if you don't mind, I will continue to refer to them as

18 Bosniaks.

19 Q. Yes, that's fine, just so it's clear for the record.

20 I want to ask you just very briefly about Zvornik. Did you go to

21 Zvornik in this period?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Let me stop you there because I want to take it quite briefly.

24 Can you tell us when you went to Zvornik?

25 A. According to the best of my memory, it was just after the war

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1 officially broke out, that is after the period of the 6th to the 8th of

2 April. And we went to Bijeljina just before that, the last days of March

3 or the very beginning of April.

4 Q. And was what you saw in Zvornik a similar -- similar events to

5 what you saw in Bijeljina or was it in any way different?

6 A. In Zvornik, in my view, it was exactly the same pattern that we

7 saw, the isolation of the town, then a siege, artillery fire, and then

8 the conquest of the town by special units. But we arrived at a slightly

9 different moment. That is, we were not aware that we were going to such

10 dangerous places that people were fleeing. So we arrived at Zvornik just

11 when the town was being taken over; it was not under military control.

12 We arrived when there was still street fighting in Zvornik, and there was

13 a lot of shots fired around us. And when we reached the hospital, the

14 situation was still rather uncertain. And rather like Bijeljina, we were

15 able to meet the staff, the hospital director, who were mostly Bosniaks

16 but there were also Serbs. They were very nice. They were afraid. And

17 when we were discussing the situation, we were interrupted by the arrival

18 of special troops, the leader of which, we learned later, was known under

19 the name of Commander Marko. Commander Marko and his men were extremely

20 threatening. They wanted to arrest our driver and interpreter; we

21 opposed this. And they were extremely brutal. They told us to shut up,

22 that we had nothing to say, and eventually they questioned us about what

23 we were doing, and they didn't really believe -- they finally believed

24 what we were saying and they let us go.

25 Q. Now, as part of your work did you speak to many Bosniak refugees

1 from Bijeljina, Zvornik, and other places in Eastern Bosnia?

2 A. On that day leaving Zvornik we saw a column of people on the road

3 who were going towards Serbia. There were women, children, the elderly.

4 We took them in our vehicle to help them reach the place where they could

5 take a bus. And we spoke to them. We asked them what was happening, and

6 they described the pattern that I just described, that is that the town

7 was isolated, one couldn't move around, it became dangerous, there were

8 shells and snipers until the takeover was complete.

9 Q. And did these stories circulate among refugees, what had happened

10 in these various towns?

11 A. Yes, yes. The people around Zvornik told us, and in Serbia

12 itself we also had work to do, and that is to provide aid to small

13 refugee centres where the people had found shelter. These used to be

14 holiday homes for children with 30 to 50 places which took in families

15 from Bosnia, from Croatia. And we went to visit those people. But the

16 refugees in Serbia were very cautious about what they were going to say

17 because they depended directly on the communal authorities, the local

18 authorities, for the aid they received. And it was their interest to

19 demonstrate that they were good citizens, or rather good and faithful

20 inhabitants. So they would not disclose any details that were not in

21 line with the official policies and theories in Krajina and Bosnia.

22 Q. Okay. I'm going to move to Srebrenica now and ask you when you

23 first heard about Srebrenica.

24 A. In this period, that is the spring of 1992, our aim was to try

25 and find out, as I said, to what extent -- what was happening and where

1 people needed aid urgently. And this was difficult because of the large

2 territory. They may have needed medical aid, food, or any other kind of

3 aid. There were people fleeing through the woods. There were stories of

4 women delivering in the fields. And it was very difficult to obtain

5 information. And the front line was something that we were not informed

6 about directly because this was under military control. So I informed

7 myself through correspondence of international agencies, I attended

8 meetings, coordination meetings, of UN bodies like the High Commissioner

9 for Refugees representatives, and so on. And we knew that in Bosnia, in

10 Eastern Bosnia, that there was quite violent combat, as the Serbs wanted

11 to dominate it -- this area. And names cropped up frequently to the

12 effect that there was an area where people had grouped together and were

13 isolated. And this area had a name. It was Srebrenica. And we were

14 told that resistance in Zvornik and Bijeljina and in other places was

15 very weak, those perhaps people fought bravely, but it was clear that

16 they were not up to the level of the forces that could be deployed by the

17 Serbs. And in this area of Bosnia and Srebrenica, there was resistance.

18 And the name given to that resistance was "Naser Oric." This is a name

19 that cropped up at that time already.

20 Q. Now, can I ask you when you first entered Srebrenica, when you

21 first actually physically went there?

22 A. When people spoke of the area, I gathered that there were people

23 there who needed aid because they were isolated by the war. And it was

24 in places like that that urgent humanitarian aid had meaning. And

25 immediately we told ourselves, not just me but other organisations as

1 well, that we had to go there. To reach Srebrenica, I negotiated with

2 the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, which had a sort of embassy in Belgrade.

3 I had met Radovan Karadzic once to ask him for permission to intervene in

4 Bosnia. And we understood as soon as we said that we wanted to go to

5 Srebrenica that it was useless to even mention that name, that we would

6 never get permission to go there. They refused access to Bosnia by aid

7 organisations and it was hopeless.

8 So I tried to encourage and to rely on the UN, the High

9 Commissioner for Refugees that had links with UNPROFOR so that diplomatic

10 pressure should result in our accessing Srebrenica, and that is what

11 indeed happened. The UN managed to obtain permission to send a convoy to

12 Srebrenica. I was able to take a place -- to get on the second convoy

13 that was going to Srebrenica, and that was on the 4th of December, 1992.

14 Q. And can you describe what it was like arriving there, what you

15 observed when you arrived on the 4th of December, 1992, what the

16 conditions were like.

17 A. We were familiar with Bosnia. We knew the roads to be able to

18 conduct our aid operations. And reaching Srebrenica, I was with another

19 doctor, the director of the MF [as interpreted] at the time, and an

20 interpreter. And we covered the few kilometres from Bratunac to

21 Srebrenica via Potocari, and we left the armoured vehicle. And we were

22 all astonished because we had reached another world. This small town was

23 visibly damaged. There were crowds everywhere. Though it was December,

24 it was still sunny and it was more like an autumn day, a sunny day, but

25 the people were sad, without hope, desperate, dirty, greyish, dusty, and

1 glad to see us but also extremely anxious.

2 The town -- or rather, the area around it was exposed to shell

3 fire and we were immediately hit by this feeling of physical and

4 psychological misery, which was reflected in the clothing, in the

5 behaviour, the attitude of the people we encountered. And as we knew

6 that we would not be staying long, we focussed on the hospital, and that

7 was where we stopped. The hospital was across the way -- across the road

8 from the PTT building --

9 Q. I'm going to stop you there for a moment. It's a question of

10 something that might have been left out in translation. Before you said

11 "desesperes." Then you said "emacies." Did you use that word, that the

12 people were emaciated?

13 A. Yes.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Jones, that will show up in the

15 transcript.

16 MR. JONES:

17 Q. But an obvious question: For what reason in your opinion were

18 they emaciated?

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think he needs to mention that.

20 MR. JONES: That's fine.

21 Q. Now, you mentioned going to the hospital. Did you meet anyone at

22 the hospital? Did anyone receive you?

23 A. When one in a humanitarian worker, one has to respect the formal

24 system. So we didn't rush into the hospital as if we had the right to go

25 to a hospital without asking anyone, but rather we asked to see the

1 officials responsible for the hospital. And they asked us were kindly to

2 wait for a few minutes, which we did. And then Dr. Mujkanovic arrived,

3 who was the most responsible official.

4 Q. Is it right that you came to know Dr. Mujkanovic over the coming

5 months?

6 A. Yes. The time I spent with him was so important -- the moments I

7 spent with him were so important. One realised who one was dealing with,

8 and the situation in Srebrenica was so intense from many points of view

9 that they had a very impressive look. And Dr. Mujkanovic was clearly a

10 person of great importance at the beginning of the events in Srebrenica.

11 At first, I met him very briefly. I saw him later, but clearly he was

12 playing an important role and he was an impressive personality.

13 Q. Did he tell you about the work he had been doing in the hospital?

14 A. Yes. That was our main question: The medical situation in the

15 hospital. Because obviously we wanted to know what needed to be done in

16 terms of medical aid to the population, because though we knew they

17 needed food as well, our main focus was on medical aid. And the

18 situation there was again quite extraordinary. Nedret told us of the

19 conditions he was working in, the extremely difficult conditions, that he

20 lacked instruments and bandages and everything -- that everything was

21 quite dirty, though they tried to clean things as best they could. But

22 they didn't have the means to sterilise, and we realised that these

23 conditions were absolutely unimaginable. And he took us around the

24 hospital rooms where we saw people in an abominable conditions. It is

25 the only thing one can say about it. He had absolutely nothing to treat

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1 anyone with. There wasn't a drop of disinfectant. There wasn't a single

2 roll of bandage. There wasn't a millilitre of aspirins or antibiotics or

3 anything at all. So there was no aid he could give to any of the

4 wounded. There was one example, a little girl who was crying in her bed.

5 I assume she was there because she was alone otherwise she would be at

6 home. She had a broken arm because she had fallen from a tree, and two

7 small branches had been attached and some sticky paper had been put round

8 those two twigs to keep the arm in place, but this had absolutely no

9 effect. There was nothing that could be done in that way and it was

10 miserable and pathetic at the same time.

11 Q. I'll come back and ask you a specific question or two about that

12 in a moment.

13 MR. JONES: Your Honours, we have a short video clip which we

14 want to show for a couple of purposes. One of them is identification of

15 Dr. Mujkanovic, if possible, by this witness. I should explain that it

16 was -- it's been suggested by another witness that maybe Dr. Mujkanovic

17 wasn't actually engaged in medicine, so it's partly for that purpose.

18 It's also for the purposes of identifying someone else in the clip and

19 also for just showing how abominable the conditions were, because we say

20 that's relevant to questions of control priorities. It's pretty grisly.

21 It will be ten seconds or so, or maybe a bit longer. And with your

22 permission I'll show that briefly.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Any objection from -- this I understand is an

24 amputation scene, isn't it, Mr. Jones?

25 MR. JONES: Yes.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

2 Any objection on your part? We don't have a jury so --

3 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm not concerned about that aspect. I make that

4 absolutely plain. I'm not concerned about that in the slightest.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: I am not going to be impressed in any case.

6 MR. DI FAZIO: It's not that. But what is the point of this? I

7 mean, there's no dispute that Mujkanovic must have attended the hospital

8 on occasions and Dr. Dachy can tell us all about that, number one.

9 Number two -- and I understand what Mr. Jones is saying about the

10 evidence of the other gentleman who spoke about him --

11 JUDGE AGIUS: We don't need to go into that.

12 MR. DI FAZIO: So we don't need to go into that. So it's not

13 really going to assist us.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: This is the last witness we are going to hear on

15 these events basically, so --

16 MR. DI FAZIO: And --

17 JUDGE AGIUS: After this witness, we are not going to hear it.

18 MR. DI FAZIO: All I'm saying is I don't think it will advance

19 the case to see an amputation, but if you must.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I hope this has proved well enough the futility of

21 the whole exercise.

22 MR. JONES: Your Honour, if I may respond, it is important to

23 show that Dr. Mujkanovic did on occasion drop into the hospital --

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, but I don't think the Trial Chamber would

25 doubt for a moment that Dr. Mujkanovic was there working under the

1 conditions that Dr. Dachy has been --

2 MR. JONES: And the second submission, and it is part of our

3 case, that Srebrenica was a chamber of horrors at the time, that that has

4 a major bearing on what priorities were, whether one should investigate

5 vandalism to properties or whether one should avoid these sorts of

6 casualties.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead. I told you go ahead, Mr. Jones.

8 MR. JONES:

9 Q. -- be quite brief. If you can see the screen, Dr. Dachy, --

10 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, because we are not --

11 MR. JONES: And tell us --

12 JUDGE AGIUS: The third one. Yes. There it is.

13 MR. JONES: -- if you can identify anyone or see anything about

14 the images.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Will you tell us when to stop, Mr. Dachy, yourself,

16 please.

17 Or when you would like to put questions to him, Mr. Jones.

18 MR. JONES: Yes. I'll perhaps pause at one point.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Do whichever way is more convenient to you, Mr.

20 Jones.

21 MR. JONES: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 [Videotape played]

23 MR. JONES:

24 Q. In fact, if you can provide any commentary, Dr. Dachy, if you

25 recognise anyone or if you can say whether this is a surgery that you saw

1 in the hospital, any reflections.

2 A. No, no, I can see that indeed the person is not even on a proper

3 table like for surgery. He's just on a stretcher. Yes, I can see some

4 that -- one of the rooms where surgery was done in the hospital because

5 you have to know that it was just sort of a medical centre with some

6 beds. There was no proper operating theatre. So this is all improvised.

7 You don't have any sterile conditions there.

8 Q. And if you recognise any of the doctors there, the one in green

9 or any of those in white, that would be helpful.

10 A. Right. I can see that the instruments used are totally

11 ill-adapted. They do what they can with what they have. I fail to

12 recognise these two people in white coats on the left.

13 Q. [Previous translation continues]... few seconds, actually.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MR. JONES:

16 Q. Only if you're able to, are you able to identify the man in --

17 A. No, I really am not sure that I recognise Nedret here. I can't

18 identify him in a -- with any degree of certainty on this picture.

19 Q. Yes. We'll carry on a bit further.

20 [Videotape played]

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. This lady we've just seen

22 passing by is one of doctors [as interpreted] -- I think she was a Croat

23 by origin. And then the man -- the doctor with a beard is Ilijas Pilav.

24 One of the people you saw in the background, yes, I recognise that person

25 but I can't remember the name.

1 MR. JONES:

2 Q. Okay.

3 MR. JONES: Stop that.

4 Q. And did you in fact - I'm skipping forward a bit - at one point

5 perform an operation with Dr. Mujkanovic?

6 A. Yes. When we came back the second time, that was in March 1993

7 after that winter in Srebrenica when we came back. That was together

8 with General Morillon this time. We again focussed on the hospital.

9 Nedret asked one of us to help him because somebody had been wounded with

10 shrapnel in the abdomen some hours before. So I helped him perform

11 surgery. It took at least four to five hours, and in the same conditions

12 as the one we've just seen. So absolutely no hygiene -- well, we had

13 some gloves because we had brought some medical supplies with us.

14 And earlier on you asked me about Nedret. It was really quite a

15 lesson in bravery, in courage, because if I can talk medically for a

16 while. This person had been hurt through a shall hole in the abdomen

17 area through some shrapnel. And the problem was that it was a tiny hole

18 but that the shrapnel is going to perforate the intestine in the bowel.

19 You can't live with that because it's a source of infection. So the

20 surgeon has to open and close the bowel everywhere where it was

21 perforated. It has to find this shrapnel, if possible. So this is a

22 long and difficult type of work and the search is of bowel tissue and

23 very inefficient, and the prognosis very bad in -- even in a good

24 hospital. So this type of work was doomed to failure, I thought. And it

25 was really hard not to lose courage before, especially in these

1 conditions, before you started I mean. But at the same time, you

2 couldn't let this man die just like that. We couldn't kill him ourselves

3 either; he was screaming with pain. So Nedret operated on him. And I

4 was obviously quite heartless. I wasn't saying a word, of course, but I

5 found it hard to believe in what we were doing and at the same time I was

6 afraid and I lost heart. He must have felt it, Nedret, because at some

7 point somebody came into the room, somebody quite joyful, somebody who

8 was quite loud speaking in Bosnian. Nedret said something to that

9 person. He came close to me and opened his shirt and showed a huge scar

10 that he had, really big one, and a very ugly scar on his belly, and

11 Nedret said he had the same except and I operated on him without any

12 anaesthetic. Because this time we had used Ketamine which is some kind

13 of anaesthetic that is not quite enough but it does lessen the pain. So

14 I understood that he was really doing wonders. The man said, Nedret,

15 good doctor, and he left happy, obviously glad to be alive in spite of

16 the circumstances.

17 Q. I want to move on to March 1993 --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, Mr. Jones. Who shot these scenes? Who

19 made this video?

20 MR. JONES: Someone who is going to be a witness, Mustafa

21 Sacirovic. I'm going to start with some short questions and if you could

22 just give some short answers to those -- to some specific issues.

23 Q. Firstly, what was Dr. Mujkanovic wearing when you met him in

24 December of 1992?

25 A. The very first time when he came to see us he was in complete

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1 uniform with a badge from Bosnia-Herzegovina. On top of that he had

2 sunglasses, a cap, a beret, so he looked like a soldier rather than a

3 hospital director, so my first reflex was to be a little bit frightened

4 because I thought, God, this is a very militarised situation. But as

5 soon as I got to know him I understood that he was simply a true surgeon

6 and that he'd been sent from Tuzla.

7 Q. Do you know where he got that uniform from?

8 A. No idea.

9 Q. And did you see anyone else on that day, December 1992 --

10 Bosniaks I mean, not internationals -- in uniform?

11 A. No, I didn't. When we crossed the checkpoint close to Potocari,

12 this sort of entry into Bosnian territory in Srebrenica, there were a few

13 soldiers but they had pieces of uniforms, nothing matching. They were

14 trying to identify themselves as fighters, but it was mainly the weapon

15 that would show that they were fighters. They had absolutely no uniform,

16 nothing that looked like a standard uniform, absolutely nothing of the

17 kind. There were sort of all parts of uniforms.

18 Q. Okay. Now, before we move on to your visit in March of 1993, you

19 did comment on this girl with her arm fixed to tree branches with Scotch

20 tape. I just want you to comment, if you can, how in your opinion the

21 conditions of life in Srebrenica at that time impacted on the ability to

22 show initiative and to find solutions to problems.

23 A. Yes. Well, when I saw this little girl, it was a very disturbing

24 sight. If we had just taken the trouble of getting some pieces of wood,

25 of really cutting them well and to try to put them around her arm, even

1 with an old piece of cloth, it was possible to hold the arm in a better

2 way than had been done. I saw two or three other cases of wounded

3 people. I saw a lady whose femur was broken and her leg had not at all

4 been put in a traction, like in a better holding, just they used some

5 rope and some pieces of wood. I realised that the medical team had

6 somehow given up, but it was our job as humanitarian workers to really

7 understand the situation. It was ruled out to blame the team, of course.

8 This -- the team needed help themselves because if you are a doctor and

9 you feel powerless, doomed to be powerless with no means to react in face

10 -- in the face of people who were weakened, ill day after day, it is a

11 very traumatising situation. So we sort of agreed among ourselves

12 because we were quite moved and outraged by the condition of the wounded.

13 We had the feeling that the team were passive, but at the same time,

14 simultaneously, due to our experience we had this reflex. We thought

15 that this led us to understand how serious the situation was. This was

16 an indicia of desperation, hopelessness, of how critical the situation

17 was. They were absolutely saturated. They were burned out, as they say.

18 They were unable to react, even in the cases where they could have used

19 the means that they had. So Nedret was, therefore, very impressive

20 because he never gave up. It may have happened a couple of times --

21 Q. I'll stop you there to keep your answers a bit shorter. That

22 burnout which you describe, would that apply only to the hospital or is

23 that something which you would apply generally to the situation in

24 Srebrenica?

25 A. Yes. I mean, outside it looked even worse than in the hospital

1 because in the hospital -- well, there were people in uniforms and I

2 understood that all those working in the hospital would get some food at

3 least for being there. So there was still some degree of structure

4 there, but outside it was total chaos, indescribable, it was total

5 hopelessness, despair. You could feel that everybody in the city was

6 doomed to be tragically powerless because at the same time there was this

7 terrible threat of military aggression.

8 Q. Now, I also want to deal briefly with your trip in -- into and

9 out of Srebrenica through Bratunac. What were the reactions of local

10 Serbs to your visit to Srebrenica?

11 A. You mean in December?

12 Q. Yes.

13 A. Well, in December it was particularly difficult to reach -- to

14 get in because the local authorities in Bratunac, including the military

15 from the Bosnian Serb army who were very present -- I mean they were

16 omnipresent in the area, they just wouldn't let us go through in spite of

17 the good papers that we had, that had been produced by the UN people in

18 charge who were in the convoy. So obviously the people were very much

19 against the idea of aid reaching the inhabitants of Srebrenica. And

20 Radovan Karadzic had to come by helicopter for us to be able to cross the

21 roadblocks from the Serb military in Bratunac.

22 Q. Now, you mentioned that the Bosnian Serb army was omnipresent in

23 the area. Would you agree or disagree with the description of this area

24 as being militarised?

25 MR. DI FAZIO: Well, if Your Honours please, I object to that

1 question unless there's a basis for his knowledge. So far the witness

2 has described travelling from Bratunac into --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Srebrenica.

4 MR. DI FAZIO: Srebrenica, remaining in Srebrenica, and I assume

5 travelling out with a convoy, a humanitarian convoy, and his exit. And

6 again, I assume -- it may be wrong, Mr. Jones can lead him on this, but I

7 assume the same pattern occurred in March. Now, unless he toured the

8 area and was able to tour --

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Agreed, agreed, Mr. Di Fazio.

10 Yes. I think that describes the objection, which can only be

11 sustained in that context --

12 MR. JONES: If I can --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: If you can limit your question to the zone, the

14 particular area travelled by the witness, yes, okay, go ahead. Otherwise

15 please don't extend it to include an area which maybe the witness doesn't

16 really understand what that -- it covers more than he actually saw.

17 MR. JONES: Yes. I think two points, Your Honour. Firstly I

18 could ask the witness to explain what he means by "in the area," because

19 otherwise it's not clear, and secondly ask him where else in this area he

20 travelled.

21 Q. So first when you say the Bosnian Serb army was omnipresent in

22 the area, what area are you referring to?

23 A. Well, yes, I'm talking about the whole area controlled by the

24 Serbs. And little by little we discovered that it was under Serb

25 control. So from spring of 1992 we were trying to carry out exploratory

1 missions but also aid-providing missions everywhere where we could access

2 the area. So we did travel a lot around Bosnia in that time, for

3 instance by setting up an assistance programme to hospitals -- to the

4 Serbian hospitals in Bosnia. So we could go everywhere where it was

5 needed. Of course we had to get permits, we had to cross roadblocks, and

6 we had set up an aid programme to a psychiatric hospital that had been

7 totally abandoned near Modrica, Koprivnak [phoen] on this northern

8 corridor, as it was called. So we were familiar with this area. I may

9 not have gone personally on every trip, but I received reports from my

10 teams who were circulating around because we had to agree when -- about

11 security problems, for instance. So this was the area under Serb control

12 and we would go around as much as we could.

13 Q. Did you, yourself, ever encounter Serb -- the Serb military close

14 up? Did you see at close range artillery or tanks or APCs?

15 A. All the time. For instance, when we would take the road to

16 Modrica through Brcko, which Banja Luka -- we were very close to the

17 rears of the front line. We would cross the front line on some spots.

18 It was rare to have very visible pieces of artillery, but you would hear

19 them because you could hear the shots and you see people on guard. All

20 the towns or the roads or the areas that had been taken over in a stable

21 way by the Serbs were run by the Bosnian Serb army. So it -- we always

22 had to deal with officers, non-commissioned officers when we would go

23 around, when we had to sleep somewhere.

24 Q. And specifically dealing with the Srebrenica area, did you travel

25 along the Drina much in this period, late 1992/early 1993?

1 A. We tried to, but it was forbidden, even in Serbia. The police

2 would not let you go down that road, only exceptionally so, that is go on

3 the Serbian side on the Drina. We couldn't go further down than Mali

4 Zvornik, which is the city opposite Zvornik. We could not go to Bratunac

5 or to Ljubovija which is across from Bratunac. We were not allowed to go

6 further down. It was possible to access these areas by going through

7 inner Serbia, going through Uzice and the mountains, but it's quite a way

8 out. So we had no real reason to go there. Our idea was more to go

9 through Bosnia and the authorised crossing was Zvornik, Mali Zvornik, and

10 Zvornik. So it was better to use that crossing rather than go around

11 even if we tried to do so a few times.

12 Q. And were there ever -- did you ever see anything which actually

13 would declare, signs for example, that an area was a war zone? Is that

14 something which you saw?

15 A. You mean in Bosnia or in Serbia?

16 Q. In Bosnia.

17 A. Yes, yes, of course. First of all, if you want to get into

18 Bosnia just to cross that bridge and reach the Bosnian bank of the Drina,

19 usually you had a major military checkpoint. You needed to have a

20 written permit to enter Bosnia, a permit that was delivered by -- well, I

21 call this the embassy, but it was the representative of what was

22 so-called the Serb Republic of Bosnia in Belgrade. It was the former

23 Bosnian republic villa in Belgrade. Obviously you were reaching an area

24 under military control and you needed a special permit. And generally

25 when you had it, it was checked by telephone, you know, somewhere with a

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1 headquarters. And then of course you had boards where it was written

2 "ratna zona." It was not at the very entry of Bosnia, but these were

3 boards showing civilians, whether they -- civilian Serbs, local Serbs,

4 they were not to go any further, that it was dangerous because it was an

5 area with military activity and it was clearly indicated.

6 Q. Right. Thank you. And sorry if I appeared to cut you short

7 sometimes, but I need to explore certain of your answers. You referred

8 to crossing that bridge. Which bridge would that refer to?

9 A. The Bosnian Serb authorities demanded that the crossing to Bosnia

10 be the bridge linking Bosnia and Serbia in Zvornik, and its equivalent,

11 Mali Zvornik, which is that small village in Serbia. So this is the

12 place where all humanitarian convoys to Bosnia and UNPROFOR convoys as

13 well as Red Cross convoys were supposed to go through. And that's where

14 they waited for authorisations. Sometimes there were hundreds of trucks

15 waiting for the goodwill of the Serb authorities just to go -- to cross

16 that bridge.

17 Q. And did you cross the bridge ever from Ljubovija to Bratunac?

18 A. Yes. That bridge is the one we used in December.

19 Q. Thank you -- sorry, I do need to keep it short. And was

20 authorisation required to cross that bridge or not?

21 A. Let's say that, yes, it was certainly required, but in this

22 respect we left it to the UN. We gave the UNHCR our whereabouts,

23 translations of our identity papers, the contents of the trucks, the

24 number plates, but it was the UN who would take care of getting

25 authorisations to go to Srebrenica in every station of the journey.

1 Q. And then finally, just dealing with Bratunac, can you describe

2 for us briefly what you saw in terms of Serb military presence in

3 December of 1992?

4 A. This is a biggish town, it's spread out, under total military

5 control it was at the time. The military were omnipresent. We knew that

6 we were close to the front line. We could hear guns firing, and I think

7 that economic activity -- I mean that at the time was rather reduced. It

8 was very quiet, rather deserted. But there was still some civilian

9 population; the people were very hostile to international presence. That

10 was true in Ljubovija. Children would do death signs to us. Everybody

11 was blaming us with helping the enemy, and we would be stopped by

12 military or arrested even. We were kept one night in Ljubovija because

13 we had been detained the night before. So only the day after when

14 Radovan Karadzic came by helicopter and went to negotiate with his own

15 troops, only then were we allowed to go through.

16 Q. Okay. And before the break I'll just ask you: Did you return to

17 Srebrenica? And if so, on what date?

18 A. I returned -- well, I went during the war in December in 1992 and

19 in March 1993, and I returned to Srebrenica I believe 1998, 1998. I

20 passed through the city in a car, but I didn't want to stay. I saw the

21 buildings and then I went away. It was very sad.

22 Q. Right. And -- yes, after the break I'm going to ask about your

23 visit in March of 1993. It's time for the break.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now.

25 Thank you.

1 --- Recess taken at 10.25 a.m.

2 --- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.

3 [Trial Chamber confers]

4 MR. JONES:

5 Q. Yes. Now, Dr. Dachy, there's no dispute that on the 11st of

6 March, 1993, you returned to Srebrenica with General Morillon and his

7 team. Were you obstructed at all on your return to Srebrenica?

8 JUDGE AGIUS: On his return or on the way to Srebrenica?

9 MR. JONES: On the way to Srebrenica. That's what I meant.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. May I explain the

11 circumstances of this trip to Srebrenica?

12 MR. JONES:

13 Q. Yes, of course, briefly.

14 A. We waited 11 days in front of the bridge to be able to enter

15 Srebrenica. There were dozens of persons, officials of the United

16 Nations like Hollingworth, dozens of trucks, a convoy waiting to be able

17 to cross the bridge between Mali Zvornik and Zvornik. So I don't know

18 whether you can imagine what it meant to wait 11 days for permission to

19 cross. We were finally able to enter Srebrenica because General Morillon

20 had visited Konjevic Polje. He stayed in a motel in Banja Koviljaca. He

21 held a press conference saying, I will go to Srebrenica. We are leaving

22 tomorrow morning. And he said that the Serbs had agreed. And the next

23 day, we followed General Morillon. It was a question of maximum

24 diplomatic pressure that enabled us to go to Srebrenica. I think that

25 the number two from UNPROFOR, the head of UNPROFOR in Bosnia had decided

1 that there was agreement by the Serbs, and we went there. Clearly the

2 trip was not as simple as he had imagined. Do you wish me to describe

3 the trip or would that take too much time?

4 Q. I'm going to take it by stages with specific questions --

5 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment.

6 Judge Eser.

7 JUDGE ESER: Just one question to clarify. When you speak we

8 returned or you returned to Srebrenica with Morillon, does that mean that

9 you were part of the convoy of General Morillon or on the occasion of

10 General Morillon entering Srebrenica you also were joining the whole

11 affair so to say? Have you been part of the convoy of General Morillon

12 or somehow joining him as a separate group, so to say? And if you speak

13 about problems, do you refer to your own group or to the whole convoy?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand the question.

15 Clearly, we were part of General Morillon's group as Medicins Sans

16 Frontieres, and we asked publicly whether he would agree to take doctors

17 with him and an interpreter. So we were part of the group. And as I

18 explained previously, this was our only chance to reach places that were

19 difficult to get access to. And we relied on the UN agencies for

20 negotiations. And when General Morillon said, I'm going to Srebrenica, I

21 asked also, Can you take us with you? And he said Medicins Sans

22 Frontieres were welcome. And basically the convoy consisted of UNPROFOR

23 members, members of the UNHCR, and three doctors of the doctors without

24 frontiers [as interpreted].

25 Furthermore, as we needed to prepare a minimum convoy of urgent

1 necessities, General Morillon decided that we would pass through with a

2 single truck, and we filled half of this truck with medical material

3 which we assumed was urgently needed. And UNHCR and UNPROFOR said that

4 the other half of the truck should be filled with sugar, which was

5 obviously equally important. So there was one truck consisting half with

6 medical equipment and half with sugar and we were led by General

7 Morillon.

8 Q. I want to just focus specifically on one or two incidents on your

9 way into Srebrenica. Now, in "War Hospital," and just for the record

10 it's page 124, paragraph 3, it describes how the Serbs describe that the

11 Muslims blew up the yellow bridge, but that when you heard that you

12 thought it was the Serbs who did it to prevent the convoy from reaching

13 Srebrenica. My question is: Is that a true reflection of what your

14 thoughts were at the time?

15 A. Yes. In my view, that is the truth. Why do I believe that?

16 Because when Morillon decided that we would go to Srebrenica, for reasons

17 I'm unaware of we were permitted and authorised to go south along the

18 Drina on the Serbian bank, that is to pass through Mali Zvornik, to

19 Ljubovija, along the frontier but on the Serb side of the Drina. When --

20 the sole entry into Bosnia was across the bridge going from Mali Zvornik

21 to Zvornik into Bosnia. So I don't know why we took this route.

22 We were halfway between Mali Zvornik and Ljubovija when we were

23 stopped by a Serb police patrol or Yugoslav police patrol. And again,

24 for reasons that Morillon himself did not understand himself, we were

25 held there for an hour. He threatened. He said that was unacceptable.

1 I'm going to call Milosevic. He took up his satellite telephone, which

2 wasn't working. He went to the post office, and I don't know what was

3 said but simply the car of the Serb police said -- went away and said we

4 could pass. And later reaching -- I don't know exactly at what point in

5 time this was, whether it was close to Ljubovija or Bratunac, when we

6 were told, Unfortunately you can't go to Srebrenica because the Muslims -

7 that was the Serbs who were saying this - had blown up the bridge.

8 Clearly we all said it must have been the Serbs who wanted to slow us

9 down, to prevent us reaching Srebrenica. And this was a military issue.

10 Morillon discussed it with his people, the Canadian team that were with

11 him, and eventually we found out that it was possible to use a route

12 going through an old silver mine which gave its name to Srebrenica.

13 Q. Yes. Sorry to stop you, but I want to focus again on some

14 specifics. Again, I don't think it's in dispute that on that road or

15 that route which you took past the old silver mine there was an incident

16 involving a mine. Is that correct? Just yes or no and then I'll move on

17 to another passage.

18 A. Yes, there was a mine that went off.

19 Q. Now, In "War Hospital" -- and I wonder if you have a copy of "War

20 Hospital" with you or otherwise we can provide you with a copy.

21 MR. JONES: Yes, if the witness copy provided it's D199.

22 Q. And are you able to read English?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. It's page 127, and it's seven or eight lines from the bottom.

25 And I'll just read:

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1 "The Bosnians are shocked that the convoy has come this way.

2 Nobody warned them. They mined the route themselves. In fact they say a

3 second mine is lying not far from the one that detonated. They deny

4 knowing of any problem on the main Bratunac-Srebrenica road. They are

5 sure the Serbs have set them up to be blamed for a catastrophe."

6 Now, do you recall that exchange with Bosnian fighters?

7 A. Bosnian Serbs?

8 Q. No, no. It was Bosnian fighters, Bosniaks.

9 A. Yes, of course. As soon as this mine detonated and because the

10 road was covered in snow, we had to leave our vehicle on this mountain

11 road. It was very steep and it was not possible to pass. We had to

12 continue on foot through the snow to reach the top of the mountain, where

13 we hoped that General Morillon would be waiting for us in his armoured

14 car and armoured vehicles of the Canadian team. Is that clear, what I

15 have just said?

16 Q. Yes. And if you can tell us --

17 A. While we were walking, after the mine went off, suddenly I saw,

18 which I realised, were Bosniak fighters emerging from the woods next to

19 me. We were following the road, and I saw two or three persons appearing

20 with rifles. For a few minutes I was afraid, but they were not menacing.

21 Apparently they heard the mine going off and they came to see what had

22 happened. And knowing only a few words of Bosnian I said that we were

23 internationals, that we were with the UN to reassure them. They appeared

24 not to understand anything, and they told me that there might be another

25 mine, which disturbed me. And they seemed to be moving without fear and

1 they appeared to have the greatest interest in asking for a cigarette.

2 Q. Just dealing with these fighters you encountered. Were they in

3 uniforms or parts of uniforms? What were they wearing?

4 A. They seemed to be part of the Maquis. They had old guns. They

5 had Kalashnikov-type weapons. I don't have a great understanding of

6 weaponry, but they seemed to be like Kalashnikovs with handles in wood.

7 They had big jackets and hats, but not any identifiable uniforms. No

8 rank, no insignia of the Bosnian army. We simply recognised that they

9 were fighters because they were armed and they were wearing either a

10 camouflage jacket or a military trousers or military boots or sometimes

11 just a vest. And they wore just anything that they could find, but this

12 was heterogeneous. It was not a complete uniform. We simply recognised

13 them as fighters because they had a rifle. And I must say also their

14 face, one could recognise a fighter by the expression he wore.

15 Q. Just -- the first sentence of your answer I don't think was

16 adequately interpreted. I recall you say something like "Non, il y avait

17 l'air d'etre parti de les partisans" or something of that nature. Can

18 you repeat what you first said when I asked you what they were wearing.

19 You said "they seemed to be" -- "they had the appearance of being part

20 of," and that hasn't been interpreted.

21 A. I said they had the appearance of belonging to the Maquis, the

22 people who fight in nature, in the woods, without any political

23 affiliation who are fighting a battle under rather savage circumstances.

24 It is the French word, the Maquis, like the partisans.

25 Q. Or guerrilla fighters?

1 A. Guerrilla fighters, yes. No, people fighting in the woods.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: No, I think that's --

3 MR. JONES: It's clear.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Incidentally in the transcript there was the word

5 "makya," which attracted my attention of course but then it disappeared.

6 So we now know what --

7 MR. JONES: We're all clear now.

8 Q. And did these people have walkie-talkies or any sort of

9 communication devices?

10 A. No. I wondered myself because I was rather afraid because of the

11 explosion, and I realised that contrary to what Morillon was saying we

12 were not being expected by the other side because we were in a most

13 dangerous situation crossing a front line without knowing on the other

14 side waiting for us and seeing us as a neutral force or at least being

15 ready to accept us. So I was afraid that we might be ambushed or

16 something. So I tried to ask them whether they could announce our

17 arrival. I mentioned the word "Morillon" et cetera, but I saw that it

18 was quite impossible to communicate with them except by gestures because

19 they just said "yes, yes, okay, okay." And they had no telecommunication

20 instrument with them. I didn't see anyone being sent to a radio position

21 or something like that. So if we were moving more quickly than they,

22 they didn't seem to be concerned about informing their hierarchy. So we

23 were risking arriving there without being expected.

24 Q. On this second visit to Srebrenica in March, how long did you

25 stay? And when you tell us that, could you also give us a brief overview

1 of what happened on the days that you were there.

2 A. I stayed two nights there, one evening, one night, one day,

3 another night, and then half a day.

4 Q. Now, how did the situation seem in Srebrenica when you arrived on

5 the 11th of March, 1993? If you could just in a few phrases explain to

6 us the situation as you saw it.

7 A. We arrived at night in a small town which was in a complete

8 blackout. We arrived with the help of the lights of the Jeep and the

9 armoured car, not the truck which was left behind but the UNHCR vehicle.

10 And there was a crowd of people who were in a mixture of blood and --

11 sorry, mud and snow on the main road. There were hundreds, maybe

12 thousands, of people who appeared to be petrified, freezing, frightened,

13 disturbed. There wasn't a word coming from them. They didn't say

14 "welcome" or "who are you" or "what are you doing here" why have you

15 come." Nothing at all. There was a silence, a silence of perplexity and

16 anxiety and nothing more. It is well-known that hospitality is sacred.

17 People give a signal of welcome at least, and the situation was clearly

18 dramatic beyond all expectation. And this was confirmed later on. This

19 was my first impression. Do you wish me to continue about this?

20 Q. I'll ask you two short questions and then -- and then you could

21 continue. You said that there was no welcome given. Did that strike you

22 as normal or as abnormal?

23 A. Absolutely abnormal because in December we were welcomed by

24 people throwing flowers at us saying, "thank you for coming," "thank you

25 for being here." And they wanted to demonstrate their encouragement for

1 our assistance. And for them we were hope, whereas on this occasion I

2 think the hope that the arrival of internationals could represent, in

3 view of the situation of which they were, was no longer there -- it no

4 longer made them move or motivated them.

5 Q. Now, I just want to ask you in terms of the people you saw, were

6 these people who were already there in Srebrenica or were the people

7 arriving from outside? What was that situation?

8 A. I described the first impression I had when we left our vehicles.

9 Quickly after that we went to greet the authorities of the town in the

10 PTT building. My colleagues, my doctors, and the lady accompanying us,

11 we left the meeting to try and see what the actual situation was in the

12 hospital itself and among the population. So we left this meeting.

13 We went to look around, and going along the main road from the

14 post office towards the school and the hotel and the centre of the town,

15 we noted that the situation was disastrous because the town had already

16 been destroyed, but we saw that in December. But there were clearly

17 people and families coming on foot, dragging crying children, old people

18 in wheelchairs with inappropriate shoes, people trembling with cold,

19 people who were fleeing Konjevic Polje and Cerska, which had been taken

20 by the Serbs during the 48 hours before this. So it was terrible. I saw

21 a man who was dragging two children with him who were crying, who had

22 probably been walking for days. And seeing that they were in the main

23 road of Srebrenica, they fell into the snow and fell asleep or simply to

24 regain some strength. They were totally exhausted.

25 One couldn't see very well because there was a total blackout.

1 We could only use batteries. There wasn't a candle. There wasn't

2 anything. There was absolutely no light. But the people were burning

3 plastic bags with bottles and which apparently came from a factory in

4 Potocari. They were making the ground burn these plastic bags [as

5 interpreted], which provided very little light and very little warmth.

6 And it was with the help of this light that we saw this flow of people

7 coming into town and a vision of despair that was absolutely dramatic.

8 Q. Thank you. Sorry to stop you there.

9 MR. JONES: We have an exhibit with some photographs which we're

10 going to hand up.

11 In the meantime there might be one interpretation issue, it may

12 be a small thing, but the translation says you saw old people in

13 wheelchairs. Is that what you said, wheelchairs?

14 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction, wheelbarrows.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Wheelbarrows, wheelbarrows.

16 MR. JONES: I'll just explain this next exhibit. This next

17 exhibit is photographs from Paris Match, April 1993, and I'll ask the

18 witness to have a look.

19 Q. Do you know -- firstly, when you see the photographs can you tell

20 us if you know who took them.

21 A. Yes. This is a magazine that I obtained at the time, and the

22 photos were taken by a young German photographer who was living in

23 Srebrenica for several months, according to what I understood. He was

24 caught up by the war, and these photographs that he took at that time --

25 Q. Can I stop you there. Could you give us his name, please, if you

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1 recall it.

2 A. Philipp von Recklinghausen.

3 MR. JONES: I think it's von Recklinghausen, actually, just for

4 the record. Now, I'll just go through these photographs briefly.

5 Q. The first photograph, obviously General Morillon on the APC, I

6 won't dwell on that. The second photo we see some coffins and people on

7 the street. I would like to ask you about -- we see a young man there

8 with a gun, a young man with a gun there. Did you see war scenes like

9 this and people like that when you were in Srebrenica?

10 A. Yes. This is a typical scene, the kind of scenes we could see

11 the next day during the day. The photo may have taken [as interpreted]

12 on that day precisely. Indeed this young man is very young. He has some

13 kind of a Kalashnikov gun, a rifle. And he was part of their few armed

14 people you could see in the town. But there were not many of them; they

15 were rather rare. And they were supposed to maintain order, but it was

16 just an idea. Can I tell you a story about this?

17 Q. Yes.

18 A. The next day on the 12th of March, we were in the car and there

19 was quite a commotion because Morillon had stated that he would leave the

20 town and the population wanted him to stay, discuss -- negotiated with

21 him, talked with him. And there was so many people that there were two

22 or three people with weapons, I suppose, that were sent or came

23 spontaneously to maintain some kind of order. I was sitting in the car,

24 in our car that we had recovered from the place where we had left the

25 night before, and I was some 2 or 3 metres from one of these boys. I

1 mean, they were really young who were supposed to police a little. And

2 one was -- there was somebody who was obviously mad, who was singing and

3 saying nonsense. He came close, and it was something that made me

4 startle because he came from behind, close to this boy with a weapon and

5 he triggered the weapon. And since the weapon was directed at me, I

6 could have received a shot in the leg or higher up. I mean, it's never

7 very nice to have a weapon aimed at you, and this man came to trigger the

8 weapon. I startled and this "mad" winked at me because that was a good

9 joke. Everybody knew that the guns, the rifles, the Kalashnikovs were

10 empty. These people who were supposed to police the situation did not

11 have any ammunition; they were not really armed or it may be that the

12 ammunition was somewhere else. But it was a kind of very illusory

13 authority, just a formal thing.

14 Q. Thank you. When you saw that person you mentioned who was

15 supposed to be doing possibly some policing or a young man like the one

16 in this photograph, were you able to say whether they were soldiers,

17 fighters, civilians, policemen? Did you form an idea of who or what they

18 were?

19 A. No, not at all. There were no policemen; they didn't exist. The

20 Bosnian police in Bosnia in times of Yugoslavia had some kind of grey

21 uniforms, kind -- they looked like postmen. And you could no longer find

22 a trace, a shadow of any such policemen anywhere. There may be a few

23 left in Sarajevo. But there where we were, they didn't exist any longer.

24 There were no longer police forces on the Serbian side. They were either

25 the army or a new kind of local police, things like that. And in

1 Srebrenica, it was total chaos. There was not a trace of a police

2 uniform from before, from former times. There were at most some people,

3 like this young man, who were supposed to maintain law and order, but it

4 was totally improvised and it was totally insufficient, as was shown on

5 several occasions later on when food was distributed, when -- at the time

6 of the evacuation. But it was such chaos that maintaining law and order

7 was an illusion.

8 As to fighters, no. I mean I saw very few of them. I saw those

9 who escorted us for an episode I didn't narrate. But once after the mine

10 detonated we saw a truly fighting unit that took us to the centre of the

11 town, and these were the only fighters I ever saw in Srebrenica. They

12 were not around in town.

13 Q. May I just stop you there. You've mentioned a truly fighting

14 unit; what were they wearing?

15 A. Again, they had the same aspect or look. They looked like maquis

16 resistance workers -- or fighters, sorry. They spent time in woods,

17 bearded not shaven. They looked a little wild. I suppose the hygiene

18 conditions were not such as to allow them -- well, I don't think that

19 they had any logistical support. I think that they were roughing it

20 because indeed, you know, their beards were unkept and they had totally

21 mismatched pieces of uniforms. Two or three had some kind of white

22 overalls, I remember. And I wondered -- I thought that they must have

23 been overalls for snow fighting, fighting in the snow, as is the case in

24 some armies. And I thought to myself that they must have recovered it

25 from former stocks from the Yugoslav army. And later on I learned that

1 they may have been overalls made from parachute canvas. And I saw two or

2 three people wearing these very light white overalls. They were people

3 with sort of camouflage or khaki vests or hats, but never an insignia, a

4 rank, an indication of rank. Never anything. Sometimes they had

5 insignia on a civilian piece of clothing. It was totally mismatched. It

6 was impossible to know who the commander was, as far as the uniforms were

7 concerned. And obviously people were very ill-equipped.

8 And it was cold. I mean, there was snow and they had no gloves.

9 Sometimes they had light clothing and they were really dirty because they

10 had not had appear opportunity to change clothing. So it was far from

11 being, like, a standard army with uniforms and logistical support.

12 MR. JONES: Thank you. I would ask for a number to be given to

13 this, and it's D708.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: One question, Mr. Jones, are you exhibiting the

15 photos or also the text?

16 MR. JONES: Well, I think I should probably just exhibit the

17 photographs since those have been commented upon. The text is there --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: The text is there but in other words we are not --

19 MR. JONES: Not relying on the text.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. So this will be D708?

21 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

23 MR. JONES:

24 Q. Now, did you see Dr. Mujkanovic again on that visit? I think

25 you've told us you had, but if you can describe when and how.

1 A. Yes, I did, as early on the first evening, on the 11th of March

2 in the night. That's the first thing we did. We asked the people there

3 whether we could see a doctor. I gave the names of doctors I knew, Dr.

4 Pilav, Dr. Mujkanovic, and we were told that Nedret was a bit further up,

5 at the former Domavija Hotel. So whilst we were walking towards the

6 hotel, we realised how dramatic the situation was in the town.

7 Let me add a few words to answer your previous question. You

8 must realise that this town and its population was multiplied by the

9 number of people coming from the surrounding areas, fleeing the fighting,

10 so displaced people, as they're called, or refugees. But there weren't

11 any more -- I mean, only a small fraction of the original inhabitants --

12 it was a place where thousands of families fleeing the surrounding areas

13 would come and they arrived in a town. There was nothing. They may

14 never have seen this town before. And they would find no place to sleep,

15 no shelter, no food. So there would only add up to a heap of people

16 already in dire need. They would create this concentration of

17 population; it could be called a town, but something that no longer had

18 the structure of a town. Do you understand?

19 So let me come back, if you don't mind, to this. We realised as

20 we were walking towards the Domavija Hotel, we realised there were an

21 amazing number of people who had sought refuge in the town. They looked

22 anywhere for a place. They would stay in the streets. I found Dr.

23 Mujkanovic at the Domavija Hotel. And I think we greeted each other

24 warmly and he briefly explained what kind of a dramatic situation

25 prevailed since December. And he was very thankful for our help; he was

1 very happy to see us again. It was getting late. He was obviously

2 exhausted, and he gave us a place to sleep. It was a room. There was a

3 window but no window pane. So we had a few blankets, sort of ugly

4 blankets, and we slept in the way locals did because there was no other

5 condition than that.

6 Q. All right. Thank you. If I could refer you again to "War

7 Hospital."

8 MR. JONES: And in fact it might be best if the witness keeps a

9 copy with him, next to him.

10 Q. And it's -- if I direct you to page 208, if you get there --

11 actually that's good. You've got the photographs, and if you just turn

12 one, two, three pages. I think you need to turn another page or two

13 until you see a picture of Dr. Mujkanovic. And again, one more page.

14 Now, on the left-hand side, do you see the picture on the top of Dr.

15 Mujkanovic?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Can we have it placed on the ELMO, please.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In Tuzla?

18 MR. JONES:

19 Q. Yes. Sorry, it's being placed on the ELMO so the public can

20 follow.

21 MR. JONES: Actually, my apologies, Your Honours. I realise on

22 the exhibit list I probably didn't list D199. That was an oversight.

23 Q. I'm just going to direct your attention to the photograph below

24 where there are pictures of scraps of paper and it's written: "Because

25 of a severe paper shortage, doctors wrote prescriptions on old medical

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1 records and other scraps of paper that could be found around the

2 hospital."

3 I just want to ask you if that's something you're aware of.

4 A. Yes, of course. It's hard to imagine how all resources were

5 lacking in a city, a town, that had been besieged for so long. So

6 there's a shortage in terms of heating, running water, food, down to the

7 small things that prevent normal life, no lighting, no hygiene, just the

8 small items of hygiene that you need just to make it possible for you to

9 function, to operate, to communicate, to play. Children did not have

10 balls to play with -- balloons.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It didn't exist anymore, they

13 weren't around. So indeed, at the hospital there was no paper. But that

14 was the same in the whole town. There was no school anymore. I don't

15 think that there were any more ballpoints around or pencils, things of

16 that kind. So they had just adapted to the situation. They started

17 using old patient records from the before the war that would no longer be

18 necessary just to write out prescriptions for the pharmacy and that would

19 deliver their medicine.

20 MR. JONES:

21 Q. Now, it's -- again, it's not in dispute that historic events

22 occurred when General Morillon declared Srebrenica under the protection

23 of the United Nations. I just want to ask you: Were you surprised then

24 that happened? Did you have any thoughts or reflections when that

25 occurred?

1 A. Straight away I was aware that this was quite a historic moment,

2 a turn in history, because I was understanding how the situation

3 developed for a year and a half and I understood that Morillon had just

4 taken a one-sided decision. He was certainly not supported by his

5 hierarchy. And this was a major event because we knew that Mladic's

6 troops were around, ready to take over the town. And then half -- a

7 split second later I was a little afraid because I thought that the anger

8 of the Serbian army was going to be terrible and that they could take the

9 town even if Morillon was there. And they could do this massacre that

10 they were about to perform whilst we were there, either by executing us

11 or by just -- just sending us back home. So I was afraid, and I said so.

12 I said, Now -- now there is a real problem. And I said to my colleague

13 -- but I was sort of smiling or laughing because I was really happy that

14 Morillon said what he said. But I understood it was then a situation we

15 were under Serbian fire and there would be no more -- any leniency. Yes,

16 I thought it was a bet, a gamble, a dangerous one. And I was hoping for

17 -- wholeheartedly that Morillon would win it, this gamble. And that had

18 been so not just that day, but for months. But then I understood that it

19 was really quite a historic moment and it was a risky thing, too.

20 MR. JONES: Now, I'm going to move forward a bit to an exhibit --

21 or a new document which will be handed around. And it's -- for the

22 record, it's a fax which was sent to -- under the heading Medicins Sans

23 Frontieres from Muriel and it's dated 17th April, 1993.

24 Q. While that's being handed around, did you provide that document

25 to me when you came to The Hague?

1 A. Yes, I can confirm that.

2 Q. And could you tell us who Muriel is?

3 A. Muriel was this young lady who was my assistant in Belgrade, and

4 she was with us, too, on the 11 or 12th of March, 1993, in Srebrenica.

5 She's not a doctor, but she speaks very good Russian and she was learning

6 Serbo-Croat. And we thought that if we were going with a translator, a

7 Serbian translator or a Bosnian translator or Croatian translator,

8 problems might ensue at the checkpoint. Therefore, she offered quite

9 bravely or courageously to come with us. Normally we only took doctors

10 with us, but she wanted to work as a translator so it was quite brave of

11 her.

12 Q. Now this, correct me if I'm wrong, contains a report on

13 Srebrenica. The first page refers to Milici, and that doesn't concern

14 us. The second page, "mission Srebrenica, 28/3 - 4/4." And can you

15 confirm the year that that would refer to.

16 A. Yes. These are the first weeks during the Srebrenica mission

17 after General Morillon had more or less succeeded in holding back the

18 Serbian attack and until the zone was declared as a safe area,

19 diplomatically speaking. So towards the end of March, three weeks or two

20 weeks after we entered the town with Morillon. These are the first

21 medical observations aimed at organising the aid programme that we wanted

22 to set up.

23 Q. So March to April 1993?

24 A. Yes, quite.

25 Q. I just want to take you to two parts of this report. The first,

1 if you have 1, "situation au debut", the hospital; and then the second

2 point "activities," and then there's a phrase there, [Interpretation ]

3 "before the cease-fire up to the 30 wounded per day."

4 Now, was that the information you received from your MSF

5 subordinates in Srebrenica, that before the cease-fire there were up to

6 30 injuries a day?

7 A. You mean me personally? What are you asking me? Did I receive

8 this information before? Beforehand we had no information at all, not a

9 trace, not even the barest minimum. The only information available about

10 Srebrenica came through the government radio in Sarajevo. Apparently

11 they had some radio contact with Srebrenica. They described a disastrous

12 situation, but we did not regard this as objective information when it

13 comes to public health. It was not measurable. So I had no information

14 whatsoever before going back in person on the 11th of March, nothing at

15 all. But as to this figure of 30 injuries per day, that seems quite

16 reasonable.

17 Q. Let me approach this also this way. This is addressed to Anne

18 Simon. Is this a fax that you actually received in your capacity as head

19 of MSF head of mission?

20 A. Yes, absolutely. Anne Simon was in charge of our mission at the

21 Brussels headquarters and this report had been established by a Muriel.

22 She had interviewed the doctors and the engineer who had gone through

23 Srebrenica -- well, who were in Srebrenica. So -- and she did that

24 because I couldn't do everything and she gave me a copy and that's when I

25 apprised myself on the information.

1 Q. I'd like you to turn to the second page now and this is dealing

2 with apparently a school which is a refugee centre, and it appears that

3 there was an enquete there, a check-up of 150 persons. I want to ask you

4 about the entry that says "Scabies, pediculis, 80 to 90 pct." Can

5 you explain for us what that entry means?

6 A. No. There were more people in this corps. Mention is made of 7

7 to 800 people; that's a lot. I mean, it was totally overcrowded, that's

8 on the previous page. And they carried out an inquiry of having a

9 sampling of some 150 people to have some reasonable idea of the problems

10 faced by most of the people in the school. So what I can read here is

11 simply that 15 per cent - "pct," that's per cent - 15 per cent of the

12 people suffered from diarrhea, 10 per cent from respiratory problems,

13 airways problems, and 90 per cent had scabies. And lice, pediculis in

14 French [as interpreted].

15 Another relevant thing is that over 50 per cent of the people

16 suffered from anemia, a lack of iron in the blood or red cells, and that

17 could be clinically observed. So they had the smooth tongue, for

18 instance, which shows a major weakening of the body. Over half of the

19 people were clinically anaemic, which goes to show that there is a major

20 deprivation and prolonged deprivation of food and vitamins.

21 Q. On the basis of what you saw in this report, would it be fair to

22 say that there were a lot of people in Srebrenica in March/April 1993 who

23 looked in very poor condition?

24 A. No. It's wrong to say so. The situation was of extreme,

25 out-of-the ordinary deprivation. It's hard to perceive such a situation

1 except in war situation that had probably not been seen probably since

2 the Second World War. It's not just a situation of poverty or lacking

3 some things, both from the point of view of health, public health, or in

4 everyday life, accommodation, hygiene, privacy, private space, any

5 possibility of having some kind of formal social structure or getting

6 organised. These people were under constant torture.

7 What I mean is they were both in the situation where their vital,

8 their primary needs were not met, I mean food, health, just surviving,

9 and at the same time they were under shelling, they were under constant

10 fear, they could fear that they would be attacked, that they were

11 threatened. So they were in a sort of self-perpetuating chaos because

12 there were constant new arrivals of refugees. It was impossible to build

13 anything because all the -- I mean, there were an increasing -- decrease

14 of resources. You couldn't go hunting. A little bit of agricultural

15 activity that there was was gone. Gone. So everything was wearing out;

16 it was disappearing. It is a situation of extreme torture.

17 Q. I just want to ask specifically about scabies. As a doctor, can

18 you just describe to us what are the symptoms of scabies and what's the

19 appearance of someone who has scabies?

20 A. Yes, well the main symptom of scabies is that it's itch --

21 itching. You can't help itching because the parasite is under the skin.

22 It is an acarian that gets under the skin creating small tunnels, very

23 simple, but it provokes terrible itching. And you can see that someone

24 has scabies because people really itch and scratch themselves until they

25 bleed. It's a very difficult disease when it becomes invading.

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1 Q. Thank you. And -- right.

2 A. Very debilitating.

3 Q. Final on this document where it's referring to the amount of

4 nourriture. It says "distribution of 100 grams of bread and a glass of

5 milk a day."

6 Can you explain what in layman's terms what 100 grams of food

7 amounts to, what an example would be?

8 A. Well, 100 grams of bread, well -- is half a sandwich. So a

9 little bun like this, bread roll, small one. Well, when you have a loaf,

10 a big family loaf, that's about 1 kilo. So 100 grams would be a tenth of

11 that. It's a very small portion of food.

12 Q. Is it a sufficient amount to live on over a long period?

13 A. No, no, of course not. No, it's really not sufficient; far from

14 it. It is obvious people did not have enough food to live in Srebrenica.

15 It's way below the necessary amount to survive in proper conditions

16 without damaging your health.

17 Q. Thank you.

18 MR. JONES: I'll ask for the exhibit number for this document,

19 please. I think it's D709.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: This document consisting of one, two, three, four,

21 five, six pages originating from Medicins Sans Frontieres is being

22 tendered -- everything is -- is being marked as exhibit number -- Defence

23 Exhibit Number D709. Thank you.

24 MR. JONES: Thank you, Your Honour.

25 We have another document now which we'll hand up which is an

1 article from the Lancet, which is a medical journal, volume 341, 8th of

2 May, 1993, pages 1193 to 1196.

3 Q. Again, I'll just ask, did you provide this document to me when

4 you arrived in The Hague?

5 A. Yes, yes. I confirm that.

6 Q. [Previous translation continues]... of this article in preparing

7 the article?

8 A. Yes. I was interviewed at some length by the authors of this

9 document, specifically about what happened in Srebrenica, because I think

10 they themselves never went there. And I was asked for -- kindly to make

11 a contribution for this document. And then they sent it to me

12 afterwards.

13 Q. I only have one question on this document which is: On the

14 second page, the right-hand column, the bottom of the top photograph, you

15 see there it says: "The convoy that reached Srebrenica on March 19 after

16 the commander of UN Protection Forces established temporary headquarters

17 in the town contained food that was sufficient for less than five days'

18 energy needs for the 60.000 inhabitants."

19 And I would simply ask you whether that figure sounds

20 approximately correct or not.

21 A. Yes. The quantity of food quite, because it was carefully

22 measures by the UNHCR. The figure of 60.000 inhabitants is an estimate,

23 obviously. One could never have this number checked because the whole

24 area of Srebrenica was spread out beyond the centre of the town, and it

25 was clearly very difficult to find out how many people were actually

1 living there. Maybe 50.000 would be closer than 60.000, which would mean

2 that they had food for six days rather than five.

3 MR. JONES: I'll just ask for an exhibit number for this

4 document.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. This document extracted from the Lancet of

6 May 8th, 1993, volume 341, from page 1193 to page 1196 is being tendered

7 and received and marked as Defence Exhibit D710.

8 MR. JONES: Thank you.

9 Q. Now, if I could ask you, Dr. Dachy, to take up "War Hospital"

10 again and to turn to page 101. And I'll read the paragraph into the

11 record since not everyone has copies. And it's a passage which describes

12 Nedret, Dr. Mujkanovic, travelling to the field to watch actions. And

13 it's the quote at the very bottom of 101 going over to 102.

14 "It is the rumbling of their empty stomachs which sets these

15 hapci," that's the word for civilians who were going into action as

16 hapci, "on the heels of the soldiers. They come from hunger and need and

17 anger, many of them displaced from their own homes. Nedret sees them

18 raging out of control disobeying directives not to destroy things." And

19 it says, "The Serb civilians lie dead in their wake," i.e. the wake of

20 the hapci.

21 The question I want to ask you is did you make any observation or

22 form any opinion, clinical or otherwise, then or subsequently, regarding

23 the behaviour of very hungry people subject to conditions such as you saw

24 in Srebrenica?

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's start with observations first, Mr. Jones, and

1 then come to the second point later.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Could you please specify the first

3 part of your question for me.

4 MR. JONES:

5 Q. Yes. Did you make any observations concerning the behaviour of

6 very hungry people subject to conditions such as you saw in Srebrenica?

7 A. Yes. It was something quite disturbing because I had experience

8 with Kurdish refugees in Iraq who were in a dramatic situation, and I

9 also saw a cholera epidemic in Africa among displaced persons. So I

10 began to have a quite considerable experience as to the way in which

11 people live when they find themselves in situations fighting for

12 survival. When their life is at risk and when they take radical

13 decisions such as to flee, to dislocate their families, et cetera.

14 Srebrenica was especially impressive because there was a concentration of

15 many elements. First of all, quite clearly, everyone there was

16 traumatised. They were in a trauma. This was a traumatising situation

17 every day, but a multi-dimensional situation because at the same time

18 they feared shells that were coming regularly. Then again there was

19 hunger, then simple things like children not having shoes of the

20 necessary size, children crying because their shoes were too small. And

21 these people found themselves in this dramatic situation, fearing for

22 their very survival, and at the same time being unable to provide the

23 essentials for themselves and their families. So this applied to big

24 things as to small. And systematically the people were condemned to

25 powerlessness. They were confined to this area, subject to bombardment,

1 then exposed to constant hunger, and this went on for months and months.

2 There was the period of autumn, winter, and spring, and this was an

3 impossible situation. And the majority of people became desperate at the

4 same time and in a slight delirium even. They were disillusioned, they

5 had to struggle with these very small things and even these small things

6 were a great problem because the situation was totally degrading.

7 Then people attach themselves to the past, trying to reconstruct

8 their lives, but in Srebrenica this was impossible because the threat of

9 death was there on a daily basis and the people really had nothing to

10 hope for, nothing to attach themselves to on a daily basis to hold on to.

11 So there was a process of psychological degradation which, in my

12 opinion - and this is a conviction on my part - that this was absolutely

13 deliberate on the part of the Serbs. Ethnic cleansing and everything

14 else was implemented by a deliberate intention to dehumanise the enemy.

15 The political theory was: The Muslims don't exist, they are Serbs and

16 Croats that have converted to Islam. And during the war they were

17 treated like animals, executed en masse, deported, cleansed. And in this

18 war of a siege of the town, like in all such wars, there was a

19 psychological siege, to subject the enemy to psychological desperation

20 and degradation and to discourage them. And this worked. The Serbs

21 could easily bomb the centre of town when they wanted. They could have

22 done that in the case of the football pitch, but they didn't do it. They

23 could have done it. They were observed through binoculars; they knew

24 what was happening in town. And this was a strategy; that is, to

25 psychologically degrade the population. And this went beyond simply

1 being hungry or needing something. This was this prolonged inability to

2 meet essential needs of one's own and one's family, and this continued

3 ceaselessly.

4 Q. Right. I'm going to move on to a new area now. After you left

5 Srebrenica in March 1993 I think you've told us and it's clear from the

6 facts, you continued to monitor the situation. I want to deal with a

7 very specific issue concerning a water-treatment plant in Srebrenica, and

8 I'd be grateful if you can tell us about that plant and any events

9 surrounding it.

10 A. With respect to the activities of the MSF for displaced and

11 refugee populations, we developed a certain ability to intervene, to take

12 care of medical needs, food, shelter, sheltering the people when they

13 have nowhere to go, and the provision of drinking water. These are four

14 areas in which we had competent persons and standard material that we

15 used. And we were equipped to use them, and we had action plans for

16 this. And clearly from our very arrival in Srebrenica, we asked

17 ourselves the question of drinking water, which was lacking. There was

18 no drinking water. And the person who entered Srebrenica immediately

19 after me was an engineer specialising in water, Ulens, and his mission

20 was to observe the population's needs with respect to water. Because in

21 Srebrenica, as in other parts of the world, the shortage of drinking

22 water can be the source of the gravest epidemics and it's better to

23 prevent and to treat and it's much better to provide drinking water than

24 to treat epidemics.

25 Q. If I can stop you there because I'd like to take this issue very

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1 quickly before the break.

2 MR. JONES: I'd like to pass up the next exhibit which deals with

3 this and we have copies for everyone. It's a telex -- appears or

4 purposes to be a telex from MSF Srebrenica to MSF Brussels, 16th

5 September, 1993.

6 THE WITNESS: Shall I continue with Zeleni Jadar?

7 MR. JONES:

8 Q. Yes. I'm going to use this document and take it step by step.

9 I'm just going to read, it's the second page under 3, "water and

10 sanitation" -- I'm sorry, before that: Did you provide this document to

11 me when you came to The Hague?

12 A. Yes, yes, I confirm that.

13 Q. Now, page 2, 3, "water and sanitation." It says: "Medicins Sans

14 Frontieres runs also a water and sanitation programme in Srebrenica. The

15 city is without water since May and is surviving on 2 to 3 litres of

16 drinking water per person per day. The water treatment plant Zeleni

17 Jadar was captured by the Bosnian Serbs in April and blown up by them in

18 June when UN and MSF mission asked permission to start it up again."

19 And if you could just confirm with a yes or no whether you recall

20 that information.

21 A. Yes, yes, I recall it very well.

22 MR. JONES: And in fact, I'll ask now for an exhibit number for

23 this document. I'm going to use it again later.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. This will become Defence Exhibit D711, Mr.

25 Jones.

1 MR. JONES: Thank you.

2 Q. Now, this is also dealt with on pages 205 to 207 of "War

3 Hospital," in particular 206, and I think they're also -- that would help

4 to clarify the name of the person of the MSF engineer. On page 206,

5 third paragraph it says: "If there is no access to Zeleni Jadar, this

6 city will fall soon without water," Hans telexes Eric in Belgrade. "I

7 have the impression that nobody outside of Srebrenica takes this

8 seriously. The whole world needs to realise that this town will be

9 strangled in several days if they do nothing."

10 First of all, can you confirm Hans' last name?

11 A. Ulens, U-l-e-n-s.

12 Q. Thank you.

13 MR. JONES: Now, we have another exhibit which is related to this

14 and it's two documents which need to be read together. The first is from

15 the command of the Drina Corps, dated 31 May 1993. The ERN is 04294404.

16 And I'll read -- it's the -- the main paragraph. And it states:

17 "Lieutenant-Colonel Urosevic received a verbal order from the

18 commander, Colonel Milenko Jovanovic, to demolish the water tower and

19 tank in the area of Zeleni Jadar, water supply system for Srebrenica.

20 Since this has not been done so far, this task is to be executed

21 immediately by June 1, 1993, at the latest, and it is to be presented to

22 the public as if the Muslim forces did it."

23 "And it is to be presented to the public as if the Muslim forces

24 did it."

25 Now, my question is this: You told us about your suspicions

1 about the yellow bridge being destroyed by Serbs and then claiming that

2 the Muslims did it. Based on your knowledge of the war in Yugoslavia and

3 use of propaganda, would something like this surprise you, this document?

4 A. No, absolutely not. I think so that that is how things happened,

5 because the way in which Hans described it to me is quite in accordance

6 with this. Do you wish me to explain? I realised this at the time.

7 Q. In a moment. I just want to deal quickly with the second

8 document since they're together, and that's Drina Corps command dated 21

9 June 1993, ERN 04294708, and it refers to: "Submit the data on the

10 Muslim DTG that demolished the water supply system in Zeleni Jadar.

11 Since we need to inform highest UNPROFOR bodies about the barbaric act of

12 the Muslim DTG when they demolished the water supply system in Zeleni

13 Jadar, and on this occasion directly confronted our forces. Inform me of

14 the following: According to your estimation how many terrorists took

15 part in this demolition action. Briefly describe the sequence of events

16 and in the direct clash with our forces whether you've killed, wounded

17 heavily or lightly, or captured any terrorists."

18 MR. JONES: And I'll ask for an exhibit number before we proceed.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. This document consists of two documents

20 basically. I know that they are related, connected, one with the other.

21 Do you want to tender them together?

22 MR. JONES: That's why I'd prefer that, yes, so they'll always

23 before together.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: That's why I'm asking you. So this document

25 consists of basically two documents bearing the following ERN numbers, in

1 B/C/S, 04294404 and 04294708, are being tendered together and marked as

2 Defence Exhibits D712.

3 MR. JONES: Thank you, Your Honour.

4 Q. And yes, if there is anything from what Hans Ulens told you which

5 reflects on the exhibit we just saw, then please do go ahead.

6 A. I'd simply tell you of the way in which Hans Ulens told me at the

7 time, because we knew immediately that the question of drinking water was

8 essential for the survival of the population and it was of vital urgency.

9 And I kept in touch with Hans on a daily basis about it, and he started

10 by telling me that at Zeleni Jadar there was a water treatment plant

11 which was quite functional. And he went there with the Canadian blue

12 helmets and looking at it and examining it, he was able to see that it

13 could be maintained and -- as it was absolutely functional. And the only

14 thing that prevented maintenance was that it was under Serb fire for a

15 long period of time.

16 So he said to himself, I'm going to make it operational. And

17 when he returned, he asked through UNPROFOR that access to that area be

18 secured and guaranteed by the Serbs. And he told me that the Serb reply

19 was that the water treatment plant had been blown up, and clearly it was

20 not by the inhabitants or the defence of Srebrenica that had access to

21 that zone.

22 Q. I want to go back to exhibit -- I think it's D711 now, which is

23 the telex which we saw. And it's -- at the very top of page 3 where it

24 refers to: "The overcrowding in Srebrenica is beyond any standard. 90

25 per cent of all houses and buildings are damaged by the war."

1 And then further down we see it's written that: "Bricks were

2 recuperated from totally destroyed houses."

3 Sorry, I'm just finding that again now. Yes, it's in the third

4 paragraph. "Bricks were recuperated from totally destroyed houses."

5 Now, did you receive information from the field to the effect

6 that refugees were going and getting building materials like bricks from

7 destroyed houses in this area?

8 A. From the area, yes. We ourselves organised a programme intending

9 to repair houses that could be repaired with plastic sheeting mostly, but

10 also bringing tools which would allow pulling out nails and repairing

11 houses, and this was done by -- in 1993 at the beginning by Rene

12 Caravielhe who in this way managed to rehabilitate a part of the town.

13 And he was called Rene Grad because he had the ability of an architect.

14 He collected material, and this was something which was absolutely

15 necessary, to collect material.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Di Fazio.

17 MR. DI FAZIO: No objection, Your Honours. I'm trying to

18 understand this part of the witness better. Mr. Jones can clarify, I'm

19 sure, but is the witness speaking about programmes that were put into

20 effect following his visit in March 1993 --

21 JUDGE AGIUS: That's how I understand it --

22 MR. DI FAZIO: But I'm not --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: As I understand it for the time being, and correct

24 me if I'm wrong, this takes us to September 1993, this telex.

25 MR. DI FAZIO: Yes.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: The previous two documents about the destruction of

2 the water-treatment plant we're talking about June of 19 -- May is the

3 date of the first document for the 1st of June for the destruction of the

4 water plant.

5 MR. DI FAZIO: Sure.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: But it seems that happened around the 21st of June.

7 MR. DI FAZIO: That's why I think that, but I just wanted to be

8 absolutely certain about the time period --

9 MR. JONES: I can clarify with the witness the time period.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

11 MR. JONES: I don't know if it's useful for me to clarify the

12 point, maybe it's an obvious one, but we've seen photographs from 1995 of

13 houses. I'm exploring.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I'm not stopping you.

15 MR. JONES:

16 Q. Yes, Dr. Dachy, can you clarify for us when this activity carried

17 out by Rene Caravielhe occurred?

18 A. A few weeks between April and August 1993, for a few weeks. I no

19 longer remember exactly the dates when he was there but he was part of

20 the first programme that we set up in Srebrenica. So it was during the

21 summer. I would say shortly after April -- maybe May. Is that

22 sufficient as an answer?

23 Q. Yes. And I'm coming to just one or two final areas --

24 MR. JONES: So this might be an appropriate moment for the break.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: So we'll have a 25-minute break starting from now.

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1 That means we will reconvene at 10 to 1.00.

2 MR. JONES: I should just mention that I'll probably be finished

3 within 10 or 15 minutes something that Mr. Di Fazio --

4 JUDGE AGIUS: So that's up to you, Mr. Di Fazio, whether you want

5 to start today or --

6 MR. DI FAZIO: I'll finish today.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: You'll finish today?

8 MR. DI FAZIO: It's my plan to finish today.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

10 --- Recess taken at 12.24 p.m.

11 --- On resuming at 12.54 p.m.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Jones.

13 MR. JONES: Thank you.

14 Q. Dr. Dachy, I just have three last areas to cover with you.

15 Firstly, I was asking you about propaganda by the Serbs in relation to

16 property destruction. I want to ask you: From your base in Belgrade,

17 did you come across any forms of propaganda by the Serb authorities,

18 either relating to the war in Croatia or in Bosnia?

19 A. Yes, that's the only thing I came across actually. Any piece of

20 information, any information, whether it be sports, any news or facts,

21 was constantly interpreted through this prism of the hostility, the

22 antagonism between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. It was re-interpreted

23 through a new reading of history, a new understanding of history where

24 Serbs were always the victims of their wish to be free.

25 Q. Were the images shown on the news, for example, in that relation?

1 A. Yes, all the time. For instance, the European Union was

2 systematically presented as being the embodiment, the finalisation of the

3 Nazi dream which is the European unification dominated by Germany. That

4 was already the picture reported of the European Union, the image. But

5 as to daily propaganda, war-related propaganda, as soon as I arrived in

6 October of 1991 I noticed, for instance, on prime time, the news -- 7.00

7 news on RTB, the Radio and Television Belgrade, the official public

8 television channel in Serbia, pictures were shown. Atrocious pictures

9 were shown of mutilated bodies, of children with their eyes gouged out,

10 with cut ears, throats slit. It was abominable and it was presented at a

11 time when children watched TV, and from what I was told that was also

12 shown in the afternoon or noon news. And though I was skeptical, it was

13 obvious -- I thought some of the wounds must have been caused post mortem

14 because they didn't look like injuries to a living body or just a body

15 that has just died. The -- the flesh did not react, so it was quite

16 shocking and I remember how shocking it was even for me, emotionally

17 speaking.

18 Q. I'm leaving that area and I'm going back to D711 just for the

19 conclusions in that document and just again -- as a reminder for the

20 record it's the document of 16 September, 1993. When did you actually --

21 how long did you stay in Bosnia for?

22 A. Altogether in Yugoslavia, I stayed two years and a half during

23 the war.

24 Q. So that takes us, I imagine, to -- perhaps you can help us with

25 that. You arrived in October 1991, so early 1994 you left. Would that

1 be correct?

2 A. Yes, it is.

3 Q. Now, the conclusion -- I just want to read two sentences from

4 that and then pose a question to you. It says: "The population of

5 Srebrenica is completely isolated from the outside world and is forced

6 into self-sufficiency. However, it is impossible to provide the

7 structure for self-sufficiency in the short term or even in the long term

8 as long as the Bosnian Serbs are ruling the area. There are no local

9 resources and there is no energy source. There are no institutions and

10 there are no people and material to start up these institutions."

11 It then gives the example of the hospital, which you have spoken

12 about at length. And then further down it says: "The hospital is only

13 one example of the numerous other social and legal institutions which

14 need to be created. They all face the same problems. There are no

15 qualified persons available to run these institutions and they will not

16 come from Sarajevo or Tuzla. The idea of a self-sufficient enclave

17 surrounded by a hostile population is a complete illusion. The UN

18 declared Srebrenica as a safe haven, but in fact sold it to the Bosnian

19 Serbs who are turning it slowly into a legal extermination camp."

20 I want to ask you firstly do you know who in fact wrote this --

21 this telex, who the author is?

22 A. Yes, of course. The team working in Srebrenica did it on the

23 basis of sort of a conclusion or analysis of the fist months they worked

24 there. Hans Ulens is one of the authors.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment before you mention names because this

1 always worries me. Are these necessary for you, Mr. Jones, because

2 sometimes these people will be on the field somewhere --

3 MR. JONES: Yes, I see.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: -- else in the world and their names and identities

5 may need to be protected. I don't know whether Dr. Dachy has been in

6 contact with MSF before coming here and whether there's any concern on

7 behalf or on the part of MSF to have names protected.

8 MR. JONES: Yes. I understand your concerns, Your Honour --

9 JUDGE AGIUS: If they are important for you, go ahead. If Mr.

10 Dachy thinks he can answer your question.

11 MR. JONES: I think for one Mr. Dachy has been in contact with

12 MSF and he can -- if required, he can explain that. It's sufficient our

13 purposes to have the name of Hans Ulens just for one. And he's on our

14 witness list and I have been in contact with him and he's no longer with

15 the organisation as far as I understand. But that's sufficient for our

16 purposes and I appreciate Your Honour intervening at that point.

17 Q. Now, my question is: There the hospital is spoken of as an

18 example of social and legal institutions which face the same problems in

19 Srebrenica. Is that something you agree or disagree with, that the

20 hospital is, if you like, a paradigm for the other social and political

21 institutions in Srebrenica at that time?

22 MR. DI FAZIO: Well, if Your Honours please, unless the witness

23 has a basis for being able to comment on the situation that faced the --

24 in particular I'm concerned about of course is the political institutions

25 that existed in Srebrenica. We all know what I'm talking about. Unless

1 the witness can demonstrate a basis for commenting on that, then I object

2 to the question.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, but the report or this telex itself seems to

4 deal with that.

5 MR. DI FAZIO: Yes.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: So I would take it -- if they are reporting on such

7 a matter and on the need to sort of rebuild from scratch all these

8 institutions, legal and social, to the -- to MSF in Paris --

9 MR. DI FAZIO: I --

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I would -- and Brussels, I would imagine they know

11 what they are talking about.

12 MR. JONES: Your Honour, if you like, I'm happy to withdraw the

13 question and let the document speak for itself. That's probably easiest.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

15 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm satisfied with that. Thank you.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Ultimately that's what the document says. I would

17 expect whoever drafted this document to have drafted it in a responsible

18 manner and not --

19 MR. DI FAZIO: I -- that might be so, Your Honour, I'm not

20 talking about that. The question was actually asking this witness to

21 comment on it.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

23 MR. DI FAZIO: And that's what I was concerned about.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

25 Anyway, it's no longer the case, so please proceed, Mr. Jones.

1 MR. JONES:

2 Q. I will ask for your comment on one final passage if you are able

3 to. It's the passage which says -- it's on the second page or page 4,

4 actually, three paragraphs down: "When UNPROFOR arrived in March, people

5 thought it was the end of the nightmare and there was a general optimism.

6 This optimism turns into bitterness now. Everybody realises that the

7 tragedy is not far off."

8 This is dated September 1993. Is it or was it your experience

9 understanding that there were warnings of something catastrophic in

10 Srebrenica in September 1993 and indeed from the time of your visit?

11 A. When we came in March 1993, the disaster was really not far off

12 at all because there was this takeover, question of the takeover of the

13 town by the Serb troops. And that was a proven fact and that would mean

14 death and devastation for thousands of people. When this fax was

15 written, the situation has evolved somewhat because the zone, the area,

16 had become a safe area which was officially protected by the United

17 Nations.

18 What this fax is pointing to is that the status given to this

19 town did not make it possible to really survive, and that was a real

20 problem. It was obvious to me. I totally agreed with the contents of

21 this fax because it seemed obvious to me that the intervention by General

22 Morillon and the ensuing negotiations with demilitarisation of the zone

23 and the safe-haven status given to the town was a relative protection,

24 but let's not forget that other places had been declared safe havens or

25 safe areas; it didn't mean much. I had the feeling that it might have a

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1 positive effect in as much as it would have sort of halted a Serb attack

2 that would have been very bloody. But I, like many other people, thought

3 that that was not enough as a status and it was necessary to keep on

4 working on that basis, diplomatically, from the humanitarian point of

5 view, and possibly militarily, so that the population could have some

6 better conditions. If it remained sort of imprisoned in this status, it

7 could only expect worse, not as bad as the town being taken by the Serbs.

8 But it was in no way the situation that could grant them some decent

9 minimal living conditions, acceptable ones. Do I answer your questions?

10 Q. Yes, perfectly. Thank you.

11 And finally, at the beginning of your testimony today you

12 mentioned the name "Naser Oric." Did you come to hear -- to hear about

13 him while you were in the former Yugoslavia?

14 A. Yes. As I told you, this was the name associated with

15 resistance, a spontaneous resistance by the Bosniaks in Eastern Bosnia.

16 I heard this name mentioned the first time in Belgrade, and it was linked

17 to the name of Srebrenica. It was the name given to resistance.

18 Q. Did you form any impressions of Naser Oric during your stay or --

19 of what -- let me put it this way: March 1993 when you were in

20 Srebrenica, did you form any impressions about him in a general -- in a

21 general manner?

22 A. In a general manner, our impression was a positive one. It was

23 clearly somebody who was always mentioned with a lot of respect, but more

24 than respect, with a fondness. Everybody called him Naser, so much so

25 that even in the United Nations people ended up talking about him as

1 Naser. And I found that really telling because most leaders or

2 commanders have war names or prestigious names with ranks, Captain this

3 or Colonel that. In fact, the people from Srebrenica just said "Naser."

4 So the way they would speak about him showed that he was a very

5 accessible person.

6 In March 1993, it was of course difficult to confirm this

7 impression because we didn't stay long. But I was the main person in

8 charge responsible for the good running of missions. I was in charge of

9 delicate negotiations with political and military institutions. My first

10 strategy was to avoid contacts with people unless they were absolutely

11 necessary. So I did -- I was not keen on meeting Naser Oric any more

12 than I was keen on meeting political or military leaders because often,

13 you know, they would present conditions for assistance. They could be

14 sort of horse trading, and we were used to that with Serbs. So in the

15 early months, the experience was the most crucial one and I -- being

16 modest, I can tell you that I was in very close contact -- I was trying

17 to monitor the work done by the team in Srebrenica proper because I was

18 in contact with -- with a team by CapSat, and I told them that they

19 should be very prudent, very cautious not to make promises and to avoid

20 contacts with authorities, as much as that was possible. But to really

21 focus on our partnership with the medical staff in the hospital. They

22 were our natural partner. And all this was confirmed. And this positive

23 impression that I had of Naser Oric was confirmed because I learned that

24 he sometimes went to the hospital, that he was a very simple in the way

25 that he was, that he was very kind, not too -- not overly demonstrative

1 or controlling. And that made a very positive impression on me because

2 this is -- anywhere you are in the world, this is very exceptional.

3 Humanitarian aid is always part of the things that can be

4 negotiated, that are at stake for any fighter, for authorities, for

5 anybody in power, and there are exceptional situations. Such was the

6 situation in Srebrenica. And in such situations, any abuse can happen

7 and grow because there's no more containment or break on the institution.

8 There's no more social or political democratic break. And I was always

9 struck by the fact that we never had a problem with Naser Oric, called

10 Naser by everybody, or anybody claiming to belong to his group or

11 represent him.

12 Later on after the war, I received very personal testimony from

13 people I knew who conveyed a very positive image of this person. Could I

14 maybe mention somebody?

15 MR. JONES: Your Honour, maybe this would be the last matter,

16 since during the course of these trials we actually have to present

17 mitigation as we go along. Rather than recalling Dr. Dachy during the

18 course of proofing, there is a matter which relates to 1995, it's a brief

19 testimony, just a few lines. If the witness could read that, and then we

20 can conclude.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, of course. Go ahead.

22 MR. JONES: I'll just explain the context.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I take it there's no objection on your part?

24 MR. DI FAZIO: None, Your Honours.

25 MR. JONES:

1 Q. Could you explain the context, please.

2 A. This is what happened after 1995 and after the fall of the

3 enclave, a dreadful escape of thousands of people through woods and

4 hills. MSF gathered testimony systematically from people who had

5 survived this death march. Personally I knew the translator who

6 translated the interviews. There were scores of audio-cassettes where

7 all this was recorded to know what happened. And this female translator

8 said - I knew her personally - She said, It's unbelievable. People

9 really love Naser Oric. He is the one who is most in their memories, and

10 they're very thankful to him because he's the one who came to help them

11 cross the last lines in an area called Bajkovica where people would

12 arrive walking. And she said that in a general way, and that was

13 confirmed because on several occasions I visited people, survivors, in

14 Tuzla, survivors of the escape from Srebrenica. They always confirmed

15 this very positive impression.

16 But I want to stick to an objective document and I want to quote

17 the transcript done in August 1995 of a young woman, Ramiza. She was 18

18 then and she tells how she arrived in Bajkovica. It was quite an

19 apocalyptic journey where she saw dead and wounded. She said: "I didn't

20 cry in spite of all this suffering, and when I saw the commander, Naser

21 Oric, when I saw him cry, I started crying myself. I did not think that

22 I had arrived at my destination. That's why I cried."

23 So other people always conveyed this image of somebody who's a

24 very decent human and from my personal experience, which is of course

25 limited, it was never changed by facts or other convincing arguments.

1 Q. Thank you very much.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Di Fazio, do you want to have access to this

3 documents that the witness was reading from or is it -- isn't it

4 necessary for you?

5 MR. DI FAZIO: No, it's not necessary.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: It's not necessary.

7 MR. JONES: I'm not planning to exhibit it because it's --

8 JUDGE AGIUS: No, actually -- this is what I expected from Mr. Di

9 Fazio, the kind of answer I expected from Mr. Di Fazio, so it -- any

10 further questions?

11 MR. JONES: No, no further questions.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

13 Mr. Di Fazio.

14 MR. DI FAZIO: I can't provide that guarantee that I provided to

15 you earlier.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Di Fazio, tomorrow we are scheduled to continue

17 with the case in the afternoon. So if the witness is not done, we'll

18 continue with him tomorrow. He doesn't have to travel fast -- travel

19 far, I mean, he doesn't have to travel far. And in two hours he'll be in

20 Brussels, so he can go, sleep there, and come back tomorrow if he wants

21 to.

22 MR. DI FAZIO: Thank you.

23 Cross-examined by Mr. Di Fazio:

24 Q. Dr. Dachy, I won't be too long with you. Earlier this morning

25 you said you attended meetings, coordination meetings, with UN bodies

1 like the High Commissioner for Refugees and so on and that there you came

2 to know of the name "Naser Oric." Which meetings are you referring to

3 and am I correct that you are referring to meetings that occurred before

4 November of 1992?

5 A. Yes, indeed. As soon as I arrived in Belgrade, I was invited to

6 regular meetings of governmental organisations, organised by the UNHCR,

7 which was designated as the coordinated body for all the agencies. And I

8 think every fortnight there was a meeting. The agenda was conveyed to

9 us. There were information meetings, which included the UNHCR, but also

10 UNICEF, the International Red Cross or the Committee for the Red Cross,

11 or the Federation; international handicapped organisations, Medicins Sans

12 Frontieres, and others. And these were meetings of coordination to

13 discuss what to do and what had been done to avoid gaps in the provision

14 of aid.

15 Q. Right.

16 A. Does that answer your question? So it was before November 1992.

17 In fact, it was then that I heard mention of Srebrenica and Naser Oric.

18 That was already in the summer of 1992.

19 Q. Thank you. And was that -- you heard the name, I take it, during

20 the actual course of meetings with the bodies that you have mentioned in

21 your previous answer. Is that correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And is it the case that there was a common theme that went

24 through these -- what you heard about Mr. Oric at these meetings and to,

25 if I may quote your very own words, "the name given to the resistance in

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1 Srebrenica was 'Naser Oric.'"

2 Is that correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Right. And the name Naser Oric and his role as the embodiment of

5 the resistance came up during the course of conversations or discussions

6 you were having with these aid organisations when you were discussing

7 what was going on in Srebrenica. Is that correct?

8 A. Yes, but we couldn't even talk about what was happening in

9 Srebrenica. His name and the name of Srebrenica was mentioned in the

10 context of something happening there which could easily motivate

11 humanitarian intervention.

12 Q. But there's no doubt about it, to quote your own words: "'Naser

13 Oric' was the name that was given to the resistance," at least in these

14 initial meetings that you had in the summer of 1992? I see you nodding

15 but we need a yes or no for the purposes of the transcript.

16 A. Yes, quite. I was waiting for the end of the translation. I

17 confirm what you said. Yes, I heard mention of Naser Oric as being the

18 incarnation of resistance in Eastern Bosnia at that time.

19 Q. Was he described as a good leader, a brave and courageous

20 commander?

21 A. During the meetings of coordination at the UN, everyone was

22 extremely cautious in his use of words for an enormous number of reasons,

23 which are quite understandable, the first being that this was not a place

24 where we were to make any judgements or political speculations. And this

25 was of the greatest importance. So it's a little more complicated than

1 that because it was clear that for security reasons and in order to know

2 where we were moving, it was also important to exchange information as to

3 where Arkan and his forces were because it could be very dangerous.

4 There was someone who was almost killed in cold blood, but we sought to

5 collect information about the degree of danger of actors that we might

6 encounter in certain areas. In that sense we may have evoked, shall we

7 say, the dangerous character of the area where Naser Oric was one of the

8 leaders. And I must say that the Bosniak resistance in that region never

9 represented any danger for international workers. For instance, Mr.

10 Mendiluce who was the head of the UN, right down to the driver. We did

11 not have any fear of the Bosniak defence, which is quite different from

12 what could happen in Sarajevo where crossing the front line was extremely

13 dangerous and one would never know who might fire on us. So quite

14 clearly, Naser Oric was not someone who was spoken of as being dangerous

15 for us humanitarians.

16 As for making any political judgements, as from the summer of

17 1992 the presence of regrouping camps or concentration camps whereby

18 ethnic cleansing was carried out, this was not something that we could

19 make any judgement, political judgement, of --

20 Q. Dr. Dachy --

21 A. -- even negative judgement because we might be portrayed as

22 defending ethnic cleansing.

23 Q. Dr. Dachy, thank you for that but I think you've answered my

24 question. Thank you very much.

25 In the period of time before your trip in November of 1992 into

1 the Srebrenica area, did Medicins Sans Frontieres put in -- or start to

2 make plans for an anticipated provision of aid to people in the

3 Srebrenica area?

4 A. [No interpretation]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment because we are not -- I understood the

6 witness of course, but and I think for those who can't understand French

7 we need interpretation.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't quite understand the

9 question.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You are asking me whether in

12 December 1992 I had intentions to provide aid to the population of

13 Srebrenica?

14 MR. DI FAZIO:

15 Q. No --

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I think you have to either rephrase it a little bit

17 to make it clear to the witness because it's actually two things that you

18 asked of him, and one would be immediate; the other one is future. So I

19 leave it in your hands, Mr. Di Fazio.

20 MR. DI FAZIO:

21 Q. In the months preceding -- months preceding November of 1992, did

22 Medicins Sans Frontieres start to make plans for the provision of aid, I

23 assume medical aid, to people within the Srebrenica area, the people

24 surrounded by hostile Serb forces?

25 A. Yes. Quite clearly, yes. Our intention was and our -- it was

1 our priority to be able to provide aid to Srebrenica. However, as I have

2 already explained, all my attempts to ask for permission from the

3 authorities of the Serb Republic of Bosnia came across an absolute

4 barrier, and I was responsible for that type of strategic effort. And I

5 thought that the Srebrenica zone was isolated and the needs in terms of

6 medical needs were very considerable. So clearly, that was our intention

7 but it was not possible for us to carry it into practice because we were

8 not able to freely circulate in that area and the humanitarian principles

9 that we referred to, even with Karadzic, did not bear fruit. Nobody

10 could go to Srebrenica: The UN, the International Red Cross Committee,

11 absolutely no one could enter Srebrenica with the exception of a few

12 people who entered secretly, but in a way that did not allow for

13 humanitarian aid to be delivered.

14 Q. Okay. I'll move to another area, if I may. The -- just moments

15 ago as you were finishing your examination-in-chief, Mr. Jones asked you

16 about Mr. Oric. And you again said that this was the name associated

17 with resistance in Eastern Bosnia, and you again reminded us that you

18 heard his name first mentioned in Belgrade and it was the name given to

19 resistance.

20 In the period of time from when you arrived in Belgrade up until

21 November of 1992, did you continually hear of the name Naser Oric being

22 linked to the resistance in Eastern Bosnia, and in particular Srebrenica?

23 A. Yes, yes, quite clearly so.

24 Q. Thank you. And you said that -- you said that -- just bear with

25 me for a moment, please --

1 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please speak into the

2 microphone. Thank you.

3 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm sorry.

4 Q. You said that: "Eventually even people in the United Nations

5 ended up talking about him as 'Naser.'"

6 Can you tell us a bit more about that. What United Nations

7 people are you talking about? And are you referring to the period of

8 time before November 1992 when you first went into Srebrenica, the people

9 -- the United Nations people who called him Naser?

10 A. No. I was referring to the period that followed after December

11 1992, that is the period, or rather after March when international

12 workers were able to contact the population of Srebrenica. And the

13 people I alluded to, I think I can quote their names, Roland Gentille or

14 even Hollingworth, even the soldiers on the ground would say Naser

15 because the people on the ground called him Naser. It simply reflected

16 closeness, when you refer to someone in the way he is referred to by

17 others.

18 Q. Mr. Oric was a man who, was fair to say, known throughout the

19 Srebrenica enclave as far as you were aware?

20 A. Yes, it was known -- he was known. He was someone with a

21 reputation.

22 Q. Everyone would know him. People you met in the streets in

23 November and March of 1993, the name Naser was known to everyone, wasn't

24 it?

25 MR. JONES: Excuse me. I think it's a bit much to --

1 MR. DI FAZIO:

2 Q. Everyone that you met anyway?

3 MR. JONES: -- ask about 60.000 people in the enclave.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, he's qualified it now. Otherwise your

5 objection would have made sense of this.

6 MR. DI FAZIO:

7 Q. Everyone you met in those trips November 1992, March 1993, when

8 you're walking around in the streets, dealing with the problems you had

9 to deal with, carrying out our duties, speaking to people. Everyone knew

10 who Naser Oric was, didn't they?

11 A. It is rather difficult to answer with respect to this period

12 because I had an obstacle because of lack of knowledge of the language

13 and I couldn't speak to the population. And the last majority of the

14 population were peasants who had fled from the surroundings and who

15 arrived there. And the town to us was a mystery to the extent of knowing

16 how much people knew because people didn't have papers, radio, television

17 for so long, that so many things may have escaped them. They lived in a

18 world marked by fear where rumours could circulate and they existed. I'm

19 not so sure that people knew Naser, but what impressed me was the people

20 in the hospital, for instance, did not speak of him as a president or a

21 commander of the region that should be referred to when there was

22 something to be decided, but rather they referred to him with a certain

23 familiarity, as a companion, as a friend, as someone with charm and

24 influence. And with the doctors in the hospital from time to time Naser

25 was mentioned. And as I kept at a distance from everything that might be

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1 an authority, I understood that they referred to him as someone close but

2 not someone they feared, whose decisions and orders and feared. And this

3 was confirmed later on when I was told that he made brief visits to the

4 hospital out of pure interest.

5 Q. Thank you. I'm not suggesting for one minute that Mr. Oric

6 presented as an authoritarian figure.

7 You said in your evidence in reply to a question from Mr. Jones

8 concerning any impression that you formed about Mr. Oric in general, you

9 said this -- I think it must be: "He was clearly somebody who was always

10 mentioned with a lot of respect, but more than respect with a fondness.

11 Everybody called him Naser, so much so that even in the United Nations

12 people ended up talking about him as Naser."

13 Now, I'm not asking you about the United Nations, but you did say

14 that: "Everybody called him Naser." Now that's everybody in Srebrenica,

15 isn't it?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: It will solve itself --

17 MR. JONES: It's a colloquialism.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: That's I'm telling you to sit down because we are

20 dealing with a professional man, so I don't think it needs any

21 explanations.

22 Yes, Dr. Dachy.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'll try to give you a precise

24 answer. It's clear that Naser Oric was a well-known figure. I heard him

25 referred to even in Belgrade, and clearly in Srebrenica the people that I

1 visited, important people, doctors, nurses in the hospital, knew who

2 Naser was. And what impressed me was that whoever spoke of him called

3 him "Naser."

4 Does that answer the question?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't -- Mr. Di Fazio, you're free to ask all the

6 questions you like on this matter, but I don't think we are going to

7 advance more than this.

8 MR. DI FAZIO: I don't think so either, Your Honours. I'll

9 just -- This is the only area of interest that I had --

10 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no it's up to you. Because we are back to

11 square one on this matter. After a series of three or four questions --

12 so it's the doctors, the nurses, the people he spoke to at Belgrade,

13 whatever, and that's not going to change.

14 MR. DI FAZIO: I agree. I've just about finished in any event.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: We can bring the witness again tomorrow.

16 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm hoping to avoid that.

17 Q. Just one other small area that I want to ask you about, and again

18 from the answer that you gave towards the end of your testimony. You

19 said -- talking about people calling him Naser you found that -- "I found

20 that really telling because most leaders or commanders have the rank or

21 name with colonel this. In fact the people from Srebrenica just said

22 Naser."

23 In other words, you regarded him as the commander, didn't you,

24 the commander in the area, military commander?

25 A. That is a notion that was conveyed to me but which for me was

1 something that had to be verified and confirmed. Because in regions such

2 as this you hear someone mentioned as being of importance, but you never

3 know who has the power --

4 Q. That may be so --

5 A. -- and to what extent --

6 Q. -- that may be so but I'm asking you about your --

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Jones.

8 MR. JONES: It's an objection to saying "the commanders," because

9 the witness's answer is normally commanders and leaders have,

10 essentially, a nom de guerre. "A commander" would be a fair question,

11 not the commander. It doesn't follow --

12 JUDGE AGIUS: I can't stop Mr. Di Fazio from putting the question

13 the way he put it because obviously it's meant to solicit an answer from

14 the witness as to whether there was only one real commander and whether

15 that one real commander was indeed Naser Oric or not. This is what is

16 being put to the witness.

17 MR. JONES: Yes. If the witness can answer that.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, that's why -- because I anticipated what your

19 objection was going to be.

20 Yes, please, Mr. Di Fazio, please go ahead. If you want to

21 repeat your question or whatever, it's up to you.

22 MR. DI FAZIO:

23 Q. In other words, you regarded him as the commander or leader,

24 didn't you, in the area?

25 A. No. I have tried to tell you how -- what my perception was of

1 this exceptional situation. I heard mention of Naser Oric ever since

2 Belgrade, and what I heard and which was false but which was part of a

3 legend that he was a former bodyguard of Milosevic, that he was part of

4 the Yugoslav army, all kinds of things, and I knew nothing about. But I

5 heard that he was someone who had military positions, elite positions,

6 that he had the training of a fighter. And allegedly he spontaneously

7 organised or led the resistance movement in Eastern Bosnia because he

8 came from Potocari. Again, this is something that I heard and I don't

9 know to this day whether this is true or not. But there were legends of

10 this kind that were circulating. They were saying that Karadzic's mother

11 was Albanian. You could hear stories that were of all kinds.

12 And the image I had of Naser Oric was of someone who, on the

13 basis of his military training, went to his native region to

14 spontaneously organise the resistance against the Serbs. This was very

15 important for me because it meant that he was something, he was atypical.

16 Because in the rest of Bosnia, the resistance or the armed struggle

17 against ethnic cleansing was organised under the guidance, strict

18 guidance, of the Presidency in Sarajevo. You surely are aware of the

19 exception close to Banja Luka of this enclave. I've forgotten the names

20 now, but there was a Muslim leader who was an ally of the Serbs and who

21 was later eliminated.

22 So this was a situation that was relatively exceptional, at least

23 at first glance. And on that basis, it was quite clear, and I tried to

24 find out who I should negotiate with. And I considered Naser Oric as an

25 emblematic figure. And upon arriving in Srebrenica, one might have found

1 out that he had a religious background or something, and then I might

2 have said that is the explanation. But for me, he was an emblematic

3 figure. That is for certain. Whether he had power in the area, that is

4 less certain, and I would be very prudent about that.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

6 Yes, Mr. Di Fazio.

7 MR. DI FAZIO: I have no further questions.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Di Fazio.

9 Is there any re-examination?

10 MR. JONES: No.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Do you have any questions?

12 Judge Eser has got some questions for you.

13 Questioned by the Court:

14 JUDGE ESER: Very short questions --

15 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. I want to make sure that I have the

16 indulgence of the interpreters and the technicians to go a few minutes

17 beyond. I understand that we have got very few questions.

18 JUDGE ESER: Just to be sure. You told us that you had been in

19 Srebrenica before April 1993 two times, one in December. Can you clarify

20 how long you have been in Srebrenica in December. You came there on the

21 4th of December?

22 A. Until the evening. We stayed there for three hours.

23 JUDGE ESER: Only for three hours?

24 A. Yes. With the convoy, which stayed there for three hours.

25 JUDGE ESER: And at the 11th of March, you stayed, if I'm

1 correct, until the 14th of March. Is that correct?

2 A. Until the 13th, I believe. From the 11th until the 13th.

3 JUDGE ESER: Now, when you -- you told us you went to meet Dr.

4 Mujkanovic in the Domavija Hotel, was this the only occasion when you met

5 him or have there been other occasions? And if so, where you met him?

6 A. That was the evening of the 11th of March. I met him in Domavija

7 when we arrived. The next day on the 12th, I operated with him all

8 morning and we spoke during the evening. The day after the 13th of

9 March, we had some more consultations on the follow-up before leaving

10 Srebrenica. And this was when we discussed fresh delivers of material

11 and materiel to the enclave. I met him again once or twice. I met him

12 in New York last year.

13 JUDGE ESER: [Previous translation continues]... my questions.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

15 Dr. Dachy, on behalf of the Trial Chamber and on behalf of Judge

16 Brydensholt, Judge Eser, and myself, I would like to thank you for having

17 come over to give testimony in this case. You will be receiving all the

18 assistance you require now from our staff. Madam Usher will usher you

19 out of the courtroom. And if you require anything to facilitate your

20 return back home at the earliest, please let me know.

21 Once more, I thank you and I wish you a safe journey back home.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. May I thank you for the

23 concern for the security of Medicins Sans Frontieres on the ground, and I

24 thank you for intervention in that connection. Thank you.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: We are fully aware of the sterling work that

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1 Medicins Sans Frontieres does all over the world, especially where human

2 tragedies are developing and becoming worse on a daily basis. I thank

3 you. You have all our -- Medicins Sans Frontieres officers and field

4 operators there have got not only our concern but also our admiration,

5 Dr. Dachy.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Today I suppose you are going to file the

8 revised list of witnesses?

9 MR. JONES: Yes, we'll file that this afternoon.

10 [The witness withdrew]

11 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. What about the tomorrow?

12 MR. JONES: We'll have a witness who is not protected.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Tomorrow we are sitting in the afternoon and not in

14 the morning?

15 MR. JONES: Yes.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it's in this same courtroom, Courtroom II

17 if I remember well. If I can change the courtroom, I'll try and do my

18 best, but I don't promise.

19 MR. JONES: I should say that obviously the witness for tomorrow

20 wasn't scheduled for tomorrow, it was this witness, and it's really just

21 that he arrived last night and we're able to proof him this afternoon and

22 tomorrow morning so we're happy to bring him tomorrow afternoon if that's

23 all right with the Prosecution.

24 MR. DI FAZIO: Certainly. I'll inform Mr. Wubben who has that

25 witness. Incidentally, Mr. Wubben extends his apologies for not being

1 able to attend for this session.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, we'll meet tomorrow afternoon. I thank you

3 the interpreters and the technicians and everyone here for having

4 indulged us for five minutes, which we needed very badly. Thank you.

5 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.50 p.m.,

6 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 12th day of

7 July, 2005, at 2.15 p.m.

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